USA > Ohio > Lucas County > Toledo > Memoirs of Lucas County and the City of Toledo > Part 9
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BIOGRAPHICAL
GEORGE W. CLOSE
George W. Close, one of the foremost figures in commercial and banking circles in Northern Ohio, and one of the extensive realty owners of Toledo, is a native of this State, having been born on a farm in the vicinity of Bellevue, Sandusky county, Ohio, Jan. 11, 1851. His paternal great-grandfather was a gallant soldier in the Revolutionary war and shortly after the cessation of hostilities settled in Pennsylvania, being the first of the progenitors of the subject of this sketch to establish his domicile in the Keystone State. The parents, George W., Sr., and Mary (Moyer) Close, were both natives of Union county in that commonwealth, the former having been born July 5, 1804, and the latter Jan. 5, 1814. They were reared, educated and married in their native State, and in 1838 located on a farm in the immediate vicinity of Bellevue, Ohio, where, thirteen years later, George W., of this review, first beheld the light of day. There the Close family continued to main- tain their residence until 1876, the father owning and operating his large grain farm until that year. The father then moved to Bellevue with his family and took up his residence in that city during the remainder of his life, enjoying the fruits of his long and exceptionally industrious career, his death occurring about 1889. George W. Close, Jr., was twenty-five years of age at the time of his parents' removal from their farmstead to Bellevue, and he acquired his elementary educational training in the district schools in the neighborhood of the parental farm in the last named place. His early life was not much different from that of all farmer lads, and at an early age he became inured to the sturdy discipline of rural life, which tended to develop in him those qualities of indus- try and application which afterward figured so prominently in his eminent success. He supplemented the knowledge gained in the district schools with a course in the Bellevue High School, and later attended Oberlin College. In 1870, he embarked in the mer- cantile and private banking business at Berlin Heights, Erie county,
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Ohio, and also engaged in shipbuilding. In 1882, he disposed of his mercantile and private banking business and in the following year organized the Berlin Heights Banking Company, of which he be- came president and general manager, which offices he continues to occupy. This concern enjoys an extensive and profitable patron- age. He is also interested in the Berlin Fruit Box Company, which was organized in 1863, and of which he has been the president since 1890; the firm of Close & Peak, Wakeman, Ceylon and Berlin Heights, Ohio, dealers in grain and coal; the Bank of Huron, Erie county, Ohio, of which he is president; the Wakeman Banking Company, at Wakeman, Huron county, Ohio, of which he is sec- retary and treasurer; the American Publishers' Company, of Nor- walk, Ohio, of which he is president; the Equitable Realty Com- pany, of Toledo, of which he is president; and he is one of the large real-estate owners of Lucas county, being the proprietor of several business blocks and numerous business properties in Toledo, and at present he is acting as receiver for the Wauseon Savings & Trust Company, of Wauseon, Fulton county, Ohio. In all his undertakings Mr. Close has been guided by quick decision, cool judgment, undaunted courage, confidence in his abilities, firmness, strict adherence to correct business principles, and, above all, ster- ling integrity, which has won him many friends in the commercial world who realize that he can be relied upon to carry out his contractual obligations to the letter. By close observation of the market conditions he has been able to embark in lines of business that are practically certain to yield him substantial re- turns ; by his industry and well directed efforts he has been instru- mental in making those undertakings successful; and by his sound judgment and conservative methods he has avoided everything resembling speculation and confined himself to strictly legitimate investments. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, having attained the degree of Master Mason, Nov. 1, 1876; the Toledo Club and the Country Club. In his political views he is a con- sistent adherent of the principles of the Republican party, though, notwithstanding he takes a commendable interest in questions of the hour, he is by no means an active politician in the understand- ing of that term, though he never fails to perform the duties of
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good citizenship at the polls. In regard to religious matters, he entertains views which are extremely liberal and broad-minded, and is affiliated with the Congregational denomination, owning the pew which has been in the possession of various of his progenitors. He was instrumental in twice rebuilding the First Congregational Church at Berlin Heights, and has given liberally of his time and means to the furtherance and maintenance of other church socie- ties, and of various worthy charitable and benevolent objects. On Nov. 15, 1876, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Close and Miss Ada Eliza Hine, daughter of Theodore B. and Lovina (Reynolds) Hine, of Berlin Heights. Mrs. Close received her summons to the life eternal in July, 1903, less than two years after the commemo- ration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of her marriage to Mr. Close. Of this union were born four children-Theodora Hine, who is the wife of Frederick Fox, a banker of Norwalk, Ohio; Helen Katheryn; George W., Jr., who is now attending the Holderness School for Boys at Plymouth, N. H .; and Lovina Hine, at Smead's School, Toledo.
ButHitchcock
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BIOGRAPHICAL
BAILEY HALL HITCHCOCK
Bailey Hall Hitchcock, civil engineer, was born at Hanson, Plymouth county, Massachusetts, April 28, 1828. He was descended from Luke Hitchcock, who came from Fenny Compton, England, and was living "in good esteem" in Hartford, Conn., in 1647. The latter had a son, Luke, born June 5, 1655. One of the sons of Luke 2d was Ebenezer, born at Springfield, Mass., Aug. 24, 1694. He married Mary Sheldon, who was the mother of his fourteen children. She was the daughter of Joseph Sheldon, of Sheffield, who was a representative to the general court in 1708, and a direct descendant of Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon, of Canterbury, England. The mother of Mary Sheldon was Mary, daughter of Joseph Whit- ing, treasurer of Connecticut for thirty-nine years, having succeeded his father, William Whiting, who had held the office for thirty-seven years, and being followed by his son, who continued the treasurer- ship in the family for thirty-two years more. The wife of Joseph Whiting was Mary, daughter of the Hon. John Pyncheon, of Spring- field. His wife was Amy, daughter of George Wyllys, the second governor of Connecticut, a man of wealth and a Puritan of the Puri- tans. In 1638 Governor Wyllys sent his steward, William Gibbons, with twenty men, to prepare a home for him, and a year later took . possession of the Wyllys estate in Hartford, on which stood the tree to become the famous Charter Oak of a later generation. He died Jan. 18, 1776. Rev. Gad Hitchcock, son of Capt. Ebenezer and Mary (Sheldon) Hitchcock, was born Feb. 12, 1719, at Springfield, Mass. He was graduated at Harvard College, in 1743, and settled over the parish at Pembroke, Mass., in October, 1748. The settlement was for life, and on Dec. 22, 1748, he was married to Dorothy, daughter of Samuel and Dorothy (Avery) Angier, of Cambridge. Samuel Angier was the son of the Rev. Samuel Angier and Hannah, only daughter of Urian Oakes, fourth president of Harvard College. Sam- uel Angier's grandfather was Edmond Angier, who married Ruth, only daughter of William Ames, D. D .. "of famous memory." Dr.
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Ames was a Fellow of Christ College ; was driven from England for non-conformity ; was sent by the States-General of Holland to the Synod of Dort to "aid the President of the Synod by his sugges- tions." He was the author of the "Medulla Theologi" and other works, and was a professor in the University of Franeker. His por- trait, painted in 1633, hangs in Memorial Hall in Harvard Uni- versity. Mrs. Hitchcock's lineage was equally illustrious on her mother's side. Her grandfather was Dr. Jonathan Avery, and her grandmother, Sybil (Sparhawk) Avery, after the death of her young husband, married Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, who wrote the "Day of Doom." Sybil's mother was Patience, daughter of the Rev. Sam- uel Newman, who led his people into the wilderness and founded a town he called Rehoboth, because his flock might now say, "The Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land." He was the author of the first concordance of the Bible, and in the words of Cotton Mather, "was a very living preacher and a very preaching liver." In December, 1748, Mr. Hitchcock bought a house, that is still standing, and seventeen acres of land. Here he passed his days and here he died, full of years and honors. In 1774 he was called upon to deliver the election sermon in the Old South Church in Boston before the Legislature and the Governor, it being the occasion of the "Election of His Majesty's Council for the said Province." The fierce excitement and spirit of resistance that pre- ceded the outbreak of the Revolution had reached its height. The tea had already gone overboard in Boston Harbor, and blood was soon to flow at Lexington. Pembroke had been the first town in outspoken protests and threats against the tyrannical action of the royal government and the preacher's whole heart was with his peo- ple, whose ideas he had helped to mold. He had chosen for his text Prov. xxix : 2-"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." The very text was like a trumpet call to battle. Fresh from the people, whose excitement and indignation he shared, he arose in the pres- ence of the hushed assemblage and launched full on the bosom of the astonished Governor, "When the wicked beareth rule, the peo- ple mourn." He gave an outline of the condition of affairs in America and added, "If I am mistaken in supposing that plans are
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formed and executed subversive of our national and charter rights and privileges and incompatible with every idea of liberty, all Amer- ica is mistaken with me." He boldly defended the right of revolu- tion, and called on the people to be careful of their civil and re- ligious liberties. Governor Gage was filled with great wrath on account of the boldness of this position. After listening to the ser- mon, the legislature ordered it printed, and then proceeded to elect councillors in full accord with the preacher's advice. Governor Gage negatived thirteen of them, and adjourned the legislature to meet at Salem, June 17, as a punishment, and as a means of keep- ing them from coming together. At Salem, he again adjourned them, but they locked the doors, refused admission to the Gov- ernor's messenger, and transacted their business in spite of him. Mr. Hitchcock was elected, July 12, 1779, a member of the conven- tion to make a constitution for Massachusetts. The convention met in 1780 and formed the constitution under which Massachusetts was governed until 1820. In 1787 he received the degree of D. D. from Harvard College. The following record remains in the hand- writing of his son: "My honored mother died Aug. 6, 1792, after an indisposition of four months, in the seventy-ninth year of her age. My honored father died Aug. 8, 1803, after an indisposition and confinement of four years. He was in the eighty-fifth year of his age and the fifty-eighth of his ministry." Dr. Gad Hitchcock, the only child of Gad and Dorothy Hitchcock, born Nov. 2, 1749, was graduated at Harvard in 1768. He served as surgeon in the army of the Revolution, in Col. John Bailey's regiment, and was afterward chief surgeon of General Fellow's brigade hospital in the Jerseys, till the end of his term of enlistment, in February, 1777. He married, July 9, 1778, Sagie Bailey, daughter of Col. John Bailey, of Hanover, Mass. They had twelve children-seven daughters and five sons. The oldest son and eighth child, Charles Hitchcock, was born in Hanson, Mass., Sept. 4, 1794. He was a farmer, a man of education, a useful citizen, holding office in educational, town and county affairs, and was a member of the legislature. He died in Pembroke, Nov. 9, 1848. He married Abigail Little Hall, daugh- ter of Bailey Hall, of Pembroke, and granddaughter of Dr. Jeremiah Hall, who was a noted surgeon, serving in the French and Revolu-
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tionary wars and as a member of the Continental Congress. Her ancestry goes back to Thomas Little, who married Ann Warren, daughter of Richard Warren of the Mayflower; and another line goes back to Edward Doty of the Mayflower. She was a woman of fine endowments and greatly beloved. Early left a widow, she de- voted herself to the education of her children. The last twenty years of her life was spent with her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Tyler-the son-in-law being a leading lawyer of Cambridge, Mass .- in their beautiful country home at Winches- ter, Mass., receiving the care and devotion of her children and grandchildren and the happiness she so richly deserved. She died in her eighty-sixth year in the full possession of her faculties. Her oldest son, Charles, after graduating at Dartmouth and the Dane Law School at Cambridge, settled in Chicago, where he held a leading position at the bar, and, in 1870, was president of the con- vention which framed the present constitution of the State of Illi- nois. He died at his home in Chicago in May, 1881, in the prime of life. Mr. Hitchcock, the subject of these memoirs, received his early education at the academy at Hanover, Mass., a well known preparatory school. He afterward studied surveying with "Squire" John Ford, of Marshfield, and in the office of Ezra Lincoln, a well known civil engineer of Boston. From May, 1849, to April, 1852, he was assistant engineer on the construction of the Troy & Green- field railroad, now the Hoosic Tunnel Line, being under the emi- nent engineer, Thomas Lovett, and had a prominent part in this pioneer piece of railroad tunneling. From April, 1852, to 1853, he was assistant engineer on the Sackett's Harbor & Saratoga rail- road. From April to November, 1853, he was on surveys of the Whitehall & Plattsburg railroad and the Troy & Rutland railroad. At that time, that region of the Adirondacks was an unknown wilderness, and the survey was made with an Indian guide, cutting hemlock branches for their beds on the deep snow and reaping the full benefit of the "open-air" life. He left Saratoga Springs, N. Y., in November, 1853, for Attica, Ind., where he entered the employ of Boody, Ross & Company, in the construction of the Wabash rail- road, then called the Toledo & Illinois railroad. He came to To- ledo in September, 1854, when the cholera had caused all business
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BIOGRAPHICAL
to be suspended and many of the workmen had died, and took pos- session of all the railroad property until the work was resumed. He resigned, in 1859, to engage in the lumber and manufacturing business, afterward erecting large buildings, and going into partner- ship with John Walbridge. The firm did a large business, employ- ing many men, and during the years of the Civil war contributed generously toward the Federal cause. Mr. Hitchcock served several years in the city council and as police commissioner, and was a valued counsellor in all the affairs of the city pertaining to his pro- fession. In 1874, he took up his old profession of civil engineering and was engaged at the American Bridge Co. works in Chicago and at Phoenixville, Pa., on bridges for the Cincinnati Southern railroad, afterward superintending their construction in Kentucky. He was chief engineer of the Toledo & Findlay railroad, and for several seasons was engaged in government engineering on the rivers and harbors of Lake Erie; and later was consulting engineer with J. D. Cook, engineer of the Toledo water works. He died April 23, 1893, on his seventy-fifth birthday, at his home in Toledo. His wife and three children survive him. He married, Dec. 9, 1856, Sarah Hatch Collamore, a daughter of Dr. Anthony Collamore and Caroline (Hatch) Collamore. His oldest son, Edward Bailey Hitchcock, born in Toledo, in December, 1860, married, first, Miss Eleanor Corwin, of Lebanon, Ohio, deceased, and, secondly, Miss Celia Ennis, of Iowa. They have one child, Helen Abigail, born May 25, 1908. He is a civil engineer by profession, connected with MacArthur Brothers Company, contractors, and has been connected with large construction enterprises. Abby Little Hitchcock was born in Toledo, in November, 1862. She graduated at the Michigan University in 1885, and married A. C. Bartlett, of Chicago, in June, 1893. They have one daughter, Eleanor Collamore, born in July, 1894. Frederick Collamore Hitchcock, born in Toledo, in Septem- ber, 1864, is a civil engineer, unmarried, and is vice-president and general manager of MacArthur Brothers Company, contractors, of New York and Chicago. Mrs. Sarah (Collamore) Hitchcock, the wife of the subject of these memoirs, was born in Pembroke, Mass., and is the daughter of Dr. Anthony and Caroline (Hatch) Colla- more, of that place. Her father, Dr. Anthony Collamore, was gradu-
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ated at Harvard in 1806, and was a prominent physician and mem- ber of the Massachusetts legislature. Her mother, Mrs. Caroline Collamore, died in Toledo, in March, 1879, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. W. W. Bolles. The first of the Collamore family that moved into this country was Peter, coming to Scituate, Mass., early in the history of the colony. He had no children and sent for his nephew, Capt. Anthony Collamore, in England, to inherit his estate. The latter settled in Scituate and was commander of the militia there. William Henry Harrison, former president of the United States, married Annie Symmes, great-granddaughter of Capt. Anthony Collamore. He was a valiant Indian fighter, secre- tary of the Northwest Territory, and a delegate to Congress. Dr. Collamore's grandmother was a daughter of Col. Benjamin Lincoln, of Hingham, and a sister of Maj .- Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, who re- ceived the sword of Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown. He was Secretary of War for Washington, and signed his own dis- charge from the army.
Emil Frosh
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BIOGRAPHICAL
EMIL GROSH
Emil Grosh, well known in connection with the Maher & Grosh wholesale cutlery establishment, was prominent in Toledo business circles until his death, Dec. 2, 1900. He was born in Sonneburg, Germany, Aug. 6, 1841, son of Henry and Mary (Schmidt) Grosh, both natives of Germany. Emil Grosh was left an orphan at a tender age and, while a lad, left his native city and came to Buffalo, N. Y., where he was received into the family of an uncle, Henry Schmidt. He was sent to school by his rela- tives in Buffalo and, upon reaching suitable age, was employed in the hardware store of Lawrence & Noble, at Goshen, Ind. He remained in this position until 1864, when, in company with a son of Mr. Noble, he opened a hardware store in Bourbon, Ind. He resided in Bourbon four years and then sold his interest in the company and removed to Rochester, where for three years he was engaged in the same business. He then accepted a position with the C. Gerber & Company hardware house, as traveling salesman, and remained in the employ of that company four years. In these different capacities, Mr. Grosh became thoroughly familiar with every department of the hardware business, and when he came to Toledo, in the early seventies, and associated himself with Mr. Gruber in a wholesale hardware establishment, the firm prospered and enjoyed a large patronage. Upon Mr. Gruber's death, his share in the concern was purchased by Mr. Maher, and the firm has since been known as the Maher & Grosh Wholesale Cutlery Com- pany, although Mr. Grosh sold his interest to Mr. Maher four years before his death. The firm of Maher & Grosh dealt in high- class articles and enjoyed a firm footing in the business world. Mr. Grosh was a man of energy and devotion to his business, as well as the possessor of a clear and logical intellect. His character entitled him to the respect which he received from his fellow men, and his business integrity was unquestioned. Mr. Grosh was married, June 16, 1868, to Miss Mary H. Chamberlain, daughter of Judge Ebenezer M. Chamberlain and Phoebe Ann (Hascall)
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Chamberlain, of Goshen, Ind. Mr. and Mrs. Grosh became the parents of two children-Dr. Lawrence Chamberlain Grosh, a medical practitioner of Toledo; and Jerome Emil, who is deceased, having met death by drowning, in 1903. Mr. Grosh had retired from business in 1896, and expected to enjoy with his wife some years of well-earned leisure. Sickness and death overtook him in a very short time, and he was laid to rest in Woodlawn cemetery, in December, 1900, leaving to mourn his loss his devoted wife and sons. Mr. Grosh was a member of the Masonic order. He felt no ambition to hold political offices, but was a consistent Republican in his party affiliations. The parents of Mrs. Grosh were both of American nativity, the noted father-Judge Ebenezer M. Cham- berlain-having been born at Orrington, near Bangor, Me., Aug. 20, 1805, and the mother at Leroy, N. Y., March 13, 1816. Judge Chamberlain received his education in New England and was taught the trade of shipbuilding, at which he was employed until he was twenty-one years of age. Upon attaining his majority, he studied law, in accordance with a cherished ambition, and, in 1833, he located in Goshen, Ind., and entered upon the practice of his profession. He was a brilliant and eloquent speaker, a close stu- dent and a deep thinker. His success was flattering, and most complicated litigation, involving large interests, was intrusted to him. He was actively interested in political matters and was elected a member of the Thirty-third congress from the Fort Wayne district of Indiana. He had previously, in 1835 and 1837, served two terms in the House of Representatives of the State legislature of Indiana. He later gave up his private law practice to accept a seat upon the bench, and was Circuit Judge of Elkhart and LaGrange counties for thirteen years. Judge Chamberlain's record as a lawyer and as a man was unassailable, and as a judge he was swayed by no consideration other than his duty. He possessed all the qualifications of judicial character-extensive legal knowledge, sound morality, urbane and agreeable manners. Judge and Mrs. Chamberlain were the parents of eight children, of whom only two are living. These two are daughters, both widows, the one of Emil Grosh and the other of Frank G. Hubbell, who was a prominent citizen of Goshen, Ind.
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BIOGRAPHICAL
STEVENS WARREN FLOWER
Stevens Warren Flower, late a highly respected and influential citizen of Toledo, at one time a resident of Maumee, a gallant soldier in the great Civil war, and for many years an active and prominent figure in commercial and religious circles in the county, was a native of the old Empire State, having first beheld the light of day in the town of Clayton, Jefferson county, New York, Aug. 21, 1832. He was descended of highly honorable ancestry. His father, Joseph Warren Flower, of Massachusetts, served in the War of 1812, and his widow received from the Federal govern- ment a land grant of 160 acres, and was also awarded a pension. His grandfather, Timothy Flower, of Connecticut, was a member of the Continental army during the Revolutionary war, and the records show that twenty-five men of the Flower name and ances- try, residents of the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, served their country honorably in this conflict, which resulted in the annihilation of British tyranny in the American colonies. Mr. Flower's mother, Amy Stevens, was a daughter of Gen. Elias Stevens, of South Royalton, Vt., a prominent and influential man in his day, serving in the Connecticut militia in the war of the Revolution, and as a member of the Vermont legislature for twenty years. These facts, taken from family and military records, show that patriotism, so important an element in Mr. Flower's nature, was an inheritance from both paternal and maternal ancestors. When he was about two years old his father was summoned to the life eternal, and after about five years of widowhood his mother married Augustus Ford, master in the United States navy, who was a noble father to the boy and young man, and who went to his reward in 1855. Soon after the mar- riage of the mother to Mr. Ford the family moved to Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., where Stevens W. lived until he entered the mil- itary service of his country in the great Civil war, enlisting Sept. 12, 1862, as a first lieutenant in Company H, Tenth New York
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