USA > Ohio > Delaware County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 4
USA > Ohio > Morrow County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 4
USA > Ohio > Union County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 4
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After he had attained his seventeenth year, Mr. Robinson put his acquirments to practical test by engaging to teach district school at the princely stipend of eight dollars per month. Within this time (1843-4) he did not permit his beloved Latin to fall into dis- use, but rode four miles daily, on horseback, to recite to "the preacher." In the sum-
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DELAWARE, UNION AND MORROW COUNTIES, OHIO.
mer of 1845 he finally saw the beginning of the end for which he strived, since at this time he matriculated as a sophomore in Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg, Penn- sylvania. At this institution, which was subsequently merged into the Washington and Jefferson College, at Washington, Penn- sylvania, he honorably graduated in 1848, in a class of seventy-two members.
This educational discipline complete, Mr. Robinson turned his attention immediately to work. In the fall of the same year he taught a select school at Woodstock, Cham- paign county, Ohio, and, incidental to at- taining his majority, proudly cast his first ballot, which helped by that much to swell the majority secured by the Whig candidate for President, General Zachary Taylor. Subsequently Mr. Robinson came to Marys- ville, where he taught in the old Academy, which was a flourishing institution at that time. He simultaneously began reading law, continuing this application until 1850, when he went to Cincinnati and took a course of lectures in the Cincinnati Law College, at which he graduated in 1851, be- ing admitted to the bar in April of the same year.
Now fortified for that profession which he had long before determined to make his life work, he at once formed a partnership with his former preceptor, Otway Curry, who was not only distinguished in the line of his profession, but for his marked poetic and literary talent. The firm retained a representative clientele and became one of the most prominent in the county.
In the fall of 1851 Mr. Robinson was elected Prosecuting Attorney, on the Whig ticket, his opponent being the redoubtable Jackson C. Doty, a character of no little celebrity at that time. This served our sub-
ject as but the forerunner of other and more distinguished official preferments. In 1857 he was elected a member of the lower house of the State Legislature and was chosen as his own successor in 1859. His service was one of utmost fidelity to his constituents and to his interpretation of legislative polity and ethics. He took a prominent position, being for some time at the head of that im- portant house committee, the judiciary. He was elected a third time, in 1864, to represent his county in the Legislature.
During the war he was unequivocally leal and loyal and an ardent supporter of the administration of President Lincoln. He did all in his power to aid the Union during this crucial epoch in its history, serv- ing most of the time as a member of the Military Committee of Union couuty.
In the fall of 1872 our subject was elect- ed, on the Republican ticket, as representa- tive in the Forty-third Congress, defeating the strongest candidate the opposition could put forward-General G. W. Morgan. He represented the ninth Ohio district, compri- sing the counties of Union, Hardin, Marion, Morrow, Delaware and Knox. As a Con- gressman Mr. Robinson showed an all-round fitness for the work. He had both a capac- ity and intention of getting a full under- standing of all the business submitted to his consideration. He had sufficient confidence in himself to render him capable of giving his views to his associates, and sufficient modesty to insure, on his part, a fair recep- tion and honest examination of the views of others, thus arriving at conclusions by safe routes. On the floor he made no pretence to rhetorical eloquence, but was able to clothe his thoughts in acceptable verbiage, and to thoroughly defend his position. As a speaker he thus gained attention and re-
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPAICAL RECORD OF
spect, being clear in explanation and manly in defense. Within his short term in Con- gress he voted for many important measures, among which were the Civil Rights Bill for the protection of the colored race in the en- joyment of equal rights under the law, and the act for the resumption of specie pay- ments. As a member of the Committee on Elections he vigorously opposed the seating of George Q. Cannon, as the Mormon dele- gate from Utah, making a strong and con- vincing speech against thus countenancing the class who brought dishonor to the na- tion in their odious institutions. In 1874 he was unanimously nominated by his party for re-election, but the country was suffer- ing from the commercial panic of 1873 and was also wrought upon by the agitation of the temperance question, -- which circumstances brought about a political revolution through- out the State and resulted in the election of a Democrat in the ninth district.
In 1890 he was chosen a member of the State Board of Equalization as represen- tative of the thirteenth Senatorial district, comprising the counties of Union, Logan, Hardin and Marion, where he proved a faith- ful and efficient representative of his district.
For several years subsequent to his ser- vice in Congress Mr. Robinson made peri- odical sojourns through various sections of the Union, having traveled extensively and having familiarized himself with men and affairs in the many quarters which he has visit- ed. He has given close attention to the prac- tice of his profession in Marysville, where his services are in constant demand. In 1869 he formed a professional partnership with Mr. Leonidas Piper, and this association main- tained until the election of the latter to the office of Probate Judge, in 1888, when our subject entered into partnership with R. L.
Woodburn, his present talented coadjutor.
Of our subject's professional ability and career, one who has known him long and intimately and who has also been a prominent member of the bar of Union county, speaks as follows: "As a lawyer he has been eminently successful, and has tried as many individual cases, perhaps, as any lawyer in the State. Never in all his prac- tice has he intentionally taken a position that was not tenable, and this fact has made him a strong advocate before both court and jury. He has always been ready and fully prepared to try his cases when called, and it has been an exception for him to ask continuance or delay. He never loses sight of his client's interests, no matter how small the amount involved, and in all cases he has never al- owed his opponent to cause him to lose sight of any point important to his case. He has a versatile mind, keen perception, remarkable tact for the dispatch of business, is an able pleader and a strong trial lawyer."
When a young man he united with the church to which his Scotch-Irish ancestors had maintained their allegiance, the Presby- terian, and he has ever since continued a zealous and active worker in the cause, having been ordained and installed an Elder in the Presbyterian Church of Marysville, November 17, 1855. He has not been sol- ifidian in his devotion to the church, but he has shown his faith in good works, contrib- uting liberally to the sustenance of the local organization, to church extension, and es- pecially to the cause of church education, having for the past eighteen years been a member of the Board of Trustees of Woos- ter University.
The marriage of our honored subject was consummated February 8, 1855, when he wedded Miss Mary J. Cassil, daughter of
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DELAWARE, UNION AND MORROW COUNTIES, OHIO.
the late Judge John and Drusilla (Gladden) Cassil, of Marysville. They became the parents of two children: Arthur H., who died in his sixteenth year; and Alice B., who was born October 24, 1860, and whose death occurred January 13, 1894.
A home life which had represented almost idyllic harmony in its mutual love and sympathy was swept by the relentless hand of death and the strings which had been wont to attune in sweetest melody quivered with the pathos of the score whose composition told of separation, of the ones taken, the other left. The cord was frayed, the cruise run dry, and into the life of eternal love was merged the finite. She who had been a devoted and loyal companion through all the years marked with "cease- less toil and endeavor; she who had nourish- ed his children; she who had comforted in the hours of sadness and depression; she whose had been the faith that makes faith- ful, was called upon to heed death's inex- orable summons, leaving the home desolated and her place vacant. Not a great life was hers, but a good life. Hers had not been the opportunities nor the talents which be- get greatness, but the beauty of the life, its consecration and its true womanliness will re- main in benediction so long as memory holds sway upon its throne in the minds of those who knew her. Mrs. Robinson's death occurred October 6, 1893, and the bereaved husband turned the tide of devotion toward h.s motherless daughter, who now became his solace. But as the fairest flower of all the field is touched by the un- timely frost, so did death claim this cherish- ed one as its own. The health of Alice had been delicate for some time, and all was done by her father to preserve his loved one. After the death of her mother she
was taken to the South, but without avail, for within less than a year after the death of his wife, Mr. Robinson heard the clods of the valley fall into the new-made grave into which were consigned the mortal remains of his daughter. She was a young woman of rare culture and a gentle refinement, and that sympathy which won to her the friendship of all with whom she came in contact. She was a graduate of Wooster University. Her later years marked the consecration of her life to her mother, and hers was a filial love and solicitude which made this consecration of that beautiful order into which enters naught of protest or reservation. Doubly bereaved, and at an age when one's life centers in the home circle, our subject yet had the faith to "look up unto the hills" and to discern the element of consistency in what was seemingly the most cruel affliction that could be visited upon him. Death is the open door, not the seal of oblivion.
A man in whose life have been blended the truest elements of manhood, whose career has been one of usefulness and honor, and whose character thus stands clear and distinct in the eyes of his fellow- men, we feel it both a pleasure and a privilege to have given this record and to have given representation in this volume a name well known throughout central Ohio and honored from its association with the character of the man who bears it.
0 R. JAMES M. SOUTHARD, de- ceased. - To indulge in prolix en- comium of a life which was emin- ently one of subjective modesty would be palpably incongruous, even though the record of good accomplished, of kindly deeds performed and of high relative prece-
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
dence attained, might seem to justify the ut- terance of glowing eulogy. He to whom this memoir is dedicated was a man who stood "four square to every wind that blows," who was possessed of marked pro- fessional ability and was vitally instinct with the deeper human sympathies, and yet who. during his long and useful life, signally avoided everything that smacked of display and notoriety, -and in this spirit would the biographer wish to have his utterances con- strued.
Detailed reference to the parentage and ancestral history of our subject appears else- where in this volume in connection with the biography of his brother, Dr. John Q. Southard, and a recapitulation of the same is scarcely demanded at this point. Suffice it to say that James McCartney Southard was the eldest of the family of five children born to Isaiah and Elizabeth (Parnell) Southard, said family comprising four sons and one daughter, who lived to attain mature years. The place of our subject's nativity was Adams county, Ohio, where he was born December 16, 1825. He was reared in Licking county, and though his parents were in moderate circumstances he was en- abled to secure a good common-school and academic education. After this preliminary educational discipline was complete, Mr. Southard followed out his inclinations and made ready to enter upon that career which he had formulated as his life work,-the profession of medicine. He accordingly en- tered the office of Dr. Roe, a well-known physician of Newark, Ohio, remaining under this preceptorage for a time and then matri- culating at the Starling Medical College of Columbus, where he completed the pre- scribed course, graduating in the class of 1854. Prior to his graduation he was lo-
cated for a short time at Jacksontown, Licking county, where he practiced his pro- fession successfully. Immediately after his graduation, however, he came to Marys- ville, Union county, -the point which marked the scene of his professional labors throughout the course of a long, active and useful life. Here he opened an office and entered upon the general practice of medi- cine and surgery, being distinctively one of the pioneer physicians of the county and soon holding as his own a large patronage ramifying into all sections contiguous to the village and standing as representative in character of clientage. That success at- tended his efforts was but in natural se- quence, for his position became assured as an able physician, a man of sterling integ- rity and one devoted to his profession and to the interests and welfare of those to whom he ministered.
Dr. Southard was a man of strong con- stitution and marked intellectuality, stand- ing in exemplifying possession of that great human desideratum, "mens sana in corpore sano,"-a sound mind in a sound body. He was thoroughly en rapport with his pro- fession; his heart was ever in his work and he gained not only the respect and confi- dence but the appreciative affection of his patients, as he was watchful, tender and sympathetic, -his humanity being ever para- mount to his professional or scientific in- terest.
He possessed marked judgment and dis- cernment in the diagnosing of disease and was peculiarly successful in anticipating the issue of complications, seldom making mis- takes and never exaggerating or minifying the disease in rendering his decisions in regard thereto. He was a physician of great fra- ternal delicacy and no man ever observed
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DELAWARE, UNION AND MORROW COUNTIES, OHIO.
more closely the ethics of the unwritten pro- fessional code or showed more careful cour- tesy to his fellow practitioners than did he. His devotion to his work was inore clearly demonstrated by no one circumstance than that he remained in active practice even to the hour when enfeebled health must have borne home to him the presage of his fast approaching dissolution. Not until death removed the burden would he consent to its uplifting or its lightening. Almost as a sacred trust he seemed to hold his profes- sional offices, and long after he had attained to financial independence he continued his ministrations without reservation, and when the shadow of death approached hard by and when his work entailed great physical and mental exhaustion, not even then would he refuse to go forth to the relief of those afflicted, even though it were to a less ex- tent than was he himself. How clearly such points as these bespeak the noble, hon- est and faithful character of the man, for such is the faith that makes faithful. Doc- tor Southard was a man of few words in the ordinary walks of life; he was apparently reserved, and yet to those to whom came the grateful appreciation of his true, deep na- ture, this circumstance but endeared him the more. The veil was lifted to gain the new glory of a true and beautiful life when death placed the seal upon his mortal lips.
In March, 1868, Dr. Southard effected the organization of the Farmers' Bank of Marysville, the operations of the same being based upon a subscribed capital stock of $50,000. He became its first president and as such remained until the time of his death, which occurred March 16, 1891. As chief of the executive corps of the bank he kept himself thoroughly informed in regard to the condition of its business, and directed its gen-
eral policies with rare business judgment. In his political proclivities the Doctor was a stanch supporter of the Democratic party and its principles, being quite actively iden- tified with local politics for many years. Fraternally he was a member of the F. & A. M.
May 14, 1850, the Doctor was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Wintermute, a na- tive of Licking county, Ohio, and she be- came the mother of two children: Charles W., of whom specific mention will be made later on; and Ella, who is the wife of L. F. Blue, Marysville. The untimely death of the devoted wife and mother occurred Sep- tember 24, 1867. Dr. Southard consum- mated a second marriage June 16, 1874, when he wedded Mrs. Mary E. Godard, who still retains her residence in Marysville.
Samuel Carson, the paternal grand- father of Mrs. Southard, was one of the pioneers of Delaware county. He was born in county Down, Ireland, and came with his parents to America when a child, being reared to manhood in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. In 1804 he removed from the old Keystone State to Chillicothe, Ohio, and about 1823 moved to Delaware county, having purchased about 1, 500 acres of land on the the east side of the Scioto river, opposite the present Industrial Home for Girls. This tract he divided into farms for his four sons and two daughters, namely: Wil- liam, Samuel, James, John, Mary and Jane, -all of whom continued their residence there for a number of years.
William Carson, father of Mrs. Southard, was born in Westmoreland county, Penn- sylvania, in 1802, being the eldest of the family. In 1833 he was united in marriage to Eliza Thompson, and he continued his residence on the farm inherited from his
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
father until the time of his death, which oc- curred in May, 1873. His widow passed away in January, 1883. They became the parents of six children, four of whom lived to attain maturity, namely: Joan A., Cicero T., Mary E., and William W. Cicero still owns the home farm, though he does not reside there. Joan married Thomas B. Johnson, of Union county, and he later became the principal of the Tuscumbia Female Seminary, of Tuscumbia, Ala- bama, where he died in the year 1860. They had two daughters: Lillie, who died in 1873; and Mary B., wife of W. T. Simmons, of Jacksonville, Florida. In 1868 Mrs. Johnson consummated a second marriage, becoming the wife of John H. Shearer, editor and publisher of the Marys- ville Tribune, and they had one son, John H., Jr. Mrs. Shearer died October 14, 1881. William Carson married Rebecca
Chenoweth, of Franklin county, in 1870, and he is now a resident of the county men- tioned. Mary E. became the wife of E. M. Godard, in 1866, and he died in 1870. They became the parents of three children, of whom only one, E. Mary, is living. The marriage of Mrs. Godard to the subject of this review was celebrated in 1874, as al- ready noted.
Charles W. Southard, son of our hon- ored subject, was born in Marysville, Octo- ber 9, 1856, received his rudimentary education in the public schools of this city and subsequently prosecuted his studies in turn at the universities at Wooster and Delaware, this State, after which he supple- mented his more distinctively literary train- ing by the prosecution of a thorough com- mercial course in Cincinnati. In July, 1875, he entered the Farmers' Bank of Marysville in a clerical capacity and in the
following spring was made teller of the in- stitution. In March, 1880, he was chosen cashier, in which capacity he has since been continuously retained. Politically he fol- lows in the footsteps of his father and fra- ternally he is identified with the Knights of Pythias, being a member of Marysville Lodge, No. 100. He was married, June 20, 1878, to Miss Tomma Lattimer, daughter of the late Thomas Lattimer, of Marysville.
LONZO J. WHITNEY, president of the People's Bank, of Marys- ville, Ohio, must be accorded par- ticular recognition within these pages, standing as he does as one of the representative financiers and business men of Union county. On the 23d of Novem- ber, 1829, our subject was ushered into the world, in Susquehanna county, Pennsyl- vania, the son of Evart and Julia (Merri- man) Whitney, both of whom were natives of Connecticut, and of Puritan descent. The paternal grandfather was a stalwart pa- triot in the days when patriotism implied great personal self-abnegation, and history records that he was an active participant in the war of the Revolution. The parents of our subject are both deceased, the death of the father occurring in the year 1887, and that of the mother in 1874.
The early life of Alonzo J. Whitney was passed in his native State. He received his education in the common schools and while still a mere youth became concerned in mercantile operations. The first year after he had attained his majority he worked on a farm, receiving as wages for the year the sum of $100, his effective services and fidel- ity securing to him for the second year an increase to the amount of $125. A young
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man of marked individuality, he soon sought employment that would afford a little more latitude to this characteristic attribute, se- curing a position as assistant in operating one of the notion wagons, which at that period were a distinctive feature of the mer- cantile trade of the section, the familiar and heavily loaded vehicles traversing the dis- tricts throughout the State and supplying the merchants with the innumerable neces- saries and conveniences demanded. After one year's service as assistant, he was as- signed to the charge of a wagon and con- tinued in this line of enterprise for a period of five years, after which he engaged in business for himself, having been frugal and economical in his habits and having thereby been enabled to save a goodly portion of the wages he had earned upon the farm and in the notion trade. He accordingly opened a small general store at Susquehanna, Penn- sylvania, conducting this enterprise success- fully about four years, when, in 1859, he brought his stock of goods to Marysville, and here opened an establishment, which in the course of time became one of the leading mercantile enterprises of the town. For some little time Mr. E. S. Payne had been associated in business with our subject and in the centennial year the latter closed out his interests in the enterprise to his partner.
In the year 1873 Mr. Whitney was prominently identified in the projection and organization of the People's Bank of Marys- ville, having been one of its foremost pro- moters. The institution opened its doors for the transaction of a general banking business in April of the succeeding year. The bank was incorporated under the pro- visions of the legislative act authorizing the establishment of private or individual bank- ing houses, and as a private institution the
enterprise has been most successfully con- ducted up to the present time. Mr. Whit- ney was made its first president and has filled this executive office continuously, be- ing the present incumbent. The bank bases its operations upon a cash capital of $20,- 000, the efficient cashier of the institution being Mr. C. S. Chapman. The bank tran- sacts a general and representative business in its line and is ranked among the most solid and reliable institutions of the country.
In 1864 Mr. Whitney erected a fine business block in which were fitted up spa- cious and convenient offices for the accom- modation of the business of the bank. In 1884 our subject added still further to the attractions and conveniences of the busi- ness quarter of the little city by the erection of a fine business block of three stories, the same being located opposite the bank block. His handsome residence, located on Sixth street, was also erected by him, and is one of the most attractive houses in the town.
It is almost tautological at this point to state that Mr. Whitney has ever maintained a position as one of the most progressive and public spirited citizens of Marysville, for the fact is evidenced by even the meagre details already mentioned. To him and his well directed efforts have already been largely due the consecutive growth and de- velopment of the town, and he has ever held himself in readiness to lend both influ- ence and tangible assistance to all enter- prises and projects which gave promise of conserving the best interests of the place and the local public. A distinctive type of the self-made man, he has attained to a high degree of success in temporal affairs, has shown a marked capacity for the con- ducting of business enterprises and directing them to the goal of maximum success, his
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