USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Memorial record of the county of Cuyahoga and city of Cleveland, Ohio, Pt.1 > Part 2
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His mother, Jane Walker, was born Septem- ber 25, 1828, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, but the family left their old homestead, about the year 1832 for the new town of Middlesborough, which Gladstone about that time described as " the youngest child of England's enterprise," and which to-day is known throughout the world as the Ironopolis of England. Her father was a potter by trade, and an enthusiastic musician and prominent Oddfellow, until the time of his death, November 27, 1850. Her mother died sixteen years later. Jane Walker was a true and devoted wife, and has proved an affectionate mother and friend. James and Jane Walker were married December 31, 1846, at St. Hilda's Church, Middlesborough-on-Tees, Yorkshire, England. Mr. Walker is the only child of these estimable parents. The son was educated first in a common school and after a course of study in the private academy of Thomas Ainsworth, a teacher of the old regime, he served seven years and a half apprenticeship in the workshops of Bolekow, Vanghan & Com- pany, the largest iron concern in the world, with a capital of $15,500,000.
Although twenty-four winters have come and gone since Mr. Walker crossed the Atlantic to seek his fortune under the " Stars and Stripes," the happy customs of his native land have not forsaken him, for his present residence and grounds, near the southern shore of Lake Erie, is the scene every Fourth of July of a great gathering of English folk from all sections of northern Ohio, and Sons of St. George from all parts of the State ever find a hearty welcome in his hospitable home. Esteemed for qualities of heart and mind alike, Mr. Walker is to-day one of the most popular Americans of English stock in this country.
Upon coming to the United States he settled in Philadelphia, and for a time was in the em- ploy of William Sellers & Company, where he invented his famous Gear Scale, for setting out graphically the form of teeth for gear wheels. Subsequently Mr. Walker was connected with William Wright & Company, of Newburg, New
2 1822 02410 2224
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York; then with Pool & HInnt of Baltimore, and later with Nordyke & Marmon of Indian- apolis.
In the year 1882 it became his purpose to organize a company for the manufacture of specialties under his own patent rights. He was successful in interesting the following gentlemen: J. B. Perkins; Gen. M. D. Leggett, now a prominent attorney of Cleveland, who was Commissioner of Patents under General Grant; IIon. George W. Gardner, ex-mayor of Cleveland; Mr. II. T. Taylor, Mr. T. Kil- patrick, and others. A company was formed September 20, 1882, and to-day that com- pany has a world-wide reputation as "The Walker Manufacturing Company " of the city of Cleveland.
Mr. Walker has quite a genius for mechanics, combined with remarkable executive ability. It was five years after the organization of the above named company that he brought out the great invention with which his name has been identified, and for which the Walker Manufac- turing Company is specially renowned. This invention was conceived by Mr. Walker as the result of his observations in the Cable Power House in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was watching the sparks flying from the winding drums, due to the friction of the cables. To him the question arose how this disastrons wear and tear could be prevented. He at once con- ceived the idea of a drum with differential rings, and straightway proceeded to his room in the Coates Hotel, where he made a drawing of this conception, a photograph of which may be seen at the works of the Walker Manufacturing Company. This company are makers of cable railway machinery, machine molded gears and pulleys, Walker's patent eranes, and general power-transmitting machinery, ete. J. B. Per- kins is president of the company; Jolin Walker, vice-president and general manager; Z. M. IIubbell, secretary and treasurer; and W. II. Bone, works manager. The company was in- corporated in 1882, with a capital of $125,000. The works were at once established, and en-
tered upon a career of unnsnal prosperity. It was soon found that, in order to meet the rapidly growing demands upon their resources, the establishment must be enlarged. In accord- ance with this need, the company purchased, in 1886, the entire plant of the Whipple Manu- facturing Company, adjoining their original works. They rebuilt, repaired and refitted the shops, thus nearly doubling their manu- facturing capacity. Since then, an im- mense machine shop and foundry have been built and equipped with massive machinery for finishing heavy work. Over 600 hands are employed in all departments, and their produc- tions are sold throughout the United States and in all parts of the civilized world. This company has built and put in operation cable machinery for the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis Cable & Western Railway, St. Louis, same State; Washington & Georgetown Railroad Co., Washington, D. C .; People's Railway Com- pany, St. Louis, Missouri; Baltimore City Pas- senger Railway Company, Baltimore, Mary- land; Catskill Mountain Cable Railway Com- pany, Catskill, New York; Cleveland City Cable Railway Company, Cleveland, Ohio, and others, making twenty complete eable plants in all.
Besides this special work, they manufactured a full line of hydraulic machinery, traveling cranes, foundry equipment, etc., and make a specialty of shafting, pulleys, hangers, and machine molded gears; mostly produced under Mr. Walker's patents, which up to date (1893) number sixty-two, and to whose skill the phen- omenal success of this concern is mainly due. Mr. Walker is the inventor of the patent mold- ing machine used by the company, by means of which are produced large quantities of light and heavy gears, of improved design and ac- curate piteli, and much more rapidly than by any other process.
Prior to the year 1888 Mr. Walker's time and genius had been almost exclusively devoted to the building up of an engineering business,
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the interesting story of which is told above, and which will be welcome to all who can ap- preciate hard work and that indomitable per- severance which havo practically made the Eng- lish raee the masters of the world.
So far as Mr. Walker's business career is concerned, wo have indicated enough to give a clear conception of his well carned snecess. There are other features, however, of his career in life to which we proudly call attention. In 1887 transpired the world-wide celebration of the Queen's jubilee. The British-American citizens of Cleveland, and the joint committee of the English, Scotch, Welsh and Manx so- cieties, looking around for a worthy representa- tive of old England, selected John Walker, the rising manufacturer, as chairman. His fine presence, honest English face, hearty manner, unblemished record and growing popularity, eminently fitted him for this position, and the souvenir and newspaper records of that time indicate the wisdom of the choice, for a more brilliant celebration was not held outside the British isles, English and American alike, vying with each other in doing honor to the noble queen of England. Mr. Walker retains with pride the following telegram:
" WINDSOR, ENGLAND, June 27, 1887.
" MR. JOHN WALKER, Cleveland, Ohio :- The Queen thanks the British and American residents of Cleveland for their kind telegram."
From that royal time Mr. Walker has been regarded as the foremost representative of the English community in Cleveland, with its 300,000 inhabitants.
When Past Grand President Harry Phipps requested Mr. Walker to join the Order Sous of St. George he unhesitatingly consented, and was initiated into Albion Lodge, No. 44, Feb- ruary 6, 1888. November 4, 1889, he was publicly presented by the members of the Albion Lodge, No. 44, with an illuminated certificate of the order, elegantly framed, as a token of respect and esteem; and, although the responsibilities of the immense industry bear-
ing his name have prevented regular attend- ance at the lodge meetings, his means and in- fluence are always at the service of the seven lodges in Cleveland; in fact, his name is a honse- hold word in the English-American homes of the city, for many a forlorn countryman in need of help has found John Walker a true Samaritan.
The story of General Walker's career in the Army of Uniformed Sir Knights has been told with such minutiæ in the columns of news- papers and journals that it is needless to re- capitulate them in detail in this brief mention of his honorable life. Ilis appointment to the command of the Ohio Division in February, 1892, his unanimous eleetion to the post of Lientenant-General, commanding the Army, on October 18, 1892, at the Detroit General Military Council; his great triumph at Chicago in 1893 in bringing abont the unification of the divided forces of the army, are all as a pleasant tale. If he has achieved nothing more than the unity of the brotherhood in the bonds of peace, he has done a work that will redound to his honor and renown in the history of this organ- ization. It must be admitted that General Walker is a leader of ability and great executive power. He has a magnetie power of drawing to his standard men of real worth and ability, a fact which is a powerful testimony to his ster- ling character, and when to this is added the splendid record of self-sacrifieing work done by Mr. Walker, it is fitting not only that he has been elevated to the important post of Lieu- tenant-General, commanding the Army of the Uniformed Sir Knights, Order Sons of St. George, but that he has been elevated in the highest esteem, confidenee and deference of his fellow eitizens.
Mr. Walker married Rose Hannah Calvert, of Further Gate, Blackburn, Lancashire, Eng- land, on September 21, 1867. Mrs. Walker was born September, 1845. Her father, Benjamin Calvert, was a cotton power-loom weaver. In 1891 Mr. Walker and his family made a three- months tour in Europe, visiting London, Paris,
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and other famous continental eities. The pleas- ant feature of the tour was the joy with which they were greeted and the public receptions given in their honor in the towns of Blackburn, Lancashire and Middlesborough, where Mr. Walker spent his happy youthful days, all evi- deneing that he came here with a clean record. While in Blackburn, England, he laid a memo- rial stone for a new Methodist school, an exten- sion of the one he attended twenty-four years previously. A mallet with a suitable inserip- tion on a silver plate was presented as a souvenir of the occasion.
Mr. and Mrs. Walker are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Cleveland, and contribute largely of their means and influence to the cause of church, as well as of education.
We offer the above as a brief review of the achievements of General Walker as an American citizen, as a Son of St. George and Uniformed Sir Knight, to which is added his achievements as a mechanical engineer, and all is a heritage which any man can hand down to his children with pardonable pride.
0 RESTES C. PINNEY, one of the most prominent attorneys of the Forest City, is also one of the most prominent citizens of northern Ohio. To pursue a chronological order in giving our brief sketch of him, we will first state that his father was a native of New England, born in West Farmington, Connecti- cut, in 1805. In 1834, with his wife and two children, he emigrated to Ohio, coming with an ox team. In 1840 he located on 100 acres of land in Hart's Grove, Ashtabula county, which place was at the time a dense forest excepting that one aere had been partially cleared; and this point was his home until his death, when he was seventy-four years of age.
Ilis father, the grandfather of Orestes, was a Captain in the Revolutionary war, whose brother was a Lientenant in the same contest.
Mr. Orestes C. Pinney, the youngest of his parents' nine children, was born April 27, 1851, reared on the farm and attended the Geneva (Ohio) Normal School. Leaving the farm in Hart's Grove in the autumn of 1867, he was employed a few days in the erection of a mill- damn at Windsor Mills in Ashtabula county, and spent the remainder of that fall digging po- tatoes in Harpersfield and Madison, and earned besides his board $47.90. The ensning winter he tanght the Wheeler Creek public school in Geneva, four months, earning besides his board $100. From this start he continued his educa- tion, taking up the study of the higher branches, without a teacher, and also studying law, till he was admitted to practice at the bar, in Septem- ber, 1873. He immediately opened an office at Geneva, where he practiced his chosen profession until February, 1890, when he accepted an offer to become the First Deputy in the United States Customs office at Cleveland, which posi- tion he held for a year and ten months, resigu- ing to resume the practice of law in this city. Soon he entered the law office of Harvey D. Goulder, where he remained fifteen months, and then opened an office independently in the Perry-Payne building, where he is now practic- ing his profession, with success.
In 1876 he was united in marriage with Miss Grace P'. Cowdery, of Perry county, Ohio, and they have three sons, their pride and their joy.
R UFUS WAY SMITH, landscape, marine and animal painter, was born in Bedford, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, May 26, 1840. ITis father, Dr. Alvah Smith, married Mary Ilamblin Way, from whom the subject of this sketch takes his middle name. On the father's side his ancestry were of Revolutionary stoek, his grandfather having served honorably through the entire war for independence, ... entering the service at the age of sixteen, pass-
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ing through the terrible winter at Valley Forge, and being present at the surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.
Another ancestor on the father's side left England in 1643, because of his adherence to liberal principles in regard to church and State, settling in the colony of Massachusetts. His father's mother, whose maiden name was Chloe Van Inysen, was from Holland, a member of her family having been an artist of eminence; and through her it is probablo that Mr. Smith inherits his artistic talent. She was a woman of refinement and rare enlture for those days, as is shown by evidences in the possession of the family, speaking and writing both her own and other languages with ability. On both sides Mr. Smith's parents were from New Eng- land, his mother having settled in the Connecti- eut Western Reserve in 1814, and his father in 1×2%.
They removed to Cleveland in 1850, and the son entered the studio of the late Jarvis F. Hanks, an artist of considerable local repute at that time, and personally standing very high among his fellows. Here were passed many pleasant, happy days, drawing from the flat and from the antique, varied now and then by paint- grinding, brush-washing and other drudgery incidental to "life in an artist's attic." But the death of his teacher and kind friend prevented at that time his further study of art; and the removal of his parents to Cincinnati, where educational advantages were supposed to be superior, and the determination of his father that his son must begin life with a good educa- tion, placed many years between the boy's first efforts toward art and his subsequent renewal of those studies.
After leaving Cincinnati the family settled in Bedford once more, and at the age of fourteen Rufus entered Twinsburg Institute. After a year there he went to Hiram College, in which the late President James A. Garfield was a pro- fessor, whom to know was to love and revere. Here the grand manhood of Garfield served as an inspiration, and to his brave and cheering
words, his forceful, clear and logieal teaching, Mr. Smith ascribes very much that has been most truly serviceable to him in the battle of life.
While at college he began writing for publi- cation, contributing a number of articles to the Cleveland Plaindealer, then edited by J. W. Gray, and upon which Charles F. Browne ("Ar- temns Ward") was an editorial writer, and later to the Cleveland Herald, before its consolidation with the Leader. When nineteen years old Mr. Smith went to Illinois and taught school; was offered the position of head master in the semi- nary then flourishing at Lake Zurich, which he declined, fearing that it would interfere with the line of study he had marked ont for him- self, and possibly induee him to continne life on a pathway entirely different from that which he wished to walk. Somewhat subsequent to' this, while still in Lake county, he was offered the nomination for School Commissioner, which also he declined, on the score of youth.
During his last year at school, and while teaching, he had procured law-books and read them as chance offered, having been led to this field by the advice of friends who believed him possessed of very marked ability in that direc- tion.
December 13, 1860, he married Miss Martha A. White, of Bedford; and now the urgency of new duties hindered to some extent his legal studies; but after a time he entered his name as a student in the office of the Hon. William Slade, Jr., and Hon. N. B. Sherwin, and also in the Ohio State and Union Law College, then under the presidency of the late General John Crowell. Mr. Slade's absence in Europe as consul to Nice, and the taking of office by Mr. Sherwin, made it necessary to seek another opening, and he entered the office of the late Albert T. Slade, one of the finest men and among the first lawyers then at the bar. Here again the "exigencies of war" interfered with study; but on the 28th of June, 1864, after a most thorough examination by a committee ap- pointed by the District Court then sitting at Newark, he was admitted to the bar of Ohio;
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and Mr. Smith feels a justifiable pride in the fact that one of that committee was the IIon. Allen G. Thurman.
After acting as Deputy Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga county for a year or more, he "hung out his shingle " as an attor- ney, and so continued until his love for art be- came a force too potent to be resisted, and against the warmest remonstrances of his friends he abandoned the law, -- "not that he loved Cæsar less, but that he loved Rome more."
During his legal studies and practice he had written occasionally for the Cleveland Herald, the Rural New Yorker, and the Nation during its first year; but his first and true love was art, and under its influence he relinquished a career already quite assured for one that was new and untried, and in which failure would be disgrace, -this, too, at a time in life when many a man would have faltered, and perhaps looked long- ingly back to the known and certain; but, hav- ing made the decision and started, there has been no moment in which he has hesitated or felt tempted to return.
With the exception of two years' study in Philadelphia and New York, Mr. Smith is en- tirely self-taught, as are many of the best Amer- ican artists. Nature has been his inspiration.
It might be interesting if we could recite the story of the sadness of these days of struggle, -the fatigues and failures, -- the heartaches, and his determination to win against it all, and the final "coming out of bondage;" but Mr. Smith reserves these episodes, feeling that, if through them all there runs a thread of pathos, it is no more, perhaps, than is common to many lives, nor more pathetic than the events "inci- dent to the venture" usually are when one " swaps horses while leaping with them over a stream." Viewed from his present position, however, there is much sunshine and gladness: there certainly are no regrets, even though so many days were dark.
Among the first works of this artist which attracted the favorable notice of the critics while on exhibition in Philadelphia, was " The
Old Mill," illustrating a verse or two from the ballad of Ben Bolt, one notice of which closed as follows: "This picture, painted by Mr. Rufus Way Smith, is one of the most perfect idealizations of landscape that can be found,- at least such is the opinion of connoisseurs and art critics of note. Indeed, for graceful draw- ing, strong but fine grouping and a wonderful vividness of color that is yet without a glaring element, it cannot be excelled."
After returning to Cleveland Mr. Smith devoted himself almost exclusively to landscapes for some years, but finally turned his attention to animals, more especially sheep, and with such decided success that lie is now best known in that line. Many of his pictures are owned in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Rochester, Toledo, St. Louis, Chicago and other cities, but chiefly in the city of his residence, where their possessors are among the most refined and wealthy people,-such as Mrs. President Gar- field, IIon. R. C. Parsons, Hon. Charles A. Otis, Hon. C. C. Baldwin, Hon. William E. Sherwood, Hon. B. D. Babcock, George Hoyt, W. P. Southworth, IIon. W. S. Streator, II. C. Ranney, Hon. Rufus P. Ranney, Dudley Bald- win, Colonel Myron T. Herrick, Hon. John C Covert, James B. Morrow, Samnel B. Mather, Levi T. Schofield, Richard Bacon, Hon. James D. Cleveland, E. I. Baldwin, John D. Rocke- feller, Professor Cady Staley, Professor Potwin, Professor C. F. Olney, William Bowler, Hon. John Huntington and scores of others.
Mr. Smith was also connected for one year with the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, as teacher of landscape painting, and delivered a series of lectures before the school upon the more practical methods in art. In 1884 he was appointed by President Arthur as one of the Art Commissioners of Ohio for the New Orleans World's Fair and Cotton Centen- nial.
His work has been exhibited at the galleries of the American Art Association, the New York Water-Color Club, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and at the various expositions
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about the country whenever the demands of his patronage would permit. For a year or more he was the art editor for "Town Topics," his articles gaining for him flattering recognition as a critic, showing discriminating and analytj- cal powers of a high order.
During his summer trips to the coast of Maine, the island of Nantucket, and along the shores of New England, in search of motif's for his more important works, he has found time for a pleasurable indulgence in literature, con- tribnting a poem now and then to the Ladies' Ilome Journal of Philadelphia, and as an hon- ored special correspondent of the Cleveland Leader, to the columns of which he has always found a generons welcome.
In speaking of Mr. Smith's work in art we could hardly do better than to quote the words of a recent critique npon them:
"His last, however, upon which nnnsual thought and care have been expended, will be recognized as a great study by those who appre- ciate the quiet sentiment and pootry of nature. His pictures are not noticeable for size, strange, far-fetched scenes, or for nnusnal and odd methods of treatment; but they are noticeable and wonderful for their simplicity, sincerity and beauty; and in these days of temptation, noise, hurry and want of study in art a man is remarkable who resolutely sets himself through years of patient waiting and labor to express any good purpose. To this object Mr. Smith has devoted himself; and, since deciding to make a specialty of expressing the subtle and inysterious sentiment of ont-door nature, the approval that has met his efforts speaks volumes for his present and for his future."
Mr. Smith possesses a "scrap-book " filled with favorable notices of his work, clipped from the Philadelphia Press, the New York Graphic, the New York Sun and other journals, which he prizes very highly.
In personal appearance Mr. Smith is of medium height, with broad shoulders, a well- shaped head, with extra depth from the high forehead to the base of the brain, dark-hazel
eyes which light magically when in the presence of congenial friends or when inspired by some theme of interest, brown hair and moustache tinged with gray, mobile lips moderately full but expressive, and a chin which shows a firm will and unlimited perseverance.
Among his personal characteristics are: Sin- cerity, appearing to be almost an assumption of brusqueness to those who do not know him well; an intense hatred of all shams, social or otherwise; a detestation of cant and bigotry; an absolute devotion to those friends who are worthy; and a decided tendency to liberalism in thought, believing that others may hold opinions in opposition to his own and yet be sincere. Ile does not " wear his heart upon his sleeve," and therefore has never made-has never cared to make-a multitude of summer friends; but those he has made are among the chosen few who know him as he is; and these friendships have been beatitudes: they are firm and eternal.
OIIN WALWORTH AND ASHBEL W. WALWORTH .- The student of Western Reserve history finds frequent mention of the Walworths, father and son, and always with some honorable and useful connection. The former, Judge John Walworth, was one of the strong and venturesome men who came to the wilderness of Ohio in the early days of the present century and gave the moral, independ- ent and cultured bias that has been the predomi- nant feature of this section of the State. New England education and practical sagacity were the weapons with which such men worked, and the results have been seen in the rapid growth and commanding influence ever held by the Reserve in State and national affairs.
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