USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 17
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TOMB OF PRESIDENT GRANT NEW YORK CITY
plished and the President was inclined to lessen the direct control of Southern administra- tion at the hands of the National Government and to lock forward to the moral regenera- tion of the newly organized political bodies to their own initiative, unaffected by external influences. In 1872 President Grant was re-elected by the unprecedented number of two hundred and eighty-six electoral votes. At the close of his second term, in 1877, he made a tour of the world, visiting especially the great countries of Europe and Asia, and receiving, as a soldier and civilian, and the first citizen of the United States, all the honor which rulers and peoples could bestow. On his return home, in the spring of 1880, a large and influential portion of the Republican party sought to make him a candidate for the Presi- dency once more, but the movement was defeated. not because the people did not still
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admire and trust him, but on account of the formidable opposition to bestowal of the office upon any man for more than two terms. After his long journey General Grant made his home in New York. He became a partner in a financial firm which came to grief and involved in pecuniary ruin. This story is a sad one, which will not here be recorded. The only blame that attached to him was that he bestowed much confidence upon those who mis- used it. With the energy of a young man, he took up his pen and wrote the recollections of his military life, "for the money it gave me," he said, "for at that moment I was living on borrowed money." Every token of respect was shown to him in the city of his residence, and Congress, by special enactment, in 1884, placed him on the retired list of the army as General, with full pay-a position he had resigned to become President. In the summer of 1884 General Grant entered upon a long period of suffering from a cancerous affection of the throat, and he died at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York, on the 23rd of July, 1885. His body found its resting place in a magnificent tomb in Riverside Park, New York City, overlooking the Hudson.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES became the successor to President Grant, being the nine- teenth President of the United States he was born on the 4th of October, 1822, at Dela- ware, Ohio. His ancestry this side of the Atlantic Ocean began with George Hayes, who came from Scotland to the colony of Connecticut in 1680, and settled at Windsor. President Hayes' father, Rutherford Hayes, was a prosperous merchant at Dummerston, Vermont, but in September, 1817, with his household goods stored in two large wagons, removed to the native place of the future President, but died in the July preceding the birth of his distin- guished son. President Hayes received his education in the village schools, at the Academy at Norwalk, Ohio, at Middletown, Connecticut, and finally graduated from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1843, after a four years' course of study. Immediately after graduation he entered an office at Columbus, Ohio, as a law student. In August, 1843, he went to the law school of Harvard University, from where he graduated in 1845. He began the practice of law at Fremont, forming a partnership in 1846 with R. P. Buckland. Three years later he removed to Cincinnati. Here he became a member of the law firm of Huron & Hayes. This was succeeded, in 1854, by another with H. W. Corwin and W. K. Rogers as partners. In 1856 he was nominated for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, but declined the honor. Up to this time he had acted with the Whig party. When the Republican party was formed, he took an active interest in its first campaign, proving himself a capital political speaker. In 1858 he was chosen City Solicitor of Cincinnati by a majority of over 2,500 votes. When his term of office ended, in April, 1861, a political reaction had set in ; the municipal election occurring prior to the bom- bardment of Fort Sumter, the entire city Republican ticket was defeated, Hayes, who was on the ticket for re-election, among the RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
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rest. On the 13th of April, at a mass meeting, called to appeal to the patriotism of the people in response to President Lincoln's proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops, he was Chairman of the committee appointed to draw up resolutions expressive for the intense feeling which had now been aroused. Immediately, the members of the Literary Club. to which he belonged, organized a military company of which he was chosen Captain, and President Lincoln sent him a commission as Colonel of Volunteers, which he declined, saying that he was not ready for so much responsibility for the services and lives of other men. At the same time he entered upon a methodical course of drill and study, and on the Ist of June. 1861. he accepted a commission from the Governor as Major of the Twenty- third Regiment of State Volunteers, of which W. S. Rosecrans was the first Colonel, and Stanley Matthews, afterwards Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was Lieutenant Colonel. On the 24th of October, 1861. Hayes was promoted Lieutenant Colonel, from which date he commanded the Twenty-third Regiment until December, 1862. After the important campaign in West Virginia and the disastrous result of the peninsular campaign, the regiment was ordered to Washington, arriving there on the 24th of August, 1862, and ten days later, with the army of General Mcclellan, was on its way into Maryland, following the invading Confederate force of General Lec. In the brilliant action of South Mountain, early in the day, Hayes received a severe wound in the left arm, which compelled him to leave the field. After the battle of Antietam the regiment was returned to West Virginia, where, on the 30th of November, 1862, Hayes rejoined it as Colonel, having been promoted on the 24th of October. He was soon after placed in command of the first brigade of the Kanawha Division, which he retained until September, 1864, when he succeeded to the com- mand of the division. In the summer of 1863, his command was engaged in the pursuit and defeat of Morgan, then raiding through Ohio, and in April, 1864. he took part in Crook's raid on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. He was soon after commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers, to date from the battle of Cedar Creek, at the close of which he received news of his election to Congress from the Second District of Ohio. He was now made Brevet Major General for gallant services, and resigning from the army on the Ist of June, 1865. returned soon after to Cincinnati. In December he took his seat in Congress ; was re-elected in 1866, but left his seat in 1867, having been nominated for Governor of Ohio, to which office he was elected in October and re-elected in 1869. In 1872 he suffered his first defeat for Congress ; in 1875 he reluctantly consented to allow his name to be used once more as a candidate for Governor, and was elected for a third term-an honor never before or after conferred on a citizen of Ohio. The prominent issues were the currency and school questions, which attracted the attention of the whole country, and caused his name to be favorably mentioned as the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and on the 16th of June. 1876. he was nominated at Cincinnati on the seventh ballet, receiving 384 votes to 351 for James G. Blaine, and twenty-one for B. H. Bristow. His Democratic opponent in the ensuing canvass was Samuel J. Tilden, and the result of the election became the subject of violent contention, the leaders of each of the great parties charging fraud upon the other. Both parties claimed the Electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana and one of those of Oregon. The facts turned out to be when the Forty-fourth Congress met, that the canvassing boards of the several Southern States declared the Republican Electors chosen, and General Hayes had a majority of one in the Electoral College. These returns were sent to Washington by the State Governors, but others were sent as well which certified the choice of the Democratic Electors, and in this emergency an Electoral Com- mission, the only one in American history so far, consisting of five United States Senators, five United States Representatives and five Judges of the United States Supreme Court, was
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HOTEL SALOW
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO, IN 1905
appointed by Congress, which was to decide on all contested cases, the decision of this com- mission to be final, unless set aside by concurrent vote of the two Houses of Congress. This commission, by a vote of eight to seven, in each case confirmed the returns made by the Governors of the States. On the 2d of March, 1877, the Republican candidate was declared to have been elected President of the United States, and on the 5th of March Mr. Hayes was duly inaugurated. During the four years of his office the affairs of the Government were conducted in a manner that will command the favorable judgment of history. After the expiration of his term of office, President Hayes positively refused to have his name used in connection with a renomination. He retired from office, returned to his home in Fremont, Ohio, and died on the 17th of January, 1893.
JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, twentieth President of the United States, was born on the IIth of November, 1831, in the wilds of Orange Township, Cuyahoga County. He descended from a Puritan family, his ancestors coming from Chester, England, to the colony of Massa- chusetts Bay as early as 1630. Maternally he was from a French Huguenot family. His parents were Abram and Eliza Ballow Garfield, who were married in 1820, he being twenty, she eighteen years. The father was a native of Wooster, Ostego County, New York, and the mother of New Hampshire, and a relative of Hosea Ballow, the celebrated preacher and author. Abram and Eliza Garfield had four children. In May, 1833, the father died, and on his deathbed he said to his wife, "Eliza, I have planted four saplings in these woods. I leave them to your care." James was less than two years old when his father died. The mother struggled to support her young and growing family and worked on the farm and at the spinning wheel. From the outset the life of James was one of toil. Born and fos- tered in a log cabin, his childhood was as humble and rude as backwoods life could make it. The opening of his career was most unpromising. `By force of circumstances he was compelled to work in early youth. He received such early education as was possible to be had in such a sparcely settled com- munity. After leaving school he accepted a position as driver on the Ohio and Pennsyl- vania Canal in the employ of his cousin, Amos Letcher. For a short time only he held this position, for having sickened of fever he returned home. Here he began to study with great diligence, as he had firmly resolved that at whatever sacrifice he would obtain a col- legiate education. By day he worked upon the farm or at the carpenter's trade, and at night continued his studies. By these means he was soon enabled to enter the seminary at the JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD adjoining town of Chester. With his earnings during vacation time, together with the heroic self-sacrifice of his mother and elder brother, he was enabled to secure the advantages of several terms at the seminary. From Chester he went to Hiram College, an institution established in 1850 by the Disciples of Christ, to which church he, as well as nearly all of the Garfield family, belonged. In order to pay his
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way at Hiram he assumed the duties of a janitor and at times taught school. At Hiram he continued his studies till sufficiently advanced in the classics and mathematics to be quali- fied to enter Williams College, Massachusetts, two years in advance. In September, 1854, he enterd the college and graduated with honors in 1856. Returning to Ohio, he became a teacher at Hiram, where he was also pressed into the additional work of preaching the Gospel. He soon became popular, both as a teacher and a preacher, and within less than one year he was promoted to the Presidency of Hiram College. While a student at Hiram, he met in one of its classes Miss L. Rudolph, and in the autumn of 1858 he married her in her father's house at Hiram and began a home life of his own. She ever afterwards proved a worthy consort in all the stages of her husband's career. After his marriage, Mr. Garfield began the study of law, and giving to it all the time he could possibly spend at it, he was able, in 1860, to pass the necessary examination, and was admitted to the bar. He was a man of strong moral and religious convictions, and was attracted to legal studies by his active and patriotic interest in public affairs. He was an Abolitionist, Freesoiler and Repub- lican, and always open and bold in the declaration of his political principles, whether in college, church or caucus. In 1859. he made his first political speeches, and in the fall of that year he was elected to the Ohio State Senate by a sweeping majority, and when he took his seat in that body. in January, 1860, he was the youngest member of the Senate, being but twenty-eight years of age. During the trying years of 1860 and 1861. he was a very useful and eloquent member of the State Senate, and on the breaking out of the Civil War, in 1861. Mr. Garfield resolved to fight as he had talked. He was appointed a member of Gover- nor Dennison's staff to assist in organizing troops for the war. On the 14th of August, 1861, he was commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel of the Forty-second Regiment of Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, composed largely of his classmates and students at Hiram College. Colonel Garfield's regiment was immediately thrown into active service, and before he had ever heard a gun fired he was placed in command of four regiments of infantry and eight com- panies of cavalry, charged with the work of driving the Confederates, headed by Humphrey Marshall, from the State of Kentucky. This task was speedily accomplished, though against great odds. On account of this success President Lincoln commissioned him Brigadier General, on the 11th of January, 1862, and as he had been the youngest man in the Ohio State Senate two years before, so now he was the youngest General in the army. He was with General Buell's army at Shiloh, also in its operations around Corinth and its march through Alabama. On the 15th of June, 1862, General Garfield was detailed to sit on a trial by court martial of a Lieutenant of the Fifty-second Indiana Volunteers. In this trial his skill, combined with his memory of judicial decisions, elicited from officers sitting with him in court commendation of his signal ability in such matters. On the 30th of July he obtained a leave of absence on account of fever and ague, and during the summer months he was at Hiram. Recovering his health he reported to the War Department at Washington, according to order from the Secretary of War. This was in the end of September, 1862. He was ordered in the court of inquiry in the case of General McDowell, and on the 25th of November, 1862, he was made a member of the court in the celebrated trial of General Fitz John Porter for the failure to co-operate with General Pope at the battle of Bull Run. In January, 1863. he was ordered into the field, being directed to report to General Rosecrans at Murfreesborough. After his arrival he became chief of staff of General Rosecrans, then commanding the Army of the Cumberland. He won the stars of Major General by his military services at Chickamauga. In the fall of 1862, without any effort on his part, he was elected as a representative to Congress from the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio, which had been represented for many years mainly by two men-Elisha Whitlesey and
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the renowned anti-slavery champion, Joshua R. Giddings. He resigned his commission on the 5th of December, 1863, having served in the army more than a year after his election to Congress, and took his seat on the same day in the House of Representatives, where he served until elected to the United States Senate, in 1880, just before his nomination to the Presidency. His election to the Senate by the Ohio Legislature was a just and reasonable compliment to him for his eminent service in the lower house of the National Congress through sixteen years of a most active legislative life. Upon entering Congress he was the youngest member, but for his work he was well endowed by nature and education. He was a ready speaker-apt, eloquent, pointed and vehement, and possessed all the physical char- acteristics, strength, countenance and voice, which are so useful in the public forum. Thus he was well equipped for a place in a deliberative assembly. General Garfield was appointed on many special as well as important committees by Congress. He was sent by the Presi- dent to Louisiana to report upon the political condition of the people with reference to the reconstruction, and was chosen one of the High Commission to which was referred the contested Presidential election in 1876, and which gave Rutherford B. Hayes the seat. In June, 1880, at the National Republican Convention, held in Chicago, General Garfield was nominated for President, both to the surprise of himself and the country. He was a delegate to the convention, and was an open advocate of the nomination of John Sherman, of Ohio. The party was in danger of a most serious division, in which the adherents of General U. S. Grant and of James G. Blaine were the contestants. The only measure to adopt was found in the nomination of an unobjectionable man who was allied with neither faction, and hence with great enthusiasm they turned to General Garfield; and, although many Republicans were disappointed on account of the failure of their respective candidates for the, nomina-
GARFIELD MONUMENT LAKEVIEW CEMETERY, CLEVELAND
tion, General Garfield was elected by a strong majority. His inauguration occurred at Washington on the 4th of March, 1881, amid great enthusiasm. During the few months fol- lowing, he was hampered on every hand by disappointed leaders of his party, as well as annoyed and harassed by importuning office seekers. Among the latter was Guiteau, a practicing attorney of erratic character. After having failed in his desire to become Consul at Marseilles, France, he swore to revenge himself with the life of the President. On the morning of the 2d of July, 1881, while President Garfield was in the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road Station, at Washington, accompanied by Secretary Blaine, Guiteau stepped behind the President and fired two revolver shots into his body, one proving fatal.
After suffering for eighty days, the President peacefully ended his earthly career on the 19th of September, 1881. The cowardly assassin was hung subsequently. President Garfield's death occurred at Long Branch, from where his remains were removed to Wash- ington, and finally to Cleveland, Ohio, where they found their last resting place in a tomb in the beautiful Lake View Cemetery of that city.
BENJAMIN HARRISON, the twenty-third President of the United States, and the fifth contribution of Ohio to the Presidency, was born on the 20th of August, 1833. at North Bend. Hamilton County. He was the son of John Scott Harrison, and grandson of William Henry, the ninth President of the United States and the victor of Tippecanoe. After attending school he was sent to Farmer's College, at College Hill, near Cincinnati, where he remained for a period of two years. Afterwards he entered Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, making a splendid record as a student, and graduating from that institution at the age of eighteen. In 1853, he married Miss Caroline L. Scott, daughter of the Rev. Dr. John W. Scott. principal of a seminary for young ladies at Oxford. He then went to Cincinnati, where he studied law in the office of Storer & Gwynne, and. in 1854, removed to Indian- apolis, Indiana, where he made his home and practiced his profession. In October, 1860, he was elected to the position of Reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court. In 1862 he entered . the Union Army, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant of Indiana Volunteers. Ile recruited Company A of the Seventieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and on the reorganization of the regiment was commis- sioned Colonel. He brought his regiment to a high degree of efficiency, and with it par- ticipated in the campaign waged by Sherman, in 1864, against Johnston. He served with special distinction at the battle of Peach Tree Creek, had charge of the brigade at the battle of Nashville, and was breveted Brigadier General in February, 1865. His military record was in a high degree honorable. In 1864, while in the field, he was re-elected Reporter of the Supreme Court of Indiana, and after being mustered out he served in that capacity for a period of four years. In 1876 Mr. Harrison was the Republican candidate BENJAMIN HARRISON for Governor of Indiana, but was defeated at
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the following election. In 1879 he was appointed a member of the Mississippi River Com- mission, and in the following year was Chairman of the Indiana delegates to the Repub- lican National Convention at Chicago which nominated Garfield for President. In the fol- lowing winter Harrison was elected to the United States Senate, after which he was offered a portfolio in President Garfield's Cabinet. He declined that position and took his seat in the Senate on the 4th of March, 1881. During six years Mr. Harrison rendered valuable services in the Senate, and he became known as the advocate of protective duties, civil service reform and the restoration of the United States Navy. In 1884 his name was men- tioned at the Republican National Convention in connection with the Presidency. Mr. Harrison was a delegate to that convention, but his opportunity had not arrived. He remained in the Senate until the close of his term, when he failed of re-election; the Indiana Legislature being Democratic at that time. In 1888 the Republican National Convention nominated Harrison for the Presidency on a protective tariff platform. His election fol-
See Explanatory Notes
BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN HARRISON NORTH BEND, OHIO
lowed after an exciting campaign in which the tariff question was the controlling issue. Mr. Harrison received 233 Electoral votes against 168 cast for Cleveland, while the popular vote stood 5,439,853 for Harrison and 5,540,329 for Cleveland. Among the most notable events of Harrison's administration were the passage of the Mckinley bill; the suppression of the Louisiana lottery ; the enforcement of the reciprocity policy ; the extension of the new navy ; the promotion of civil service reform ; the arrangement of the International Monetary Conference ; the organization of the Bering Sea Arbitration; the difficulties with Chili, and the settlement of the Samoan question. In 1892 President Harrison was renominated by the Republican party, being again opposed by Cleveland as the Democratic candidate. In the following election the Democratic party was successful, Cleveland receiving 276 Electoral votes against 145 for Harrison. The popular vote stood 5,533,142 for Cleveland and 5.186,951 for Harrison. At the close of his term, Harrison was appointed lecturer in international law at the Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. He died on the 13th of March, 1901, at Indianapolis, Indiana, where he is buried.
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WILLIAM McKINLEY, the last of the Presidents of the United States from Ohio, was born on the 20th of January, 1843. at the little city of Niles, in the northeastern part of the State. The chronology of the career of William Mckinley is a household tale. He sprang from the middle class, from Scotch and Irish ancestry. The first Mckinley in this country was David, known as "the Weaver," born in 1705. who settled in York County, Pennsyl- vania, where he received a tract of land granted to him. Then followed John McKinley, a soldier in the War of the Revolution ; then David MeKinley, who died in Crawford County, Ohio, in 1840. James McKinley, who for years conducted a charcoal furnace at Lisbon, Ohio, and William McKinley, the father of the future President. The elder William Mckinley was born in Pine Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, in 1807, and died in
1802. He was manager of the old furnace near Wilmington, in that State, for twenty- one years, married Nancy Allison, in 1829, and resided at Poland. He was a devout Methodist, staunch Whig and an ardent advocate of the protective tariff. He was managing an iron furnace at Niles, Ohio, when his illustrious son was born. The family consisted of nine children, the future President being the seventh child. He received his first training in the public schools of Niles, but when he was nine years old the family moved to Poland. Mahoning County, a village noted for its educational facilities, where he was at once admitted into the Union Seminary, remaining until he was seventeen years of age. In 1859 he was sent to Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he was admitted to the junior class, and would have been graduated the following year but for failing health. He was obliged to return home, and as soon as he was physically WILLIAM MCKINLEY able, began teaching in a country school in what was known as the Kirr district. When the Civil War broke out he was a clerk in the Poland Postoffice, but promptly volunteered in the Union Army, enlisting in Company E, Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on the 11th of June, 1861. With him enlisted his cousin, William Mckinley Osborn, who later became United States Consul in London. He remarked about their enlistment: "Our enlistment was in cold blood and not through the enthusiasm of the moment. It was done as Mckinley has done the most things of his life, as the logical offspring of careful conclu- sion." The military record of the President shows that after his enlistment as a private soldier, that he was promoted to Commissary Sergeant on the 15th of April. 1862: to Second Lieutenant on the 23rd of September. 1862: to First Lieutenant on the 7th of February, 1863 ; to Captain on the 24th of July, 1864; that he was detailed as active Assistant Adjutant General of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of General Carroll, and that he was breveted Majer on the 13th of March, 1865. He was mustered out of service on the 26th of July. 1865.
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