The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 1, Part 17

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Cincinnati, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 802

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ance, and accordingly he engaged in attending a saw and guist-mill. This engagement offered a double advantage. It not only promised to bring back the deputed health, but would also reinforce in a very desirable manner the finances of the young student, and they were in need of reinforce- ment. The mill work did not come altogether as an inter- ruption of the legal studies either, and it is said that the studious mill-hand would " set the saw and then read Black- stone while it was running through the log." Be this as it may, he continued his legal studies in connection with his mill work. And so, while he was gaining new health and renewing his store of needful money, he was also drawing nearer to the object of his endeavors, He continued thus to work and study until 1833, and in the meantime he had taken a wife, marrying Martha Starr, daughter of Captain James Starr, formerly of Connectient, but at this time a resi- dent of Ohio. This marriage took place soon after he en- gaged in the milling business, and on the 3d of June, 1833, when he gave up that business, his family consisted of a wife and two children. With this family he removed to the town of Athens, where he established his residence, and where he has ever since continued to reside. In the month of November of the same year he was admitted to the bar, and at once began the practice of his profession. Ilis prac- tice grew rapidly, and he was soon established as a pros- perons lawyer, with important and laborions work always on his hands. He brought to the practice of his profession the same ability, diligence, energy and fidelity that had marked his preparatory career, and they are qualities which win ready recognition and yield material results. In his case they were recognized and yielded results outside the immediate circle of his profession. In 1845 he was elected a member of the State Senate of Ohio, and served a term of two years in that body. In 1850 he was elected to Con- gress as the successor of Hon, Samuel F. Vinton, During his term the Congressional District from which he was elected was changed, and in consequence of this fact he failed of re-election in 1852. During his sitting in the National Legislature he made two important speeches, one on the Tariff, and the other on the Public Land Question. Both were able, thorough, and marked by the clear sagacity and the straightforward honesty that characterize the man. The speech on the Public Land Question attained the honor of a publication in full in the columns of the National In- telligencer of Washington, In the year 1852 he served as a Delegate in the Biltimere Convention which nominated General Winfield Scott for President of the United States, and in IS56 he was a member of the Electoral College which cast the vote of Ohio for John C. Fremont. In 1862 he was called from the bar to the bench. In February of that year he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He sat upon the beach of the Common Pleas Court until February, 1865, when he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court, vice Hon. Rufus P. Ranney, resigned. He

B. Eggleston H & BANJAMIN NOGENS !!!!

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has remained upon the Supreme bench ever since, having been re-elected to the position three times. Ilis present term will expire in February, IS78. Soon after his election as Judge of the Supreme Court, his Alma Mater, Franklin College, conferred upon him the honorary degree of 1.1 .. D. Ile announces the purpose of retiring from publie and off- cial life at the expiration of his present term as judge, and if faithful labor, well performed, earns the privilege of rest, it h. s surely earned it in his case.

DERLEIN, CHRISTIAN, Manufacturer of Lager Beer, was born in Truppach, Bavaria, May 13th, ISIS, and is the son of Conrad Moerlein. After attending the village school until he had attained his thirteenth year, he learned the trade of black- smithing, and engaged in firming with his father. Ilis uncle being a brewer, he obtained a knowledge of the brewing business, which proved ultimately to be of great service to him. At eighteen years of age he began life on his own resources as a blacksmith, and during the succeed- ing five years worked in that capacity for a Prussian dollar per week. Later, with a hundred guilders given him by his father, he started on foot to Bremen, with his tools and knapsack, and after travelling a distance of three hundred miles, reached his destination in safety. On St. John's day the ship " Rebecca " was in port, and advertised to sail within three weeks for America. While awaiting its de- pirture he worked at his trade, and thus secured sufficient money to enable him to defray his passage expenses. After a journey of fifty-eight days, he arrived at Baltimore with a cash capital of twelve dollars, out of which sum he paid eight dollars for a passage by canal and rail to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But failing to secure work in this place, he started on foot for Wheeling, succeeding, however, in find- ing employment at Hendricksburg, Belmont county, Ohio, at seven dollars per month including board, which salary was increased afterward to fifteen dollars per month. He Imded in Cincinnati in 1542, where he was employed first in digging a cellar at fifty cents per day. In the following October he commenced business for himself on Finley street, and in 1853 sold his blacksmith shop, and formed a co- partnership with Adam Dillman, in connection with whom he erected a small brewery. March Ist of the same year the partners sold their first beer. A. Dillman dying in the ensuing May, he conducted the business alone for one month, and then formed a partnership with Conrad Win- disch, a competent brewer. In 1855 the manufacture of common beer was abandoned, and that of lager beer ini- tiated. During the winter of this year the product was about 2000 barrels, while, in 1866, 26,500 barrels were brewed. In September of the latter your he purchased, for the sum of $130,000, the entire interests of his partner, and two years afterward erected the main building of his present

works. To the nine cellars then constructed, with a capac- ity of 9000 barrels, he has added four additional ones which, with the main structure, give a total capacity of 150,000 barrels. The building is 225 feet by 110, and four stories in height. In 1872 ten other cellars were built, with a capacity of 1000 barrels each, making a total capacity of 35,000 barrels. Ile has floor room for 125,oco bushels of barley, and his cooperage is done on the premises. He em- ploys constantly a force of from 80 to 100 men, while from 35 to 50 horses are required to do the hauling for the estab- lishment. In 1864 he erected three large houses on the corner of Fifteenth and Elm streets, under which he built two cellars capable of storing about 3000 barrels of beer. From 1866, when his sales amounted to about 25,000 barrels, down to the present time, his annual increase has been about 19,000 barrels. The sales of 1872 amounted to over 40,000 barrels; the sales of the current year amount to over 70,000 barrels. Ilis extraordinary success is due mainly to inflex- ible integrity, unusual financial abilities, and a thorough knowledge of all the details connected with his vast business. His superb mansion, 168 Mulberry street, Cincinnati, is one of the noted ornaments of the city. In 1873 he was elected one of the Trustees of the Water Works. July 4th, 1873, the first building, insured as a malt house, fell from the weight of grain, over 20,000 bushels of malt being stored there. A new one was then immediately erected, at a cost of over $80,000, with a capacity of 100,oco bushels. Hle was married in 1843 to Sophia Adam, formerly of Strausburg, France, who died during the cholera season of 1849, leaving three children, one of whom died in the same year, and another in 1853. John Moerlein, the surviving child, is now engaged in business with his father. He was again married, in the fall of 1849, to Barbara Ochalso, a native of Bavaria, by whom he has had nine children, seven of whom are now living. George Moerlein and Jacob Moerlein, by his second wife, and John, by his first wife, are now engaged in busi- ness with him.

GGLESTON, HON. BENJAMIN, Merchant, Leg- islator and Newspaper Proprietor, was born at Corinth, Saratoga county, New York, January 3d, IS16. lle grew up and was ednested in that historic locality, but in 1831 his parents removed to Hocking county, Ohio, where he engaged in commercial pursuits, and was connected for some years with the business of the Ohio Canal, then the sole means of transportation from the Ohio river to the great Lakes. Ile removed to Cinemnati in 1845, and associated with Jamies Wilson, a leading merchant of that city. The firm of James Wilson & Co. continued their successful career until the death of James Wilson in 1867, when he was succeeded by his sons, and the style of the fim was changed to Wilson, Eggleston & Co., which still hold, the prestige and reputa- tion it has so long sustained, He has been identified with

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

nearly every measure for the promotion of the public weal, widows and orphans of those who had sacrificed their lives during the twenty five years of residence in the Queen City, for the preservation of the Union. He was renominated and has been the recipient of unusual marks of esteem from by the Republicans in 1868, and though his Democratic op- his fellow-citizens. Among other positions of tinst and ponent, Gien. Peter W. Strader, bore of the palm of victory, he did not cease his efforts for the promotion of the interests of his former constituency, and by his influence at Washing- ton prevented the obstruction of navigation on the Ohio by the erection of a low bridge, the company being required to build it one hundred feet above low water mark. He was largely interested in the Cincinnati Chronicle, previous to its honor, he has been Chairman of the Board of Public Im- provement., Chairman of the Finance Committee, President of Conneil, State Senator, and Representative in Congress. The coal famine of 1857 occurred during his term as Chair- man of the Finance Committee, and with his usual humanity and energy he proceeded to secure an appropriation of $100,000 to relieve the distressed, which he obtained despite 'purchase of the Cincinnati Times in 1872, and consequently the most determined opposition of interested parties, and re- , became a heavy stockholder in the Times Company, of duced the price of coal from eighty cents to twenty-five which he was elected President on its organization. Ile cents per bushel. In 1863 there occurred a repetition of was re-elected to the Board of Councilmen in 1875, and is one of the most active members of the Chamber of Com- merce, being one of its representatives to the National Board of Trade. Ile is still engaged in active business, where his sterling worth and integrity have won for him the unquali- fied esteem of his business associates. His intercourse with this circumstance, and again our subject became the cham- pion of the oppressed, and secured a like appropriation, thus averting the threatened calamity. Again during the prostration of all branches of industry incident to the out- break of the war of rebellion, when the families of men who had gone forth in response to their country's call his fellow-men is characterized by that frank and generous were left dependent upon those who remained at home, he manner that leaves no doubt in the minds of any as to his real feelings and motives, He was married in 1837 to 1 .. M. Wagar, of Cleveland, Ohio, who deceased in 1864, ing seenred an appropriation of $100,000 from Council, be leaving him two children. In April, 1867, he married Mary E., daughter of the late John 11. Davis, of Cincinnati, and "this union has been sealed by the birth of four children.

devoted himself assiduously to the succor of these women and hapless innocents from their impending peril, and hav- wa, privileged to disburse to some 3700 families the means to preserve them from actual want until employment could be obtained. During his official term in the Senate, a bill was presented in January, 1862, levying a tax of three- quarters of a mill for the relief of the families of Ohio vol- unteers. Opposition was made, and in the warm discussion which followed he took a leading part, and urged its pas -; sage in his usual eloquent and forcible style, winning high encomiums from the loyal press for his unflinching patriot- ism. It was due to his efforts, too, that the Legislature ceded to Cincinnati that portion of the canal extending from Broadway to the Ohio river, and City Council appropriately recognized this service by unanimously naming it Eggleston avenue, in accordance with a suggestion coming from the Legislature. In isoq bi, name was brought before the Republican Convention of the First District for the Congres- sional nomination, as the competitor of the late Hon. Sal- mon P. Chise, en l, having been nominated, defeated his Democratic opponent, Hlou, George E. Pagh, by over 3000 majority, though the district had been considered Demo- eratic. Being unanimously renominated in 1866, he was triumphantly re- elected over Hon. George HI. Pendleton. ITis career in Congress was characterized by the same fear- less ability which he had exhibited in the discharge of his other official duties. He drew and obtained the passage of the bill making Cincinnati a pat of entry, and secured the first national appropriation for the enlargement of the Lonis- ville Canal. During the impeachment of Andrew Johnson he stood firmly by his conviction of right and justice, and throughout his career was the arduous supporter of measures to seeure the back pay of soldiers and the pension, of the

ASE, HON. OAKLEY, Lawyer, cx Judge, Jour- nalist, Representative in the Sixtieth and Sixty- first General Assemblies of Ohio, now Chief Clerk in the Ohio Departinent of State, was born in Hartford, Hartford county, Connecticut, June 29th, 1824. Ile is the son of Ambrose Case and Esther (Chapman) Case. Ile was educated preliminarily in the common schools of his native county ; also, for a term, in the Granville College and the Ohio University, at Athens, his parents having removed with him to this State in ISgo, set- thing in Hocking county. On the completion of his course of studies, he found employment in the printing.office of the Hocking Sentinel. In 1845 he became the owner by pur- chase of this journal, and during the following thirteen years was its publisher and editor. The Sentinel was con- ducted as a weekly paper, and was Democratie in its politics. In 1860 he was elected Probate Judge of Hocking county, and served in that capacity for six years, two terms. In 1856, having read law while holding the Probate Judgeship, he was admitted to the bar, and at once entered on the prac- tice of his profession in Hocking county. During 1868 and 1869 he officiated as Mayor of Logan, the county-seat, and in 1871 was elected to the House on the Democratic ticket, and in 1873 was re-elected to the same position. In the following year he resigned his seat in the House in order to accept the office of Chief Clerk of the Ohio Department of

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

State, whose attendant duties he performs with unexception- flow the usual average given to the Whig tickets. Under alle ability. He was married, January 21st, 15.15, to Mar- garet A. James, of Blocking county, Ohio, by whom he has had eight children, hve of whom are now living. similar circumstances he was nominated for the Ohio As- sembly, and in this smaller beld hr, personal popularity sconed his election against overwhelming odds. Ile is generally recognized as a man of liberal and progressive ideas, and his influence and support has been given to every enterprise aiming to improve the public welfare. For many years he was Chief Solicitor, and subsequently a Director, of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company. In 1867 he purchased the Warren Constitution, a journal whi. h he has, in connection with his only son, since conducted. In IS41 he married Jane Elizabeth Weaver, of Prince Wil- liams county, Virginia, daughter of Captain Willian A. Weaver of the United States navy. Seven children were born to them, only two of whom survive; Jane, the daughter, is the wife of Frank Il. Mason, editor of the Cleveland Leader. William A., the son, is associated with his father in the management of the Warren Constitution. He served two years and a half as Master's Mate and Ensign in the United States navy under Admiral Porter.

IRCHARD, HON. MATHIEW, Judge of the Su- preme Court of Ohio, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Third Circuit under the old Ohio Constitution, and Solicitor of the United States Treasury nud of the General Land Office at Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Becket, Massachusetts, January 19th, 1804. His parents were Nathan and Mercy (AAshley) Birchard, and he was the seventh of ten children born to them. The family is of English extraction, the founder of the line in America, Thomas Birchard, having arrived m Boston from London, September 19th, 1635, with his wife and six children. ITis only son, John, became one of thirty-five proprietors of a tract of eighty-one square miles of Indian Linds in Connect- icut, embracing the conuty of New London and the towns of Norwich and Saybrook. He left a numerous progeny, through whom the name became widely extended. A large number of his descendants are now residents of Ohio. Judge Birchard's parents removed to the Western Reserve in 1812, and settled in Portage county, where his father became one of the original proprietor, of Windham township.' Judge Birchard was educated in the common schools of that early period, and for a few terms in academies at Boston and Warren. He studied medicine for a short time, but finally discarded it, and at the age of twenty commenced to read Luv under the direction of General Roswell Stone, of Warren. During this preparation for the bar he taught se hool during the winter seasons, In 1828 he was admitted to the bar, and at once entered upon practice with David Til, afterwards Governor of the State, but at that time a young lawyer with distinction yet to be earned. In 1832 MI. Buchard was elevated to the Common Pleas bench, and m iNgo received the appointment of Solicitor for the General Lind Office of the United State, at Washington, and for five years filled this responsible station. During the Latter portion of this term he was honored with the additional appointment of Solicitor for the United States Treasury, to succeed Henry D. Gilpin. In 1841 he returned to War- ren aml resumed the practice of his profession with his old partner, Mr. Tod, but in the following winter he was elected to the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, Though pos- sessing qualities to adorn public life, Judge Birchard has seldom been before the people for office. While absent from home in 1856 he was nominated by his party as a can- didate for Congress against Joshua R. Giddings. Though defeated, Judge Birchard, who had been a life-long Demo- crat, succeeded in a strong Whig district in greatly redue. ing the majority of his popular and celebrated opponent be-

OLLIN, ADAM G., Lawyer, ex-Mayor of Ripley, Ohio, was born in Ripley, Brown county, Ohio, October 10th, 1834. Ile is the son of Thomas W. Collin and Sarah G. Collin. His grandfather, 6 Nathaniel Collin, was one of the earlier pioneers and settlers of Ohio. His father was one of seven who voted the Abolition ticket in Brown county in 1840, and his house was for many years the principal depot of the " under-ground railway," and once there the fugitive was in safe quarters. There the lacerated and fearing slave was sheltered and nurtured ; and thence on a favorable occasion was transferred swiftly and silently to the Canadian border. His mother was a daughter of Rev. James Gilliland, an early settler, and one of the first Presbyterian ministers, having settled at Red Oak, Brown county, in 1205. His earlier education was obtained in the common schools located in the vicinity of his home. On the completion of his allotted course of studies be was placed to learn the carpentering trade, but after working at it for several years, when en- deavoring to save a neighbor's house while a prey to the llames, fell from its roof and received a severe sprain in the back, which compelled him ultimately to turn his attention to another avenue of labor. Being endowed naturally with considerable oratorical powers, his friends induced him to enter the political arena, and, after filling various minor municipal offices, he received in 1861 the appointment of Deputy United States Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio. The occupation of this position drew down upon him the bitterest denunciations of the Democratic press, and thus he was brought more prominently before the public, particularly in the Sixth Congressional District. Ile steadily refrained from making any arrests for disloyalty except

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

through the orders of his superior officers, and on account of refusing to act without the sanction of such anthority was often denounced by those who would not or could not recog nice the fact, that for any illegal anest made he was liable to suits for heavy damages. One arrest made, moreover, un- der an order issued by E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, involved him in a suit which cost him several hundreds of dollars, And on this occasion those impetuous Unionists who had been foremost in urging him to a harsh exercise of his authority then stood aloof from him and refused to sanc- tion publicly his course. That case occupied the attention of the Court of Common Pleas, of the District Court and of the United States Court for about seven years ; and the suit was only abandoned on account of the inability of the at- torneys for the prosecution to secure from their client the required fee. He afterward acted in the capacity of Dep. nty Provost Marshal of the Sixth Congressional District of Ohio, where his heretofore political opponents became his personal enemies, and, residing at the time in Brown county, a place not then more loyal than South Carolina or Alabama, he had many narrow escapes from death. On one occasion an order was received to arrest a certain deserter hiding in the woods near Arnheim and New Hope. The fellow it was known was constantly armed with a short rifle, and was one of the marauders who infested the underbrush of the neighborhood. After much trouble-for the citizens in general constituted a regularly organized company, avow- edly formed for the purpose of resisting the draft and de- fending all deserters-he succeeded, with his two guards, in tracking the deserter to the house of a noted desperado, living in a wild and uninhabited spot. Here he was con- fronted by three men, two of whom were armed; the other, however, returned hastily to the log shanty and ran for his rifle. This was the one " wanted ; " the Marshal sprang upon him, wrenched away the ascending weapon, and in- stantly was engaged with him in a hand-to-hand combat, the guards during this exciting time restraining the other two scoundrels by keeping a steady aim on them with their revolvers. Finally one of his guards ran to his assist- ance, and before the comrades of the desperado could come to his aid had mastered and handenffed him. On another occasion he was advised of two deserters who regularly at. tended the drill of the disloyal company referred to, thinking themselves secure with an entire military organization to be- friend them. With his usual gnard of two men, Captain J. II. Shaw and J. Q. Carr, he set ont to capture these men. When within one mile of the rendezvous they were warned of impending peril, and advised to return. Undaunted, however, they proceeded on their way, and as they entered Arnheim, were met by an armed squad, which was passed in silence. A passing acquaintance then informed him that one of the deserters was in the company which had entered the woods adjoining the town. Acting at once on the in- formation, he retraced his steps; found the entire company in the woodland, the butts of their guns resting on the

ground ; placed Shaw on his right and Carr in the rear; and fuding the man needed at head quarters, slapped him on the back ; forced him to give up his gun, and led him away a prisoner, while his scores of fiends looked ou in silence, overpowered by the cool daring of the Marshal and his faith- ful guards. The other deserter he was told " was at a but- ternut picnic, about two miles below Russelville." Thither he went, found over three hundred persons assembled, coolly arrested the second deserter, and before the crowd thoroughly comprehended proceedings had marched him away to a place of safety. At the conclusion of the war he studied law with G. Bamback, of Ripley, Ohio, and, September 30th, 1867, was admitted to practise in Georgetown, Brown county, Ohio. In 1871 he was elected Mayor of the city of Ripley, and while serving in this capacity distingnished him- self by his severe rectitude and inflexible impartiality in all matters connected with his administration. During his Mayoralty he was mobbed at one time by those interested in the liquor traffic, for alleged undue harshness in dealing with their interests; and the jail was broken open and many prisoners released. At the expiration of his term of office he removed to Cincinnati, and there engaged in the practice of law at No. 6 West Fourth street. He has now an exten- sive practice, and is recognized as a legal practitioner of sterling merits and ability. Politically he was primarily a " Free-Soiler," and cast his first vote for Salmon P. Chase for Governor of Ohio. Ile then until 1872 voted the Re- publican ticket, since which time he has voted independently, with little or no regard for party principles or partisan issues.

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The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 1, Part 17

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, pub Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Cincinnati, Galaxy publishing company Number of Pages: 802

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Cincinnati, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 802