USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 1 > Part 41
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and was professionally engaged in this connection until | K. Polk. Religiously, he is a member of the Methodist September 1st, 1871. In the following October he was Episcopal Church. His chief personal characteristics are unassailable integrity, tireless energy and well-directed in- dustry. He at present is engaged in the practice of law at Georgetown, Brown county, Ohio, where he resides. elected Auditor, on the Republican ticket, and was re- elected in 1873. He has acted also as a member of the City Council. He is widely known as a political speaker, and in various campaigns has canvassed his county and district. He has also frequently been a delegate to Repub- liean State conventions and to Congressional conventions, in which he has uniformly taken a prominent position. Hle was married, June 23d, 1869, to Jennie M. Eagleson, formerly a resident of Harrison county, Ohio.
ARSHALL, JAMES II., Lawyer, was born in Youngstown, Mahoning county, Ohio, September 3d, 1820, and was the third child in a family consisting of six children whose parents were John Marshall and Margaret M. (Grant) Mar- shall. Ilis father, a native of Virginia, followed through life the occupation of enbinetmaking and house- joinering. He moved to Ohio at an early date, and re- sided in Trumbull county until his decease, in 1832. ITis mother, a native of Pennsylvania, was a daughter of Solo- mon Grant, and a sister of Jesse R. Grant, an early pioneer of Clermont county and the father of President Ulysses S. Grant. Until his fifteenth year was reached he was en- gaged in farm lahor in the counties of Brown and Trum- bull, his mother having removed with her family to the former county in 1833. During those years he also at- tended the neighboring country schools through the winter months, obtaining by this means a limited elementary edu- cation, In 1835 he was placed to learn the trade of saddlery and harness-making at Georgetown. Ile com- pleted his apprenticeship in about three years, and for two years attended school at Germantown, Kentucky, and at the Augusta College, in the same State. In 1843, after having worked at his trade for a brief period, he established himself in the harness and saddlery business on his own account, at Georgetown, and was thus occupied assiduously until 1857. His attention during the closing years of his experience as a merchant was devoted to the study of law, and in 1858, passing the required examination, he was ad- mitted to the bar. He was subsequently appointed Probate Judge of Brown County, and performed the duties of this office for about one year. That appointment had been made to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Colonel D. W. C. Loudon. In November, 1859, he con- nected himself in a law partnership with David G. Devore, in Georgetown, and in conjunction with his associate has secured an extensive and remunerative clientage. In 1859 he was a candidate for nomination for the Probate Judge- ship; in 1861 for the position of Common Pleas Judge; and in 1867 for the Ohio Senate. He is a supporter of the Republican party, and in 1844 cast his first vote for James
OGERS, ISAIAH, Architect, was born in the town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, August 17th, 1800. Ile was a son of Isaac Rogers, a promi- nent shipbuilder of that town, who suceceded his father in the business, also a leading ship- builder of his day. The family is deseended in a direct line from Jolin Rogers, the martyr of Smithfield, who perished February 4th, 1555, and John Rogers, one of the Pilgrim Puritans of the " Mayflower." His early and elementary education was received in the country schools located near his home. On account of the limited facilities then offered for a thorough training, the course of studies he was able to pursue was neither varied in kind nor satisfactory in degree. But by close and careful study in after life he acquired a valuable fund of information on a vast variety of subjects and an acutely intelligent appreci- ation of the utilities and heauties of science. Ile com -. menced life upon a farm, but his natural mechanical tastes unfitted him for that occupation, as then practised, and led him to enter into an apprenticeship under Captain Shaw, then successfully carrying on the business of carpentry in Boston. This step met with the opposition of several of his friends and relatives, who offered him extraordinary in- ducements to remain on the farm with them. But, ani- mated by an inflexible spirit of independence, he started on foot for Boston, carrying with him his personal effects. His connection with Captain Shaw was sustained until he had attained his twenty-first year, when he moved to Mobile, Alabama, where, for a brief period, he worked as a journeyman at his trade. He carly displayed an admir- able taste and sound judgment in all matters relating to the architectural profession, and devoted the whole of his leisure time to the acquisition of an extended knowledge of its rules and principles. All plans that, falling under his observation, possessed any notable excellence, he copied with zealous and scrupulous care, and carefully studied all the works on architecture that he could procure. At Mobile he entered into competition in making plans for one of the city public buildings, and, gaining the premium offered, was thus brought into favorable prominence. In 1822 he returned to Boston and entered the office of Solomon Wil- lard, then a prominent architeet of the city, and on his retirement succeeded to the business. Thenceforth his professional career was a steady progression, his whole aim and desire being to attain perfection, rather than pecuniary reward. He had assisted Solomon Willard in the con- struction of the Bunker Hill momument; his first individual
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large work was the Tremont Honse, in Boston, whose con- { this position he remained until 1859, and then he returned struction was undertaken when he was abont twenty-eight to this country and to his native State. Instead of return- ing to Mount Vernon, however, he settled in Columbus after his return, and there engaged in the wholesale dry- goods business. Ile is still a resident of Columbus, and is still engaged in the same business, being now the senior partner in the firm of Miller, Green & Joyce, a house controlling the largest dry-goods trade in central Chio. Besides attending to his large dry-goods business he has also been an extensive dealer in real estate in Columbus, and his name is identified with every project for the im- provement of his adopted city and the development of its resources. Ile is President of the Board of Trade of Columbus, an organization which has done great service in bringing to the attention of capitalists throughout the country the advantages of the city in a manufacturing and commercial way. He is also a director of the Columbus & Mineral Valley Railroad Company, as well as of the Home Insurance Company of Columbus. He has been twice married. In the year 1855 he married Elizabeth McComb, of Rockland county, Ohio, who died in 1861, leaving him one child, a daughter. lle married again, in 1865, Amanda Harris, daughter of Judge Ira Harris, of Albany, New York. This marriage has resulted in four sons. . years of age. Ile designed and built the Merchants' Ex- change, State street, and the Howard Atheneum, Boston, and various other buildings in this city. The most promi- nent in New York were the Astor House, Merchants' Ex- change, Wall street; Bank of America and the Astor Place Opera House: the Exchange Hotel and Bank, of Rich- mond, Virginia; and later came the Capitol Hotel, Frank- fort, Kentucky; Maxwell House, Nashville, Tennessee; and the Burnett House, Pike Opera House, the Longview Insane Asylum; the remodelling Hamilton county Court House and the jail of Cincinnati, Ohio. He also remodelled the State House of Cohimbus, and was Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury Department, at Washington, District of Columbia, from 1862 to 1865. Ilis work is to be seen in most every city of the Union. He was the in- ventor of various useful pieces of mechanism, upon four of which he obtained patents. The more important of these were his Tubular Bridge and his Fire and Burglar-proof Safe. Ile never sought or held a public political office, and uniformly exercised his right of discrimination between the candidates of the several parties. He was a valued member of the Masonic order, of the fraternity of Odd Fel- lows and of the Mechanics' Association. Though afflicted from an early age by violent physical prostrations, his men- tal calibre was never perceptibly impaired by such visita- tions, while his will-power and untiring perseverance have been but rarely excelled. His nature was as impulsive as it was benevolent, while his unassumed, frank and cordial bearing ever banished all doubt in the minds of those who were brought into contact with him of his entire sincerity 6. of purpose. He was married, at the age of twenty-three years, to Emily W. Tobey, of Portland, Maine. After a life of almost uninterrupted activity, and protracted suffer- ing, dne to an affection of the heart, he died in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 13th, 1869, amid the regrets of an extensive circle of relatives and friends. Ilis son and successor, who had been associated with him from 1846, now ranks among the leading architects of the Queen City.
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ONANT, GEORGE, Superintendent of Corpora- tion Schools, Coshocton, Ohio, was bom in Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 8th, 1827. His father, a native of New Hampshire, was engaged in mercantile pursuits. His mother lived formerly in Massachusetts. For two or three years he attended a private school in his native place, subsequently pursued a course of higher studies in a district school and an academy, and while in his tenth year be- came an inmate of the Sandwich Boarding School, where he remained for three months. Ile was afterward sent to an academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, where he was a student for six months. He taught his first school in Lyme, New Hampshire, at the age of sixteen. From that time till his twentieth year he taught in the winter months, at- tending private schools occasionally. Ile then assumed the role of educator, at Westport, Massachusetts, in an annual school, where he remained for two years; and sub- sequently was similarly engaged in Fall River, Massachu- setts, one year; in Topsfield Academy, Massachusetts, two years; in Ilanover Academy, Plymouth county, Massachu- setts, two years; in the Spring Mountain Academy, Ohio, two years; and in the Kenosha High School, where he was Superintendent and Principal, one year. For a later period of seven years he was engaged in teaching at the Aurora Academy, west New York. He was then occupied for about one year in agricultural pursuits in Massachusetts,
ILLER, THOMAS EWING, ex-United States Consul, is a native of Ohio, having been born in Mount Vernon, Knox county, Ohio, on the 19th of June, 1829, of a parentage which was of mixed blood, mingling the Scotch, Irish and German nationalities. Ile finished his education at Kenyon College, Ohio, graduating at that institution in the class of 1850 with the degree of A. B. After leaving college he engaged in mercantile pursuits in his native village. Ile continued so occupied until the year 1856. In that year he received from President Pierce the appoint- ment of United States Consul at Bordeaux, France. In |and at the expiration of that time sold his farm and moved
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to the West, settling in Coshocton county, Ohio. In 1868 he was elected by the Board of Education Superintendent of the existing schools. He has a knowledge of the Latin, Greek and German tongnes, and is also the possessor of a valuable fund of information on a variety of subjects. His store of literary attainments has been secured by persistent and close study, while the honorable and important position which he now occupies is the one above all in which his many qualifications can be of the greatest advantage to the general community. He was married, December 2d, 1853, to Mary Annie Friend, of Andover, Massachusetts, who is his assistant in his educational labors.
LANDY, FREDERICK JOHN LEONARD, one of the oldest and most prominent manufacturers and improvers of portable steam-engines and cir- cular saw-mills in America, was born in Bristol, England, in 1820. Ile lived with his father, Benjamin Blandy, until 1834, attending succes- sively Golston's and Hewlet's academies, and the last two years was tutored by Professor John Lewton, after which he came to this country with his father's family. Landing in New York city late in the fall, they determined to pass the winter in Orange, New Jersey. In the spring they carried out the original plan of going West, to locate in the then small town of Zanesville, Ohio, which Mr. Benjamin Blandy had, during a previous visit to America, selected as the future home of his large and young family, thinking it one of the most flourishing and promising towns in the West. Frcd- erick, the fourth son of his parents, was the seventh of a family of ten children. Henry Blandy, his elder brother and present partner, engaged with a company, under the style of Dillon, Blandy & Co., and started a furnace and forge for the manufacture of iron from the ore, at Licking Falls, four miles from Zanesville. In connection with the furnace and forge they had a large stock of goods for the supply of the hands. Of these goods Frederick, who was in the employ of this firm, had charge for about a year and a half, though but little over fourteen years of age. The store was located ou the north side of the river, and there was at that time but one other house on that side ; no bridge connected the two sides of the river, so that it could be crossed only by means of a skiff or by fording. The whole country was in a rude and uncultivated state, with the roughest class of people about the works, but Frederick slept each night upon the counter alone, with his pistol under his head ; it was quite a lonely situation for one so young. At the end of eighteen months, the enterprise proving unremu- nerative, the business was closed up and the partnership dis- solved. The store department had made over six thousand dollars, but Frederick received nothing but his board for his services, although he had served the company faithfully and had endured many privations and hardships, one of
which was a year's experience with the then prevailing dis- ease of the country, fever and ague. From this situation he engaged with a large manufacturing establishment in the city of New York as clerk and salesman. After a few months trial the proprietor agreed to pay him six hundred dollars a year with his board and washing. After two years he returned to Zanesville on a visit, and was induced to re- main with his mother and sisters while his father took a trip to Europe. Ilis New York employer, upon learning of his resolve, offered to advance his salary to one thousand a year if he would return to his situation, but he felt that he owed it to his father to forego this temptation-his father promis- ing to establish him in business upon his return, which in 1840 he did. Ile built for him a large foundry, furnished a small capital, and loaned some funds for which he paid in- terest, and Frederick had saved a few hundred from his own gains, which was added to the common stock. His brother Henry was interested with him in this enterprise, and did his full share in promoting the prosperity of the business; and by arduous, earnest and united efforts, they built up a large trade in stoves, plows, hollowware, threshing machine castings, etc. They kept seven or eight two-horse teams constantly upon the roads peddling their stoves and plows among the farmers, and frequently found it necessary to take horses in exchange for their wares. These horses were kept till a large drove was collected and got in good condition, when Frederick drove them across the mountains upon the common roads, occupying twenty-one days en route to the eity of New York. From 1844 to 1848 he made several such trips. The first two large contracts they made were for the iron-work for the Zanesville Water Works and for the Zanesville Gas Light Company. Shortly after fulfilling these contracts their foundry assumed the importance of a machine-shop, and they had already turned out several steam-engines, including one which furnished their shop- power. From this time they continually increased and added to their works, until they became large and powerful. In 1850 the Central Ohio Railroad was built, and II. & F. Blandy, resolving to turn their attention to locomotive build- ing, took contracts to build a number of locomotives for this and other roads then being constructed. In the fall of 1851 Frederick married Julia Johnson, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and by this marriage six children were born to them, four sons and two daughters. A ycar or two later the Central Ohio Railroad, like several other roads they had been working for, failed, and the losses which HI. & F. Blandy sustained through railroad failures disgusted them with that branch of business. At this period they built, for a party at the town of Ironton, Ohio, a rail mill, with a capacity of seventy tons of T-rails per day, and in conec- tion made several million brick, erected twenty dwellings for the operatives, opened coal mines on an extensive scale, and when about ready to start the party in interest failed, causing a great and embarrassing loss of means to HI. & F. Blandy; still they pushed forward, not daunted by these
* IL Blandy
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disappointments and losses, coming out with their good | ning, though the trade has diminished since the panie of name and credit untarnished. At this time, 1855, they re- 1873 and many competitors have entirely closed. Frederick also has other interests of considerable importance. Besides the stock held by the firm in the " Iron Coal Company," at Shawnce, Ohio, Frederick is Treasurer of this company, and individually holds a large amount of stock. He has two large farms two miles up the Muskingum river, which are considered very valuable for the underlying coal. He holds stock in the " Ohio Iron Company," " Zanesville Woollen Mill Company," and the " Brown Manufacturing Company," and is a Director of the last-named. Ile is also Vice. President of the Union Bank. solved to change their locomotive works into a manufactory of portable steam-engines and saw-mills, which they began to build upon a new plan, with a hollow, continuous bed- plate-the invention of Frederick. This was far ahead of any other engine in the market, and they rapidly worked it into favor as the people's engine, so that at this writing there are about 4000 of them working ; they can be found in every State in the Union, and in many parts of Europe, Africa, South America, Australia, etc. On whatever occasion they have been exhibited in competition they have invariably taken the first premiums. So popular are they that they are being copied by many builders, thus acknowledging their superiority to all others. At the time the rebellion broke out the firm of II. & F. Blandy was doing a brisk and large business in the West and South, and had outstanding debts amounting to over $150,000 scattered all through the South- ern States; the whole was a dead loss to them. But they persistently strove to overcome all adversities, and their trade revived again, so that in 1863 they found their Zanes- ville works were not equal to the demand, and they pur- chased the " Newark Machine Works," at Newark, Ohio, which equalled in magnitude their Zanesville works; and in 1865 they built and sold over one million and a quarter dol- lars' worth of machinery. In these works they have built many powerful stationary-engines for blast furnaces and mills of all kinds up to 500 horse-power. After the close of the war they did a very extensive business, and were working both establishments to their full capacity, when in the fall of 1866 misfortune again overtook them, this time in the shape of a destructive fire that levelled the entire Zanesville works with the ground, causing a loss estimated at over $200,000. In spite of this great misfortune, at a time when they were crowded with work, the business was carried on as well as possible by running the Newark works night and day. Though Mr. Henry Blandy was at this time in Europe, before the ruins of twenty-six years of their labor were cold a hundred pairs of hands were busy clearing away the delis and preparing to rebuild on a still larger scale than before, and in less than four months the site of the ruins was occupied by one of the finest-appointed and best- equipped machine works in the United States. At the time of this fire Frederick was engaged in erecting a fine resi- dence; having only the first story up when the works were burned, he was compelled to finish it or much damage would have been the result. This house, the finest finished and most elegant in the county, was completed the follow- ing year. At this time Frederick was also much engaged with his fruit farm of 130 acres, three miles east of the city, on which he had one of their portable engines and saw-mills, making into lumber 1 500 logs cut from some twenty-six acres. This lumber came in very opportunely in the rebuilding of their works. Since the rebuilding of the Zanesville works both they and the Newark branch have been steadily run-
ALL, JOSEPHI B., President of the Home Insur- ance Company of Ohio, is a native of Canada, and was born July 4th, 1835. Ilis father was a harness-maker, and a native of New York ; his mother was a native of same State. In 1837, when Joseph was two years old, his parents moved from Canada and settled in Jefferson county, New Vork. His first schooling was in an old log school-house within sight of the St. Lawrence river. When he was nine years old his father died, leaving his family penniless. The family was broken up and the subject of our sketch was placed on a farm. Some three years afterwards his mother married a wealthy farmer and a home was offered to the scattered family, but Joseph preferred to " paddle his own canoe." Until he was fifteen years old he worked summers and attended schools winters, a portion of the time at the institute at Watertown. The obstacles he met with were the same as other boys have experienced. At the age of fifteen he secured the much-coveted position of a clerk in a country store. Ile remained in this position until 1853, when he became impressed with the idea that he must " go West." In the spring of that year he found himself in Chicago, a stranger to all, but he soon found employment of E. Batchelder, wholesale dealer in dry goods. He re- mained in that establishment for two years, when his em- ployer retired from business, selling his stock to Joseph, who removed the same to Lyons, Iowa, doing a prosperous business until the panic of 1857. Ilis business at that time being greatly extended, it was impossible to realize on prop- erty in hand, and he, like thousands of others, was obliged to succumb; having married in the meantime the daughter of Dr. Daniel Reed, of Fulton, Illinois, he found himself poor and with a wife and babe to claim his attention. The next few years he was employed in several positions of trust, and finally settled in Aurora, Illinois. While employed as a clerk in a dry-goods store in that city, the Aurora Fire Insurance Company, with a capital of $200,000, was or- ganized, and he was solicited to take the management of it, which he did, and conducted the business very successfully, until the great Chicago fire of 1871 came and swallowed up
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his company. Hle " once more had the world before " him,
spring they had a cash capital of about $500. Then, in the and he decided on following the insurance business in spring of 1841, they went to Cincinnati, where Abraham Chicago. Opening an office in that city, he was imme- diately engaged by several companies to negotiate their settlements and adjust their losses. This occupied his time mitil the fall of 1872; he was then made General Agent of the Home Insurance Company for the Eastern States, with head-quarters in New York city. Ile continued in this position until 1873, when he was elected Vice-President and Manager of the company. He then removed to Columbus, Ohio. In 1874 he was elected President, and his adminis- tration of the affairs of the company has shown his eminent fitness for the position. The Home Insurance Company, like all companies doing a general business, has had rough experience since its organization in 1863; it has paid nearly $3,000,000 in losses, but owing to its sound management it is now in fine condition and is making rapid strides to a position second to none. The Presidents of the company have been : Hon. Samuel Galloway, C. P. S. Butler, Esq., Hon. M. A. Dougherty, and the present incumbent. embarked in business as a butcher. Henry continued his business as a peddler, travelling with a horse and wagon. The next spring he bought out a store at Monroe for $2000, mostly on credit, and soon succeeded in building up a large business. Not long afterwards he opened another store at Felicity, Clermont county, in order to give employment to his brother, who had not prospered in his vocation. In IS45 the store at Felicity was given up, and Abraham took charge of the one at Monroe, in order that Henry might leave for a visit to his native country, where their mother was lying very sick. His mother had been dead three weeks before he reached his old home, and after remaining a short time there he returned to America. Soon after his return he sold out his store at Monroe, and the two brothers opened a retail dry-goods store on Fifth street, in Cincinnati, under the firm-name of 11. & A. Mack. This business they con- tinued for three years. In the spring of 1847 they admitted two other brothers to the firm, which then became the Mack Brothers. The dry-goods business was closed out, and the new firm started a wholesale clothing manufactory on Main street. In the spring of 1849 an additional store was opened on West Pearl street, and there one of the brothers started in the wholesale notion trade. The same year eame the fearful visitation of the cholera. Business stagnated, and a general crash seemed impending. Many business friends urged the Mack Brothers to take the benefit of the bankrupt act, and so save themselves. Henry, the managing and financial partner, declared that he would rather lose his right arm than compromise. They did not compromise, and, by shrewd and enterprising expedients, weathered the storm. A year later, when the pressure had been removed, they were not only out of debt but had a handsome capital in hand. In 1850 the brothers removed to Pearl and Vine streets, where they increased their business fifty per cent. Prosperity continued to attend them until the outbreak of the war, when another financial erisis came. For a time ruin seemed impending again, but, as before, by careful manage- ment and upright dealings, the firm came safely through the trouble. When the first call for troops was made in 1861, Governor Dennison sent for Henry Mack and gave him the first contract for army clothing, and thenceforward he was known as one of the honest contraetors of war times. In 1866, his business having steadily increased, he erected a handsome store on Third street, and there he still remains. Henry Mack has had no political ambition, but in 1859, in compliance with the urgent solicitation of his friends, he was candidate for election to the City Council. Ile served two terms, giving the utmost satisfaction by his earnest, honest and public-spirited performance of the duties devolving upon him. At the end of his second term he declined another election. In 1863 he was elected a member of the Cincin- nati School Board, and discharged the daties of the position in the most acceptable manner. Though a member of the
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