USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 1 > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75
LIPPART, JOHN HANCOCK, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, was born near Canton, Stark county, Ohio, his parents being Henry and Eve (Henning) Klippart, on July 26th, 1823. Ilis paternal grandfather came to America with Lafayette, and at the close of the revolutionary war married a Virginia lady and settled in Maryland. In 1866 he moved to Stark county, Ohio, with his family of six children. Ile was brother to Marshal Kleber, so con- spicuous in the battles fought by Napoleon, Mr. Klippart's maternal great-great-grandfather was a Huguenot, whose family fled, first to Flanders and afterwards to Pennsylvania, to escape perseention. They settled in the vicinity of Har-
213
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
risburg, the capital of that State, in the cemeteries of which the family name of Hlenning is frequently to be met with. Until his ninth year Mr. Klippuit attended the common " subscription " schools, taught by hish schoolmasters. In his tenth year he was sent to live with an aunt, and was engaged in making and filling weaver " quith." During the two succeeding years he was employed in wool-carding, and in 1836 he was placed as an errand-boy in the store of Gorgas & Kuntze, in Louisville, Stark county, remaining with them only a few months. He was then engaged by a brother-in-law of I. Zerbe, with whom he stayed only a short time, entering the establishment of Sala & Kline, of Canton, to learn the drug business, and to " read " medicine. From 1840 until the fall of [$47 he acted as clerk in drug and dry- goods stores in Massillon and Mount Eaton, Wayne county. In 1847 he married Emeline Rahn, of Canton, and entered the dry-goods trade on his own account. In this line he was profitably engaged until 1852. In 1849 he was appointed Postmaster of Osnaling, Stark county, having been engaged in the meantime as a subcontractor on the line of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad, now known as the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad. In this connection all the protits of his entire mercantile career were swallowed up. In 1853, in company with Daniel Gotschall, and after- wards with John M. Webb, he edited and published the Democratic Transcript, at Canton. In the following year he removed to Cleveland and edited the American Liberal, a journal whose existence covered only a few months. Upon its demise he was associated with Thomas Brown, editor and publisher of the Ohio Farmer, and sustained this rela- tionship until December, 1856, when he was elected Cor- responding Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agricul- ture, an office which he has occupied uninterruptedly up to the present time. At the same time Hon. Salmon P. Chase, then Governor of Ohio, tendered him the position of State Librarian, which he declined, preferring to give his entire attention to the wider field of agricultural science. For many years he was a constant contributor to the agricultural press of the country, and many of his essays on agricultural topies, and translations from German and French agricul- tural writers, are to be found scattered throughout the several annual volumes of his reports to the Legislature of Ohio. In 1860 he published an exhaustive treatise on the " Wheat Plant," which was the first attempt in this country to sys- tematize the known facts in relation to this important cereal, and of which three large editions followed each other in rapid succession. Two years later he published a very practical treatise on the "Theory and Practice of Farm Drainage," two large editions of which have been issued by Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, the largest and among the most substantial book-publishers in the West. This last-named work is the text-book on drainage in the Ohio Agricultural College. In IS60 Governor Dennison ap- pointed Mr. Klippart as one of the Commissioners to visit Massachusetts, and examine into and report upon the cattle
disease then prevailing in that State. Ilis report, which is quite voluminons and very important, was printed in the " Chio Agricultural Report," for 1859. During the war he was frequently despatched by Governors Tod and Brongh, with important messages for the armies from Ohio, to Nash- ville, Cold Harbor, and elsewhere. In 1865 he was de- puted by the State Board of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture at Washington, to examine the European in- stitutions for teaching theoretical and practical agriculture, as well as to observe the systems of agriculture practised in Great Britain and the countries of continental Europe. Ilis report of Inis tour of observation, printed in the " Ohio Agri- cultural Report," for 1865, contributed largely, if it was not the sole cause, to the introduction of the Percheron horse from France. More than two hundred thousand dollars' worth of these horses are now in Ohio. In 1869 Governor Hayes appointed him as Assistant State Geologist, and he was assigned to the agricultural portion of the survey. This appointment he hekl with distinction until the expiration of his term, when the corps was continued under a reorganiza- tion, in which the agricultural department was omitted, the Legislatme being more interested in developing and promot- ing the interests of the mineral than of the agricultural re- sources of the State. In 1873 Governor Noyes appointed Mr. Klippart as one of three Commissioners of Fisheries, assigning to him the duty of ascertaining the feasibility of replenishing the streams of Ohio and Lake Erie with fish of species adapted to these waters. His report made such an impression on the Legislature that an act was passed author- izing the appointment of a commission, with an appropria- tion of $10,000, to build hatching-houses and conduct them. Governor Allen selected him as one of the commissioners. Although poverty and the lack of proper school facilities deprived hinn in early life of the advantages of a systematic education, his persistent effort in devoting all his leisure time to study secured him a knowledge especially of scien. tifie matters, which is comprehensive and thorough. While in politics he has never been a partisan in the striet interpre- tation of the word, he has always allied himself to that or- ganization which protected American labor, fostered and promoted American industries, and developed American re- sources. His religious views are liberal, and he conforms to no special creed, his belief being that true religion is net to be governed by any tenet or set of tenets established by a church, and that, if it is true and sincere, it will be con- stantly apparent in daily acts. Ile is a devoted student of scientific agriculture, and is recognized as an authority in the settlement of disputed questions relating to it. Ilis writings are quoted in many influential European publications, that on the wheat plant having been wholly reprinted abroad. Ile has been honored by his election as a member of the Central Acclimatization Society of Prussia, and of the Im- perial Agricultural Society of France. The California Natural History Society elected him a corresponding mem- ber, and the same courtesy and acknowledgment of his in-
214
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
valuable services was extended by the Cincinnati Natural ings; the unearthing of thousands of ' blue racers"' eggs in Ilistory Society. In 1856 he was Secretary of the Cleve- land Academy of Science, and subsequently was enrolled a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and at the meeting of this organization, in 1874, he contributed a paper on " Platygonus Compressus." He is Vice-President of the Natural History Society of Columbus. The labors of Mr. Klippart have been so important in the domain of agricultural science, that the honors which have been extended to him by American and foreign societies have not been undeserved. In all the important offices to which he has been appointed, he has discharged the duties devolving upon him not only with the highest degree of skill, but with the greatest fidelity and intelligent care. Ile is justly esteemed by the entire public in this State, and by those elsewhere who know of him.
ICHARDS, RANSOM ERASTUS, Operator in Real Estate, Farmer, Author, was born in Cana- dice, Livingston county, in the western part of New York, October 13th, 1833. His earliest rec- ollections are associated with the hills and dales of the Genesee. Hemlock Lake, a romantic sheet of water lying among the " Ball Hills," and the barren, stony peaks of the surrounding elevations, were to him fa- miliar and beloved sights. And the course of the winding Honeoye, with its shaded banks, was one of his favorite haunts, His parents, according to tradition, traced their origin to the Pilgrim Fathers, and were natives of the State of Connecticut. Ilis mother died a few months after his fourth birthday, and his father in the following year was again married to an estimable lady, who thenceforward oc- cupied the position of female head of the family. The first nine years of his life were passed in Lima, Livingston county, New York. In February, 1842, the family moved to Ohio in a canvas-covered wagon drawn by four horses, for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad was not then in existence, or probably even under contemplation. A settlement was made in the township of Chesterfield, near the western boundary of Lucas county, now Fulton county. The country was new and abounded in wild game ; hunting w.is therefore the ordinary pastime, often a profession. The ensuing ten years spent there were accompanied with the ional toils, hardships and pleasures incident to a frontier home in the West, and the transforming of a quarter-section of wild land into a well-cultivated farm. " My recollections of that farm are vivid. The driving of two, and sometimes three, pairs of oxen to break up the virgin soil ; the cutting of ' blue joint ' and ' razor' grass on the prairies, and poling it through water, half knee deep, to the high ground for stacking; the constant fear, during haying time, of being bitten by ' massangers,' a species of short, dark-colored rat- tlesnake; the contending against annual fires on the open-
the warm, incubating sands of the old bluff; the periodical shaking with ' fever 'n ager:' all are as events of yester- day." Toledo was then the market centre, and for several years, in addition to his labors on the farm, he was engaged, more or less regularly, in driving a wagon with two pairs of oxen, loaded with wheat, to Raymond's mill, spending four days in the trip, and receiving for the grain from fifty to seventy five cents per bushel. " I had an early penchant for scribbling, my first manuscript collection being a series of school compositions on the horse, the sheep, the use of tobacco, intemperance, etc., and which I thought seriously for a time of having printed in a book. For this purpose I applied to the Messrs. Scott & Fairbanks, publishers of the Blade, who informed me that the cost would not be less than ten dollars. This nipped the enterprise in the bud. My financial resources were not sufficiently extensive at that time to enable me to embark in so great an undertak- ing." During the winter of 1850-51 he attended a school at Sylvania, conducted by A. B. West, and at the close of the term had the honor of writing the valedietory. In the following spring his first printed literary composition ap. peared, "A Golden Sunset," a prose sketch of about half a column, in the Perrysburg Star. Of his poems, the first in print came out in the Toledo Republican, and was entitled " The Western Wilds." In the spring of 1851 his father, becoming discouraged over the results of his farming opera- tions in Chesterfield, sold his possessions there and pur- chased another farm of one hundred and sixty acres near the city of Toledo, which step, as shown by after events, was a wise and profitable venture. In the succeeding winter of. 1851-52, having " finished his schooling," which embraced only a moderate knowledge of the common branches of edu- cation, he began to cherish the design of becoming a printer. That intention was, however, opposed by his father, from a fear that the confinement of office life would be detrimental to his health. But persisting steadily in his tactics to secure the desired end, he ultimately became an entered apprentice to Myers & Riley, in the office of the Toledo Republican. From early in 1852 until the spring of 1853 he worked there " at the case," about one-half the time, the remaining half being employed in travelling on business of the office. It was during his apprenticeship that he began " paragraph- ing " for the paper ; and also for a time he copied telegraph despatches from the reading of the operator. While acting in this capacity he wrote out the last annual message of President Fillmore, a task which occupied the greater per- tion of a cold night in December. Ilis associates and fellow-workers in the Republican office were Charles F. Browne ("Artemas Ward "), Charles R. Dennett, since an editor of considerable note, and James A. Boyd (" Sandy"), his foreman, an accomplished job.printer. Before the ex- piration of the year, his health becoming impaired, he was advised to seek another field of labor and a change of cli- mate. Early in the spring of 1853, George G. Lyon, one
215
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
of the editors of the Toledo Blade, offered him an engage- | the meantime lost all credit of authorship." Ile was mar- ment on the staff of that paper, as Local and Commercial ried, December 13th, 1855, to Maiyette Bush, ellest daugh- ter of Dr. B. 11. Bush, one of the pioneer physicians of Toledo and Lucas county, Ohio. Reporter, with the salary of five dollars per week-eight to ten dollars per week being then first-class wages for " profes- sional." He was then released from the articles of his apprenticeship bond with Mr. Riley, and accepted the situ- ation on the Blade. After a trial of two months on the new theatre of action, however, his health continuing poor, he was compelled to quit the business altogether. Proceed- AYS, WILLIAM A., County Auditor, was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, June 7th, 1842. Ile received a common school education. When eighteen years old he started in active life as a clerk in a country store, remaining thus engaged three years. He served as a clerk in the Treas- urer's office of Montgomery county, Ohio, during the years 1870 and 1871, and during the succeeding two years was engaged as bookkeeper for the banking house of Harsh- man & Co., Dayton, Ohio. In 1873 he was elected Auditor of Montgomery County on the Democratic ticket. ing northward, he spent the summer and part of the fall on the island of Mackinac, finding occupation while there in a grocery store, conducted by Frederick Hoitt. With health restored to him he returned to Toledo, and passed the win- ter in the employ of Joseph R. Williams, soliciting subscrip- tions for the Blade, in which he met with ordinary success. In December, 1854, he again secured a position on the Blade as Local and Commercial Editor, with J. R. Williams, afterward President of the Michigan State Agricultural College, as proprietor and editor-in-chief. Ile held this post for a little over a year, since which time he has had no direct connection with any paper, except as an occa- - sional writer and correspondent. In January, 1855, he edited and published the first business directory of Toledo, ALL, FLAMEN, JR., was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 11th, 1837, and is the only surviving one of six sons, the others having died in infancy or carly childhood. In 1843 his parents removed to Clifton, where he attended the village school. In 1854 he entered Kenyon College, but left that brethren. In the spring of 1871 he became an active worker, institution at the end of his second collegiate year and com- Ohio, printed in the columns of the Blade. Subsequently he engaged in agricultural pursuits on a farm of forty acres near the city, and on that homestead has since permanently resided. Hle connected himself with the Masonic order in 1858, and rapidly gained an influential position among his in the task of organizing the Northwestern Ohio Masonic Relief Association of Toledo, for the insuring of lives on the co-operative plan. Since its organization he has served as Secretary and Treasurer of this institution, has received and disbursed over $25,000, and has been instrumental in se- curing a membership of 1700. For ten years he was Master of a Lodge, and at the present time officiates as Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, for the Third District. In IS71 he set on foot a plan to raise means for the erection of a monument to the memory of deceased Masons buried in Forest Cemetery, Toledo, and thus for has met with entire success. He has an extensive acquaintance among Masons throughout the Sunte, and is widely and favorably known as an energetic and useful coworker and associate. During IS70 he wrote and published "An Historical Sketch of Karly Masonry in Northwestern Ohio," a pamphlet of sixty four pages, which had a good local sale. Also of late year, he has been a regular contributor to the Masonic Re- viete, published at Cincinnati, Ohio. Since December, 1867,
.
menced the study of law in the office of Chase & Ball. At the age of twenty-one he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the law department of the Cincinnati College, and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1858. In 1860 he formed a copartnership with his father, under the name of Ball & Ball, which firm existed until the war, when, de- siring to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers, he gave notice to his partner of his intention to enter the army ; but before leaving for the field, the firm's practice being large, and his senior partner unable to attend to it un- aided, he recommended his friend, Isaac M. Jordan, Esq., as his successor, with whom a copartnership was formed under the name of Ball & Jordan-Flamen, Jr., retaining a one-third interest in the business. Mr. Ball at his own cx- pense raised a full company of infantry, of which he was elected Captain. Failing to procure the acceptance of his company by Governor Dennison, Ohio's quota being full, and knowing that Kentucky's quota had been refused the government by Governor MeGaffin, Captain Ball marched he has devoted the greater portion of his time to the busi- | his company from Cumminsville, where he recruited it, to ness of buying and selling real estate, with an office at No. 19 Campbell Block, Toledo, Ohio. The following is at once an amusing and an instructive reminiscence of his liter- ary career : " One literary effort in particular do I remem- ber, written several years ago, that went the rounds of the press, and finally returned to the starting point, having in
Colerain township, where he took possession of the Meth- odist camp-meeting grounds, and whither he indueed six other companies to encamp, promising to procure their ac- ceptanee by President Lincoln, to be credited to Kentucky as a part of her quota. A committee was despatched to Washington, and through the influence of Secretary Chase
.
216
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
and Captain Ball's father, who was at that time United | Captain Ball is a Republican. In 1872 he took a promi- States District Attorney for Southern Ohio, Captain Ball's nent part in organizing the Liberal Republican party, and was chosen Presidential elector for the First District of Ohio, on the Greeley ticket. Captain Ball has resided for the past six years in Avondale, a beautiful and thriving suburb of Cincinnati, and is now actively engaged in the practice of his profession in his native city. company and those encamped with him were accepted by the President, who ordered them to proceed to Columbia, where Camp Clay was established, and the Ist and 20 Ken- tucky Regiments were speedily recruited and fully organ- ized. Captain Ball was offered a staff position of whichever of those regiments he might desire, but declined promotion, preferring to remain with the men whom 'he had recruited, not a few of whom had enlisted with the understanding that he would command them. Captain Ball elected to serve in ORGAN, GEORGE W., Lawyer and ex-Member of Congress, was born at Washington, Washing- ton county, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of Septem- ber, 1820. After obtaining the rudiments of his education at the common schools of the neighbor- hood he entered the Washington College. Before he had entered on his sixteenth year he commenced a military career, which, in later life, became a brilliant and memorable one. His brother had organized a company to assist Texas in securing her independence, and in this company George Morgan enlisted as a private soldier. In this service he made a fine record, passing through the grades of Sergeant, Second and First Lieutenant, until, at the age of eighteen, he reached the rank of Captain, and commanded the military post on Galveston island. Re- turning again to civil life he went to Ohio, and in the year 1843 settled at Mount Vernon, in that State. He had de- termined on adopting the legal profession, and now com- menced in earnest the study of the law, completed his course, was admitted to the bar and became the partner of his preceptor. In 1846, however, he left the confliets of the court room to participate again in those of the battle field. Ile went out to take part in the Mexican war as commander of the 2d Regiment Ohio Volunteers. He served under General Taylor until the time of his regiment had expired. In the winter of 1846-47 he was appointed Colonel of the new 15th Infantry, which he commanded under General Scott until the close of the war. For the gallantry of his services at the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, in the latter of which he was severely wounded, he was brevetted Brigadier General in the regular army at the age of twenty- seven. The war ended he returned home and resumed the practice of his profession; but another interruption came, in a shape which attested the high esteem which his abilities and accomplishments had won for him. In 1855 he was appointed Consul at Marseilles, which position he filled most creditably and satisfactorily. In 1858 he was transferred from the consular to the diplomatic service, as Minister Resident at Lisbon. From diplomatic service he went again to the field. When the war of the rebellion broke out, in 1861, he entered the army as a Brigadier- General of volunteers. Ile had command of the 7th Division of the Army of the Ohio, and was with General Sherman at Vicksburg. Ile was promoted to the command of the Ist Corps of the Army of the Mississippi, and was in the 2d Regiment, of which Colonel William E. Woodruff, of Louisville, an experienced officer, was chosen to com- mand. These regiments were assigned to active duty in the Kanawha valley. After serving through the West Virginia campaign in Brigadier-General Cox's brigade, the ist and 2d Kentucky Regiments established a reputation for gal- lantry which was maintained to the end of the war. These regiments, in January, 1862, were ordered mto Kentucky, when Captain Ball, being physically disabled from the ef- feets of typhoid fever to keep up with his regiment, and not desiring to be under pay without rendering to the govern- ment a quid pro quo, resigned his commission. In May, 1862, and before fully restored to health, he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln an additional aide-de-camp in the United States army, with the rank of Captain, on the staff of Major- General John E. Wool, and assigned to duty on the staff of Major-General Irvine McDowell, with whom he served until that gallant officer was relieved from command of the 3d Corps, Army of the Potomae. Cincinnati at that time was threatened by General Kirby Smith, who had successfully raided through Kentucky. Secretary Stanton sent for and asked Captain Ball if he would like to assist in defending his fireside, and on receiving an affirmative reply wrote with his own hand an order to the Adjutant- General to give Captain Ball a fifteen days' leave of absence, who thereupon proceeded to Cincinnati and tendered his services to Major-General Lew Wallace, then in command of that city; General Wallace appointed bim as aide on his staff, and with whom he served until the expiration of his leave of alvence. General Wallace made him the bearer of his official report of the siege of Cincinnati, and immediately upon Captain Ball's arrival in Washington he was appointed by General Hal- leck a member of the commission to investigate the surrender of Harper's Ferry. Captain Ball accompanied General McDowell to St. Louis, whither that officer was sent to investigate the cotton frauds. While awaiting orders he served as Judge- Advocate on the staff of Major. General Cox, then in command of the District of Ohio, and subsequently, until the close of the war, as Assistant Judge-Advocate of the Department of the Cumberland, on the staff of Major-General George II. Thomas, During the war Captain Ball married Kate Follett, youngest child of llon. Oran Follett, of Sandusky, Ohio. In politics,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.