USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 12
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ELSHI, HION. ISAAC, was born in Belmont county, Ohio, July 20th, ISHI. ITis parents were Pennsylvanians, and his father, Crawford Welsh, was one of the pioneer settlers of the county. llis father being a farmer, he pursued that calling until shortly after he became of age. Ile then married Mary A. Armstrong, daughter of Thomas Armstrong, and removed to Beallsville, Monroe county, Ohio. Here he-engaged in mercantile pursuits, and, as was
the custom with many merchants at that time, in the pur- chase, preparation and shipping of tobacco. In this business he was very successful, but he preferred the life of his earlier years, and in 1854 he retired from merchandising and purchased and removed to a farm on Captina creek, where he subsequently resided and where he died. In early life Mr. Welsh was a Whig, but on the dissolution of that party, in 1854, he united with the Fillmore party, and sup- ported that gentleman for the Presidency. He was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1857 by the united vote of Americans and Republicans, and re-elected in the same manner in 1859. At the expiration of this term of office he was chosen State Senator from the Belmont and Harrison district, and served in that body two years, In ISGS he was Presidential Elector for the Sixteenth District, and was chosen to carry the vote of Ohio to Washington. lle was elected Treasurer of State in 1871, and held the office for two terms. Ilis death occurring just six weeks before the expiration of his second term, his son, Le Roy Welsh, discharged the duties of the office until the incoming of the new Treasurer. Mr. Welsh was strongly opposed to the extension of slavery, and during the war his entire sym- pathy and support were given to the Republican party. While residing at Beallsville he wrote a series of articles in defence of the State Bank of Ohio, which attracted a great deal of attention and were extensively published and no- ticed. Ile also wrote an essay on the "Agricultural and Mineral Resources of Belmont County," for which a prize was awarded him by the State Agricultural Society. He kept fully up with the times in which he lived; was a ready, careful writer, and frequently employed his pen in the dis- cussion of current topics. Although never in any sense an office-seeker, he became closely identified with the politics of his time, at the bid of the people who knew him to be a man of strictest integrity and unblemished character. In legislation he was practical and common sense in his views on all subjects. As a speaker he made no pretensions to oratory, yet his presentation of a subject under discussion commanded universal attention for its fairness and practi- cability. He was a Cumberland Presbyterian, and by bis death the church lost one of its strongest supporters. Ile died at his home in Belmont county, November 29th, 1875.
COLLINS, JAMES HI., Lawyer, was born, June ISth, 1836, in Allegheny county, Maryland, and is a son of Johnson and Esther Collins. llis father's family emigrated from England to Amer- ica in the seventeenth century and settled in Dela- ware; and the family have been members of the Methodist denomination ever since its organization in America, several of them having acquired eminence as ministers of that church, He removed with his parents to Belmont county, Ohio, in 1841, and he was occupied with
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farm duties for nine years thereafter, attending the district | dicions capitalist. During the war he was prominently and school in winter. In 1853 he engaged as a teacher in the schools of the neighborhood, in order to obtain means suffi- cient to complete his education at the Barnesville Classical Institute, then under the control of John J. Thompson and Samuel Davenport. Having acquired the requisite instruc- tion, he commenced the study of law with Hon. John Daven- port in 1855, and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court in 1857. Ile commenced the practice of his profes- sion in Barnesville in 1859, in which he has continued ever since, and controls a large and lucrative practice in the courts of the State and United States, having been retained as their regular counsel by several corporations, among which are the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company and the First Nuional Bink of Barnesville. In political faith he is a Democrat. Ile was a member of the National Convention which assembled at Chicago in 1864 and nominated General MeClellan for the Presidency. In 1873 he was the candidate of the Democratic party in Belmont county for member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention, but was defeated by Judge Cowen. Ile was married in 1857 to Rachel Jud- kins, who died September 14th, 1872. Ile was married a second time, October 2d, 1873, to Harriet F., daughter of Benjamin and Ann M. Davenport.
HOWARD, DRESDEN WINFIELD HOUSTON, ex-Senator, Capitalist and Farmer, was born in Dresden, Yates county, New York, on the 3d of November, 1818, of American parents and of English ancestry. In 1821 his parents removed with him to Fort Meigs, Ohio, on the south bank of the Maumee river, where they landed on the 17th of June in that year. In 1823 his father, Edward Howard, removed to Grand Rapids, eighteen miles above Fort Meigs, where he died in 1841. Such education as he received was ob- tained during a rather brief attendance at the school of the Indian mission, ten miles above Fort Meigs. He worked with his father upon the fuum during his youth, but as he grew up he became an Indian trader, and continued in that line of business until he was about thirty years of age. Ile assisted in the removal of the Pottawatomie and Ottawa Indians from the Maumee to the west of the Mississippi river, and continued to trade there until 1842, when, on the death of his father and brother, he returned to Ohio, After a few return trips up the Missouri river, he settled down to farming, stock raising and wool-growing. In 1852 he re- moved to Alamakee county, Iowa, where he bought of the government a tract of land, upon which he laid out the town of Winfield, now Harper's Ferry, on the west bank of the Mississippi. He returned to Ohio in 1853, where he has been engaged in agricultural pursuits ever since, adding to his business as fumer the work involved in various official positions and numerous enterprises as an energetic and ju-
effectively active. Ile was appointed by Governor Dennison a member of the State Military Committee, in which posi- "tion he was continued by Governors Tod and Brough, and throughout the struggle he was busy assisting in organizing regiments and forwarding general military preparations. Politically, he has been a steadfast and consistent Repub- lican. Ile was the eleetor from the Tenth Congressional District of Ohio at President Lincoln's first election, and was a delegate at the Baltimore Convention, which nomi- nated Mr. Lincol for his second term in 1864. In 1870 he was elected a member of the State Board of Equalization, In the fall of 1871 he was elected to the Ohio State Senate, where he served with honor for two years. Ile is President of the Toledo & Grand Rapids Railroad Company, which road is to be built from Toledo to Council Bluffs. He is also Treasurer of the Toledo & Southwestern Railroad Company. Ile is Director of the Commercial National Bank of Toledo, of which institution he is a charter mem- ber. He was married, in October, 1843, to Mary Black- wood Copeland, of Delaware county, New York. He bas two children, a son and daughter ; the son he named after the noted chief and warrior, Osceola, of the Seminoles of Florida, for whose ability he had great respeet. Ile has al. ways been the true friend of the Indian, at whose hands he received many favors and kindnesses during his early life, and in later years had much influenee among the ab original tribes. President Lincoln, being informed of his disposition and influence with the Indians, and recognizing these quali- fications, offered him the Superintendeney of the tribes on the Upper Missouri river, but the appointment was declined, as he had never sought or held public position of any kind.
TROUD, CLARENCE EUGENE, M. D., Physi- cian, Surgeon and Dentist, was born at Bloom- field, Ontario county, New York, January 14th, 18.47, and is the son of Dr. C. T. Stroud, a distin- guished dentist of Samlusky, Ohio. His mother was Lucy F. Allen, of Ontario county, New York; her ancestors were among the earliest settlers of western New York State, and related to Ethan Allen. Ile was edu- eated in the High School at Palmyra, New York, Leaving there in 1865, he entered his father's dental office at San- dusky, Ohio, in order to secure a thorough knowledge of the dental profession. Subsequently, in connection with his father, be practised dentistry in Sandusky for five years, dur- ing which time he was preparing himself for the medical profession, devoting his time more specially to anatomy, comparative and surgical. Ile matriculated at the University of Michigan, medical department, Ann Arbor, in the antumm of 1871 ; attended the lectures in and followed the course of studies prescribed by said college. In the spring of 1872 he entered the Detroit Honteopathie College, from which
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institution he graduated in the summer of 1872 ; during this ' million dollars, six hundred thousand of which were paid session he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy, and in. He was elected President and conducted its affairs with was elected Professor of Anatomy in the Hahnemann Insti- tute, Detroit, which positions he filled during the coming session. Thereafter he commenced the practice of his pro- fession at Wyandotte, Michigan, remaining there about one year, and succeeded in securing an extensive practice, de- voting himself chiefly to the surgical branch of the science. While there he wrote a series of letters, which were pub- lished in the Wyandotte Enterprise, entitled, " Guide for Emergencies, or Surgery for the People." In the spring of 1873 he returned to Sandusky, Ohio, where he is at present in the active practice of his profession. He is an able physi- cian and useful citizen. Ile was married in 1870 to Belle Leiter, daughter of A. Leiter, of Bellevue, Ohio; she died September 17th, 1871. great success. From 1850 to 1860 he served as Treasurer of the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad Com- pany, and managed its finances with great sagacity. Ile is still a Director of the company, although he resigned the treasurership in 1860. He first demonstrated the practicabil- ity of establishing a profitable commerce direct with Europe from the lake ports. In IS58 he despatched three of a flect of ten merchant vessels, laden with lumber and staves, from Cleveland to English ports, and from that time the foreign trade with the lakes has been kept up. Very few took a deeper interest in educational and philanthropic causes, or labored more earnestly for their advancement and success, than Mr. Ilandy; but he never held or sought positions of political prominence. He served as a member of the Board of Education with Charles Bradburn, and was one of that gentleman's ablest coadjutors in reorganizing and improving the school system of Cleveland. They succeeded in placing it on a basis of lasting prosperity. In the Sunday-school for more than forty years he was a constant, active worker. For seventeen years he was President of the Industrial Home and Children's Aid Society, of which he had ever been one of the most liberal supporters. He is a member of the Pres- byterian Church; has always been sincere and earnest in his life-long connection with it, yet free from the cant of many religious societies. He has ever been broad and lib- eral in his views. He is dearly beloved by children, with whom he is very generous, and is now as young in heart as the little ones he loves so much. Ile is justly entitled to the name of philanthropist, on account of his substantial, effective labors for the relief of the poor and helpless and in rescuing the vicious and ignorant. Ile has made three ex- tended visits in Europe for the purpose of investigating the financial, religious and educational systems of the Old World, and Cleveland has been largely benefited by the valuable knowledge he gained on those occasions, In March, 1832, he was married to Harriet N. Hale, of Gen- eva, New York, by whom he had one daughter, who was married to John S. Newberry, of Detroit.
ANDY, TRUMAN P., Financier and Banker, was born in Paris, Oneida county, New York, January 17th, 1807. Ile received a good academical education, and made preparations for entering college, but at the age of eighteen, after having been employed in stores in Utie and New Hart- ford, he accepted the clerkship in the Bank of Geneva, On- tario county, in that State. Five years later he resigned and removed to Buffalo, to assist in the organization of the Bank of Buffalo, in which he held the position of teller for one year. In 1832 he removed to Cleveland, having been in- vited there for the purpose of resuscitating the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, established in 1816, but which had failed and its charter been purchased by Hon. George Ban- croft of Massachusetts, the historian. Ile accepted the post of cashier, organized the bank, and it prospered until 1842, when its charter expired and a renewal was refused by the Legislature. In the financial crisis of 1837 it had been com- pelled to accept real estate in settlement of the estate of its involved eu-tomers, and thus became one of the largest land- owners in the city. At the close of the bank Mr. Ilandy was appointed trustee to divide this property among the stockholders, which he accomplished in 1845. In 1843 he had a well-established private banking house under the firm- name of T. P. Handy & Co. In 1845 he organized the Commercial Branch Bank, under the act of Legislature of that year, authorizing the establishment of the State Bank of Ohio. He was Cashier and acting manager. The success was so great that the stockholders realized an average of twenty per cent. on their investments for a period of twenty years, when its charter terminated in 1865. In 1861 he ac- cepted the Presidency of the Merchants' Branch of the State Bank of Ohio, which had been crippled by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Company. Under his skilful manage- ment it rapidly recovered lost ground. In 1865 the bank reorganized as a national bank, under the provisions of the United States national banking laws, with a capital of one
CVEY, ALFRED HENRY, Lawyer and Author, was born, April 28th, 1843, in Fayette county, Ohio. IIe is descended from an old and well-to- do family; is of Scotch descent on his father's side, and of English on the maternal; his grand- father, James MeVey, removed to Ohio about the beginning of the present century. Ile received his elemen- tary education in the common schools of the State, where he remained until he had attained his seventeenth year, when he entered the Southwestern Normal School, at Lebanon, Ohio, where he was prepared for college. While but a youth he was noted for his studious habits, and before
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leaving the common school he was familiar with a wide | he began to practise law in the city of Dayton. In Novem- range of English literature. He entered the volunteer ser- ber, 1852, he removed to Defiauce, Defiance county, Ohio, where he again entered upon the practice of his profession, and where he continued in successful practice for several years. In the fall of 1800 be removed from Defiance to Perrysville, Wood county, Ohio, and there entered into a partnership with Hon. James Murray, Attorney General of the State, which continued until August 8th, 1862. At that time he entered the army as Lieutenant Colonel of the 100th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. For about a year there- after he was engaged with his regiment in campaigning throughout the State of Kentucky. Then, attached to the 23d Army Corps, he went into Tennessee, and eventually joined General Sherman in his march upon Atlanta, Georgia. Long before this he had been promoted to the rank of Colonel, through the resignation of the original colonel of the regiment. He remained actively engaged in the Atlanta campaign until the 6th of August, 1864, when, in a charge on the enemy's works near Atlanta, he was very dangerously wounded, and disabled for life. In this same charge he lost over one-third of his command in killed and wounded ; and for his own meritorious conduct in the affair he was brevetted a Brigadier-General. This engage- ment, however, terminated his military service, for, in con- sequence of his wound, he was obliged to resign and leave the army. While with his regiment he was engaged in the following battles : Lenoir Station, Knoxville, Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Dallas, Etowah Creek, Atlanta and many others of less importance. Returning to Olio after leaving the army, he resumed the practice of his profession. In April, 1867, he was appointed Collector of Customs for the District of Miami, port of Toledo. In 1871 he was re- appointed to the same position, which he held until No- vember, 1874. In December of that year he was appointed General Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion of Toledo, the duties of which position he continued to fulfil for a year, at the end of which time he became a city missionary in Toledo, and the work of that calling he still continues to perform. For twenty-three years past he has been a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. vice in 1862, and served in the 79th Ohio Volunteer In- fantry. Early in 1864 he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, from which institution he gradu- ated in the classical course of 1868. While in college, al- though in all things a good student, he was especially marked for his literary attainments, and was considered as the best debater in the university. After graduation he was elected a tutor in the institution, which position he resigned to enter upon the practice of the law. Mr. McVey is also a graduate from the law school of the Cincinnati College. Ile opened his law office in 1869, at Wilmington, Ohio, and immediately took rank among those who had been long in practice, and evinced unusual ability both in presenting his cause to the jury or in arguments addressed to the bench. In February, 1872, he opened an office in Toledo, where he soon after removed and has since continued to reside, and where, in addition to having a good practice in the local courts, he has more particularly devoted himself to profes- sional duties in the courts of the United States. In addition to his forensie efforts, he has for some years devoted the time usually termed leisure to authorship. He has given to the profession " MeVey's Ohio Digest," published in 1875, consisting of two large octavo volumes. This work has been highly commended by the press, and is considered by the legal profession a standard work. As a proof of its superior excellence, it may be stated that within seven months after its first appearance it had reached a third edition. He has also prepared a digest of the cases decided by the New York Court of Appeals, which is now in press. Ile is now engaged in the preparation of a work, requiring great research and learning, entitled " Christianity before the Law," in which he traces the relation of Christianity to the law under the governments of continental Europe, and also Christianity as a part of the common law of England, preliminary to the discussion of the relations which Chris- tianity sustains to the common and statute law of the United States. Personally, he is tall and well proportioned ; while his countenance betrays the man of thought and great capacity for mental work. He was married, January, 1869, to Auna, daughter of the Rev. William Holmes
ITTSTEIN, GUSTAV C. F., was born in the city of Ilanover, February 29th, 1829; studied at preparatory schools until nine years of age, when he entered the Lyceum of Hanover, which he attended to his sixteenth year as a pupil, at which time his parents removed to Nieuburg, on the
LEVIN, PATRICK S., Lawyer, was born on April 15th, 1815, in county Donegal, Ireland, his pa- rents belonging to the upper middle class and being comfortably circumstanced in life. While he was quite young he was brought by them to I river Weser, which place was, by the then king of Ilan- America. They settled in Adams county, Penn- over, Ernest Augustus, made the place of residence for his father, an engineer in the service of the government. For the two years during which he stayed there he received private lessons in languages, history, drawing, etc., from good teachers. When seventeen years old he entered a sylvania, and there he received his education. Later he removed with his parents to Perry county, Ohio, and there he read law with Hon. John B. Orton. In November, 18.10, lie was admitted to the bar, and very soon afterwards
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mercantile establishment in the old city of Bremen as an apprentice, his term of apprenticeship being four years, After his term expired he entered the large gliss factory of Hermann Meye, near Minden, Prussia, as bookkeeper and correspondent. Having remained there four years, and having for several years contemplated emigration to the United States, he left Bremen in September, 1854, and arrived in New York, from whence he went, after a few days' stay, to Baltimore, where, through the recommenda- tion of a friend, who left Europe a few years before him, he received an appointment as bookkeeper in a large American wholesale dry-goods house. However, not feel- ing quite at home yet in the English language, he left his position, and with a friend started for the far West, then so called, making Burlington, Iowa, his destination. Travel- ling mostly by rail, and the balance from Galesburg, Illi- nois, by stage-coach, the trip was made. He first entered a drug store, and commenced his career by mixing up a lot of putty. After a year in this position he accepted a posi- tion in a hardware store, and in September, 1856, accepted a position in a large wholesale hardware house in Chicago as bookkeeper. In the fall of 1859 he went to Toledo, accepting an offer in the hardware business. Later, in 1861, he took the position of cashier and bookkeeper with a large commission house on Water street, remaining with them until their dissolution, a period of six years. started in the commission business for himself in 1869. In the fall of 1874 he was nominated by the Democratic party and Liberal Republicans for the office of County Auditor, and elected by nearly 700 majority, in the October election. Ile has been a Republican since the party organized, and during the last Presidential election a Liberal Republican, but without ever taking a very active part in politics. He was married in 1858 to Mrs. Caroline Poeschel, from Vienna, Austria.
EAN, HON. EZR.A, Soldier, Lawyer, and Jurist, was born, April 9th, 1795, in the town of Hills. dale, Columbia county, New York, and was descended from an ancient family which settled in Massachusetts in 1630, each successive genera- tion of which appears to have contained some man of eminence in the different departments of life. Dur- ing the first five generations the gospel ministry seems to have been the profession most favored, until about the period of the American Revolution, when lawyers first made their appearance in the family. Among these latter was Silas Dean, who took an active part in the Revolution, and who was chosen by the Continental Congress, in September, 1776, one of the ambassadors, in connection with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, to conduct the negotiations between the confederated colonies and France. Others of the family, less conspicuous, were doing duty in the ranks of the revolutionary army. Ezra Dean, when he was but
nineteen years old, was appointed by the Secretary of War an Eusign in the 11th Regiment of United States Infantry, then doing duty against the British on the northern frontier ; und on February 20th, 1815, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant by President Madison, to take rank from October 1st, 1814, for meritorious conduct in the sortie of Fort Erie, on 17th September, 1814. He was in the battles of Bridge- water and Chippewa; and his regiment held the advance in the storming of Queenstown Heights, in September, 1814. At the close of the war, and before he had attained the age of twenty, he was placed in command of a revenue cutter on Lake Champlain, in which capacity he rendered effec- tive service in guarding the interests of the country against the ever daring class engaged in smuggling. After occupy- ing this position for about two years he resigned the service, and was next assigned to a place in the corps of government engineers who ran the boundary line between the State of Maine and the province of New Brunswick, and was so employed about a year. Ilaving determined by this time upon his future career, he went to Burlington, Vermont, where he became a student at law, under the preceptorship of Governor C. P. Van Ness, and remained with him for two years, and then removed to Plattsburg, New York, where he completed his preparatory course of law study. On October 1st, 1822, he was admitted, by the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of New York, a member of the bar of that State. In 1822, when Ohio was among the young and thinly peopled Western States, he removed to Wooster and entered into the practice of the law, in Wayne and the surrounding counties, Ile devoted his entire energies to the study of the law and the practice of his pro- fession for the succeeding seven years ; and in 1832 he was chosen by the General Assembly, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, his circuit being composed of the counties of Wayne, Knox, Holmes, Richland, Medina, and Lorain. He served in that capacity the full constitutional terin of seven years. Ile took his place on the bench in the beginning of the exciting discussions on the slavery question. In some of the counties of his judicial district, especially in Knos, clubs or combinations were formed to prohibit all discussion of the slavery question; and in some instances they went so far as to commit acts of outrageous violence against those individuals who attempted to address the people on the slavery question. These combinations were made up from both the Whig and Democratic parties, and seemed to represent the sentiments of the people. Judge Dean did not hesitate a moment as to his course of official duty. In every county where these combinations existed, he charged the grand juries that it was their duty to ferret out and indict all those engaged, either in overt acts of violence or in secret conspiracies against the sacred right of free discussion. In one instance his associates were so terrified at the symptoms of violence in the crowd, that they feigned sickness and deserted the bench ; but this did not ferrify Judge Dean : he was there to do his duty. Upon
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