USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 24
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ALSTEAD, MURAT, Journalist, was born in But- ler county, Ohio, September 2d, 1829. His father, Colonel Griffin Halstead, was a native of North Carolina, being born at Guilford in that State, but as early as 1805 he emigrated to Butler county, with his parents. Ilis mother was Clar- issa Willits, of Ohio. Until the age of nineteen Murat passed the summers on his father's farm and the winters in school. In 1851 he graduated at Farmer's College, near Cincinnati, and immediately afterwards took up his resi- dence in that city. At the age of eighteen he became a contributor to the newspapers, and before leaving college had acquired considerable facility as a writer of fiction and light miscellany. After locating in Cincinnati, he aban- doned his intention of studying law, and began to write for various papers, first for the Gazette, then as local of the Enquirer, as news editor of the Atlas, and associate editor of the Columbian. On March 10th, 1853, he commenced working on the Commercial, as its city editor; in May, 1854, bought a small interest in that paper, and in 1866, on the death of M. D. Potter, the principal editor, the
entire control of the paper passed into his hands. He has ever since been editor-in-chief and lending stockholder in the Commercial. From 1854 to 1866 the good will of the pagar alone, to say nothing of its property, had quadrupled in value, and it had become, chiefly through his efforts, one of the most influential pu ers in the West. The Commer. cial is independent in politics. Mr. Halstead is an able writer, attacking with acknowledged force a wide range of subjects. For corruption, whether in high or low places, he knows no charity, and seems to take the greatest pleasure in his bold assaults on rings and wrongs everywhere. He is himself incorruptible. Ile is not only a fine writer, but also a speaker and lecturer of great force and eloquence, appearing to the highest advantage as an extempore speaker. Ile inherited great constitutional vigor and endurance, and seems to shrink at no amount of labor. Ilis personal ap- pearance is admirable, together with his manners and ex- tensive and ready knowledge of men and things, giving him the assurance of a pleasant and favorable reception in any company. Hle does not always take the right side of a question, nor does he always advocate his side in the wisest manner, but his integrity and public spirit are always patent. Ile has travelled extensively, and acquired much foreign information. All in all, Mr. Ilalstead is a man of many marked and distinguished traits, and is admittedly one of the first journalists of the country. In March, 1857, he was married, and has a family of sons and daughters.
LOCKSON, AUGUSTUS P., Lawyer, was born at Zanesville, Ohio, September 14th, 1820. His father was born at Milton, Delaware, and his mother at Paris, Virginia, and both went to Zanesville before their marriage, which occurred in 1810. For many years his father was engaged in the iron-foundry business, from which he retired at the age of fifty-five. Augustus P'. was educated at what was then called a select private school, which he attended until he reached the age of eighteen, when he passed two years in his father's foundry. In the meantime, from 1834 to 1840, during which period his father was postmaster of Zanesville, he acted as clerk in the post office. At the age of twenty he commenced to read law, under Judge Stillwell. He applied himself to study with great diligence, and was admitted to the bar in 1843. Since then he has practised his profession in Zanesville. In 1853 he was elected to the office of City Solicitor, to which he was twice re-elected, vacating that office in 1859, when he became a member.of the Board of Public Education. This position he held for six years. In 1849 he was appointed Master Commissioner of the Court of Common Pleas, for a term of three years. He discharged the duties of this position so faithfully that he was reappointed at the expiration of his first term, and again in 1855, vacating the office in 1858, having held it
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for nine consecutive years. Mr. Blockson has built a large and lucrative practice in the civil and in the criminal courts, and has been engaged in most of the important eases before the Zanesville courts. His fees in a single case amounted to eleven hundred dollars. Mr. Blockson and his family work and failed; tried again and measurably succeeded. The result of his reading and writing was to make him more ambitious than heretofore, and to confirm in him a purpose to seeme an education. To this purpose he deter- mined to devote the earnings of his clerkship, and in the have been largely interested in the growth and improve- | month of November, 1849, he entered " Farmer's College," ment of Zanesville, still owning Blockson's Row, built by his father. Mr. Blockson stands high in Zanesville as a citizen and as a member of the bar. August 28th, 1846, he married Mary P. Hewitt, whose grandfather was one of the pioneers who landed at Marietta, on the 7th of April, 17SS. in Ohio. He had money enough to carry him through one session. That ended, he left the college and went to teach- ing common school, to carn the means with which to help himself forward still further in his collegiate course. Ile continued teaching a year, during which time he kept even pace with his class in all the studies. At the end of the year, in the spring of 1851, he again entered the college, and, by hard study, graduated in June, 1852. Immedi- ALDEN, JOIN M., Doctor of Divinity, was born, on the 11th of February, IS31, at Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio. He comes of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and his forefathers were among the early settlers of Virginia. Soon after the settlement of Kentucky, his great-grandfather settled near Boone's Station, and in the year 1800 his grandfather, Benjamin Walden, removed to Ohio and located in Ilamil- ton county. When John was two years old he was left motherless, and after his grandfather's death, in 1841, home- less; for although his father married again when the boy was thirteen, it did not prove a happy event for him, and at the age of fourteen years, estranged from his father, and an exile from his father's house, he became entirely dependent upon his own resources. The next four years of his life were crowded with varied experiences, growing out of his efforts to live " from hand to mouth." He had been trained to farm work, and this kind of labor formed, during a por- tion of the time mentioned, his means of support-not his sole means, however. Ile varied his occupations by peddling, his stock at first being notions, then pictures, and then books. Ile had a taste for mechanics, and readily acquired " the use of tools." After working for a time with an ingenious artisan, the handy man of the neighborhood to make and repair pumps, harvesting cradles, etc., he went to Cincinnati and turned his hand successively to casting type, roofing flat boats, plumbing, putting up patent medi- ately after graduating he was appointed Tutor in the Preparatory Department of his Alma Mater, and labored in that capacity for two years, receiving, in return, more than enough to pay off all the debts he had contracted during his college course, and have a small sum (it seemed large) left. All this time he had been nursing the purpose of being a journalist. While in college he had written a good deal for newspapers, and to some extent successfully. In 1854 he resigned his position in Farmer's College, to go into newspaper work in earnest. Ile revived the Inde- pendent Press, a paper that had been published at Fairfield, Illinois, and pushed it with energy and ability. The course of the paper, however, was unpopular. Its editor was op- posed to the Kansas- Nebraska policy that then prevailed, and was an earnest advocate of temperance. The prinei- ples he supported did not win very hearty patronage in " Egypt," and his journalistic enterprise failed. Ile elosed it out in the spring of 1855. In May of the same year he commeneed reporting for the Cincinnati Daily Commercial, and continued his connection with that paper as reporter and correspondent, until November, 1856. During the campaign of that year he travelled over Ohio and Indiana, reporting meetings for the Commercial, and oeeasionally, in both those States, was ealled to the stump in support of Fremont; and even in Kentucky he made two Fremont speeches. In the spring of 1857 he went to Kansas, to devote himself more fully and directly to the promotion of cines, working in a provision store, and finally to carpenter. ing, which he selected as a trade. Ilis apprenticeship at this was sufficiently long for him to acquire a fair measure of skill, and then he returned to the country and worked as a journeyman, obtaining journeyman's wages, although under age. The day he was eighteen years old he entered a store as a clerk, calling into requisition knowledge he had gained. On that day he was the possessor of one plain suit of clothes and a silver half-dollar. He had not been at school for seven years, and for the same length of time he had read but little save some of the novels which had at one time formed his stock in trade. He remained in the store some nine months, and during that time borrowed and rend several standard works, tried his hand at a little literary Free-State principles, and in April of that year, at Quin- daro, on the Missouri river, ten miles above Kansas City, he, in company with Edmund Babb, started a paper called the Chindowan, which word is the Wyandotte for " Leader." The paper, in national politics, was Republican, and in local politics was an ardent advocate of the radical Free- State doctrines. It was ably conducted, and exercised no small degree of influence. Its editor was soon assigned a place in the Free-State ranks, and was earnestly active in every way in the promotion of the principles he espoused, and in March, 1858, he was elected a delegate to the Leavenworth Constitutional Convention, and as Chairman of the Committee on Address was the author of the "Address of the Convention to the American People." He
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was already a member of the Topeka Legislature, and in | powers unimpaired, and capable of an amount of 'labor that May, 1858, was elected State Superintendent of Public In- |few can endure. To sum up his character and career, it struction, under the Leavenworth Constitution. On the may be said that he is a representative example of the energy and success of the best class of Western men. 12th of June following, his connection with the Chindoroan ceased, and during July he canvassed the territory, under the direction of the State Central Committee, in opposition to the Lecompton (pro-slavery) Constitution. The defeat of that instrument practically settled the question of free- dom in Kansas, and he felt at liberty to turn his efforts in another direction. He had been active and earnest in political work, but it was because political work was, for the time being, the work of duty. Now he turned away from promises of rapid and brilliant political promotion, and went back to Ohio. There he made application to the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in September, 1858, he was admitted as a minister on trial, and appointed to North Bend Circuit. After two years of circuit work he was appointed to a charge in Cin- cinnati. For four years he did pastoral work there. While pastor of the Ladies' Home Mission, he also became Corre- sponding Secretary of the Western Freedmen's Aid Society, to which he was exclusively assigned in 1864. Ile was the chief mover in the organization of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866, and was its first Corresponding Secretary. In 1867 he was elected to the General Conference, and was the youngest delegate ever chosen by the Cincinnati Conference. In the same year he was appointed Presiding Elder of the East Cincinnati District, and in May, ISOS, was elected by the General Conference Assistant Agent of the Western Meth- odist Book Concern, the duties of which position he per- formed in the earnest and indefatigable way by which he achieved success in other work. So satisfactory was his performance of his duties here that he was re-elected to the position in 1872, when the agents were made co-equal; and at the General Conference of that year he received the highest number of votes (160) for the Episcopaey of any one not elected. Hlis Conference has placed him at the head of its delegation for the General Conference of 1876. He took a prominent part in the temperence movement in Ohio in 1874. For the past ten years he has been promi- nently active in the Sunday-school work in Cincinnati and southwestern Ohio; and for more than fifteen years he has been closely identified with the moral and religions history of Cincinnati. During the years of his residence there, he
ORTON, HENRY VICTOR, Grand Seribe of the Sons of Temperance of Ohio, was born, August 22d, 1804, in Union Village, Washington county, New York, and is a lineal descendant of Barna- bus Horton, who was born in Mourley, Leicester- shire, England, in 1591, and died at Southamp- ton, Long Island, July 13th, 1686. Of the second generation there is no aecomit, but of the third generation it is recorded that Jonathan Horton, grandson of Barnabus, was born December Ist, 1683, and married Mary Tuthill, who was born April 3d, 1683. They were the parents of eiglit children. In the fourth generation Jonathan Horton was born April 24th, 1713, and married Eunice Forster, who was born December 23d, 1721. They were the parents of seven children. In the fifth generation Jonathan Horton was born May 5th, 1745, was married February 29th, 1768, at eleven o'clock P. M., and died May 24th, 1777. His wife, Elizabeth King, was born July, 1749, and died October 5th, 1823. Their children consisted of four girls and one boy, Jonathan K. In the sixth genera- tion Jonathan K. Horton was born June 11th, 1777, and married Elizabeth Tice, November 13th, 1So3; three boys and one girl were born of this union, viz. : Henry Victor, George, Eliza, and Lewis, In the seventh generation Henry Victor Horton was born August 22d, 1804, married in Oswego, New York, December 25th, 1829, and died January 3d, 1871. His wife, Sophia Matilda Dougherty, was born, March 7th, 1812, in Manlius, New York. Of the children born of this nion, eight are now living, as follows: Lewis V., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, September Inth, 1834. Elizabeth T., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb- ruary 10th, 1836. Alonzo C., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January Ist, 1838. Angeline G., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 14th, 1841. Harry K., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 10th, 1842, Thomas C., born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Angust 3d, 1848. Maria J., born in Union Village, New York, Angust 30, 1850. Samuel C., born in Cincin- Imati, Ohio, April 30th, 1855. Jonathan K. Horton, the has been honorably prominent in the work of education. ; father of the subject of this sketch, was a man of respecta- Ile was a member of the Board of Education in the city, and as Chairman of the Library Committee he was promi- nent in seenring to the Free Public Library the legal pro- visions through which it now receives annually $17,000, to be expended in the purchase of books. Although he has had a prominent part in the stirring events of the last twenty years, and holds positions of honor and responsibility, which the Methodist Episcopal Church has nsnally only intrusted to men of ripe years, he is not yet forty five, with physical
ble attainments. During several years he was a representa- tive in the New York Legislature, and to the close of his life enjoyed the fullest confidence and respect of the com- munity in which he resided. The mother, Elizabeth Tice, was a daughter of Katrum Van Tassel, made illustrious in Washington Irving's legend of " The Sleepy Hollow." She was a woman of sterling character, and from her Dutch ancestors inherited principles of industry, thrift, persever. ance, piety, and uprightness, which she so strongly stamped
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upon the impressible mind of her eldest son, Henry Victor, Grand Scribe, which position he occupied for nearly seven- that they became prominent and permanent traits of his teen years. The following extracts are from the report of his death, prepared by the efficient and life-long temperance reformer, Evan J. Morris, the present Grand Scribe of Ohio: " When I removed to Cincinnati in 1867, and called upon him first, it was a pleasant meeting, for, some time before I saw him personally, I had learned to respect and love him. We continued devoted friends until his death. I know of no person, in the whole list of our membership, for whom I had a higher regard. For many years Brother Horton occupied a seat in the National Division, and was highly esteemed by the entire membership. He was looked upon as the head and life of the whole order in Ohio; and for many years was connselled by all in prosperity and ad- versity. " When difficulties arose in divisions, a letter from Brother Horton was considered sufficient to settle all dis- putes. During the last year of Brother Horton's life, his sufferings were very great, so much so that he was not able to attend to the duties of his office with that promptitude which had hitherto characterized his business life. He was, however, always found at his post when he was able to walk. His strong will, energy, high sense of responsi- bility, and devotion to the order, would not allow him to be idle. Those who were present at the annual session of the Grand Division of Ohio, in 1870, will never forget the feeble condition of our departed brother. Thongh weak and emaciated, he appeared before that grand body and presented the business of the session in an able manner. Ilis voice was weak but firm, and his conduct commanded the attention, sympathy and respect of his fellow-members, who felt that it would be the last time he would meet them in annual convocation. Later, the Executive Committee often gathered around his bed to receive words of direction and advice. We could scarcely think him a dying man, he was to an apology for the dealer in the " accursed stuff." He ; so cheerful, so full of hope and energy. His attachment to the great cause of his life was so great, that almost his last words were ' The Order,' . The Sons of Temperance.' Before he died he said to me (E. J. Morris), ' I have lived to a good old age; I have been called for a purpose ; my days are numbered; I know that my Redeemer liveth.' The look he gave me into his heart, the frank expressions of his deep convictions, so firm, but earnestly spoken, rested like a beacon star upon my sorrowing heart. A few days before his death, his wife requested him to dismiss all cares and anxieties from his mind, but it was impossible, and up to his last hour he was actively interested in the great re- form so dear to his heart." IIe died in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 3d, 1871. Ilis funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever attended by the Sons of Temperance. The services were held in the Fifth Presbyterian Church, of which he was a member. The members of the Grand and subordinate Divisions, in full regalia, were under the com- mand of the Grand Marshal, E. J. Morris, and escorted the remains to the church, and thence to Spring Grove Cene- ftery. At the grave the ceremonies in behalf of the order character. He was ever noted for his honesty and mflexi- ble will. Notwithstanding hi, stein and severe judgment, concerning himself as well as others, at the slightest vari- ance from a rectitude whose standard would admit of no deviation, he had a heart full of kindness, and gathered friends around him wherever he went. After his marriage he removed, in November, 1834, to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the largest part of his life was spent. About this time the Washingtonians were storming the strongholds of Bacchus, tearing his victims from the clutches of death, and return- ing them to their homes and families, washed, clothed, and in their right minds. Mr. Horton at once united with that band of temperance reformers, and did not cease to work so long as he lived, for the despised and degraded drunkard. Possessed of an ardent temperament he threw his whole soul into the labor of reclaiming the fallen. With him it was a work of love, and his zeal was unbounded. Though others failed he never grew weary, and often said, " This cause is a righteous one, the handmaid of religion; " and he carried that standard while his right hand gave him strength. Ile made it a duty to look up the poor slaves to intoxicating drinks, and to endeavor to place them on their feet again. The church at this time had not seen the im- portance of this great reform; and a minister rebuked him upon a certain occasion, for going out on the Sabbath day to visit drunkards, instead of devoting it to worship in the house of God. He replied, " My good brother, I go to clothe them in their right mind, that they may receive the words of your preaching." To save the drunkard and overthrow the rumseller was his great idea: he was full of sympathy for the former, but on meeting the latter could not restrain his scorn and indignation, and would not listen regarded the rumseller as a criminal against the laws of God and man, and ranked him with the thief and assassin. There are thousands to-day in all parts of the State of Ohio, who are ready to bear testimony of the tenderness and love he ever cherished for the deluded victim of drink ; but no person ever found him merciful toward the man who dealt out the poison behind the screen; such an one was to him a polluter of society, a blot upon our civilization. Ile never spared his time or money in saving a brother man from that lowest depth of degradation-a drunkard's grave. When the Order of the Sons of Temperance was first organized in New York city, Mr. Horton at once made arrangements to have the order transplanted to Ohio; and after securing the required number of applicants, succeeded in obtaining the charter of Ohio Division, No. 1, which bears date of August Ist, 1844. By his untiring energy, assisted by many noble men, the Grand Division of Ohio was, on the 12th day of May, 1845, instituted, and he was elected Grand Conductor. On the 14th of October of that year the first session was held, and Mr. Horton was elected
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were conducted by Rev. J. F. Forbus. After which Gen- they are designed. He has also received from various eral Samuel F. Cary delivered a brief and eloquent eulogy | parts of the United States numerous emphatic indorsements up on the character of the deceased. Day after day for nearly forty years had he canied within his breast a heart full of the tenderest pity for the fallen drunkard, and an in- flexible hostility to the traffic in all kinds of intoxicating drinks. Now it had ceased to beat ; and as we laid him to rest we felt that we consigned to the grave a warrior who had fought a good fight. The Grand. Division of Ohio adopted, April 29th, 1875, a resolution, an extract of which is: "For the erection of a suitable order monument in Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton county, Ohio, to the memory of our late Grand Scribe, II. V. HORTON, in token of our respect for him as a man and Son of Temperance, and our appreciation of the services which he rendered this Grand Division as Grand Scribe, during a period of some seventeen consecutive years."
ROSSIUS, JOIIN, Inventor, Patentee, and Manu- facturer of the School-house Ventilating Stoves, Ilot Air Furnaces, and Stove Dealer, was born in Speyer, Rheinpfalz, Germany, in 1833. After passing eight years at school, according to the laws of that country, and acquiring a fair educa- tion, he went into his father's shop, where he learned the trade of a tinner and stove manufacturer. Like many of the youth of his country, he had determined to make the United States his home, and having become a thorough mister of his trade, he left home and landed at New York when seventeen years of age, and in the following year (1851) arrived in Cincinnati, where he has ever since re- sided. For four years he worked as a journeyman at his trade; but following the true German type of thrift, and having laid by a few hundred dollars during these four years, he started in business for himself in 1855. With some changes in location, demanded by the exigencies of his trade, he has steadily moved onward, his business rap- idly increasing every year. Ilis success had been so great, and the demand upon his resources so pressing, that in 1871 he was obliged to erect his present large establishment on Main street opposite the Court House. Departing some- what from the ordinary routine of the tin and stove trade, he has for many years made a specialty of warm air fur- naces and school-house ventilating stoves, and on these he has received several letters patent from the United States government. These improvements combine those essentials that are mostly requisite for both heating and ventilating houses of assembly, and thus securing and maintaining the best possibie condition of health of mind and body. After having tested these thoroughly for ten years in the public schools, the Board of Education in Cincinnati has recently, in a most flattering manner, pronounced these furnaces and stove, to be the best now in use for the purposes for which
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