USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 40
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 | Part 76
ICKINSON, HON. RODOLPHIUS, was born, De- cember 28th, 1797, at Whately, Massachusetts. I laving graduated at Williams College he located in Columbus, Ohio, teaching school for a time, and afterwards reading law with Gustavus Swan. After his admission to the bar he opened a law office at Tiffin. In 1824 he was appointed Prosecuting Attorney at the first term of the Comt of Common Pleas held in Seneca county. In May of 1826 he took up his residence at Fremont, then Lower Sandusky, and in the following year married Margaret Beaugrand, daughter of John B. Beaugrand, one of the original settlers of Lower Sandusky. Mr. Dickinson was a member of the Board of Public Works of Ohio from 1836 to 1845. Ile was the leading spirit in the several schemes of internal improve- ment, especially in the matter of the Wabash and Eric Canal, the Western Reserve and Maumee Road. During the era of financial depression in 1837-38, his prudent counsels contributed largely to save the progress on the public work from indefinite suspension. In 1846 Mr. Dickinson was elected to Congress, and was re-elected in 1848. During his second term he died, at Washington, District of Columbia, March 20th, 1849, leaving a widow and seven children.
ERRICK, HON. WALTER F., Attorney-at-Law, was born in Leroy, Genesee county, New York, October 22d, 1822. Ilis father was a native of Berkshire county, Massachusetts (where the family of the previous generation resided), but removed to Wellington, Ohio, in 1827. His an- cestors were active participants in the revolutionary war of 1776. The family trace their lineage back to a famous Danish prince of the ninth century. The coat of arms, sur- mounted by a bull's head regardant, and bearing the words " Virtus Nobilitat Omnia," is still in the family. Mr. Hler- rick was educated at the schools of the village, and at the academy at Ashland, Ohio. Ile was engaged in clerking from 1845 to 1848, when he engaged in business for him- self with fair success, and rapidly won attention by his energy, integrity and general ability. In 1854 and 1855 he served as a member of the Ohio Legislature, still continu- ing his business until the fall of 1859, when he was again elected to the Legislature for the years 1860 and 1861. When the war of the rebellion broke out he, with other members of the Legislature, among whom were Generals Garfield and Cox, commenced drilling preparatory to en- tering the army to maintain the Union. August 9th, 1861, he was appointed by Governor Dennison Quarter- master of the 43d Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In January, 1862, was commissioned Major of the same regiment, and soon after was ordered into active service in the field in Missouri and other States. For nearly three years more he was with the regiment in camp, on the march, or leading its columns on the battle-field. Hle as- sisted at the capture of New Madrid and Island No. 10, then went with the army as it advanced upon Corinth, Mississippi, remained there fighting almost daily, until the evacuation of the place by Beauregard early in the summer of 1862. Ile was with his command at the battles of luka and Corinth, October 4th, 1862, at which time nearly one- half the officers of the regiment, including the gallant J. 1 .. Kirby Smith, were killed. Ile was promoted to a Lieu- tenant.Coloneley October 12th, 1862, and remained in active service in Mississippi and Alabama during the remainder of 1 862-63, and was with General Fuiler's division at the cap- turing of Decatur, Alabama, in March, 1864. Ile was with the Army of the Tennessee, under General McPherson, at Snake Creek Gap, Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain ; with General Dodge when the advance was made upon Atlanta, and in the engagements there on the 18th, 22d and 28th of July. His health becoming so impaired by three and a half years of active service, he was under the neces- sity of leaving the army, which he did about the year 1864. He was brevetted Colonel and Brigadier-General, March 13th, 1865, for " gallant and meritorious conduct during the war." From 1869 to 1873 he was acting as Confidential Agent of the Internal Revenue Department. Since then he has been in the practice of his profession. He was first connected with the Free-Soil party, then with the Repub-
505
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
lican, rendering his best service to each. As a legislator he | the war, and joined the 15th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer was possessed of a varied fund of valable and apposite knowledge, which made him trenchant and able in debate, ever sustaining temperance, free soil, Republicanisan and the Union cause.
AUNDERSON, THOMAS W., Lawyer, was born, October 17th, IS29, in Indiana, Indiana county, Pennsylvania. When he was seven years of age his father, Matthew D. Saunderson, removed with his family to Youngstown, Ohio. Here Thomas recch ed the basis of his education. For three years after leaving school he devoted himself to civil engineering. At the end of that time he resolved to follow ; the advice of friends and the bent of his inclination by adopting the law as his profession. The result verified the wisdom of this step. After his admission to the bar his talent and industry won a speedy recognition. He took an active part in polities, and in 1856 was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Mahoning County. In September of 1861 he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the 2d Ohio Cavalry, remaining in the service until the close of the war. He served under Generals Blount, Rosecrans, Thomas and Sherman, being in the engagements at Franklin, Chicka- mauga, Chattanooga, the battles about Atlanta, Waynes- borough, Resaca, Averysborough, Bentonville, and the last scenes in the realistic panorama of the rebellion. Passing through the intermediate grades of rank, he was honorably discharged, August 8th, 1865, as a Brigadier-General. Ile returned to Youngstown and resumed the practice of his profession, in which he has been eminently successful. General Saunderson was a delegate at large to the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia, in 1872, and is prominently known in the politics of the State. Ile mar- ried Elizabeth Shoemaker, of Pennsylvania, December 19th, 1854.
6
ALPIN, WILLIAM G., Civil Engineer, was born in county Meath, Ireland, May 30th, 1825. He belonged to the agricultural class, and was edu- cated at private academies in Ireland and Eng- land. In 1839 he was appointed Assistant in the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and England by the British government, and continued in that employment until 1845, when he engaged in railroad engineering, which he continued until he emigrated to the United States, in 1847. Hle settled in Cincinnati in November of the latter year, and pursned the private practice of his pro -. fession until 1849, when he was appointed City Surveyor. After the creation of the office of City Civil Engineer he was for many years Assistant to that officer. In i86t he raised a company of volunteers, for three years, or during
Infantry, and during the four years following held the sue. cessive ranks of Captain, Major and Lieutenant Colonel, besides serving as Engineer and in other responsible official positions. After he was mustered out, in 1865, he went to Europe, and on his way back to the United States, July 4th, 1807, he was arrested on board the steamship " City of Paris," in the Bay of Queenstown, and taken to Dublin. He was there kept in close confinement for five months, without trial or investigation, and then arraigned for a crime known only to British law, and called " treason felony." Having been convicted, on false testimony, he was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. He spent four years in solitary confinement at London and Chatham, and was then released, when he immediately instituted pro- ceedings against Great Britain through the United States government for the recovery of $1,000,000 damages for false imprisonment. After his return to the United States, in 1871, he was employed to superintend the building of a stone arch bridge by the city of New York, whence, after a residence of fifteen months, he returned to his old home at Cincinnati and engaged again in private professional duty, which 'he continued until elected City Engineer, in April, 1875.
EID, SAMUEL VENABLE, Merchant of Cin- cinnati, was born at Lynchburg, Virginia, July 19th, 1833. His father, Rev. William S. Reid, D. D., a. native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and a graduate of Princeton College, was called to the Presidency of Hampden Sidney College, in Prince Edward county, Virginia, at the age of twenty- two years. Having there married the daughter of Colonel Sammel Venable, then one of the most prominent and influ- ential citizens of the State, he removed to Lynchburg in 18OS, where he resided during the remainder of his life and established the First Presbyterian Church of that city, in which arose the first difficulty which finally led to the rupture of the church into the two branches of Old and New School. Samnel Venable Reid attended the grammar school of Lexington, Virginia, and passed thence to the Washington College, now known as the Washington and Lee College, but afterward matriculated at the University of Virginia, whence he graduated in 1855. Ile spent two years at his home in Lynchburg, and then in the fall of 1857 removed to Cincinnati, where he associated in part- nership with William B. Williams, under the him-name of Williams & Reid, and engaged in the provision business. The outbreak of the war, in 1861, found this firm engaged in pork-packing, but he immediately raised a company of volunteers in Kentucky, which he armed and equipped at his own expense, and with them returned to his native State, where he joined her army, afterward known as the
64
1
500
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOP. EDLA.
Confederate army. His company being assigned to the ist ; he set sail from Havre, and in the following September Arkansas Regiment of Infantry, he held the rank of Captain landed in New York city. Ile repaired at once to Phila- delphia upon the recommendation of his brother, who had preceded him. Here he worked at his trade for a year and a half, when he was induced to try his fortune in the Queen City of the West. Accordingly, in 1837, he arrived in Cincinnati. One year and a half after arriving in that city he spent in the tannery of Abraham Fullwhiter, on Deer creek. Yet being unsettled, about this time he made a trip to Missouri, with the design of locating a tannery for him- self. Not finding things to suit him out West, he returned to Cincinnati in 1839 and resumed work with the old firm. Here he continued until 1841. In this year he formed a partnership with Girard Dickman, opened a small leather store on Main street and established a tannery on Central avenue, where his establishment, the Western Tannery, now is. Mr. Eckert himself took charge of the tannery and Mr. Dickman of the store. This partnership lasted seventeen years. In 1858, by mutual consent, a division of the property was made, the tannery, of course, falling to for about two years. Ile was then promoted to Major and transferred to the staff of Major-General Ransom, then Chief of Cavalry in Tennessee, and afterward in command of troops around Richmond. In June, 1864, he was trans- ferred, by order of the War Department, to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he became Chief of Provision Sup- plies, both foreign and domestic, and was also assigned to special duty on the staff of Major-General Whiting. When General Bragg became Chief of the Department of the Carolinas, in February, 1865, with head-quarters at Wil- mington, Major Reid was assigned to his staff, and re- mained thercon until the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston to General W. T. Sherman, at Greensborough, North Carolina. Being released on parole, he returned to Lynchburg, and in the fall of 1865 engaged in planting cotton on a plantation in Arkansas, below Helena. The speculation proved unsuccessful, and in the fall of 1866 he returned to Cincinnati, where he resumed his business as a pork-packer. Ile relinquished the packing in 1868, and ; Mr. Eckert. These had been seventeen years of uninter- since that date has given his whole attention to dealing in | rupted prosperity, but the more adventurous and progres- provisions. In 1872 he was elected Vice-President of the ! sive tendencies of Mr. Eckert made this separation a Chamber of Commerce, and was re-elected in 1873. 'At the close of the latter term he was appointed one of the Commissioners to represent the Chamber of Commerce at necessity. Only two years after the dissolution of the partnership he found it necessary to open a store for his trade on Main street above Fourth; this was soon after re- the Industrial Exposition, and still fills that position. lle ! moved to his present place, on Main between Fifth and Sixth streets. Ile is now numbered among the wealthy
has been one of the most energetic and active among the originators of the Haddock Nail Machine and Nail Mann- ' men of Cincinnati, with a large and profitable business in facturing Company of Cincinnati, and of which he is now Vice-President.
it, most prosperous period. No man in the community stands higher than Mr. Eckert. His whole business career has been an honorable and an enviable one, and he ranks deservedly high among the successful men of the country. In 1843 he was married to Elizabeth Reice, of Cincinnati. Mrs. Eckert is a native of this country, and was born in 1824. Iler father, John Reice, came to America in 1817, and the same year located in Cincinnati. Ile was one of the first pork dealers of Cincinnati. Mrs. Eckert is a woman of uncommon strength of mind and character, and
CKERT, MICHAEL, was born at Scheidt, Rhein- fals, Bavaria, November 15th, 1815. Ile is the youngest son of Christian and Margaret Eckert. His father was a miller, farmer and lumber- dealer, who was able to provide liberally for the education of his children ; although he died , has been most emphatically a " help-meet" to her husband. when the subject of this sketch was but four years of age, the boy's education was fully arranged for, and not until he was thirteen did he leave school to begin the earnest work of life for himself. For a few years after finishing his schooling he worked on the farm and in the mill. At the OHNSON, JOHN T., Merchant, was born in 1815, in Lynchburg, Virginia. The death of his par- ents, which occurred when he was between seven and eight years of age, left him, like his brothers and sisters, to be cared for by relatives. The subject of this sketch had the good fortune to be well raised and afforded the usual educational facilities of the time. Of an active and energetic disposition, young Jolinson soon became restive under dependence, and re- solved to strike out for himself. Ile engaged in the manu- facture of plug tobacco, an important industry in his native age of seventeen, having decided upon a business for him- self, he was apprenticed to learn the tannery trade. In two and a half years he found himself so skilful in his trade as to fit him to take a position in any tannery as a journey- man. Accordingly for a while he worked in that capacity, until the stories he heard of life and fortune in America determined him to emigrate to this land of golden dreams, After passing through the usual troubles of young able- bodied men subject to military servitude, when attempting to migrate from the " Fatherland," at last, in August, 1835,
507
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
State. He plodded on for several years, but discovered | things, and a man who has the respect of the community. As husband and father he is the well-beloved head of a happy family circle.
CKINNEY, SAMUEL S., Lawyer, was born, August 21st, ISIS, on a farm two miles north of l'iqua, Miami county, Ohio, of American par- entage. llis father was a l'ennsylvanian by birth, and removed to Ohio towards the close of the last century, thus becoming one of the pioneer settlers of the State, and settled on the farm where his chil- dren were afterwards born. Samuel lived on the farm until he was twenty-two years old. He received a good common school education, and then commenced the study of law with Gordon N. Mott, of Piqua, afterwards Territorial Judge of Nevada. Ile was admitted to the bar in 1842, and commenced the practice of his profession in Piqua, where he has ever since resided. In 1850 he took his brother, IIon. J. F. Mckinney (whose biographical sketch appears in this volume), into partnership with him, which firm still continues, their practice being large and very lucrative. Ile has always been a Democrat, but has uni- formly declined office. Ile was Mayor of Piqua in the early part of his career, excepting which he has held no offices. Ile married, 1848, Elizabeth Manning, of Piqua, who died in the following year. He was again married, in 1854, to Caroline, daughter of Rev. Joshua Boucher, well known throughout the State for his services in the pulpit. She died in the year succeeding her marriage. Ile has never married again.
that his industry and perseverance, unaided by capital, could not compete successfully with the established firms, Mr. Johnson was compelled to retire from business in a straitened financial condition. His venture, however, had not been without good results. It gave him an opportunity to show himself a young man of industrious habits and high moral character. After he had wound up his affairs in Virginia, Mr. Johnson determined. to go West and settle. As the result of careful prospecting he fixed upon Cincinnati, where he located permanently in 1847. With- out loss of time he began the manufacture of plug tobacco. Ile subsequently formed a partnership with Mr. Joseph E. Roberts, under the now well-remembered firm-name of Roberts & Johnson, whose plug tobaccos attained a wide celebrity. The fum prospered, and Mr. Johnson was en- abled to pay off the indebtedness he had contracted in Virginia, dollar for dollar and with interest. Mr. Johnson aided materially in bringing about the establishment in Cincinnati of a warehouse for the sale of leaf tobacco at auction, and immediately his firm added a leaf department to the manufacturing business, Mr. Johnson being the prin- cipal buyer and seller for his firm. His face and voice were well known in the salesroom, where he was sure to be when there was business to be done. lle did many a poor seller a good turn by bidding his tobacco up to fair figures. No tobacco was too good nor any too ordinary for Mr. Johnson to buy. Ilis firm had custom for all sorts, and he bought freely, thus helping to make Cincinnati an im- portant tobacco market. The leaf business of the firm reached such proportions under Mr. Johnson's skilful direction that it was thought expedient to confine the operations of the house to that specialty. During the war, and for a year or two after its close, Messrs. Roberts & Johnson did an immense trade, realizing large profits, a ONES, AQUILA, Physician, was born, April 12th, 1807, at Bean Station, Granger county, Tennes- sce. Ile is the eighth of ten children, the issue of William Jones and Deborah MeVey. Ilis father was a native of North Carolina, and by trade a housebuilder. William Jones moved to Ohio, March 4th, 1810, locating near Wilmington, Clinton county, where he resided until his death, August 7th, 1841. The mother of our subject was a Virginian. She died in 1849. Aquila received careful training at home, and at- tended the best schools until he was sixteen years of age, in the meantime teaching one year at Wilmington, Clinton county. In 1825 he was appointed by the Commissioners of Clinton county to fill the office of County Auditor, which he held for two years. While teaching school he had read " Blackstone," with a view to adopt the law as his profes- sion. Ile afterwards abandoned this design, and in the fall of 1824 began reading medicine under Dr. Loami Rigdon, of Wilmington. For the next four years he was a close student under good instruction. In 1829 he entered satisfactory state of affairs which continued until the firm was dissolved. The division of the assets gave to each partner a handsome competency. Mr. Johnson continued the business in his own name, until within a year or two since, with all his old time energy. His health began to give way under the strain ; he was not disposed to go " on the road" to solicit custom, as his younger competitors were doing, and he resolved to withdraw from active business as soon as he could bring it to a satisfactory close. Ile has since been gradually disposing of his large stock with a view to an early retirement. Mr. Johnson resides in the Sixteenth ward of Cincinnati, in a handsome residence, surrounded by the comforts which he has earned by years of unremitting toil. For one term he represented his ward in Conneil, but the course of municipal legislation was not to his liking, and he declined to take any further part in politics, Ile is an earnest and exemplary member of the Methodist Church and a faithful laborer in the Sunday- school cause, to both of which he has contributed liberally of his time and means. He is strictly temperate in all the Ohio Medical College, and attended lectures faithfully.
50S
BIOGRAPHICAL. ENCYCLOPEDIA.
In IS 30 he began practice at Washington Court House, the delivered his first anti-slavery speech upon the Indian Fayette county, Ohio, remaining there about one year. In I83t he moved to Bainbridge, Ross county, where he pur- sued his profession until the winter of 1834-35, when he took up las residence at Wilmington, Clinton county. Dr. Jones ha, since lived in Wilmington, where he has built up a large practice. He has been a frequent contributor to medical journals, his articles attracting considerable atten- tion from the profession. For many years he has been an active member of the Ohio Medical Association. In poli- ties Dr. Jones is a Democrat. Ile cast his first vote for Henry Clay. His temperate, upright life and courteous address, have merited the regard of the community in which he lives. November 24, 1830, he married Caroline A. Dawson, of Frederick county, Virginia, by whom he is the father of six children.
GIDDINGS, JOSHUA REED, Lawyer and States. man, was born, October 6th, 1795, at Athens, Bradford county, Pennsylvania. In infancy his parents removed to Canandaigua, New York, where they remained until he was ten years old, 9 when they emigrated to Ashtabula county, Ohio, among the first settlers in that part of the Western Reserve. Ilis only opportunities for study were such as he could command in the family circle, and in the intervals of hard labor upon his father's farm. In 1812, when less than seventeen years old, he enlisted as a soklier for active ser- vice, being accepted as a substitute for an older brother. Hle was one of the expedition sent to the peninsula north of Sandusky bay, where, in two battles on one day with a superior force of Indians, it lost nearly one-fifth of its num- ber in killed and wounded. At the close of his short term of service as a soldier, he commenced teaching school. In 1817 he began the study of law with Hon. Elisha Whittle. sey, and was admitted to the bar in 1820. In 1826 he was chosen a Representative to the State Legislature, and after serving one term, declined a re-election, and devoted him- self to his profession until 1838, when he was elected to Congress as the successor of his instructor, Hon. E. Whittle- sey. Having been for some years' an active abolitionist, and entering the House at a time of great excitement on the subject of slavery, he not only took his stand by the side of John Quincy Adams as a supporter of the right of petition, but became at once a prominent champion of the abolition of slavery, and also of the slave trade in the Dis- trict of Columbia as well as in the Territories under the jurisdiction of the national government; and he became distinguished chiefly by the zeal and pertinacity of his opposition to slavery. His first attempt to speak against the slave trade in the District of Columbia was made Feb- ruary 11th, 1839, when he was silenced by the enforcement of a rule enacted for the purpose of preventing the disens- sion of that and kindred topies. On February 9th, 18441,
war in Florida, which, he contended, was begun and car- ried on in the interest of slavery. In the autumn of 1841 the " Creole," an American vessel, sailed from Virginia for New Orleans, with a cargo of one hundred and thirty six slaves. The slaves rose upon the master and crew, and after a brief struggle, in which they killed one man, took possession of the vessel, and entered the British port of Nassau, where their right to freedom was recognized and protected. This event created an intense excitement in the United States, and the Secretary of State, Hon. Daniel Webster, in a letter addressed to Edward Everett, United States Minister at London, avowed the intention of the government, in the interest of the owners, to demand in- demnification for the slaves. On March 21st, 1842, Mr. Giddings brought the subject before Congress in a series of resolutions, in which it was declared that, as slavery was an abridgment of natural right, it could have no force beyond the territorial jurisdiction that created it; that when a ship left the waters of any State, the persons on board ceased to be subject to the slave laws of such State, and thenceforth came under the jurisdiction of the United States, which had no constitutional authority to hold slaves; that the persons on board the " Creole," in resuming their natural rights of personal liberty, violated no law of the United States, incurred no legal penalty, and were justly liable to no punishment ; and that any attempt to re-enslave them was unauthorized by the constitution, and incompatible with the national honor. These resolutions created so intense an excitement that, yielding to the importunities of some of his party friends, who thought the time unfavorable for their consideration, he withdrew them, declaring his inten- tion to present them on > future occasion, Whereupon John Minor Botts, of Virginia, introduced a resolution de- claring that the conduct of Joshua R. Giddings in offering the resolutions to be "altogether unwarranted and un- warrantable, and deserving the severe condemnation of the people of this country, and of this body in particular." The previous question being moved, he was thus denied the right of self defence, and the resolution was adopted by 125 yeas to Go nays. He instantly resigned his seat, and called upon his constituents to pronounce their judgment in the case, which they did by re-electing him by a large majority. Ile resumed his seat May 5th, after an absence of six weeks, and held the post by successive re-elections until March 3d, 1861, making his whole period of service twenty-two years. lle was one of the nineteen members of Congress, who, in 1843, united with John Quincy Adams in an address to the people of the United States, warning them against the an- nexation of Texas, and declaring that its consummation "by any act or proceeding of the Federal government, or any of its departments, would be identical with dissolution." In 1844 he united.with the same gentleman in submitting a report ( upon a memorial from the Legislature of Massachu- setts) in which it was distinctly declared that the liberties
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.