USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 55
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HIOMPSON, M. F., was born, June 7th, 1822, in the city of Wheeling (now West) Virginia, where he was educated. IIe resided there until 1835, when the family removed to Ohio, locating in the village of Hebron, Licking county. Shortly after becoming settled, he entered the service of Cully & Taylor, the most prominent merchants, pork packers, and grain dealers in the place. He lived with the family of the senior partner, receiving sixty dollars the first year for his services in addition to his board. After remaining with them three years he went to Zanesville, where he found im-
mediate employment as a salesman in the dry-goods estab- lishment of Taylor & Brother. His engagement here lasted several years, but being somewhat ambitions to move in a wider held, he resigned his position, and left for Cincinnati, where he anived in April, 1843. He was accompanied by a friend who was under an engagement to enter the employ of Robert Hazlett as a clerk, that gentleman intending to open a dry-goods house on Fifth street west of Race, which establishment was familiarly known as the Bee-llive. Without any friends in the city, without any special letters of recommendation other than testimonials of good charac- ter and capacity for business, and without any great super- abundance of means, he was naturally anxious enough to find employment. It so happened that the proprietor of the Bee-Jlive concluded that he might find him to be of service to him, and he was immediately installed as a salesman in his establishment. During his connection with this house he became largely acquainted with the best families in the city, and numbered among them many warm personal friends. Ile also attended a commercial academy, where he was thoroughly instructed in double-entry bookkeeping, and fitted himself to take charge of the books and counting- room correspondence of a large business. Being desirous of obtaining a position in a wholesale house, where his ac- quirements could be appreciated, he left the Bee-live after several years of service therein, and entered the wholesale grocery establishment of Thomas II. Minor & Co., one of the largest and most successful houses of its kind in the city. At this time he received for his services a salary, not only sufficient to support himself comfortably, but also to en- able him to contribute in some measure to the help of some of his kindred. He remained with this firm for several years, during which time there existed between himself and the partners the most agreeable and confidential relations. At the instance of the senior partner, he was solicited to unite with Charles Fisher-the latter having been a pork- packer at one time-and open a wholesale grocery and commission house, without any cash capital, and without any absolute knowledge of the business save that acquired through a counting-room education. Ile reluctantly con- sented to form a copartnership, and business was commenced under the firm-name of Fisher & Thompson. By close ap- plication and persistent efforts the business of the house, including its commission sales, reached a very respectable amount, although by reason of the depressed condition of the country, the prevalence of the cholera during the sum- mers of 1848 and 1849, and also the great flood during the winter of 1847-48, the profits in the business were not re- munerative, and he withdrew from the concern. During his connection with this enterprise, the firm had all the credit it needed for the prosecution of its business, with ample assets to meet the liabilities. Ile next engaged with the firin of Bates, Whitcher & Co., wholesale dealers in hats, caps, furs and straw goods, taking charge of the books, cor- respondence and finances, which position he retained up to
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the spring of 1854, when he, with W. C. Whitcher as a | of law in connection with Mr. Dennison, whose term of copartner, purchased the stock and good-will of Ira II. Chase, who was then retiring from the hat and cap business. The new firm assumed the name and style of M. F. Thomp- son & Co., which continued until the death of W. C. Whit- cher, which occurred in the year 1862, when it was dissolved by that cvent. He then purchased the interest of his late partner from the estate, assuming and liquidating all the lia- bilities, and in addition to the capital contributed by his late partner, paid to the administrators of the estate a profit of nearly $20,000. He has since associated with him Charles S. Goodrich and Calvin Feeble, under the firm-name of Thompson, Goodrich & Co., and continued the business. At the commencement of the house the sales were small, but steadily increased, and in no small measure remunerative. It has been a matter for congratulation that the credit of the house has always been undoubted, and this has been owing, not so much to the amount of capital invested, as to the fact that their engagements have ever been promptly met, never permitting an open account to fully mature, nor a note to be extended. He united with the Presbyterian Church in 1857, and has held official relations for the past fifteen years in the congregations of which he has been and is a member. Ile has been connected with the Mercantile Library for twenty years past, and was in the Board of Directors in the year 1851. He was married, February 17th, 1853, to Anna Maria Reakirt, and has three children living.
OLLINS, GILBERT G., Lawyer, was born in Essex county, New Jersey, July 10th, 1830. Ile is the son of Andrew T. Collins and Mary (Green) Collins ; his father was of English and Irish descent, his mother of Scotch descent. In the spring of 1839 he removed with his parents to Franklin county, Ohio, and settled near Columbus, where they resided until the decease of his parents, his father being a teacher in the public schools. At an early period he became a diligent and earnest student, and acquired, largely by his own energy and industry, a good education. From 1854 to 1859 he was engaged in teaching, and in preparing himself to enter upon the study of the law, the profession he had long cherished. In March, 1859, he | Newark, New Jersey, where he passed a year, having found commenced the study of law with Messrs. Dennison & Carrington, at Columbus, but before his studies were com. pleted Mr. Dennison was elected Governor of Ohio, and Mr. Carrington was appointed Adjutant-General of the
office as Governor had expired. They continuea m asso- ciation for about two years, when Mr. Dennison, being ten- dered the office of Postmaster General by President Lincoln and accepting the position, Mr. Collins continued the prac- tice. Politically he is a Republican, and has been since the party was first organized, but has never taken an active part in politics. In 1873 he consented to become the Republi- can candidate for the office of City Solicitor of Columbus, and although his party was greatly in the minority, he was elected, and held the office two years, during which time he conducted the business of his department with ability and success. Ile inaugurated a system of retrenchment and reform in the administration of the city government, that has placed the city upon a sound and safe financial basis, and insured its credit at home and abroad. He has been for a number of years past prominently connected with the va- rious interests of Columbus, and has taken an active part in extending and building up the city, and establishing manu- facturing and various other industries and enterprises that are making it a thriving and prosperous community, and benefiting all central Ohio. As a lawyer he stands well, and has an extensive practice. llc is a man of strict in- tegrity, and possesses the confidence and estecm of the community.
ECHMANN, CHARLES V., Civil Engineer and Lawyer, was born, October 13th, 1820, in Rothenfels, Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, and is the fifth of eleven children, whose parents were Ludwig and Euphrosine ( Fink ) Bechmann, both natives of Baden, and died there, Ile re- ceived a liberal education, and in 1845 graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Carlsruhe, Germany. His first oc- cupation after graduation was that of a Civil Engineer in the service of the government, in which he continued until the revolution of 1848 broke out. Having sympathized with this movement and rendered assistance to those engaged in this movement against the government, he as an officer of the army was forced to seek safety in flight, and in 1850 landed at New York. He remained in that city some two months, making window blinds, and thence removed to employment as a trunk maker. In March, 1851, he went to Cincinnati, and became engaged with Architect Rodgers as a draughtsman, remaining with him a year; and subsc- quently practised his profession as Civil Engineer and Ar-
State, and Mr. Collins being left without an instructor in | chitect for five years. At this time he was appointed by the law, was induced to accept a position as Clerk of the Adjutant- General, in which he remained during the early part of the war of rebellion. He nevertheless continued to read law, and in March, 1861, was admitted to practise in the State Courts, and afterwards in the United States Courts. In the spring of 1862 he commenced the practice Secretary S. P. Chase, Assistant Internal Revenue Collector, in which position he served until 1865. He was then elected a member of City Council, serving as such for two years, up to the close of 1866. In 1867 he was elected County Commissioner, and held that office until 1870. Ile then commeneed the practice of law, which, with his duties
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as Magistrate, has confined his attention to the present time. His political views are those.of the liberal Repub- licans. Ile was married, in March, 1850, to Magdalena Gangwisch, who died in 1875, leaving one child. He was married the same year to Margaretta Zwicker.
,IRTLAND, JARED POTTER; M. D., L.L. D., Scientist, was born, November 10th, 1793, in Connecticut, and was the son of Tarhand and Mary (Potter) Kirtland, and grandson of the late Jared Potter, a distinguished physician of Wal- lingford, Connecticut. He was adopted into the family of his grandfather, and from him and the common schools he acquired his early education. His father being largely interested, in 1799 was appointed General Agent of the Connecticut Land Company, and in 1803 he removed with his funily to Poland, Mahoning county, Ohio, From 1807 to ISIo Jared pursued his classical studies in the Wallingford and Cheshire academies. At the age of twelve he was an expert at budding and engrafting, and a student of the Linnean system of botany. He also, with some assistance, managed the extensive orchards of white mul- berry trees established by his grandfather for the cultivation of silk-worms. In ISto his father became alarmed on account of his health, and sent for him to come West; and in May of that year, accompanied by Joshua Stow, of Mid- dletown, Connecticut, he started on horseback for Ohio. At Lowville he was joined by Alfred Kelly, on his way to Cleveland. June 4th the party reached Conneaut Creek, where Judge Stow had landed with General Cleveland's party, July 4th, 1776. At Painesville they met General Simon Perkins, and journeyed with him to Warren, and thence, by way of Youngstown, another day's journey brought young Kirtland to Poland, where he found his father, who had recovered from his supposed dangerous illness. He was soon engaged in teaching school. In ISHI his grandfather died suddenly, and left him his medi- cal library and money enough to attend the medical school in Edinburgh, Scotland. On his return to Wallingford he commenced the study of medicine in the office of Dr. John Andrews, and later in that of Dr. Sylvester Wells, of Hart- ford, Connecticut, both of whom had been pupils of his grandfather. In 1813 he was well fitted to enter Edin- burgh College, but the war with Great Britain prevented ; and as the medical department of Yale College would go into operation the ensuing winter, it received and recorded his name as the first on the matriculation book of that insti- tution. The class of that term consisted of thirty-cight members, among whom were Beriah Douglas, father of Stephen A. Douglas, and John A. Tomlinson, father of Mrs. Belknap, the wife of the ex-Secretary of War. While at Yale he received private instruction in botany from Pro- fessor Ives, and in mineralogy and geology from Professor
Sillman, and made also great progress in the science of zoology without a teacher. After one year at Yale his health required him to take a vacation, which was passed at Wallingford during a time of general sickness. As a ply- sician, quasi, he was very successful in administering to the sick. He then entered the celebrated medical school in the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia. In 1815 he returned to Yale and graduated, and at once settled down to practise in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he remained two years, and superintended his grandmother's farm, and in his spare hours studied geology, ornithology, and horticulture. In 1818 he again journeyed to Poland and made arrangements to remove his family. But during his absence he was elected, against his expressed wishes, Probate Judge, and he felt compelled to accept the office, and performed its duties, with the aid of a clerk, until he was invited to settle as a physician in Durham, Connecti- cut, where he remained until 1823, when the death of his wife and daughter occurred. He then settled his business, and with his father, who was on a visit at his house, re- turned to Ohio. Although he did not intend to practise medicine, but to be a farmer and merchant, calls were con- stantly made upon him, and finally he associated with him Dr. Eli Mygatt, an able physician. In 1828 he was elected a representative to the Legislature, where he succeeded in putting an end to close confinement in the State's prison and in deriving a profit from the labor of the convicts, so that he was called " the father of the new penitentiary." Ile continued in the Legislature through three successive terms; in the last he succeeded in carrying through the bill for chartering the Ohio & Pennsylvania Canal. It was opposed by the Beaver Canal Company, which had pre- viously obtained a charter. In 1837 he accepted the Chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, in the Ohio Medi- cal College, at Cincinnati, and continued -in that institution until 1842, when he resigned. In 1848, when the first geological survey of Ohio was made, he took part as an assistant of the natural history of the State. His reports embrace a catalogue of the fishes, birds, reptiles, and mol- lusks of Ohio, and were published in the Boston Journal of Natural Sciences and in the Family Visitor. Ile com- menced a cabinet of Ohio mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and a perfected cabinet of the land and fresh-water shells of Ohio. The Legislature stopped the survey, and ulti- mately he donated his collections to the Cleveland Acad- emy of Natural History. In 1837 he had made his residence in the neighborhood of Cleveland, where he purchased a fruit farm. In 1841 he accepted the Chair of Theory and Practice and Physical Diagnosis in the Willoughby Medical School, where he lectured one year. In 1843 he filled a similar chair in the new medical department of Western Reserve College, in Cleveland, and continued in it until 1864. In 1834 he announced the existence of scx among the naiades-this was in Vol. XXVI. of the "American Journal of Art and Science." He decided that the fresh-
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water shells of Ohio were of different sexes, not hermaphro- | in the morning and continue until seven in the evening. dite, as had been supposed. The translators of the Ger- man." Encyclopedia Sconographie " attempted to refute it. But Professor Agassiz said : " Dr. Kirtland's views are entirely correct, and have been sustained by my own and the German naturalists' investigations." Siebold, Dr. Burnett, Charles Knight's " English Cyclopedia," and Isaac I.ea also sustained his views. Ile made other most wonderful discoveries among the fishes. Space will not permit the recounting of his successes in scientific fauning; but he experimented constantly from 1812 to 1847, with great results. In 1861 the College of Williamsburg, Massa- chusetts, conferred upon him the degree of L.L.D., but at home he is known as " The Sage of Rockport." When the war of the rebellion came he offered his services to Gover- nor Todd, and as Examining Surgeon for the recruits of the old regiment at Columbus. Later, he was detailed to examine several thousand men who were drafted. IIe donated all of his pay to the bounty fund of Rockport and fin Purdue College (evenings), working during the day.
to the Soldiers' Aid Society. Ile was President of the State Medical Society of Ohio for one year, and for many years President of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Sciences and of Kirtland Society of Natural History, in Cleveland. At the age of seventy he declined to lecture on any subject, believing that economy of time was as necessary to intellectual success as financial success. Ile had printed over his table the motto, " Time is money ; I have none of either to spare." Of his long life and great labors more than half have been given to the public with- out compensation. When by long and tedious experiments he found fruits especially adapted to Ohio, slips, seeds, and young trees were gratuitously distributed throughout the country. Ile received the title of Philosopher from the American Philosophical Society, in January, 1875. IIe was married in 1815 to Caroline Atwater, of Wallingford, Connecticut. Three children were born to them, but only one lived-the wife of Charles Pease. In 1824 or 1825 hre was again married to Hannah Fitch Toncey, of Newtown, Connecticut. Those who are qualified to judge of him say, " Ilis eminent success in the field of science is attrib- utable to his untiring industry and in his inextinguishable thirst for knowledge." He is still living.
EHRENBATCHI, IION. JOIIN, Member of the Sixty-second General Assembly of Ohio, was born at Rochester, New York, June 29th, 1844, of French parentage. Left motherless at the tender age of three years, and compelled, through the poverty of his father, to go into the workshop in his eighth year, he entered that school of hardship and toil which has given to the world its ablest orators, states- men, and leaders. Ile first commenced work in a woollen manufactory, being necessitated to begin work at six o'clock
lle obtained the rudiments of a common school education by walking from the shop two miles to a night school, and after school walking home, a distance of two miles more, and doing this without his supper, and after working hard for twelve hours each day. This he continued for five winters. In 1857 his father bound him as an apprentice to a blacksmith. He served out his time, and in April, 1860, for the first time left his home, going to Peterborough, Ontario, and landing there with ten cents in silver as his worldly possessions. Greatly desiring to be a machinist, he here learned that trade, and at the expiration of his time started for Ohio, reaching. Cleveland in August, 1863. IIe worked at this trade in Cincinnati, Ohio, Evansville and Indianapolis, Indiana, and Nashville, Tennessee, at which place he was employed by the government on the United States Military Railroad during a portion of the war. In 1865 he returned to Indianapolis and went through a course While at Evansville, in 1864, he connected himself with the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' Union, No. 5, of Indiana, and in the same year was elected Vice-President of Union No. 4, of that State. In 1865 he was elected Special Cor- responding Secretary of Union No. 4, with instructions to open a correspondence with the various trades' organiza- tions throughout the State, with a view to obtain mutual action on the eight hour question. In the fall of the same year he was elected Secretary of the Grand Eight Hour League of Indiana. Mr. Fehrenbatch was elected as dele- gate to the special sessions of the National Labor Union, held in New York city in July, 1868. In the fall of 1870 he returned to his old home in Rochester, New York. Ilcre he remained six month3, working with untiring energy and zeal for the building up of the Union in that city, and with very flattering results. In September, 1872, he was elected President of the Machinists' and Black- smiths' International Union, at a convention of that body, held in Cleveland, Ohio. He started in April, 1872, on an organizing tour through the Southern, a portion of the Middle, and the Western States, and met with great suc- cess. Ilis labors were continued until the meeting of the International Union, in Albany, New York, in September, 1872, when he was re-elected by a vote which showed that his labors were duly appreciated. Shortly after the conven- tion, in connection with M. A. Foran, William Saffin, and Ilarry Walle, he commenced an agitation which resulted in the organization of the Industrial Congress of the United States, of which he was elected the first President. From the adjournment of the congress up to the present time he has labored assiduously for the advancement of, not only the interests and welfare of the machinists and blacksmiths of America, but to ameliorate the condition of all who seck a livelihood by honest industry. Ile was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, on the Republican ticket, from Cuyahoga county, in 1875. Ile was married at In-
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dianapolis, May 20th, 1865, to Margaret Wells. His wife dying in 1869, he married, in 1872, Lucetta Barnes, of Cleveland. Hle has three children, a son and two daughters.
TUMPS, HON. JOSEPH C., Member of the Sixty-second General Assembly of Ohio, was born in Hocking county, Ohio, January 20th, 1824. Hle is the son of Peter and Mary (Culp) Stumps. llis father was a farmer, and his advantages for an education were limited to the winter terms of the district school. Here he grew to manhood. Taught school seven years; served as Justice of the Peace two terms. He learned the trade of wool-carding and followed it seven years. lle was married in May, 1844, to Malinda Julian, and in 1863 removed to Van Wert county, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits, and where he still re- sides. Ilis wife having died, he married, in 1872, Dorothy Conrad. He was elected to the lower Ilouse of the Gen- eral Assembly, on the Democratic ticket, in October, 1875, and is holding this position at the present time (April, IS76).
ITCHCOCK, HON. PETER, Lawyer, and Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was the youngest of eight children of Valentine and Sarah Hitch- cock, of Cheshire, Connecticut, and was born October 19th, 1781. His parents were pions, and the influence of their fidelity in his early religious training and instruction was never obliterated by the cares and temptations of a busy public life. Like many others who have risen to posts of distinguished usefulness and honor, he was dependent, in part, on his own exertions for the means of securing a liberal education. He graduated at Yale College, in the class of ISO1. Hle then pursued the study of law in the office of Barzillai Slosson, Litchfield, Connectient, and in 1803 was admitted to practise. Soon after he established an office in his native town, and, December 12th, 1805, was married to Nabby Cook, daugh- ter of Elam Cook, of the same place. The fruit of this marriage has been ten children, of whom three have died- two in infancy, and the other a promising youth at the age of nearly fourteen. llis surviving children-three sons and four daughters-he lived to see settled in life and occu- pying positions of respectability and usefulness, and what was yet more grateful to his heart, all the professed follow- ers of Christ. In 1806 he removed with his family to Ohio, { public services of the sanctuary. A leading element in his and in June arrived at Burton, Geauga county, which he Christian character was a steadfast integrity in obeying his convictions of duty. He was no stranger to deep religious sensibility, but the fitful impulses of emotion were not needed to ronse him to action. In taste and feeling he was opposed to artificial parade and show, a lover of republican simplicity of style and manners, and at the same time a pat- adopted as the place of his permanent residence. Here he experienced the privations and inconveniences incident to a new settlement in a wide and almost unbroken wilder- ness ; and in order to provide for his family he united with the duties of his profession the labors of clearing and cul-
tivating his farm, and of the school-room. In 1810 he was elected to the lower House of the General Assembly of the State, his district embracing the territory now comprised in the counties of Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Iluron, and Erie. In 1812 he was chosen to the Senate; his district including, in addition to the above, the present counties of Medina, Summit, and Portage, Having been re-elected, in the sessions of 1815-16 he was chosen Speaker of the Senate. In 1816 he was elected to repre- sent his district in Congress; that district being composed of the whole Western Reserve and the counties of Colum- biana, Stark, Richland, Holmes, Tuscarawas, Knox, Wayne, and a part of Carroll. In February, 1818, he was elected by the Legislature one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and by renewal of the appointment he secured two consecutive terms of seven years each. In the fall of 1833 he was again chosen to the State Senate, and in the sessions of 1834-35 occupied the Speaker's chair. In 1835 he was restored to the Bench of the Supreme Court ; and in 1845, after an interval of three years devoted to legal practice, was re-elected to the same office. Ilis last term closed in 1852, making twenty-eight years of ser- vice in the highest judicature of the State. In the spring of ISso he was chosen to the Convention for revising the Constitution of the State, and took a prominent part in its transactions. The record of the important and responsible positions which he occupied is itself the best evidence that he had won from his compeers and fellow-citizens no ordi- mary esteem and confidence in his integrity, wisdom, and patriotism. In legal acumen, clearness, and justness of comprehension he had few superiors, while in conscientious- ness and purity of purpose in the discharge of his official duties he was second to none. Ilis private character was . no less pure than his official. From the outset of his career he was a decided friend and promoter of education, morals, and religien. Long before he professed a personal interest in the gospel he was an earnest advocate of its principles. None seemed more anxious than he that its institutions should be sustained, or more pleased when they were crowned with the divine blessing. On the 4th of March, 1832, just twenty-one years before the day of his death, he publicly professed his faith in Christ, and united with the Congregational Church of Burton, of which, until liis death, he remained a blessed and valuable member. In this relation, indeed, he was a model which many might imitate with marked benefit to themselves and the interests of religion. When at home nothing but real infirmity in himself or family was ever permitted to detain him from the
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