The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2, Part 75

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Cincinnati, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 760


USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 75


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Anderson and Governor Charles Anderson, all children of Major C. Anderson, of the revolutionary army. Two daughters survived the first marriage, Mrs. Charles F. Foote and Mrs. William J. Whiteman. By his second wife he was the father of William A., J. Harrison (a graduate of West Point), Mrs. Thomas II. Wright and Kate L. Ilall. Ile died at Loveland, near Cincinnati, July 4th, ISGS.


AYLOR, SAMUEL CHARLES, D. D. S., Dentist, was born, July 30th, 1835, in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, of American parentage and of English and Hollander descent. Ile was edu- cated in the Halifax High School, in his native county, and sindied dentistry with Dr. II. II. Martin, in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, where he remained for two years. Ile then attended the regular courses of lectures in the Ohio Dental College, Cincinnati, from which he graduated in 1856. Ile commenced the practice of dentistry in Perry county, Pennsylvania, where be resided until 1859, and thence removed to Monroe, Michigan, where he abode for seven years. In October, 1866, he changed his residence to Toledo, where he has ever since been engaged in an extensive and remunerative practice, enjoying the heaviest patronage of any of his as- sociates in that city. Hle attributes his success to his thor- ough knowledge of operative dentistry. lle is a member of the State Dental and American Dental Associations, and also of other similar organizations. Ile is warmly attached to the Masonic order, being a member of Toledo Lodge, No. 144, Fort Meigs Chapter, No. 29, and Council No. 33. lle was married, December 2d, 1862, to Angeline Manning.


various important offices he was appointed Adjutant. Gen- cial of Ohio, in which position be had charge of organ- izing, equipping and forwarding to the field the troops known as the " Ohio National Guard,;" and it was for " meritorious services " in this connection that he received the successive appointments of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, Brevet Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from the 15th of March, 1865. Immediately after the close of the war he returned to Bellaire, where he resumed his mer- cantile business; and thence, shortly afterwards, removed to Cincinnati to embark in the grain trade. While a resi- dent of the latter city he was appointed Supervisor of In- ternal Revenue for the Southern District of Ohio. In -1873 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Washington, District of Columbia, which po- sition he honorably filled, and resigned, without the least stigma or suspicion resting upon his good name, so common in these scandal-mongering days. lle is now a resident of Bellaire, where he is engaged in the banking business. Ile was married in September, 1854, to Ellen Thoburn, of Bel- mont county, Ohio.


EOMAN, COLONEL SAMUEL, NYE, Soldier and Merchant, was born, October 14th, 1828, in Wayne township, Fayette county, Ohio, and is a son of Samuel F. and Aseneth (Nye) Yeoman. llis father was of English descent, a native of Onondaga county, New York, where also his mother was born, she being of French and Irish lineage. Ilis father was a merchant, who removed to Ohio in 1814, at first locating in Knox county, and finally settling in Fay- ette county, where he resided, with the exception of two years passed in Clarke and Warren counties, until his death, in 1858. Ile was a soldier in the war of 1812, a son of James Yeoman, a revolutionary soldier. Ile repre- sented Fayette county in the Legislature for one term, and was a Justice of the Peace for many years. Samuel was educated in the common schools. When twelve years old he went into his father's store in Washington, Fayette county, where he continued eight years. In February, 1849, he went to California, overland, and passed two years in the mines. In 1851 he returned to Washington, pur- chased his father's interests in his store, and continued the business until the autumn of 1853, when he relinquished it to become a dealer in lands, which latter avocation he pur- sued until 1858, when he again became a dry-goods mer- chant in Washington, and has since resided in that town, where he has prospered wonderfully, being the proprietor of one of the largest dry-goods houses in southern Ohio. During the carly months of the civil war he was Chairman of the Military Committee of Fayette County. Ile was commissioned Major of the goth Ohio Volunteers, June


OWEN, GENERAL BENJAMIN R., Soldier and Banker, was born August 15th, 1831, and is a son of the late Hon. Benjamin S. Cowen ( whose biographical sketch will be found in this volume, as also that of his brother, D. D. T. Cowen). lle received an English and classical education at " Brook's Institute " and another school of similar char- acter in St. Clairsville, whither his father had removed in 1832; and this was supplemented by a practical printer's education in the office of the Belmont Chronicle, of which journal he became editor and sole proprietor when twenty- one years of age. He also studied medicine, but never prac- tised that profession. He disposed of the paper in 1857 and removed to Bellaire, where he was engaged in mer- cantile pursuits until 1860, meanwhile having served as Clerk of the House of Representatives and Secretary of State of Ohio. At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted as a private soklier in the 15th Ohio, After serving in | 14th, 1862, and recruited four hundred men for that com.


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mand in Fayette county. He accompanied the regiment to the field in August of that year, and during their service of three years participated with them in the great battles of Perryville, Stone River, Chattanooga (siege and battle), Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Jonesboro', Pulaski, Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville, besides other lesser engagements and skirmishes. Ile was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1863; to Colonel in the fall of the same year, and was brevetted, December 15th, 1864, for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Nashville, under the eye of General George II. Thomas. Ile was honorably discharged from the service in June, 1865, being mustered out with his regi- ment at Camp Dennison, and soon thereafter returned to Washington, where he resumed his mercantile pursuits, which had suffered neglect during his absence. In October, 186S, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he served two years. In 1873 he was again elected to the upper House of the Legislature, and served other two years, In the fall of 1874 he organized the Dayton & Southeastern Railroad Company, and also the Springhell, Jackson & Pomeroy Railroad Company, and has been President of the former since its organization. He is a Republican in politi- cal principle, and a Baptist in religious belief. He was married in 1852 to Susan M., daughter of Colonel John Comley, of Perry county, Ohio


EATTY, GEORGE STEWARD, D. D. S., Den- tist, was born, September 30th, 1813, in Penfiekl, Monroe county, and is a son of the late Benjamin and Amy Beatty, both Americans and of Irish and Hollander descent. He was educated at Penfield and Victor, New York. When he was about thirteen years ohl his father died, and, his mother marrying again, he went to live with an annt, with whom he remained until he was twenty two years old. One year afterwards he was appointed Constable and Deputy Sheriff of Chautauqua county, New York, which positions he held for two years. In 1835 be removed to Buffalo, where he was engaged in the grocery business for two years, and in ISto he went to Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he com- menced reading medicine, meanwhile studying dentistry. In 1842 he commenced practising the latter profession in Meadville, where he continued for two years thereafter, and then removed to Canton, Stark county, Ohio, where he continued his professional duties for some time. After visit- ing other towns he finally settled in Toledo, in 1865, where he has since resided, and where he takes rank as a leading dentist. He attributes his success to his close application to business and his skill in mechanical and operative den- tistry. He is a member of the Masonic order in good standing, being connected with a lodge in Canton. Ilis political sentiments were originally those of the Whig


party ; but since the demise of that organization he is at- tached to Republican principles. He was married, 1835, to Charlotte Whitney, of New York State.


ILLIAMS, PETER THOMAS, Directory Pub- lisher, was born, May 20, 1812, in Delhi town- ship, Hamilton county, Ohio. This township adjoins the city of Cincinnati. His remote an- cestors were Welsh people of respectability. Their descendants settled in Virginia, and were the owners of - plantations there. During the colonial troubles, which ended with the Revolution, they were true patriots, and warmly esponsed the cause of democratic gov- ernment. The great-grandparents of the subject of this sketch were cruelly massacred by savages during the old French and Indian wars, their houses and barns burned, and their eldest son, after a prolonged resistance, wounded and carried into captivity. Bishop Asbury, in his " Journal," gives a lengthy account of the captivity of Richard Wil- liams, and in the recital speaks of the " wonderful deliver- ances " and "extraordinary combinations of providences " by which the prisoner, after being condemned to death, even- tually escaped and was restored to his family. The bishop afterwards visited Richard Williams at his home, and in his quaint style says he was "a faithful man-his wife a pious woman, and they had meeting at the house." The Wil- liamses were among the oldest Methodist families in Vir- ginia, and their house was not only a place where " meet- ings " were held, but was also a resting-place and home for the pioneer Methodist preacher. Peter Williams, father of Peter T., was the second son of Richard. Ile intermarried with Ann Dugan, daughter of Thomas Dugan, who bore him six sons and one daughter. She was an affectionate wife, a kind mother, and was unobtrusively charitable and religious. Soon after their marriage the family removed to Ohio. The husband, being a second son, fell heir to but little of his father's estate, the law of inheritance then in vogue in Virginia giving all the real estate to the eldest male issne. He started in life as a practical surveyor, and afterwards became a mail contractor. He was subsequently induced by the government to go to the then " far West," for the purpose of establishing mail routes and post-offices in the new country being opened up for settlement. Ile arrived in Ohio in 1807, and immediately entered upon his duties. For more than twenty years he served the govern- ment in his new field of labor, and was faithful and ener- getic in the discharge of his important duties. His income was considerable, and his savings were invested in real estate. In a few years he became one of the largest land- holders in southern Ohio. He died in the sixty-seventh year of his age, but lived to see his landed estates become very valuable. His son, Peter T., has recently disposed of a part of the lands descending to him, to a building


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association, on which the beautiful suburban village of Mount Peter is now being built. His house, like that of his father, was long the place at which Methodist meeting was held, and so continued to be until he built a church in his neighborhood and donated it to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the use of his fellow-worshippers. Of his children only three now survive, viz. : Squire James P'., Captain Willi un 1. and Peter T. The two former are owners of large farms ent out of the old Williams estate, and are highly respected citizens of the community in which they reside. Peter T. was the fifth son. He was given such education as the schools of the neighborhood afforded. Hle afterwards attended Talbott's Academy, in Cincinnati ; and from his attendance here, and the instruction he received in a class taught by Professor O. M. Mitchel (Afterwards a distinguished General in the late war), he acquired a reason- ably good education. From his sixteenth to his twentieth year he was in the office of Looker & Reynolds, publishers of the National Republican, the leading Democratic journal of Cincinnati. While here he learned much of the art and mystery of printing. About this time his health failed, and he returned to his father's house. During the time he was an invalid he commenced the study of the law. Ilaving first read " Blackstone's Commentaries " and other text-books, he entered the Cincinnati Law College as a student, passed through its full course of instruction, and was regularly graduated by that institution. He was married in 1844 to Kate E. Vincent, only daughter of Bartlet C. Vincent, of Hamilton county. They were blessed with eight chil- dren, six of whom, four sons and two daughters, are living. The mother died in the fall of 1875, deeply lamented by her husband and children, and the large circle of friends to whom her many virtues and true and generous nature had endeared her. In 1860 he began his present business of " Directory " publisher. Owing to busi- ness arrangements existing between himself and the then publisher of the " Cincinnati Directory," it became his in- terest to purchase the establishment. Since then he has been the sole proprietor, and, under the style of Williams & C'o., the annual publisher of the " Cincinnati Directory." Hle entered upon his new work with great energy, and with a determination to make improvements, and more especially to perfect a system for canvassing large cities and for testing the completeness and accuracy of the information obtained by canvassers. This he perseveringly labored at until a system was developed by which the important object sought has been attained as fully as it is possible in an undertaking of the kind. The business publie has not been slow to recog- nize this enterprise, and each succeeding edition has been rewarded with increased circulation and patronage from the merchants and business men of the city. The routine of the office goes on with clock like regularity; the long experience of the proprietor in the business and the fixed rules of the office, so rigidly and persistently enforced, has given the house a high reputation and made its publications standard


of their class. The large foreign element in the population of Cincinnati presents a formidable obstruction to strict ae- curacy in the orthography of names. This, however, is over- come by the publisher by employing intelligent men of different nationalities as canvassers. "The " Directory " of the previous year is never used as a guide for the preparation of a succeeding volume, each square of the entire city being required by the publisher to be thoroughly canvassed an- nually to obtain the information contained in the new issue. Many of the features of the " Cincinnati Directory " are cn- tirely original with the proprietor, and are the causes of the great popularity of the work. To collect annually the in- formation and perfect and prepare the copy of the " Cincin- nati Directory " for the press is an undertaking which requires the expenditure of a great amount of labor and capital. During the time of the annual canvass a force of from forty to fifty canvassers and compilers are constantly employed. The following is a partial list of the directories published by Williams & Co. : " Cincinnati Directory," 1200 lo 1500 pages, published annually ; the " Ohio State Diree- tory," quarto, bi-annually, a most complete and systematie work ; Columbus, Dayton, Hamilton, Chillicothe, Ports. mouth, Xenia, in Ohio (at intervals) ; Covington, Newport, Lexington, in Kentucky (at intervals); Richmond, Fort Wayne, Evansville, in Indiana (at intervals); Wheeling, West Virginia, and many other towns of more or less importance. The publisher has employed hundreds of men, and done business with many thousands, and yet, during all his varied experience with the world, he has never entered suit against a delinquent, neither has he ever been sued for a debt. Nor has he ever failed to meet an obligation to an employé, or suffered his note to go to protest. This has been the result of a strict method in business, albeit nursed by an abhorrence of litigation. Ile has ever been temperate in his habits, and as a publisher most energetie and perse- vering in the discharge of duties of a most difficult and per- plexing character.


RYON, HOSMER GRAHAM, Agriculturist, Po- mologist, and Fish Cultivator, was born, October 27th, 1825, in Vernon township, Oneida county, New York, and is the second son of Jesse and Eunice (Graham) Tryon. Ilis grandfather, Thomas Tryon, was a native of Middletown, Con- neeticut, a soldier of the revolutionary war, and a prisoner of war to the British, who placed him in confinement in the noted " Sugar House " in New York city, and in the prison ships in the bay, where for three years he endured the terrible hardships and privations, while hundreds of his companions perished around him. About 1790 he removed with his family to the wilderness of Oneida county, New York, where he died in 1837, aged eighty-three years. In- vestigation shows that from his ancestry have sprung the entire stock bearing his name in the United States. Hos.


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mier was brought up to labor on the farm, and had but few opportunities for acquiring an education, his father being practically opposed to it; he however attended for a brief senson the winter school, and he thirsted for knowledge. Determined to gain a proper education, he finally, surrepti- tiously, left home, and sought the counsel of Rev. C. S. l'ercival, then one of the professors of the Clinton Liberal Institute, who advised him, that if he was determined to leave his father, he would render him what assistance he could in the way of acquiring an education. On his return home, his father questioned him as to his absence, and finding his son was determined to obtain his wishes, was obliged to allow him to depart, which he did forthwith. Hle soon obtained work, whereby he accumulated enough money to carry him through the institute during the winter . session, and to board himself. Before entering the school, however, a reconciliation was effected between his parent and himself, the former offering to compromise the matter, but the son refused. For the three following years he led a varied life, alternately laboring and studying, and then teaching. Ile was induced by a companion to invest his earnings in statistical maps and ebaits, and unite with him in a peddling tour to the South. This project was carried out in a light wagon drawn by one horse, in which they traversed southern Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. At the return of spring they turned to the eastward, and after a brief stay in Ohio, visited Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Baltimore, and other places of interest, and thence returned to Olen, New York, after being absent nine months. Ile then accepted his father's offer of sixteen dollars wages per month, for three months' labor on the farm, and when this contract was fulfilled he determined to purchase a farm owned by his father in Kirtland township, Lake county, Ohio, and the latter having accepted his proposition he re- moved thither, in November, 1847. By his energy, per- severance, and industry, he has evolved from the wilder- ness a fine farm, a portion of which is devoted to the cultivation of choice fruits. Ile has also paid considerable attention to fish culture, and has demonstrated the fact that the brook trout may be successfully grown in the spring water, of Ohio. He is no politician in the common accept- ation of the term, but he is an ardent Republican, and has been identified with the Free-Soit party since its inception. lle has been elected to various positions in the township, and is now President of the Board of Education of Wil- loughby, and a Trustee of Willoughby College. In 1873 he ran as an independent candidate for the Legislature, and was elected; notwithstanding there were four other candi- dates for the position, he received within twenty-four of half the entire number of votes cast. In 1875 he was nominated by the Republicans for the same position, and elected. During the civil war, though unable to enlist in the service, he took an active part in sustaining the Union cause, and became a Captain of " home guards." On the reorganization of the militia in 1863, he was commissioned


by Governor Tod, First Lieutenant of a company, and was afterward appointed Adjutant of the regiment by Colonel Hlouliston. Ile is an earnest friend to the free-school sys- tem, and a believer in compulsory education. He is like- wise in favor of protection to American manufactures, the temperance movement, civil rights, including the extension of the right of suffrage to women; and that capital punish- ment should be abolished. Ile was married, September 5th, 1850, to Irene B., daughter of Ilorace Dexter, of Stockbridge, Madison county, New York, and is the father of six children, five of whom are now living.


OBINSTIN, ISAAC II., M. D., was born in Osna- burgh, Stark county, Ohio, June 28th, 1838. Ilis parents came from Pennsylvania. He attended school at Louisville, Ohio, and subsequently, in 1858, went to Tiffin, and made theology his study. Becoming discouraged in this pursuit, he turned his attention to medicine under the direction of Professor J. D. Wilson, in the old Allopathic School at Cleveland. After receiving his diploma, he commenced practice, in which he is still engaged in Cleveland with marked success. He has travelled over the greater part of twenty-three States, and in doing so has .spent a fortime, trying to find new lields of labor. In 1861 he entered the United States service under Colonel Piatt, of Cincinnati, for three months, and thereafter for three years under Col- onel Samuel Beatty, of Canton, Ohio, and continued in the army altogether for four years, serving faithfully as Assistant Surgeon, and receiving honorable discharge. At the time of entering the army he was a Democrat, but he became a sound Republican in 1863. Ile is a member of the Order of Odd Fellows ; also of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1864 he was married to Jennie Anderson, daughter of Dr. Anderson, of Lima, Allen county, Ohio.


WAN, HON. JOSEPH R., Lawyer and Judge, was born at Westernville, Oneida county, New York, December 28th, 1802. Ile is of Scotch- Irish ancestry (from Londonderry), the son of Jonathan and Sarah (Rockwell) Swan. Ilis father was a native of Peterborough, New York, and his mother of Groton, Connecticut. Ile received an academie education at Aurora, New York, and commenced there the study of law, which he completed at Columbus, Ohio, where he was admitted to the bar in 1824. Ile at once entered upon the practice of his profession, beginning a career which has placed him among Ohio's most honored citizens. Hle was elected Judge of the Supreme Court in 1854. In 1859 there was a strong pressure brought to bear upon the Judges of the Supreme Court by S. P. Chase, then


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Governor of Ohio, and his ardent followers, to obtain a | final judgment of the court that the fugitive slave laws were unconstitutional and void in Ohio, and the enforcement of them might and should be tested by the State. The comt consisted of five judges, two of whom were in favor and three opposed to declaring the law unconstitutional and void. If there had been a majority of the bench in favor of this same nullification, no doubt the subsequent history of Ohio and Governor Chase would. have assumed quite a different aspect in the future, and there might have been an abolition rebellion in the State. The closing remarks of Judge Swan (then Chief-Justice), in delivering the opinion of the court sustaining the fugitive slave laws (9 Ohio State Reports), indicates how his personal feelings warred with his duties as a judge : "As a citizen I would not deliber- ately violate the constitution or the law by interference with fugitives from service. But if a weary, frightened slave should appeal to me to protect him from his pursuers, it is possible I might momentarily forget my allegiance to the law and constitution, and give him a covert from those who were upon his track. There are no doubt many slave- holder, who would thus follow the impulses of human sympathy ; and if I did it, and were prosecuted, condemned, and imprisoned, and brought by my counsel before this tribunal on a habeas corpus, and were there permitted to pronounce judgment in my own case, I trust I should have the moral courage to say, before God and the country, as I am now compelled to say, under the solemn duties of a judge, bound by my official oath to sustain the supremacy of the constitution and the law, THE PRISONER MUST BE REMANDED." In this decision the distinctive characteristic of the man is clearly marked-his great conscientiousness. Neither personal interest nor sympathy could in any manner influence his judgment of right or law. The decision caused his defeat for the renomination to the Supreme Court by the political convention which assembled in Col- umibus the day after it was delivered ; but the party passion and prejudice of the hour passed away, and the judgment of the bar of Ohio sustained his interpretation of the law. In 1862 Governor Brough appointed him to the vacancy on the Supreme Bench occasioned by the death of Judge Ghol- son, but he declined the appointment. The same position was tendered to him since the war, but he could not be prevailed upon to accept. He was married in June, 1833, to Hannah Ann Andrews, of Rochester, New Vork, daugh- ter of Sammuel J. Andrews, one of the carly residents of that city from Derby, Connecticut. Mrs. Swan died March 8th, 1876. She left three sons-two, Frank and Andrew, residing at Joliet, Illinois, manufacturers; Joseph R., re- siding at Utica, New York, attorney; Maryette, married to A. C. Neave, residing at Clifton, Ohio; and Ann F., married to Major K. S. Smith, residing at Columbus, Ohio. In 1859 Judge Swan resmed the practice of the law, and soon after became connected with the Columbus & Xenia Railroad, and afterwards as the General Solicitor of the . On the opening of the Ohio University, he became a student




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