USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 18
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there was not among his contemporaries in the courts of the State an advocate whose efforts were so nearly irresisti- ble before a jury, or whose success was ever greater than his. As a judge, he commanded the respect of all by his learning and fairness, and won the regard of the younger members of the profession by his encouragement and kind- ness. Although litigation in the Superior Court was both im- portant and extensive, only one decision of Judge Andrews was reversed, and that was owing to a clerical error made in the clerk's office. In politics he acted with the whig and republican parties, but his conservative feelings and personal independence at times prevented him from heartily approv- ing the extreme measures of his party. This elevation of political tone was most conspicuously acknowledged by his fellow-citizens, when he was nominated and elected in 1873 by both political parties to serve as a member of the State constitutional convention. Measuring him by the highest standard of true eminence and success, his sterling integrity, purity of example, his pride in the high character to be maintained by the legal fraternity, and his long career, un- tarnished by a stain, must, after all, be regarded as having given bright lustre to his abilities, and enduring brilliancy to a long series of public services in judicial and legislative spheres. In 1828 he married Miss Ursula Allen, of Litch- field, Connecticut, daughter of John Allen, a member of Congress from that State, and a distinguished leader of its bar. His venerable wife and five children survived him to receive the condolence and respectful sympathy of a com- munity which will long cherish the memory of their husband and father as one of the ablest, purest, and most genial men it has ever known. He retained in a most remarkable degree the freshness and vigor of his earlier manhood; he did not seem, like others, to grow old; his flesh retained the appear- ance almost of youth, which in his last years he appeared in a remarkable degree to renew. The announcement of his death was received throughout the city with great sadness. All seemed to feel that indeed a good man had been removed from among them. The courts, which were at the time in session, immediately adjourned. Appropriate resolutions were spread upon their records, and the Supreme Court of Ohio paid to the deceased, as "a distinguished member " of its bar, . the very unusual honor of entering them in its journal. He was one of the oldest surviving citizens of Cleveland. His death was truly a public bereavement. The disease which ended his honored and blameless life was at first an acute form of jaundice, which subsequently involved the brain and caused a lingering, though happily not painful, death. It found him prepared and ready for a loftier destiny. Seldom has it been our lot to record the life of one who had been so universally esteemed and beloved, and whose loss was so keenly felt by the community. He was an able lawyer, an impartial judge, and a Christian gentleman.
HURLBUT, HINMAN BARRETT, a capitalist, of Cleveland, was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, July 29th, 1819. His father, Abiram Hurlbut, was a Con- necticut farmer, who had been a soldier in the Revolution- ary War. On his grandmother's side he was descended from Governor Hinman, of Connecticut. He was educated in the common schools, working on his father's farm at spare times until he was fifteen years of age, when he went out into the world to seek his fortune. He first went to Waddington, in the same county, where he found employ-
ment as clerk in a store, and there he remained about three years. In 1836 he removed to Cleveland, where his brother, H. A. Hurlbut, was practicing law. He determined on adopt- ing the law for his profession, entering his brother's office as a student, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He im- mediately set out for Massillon, to establish himself in practice, and for his journey, and in incidentals and the purchase of a few sheets of paper, on which to take down the case of his first client (whenever that person should present himself ), he spent all his money. But he had not long to wait for busi- ness. In a very short time he succeeded in obtaining a re- munerative practice, and in the course of a few years was known as one of the most successful lawyers in a circuit which comprised several counties. About 1846 he formed a law partnership with Hon. D. K. Cartter, Chief-justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The practice of the firm was very extensive and lucrative. In 1850 he re- tired from the profession of law, and engaged in the banking business, forming the firm of Hurlbut & Vinton. He aided in the organization of two corporate banks-the Merchants'and . the Union Bank of Massillon. He was chosen a director in each corporation, and represented the Union branch of the State Bank of Ohio (until he sold his interest in it) in the State Board of Control. He afterward represented the Bank of Toledo in the same board, until the expiration of its charter. In 1852, still retaining his banking interest in Massillon, he removed to Cleveland, and commenced business under the name of Hurlbut & Co. He then purchased the charter of the Bank of Commerce, and reorganized it for business, with Parker Handy as president, and himself as cashier. In a year's time Mr. Handy resigned, and Joseph Perkins became president. The capital stock of the bank was increased from time to time until it was reorganized under the name of the Second National Bank, he still remaining cashier. Whilst thus managing the affairs of the bank in Cleveland, he, in company with other Cleveland capitalists, purchased the charter of the Toledo branch of the State Bank of Ohio, and aided in its management before and after its reorganiza- tion as a National Bank. In November, 1865, the arduous labors and close application necessitated by these and other financial tasks which he had undertaken, broke down his health. Being stricken with paralysis, he resigned his po- sition in the bank, and left for Europe, with the hope of re- pairing his health, and there he remained until the Fall of 1868. On resigning his position as cashier, he was elected vice-president of the bank. After his return, much improved in health, he remained in retirement from active business, until 1871, when he was chosen vice-president of the Cleve- land, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroad Com- pany. This position he resigned in 1881, and again went to Europe, where he spent a year in travel and recreation, visit- ing many of its large cities, and spending much of his time in Paris, finding its climate and surroundings most beneficial as well as congenial to his taste. As a citizen of Cleveland he is highly esteemed, and has been largely her benefactor. Successful in his business career, he has been liberal in the distribution of his means in aid of worthy causes-educa- tion, literature, the arts and sciences, and other kindred de- partments, and its benevolent enterprises. He gave largely to the Cleveland City Hospital, of which he was president and the chief founder. He founded the Hurlbut Professor- ship of Natural Sciences at Western Reserve College, which he largely endowed, and of which he has been for many years
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a trustee. There is probably not a charitable institution in Cleveland or its vicinity to which he has not liberally con- tributed. During the war of secession he gave money freely in support of the army and the benevolent enterprises called into existence by the exigencies of the struggle. At the time of the Garfield obsequies he was in Paris; learning of the movement on foot to erect a monument to our fallen President, he immediately dispatched, by cable, an order for a large sum of money as his contribution toward it. In politics, originally a Whig, he became a Republican on the formation of that party. Whilst a lawyer he became prominent not only in the law but also in politics, in which he always took an active part, being one of the delegates to the National Convention that nominated General Taylor to the presidency. As a financier he is held in high repute wherever known, and the financial enterprises with which he has been connected were always, when under his management, highly successful. His indomitable energy and fearlessness enabled him to surmount the most discouraging difficulties, and his thorough knowl- edge of financial matters rarely, if ever, permitted him to be at fault. Mr. Hurlbut was married in 1840 to Miss Jane Elizabeth Johnson, of Oneida County, New York. A man of fine artistic taste, with ample means, he indulges largely in music, paintings, and horticulture. His collection of plants are widely known for their beauty and variety, as well as his fine collection of paintings and other works of art, productions of the masters of Europe They form one of the finest pri- vate collections in this country, and to connoisseurs are sub- jects of interesting study.
GAYLORD, BENJAMIN BRAYTON, iron master, was born in Westernville, Oneida county, New York, November 26th, 1811, and died in Portsmouth, Ohio, September Ist, 1880. When he was quite young his parents, Dr. Chester Gaylord and Lydia Brayton, removed to Litchfield, Herkimer county, New York. There young Gaylord embraced the Christian religion at the age of fifteen, under the preaching of Rev. Abner Towne, father of Judge H. A. Towne, the present mayor of Portsmouth, Ohio. In 1839 Mr. Gaylord came to Portsmouth, and was employed as clerk for several years by his cousin, the late T. G. Gaylord, of Cincinnati, in the Gaylord Rolling-mill in Portsmouth. In 1844 he became manager of the Clinton Furnace, in Scioto county, in which he had previously become a stockholder, and served as such four years. In 1845 he was married to Margaret Jane Hemp- stead, who still survives him, after a happy union of thirty- five years. Returning to Portsmouth in 1848 he assumed full control of the Gaylord Rolling-mill, and remained in charge until December, 1874, when, on account of failing health, he was compelled to retire from active business. He was an incessant worker and a superior financier, and had the faculty of attending to a great deal at once. He was a man of remarkable foresight, and would anticipate an approaching crisis when many others would entirely fail to understand the situation. He was an eminently practical man, and gave his personal attention to his business. He made a specialty of the manufacture of boiler iron, and built up a reputation in this line second to none in the country. He enjoyed the utmost confidence and esteem of his employees, who in turn always regarded his interests as carefully as they would their own. Although engaged in the iron business for over a quar- ter of a century, there was but one strike among the men while under his management, and even then such was his
generosity and kindness of heart that he furnished supplies to various needy families of the strikers during the very period in which they were refusing to work. He took especial pains to encourage thrift and economy among his men, and exerted his influence to induce them to save their money and thereby get homes for their families. In this way he gathered round him a class of steady, industrious laborers, many of whom have become well-to-do and influential citizens of Portsmouth. To assist those who were willing to act upon his advice he advanced them money for the purchase of property, and gave them convenient periods for payment. A number he assisted in securing homes for themselves, and that, too, before he had provided for his own family as he desired. During the late war he had large contracts with the War Department, which were always conducted in a manner per- fectly satisfactory to the government. Though not a graduate of any college, he was yet a well-educated man. He read a great deal, and digested what he read. For many years he was a member of the board of trustees of Marietta College, and contributed several thousand dollars towards its endow- ment. He also gave liberally to Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, and in many instances assisted indigent young men in acquir- ing an education. His benefactions, moreover, to Church and other benevolent objects were always of the most liberal kind. The following extracts from his funeral sermon, preached by his pastor, Rev. Dr. Pratt, will best set forth his worth both as a man and a citizen :
"He cared for the poor and needy, sending coal and provis- ions often to their homes when they knew not from whence they came. Many a widow and orphan will shed tears over his grave when they remember his kind deeds of love to them. If every one who has received any favor from him, or any act of kindness, were to bring a spray of evergreen and throw it into his grave, I verily believe it would fill it up to the top. He was one of the most upright, conscientious business men that I ever knew. As an illustration let me state two or three facts: A lawyer of this city had been employed by the firm to collect a debt due them from a furnace. The ordinary fee for such official labor was five per cent; but another mem- ber of the firm, in paying the bill, had 'jewed' it down to about one-half this sum. A short time afterward Mr. Gaylord handed the young lawyer a check for fifty dollars, saying that he owed it to him. He bought a lot of pig-iron of an agent for a furnaceman residing here. A hundred tons was what he asked for, and this amount was charged, and the man that weighed it and the man that hauled it only charged for one hundred tons. But Mr. Gaylord had weighed it at his mill, and found there was one hundred and sixteen tons, and gave his check accordingly. Not many business men would have done that, I fear, in this day. He bought a lot of miscellaneous bar- iron of the old rolling-mill of Means, Hull & Co., down at the lower end of town, after they had failed. They asked $2,500 for it; but he offered them $2,000, and they agreed to take that sum. After sending the iron to St. Louis and disposing of it, he found that it sold better than he had expected, and he came back and paid them $500 additional, and over and above what they had agreed to take. If, as the poet says, 'An honest man's the noblest work of God,' then was he whom we this day honor by our presence and by our words one of God's true noblemen. And he was the work of God. His integrity and honesty and benevolence and truthfulness and piety were all the work of God."
Mr. Gaylord was a pillar in the First Presbyterian Church of Portsmouth, and for many years honored the office of rul- ing elder. At a meeting only a few months before his death, when they voted to adopt the "rotary eldership," as it is called, and elect elders for a term of three years instead of for life, he was unanimously elected an "elder emeritus" for life, and that by a rising vote of the congregation, showing
Domy. B. Gang Lich
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how great was their affection. In 1874 he was compelled, by failing health, to retire from active business. This was a trial of more than ordinary magnitude, as his business at that time very greatly needed his attention and supervision. His illness was a protracted one of six years, yet he bore it with patient fortitude and Christian resignation, and, surrounded by a faithful wife and affectionate family, and cheered and assisted by an unwavering Christian faith, "passed over to his rest." Of a family of six children, three only survive-Martha B., Helen M., and Benjamin H. Gaylord.
CHASE, SALMON P., lawyer, United States Senator from Ohio, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and eighteenth governor elected by the people of Ohio, was born at Cornish, New Hampshire, January 13th, 1808, and died in New York City, May 7th, 1873. His father was a farmer, brother of Philander Chase, Protestant Episco- pal bishop of Ohio, and both his parents were persons of superior intelligence, who trained their son to revere those institutions upon which are founded the strength and pros- perity of the nation. In 1815 his father removed his family to Keene, New Hampshire, where his son subsequently en- joyed the advantages of a good common school education, and being by his uncle, Bishop Chase, invited to do so went to Worthington, Ohio, there pursued his studies and was, under his uncle's direction, prepared to enter college. He then returned to New England, and entered the junior class of Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1826. Having also an uncle in the United States Senate, he then went to Washington City, and there opened a private class- ical school. But, mainly on account of his extreme youth, this school not proving successful, he was indiscreet enough to apply to his uncle to use his influence to obtain him a clerkship in one of the public departments. Being a stern man the uncle frowned upon the proposition, saying that he had already ruined two young men in that way, such occu- pation rendering them unfit for any other service, and he did not intend to ruin any more. Smarting under this manner of response to a very natural request, Mr. Chase exerted him- self anew, and obtained the patronage of Henry Clay, Sam- uel L. Southard, and William Wirt, whose sons were intrusted to his tuition, and during the time not thus occupied he, under the direction of the latter gentleman, engaged in the study of law. In 1829 having, as he believed, completed his law studies, he was examined and admitted to practice, upon informing the presiding judge that he had arranged to engage in practice in Cincinnati. Proceeding to that city he was for some years but partially successful, and he devoted his leisure to the preparation of a new edition of the "Statutes of Ohio," with annotations, and introducing his compilation with an historical sketch of the State. This work appeared in three volumes, law octavo, and was by the profession generally accepted in preference to all other editions. Its sale was a success, and established the reputation of its compiler as a man of thorough legal training and research. No more effective plan could have been adopted by a young and rather unsuccessful practitioner to introduce himself generally . to the notice of the members of his profession and the public. In 1834 he became solicitor in Cincinnati for the Bank of the United States, and shortly afterward obtained the same posi- tion for one of the city banks, also. In 1837 he distinguished himself by his defense of a colored woman who was brought by her master into the State, and escaped from his posses-
sion. His defense of this case gave Mr. Chase some promi- nence as an abolitionist, and this character was confirmed by his subsequent defense in the supreme court of Ohio of James G. Birney, who had been indicted for harboring a fugitive slave. Mr. Chase in such defense took the same ground he did in the previous action, viz: that slavery was local and dependent upon State laws for its existence, and the master of a slave having brought such slave into a free state volun- tarily, thereby made such slave, ipso facto, free. In 1846, associated with the Hon. W. H. Seward, Mr. Chase defended Van Zandt before the Supreme Court of the United States, and in doing so much more boldly and effectively empha- sized his opinion that under the act of 1797 no fugitive from service could be reclaimed in Ohio unless such slave had escaped from one of the original thirteen States whose repre- sentatives in Congress had enacted that organic law; that it was the clear understanding of the framers of that document that slavery should be left exclusively to the disposal of the several States, and in view of which understanding seven of those thirteen States had forever removed slavery from, and no slave could then be found in them; and, finally, that the clause in the Constitution relating to persons held to service was one that conferred no power upon Congress, and was never understood to confer any. Such bold enunciations alarmed the slaveholding States, and eventually led to the enactment of the fugitive slave law of 1850, as part of the compromise measures of that year passed by Congress. From these indications of Mr. Chase's sentiments, it will readily be inferred that his practice in the years immediately following included some of the most important civil actions brought before the State and Federal courts, and engrossed his attention to the exclusion of politics. In 1841 he had joined in a call for a convention of those opposed to slavery and its further extension. Held at Columbus, Ohio, this convention resulted in the organization of what was called the "Liberty party," and their nomination of a candidate for governor of Ohio. This convention's address to the people was written by Mr. Chase, and the Northern States having endorsed the movement, the party in 1843 assembled in gen- eral convention, at Buffalo, New York, with no result, how- ever, except the passage of a resolution on the subject of slavery that Mr. Chase opposed in committee. In 1845 he projected a convention of the same party in Cincinnati, and the result of which was the passage of a resolution declaring the urgent necessity existing for the organization of a party thoroughly committed to the denationalization of slavery. Two years afterward the same party in convention resolved not to make any party nominees, as a more general anti- slavery sentiment would be created by the agitation existing consequent on the repeal of the Wilmot proviso ; but the year following, anticipating the inaction of the two principal polit- ical parties, Mr. Chase issued a call for a free territory State convention at Columbus that, supported by the signatures of three thousand voters of all political creeds, resulted in the assembly of a national convention at Buffalo, the result of. whose labors was the nomination of Messrs. Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams for President and Vice President. On the 22d February, 1849, Mr. Chase, by a combination of the democratic members of the Ohio legisla- ture who favored him and the free soilers, was elected United States Senator, and at once lifted to the highest gift but one in the choice of the people of his State, and this while holding himself in no wise committed to the general policy of the
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majority of his electors; for they having declared slavery an evil, he assured them that should they repudiate that declar- ation, and the anti-slavery position in which it placed them, he would refuse to recognize them. This they did at the Baltimore democratic convention in 1852, by approving the compromise acts, including the fugitive slave law of 1850, and denouncing the further discussion of the slavery question. It was upon this platform Mr. Pierce was elected, and the democrats of Ohio having, we say, joined in its adoption, Mr. Chase withdrew from their ranks, advocated the organization of an independent democratic party, and drafted a declara- tion of principles for such party, which was substantially the same year adopted by the Pittsburgh convention of inde- pendent democrats. During the remainder of his term in the Senate he aimed to divorce effectively the Federal govern- ment from its patronage of and all connection with slavery, and guarantee freedom and the enjoyment of human rights to all conditions of the inhabitants of the free States. He also urged government aid for the construction of the trans- continental railway, and the safer navigation of the great lakes. By such advocacy and his consistent course he in- creased his constituents, and in 1855 he was nominated and elected governor of Ohio by the opponents of the Pierce ad- ministration. In 1856, at his request, his name was not put in nomination for the Presidency, and in 1857 he was reelected governor of Ohio by the largest vote ever polled in the State. A nominee for President in 1860, he received 49 out of 465 votes on the first ballot, and thereupon had his name with- drawn. Called by President Lincoln to his cabinet in March, 1861, he was made Secretary of the Treasury, and performed the duties of the office with much ability during the following years until July, 1864, when, having tendered his resignation, he withdrew to private life. Four months afterward, the death of Chief Justice Taney made vacant the first position on the supreme bench of the United States court, and the name of Mr. Chase being sent by the President to the Senate, he was confirmed and invested with the office of Chief Justice. There were but two occasions during his life subsequently upon which he was placed in a position that, in view of his former recommendations as Secretary of the Treasury, he felt obliged to question his own record, and these were trying the constitutionality of the legal tender act. On the first of these occasions he expressed himself unfavorable, but on the second, two new appointments having been made to vacan- cies on the supreme bench, the former decision was by a small majority reversed. Dissatisfied with the republican leaders and the conduct of the administration he, in 1868, permitted his name to be put in nomination for the Presi- dency, with the result of obtaining but 4 out of 663 votes ; and subsequently withdrawing entirely from active participa- tion in politics, he confined himself until his deatlı to the duties of his office as Chief Justice. The nost distinguished and beneficent feature of his term of office as Secretary of the Treasury was, in his capacity of lawyer, originating, draft- ing, and recommending the passage of the bill that in 1863 became a law for the conversion of State and all other forms of chartered banks of issue into National banks, and under which the government of the United States became responsi- ble for their circulation by the deposit as security of United States bonds to cover the total amount of such circulation, plus ten per cent. Although earnestly opposed by bankers at the time of its discussion, the advantage of this change in the character of their security as banks of issue was subse-
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