USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 28
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 | Part 77 | Part 78
16
124
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
ville free turnpike road on this line. Its name, by another special act of which he secured the passage, about the year 1856, was changed to that of the Defiance and Michigan free turnpike road, but the people called it the " Holgate pike," by which name only it is known. After the Defiance County Agricultural Society located its fair grounds on this road in 1875, Mr. Holgate added to it a strip of land forty feet wide, for a mile and a half north of the river, making it one hun- dred feet wide. He has planted three rows of maple trees along this pike, which are already giving it a pleasant and beautiful appearance. Assisted by his son Curtis, he is now engaged in opening in this vicinity one of the best stock farms in the State. It consists of about nine hundred acres at the mouth of the Maumee, embracing what is known as " Sul- phur Hollow," and two hundred acres south of that river. In "Sulphur Hollow " there is located a very valuable min- eral spring. Mr. Holgate is opening out, grading, and build- ing roads on most of the subdivision lines of sections through this tract, making of his farm a beautiful park. He keeps about one hundred head of cattle, about twenty-five of which are thoroughbred short-horns of the finest pedigrees, the increase of which will soon make his whole herd full- bloods. He has other farming lands not adjacent to the city, amounting to five thousand acres, besides a large amount of city property, which he is improving cvery year. Mr. Holgate's expressed wish and desire seems to be to hold only such lots and lands as he can properly improve, all the remainder being for sale. He was the prime mover in organizing the Defiance County Agricultural Society, drafted its by-laws, performed the duties of secretary, and took upon himself nearly all the business management for five years, when he was compelled to resign on account of sickness. In politics he was formerly a whig, and since a republican. Mr. Holgate has always been too much engrossed with important matters affecting his own interests as well as those of the public to devote much of his time to the busi- ness of politics. Being a man of great determination, he has always been eminently successful in all his undertakings, whether of a private or public nature, and especially has this been the case in matters of public interest, which he has always pushed to success regardless of personal incon- venience, and yet he has never held or sought any public office. Strictly honorable in all his dealings and prudent in all his business matters, he has acquired a handsome for- tune, without sacrificing the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens, by whom he is regarded in the highest man- ner-and especially is this the case among those who have known him from pioneer days down to the present time. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church. He is presi- dent of the Merchants' National Bank of Defiance, and also of the Defiance Manufacturing Company, a strong organiza- tion, manufacturing hubs, spokes, and bent work. He was married January 5th, 1851, to Miss Mary Hillrich, who died June 6th, 1865. They had two children born to them, W. Curtis, November 19th, 1854, and Fanny Maud, October 2d, 1856, both now married
KENT, CHARLES, a prominent lawyer of Toledo, Ohio, was born April 21st, 1821, in Suffield, Portage county, Ohio. His father, Martin Kent, Jr., and his mother, Sophro- nia Adams, were both natives of New Hampshire, although the father's family were from Connecticut and the mother's from Massachusetts. Both his parents' families moved to
Ohio in 1806, then a wild forest and with but few inhabitants His early experiences were not different from other boys of those pioneer days. His early education was such as could be obtained in log school-houses until his tenth year, when he was sent to a boarding-school kept by E. T. Sturtevant, at Tallmadge, Ohio, which, in those days, was a noted institution. His father dying when Charles was only thirteen years of age, the boy was sent by his grandfather to such neighboring schools as there were, and fitted for college. In 1837, then sixteen years of age, he was sent to Western Reserve Col- lege, where he graduated in 1840, thus completing a four years' course in three, and with the honor of attaining the high- est scholarship of any student of the college up to that time. One of his classmates, who entered college at the same time, was Omar D. Conger, now United States Senator from Mich- igan, although the latter did not graduate till the year after- wards. They were afterwards admitted to the bar at the same time and place. Shortly after graduating Mr. Kent began the study of law in the office of Goddord & Convers (now both dead), in Zanesville, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in September, 1843, at Ravenna, Ohio. He commenced practice soon after at Bellevue, Huron county, Ohio, remain- ing there till April, 1853, when he removed to Toledo, where he has ever since continued in the successful practice of the law. During the war Mr. Kent was appointed provost-mar- shal of the tenth district of Ohio, an office he filled with characteristic zeal and integrity, leaving an official record that will bear the closest scrutiny. In 1867 and 1868 Mr. Kent was elected city solicitor of Toledo, filling the place with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of the city. Mr. Kent is recognized by the bar as a man of great legal ability and versatility of powers. He is a man endowed with intellectual capabilities and physical energy rarely excelled. Able to grasp and comprehend the complicated questions of law and argue his points with such clearness and force as to divest them of all ambiguity, always arguing more from principle than precedent, in the trial of cases Mr. Kent has few equals in northwestern Ohio, and is considered a strong adversary to cope with. He is possessed of a legal mind and intelligence that would do credit to the supreme bench; and were he a man who sought preferment or position he would to-day, without doubt, be occupying some exalted place in his profession. On the contrary, he has always accepted the honors attending the successful advocate as sufficient to satisfy his ambition in that direction. During his long residence in Toledo Mr. Kent has led a very active professional career, his superior legal ability having secured for him a wide reputation and large practice. He at present is senior partner in the firm of Kent, Newton & Pugsley, all of whom are very able lawyers. In 1878, upon the organ- ization of the Bar Association of Lucas county, Mr. Kent was made its president, acting as such for two years, when he declined the honor again proffered him, in order that an older member of the bar, Mr. J. R. Osborne, might be made its president. June 24th, 1846, Mr. Kent was married to Mary S. Towne, who is still living. The result of the marriage is five children, three sons and two daughters. The oldest son, Arthur C., now thirty-one years of age, is engaged in land abstract business in Toledo. The next, Henry T., is engaged as a civil engineer, having charge of a division of the Oregon extension of the Union Pacific Railroad He is a graduate in the classical course and also in the civil engineering course of Michigan University. The third son, Charles E., who is
Sec.H. Howe
125
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY:
twenty-one years of age, is studying law with his father, having recently graduated at Minnesota University. The daughters are both living at home. Politically Mr. Kent was first a whig, but upon the birth of the republican party joined it, and was formerly quite a political speaker.
HOWE, GEORGE WILLIAM, collector of customs at the port of Cleveland, was born October 29th, 1832, in Spencer, Worcester county, Massachusetts. He comes from an old English family, the American branch of which dates its origin back to 1632, when John Howe, its founder, arrived here from England and settled in Massachusetts. The name of Howe has since become illustrious in our national history, and known the world over. William Howe, father of the subject of this sketch, who was born in Spencer, Massachusetts, May 12th, 1803, and married to Miss A. T. Stone, of Chanton, Mas- sachusetts, in 1828, was the inventor of what is so widely known and extensively used as "The Howe Truss Bridge." Elias Howe, cousin to George William, was the inventor of the sew- ing machine, an achievement that ranks him among the great- est of inventors. George William Howe, after receiving a substantial education at Springfield, Massachusetts, came to Cleveland in 1852, where he engaged with Stone & Witt, railroad builders, who were then contractors on the Cleve- land, Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad. He afterwards became connected with the Lake Shore Railroad. In 1859 he abandoned railroading to engage in the milling business with Messrs. Hubby, Hughes & Co., under the firm name of Hubby & Howe, which, however, not proving a financial suc- cess, was discontinued. He established the first works in Cleveland for manufacturing lubricating oil from petroleum. Cleveland has since become the great center of the country for the manufacture of the various products of petroleum. On the breaking out of the war he abandoned all his business inter- ests, and, upon the organization of the Ist Ohio Volunteer Artillery, he enlisted. He was commissioned quartermaster,
and equipped eleven out of the twelve batteries that went to the front. He accompanied General Barnett (of Cleveland) and his staff up the Cumberland river to Nashville, reaching that place two or three days after its evacuation by the Con- federate army. He was attached to General Thomas's divis- ion, and ordered to Pittsburg Landing. His services in the cause were valuable and meritorious. He remained in the army until after the evacuation of Corinth, when he returned to Cleveland and again engaged in mercantile pursuits. His health becoming impaired, to benefit it he went to Europe, where he spent six months in travel and recreation. In-1867 he returned to Europe, there to establish the business of Elias Howe, in which he proved eminently successful. With head- quarters in London he organized branches in all the principal cities of Europe, besides looking after the exhibits of the Howe company at the Paris Exposition. In 1870 he returned to the United States and established the business of the Howe company in Northern Ohio. In 1872, while in California, he was urged to go to China and Japan to put the business there on a good footing, but preferring Europe, he was delegated to Vienna to represent the Howe company at the Vienna Exposition. Whilst there, owing to some trouble with the American commissioners, he, with three others, was appointed to act as commissioner until Jackson S. Schultz should arrive. As a recognition of valuable services rendered in that ca- pacity. as well as other important matters, he received from the emperor of Austria as a token of regard, esteem, and
acknowledgment, the decoration of the "Order of Francis Joseph," one of the highest orders of the Austrian Empire, corresponding with the "Legion of Honor" of France and the "Order of the Garter" of England-an honor that has been but in very few instances conferred on an American citizen. He was also made a member of the "Society of Arts and Sciences" for Lower Austria, and received their diploma and silver medal. He returned to Cleveland in 1874. In 1876 he was connected with the Ohio Department at the Centennial Exposition, where he remained seven months in the discharge of his various duties. In Novem- ber, 1876, shortly after the inauguration of President Hayes, he was appointed collector of customs at Cleveland, which position he still occupies with great credit to himself and sat- isfaction to the government. In all the business and official positions he has occupied he has been a man beyond reproach. In private life he is highly esteemed for his many excellen- cies of heart and mind. He is generous, frank, amiable, and upright in life, and those who know him best admire him most. He has been a member of the Northern Ohio Fair Association from its organization, serving three years as its secretary. From 1876 to 1879 he was a member of the board of police commissioners of Cleveland. He is a Mason in good standing and high up in the order, having taken the thirty-second degree. He is also a member of Holyrood Commandery, of which he is treasurer, having been made a Knight Templar in 1857. In politics he is an ardent republican. In religious matters he is liberal, not being a member of any church. A man of strong literary taste and development, his extensive travels, observation, and study have made him an erudite scholar and a thorough busi- ness man. He was married in November, 1854, to Miss Kate Leman, the estimable daughter of William Leman, of Cleveland.
VANCE, JOSEPH, the tenth governor elected by the people of Ohio, was born March 21st, 1781, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and died at Urbana, Ohio, August 24th, 1852. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, and his father, a poor man, with his small family, emigrated to the North- western territory, when Joseph was a toddling baby two years old. He located and built a strong block house on the southern bank of the Ohio river, where his neighbors could join him when alarmed by the scouts that patrolled the river, of which, as mentioned in the sketch of that pioneer, Gov- ernor McArthur in those days was one. In 1801, the father with his family resolved to move to the north side of the river, and eventually located in Urbana, where he became a permanent resident. From the migratory manner of living, our subject learned but sparsely that which is taught in our common schools, while he became an expert with axe, plow, and rifle. His first wages he invested in a yoke of oxen, and subsequently having purchased several barrels of salt, he traveled through the scattered settlements, selling his salt in such quantities as required by the settlers. To sur- mount the difficulties that one thus employed met with at the time, indicated character of no common order. The roads were nothing better than a trace through the woods, swamps, and streams, often obstructed with windfalls, and miles of such pathways might be traveled before reaching the cabin of a settler. At night, and alone with his cattle, this brave lad of fifteen would make his camp, build a large fire to keep off the howling wolves and panthers, and not
1
I26
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
seldom have to stand guard for many hours of the night to protect his oxen from the ferocious beasts of prey. He often suffered severely from hunger and exposure, as not unfre- quently he would find a stream so swollen that it was neces- sary for him to wait in the tangled forests of its banks for hours and sometimes days before it had fallen sufficiently to permit him to cross it. But through all, this persevering youth worked until he had sold his load, and returned home. When twenty-one years old, he married Miss Mary Lemen, of Urbana, and two years afterwards was elected captain of a rifle company, which, during the years immediately pre- ceding the war of 1812, was frequently called out to fight the Indians. As a rendezvous for his company he built for it a strong blockhouse on the edge of the prairie a few miles north of Urbana, and thus protected the settlers from the incursions of the savages, who had to pass there, and could not do so unseen. In 1812, with his brother John, Joseph Vance piloted Hull's army through the pathless forests to Fort Meigs, and in 1817, with Samuel McCulloch and Henry Van Meter, he formed a company to take the contract to supply the northern army with provisions-a most arduous undertaking. On foot they drove cattle and swine, scores of miles, through the forest, while the deadweight was trans- ported on sleds and wagons. With the extraordinary versa- tility of occupation characteristic of the young men of his time and circumstances, Joseph Vance was engaged in this manner, and subsequently in mercantile business in Urbana and Fort Meigs (now Perrysburg), for three years. In the midst of these labors he was elected to the legislature, and continued a member of that body four successive years. Having by this time increased in wealth, he with two others purchased a large tract of land upon the upper waters of Blanchard's Fork and there founded and had laid out the town of Findlay. At the same time he was elected a repre- sentative to Congress, and for fifteen years was reelected a member of that body. Always at his post, attending to the business of his constituents, while seldom attempting to speak, he was highly regarded for his sound judgment. In 1836 he was elected governor of Ohio, and served out his term with nothing of especial interest occurring during those two years. He then retired to his farm near Urbana, and there peacefully lived until 1842, when he was again elected to Congress. In 1850 while attending the Constitutional Convention, he was smitten by paralysis, and died two years afterward. Of great energy of character, he left the record of an industrious man, an enlightened patriot, and faithful, conscientious public servant.
WADE, JEPTHA H., the telegraphic inventor, banker, and capitalist, was born in Seneca county, New York, August IIth, 1811. He was the son of Jeptha Wade, a surveyor and civil engineer. His father died when the boy was still young, and the youth began to learn the carpenter's trade, becoming a skillful and thorough workman. But he was also, like the elder Stephenson, noted for what he did outside of his regular business. He made and repaired clocks, mended pumps, devised new machinery to take the place of old, constructed musical instruments and played upon them in church and in bands with success. He was an excellent workman. Fifty and sixty years ago there was fine gunning in the Monte- zuma marshes and in the woods which bordered either side of the Seneca river, as well as in the higher and more southern parts of the county, and here Wade was at home.
His skill as a shot and his power in control of men early made him the commander of the militia when in their annual muster they closed up by a target-shoot. Although there were four hundred men in the ranks, many of them familiar with rifles their whole lives, Mr. Wade showed that he was the right man in the right place. He was the best shot pres- ent. When he reached twenty-one years of age he became the owner of a large sash and blind factory, but three years later determined to become an artist. Under the tuition of the celebrated portrait painter, Randall Palmer, he im- proved rapidly, and throughout the States of Louisiana, Michigan, and New York became well known for the skill with which he counterfeited life on canvas. He was but a little over thirty years of age when he became interested in the discoveries which had been made by Daguerre, in regard to fixing images on a sensitive plate. These experiments were only a few days prior to those of Professor Draper, in New York, and as soon as the matter became known to the scientific world others followed. Mr. Wade was then at Adrian, Michigan, and sent for a camera. On its arrival he studied out the method, assisted only by printed instructions, and took the first daguerreotype ever made west of New York. His health, however, had suffered during his long and exhaustive confinement indoors, and he looked around for something with which he could occupy himself in the open air. Just about this time there was a great excitement occasioned by the passage of words over a telegraphic wire from Wash- ington to Baltimore. It seemed marvelous, and those who looked at it most carefully foresaw that the art would have immense possibilities. Mr. Wade was then in New Orleans, but returned to Detroit, where, after a short time spent in studying the principles of the new science, he began con- structing a line. This was in Michigan, along the Michigan Central Railroad. He opened and equipped the Jackson office, and acted as operator and manager for a time. This was the first road constructed west of Buffalo. After a little while he entered the field as a proprietor, and began building lines in Ohio and other western States. These lines were known as Wade's. It should be remembered that at the beginning of telegraphic construction there were no shops especially devoted to the making of wires, insulators, and the machines required; there were no learned electricians and no skilled operators. Managers were expected to do every thing, even if the material was not forthcoming. There was much competition and much discouragement. One promi- nent trouble was that of imperfect insulation. Mr. Wade met this by the invention of an insulator, which still bears his name. He was the first to inclose a submarine cable in iron armor (across the Mississippi river at St. Louis), for which invention the world and its telegraph system owes much to him, as it was this important discovery and improvement in their construction that made telegraph cables a success, and made the crossing of oceans and other deep waters a possi- bility. The House Printing Telegraph Company, with head- quarters at Rochester, New York, then the richest company extending westward, were induced to join the Wade, Speed, and other competing line companies throughout the Western States in a grand consolidation, with the name of the West- ern Union Telegraph Company, and Mr. Wade as its general manager. This effectually cured the gravest of telegraphic ills-competition. The telegraph patrons were well aware that telegraph companies during a "break" gave their messages to the express companies or mail for delivery, rather than
Yours truly. H. Lobiu
127
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY
hand them over to rival lines, but the consolidation not only insured delivery entirely by telegraph, but insured long con- nected circuits instead of frequent stoppages and repetitions. Success was thus attained practically and financially. He is undoubtedly entitled to more credit than any other one man for the successful construction of the trans-continental rail- way, as it was his energy, foresight, judgment, and determina- tion which conceived and carried into practical operation the Pacific telegraph from St. Louis to San Francisco, thus bring- ing the isolated gold-seekers into instantaneous communica- tion with the Eastern world, establishing telegraphic supply stations, and otherwise attracting the attention of capitalists to the feasibility and necessity of a railway. The railway was built, following substantially the route of his telegraph, and at such an unprecedented rate as to astound the world. But he furnished the builders their example. The locating of the line and the manner of carrying forward the enterprise were turned over by the company entirely to him. He purchased a sufficient number of teams, wagons, tools, and material for the entire line, together with tents and provisions for the men, including over one hundred head of fat cattle, to be driven with the party and killed for beef as they were needed. Thus amply equipped, the caravan started westward from the Missouri river in the spring of 1861, taking the precaution to arm each man with a knife, a pair of revolvers, and a six- teen-shooter rifle for protection against the numerous and hostile Indians, completing the line as they went, and being obliged, in some places, to draw timber for posts two hun- dred and fifty miles, and for much of the route all the water for men and teams had to be drawn from inconveniently long distances. Notwithstanding the many obstacles to be overcome, the line was completed on the 24th of the fol- lowing October. In California he found the same difficulties of competition and confusion among the local companies. With rare diplomatic tact he succeeded in uniting all of the conflicting telegraph interests on the Pacific coast, thus secur- ing their harmonious and successful communication with the East. After strenuous efforts, and in the face of much oppo- sition he succeeded in inducing the railroad companies to establish telegraph lines for their own exclusive business, and the result was a saving of from fifty to seventy-five per cent. He was made the first president of the Pacific Telegraph Company, and upon its consolidation with the Western Union Telegraph Company was made president of the entire combination, which position he filled with great credit and success, until his serious illness in 1867 warned him that he was being overworked, and he resigned, to enjoy the qui- etude of home, with the large fortune which he had accu- mulated purely through industry, perseverance, and his capacity for executing great projects. His early habits of ceaseless activity did not, however, permit him to remain idle. As a leading director in many of the largest factories, banks, railroads, and public institutions, his clear head and accurate judgment were highly valued. At the organization of the Citizens' Savings and Loan Association of Cleveland, in 1867, he was elected its president. The originator and president of the Lake View Cemetery Association, whose magnificent grounds of over three hundred acres were opened to the public in 1871, he gave evidence of his taste, public spirit, and untiring perseverance. As the owner of the charming and extensive tracts of land in the Seventeenth ward, adjoining Euclid avenue, known as the "Wade Park," he beautified them at his own expense for the
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.