USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 38
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Edward Tiffin -
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nor St. Clair did not appoint the bearer of this letter to the po- sition he desired. The most notable act of the second term of Governor Tiffin's administration was the destruction of the Burr-Blennerhassett expedition, which caused the flight of Burr, and the total abandonment of his nefarious design, by which only the total ruin of an honorable and wealthy family, who guilelessly befriended him, was accomplished. In his message of the 22d of January, 1807, President Jeffer- son highly complimented Governor Tiffin for his energetic conduct in this matter, and subsequently by letter to the legislature of Ohio, dated February 2d, 1807, he especially commended the governor's prompt and effective measures, resulting in the destruction of the material of the proposed expedition. At the expiration of his second term, Governor Tiffin was elected to the United States Senate, taking his seat and being introduced to the assembled senators in December, 1807, by John Adams. His services in the senate for his young and thriving state were many and valuable, partic- ularly in securing appropriations for the improvement of navi- gation of the Ohio river, the better transportation of mails, and the surveys of the public lands. But the death of his wife in 1808 overwhelmed him with sorrow, and led to his resignation in 1809. He was not, however, allowed to remain in private life any longer than the following autumn, when, elected to the state legislature, he was unanimously chosen speaker of the house, and so continued during several sessions. During this period of his life he married again, the lady on this occasion being Miss Mary Porter of Delaware, whose family had then recently settled in Ross county. She was a lady of rare personal beauty, quiet manners and exemplary piety. So useful a man in public affairs as Governor Tiffin could not be long allowed to remain unemployed by the general government, and in the first term of Mr. Madison's administration, he was selected to organize and take charge as commissioner of the public lands department, and commis- sioned by the President, wholly unsolicited by himself or any of his friends. In this department, and which he had, we say, to organize, his labors are to be found in state papers ; and it was a fact that, so well had he the business in hand, the books and papers of his office were the only ones entirely saved at the burning of Washington City by the British in 1814. But his Ohio home had such attractions for him that Mr. Madison found he would resign unless a change was made that, while allowing him to return to that home would retain him still in office, and he therefore ordered an exchange with Josiah Meigs, who was then surveyor general of the West, having his office in Cincinnati. Mr. Meigs was appointed commissioner of the general land office at Wash- ington and Governor Tiffin made surveyor general, with the privilege of locating his office at Chillicothe. Here he estab- lished it and continued at its head until he surrendered it a few weeks before his death to General William Lytle. He received his successor on his death-bed, transferred to him his office and died. His accounts were found to be kept with exactness and in readiness for settlement. Of the vast sums that passed through his hands every dollar was properly accounted for. His own affairs were prudently managed, and he left his widow and five children independent in cir- cumstances. Mrs. Tiffin died in 1837. The only son, after graduating at college, chose his father's profession, and proceeded to Paris, France, there to study it, but unfor- tunately on his return homeward, in 1853, he was killed by a railroad accident. Three of the daughters, Miss D. M.
Tiffin and Mrs. M. Scott Cook, of Chillicothe, and Mrs. Dr. C. G. Comegys, of Cincinnati, are living. Politically, Gov- ernor Tiffin was of the old Jeffersonian school, the Republican party of those years. Religiously he had been bred a mem- ber of the Church of England, but during a period of religious revival at Charlestown, Virginia, in 1790, he became a mem- ber of the Methodist church, and was by the great missionary bishop, Francis Asbury, designated a lay preacher. On his removal a few years afterward to Chillicothe, he, without ostentation but in a spirit of religious duty, ministered unto, as he journeyed in the practice of his profession amongst, the people of the new settlements; and when the Episcopal church, old St. Paul's, at Chillicothe failed to secure a rector, he was often called to read the service, which he did with reverent fervor, and afterward read a sermon from some es- tablished collection. In the infancy of society men of ability have often been called upon to perform very varied functions in civil and moral affairs. The statesman, the warrior, and the philosopher have all acted the part of priests to the edifi- cation of communities and states. In the wild condition of the frontier at the beginning of this century, the preservation of the religious sentiments of the people was as much the duty of the leading men of the day as any other work they could perform, whilst laying the foundations of the state ; and this man, so distinguished in position and place in those times, was not ashamed to celebrate religious service. When he died the community in which he was best known person- ally mourned heartily the loss of so great and good a man. His earnest piety was an important element in promoting the best interests of those among whom he lived for nearly thirty years, and where numerous guests, the most distinguished in the land, had enjoyed themselves at the hospitable board of his beautiful home. A marble monument marks the spot where his remains rest, but a memorial more enduring is the remembrance of his deeds of charity and self-denial.
RAWSON, DR. LA QUINIO, was born at Grant, Franklin County, Massachusetts, on September 14th, 1804. In March, 1824, with an older brother, Abel Rawson, who died in Tiffin, Ohio, a much respected lawyer, in 1872, La Q. Rawson came to Ohio, and settled for a permanent home and career, which he has since made in the northwestern part of the State; and now in a ripe age (seventy-eight years), in un- usual possession of physical and mental powers, he sees about him the fruits of development and civilization well grown on bearing bush, vine, and tree, which he had good part in selecting, planting, and cultivating. Arrived in Ohio, the brothers stopped in Geauga County, to visit an older brother, Secretary Rawson, who to-day, still in life in Iowa, perpetuates in his name the memory of that progenitor, six generations back, who was elected Secretary of Massa- chusetts Bay Colony. After teaching a three months' school in Geauga County, La Q. next taught a school in Ravenna, Portage County, for one term, and then a term at New Phila- delphia, in Tuscarawas County. Having, from the time of his arrival in Ohio, studied medicine, he, in the spring of 1826 entered Dr. Flanner's office, in Zanesville, and in July, 1826, began practice at Tymochtee, then Crawford, now Wyandot County. In December, 1827, he removed to and settled at Lower Sandusky, now Fremont, in Sandusky County, where he has since resided, and now lives. He graduated in medi- cine in the Ohio Medical College, in 1834, and in the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, 1840. For thirty
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years he remained in the active practice of his profession as a physician and surgeon, riding a circuit extending in all di- rections from Fremont about the limits of Sandusky County, which then included Ottawa County. Taking a lively in- terest in all public affairs, he was county clerk for about fifteen years consecutively. The doctor, who on horseback rode the almost impassable bridle-paths of the Black Swamp, day and night, in urgent haste, to minister to the sick and dying, was naturally the advocate of improved roads, and in 1849 he was active in organizing and promoting the construction of plank-roads from Fremont to Tiffin, with a branch to Fos- toria. Soon after the completion of this, Dr. Rawson was one of the earliest subscribers and promoters of the building of that East and West Railroad through Fremont, which now forms part of that Lake Shore Road, and is to-day one of the great trunk-line thoroughfares of the United States. In 1853 he became interested in organizing and building the Fremont and Indiana Railroad, the original plan of which was to extend from the Sandusky River, at Fremont, to the west line of Ohio. It was subsequently expanded into a plan to con- nect the Ohio River, at Louisville, Kentucky, with Lake Erie at Sandusky City. Of this enterprise, Herculean in its proportions, Dr. Rawson was, from its inception, the leading spirit, and through difficulty and opposition, changes of plan, route, and name, he remained the president and manager, as he had been the originator, till 1877, when the railroad property of the Lake Erie and Louisville Railroad Company, with eighty- seven miles of railroad in full and successful operation, from Fremont to St. Mary's, in Auglaize County, and with a graded road-bed nearly to the State line, and a considerable construction in Indiana, in operation under lease, was sold, and the completed portion in Ohio was extended to San- dusky, on Lake Erie, on the north, and at the southwestern end it was extended to a connection with the Lafayette, Bloomington and Muncie Railroad, with which it was con- solidated. It has since been known as the Lake Erie and Western Railroad. During the years while occupied in for- warding these public works, Dr. Rawson found time to aid in every other progressive public improvement of his time and region. He aided in the organization and administration of the Sandusky County Agricultural Society, and afterward of the State Board of Agriculture, and was influential in improv- ing the standards of excellence in that section of the State in cattle, horses, and farm products generally. He often imported from other States fine breeds, cuttings, and seeds, and started their use and cultivation on his own lands and among his neighbors and friends. He planted and protected at his own expense many of the fine shade trees which now embellish the public grounds and streets of Fremont; and though, since about 1855, he has steadily withdrawn from the prac- tice of medicine, there are even yet persons and cases which demand, with an urgency he can not refuse, the services and advice of "the old doctor of all," as one poor sick woman described him, when sending for him in urgent need. Few indeed of the early settlers of Northwestern Ohio have accomplished more by individual effort for the material advancement and betterment of the condition of their fellow- men than Dr. Rawson, and fewer still of those who have done well in their day and generation have lived to see the good results of their labors, and to enjoy them in as good degree and measure as he. Always a man of positive opinions of his own, and very plain and direct ways of making his opinions known, he has yet always maintained and still enjoys the
entire respect and esteem of the wide-spread community in which he has spent his manhood, and of which he has been from first to last an influential and notable part. His young- est son, Major Eugene Allen Rawson, lost his life in the war for the Union, leaving so good a name in the hearts of his comrades that they have perpetuated it by naming their post at Fremont the " Eugene Rawson" Post. Dr. Rawson still lives in the substantial and comfortable brick house on State Street, which, when he built it, forty-five years ago, was the finest mansion in the town, and then looked upon as great extravagance in a house to live in. No reason is known why the house will not be a good one for fifty years to come, for Dr. Rawson built it to live in, and he built as he has lived, solidly, substantially, and conveniently, hating shams and disregarding show, but seeking always to better the con- dition. In July, 1829, Dr. Rawson was married to Sophia Beaugrand, who departed this life May 20th, 1882. To them were born seven children, of whom but two are still living, Joseph L. Rawson, of Fremont, and Estelle Sophia, now the wife of L. A. Russell, Esq., of Cleveland, Ohio. Seven grandchildren of Dr. Rawson are now living. The oldest son of Dr. Rawson, Dr. Milton E. Rawson, died in Fremont, at fifty years of age, in December, 1880, leaving three children.
BURKE, STEVENSON, railroad president, financier, lawyer, and jurist, of Cleveland, was born in St. Lawrence county, New York, on the 26th of November, 1826. His parents were natives of the north of Ireland, Presbyterians in faith, and Scotch by descent, and spent nearly all of their means in paying for a passage to this country, where they arrived on the 4th of July, 1825. They immediately set about preparing a new home, and remained in the neigh- borhood of Ogdensburg for about nine years. But na- ture is not so prodigal of her gifts in St. Lawrence county, where frosts begin in October and continue till May, as in more southern sections, and the parents, after that length of time, determined to remove to the West. They left Ogdens- burg in February, 1834, with a single span of horses, and drove the whole way, reaching Lorain county a full month afterwards. Then they purchased a small tract of land at North Ridgeville, and began clearing it and making it ready for the plow. The task was almost endless, and it was laborious. Schools were scattered, because the population was sparse. Mr. Burke's means of obtaining an education early in life were limited, but by making the best use of his opportunities, and especially by reading and studying evenings, and odd spells when he was resting from the hard work of the farm, or when kept indoors by rains or storms, he managed to pick up sufficient education by the time he was sixteen or seven- teen to enable him to teach a common district school. After that he attended a select school in the township of Ridge- ville for a few terms, and still later he attended for two or three terms a similar school at Elyria, the county-seat. In the fall of 1846 he, for a short time, attended the Ohio Wes- leyan University, in Delaware county, and about this time he began the study of law with Messrs. Powell & Buck, of that place. He returned to Elyria in 1847, and completed the preparatory study of law with the Hon. H. D. Clark, being duly admitted to practice August 11th, 1848. He entered immediately upon the duties of his profession, being espe- cially encouraged in his early efforts by Mr. Clark, who dis- covered in his young student the promise of future eminence in the profession, and in March, 1849, gave him the full
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Western Biost P. Fr
Stevenson Benke,
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benefit of his own high position and prestige by taking him into partnership. This partnership continued some three years, till Mr. Clark removed his residence from Elyria. Mr. Burke subsequently continued in business, having a large and lucrative practice, for most part of the time alone, until February, 1862, when he took his seat on the common pleas bench, having been almost unanimously elected a judge of that court in October, 1861. For ten years and more, pre- vious to his election, his practice had been by far the largest of any lawyer in the county, having been engaged in every case of any consequence in every court of record in the county, and in every case in the supreme court taken there from Lorain county. In October, 1866, he was re-elected com- mon pleas judge without opposition, and held the office two years, resigning in January, 1869, and at once entered upon the practice of law in Cleveland, in partnership with the Hon. F. T. Backus and E. J. Estep, Esq. This partnership continued till the death of Mr. Backus, in May, 1870. The firm was now changed to Burke & Estep, which continued till 1875, and afterwards he practiced alone. His professional business in Cleveland is very extensive. He has been engaged in a large number of the most important cases in northern Ohio, his practice not being confined to any one branch of his pro- fession. From 1869 to 1872, inclusive, he devoted very much time in New York and Ohio to the foreclosure of the mortgages upon, and the reorganization of, the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, Chief Justice Waite, then at the bar, and many other lawyers of distinction, in New York and Ohio, being engaged in that litigation. He represented the Erie Railway Company, and was entrusted with the chief control, not only of the litigations, but also of all negotiations for settlement, and ultimately the contending parties sub- mitted to him and Chief Justice Waite, as arbitrators, all unsettled matters of difference, which involved several mill- ions of dollars, and which they finally decided to the general satisfaction of the parties interested. It is believed that for several years after his return to the bar he argued more cases in the supreme court than any other lawyer in the State. He was often called in to assist in the more important cases in many of the counties of northern Ohio. In 1878 he was retained in the great case or series of cases in Utah, concerning the Nez Perces and Old Telegraph Mining Companies. He went to Utah twice as counsel in these cases for Mr. L. E. Holden, the owner of the mines, and, with the efficient aid of his associates there, defeated the claimants as far as the cases had been heard. The amount involved in this litigation is said to be a million or more. He still continues his active labors in the courts, trying many cases in different parts of Ohio and in the supreme court and in the courts of other States. In addition to his regular and general practice he devotes much time to railway business, in which he is now acknowledged as one of the leading men of the country. For many years he has been the general counsel of the Cleveland, Colum- bus, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis Railway Company, and a member of its board of directors. He has been the chair- man of its financial and executive committees, and has also represented, as attorney, a large amount of its stock held abroad. He was elected vice-president of that company in March, 1881, and continued to hold the office until the con- solidation of the road with the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Day- ton, under the name of the Ohio Railway Company, of which consolidated company he was elected vice-president. He was elected president of the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley
Railway Company in 1880; was for a long time its general counsel, a member of its board of directors, and financial and executive committees, and represented, as attorney for the owners, all the stock of that company. In July, 1881, on behalf of himself and a few others, taking a very large inter- est himself, he negotiated the purchase of all the stock of the Columbus and Hocking Valley, Columbus and Toledo, and Ohio and West Virginia Railroads, costing nearly seven millions of dollars, and consolidated them into the Colum- bus, Hocking Valley, and Toledo Railway, of which he is vice-president. At the same time he negotiated the pur- chase and consolidation. of a tract of over ten thousand acres of coal lands adjoining the last-named railway, and placed the title in the hands of the railway company. The road, as consolidated with the coal lands, is one of the safest and most valuable properties in the State, and, taken alto- gether, the above purchase of real estate and roads consti- tutes the largest purchase ever made in Ohio, and by many it is considered the best and most valuable. He also for several years represented, as attorney, the owners of three- fourths of the stock of the Shenango and Allegheny Rail- road Company, and of the Mercer Mining and Manufac- turing Company, quite large and important corporations in the State of Pennsylvania. He was a director in each, and was often offered the choice of all their offices-a fact com- plimentary to his business ability. He is also a director in the Cincinnati and Springfield Railroad Company ; president of the Snow Fork and Cleveland Coal Company, a cor- poration with a capital stock of several millions of dollars ; and a director of the Lake Shore Foundry Company, of Cleveland. He is and has for several years been a director in the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railroad Company, and also a director of the Dayton and Michigan, Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton, and Cincinnati, Hamilton and In- dianapolis Railroad Companies. He is interested in mines, farms, and city property and manufacturing interests of every description. He is eminently a self-made man, and a splendid example of that large class of men of Scotch- Irish descent who are, in all our States, recognized as among the very ablest and strongest, both morally and intellect- ually. Probably no man in the State of Ohio surpasses him in executive ability. Blessed with a vigorous constitution, he is able to attend thoroughly and well to a vast amount of general business in connection with a legal business equal to that of any lawyer in the State. He began life poor. He has been able to bestow many thousands of dollars in aid of friends and worthy charities, and while yet in the vigor of manhood, is in possession of a large fortune, the legitimate fruit of his professional labors and wise invest- ments. He has a fine house on Euclid Avenue. His appear- ance is striking, and his body is in its full power, giving him capacity for a wonderful amount of hard work. He is a man of the highest honor and integrity. As a judge he was highly esteemed. Very few appeals were taken from his de- cisions, and but two or three of his judgments were ever reversed. He never allowed business to accumulate, but made it a universal rule not to adjourn court until all cases ready were tried. Among his students were the Hon. George B. Lake, chief justice of Nebraska; General Sheldon, ex- member of Congress from New Orleans; the Hon. E. F. Poppleton, ex-member of Congress, of Delaware, Ohio; and his brother, H. H. Poppleton, general attorney of the Cleve- land, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis Railway Com-
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pany. He married April 26th, 1849, Miss Parthenia Popple- ton, a daughter of the Rev. Samuel Poppleton, then of Bellville, Richland county, Ohio. She died at Salt Lake City, Utah, January 7th, 1878. Married at an early age, he found in his wife one richly endowed with all womanly vir- tues ; she gave him, as. only a true wife can, hope and cour- age in the darkest hours. On the 22d of June, 1882, he was again married to Mrs. Ella M. Southworth, of Clinton, New York, a lady of charming personal and social qualities and of the highest Christian character.
MANSFIELD, EDWARD D., of Warren county, Ohio, author, journalist and statistician, was born August, 1801, in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Jared Mansfield, scien- tist, professor at West Point Military Academy, and surveyor- general of the Northwest Territory, who died in 1830, after a career of great usefulness to his country. The parentage and education of Edward D. Mansfield were such as to prepare him to be a man of wide influence, his father being one of the first scholars of the day. He accompanied his father to West Point in 1815, and after graduating in June 1819, was appointed lieutenant of engineers. His mother, a literary and religious lady, preferred that her son should not continue in the army. At her suggestion he applied himself to literary studies at Farmington, Connecticut, during the year 1820, and finally graduated with high honors at Princeton College, New Jersey, in September, 1822. He afterward studied law under Judge Gould of Litchfield, Connecticut, for two years, and moved to Cincinnati in 1825. Here he entered into a law partnership with the late Professor Mitchel, the eminent astronomer, but as lawyers, the firm was not successful, the members of it being more given to scientific and literary in- vestigation than to the dry details of the law. The profes- sional life of Mr. Mansfield was, therefore, of short duration. In 1826 he canvassed the city of Cincinnati for material which he put into shape, and in connection with Mr. Benja- min Drake, published as a directory for that year. Mr. Mansfield was now started on a literary career. In 1834 he brought out the "Political Grammar," still published as the "Political Manual." The work was well received, and adopted as a text-book in many schools throughout the coun- try. In the same year he published the "Utility of Mathe- matics ;" in 1845, "The Legal Rights of Women; " in 1846, the "Life of General Winfield Scott; " in 1848, the " Mexican War; " in 1850, " American Education ;" in 1855, " Memoirs of Daniel Drake;" in 1868, the "Life of General Grant." From 1836 to 1848 he rendered good service to society as editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle, and from 1849 to 1852, as editor of the Chronicle and Atlas. During the year 1857 he was editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, and from 1853 to 1871 of the Railroad Record. His reports upon the condi- tion of the State, materially and morally, are the best repre- sentation ever given of a territory of equal extent. As an editor and contributor, he was remarkable for his impartiality and fairness, and has been one of the most extensive news- paper writers in the country. In the management of his papers he did much to develop the talent for writing in others. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some of her first productions for his paper. As a politician, Mr. Mansfield supported the Whig party with all his ability. He advocated the doctrine of a protective tariff on the ground that only by discrimina- tion in favor of the products of home labor, could the con- dition of the American workingman be kept better than that
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