USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 48
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Mr. Rickoff also recommended the plan of organization which is now in successful operation in the city of Cleveland. Though it differs from the system which had, on his recom- mendation, been adopted in Cincinnati, it was thought to be
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Yours faithfully O.G. Thurman
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better adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the Forest City. Speaking of school organizations of the United States, Sir Chas. Reed, chairman of the school board of the city of London, England, who was at the head of the educational commission which came to this country in 1876, reported to the committee in council, that no single city was "superior to Cleveland, closely followed in alphabetical order by Bos- ton, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis," etc. Mr. Rickoff has given much study to school architecture, the warming and ventilating of school-houses, etc. Accordingly he has been authorized by his board of education to make the floor plans of six of the largest school buildings which have been erected under its jurisdiction within the last six or seven years, the Central High-school being among the number. The latter building is believed to be not only one of the best arranged, but also one of the most magnificent, buildings yet erected in the United States for public school purposes. All the plans mentioned included also plans for warming and ventilating. Of these plans the French commission reported to the minister of public instruction that they greatly pre- ferred them to the school-house plans of Boston, New York, etc., and reiterated their judgment thus: "We do not hes- itate to put Cleveland in the lead in respect to school- houses." In the year 1877 the great publishing firm of D. Appleton & Co. solicited Mr. Rickoff and Dr. Harris to pre- pare a series of school readers. This being done, they were printed and put on the market, and within the four years which have elapsed since their publication they have reached a sale of nearly three million copies. In this work Mr. Rickoff was greatly aided by his wife, Mrs. Rebecca D. Rickoff. To her he acknowledges his obligation for much of his success in the direction of the primary schools which have come under his management. He says that to her he owes the development of that which is best in their practical application.
THURMAN, HON. ALLEN G., lawyer, jurist, and statesman, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on November 13th, 1813. His father was the Rev. P. Thurman, his mother the only daughter of Col. Nathaniel Allen, of North Carolina, nephew and adopted son of Joseph Hewes, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1819 his parents removed to Chillicothe, Ohio, and he resided there until 1853, when he removed to Columbus, his present resi- dence. He was educated at the Chillicothe Academy, and by the private instruction of his mother. He studied law with his uncle, the late William Allen, then United States Senator and afterward Governor of Ohio, and with Noah H. Swayne, now a retired justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. While a student, he spent considerable time in surveying lands, of which pursuit he was very fond, and to which he is, doubtless, much indebted for that robust constitution and strong vital force which enabled him in after years to accomplish, without apparent injury, such an amount of mental labor as but few can endure. Judge Alfred Yaple, in a contribution to the Cincinnati Com- mercial, a few years since, gives us this racy description of Thurman in boyhood. He was "then a small boy, with what poets in pantaloons would denominate 'flaxen hair,' and versifiers in crinoline 'golden locks,' but what Allen and common people call a 'tow-head.' His mother was drilling him in his French lessons. She continued to superintend his education, directing his reading of authors, even after he left
the old Chillicothe Academy, a private institution, and the highest and only one he ever attended until his admission to the bar. While attending this academy Thurman's class- mates and intimates were sent away to college. He could not go, for not only did his parents find themselves without the means to send him, but even required his exertions for . their own support and the support of his sisters, a duty which he cheerfully and efficiently rendered, remaining single and at home for more than nine years after his admission to the bar, giving a large part of his earnings toward his par- ents' and sisters' support. The day his companions mounted the stage and went away to college he was seized with tem- porary despair. Sick at heart, he sought the old Presbyte- rian burying-ground, and laid down upon a flat tomb and cried. Soon the thought struck him that that was idle, and would not do. A gentleman was passing, to whom he told his grief, but added, 'If they come home and have learned more than I have they must work for it.' Old citizens still remember that a light, during this time, was often seen in young Thurman's room until four o'clock in the morning. He would never quit any thing until he had mastered it and made it his own. This particular trait he has possessed ever since. In the acquisition of solid learning his academy fel- lows never got in advance of him, and he kept studying long after they had graduated. He taught school, studied, and practiced surveying, prepared himself for and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1835, and practiced his profession until he was elected a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1851." This period was one of constant and intense men- tal activity for him, whereby were laid deep and broad the foundations for that fame which for many years past has been co-extensive with the republic. The bar of Chillicothe at that time was excelled by none in the State for ability, learning, and eloquence. Thomas Ewing, Henry Stanberry, and Hocking H. Hunter, of the Lancaster bar, appeared in many of the important cases in Ross and adjoining counties where Thurman practiced. Such progress did he make that in a comparatively short time he stood confessedly in the very front rank of the profession, not only in Ross county, but in the State of Ohio. Employed in almost every litigated case in Ross county, he was retained in many important litigations in adjoining and remote counties. With this immense practice no client could ever truthfully complain that his case was neg- lected. Pleadings were filed at the proper time, and when the case was called for trial his carefully prepared brief dem- onstrated that every pertinent authority had been noticed and every principle of law involved in the issue thoroughly ana- lyzed and considered. The painstaking labor which he be- stowed upon the preparation of a case was remarkable. Every detail was noticed and its probable effect considered. The weak points of his adversary were carefully surveyed, the plan of assault thereon skillfully arranged, and the vul- nerable points on his own side thoroughly protected. But his work did not stop with the consideration of details and par- ticulars. His ability to classify and generalize was unex- celled. When he came to the point of inquiring, " What is the logic of the whole case in view of all the circumstances?" his argumentative and logical power told with fearful effect upon his adversary. He was married in November, 1844, to Mary, daughter of the late Walter Dun, of Fayette county, Ken- tucky. The same year he was nominated and elected as the. democratic candidate of the Ross county district for repre- sentative in Congress, serving one Congress with distinction.
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He declined to be a candidate for re-election, much to the regret of his constituents, in order that he might again devote his attention especially to the practice of the law. Elected in 1851 to the Supreme bench, he drew the term for four years, and of that time served from December, 1854, to Feb- ruary, 1856, as chief-justice. Declining a re-election upon retiring from the Supreme bench, he resumed the practice of his profession at Columbus, and was retained in leading cases from all parts of the State in the higher State and Fed- eral courts. His opinions contained in the first five volumes of the "Ohio State Reports," notable for the clear and forci- ble expression of his views and the accuracy of his state- ments of the law, greatly strengthened and extended his reputation as a lawyer and jurist. He has always been a democrat, adhering unflinchingly to the party through all its varying fortunes, and while not inclined to run after tempo- rary expedients in politics, when the State or national con- vention has settled the policy of a campaign for his party, he has gracefully acquiesced in the decision, whether exactly in accord with his judgment in every particular or not, believing that its success upon the whole would promote the best inter- ests of the country. Because of this he has been unjustly accused, in one or two instances, of a want of personal inde- pendence in not adhering to his own convictions. No one well acquainted with Judge Thurman but knows that, while on all proper occasions he boldly and fearlessly avows his opinions upon all questions of public import and enforces them with arguments not easily controverted, he is, nevertheless, too wise, just, and tolerant of the opinions of others to resist after a decision by proper authority, whether a court, the Senate, the convention of his party, or the people at the ballot-box. He believes that the fundamental principles of the democratic party must be applied to the practical administration of the government to insure the safety and perpetuity of republican institutions in this country, and tenaciously clings to the democratic party as the only instrumentality by which this object may be fully attained. In the Twenty-ninth Congress he advocated and voted for the "Wilmot Proviso," and upon the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Mr. Doug- las, opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as an unnecessary disturbance of a fair settlement of controverted questions, the reopening of which might produce the most dire consequences. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill he continued to do battle with the national democratic party, advocating the principle of non-interference by the Fed- eral Government, so far as slavery in the Territories was con- cerned, as defined by its platform adopted in Cincinnati in June, 1856, as the only means of averting the evils he had feared as the result of repealing the Missouri Compromise. In the discussion of the questions growing out of this repeal he took a very prominent part, always advocating the cause of national unity and peace. He was always uncompromisingly opposed to the doctrine of secession. He was unanimously nominated by the democratic party of Ohio as its gubernato- rial candidate in 1867. In this remarkable campaign the issue principally discussed was whether the Constitution of the State should be so amended as to authorize negro suf- frage. The preceding republican legislature having sub- mitted such an amendment to be voted upon at the October election of that year, Thurman commenced an early and aggressive canvass, being on the stump about four months, and making one hundred speeches of great force and ability. He secured an almost perfect organization in every county,
and brought all the speaking talent of the democracy to his active and enthusiastic support, meeting the well-trained corps of republican speakers at every point, and at the ballot-box, in a vote larger than had then ever been polled in the State, defeated the suffrage amendment by over fifty thousand votes, the democrats electing a large majority of the members of both branches of the legislature, and reducing the heavy republican majority of 1866 to a merely nominal one, by which he was defeated for governor. The caucus of the democratic members of the legislature, upon its assembling, by a large majority nominated him as a candidate for United States Senator, his opponent for the nomination being the late Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, and his republican opponent at the election by the joint session of the two houses being the late Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, whom he succeeded in the Senate. In 1873 he succeeded in again carrying both branches of the legislature, which secured his re-election to the Senate for a second term of six years, and wiping out the republican .majority of forty thousand of 1872, and electing ex-Senator William Allen, the democratic candi- date for governor, by a majority of six hundred. Without depreciating the efficiency of Governor Allen and the many able and earnest Democrats who "mingled in the fray," it is certain that the complete success of the democratic party in Ohio in 1873 was principally owing to the deep and abiding faith of Thurman in the democratic organization and his skill and inflexible purpose in holding his party in line after the disorganizing campaign of 1872. Upon reaching Washington to take his seat in the Senate on the 4th of March, 1869, Senator Thurman found his fame as a lawyer, debater, and politician of great ability had preceded him, and by common consent of all parties in the Senate and throughout the country he was regarded as the leader and exponent of the democracy in that august body, a position which he maintained for twelve years without the expression from any one that he had a rival in his own party. Upon his entering the Senate he was assigned to the judiciary committee, and continued to be a member of that committee during his entire service in the Senate. In the Forty-sixth Congress, the democracy obtained a majority in the Senate, when he became the chairman of the judiciary committee, and was also elected president pro tempore of the Senate, and, because of the ill-health and absence of Vice-president Wheeler, presided much of the time with great ability and impartiality. It is impossible, within the limits prescribed for this sketch, to refer to even the more important services ren- dered the country by him while in the Senate. Perhaps he is entitled to be most commended and longest remembered for introducing, advocating with consummate skill and ability, and causing to be passed, an act since known as the " Thurman Act," relating to the Pacific railroads. By this act it is said that more than $100,000,000 were saved to the people as an immediate or prospective result. The opposition to the pas- sage of this act was fierce, even unscrupulous, the friends of the railroads employing every means, influence, and argu- ment, both in and out of the Senate, to defeat it. The bill, as was asserted with great vehemence, was unconstitutional, but its constitutionality was clearly established by Thurman in a speech of great power, and his position in this respect has since been sustained by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Senator Thurman was not led to intro- duce and advocate the passage of this measure because of any fanatical opposition to railroad corporations as such, but
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simply to establish and secure what he believed to be the plain contract rights of the government. But so prominent a part did he take in all the great debates upon the import- ant measures before the Senate while he was a member that no just or comprehensive description of his services can be written in much less space than would be required for the history of the government for that period. As a speaker he is forcible and direct, wasting no time upon immaterial mat- ters, while his manner evinces that he is wholly sincere and greatly in earnest. He always received marked attention while addressing the Senate, for it was understood that he never spoke unless he had "something to say," and that it was worth while for both friend and foe to know what that " something" was. His course in the Senate was far from that of a mere partisan. Though in a minority for most part of the time, he exercised great influence with the major- ity, by whom he was held in the highest personal esteem for his courtesy, ability, integrity, and purity of character. Prior to the assembling of the national democratic convention at St. Louis, in 1876, his name was very generally mentioned by the press and otherwise in every part of the country as a favorite candidate for President ; but an unfortunate division of the party in Ohio upon the currency question prevented his friends from urging his nomination or announcing his name to the convention as a candidate. In 1880 there was a still more general expression in the country favorable to his nomination for the presidency. The democratic State convention of Ohio, of that year, assembling to appoint del- egates to the national convention at Cincinnati, unanimously adopted resolutions favoring his candidacy, and instructing the delegation from Ohio to vote for and support him in the national convention. On the first ballot in the latter conven- tion he received the vote of Ohio and a very flattering vote from other States, the whole vote having been very much divided among a number of local favorites. He also re- ceived the vote of Ohio and some from other States on the second ballot, but before the conclusion of that ballot it be- came manifest that General Hancock would be nominated, and the vote of all the States was changed to the latter, with the sin- gle exception of Indiana, which State adhered to ex-Senator Hendricks to the end. Senator Thurman has been almost universally acknowledged by the democracy of the country as the ablest and best representative of the party, and from his long and eminent services rendered to the party and the country the most entitled to be honored by it, the writer of this sketch has every reason to believe. Motives of policy undoubtedly prevented the convention from nomi- nating Thurman, not because he was not popular, for no man before the convention had as many friends or fewer enemies, but he lived in Ohio, a State, under all ordinary circum- stances, certainly republican. And as the October election in that State for State officers would be regarded as a test of the strength of the presidential candidates in November, it was feared that the democracy, with all of Senator Thur- man's popularity in the State, would not be able to wrest it from the republicans with a favorite son, in the person of General Garfield, as their candidate. The apprehension that the moral effect of the defeat of the democracy in Ohio in October might be disastrous to success with Thurman as the candidate was probably unduly magnified by the immediate friends of other candidates. The chances of each party were, however, then regarded as about equal, and to assure success democrats thought it wise to look to and regard every con-
dition and circumstance that might possibly affect the result. On retiring from the Senate March 4th, 1881, he determined to devote himself to his private affairs and to decline all in- vitations to become a candidate for any public position of whatever name or character. In a very few weeks, however, he was appointed by President Garfield, with ex-Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, and ex-Secretary of State Evarts, to rep- resent the American government in the International Con- gress to assemble in Paris in the spring of 1881, to consider and agree, if possible, upon the propriety of fixing a uniform rule by which silver should be regarded as money by the countries therein represented. Inasmuch as the acceptance of this appointment furnished him an opportunity to visit Europe in a pleasant way, a thing he had always desired to do, but had never found time for, he determined to make the acceptance of it an exception to his previous resolution. He accordingly sailed from New York on the 5th of April, 1881, and arrived in New York on his return in October. In addi- tion to France he visited Switzerland, the Rhine, Belgium, Eng- land, Scotland, and returned much improved in health and delighted with his journey. But so long as health remains it is not at all probable that Senator Thurman will lead a life of ease and inactivity. Very soon after his return from Europe he argued two important causes in the Supreme Court of the United States, one of which involved the title to a vast amount of mining property in Colorado, aggregating in vol- ume many millions of dollars. Following closely upon this, he was selected, with Chief-justice Cooley, of Michigan, and Washburne, of Illinois, ex-minister to France, to serve upon an advisory commission in the troubles as to differential rates between the trunk railroads leading from the Atlantic sea- board to the West. They have already heard arguments in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. "The Judge," as he is familiarly addressed by his neighbors, is now sixty-eight years of age, but enjoying excellent health. With his men- tal faculties unimpaired, it is hard to believe, from his appear- ance, that he might not do good work for a quarter of a cen- tury to come. He has, however, formed the inflexible deter- mination not to allow himself to be regarded as, under any circumstances, a candidate for official honors. To a friend who, a short time since, hinted that there might be an emer- gency in which it would be necessary for the democratic party to make him its candidate for President in 1884, he replied very quickly, "that he only recalled one instance in this country of a President who was inaugurated after he was seventy years of age, and the office-seekers killed him in one month. He had no desire to make his exit from this world in that way ; besides he had always flattered himself that he was not a chronic office-seeker, and that he would at the appro- priate age retire from public life and devote the evening of his days to the enjoyment of the more congenial and sub- stantial pleasures of a private citizen. His resolution to remain in private life had been advisedly formed and would be firmly maintained."
STEWART, DANIEL BERTINE, a well-known busi- ness man and prominent as a railroad projector and con- tractor, is of New England parentage. His parents were Daniel and Ruth (Arnold) Stewart, who emigrated from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Ohio in 1802, settling in Athens County, where our subject was born, September 26th, 1812. His father purchased a large tract of land at a day when little or no development had been made in the fertile, and
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now populous, Hocking Valley, and Mr. Stewart spent the earlier years of his life in removing the heavy forests which covered almost the entire county at that time. This arduous employment curtailed his use of the few educational advan- tages afforded at that time, and, in consequence, his education in the elementary branches was defective. His innate ability, however, supplied that defect in subsequent life; and he became widely known throughout the State as an able and practical man of business. He formed at an early age habits of economy, industry, and perseverance, which have proved of incalculable value to him in after years. At the age of sixteen years he entered his father's flouring-mill, and two years later took entire charge of the same, and, on attain- ing his majority, purchased the mill and all its outfittings. He soon disposed of the mill, realizing a considerable amount on his purchase. He then formed a partnership with his brother Alexander, at Rutland, Ohio, where he continued in business two years, when he removed to Coolville, Athens County, and engaged in the mercantile business. In 1837 he disposed of his interest there and removed to his father's farm, where he improved the water-power of the Hocking river, and erected a saw-mill. In 1842 he built a large grist- mill; and, two years later, established the first woolen fac- tory in Southern Ohio, thus being the pioneer of that im- portant industry in that section. This business was highly successful, and in his hands assumed large proportions, affording employment to a considerable number of per- sons. His business centering largely at Athens he removed with his family to that place, November 6th, 1867, where he still lives. He is universally conceded to be the most active man in building projects in Athens County. Since 1837 he has built a large number of stores, dwelling-houses, mills, and factories, including a fine brick factory, one of the best equipped in Southern Ohio. In later years railroad con- struction has occupied his attention, and he has been promi- nent and active in measures to increase the railroad facilities throughout the State. In 1850 he commenced to agitate the construction of the Parkersburg and Columbus Valley line, which, through unforeseen difficulties, was abandoned. He secured the right-of-way for the building of the Baltimore Short Line, and officiated as the practical superintendent of construction. He was a stockholder, and a director of the road until its amalgamation with the Baltimore and Ohio, when his interests were merged with that corporation. Mr. Stewart is credited with being the prime mover of the enter- prise which resulted in the construction of the Baltimore Short Line, and doubtless contributed more time, influence, and personal energy to secure its successful inauguration than any other single individual, having devoted four years to promot- ing its interests. He was for some years a director in the Atlantic and Lake Erie road, since succeeded by the Ohio Central, and was largely instrumental in securing the success- ful operation of the same. At this writing he is identified with projects looking to the establishment of railroad com- munications between the great coal fields of Perry County and the south-east. Mr. Stewart's enterprise has not been restricted to railroad construction and the building up of the material interests of the town of Athens. The village of Stewart, in Athens County, on the line of the Marietta and Cincinnati road, was laid out by him, and the greater number of buildings were erected through his enterprise and by his means. Mr. Stewart has never entered very actively in politics, and has always been disposed to eschew office. He
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