USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 75
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
extended the business, and wholesaled their wares to sur- rounding towns, and very speedily ran their sales up to an aggregate of a million dollars a year. About 1862 Mr. Wor- thington projected the Cleveland Iron and Nail Works, and, in connection with Mr. William Bingham, matured the plans, and in a year got the machinery into successful operation. The products turned out were of the best quality, and their works speedily needed enlarging to meet the constantly in- creasing demand upon them. Shortly after, they built works for the manufacture of gas-pipe. He was also largely in- terested in blast furnaces and coal mining in the vicinity of Cleveland. On the passage of the "National Bank Law," Mr. Worthington, with other capitalists, organized the First National Bank, of Cleveland. The bank was incorporated .
in 1863, and at the first meeting of the stockholders, held in June of that year, he was chosen one of the directors, and elected president of the bank. This position he held until his death. Under his presidency the bank enjoyed great prosperity; the capital stock of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, on which the bank was or- ganized, was, after three months' business, increased to two hundred thousand dollars, and in July, 1864, still further increased to three hundred thousand dollars. He was one of the directors of the Ohio Savings and Loan Bank, and largely interested in local insurance interests. He was vice-president of the Sun Insurance Company, interested in the Cleveland and Commercial, and a director of the Hahne- mann Life. He was for some years a director of the Cleve- land, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway Com- pany, and was also president of the Cleveland Iron Mining Company. In the development of the iron interests of Cleve- land, which from a small beginning, have since assumed such immense proportions, he was one of the pioneers. He also did much in the way of building up the city, especially the business portion. In the way of buildings he has left many monuments to his enterprise. He did much toward converting the village, as he found it, into the great city of to-day, being a man whose activity always led him to feel a great pride in building up the town and setting men to work to improve his property. He strove, in many instances, to improve and advance the interests of the city, rather than his personal or pecuniary interests. A man of large com- prehension, bold and fearless in going into large operations, and liberal in his ideas in carrying them out-he was pecul- iarly adapted to enterprises of that character. He would often go in where others quailed, and was always bound to carry them to a successful issue. All in which he was en- gaged have grown to be of great magnitude. The wholesale hardware business, which still bears his name, has become one of the largest in the West. Of this firm his two sons, Ralph and George, are members. He was married in 1840 to Miss Maria C. Blackmar, of Cleveland. They had born to them eight children, three sons and five daughters. Six of these, with Mrs. Worthington, still survive him. At the time of his death he was a member of the Third Presbyterian Church, of Cleveland, having been one of the thirteen who were set off from the Stone, or First Presbyterian Church, to build up the new church. He came to the Stone Church by letter from the Presbyterian Church of Utica, New York, with which he had united during his clerkship in Utica. He was a man of warm and generous domestic feelings, greatly attached to his family, and fondly beloved by them. As a business man he possessed superior qualifications, being a
-
1
Wfaster= Bool Pob Co
291
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
hard worker, shrewd, yet liberal, clear, positive, and of good judgment. A man well-read, thoughtful, and intelligent, he could comprehend and go into the detail of all matters most thoroughly. As a companion he was agreeable, well versed in politics (in which his sentiments were strongly anti-slavery), and also in the history and geography of the country. Dur- ing the war he was an active worker in every thing that would tend to insure success to Union arms. To the cause he gave freely of his means, and sacrificed both time and personal convenience. In his commercial transactions, espe- cially as regards his partners, he was a man of justice, cor- rectness, equity, and high personal virtues. Kindly in his nature, he endeared himself to his business associates and . intimate friends. To the support of the church of his choice he gave liberally, and in her prosperity he took delight. For many years of his later life he suffered much, from cancer in the bowels, which eventually proved fatal.
MUSSEY, REUBEN DIMOND, M. D., LL.D., sur- geon, was born in Rockingham county, New Hampshire, on the 23d June, 1780, and died June 2Ist, 1866, at Boston. His family, which was of French, and traditionally of Huguenot origin, was settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in the early part of the seventeenth century. His paternal grandfather, Reuben, was the son of John Mussey, and lived from 1720 to 1788. The next member of the lineage was Dr. John Mus- sey, who, born in 1745, died in 1831, and was engaged as a prominent country practitioner at the time his son, the sub- ject of the present memoir, was born. In 1791, Dr. John Mussey moved to Amherst, New Hampshire, and in this place his son, then eleven years old, was afforded the first oppor- tunity of attending a district school during a part of the win- ter. He afterward learned from his father the rudiments of Latin, and at the age of fifteen he was sent to the Aurean Academy, at Amherst. In a short time he was sufficiently advanced to enter the freshman class of the Eastern colleges ; but, to raise funds for this much-cherished purpose, he was compelled to spend his summer in agricultural labor, and his winters in teaching school. In 1801 he entered the junior class of Dartmouth College, and prosecuted his studies there with uninterrupted success, having obtained the necessary pecuniary resources chiefly by teaching, a business which he commenced at the age of sixteen, and which he pursued dur- ing his collegiate vacations. He graduated with distinction in August, 1803, and immediately began the study of medicine as a pupil of Dr. Nathan Smith, the eminent founder of the Medical School of New Hampshire. To recruit his finances, however, he taught the next summer in the academy of Pe- tersborough, pursuing at the same time his medical studies under Dr. Howe, of Jaffrey, but subsequently availing him- self of the supervision of Dr. Smith, his first preceptor. After a public examination, he received the degree of bachelor of medicine in 1805. In September, the same year, he com- menced the practice of his profession in Essex county, Mass- achusetts, under very favorable circumstances, and in three years he realized means sufficient to enable him to go to Phil- adelphia and attend the lectures at the University of Penn- sylvania. In this great emporium of medical science, he de- rived much benefit from the valuable instructions of Drs. Barton, Rush, Wistar, Physic, and other eminent professors, so that his studies and proficiency, which were rewarded with a diploma in 1809, fitted him for a higher and more im- portant position in the medical world. The first circumstance
which gave him prominence in this sphere, was his experi- mental researches for deciding long-mootcd physiological questions. In support of the doctrine of cutaneous absorp- tion in certain cases, he obtained evidence, as he found that madder, cochineal, and other substances, when dissolved in a bath, and thus kept in contact with the body for a few hours, could be afterwards detected in the urine. His experiments were repeated by others, with all necessary precautions and with like results. They are alluded to in " Wistar's Anatomy " and other works, and they then had the effect of modifying much the views of Dr. Rush and other physiologists who had previously pushed their dogmas too far in maintaining the impossibility of absorption by the skin. On his return from Philadelphia, Dr. Mussey settled at Salem, Massachusetts, and he formed a professional partnership with Dr. Daniel Oliver, whose worth and learning found afterwards a proper sphere in the chair of medicine in the Medical Institution of New Hampshire. During two successive years of their partner- ship, they gave in the town of Salem two courses of popular lectures on chemistry. In the last years of his residence at Salem, Dr. Mussey's practice became very large, and he per- formed a considerable number of surgical operations, especi- ally on the eye. In the autumn of 1814, he was invited to fill the chair of the theory and practice of physic in the medi- cal school of Dartmouth College. He accepted the position, but finding the career of his duties stopped, for a time, by legislative interference, he delivered during one session, a very successful course of lectures on chemistry. In 1817 he gave a similar course of chemical lectures at Middlebury Col- lege, Vermont. After the decision of the supreme court of the United States removed the legal barriers from the medical department of Dartmouth College, Dr. Mussey was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery in that institution. In this new position his life presented a continual scene of labor and study in rendering his knowledge of anatomy more profound by delivering two lectures a day, and in attending to a large professional practice. Early in December, 1829, he went to Europe, and, during his absence of ten months, he spent most of his time in visiting the hospitals and the anatomical museums of London and Paris. On his return to Dartmouth, he gave double and treble lectures daily, in order to compen- sate for the time lost from his collegiate duties. In the four succeeding winters, in consequence of the death of one of its professors, he lectured in the Medical School of Maine on anatomy and surgery ; but this caused little inconvenience, as the session in Maine commenced after that in New Hamp- shire had closed. In 1836 and 1837, he delivered courses of lectures on surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Fairfield, Herkimer county, New York ; but in the fall of 1838, he concluded to retire from the severe labors of a rural practice in the cold climate of New England, and he accepted a position as professor of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati. In this institution he lectured on surgery during fourteen years with much success, while, at the same time, he had charge of the surgical department of the Com- mercial Hospital, and had also to attend to a large regular practice. Here his skill and varied attainments in his pro- fession found a fair theatre for their useful action, and he added much to the reputation which he had already acquired by his achievements in surgery. In dangerous and import- ant surgical operations. he was rarely, if ever, surpassed in skill or in success. From distant localities patients were at- tracted by his reputation, which was second to that of no
37
292
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
surgeon or physician on this continent. In 1850, he was chosen president of the American Medical Association, and he discharged the duties of that high position with the great- est honor to himself and to the medical profession. In 1852, after a connection of fourteen years with the Medical College of Ohio, he retired from that institution, and accepted the chair of surgery in the Miami Medical College. Here he continued to discharge his duties as professor until 1857, when the Miami merged into the Ohio Medical College, in accord- ance with an agreement honorable to both faculties. He now retired at the age of seventy-seven, from the occupation of medical lecturer, but he continued to practice in Cincinnati until 1859, when he took up his abode in Boston. In the lat- ter city he passed the closing scenes of his life, spending his time in visiting hospitals, still an enthusiast in movements for the advancement of his profession and for the welfare of mankind. To a most profound knowledge and skill in his profession, Dr. Mussey united the virtues and honorable qualities which reflect luster on humanity. To his temperate living, and to the strict regularity of his habits, he seemed to be much indebted for the great length and the useful labors of his life. He took an active part in forming the Massachu- setts Temperance Society, but in his own course of life he did not restrict the meaning of temperance to the mere abstinence from the use of intoxicating drinks; and, at this period, he became distinguished as an advocate of total abstinence. In 1828, a severe fit of sickness caused him to change his views on diet, and he became a vegetarian, and remained so until his death. During the years dating from 1833 to 1840, he de- livered a series of popular lectures on hygiene, including the effects of certain fashions in dress, peculiar habits of life, and varieties of food, etc., upon the human health. In 1860, he published a valuable work, entitled, " Health ; its Friends and its Foes," which gained a wide circulation. Dr. Mussey was a man of such strong individuality and originality of character and ideas, that he was a leader among men. As a surgeon, he was strictly conservative, religiously conscientious, and very thorough as well in the treatment of his cases following operations as in the performance of them. In many of his operations he was the pioneer, and the medical and scientific journals of Europe and America contain records of his valu- able discoveries in surgical science. He was remarkable for large benevolence and generosity, not alone toward the poor among his patients, but to all institutions and enterprises of a benevolent or charitable nature. Untiring industry, persever- ance, enthusiasm, fidelity to principle and his views of duty in his professional, moral, and social life, were the controlling influences in his eventful and brilliant career. While labor- ing for the good of humanity in this world, he was not for- getful of the concerns of the next. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and was very strict and observant of his religious duties. He was universally beloved in the pro- fession as well as out of it. Twice married, his first wife was Mary Sewall, of Maine, and his second was Hetty Osgood, daughter of Dr. John Osgood, of Salem, Massachusetts. The issue of the last marriage was nine children, comprising the following list : John Mussey, deceased 1872 ; Joseph Osgood Mussey, deceased 1856 ; William H. Mussey, M. D., surgeon, elsewhere noticed ; Francis Brown Mussey, M. D., an able practicing physician, Portsmouth, Ohio ; Maria Lucretia, mar- ried to Lyman Mason, Esq., Boston, Massachusetts ; Catha- rine Stone, married to Shattuck Hartwell, Littleton, Massa- chusetts ; Rev. Charles Frederick, minister of the Presbyte-
rian church, Blue Rapids, Kansas ; Edward Augustus, de- ceased 1831 ; Reuben D. Mussey, a leading attorney, Wash- ington, D. C.
COWEN, DANIEL DUANE TOMPKINS, a lawyer of distinction, being a son of Benjamin Sprague Cowen, jurist and statesman, is a native of Moorefield, Harrison County, Ohio. Both his father and mother (Ann Wood) were natives of Washington County, New York, whence they removed to Ohio in 1825, settling in Harrison County, where Mr. Cowen was born January 20th, 1826. His early education was acquired in the public schools and at Brooks Institute, of St. Clairsville, of which his father was one of the founders. His classical training was received at the hands of Dr. Mc- Bane, at Cadiz, Ohio. Later he studied medicine and surgery under his uncle, Dr. Sylvanus Wood, of Cadiz, and Dr. John Alexander, of St. Clairsville, not, however, with a view of practicing the profession, but as a part of his preliminary training for the law. He then prepared for the bar, having for his preceptors his father and his father's partner, Hugh J. Jewett, who afterward became the president of the Erie Railroad. He was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Ohio, January 20th, 1847, and located in practice at St. Clairsville. He soon attained a high standing at the bar, which, ever since its organization, has been of high repute on account of the great number of exceptionally able men who have practiced there. Notable among these were Will- iam Kennon, Sen., William Kennon, Jr., John M. Goodenow, Ex-Governor Wilson Shannon, W. B. Hubbard, Carlo C. Carrol, Benjamin S. Cowen, Hugh J. Jewett, and Charles Hammond. In time he became the recognized leader of the Belmont County bar, with practice in all the courts of his section, and the Supreme Court of Ohio. Soon after the com- mencement of hostilities between the North and South he was commissioned Lieutenant-colonel of the Fifty-second Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of which Dan. McCook was colonel. That officer being assigned to the command of a brigade, the command of the regiment devolved upon Colonel Cowen. He participated in the engagements of his regiment until the failing health of his wife admonished him that his presence was required at home. He accordingly tendered his resig- nation, and received his honorable discharge in February, 1863. On his return home he was made chairman of the military committee of Belmont County, of which Judge William Kennon, Judge Kelley, and Benjamin S. Cowen were mem- bers. Mr. Cowen has never held civic office of importance outside of the line of his profession. He served as prose- cuting attorney of Belmont County from 1852 to 1858, inclu- sive, and also served a time as Clerk and Mayor of St. Clairsville; he also was a member of the Board of Educa- tion and the Board of School Examiners, from 1854 to 1862, when he resigned to enter the army. On the resignation of Judge John Okey (now Chief-justice of Ohio) as Common Pleas Judge, Colonel Cowen was made his successor, and served the remainder of the term. Judge Cowen's abilities were fittingly recognized in his election to the Constitutional Convention of 1873 by a majority of twenty-three hundred votes in a county about equally divided in politics. He has been President of the First National Bank of St. Clairsville ever since its organization. Judge Cowen has been twice married, his first wife being Hannah Frances Martin, and his second her sister, Anna Martin. He is the father of twelve children, seven of whom are now living, five sons and two daughters.
A3. 7. 200
293
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
His son Captain Frank Cowen, is his law partner, and the active member of the firm. He is also associated with his father in other enterprises, being the secretary of a building association of which his father is president. Another son for several years held a desk in the Interior Department.
WADE, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, statesman and United States Senator, was born in Massachusetts, October 27th, 1800, and died at Jefferson, Ashtabula county, Ohio, March 2d, 1878. His family was poor, and his early educa- tion was almost excusively the result of his own exertions, yet before the age of twenty-one he was able to teach school. He had read much literature, and he was well versed in Eu- clid's Elements of Geometry. Having removed to the West- ern Reserve in October, 1821, after a few years of toil as a woodsman, young Wade engaged in the study of law under Elisha Whittlesey, and in 1828, having passed an examina- tion, he was admitted to the bar of Jefferson, the county seat of Ashtabula. Soon after he became a partner in the prac- tice of law with Joshua R. Giddings; this partnership con- tinued ten years. In the first year of his practice he was chosen prosecuting attorney for Ashtabula county, and in 1837, having received the nomination from the whig conven- tion, he was elected to the senate of the State. About this time the question of slavery began to call forth serious dis- cussions, as its evils, instead of being confined to the South, began to affect the interests and seriously incommode the citizens of the free states. In consequence of certain restric- tions to emancipation in Kentucky, a settlement was formed at Red Oak, on the northern bank of the Ohio river, where persons emancipating negroes could secure them a home. with the blessings of freedom. But these and some other steps in the cause of humanity were viewed with some dis- trust in the South, and in 1838 the legislature of Kentucky sent two commissioners to persuade the legislature of Ohio to pass a more rigorous law for the capture and return of fugi- tive slaves. Such a measure was very repugnant to the feel- ings and sentiments of Mr. Wade, who had learned from his childhood to respect the dignity of labor, and to abhor the idea of subjecting it to bondage. There were, however, in the house but four senators who stood with him in his ultra abolition views. With these he made a gallant struggle, but it was in vain. The bill was passed, and the cause of slavery was for a time in the ascendant. Soon afterwards he raised a storm of indignation against himself, by presenting a peti- tion for chartering an academy for the freedmen of Red Oak; and he narrowly escaped expulsion from the house. Yet, the fearless and independent course which he pursued on these occasions, subsequently gave him prominence as one of the great leaders in the cause of African freedom. His other works in the senate entitle him to much credit. As a member of the judiciary committee, he exerted a controlling influence in abolishing imprisonment for debt in Ohio. The law exempting a certain amount of property from execution was mainly the fruit of his legislative labor. However, the approbation which these acts called forth in some quarters, was counterbalanced by the disfavor which they found in others. His popularity also declined from another cause. Ashtabula county, though devoted to whig principles, was strongly pro-slavery, and there was soon much dissatisfaction manifested to the course of Mr. Wade who, at the next elec- tion, was defeated by about 300 majority. Yet the lapse of two years produced a complete revolution of sentiment in his
district. Though again nominated as a candidate by the whig convention, he accepted only after much solicitation, and then on condition that no pledges were required from him. In 1841 he was elected by the largest majority ever given in his district, and since that time Ashtabula has been one of the main strongholds of the anti-slavery party. Though the legislature at this time was democratic, Mr. Wade's efforts were not without fruits. He did essential service in aiding in the passage of the law for the support of common schools, and also in procuring the repeal of the odious act for the apprehension of runaway slaves. On the expiration of his term he declined to be a candidate, and returned to his professional pursuits. In 1847 he was by the legislature elected presiding judge of the court of common pleas, 3d judicial dis- trict, for a term of seven years, but after an able and success- ful discharge of the duties of this responsible office for nearly five years, he was chosen United States Senator in 1851-52, and though he did not solicit the position, he deemed it his duty to accept it. The cause of the Northern States had then lost much ground through the passage of the fugitive slave law, and also by the notable compromise measures of 1851. But the vigor and intrepidity of Mr. Wade and a few others greatly curbed the haughty spirit and extravagant demands of many of the southern members. Throughout his long senatorial career at Washington, Mr. Wade pursued his polit- ical course unmoved, by the storm of violence and prejudice which was arrayed against him. But the disgraceful scenes in Kansas and other places wrought a powerful change in the sentiments of the North, and the election of Lincoln gave the South the pretext for plunging into the great civil war. At the beginning of the struggle, Senator Wade was made chairman of the joint committee on the conduct of the war, and in the immense amount of work which he accomplished over the wide region under his control, he was nobly sec- onded by his wife, while their older son, only eighteen years of age, enlisted in the regular army, and distinguished him- self at. Gettysburg and other battles. The conclusion of the war introduced new questions, on which the political parties of the North were divided. By one party it was contended that the seceding states could be restored to their positions in the Union when their legislatures repealed the acts of seces- sion. That such was the doctrine of Lincoln has been in- ferred from the orders which he had desired to send to his generals at Richmond for convening the Virginia legislature. After his assassination, Johnson, on assuming the Presidency, undertook to prescribe the terms on which the reconstruction of the rebel states could be effected. But his pretensions were opposed by Mr. Wade, who claimed for Congress the right of dictating the terms of reconstruction, while he also favored the introduction of such guarantees as would prevent the re- currence of past evils. The obstinacy of Mr. Johnson in pressing his policy, and his imprudent appeals to the public, led to his impeachment, in which he narrowly escaped a re- moval from office. In 1869 Mr. Wade left the senate and retiring to his home, accepted the position of attorney for the Northern Pacific Railroad. In public and private life he secured respect from all parties by his consistent devotion to principle, his outspoken frankness, and his fearless advo- cacy of what he considered to be right without regard to its popularity at the time. His courage as an advocate of prin- ciples distasteful to those by whom he was surrounded has been tested many times, and was never found wanting. This trait won for him the regard of his bitterest political foes,
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.