USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 19
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
ment, and he has reaped a rich fruition. He has done much toward developing banking and numerous other important interests in the State of Ohio. A man of the highest honor and integrity, he enjoys the full confidence of his fellow- citizens. It is to such men that the great State of Ohio is largely indebted for her wonderful progress.
HOOTMAN, JOHN J., a member of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio, was born in Washington County, Penn- sylvania, June 23d, 1815. His father, John Hootman, was born at the same place, and died February 28th, 1880, aged ninety-eight years. His mother, Jane C. Hootman, was born at Sherman's Valley, Pennsylvania, and died in 1853, aged sixty-five years. His grandfather, on his father's side, was one of those who were forced to come to this country from Hesse during our struggle for independence. When noti- fied that he must leave his native country to go across seas and fight people with whom he had no quarrel, he refused. The authorities gave him fifty-six lashes each day for three days, thinking that this treatment would break his stubborn spirit. When he still refused to go his father told him he might as well give up, as he would have to go-and they did finally compel him. At the battle of Trenton his leg was broken, and he was left on the field to be taken by the Americans. In three months, such was the goodness of his constitution, he was well and fighting on our side, which he continued to do until the close of the war. As the authorities of his native country had expatriated him, he de- termined to make the best of it. He never would receive any pension, as he had obtained what he fought for, his lib- erty. His grandfather, on his mother's side, fought in the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars. While a boy young Hootman had no access to public schools, but attended a private school until he was twelve years of age- after this regularly working with his father the entire year. He has always been very fond of reading, devoting eight hours each day to his books for twelve years from 1839, and acquiring a vast fund of information. He has a well-filled library that would be an honor to any house. In 1827 his parents moved to Ashland County, Ohio, buying one hundred and sixty acres of wild land, and clearing one hundred and twenty-five acres. His father was a blacksmith, and opened a shop on the new farm, where he did general jobbing work, but making edge tools a specialty. It was here, during the second twelve years of his life, that Hootman learned the trade of his father, working with him till twenty-four years old, and then starting a shop for himself in the village of Jeromeville. In 1852 he sold his shop and went to Cali- fornia, leaving his wife at home. He engaged in the same business, making money very fast. This he invested in real estate, the title of which proved worthless. Disheartened at seeing his earnings all gone, he returned to his home, where he resumed his trade, which he followed for about a year. Thinking he could make a good home surer and more easily on a piece of land, he moved, in 1860, to Defiance County, and bought the farm upon which he now resides. He built a shop soon after entering upon the farm, which added consid- erably to the revenue he derived from the land. In 1850 he was elected as senatorial delegate to the constitutional con- vention, and filled the position creditably. In 1856 he was elected sheriff of Ashland County, and served two terms. He held the office four years in succession, losing no pris. oners-a distinction enjoyed by no other sheriff of that
372
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
county. He has held all the township offices in Jeromeville and where he now lives. He was married May 9th, 1839, to Mary E., daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Eichelberger. The result of the union was four children.
SMITH, CHARLES KILGORE, for many years a well known resident of Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio, was born at Cincinnati, February 15th, 1799. His father was one of those enterprising men who aided in setting the tide of emi- gration to the North-west Territory in motion. He was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and removed to Ohio in 1792, in company with General James Findlay, an old friend of his, with whom he formed a copartnership after landing at Cincinnati. Elected to several offices in succes- sion, he was an occupant of the shrievalty when his son Charles was born. He gave the boy the best instruction the place afforded, and sent him, in 1812, to a grammar-school at Oxford, conducted by the Rev. James Hughes, a Presby- terian minister of excellent repute. Here for three years he was thoroughly taught in all the common branches and Latin, but was withdrawn for a brief time during the second war with Great Britain, in order that he might aid his father in paying off the troops on the frontier. In 1815 he finished going to school ; but so great seems to have been his popularity, and so solid his claims to respect that he was elected, in 1825, by the Erodelphian Society of Miami University, Oxford, which had succeeded to Mr. Hughes's school, a member of their body. When he first went out to that town the country was a perfect wilderness ; but he lived to see it fully cultivated, and the university strong and respected. James Smith had removed with his family from Hamilton County to Butler in 1805, settling upon section 21, St. Clair Township, at the con- fluence of Four-mile Creek and the Miami River. Charles K. Smith came to Hamilton to live, upon the conclusion of his school-days, and entered the employment of John Reily, then postmaster, clerk of the courts, and agent of several corporations and absentee property-holders. For two years of this time he acted as deputy-postmaster and clerk. In 1821 he was chosen recorder of the county, and continued in that occupation until 1835, being also, from 1827, treasurer of the county. He might have remained longer in these positions had he chosen ; but he voluntarily gave them up to become cashier of the Bank of Hamilton. There were then few banks of unquestioned responsibility in the West, although there were multitudes of irresponsible ones. The Bank of Hamilton was begun with large means, and was one of the few which had sufficient strength to resist the pressure put upon moneyed institutions by General Jackson, during his'war upon the United States Bank. It rode through the storm of 1837 triumphantly ; but in 1842, on the 9th of Feb- ruary, it made an assignment. This was in consequence of new and stringent regulations in the law, but was also partly occasioned by the lack of surplus capital in the community. On his retiring from the bank he entered upon legal practice. He had previously studied law under John Woods, and had been admitted to the bar in 1840. In this new calling he attained a fair measure of success. He was an attorney in the courts of several of the United States, and also became a member of the American Legal Association, of New York. In 1848 he was named as an associate judge of the county, and was elected to that position in March by the General Assembly. The term was for seven years, but he resigned it at the end of a year to accept an office from General Taylor,
whose warm friend he was, and whose election he had striven with all his might to accomplish. When the act was passed creating the Territory of Minnesota, Charles K. Smith was made its Secretary. This office is equivalent to that of Lieu- tenant-governor and Secretary of State in older communities, and is charged with responsibility. Mr. Smith went to his new field of duty in May, 1849. There were no settle- ments, except at St. Paul, and one or two military garrisons. He found no schools when he went there, but did not rest until public provision had been made for their establishment, as well as carrying them through the winter. He was the founder of the Minnesota Historical Society, which has been a great success, and whose publications have done much to attract emigration to Minnesota. Mr. Smith was appointed by the Territorial Legislature one of the first regents of the territorial university, located at the city of St. Anthony. He was present at the first meeting and introduced the first ordinance for the government of the university. Congress had made large appropriations of land for its support ; build- ings were very soon erected, and shortly after the organization of the Territory the university was in successful operation. Mr. Smith was an active advocate of schools, and made him- self very useful in furthering all educational enterprises and means of instruction in the early years of the Territory. The Churches also received his assistance. In 1849 there was not a church building in St. Paul, except one small log house belonging to the Catholics. In the absence of church build- ings, Mr. Smith prepared the rooms used for the first Terri- torial Legislature, and permitted the different denominations to hold religious meetings in them. Mr. Smith was president of the Board of Commissioners of the Public Buildings of the Territory, and during his services as such all the preliminaries were arranged for the erection of the capitol buildings and the territorial prison. The early territorial history of Minne- sota is closely connected with the name of C. K. Smith, and we may well say that he had the honor of being one of the most prominent founders of a new empire of the North- west, from which has sprung the young and vigorous State of Minnesota. He was an indefatigable worker. He had a love for public employment, and did an immense amount of gratuitous labor. He received an excellent training with Mr. Reily, and his subsequent life increased and accentuated his thoroughness and love of detail. It has already been remarked that he aided his father as paymaster in the war of 1812. This was with Colonel Richard M. Johnson's mounted Kentuckians, while lying at Fort Defiance. He was the recording secretary of the first Bible society organized in Butler County, which was in the year 1822. He was an attendant at the services of the United Presbyterian Church, of which his wife was a member, and contributed liberally to its funds. He gave the lot on which the First Presbyterian Church now stands, and assisted the Catholics with money and advice when they first sought to erect a building in Ham- ilton. Other Churches also knew his generous hand. In the hard years in which labor nearly ceased and the crops were deficient, no one gave more largely to the poor than he, nor with less pretense. Mr. Smith contributed much to the cur- rent history of his time. His communications to the local journals produced a marked effect on the public mind. Among his writings are the following, viz: "A Report on Irish Appeal;" " Report of the Debate on Slavery, in 1842, between Dr. Junkin and the Rev. Thomas E. Thomas;" Biographical Sketches of the Rev. Arthur W. Elliott, Dr.
373
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
Daniel Millikin, John P. Reynolds, Esq., and historical articles for the Minnesota Historical Society. He was admitted into the ancient and honorable order of Free Masons as soon as he arrived at age, and remained with them all his life-time, being advanced to the highest degrees of the order. When in Minnesota he opened a Masonic Lodge. In 1841 he united as a charter member in organizing a lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, advancing in this through the higher degrees; and in Minnesota he assisted in establishing a lodge of Odd Fellows there. He was a Knight Templar as a Mason, and an encampment member in Odd Fellowship. Upon his return from Minnesota Mr. Smith came to Hamilton, and bought his father's old home- stead, upon which he settled, giving little attention to public affairs, but much to his books and the duties of his farm. He was active and energetic in the prosecution of the war for the Union, and did all that he could to arouse and inform the public mind upon the real merits of the contest. Four of his sons went out to the army, one dying soon after peace was assured. Mr. Smith remained at home until the time of his death, which occurred on the 28th of September, 1866, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. On the 21st of Novem- ber, 1827, he married Miss Eleanor A. McMechan, daughter of the Rev. James McMechan, an early Presbyterian minister of this region, and a native of Ireland. Mrs. Smith survived him, dying March 6th, 1879. He had by this marriage five sons and four daughters, of whom but one died before the father. One son, J. William C., was captain of the Butler Pioneers in the 26th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in the late Rebellion, and died in 1873; another son, Charles Kilgore, was colonel and assistant quartermaster in the war, and died in 1870. Few of our pioneers exerted a greater influence upon the future of the State than the subject of our sketch. Mr. Smith was genial and sincere, and had friends amongst all classes of society. With his ardent and inquiring disposition it could not be expected that he should remain quiet in political matters. He was heart and soul a Whig. He fought their battles on the stump and in the press, and was one of the most active members of that party. He was a warm friend, and was just to his opponents. His life was one of useful industry.
BROWN, JAMES D., banker, and a prominent and influential business man of Athens, Ohio, was born August 27th, 1845. He is a son of John Brown, of Athens, whose biography appears elsewhere in this work. The subject of this sketch engaged in the banking business with his father, in 1867, at Albany, Athens County. His education was largely acquired under the personal direction of his father, and was eminently practical, as must of necessity result in the uniting of excellent natural qualifications with good op- portunities. In 1868 their business was transferred to Athens, and on the death of the elder Brown the son assumed abso- lute control of the bank, which under his efficient manage- ment, has become one of the leading fiduciary institutions in Southeastern Ohio. In politics he is a Republican, but is in no sense a partisan, and does not rigidly conform to party platforms. He eschews political office, as his father did, and confines himself to the sphere of a leading and influential business man. He served for a time in the late war of the Rebellion, going out with the 14Ist Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, as a private. He is a member of the order of Odd Fellows and also of the Masons, and is an elder in the local
society of the Presbyterian Church. On the 28th of May, 1867, Mr. Brown entered into matrimonial relations with Miss Lizzie Armstrong, of Athens, and has issue two children, a son and a daughter.
CUNNINGHAM, THOMAS BEER, editor and news- paper publisher, Millersburgh, Holmes County, Ohio, was born near Lattasburgh, Wayne County, Ohio, November 11th, 1837. His father, Thomas Cunningham, was of Scotch-Irish descent, and a native of North Strabane, Ireland. He emi- grated to America in the early part of the present century, and became one of the pioneers of Wayne County, Ohio, where he settled in 1816. His mother, Mary (Ayers) Cun- ningham, removed with her parents to Wayne County, from Cumberland County, Maryland, in 1811, and was married to his father in 1829. The subject of this sketch passed his boyhood days on a farm, attending school about six months of the year .. When eighteen years of age he entered Ver- million Institute, Hayesville, Ohio, and prepared for college, teaching several terms during the time in the common schools of the neighborhood. In the fall of 1861 he entered the junior class in Jefferson College, Cannonsburgh, Pennsyl- vania, graduating in the classical course in 1863. He was chosen by his literary society as essayist in the annual con- test between the two societies, and carried off the honors. Previous to this time he had chosen the ministry as his pro- fession. After leaving college, his health being somewhat impaired, he taught school for one year, and then entered the Theological Seminary, at Princeton, New Jersey. After two months of close application to his studies his health failed, and he was obliged to return home. After a brief rest he was urged to take charge of the public schools of Wooster, a position so trying on his constitution that at the expiration of the first year he was compelled to give it up. A few months' rest upon the farm added new ambition for teaching, and for the two following years -- 1865 and 1866- he was employed as a teacher in a boys' school in Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania. The succeeding summer he spent in traveling as a general agent throughout Ohio. On the 6th of May, 1868, he married Miss Maria Louisa Mitchell, young- est daughter of Joseph Mitchell, Esq., a well-to-do and hon- ored citizen of Beaver, Pennsylvania. For the next two years and a half he was engaged in mercantile business, in Wooster, when he was urged to go to Millersburgh, Holmes County, Ohio, and edit a Republican newspaper in that stronghold of Democracy. It was a venture that few would undertake at that time, and which many, even friendly to the movement, prophesied would meet with an abortive ex- istence. In partnership with Messrs. Laubach and White, he started the Holmes County Republican, a political and family paper, which from the first had a very fair circulation, and rapidly increased until it is equal to nine-tenths of the weekly papers of the State. In 1872 Mr. Laubach retired, leaving White and Cunningham sole proprietors. This paper is noted for its unflinching Republicanism and its high moral tone. No uncertain note is sounded from this organ. Upon all living issues its utterances are sound and true. He was postmaster at Millersburg for four years, from the spring of 1872. For the past eleven years he has served as chairman of the County Republican Central and Executive Committees. He was a member of the National Convention at Cincinnati that nominated Hayes for President, in 1876, and also a mem- ber of the Convention at Chicago that nominated Garfield, in
374
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
1880. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and for a number of years has been a ruling elder in the congregation to which he belongs ; and in 1880 was sent as a delegate, by his presbytery, to the General Assembly, which met at Mad- ison, Wisconsin. Having a good ear for music and a fine tenor voice, he has all through life devoted a good deal of his spare time to the cultivation of that art, and has pub- lished quite a number of songs, metrical tunes, solos, etc., among which is a bass solo set to the beautiful words of Mrs. Hemans, "The breaking waves dashed high," that is a great favorite wherever sung. In 1881 he was nominated for State Senator, by the Republicans of the Seventeenth and Twenty- eighth Senatorial Districts, composed of the counties of Knox, Morrow, Wayne, and Holmes. After a two weeks' cam- paign, in which he had no opportunity to make a canvass, he succeeded in cutting down the usual large Democratic majorities a thousand votes. Scarcely a State Republican Convention has been held during the past twelve years of which he was not a delegate and a member of some one of the committees or a vice-president of the convention. Rev. Dr. D. A. Cunningham, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wheeling, West Virginia, a clergyman of consid- erable prominence, is his brother.
BROWN, JOHN, a banker, and a leading and influen- tial citizen of Athens, Ohio, was born in Washington County, a portion now included in Athens County, December 23d, 1801, and died at Athens, October 18th, 1875. He was of New England ancestry, and comes of a family many members of which were marked characters in their day; and few families in Ohio have a recorded history anterior to the one in ques- tion. The original progenitor of the stock in America was William Brown, who settled in Massachusetts at a date some- what prior to 1680. Descendants of William were prominent in their time. Benjamin Brown fought in the French .wars, participating in notable engagements. He subsequently repre- sented his town (Leicester) in the General Court, holding the position for nearly a quarter of a century. A later generation of Browns were soldiers in the Revolutionary army. and one, Captain Benjamin Brown, became especially distinguished in the field for gallant and meritorious services, which were ; recognized by tendering him the position of aide-de-camp on the staff of Baron De Kalb, which honor was declined. A prominent educator, writing of our subject, says: " Through- out his career he sustained a marked character. In whatever community he lived, wherever his influence extended, he was recognized as a man of sagacity and strength. Without high official station, and without undue self-assertion, he was, by inherent superiority, a public man. The only public office he ever held was that of County Commissioner, to which he was three times elected without his consent and against his wishes, and it is the opinion of some that he was the ablest, or at least one of the ablest, who has filled that position in Athens County. But in office or out of office, his friends and neigh- bors habitually consulted his judgment, and his opinions al- ways commanded respect." An excellent illustration of the hardships of the pioneer days, when John Brown was a boy struggling for an education, is given in another passage by the same writer: "His place of study was an old workshop, a few rods from his father's house; his time for study, the silent hours of night ; his light was made with hickory bark and pine knots; and it is said of him that at times he would be so absorbed in the solution of difficult problems that he
would continue to pore over them till one or two o'clock in the morning." His powers of application were immense, and possessing strong powers of analysis, his mind naturally turned to those things which would allow it full scope. He was a close student of chemistry and physics, and pursued them in private with his customary exactness and thorough- ness. Versatility was a marked characteristic of the man, and in this connection, we have occasion to quote again. "To the general public he was best known as a business man. In practical matters he displayed clear perceptions, sound judgment, and great caution; and he managed his affairs with such discretion that he succeeded in building up no inconsiderable fortune. But it would be a wide mistake to suppose that business occupied his whole atten- tion. I knew him to be a man of general and exact infor- mation; but I have been surprised at hearing from others the extent and variety of his acquirements. I am told that he was well read in medicine, and had made himself quite familiar with natural science, especially with geology and botany, and formerly with chemistry, physics, and astronomy. He also cherished a fondness for the poets, in particular Homer, Pope, Burns, and Milton. In fact, he seemed to find in almost every subject an active, human interest. Science, philosophy, theology, local politics, social and religious move- ments-whatever engaged the public mind, and whatever concerned human welfare, claimed and received a share of his attention. Like Terence, he could say, 'I count nothing pertaining to man foreign to me.'" While it would seem that he was a remarkable man, and capable of assuming public trusts and discharging them with ability, his retiring disposition restrained him from entering public life. Under a stern exterior he carried a warm heart, and his many ex- hibitions of kindness are recorded in the hearts of many. During the late war, a large portion of his time was con- sumed in attending to the wants of the families of soldiers. Such a life can not perish. The name of John Brown may be forgotten-the natural sequence of a life so unpretentious- but his influence will continue to propagate itself forever, and while his biographer can not record the storming of a redoubt, nor assign him the post of leader in a charge, yet posterity will accord him a position-not. the least-among the chief representatives of the pioneer citizenship of Ohio.
JEWETT, LEONIDAS MORRIS, of Athens, Ohio, a lawyer of prominence and a soldier in the late war for the Union, is a native of the place named, and was born No- vember 22d, 1842. He is a son of Leonidas and Elizabeth (Robinson) Jewett, the former a native of Athens, and the latter coming from England at an early age. The grand- father of Mr. Jewett, on the paternal side, was of New England birth, and emigrated from Massachusetts to Ohio in the early part of the present century. He was a prac- ticing physician in Athens for many years. His son, the father of Mr. Jewett, was a lawyer by profession, and prac- ticed at the Athens bar for seventeen years. Mr. Jewett was educated at the Ohio University, at which institution he was graduated in 1861, at the age of eighteen. It was at the period when active hostilities were being inaugurated between the North and South, and notwithstanding his ex- treme youth he enlisted as a private in the 3d Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in the three months' service. At the expiration of his term of enlistment with this regiment he re-enlisted, and was transferred to the 61st Ohio Volunteer
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.