USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 38
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fifteen his education was intrusted to Rev. Edward Thom- son, the eminent scholar and divine, president of Norwalk Seminary, and subsequently bishop of the Methodist Episco- pal Church of the United States, with whom he remained four years. Having completed the collegiate course, he turned his attention to the study of law. Entering the office of Luther A. Hall, he prosecuted his readings with diligence, in due time passed a creditable examination, and at the age of twenty-one he was a member of the Tiffin bar. Studious, methodical, and reliable as a lawyer, and especially eloquent and effective as a jury advocate, he rose rapidly in his pro- fession, and was soon admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States. Attracting the attention of Presi- dent Buchanan, he was tendered the nomination of United States District Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, an honor which he declined to accept the position of Common Pleas Judge, to which he was elected by his fellow-citizens of the Third Judicial District. He was then but twenty-six. Youthful as was Mr. Seney, he presided with marked impar- tiality and courtesy, and, by his decisions being seldom re- versed, acquired the reputation of a sound lawyer, a dis- passionate reasoner, and a discreet and just judge. He occupied the bench from 1857 to 1862. His term expiring about the time Lincoln called for three hundred thousand more troops, he refused to stand for a re-election, but took an active and efficient part in recruiting for the IOIst Ohio Volunteers. Appointed quartermaster of that regiment, he was with it in its encounter at Perrysville, also at Lancaster and Nashville. He was present at the engagement of Knob Gap, and in its fight at Murfreesboro. He saw service at Chickamauga and at Liberty Gap, and witnessed the valor of the 10Ist in the battles of Chattanooga, of Franklin, and before Atlanta. After two years of army experience the Judge resigned his commission, and returning to Tiffin, re- opened his law office, and in a short time was in the enjoy- ment of a large and lucrative practice. His "Code of Pro- cedure," already mentioned, is a Digest of Ohio laws, which has greatly facilitated the looking up of decisions, and which has found a wide-spread circulation among the legal fraternity of the State. It is'also frequently met with in law libraries elsewhere. Politically, Judge Seney is a Democrat. In 1874 his party was in the minority, very much, and Governor Foster, who had already served acceptably in Congress, was nominated by the Republicans for another term. Seney was put forth as Foster's competitor. The Governor had the ad- vantage in the start, but the Judge gained on him, reducing the Republican majority, and coming within one hundred and thirty-nine votes of achieving a Democratic victory. In 1876 he was elected a delegate to the National Convention, at St. Louis, and assisted in putting in nomination Samuel J. Tilden for President. He was an active member of that body, and in the campaign which followed he eloquently argued, on the rostrum, the justness of his party's cause. In 1882 he was again the choice of his friends for Congress. The Democrats nominated him, and his countrymen lent a helping hand, and made him the second Democrat elected to a Congress from the Ninth (now the Fifth) Congressional District, since 1862. The Judge was the principal projector, and is now the president and chief share-owner, of the Illum- inating Gas Company, of Tiffin. He is progressive and liberal. He has assisted in all useful public enterprises, and has borne willingly his share in the support of the educa- tional, religious, and charitable institutions of his neighbor-
hood. His wife is the daughter of the late Joseph Walker, and the granddaughter of Josiah Hedges, a man of mark in his day, and the founder of the city of Tiffin. Judge Seney is firm and decisive in character, quiet and gentle in manner, unostentatious in bearing, an honest lawyer, a pleasing pub- lic speaker, a person of refined tastes, and he is esteemed and popular among associates and professional brethren. :
EMERSON, LOWE, manufacturer, of Cincinnati, was born August 14th, 1837, at Haverhill, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel and Nancy (Wilson) Emerson. The common ancestor from whom the family of Emersons, who for over a century have adorned the pages of American history by their achievements, and of which the distinguished philoso- pher Ralph Waldo Emerson was a member, settled in Haverhill in 1642, with a colony of English dissenters. Property at that place is now in the possession of the family that has been a common heritage for nearly two and a half centuries. Samuel Emerson was born, and died, at the old homestead. The mother of Mr. Emerson was a native of Pelham, New Hampshire, and was a third cousin to Vice- president Henry Wilson. She is still living at Haverhill, at the advanced age of seventy-eight. Mr. Emerson attended a common school and an academy, and finished his studies at Northfield College, then known as the New Hampshire Conference Seminary. At the age of eighteen he left college, and spent the year following at Charleston, Massachusetts, as clerk in a wholesale grocery store. During the next year he was in Cincinnati, clerking in the rubber store of Bart & Hickox. At this time the great Kansas excitement was at its height, and thither young Emerson bent his course. Three years were spent in that State, during which he was chiefly engaged in real estate speculations, witnessing in the mean time the Border Ruffian War. In the spring of 1862 he re- turned to Trenton, New Jersey, and organized the 11th New Jersey Volunteers, laid out Camp Perine, and for some time served as post-adjutant. On the Ist of July following he went to Flemington, and organized the 15th New Jersey Vol- unteers, established a camp, drilled his men, and moved to the front with his regiment by the Ist of August, having accepted the commission of quartermaster, instead of that as colonel, which was proffered him. They were ordered to the first brigade of the first division of the sixth army corps of the Army of the Potomac. In February, 1863, he was made brigade-quartermaster, and during the campaign of that year acted as aid-de-camp to General A. T. A. Torbert. He was with his brigade at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and back to Brandy Station, where they went into winter quarters. The following spring the campaign of the Wilderness was opened, and Mr. Emerson acted as aid-de-camp till July, 1864, when he returned to his brigade, as quartermaster. In July the brigade left the Army of the Potomac, and went to Wash- ington, to drive Early back, during which time he was on the staff of the commanding general, H. G. Wright, as assist- ant chief quartermaster In December he returned to the Army of the Potomac, with his corps, and remained as staff officer till the close of the war. As quartermaster his labors were very arduous, and many times complicated, but so thoroughly systematized was his department that he was always ready to respond with the greatest expedition to all demands made upon him, and when he rendered his final account to the government he received the highest com- mendation from the quartermaster-general for his great
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efficiency and scrupulous honesty, not a cent having been expended by him that was not properly accounted for. He entered the service with that spirit of devotion to his country that rendered the performance of his duty his one purpose, whether to be found in the rank or file. He did not seek, as thousands did, promotion to higher rank, but, indeed, refused such when proffered him. At the close of the war Mr. Emerson went to Cincinnati, where he engaged in the lumber trade and speculation, which was continued successfully until 1872. In that year he established the Emerson & Fisher Carriage Manufacturing Company, his partner being Mr. John W. Fisher, a practical carriage maker. Among the most important industries of the country at the present time is that of carriage building. Nowhere are we more im- pressed with the vastness of this branch of industry than in Cincinnati, where nearly one hundred thousand carriages were made during the year 1882, exceeding the entire pro- duct of England, France, and Germany during the same year, and employing more than double the capital engaged in the same business in any other city in America. As nothing happens without a cause, it becomes an interesting query as to what agency has brought about such a remark- able concentration of the trade at this point ? It undoubtedly owes its origin to the wide departure from old and stereotyped methods, early adopted by the energetic young firm of Emer- son, Fisher & Co. The master-mind of this firm saw, years ago, that carriage makers, unlike the artisans in nearly all other branches of manufacturing, were not progressing, but followed in the old well-worn rut of doing most of their work by hand-a slow, tedious, expensive, and wasteful process. He organized a system of labor whereby each workman was drilled to a specialty, with which he became thoroughly con- versant. He then introduced machinery, wherever it was available, and soon found that one machine could perform the work of many hands, and execute its task with greater precision and accuracy than the most expert workman. If watches, guns, sewing-machines, and all kinds of furniture could be made by machinery with interchangeable parts, why not carriages? The old European manufacturers of those articles had stoutly insisted that good guns and watches could not be made by machinery. But after enterprising Americans had demonstrated that they could be made in that way, and began to sell their wares in the foreign markets, then the foreign makers began to adopt the same methods. So, with a quick perception of the possibilities in- volved in the business situation at that time, Mr. Emerson pioneered the way into building carriages on a large scale, by availing himself of machinery, interchangeable parts, systematic division of labor, and the adoption of the most improved methods. But a business is not established by merely manufacturing the goods out of the raw material. They must be sold, and the larger the product the larger the market required to consume them. The development of an extensive trade in any article requires skillful financiering, bold enterprise, push, pluck, and perseverance. These qual- ities characterized Mr. Emerson's management of business at that time in a marked degree. During the first year's exist- ence of the firm he attended to all the finances of the con- cern, supervised all the details in the manufactory, and traveled forty-five thousand miles in one year to establish a trade, which has gained a permanent foothold in every State of the Union. In January, 1882, the firm was incorporated, under the name of "The Emerson & Fisher Carriage Com-
pany," with Mr. Emerson as president. The establishment now consists of several factories, with a floor surface of about one hundred and thirty-five thousand square feet, and turns out an annual product of about fifteen thousand carriages, in netting the business upward of one million dollars a year. But the management of this great house does not absorb all of Mr. Emerson's energies. He is a director in six large and successful manufacturing companies, which he has assisted to organize, and also a director in the Merchants' National Bank, of Cincinnati. He has been for five years president of the board of trustees of Farmers' College, at College Hill. During the summer of 1883 Mr. Emerson withdrew from his business cares, and took an extended tour through Europe. He is a Republican in politics, and, though not a politician, is a strong supporter of his party. His clear and sound judgment and large executive ability make him a leader in any position he will accept, and his advice and counsel is always in demand in business, finance, education, and the Church. Mr. Emerson was married September 19th, 1866, to Miss Maria E. Knight, of Jamestown, New York, and has a charming family of four beautiful children, constituting the chief attraction of his elegant suburban home at College Hill.
CAMPBELL, LEWIS D., lawyer and congressman, was born in Franklin, Warren county, Ohio, August 9th, 1811. His ancestors, paternal and maternal, emigrated from the Highlands of Scotland and settled in Virginia and Pennsyl- vania. His father, Samuel Campbell, was born in Virginia and emigrated to the territory northwest of the Ohio in 1796, settling in the Miami valley. When of suitable age, he attended school in Franklin until he was fourteen years old, when he was transferred to the farm on which he labored until he was seventeen. From 1828 until 1831 he served an apprenticeship in the office of the Cincinnati Gazette. In the latter year he went to Hamilton, Ohio, where he published a weekly newspaper advocating the election of Henry Clay to the Presidency. While editing his journal he studied law, and in 1835 was admitted to the bar. He soon acquired a large and profitable practice. In 1848 Mr. Campbell was elected a representative in Congress over General Baldwin; in 1850 over Judge Vance ; in 1852, 1854 and 1856 over Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, and in 1870 over Hon. R. C. Schenck. During his first service in Congress, from 1849 until 1858, slavery was the all-absorbing question. He participated prominently in the debates, and uniformly maintained the position that while the Southern States should enjoy all their rights guaranteed by the Constitution, slavery should be excluded from the territories by congressional enactment. In the Thirty-third Congress, when the great question of repealing the Missouri compromise came before the House of Representatives, he was selected, in a conference of the opposition members, as their leader on the floor. Being a good parliamentarian and a ready debater, with a good voice, he discharged the duties thus assigned him, during that long and ever-memorable struggle, with eminent satisfaction to the friends of freedom, who met in discussion the ablest men of the South. The discussion between him and Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, on the relative advan- tages of free and slave labor, gave him rank with the ablest debaters of Congress. At the opening of the Thirty-fourth Congress, Mr. Campbell received the votes of a large majority of his party for the speakership, and would probably have been elected had he continued to be a candidate. But
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in consequence of pledges exacted of him which he thought would dishonor him if made, he peremptorily withdrew his name, and Hon. N. P. Banks was elected. During this Con- gress, Mr. Campbell served as chairman of the ways and means committee, and the duties thus devolving upon him were discharged with great ability. Among the measures re- ported by him which became laws, was the tariff act of 1857, which levied the lowest average duties on imports of any act passed within the last half century. It was during this Con- gress that Preston S. Brooks made the assault on Charles Sumner in the old Senate chamber. Mr. Campbell was one of the first to reach the senator after he was stricken down; the following day he introduced the resolution for an investi- gation, was chairman of the committee appointed for that purpose, and made a report for the expulsion of Brooks. The challenge which the latter subsequently sent Mr. Burlingame was one of the fruits of the assault on Mr. Sumner. Upon the pressing request of Mr. Burlingame, Mr. Campbell took charge of the affair as his friend-General Joseph Lane, of Oregon, being the friend of Mr. Brooks. When the war of the Rebellion commenced, Mr. Campbell at once ardently espoused the cause of the Union. In the spring and summer of 1861, he assisted in raising several regiments. In autumn following, he organized the 69th Ohio regiment, and was com- missioned as its colonel. In the winter of 1861-62, he was in command at Camp Chase, where he received, and kept as prisoners of war, the officers taken at Fort Donelson and in other battles. In April following, he went under orders with his regiment to Tennessee, where he served in the army of the Cumberland until the failure of his health unfitted him for the service, and he reluctantly retired. In 1866, Mr. Campbell was appointed minister to Mexico-the successor to Hon. Thomas Corwin. In November of that year, accom- panied by General Sherman, he proceeded on his mission. The French army of occupation and other forces of Maxi- milian were then in Mexico, holding the capital and other principal cities. President Juarez and his cabinet officers had been driven to a point near the northwestern border. Failing to reach the government of that republic in its then migratory condition, Mr. Campbell was directed by Mr. Sew- ard, Secretary of State, to make his official residence, tem- porarily, in New Orleans. He remained there until June following, when, tired of that kind of service abroad, he re- signed. Elected to the Forty-second Congress, he served through his term, and, in April, was elected a delegate to the convention to revise and amend the constitution of Ohio. After that convention assembled at Columbus, he was elected, on the 22d May, its vice-president by a unanimous vote. In politics, Mr. Campbell commenced his career in the school of Clay, Webster, and others, and was always an active mem- ber of the whig party until its dissolution. Subsequently he was identified with the republican party. After the war of the Rebellion closed he left that party, believing that by its reconstruction and other acts it had abandoned the principles upon which the war had been prosecuted, and that its meas- ures of centralization were anti-republican, and of imperial tendency, and he henceforth co-operated with the democratic party. After retirement from public life, Mr. Campbell was then engaged in agricultural pursuits on his large and fertile farm on the Great Miami river, near the city of Hamilton, in which he resided. He married the only daughter of John Reily, deceased, who at the age of seventeen volunteered as a soldier of the Revolution. Mr. Campbell died of anemia,
November 26th, 1882, leaving a widow and three daughters surviving him, who reside in the old homestead at Hamil- ton, Ohio.
CAMPBELL, JAMES EDWIN, lawyer, of Hamilton, is a native of Middletown, where he was born on the 7th of July, 1843. He is the son- of Dr. Andrew Campbell and Laura P. Reynolds, daughter of John P. Reynolds, once a publisher in New York State, and afterward a leading and influential citizen of Middletown. Mr. Campbell's father was of Scotch extraction, and his mother of English. The family of Mr. Reynolds was originally settled in Devonshire, Jona- than Reynolds emigrating from Plympton Earl, in that county, in 1645, and on his arrival in America taking up his dwelling near Plympton, in the Plymouth colony, now a part of Massachusetts. Mr. Campbell is sixth in descent from Jonathan Reynolds. The family, after settling in Massachu- setts, extended to Rhode Island and New York, and are now numerous in these two latter States, having many mem- bers who have filled important positions in the State and national councils. By another branch of his maternal family he is descended from John Parker, who commanded the American troops at the heroic struggle at Lexington, which began the Revolutionary war. His paternal great-grandfather, Andrew Small, at the age of eighteen, went with Montgomery on the fatal expedition to Quebec, suffering untold miseries on his return through Canada. Both of his grandfathers were soldiers in the war of 1812. James E. Campbell was educated in the free schools of his native town, and in later years received instruction from the Rev. John B. Morton, an early and successful teacher of that place, and for many years the pastor of the Presbyterian Church. When ap- proaching maturity he began the reading of law, and taught . school for a short time. In the summer of 1863 he became a master's mate on the gunboats Elk and Naiad, serving on the Mississippi and Red River flotillas, and taking part in several engagements. But the unhealthiness of the climate soon affected him, and after a year, being surveyed by a board of surgeons, he was discharged, returning home a mere skeleton. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered his health he resumed the study of law, and during the winter of 1864 and 1865 he became a student in the office of Doty & Gunckel, Middletown, being admitted to the bar in 1865. In the spring of 1867 he began the practice of his profession in that city. During the interval he was book-keeper of the First National Bank, at Middletown, and was also a deputy collector in the Internal Revenue service of the Third Dis- trict for about eight months in Hamilton, under General Ferdinand Van Derveer, collector. He was elected Prose- cuting Attorney of the county in 1875 and 1877, holding that position for four years, and filling the duties of his office most acceptably. From 1867 to 1869 he was United States Commissioner. In 1879 he made a very close race for the Ohio State Senate, being defeated by only twelve votes. During the war he was a Republican, and remained so until the Greeley Campaign, when, in common with thousands of others, he cast off the party yoke and voted for Greeley and Brown. Since that time he has acted with the Democrats. In addition to his business as a lawyer he has paid much attention to insurance, and has gradually gained a large and valuable business in this line, and has been charged with many important receiverships and other trusts. Mr. Camp- bell is a Knight Templar, a member of the Grand Army of
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the Republic, and other orders. He was married to Miss Libbie Owens, daughter of Job E. Owens and Mary A. Price, on the 4th of January, 1870. Her father was a native of Wales, and her mother of Welsh descent. They have three children. Mr. Campbell is a hard worker, and can accom- plish more business than the most of men. He attends the Presbyterian Church, and contributes liberally to the support of all benevolent and charitable enterprises. He is system- atic in all his efforts, and his offices are models of neatness. Socially no man stands higher. He is courteous in manner, thorough in his acquisition of detail, and of the highest in- tegrity of character. As a lawyer he has few superiors at his age, possessing great skill in ascertaining the true points of a case. He is a good, clear, logical speaker, and well informed on all questions of law. No young man in Ham- ilton has a better or more honorable record, and no one is deserving of greater credit than he. At the Democratic Convention, held at Lebanon, August 16th, 1882, he was nominated unanimously for the position of Congressman. His competitor received a majority of forty-one on the face of the returns, and Mr. Campbell (owing to the student vote in Greene and Warren Counties, and other irregularities) is now contesting for the seat before the House of Represent- atives in the Forty-eighth Congress. Mr. Campbell, at the election, received the largest vote ever given to any candidate in the county of Butler-the native county of both can- didates-having the unprecedented majority of 3,187 votes.
JOHNSTON, REV. SAMUEL, the first minister of the Episcopal church in the city of Cincinnati, was born at Middle- town, Connecticut, on the 18th August, 1789. His father was Captain Samuel Johnston, who was married August 6th, 1780, to Sarah Sage, born January 14th, 1756. She was the daughter of Mr. Comfort Sage, who married Sarah, the eldest daughter of Colonel Jabez Hamlin and Mary Christophers, the former of whom was born at Middletown, on the 28th July, 1709, and the latter at New London, Connecticut, on the 25th August, 1714. Captain Johnston, the father of the subject of our sketch, was drowned at sea, on his passage from St. Domingo to Greenwich, on the 7th January, 1794. In his boyhood, the subject of our sketch lived with Mr. Edward Hallam, at New London, who had married his aunt, Miss Sarah Johnston. On leaving New London, he was placed in a counting house in the city of New York, but having pre- dilections for the Christian ministry, he retired from mercan- tile pursuits, and entered Union college, Schenectady, New York, where he subsequently graduated. Desirous of being a thorough student of theology, he joined the General Theo- logical Seminary, in New York city, having as his co-students, the late Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, and the late Bishop Henshaw, of Maryland. After his ordination, he labored arduously and successfully in Western New York as a mis- sionary of the Episcopal church, and officiated at Batavia, Canandaigua, and Buffalo. In 1817, he organized the parish of St. Paul's, in Buffalo, but not long afterward removed to Cin- cinnati, where he almost immediately became the pastor of Christ church, and, on its organization in 1828, became the rector of St. Paul's. He married Magaretta Eliza- beth Wilson, who was born in Charleston, South Car- olina, in 1790. Her father was the Rev. James Wilson, a clergyman of the Presbyterian church, who died at Norfolk, Virginia, and was buried in St. Paul's churchyard of that place. Mrs. Mary Wilson, his widow, sometime 18-B
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