USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 4
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daughter, Miss Hildegard von Steinwehr, living with her mother at Coblenz. In this last he had expressed his great pleasure at the near prospect of meeting his beloved wife and children in his native land. His remains were enclosed in a casket and taken to Albany, the capital city of the State of New York, by officers and friends, several of whom served under him during the war, and bore testimony to his bravery and skill as a general officer of division, and there those remains were entombed with military honors of the highest class. Genial and affable in manners, entertaining in society, and most popular in his intercourse with his fellow- men, his life was full of adventure, and, as one accomplish- ment of the many he possessed, his gift of narrating events was as rare as it was attractive.
BROWN, BENJAMIN STANTON, physician, was born on the 13th July, 1800, at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and died at Bellefontaine, Logan county Ohio, on the 19th December, 1873. His father, Aaron Brown, moved from North Carolina, at an early day, and settled in and gave his name to Brownsville, Pennsylvania. After many years spent there he went to Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and from there moved to Logan county, Ohio, where he located in what was known as the " Marmon Bottom," and there eventually died. Anna Stanton, the mother of our subject, was born in North Caro- lina. A relative of Governor Benjamin Stanton, she was also the aunt of Secretary Edwin M. Stanton. When yet a little lad, our subject helped his father on his farm, and con- tinued so to do until he was nineteen years old, when his uncle, Moses Brown, invited him to spend some time in the South. Accepting this invitation, he spent about three years in Louisiana and Mississippi; surveying for part the time, and teaching in the families of leading gentlemen, among others that of the then governor of Mississippi. Returning home, he studied medicine in the office of Dr. James Crew, of Zanes- field, and subsequently attended the lectures of the professors in the Ohio Medical College, at Cincinnati, and there gradu- ated in March, 1828. He then went to Bellefontaine, and there remained practicing medicine until about six years be- fore he died. A member of the Ohio State Medical Society, he was successively elected its vice-president, and, in 1865, its president. He was also a member of the Logan County Medical Society, and for several years its president. A de- voted Freemason, he took high rank among his brethren; while, many years before the subject of temperance became important, he advocated the practice of temperance and absti- nence from the use of alcoholic liquors. As a physician, he held a high position in the esteem of the profession in Ohio, his acquaintances among his fellow practitioners being numerous. A correct observer and keen analyzer, he communicated the results of his observation freely through the journals of the profession. On the 15th October, 1829, he married Miss Re- becca, the daughter of Henry Shaw, a pioneer of Logan county, and clerk of the first election held in it. Mrs. Brown had but few of the educational advantages of the present time. She was a witness of, and participated in all the vicissitudes of pioneer life, and almost literally lived among the Indians ; but gifted with good powers of observation, and the wife and companion of a scholarly gentleman for more than forty years, she has risen far above her original opportunities, and merits and obtains the respect and affection of the com- munity amongst whom she resides. She is a devoted Chris- tian lady, and has made munificent gifts for benevolent
objects in carrying out the purposes of her husband; in honor of one of them, the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, having established the " Brown professorship." But one child, a daughter, who died in February, 1864, was the issue of this marriage. An earnest worker in the cause of education, Dr. Brown was the first school examiner ever appointed in Logan county, and held his position until his death. Soon after Bellefontaine was laid out, he became town director, and held this important and responsible position for many years. He was repeatedly solicited to be a candidate for representative in the legislature and State senator, but he refused, prefering the quiet of his home and his profession to political life. In his every relation as a friend, physician and citizen, he won the respect of those who knew him best. He had a vast fund of knowledge, acquired by studious habits. His lecture on the "Geology of Logan County," is an exhaustive and authoritative discussion on the subject, and has been exten- sively published. He was withal a modest man, hesitating not to acknowledge his ignorance of things he did not know, being duly advised of the fact that but few of even the wisest have much real knowledge beyond their fellows. While de- voted to the duties of his profession, he always endeavored to to be pleasant and happy in his home, and succeeded in diffusing about him an atmosphere of contentment and peace. He was a man of acknowledged ability, profoundly learned in his profession, and beloved by all who knew him.
SHERIDAN, PHILIP HENRY, Lieutenant-General of the United States Army, was born in Somerset, Perry county, Ohio, March 6th, 1831. His parents were Irish emigrants; he received the usual education conferred in the rural schools, and, when of suitable age, engaged as a clerk with a small dealer in hardware. His employer, a man of rather liberal education, became interested in him, taught him mathematics, and encouraged him to study history. He was intelligent, active and faithful, and he began to aspire to something beyond his position. Knowing that the member of Congress from the district had the right to appoint a cadet to West Point, without consulting any person he wrote him a letter, soliciting the appointment, and was appointed accord- ingly. Thus, when seventeen years old, he found himself the classmate of men who subsequently distinguished them- selves. His excess of animal spirits kept him, by marks of demerit, rather in the rear of his classmates, and, for mis- conduct in flogging one of them for an alleged insult, he was put back one year, thus graduating in 1853, when he should have done so in 1852. He was assigned to duty as brevet second lieutenant in the Ist infantry, in Texas, and the opening of the war of the Rebellion found him a cap- tain in the 13th infantry, in Oregon, having in the meantime, except for a brief interval, been constantly engaged on frontier service. He was with his regiment ordered to Jeffer- son barracks, Missouri, and arrived at the time General Fremont had been removed. Appointed to audit quarter- master and commissary accounts he worked faithfully, but having offended his commanding officer by criticising his manner of conducting affairs of the quartermaster's depart- ment, he was sent to St. Louis under arrest. This affair was there soon settled, and he was sent to Wisconsin to purchase horses. General Halleck knew him and ordered him, as one of his staff, to report at Corinth. Thus engaged but a short time, on Halleck's recommendation he was commissioned colonel of the 2d Michigan cavalry, and ordered on a raid
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to Booneville. His success caused another cavalry regiment to be added to his command. Then, as commander of a cavalry brigade, he fought the memorable battle of Boone- ville. On the Ist July, 1862, the enemy, about five thousand in number, attacked his brigade. Slowly retreating, he kept up a continuous fire. Seeing the day would be lost, he at once decided to make a bold dash. Selecting a squadron of reliable men, he sent them, by a circuitous route, to the enemy's rear, when the crack of their carbines bewildered and led the enemy to believe that a second brigade had opened on their rear. While thus confused, Sheridan charged with his whole force, and the enemy scattered and fled in disorder. This gallant action won him a brigadier- general's commission, but, with perverse stupidity that dis- tinguished many of the changes in commanders of brigades and divisions in the earlier years of the war, he was there- upon detailed to an infantry command, and ordered to Ken- tucky, where Buell was hurrying to meet Bragg, and there Sheridan's brigade did good service at Perrysville. Subse- quently at Stone river, under Rosecrans, he won his major- general's commission. After the battle of Chickamauga, with an enlarged command, he led the storming of Mission Ridge, when he had his horse shot under him, and five bullets through his clothing, without being wounded. His bravery on this occasion made him so conspicuous that General Grant soon afterward ordered him to the command of the cavalry of the Potomac, and, during the following twelve months, he had swept the valley of Virginia as with the scourge of destruction, having, within that period, taken more than two hundred battle flags, and one hundred and seventy field-pieces captured in open fight, and war muni- tions and public property of all kinds captured and destroyed worth more than $3,000,000. His command fought seventy- six battles in eleven months, and the story of these battles is really the story of the cavalry operations of the war east of the Cumberland mountains. These exploits he fitly con- cluded with the famous ride which a distinguished poet put into immortal verse. He had been called to Washington, October 13th, 1864, to a military consultation. The enemy, under Longstreet and Early, had arranged to mass their troops and make a desperate effort to crush his command. They stealthily marched from Fisher's Hill, and fell sudden- ly, in the absence of its commander, upon Sheridan's men. He had returned from Washington in the night, made an early visit to Winchester, and when half a mile beyond the town, he met the first fugitives. Taking in the facts at a glance, he cheered them with "Face the other way, boys; face the other way! We are going to lick them out of their boots!" And they did face the other way. As they advanced after their chief they formed and attacked the enemy with such vigor that the defeat was changed into the most brilliant vic- tory of the war. The effect on the whole army of the east was such that, in sight of Richmond, General Grant ordered a salute of one hundred guns in honor of the event. The resig- nation of McClellan made a vacant major-generalship in the regular army, to which Sheridan was at once commissioned, and after his final and signal victory in the valley he was put in command of the left wing of the army besieging Rich- mond, where he operated always in sight of the foe in the most aggressive manner until the final surrender at Appomat- tox. Subsequently he was transferred to the southwest where order and quiet followed all his movements. After a long and varied career in the South, President Johnson,
who never liked his non-conciliatory methods of reconstruc- tion, removed him to the frontier. General Grant protested, but he was overruled, while Sheridan, in his old play of In- dian fighter, was quite happy. When General Grant was elected President and Lieutenant-General Sherman succeeded him as General, the rank the latter had succeeded to passed in turn to Sheridan. The youngest and most active officer of those even next below him in rank, he is always des- patched by the authorities where danger most threatens. He is not skilled as is his chief in a high order of ability to present in writing the salient features or the law of those matters he is called upon or sent to settle, but he usually fails not to settle them in manner to satisfy those who directed the service. He speaks of men as he finds them, and not as they would present themselves to the world. Hence, when he found in New Orleans the reconstructed acting as a horde of robbers, rather than honest men, having respect for law, he designated them "banditti," and under the circumstances the term was not inapt. Deep-chested, short and stout, his military pres- ence is most striking on horseback, and he is no less popular with his men and officers than in society. He married in 1875.
EVERETT, AZARIAH, M. D., banker, of Cleveland, Ohio, was born November 24th 1821, in Trumbull County, Ohio, in which county his father, Samuel Everett, was a mer- chant and manufacturer. After receiving a thorough common school education, he studied medicine at Jefferson College, Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1846. On leaving col- lege he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, and commenced the practice of his profession, in partnership with his brother, Dr. Henry Everett. He at once met with success, and rapidly built up an extensive practice. He devoted himself principally to the treatment of ophthalmic diseases, in which he obtained a widespread reputation. His skill as an oculist was so gen- erally known that patients from every State in the Union visited him for treatment, his successful operations for cata- ract especially bringing him both patients and fame. Unre- mitting study and the demands of so large a practice impaired his health, and in 1854 he was compelled to relinquish the active duties of his profession, and make a winter trip to the West Indies, repeating the visit in the winters of 1855 and 1856. In the end he found it necessary to abandon the medical profession entirely, and devote himself to other business, in which he had been already partly engaged. The banking house of Brockway, Wason, Everett & Co. had been established in 1854, he being one of the partners. His attention had been given to this business, to some extent, before he abandoned the practice of medicine, and he now became the active member of the firm. Six years from its establishment the name was changed to Wason, Everett & Co., which continued some years, until changed to Everett, Weddell & Co. By his ability and judgment as a financier he built up for himself a reputation equal to that previously gained in the field of medical science. The bank, still doing a large business, is widely and favorably known as among the best in the State. He also became engaged in other successful enterprises, and is largely interested in the East Cleveland Railroad Company, one of the best appointed and equipped lines in the country. Of this company he became president shortly after its organization. His management has been characterized by an extension of its lines and a general prosperity of its affairs. Although a man who never
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sought office or political preferment, he held several public positions of trust and responsibility. When it was decided to build the court-house of Cuyahoga County, he was elected one of the commissioners having to provide the means for its erection and to superintend its construction. In 1863 and 1864 he served in the State Legislature, having been elected by the Republicans of his district. There his course was highly honorable to himself and useful to his constituents. During the war of the Rebellion he was appointed by Presi- dent Lincoln one of the allotment commissioners, authorized to arrange with the soldiers for the transfer of stated portions of their pay to their families. When the formation of a Board of Park Commissioners for the management and im- provement of the parks of Cleveland was determined on he was one of the first appointed, and acted as President of the Board ; his enterprise and good judgment contributed largely to the adoption of the liberal policy pursued by them, the results of which have been highly approved by the people. In most enterprises for the public benefit, for benevolent and charitable purposes, he has been an active worker or a liberal helper. During the war he was one of the most zealous- though unobtrusively so-in furnishing soldiers to the Union armies, and in aiding, by money and personal efforts all movements for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers at the forts and hospitals, and their families at home. In man- ufacturing and other undertakings calculated to enhance the prosperity of the city and its people, he has taken consider- able interest, as stockholder in many of such corporations. He is a man who enjoys society, and in his business relations possesses the highest confidence and esteem of his fellow- citizens.
KENT, ZENAS, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, July 12th, 1786. He came of good old Puritan stock, a nobility of descent which rests its claim upon a robust man- hood and hardy virtue. His father was a carpenter and joiner by trade, and carried a musket in the war for Amer- ican independence. When Zenas Kent was a boy, even New England had made but a beginning in the develop- ment of the common school system, and though he made the best of his opportunities-exhausting the facilities of the country school of that time and place-his early advantages were very limited as compared to the common school priv- ileges enjoyed by the youth of to-day. Mr. Kent has left at least one monument of the methodical perseverance with which he addressed himself to every task. A copy of Adams's Arithmetic, published in 1802, which Mr. Kent used at school, is now in possession of his son, Marvin. It is a well-thumbed book, now yellow with age, and a plod- ding student has left his impress on every page ; indeed, he has left considerable additions to the original text. The publisher had had the forethought to bind numerous blank pages with his letterpress, to stand the pupil instead of the slate, and to remain a record of his industry. On these leaves young Kent carefully worked out and proved every example in the book. Here was a combination of excellent traits- application, method, thoroughness-in which the boy well foreshadowed the man. He entered his work on the leaves of the book of his life, and he left not a blank page in it all. In selecting a pursuit in life Zenas Kent chose the trade of his father, and to make himself master of it. By the time he reached the twenty-fifth year young Zenas Kent was united in marriage to Pamelia Lewis, a native of Farmington,
Connecticut, a young woman of most excellent traits, and withal a fitting helpmeet for him. Her father, like the elder Kent, was a veteran of 1776, and a carpenter and joiner by vocation. The two young people joined their honest hands and humble fortunes for the battle with the world. In 1812 Zenas accompanied his father's family to the far West. The family located in Mantua, Ohio, where the elder Kent died at an advanced age. Zenas had left his young wife in Con- necticut while he went prospecting in the western wilds, and as soon as he had chosen a place for his home he returned for his wife. Together they set out for the tedious journey to the West, and, arriving in Ohio, settled in Hudson, then a township of Portage County. This was a fortunate selection for Mr. Kent. Here he met Captain Herman Oviatt, to whose friendship it was his pleasure to acknowledge himself indebted for many kind offices. Here he built a tannery for Owen Brown, father of John Brown, of Ossawatomie fame. Mr. Kent taught school in the winter, while he remained in Hudson. His friend Captain Oviatt, impressed by Mr. Kent's upright walk and industrious habits, was disposed to do him a good turn, and help him to start fairly in the world. Con- ferences led to conclusions, and in the summer of 1815 the firm of Oviatt & Kent was formed, to conduct a typical pioneer store, in Ravenna. Thither Mr. Kent went to erect a building, before the firm would begin business. The site chosen was that upon which the Second National Bank now stands. With his saw and plane and hammer Mr. Kent helped to put up the wooden building which was to serve for store and dwelling. This building was subsequently moved to the south side of Main Street, in Little's Block. After the firm of Oviatt & Kent had been in successful operation for several years, Mr. Kent was able to refund the money ad- vanced by Mr. Oviatt, and the firm dissolved, leaving the junior partner in sole control of the business. In 1826, while managing his growing business, Mr. Kent entered into a contract to erect the court-house, which still stands in Ravenna, one of the most substantial buildings of its kind in the State. In its early days it was looked upon as a wonder in architectural art. From 1831 to 1850 Mr. Kent was senior partner in the firm of Kent & Brewster, which did a profitable trade in Hudson. In the meantime Mr. Kent was accumu- lating a store of the world's goods, and making investments where there was fair prospect of good returns. In 1832 he joined David Ladd in the purchase of a tract of land, em- bracing between five and six hundred acres, in the township of Franklin, now the village of Kent. This tract embraced the water-power of the Cuyahoga River at that place. The connection of Mr. Ladd with this property was short, Mr. Kent soon becoming sole proprietor. In the year of the purchase he erected Kent's Flouring Mill, the product of which has been held in high repute for more than the third of a century. The mill produced the first flour shipped from Northern Ohio to Cleveland, going by way of the Ohio Canal. Having dissolved business connections with Mr. Ladd, Mr. Kent made arrangements with John Brown to carry on the tanning business, in an establishment already under way. In 1836 he sold his large tract to the Franklin Land Company, which afterward became the Franklin Silk Com- pany. In 1849 the Franklin Bank, of Portage County, was established, and Mr. Kent was chosen its president. This important post he held until 1864, when the Franklin Bank gave place to the Kent National Bank, of which he was also made president, holding the position at the time of his death.
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In 1850 he began the erection of a cotton factory and a private residence in Franklin, where his interests had cen- tered. Thither he removed, on the completion of his dwell- ing-house, in 1851. In the spring of 1853 he was elected treasurer of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad Com- pany, filling the position efficiently for one year. In April, 1860, he moved into an elegant mansion which he had built on Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. While on a visit to Kent, on the 21st of October, 1864, death took from him the partner of his early toils and of his years of ease. Thus bereft, he longed for quiet and repose, and in the following month he returned to Franklin (the name of which had been changed to Kent), to pass the remainder of his days. Mr. Kent's business career was that of an industrious plodder, who gained success by deserving it. He was possessed of a great fund of solid common sense, to which it had pleased God to add an indomitable will, native business tact, energy that never flagged, and, above all, an unyielding integrity, which gained him the confidence of all with whom he had relations. He was a cautious, methodical business man, not given to specu- lation, watchful of little things, and thrifty. An instance will show how dearly he held his integrity and the good opinion of his fellows. While president of the banking department of the Franklin Silk Company, he required to be placed in his hands the means to redeem the company's issues, remarking that he would put his name upon no paper without the power to protect it from dishonor. The arrangement was effected. Not- withstanding the disastrous termination of the silk company, thanks to Mr. Kent's honor and forethought, its paper was all redeemed at face value. His life-record was made up of deeds that reflect luster on his memory, and mark him as one of the pioneer noblemen of the West. In personal appear- ance Zenas Kent was tall of stature, erect and graceful of carriage, dignified of mien. Little given to society, he was, nevertheless, affable and agreeable in all of his relations. Though fair and equitable dealing made him popular as a tradesman, his retiring nature forbade many intimate friend- ships. While malice did not enter into his heart, the very firmness of his character made him quick to resent an abuse of his confidence. Beneath a dignified exterior, bordering at times'upon austerity, he wore a warm and sympathetic heart. He held a kind act in tender remembrance, and the few friendships he formed remained unbroken to the end of his days. His tastes were simple and his habits the most correct. He never used tobacco or stimulants of any kind, and for thirty years did not have an hour's sickness. Mr. Kent was blessed with a family of thirteen children, nine of whom sur- vive him. These he lived to see arrive at maturity, all occu- pying positions of prominence and influence in their respect- ive homes. The surviving children are : Mrs. Harriet Clapp, of New York City; Henry A., Edward, and George L., of Brooklyn, New York; Marvin, Charles H., and Mrs. Amelia L. Shively, of Kent, Ohio; Mrs. Frances E. Wells, of Browns- ville, Pennsylvania; and Mrs. Emily K., wife of R. B. Dennis, Esq., of Cleveland, Ohio. Of the four children deceased, Mrs. Eliza A. Poag died in Brooklyn, July 4th, 1864; three- Louisa, Amelia, and an unnamed infant-lie in Ravenna Cemetery. Zenas Kent died suddenly, at his residence in Kent, October 4th, 1865, in the eightieth year of his age. His remains were interred in Woodland Cemetery, Cleveland's beautiful city of the dead. In a lovely spot, removed from the hurly-burly of a busy world, under the shade of the cypress and willow, by the side of the wife of his bosom,
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