USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 41
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SCRANTON, JOEL, pioneer, of Cleveland. All young ladies write alike, was the comment of an educator, and it is due to the uniform methods of teaching the art. Thus handwriting has lost quite every trace of individuality. The same is true of instruction in a broader sense. Systems re- duce angles, efface peculiarities, and give the mental features
of multitudes a sort of family resemblance. The pernicious helps to think, multiplied on every hand, have weakened self-reliance ; made vigorous, earnest effort needless; and thus the manful force of the educated world does not increase in any degree proportioned to the myriad facilities of school and college. Joel Scranton was born in Belchertown, Massa- chusetts, April 5th, 1793, and at that day the names of the higher order of schools throughout the United States could have been written upon a visiting card. There was much tough tugging, but little scientific stuffing. In 1793 Poor Richard's maxims had not awakened ridicule, home- made fabrics were above reproach, and calico was Sunday wear. Boys dug out the knotty problems of "Pike's Arith- metic " by main strength, as they unearthed the woodchuck and the fox. They wore tow trousers and went barefoot, and ate brown bread and grew apace. Stephen Scranton, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a man of unusual ability, acuteness, and enterprise, and had he lived at a later date might have become one of the great iron masters of America. He was a skilled workman in steel and iron, and was the first to introduce the manufacture of cut nails into the State of New York. With none of the mechanical appliances of to-day and no motor but cold water, he built his works among the hills of Otsego, and set the wheels of a new industry whirling night and day. Fire after fire swept away his prosperity ; the clank of machinery and the ring of anvils died out in the quiet country; the wren built her nest in the broken wheel, and grass and weeds hid the fire-blackened rings that scarred the ground. The time was singularly poor in invention, though the time did not think so. But recently emerged from one war, the country already began to see the projected shadows of another. The primitive order of things remained. The roast twirled upon a string before the fire, for the cook-stove was not yet. The framers of buildings did their work by the chance fashion of "cut and try," for the application of the square rule was unknown. The mod- ern boot was not invented, for they just made a shoe and sewed a leg to it. Thus thrown upon his own resources and inheriting nothing but a will of his own, the son pro- ceeded to find a way. Shrewd, observant, he early betook himself to mercantile pursuits ; he traversed the country, through wildernesses, from village to village; he did what his hand found to do with his might. At last, in quest of a wider field and a permanent establishment, he struck out for " the Ohio," then, as they thought, on the western edge of the civilized world. By boat, in stage, on foot, in schooner, he pursued his tedious way. The journey, now accom- plished in twenty-four hours, cost thirty solid days of toilsome progress, and on a certain day in 1819 the rusty schooner that bore him and his fortunes came to anchor off Cleveland, a little hamlet of one hundred and fifty souls, some of them shaken with ague, some waiting for a good time coming. The schooner was laden with leather. Mr. Scranton had already visited the goodly land, and knew its nakedness no more clearly than he discerned its splendid possibilities. He opened a store, and purchased a large tract of land along the river and upon the bluffs. He foresaw a grander growth than grass or grain, but he pastured his horses on the green meadows of the Cuyahoga. Well does the writer remember the old home and the orchard, across the river, at the foot of the hills; the boat swinging by a chain to a ring in its nose at the shore ; the woods that crowned the heights and fringed the picture; the humble dwellings struggling up the bluffs as
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BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
if they were trying to scale them ; the little dots of houses that bore, at a later day, the ambitious title of Ohio City; the old rivalries between the two embryo marts, as if the tenants of a double-yolked egg should fall out and fight-the mem- ory of the quiet rural scene is imperishable. The flocks of sheep grazing in the pasture have been succeeded by the white fleeces of the busy steam, and the rasp of scythes by the roar of a thousand wheels. Consolidated to-day, made one by a magnificent aerial bridge, meandered by avenues, the parted cliffs join hands above the valley, with a popula- tion two hundred thousand strong, and more a-coming. Mr. Scranton lived to see the greatness he believed in, and to share liberally in its results. Without the aid of Longfellow, he had." learned to labor and to wait;" he made haste slowly ; his plans were wise and almost prophetic ; he bided his time, and he achieved success. With strongly marked characteristics, caring little for the conventionalities of the day, independent in thought and action, a man whose opin- ions were convictions, of calculation cool as if he had been a born mathematician, he possessed a kindly, generous heart, a quiet humor, a rich fund of anecdote and reminiscence, and was one of the keenest and most accurate readers of men of his time. Had he been President he would have selected his cabinet wisely, and every man in his own place. He never thought that something could be made out of nothing, and he believed in "the survival of the fittest." He possessed the great qualities for mercantile success, for he knew what, where, and when to buy, how to hold, and when to sell. He was just without pretense, and beneficent without ostentation. On the 27th of June, 1828, Mr. Scranton married Miss Irene P. Hickox, the preceptress of a ladies' seminary, a cultivated, lovely, Christian gentlewoman, whose hand was radiant in every deed of duty and of charity in the young city, and whose memory yet "smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust." Five children were born to them, but four and the wife and mother preceded him to the silent land, the latter by only a single month, leaving but one daughter, Mrs. Mary S. Brad- ford, of Cleveland, to smooth his dying pillow. To her his wealth descended, and multitudes have been made glad for it; sorrow alleviated, burdens lightened, noble purposes aided, men and women equipped for high and holy duty, the Church never forgotten, and all unostentatiously, as the dews of Hermon descended. Mr. Scranton made no noisy be- quests, reared no marble records to his own munificence, but he did better, for he entrusted his fortune to the faithful and loving hands of one of whom it may be said: "Thou- sands shall rise up and call her blessed." (This paragraph is penned without Mrs. Bradford's knowledge or consent- penned because it is inseparable from the brief story of the father's life and fortune.) While Mr. Scranton was no bustling politician, and never aspired to office, he was in turn a strong Whig and an earnest Republican. He was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church, and a member of the Masonic Order. Personally he could not pass unnoticed anywhere. Heavily built, he had a face suggestive of a certain reserved power, a keen but kindly eye, and a noble head, such as an artist would like to model. Quiet and un- obtrusive, you felt he was not a man easily "blown about by every wind of doctrine," and he possessed a calm dignity that arrested attention and insured respect. A volume of anecdotes might be compiled illustrating his quaint humor, his sterling sense, and the salient points in his strongly- marked character. He did his work peacefully and well, 19-B
and on the 9th of April, 1858, at the age of sixty-five, his natural force yet unabated, he was stricken with apoplexy, and lay unconscious till he ceased to breathe, "died, and made no sign." His body reposes in a pleasant place, in Woodland Cemetery, all his household but one member around him-a family at rest.
CALVERT, GEORGE WASHINGTON, was born in Prince William county, Virginia, September 15th, 1805. When he was quite young his father died, and in 1823 his mother came to Ohio with her family, and located in Scioto county, in the vicinity of Portsmouth. Young Calvert was for many years in the employment of the late Captain Cleveland as manager of his place, now known as the Infirmary Farm. He was also engaged for a time as contractor on the Ohio Canal, having charge of the section between Portsmouth and Jasper. After the canal was finished he purchased some land in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, to which he afterwards added as his ability permitted, and at the time of his demise was the owner of about a section of valuable land in that -vicinity. The latter part of his life was employed in farming. His early education was very meager, being that of the pi- oneer; but having an appreciative view of its importance, he improved his opportunities for reading and private study, and became possessed of much general knowledge. He was an advocate of progress generally, and for a time held the po- sition of school-director in his neighborhood. Self-made in every respect, he carved out his own fortune. He was noted for. his sterling integrity and great kindness of heart, and had no patience with dishonesty in any of its forms. Although not nominally connected with any church, he was one of the most exemplary men of his day. In 1868 he established what was known as the Calvert Farm Dairy, and conducted it until the spring previous to his death, when he was com- pelled to abandon it on account of failing health. He was a whig until the demise of that party, after which his pro- clivities were democratic. In 1833 he married Mary Emma Dent, daughter of the Rev. John Hoskinson, of Scioto county, but formerly from Virginia. Mrs. Calvert died of lung fever April Ist, 1853, at which time Mr. Calvert was very low with the same disease, partial deafness resulting therefrom, from which he never fully recovered. Of a family of six children, five survive : Frank W. Calvert, a grocer of Cincin- nati; Judge Robert A. Calvert, attorney-at-law, Portsmouth, Ohio; Thomas G. Calvert, deputy probate clerk of Scioto county, Ohio; and Evaline O., wife of Silas Clark, of the same county. Mr. Calvert died August 5th, 1874, leaving a sec- ond wife.
CALVERT, ROBERT ALLEN, lawyer and judge, second son of George Washington Calvert, just noticed, was born in Scioto county, Ohio, June 17th, 1837. He passed his minority on the farm of his father, and received his educa- tion in his native county and in Wittenberg College, Spring- field, Ohio. After leaving college he embarked in the whole- sale grocery trade in company with his brother, F. W. Calvert, continuing in this for four years, and then buying out his brother and continuing the business three years longer. Choosing law as a profession, he conducted his reading in the office of the late John W. Collins, of Portsmouth, and was admitted to the bar in West Union, Adams county, Ohio, in September, 1868. He at once began practice in Ports- mouth, where he has since resided. In the fall of 1872 he
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was elected probate judge of Scioto county, and re-elected in 1875, thus serving six years. June 17th, 1862, he married Martha Jane, daughter of John D. Clark, of Clark county, Ohio, and has had five children : Cosette I., Robert Emer- son, Ralph Waldo, Bertha, and Forest W. Calvert, the latter deceased. Judge Calvert occupies a highly creditable rank at the Scioto county bar, and his decisions as probate judge were rendered with general satisfaction to the public. Aside from the duties of his profession he has had charge of the farming interests of his father since the death of the latter, taking in the pursuit of agriculture a special delight. He is a gentleman of modest manners, agreeable social qualities, a successful lawyer, and a much respected citizen. In politics he is a strong republican.
BUCHTEL, JOHN RICHARD, founder of Buchtel College, and a noted iron-master and operator in coal, is a native of Summit County, Ohio, and was born January 18th, 1822. 'He is of German extraction, his paternal ancestry having emigrated to this country from Germany at an early date. His father was John Buchtel, a farmer, whose father, Peter Buchtel, was a native of Pennsylvania, from which State he moved to Ohio in 1809, entering the United States' service here as a soldier in the War of 1812, and dying in the army. Our subject, like the majority of Western men who have acquired prominence either in public affairs or in the direction of great business interests, enjoyed but few oppor- tunities for education in youth ; and, in fact, his advantages were circumscribed to that extent that at the age of twenty- one he wrote his name with difficulty. It was, doubtless, a profound appreciation of his early disadvantages that disposed him in later life to devote a large share of the accumulations of a long and successful business career to the substantial encouragement of institutions of learning, the dissemination of literature, and the erection of church edifices. While hold- ing liberal views on religious questions, and a staunch Uni- versalist in belief, he has never permitted his sympathies to be confined within sectarian lines; on the contrary, every denomination receives a share of his support, and he has con- tributed to the erection of every church built in the city of Akron. The crowning work of his unstinted liberality was reached in the establishment and endowment of Buchtel College, at Akron, an institution under the control and patron- age of the Universalist denomination of Ohio. As the result of three years of earnest thought and persistent effort, the corner-stone of this college was laid July 4th, 1871, Horace Greeley delivering the address of the occasion. Besides do- nating, at the outset, his library to the institution, he from time to time contributed toward its completion and permanent endowment, until his gifts in this direction have amounted to not less than two hundred thousand dollars. The college, at first an experiment, steadily made its way forward, until it holds a place of acknowledged merit among the most flour- ishing institutions of the West, and the expectations of its generous founder have been fully realized in its successful inauguration. Mr. Buchtel's experience in youth and early manhood was identical with that of the majority of Ohio's representative men. His youth was spent in the arduous occupation of farming, and when twenty-two years of age he began to work land on shares, continuing at it until he acquired means sufficient to buy a small farm of twenty acres of land, on which he lived two years. Finally, dis- posing of this, he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty
acres, in Coventry Township, Summit County, which he im- proved, and resided upon until 1854, when he sold it, and purchased a farm in Laporte County, Indiana, intending, at that time, to remove thither, and continue his pursuit as a farmer. Before doing so, however, he altered his plans, and entered the employ of Ball, Aultman & Co., of Canton, then just beginning to make and introduce very extensively their mowers and reapers, which they were manufacturing on a new and improved plan, and continued as their agent until the spring of 1856. The manufactory was soon after burned down, and the firm made an assignment to him, for the benefit of their creditors. They obtained an extension of time, and Mr. Buchtel gave them such important aid that the firm of C. Aultman & Co. was again on a secure foundation. In 1864 his efforts to persuade the Canton manufacturers of the "Buckeye" machines to build a manufactory at Akron also, finally succeeded, and he proceeded with the construc- tion of the buildings there needed, superintending the same, and also purchased a one-sixth interest in the establishment. By the spring of 1865 the works were ready, and began manufacturing the "Buckeye" mower and reaper. The next year the business was organized as a stock-company, of which he was elected president. This company has one million dollars of paid-up capital, and a surplus capital of one million three hundred thousand dollars. Its works have capacity for building twenty-five thousand machines per annum, and have never made less than five thousand. The Akron Iron Company, with its large rolling-mills and fine blast furnaces, and the Akron Knife Works, of the Whitman & Miles Manufacturing Company, for the produc- tion of knives and sickles for mowers, grew indirectly out of the establishment of the "Buckeye" works; whilst the Akron paper-mill of Thomas Phillips & Co., the rubber-works, the chain-works, and many other flourishing industries, owed very much to Mr. Buchtel for their location in Akron. Mr. Buchtel has been president of the Canton incorporation of Aultman, Miller & Co., and a director of the Akron Iron Company, of the Bank of Akron, and of the Weary, Snyder & Wilcox Manufacturing Company, besides many other in- terests. The latest and one of the most successful enter- prises in which Mr. Buchtel is interested was the very ex- tensive purchase of Athens County mineral lands by the Akron Iron Company, comprising some of the most valuable coal lands in the country, and including some very valuable deposits of iron ore. The result of this purchase was the springing up of the flourishing town of Buchtel, which at this writing contains upward of two thousand people, and gives promise of much future development. Mr. Buchtel's enterprise is almost without a parallel in the history of Ohio, and in all his huge enterprises he has maintained the most pleasant relations with his employés, a circumstance which has been made the subject of much comment. In his busi- ness he never sordidly confines himself to making the most money with the least jar; on the contrary, the comfort of his employés is one of his uppermost considerations, and this feeling has been given expression in all his business re- lations with his men, and particularly has it been noticeable in the provision made for housing his workmen. He erected a large number of dwellings for his men, to whom they were conveyed on the most easy terms of payment. Under the inspiration of Mr. Buchtel the town of Buchtel acquired a phenomenal growth. All the facilities and improvements of an embryo city are to be found, where as late as the year
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1879 the site of the present town was a fertile cornfield. The telegraph, the post-office, the express office, and many other conveniences are now in successful operation, all the result of his unexampled enterprise and liberality. An immense store building, stocked with all kinds of goods for the supply of his employés, and conducted with the regularity and system of a great metropolitan store, is a marked feature of the town. It is apportioned off into separate departments, each under an efficient head, with an ample corps of assistants. Mr. Buchtel did not lose sight of the pleasure-wants of his community, as the large and commodious opera-house-the largest south of Columbus-bears evidence. All these auxiliary improve- ments have been rendered necessary by the immense opera- tions of the Akron Iron Company, under the direct auspices of Mr. Buchtel. Coal is there mined to the extent of one hundred and fifty cars each day, and the large blast furnace produces, on an average, forty-five tons of the best quality of iron every twenty-four hours. A more adequate idea of the magnitude of these operations is obtained from the state- ment that for the year 1880 the Akron Iron Company paid the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad for transporting coal and iron over their line one million dollars. Mr. Buchtel acts with the Republican party, and is committed to the sup- port of its principles as opposed to the Democratic party, but when temperance issues are involved, he ranks as a Prohibitionist, and was the candidate of that party for Secre- tary of State of Ohio, in 1874. He was appointed, by Gov- ernor Hayes, one of the trustees of the State Agricultural College, and was a member of the executive committee dur- ing the erection of its buildings. During the war he rendered valuable service to the city of Akron. When others deemed the obstacles to filling up the quota and escaping the draft to be insurmountable, he, by his direct and supervisory efforts, obtained the apportionment laid upon his town. He married in 1844 Miss Elizabeth Davidson, and their union is without issue.
CARPENTER, SAMUEL SANGSTON, member of the Cincinnati bar, was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, January 22d, 1823. He was a son of Dr. Emanuel Weidler Carpenter and Sarah (Sangston) Carpenter. His paternal grandfather, Samuel Carpenter, was Mayor of Lancaster, and held that office at the time of his death. Heinrich Zimmerman, his great-great-great-grandfather, emigrated to America from the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, about the year 1700, and located in Lancaster County. Upon issuing a patent to him Governor Penn, in accordance with his custom, translated " Zimmerman " into " Carpenter," its equivalent in English. To this day the family is known by the name of Zimmerman amongst the Pennsylvania Germans, who still retain, to a great extent, their language, manners, and customs. His great-great-grandfather, Emanuel Carpenter, was a noted man in his day. He was for seventeen years a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and held for many years the office of Judge of the County Court, and other offices, indicating the respect in which he was held by his fellow- citizens. Mr. Carpenter received his early education at the private schools in his native city, finishing a semi-collegi- ate course at Lancaster Academy, when eighteen years of age. He immediately began the study of the law, in the office of Emanuel C. Reigart, Esq., then a lawyer of some distinction, and was admitted to the bar in November, 1843. In December of that year he removed to Cincinnati, and
began the practice of the law, upon Court Street, where he remained about two years; then removed to No. 21 West Third Street, where he continued for thirty-three years ; after which he moved to Pike's Opera-house, where he still has his offices. In 1849 he was appointed United States Com- missioner, by the United States Circuit Court, Hon. John McLean presiding as judge. His experiences in that office are interesting, and have a historical value, as indicating the spirit of that time in relation to slavery. One year after his appointment the "Fugitive Slave" act was passed by Con- gress. By the provisions of that law the office of Commissioner became a responsible one, and to a person having conscien- tious scruples with reference to the question of slavery, an irk- some and disagreeable one. Mr. Carpenter was such a person and officer. That law authorized and required United States Commissioners to act under it. On the affidavit of a person claiming that another person, prima facie free, was his slave, the alleged slave might be taken before the Commissioner, and by his decision alone, without trial by jury, and with no right of appeal to a higher tribunal, and without the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, consigned to slavery. There was no provision in the law for a defense against the claim. The door was open wide to the greatest abuse of the dearest and most sacred of all rights-the right to liberty. And to make the law still more odious, there was a provision giving the Commissioner ten dollars for his services if decided in favor of the claimant, but only five dollars if in favor of the pris- oner. In the cases that came before him he had the great satisfaction of never having been obliged to make a final de- cision. They were in every case but two taken before judges of the State or Federal courts. In one case the prisoner was discharged on the ground of mistaken identity, and in the other the prisoner escaped while the trial was in progress. In February, 1851, a mulatto named "Fanny," about twenty- two years old, with a white infant in her arms, after being served with a warrant issued by Mr. Carpenter, at her alleged master's instance, was, on habeas corpus, taken before Judge R. B. Warden, of the Common Pleas. Flamen Ball, Stanley Matthews, and Donn Piatt, Esquires, appeared as counsel for "Fanny," and W. Y. Gholson and Frank Chambers, Esquires, for Hutchinson, the claimant. The testimony was that she was traveling with Hutchinson on a steamboat; that he brought her up into the city to make some purchases ; that a crowd gathered around them, some one declaring that she was a free woman, and considerable confusion and some fighting followed ; and the woman (not the rioters) was taken into custody. After the evidence was closed, the case was argued by Mr. Matthews and Mr. Gholson, when the case was suddenly brought to a termination by " Fanny" herself, who rose and informed the court that she desired to return to her master! Some time after this, Mr. Carpenter was awakened late at night by a loud knocking at his door. Looking out the window he found a considerable number of colored people assembled in the street before the house, headed by a minister of one of their Churches, and apparently much excited. Desiring to know what they wanted, he was informed that an alleged fugitive from slavery had been arrested by the United States Marshal, and they wanted to know what was intended to be done with him. He assured them that he had not heard of the arrest, but that if brought before him, he should have every means of making his defense afforded him; upon which they quietly dispersed. It was his practice to do this in all cases. Under the law, however, it
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