USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 46
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City Railway, of Pittsburg, that being the first enterprise of its kind in the city. In 1859 he removed to Ohio, and located in Massillon, Stark County, where, in connection with Mr. Ridgeway, he purchased the Massillon Furnace property, and became engaged in the manufacture of pig-iron and coal mining. In 1876 the Burton Furnace Company was formed, and he became its president. In July, 1879, the Ridgeway-Burton Company was organized and incorporated, for the purpose of operating in coal, iron, and iron ores. Of this company, also, Mr. Burton was made president. He is one of the most extensive operators in his part of the State. In politics he is a Republican ; formerly a Whig, he joined the new party on its organization. Not an active politician, he can not be prevailed upon to accept office, and with the exception of being a member of the City Council, he has not held any office. Mr. Burton was married in Philadelphia, in 1845, to Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Jenkinson, Esq., of Maryland. She died in 1867. His second marriage was in February, 1871, to Mary E., daughter of Jonathan Zerbe, Esq., of Massillon. To them have been born four children- Alice, Clara, Jonathan Prescott, and Courtney. In his business career Mr. Burton has been highly successful ; endowed with all the characteristics that insure success, he has made the most of his opportunities. Far-sighted, cautious, discreet, perfectly reliable-a man whose word is as good as his bond-he is widely known and highly esteemed in business circles. In his beautiful home, surrounded by his charming and happy family, loved and beloved, he enjoys the well earned competence secured by industry, integrity, and appli- cation to his business pursuits. To such men as Mr. Burton the great State of Ohio is largely indebted for the develop- ment of her wonderful resources.
MEANS, THOMAS WILLIAMSON, capitalist, son of John and Ann (Williamson) Means, was born November 3d, 1803, at Spartanburg, South Carolina. The name Means is of Scotch origin, and was at one time preceded by the syl- lable Mac. Considerable diversity also has appeared in its orthography at different periods and among different people. In America, Mayne and Maynes are traceable to the same origin; and the Irish are disposed to spell, as they pronounce, Main or Mains; and at Glasgow the name of John Mains appears in the record of 1666 among the martyrs of the Covenant. The ancestors of the family settled in the north of Ireland about the time of William the Third, and have always been Presbyterians when they had any connection with Church organizations. Many of the family were prom- inent in the professions and in public and business life in the old country. In America they appear in two or three branches, one having originally settled in New England, another in Pennsylvania (a part of this one subsequently removing to South Carolina), and another came to Carolina from Ireland. William Means settled in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, afterward removed to South Carolina, and was the earnest partisan of the colonies in the early trouble with Great Britain. Several of his sons participated in the war of the Revolution. His youngest son, Colonel John Means, a native of Union District, South Carolina, became an influ- ential and prominent man in that State; was an extensive planter, an officer in the State militia, and member of the South Carolina Legislature in 1815 and 1816. Thinking it better to rear his sons in the free States, he moved to Ohio in 1819, gave his slaves their freedom, and settled in Adams County; was
a member of the Legislature of Ohio from 1825 to 1827; was a farmer and iron manufacturer in that State; one of the pio- neers of the iron business in the Hanging Rock iron region ; was largely interested in building and operating the Union Iron Furnace, the first furnace in that region ; and laid the foun- dation for the large fortunes acquired by his sons. Ann Williamson, his wife, was a Carolinian by birth, whose mother, Ann Newton, was a relative of Sir Isaac Newton. Colonel Means died at Manchester, Ohio, March 15th, 1837. His wife died August 17th 1840. They had six children, one of whom was Thomas W. Means, the subject of this sketch. He spent six years in a select school, established by his father, chiefly for the education of his own children, and acquired not only a fine English education, but also a very respectable knowledge of the classics. In 1826 he com- menced his business career, at the Union Furnace, then building, and he had the honor of "firing" it. Since 1855 the old Union has not been in operation, yet the lands be- longing to it are held by a corporation, in which he is the principal owner. In 1837 he and David Sinton became the owners of the Union Furnace, and rebuilt it in 1844. In the following year they built the Ohio Furnace, in Scioto County, adjoining. In 1847 he built Buena Vista Furnace, in Kentucky. In 1852 he purchased the Bellefontaine Furnace, Kentucky ; in 1854 was one of the owners and builders of Vin- ton Furnace, Ohio; in 1863, in connection with others, bought the Pine Grove Furnace and Hanging Rock Coal Works, and in the following year, with his associates, the Amanda Fur- nace, Kentucky; and is now the principal owner in com- panies representing some fifty thousand acres of the choicest property in the Hanging Rock region. He has since built the Princess, a stone coal furnace, ten miles from Ashland, in Kentucky, and is now, with his associates, engaged in building a large coke furnace at Hanging Rock, the village in Ohio which gives name to the Hanging Rock region of Ohio and Kentucky. The Ohio was the first charcoal fur- nace in the country which produced as high as ten tons a day, and was the first that averaged over fifteen tons. In 1832, when the Union had been worked up to six tons a day, the Pennsylvania furnaces were averaging but two tons. In the first year of Union Furnace three hundred tons of iron were produced ; in the last year, 1855, it reached twenty-five hun- dred. Three hundred tons in 1827 was as large yearly produc- tion as had been reached in the United States, and this rate was fully up to that of England. Under the supervision of Mr. Means and Mr. Sinton experiments for introducing the hot blast were first made, and at their Union Furnace they put up the second hot blast used in the United States. This was probably the greatest step forward that had yet been made in the manufacture of iron. Again in 1860 he introduced at the Ohio Furnace the Davis hot blast, which has greatly improved the charcoal furnace business of the country. He has been longer engaged, is the most successful, and is more ex- tensively and directly concerned in the growth and prosperity, of the iron business than any other man in the Ohio Valley. He was the originator and first president of the Cincinnati and Big Sandy Packet Company; founded the town of Ash- land, established the old Bank of Ashland, and originated the Second National Bank of Ironton, of which he has been president ever since its organization in 1864; was one of the corporators and principal stockholders in the Norton Iron Works, and until recently was one of the largest owners of the stock of the Ironton Iron Railroad. In 1882 he moved
Engr& Paso, Hon
Thomas IT Means
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from Hanging Rock to Ashland, Kentucky, where he has since resided. He cast his first presidential vote for John Quincy Adams, and was identified with the Whig party. He has been a Republican since the formation of that party, and during the war of the Rebellion was an ardent supporter of the national government. He attends the Presbyterian Church, but is not a member of any denomination. He has fine personal and business habits, a strong constitution, and is able to sustain a long life of incessant activity. Possessing a high sense of social and business integrity, his great fortune is the legitimate result of uncommon business ability and judgment. He is a man of fine bearing, about six feet in height, agreeable in manners, and wholly void of ostenta- tion. Mr. Means was married December 4th, 1828, to Sarah Ellison, a native of Buckeye Station, Adams County, Ohio, daughter of John Ellison, an early settler in that county. She died in 1881, at the age of sixty-one, in their home at Hanging Rock. Their children now living are John Means, of Ashland, Kentucky, who, after his father, is to-day the most prominent, successful, and upright business man in the Hanging Rock iron region ; William Means, ex- Mayor of the city of Cincinnati, and president of the Met- ropolitan National Bank, of that city, who socially and as a financier ranks with the foremost men of the State; and Mary A. and Margaret, residing at home with their father.
GREENWOOD, MILES, iron-master and capitalist, son of Miles Greenwood, of Salem, Massachusetts, was born in Jersey City, March 19th, 1807. On his father's side he was of English extraction, and on his mother's of Huguenot French and German. In 1808, the family removed to New York, and in 1817, to Cincinnati. While quite a youth he worked at various employments, and supported an invalid father and the family. In 1825, when eighteen years old, he went to the New Harmony Community, governed by Robert Owen, where he remained, working for the community four years. In 1827, he left New Harmony and went to Pittsburgh, where he obtained employment in an iron foundry, and gained the knowledge of iron working that determined his future busi- ness career. In the fall of 1828, he returned to Harmony and opened a foundry. It was shortly closed, and he returned to Cincinnati, entering the employment of T. & J. Bevin in the business of iron-founding. Three years later he commenced on his own account, employing about ten hands the first year. The business proved successful from the start, and the capacity of the establishment was soon increased, new branches being added from time to time, until nearly all de- partments of iron-making were included. By the year 1850, the number of hands employed had grown from ten to over three hundred. In 1861, the entire establishment was turned into a United States arsenal for the manufacture of arms and implements of war, a great variety of which was there man- ufactured. Upward of seven hundred hands were employed, and among the goods turned out were forty thousand Spring- field muskets, improved by percussioning and rifling, over two hundred bronze cannon, the first ever made in the West, hundreds of caissons and gun-carriages, and also a sea-going monitor. In addition to his connection with the great iron works established by him, he was largely interested in many other industrial and public enterprises. He constructed the Ohio Mechanics' Institute building, and was one of the most prominent in the establishment and successful career of that institution. To Mr. Greenwood the Cincinnati fire depart-
ment is mainly indebted for its efficient organization. The pay fire department, now in general use, is really his creation. From being a leading spirit in the old volunteer department he saw the inevitably demoralizing tendencies of it upon the youth of cities, and conceiving the idea of adopting steam as a motive power in the extinguishing of fires, he next deter- mined to have a paid, rather than a volunteer, department. In this he met with a weight of opposition, both in the city council and from the volunteer firemen, that would have completely discouraged a man of less determination of char- acter and persistence. For three months after the organiza- tion of the paid fire department of the city, the city council refused to recognize the change, or appropriate money to pay the men, and during this time Mr. Greenwood advanced for this purpose $15,000, to keep the men together by paying them regularly. Night and day he was constantly engaged fighting the opposition to the organization. He had no time to attend to his own business, but paid a man $1,500 to at- tend to it for him. Of this sum the city subsequently reim- bursed him $1,000, which he at once paid into the funds of the Mechanics' Institute. Eventually he triumphed over every difficulty, and to-day such a thing as a volunteer fire department is unknown in any city of the first class in Europe or America. His labors in the city council were, during the time he held a seat there, ever directed to lessen unnecessary expense, while introducing every improvement required in the various departments. For twenty years he was president of the Cincinnati Fuel Company. In 1859, the Cincinnati and Covington Suspension Bridge Company was chartered by the Kentucky legislature. He was chosen its president, and continued on its directory. He was one of the directors of the House of Refuge, and furnished means liber- ally for its support. In 1869, he was appointed by the court one of the directors of the Cincinnati Southern Railway, and then made president of the board of trustees, which office he continues to hold. He performed the duties of county treas- urer for the term commencing in 1867, gratuitously, that the emoluments of the office might go to the family of the treas- urer, who died soon after his taking office. In politics, he was an old line whig during the existence of that party, and after its demise he became a member of the republican party. At the same time he was no politician, although taking an active interest in the establishment and maintenance of good government. He was connected with no church organization, but was among the foremost in all works of charity and benevolence. Of fine physique, he was capable of perform- ing an enormous amount of work daily, and labored incess- antly in his business, and in the numerous public enterprises in which he interested himself. He was a man of the highest commercial integrity ; eminently a self-made man, and one of the representative iron-masters of the United States. All benevolent enterprises and institutions shared largely of his means and labors. In all his transactions, public and pri- vate, his desire was to be strictly just to every one, and in his seventy-seventh year he undertook to build a new foundry and introduce a new cooking-stove, which he claimed would revolutionize the labor of the kitchen throughout the country. He is now at the head of the iron works which he built, in which he makes light and fancy castings a specialty. He also manufactures steam-fittings, plumbers' goods, and oddities. Mr. Greenwood's knowledge of the mechanic arts and his practical acquaintance with the manufacture of iron render him a valuable director of the Cincinnati Southern Railway,
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to the management of which he has constantly devoted much of his time. Few men of Cincinnati have given more of their energies or their means to the advancement of the city's interests, and his name will always stand high on the roll of its public benefactors. He resides in Avondale, one of the handsomest suburbs of Cincinnati, surrounded by all that elegant refinement and cultivated taste can gather. In 1832 he married Miss Howard W. Hills. Two children born of this marriage died in infancy, and their mother also died soon after. In 1836 he married Miss Phoebe J. Hopson, by whom he had ten children, seven of whom are living.
FOSTER, CHARLES, the twenty - seventh governor elected by the people of Ohio, was born in Seneca township, Seneca county, Ohio, April 12th, 1828. His parents, Charles W. Foster and wife, were natives of Massachusetts, and the former came to Ohio in 1827, where he spent the first year in Seneca township in the service of his father-in-law, John Crocker. In 1832, he went to Rome, in Seneca county, now known as Fostoria, but then a settlement of a few houses, where Mr. Crocker had entered eighty acres govern- ment land. There the father of our subject commenced the business of a country merchant, and by prudent manage- ment and close attention to his business, he was, as the county became settled, enabled to increase his trade and establish his character as an honorable merchant, and which character he still lives to enjoy. His son Charles had only the opportunities for education that such conditions of life anterior to the present style of common schools afforded, and had spent but nine months at the Norwalk (Ohio) Seminary when he was, by general sickness of the family, required to go home and enter life as the fourteen- year old assistant and soon after manager of his father's store. Thus he was cut off from enjoying the college course that his father intended he should enjoy, and preparatory to which he had entered the seminary. So rapid was the devel- opment of his business capacity that when but eighteen years old he assumed charge of making the necessary purchases of goods in the Eastern markets, and which he continued to do until a few years ago. The business under his manage- ment increased to an extent unknown to any similar estab- lishment so situated-within fourteen miles of the county seat-and at present is one of the most extensive interior stores in the State. A few years since, the adjoining and rival towns of Rome and Risdom were consolidated, and, in honor of its most prominent citizens, the new corporation assumed the name of Fostoria. Though never indifferent, naturally, to public affairs, and always participating in politi- cal movements, Charles Foster was never a candidate for any public position, beyond that of a purely local character, until after repeated declinations and protests, he was induced, in the summer of 1870, to accept the nomination of the republicans of his district for Congress, and his reluctant acceptance was only secured by assurances of his political supporters that he was probably the only man of sufficient personal popularity to overcome the recognized democratic majority in the district. The result indicated the wisdom of the choice, for the election gave Charles Foster 776 majority over his democratic competitor, Hon. E. F. Dickinson, a gentleman who two years previously was chosen to represent the district by 1,645 majority over his republican competitor. In 1872, Mr. Foster was renominated by his party for Con- gress, and, after an exciting contest, reëlected by 726
majority over Rush R. Sloane, who received the votes of both democrats and Greeley republicans. This victory was a great surprise, attracted much attention, and regarded as a strong evidence of Mr. Foster's personal popularity. In 1874, being for the third time nominated, he was opposed by Hon. George E. Seney, a gentleman who was believed to have in an equal degree with himself the confidence of the people. The election throughout the State went heavily against the republican party, the operations of "Grant's kitchen cabinet " having greatly and generally disgusted the people all over the country. The democratic majority on the State ticket was 17,202, and out of twenty members of Congress, the democrats had elected thirteen. Mr. Foster's district was naturally democratic, and it was supposed that he had of course gone under in the general wreck, but, on the contrary, when the ballots came to be carefully counted, it was found he had won by 159 majority. Henceforth, it was decided that Charles Foster in a district election could not be beaten. Consequently, in 1876, he of course was again nominated and again elected, beating his democratic com- petitor by 271 votes. The following year the democratic party having for the first time in many years a working majority in the State legislature, redistricted the State for Congress, and by so doing, shouldered Mr. Foster into a dis- trict every county of which except one was democratic. In this way the leaders of that party had arranged to beat him should he again be a candidate, and though it was regarded as on his part defiantly hopeless, the district having gone 4,247 democratic majority the year before, everybody felt that it would be a gain for him to even cut down this majority. The result of the election indicated that he had done so to a great extent when it was found his competitor won by a majority of . only 1,255 votes-the party thus losing about 3,000 through the general popularity of the republican can- didate. In 1879, the State election approaching, the atten- tion of the republican party was engaged in favoring but two candidates for governor, and between whom the resulting nomination almost equally divided the votes. Judge Alphonso Taft, of Cincinnati, a citizen of great worth and eminence, and whom President Grant, in 1876, had invited to a seat in his cabinet, and Charles Foster. A single ballot decided the nominating convention's choice, in which Mr. Foster received 28012 votes and Judge Taft 271, with 21/2 scattering. On a second ballot Mr. Foster was unanimously declared the nominee. An active and exciting campaign followed, and drew the heaviest popular vote ever polled in Ohio, and, as the result, Mr. Foster was elected over his democratic opponent, Hon. Thomas Ewing, by 17,129 majority. He was installed into office January 12th, 1880, when he delivered a brief and sensible inaugural address. So well did he acquit himself in administering the affairs of the State during the term for which he was elected that when the republican convention met, in the summer of 1881, to nomi- nate a candidate for governor, he was again nominated, and in the ensuing fall was triumphantly re-elected. He had at this election a majority over John W. Buchwalter, the dem- ocratic candidate, of 24,309 votes-thus showing his popu- larity and at the same time the verdict of the electors upon his official conduct. . Governor Foster was at the time of his second election prominently spoken of in connection with President Garfield's cabinet. Several interviews were held between the President-elect and the governor; but the best citizens of Ohio thought that Governor Foster should not dis-
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appoint the large constituency that had selected him as their choice for the first office of the State, by accepting another. Still, the President would have honored himself by calling him to Washington City, as one of his permanent confidential advisers. Ohio has no reason, however, to regret the final action of President Garfield. With courteous manners and a gentlemanly bearing, affable in his personal address, ready at an off-hand talk, unassuming in official life, Governor Foster is one of the most popular occupants that has filled the gub- ernatorial chair. He leaves to his successor a seat unstained by corruption and an official record that slander can not tarnish.
EGGLESTON, BENJAMIN, of Cincinnati, merchant and legislator, was born January 3d, 1816, at Corinth, Sara- toga county, New York. He grew up and was educated among the romantic hills that border the Hudson. In 1831 his parents removed to Hocking county, Ohio, where, at the age of sixteen, he engaged in commercial pursuits, and was, for some years intimately associated with the business of the Ohio canal, then the only means of transportation between the great lakes and the Ohio river. He removed to Cincin- nati in 1845, and entered into partnership with James Wilson, a leading merchant of that city. The firm of James Wilson & Co., continued their successful career until the death of James Wilson in 1867, when he was succeeded by his sons, and the style of the firm was changed to that of Wilson, Eggleston & Co., which still enjoys the untarnished reputa- tion and unlimited confidence it has so long sustained in the mercantile world. Occupying numerous positions of trust and responsibility in the Queen City, State and National governments, during the last twenty-seven years, he has been the recipient of unusual marks of respect and esteem from his fellow-citizens. As chairman of the board of public im- provements, of the finance committee, president of council, and as representative in the Ohio senate and in Congress, he has been intimately associated with almost every public measure that concerned the welfare of the city of Cincinnati. During his term as chairman of the finance committee, in 1857, the coal famine occurred, and with his usual energy and humanity, he proceeded to secure an appropriation of $100,000 to relieve the distressed, and which he obtained, despite the most determined opposition of interested parties, and at once reduced the price of coal from eighty cents to twenty-five cents per bushel. In 1863, a repetition of the coal famine occurred, and again Mr. Eggleston came to the front as the champion of the oppressed, and by his indomit- able energy secured an appropriation of a similar amount, and averted the threatened calamity. Again, at another period of distress, incident to the outbreak of the war of Rebellion, when the families of the men who had gone forth, in response to their country's call, were left dependent upon those who remained at home, he devoted himself assiduously by his eloquence and determination, to the succor of these helpless women and children, from their impending peril. He secured an appropriation of $100,000 from council, and disbursed it in small weekly sums to some 3,700 families, in this way preserving them from actual want until employment could be obtained. In January, 1862, a bill was presented in the Ohio senate to levy a tax of half a mill for the relief of the families of volunteers from the State. An amendment was offered making the amount three-fourths of a mill, which Mr. Eggleston supported with all his characteristic energy,
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