USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 74
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works of the present and past ages. As a political manager he has forecast, sagacity, and directness, and as a political speaker he has popularized himself throughout Ohio, having actively participated in the State campaigns since 1864. 'His mind is comprehensive and receptive, and his habits of thought assimilating and reflective. He is a popular, elo- quent, and graceful orator, having a wonderful and ready command of language. As a soldier his patriotism was of the intense and aggressive order, and his courage the kind that never quailed nor provided for retreat. Personally brave, calculating, and cool, there was inspiration in his valor, and he never shrank from duty, however perilous, but led where he wished others to follow. As a lawyer he has always been a powerful advocate, careful and critical in the preparation of a case, polite with witnesses, dignified and circumspect toward the court, and convincing and argu- mentative in addressing the jury. As an editor he won the reputation of being a clear and comprehensive writer, his ed- itorials always being vivid pictures of the times, and written in a bold and independent style. As a conversationalist he is fluent and of pleasing address. Socially he is frank, un- restrained, and affable. His brilliant career as a student, his unexcelled bravery as a soldier, his success as a lawyer, his powerful magnetism as an orator, his fearless honesty as a politician, and his sociability as an associate and friend, have all combined to popularize him, and his host of admirers are gratified to note his record in Congress, which is steadily placing him on the plane of national prominence.
SHORT, JOHN CLEVES, born in Lexington, Kentucky, in March, 1792, was the son of Peyton and Maria Short; the latter was the daughter of Judge John Cleves Symmes, the grantee of the Symmes purchase, which embraced a large tract of land lying between the Little and Great Miami rivers, and including the site of the present city of Cincinnati. He was educated and graduated at Princeton college, New Jersey. Most of his early life was spent with his grandfather, Judge Symmes, near the present villages of North Bend and Cleves, Hamilton county, Ohio, Having a predilection for the study of law, he entered the office of Judge Burnet in Cincinnati, and in that city successfully engaged in the prac- tice of his profession, after he was admitted to the bar. During the war of 1812, he accompanied General William Henry Harrison (who afterward became President of the United States) as aide-de-camp in one of his northwestern expeditions, and subsequently on his return to Cincinnati was elected a judge of the court of common pleas. During the time of his law practice and judgeship he resided in Cincin- nati, near the corner of Fourth and Main streets, in a house surrounded by a large yard and garden. Although he did not take a particularly active part in politics, he was greatly interested in all enterprises that affected the well-being of his fellow-citizens, and in recognition of this, and of his thorough qualifications, he was elected a member of the legislature of Ohio. In 1817, he erected a dwelling-house on the site of the present homestead of his descendants, on the banks of the Ohio, about twelve miles west of Cincinnati, into which he moved on the 17th November of that year. This place he called "Short Hill," and lived there for forty-seven years. The greatest portion of his time was occupied in attending to his adjacent farms, in building numerous additions to his house, and in literary pursuits, of which he was very fond. Previous to his being elected judge, he married Betsey Bas-
sett Harrison, daughter of President Harrison, by whom he had one daughter, who died in infancy. In 1846, he experi- enced the loss of his wife, and in 1849, married Mrs. Mary Ann Mitchell, who survived him about seven years. He died at his residence, above mentioned, on the 3d March, 1864, after almost a year's suffering from a disease of the heart. He left two sons by his second marriage, John C. and Charles W., but lost one son, who died very young.
TAYLER, ROBERT WALKER, first comptroller of the United States Treasury, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania, November 9th, 1812, and died of paralysis of the brain, at Washington City, February 25th, 1878. His father and mother were James Tayler and Jane Walker Tayler, whose parents had come to America from the north of Ireland. In early childhood, his father removed to Youngstown, Ohio, where he was engaged in the business of carding wool, and the subject of this narrative proved himself, as a boy, an efficient helper to his father in the labor in which he was em- ployed. His feet, at this time, were directed in the way of industry and truth, a path which in after life he never de- serted. When quite a small boy he did the work of a man while attending carding machines in his father's woolen factory. At the district school, although the smallest boy in his class, his place was always among the foremost. He spent one winter at a German school, and in 1828-29 was a student in the academy at Youngstown. Subsequently he entered the law office of Whittlesey & Newton, at Canfield, and in the fall of 1831 he went into the office of the clerk of Trumbull county, and remaining there a year subsequently completed his legal studies and was admitted to the bar. About this time his father died, and he became, to some ex- tent, the stay of his mother, and watched with a fatherly care over the younger members of the family. In early manhood he took a decided stand in favor of the great fundamental truth that "all men are created free and equal," and took an active part in the anti-slavery struggles of those days, standing firmly by his principles when it required no small amount of courage and independence to do so. He was the first avowed anti-slavery man in Youngstown, and for some time the only one. On one occasion he was brought into collision with his revered legal instructor, Mr. Whittlesey. Being a man of fine sensibilities and warm affections, this was extremely painful to him ; but he stood firmly at his post and came off victorious. In 1839 he was elected prosecuting at- torney of Trumbull county, and held the office for four years. He was cashier of the Mahoning County bank from 1850 to 1860, and was actively engaged in the practice of his pro- fession until 1855. In 1851 he was mayor of Youngstown, and in 1855 he was elected to the State senate, in which he held a position of great prominence and usefulness for two terms, at the expiration of which he was elected auditor of the State. At this time he was major-general of militia for the district of which Mahoning county formed a part, but resigned previous to leaving for Columbus to assume the duties of auditor. On the breaking out of the war, he offered his ser- vices to the governor, and expressed a willingness to do his share toward fighting the enemies of his country. The gov- ernor, however, with a display of good sense which did him credit, and which subsequent events proved to be the part of wisdom, assured him that he preferred to keep him where he was. At no time in the history of the State have such grave responsibilities rested upon the shoulders of its principal
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financial officer as at the opening of the last war, and we can readily believe, in the words of Senator Fessenden, that "he saved Ohio in her darkest hour." It is but repeating the tes- timony of hundreds capable of judging, to say that he was the ablest auditor Ohio ever had. In 1863, through his ac- quaintance with Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, he was appointed first comptroller of the United States Treas- ury, to succeed Elisha Whittlesey. The act of Congress passed in June, 1874, by which the territorial government of the District of Columbia was abolished, constituted the two comptrollers a board of audit to settle all outstanding claims against the district government; and these onerous duties, which no man in Washington seemed disposed to encounter, were performed with that degree of efficiency and conscien- tiousness which ever characterized the official acts of Mr. Tayler. He held the office a little more than fifteen years. There have been seventeen persons in the office of first comp- troller since 1789. Mr. Tayler held it much longer than any other appointee except Joseph Anderson, of Tennessee, who served from 1815 to 1836. This office has been held by Ohio men since 1849. Mr. Tayler early gained a reputation for inflexible integrity, and a wonderfully accurate knowledge of the laws regulating the duties of his office, which are complex and extremely varied. Not a dollar can be drawn from the Treasury without the signature of the first comptroller, and in addition to the duty of examining and countersigning war- rants, various classes of claims and accounts are examined and adjusted in his office. In the matter of any claim against the Treasury, during his occupancy of the office, the question was certain at some time to be asked: "Will Mr. Tayler allow the payment?" and it came to be well known that
nothing which needed more than merely ministerial action at his hands could be gotten through without the clear and specified authority of law. The number of fraudulent claims which he has stopped since the war must be very large. One or two attempts were made to get him out of office, but his character as an officer was so well established that all attacks fell harmless. A special dispatch to the New York Times said of him : "On one occasion the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury both advised him to pay certain claims, but, differing from them in judgment, he replied that he would resign his office, but could not act contrary to his convictions of duty." The Cincinnati Gazette correspondent wrote of him : " He has been desig- nated the 'watch dog' of the Treasury, and has saved the government millions by his inflexible integrity." Robert W. Tayler was no ordinary man. By the force of his own character, without liberal education or the influence of wealth or powerful friends, he worked himself into high and responsible positions. His life was one of unremitting, con- scientious, effective labor; a life whose results, measured by the highest standard of usefulness, were such as to ele- vate every duty which he had to perform, and to bring to him honor and the friendship of the best men in the land. He married in March, 1840, Miss Louisa Maria Wood- bridge, daughter of John Elliot Woodbridge, who was a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, and cousin to Aaron Burr. By this marriage he had seven children, three of whom survive. His wife died in 1852, and in January, 1854, he married Miss Rachel Kirtland Wick, eldest daughter of Caleb B. Wick, of Youngstown. The fruit of this marriage was seven children, five of whom survive.
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