USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 8
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and sagacity. He has never accepted an office of other than a municipal character. Mr. Goodhart has ever manifested a great interest in literature, and has acquired a wide reputation as an advocate of the hygienic treatment of invalids. Those with whom he has been brought in contact have been much impressed with his theories, and the result has been a gen- eral adoption of his views in some portions of southeastern Ohio. He has been twice married. His first wife was Mary Van Horn, to whom he was married April 4th, 1850, and who died 18th June, 1853. By this union he had two chil- dren, both of whom are dead. His second marriage was with Miss Mary Houston, a blood-relation to Ex-Governor Houston, of Texas, and occurred at West Alexandria, Penn- sylvania, July 12th, 1866. They have three children. Mr. Goodhart early affiliated with the republican party, and is strongly pledged to the support of its principles. He is now engaged in the mercantile business.
BROWN, THOMAS WILLIAM SKENTELEBARY, was born in London, England, April 22d, 1813. His parents were Abram Brown and Ann Skentelebary. Young Brown learned the trade of a merchant tailor, in his native country, and when about twenty years of age married Charlotte Petch- ell, and came to America on his wedding tour, landing in New York city in 1832. He at once found employment at his trade, in the vicinity of that city, and subsequently in Harris- burg, Lloydsburg, Nora, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1838 came to Ohio, and located in Portsmouth, where for a while he still plied his trade. He then embarked in the grocery and liquor business, both retail and wholesale, in which he continued until his death, on November 30th, 1857. He started in the world with nothing, but by industry and close attention to business acquired a large property, his assets at the time of his death amounting to some $130,000, with no liabilities worth speaking of. This, for that time and for such a place as Portsmouth was then, was something handsome. He was a large real estate owner, and erected several fine buildings in Portsmouth, among which was the first four-story business house built in that city. He was very extensively acquainted among the business men of his section of the State, as well as along the neighboring borders of Kentucky and Virginia, and was regarded by all as a man of sterling honesty and integrity. In his home-circle he was an indulgent and affectionate husband and father ; and to those who enjoyed his confidence he was a true and firm friend. He was liberal and public-spirited, and took an interest in every thing pertaining to the benefit of his adopted city. He was a stockholder in the Portsmouth branch of the old State Bank of Ohio. He was noted for his close attention to business, and it was this which in no small degree hastened his death in the very vigor of man- hood. Politically, he was an independent democrat. He was connected with both the Masonic and Odd Fellow fra- ternities. He had three sons, Abram S., William H., and Thomas P. Brown. His widow still survives, and enjoys re- markable health for her advanced age. Thomas Petchell Brown, his only surviving son, was born in Lloydsburg, Pennsylvania, September 14th, 1837. He received his edu- cation in the Portsmouth public schools, and in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. He then entered the old State Bank, in Portsmouth, as clerk, and remained connected with it for nine years. He was subsequently associated with the banking-house of W. Kinney & Co., as teller and bookkeeper,
for some four years. In the fall of 1864 he embarked in the grocery and liquor trade, purchasing the business which had been established and carried on by his father, and has so continued to the present time. He has never sought or held office of any kind, but has given his whole attention to his business, and has been very successful therein. In politics, like his father, he is an independent democrat, voting for those men whom he regards best qualified for the responsi- bilities of office. His business record has been characterized by fair and honorable dealing, and although he has met with various reverses, and has passed through financial ad- versity not common to business men of his age, yet his energy and pluck have brought him out with untarnished reputation. He passed through the late financial crisis with unimpaired credit. While others were compromising with their creditors for a small percentage, Mr. Brown met his obligations in full, and stands to-day among the most sub- stantial and trustworthy business men of Portsmouth. Lib- eral, generous, and kind-hearted, he has assisted in starting in the world various young men who are now engaged in successful business. During the building of the Scioto Val- ley Railroad, while many of the Portsmouth merchants were shutting off their supplies to the road, through fear that it would fail, Mr. Brown furnished what was needed in large quantities, taking the certificates of the road for payment, and disposing of them the best he could, and in this way greatly aided in securing the construction of the railway. On October 24th, 1867, he married Ida M., daughter of Cap- tain John N. Lodwick, of Portsmouth, and has had six chil- dren: Lera L., Fannie P., Nellie Stevens, Thomas Paul, William S., and Lillie Gordon Brown.
BRIGHT, SAMUEL HAMILTON, lawyer and sol- dier, was born in Hocking county, Ohio, November 9th, 1841, and is of Welch and English extraction. His parents were Samuel S. and Rebecca (Ijames) Bright. His paternal an- cestors were originally English, and came to Maryland during the eighteenth century. His grandfather Bright was a Mary- land planter, and subsequently removed to Ohio, settling in Fairfield county. He was a minister by profession, a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The father was also a Methodist preacher. His maternal ancestors came from Wales to this country as early as 1720. There were three brothers, all of whom settled in Ann Arundel county, Mary- land. There is no accessible information relating to the sub- sequent movements of the Ijames, further than that our sub- ject is descended from one of the brothers, Isaac Ijames. Samuel's grandfather came from Maryland to Fairfield county, Ohio, at an early date. He had been a planter and extensive slave owner, but had emancipated his slaves some years before the slave question had assumed the bitter aspect which characterized it in the years immediately preceding the War of the Rebellion. The early education of Mr. Bright was acquired in the district schools of the day and in the high school at Logan. Later he attended the Ohio University at Athens, remaining in that institution four terms. He then commenced the study of law at Logan, under the auspices of Colonel C. H. Rippey, now of Columbus. He was admitted to the practice of his profession in May, 1869, and about that time was appointed deputy collector of internal revenue for Hocking county. His district was afterward enlarged so as to embrace Fairfield and Perry counties. During the Re- bellion Mr. Bright enlisted as a private soldier in the 58th
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Ohio infantry volunteers, and was afterward promoted quar- termaster's sergeant of his regiment. He received his hon- orable discharge September 29th, 1865. As a lawyer, Mr. Bright has attained an exceptionally high position, being recognized as one of the leading civil lawyers in southeastern Ohio. He is esteemed a formidable antagonist in legal con- troversy by reason of his argumentative powers, while his native ability and rare conception of requirements eminently qualify him for every branch of his profession. His services have been engaged in all the more important civil cases in Hock- ing county, and his practice in adjoining counties, and in all the State courts, is quite extensive. Mr. Bright was one of the attorneys in the celebrated Westenhaver will case, a suit in which the distribution of one of the largest estates in Hocking county was involved. In politics Mr. Bright acts with the republican party, and is classed with the more pro- nounced wing. He was delegate to the National Republican Convention of 1876. In 1876 he was placed in nomination by the republicans for the office of judge of Common Pleas for the Fairfield, Hocking, and Perry subdivision of the seventh judicial district, but his party being hopelessly in the minor- ity, he was defeated. In 1880 he was a prominent candidate for nomination for congress from the eleventh district, but failed to secure the support of the convention. In May, 1880, he was elected a lay delegate by the Ohio Annual Confer- ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church to represent that body in the General Conference in Cincinnati. Mr. Bright was married February 9th, 1870, to Lydia T. Allen, daughter of Dr. E. P. Allen, of Athens, Bradford county, Pennsylvania. Five children have been born of this union.
GRAHAM, GEORGE, retired merchant, born in Stoys- town, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, November, 1798, was the son of George and Elizabeth Graham. His father was an officer of the Pennsylvania Volunteers in the war of 1812, and marched a regiment to the defence of Black Rock, when an attack was threatened by the British troops in Canada; George, the son, at that time performing the duties of clerk to his father in making out pay-rolls, records, and other papers for the governor of Pennsylvania. After the war of 1812 he engaged in the dry goods trade, in partnership with his brother, and from that time his character for business, which so distinguished him in after life, rapidly developed. In 1816, he was, in connection with his brother, one of the contractors for constructing the first turnpike road over the Allegheny mountains, and, at the same time, was a con- tractor for transporting goods in wagons to go through in ten days, night and day, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. After the termination of that contract, Mr. Graham devoted nearly a year to travel in the Western and Southern countries, and, in 1822, visited Cincinnati, and formed a partnership with M. P. Cassilly and Geo. M. Davis, which, as the firm of Cassilly, Graham & Davis, continued in the wholesale dry goods and hardware business but a few months. A disagree- ment in the transaction of the business having occurred, Mr. Graham withdrew from the concern, and used his means in taking contracts to supply the United States troops at Prairie du Chien and Fort Snelling in army supplies. After the delivery of those supplies he returned to Cincinnati and formed, in 1823, a partnership with C. W. Gazzam in a general commission and steamboat business, acting, also, as agents and builders of boats for the Cincinnati and New Orleans trade. From 1823
until 1866 Mr. Graham was in so conspicuous a degree and manner a successful originator and promoter of great enterprises, public and private, educational, industrial, scien- tific, horticultural and agricultural, that a chronological epitome of his various undertakings and achievements is given as follows: In 1824, he was one of the charter mem- bers who organized the "La Fayette Lodge of Cincinnati," for the purpose of receiving La Fayette as a Mason on his visit to Cincinnati. In May, 1825, the reception of La Fay- ette took place, Mr. Graham acting as the Master of the lodge, and conducting the peculiar ceremonies necessary, delivering also the address of welcome on the part of the Masons of Ohio, to which La Fayette replied in a very able address to the brethren of the order. It was in the same year that Samuel W. Davies offered to the city his charter from the State for supplying Cincinnati with water for one hundred years, with ten acres of ground and all his improve- ments, Davies having, for want of means, given up the enter- prise. A vote of the citizens was then taken to purchase the works, but the proposition was rejected by a large majority, although the actual cost to the city would have been less than $20,000. After the vote to purchase the works was lost, a company of five individuals, John P. Foote, G. Gra- ham, Wm. Greene, Davis B. Lawler and Wm. S. Johnston, agreed to purchase the charter and rights from Davies, and by paying him $30,000, to secure to the city the benefits of pure water from the Ohio river. Mr. Graham, as one of the most active owners of the institution, was energetic in enlarg- ing the works, and keeping up a full supply of water. At five different times the citizens demanded a price for the works whilst the company owned them, and the price was always fixed at a sum which would make the net income of the year equivalent to six per cent. on the purchase money. In 1839, the net income was $18,000, which made the value of the works $300,000. At that price the city purchased, giving bonds at six per cent. per annum, twenty-five years after date. The establishment, with all its connections, now pays the city an annual interest on a valuation of more than $6,000,000. In 1829, he was elected a representative from Cincinnati to the legislature of the State, and, as a member of the finance committee, assisted in the examination of all the accounts of the canal commissioners for the construction of the canals for the State; and that year a financial system was adopted for the future government of the public works. During the session the finance committee also examined all the vouchers of the Auditor and Treasurer, to detect a fraud which had existed five or six years; in this work Mr. Graham acted as the Chairman during the examination. In 1832, Mr. Graham was elected a trustee of the common schools of Cincinnati, and with an energetic hand reformed existing abuses, adopted rules for the government of teachers, parents, and scholars, which, being printed and framed, were placed in each of the houses, and a continued violation of any rule was the cause of the teacher's dismissal. He also introduced the system of the examination of the scholars at the close of each session, and a public procession of the pupils was ordered every year to meet at some church, where rewards of merit were awarded by the mayor, or the trustees, to those pupils deserving such distinction. In 1834, he applied to the city council for funds to erect a model school-house, to con- tain 500 scholars. The council, in reply, proposed to erect a frame building of two stories, with stairs outside, at a cost of $1,200, which was considered of ample dimensions for all
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the scholars of the second ward. This plan was rejected by the trustee, and his plan of a model school-building was ordered, a superintendent of a brick building was appointed, and the funds for the cost guaranteed by the trustce, if the city failed to pay. The completion of this building in 1834 secured the erection of eight other buildings, on the same plan, in the other wards of the city, which were erected with funds procured on city bonds, payable twenty-five years from the date, with six per cent. interest per annum. It was, therefore, principally through the exertions of Mr. Graham, for eleven years as trustee, that the city of Cincin- nati may now, with pride, claim to have the most perfect school system, and more liberally supported by the citizens, than any other city of the United States. Mr. Graham was one of the charter members of the "Ohio Mechanics Insti- tute," and for several years, in connection with John P. Foote and Calvin Fletcher, the rent of a building and the principal expenses were paid by them, until a lot was pur- chased on the corner of Sixth and Vine Streets, when, through the exertions of Miles Greenwood, Marston Allen, and other friends of the institution, the present magnificent building was erected, which, free from debt, affords an edu- cation to the apprentices of the city, at a trifling expense, to classes in drawing and designing machinery, and archi- tectural buildings. In 1829, in connection with A. Richards, they became owners and proprietors of the first cotton mill in Dayton, and, at the same time, carried on a large machine shop and foundry for building cotton-mills and cotton ma- chinery. They also erected in Dayton the first carpet manufactory west of the mountains. In 1835, they made a contract to make machinery, and to put it in operation, for a company of Mexicans, the machinery to make fine cam- bric muslins, in the province of Durango, in Mexico, nine hundred miles from the sea-coast, the machinery for which had to be transported on the backs of mules, and no piece weighing more than one hundred pounds to swing in a box on the side of the mule. The machinery was put in motion in Dayton to test it, before it was shipped, and three families of machinists and operatives went from Dayton to put up the machinery and to operate it, using the native cotton of the country for making the goods. Pedrassa, afterwards Presi- dent of Mexico, was one of the Mexicans who contracted for the machinery and saw it in operation in Dayton. Mr. Graham, and a few other Cincinnati citizens, armed and equipped a body of troops in 1836 to defend Texas against the invasion of Santa Anna; those troops, in connection with
a company from Louisville, were the principal portion of the American army who fought the battle of San Jacinto, under the command of Sherman and Houston, captured Santa Anna, made Texas independent, and secured the admission of that State into the union. The turnpike road from Cin- cinnati to Miami Town, now known as the Cincinnati and Harrison turnpike, was made principally under the direction of Mr. Graham, and it was on this road that steam machinery was used in breaking the stone for macadamizing the road, a machine which is now lauded as a late invention in England for macadamizing their roads. In 1838, Mr. Gra- ham was elected president of the " Jeffersonville Associa- tion," a company composed of Cincinnati citizens, organized in 1836, to build up and extend the town of Jeffersonville above the falls of the Ohio river, opposite Louisville. A tract of land, containing five hundred and forty acres, was laid off in lots by the company, whose principal obiect was to have a
spacious canal made on the Indiana side of the river around the falls. Surveys were made by the company, and also by Col. Long, the U. S. engineer. By those surveys it was estimated that for a sum less than $1,800,000 a canal of eighty or one hundred feet wide, with locks of four hundred feet in length, could be constructed to pass the largest class of boats. This sum was about the estimate of the enlarge- ment of the Louisville canal, by survey made at the same time by Col. Long. Therefore, in the interest of Cincinnati, and the commerce of the West, Mr. Graham visited Wash- ington two sessions of Congress, and twice a law passed the Senate authorizing the Indiana canal, but, at that time, Southern influence in the House defeated the bill for a canal in the free State of Indiana, and the enlargement of the Louisville canal was ordered at a cost to the government more than double the estimate of the Indiana canal, which, if made, would have given the commerce of the river two canals, and obviated the great expense in the enlargement of the contracted work now in use, which has failed to pass the largest class of boats now navigating the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Mr. . Graham took an active part in the invention and introduction of the first steam fire-engine ever used in the United States. This was at a time when the city was protected from fire by a volunteer fire department, number- ing about three thousand men, and being governed by their own laws and regulations, often proved inefficient and dis- orderly, when their harmonious action was most needed; therefore a demand for a change was made by the citizens. Mr. Graham was at this time a member of the city council, and chairman of the finance committee, also a member of the committee on the fire department. He, with others,
suggested the application of steam to the fire-engine, and suggested A. B. & E. Latta as the persons to make an experimental engine. The experiment was supposed to cost $300 or $400, and Mr. Graham proposed to advance that amount to Latta; if he succeeded, the city would order an engine; if the experiment proved to be a failure, the chair-
man of the finance committee guaranteed him against loss. The experimental boiler and engine were built by Latta, and at a public trial, where Geo. Graham, Miles Greenwood and Joseph Ross were to test the engine for the time required to raise steam and throw water from an inch nozzle, Geo. Graham, as chairman of the testing committee, lighted the kindling, and water was thrown within six minutes fifty feet from the end of the nozzle. A report was made, accord- ingly, by the chairman that the experiment was a complete success, and at the next meeting of council Mr. Graham introduced a resolution appropriating $5,000 to A. B. & E. Latta for the construction of a steam fire-engine. While Mr. Graham was chairman of the finance committee, he was ordered to issue $1,000,000 in city bonds to certain rail- roads terminating in the city; this was according to a law and a vete passed by citizens a previous year in which security for interest was required, but the council had failed to com- pel security from the roads. Under such circumstances the chairman of the finance committee of the new council refused to issue bonds, and ordered a repeal of the ordi- nance, and a new ordinance to be passed compelling the railroads to pay interest, and to give ample security to the city for such interest, before they received the city bonds. The Ohio and Mississippi railroad not being in condition to comply with the new ordinance, the chairman withheld the bonds. The next year a new council was elected, with
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Thomas Edwards as president, and soon after the election of officers of the council, the ordinance then in force, requir- ing security, was repealed, and the railway companies were allowed to substitute their stock; thus the million of dollars secured to the city by the prudence and honesty of Mr. Graham were forever lost. Among the other positions of honor and responsibility held by Mr. Graham at various times were the following: A charter member and president of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society in its early history, and was again elected President in 1870. He was an active fireman for a period of more than fifteen years, and whilst he was connected with the Cincinnati Water Company, when in the city, he rarely missed a fire, to see that the engines had a supply of water from the cisterns. At the great "Western Sanitary Fair" of 1863, held for the benefit of the Union soldiers of the army, he was probably the most energetic and efficient of its officers. As chairman of important commit- tees, he performed valuable and extraordinary service, both for the cause and for the interest of special industries. He was chairman of the committee of the Wine Growers, Associa- tion, chairman of the committee on autograph letters, chairman on the committee for relics, and war memorials, curiosities, natural science and its various branches. Nearly the half of the great five hundred and seventy-eight page volume, constituting the reports of the Sanitary Fair, was the labor of his pen and brains. His collection and arrange- ment of the curiosities, relics, autograph letters, and speci- mens in Natural History, was a remarkable feat, twelve hundred specimens having been received from various parties, living in different parts of the union, and all accounted for, or returned to the proper owners, with two exceptions of articles of little value. In 1867, he visited Europe, and attended the Paris Exposition. Among other offices in literary and scientific societies held by him: he was the president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, vice- president of the State Historical Society, for several years a trustee of Woodward and Hughes High Schools, one of the early trustees of the Cincinnati College, and continued trustee for forty years. As a member of the committee chosen by the Chamber of Commerce of Cincinnati to inter- change congratulations with the Californians on the comple- tion of the Pacific Railroad, he visited San Francisco and other cities of the Pacific States in 1869. In his day, Mr. Graham was undoubtedly the boldest and most enterprising man in the West, and during the early history of Cincinnati was a leader and chief counsellor in municipal, commercial and all classes of large undertakings. He was a thorough judge of human nature, and, even while engineering great projects, appeared to others to be indifferent and inactive. Of modest mien and conversation, he created no stir of excitement, but silently, and with precision and rapidity, perfected his plans and accomplished his purposes. He was possessed of rare foresight and prudence, continually defer- ring to the opinions of repeating history, and profiting by the record of the failures and successes of his predecessors; of wide culture and reading, and of versatility of attainments, he was equally at home before the scientific, or industrial, or social societies. His many and able addresses and pamph- lets, invariably instructive and interesting, oftentimes con- tained much that was original and important. The subjects included in his discourses and addresses before societies and public assemblies, were the natural sciences, horticulture, botany, the culture of the grape, general geology, coal, and
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