USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 9
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gas. In mercantile and business life he was sagacious, keen of perception, rapid in execution, and rarely miscalculated results. He seldom entered the arena of politics, although frequently invited to high official positions in the city and national governments. Possessed of a singularly tenacious and clear memory, up to the close of his life, he was an en- cyclopædia of history. and incidents of the early days of Cincinnati and the great West. He was a member of the highest rank in the order of Masonry, having taken the thirty-second degree of the order of the Scottish Rite in the year 1827, and was one of the seven members who organized the Scottish Rite consistory in Cincinnati, which now numbers within its jurisdiction about seven hundred members. At an advanced age Mr. Graham was still hale and vigorous. Only seven months before his death he took a long excur- cursion to Minnesota and the North-west, where, true to his tastes, he neglected not to visit St. Paul and the capitol, and examined with attention the rich and varied collections of the State Historical Society. He had a passion for old books, and often attended the book sales, where he pur- chased "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." He was fond of public amusements, and was present at the Opera Festival and the exhibitions of Sara Bernhardt only a little while before his death-even going to see the great whale, which was exposed to view near the Little Miami depot. He rarely wore an overcoat, except when compelled to do so in the coldest weather, and never put on flannels. He died, after a brief illness, March Ist, 1881, in his eighty-third year. His family were with him, and his death was painless. The funeral was attended from the New Jerusalem Church, corner of John and Fourth Streets, March 15th. Memorial notices and resolutions were adopted by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Me- chanics' Institute, the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and the Volunteer Fireman's Association. But as Mr. Graham was one of the last survivors of the early mer- chants of Cincinnati, and a man prominent in the develop- ment and growth of the city, it was felt that something more was due to his memory. Upon the suggestion and call of several of the leading citizens, a Memorial Association was founded to hold memorial services in honor of Mr. Graham, to exhibit at Music Hall a collection of portraits and pictures of pioneer settlers, and to gather up and perpetuate the histo- ries of their lives. Committees were appointed, a memorial service was arranged for, and one of the most remarkable assemblages of portraits gathered together that has ever been exhibited in America. The service was held at Music Hall May 30th, 1881 ; and the result was the publication of a memorial volume to the honor, not only of Mr. Graham, but of many others of the early citizens, men and women, of Cincinnati. Of benevolent disposition, Mr. Graham dis- pensed benefits and charities in the way that his right hand knew not what his left did. He was ranked as a wealthy citizen of the West, and as among the highest for commercial probity and honor. Mr. Graham was married in 1827 to Ellen F. Murdock, of Urbana, Ohio, by whom he had five children, two of whom are living-Robert M. Graham, and Lavinia M., married to John M. Newton, of College Hill, Hamilton County, Ohio, librarian of the Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati.
LONGWORTH, NICHOLAS, lawyer and landholder of Cincinnati, Ohio, was born in Newark, New Jersey, Janu-
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ary 16th, 1782, and died at Cincinnati, February 10th, 1863. His father had been loyal to the British crown during the war of the Revolution, and his property, in consequence, was confiscated, leaving his two sons, Robert and Nicholas, to carve out their fortunes as they could. Robert went as a loyalist himself to the colony of Prince Edward Island, now a province of the Canadian confederation, and there engaged in business that enabled him to rear respectably a family of six sons, several of whom to-day rank among the principal men of that colony. Nicholas, our subject, believing that the region know as the Northwest afforded better opportunities than elsewhere, came to Cincinnati the year after Ohio became a State, and entered the office of Judge Burnet as a law stu- dent. Admitted to practice, his first case was the defense of a horse-thief, the fee for which was paid him with two cop- per whiskey-stills. These he bartered for thirty-three acres of land then in the woods-what is now Central avenue, then the town limit on the west, being its eastern boundary. We may here state that before he died this land was worth $2,000,000. His conviction that the then village of Cincin- nati would eventually become a populous and great commer- cial city, though laughed at by the elderly men of the time, determined all his actions; and he was soon known as the lawyer who would take land for fees. While a student in Judge Burnet's office, he offered to purchase the judge's cow pasture ; and, in the hope of obtaining it on a long credit, proposed to pay $5,000 for it. The judge reproved him sharply for what he was pleased to designate the folly of as- suming such a debt for so worthless an investment; but he lived to see that cow-pasture valued at $1,500,000. Unmoved by the rebuke of the stern judge, Mr. Longworth persisted in investing all the money he could possibly spare in city land. He planted two hundred acres in grape vines, and was also interested in the culture of strawberries, and it is from him that the celebrated "Longworth Prolific " derives its name. In course of years his property became very valuable, and his rent-roll afforded him a large income. He conducted his business in a systematic manner, selling his land to poor ten- ants on long time, and often deeding to widows of tenants half of the property leased by their husbands when living. In this way he was always ready to aid and encourage the industrious poor, and others who, exhibiting genius, struggled with circumstances calculated to keep them impoverished. An instance of this kind will be noticed in our sketch of Hiram Powers. In politics Mr. Longworth was a life-long whig, though never identifying himself with a political party, or to any extent becoming a politician. He had acquired a strange dislike to ministers of the gospel, though himself a firm believer in the Christian religion, and an attendant reg- ularly on the ministrations of Rev. Dr. Wilson, until the death of that eccentric Presbyterian clergyman. He left a family of sons and daughters, to inherit his large estate, and which estate he disposed of by testamentary documents so satisfac- torily that none of that litigation among the heirs usually at- tending the disposition of rich men's property ensued.
OLDS, CHAUNCEY N., lawyer, Columbus, Ohio, was born at Marlboro, Vermont, February 2d, 1816. When four years of age he removed with his parents from Vermont to Ohio, where they settled on a farm in Cuyahoga county, a few miles south of Cleveland. Here the family remained till 1830, when they removed to Circleville, Ohio, the county-seat of Pickaway county. In the autumn of that year the subject
of this sketch, then fourteen years of age, began his aca- demic studies at the Ohio University, at Athens, where he remained, a diligent student, for three years, and until he had completed the sophomore year in the college course. At this time it was found that close application to study, with sedentary habits, had so greatly impaired his health that a suspension of his collegiate studies for a time was deemed advisable. In consequence he left that institution, and sought rest and recreation for the ensuing year. In the fall of 1834 he entered the junior class in Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, where, in 1836, he graduated with the first honors of his class. Immediately after his graduation he was made a tutor in his Alma Mater, and in the following year was elected to a full professorship in the chair of Latin Language and Literature, which he filled with exceptional merit until 1840, when failing health again compelled him to abandon the sedentary habits of scholastic life. He resigned his profes- sorship, and, having already commenced the study of the law, he resumed those studies in the office of his brother, Joseph Olds, who was then a practitioner at Circleville. In the spring of 1-842 he was admitted to the bar by the su- preme court of the State, then sitting at Newark, Ohio, and immediately entered into partnership with his brother at Cir- cleville, and commenced the practice of his profession. He resided at that place till 1856, when he removed to Colum- bus, where he has ever since resided, being still engaged in the duties of his calling. He was twice elected to the Gen- eral Assembly of the State from the district composed of the counties of Pickaway and Ross, serving in the legislatures of 1848, 1849. and 1850 (the last term in the senate), during the heated political controversy growing out of the "Ham- ilton County Question," in which he took an active part, dis- tinguishing himself as one of the strongest and most influen- tial men in that body. He had little taste, however, for political life, and, in consequence, resigned his seat in the senate toward the close of the year 1850, and has since repeatedly declined all political preferment and public office, except, that in 1863, he was appointed by Governor Tod as commissioner for exemption from draft, and in 1865, under appointment of Governor Brough, he held the office of attor- ney-general of the State for one year, and by like appoint- ment he acted as trustee of one of the benevolent institutions of the State for the period of ten years. During the first and second years of the great Rebellion he also gave a large part of his time to the enlistment of volunteers for the war, and the discussion before the people of the patriotic duties of citizenship and the heresy of State's rights when in con- flict with national sovereignty and in its assaults on the life of the nation During the course of a very active profes- sional life he has given much time and labor to the cause of popular education, of temperance, and Sunday-school and church work, having been called to deliver many literary addresses at college commencements, to take part in teach- ers and Sunday-school conventions, in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association, and other Christian and church work. When most actively engaged in such labors he has de- livered as many as fifty or sixty addresses and speeches in a single year. Three years after his graduation his Alma Mater gave him the second degree of A. M., and, by appointment from the State, he served as a trustee of that institution for twenty-five years. He has been elected honorary member of many college societies, and in 1869 received from Marietta College the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. He became
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a member of the Presbyterian Church at the age of sixteen, and has held the office of ruling elder in that church for the last forty years, being first elected at the age of twenty-three. He has frequently been chosen as a delegate to the presby- teries and synods of the denomination, and has served several times as commissioner in its general assembly, the highest judicatory of that denomination, and was made a delegate by the general assembly to the Pan-Presbyterian Council, which met in Edinburgh, Scotland, July, 1877. In connec- tion with this trip Mr. Olds spent several months traveling through Great Britain and on the Continent. At the general assembly, in 1880, he was again appointed a delegate to the second triennial council, which met in Philadelphia in Sep- tember of that year. Since 1856 he has been actively en- gaged in the general practice of his profession in Columbus, and for the past ten years has acted as solicitor for the Pitts- burg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railway Company, having charge of their litigated business in Franklin county. Mr. Olds is a man of polite and dignified bearing ; genial and pleasant in his manners and social intercourse, and well informed in history, polite literature, and belles-lettres. He commands an extensive legal business, and has the confi- dence and esteem of his fellow-citizens in a pre-eminent degree. He has been twice married, and his family now consists of a wife and two children-a son and a daughter. His oldest son, at the beginning of the late civil war, went from college into the service with General Garfield, then colonel of the 42d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, as the adjutant of that regiment, and was afterwards captain of company "A,' of the same regiment, when he was killed in battle below Vicksburg, Mississippi, May Ist, 1863.
TURNEY, SAMUEL DENNY, M. D., was born in Columbus, Ohio, on the 26th of December, 1824, and died on the 13th of January, 1878. His family was of French Huguenot descent. His father, born in Sheperdstown, Vir- ginia, in 1786, removed to Ross county, Ohio, in 1800, and, having studied medicine, graduated, and began practice in Jefferson, Pickaway county. In 1810, or about the time that town was first laid out, he removed to Circleville, and from there to Columbus in 1823, where he practiced until his death in 1827. Dr. Daniel Turney was an eminent physician and surgeon, and in both departments an arduous and successful practitioner. His distinguishing characteristics were firmness and courage, without which no surgeon can succeed in his profession. To these he added energy and ardor, and prac- ticed his profession, as all successful physicians must, from an intense love of it. A firm believer in the resources of his art, he never relinquished his efforts to cure while life re- mained in his patient. His education and continued study of the diseases peculiar to the climate of southeastern Ohio, gave him a mastery over them manifested in his almost uni- formly successful practice ; while his energy and promptness in alarming and complicated cases rendered his untimely death a real loss, no less to the community than to his fam- ily. In manners he was unaffected, earnest and generous, hav- ing in his nature no tincture of avarice, but, on the contrary, he was liberal and considerate to all-ever regarding himself as the minister of those he served, often without money and without price. The subject of our sketch, happy in being the son of such a father, but, while yet a mere infant de- prived of his counsel and paternal guidance, grew under his attentive mother's fostering care. That mother, Janet Stirling
Denny, a daughter of General James Denny, an officer in the war of 1812, and one of the pioneer settlers of Ohio, was to her son all a prudent mother could be. As a child, the young Sam- uel exhibited indications of personal character. He was fear- less and passionate, and when treated unjustly, his blue eyes were as ready to blaze with anger, as they were to melt with tenderness at any exhibition of love or kindness. An in- tense student, he ever preferred study to play, and, in ad- vance of his years, exhibited that love for art that distin- guished his after-life. With such a disposition, the close of his common and high-school education, as then conducted in this State, found him possessed of all the knowledge that those institutions could impart, and that which was worth much more-an earnest regard for the great world of intel- lectual wealth that lay beyond, and which tends to lift its pos- sessor to a higher level than may be occupied by that youth who has it not. Through the kindness of his friend, M. J. Gilbert, Esq., who owned a scholarship in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, the young Turney was enabled to avail himself during two years of the benefits of that institution. Then, thrown upon his own resources, he engaged as clerk in a drug store, in Columbus, worked faithfully by day and studied at night, being his own teacher, and thus laboring hard to possess that treasure of education which, coming easily to many young men, is by them but little appreciated. In 1840, his family having removed to Circleville, he entered the store of Rug- gles & Finley; then, having determined to adopt the profes- sion of his father, he spent all of his spare time reading med- icine, at first without an instructor, and subsequently under the direction of Dr. P. K. Hull. When twenty-five years old he attended the lectures of Starling Medical College, 1849-50, and those of the University of Pennsylvania the following year-graduating from the latter in April, 1851. He then, returning to Circleville, at once engaged in the practice of medicine. Proudly desirous of winning alone his way, he had refused a partnership with an elderly practitioner, but, while greatly admiring him, he found the people, on account of his youthful appearance, did not employ him. As in many a similar instance, the poor and penniless were his first pa- tients; yet for them he worked as faithfully, and studied their cases as earnestly, as ever court physician did that of crowned sufferer. And this experience, if not pecuniarily profitable, became valuable as practice, and a fulfilment of the promise 'to him who is directed to cast bread upon the waters; so that in the course of time, and along the old pathway worn by the feet of many not less heroic than those who have marched toward bayonets and the cannon's mouth, Dr. Turney event- ually conquered the public disfavor, on account of his youth- ful appearance, and took that place in their affections he ever afterwards retained. In politics, he had but little regard for either of the dominant parties. Before the war he was an abolitionist, and his ardent temperament, intense love of jus- tice and liberty, ever prompted him to in no wise repress his sentiments. As an instance of this fact, having learned one evening, just before the war began, that a political meeting of colored men was, by the use of the town fire-engine, to be washed out, as a dangerous moral and social conflagration, he repaired to the spot, and, revolver in hand, harangued the mob and held it at bay until others, sharing his sentiments of justice and fair play, came to the rescue. At the opening of the war, he was the first surgeon to offer his services to the State, and until its close he continued in the service, first as surgeon to the 13th regiment Ohio volunteers, June, 1861;
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Charlesde Young
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next commissioned assistant-surgeon of volunteers by the President in 1863, and subsequently as surgeon in 1865, with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel, for meritorious ser- vices. Medical director on the staff of General H. P. Van Cleve, division and post medical director of hospitals at Mur- freesboro, Tennessee, he filled other important and honora- ble positions, indicative of devotion to duty and professional efficiency. The surgical history of the war, that noble mon- · ument of life and limb-saving surgery, bears ample testimony to, among that of others, the labor and skill of Dr. Turney. Had he been so disposed, he might have recorded many more cases, as treated by him, in that treasury of American mili- tary surgery, but he was ever reticent of trumpeting his own fame, either by tongue or pen. The cases given in the " Sur- gical Volume," so-called, parts I. and II., sufficiently estab- lish his skill as a surgeon and physician. At the close of the war he returned to Circleville, and in partnership with Dr. A. W. Thompson, resumed his practice, which in a few years became the largest and most lucrative ever enjoyed by any member of the profession in Pickaway county. It was par- ticularly in the department of surgery his services were dur- ing this period demanded; so much so that nearly, if not quite, all of this business passed into his hands, and the im- portant operations of lithotomy, tracheotomy, ovariotomy and amputations necessary within the circuit of his practice were all performed by him. An intense student, keeping pace with all the reforms in diagnosis and practice, his ideal of the resources of the medical art was never attained; and yet, baffled, such was his infinity of resource that, in- stead of ever surrendering to his enemy, disease, he nobly sustained the strife, and yielded only in the presence of the conqueror, Death, himself. In 1868, Governor Hayes ap- pointed Dr. Turney surgeon-general of Ohio, a position to which he was in 1872 again appointed by Governor Noyes. In 1867 he was appointed professor of physiology and pathol- ogy in Starling Medical College, Columbus, Ohio, but lec- tured only during the session of 1867-68. In January, 1874, his partnership with Dr. Thompson was dissolved by mutual consent, and in June, 1875, warned that his practice was un- dermining his constitution, he went to Europe, and visiting England, France and Germany, returned in January, 1876. On his return he successively entered into partnership with Dr. C. A. Foster and Dr. A. P. Courtright, the latter partner- ship continuing until his death. In the autumn of 1876 he accepted the appointment of professor of diseases of women and children in Starling Medical College, and held it at his death. An earnest christian gentleman, one of the most happy utterances he ever made in evidence of this fact, will be found in the lengthy and lovingly-written memoir of him by Dr. J. H. Pooley, professor of surgery in Starling Medical College, and to which we are indebted for the data embodied in this sketch. In June, 1851, Dr. Turney married Miss Ev- elina J. McCrea, who died in 1859. From this union were born a daughter, who died in childhood, and a son, Henry D. Turney, who, now a fine young man, is the sole surviving representative of his father's family.
YOUNG, GENERAL CHARLES L., now a promi- nent manufacturer of and dealer in lumber of Toledo, Ohio, was born November 23d, 1838, at Albany, New York. His father, Eli Young, of pioneer Dutch ancestry, was born at Caughnawaga, Montgomery county, New York. His mother, Eleanor Young, born at Albany, was of Welsh descent. The
family resided in Albany until after the outbreak of the Re- bellion, when upon the comfortable retirement of the father from active business pursuits, they removed to Buffalo, New York, where he died in 1876, at the age of seventy. His remains, however, were taken to Albany and interred in the family lot in the Albany Rural Cemetery. The mother still lives in Buffalo, at the age of sixty-three. General Young's education was obtained at various institutions through- out his native State, but principally at the Albany Academy and Professor Charles H. Anthony's Classical Institute, Al- bany. The former is one of the oldest and most noted insti- tutions in that State. Its faculty at that time was made up of some of the ablest educators in the country, under the charge of the late Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, who acted as its president for thirty years. Dr. Beck was one of the most noted men in the State of New York, both in his profession and as a public man. He is more particularly known by his work on "Medical Jurisprudence," though the author of many other works of merit. He died as secretary of the board of regents of the University of the State of New York. Professor An- thony's Classical Institute, where General Young graduated, was also a very noted institution, its head being one of the leading educators of New York, and at one time president of the New York State Teachers' Association. In these schools General Young derived a good classical education. His early aspirations were for the bar, and to that end he had chosen his course of study, but the outbreak of the war di- verted him from immediately engaging in the practice of the law, and, in consequence of a wound received in battle which disqualified him from sedentary pursuits, he was obliged to forego his chosen vocation for that of a business life. In May, 1861, with the assistance of his friend, the Hon. John K. Porter, LL. D., although then just passed his majority, he engaged actively in recruiting war forces to join in subduing the Rebellion, and aided in forming the famous "Excelsior Brigade" of General Daniel E. Sickles, a military organiza- tion that subsequently distinguished itself upon many a battle-field, and is especially known in military history as connected with the movements of General Hooker, com. mandant of the Third Army Corps, leaving a roll of honor second to none in the Army of the Potomac. June 13th, 1861, Charles L. Young was commissioned first lieutenant in the First Excelsior Regiment (Seventieth New York Volunteer Infantry), became a member of the "military family" of General Sickles, and served also on the staff of General Hooker throughout the peninsular campaign. On May 6th, 1862, following the battle of Williamsburg, Virginia, Lieuten- ant Young was promoted to a captaincy, and in Pope's Vir- ginia campaign (according to reports on file in the War Department) of the same year, was engaged in the battles of Bristow's Station, the second Bull Run, and Chantilly. Captain Young, then scarcely twenty-three years of age, commanded his regiment. Probably General Young was the youngest officer in the service, especially as captain, that had command of a regiment throughout a campaign. May 3d, 1863, during the battle of Chancellorsville, while serving as Assistant Inspector General in that department of the Third Army Corps, and engaged in the execution of an order of General Sickles, a fragment of shell struck Cap- tain Young near his jugular vein, severing the external carotid artery and leaving a scar that will accompany him through life. He was borne from the battle-field under the impression that the wound was mortal. He soon re-
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