USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 10
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the Yosemite Valley. As illustrative of the character of that climate, it may be stated that on the first day of May, 1878, when the valleys were fragrant with flowers, and the figs nearly grown, General Hibbs rode on horseback a distance of fourteen miles over huge mountains of snow on his way to the valley, the thermometer registering seventy degrees. The scenery of the valley at this time was especially awe-inspiring and picturesque to the sublimest extent. The various waterfalls, some of them twenty-six hundred feet high, were at their highest stage and greatest force, caused by the rapidly melt- ing snow, and presented a view inexpressibly grand and sublime. The general also visited Sacramento, Salt Lake City, the great Mormon Tabernacle, Camp Douglas, and the tomb of Brigham Young, visiting on his return eastward Des Moines, Iowa City, Muscatine, and Freeport, where he spent some time among his friends who had removed west several years previous. He refers to his trips with much enthusiasm, and looks upon the time spent in this way as the most in- teresting and enjoyable portion of his life. General Hibbs has taken a deep interest in public enterprises and in church matters, and has contributed largely of his means for their support. In many other ways he is benevolent and public- spirited, doing much toward promoting the growth and pros- perity of his adopted city. He possesses all the elements of a capital business man, and has good judgment of men and things. He is cautious, firm, and conscientious, and as a business man stands among the best in Portsmouth. By industry, frugality, and keen foresight he has been rewarded with very gratifying success.
TURLEY, COLONEL JOHN A., of Portsmouth, Ohio, was born June Ist, 1816, at Moorefield, Hardy County, West Virginia. His father was Charles A. Turley, M. D., a mem- ber of the House of Representatives and of the State Senate of Virginia, and his mother was Fanny Harners, the daughter of George Harners, Jr., one of the most prominent business men of that State. The son received nothing but a common school education, but improved his opportunities subsequently. He had a decided taste for agriculture, and after removing to this State engaged in farming, in Scioto County, when he was twenty years of age. He remained in that county, in the same occupation (with the exception of the winter of 1846-47, when he represented the counties of Lawrence and Scioto in the State Legislature), until the outbreak of the civil war. Patriotic and alert, he organized a company for the three months' service, on the 4th of May, 1861. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 8Ist Ohio Volunteer Infantry in September of the same year, and was made colonel of the 9Ist Regiment, August 22d, 1862. On the 17th of June, 1864,
he was wounded by a musket ball, at Lynchburg, Virginia, his thigh being broken, and this finally necessitated his with- drawal from the service, and he was discharged November 4th, 1864. For his gallant conduct at Cloyd Mountain, he was brevetted brigadier-general. On his return from the war he took up his old pursuits, but his fellow-citizens soon be- came desirous of his services in other capacities. He was elected Mayor of the city of Portsmouth from 1871 to 1873, and filled the duties of this station acceptably. He became a Freemason in 1843, and has since risen in that order to Knight Templar. He was married January 2d, 1844, to Char- lotte E. Robinson, daughter of Joshua V. Robinson, whose sketch appears elsewhere. He is highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens, and has done much good work among them.
ALMS, WILLIAM HENRY, extensive wholesale and retail dry goods merchant, of Cincinnati, was born in that city November 25th, 1842. His parents, Henry and Louisa (Behrens) Alms, were both natives of Germany, though they both came to America when young, and were married in Cincinnati. It was in the year 1832 that his father settled in that city. He had learned the cabinet maker's trade in Ger- many, so that he readily found employment. He worked at his trade for a number of years, and finally became owner of a furniture store himself. It was in this vocation that his latter years were spent, though he did conduct a dry goods store for some years in the meantime. While providing a comfortable living for his family, he did not accumulate much property, so that at his death, in 1866, but little patri- mony fell to his children. Our subject was, therefore, com- pelled to begin his active career comparatively empty-handed. He had, however, the advantages of a good common educa- tion at the public schools of Cincinnati-a heritage which our institutions bestow on all alike. At the age of fourteen he engaged himself as clerk in the dry goods store of Betty & Williamson, with whom he remained nearly five years, during which he acquired a valuable knowledge of the busi- ness. In order to qualify himself thoroughly for a business career, he entered a business college, where he took a course of instruction. His next step was to connect himself as salesman with the dry goods house of Schwartz & Hafner, and he remained in their employ till the 15th of August, 1865. Ambitious to take up the lines for himself, he formed a partnership with his brother, Mr. Fred Alms, and Mr. William Doepke, the firm name being Alms & Doepke, which has continued unchanged up to the present time. The same evening that he severed his connection with his employers he started for New York City, to purchase a stock of goods, and in due time had a store in operation, in Cincinnati. Success attended the firm from its inception, and it was not long until they were compelled to increase their capacity and facilities for carrying on their rapidly growing trade. With succeeding years new buildings had to be leased or built, and finally, in 1878, the magnificent block they now occupy was built by them, giving them a floor capacity for sales departments of over sixty thousand square feet, besides other large buildings used for warerooms and shipping pur- poses. Their corps of clerks and accountants number about four hundred, constituting an institution equaled by only one of its kind in the State of Ohio. In order to judge of the remarkable progress and success of this concern in the past eighteen years, the relative amount of business transacted the first year and that of 1882 will alone suffice. The first year of its existence the sales, chiefly retail, amounted to one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, while they reached during the latter year to the enormous sum of nearly three million dollars, both wholesale and retail. William Alms and the other members of the firm have all labored together and have contributed their equal portion in develop- ing this extensive trade, and are all entitled to great credit for the success attending the concern. From the outset Mr. William Alms has attended to nearly all the purchases, and the general conduct of the extensive trade, for which he is eminently qualified. It is 'the experience of but a very few who under such inauspicious circumstances as did our subject begin a business career, have in so short a time, as the result of legitimate transactions, reaped such a success. Indeed, when one man or firm engaged in a vocation beset
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on every side by competition, marches to the front, far in ad- vance of the thousand whose inceptive careers were equally promising, we naturally look for some cause which will explain the condition of things. That cause is almost in- variably found, not in happy accident, but in the guiding hand of those upon whom rests the responsibility. It is found to be that force of mind, of character, and of purpose that knows only victory. Nor is it that alone-for combined with all these qualities there must be ability, directed with consummate tact, shrewdness, and sagacity, guided by a strict sense of honor; and lastly, he must bear the mold of citizenship that commands the constant respect of the com- munity. These are the qualities that are most emphatically the attributes of Mr. Alms, and to which his great success in business is unquestionably attributable. He has never min- gled with public matters, in any shape or form, other than supporting liberally every commendable enterprise and insti- tution calculated for the public good. He has never accepted any municipal office or position of trust of any character. In politics he is thoroughly independent, always advocating men regardless of party. His religious affiliations are with the Lutheran Church. He was married February 22d, 1866, to Miss Anna Elizabeth Bogen, daughter of George Bogen, an extensive pork merchant, of Cincinnati. Seven children have been born of this union, four now surviving.
SENEY, HENRY WILLIAM, lawyer, Kenton, Ohio, was born at Tiffin, Ohio, May 23d, 1847. He belongs to a family of lawyers. His grandfather was a noted lawyer, and for years Chief-justice of Maryland. His father, Joshua Seney, was a lawyer, and practiced at Tiffin, Ohio, until his death, in 1854, and was at one time Clerk of the Court, also private secretary to Hon. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the United States Treasury under President Jefferson. He was a native of Maryland. His wife, Ann (Ebbert) Seney, mother of Henry W., was a native of Pennsylvania. There are three sons living of this family, all of whom are law- yers of note: Hon. George E. Seney, Congressman-elect, of Tiffin, a distinguished lawyer, and Joshua R. Seney, of Toledo, who has been upon the bench, and Henry W. Our subject was educated at Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio, and afterward at Notre Dame, Indiana. His early tastes and ambition were for a business career rather than for the law, and in pursuance of that determination he took a course at a commercial college, at Cleveland. Upon com- pleting his studies there he accepted a position with the Merchants' Express Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and re- mained with them from the beginning of that corporation till it failed. He had some business experience previous to this, for when he was but fifteen years of age he was teller in a bank, at Tiffin. After the express company failed he was tendered the position of head bookkeeper by the firm of Patterson, Bro. & Co., commission merchants, of Cincin- nati. He remained with this concern for two years, at a good salary, and enjoyed the entire confidence of his employers, both for his integrity and superior business qualifications. He had been urged by his older brothers to take up the law, as they not only recognized his ability to do so successfully, but it would also perpetuate the professional history of the family entire. While he had given the subject considerable thought, he did not decide to follow their advice, until one morning while in Cincinnati, he picked up a newspaper and noticed therein an announcement of the election of his brother
in Toledo (who was then a young man) to the position of Com- mon Pleas Judge. His brother's success inspired him with a new ambition, and he thereupon concluded to follow in his footsteps. He then went to Ada, Ohio, in 1869, and began the study of law privately, and was admitted to the bar in 1871, at Kenton. He located in that city, forming a partner- ship with Mr. A. B. Johnson, who had been practicing there for several years. Mr. Seney soon made himself known at the bar, and it was not long until he took rank with the lead- ing lawyers of Hardin County. He studied hard, observed closely, and took advantage of every opportunity to strengthen himself in the law. He has a vigorous intellect; he is able in the argument of questions of law ; and in a plea before a jury is aggressive, forcible, and convincing. He is yet young, has strong features, a fine personal appearance, and a brilliant future yet before him. He dissolved partnership with Mr. Johnson, January Ist, 1880, since which date he has been practicing alone. His practice is large and lucrative, and he finds little time to participate in public affairs. He has, however, taken some part in politics, though he never was a candidate for any office, except as Judge of Common Pleas, but failed to secure the nomination of his party-the Democratic. He was married January 20th, 1870, to Miss Lizzie M. Cullom, of Cincinnati. Two children, a boy and a girl, are the issue.
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MASON, SAMPSON, soldier, lawyer and legislator, was born at Fort Ann, Washington county, New York, July 24th, 1793, and died at Springfield, Ohio, February Ist, 1869. In the war of 1812 he was, at the age of nineteen years, an enlisted soldier and participated in the battle of Sackett's Harbor, where his colonel was shot. After the war of 1812- '15 closed he was honorably discharged, and at once entered upon the study of law in Onondago county, under the pre- ceptorship of Thaddeus Wood. In 1818 he removed to Ohio, first going to Cleveland, which he then found to be a town of seventy houses and about five hundred people, situ- ated on the Cuyahoga river flats, near its mouth. Not being pleased with the location, as it could not fail to be unhealthy, he went to Steubenville and thence to Zanesville. Finally going to Chillicothe, then the capital of the State, he was after the length of residence required to become a voter and being vouched for by Caleb Atwater, then of Circleville, admitted as a lawyer to practice. The next year Clarke county was organized, with Springfield the county seat and thither Mr. Mason removed, and the year following, 1823, married the youngest daughter of Dr. Needham, and there made his home. Elected that autumn to the Ohio legislature, he continued to be reëlected and served several terms in both house and senate. In 1830 he was chairman of the commit- tee which revised the statutes of the State. A great admirer of Henry Clay, he was the Ohio senatorial elector on the Clay ticket for the election of 1836, in which year he was himself elected to Congress and served through four consec- utive reëlections. In 1840 he refused to be nominated, but he was elected nevertheless. During the Presidency of Mil- lard Fillmore he was United States district attorney for Ohio. A prominent member of the Ohio Constitutional convention in 1850 and 1851, he was again elected to the State senate in 1861. Actively interested in the State militia, he was first commissioned captain of a very fine cavalry company, and afterward became successively a colonel, a brigadier-general, and eventually a major-general. As a lawyer General
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Mason was considered among the first members of the pro- fession, and his circuit extended throughout Clarke, Greene, Champaign, Union, Logan and Madison counties. For one entire year, strange to say, he was engaged in every case tried in this whole territory, and gained them all. An honest law- yer, he was a faithful manager of all business entrusted to him. A man of great mental power and public spirit, he stoutly advocated the cause of the city schools, and withered with his sarcasm those who exerted what he termed their "malign influence" in opposing those important institutions. In all public and private engagements he ever took a promi- nent part and rendered important services to the town of his residence and the State at large. A Christian gentleman of the older school, of elegant manners, always courteous, man- ifesting in all his relations that regard for the service of God and the interests of humanity that stamps the true and earn- est professor of the religion of Christ, he held his member- ship with the First Presbyterian church of Springfield, of which he was a ruling elder, and he died as he lived, a lover and humble follower of his Savior. In his old age he was gently gathered, not plucked, from amidst his friends, and so serene was his departure that he seemed to be only withdrawn, as the sun at its setting departs, not darkened but no longer seen.
MUHLHAUSER, HENRY, of Cincinnati, was born July 28th, 1842, at Sciotoville, Ohio. He was the second son of Frederick and Christina Muhlhauser, natives of Bavaria, who emigrated to this country in April, 1840. They lived on a farm, near Portsmouth, Ohio, where his father lost all his savings-twelve hundred dollars, the result of six years' labor and frugality. This misfortune was brought about by the continued low price of farm produce, wheat selling at forty cents per bushel ; oats, ten and twelve cents per bushel; flour, one dollar and a half per barrel; and other things in proportion. In 1846 the family removed to Cincinnati, where the father engaged in the grocery business, which he con- tinued till his death, in 1849, leaving his widow and four children in comparatively indigent circumstances. Of these there are now living Gottlieb, Henry, and Christian, the other son, Fred, having died in Cork, Ireland, while on a trip to Germany, in hope of regaining his failing health. The remaining three sons have all become prominent business men. Henry's education consisted in what he could obtain in public schools, until he was eleven years of age, when he was obliged to assist his widowed mother in conducting the grocery left to her charge. He was thus employed until he was nineteen years of age. In that year, 1860, he entered into partnership with his brother, Gottlieb, in the manufacture of mineral water, and also the milling business. In 1861 they improved their flouring mill until they had the capacity of turning out one hundred and fifty barrels of flour per day. This proved to be a very profitable business, at that time, in supplying the government with flour. After the war closed the business became less lucrative, and being offered a fair price for the mill, they had the good judgment to accept it. Before he and his brother had disposed of their flouring mill, they had formed a partnership with Mr. Conrad Win- disch, of the firm of Moerlein & Windisch, a practical brewer, for the purpose of building the Lion Brewery. In this enterprise a large capital was employed in the construc- tion of buildings and supplying it with all the modern machinery and facilities necessary to make it a first-class
brewery. Since its inception it has had a marvelous suc- cess, until to-day it is known as one of the largest and most famous institutions of its kind in the country. Since 1882 it has been an incorporated company, representing one million dollars of paid-up capital, all of which is controlled by its three original projectors. Besides his interest in this large concern, Mr. Muhlhauser is connected with several other large corporations in Cincinnati. He has been for several years a stockholder and director in the Western German Bank; Citizens' National Bank, Cincinnati; Gas Light and Coke Company; and the Mount Adams and Eden Park In- clined Plane Railway Company. Among the positions of trust that he has occupied was that of representative in the City Council for four years, from the Tenth and Thirteenth Wards, as director of the Zoological Garden, and also of the City Workhouse. He is now president of the Queen City Sewing Machine Company, which was organized in 1881 for the manufacture of sewing machines. It is the first enterprise of the kind started in the city of Cincinnati. Mr. Muhlhauser is a man endowed with great mental and physical vigor, which he never fails to employ in any of his undertakings. His remarkable energy and resolution and aggressiveness are his most prominent characteristics, and never fail to leave their impress on whatever effort he may be engaged in, whether it be one of business enterprise or one of public concern. In politics he was a Republican up to 1882, when he allied himself with the Democratic party. In this field he has always taken a very active part, and is known to wield a great influence politically, especially among the German voters. He is a member of the German Protestant Church. Has been a member of the Odd Fellows for years. He is also a Druid, a Knight of Honor, and a Knight of Pythias. He was married July 4th, 1869, to Miss Mary E. Schmidt, of Cincinnati. Five children have been born of the union, all of whom are still living.
REEVE, JOHN CHARLES, physician and surgeon, Dayton, Ohio, was borne in England, June 5th, 1826. In 1832 his father's family immigrated to this country and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where our subject was reared. He enjoyed good school privileges up to the age of twelve, when by the loss of his mother and financial reverses in the family he was thrown entirely upon his own resources, became an apprentice to the printer's trade, and spent several years in the offices of the Cleveland Advertiser, and Herald. While thus employed, by industrious personal application, and by an attendance of several winters upon common schools, and one summer at an academy, he fitted himself for teaching which he followed for a time as the best means of improve- ment and education. He then read medicine with Dr. John Delamater, professor of obstetrics in the medical department of Western Reserve College, Cleveland, Ohio, from which institution he graduated. In 1849 he began practice in Dodge county, Wisconsin. Some four years later he visited Europe for the purpose of further study of his profession, and after passing the winter in London, and a summer at the Univer- sity of Göttingen, Germany, returned to this country and in the fall of 1854, settled in Dayton, which has since been his residence, where he rapidly rose in the confidence and esteem of the public generally and now occupies a leading rank in the profession in that city. . He has performed most of the leading operations of surgery falling to the lot of one in general practice; among others a case of tracheotomy, by
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which was successfully removed from the throat of a ' by graduates, of surgeon in the Cincinnati Hospital. Soon little girl eight years old, the largest body, with one excep- tion, ever taken from the windpipe-a shawl-pin, three and one-fourth inches in length. The case is alluded to, and a cut of the pin given, in "Gross's Surgery." He has performed ovariotomy five times, three of them being suc- cessful, and which is about the usual number. He is a mem- ber of the Montgomery County Medical Society, of which he has several times been president. Also of the Ohio State Medical Society, the American Medical Association and the American Gynæcological Society, of which he was one of the founders. He has made numerous reports of important pro- fessional cases, and has been a frequent contributor to the leading medical journals of the country, especially to the re- view department of the American Journal of Medical Sci- ences, Philadelphia, and to the American Journal of Ob- stetrics, New York. He occupies the rank of a leader in the profession in Ohio, and his personal standing is that of an affable, polished gentleman. 'On August 10th, 1849, he mar- ried Emma G. Barlow of Cleveland, Ohio.
RAY, JOSEPH, M. D., professor of mathematics, and author, was born in Ohio county, Virginia, November 25th, 1807, and died at Cincinnati, Ohio, April 16th, 1855. He was the son of William Ray, who was born in Ireland in 1782, and who, February 25th, 1807, in Philadelphia, married Margaret Graham, a native of Westchester county, Pennsyl- vania, born also in 1782. Soon after his marriage, William Ray moved to a farm in Ohio county, Virginia, where Joseph Ray was born, the first of a family of nine children. The father, William Ray, made that farm his homestead, and died there May 12th, 1866; the mother, Margaret Ray, died on the 24th May, 1857. The parents, William and Margaret, were members of the Society of Friends. The children, brought up under that simple faith and in the quiet of a re- tired agricultural district, had the fundamental requisites of character which best fit men and women for the duties and responsibilities of life. Their educational advantages were limited, but their home discipline such as to form a basis for wholesome mental development and stimulate a love for in- tellectual acquisition. Joseph was apt in appropriating the slender opportunities for education afforded by his father, and very early in life had a taste for study that gave direction and force to his subsequent pursuits. What he acquired in study he soon began to diffuse in the education of others. He studied and taught, and taught and studied, from his boyhood till his death. His labors, his success, and his happiness, were in his work as student and educator. At sixteen years of age he became a professional teacher, though his pursuit was interrupted mainly by his own studies-preparations for another profession - that of medicine, his first teaching being rather as a means to a different end. It is probable, how- ever, that those early experiences as a teacher, improving his natural bent, established his destiny, and instead of dis- tinction as a practitioner of medicine he acquired eminence as an educator-that best eminence, as an instructor through books rather than through the daily routine of class-room work. In the prosecution of his studies he was for a time at Washington College, Pennsylvania, and subsequently at Athens University, Ohio, without taking a collegiate degree in either. In 1829 he settled in Cincinnati and entered upon the study of medicine. In due time he took his degree of M. D., and had the appointment, ambitiously competed for
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