USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 12
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Peterr Fel Pu.
truly yours
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BIOGRAPIIICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
He was admitted to the bar October 4th, 1848, by the Supreme Court, sitting at New Lisbon, Ohio, and at once commenced practice, having no associate. In 1850 he was appointed United States Marshal for the Seventeenth District of Ohio, and held the position for one year. He also in that year became associated in practice with Judge John H. Miller, which relation terminated in 1868. In 1861, on motion of Hon. T. D. Lincoln, of Cincinnati, he was admitted to prac-
tice in the Supreme Court of the United States ; and in that year he was elected, by the Republicans, to represent his Senatorial District in the Legislature. While acting with that body he served efficiently on important committees of the Senate, including the Judiciary Committee and Committee on Railroads and Telegraphs. In the election contest he ran ahead of his party ticket. He declined a renomination, by reason of the increasing proportions of his private business. In 1863 he purchased the Mechanics' Savings Bank, of Steubenville, which he operated as a private bank till Octo- ber, 1865, when it was converted into a national bank, and continued as such till October Ist, 1868. It was then changed back into a private bank, and is now carried on as the Com- mercial Bank of Sherrard, Mooney & Co. Mr. Sherrard is the senior member and principal owner in the company. In 1870 he went to New York City, and became interested in large metropolitan enterprises. He became president of the American National Bank, and was also the executive officer of the New York Transfer Company. The business of this company was to afford transportation facilities for passengers and baggage to and from the various depots in New York and Brooklyn, and during Mr. Sherrard's connection with the company it was employed in the mail service, to carry the mails between the depots and the city post-offices and the various sub-offices in the two cities. The company em- ployed four hundred men and one hundred horses and wagons. Colonel Geo. W. McCook, of Steubenville, having died in December, 1877, he was obliged to return and take charge of large business interests which had associated them together, although at this writing he continues his connection with the American National Bank, as formerly. Mr. Sher- rard's practice at the bar was embraced between the years 1848 and 1863. In 1850 Congress passed the bill granting land-warrants to all citizens of the United States who had been in the military service of 1812. Mr. Sherrard had an- ticipated the passage of the bill, and was one of the first attorneys to visit Washington City as the representative of a large number of claimants under the new law. The business growing out of the adjustment of these claims, and locating the lands in the West became a specialty in his practice, and subsequently led to large personal investments in West- ern lands. In 1855 Congress passed a supplemental bill equalizing the apportionment as provided in the first bill, which was adjusted according to the term of service of the different claimants. Under the supplemental law all soldiers of the war of 1812 were entitled to the same amount of land, without regard to length of service. Thus Mr. Sherrard's professional services were again brought into requisition. The second bill eliminated a feature of the first bill which made these warrants unassignable, and thus an opportunity was afforded for their purchase. From 1853 to 1865 Mr. Sherrard was a member of the Board of Trust appointed by the Synod of Wheeling to manage the financial affairs of Washington College-an institution under the care of the Presbyterian Church-and acted as treasurer for the board.
In 1864 Rev. Dr. Charles C. Beatty proposed an endowment fund of fifty thousand dollars to Washington and Jefferson Colleges, as an inducement for their union, which result was finally accomplished. A bill passed the Legislature of Penn- sylvania, providing for the appointment of a Board of Trustees, and naming Mr. Sherrard as one of the number. He has continued to act with the united board since its ap- pointment. He was for seventeen years a member of the Board of Education of Steubenville, and has always taken a great interest in educational matters. The only occasion for his resignation from the board was his removal to New York City. He is president of the Steubenville Coal and Mining Company, of the Steubenville Gas Company, and is treas- urer of the Cemetery Association. In 1878 he traveled in Europe and the Holy Land, and on his return lectured on his experiences abroad. He visited Europe a second time in 1881. He was twice married, his first wife being Sarah A. Salmon. Two children were born of this union. His second marriage was with Miss Kitty Johnson, daughter of Dr. John- son, of Steubenville, December 13th, 1881. Of this union he had issue one child, a son.
DOTY, CALVIN B., a noted manufacturer in iron, at Steubenville, was born in Wareham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, December 11th, 1813. He was a lineal de- scendant of Edward Doty, the founder of the family in America, who accompanied the Mayflower expedition to the New World. He has been chronicled in history as one of the participants in the first duel ever fought on this conti- nent. His opponent was Edward Leister, who served with Doty as one of the ship's crew. From him are descended a numerous posterity, extending over the entire North Amer- ican Continent, and many of these descendants are prominent in the professions and the business affairs of the country. Our subject's parents were Nathaniel and Olive (Sampson) Doty, both natives of Massachusetts. Nathaniel Doty was a carpenter and contractor, whose operations, necessitating the employment of a large number of men and apprentices, ex- tended along the coast as far South as Savannah, Georgia. The subject of this sketch enjoyed the privilege of the free schools of Massachusetts, which were thus early in vogue in that com- monwealth, three months out of the year. The death of his father, which occurred when he was only six years old, was followed, five years later, by the death of his mother. An orphan at the age of eleven years, he was thus early inured to hard labor. He worked at a nail machine until 1837, when he went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and thence to Pittsburg, where he was engaged in the same kind of work until 1844, when he went to Wheeling, West Virginia. There, in company with others, he originated the Belmont Iron Works. In 1852 he joined other parties in the construction of the Labelle Iron Works, at that place. These works have exerted a large influence on the growth and prosperity of the City of Wheeling, by affording employment to its laboring classes. February 4th, 1859, Mr. Doty joined in the purchase of the Jefferson Iron Works, at Steubenville, Ohio. It was incorporated under the laws of Ohio, a few years after the purchase by them, and is operated as a joint stock company, of which he is vice-president. Mr. Doty is pre-eminently a self-made man. Without fortune or influential friends, he has attained to a foremost position among the manufacturers of Ohio. His business operations arc larger than those of any other man in the city of Steubenville. He is a director
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and one of the principal shareholders in the Union Deposit Bank, of Steubenville. He was married in 1840 to Lucinda Carr, of Pittsburg, and had issue seven children, two of whom are living at this writing, namely, Mary and Henry.
SCOTT, WILLIAM H., land-owner, of Toledo, Ohio, was born September 3d, 1825, at Columbia, South Carolina, where he spent the earliest years of his childhood. In Con- necticut, and afterward in Ohio, he grew up with the ordinary opportunities afforded by good schools and more than usual care afforded by the daily instruction of a father whose store of knowledge imparted to his sons was of greater use to them than that derived from all the schools. His general education was supplemented by two years' study of the principles of law, without, however, any intention of pursuing it as a profession. The first few years of his majority were spent in Toledo, assisting his father in the management of a real-estate business, and in contributions to the Toledo Blade, of which his father, Jesup W. Scott, was then editor and part proprietor. In 1849 he removed to Adrian, Michigan. There he married Mary A. Winans, and there all his children, three daughters and one son, were born. He lived there until 1865. While endeavoring to restore impaired health by the pursuit of his horticultural employments he became inter- ested, with a few other active citizens of Adrian, in founding a college which the Wesleyans of a large section of the North- west had proposed to place there if that city would furnish the site, and unite with that sect in the construction of the necessary college buildings. Three large college buildings were constructed, nearly all at the expense of Adrian citizens, at an outlay of about $100,000. Mr. Scott continued to be one of the most active members of the board of Trustees of Adrian College, as well as of the board of education of city common schools, until his return to Toledo, where his real estate interests had grown sufficiently to require a larger at- tention to their care. Mr. Scott was a warm friend of agri- cultural and horticultural improvement in Lenawee county, and was president of the Adrian Horticultural Society, which became a permanent institution, with one of the largest and most valuable libraries of the kind in this country. After again becoming a resident of Toledo Mr. Scott identified himself with the city that had been the source of all his pe- cuniary prosperity by his interest in its various public institu- tions. He continues to be vice-president of the board of trustees of the Toledo University of Arts and Trades, founded by his father. He was for two terms president of the Toledo Library Association, and gave it needed pecuniary assistance. Feeling that this library did not sufficiently meet the wants of the large community, whose desire for reading was cir- cumscribed by the large cost of its gratification, he took the first steps toward the creation of a free library ; and through his exertions, afteward seconded by a few Toledo gentlemen, a bill was presented to the legislature, which, failing the first winter, became a law the year following. Toledo now has a free library sustained by taxation and entirely untrammeled by connection with other institutions. The drawings of books, which have, in some months, exceeded eight thousand, sufficiently indicate its success, which is due to the good man- agement, judicious selection of works and the free system, which have characterized it since Mr. Scott became asso- ciated in its advancement and direction. Like his father, Mr. Scott is progressive, more especially in matters pro- moting æsthetic culture and high moral tone.
WILLEY, JOHN WHEELOCK, lawyer and jurist, was born in New Hampshire, in 1797, and died in June, 1841, at Cleveland, Ohio. Having received a good preparatory edu- cation, he was sent to Dartmouth College, where he pursued the regular course of study under the special care of president Wheelock, after whom he had been named. Upon graduat- ing, he chose the profession of law and went to New York to complete his studies. He was admitted to practice, but decided to seek a newer field. In 1822, being then twenty-five years old, he started for the West and concluded to make his home in Cleveland, then a small but thriving village. He. found that several lawyers of ability and fast-increasing rep- utation had preceded him, and that he could only make his way by unwearied industry and by proofs of marked talent in his profession. Instead of being discouraged, he wel- comed the opportunity thus offered of displaying his abilities and sharpening his faculties. Naturally gifted with the qualities most needed in forensic debate, he had by hard study furnished his mind with an inexhaustible store of infor- mation, and obtained a thorough mastery of legal principles. He was a logician by nature, a ready debater, fertile of ex- pedient, persuasively eloquent, and knew how to enliven de- bate, and make sudden and lasting impression, by a keen flash of wit or a touch of humor. In the sharp struggle for reputation and fortune between the many able and brilliant lawyers then pleading in the courts of northern Ohio he more than held his own, and rapidly won his way to superior distinction. In 1827 he was elected to represent Cuyahoga county in the State house of representatives, and filled that position three years. He was then chosen to the State senate, where, also, he served three years, closing his legis- lative career in 1832. He then returned to private practice, and continued in it with marked success, holding no public office until, in 1836, he was elected the first mayor of the newly-organized city of Cleveland. The term was then but one year. On the expiration of his first term he was reëlec- ted by a very large majority. During his occupancy of the mayoralty he drafted the original laws and ordinances for the government of the city, and these were found to be direct, comprehensive, and effective. He was actively interested in the original schemes for the construction of railroads from Cleveland to Columbus and Pittsburgh before the financial revulsion of 1837. In 1840 he was appointed to the judicial bench, and at once took the position to which his eminent abilities entitled him. As a lawyer he had been distinguished for his faculty of close and long-continued reasoning, clear- ness of statement, nice discrimination, and fertility of re- source. On the bench he exhibited the same qualities, to which were added those qualities most needed in a judge -- strong memory, power of analysis, promptness of decision, and strict impartiality. His instructions to juries and his legal judgments were exhaustive of the subject, presenting every point in luminous distinctness, and, without wearying the listeners, placing them in full possession of all the facts and established legal points in the most intelligible shape practi- cable. His decisions from the bench, like his pleadings when at the bar, were frequently enlivened by sallies of humor that were greatly relished by the lawyers, and not unfrequently put the sufferers by his decisions in good humor. The West- ern Law Journal, in 1852, gave the following judicial anec- dote related of Judge Willey, in illustration of his wit and immovable self-possession. The writer said: "At his last term in Cleveland we happened in while he was pronouncing
John M.Milley
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sentence upon a number of criminals who had been convict- ed, during the week, of penitentiary offenses. One of them, a stubborn-looking fellow, who, to the usual preliminary ques- tion of whether he had anything to offer why sentence of the law should not be pronounced upon him, had replied some- what truculently that he had 'nothing to say,' but who, when the judge was proceeding in a few prefatory remarks to ex- plain to the man how fairly he had been tried, etc., broke in upon the court by exclaiming that he didn't care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty anyhow. 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with usual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and com- passion,-' that will be a consolation to you in the hour of confinement, for we read in the Good Book that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of laughter which followed this unexpected response all joined except the judge and the culprit." He died whilst holding the position of president judge of the fourteenth ju- dicial district. He was endeared to a very large circle of professional and other friends by his many virtues in private and professional life, his dignity of character, and his unos- tentatious manner.
REID, WHITELAW, journalist, was born in Xenia, Ohio, in October, 1837. His father, Robert Charlton Reid, had married Marian Whitelaw Ronalds, a descendant in di- rect line from the small "Clan Ronald," of the highlands of Scotland. His paternal grandfather, also of Scotch blood, emigrated to this country towards the close of the last cen- tury, and, as one of its earliest pioneers, settled in Ken- tucky ; but in 1800 crossed the river and bought land upon the present site of Cincinnati. He was a stern old cov- enanter, and found his conscience uneasy, owing to a condi- tion of the sale, which required him to run a ferry every day of the week across the Ohio river. Sooner than violate the Sabbath, he parted with property that, if held, would be now worth millions to his descendants, and removing to Greene county, became one of the earliest settlers in the township of Xenia. But for the pioneer's scruples, in all human proba- bility, the wealth of the family would have precluded the ne- cessity for struggles and experience of life which have, in his contention with them, made the grandson the successful man he is. An uncle, Rev. Hugh McMillan, D. D., also a Scotch covenanter and conscientious man, took the task upon himself of fitting the lad for college. Dr. McMillan was a trustee of Miami University, and principal of the old and long-noted "Xenia Academy," which was then reckoned by the officers of Miami the best preparatory school in the State. As a teacher of classics and general instructor, Dr. McMil- lan had a fine reputation. Under his instruction his nephew was so well drilled in Latin that at the age of fifteen he en- tered Miami as a sophomore, with, as a Latinist, rank equal to that of scholars in the upper classes. This occurred in 1853, and in 1856 he was graduated with the "scientific honors," the " classical honors" first tendered to him having by his own request been yielded to a classmate of lower gen- eral rank. Just after he graduated he was made the princi- pal of the graded schools in South Charleston, Ohio, his im- mediate pupils being generally older than himself. Here he taught French, Latin and the higher mathematics, confirm- ing his own mastery of those branches, and acquiring a ripe culture which has been of much service to him in later years. During this period he repaid his father the expense of his se-
nior year in college, and, returning home at the age of twenty, he bought the Xenia News, and for two years led the life of a country editor. Directly after leaving college he had identified himself with the politics of the then new party that selected John C. Fremont as its presidential candidate. A constant reader of the New York Tribune, his opinions were undoubtedly the legitimate fruit of such reading, and his own paper, the News, edited with vigor and such success as to double its circulation during his control of its columns, was conducted by him, as much as possible, after the model of that great humanitarian journalist he was destined to suc- ceed. In 1860, notwithstanding his personal admiration of Mr. Chase, he advocated the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, the News being the first Ohio journal to do so; and its influence caused the election of a Lincoln delegate to the republican convention, from that district, thus making the break in the Ohio column which Governor Chase at the time so bitterly resented. After Mr. Lincoln's famous speech at the Cooper Institute and return West, Mr. Reid went to Columbus to meet him, formed one of his escort to Xenia, and introduced him at the railroad station to the citizens, and subsequently entered ardently into the business of the campaign, speaking and acting as secretary of the Greene county republican committee. His exertions were too much for his health, and he was compelled by a proper regard for it to withdraw from the political arena and take a vacation by travel through the northwest, visiting the extreme head-waters of the Mississippi and St. Louis rivers, and returning across the site of the present town of Duluth. Greatly invigorated by this recrea- tive trip, he again entered vigorously into the campaign. The following winter he spent in Columbus as a legislative corres- pondent on an engagement with the Cincinnati Times. His letters from the Northwest in the Cincinnati Gazette during the summer of 1860, were favorably received, and, after a few weeks of his engagement with the Times had elapsed, he obtained an offer at a higher figure from the Cleveland Her- ald, to be followed by a yet better offer from the Cincinnati Gazette. Mr. Reid undertook all three engagements, and by them was put in receipt of a good income for a journalist in those days, some $50 a week; but the task of writing daily three letters, distinct in tone, upon the same dreary legisla- tive themes, was a species of drudgery which severely tried even his versatility and courage. Such discipline, however, rendered his later journalistic labors comparatively light and attractive. At the close of that session of the Ohio legisla- ture, the Gazette offered him the post of its city editor, and this position, so full of varied training, he accepted until, with the beginning of the civil war, McClellan, then a cap- tain in the regular army and a resident of Cincinnati, was sent to West Virginia. With this movement, Mr. Reid, by order of the Gazette Company, took the position of its war correspondent. General Morris had command of the ad- vance, and Mr. Reid, as representative of the then foremost journal in Ohio, was assigned to duty as volunteer aid-de- camp, with the rank of captain. Then, over the signature of "Agate," began a series of letters which attracted general at- tention, and largely increased the demand for the Gazette. After the West Virginia campaign terminated in the victory over Garnet's army and death of General Garnet himself, at Carrick's Ford, on Cheat river, Mr. Reid returned to the Gazette office, and for a time wrote leaders. He was then sent back to West Virginia, and given a position on the staff of General Rosecrans. He thus served through the second
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campaign, that terminated with the battles of Carnifex Ferry and Gauley Bridge. These battles he wrote an account of, and then, returning to the Gazette office, resumed his edito- rial duties, and helped organize the staff of correspondents the publishers of that journal had found it necessary to em- ploy. Fairly established as a journalist of much promise, only brief mention can be made of the brilliant service which marked his subsequent career in the West. In 1861-62 he went to Fort Donelson, recorded the Tennessee campaign, arrived at Pittsburg Landing weeks in advance of the battle fought there, and although confined to a sick bed, left it to be present at, and the only correspondent who witnessed, the fight from its beginning to its close. It was his account of this, one of the most important battles of the war, that stamped him as a newspaper correspondent of the first class. Those ten columns of the Gazette were widely copied, and published in extras by St. Louis and Chicago papers, and their writer was complimented by an advance in his already liberal salary. At the siege of Corinth, Mr. Reid was ap- pointed chairman of a committee of the correspondents to interview General Halleck upon the occasion of the latter's difficulty with " the gentlemen of the press," which ended in their dignified withdrawal from the military lines. This movement caused Mr. Reid to go to Washington in the spring of 1862, where he was offered the management of a St. Louis newspaper. On hearing of this, the proprietors of the Ga- zette offered to sell him a handsome interest in their estab- lishment at a fair price. This he accepted, and, as his share of the profits for the first year amounted to two-thirds of the cost, in this operation he discovered the foundation of his fortune. As the correspondent of the Gazette at the national capital, he soon distinguished himself, and among that of other men of importance, attracted by his literary and exec- utive ability the notice of Horace Greeley, who from that time became his highly appreciative and unswerving friend. A visit to the South in 1865, as the companion of the then Chief Justice Chase, on the trip made by the latter at the re- quest of President Johnson, resulted in the production of Mr. Reid's first contribution to literature in the form of a book, entitled, "After the War; a Southern Tour." This book is a fair reflex of its author's independent and healthful mind and practical experience of men and things, and an excel- lent record of the affairs of the South during the years im- mediately following the war. Passages relating to the con- dition of the freedmen are numerous and of lively interest, while the negro dialect and manners are portrayed with per- spicuity and kindly humor. During this tour, the business of cotton-planting appeared so remunerative that, in partnership with General Francis J. Herron, Mr. Reid engaged in the spring of 1866 in it; but, when the crop looked its most prom- ising, the army worm destroyed three-fourths of it. Even what remained, however, prevented the loss of their invest- ment, and induced Mr. Reid to try his fortune subsequently in the same business in Alabama ; but after two years, though not a loser, his gain was principally in business experience. During those years, however, he was otherwise engaged than in growing cotton. The work which has given him most celebrity in his native State, "Ohio in the War," two large volumes of more than a thousand pages each, was produced during those two years when cotton-planting was his ostensi- ble business. Involving much labor, it is surprising how it could be produced by a man whose time was otherwise occu- pied during the period of its production. As a whole, it is a
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