USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 21
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STOCKLY, JOHN GALT, one of the pioneers and foremost men of Cleveland, of his time, was born in Phila- delphia, May 24th, 1799, and died at his home in Cleveland, May 21st, 1863. He was a son of Ayres and Mary (Galt) Stockly. His father, a native of the eastern shore of Vir- ginia, was a captain in the East India service, from the port of Philadelphia, a genuine Virginia gentleman of the fine old-school type. His mother was a descendant of Thomas Galt, of Coleraine, Ireland, and Sarah Shute, of an old and prominent Philadelphia family. John Galt Stockly was only two years old when his father died and left a widow and four children, with very limited means. Attending school until
the age of fourteen, he resolved to be a tax upon his wid- owed mother no longer, and, with his noble boyish determi- nation, set out to make his own way in the world. His natural inclination led him to the wharf, where he helped to unload a cargo of brick for Stephen Girard, who paid him four shining silver dollars, with which he hurried to his mother, with fond affection assuring her she would never want for money again. After serving an apprenticeship of two years with a ship carpenter, he made two voyages-one to Liverpool, and one to Cuba-but found that owing to his short-sightedness, and the necessity of wearing glasses, he would be prevented from following the sea. He then went into a ship yard in Philadelphia, and very soon had a yard of his own, where he carried on a thriving business for sev- eral years. About the year 1830 he concluded to seek his fortune in the growing West, and accepted an appointment as custom-house officer between Buffalo and Chippewa. There he served nearly two years, making many friends and attracting the attention of the members of a corporation who were building extensive mills at Allanburgh, Canada, on the Welland Canal. He accepted the position of super- intendent, but soon became a partner, and was greatly instru- mental in building up a thriving town, where he resided until the breaking out of the Canadian rebellion, on account of which, being an American and unwilling to swear al- legiance to the British crown, at the sacrifice of most of his property, he at once removed, in 1838, to Cleve- land, Ohio, then only a. frontier town, with the improve- ment and growth of which his future life was destined to be closely identified. After trying several mercantile pur- suits for several years, with only partial success, he fol- lowed again his natural love for the water and shipping, and threw all his energies into building up a coal trade in the city ; and having sold the first load of coal in Cleveland, he became a pioneer in what has since become such an immense business-that of shipping coal by water to western points. He afterward turned over his coal business to his bookkeeper, Lemuel Crawford, who made a large fortune out of it. About 1845 he conceived the idea of increasing the harbor facilities of the city, and at once set to work, but with limited means and little encouragement, to build a pier of spiles, extending some distance into the lake, east of the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and which was known for years as "Stockly's pier." This demonstrated the practi- cability of building docks and foundations for depots in this manner, and for twenty-five years the different railroads running into Cleveland utilized his idea, with great saving of expense. He originated the idea of a breakwater for Cleveland, and was the first to bring the project before the minds of the public, building a short section at his own ex- pense. These suggestions have resulted, thirty years later, in the building of the magnificent breakwater which gives Cleveland one of the finest harbors on the lakes. It was he, also, who suggested to the city the idea of its buying the lake front, and converting it into a park. The result is a beauti- ful park, in place of an unsightly depository of rubbish. Mr. Stockly was a man of commanding personal appearance, of great force of character, of superior executive ability, and was of great liberality. He took special interest in every thing pertaining to the public improvements of the city. He was noted also for his fearless courage, having on several occa- sions been instrumental, at the peril of his own life, in res- cuing sailors from vessels driven ashore by storm. At the
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time of the burning of the lake steamer, G. P. Griffith, near Painesville, in 1850, his self-sacrifice and untiring efforts in behalf of the living and the dead won the respect and admi- ration of the entire community. He was a Presbyterian in religious belief and profession, and in political matters a pronounced old-line Whig. He afterward became an ardent Republican. The spirit of patriotism, inherited from his parents, never forsook him, and when the war for the Union commenced, although too old for service, he gave his whole heart to his country's cause, and was restless until he had gone to the front, where he accepted a position in the hospital fleet of the Mississippi, under Commodore Porter. There he contracted the illness which caused his death, in his sixty- fourth year, three months after he had returned to his home in Cleveland. He was buried with military honors, the casket enshrouded with the starry banner he had so dearly loved and patriotically defended. Mr. Stockly was twice married : First to Miss Ann Green, of New Jersey, in 1824, by whom he had one son, Ayres Stockly. His second marriage took place while at Chippewa, where he married Miss Catherine Duchatelle, who with six children-two sons and four daugh- ters-survived him. His eldest daughter, Mary, married, in 1852, John E. Cary, Esq., of the firm of Willey & Cary, for thirty-five years an eminent member of the Cleveland bar. He died in 1874. Mrs. Cary has been one of the active directors and a large and enthusiastic stockholder in the Brush Elec- tric Company from its inception. The other daughters are: Mrs. Albert W. Watrous, of Michigan ; Mrs. Otis B. Boise, of New York City; and Mrs. Clarence C. Curtiss, of Cleve- land. Of his two sons, George W. Stockly is vice-president and business manager of the Brush Electric Company, and Charles E. Stockly is also connected with the same enter- prise. Mr. Stockly gave to his children the noble heritage of a good physical, mental, and moral training, and to that beneficent home influence in childhood they owe much of their success in life. He was honored, respected, and be- loved, and his memory, by them, is revered. Prior to 1857 he had acquired, by his industry and energy, a large fortune, but much of it being in real estate that greatly decreased in value, the panic which occurred in that year involved him in large losses, from which he never recovered, and at his death he had very little to bequeath to his family, beyond the record of a true and honorable life.
Cox, JACOB DOLSON, the twenty-second governor elected by the people of Ohio, was born October 27th, 1828, at Montreal, Canada, where his parents had temporarily removed from the city of New York, his father being a master builder and engaged to superintend the roof, framing and carpenter work of the church of Notre Dame. The follow- ing year his father and family returned to New York and in that city the childhood and youth of our subject were spent. In 1846 he went to Ohio, entered Oberlin College, from which he graduated in 1851, and in 1852 was admitted to the bar in Warren, Trumbull county, Ohio. In 1859 he was elected to the State senate from the Trumbull and Mahoning district. By this time he had attained a reputation for accomplished scholarship, integrity and native talent, and was especially distinguished for the thoroughness, regard for every detail, and perseverance with which he prosecuted any study or enterprise in which he engaged. Throughout his term as senator he was regarded as one of the "radical" leaders of the senate, and this not merely by his general record and
the part of the State from which he was returned, but still more by his marriage, as in 1849 he had married the daugh- ter of President Finney of Oberlin College. He took his seat in the senate on the first Monday of January, 1860, and was placed on the judiciary committee. Subsequent to the enact- ment by Congress of the fugitive slave law in 1850, the legis- lature of Ohio had enacted what was generally known as the "kidnapping" law, which provided penalties to be incurred by those who should carry free blacks out of the State with- out first having recourse to judicial proceedings. The repeal of this law was, in the session of 1860, earnestly desired by the democrats in the legislature, and a report by the majority of his committee in favor of such repeal was met with a minority report from Mr. Cox, defending the law, and for which he secured the entire republican vote. The alarming indications of civil war which succeeded the election of Pres- ident Lincoln found Mr. Cox ready to grapple with them. Convinced that the country was in imminent danger of civil war he expressed himself in favor of fighting for the integrity of the Union, while deprecating every unnecessary cause of provocation. He comprehended the necessity for prepara- tion, and assisted in the organization of the State militia. Ten days after the President's call for troops was issued, (April 12th, 1861,) he was by Governor Dennison commis- sioned a brigadier-general of Ohio volunteers for the three months' service, following the appointment of General Mc- Clellan as major-general commanding Ohio volunteers; and these gentlemen with two other brigadiers appointed, as was the manner under the President's first call, by the governor, found themselves engaged in an inspection of the State arsenal and estimating for the equipment of ten thousand men. The arsenal was found deficient in nearly everything ; nevertheless the few troops constituting the first and second regiments were mustered in without arms or equipments, and at once sent to Washington City. Camp Jackson was estab- lished for the reception of volunteers at Columbus, and Gen- eral Cox placed in command, but a larger camp being ne- cessary, he was by President Lincoln commissioned brigadier- general of United States volunteers, and with the assistance of General Rosecrans as engineer, he laid out Camp Denni- son, and remained in command of the gathering forces there until the 6th of July, when he was with his command ordered by General McClellan to take a position for the time being at the mouth of the great Kanawha in Virginia, the upper part of that valley being held by General Henry A. Wise, who had been governor of that State. On arriving at Point Pleasant, opposite Gallipolis, General Cox was ordered to advance toward Charleston and Gauley Bridge. Finding his force inadequate, he awaited the arrival of wagon transportation and then crossing the Pocotaligo, flanked the enemy, and who, perceiving this, hastily abandoned all they held below Charleston, and the next day evacuated Charleston itself, after burning the bridge over Elk river. Crossing on a bridge of boats, General Cox, on reaching the Gauley, was ordered by General McClellan to fortify, which he did, and General Floyd having joined General Wise, assumed command and ordered a new advance, so that during the month of August a succession of skirmishes continued, without, however, the enemy being allowed to cut off communication with the Ohio, or recapture Charleston. Perhaps this account of the incipi- ent military operations of General Cox may be regarded as unimportant, but this opinion will be modified when the fact is announced that it was by the success that attended his
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movements in the valley of the great Kanawha during 1861 and the early part of 1862, that the Union cause was strength- ened by the accession of West Virginia as a new State. When General Reno fell at the battle of South Mountain, General Cox succeeded him in command of the 9th corps, and in this, and the subsequent bloody battle of Antietam, the troops he led so greatly distinguished themselves that he was promoted to the rank of major-general, to date from October 7th, 1862. Subsequently the districts of West Virginia and Ohio were placed under his charge, and in December, 1863, he was made commander of the 23d corps, with head quar- ters at Knoxville, Tennessee. In the Atlanta campaign he led the 3d division of that corps, but in the engagement at Columbia commanded it entirely, as he also did in the battle of November 30th, at Franklin, in which it bore the full force of Hood's attack. On reaching Nashville, General Thomas assumed command of the army, General Schofield of the 23d corps and General Cox of his division. In the battle of Nashville that followed that division, by a determined charge carried an important position held by the enemy, and cap- tured eight pieces of their artillery. In January, 1865, the 23d corps being ordered East, arrived at Washington, and from there having sailed, arrived on the 9th February, at Fort Fisher. Then, on their advance upon Wilmington, they routed and captured the greater number of Haygood's bri- gade at Town Creek, and compelled the evacuation of Wil- mington. On the 26th, ordered to Newbern, to take com- mand of a provisional corps of three divisions for the purpose of advancing towards and building the railroad to Kingston, with the view of, by its means, furnishing supplies to Sher- man's army when it should reach Goldsborough, he arrived on the 2d March, organized the next day, and on the 4th began the movement. On the 8th, a few miles south of Kingston, his force was attacked by General Bragg's command, and the advance driven in. On the 10th, Bragg with 16,000 men, renewed the attack, but was repulsed with heavy loss and driven beyond the Neuse river. The next day the 23d corps joined the provisional corps, commanded by General Cox, and Kingston was occupied, with the railroad opened to New- bern. Goldsborough was occupied by the army of Sherman on the 22d and there joined by Schofield's corps. On the 27th, General Cox was placed in permanent command of the 23d corps and moved on Raleigh, the capital of the State, and, upon the surrender of General Joseph Johnston, he was placed in command of the western half of North Carolina, with head-quarters at Greensborough, where he superintend- ed the parole of Johnston's troops. In July following he was ordered to the command of the district of Ohio, and was, when elected governor, in charge of the muster out and dis- charge of Ohio soldiers, until the close of the year, when, it being necessary that he should do so, he resigned, and on the 15th January, 1866, was inaugurated. The military abil- ity of General Cox, while never brilliant, may be best estima- ted when we say that on the day of his resignation, he stood higher in the esteem of the government and the country at large than at any other period of his nearly five years service as a general officer. This cannot, however, be said in rela- tion to his political career. Nominated in 1865 by acclama- tion, as the candidate of the union republican party, the cam- paign that succeeded necessarily drew from him by letter the true state of his political feelings then, and which he defined with great distinctness, by no means to the satisfaction of the ultra wing of the party who nominated him. He espoused
President Johnson's policy, and endeavored in an elaborate letter to the members of his party in the Ohio legislature to win them to his views. But President Johnson soon passed to a position where even Governor Cox could not follow him, while, in opposition to his own antecedents, and the reason- able expectations of his electors, remaining strongly conser- vative. He declined in advance a renomination, and at the close of his term retired to his law practice in Cincinnati, from which, in 1869, President Grant withdrew him by call- ing him to his cabinet, as Secretary of the Interior. Regarded generally as an appointment most fitly made, Governor Cox soon found he was environed by difficulties insurmountable. His best intentions and most popular movements in the di- rection of that reform so greatly vaunted but so earnestly opposed by the peculiar characteristics of President Grant's administration, were impossible of consummation, and, after a few months engaged in the unequal struggle, Governor Cox resigned and returned to his law office in Cincinnati. In 1873 being intrusted with the responsible office of receiver of the Toledo, Wabash and Western railroad, he removed tempo- rarily to Toledo, where, in 1875, he was elected to Congress from the then sixth district, and served his constituents as he always did, well and faithfully, his most prominent duty dur- ing the last year of his term being service on what was known as the Potter committee, appointed to investigate the manner of Presidential election in those States whose votes were dis- puted in 1876. Subsequently he once more returned to his law practice in Cincinnati, where he at present resides.
STOCKLY, GEORGE W., vice-president, business man- ager, and one of the largest stockholders of the Brush Elec- tric Company, of Cleveland, a son of John Galt (whose sketch precedes) and Catherine (Duchatelle) Stockly, was born in Cleveland, December 20th, 1843. His school edu- cation was comprised in the courses of the public and high schools of Cleveland. Being of a logical and legal turn of mind, his natural bent confirmed him in the assurance that he was cut out for a lawyer; and on leaving school, in 1861, with the intention of adopting the law for his profession, he entered upon his studies in the office of Willey & Cary, then one of Cleveland's most prominent law firms. With them he remained two years, when the death of his father (following close upon business reverses resulting from the panic of 1857) compelled him to relinquish his cherished de- sire, and necessitated his doing something toward the sup- port of the family. With that end in view, he went to work in the commission house of Bond & Morris, on the river. In 1863 he entered the freight office of the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad; and, a year later, the office of the Cleve- land Omnibus Line, where he remained until 1866, when he went into the Commercial National Bank, where he was paying-teller for five years, and receiving-teller for two years. Then he resigned his position in the bank, and stepped into the control of a business of which he knew nothing, and at a time (1873) when commercial ventures in all directions were unsafe, and all at sea, because of the great panic which had just set in. In 1872 the Cleveland Telegraph Supply and Manufacturing Company was formed, with George B. Hicks, the inventor of the celebrated Hicks Repeater and other telegraphic appliances, as president. In March, 1873, John E. Cary (of the law firm of Willey & Cary) and Mr. George W. Stockly bought a comparatively large interest in the company, at the suggestion of Mr. Hicks. Mr. Stockly
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left the Commercial National Bank, and took charge of the company, as vice-president and manager. The change was made April Ist, 1873, and on that very day Mr. Hicks, the president of the new venture, and its chief stay and main- spring, had a stroke of paralysis, from which he died one month later. This left Mr. Stockly, who knew very little of elec- trical science, and to whom the business was new from begin- ning to end, in charge of the young and struggling organiza- tion; and three years later Mr. Cary also died. He saw there was only one course open, and he followed it. He went de- terminedly to work and mastered the details of his new labor as rapidly as he could. Soon after this an entirely new com- pany was formed, under the name of "The Telegraph Sup- ply Company," of which General M. D. Leggett was made president, Mr. Stockly continuing as vice-president and man- ager, as before. Their factory was removed to a more com- modious building, and with increased facilities and a force of twenty men, a thriving business was built up. In 1876 Mr. Charles F. Brush, who had been a friend of Mr. Stockly for years, and who had four years before returned from the University of Michigan, to commence life as an analytical chemist, in Cleveland, became interested in the company, through some special scientific or electrical work that he was called upon to do in the company's behalf. Being quite often in the office, the general subject of electricity was fre- quently brought up and talked about. One day, when sev- eral remarks had passed upon the description, in the Scien- tific American, of the Gramme dynamo-electric machine, which was just then being introduced into Paris, Mr. Brush made the statement that this was a subject to which he had given considerable thought and attention in previous years ; and added that he was of the opinion that he could produce a machine much more efficient than the Gramme, if there was a demand for such an article, and any money could be made out of it. Mr. Stockly immediately perceived the point ; and concluding that if his company were to make a strike in the world, it must adopt some commanding specialty, suggested to Mr. Brush that if he could furnish the invention there would be no difficulty in finding for it a market in a time when the world was rapidly finding how much need it had of new ideas and new methods in many directions. The matter was fully and carefully discussed in a scientific, mechanical, and financial light, and the result was an ar- rangement by which Mr. Brush should go ahead and make his experiments, while the Supply Company should furnish such material and shop work as he might need. He imme- diately set to work, and in a few weeks had completed his first attempt, doing the greater part of the mechanical labor with his own hands, at his home. From the first it worked to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned, and has ever since been in constant operation. When the machine was completed Mr. Brush and the Supply Company hunted the country over to find a suitable lamp. Not finding what they wanted, Mr. Brush invented one in less than a month. The machines and lamps made to-day, after years of trial, are substantially the same in all their principles of construction and scientific plans as the first models made by Mr. Brush at this time. In the winter of 1876-77 an arrangement was entered into between Mr. Brush and the Supply Company by which the latter obtained the sole and exclusive right to man- ufacture and sell all of the patents of the former, present and future, of any kind whatsoever, in the line of electrical science, subject to an equitable royalty, which was at that
time fixed. When the agreement was completed Mr. Stockly made all his arrangements to push the new business into the market as rapidly and wisely as could be done. The steady and wonderful growth is shown by the fact that the total sales of the company in 1878 did not exceed fifty thousand dollars, while in 1883 they were about two millions. In 1878 their factory was removed to a four-story block, which in 1880 was destroyed by fire, and in 1881 they went into buildings of their own. They had purchased six acres of land, four of which are now covered with their buildings, in which about four hundred men are employed. There has been no change in the management froin the start, the same officers, the same directory, and the same executive commit- tee being in continuous control. In 1880 the name, Telegraph Supply Company, was changed to that of the Brush Electric Company, so that the name would describe the business in which it was engaged, as the new line of work had entirely crowded out the old. The amount of capital now invested in the electrical business, as an outcome of the parent com- pany, and the Brush light and its accessories, is estimated at over twenty-five million dollars, and the figure is growing larger every day. The great business, which seems to have almost sprung up in a night, of course had its foundation in a wonderful invention, but that alone did not make it what it is. , Without exceptional shrewdness and business skill, it could not have been what it is to-day ; and it is due to a right combination of the invention, of good business management, and of an adequate amount of capital that the enterprise has become so large. Although he found much aid and gained much advice in frequent counselings with the directors (es- pecially with Mr. James J. Tracy, one of Cleveland's shrewd- est capitalists), yet, the skill, industry, and ability of Mr. Stockly were among the chief corner stones of the structure that has been reared. He worked day and night, put his youth and energy into his labor, took risks where others ad- vised conservatism, and has reaped his reward in an ample fortune and an assured position, while yet in the prime of life. He has, by his indomitable energy, indefatigable labor, and persistent pluck, combined with a fine, unerring judg- ment, worked his way up, step by step, and no man in his native city of Cleveland who has watched his career, be- grudges him his position or his fortune. The death of his father, coming so soon after the financial troubles he had ex- perienced in 1857, completely changed the situation of the family, and the son cheerfully abandoned the prospects of a brilliant career in the profession of the law, and devoted himself to aid in the support of his widowed mother and sis- ters, thus suddenly reduced in circumstances. The path of duty is ever the path of right, and the noble sacrifice he then made has been amply rewarded in leading to his present en- viable position. Neither has he been unmindful of that higher life, for he is a Christian gentleman, and in the Church of his choice-the Presbyterian-he holds the office of an elder. In political faith he has always been a Republican. October 15th, 1874, he was married to Olivia H., the daugh- ter of Alvin Devereux, of Deposit. They have a charming family of children-three boys and one girl. Mr. Stockly is a man who has wrought out his own path in life. The re- linquishing of his position in the bank was against the judg- ment of many of his best friends, but he, with clear fore- sight, sought a wider field and greater possibilities. The wisdom of his decision has been amply demonstrated. He is one of those men who are born to lead rather than to fol-
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