USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 39
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his life, although he had a firm belief in its doctrines, and was a liberal contributor to its various societies. He was married October 14th, 1863, to Miss Elizabeth Thompson, the daughter of his partner, by whom he had one son and two daughters. Early in 1874, Mr. Mathers' health began to fail, and consumption developed itself. In October, he went to Bell's Mills, Pa., thinking a change of climate might prove beneficial, from whence he was accompanied by his brother, the Rev. Joseph H. Mathers, to St. Augustine, Florida; but he returned home about the Ist of April to die. As a man, he was eminently kind-hearted, always open to appeals for the relief of distress; his susceptibility to the tales of the troubles of others often inducing him to lend aid, often greatly to his injury, pecuniarily.
CALDWELL, JOHN DAY, was born in Zanesville, Muskingum county, Ohio, December 28th, 1816. His father, James Caldwell, was of Scotch-Irish lineage, a stock distin- guished in the annals of American colonization for its physical vigor, alertness of mind and moral energy. His mother was Miss Harriet Wesley Day, of Baltimore city, daughter of Joshua Day, of Gunpowder Neck, Maryland, who was de- scended from John Day, a cotemporary and successor of Caxton, who introduced printing into England in the fifteenth century, and who, as is recorded on his tombstone, was the original publisher of "Fox's Book of Martyrs." A romantic incident is related of Miss Day, that in 1814, just before her marriage, she was with friends on a wedding excursion on Chesapeake bay, during which the party was captured by a British cruiser, and taken aboard the admiral's flag-ship, but soon relieved by a flag of truce. On board another vessel there was also detained at the time, Francis Scott Key, the distinguished lawyer of Washington city, who then and there wrote his famous song, "The Star-Spangled Banner," and afterward presented Miss Day with a copy. For three years John Day Caldwell was a student at Kenyon College, the excellent alma mater of so many useful and distinguished citizens of Ohio. Leaving college, he began a life of remark- able business and public activity, which has resulted in a large measure of good for his native State. After a brief ex- perience as clerk in a store in Zanesville, as assistant in a chemical laboratory, and other practical pursuits, he sought a larger sphere of usefulness in Cincinnati, to which city he removed in 1835, and in which he has labored with con- stantly increasing duties and dignities down to the present day. For some time he was a steamboat clerk on the great rivers of the West, a responsible position in those days; then, when the era of railroads came in, a transportation agent on the Little Miami road, and later, the secretary of the Cincin- nati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad Company. When Green's express, the pioneer in Cincinnati of another great American enterprise, was first organized, he became one of its employès. Shortly after, during the Scott campaign, we find him the proprietor and manager of the Atlas and Chron- icle newspaper, on which, at this time, the now famous editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, Murat Halstead, Esq., re- ceived his first engagement as a writer for the daily press. Disposing of his paper to the Cincinnati Gazette, Mr. Cald- well became a stockholder and local editor of that journal. After various other business ventures and experiences, he was elected reporting clerk of the Ohio house of representatives. As clerk of the public schools of Cincinnati, he rendered the city valuable service. While in this office the present free
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library of that city was organized, and Mr. Caldwell was its first librarian. This record of business activities, while it bears testimony to the remarkable versatility and energy of the man, also strikingly illustrates the peculiar and varying de- mands which Western life in that early day made upon the citizen. To this brief mention of private and business pur- suits must be added, however, those more extended labors for the public welfare which have made John D. Caldwell's name a household word in the State. His connection with the Masonic fraternity has perhaps furnished him the largest opportunities for usefulness to his fellow-men. Made a mas- ter mason in Zanesville in 1844, he has ever since been a most enthusiastic and devoted member of the fraternity, and one to whom its present prosperity in the State is largely due. For the past twenty-six years, grand secretary of the grand lodge of Ohio, and grand recorder of the grand council of Ohio; for nine years he was also grand recorder of the grand encampment of Knights Templar of the United States, and grand secretary of the general grand chapter of Royal Arch Masons of the United States. His annual reports are models of condensation and accuracy. Ardent Mason as he is, he is also an earnest advocate of improve- ment and reform in the body of that fraternity, and has been for the last seven years especially conspicuous in securing attention to the claims of the colored or African lodges to be represented in the grand councils of white Freemasons in Ohio, having in his annual correspondence reports thrown much light on the origin of those lodges in America. His public spirit and humanitarian zeal are, however, too expan- sive to be limited by any organization or sect, however noble. Taking a warm interest in the political affairs of his country, the outbreak of the Rebellion found him a prominent and active organizer of the civic means for defense. As chairman of the first committee of safety in Cincinnati, he took the first steps to enlist a Home guard, and for some months acted as volunteer aid on the staff of General Burbank, in charge of the military of the city. He organized the Soldier's Fam- ily Fund, and the Refugees' Relief Association, while as the indefatigable and popular secretary of the great sanitary fair at Cincinnati, he was largely instrumental in securing that notable contribution of $225,000 for the sick and suffering soldiers, of which our State is so justly proud. He was also a prominent mover in raising the handsome gift of $10,000, in which, at the suggestion of General U. S. Grant, the citizens of Cincinnati testified their admiration for the military genius of the hero of Atlanta, General W. T. Sherman. As the hard-working secretary of the National Union Association, Mr. Caldwell, aided by his fine physique and methodical habits, performed a vast amount of labor in organizing the Union sentiment of the State, and to him the ensuing and sweeping majority of 100,341 votes for the national cause in 1863, was largely due. It may be added that all these labors were volunteered for the public good, and without any charge being made for them. It was in fitting recognition of such services that when, in 1877, the administration of the public works of Cincinnati was reorganized in the interests of economy and efficiency, Mr. Caldwell was selected as one of the five commissioners to whom its conduct was intrusted. Nor was the public expectation disappointed in this choice. John D. Caldwell may be considered a typical Western man. Energetic, shrewd, practical, full of resources, and abounding in hope, he is endowed with a vigorous constitution, which no labors or trials seem to undermine, and whose powers
have been carefully conserved by sober, orderly, and method- ical habits of life and work. At the age of sixty-seven, he is still in the enjoyment of robust health, and yet capable of much usefulness. In his disposition he is generous, warm- hearted, and of a buoyant and cheerful spirit; a little restless, it may be ; a little impatient of inaptitude or sloth in others, and with a touch of fiery temper now and then revealing his Scotch-Irish ancestry. He is a man of pronounced opinions, an ardent republican in politics, a friend of unpopular causes, of woman's advancement, of the rights of the colored race, of radical ideas in religion and reform in society. He enjoys an unusual degree of personal popularity among all classes. This must be ascribed not only to his unselfish services for the public good, and his large and kindly disposition, but still more to the general confidence in his sterling integrity of character. His honesty has often been tried and proved, for, in spite of his large handling of public and trust funds, he remains to-day a man of comparatively small means. Few men in our State are more widely known, and few have them- selves a larger acquaintance with the past history, and the public men and measures of Ohio. For a quarter of a cen- tury he has been identified with the Ohio Historical and Phil- osophical Society, as one of its curators, and former secre- tary. Since 1856 he has been a devoted member of the Pioneer Association of Cincinnati, of which he is also the secretary. A large collector of the local history of the city, but few of his accumulated manuscripts have as yet been published. In 1845, he married Miss Margaret, daughter of Captain William Templeton, of Cincinnati. Their only child died in infancy. She is still his devoted companion and helpmate.
HETZLER, JOSEPH N., M. D., and, for a number of years, president of the North-western Ohio Medical Associ- ation, was born in Harrison County, Ohio, May 23, 1830. He is the son of Rev. Adam Hetzler, a prominent minister of the United Brethren Church. Both of his parents grew up from early childhood in Ohio; but they were Pennsyl- vanians by birth, of Pennsylvania-German descent. The maiden name of his mother was Christina Norftzgar. In 1834 his father, who, till that time had charge of a congre- gation in Eastern Ohio, was transferred to another in the western part of the State, and moved the family from Har- rison County to Germantown, in Montgomery County. Joseph was then four years old. He passed nearly all the years of his youth in Germantown, and his education was acquired in the academy of that place, together with the assistance rendered by the watchful care of his father. Having a pre- dilection for the healing art, he commenced, at the age of eighteen, the study of medicine. From Dr. C. G. Espig, of Germantown, he took his first lessons, and remained con- nected with the office of that distinguished physician while attending the usual course of lectures, and until 1851, when he was graduated at the Cleveland Medical College. Soon thereafter he began practicing his profession at St. Mary's; but ten months later he moved to Celina, where he has since resided. He was well received from the beginning. Gentlemanly in his deportment, skillful and careful in his practice, and, withal, sympathetic and considerate, he rap- idly gained an extensive patronage in Celina and vicinity. The breaking out of the civil war found him busily occupied in his calling. Catching the spirit of enthusiasm, he let physic and such things go, and devoted his time to the re-
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cruiting of Company H. of the 71st Regiment of Ohio Vol- unteer Infantry. He accepted the position of second in command of his company, went to the front, and joining General Sherman's division, was soon under fire in the memorable two days' fight at Pittsburg Landing. Shortly after the battle of Shiloh he was detailed as commissary. August 18, 1862, he was captured by the enemy. He was held as a prisoner of war, at that time, about one month. Upon his release he went to Columbus, and, being appointed quartermaster, joined the staff of General Lew. Wallace. After planning and constructing Camp Worthington, he re- signed the commission of quartermaster to accept the cap- taincy of Company G, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. As captain of cavalry he served through the campaigns of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Again captured, he was kept in the last-mentioned State at Selma ; thience he was removed to Macon, Georgia ; from there to Charleston, and finally to Columbia, South Carolina. At last, having suffered nine months of the restraint and hardships of the rebel prisons, in January, 1865, worn out and broken down in health, he was released by being exchanged, when, resigning his commis- sion in the army, he returned for rest to his home in Celina. Resuming the practice of his profession, he was soon again engaged in a large and increasing business, and enjoying the respect and esteem of his professional brethren. In 1872 he was elected president of the North-western Ohio Medical Association, and about the same time had conferred on him the title of M. D. by the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati. In 1883 he was chosen a delegate to the American Medical - Association, which institution has for its object the establish- ing of a code of ethics for the medical profession throughout the land. Doctor Hetzler is the general surgeon and physi- cian of the Toledo, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the Lake Erie and Western, and the Cincinnati, Van Wert and Michigan Railroads. He is called upon in most of the important cases of his neighborhood and surrounding counties. Dr. Hetzler is the only son of three children. Of his two sisters, one is the wife of D. E. McSherry, the successful manufacturer of Dayton, and the other is the wife of J. T. Meeker, a prac- ticing lawyer of the Greenville bar. In religious faith, the Doctor and his wife attend the services of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which they are members. Politically, he is a Democrat ; but he has not held any political official position, except that of being the first Mayor elected for the city of Celina. In the Celina Lodge of Accepted Masons, No. 241, he ranks as Past Master, and he was installed un_ der the charter of Celina Chapter, No. 120, High Priest. He has taken an active part in all_progressive movements, and has never failed to come to the rescue of all good work re- quiring his aid. He has encouraged every project looking to the real welfare of the town, and as a member of the School Board has at all times been in the lead in the intro- duction of improvements that would facilitate the education of youth, and make the common schools of Celina a credit to its people. In 1853 he was married to Miranda LeBlond. She is of French extraction, and the daughter of Everah C. LeBlond, who emigrated from France early in the present century, and settled in Knox County, Ohio, where were born to him nine children, among whom was Francis C. LeBlond, ex-member of Congress. Dr. Hetzler has had four children, two sons and two daughters. Two died in early life. Two are living-Charlie G. and Kate M. The Doctor is still an active physician. He has a pleasant residence at Celina,
which for thirty-two years has been his home, and where at all times he has enjoyed the confidence and good-will of his neighbors.
SPALDING, RUFUS PAINE, jurist and statesman, was born May 3d, 1798, at West Tisbury, Massachusetts. He was a son of Dr. Rufus Spalding, an able practitioner of med- icine. He was of the seventh generation from Edward Spal- ding, a resident of Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1640. When fourteen years old he accompanied his father from Martha's Vineyard to Norwich, Connecticut, where the family settled. He graduated from Yale College in 1817, and on leaving col- lege he entered the law office of Chief Justice Swift, of Con- necticut, author of the "Digest," who highly complimented him on his proficiency under examination and admission to practice. He at once removed to the then extreme West to commence practice, and at Little Rock, Arkansas, opened an office with Samuel Dinsmore, governor of New Hampshire in 1820. After remaining there a year and a half he re- moved to Trumbull county, Ohio, settling at Warren, where he remained sixteen years, and built up a respectable legal business. From this place he removed to Ravenna, in the adjoining county of Portage. Here his abilities were recog- nized at once, and after a sharp struggle he was elected as a democrat to a seat in the State house of representatives by a majority of one. During his term in the legislature the county of Summit was erected, and he removed thither, tak- ing up his residence at Akron. At the election in 1841 he was chosen to represent the new county in the legislature, and on the organization of the house of representatives was made speaker, a position he filled to the thorough satisfaction of all the members. During his term of office, the question of repudiating the State debt was broached, and he took strong ground against it, insisting that it would be both sui- cidal and disgraceful. Through his opposition, aided by John Brough, then auditor of the State, the scheme was dropped. In the legislative session of 1848-49 the general assembly elected him a judge of the supreme court of the State, for the term of seven years. When four years re- mained to be served, the new constitution took effect, and the office of judge became elective by the people. He refused to be a candidate for the judicial office in a popular canvass, and his services were thus lost to the bench. Whilst on the supreme bench his decisions were noted for their fairness and justice, their logical force, and the terse, clear, emphatic style and precision of expression that rendered them models of judicial literature .. His judicial opinions are contained in vols. xviii, xix, and xx, Ohio State Reports. On leaving the bench he removed to Cleveland, there resumed the practice of the law, and also took an active part in the political move- ments of the day. He had been trained a democrat, and had rendered good service to that party, but when the fugi- tive slave law was passed in 1850 he abandoned the democ- racy, and was a prominent delegate at the free-soil conven- tion of 1852, which nominated John P. Hale for the Presi- dency. When the republican party was organized, he took an active part in its councils, being a member of the first re- publican convention at Pittsburgh, in 1856, and was a delegate at large for the State of Ohio at the Philadelphia convention that nominated John C. Fremont. In October, 1862, he was elected by the republicans to represent the eighteenth con- gressional district of Ohio in Congress, and at once took a prominent part in the proceedings of the House of Represent-
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atives. He was appointed a member of the standing com- mittee on naval affairs and of the committee on revolutionary pensions, and, on the formation of a select committee on the bankrupt law, he was made its chairman. In 1864 he was reelected to his seat, and was made a member of the com- mittee on appropriations, and retained his position as a mem- ber of the committee on bankruptcy. In 1866 he was chosen for a third term in Congress, serving on the committee on ap- propriations, the committee on the revision of the laws of the United States, and upon the joint committee on the library of Congress. With this, the Fortieth Congress, his legislative career closed, the duties of the position becoming too oner- ous, and his advancing years requiring more rest than a con- scientious discharge of the trust permitted. Several months before the time of nomination, therefore, he wrote a letter to his constituents, positively declining a nomination, and an- nouncing his purpose to retire from public life. His con- gressional record was one of honor, whether regarded as that of a local representative or as a national legislator. He took part in all the leading debates, and with such effect that he received and held the attention of the house whenever he obtained the floor, and largely influenced its action. In his second term he took a leading part in legislating for the re- construction of the Southern States. In the early days of Secession he made a speech, in which he indicated the mea- sures he regarded best adapted for the purpose, and the sug- gestions he offered were subsequently adopted and worked into the reconstruction laws. The military features of recon- struction, which formed an integral part of the legislation, originated in an amendment proposed by him when the first reconstruction bill of Thaddeus Stevens was presented. In his closing term he took a somewhat independent course, dissenting from some of the measures proposed by the domi- nant section of the party to which he belonged, when their zeal, in his view, outran discretion and sound policy. In this session he took a prominent part in the financial de- bates, and his speeches attracted general attention in Con- gress and out. Besides this more brilliant part of his con- gressional life, he performed the drudgery of committee work with punctuality, patience, conscientious industry, and a sys- tematic procedure that enabled him to despatch large amounts of business satisfactorily. As a representative of his district, he was ever on the watch to further its interests, and was no- ted for the patient industry with which he attended to every wish of his constituents, collectively or individually expressed. No man ever suspected him of "bribery or corruption." After leaving Congress he returned to the practice of law and to the enjoyment of those comforts of social and domestic life which he had earned by a lifetime of distinguished public services. He was widely known for his profound knowledge of the law, power as a debater, and ability of strongly im- pressing both courts and juries. His personal appearance and manner heightened the effect of his arguments, being dignified and impressive. In October, 1822, he married Miss Lucretia A. Swift, eldest daughter of Chief Justice Zepha- niah Swift, of Connecticut. Seven children were born of this marriage, of whom but three survived. In January, 1859, he married his second wife, Miss N. S. Pierson.
HOGE, SOLOMON LAFAYETTE, lawyer, ex-Con- gressman, and banker, of Kenton, Ohio, was born July 11th, in 1838, in Logan County, Ohio. He is descended from old Vir- ginia families on both sides. His parents, Solomon G. and
Julia A. (Janney) Hoge, were both natives of Virginia, where they lived until they grew to manhood and womanhood. A few years after their marriage they came to Ohio (about 1828), and took up their home on a tract of land in Logan County. Mr. Hoge has studied both law and medicine, but never practiced either profession except a brief time in medicine. He was an active public man, and was once a candidate for State Senate on the Democratic ticket. After the war he removed to Tennessee, where he has since been engaged in conducting a large plantation which he owns. He was for several years in the Treasurer's Department at Washington. His wife died in Tennessee in 1882. Our subject received his education at the public schools of Bellefontaine. In 1856 he entered the law office of Judge James Kernan, of Bellefontaine, where he read law for two years, and then en- tered the law school at Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1859. During his law course he studied also in the office of Judge Headington, of Cincinnati, who gave him much val- uable assistance. Returning to Bellefontaine he was taken as partner by his old tutor, Judge Kernan. At the end of a successful year he went to Kenton and formed a partnership with Colonel A. S. Ramsey, an able lawyer, which continued till November, 1861, when they both entered the army. Mr. Hoge was at this time a Democrat, and out of a company of one hundred and ten men that he and another gentleman raised in ten days seventy-five were Democrats, many of whom were aroused to feelings of patriotism through his in- fluence and example. At the election of officers Mr. Hoge was chosen first lieutenant, in which capacity he served till May, 1862, when he was commissioned captain of Company G of the same regiment, 82d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of which J. S. Cantwell was colonel, who was killed at the sec- ond battle of Bull Run, and where Captain Hoge was shot through the neck. In April, 1863, he resigned his commis- sion on account of his wounds and returned home. In June, 1864, he was appointed first lieutenant in the Veteran Re- serve Corps on duty around Washington, where he served but a short time, when he was made judge advocate of a mil- itary commission and general court martial at Washington City, of which General Thomas Ewing was president. 'In the latter part of 1865 he was ordered to Montgomery, Ala- bama, to report to General Wager Swayne, and was assigned to duty at Selma, in that State, as acting past quartermaster and commissary-general, and also as judge of the freedmen's court. In the latter capacity he made a complete revolution in the administration of justice by doing away with the un- just practices which had hitherto been exercised towards the colored people. While in Selma he was appointed second lieutenant in the regular army, and ordered to report to General Sickles at Charleston, South Carolina, who assigned him to duty at Darlington as post quartermaster and com- missary, where he remained for over one year. He was then ordered to report at headquarters, in Charleston, under com- mand of General Canby, who made him judge advocate of a military commission and court-martial at that place. He was afterwards promoted to first lieutenant and a bre- vet-captaincy in the regular army, and also brevet-major of volunteers for his bravery and soldierly conduct at the second battle of Bull Run, where he was severely wounded. While at the head of the court-martial at Charleston Judge Hoge formed the acquaintance of many of the leading men of South Carolina, and with them took an active in- terest in the affairs of that State. Upon the convening of
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