USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume III > Part 56
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
Alma Mater. In 1856 he accepted the same position in the Eclectic Medical Institute, of Cincinnati. In 1870 he brought out a "Treatise on Fractures and Dislocations," and was transferred to the chair of Surgery. In 1873 he wrote a " Manual of Eye Surgery." Since then two other works have been written by him, "Principles and Practice of Sur- gery" and "Diseases of the Eye." Dr. Howe has exhib- ited much inventive talent in the construction of instruments and skill in the execution of difficult operations. He has repeatedly performed most of the great operations in sur- gery, As an expert witness in malpractice trials he has been frequently required to go long distances, and is re- garded as authority on technical points in medical jurispru- dence. Dr. Howe illustrates his lectures with striking dia- grams with crayon sketches rapidly drawn while speaking. He is a constant and valued contributor to the Eclectic Med- ical Journal, and an occasional writer for scientific and popular periodicals. As a demonstrator of anatomy he has acquired distinction, and is an active member of the Society of Natural History. Dr. Howe stands among the leading professional men and teachers in his school in the West. His scholarly attainments are acknowledged and give him precedence over many others. He is a fine speaker, a suc- cessful teacher, and as such takes rank among the distin- guished medical men of his day.
WILLIAMS, GEORGE W., was born at Bedford, Bed- ford County, Pennsylvania, on the sixteenth day of October, 1846. His father's name was Thomas Williams ; his mother's maiden name, Nellie Rouse. His father came of Welsh and Negro stock, and was the son of a Welshman by a col- ored woman. The education of young George Washington Williams was begun early. He attended a pay school for several years, and finally entered the high school, and he was among the first few colored boys to whom Massachusetts gave a first-class education. Until the breaking out of the Rebellion his life was uneventful. He had been educated into a healthy anti-slavery sentiment by reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Dred," "My Bondage and My Freedom," while his young heart had been fired by the logic of Garri- son and Parker and the eloquence of Phillips and Douglass. He was compelled to wait, in a fever of excitement, from 1861 till 1863, before he could get into the army, on account of his youthfulness and the reluctance of the government to accept colored troops. When the first call for troops of this character was made he enlisted, in the Spring of 1863. His intelligence and fine military bearing at once secured him the position of orderly sergeant. He was, in August, 1863, promoted to the sharp-shooting service, and sent to the Army of the Potomac. He served with great distinction, receiving several promotions to the close of the war, having received five wounds. At the close of the war Colonel Williams was placed on General Jackson's staff, and, on the 18th of May, sailed for Texas. He landed at the mouth of the Rio Grande River on the Ist of July, 1865. General Kirby Smith was in this department, and, when pushed by the federal forces, rushed to the border and sold his arms and munitions of war to the imperialists in Mexico, who were fighting the republicans. General Robert E. Lee, as commander-in-chief of the armies of the Confederate States of America, had made an unconditional surrender of these arms to General Grant; hence, General Smith had no authority to continue fighting or to sell his arms. They were the property of the
771
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
United States. There was a detail of officers to secure the return of this property, and Colonel Williams was on this de- tail. He spent some months in Mexico. When this service was completed he returned to Washington, when he was sent to Carlisle Barracks to drill colored troops for the regu- lar army. He won great praise as a drill-master, and was honorably mentioned by General Grear in special orders. He was ordered to the front, and spent nearly a year on de- tached service in the regular army. He was twice nominated to be an officer in the regular army, but a Republican Senate could not make up its mind to commission a colored man in the regular army, though hundreds of colored men had worn ' shoulder-straps in the volunteer army. West Point influence was felt in this instance, and Colonel Williams retired to private life. General O. O. Howard invited him to come to Washington, and, as he contemplated completing his educa- tion, to enter Howard University, which he did. At the sugges- tion of Colonel Williams the university was organized on a mili- tary plan, the students becoming cadets, and subject to daily drill and the gray uniform. He was placed in charge of the grounds, and though attending college, managed the business matters in this connection with ability and to the satisfaction of the faculty of the university. After leaving Washington he returned to Boston. He wanted to be useful to his race, so he thought of teaching and preaching. He entered Newton Sem- inary, the oldest Baptist institution in Massachusetts. He took a four years' course, and graduated with distinction in 1874. He was the first colored man ever admitted to this learned institution, and was one of the honor men, being among the orators on commencement-day. He had taken Latin, Greek, Hebrew (in which he stood one hundred), German, Spanish, and French. In college he was distinguished as a logician and orator. He was well read in literature and meta- physics, and was a remarkable student of history. He was unanimously elected pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church, of Boston, to succeed the venerable L. A. Grimes, who had served that people twenty years. He was a brilliant and fascinating preacher, but loved his books too well to be a good pastor. He had been shot through the left lung while a soldier, and the "east winds" gave him great inconve- nience. He determined to go to a milder climate. In the mean time some of his friends wanted him to stand for the chaplainship of the Massachusetts Legislature. His cause was managed by the gallant General King, of Roxbury. Letters were written urging his selection by Wendell Phillips, Will- iam Lloyd Garrison, Governor William Claflin, General W. L. Burt, Oliver Warner, Colonel R. H. Conwell, Hon. Henry L. Pierce, Hon. Rufus Frost, and many others. But this was the year the Democrats elected William Gaston Governor, and Mr. Williams was defeated by the shrewdest strategy. In 1875 Mr. Williams resigned his pastorate, his directorship of the Home for Aged Women, and his place as a staff officer in the militia service, and went to Washington and founded the Commoner. He had as contributors to its pages the eloquent Phillips, the racy Garrison, and the epi- grammatic Douglass. It was a remarkable journal, and had a wide influence. Not liking Washington as a field of labor, he turned his face to the West in the Spring of 1876. He stopped at Cincinnati, and was called at once to the pas- toral charge of the Union Baptist Church. He began news- paper work again, and for a long time was a contributor to the Cincinnati Commercial over the nom de plume of Aristi- des, and Mr. Halsted wrote of him in 1877 : " He is a writer of
good English and good sense." He afterward founded the Southwestern Review, a weekly newspaper, and edited it with ability and success. He entered the law office of Taft & Lloyd, where he spent two years. He also attended lectures at the Cincinnati Law School. He received a certificate from Judge Alphonso Taft and Major H. P. Lloyd, his law pre- ceptors, as having met the requirements of the code on the subject of law, and was subsequently admitted, after a rigid examination, to practice in the Supreme Court. In 1877 he was nominated for the Legislature, and, although he made a brilliant canvass, was defeated, as R. M. Bishop carried the county by over five thousand majority, and the State by twenty-three thousand. He was appointed by President Hayes as an officer in the Internal Revenue Service, and left a position he held in the County Auditor's office to accept it. He was secretary of the three-million loan campaign of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad. He was renominated for the Legislature in 1879, and, after a wonderful canvass, amid much bitterness and opposition in both parties, he was tri- umphantly elected. He was the first colored man this side of the Ohio River, or on the other side either, ever elected by a white constituency. As a member of the Legislature his deportment was such as to please his party and disarm the prejudice of Democrats. He is highly respected by men of all parties, and yet has always been an effective and straight-out Republican. As an orator he has few equals in either race, or in any section of the country. As a lecturer he is well received and much sought after. He has appeared in this capacity before a number of the best colleges in the country. He delivered the annual address on " Education " before the American Baptist Home Mission Society, in 1882 ; and, as orator of the day, on the 30th of May, 1881, at Akron, Ohio, followed Justice Stanley Matthews, who had been orator the preceding year, and gave great satisfaction. Colonel Williams has been the Judge Advocate General of the Grand Army of the Republic for Ohio, and was the national delegate in 1880. The colonel has completed his "History of the Negro Race in America, from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens." He ex- pects to devote his life to literature, which seems to give him real satisfaction. His education in law and theology ; his experience as a soldier, journalist, and politician, he now lays under tribute to his literary work. Socially, Colonel Williams stands very high. No more fitting tribute could be paid him than the following, from the pen of a distinguished physician of New York State, who, in replying to a letter of the writer of this sketch, after an intimate acquaintance of many years, said: "You ask about my friend Colonel George W. Williams. I have known him for years, and am glad to state that I know nothing but good of him. That he is a scholar, you are probably aware ; that he is a gentleman and a Christian, I am positively sure. Socially, he is always kind, affable, genial, and fascinating. In manners and de- portment among men or women in society, he is a modern Chesterfield; in fact, he is an improvement on Chesterfield, because his graces are inborn, rather than acquired. He is by nature a gentleman ; lofty in tone, pure in speech, honor- able in every action. Say all you can for him, and you can not say too much. Go ahead, and describe a symmetrical and thorough man, in mind and motive. Not only in the natural qualities of a gentleman does Colonel Williams excel, but in all the acquirements which may be gained in school, college, field, and forum."
772
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
BISHOP, ROBERT HAMILTON, D. D., first pres- ident of Miami University, was the son of William and Mar- garet Bishop. He was born in the parish of Whitburn, Linlithgowshire, North Britain, on the 26th of July, 1777. Having early evinced a fondness for books, as well as a mind of more than ordinary vigor, he entered on a course of clas- sical study, and in November, 1794, became a member of the University of Edinburgh. After completing his course at the university, he entered the Divinity Hall at Selkirk, under the Rev. George Lawson, in August, 1798. Here he passed through the prescribed course of theological study, and on the 28th of June, 1802, was licensed to preach the Gospel by the Associate Burgher Presbytery of Perth. In September following, he, with five other ordained ministers, embarked with Dr. Mason at Greenock, and arrived at New York before the close of October. Having attended a meet- ing of the Associate Reformed Synod, which took place shortly after his arrival, he set out, with two other clergymen, for Kentucky; but, being left to supply two new congrega- tions in Adams County, Ohio, for two months, he did not ar- rive there until March, 1803. He had been appointed to labor in Kentucky by the casting vote of the moderator of the synod-what was then called the Second Congregation of New York having made application for his services. Five years afterwards the same congregation sent him a pressing invitation to return to them, which, however, he did not ac- cept. In the summer of 1803 he had three calls presented to him in due form ; but that which he finally accepted was from Ebenezer, in Jessamine County, which was connected with New Providence, in Mercer County. The two congregations united contained about thirty families, spread over a tract of country at least fifteen miles square; and, as the Kentucky River and the Kentucky cliffs intervened between the two places of worship, the two Churches were not expected to worship together much oftener than twice in a year. About the same time a professorship in Transylvania University was offered him, and, accepting it, he combined the duties of that office with those of his charge. Having accepted the call from the above mentioned Churches in the autumn of 1804, subjects were given him for his trial discourses to be delivered in the spring; but at the spring meeting he was informed that he could not be admitted to trial for ordination till he should dissolve his connection with the Transylvania University. The reasons assigned for this were that the Presbytery had the exclusive disposal of his time, and that his duties in con- nection with the university were of such a nature as to inter- fere greatly with his usefulness to the Associate Reformed Church. This brought him into unpleasant relations with the Presbytery; and ultimately he was regularly prosecuted upon a charge of disobedience, the result of which was that he received a presbyterial rebuke, by which the matter was con- sidered as judicially settled. The case, however, being sub- sequently referred to the Synod, it was decided that the resignation of his place in the university should not be an in- dispensable condition of his ordination, and that the Presbytery of Kentucky should proceed to ordain him as soon as cir- cumstances would permit. This decision was given in June, 1807; but, owing to certain circumstances, his ordination did not take place till June, 1808. Thus, for nearly four years he was virtually under ecclesiastical process; and, although only a probationer, had yet the charge of two congregations, to which he preached alternately every Sabbath-the one fifteen miles, the other twenty-seven miles distant from his residence.
For some time after his ordination, Mr. Bishop seems to have exercised his ministry with a good degree of comfort and success. In the year 1810 the Presbytery appointed him, in connection with the Rev. Adam Rankin, of polemic notoriety, to prepare an address to the Churches, in the form of a pastoral letter, designed to illustrate the obligation of sustaining Christian institutions, and especially the ministry of the Gospel. The document was written by Mr. Bishop, assented to by Mr. Rankin, and passed without opposition by the Presbytery, though it gave great offense in certain quarters, and especially in Mr. Bishop's own congregation. The Presbytery, with a view to prevent erroneous impres- sions and to avert threatening evil, directed their clerk to address an official letter to the Ebenezer congregation, dis- tinctly stating that the offensive circular was to be considered the act of the Presbytery, and not of an individual. This letter Mr. Bishop caused to be printed, with some explan- atory remarks of his own, in the close of which he made an allusion to the conduct of Mr. Rankin, which he afterward pronounced "imprudent and unnecessary," and which occa- sioned him great embarrassment in his ecclesiastical rela- tions. His original connection with the pastoral letter led to the dissolution of his relation to the Ebenezer congregation in October, 1814. In the autumn of 1811 Mr. Bishop entered into an arrangement with two or three other clergymen for conducting a monthly religious publication, to be called the Evangelical Record and Western Review. This was the first thing of the kind ever attempted in Kentucky, and the sec- ond west of the mountains. The work, however, owing chiefly to a deficiency in the subscriptions, was discontinued at the close of the second year. In the second volume of this work Mr. Bishop published, as part of the history of re- ligion in the State of Kentucky, an article entitled."The Origin of the Rankinites," which gave great offense in vari- ous circles, and which he himself subsequently regarded as extremely ill-judged and unfortunate. After considerable private and extra-judicial conference on the subject, a regu- lar judicial inquiry was entered into by his Presbytery, and in October, 1815, he was brought to trial on a charge of slan- der ; the result of which was, he was regularly suspended from the ministry. An appeal to the General Synod from the sentence was immediately taken. The Synod met in Philadelphia in May, 1816, and, on an examination of the case presented by documents, they decided that Mr. Bishop should be publicly rebuked by the Presbytery for the offens- ive publications; that the Presbytery should use means to bring the parties immediately concerned into harmonious re- lations with each other; and that, if this could not be ef- fected, there should be a regular trial instituted, and that tlie Presbytery should make one of the parties prosecutor and the other defendant; and that, in the meantime, the sentence of suspension passed by the Presbytery should be reversed. Nothing, however, was satisfactorily accomplished under this decision, and the case came again before the Synod in 1817. At this meeting a committee was appointed to proceed to Kentucky to take whatever depositions might be considered necessary; but that committee, after some correspondence with the parties and others concerned, concluded not to ful- fill their appointment. A Synodical Commission was, there- fore, appointed in 1818, to go to Kentucky and adjudicate the case, subject to the review of the next Synod. This commission, consisting of John M. Mason, Ebenezer Dickey, and John Linn, ministers, and Silas E. Weir, an elder from
773
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
Philadelphia, proceeded to Lexington in September follow- ing, and in the execution of their trust, made Bishop the prosecutor and Rankin the defendant. The latter claimed his legal ten days to prepare for his defense; but when the time had expired, he declined the jurisdiction of the court. The trial, however, went on in his absence, and the decision was, "that the prosecutor should be publicly rebuked for the publications he had issued, and that the defendant being convicted of lying and slander, be, as he hereby is, suspended from the Gospel ministry." It is honorable to Mr. Bishop, considering the relations into which he was brought by Ran- kin, that he has left the following testimony concerning him : " Mr. Rankin, with all his bitterness on particular subjects and on particular occasions, was also, in all other matters and on all occasions, a kind-hearted, benevolent man." Mr. Bishop's twenty-one years' connection with the Transylvania University was marked by no serious difficulties or disagree- able circumstances, so far as he was personally or officially concerned. Upwards of twenty young men, who were more or less under his special care during this period, afterwards entered the ministry, and several of them rose to eminence. During one of the three years in which he considered him- self as virtually suspended from the ministry, he devoted nearly all his Sabbaths to the instruction of the negroes, and organized the first Sabbath- schools ever opened in Lexing- ton for their benefit. He has been heard to say that this was one of the most agreeable enterprises in which he ever engaged; and that in no other year of his residence in Ken- tucky had he so much evidence of the gracious presence of the Holy Spirit in connection with his labors. In October, 1819, Mr. Bishop, having dissolved his connection with the Associate Reformed Church, joined the West Lexington Presbytery in connection with the General Assembly. From 1820 to 1823 he officiated as stated supply to the Church in Lexington, which had been gathered by the labors of the Rev. James McCord; and his connection with this Church he seems to have considered as highly favorable to both his comfort and usefulness. In the autumn of 1824 he accepted the presidency of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and was inaugurated on the 30th of March, 1825. Here he found a few Christian people who had been under the care of the Rev. James Hughes, for some years principal of the grammar school in that place; and the pupils of this he gathered and formed into a Presbyterian Church, and preached to them regularly on the Sabbath in the college chapel, until the year 1831, when, as the result of a revival, in which Dr. Black- burn was the principal instrument, the Church gathered so much strength that they undertook to build a place of wor- ship and call a pastor. In 1825 he was honored with the de- gree of Doctor of Divinity from the College of New Jersey. In the great controversy which divided the Presbyterian Church in 1838, Dr. Bishop's sympathy and action were with the New School. In 1841 he resigned the presidency of Mi- ami University, but held the professorship of History and Political Science until the autumn of 1844, when his connec- tion with the institution ceased. He then removed to Pleas- ant Hill, a beautiful spot in the immediate neighborhood of Cincinnati, where there was already an academy which, partly through his agency, was now enlarged into a college, under the name of the "Farmers' College." Here he remained actively and usefully employed to the close of life. Dr. Bishop preached regularly in the chapel to the students as long as he retained the presidency of the university, but after
that, had no stated charge. He preached, however, very fre- quently during his subsequent years, and his last sermon was preached on the 15th of April, 1855, but two weeks before his death. As he left his house to preach this sermon, he distinctly told his wife it would be his last. He heard his classes as usual on Thursday, and was going to the college on Friday morning, when his strength failed, so that he was no longer capable of making an effort. He lingered until five o'clock Sabbath morning (April 29th), his usual hour of rising, and then died, as he had often expressed a wish to die, "in the harness." On the 25th of August, 1802, just as he was on the eve of embarking for America, he was married to Ann Ireland, by whom he had eight children, five sons and three daughters. All his sons were graduates of Miami University. Two of them became clergymen and one of them a professor in the university at which he graduated. Mrs. Bishop survived her husband but two weeks.
HUFFMAN, WILLIAM P., banker of Dayton, Ohio, was born there, October 18th, 1813. His grandfather was of German, and his grandmother of English birth. His grand- father, William Huffman, emigrated from Holland sometime in the decade following 1730, and settled in Monmouth county, New Jersey. William P. Huffman is the only son of William Huffman. and Lydia Knott, natives of the county and State just named. They settled in Dayton in May, 1812, where for more than half a century, William Huffman was a prom- inent business man, for many years a merchant, and after- wards very extensively engaged in dealing in real estate and loaning money. He was a shrewd, sagacious financier, ac- cumulated a large amount of property, and was very gener- ally respected. He died in January, 1866, in his ninety- seventh year. His mother lived to enter her one hundred and seventh year. His wife died in March 1865, in her eighty-seventh year. In the early schools of his native city, our subject obtained a fair English education. At an early age he read law under the instruction of the late Warner Munger, Sr., of Dayton, not with a view of adopting that pro- fession, but solely as a means of acquiring a more thorough business education. He was initiated into practical business life when quite a youth, by being made assistant to his father in the transactions of his business, the more important of which he continued to attend to, through the life of the for- mer. On October 18th, 1837, he married Miss Anna M., daughter of Samuel Tate, Esq., of Montgomery county. Early in 1837, he left the city and for some ten years, was engaged in farming. In the spring of 1848, he returned to Dayton and has since been very extensively engaged in real estate dealing and in building operations. He has purchased a large amount of land, subdivided and platted it into city lots, and has also erected a large number of business houses and dwellings, among them the " Huffman block," on Third street, a very large four story stone front structure, one of the finest in the city, and is owned by him and his sisters. He has been quite prominently identified with a number of the local enterprises of Dayton, among them, the Third Street City Railway, of which he has been president since its organ- ization; the Dayton and Springfield turnpike, of which he was one of the original owners, has since been a director, and for about twenty years its president. He has also been a director, and the treasurer of the Cooper Hydraulic Company from the month of January, 1869. In May, 1863, he was one of the organizers of the Second National Bank of Dayton, a
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.