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fled with some educational enterprise of the people, either as County Examiner, Superintendent, teacher, Trustee or committeeman.
The genius of the public schools has pursued him and haunted him until there was scarcely any escape from its influence or blandishments. The vigor of his manhood has been spent in the schoolroom, and the skill of his drilled brain has, through long and toilsome years, been employed in endeavor to educate the youth submitted to his care and inspire them with lofty and laudable ambitions. He has performed his duty and can not fail to know it. In the sphere of teacher he possessed singular fitness, and to all its situations he readily addressed himself.
He must be written down as one of the successful teachers of Wayne county. He seems to have enjoyed the natural as well as the acquired qualifications of the teacher. He had a just, well- balanced confidence in himself and in his ability. His moral nature was sufficiently enlightened to impart to him a keen conception of his duty, and his conscience forbade him shrinking from it. He was also, by his very composition, a very determined man, and this determination communicated force and momentum to all his actions ; hence, with his strong moral convictions, his clear sense of duty, and his resolute nature, he established government, erected order and asserted the manhood of the teacher. His name is permanently associated with the High, Graded and other schools of the city of Wooster. With the teachers of Wayne county he possesses a remarkable influence, and especially with the younger class, who dwell upon his words and highly value his counsel. As County School Examiner he was deservedly popular.
His mind being essentially calculative, the range of its exercise could not easily be confined to the mathematics of the school room. With an excellent comprehension of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, the calculus, etc., he practicalized his attainments in the domain of surveyor and civil engineer.
He was elected Surveyor of Wayne county in 1844, and has served officially in that capacity at different times nineteen years since then. His labors in this respect continue whether in or out of office, and his lines, angles and corners are trusty land-marks, He is as familiar with the science of quantities, mixed, pure or speculative, as he is with the sections or topography of the county. His valuable services rendered as engineer in the construction of the Wooster water works, and his remarkable fertility and
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exactness in the delineation of plans, contributed largely to the consummation of that splendid enterprise of the citizens of
Wooster.
While it is probable that the atmosphere of politics may not be cogenial to the olfactories of Mr. Brinkerhoff he has, nevertheless, upon several occasions been compelled to breathe it, and with, we believe, invigorating effect upon the body politic.
He was elected to the House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, serving from January 4, 1864, to January I, 1866. He proved himself to be a working, vigilant member, promptly at the post of duty, and keenly alive to the interests of his constituents and the welfare of the public.
It will be seen by this narrative that Mr. Brinkerhoff has passed his sixty-fourth year, an age to which but a decimal of the human race attain. By a life of strictest sobriety and temperance, of great evenness, moderation and method, not yielding to mental or physical excitements, unsapped by excesses, unvisited by the assaults of destructive passions, he is to-day in the very prime of manhood, the possessor of "a sound mind in a healthy body," with every faculty susceptible of its strongest tension and activity. He is a man of powerful convictions, and when assured that he is right he will not be swerved from his opinion. He is a tangible, certain man. There are no fungus growths in his character. He is of a placid and hopeful temperament and indulgent and magnanimous disposition. He believes the world is better than moralists would have us admit ; has faith in the destiny of man, withholding judgment against a brother rather than pronouncing it. He has a hearty amen for every good work, and in most cases leans to a verdict of "not proven," He belongs to the United Presbyterian church, of which he has been a lifelong and prominent member.
JOHN P. JEFFRIES.
John Parsons Jeffries, of Wooster, Ohio, the author of the "Natural History of the Human Races," is a lawyer by profession. He was born in Huntington county, Pa., July 19, 1815. His parents, Mark and Rebecca Parsons Jeffries, were both of old English stock, Quaker on the maternal side, whose genealogy can be traced for over two centuries, their immediate ancestors for several generations residing in Chester county, Pa.
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His early opportunities for education were only such as were attainable at that time, and this was procured at the select school, as the system of instruction was then not so diffusive and liberal as at this later day. However, by the exercise of indomitable energy and a determined will, he became a ripe scholar, profound lawyer and a man of means, and may properly and emphatically be ranked with our self-made men.
In April, 1836, Mr. Jeffries left his native place and settled at Wooster, May 14, of the same year, where he has ever since continued to reside. He was married in 1838 to Miss Jane McMonigal, second daughter of Andrew McMonigal, one of the early pioneers of Wayne county, the union resulting in five sons and two daughters, viz : Lemuel, Sarah Matilda, Linnaeus Quinby, Joseph Oello, Delano, Viola Rebecca and Julian Parsons, all of whom are living, except Matilda, who married Samuel J. Price and died in Harrisonburg, Rockingham county, Virginia, in 1865.
His inclinations in early life were for mechanical pursuits, and for several years he followed the occupation of millwright, in which he was eminently successful. Possessed of strong native powers of intellect, that field became too narrow for him, when he turned his attention to the law, which opened up to his eager mind a larger range of study and thought. To the student, no profession presents so vast a field for intellectual activity as the law. In its study and practice, philosophy, the arts and sciences are all brought into requisition.
In 1842 he was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio. His abilities, industry and fidelity to his clients, immediately introduced him into active practice, and soon placed him in the front rank of his profession. At that time the Wooster bar was conspicuous for its ability throughout the State. Judges Willis, Silliman, Dean, Avery, Cox and Carter were its leading members, although other distinguished lawyers were also in practice then, prominent among whom were Samuel Hemphill, James C. Miller, William McMahan and General Samuel R. Curtis. All of these, save Carter, are dead.
From the beginning Mr. Jeffries enjoyed a large and lucrative practice, not only in Wayne county, but throughout the State. His integrity and purity of character ; his, power of research, investigation and combination ; his varied and accurate general knowledge; his untiring energy and perseverance, have given him a wide and worthy reputation, both as a man and lawyer. Few
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men in the practice of the legal profession have accomplished more in winning causes in the exciting collisions of the forum, or in establishing reputation for legal acumen and a profound and comprehensive knowledge of the law, than Mr. Jeffries. During his long and successful practice he has had associated with him as partners in his profession, the following prominent lawyers: Judge C. C. Parsons, Sen. (now on the bench), Judge William Given (deceased), Judge William Sample (deceased), and Judge Martin Walker, all eminent jurists, the latter at the present time being District Judge of the United States for the Northern District of the State of Ohio. These were his only partners until 1877, when he associated with him in practice his son, L. Q. Jeffries.
One professional characteristic of Mr. Jeffries is his uniform disposition to treat with the most marked lenity and courtesy the younger members of the bar. This is quite commonly remarked of him, and is a noble and manly expression of the higher and finer qualities of human nature. The reverse of this is of frequent occurrence with the older lawyers, but is a mean and detestable habit.
For many years, and until recently, Mr. Jeff ries took an active part in politics. He served four years as State's Attorney of Wayne county, and, as an evidence of his accuracy and sagacity as a pleader, it said that not a single one of his legal papers was held defective.
In 1858 the Democracy of the Fourteenth Congressional District, composed then of the counties of Wayne, Ashland, Medina and Lorain, in Convention, gave him a unanimous nomination as their candidate for Congress. He was not successful in the canvass, however, Gen. Cyrus Spink, his opponent, being elected ; but, notwithstanding it was a strong Republican District, Mr. Jeffries' large vote was quite flattering to his personal popularity.
In 186o he was a delegate to the National Democratic Conventions at Charleston and Baltimore, from the Fourteenth District above named, and instructed to vote for Stephen A. Douglas, which he did, taking a prominent part in both Conventions, and in the spirited campaign that followed. As an event of those days it may be stated that on the 24th of September of that year, Herschel V. Johnson, the candidate for Vice President, visited Wooster. The coming of this distinguished gentleman was obtained through the personal influence of Mr. Jeffries. He met Mr. Johnson in Harrisburg, Pa., made a speech with him at Altoona, and by filling some of his appointments elsewhere in that State, and
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accompanying him to Pittsburg, prevailed upon him to proceed on to Wooster, where he addressed an immense assemblage to the highest admiration of the Democracy.
He received, in 1860, a majority of the popular vote of the Wooster district for Common Pleas Judge, but not desiring the position he withdrew his name upon the eve of nomination, which secured the nomination to Wm. Sample, of Coshocton county.
In 1862 he was elected by the people of Wayne county a mem. ber of the State Legislature by the home vote, the soldiers' vote giving his antagonist a small majority, and not desiring the position he did not contest his seat.
Mr. Jeffries, in 1844, commenced collecting facts concerning the primitive peoples of this continent, and continued his research until 1868, when he produced his volume entitled the "Natural History of the Human Races," which was published in New York in 1869.
His first aim was to write a History of the American Indians, and, in order to do so, visited many of the tribes and examined the antiquities of the country supposed to be of Indian origin ; but their history unfolded to him a much wider and more comprehensive field than he at first conceived, whereupon he extended his inquiry to the whole human family, and has given to the world the above-named accurately written and most valuable work.
Upon the production of this compendium of the origin of the races, wherein the boldness and tenability of his propositions are so maturely and scientifically elaborated, Mr, Jeffries may securely rest his reputation as a philosophical and candid expounder of ethnological truth, and to which may be referred the basis and certainty of a lasting and enviable renown. His dissertation upon the origin of the American type of the human family, or the American Indians, supplies a necessity in ethnological history heretofore most culpably neglected by the most erudite writers upon this intricate but most interesting science. There can be no room for conjecture as to the correctness of his propositions concerning their origin, and the means and methods by which they obtained possession of the continent ; and his classification and localization of the different tribes is at once comprehensive, lucid and conclusive. To the American student of ethnological history is it especially attractive, as it solves many of the mysteries relating to these nomadic tribes, who have been grievously desti-
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tute of proper annals and without an exponent of their manners, habits and character.
Mr. Jeffries has, we believe, never made any personal effort to introduce his book to the public beyond the first edition, yet it has found its way into many of the largest libraries, not only of this country but of Europe. A few years ago, in an official document, bearing the seal of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, he received most complimentary mention of his work, with intelligence that it was numbered upon the shelves of its library as a valuable contribution to ethnological science. It is quoted from in the leading magazines of both countries as corroborative of similar theories sought to be advanced by distinguished scientists in the same field of investigation.
The press highly commends the work. The following extracts from a few of the notices indicate the prevailing sentiment :
From the New York World.
This contribution to ethnology is a carefully prepared summary of the knowledge possessed on the subject. Mr. Jeffries discusses the question of the antiquity of man, his distribution, his physical nature and natural history. He examines the peculiarities of the various types, devoting a large space to the American and African races. In general, he accepts the theory of the unity of the human family, but considers that theories in reference to human equality should be considered in the light cast on these questions by a knowledge of the respective endowments, physical, mental and moral, of the various races.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The when, the where, and the how of man's origin has been the subject of interesting and perplexing inquiry for ages. * * * Then comes that other perplexing inquiry as to the cause of the different types or races of mankind. Are they the offspring of a single pair, or are they separate and distinct creations ? The work before us takes the ground that each type or race is a distinct creation of Almighty power, formed for their respective zones, and unfitted for perfect development out of them. The author scouts the idea that the diversity of race is accidental, or as being inconsistent with man's natural history and the changeless laws of nature. No one ever knew of an instance where a negro was accidentally born of Caucasian parents, nor a case where the white man was accidentally born of negro parents ; nor does history show an instance of the typical complexion of a race being changed by climate. No agency can perform such a change but amalgamation, and that inevitably leads to deterioration and death.
Our author has entered fully into all these matters, presented candidly the various theories and the grounds upon which they are based.
Two facts are particularly prominent in the work, hut not more so than they are in the history of the races, which are, that the whites embody the active intellectual force of the world which has imparted to Christian civilization its prominence and its triumphs ; that the negro is the great representative of moral and intellectual stagnation. What the negro is now, he was over four thousand years ago, and will be four thousand years hence. Natures so dissimilar require different
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management, and to attempt to make them co-equals with the whites in the same government is a crime, which no humanitarianism can hide or wipe out.
From the Scientific American.
This book contains a great deal of rare and valuable information concerning the history of our race, and in respect to which the mass of mankind know but very little.
From the Phrenological Journal.
The author advocates the theory of the original diversity of the human creation, that is, that there were the following five great types of the human family Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, African and American. His book gives evidence that, notwithstanding his legal practice of a quarter of a century's duration, he has found leisure for extended research in ethnology, and presents its results in this work in an entertaining and understandable manner.
We commend the book to the attention of all who are interested in the study of ethnology and kindred subjects.
From the New York Express.
The author gives an elaborate and learned investigation of the subject; bring. ing to the aid of his theory that there was an original diversity of the human creation, of which there were five distinct types : the Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan,' American and African. This mooted question has been ably argued by opposing scientists, and the present work will find many earnest readers who take interest in the discussion. We recommend the book, for the candid and lucid manner the author treats the subject, and can with justice afford him the commendation that he presents an array of interesting ethnological facts that are valuable to the inquirers into this deeply interesting problem. The work is profusely illustrated by valuable specimens of types of the different races, and the mechanical execution of the volume is unexceptionable.
There is a versatility about the attainments of Mr. Jeffries that is somewhat remarkable. That he should, at hours of leisure, or at intervals apart from his legal studies, have produced a work upon the distinct peoples of the earth, is almost incredible. Lawyers as a rule only bridge the chasms, tunnel the mountains, and ascend the peaks of the law. There are distinguished exceptions to this rule, of course, yet the proposition is true applied to them as a class. That they should become politicians is quite natural, as their oratorical powers are ever in requisition, but that they should incline to and consummate scientific and philosophical expositions in conjunction with local politics and law, is most notable.
The geologic chapters of this work, as intimated elsewhere, are from his pen, and while they, more properly speaking, are but abbreviations from his notes, we call attention to them as an epitome of systematized, compact, concrete, scientific thought.
To his acquisitions in the domain of scientific exploration we may add the other equally distinguished ones of the lawyer. The
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legal service, though it is in many respects, as the great Wirt asserted, "dry, dark, cold and revolting,"e an old feudal castle in perfect preservation, yet a legal architect, like Mr. Jeffries, who aspires to the honors of the profession, takes great delight in exploring it.
His arguments at the bar are replete with legal knowledge, logical acumen, fullness of vocabulary, and he is felicitous in his analysis and application of evidence to law. He is one of the world's toilers, who believes there is no excellence without great labor. He is patient in all things, and maintains that wisely directed effort which secures all needful results. The lightnings of God are terrible, but the mattock sinks deeper holes in the earth than it. He is an indefatigable and discriminating reader, and draws the virtue out of the best books as hot water draws the strength of tea leaves. His mind is of the strictly ratiocinative order ; from the parts of things, by rational presumptions and comparisons, he is apt to arrive at just, logical and reliable conclusions.
Mr. Jeffries is a genuine American citizen, though he inherits the English temperament, and is brave, cordial and hearty. He is a thorough gentleman, plain and unaffected, singularly affable and courteous, but opposed to all ultra refinement. Upon acquaintance he instantly impresses you with his social inclinations, his manner being polite and accessible.
Though the revolving years have sifted snow upon his hair, he retains his vivacity and vigor, and possesses an erect and well-developed figure. He is grave, sedate and dignified in his deportment and easy and polite in his action. He is frank, open and manly in expression, firm and resolute, fighting hard for the sly hare, success, and catching her ; is careful and temperate in all his habits—except that he will work too hard, which he had better quit. His domestic attachments are strong, and in the circle of home he is the luminous center.
C. C. PARSONS.
Hon. C. C. Parsons was born near Ithaca, Tompkins county, State of New York, 135 miles west of Albany, September 25, 1819. His father, Jabez Parsons, was a native of New Hampshire, and was married to Miss Petronella Cutler, of the State of Vermont. His grandfather, named Jabez, was a soldier in the
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War of the Revolution, one of the secretaries of Major General Israel Putnam, and among other of his achievements, it may be mentioned that he was by the side of Generals Washington and Lee in the memorable conflict of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, which resulted disastrously to the British forces under Clinton. For services rendered in the war of American Independence he became one of the worthy pensioners of the Government.
The father of Judge C. C. Parsons began life as a shoemaker, though he subsequently embarked in mercantile business, and, we believe, likewise pursued the ocupation of a farmer. He emigrated to Medina county, Ohio, in 1831. Hon. C. C. Parsons, his son, removed with his father to Medina county, when he was but fourteen years of age. His early education consisted in attendance upon the common schools of the State of New York, prior to his coming to Ohio, and three years patronage of McGregor's Academy after his arrival.
At the age of sixteen he frrst presented himself in the role of teacher, taking charge of a school near " Johnston's Corners," in Summit county. His next school was taught in Sharon, Medina county, Ohio. For eight years he devoted himself to teaching and going to school. In 1839 he removed to Sugarcreek township, Wayne county, where, in the village of Dalton, he continued his profession as teacher, successfully serving in that capacity for three or four years. Having resolved upon the study of the law during this period, he commenced his elementary course of reading with Charles Wolcott, Esq., and after two years of close and attentive study, was admitted to practice in 1841, at the Circuit Court in Wooster.
He was twice married. First, March 11, 1841, to Miss Eliza Cahill, of Dalton, by which marriage there are six living children; second to Aurelia A. Foote, September 10, 1858, and has two children. In March, 1841, he commenced the legal practice in Dalton, and soon established himself as a sound counselor and good lawyer. Identifying himself with the old Democratic party, he soon achieved prominence and popularity with that organization, and in 1848 was elected Auditor of the county by a majority of eight or nine hundred ; he was re-elected in 185o.
From 1851 to 1855 he practiced law with Eugene Pardee; from 1855 to 1862, he was in partnership with Hon. John P. Jeffries. In 1862 he was appointed Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the incompetency and resignation of
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William M. Weiker. To this position he was elected in the fall of i862, and re-elected in the fall of 1865. In 1863 he entered into partnership with Hon. John McSweeney, which continued until October, 1876, when he was elected Judge of the third subdivision of the Sixth Judicial District of Ohio, assuming his official responsibility on the second Wednesday of February, 1877.
The career of Judge C. C. Parsons, from the time he entered upon professional and official life, has been a busy, honorable and successful one. Like many of the eminent lawyers, jurists, and other professional men who, by dint of solid energy, have risen to prominence, his origin was an obscure one, possessing neither wealth nor influence to recommend him to popular favor.
From the time, at the age of sixteen, when he first hit " the buffer of life" as an humble school teacher, to the date of his ascension to the Judgeship, his experience has been one of toil and study. Possessed of a good English education, with vigor of intellect, logical symmetry, a mind self-drilled and trained to rigid modes of thought, he advanced to his personal conflicts with advantages not enjoyed by more cultivated and brilliant scholars. His habits of hard, original, exhaustive thought made him self- reliant, tenacious and independent, and imparted, not only a logical, but an inflexible character to his conclusions.
A teacher for many years of others, the inference is admissible that he did not fail to be instructed, and in the school-room, by the very nature of his mental organization, he would establish rule and system, and his pupils would acquire and develop by simply unfolding himself. He could not fail to make plain subject matter.
During his ten years of official life he discharged his public duties with scrupulous fidelity and a punctilious regard for every public obligation. Taking charge of the Clerk's office after the malfeasance and general neglect of William Weiker, he reduced chaos to order and confusion to method. He has surrounded his various honorable political promotions with an atmosphere of integrity and probity at once creditable to himself and worthy of imitation by his successors.
As an attorney, he attained enviable prominence at the Wooster bar. Combined with the qualities of a sound lawyer, he introduced the technical brevities and exactitudes of the business man. If a client had legal transactions with which he entrusted him he was ready and prepared to take hold of them, and no superfluous words were needed to urge him to vigilance. On trial day he was
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ready for trial. His self-possession never deserted him, and at the right time and place his self-assertion re-enforced him and made him strong. He was a first-class pleader, where the lawyer must be "a master in logic-fence; " a sound, incisive analyst ; a critical expert, and at times a torturing cross-examiner, full of bitterness, withering rebuke and rankling sarcasm.
To the jury he talked pithily, plainly, pointedly, seldom amplifying, and always aiming to convince by the cogency and validity of argument and a copious, methodical and sagacious presentation of facts. The law with him was the spear of Ajax, with which to stab an adversary, and the facts the club of Hercules with which to pommel him. When once entrenched in the authorities he delivered spirited and courageous battle.
To the bench Judge Parsons has borne his legal learning, his acute, discriminating reason, his calm, sober judgment and an unswerving sense of right—those most important pre-requisites in a Judge—and we doubt not, in this new and dignified province of jurisprudence he will fully sustain his past reputation as a lawyer and add other honors to his name.
In his Court criminals will not go unwhipt, and offense, though it wear a "gilded hand," will not "shove by Justice."
KIMBALL PORTER.
Colonel Porter was born in Lee, Massachusetts, on the 4th of July, 1803. He resided in Wooster from 1831 to 1856, and was marked as being one of its most prominent citizens in all respects. A man of unusual business enterprise, he was especially identified with the successful management of the stage coach line, of which, for many years, he was Superintendent. On the advent of the railroad through this part of Ohio he went West to assume a similar position there, and died in Iowa City, Iowa, June 27, 1863. His body was brought to Wayne county for interment in the Wooster Cemetery. Few men were more deservedly popular for noble, personal characteristics than Kimball Porter, and many cherish his memory with tenderest emotions. He was a member of the Disciple church, and died as he had lived, a zealous and consistent Christian.
HON. GEORGE REX.
George Rex was born in Canton, Stark county, Ohio, July 25,
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1817. He is a son of Jacob and Catharine Rex, who emigrated from Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pa., and settled in Canton in May, 1815. His parents were members of the Methodist church for thirty years and their lives were exemplary, pious and pure. His mother died April, 1867, and his father April 27, 1876, at the residence of his son-in-law, Hon. John McSweeney of Wooster.
George Rex spent his earlier years in Canton under the guidance and care of his parents and under the shadow of the family circle, where germinate and grow, under the fostering care of father and mother, those great clusters of human virtues which in the coming years ornament so many lives, and illustrate the goodness and beneficence of parental teaching. He attended school at the Lutheran Seminary at Canton, for one year and a half, when that institution was removed to Columbus and incorporated as the Capital University, after which he continued as a student for two years, devoting himself to mathematics, the higher branches of scientific and philosophical study, as well as to the German language and literature and the classics.
After his return to Canton at the Christmas vacation, in the winter of 1833-34, he was employed for three years during the winter season to teach the public schools of that city. He commenced reading law in the fall of 1839 with Hon. John Harris, for many years a leader of the bar of Stark county, and on the Loth of October, 1842, was admitted to practice, by the Supreme Court of
the State of Ohio.
He removed to Wooster February 9, 1843, and engaged in the practice of the legal profession, where he has since continued to live, and where, with the exception of time devoted to official duties, he has zealously and assiduously applied himself to the solution of the technicalities and riddles of the legal science. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Wayne county in the fall of 1847, and re-elected in Obtober, 1849. In October, 1851, he was chosen to the Senate of the State of Ohio from the District of Wayne and Holmes, where he served with distinguished ability ; was elected by that body President pro tern., and in that capacity very soon achieved the distinction of being a superior presiding officer, and one of the best parliamentarians in the State. In October, 1859, he was again elected to the office of Prosecuting Attorney of Wayne county, and in the fall of 1861 re-elected to the same office. At the August term of 1864 he was appointed by the Court—Judge Sample upon the bench—Prosecutor of the
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county, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of the incumbent elect. At the October election in 1867 he was chosen a second time to the Senatorship of Ohio, representing the counties of Wayne, Holmes, Knox and Morrow, serving through the regular session of 1868, and the adjourned session of 1869.
On the 11th of September, 1874, he was appointed and commissioned by Governor William Allen as Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Hon. Walter F. Stone, and was elected by the people of the State to the same office the ensuing October.
He served upon the Supreme Bench of the State until February 9, 1877, at which time his term expired, meantime persistently declining a nomination for the same honor on the State ticket in the fall of 1876.
At an early period in the life of Judge Rex, he became a member of the Ancient Order of Freemasonry. In April, 1846, he became a member of Ebenezer Lodge, No. 33, at Wooster, and soon arose to the office of Master of the Lodge, which he held for more than twelve years ; also holding the office of High Priest for a long number of years in Wooster Chapter, No. 27, and of the Council, No. 13. He arose rapidly in the Order in the State, having served as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the State of Ohio, and was also elected and served as Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of the State of Ohio.
He was married May 24, 1853, to Ella J. McCurdy, a daughter of William McCurdy, a long resident and prominent citizen of Wooster.
Since his retirement from the judicial responsibilities of the bench of Ohio, Judge Rex has resumed the practice of law in the city of Wooster.
The data concerning Mr. Rex we did not receive until after our arrival in Indianapolis with our manuscript for publication, and we can now but regret that our material is so meager in detail. Knowing him as we do, with his certain indisposition to be tampered with, either by paragraphist or journalist, we may probably leap our province in doing more than simply erecting upon a page the line of facts within our possession. But as we propose to have respect for the last decisions of the Court, so we are inclined to obey the mandate of our last judgment, and upon our own responsibility throw the rein upon the neck of our pen. ?
Judge George Rex is a marked man, well poised, possessing
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mental and physical equilibriums, and seldom susceptible of agitation. He is self constructed, self-disciplined and self-governed.
Nature endowed him with a strong, compact brain, with possibilities of expansive development, the texture of which is fine, fibrous and solid. He depends upon himself, and between his brain and his right hand there can be no misunderstanding. He was a student from the period when he entered college, and resolute in his determination to achieve proficiency and high standards in his studies. The disposition to acquire was manifest, and when this ingredient of the mind is present, the ability is usually in attendance.
After his abandonment of college he commenced teaching, a vocation for which nature had especially qualified him. In college he would be a worker by the very force and iron in him, and out of it identical dispositions would control him, for our dispositions are only that many wheels set within us, upon which we are driven about by that adroit and daring horseman, the Will. He would labor constantly and perseveringly, striking when the iron was hot, or making it hot by striking. Into the school-room he would convey all his energy and application. By every law of necessity, by every principle of philosophy, such a man, in such a profession, must meet with success.
He is a lawyer of wide, thorough and varied attainments. If it be true that law is but common sense systematized, George Rex entered the profession with superior natural qualifications. Primarily, his mind had a legal cast, and by years of training and field-discipline, it weighs a legal principle with the delicate accuracy of an apothecary's scale. If Blackstone had not lived, and Kent and Story had not ached and written, he could nevertheless have been a lawyer, and his counsel would have been safe and just. His legal opinions would have been good, unsupported by authority or precedent. A society or community would be well governed that would submit to codes and manuals that would originate exclusively in his own mind.
As a counselor he is a sure guide, never misleading his client, or luring him by groundless hopes of success in ambiguous situations, His pleadings are the best evidence of the method and logical compactness of his brain, as they seldom admit of assaults from opposing counsel. In his sphere as an advocate he brings the entire enginery of logic to bear upon the court and jury. He reasons accurately, closely, keenly, fairly, and will not violate a
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logical rule, if its legitimate result should be against him. Afford him the tangible premise, and the conclusion that determines, comes. He aims not to hoodwink or deceive a jury, but to convince it, and if circumstances are favorable, he is apt to do it. Truth is gold, but when presented by some minds it has greater brightness; when it is his offering there is unction in it, for his lips are accustomed to the use of it. His client must have fair play, and the benefit of the "reasonable doubt." He will defend a criminal with the same earnest and acute vigor with which he would prosecute him, and for the very brave reason that he believes it to be right, and because it is right.
On the Supreme Bench of Ohio he added to an already established reputation as a lawyer the luster of the jurist.
In all his official relations, whether as Prosecutor, Senator, or Supreme Judge of the State of Ohio, he bore a spotless name.
He was one of the committee, after the adoption of the New Constitution, that drafted the wise and beneficent school law of the State. His life has been a decidedly public and useful one. His official career has been one to which his friends can advert with assuring recollections, and which he, in the sober decline of a strong-aimed life, can contemplate with pleasure and satisfaction. It were well if more men like him were in every community. He is bold, fearless, outspoken, of decided opinions, independent views, sound judgment and firm convictions. When he arrives at a conclusion he is apt to remain with it, and for the excellent reason that he has thoroughly investigated the matter in issue before he attained it. Hence with him there is little occasion for changing it or reviewing the proof. He is versed in the Latin classics, is an excellent English and German scholar, is a reader, a student and a thinker—thinks because he can not help it. He is a mathematician like Brinkerhoff, full of known and unknown quantities, and his business habits are arithmetic, algebraic, geometric and trigonometric. He does nothing by halves, or quarters, but finishes all he undertakes, and undertakes no more than he can execute. His word is followed by the act—is quick, ready, prompt, and would discharge a private secretary in a minute if he were laggard a second time. In a word, he is punctual, and " punctuality is the politeness of kings."
He is a good controversialist—at times, we imagine, enjoys opposition, as such friction is needed to sharpen and polish highly- tempered natures. He is agreeable and fluent in conversation,
PICTURE OF E. QUINBY, JR.
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stands on the edge of his topic, and talks from the rim to the center. Tortuous syllables, lumbering words and Alexandrine sentences are abominations. He believes, with Dr. Holmes, that the smaller the caliber of mind the greater the love of a perpetually open mouth.
Politically Mr. Rex is a Democrat, and is a vigorous and uncompromising exponent of the principles of his party.
There are some innate traits in his social physiognomy that may be misunderstood. Though sometimes seemingly self-assertive, he is as free from dogmatism as he is from cant. He has the keenest appreciation of a joke, and on occasion can laugh as loud as Firestone at a good one well told. Though sedate and firm, at times his fancy is sportive and his genius playful. The aesthetic taste is largely developed in him, and if he does not admire flowers and works of art, bright lawns and garden spots, and all that is beautiful in the world, he has consciously repressed some of the instinctive qualities of his nature.
E. QUINBY, JR.
There is more or less difficulty in writing a sketch of such a man as Ephraim Quinby, Jr., pressing on, as he does, steadily and quietly through the mazes of human life like a placid, even stream. We fancy that Bierstadt, in the Pacific canyons, or Frankenstein at the Great Cataract, found ampler range for the artistic faculty than they would in the serene landscape touched and made beautiful alone by silent sunshine and perpetual verdure. And yet the picture of such a landscape would be sublime and exquisitely interesting.
In a life in which we find no brilliant passages of public polity or scientific conquest, of either diplomacy or war, there is but a glint of light and shadow to present to the world for its admiration or applause ; for the world is a tardy, jealous jury, and appears stupid and obtuse to the appreciation of any rare merit or silent, solid worth.
It is a fact, probably pretty well understood, but we desire to emphasize it, that but very few of our prominent citizens have acquired either their wealth or influence by inheritance. Those who have made their mark in commerce, speculation, finance, or in law, like McSweeney, have chiefly commenced life's duties with
30
466 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
only the capital of energy and industry to guarantee them success in the sharp and stubborn contest for happiness, independence and fortune. It is no credit to the hereditary prince, or the scion of a millionaire, to roll in luxury, to possess landed estates, or the ability, if he have the inclination, to endow universities, manipulate railroads or sway legislatures; but to the young man whose capital is vested in his native energies, who flings himself against the shores of the great world, and who, against adverse situations, says to the storms, "I will meet you," and to the world, " I am yet to be one in your sharp conflicts" to him, we affirm, are due phrases of eulogy and ascriptions of praise.
A possessor of qualities which, measured by their practical exercise and application have resulted in extraordinary success, Mr. Quinby* at an early period ventured upon life, prosecuting to the present time, its varied routine of duties with earnest, undemonstrable, steadfast aim.
Ephraim Quinby, Jr., was born in Warren, Trumbull county, Ohio, and is a son of the late Judge Ephraim Quinby, the founder and proprietor of Warren, and brother of Samuel Quinby, deceased, a memoir of whom elsewhere appears. About the year 1823-24 he separated from the paternal mansion, then being in his tenth year, and removed to Wayne county, making his home with his brother, Samuel Quinby, then a resident of Wooster, holding the office of Receiver of Public Moneys for the United States Land Office for the District of Wooster, and simultaneously the office of Treasurer of Wayne county.
He remained with his brother until July, 1828, assisting him in his office as occasion permitted and attending the village schools respectively taught by J. C. Spink, N. Luccock, I. Spink and William Warne.
During this year he entered upon the duties of clerk in the
* It may here be appropriate to remark, that the data we have obtained concerning Mr. Quinby's life, has been procured under difficulties which, to some extent, will form an apology for the meagerness of our narrative. This is partly to be attributed to the constant pressure of his business engagements, but we believe, is more particularly due to his modesty and indisposition to be subjected to the judgment and criticism of the public. He was one of the earliest advocates of the project of the County History, assuming it to be a duty, as well as a responsibility, to extend his co-operative aid to the enterprise. With the limited facts personally obtained from him, and without resources from which matters of fact and detail could be extracted, we very greatly regret our inability to supply anything but an approximate biography of him.
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store of the late John Larwill at a salary of one hundred dollars per year and boarded (modern clerks would feel insulted to be offered such salaries), saving one-third of his wages.
In July, 1829, Mr. Joseph H. Larwill having received from President Jackson the appointment of Receiver of Public Moneys for the Tiffin, Ohio, United States Land District, Mr. Quinby accepted the position of clerk in his office, remaining there about one year, when he returned to Wooster and entered the office of his brother Samuel, with whom he continued until the fall of 1834, and during this time, in addition to his other duties, he made the monthly deposits of the goverment moneys, received from sales of public lands, for the Wooster and Bucyrus (formerly Tiffin) United States Land Offices, in the Branch Bank of the United States at Pittsburg.
This service or duty, as may be imagined, was one of great responsibility and extremely hazardous, the country then being sparsely settled, and the protection afforded by society and the laws not being so surely established. The usual method of conveying the moneys to Pittsburg was in a two-horse Dearborn wagon, strongly built, although sometimes this would not answer the purpose and a heavier vehicle had to be substituted. This was made particularly necessary in the instance of the deposit after the public sale of the Seneca Indian Reserve, as the amount of the moneys for that month exceeded one hundred thousand dollars, about twenty-five thousand of which was in silver coin. The conveyance for transporting this deposit was a two-horse wagon and team procured of the late Colonel Rowse, of Bucyrus, he driving the team and consuming seven days and a half in making the passage from Bucyrus to Pittsburg. On arriving at New Lisbon, it being in the month of December, the roads bad and the country hilly, an additional span of horses had to be attached to the wagon.
In making these deposits it was always necessary to exercise great prudence, and frequently the most extreme and circumspect caution, so as to elude detection. In these cases, to deceive observation and not permit the contents of the loaded wagon to be known, was oftentimes a difficult matter, especially when an unusual amount of silver coin was being conveyed, and when the roads were bad and frequent stops had to be made at places where was seldom seen more money than they received from their customers for a night's lodging and other accommodations.
In cases like these, Mr Quinby—then but twenty years old-
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would drive his team pretty close to the tavern door and request that it might remain there until morning. Having, generally, a friend along with him—often his old companion, a boy, then, as well as himself, the Rev. M. E. Strieby—they would arrange to have a bed spread on the floor of the tavern sitting-room, vigilantly keeping an eye on the wagon containing the coin—the bank- notes being kept about his person. After supper, and when other travelers and the family had retired, Mr. Quinby and his friend would quickly remove the boxes, each containing from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, from the wagon to the sitting room, and closing the doors securely, they would sleep, turn about, until quite early in the morning and before there was any stir upon the premises, when they would stealthily replace the boxes containing the coin in the wagon. After breakfast they would renew their journey, not even the landlord or any one else about the premises knowing the value of their cargo or the amount of money they controlled, such a state of profound ignorance, no doubt, being a source of comfort to Mr. Quinby. These special precautions, it is true, were only practiced in suspicious localities and strange places, yet precaution, prudence and watchfulness was the rule at all times and under all circumstances. And, strange as it may appear, he never, in all these perilous adventures, carried weapons of defense, though often, indeed, apprehensive of molestation and robbery. When just a boy, and when he first came to live with his brother at Wooster, he often accompanied him in making the deposits of the Land Office at the branch banks of the United States at Chillicothe and Cincinnati. During most of the year 1834 Mr. Quinby spent his time in charge of the office of Hon. Joseph H. Larwill, Receiver of Public Moneys for the Bucyrus Land Office District.
In the fall of the same year he embarked in the mercantile business in Wooster, in the store room of General Cyrus Spink, opposite to the American Hotel, afterwards removing his business to a building then standing on a lot owned by William Gooding, and in the fall of 1835 disposed of his stock of goods to Messrs. Miller and Gallagher, who removed the same to Millersburg, Ohio.
In 1836 he leased for a term of five years, of General R. Beall, the premises situated on the south-west front of the Public Square, in Wooster, and again commenced the mercantile business, in company with James A. Grant.
The first purchase of goods for the firm, or perhaps the prin
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cipal part thereof only, were lost on Lake Erie in a storm, by the sinking of a vessel containing the goods, which were shipped from Buffalo, N. Y. The vessel being subsequently raised, and the damaged goods recovered, they were brought to the store and sold at auction on the Public Square, at a loss of about two thousand five hundred dollars, there being no insurance. Mr. Quinby immediately repaired to New York, by no means disheartened by the catastrophe, and enjoying the confidence of the eastern merchants, purchased a new stock of goods, and having a prosperous trade for three or four years, retrieved the entire loss.
During his mercantile career, October 12, 1837, he was united in marriage to Miss Catharine E. McConahay, daughter of Judge D. McConahay, who died October 18, 1871.
From 1836 to 1842 he turned his attention toward speculations in real estate, though still retaining and continuing his commercial interests.
In 1837 he purchased of John Bever and D. Williams about fourteen acres of land south of Liberty street and east of Bever street, and run it off into town lots, which were rapidly sold and buildings erected thereon, Mr. Quinby improving some of the lots himself. As an illustration indicative of the change, or rather the advance in the value of property in Wooster since that time, we add, that in 1837 Mr. Quinby sold lots fronting the south side of Liberty street, east of Bever, at an average of two hundred and fifty dollars per lot, sixty feet front by one hundred and eighty deep.
In 1841, after the expiration of his lease of the premises west of the Public Square—sixty feet front on Liberty street, by one hundred and eighty on Public Square—he purchased the same from General Beall for six thousand dollars. At that time a one and a half story store-room stood on the corner, and a frame dwelling, one and a half story, stood where the Wayne County National Bank now stands, then occupied as a residence by Mr. Quinby. The lot purchased of General Beall on the Public Square was intended originally to be occupied by him for mercantile uses and a residence. Having changed his mind, however, and while he was preparing to build him a house, and have erected a ware-room and stable, an incendiary fire, in 1842, was kindled, which destroyed the ware-house and several other smaller buildings that were constructed upon the Public Square, and much of the adjoining property.
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This circumstance disheartened Mr. Quinby, and changed his plans; and from the material prepared for a residence he built the two story block for business purposes, now standing on the lot on the south-west corner of the Public Square. He then divided the balance of the lot into fronts of twenty feet, and disposed of most of the ground at a profitable increase upon its cost. This was the first lot in Wooster that had been subdivided for business Purposes. In the same manner he next subdivided the lots, or business blocks, known as the Merchants' Emporium, situated on the north-east corner of Public Square.
In the year 1844 he disposed of his stock of dry-goods to his brother, George Quinby and B. Grant, who removed them to Bucyrus, Ohio, and leased his store-room to David Robison, Sen., to whom he afterwards sold the grounds and building, which grounds, and all the balance of the original lot previously sold, have been repurchased, and are at present owned by him, and about twenty feet front on the west, and except fifteen feet front on the Public- Square and twenty feet front on Liberty street, owning at this date, in addition, over two hundred feet frontage on the Public Square, covered with solid and substantial brick buildings.
Mr. Quinby also owns a large number of improved and unimproved lots in different parts of the city of Wooster, besides holding in fee over one hundred and fifty acres of valuable lands within
the corporate limits.
From 1844 to 1848 he devoted himself exclusively to transactions in real estate and making improvements thereon, a business which he seems to relish, for which he has peculiar adaptations, and in the prosecution of which his good judgment and sagacious, discriminating foresight have made him remarkably successful.
In 1848 the Wayne county branch of the State Bank of Ohio was organized, when he became a stockholder, and was chosen its Cashier, which position he held until the expiration of the charter in 1865. During the existence of this bank it ranked with the best managed banks of the State, its stability unquestioned and conceded, closing its business without loss to its shareholders and paying satisfactory dividends during its existence and a premium on the refunded stock to shareholders.
The principal parties holding the stock of this bank at the various periods of its existence, were D. Robison, Sr., R. Taggart, S. F. Day, K, Porter, R. B. Stibbs, James Robison, Joseph McComb, H. Armstrong, S. Jennings, J. Steese, J. A. Saxton, E.
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George Dewalt, William Henry, H. V. Bever, J. R. Hunter, Samuel Quinby, Benjamin Wallace and James M. Brown, with more than half of whom " life's fitful fever is over."
Upon the expiration of the charter of the Wayne county branch of the State Bank of Ohio; the remaining shareholders organized, under the United States National Bank Act in 1865, the Wayne County National Bank of Wooster, when Mr. Quinby was selected as its Cashier, and which position he at present holds. It is hardly necessary to remark that the responsible standing of the Branch Bank's reputation is continued and illustrated in that of the National Bank. The universal confidence and absolute trust reposed in it by the public and the business community is the most powerful recommendation and endorsement of its high and substantial character.
During the years between 1848 and 1876, in addition to the duties of Cashier of the Branch and National Banks, Mr. Quinby devoted his moments of leisure to purchasing, selling and improving real estate, many of his enterprises having contributed to advance, grace and beautify the city.
The University of Wooster being projected in 1866, and an enterprise being inaugurated to locate it in any suitable town or city, by the Presbyterian Synods of Ohio, wherever a reliable subscription of one hundred thousand dollars should be procured and placed at their disposal, a subscription was at once put in circulation in Wooster and throughout the county to raise the stipulated sum, one condition of which was a site for the College building, which was to be accepted as a portion of the one hundred thousand dollars to be raised. The subscription was headed by Mr. Quinby at ten thousand dollars, which was followed by subscriptions of three thousand dollars and on down to five. The final effort having been accomplished, after a thorough canvass of the county and city, it was exhibited that the amount raised fell thirty- two thousand dollars short of the sum required, and the prospect of the location of the University in Wooster looked gloomy, indeed, and its abandonment seemed probable.
At this juncture, however, the Presbyterian Synod of Ohio, being in session at Wooster, appointed a committee, after viewing the site proposed by E. Quinby, Jr., for the University, to confer with a committee of the citizens of Wooster, and offered to accept the twenty acres of land as a donation from Mr. Quinby at $25,000, and in addition $75,000 of cash subscriptions, which
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proposition was agreed to and accepted. There having been, however, but about $58,000 of cash subscriptions reached, or that were reliable, the synodical committee agreed to accept a guaranty of E. Quinby, Jr., and other citizens of Wooster for $17,000, which would complete the $75,000 subscription required. The money was subscribed by the citizens of the city and county and the guarantors released from their obligations ; and thus the location of the Wooster University was made fixed and final.
Since its construction and its having been opened for students, Mr. Quinby has increased his donations to the institution by endowing a chair, learnedly and honorably presided over by Rev. James Black, D. D., Professor of Greek Language and Literature. Including other subscriptions not mentioned, he has swelled the volume of his donations to this institution to a sum already exceeding fifty-five thousand dollars.
He has made liberal donations of real estate to churches, individuals and enterprises of public utility, concerning which it might be objectionable to Mr. Quinby to particularize.
He has been, and now is, a large owner and dealer in real estate, and, exclusive of his vast possessions in and about Wooster, is also the proprietor of costly estates in Cleveland and other localities.
The foregoing are the facts, as we have been able to collect them from different sources, which go to form the sketch of Mr. Quinby. That we have not been able to produce a fuller and better one is no fault of ours, and lies not in our disposition. We appreciate his modesty, but are sorry that its intervention precludes a more faithful and comprehensive portraiture of him.
The public who know him may learn more of him in the condensed outline given of his brother, the late Samuel Quinby, who for twenty years intertwined and interlaced himself with our local history. A long business career—from the time he was ten years of age—has not been destitute of interesting associations, important incidents and solid achievements. Were we permitted to enter into an analysis of his life and deduce from it logical conclusions, it would supply many a valuable precept and furnish many a lesson to the aspirant for success.
Whether as " office-boy " for his brother, clerking for Mr. Larwill, or conveying the moneys of the Government, or having charge of the Receiver's office, or as merchant, or dealer in real estate, or as banker, he has discharged his duties with applica-
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tion, accuracy, prudence, punctuality, honesty and fidelity to every trust. These traits of character were developed in him in boyhood and secured him the confidence of reliable and valuable
friends. His businesss associations in his youth were with sound, discreet men. His mind took the bias and caught the contagion of their example. From his outset in life he took the business view of it. He began well, and herein has been his advantage. A right beginning is the pledge and promise of prosperous days. He possessed character, and his employers accepted this as that much capital. In this respect they recognized him as a partner, though they did not share with him the dividends.
Dr. Chalmers once said that " the implicit trust with which merchants are accustomed to confide in distant agents, separated from them, perhaps, by half the globe—often consigning vast wealth to men recommended only by their character, whom, perhaps, they never saw—is probably the finest act of homage of one human being to another."
The trust confided in Mr. Quinby, by the agents of the United States Government, to take charge of and convey its moneys to its more central places of deposit, when he was but twenty years of age, is a better panegyric and a higher homage than we dare assume to bestow.
He first established a reputation for industry, honesty, integrity, prudence and a temperate evenness of habit. He possessed energy, resolution, determination, and adopted for his motto the one engraven upon the crest of the pickax, " I will find a way, or make one." He enjoyed sound native sense, cautious judgment, keen foresight, and accurate powers of observation. With these
endowments he was prepared for the training processes of life, and it is safe to infer that he was an apt pupil, as unquestionably he was an attentive one.
That his career has been highly successful is generally known. He has accumulated wealth simply as a result of the growth and exercise of these qualities. We do not presume that he loves money better than other men who make it and handle it. There is living no man who says he is grasping, penurious, or avaricious. He hates a miser as he hates a meanness.
In his younger years he worked on a salary, like other young men-got no more wages than they did, but probably saved more.
In the mercantile business he met with disaster by storm at
474 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
the very threshold—took all the chances that his rivals did; had a profit-and-loss book ; and if he made money he made it out of the opportunities presented to his competitors.
As a banker his name has ever given character to the institution that carried it; and if the public confidence sustained and gathered around it, it must be borne in mind that he made and
constructed that name himself. Others, besides him, have had these opportunities.
As a dealer in real estate he could see only the eagle and the goddess on the other side ; which was to be uppermost when he put down his money, he did not know. He has achieved nothing by chance or brilliant accidents.
Opportunity never especially favored him, although his good judgment at times has enabled him to seize her. "For opportunity has hair in front, behind she is bald ; if you seize her by the
forelock you may hold her, but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again."
Only by employing the means and bringing to bear the qualities necessary to the accomplishment of it, has he acquired what he possesses. There are no splendid financial passages in his life, no bold and hazardous speculations. He has self-trust, self-command and relies on his individuality, on his, cool caution, his placid, calculating mind, his considerate, discriminating judgment, his far striking thought and foresight, which peers through situations and inspects results.
There are no cascades, whirling eddies or shallows on his stream ; it has an even, deep and steady flow. He moves right along, observing the maxim of Amos Lawrence, "Do what you do thoroughly, and be faithful in all accepted trusts," and forever keeping the current of his endeavor in continual motion, his various faculties employed, pushing steadily his various enterprises, until—
"As many lines close in the Dial's centre,
So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose."
He always has a fixed end and aim in view. Weathercock men are Nature's failures. There is nothing vacillating about him, and when he acts he acts quietly, but with decision. He has sufficient motive power to execute his projects, which is a great tonic, and communicates a certain momentum to all human action. He wills strongly and positively. There is no ostentation or show
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about him, preferring retiracy and the superintendence of his thoughts and secrets. He is is neither rash nor excitable, and in all his enterprises he " hastens slowly." In short, his life is illustrated by "patience and work," and this Sir Isaac Newton is said to have defined as genius.
His business life is unexceptionable, and his practices germinate in his principles. He is a man of principle, and a principal man.
His private character is without a stain, and his name carries no blemish. Ordinarily he is reticent, preferring silence and allowing others to step to the front. When he does speak, he has premeditated his words, and speaks to the point. He goes about his work noiselessly, and if he performs a charity it is not blazoned on the corners, that every lip may gather it and run. A gift is a curse where the giver parades it. He is a plain, agreeable, unvarying man in his social relations, contemning flattery, pretense and deceit, and despising the pretender and hypocrite, who spreads palm leaves in the path of Jesus when he is popular in Jerusalem, and denies him after he is nailed to the cross.
His name is indissolubly associated with the University of Wooster, for to him, more than to any other man, are we indebted for that institution, which has become the nucleus of professional men like Drs. Taylor, Gregory, Black and Stoddard—gentlemen distinguished in scholarship, in the ministry, in authorship, and in the higher realm of science.
While that structure endures, and generations after Mr. Quinby shall have passed to " the appointed place of rendezvous where all the travelers on life's journey meet," it will continue as his monument, and unborn sons of unborn sires will gather under its shadow and breathe blessings upon its benefactor and friend.
JOHN MCSWEENEY.*
" Genius: like a star, it dwells alone."
A lawyer of marked ability must possess a first-class native intellect. In the arena of the law men are brought face to face. Their controversies are open, protracted, and sometimes violent. Almost every variety and description of human transactions are
* It is due to Mr. McSweeney to say that this sketch was written without his knowledge or consent.
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embraced within the compass of their investigations. The ignoramus and the mountebank are, in the hand-to-hand conflicts of the bar, instantly discovered, unmasked and overthrown. It is no exaggeration to assert, that there is no department of human effort, no field of human ambition, in which such varied mental endowments are so essential to success as in the profession of the law. No pretense of erudition, no assumption of surpassing knowledge, no pompous arrogance of superiority will achieve victories in its formidable and fiery collisions.
The great advocate must be, every inch, a great man. He may be brilliant, but if he is an eccentric genius, with the super- additions of excellent scholarship, he will but dimly see the laurels grasped by others. He must possess a commanding intellectual appearance to win the first nod of attention ; great physical endurance and elasticity of constitution to undergo the laborious toil and protracted exertion his profession so frequently imposes. He must be a clear, cogent, compact, incisive reasoner, susceptible of subtle analyzations, and capable of elucidating and expounding the most abstruse and complex propositions of law, of engaging in subtle deductions, of reasoning from cause to effect and from effect to cause. He must possess a capacious and retentive memory to seize, digest and compile any body of facts, however vast ; a sound judgment to analyze and amalgamate them ; patient, plodding industry to prosecute tedious researches among the fundamental principles and technicalities of the legal science ; a quick perception to grasp and utilize a good opportunity ; coolness, self-possession, caution and fecundity of invention to anticipate and guard against surprises and ambuscades. He must have the edge of appetite whetted for combat ; must possess an imagination whose creations succeed each other like fruits in Armida's enchanted garden—" one scarce is gathered ere another grows ; " wit to blaze and flame and burst into luminous coruscations ; fluency of speech to express any conceivable emotion ; courage, self-reliance, self- assertion, and resolution of will to press to the end all professional ventures ; reticence to keep the holy secrets committed to him under the sanctities of his office ; multifarious knowledge, eloquence, versatility, voice, gesture, action.
During the last century and a half many of the brightest intellects in the foremost civilized countries have been found in the legal profession, and much of the civil and political liberty enjoyed
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by the human family is due to the enterprise, brain and genius of a long succession of cultured and distinguished lawyers.
The subject of this sketch, John McSweeney, Esq., is an able lawyer and brilliant orator. Nature fitted him for the bar. He has pre-empted the right to sway and swing juries, and we do not hesitate to pronounce him, without any exception, the best lawyer in Ohio.
His parents were from Ireland—sweet Innisfallen—where much of the genius of this world is secreted. At the time when Mr. McSweeney* was born, in 1824, they were living at or near Rochester, State of New York. From there they removed to Ohio and died, we believe, in Stark county, when he was but a child. They were in humble circumstances, his father being a shoemaker, and an industrious, intelligent man. Physically he was even larger than his son, and a man of most impressive and commanding aspect. He had accumulated a small amount of money, which after his death was carefully and judiciously applied to the best advantage of the parentless boy. John Harris, Esq., of Canton, was appointed his guardian, and a Mrs. Grimes of that city, a pious and estimable Catholic lady, raised him. He concluded his education at the Western Reserve College and at Cincinnati, attaining reputation as a scholar and great proficiency in the Latin classics.
He studied law with John Harris, Esq., of Canton, his guardian, and removed to Wooster in April, 1845, entering the office of Judge Ezra Dean, then one of the leading lawyers of Wayne county. He subsequently engaged in partnerships with Ohio F. Jones, Esq., Judge William Given, Hon. George Bliss and Hon. C. C. Parsons, Sen. He was joined in marriage, in 1851, with Catharine Rex, a sister of the Hon. George Rex of Wooster, a woman of strong mental endowments and marked character.
On coming to Wooster, in 1845, Mr. McSweeney almost immediately rose to the first rank at the Wooster bar, which position he has held without a rival ever since. In his practice at the Wooster bar he has been brought into competition with many of the distinguished lawyers of the State ; with Judges Dean, Avery, Given and Cox, Hon. John P. Jeffries, Hon. Lyman Critchfield, Samuel Hemphill, Judges Rufus P. Ranney and Spaulding, Hon. Thomas Bartley, Hon. Thomas Corwin, Hon. John Sherman, Secretary of the National Treasury, and Hon. D. K. Carter, now
*We regret our inability to furnish more particulars in regard to Mr. McSweeney's early years.
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Chief Justice of the District of Columbia. In the many hard fought battles and severe, bitter, desperate, forensic encounters he has had with the strongest lawyers of the State, he proved "a foe.. man worthy of their steel," and if he did not come off victorious his adversaries were generally satisfied with a drawn battle; nor was he any the less distinguished in defeat. There will be no violation of the literal truth in affirming that Mr. McSweeney during his practice at the Wooster bar, no matter how dry the subject or uninteresting the theme, invariably made spirited, animated and exciting speeches. He never fell even to a level of mediocrity. :in discussing the most vapid, tedious questions of fact, or the most calloused technicalities of the law, he never failed to win the public favor and captivate the popular fancy by freshness of ideas, flashes of wit, perspicacity of reason, richness of vocabulary and grace of ,elocution.
About 1865, his reputation both as a civil and criminal lawyer having been safely established, his practice began to extend, to neighboring counties, and at the present time it is only bounded by Chicago and New York. During the last ten years he has been employed in nearly all the important criminal trials in Northern Ohio, chiefly on the side of the defense.
The orator should be tall of stature that the infection of his form may win the crowd. A massive and graceful physical outline, and a resonant, powerful voice, are valuable adjuncts to the advocate. Mr. McSweeney possesses these qualifications. He is over six feet high, straight as the nation's flag-staff, powerful and well proportioned, with an expressive, manly face, which kindles with every emotion of the soul, and an eye which is a language and possession of itself. Sober in pathos, furious in repartee, jolly in humor, terrific in invectives, he is always attractive, but never repulsive. His voice is rich, sonorous, melodious, exceedingly well modulated, never striking the ear harshly, and capable of the widest compass of exertion, from the stirring tones of impassioned declamation to the softest accents of adroit and bland persuasion. His gestures are frequent, forcible and appropriate. His action is vigorous, sometimes dramatic, never ungainly, and seldom overstrained. In the physical essentials of the orator nature has been affluent and prodigal in her gifts to him.
A good lawyer must be a sound thinker. Logic is the ironclad, the Krupp gun, the breech loader, the bayonet of the lawyer. Knotted, laminated, irrefragable logic is the most potent weapon
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in his arsenal. The assertion will hardly be challenged that all profound lawyers are profound logicians. There may be eloquence, fine wit, humor, pathos, fluency, imagination, but if the cardinal ingredient, logic, is wanting, distinguished eminence at the bar is not attainable. It is scarcely necessary to speak of Mr. McSweeney as a sound reasoner, when we are ready to concede that his very sentences are " logic on fire." He can utilize it from the narrowest basis when dealing with nice technicalities, and with signal amplification when grappling with fundamental principles.
He is, perhaps, immoderately addicted to amplifying, elaborating and re-enforcing his propositions with analogous matter in grappling with logical problems of the law. In the soil of his imagination comparisons, illustrations and analogies flourish with the rank and rapid growth of vegetation in a northern summer. The abundance and versatility of his logical resources enable him to draw the most subtle conclusions. In the use of this weapon he is dexterous, dangerous and audacious, and that he is skillful and competent in the use of it is evidenced by the fact that his pleadings are seldom, if ever, demurable, or susceptible of a motion to strike out surplus matter, or make the allegations more specific. His imagination is truly opulent. A lawyer without imagination may be fitted to expound legal principles to the Court, but a jury will go to sleep on his hands and snore him out of countenance as a punishment for his prolixity. Legal investigation so frequently deals with interminable questions of dry fact, which, if not embellished by ideal conceits and creations, becomes painful and heavy to the jury. In this respect Mr. McSweeney is fortunately endowed.
His imagination is lively and luxuriant, indulging in lofty flights, brilliant idealisms, thrilling comparisons, decorating dull fields of fact with flowery freshness.
No jury ever went to sleep upon his words, for he comprehends the force and genius of well-chosen words. If he employs sophistry he flounces and girdles her in the virginal costume of truth ; if he denounces her she is stript, her mask riven and dashed to pieces. When excited his arguments seem to be fused in a fire of eloquence ; his sentences fly like grape and canister, and he bounds like a race-horse, out posting Benn Pitman and his herd of reporters. His are not " chippings, pairings and shreds," but rounded, full-grown thoughts that boom and bounce and roll like mighty powder-driven bombs. He is a director in the world's
480 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
corporation of thought. Arouse him, and the air steams with sulphur and saltpeter. He believes Moses was a great law-giver, but, if need be, he would smite the Commandments with the iron of his tongue. He is his own mechanic when he puts the polish upon a rascal. " He can hew out a Colossus from a rock, or carve heads on cherry stones." His speeches are vivid with sparkling poetry, poignant wit, caustic satire and burning rhetoric. "He is not a glancing stream, fettered with ice half the year, but a magnificent and mighty river flowing South," and as he sweeps on and surges forward he absorbs quotations, figures, excerpts from the Testaments and Shakspeare, and Milton and Homer, Addison, Byron, Burns, Moore, Scott, Don Quixote, Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, still rolling on-
“Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont."
When he addresses a jury or popular assembly, like Choate, he brings to his aid the entire anatomy of his frame, lips, eyes, arms, legs—the very garments which he wears. A gladiator in retort, prompt to resent an affront or repel an insinuation, the opposing advocate who rashly provokes his hostility retires from the contest wounded and satisfied not to repeat the experiment. In the many rough hand-to-hand controversies at the bar where professional swordsmen meet, and where recriminations are so frequently indulged, the adverse combatant always encountered an equal in him, and freqently a master. Like Webster, he can " heap Pellion upon Ossa," until his antagonist is crushed and beaten. His possibilities in this direction are exhaustless. He can soar with Junius to the higher heavens of mvective, or descend with Swift to the muck and ooze of billingsgate.
It is a source of regret that these personal reencounters are so frequent in forensic warfare, and it is noticeable that Mr. McSweeney, as his practice extends and the currents of his body cool, is inclined to avoid asperities and to treat his opponents with that marked civility for which, at times, he is distinguished, when they are ready to reciprocate the same. He never hesitates for a word and uses words with precision. He is an expert in the use of the language of the law, which, in its purity, is highly musical. It abounds in words derived from Latin roots, and when spoken with
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precision by an advocate who possesses a melodious voice it strikes the ear with delightful effect.
A successful jury lawyer must be able to deal with facts. In this department of legal investigation Mr. McSweeney is unrivaled. He has a genius for narration, great dexterity in descanting upon probabilities, sharp ingenuity in grouping the vital facts upon his own side in logical sequence and in presenting them to the jury with telling effect. Quick to discover and bold to assail the vulnerable points in the opposing suitor's case, and marvelously keen in anatomising lies, he levels at his antagonist whole batteries of sarcasm, wit and ridicule. He fights for his client like the Old Guard for the First Napoleon and he despises a lawyer who will not. His claymore is ever at his side, and no man ever caught him napping at his post.
The art of cross-examination requires the highest skill and circumspection of the lawyer. It is one of the most effective weapons known to the law in eliciting truth. Few, if any, lawyers in the State are so skillful with this weapon as he. His cross-examinations are never undertaken without a distinct object in view. In these reconnoiterings of the witness he is not tethered by inflexible rules. His intuitions of human nature border on the marvelous; hence he enters the arena thrice armed. Lie to this alchemist of all your particles, you shuffling witness, if you dare ! His dissections of human nature are too consistent with flesh and blood to be anything but natural. With the timid witness he is persuasive, with the willing he is courteous, with the prevaricator he is artful, with the brazen-cheek he is bold, with the insolent he is insolent, with the mendacious he is terrible. To-day he will storm a crest by pugnacious savagery ; to morrow he will repeat the exploit by wholly different tactics. He sometimes creeps upon his victim by stealth, and sometimes routs him by the audacity of the assault. Again he will smite the crafty liar as with a thunderbolt, or scalp him in some unsuspected lava-bed. While he is an adept in the art of cross-examination-indeed the champion cross-examiner of Ohio-he possesses the faculty of extracting from his own witnesses every circumstance favorable to his client.
It is seldom that the speeches of lawyers are reproduced in the columns of the press. Occasionally when some great trial is progressing in the city which excites public attention and inflames public curiosity, the speeches of the lawyers are published in the metropolitan papers. This, however, rarely occurs. The practice
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of extemporaneous speech, which prevails to a wide extent at the bar, is calculated to produce a slovenly diction, and thus to mar the literary excellence of forensic efforts. The lawyer speaks to persuade the jury or convince the Court, and he is, therefore, more careful of the substance than the diction of his discourse. Few of Mr. McSweeney's legal performances have been reported.
For years he has charmed and delighted crowded audiences in the old Court House with brilliant declamation, startling eloquence, caustic invective, sorties of wit, flights of imagination and singular powers of seductive narration. We believe it to be no extravagance to affirm, that there has fallen from his lips in the old Court House eloquence as splendid as Erskine's description of the Indian chieftain in his defense of John Stockdale :
I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the Governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hands as the notes of his unlettered eloquence: " Who is it," said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached by the restless foot of the English adventurer, " Who is it that causes its river to rise in the high mountains and empty itself into the ocean? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in summer ? Who is it that rears up the shade of these lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters and gave ours to us ; and by this title we will defend it," said the warrior, throwing down the tomahawk on the ground and raising the war sound of his nation. Here are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe ; and depend upon it, nothing but fear will control when it is vain to look for affection.
When exasperated, he has hurled passages as vigorous and vindictive as Burke when he said of Dundas:
With six great chopping bastards*, and each as lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at the sight of his new bridegroom, assumes a virgin delicacy, or, to use a more fit, as well as a more poetical comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid, so trembling, lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, if expanded to broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury, lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her as evidence of her delicate amour.
He has often scorched the perjurer and villain as remorselessly as did Curran when he said of O'Brien to the jury:
Did you not see him coiling himself in the scaly circles of his perjury, making anticipated battle against the attack that he knew would be made, and spitting his venom against the man that might have given evidence of his infamous character if he dared appear ?
*Reports of Secret Committee.
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In his impetuous charges upon the violator of the marriage contract he has ascended to the majesty of mirthful eloquence, as did Phillips, in the Court House at Galway, when he said of *Blake :
It has been left me to defend my unfortunate old client from the double battery of Love and Law, which, at the age of sixty-five, has so unexpectedly opened on her. Oh, gentlemen, how vain-glorious is the boast of beauty ! How misapprehended have been the charms of youth, if years and wrinkles can thus despoil their conquests, and depopulate the navy of its prowess, and beguile the bar of its eloquence ! How mistaken were all the amatory bards, from Anacreon downwards, who preferred the bloom of the rose and the trill of the nightingale to the saffron hide and dulcet treble of sixty-five ! * * What a loss the navy had of him, and what a loss he had of the navy! Alas, gentlemen, he could not resist his affection for a female he never saw ! Almighty love eclipsed the glories of ambition! Trafalgar and St. Vincent flitted from his memory ! He gave up all for woman, as Mark Antony did before him ; and, like the Cupid in Hudibras, he—
Took his stand
Upon a widow's jointure land ;
His tender sigh and trickling tear
Longed for five hundred pounds a year ;
And languishing desires were found
Of Statute, Mortgage, Bill and Bond.
Oh, gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes of North America! Alike to him the varieties of season and the vicissitudes of warfare. One sovereign image monopolizes his sensibilities. Does the storm rage ? the 'Widow Wilkins outsighs the whirlwind. Is the ocean calm? its mirror shows him the Widow Wilkins. Is the battle won ? he thins his laurels that the Widow Wilkins may interweave her myrtles. Does the broadside thunder ? he invokes the Widow Wilkins.
A sweet little cherub, she sits up aloft
To keep watch for the life of poor Peter.
In politics Mr. McSweeney has always been and is a steadfast Democrat of the old school. He adhered to the party throughout its long years of adversity and vicissitude with unflinching fidelity. But he is not a politician or an office-seeker. Had he been either, while he might have compromised his professional aspirations, he would unquestionably have commanded the highest office within the gift of the Democracy of Ohio. His political services are in great demand, but it rarely occurs that he can be induced to attend a convention or make a political speech. In 1860 or '61 he astonished the Democracy of Allegheny City, Pa., with a powerful and luminous speech, and in 1863 he electrified the convention which
* Blake was an officer in the English navy, and brought suit against Widow Wilkins, sixty-five years old, for a breach of the marriage contract and damages thereby sustained.
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nominated Clement L. Vallandigham. For a number of years he has been in the, habit of making a rousing rallying speech to the Democracy of Wooster on the Monday night before the election, when a park of Gattling guns let fly their whizzing contents to hiss and burn through the ranks of the enemy.
He has, however, chosen the law as his field, and he has not mistaken his employment.
His great Irish prototype, O'Connell, desired to be King of Ireland ; McSweeney aspires to sovereignity in the empire of law.
BENJAMIN EASON.
Benjamin Eason was born May 5, 1822, in Wooster township, Wayne county, Ohio, in a log cabin, standing then where is located the present residence of Jeremiah R. Naftzger, a few rods to the north of the old Stibbs mill, and just across Pittsburg avenue. His father being a mill-wright, at this time was pursuing his sion, and it may be remarked a highly needful one at that period, he having assisted in building the Stibbs carding mill. At the age of two years his father moved to Perry township, now in Ashland county, but then in Wayne, where he remained until 1832, when he removed to Plain township, and purchased the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch, at Springville, in Plain township.
The boyhood and earlier years of Mr. Eason were spent with his father upon the farm, where he participated in the unpoetic activities of rural life, and where hard physical toil brought brawn to his hands, and where the harvest sun smote his cheek and printed thereon its swarthy bloom. He now had advanced to his twenty-first year, but although pursuing the healthful routine of the farm, he had not been neglectful of books, mental discipline and study. Having availed himself of such educational advantages as the times afforded, and by processes of self-tutelage such as are known only to the instructor of himself, he next entered upon the worthy career of teacher of the district school. Hope told him a flattering tale, and whispered, "Persevere, be faithful, true to friends, steadfast in principle, unbending in integrity, and success will crown your efforts."
The record proves that hope held out no treacherous beacon. For a period of five years continuously he prosecuted the vocation of teacher, achieving local reputation as an adept in that profession. These five years of experience as public instructor were
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appreciated by the parents of the youth whose culture and expansion he sought, but they were none the less years of training and development to him. Five years in the school-room has its equivalent only in two years in the university. If he was the educator of the children, he was likewise his own pupil. Here was opportunity for unfolding his own faculties. During these years he applied himself assiduously to history, English literature, etc., selecting such authors as Rollin, Dick, Gibbon, Hume, Josephus, Hazlitt, Talfourd, Shakspeare, Massinger, etc. Surveying also claimed a portion of his leisure moments, as he designed, at some future time, to more fully explore that department of mathematical science. His immediate aim and ambition was, by this course, to acquire the qualifications of a first-class teacher, not allowing his knowledge to be circumscribed by the mere text-books or incidental volumes of the school library.
Moreover, he occasionally looked in upon the pages of Blackstone, contemplating them as so many crucibles in which were assayed golden grains of law, and with the ultimate anticipation of one day being able to sift these grains. He taught his first school in what was called the Branstetter district, and though but nineteen years of age, commanding as good a salary as his older competitors. It was in this way that he acquired his first capital and made his first money. At the age of twenty-six he was elected Justice of the Peace for Plain township, serving in this capacity until the spring of 185o, when he was seized with "gold fever," and resolved on a passage to the sun-down side of the, continent. With his brother, Alexander Eason, he joined the Dennison company, composed of about forty men, all from Wayne county, and on the 11th of March of said year they left Wooster for California. The trip was made overland with mule- teams, Mr. Eason appearing in the role of one of the drivers, the party arriving at Placerville, fifty-five miles east of Sacramento, on the Fourth of July, 1850. Salt Lake City was embraced in the passage, where, much to their amusement, they tarried for four or five days. In the Golden State he remained until the following winter, mining, trading, speculating, etc,, when he returned home by steamer plethoric with the imbibitions and experiences of frontier life—expansive with the blood-freezing narratives of the " '49-ers," and with eyes still ablaze with scenes of border bloodshed and lawless cruelty.
Subsequent to his arrival home, and in 1851, he was a candi-
486 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
date for Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Wayne county, and was elected over his competitor, Henry Lehman ; again being a candidate for re-election in 1854, with a similar successful result. In his official capacity he vindicated his conceded practical abilities, fulfilling his duties with fidelity and promptitude, achieving the reputation of an efficient officer, whose whole course was distinguished by extreme cleverness, pliant urbanity and marked appreciation of the public confidence.
After this, and in 1858, he returned to his farm, but, as the sequel exhibits, was not allowed to long remain there, for in the ensuing autumn he was summoned from the farm to be the candidate of the Democracy for the State Senate, in the then 28th Senatorial District, composed of Wayne and Holmes counties, encountering Robert Gailey as his opponent, over whom he was handsomely successful.
In that body he was an active, working member, invariably in his seat and shirking no responsibility. In the discharge of his Senatorial functions, while keeping in view the interests of his immediate constituents, he never forgot that he was sent there to deliberate on the interests of the people of the whole State, as well as of his own district, and hence he persistently opposed unwise and improvident legislation, going upon the principle that we are too much governed by expediency. He served in two sessions during the term. At the expiration of his Senatorial term he once more returned to his farm—
'' To study culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;
To give dissimilar, yet fruitful lands,
The grain, or herb, or plant that each demands;
To cherish virtue in an humble state,
And share the joys his bounty might create."
This rural seclusion was of short duration. In 1862, when the formidable requisition for 600,000 additional troops was ordered, he at once proceeded to adjust his business that he might be enabled to enter the military service. He was commissioned Captain of Company E, 120th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and authorized to immediately begin the work of recruiting. To this purpose he vigorously addressed himself, and in a short time his company was organized and accompanied the regiment to Camp Mansfield, where they rendezvoused for several weeks. The regiment first went to Covington, Ky., was next ordered down the river to Memphis,
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Tenn., where they bivouacked several weeks, and thence to Vicksburg, Miss., that Golgotha of Union soldiers on the mighty inland river. Here the 120th, as well as the 16th, participated in the disastrous battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, on the 28th and 29th of December, 1862.
An incident occurred during this engagement which needs no comment from us and which we here introduce :
The 5th Iowa battery was engaging the enemy with but little apparent effect. Capt. Eason's quick mathematical eye discovered the inefficiency of the firing and immediately communicated the fact to Colonels French and Spiegel, when it was resolved to so inform the artillery officers. Capt. Eason at much peril sought the offrcers of the battery, made the suggestion, when the guns were so adjusted as to have the most deadly effect. From Vicksburg they went to Napoleon, thence up the Arkansas to Arkansas Post, where a brief but bitter engagement resulted, the issue of which was the surrender and capture of the place. Captain Eason's company alone supported a section—two pieces of Foster's battery—through the entire engagement, the 120th being the first to plant the flag on the ramparts of the enemy. This battle was fought on Sunday, February 11, 1863. The regiment next returned to Vicksburg. Here in the marshes and morasses of the Mississippi, disease invaded its ranks, and many a gallant life went out and many a gallant heart went down.
In the spring of 1863, on account of seriously impaired health, Captain Eason resigned his commission, abandoning his command at that point. Arriving home, he remained upon the farm for a period, assisting nature in her recuperating efforts, and struggling to restore his health. Not sufficiently recovered to engage in the severities of farm-labor, but desiring employment, in November, 1864, he purchased the Wayne County Democrat office, conducting it as editor and proprietor. His connection with this journal is fully set forth in the history of the newspaper press of Wooster. After his relinquishment of journalism he repaired to his country residence once more, where he remained until April, 1870, when he came to Wooster, and with his son, Samuel B, whom he took into partnership with him, entered upon the practice of law ; also associating, two years thereafter, his son, B. F. Eason, in said partnership.
He was married May 25, 1843, to Miss Susan Branstetter, of Plain township, who, after a lingering illness, died August 6, 1872.
488 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
He has four children, S. B., B. F. and Robert Eason and Miss Beulah Eason, who entered upon the University course the first year of its existence.
Mr. Eason, though barely having attained the meridian of life, it will be observed is one of the old citizens of Wayne county, He has lived in our midst, grown up with us, and witnessed our growth, so that we contemplate him as a past reflex of us—a type of the earlier, as well as of our more modern civilization. He has been over fifty years a citizen. He is interlaced, intertwisted and intertwined with our people and our institutions. When he was a boy there were few school-houses and scant facilities for education. There were no railroads, no telegraphs— electricity was as yet in the Franklin bottle--couriers conveyed the intelligence of the day-- steam-boats were clumsy swimmers, and steam but an unruly mechanical factor—stage-coaches were the order, and the man on horseback the avant-courier of a Presidential pronunciamento.
Is it a wonder that he espouses the cause of education—that he exclaims, " More school-houses, better teachers and better ventilation ! "—that he wants railroads, endorses an Associated Press, and subscribes for the morning papers! Education has no more liberal and earnest patron than this man. He has erected a monument in Plain township to this cause. He aided in getting up the first school-house in Wayne county under the new school law of 1852. People's College is a product of his will. It has probably sent out more school teachers than any other district school in the county, nearly twenty of its pupils now being graduates of colleges and universities. The object of education, he believes, is to unfold and develop ; it should be specific and practical ; it should not be an accumulation of facts, but a development of capacities.
A backward glance at these lines reveals the fact that Mr. Eason is decidedly self-made. His helps have all been from himself. He made himself and has not been made by others-that is, brought his powers up to the work which he saw them adapted to; they grew from the center and organized as they grew, and hence all the efforts of his life went out on the lines of the relations of their individuality to the world and its affairs. He was not college- bred, and, as a consequence, his life is real and not borrowed. His life shows him to be a believer in work ; he believes in universities, too, but does not assume that a college is a mill that will take in every dunce and grind a genius out of him.
He is too practical to swallow that. He is of opinion that men
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develop and make themselves to a great degree. He is sure that the best book-keepers are those that are manufactured in the counting-room. He affirms that there is no theory about cutting cordwood, only to go to the woods and work it out. So he wisely concludes that every man's powers have relations to some kinds of work, and whenever he finds that kind of work which he can do best, he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up or make his manhood. The world to him is a working world—a serious, earnest, hard-working world. He likes to see men with aprons on and sleeves rolled up. He is a man of decided and pronounced opinions, has personality and is not afraid to assert it at the proper time, but then is not obtrusive. He has the faculty of not "supposing" and "inclining to think," but of knowing and believing; his disposition is not to live by hearsay, but by clear vision. While others hover and swim along in the grand Vanity Fair of the world, blinded by the mere " show of things," he tries to see things themselves. He never throws overboard anything that will be of use to him. He is not noisy or turbulent, but does his own thinking, and makes no
fuss about it.
His experience has made him cunning, and he avoids traps that older people fall into. There is foresight about him, and plenty of secretiveness. He thinks he can manage a secret better himself than by calling in neighbors to assist him. He is charitable to the poor and a liberal giver to deserving enterprises. Socially he is affable and genial. His heart never freezes over in the coldest weather. He is fond of anecdote, and will fling a joke at you with as sure an aim as a Mexican will his stiletto. On the stump he is a matter-of-fact speaker and logical debater. He is a mathematician, a financial scholar, a thorough accountant, and in business punctiliously accurate.
He is about six feet high, well built, has a methodizing, comprehensive eye, an ingenuous expression of countenance, is whole-souled, big-hearted, not effervescent or exhaustible—in sooth, a fair type of American manhood.
All in all, we pronounce him a man of far-reaching thought, of shrewdness, of calculation and stability of execution ; of scrupulous business habit, with perspicacity and forecast of results, having enough of faith in himself to obey the authority of his own judgment.
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DAVID ROBISON, JR.
David Robison, Jr., fourth son of David and Elizabeth Robison, on January 22, 1830, frrst visited the planet on which so many millions fight, sin, agonize and die. Having availed himself of the educational privileges of the select schools of those days, at the age of fifteen he entered the dry goods firm of his father and his brother John, who were then partners in the mercantile business, as clerk, or rather as a general errand boy. With them he remained several years, diligently applying himself to business and preparing for the sterner duties of advancing life. Not content, however, with the mental discipline and meager attainments of the village school, he resolved on giving wider scope to his intellectual faculties, and in the spring of 1849 he registered himself a student at the Western Reserve College, located at Hudson, Ohio. Here he remained for two years, when he returned to Wooster and embarked in mercantile pursuits for himself.
In July, 1851, a partnership was formed with his brothers John and James, constituting the firm of Robison & Co., in the dry goods trade; at the same time another was entered into with James in the milling business at the Wooster Mills, under the style of J. N. & D. Robison, Jr. In 1854 he purchased the interests of the two brothers in the store and sold to James his share in the mill.
He was one of the incorporators of the Wooster Gas Company in 1856, and materially aided in the construction of the works. For a number of years he has been identified with the banking interests of the community ; was associated with the private bank of Bonewitz, Emrich & Co. in 1867, and which was re-organized in 1868 and changed to the Commercial Bank of Wooster. He was one of the principal organizers of the National Bank of Wooster, commencing business January 1, 1872, and was its first President.
He was one of the incorporators of the Wooster University, a member of its Executive Committee ; was active and assiduous in raising funds for the construction of the buildings and for its endowment; took a promnient part in organizing its Faculty and was one of its liberal and ready benefactors.
He was married September 1, 1853, to Miss Ann E. Jacobs of Wooster, eldest daughter of James and Elizabeth W. Jacobs, by which union they have two sons, both of whom are living, namely, James Jacobs and Willard Field Robison. He became a member of the Presbyterian church of Wooster, in April, 1858, his wife
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uniting with this denomination seven years prior to this, while attending school at Steubenville, Ohio. Mr. Robison is still engaged in mercantile speculation in Wooster at the old stand where he embarked in business in 1845. His corner is about as well advertised and known, we were going to say, as Nasby's Confederate Cross Roads, and between the management of it and the Presidency of the Bank, he is restrained from indulging in any lingering whims of mischievous boyhood. As the narrative shows, he is a public-spirited, enterprising, projective man. By virtue of his very mental organization he is a progressionist. He has plenty of independence of character and many good reasons for it.
Had the metalic creeds of Westminster been burned upon his brain with a rod of iron he would not have carried the whole of the impression to his grave. He has faith enough, but then he thinks a great deal more than he believes. If he is not much over forty-five, he has arrived at a good many conclusions. He believes, for instance, that a man may carry a gold-headed cane and wear a wooden head. He is of the opinion that a man who is willing to pay will do so sooner than one that has the means to do it. He considers greenbacks in the vault more desirable than a note of 60 days, at 10 per cent., secured by mortgage, where the maker fails to meet it promptly at maturity. This is his, and a very wise conception of business.
He is a Wayne countian, and as indigenous to the soil as the massive elms in his door-yard ; but he has heard a fair share of the roaring of the outside multitude. He was not wholly educated at Hudson, but has learned much from the light of the conflicting flints of the world. The rifleman, before he enters upon the hunt and chase, puts-up his target, which, for the time, is the object of his skill. He set up a motive, pinned up a purpose before he marched out against life, and now, in its exciting pursuits, it is constantly before him. He gave to life an aim, and no sooner 'was it done than the brain-children began unfolding it, as the rays of the morning's light unfolds the convolvulus.
He consecrates himself to an idea—that idea is his business. He is equally at home at the bank as well as at the counter. He would have been correspondingly efficient in any chosen sphere of activity and labor. His judgment is sound, his propositions usually supportable by facts and argument, with both of which weap-
* Removed to Toledo since this was written.
492 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
ons he can adroitly and forcibly maintain himself against an adversary. What reasons may have influenced him against entering upon the legal profession we do not pretend to solve, but he would have made a lawyer, just as sure as you are born, and a good one, too.
His opinions are characterized by commendable catholicity, yet there is unction and earnestness in his convictions. But, most of all, his business is his charmed circle. It is here where he manifests his power. He binds his energies in the quiver of his will, and hurls them with the precision of Indian arrows. His executive ability is of a fine order. What he undertakes he proposes to finish. He strikes his irons only when they are at white heat ; then every blow counts one. He wants gas in the city because it brings light ; banks, because they are the light of commerce ; a university, because it bears a shining torch in its hand.
He has great elasticity of constitution, a superabundance of good feeling, and a sunshiny gaiety of imagination. He is a warm friend, a cool and dignified enemy. In conversation he is original and animated. When aroused his tongue vitriolizes his speech, though he inclines to give his opponents a wide berth. His correct and upright business habits, his probity and integrity, have anchored him safely in the confidence of the public.
ANGUS MCDONALD.*
Angus McDonald was born February 7, 1818, at Woodside, in Aberdeenshire, then two miles from the city of Aberdeen, Scotland, but now a portion of said city, and the birth-place of the father of Patrick Henry, the celebrated Revolutionary patriot. His father, a Highland Scotchman, still living, was born it 1798, in Fort Augustus, Invernes-shire, a large maratime county of Scotland, extending across the island from sea to sea, and traversed its whole length from south-west to north-east by the Caledonian Canal. He is now living in Aberdeen. The genealogical tree is strictly and emphatically Highland Scotch. They descend from a rugged, stalwart and powerful ancestral line, the family being a branch of the McDonald clan of the Highlanders, who bore for their motto a Bloody Hand with a triple cross, and the armorial inscription, "per mare, per terras"—through sea and land.
* Written in 1874.
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The name is as familiar in the annals of Scotland as that of Kenneth, Gregory, Malcolm, Macbeth, Duncan or Montieth. The father of A. McDonald, as might be expected, was a soldier. He inherited the martial spirit from a line of warriors, and the very force and bent of his inclinations would drive him to the soldier's tent. At the age of seventeen he entered the British army, joining the 42d, under Colonel Macara, Scot's Royals—" the Black Watch"—which was brigaded with the 92d and 44th regiments, and which was commanded by General Picton at the battle of Waterloo.
On the first day of the fighting at Quatre Bras, June 16, 1815, his brigade suffered most severely. They were stationed near the farm house of Quatre Bras, and were the object of a most destructive fire, as the French had the advantage of the rising ground, while they were covered to the shoulders among tall rye, so that they could not return the volleys with precision. A desperate charge of French cavalry succeeded, which was resisted by each of these regiments separately, each one throwing itself into a solid square. The approach of the enemy being partly concealed by the nature of the ground, the 42d was unable to form a square in the necessary time. Two companies were, therefore, instantly swept off and cut to pieces, Some of the men stood back to back and maintained an unyielding conflict with the horsemen until they were cut down. Here the veteran Colonel Macara, of the 42d, and the Duke of Brunswick fell. Here, also, Mr. McDonald was wounded, having been shot in the head with a musket ball. He was subsequently discharged, on this account, from the military service, and receives until this day a pension from the British Government. After the battle his family, hearing no tidings of him, and not having been` eported at the hospital, came to the conclusion that he was killed, and for six months went in mourning for him. It was a terrible and overwhelming surprise to them, after the lapse of that time, to see their soldier son, then a young man of 17 years, make his appearance at the family door. After his retirement from the army he became manager of a cotton factory at Printfield, where he sojourned for 30 years, when he removed to Aberdeen, and engaged in business with his son David, who visited A. McDonald in the summer of 1870. He was married to Margaret Monro, of Rosshire, a Highland Scotch lady, by which marriage he had 8 children. In July, 1843, Mr. Ronald McDonald came to America to see the country and visit his son, then living
494 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
at Massillon, Ohio, where he remained until May, 1844. Having contracted the ague, he left the country in disgust, saying, would not live here if you would give me all the country between Zoar and Massillon. You feed mercury to your people, sir ; don't
I know what mercury is ? "
Angus McDonald, the subject of this sketch, is the eldest son and the eldest child of the family. In his earliest boyhood he first made the experiment of labor and tasted of the fruits of toil. When but seven years old he entered the cotton factory at Print- field, and here he remained until he was fourteen, when his business was somewhat changed, as he was put into the Grand Holm foundry, at Woodside, where an opportunity was offered and where he acquired a knowledge of his trade of moulder. In 1838, he went to London, but in that boisterous maelstrom, that cyclone of contending human forces, he found little enjoyment. Being then but twenty years of age, he abandoned the thronged metropolis of the world, when he set out for Liverpool and commenced work in what was then called Berry's foundry, and while engaged in this establishment he first conceived the intention of coming to America. After pursuing his work for some time in Liverpool he returned to his home, at Aberdeen, on a visit, when he was married to Kate Dinwiddie, of his native Woodside.
In February, 1840, he set sail for the United States for the purpose of making observations of the country, and with the design of returning to Scotland should he not be favorably impressed with the country, and calculating to remain if it suited him. After thirty-five days passage he planted his feet upon the soil of the New World, and hearing of Massillon, repaired thither with but little delay, finding employment immediately with Messrs. McMillen & Partridge, as foreman in their foundry. With these gentlemen he remained one year, at the end of which time they were unwilling that he should leave them and he, being satisfied with the country and its remunerations of labor, resolved to stay, whereupon he sent for his wife and child, who arrived in Massillon in the spring of 1842. In that foundry he served in the capacity of foreman for seven years, but on account of his wife's illness, and the malaria so prevalent there at that time, he concluded to come to Wooster, where he arrived February 12, 1847.
Of the eleven children born to Mr. McDonald but seven remain. His four sons, William, Angus, David and Harper, are severally in his employ, and assist in conducting his business.
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Mr. McDonald is now sixty years old, and considering the fact that his more vigorous years were spent in the severe and nerve- testing discipline of the moulder's room, he is nevertheless well- preserved and well conditioned, hearty in body and healthy in mind. We pronounce him a good specimen of the Highland Scotchman—all he wants is the costume to sustain the character. He is a grain of good Scotch seed that has fallen upon a responsive soil ; or perhaps we had better say, he is a graft upon our New Worldtree which, under the influence of genial suns and rains, produces our choicest fruit. Upon his tongue there is perceptible the Scottish accent. And for all this, we can say, Amen; for as the local expounder of Robert Burns, he can the better interpret him to us and draw us nearer to the soul and spirit of his poems by lending a truer understanding of their charms and beauties. He hails from a country that has been and is the nucleus of human intellect. A closer analysis of him would discover that, not only his tongue but his thought, his conduct and character, are accentuated with the Scotch. Thackeray says, "to have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St. Peter's." To have been born on the soil that produced a Scott, a Burns, a Thomas Erskine, a Haddington, or John Brown, is in itself a kind of renown.
He is five feet ten and a half inches high, of corpulent, but athletic frame, and weighs over 200 pounds. He has a broad, square, intellectual face, lighted up by a pair of keen, blue eyes, and a heavy burgherly chin, indicative of will-force, and the energetic, affirmative man. His brow is arched, and presents traces of the pencilings with which Nature adorns her best works ; his cheeks are full, fleshy and ruddy as the blossoms of the June clover. There is a sedate dignity and complacency in his countenance that is seldom ruffled, which, under all circumstances, is the best expression of the human soul. In him is seen the-
“Lord-Burleigh look, serene and serious;
A something of imposing and mysterious."
If excited, he has considerable facility in concealing it. A machinist himself, he allows but little jar or friction among either his physical or mental cogs and wheels. Simplicity and plainness characterize his dress. A solid, but unostentatious gold chain, and a gold watch—an heir-loom of generations in the family—constitute his jewel ornaments. He sustains the port of a well-bred
495 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
gentleman ; is urbane, decorous and polite. He is free, flexible, and fluent in conversation ; is well familiarized with the history and literature of England, Scotland and America. He has been at the Hustings, passed up Grub street, and can talk for hours and days upon the Mermaid and Literary London.
Scotland, Scottish ballads, rare, old unfathered fragments, queer and quaint legends, form an interesting chapter in his antique acquisitions. In addition to his large stock of general knowledge he has made many scientific acquirements. In the field of geology he has spent hours of profitable leisure and delight. On his shelves lie the books of his great countryman, "the representative man of Scotland," as Tom Brown chooses to call him, "the stonemason of Cromarty," the immortal Hugh Miller. In these volumes of the Great Interpreter of the Rocks, he discovers prolific sources of thought and study.
Mr. McDonald is a practical, well-balanced, firm-purposed man. He seldom loses his self-possession, has much force of character, sagacity, decision, logical acuteness and great alertness of faculty. What he has accomplished he can put down to his own credit. In the mountains of his Highland home he found no buried gold. When he slept Fortune filled not his pillows with her treasures. He lived to toil and toiled to live. He has forged and beat out his life by the blows of his arm. He conducts the largest, most intricate and most ramified business in the county. There is true sandstone grit in him. In his reapers and mowers are not found all of the steel ; his blood has steel in it. He is the personation of uniformity. He is clean-shaved to-day, was yesterday, and will be to-morrow. The sun in his comings is not more regular than his habits, nor does the moon pay her quarterage with greater precision. With him it is always twelve o'clock at noon. His watch must say this, or he will get one that will. His steam-whistle is Shrewsbury clock and Greenwich time in all the city. His machine shops are models of method. It is an army of captains and subalterns, governed by West Point discipline. When "time" is called the work begins, the loungers are left out.
Mr. McDonald is a Democrat, but in no sense a politician. Had he sought promotion in this field, he likely would have achieved it, for he has the elements of popularity, as well as strength of self-assertion. During the rebellion he was a staunch supporter of the Government—was what was called " a War Democrat." He was appointed by Gov. David Tod a member of the
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Military Committee, and served with an emphasis of patriotic zeal in every position the appointment conferred. In those dark days,* when the great manufactures of the country languished, he confronted financial depressions and revulsions with Spartan resolution. Prostrations and oppositions were met with manly vigor, and Samson-like, he carried off the gates that were swinging to imprison him. Looking only to the main chance, he fought to
the front.
Though he stands now on the Pisgah hights of three-score years, he has, as we may infer, much of life and the first enjoyments of its decline before him.
To the blue skies of his native Scotland he has often turned the wishful eye, but, since his departure from it, has never visited the scenes of his childhood. In a strange land and among strangers he took up his abode, and here he has dwelt with us, building himself up with the ideas of the great Republic, interlacing himself with its giant industries and imbibing the inspirations of its institutions. Under their influences he has raised a family, which are entwined with the affectionate and benevolent goodness of his heart, and here he has constructed a name that will not soon vanish from the eye or the memory of man. His instinctive generosity—for " he downa see a poor man want "—and enterprising spirit will live and be cherished when he shall have passed the portal and the river.
As Burns said of Gavin Hamilton-
“ May health and peace, with mutual rays,
Shine on the evening of his days."
WOOSTER WATER WORKS.
The first water works established in Wooster were constructed under a contract negotiated between the original proprietors of the town and the County Commissioners, bearing date May 13, 1811. The conditions of the contract were that the county-seat should be permanently located at Wooster, and, among other specifications, it was agreed that the proprietors were to bring " the water of the run, which at present runs through the town in pipes of sound white oak timber of a proper size, well bored and laid, and raise the water ten feet above the surface at the center of the town."
* 1874, when this was written.
32
498 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
This contract was complied with by the proprietors, and water was delivered to the town of Wooster conducted through these pipes from 1815 to 1829. When the authorities of the town undertook to repair the pipes conveying the water one of the lot-owners through whose premises the pipes were laid prohibited them from so doing by an injunction of the court, and from that time no further attention or effort was made to sustain the enterprise.
More recently the subject of supplying the city with water from the springs of Mr. Reddick to the north of the city became a matter of grave and earnest consideration. May 14, 1874, G. Gow and John Brinkerhoff, civil engineers, gauged the stream and found it sufficient to protect the city against fire. The work being inaugurated the reservoir was constructed under the supervision of G. Gow during the summer of 1875, by throwing a dam across the ravine immediately below the springs, thus raising the water to the depth of 18 feet. No further labor was performed until the spring of 1876, when the present works were commenced and conducted through the summer of 1876, under the immediate and energetic supervision of John Brinkerhoff, civil engineer.
In the construction of the system the pipe used was 3,989 feet of twelve inch, 4,988 feet of ten inch, 6,432 feet of eight inch, 26,024 feet of six inch and 4,844 feet of four inch pipe, in all 46,277 feet, or over 8 miles of pipe.
The total cost of pipe and special castings was $36,390, the entire cost of the works being $76,256.27. Improvements have since been made, making an additional cost of about $10,000. The surface of the water at the reservoir is 128 feet above the public square. The water from 88 fire-plugs, located on the lines of the streets, can be projected to various hights, ranging from 40 to 100 feet above the surface by the force of gravity alone. Gravity being the agent acting in the propulsion of the water, the expense of running the works is merely nominal. The supply of water is sufficient for all the wants of the city, and under improvements introduced by M. M. Smith, Superintendent, during the summer of 1877, the water delivered in the city is pure spring water.
The works are now the most popular of any enterprise in which Wooster has engaged. Many citizens were at first, however, very hostile to their construction, to the extent of presenting written remonstrances to the City Council, condemning the project generally, predicting its failure to supply water to the city. But,
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notwithstanding such serious resistance, the Council proceeded energetically with the work, ending in success greater than the most sanguine anticipated. The active Councilmen in this were Angus McDonald, Jacob Stark, R. J. Cunningham, B. Barrett, J, K. McBride, J. J. Stevenson, Mortimer Munn, D. W. Immel.
0. F. JONES.
Ohio F. Jones was born in Wooster, November 28, 1822. His earlier years were spent with his father in the village and upon the farm, during which time he had advantage of the educational opportunities that were afforded at that period. At the age of eighteen he went to Fredericksburg, attending the institution there, then under the supervision of Edward Geary, brother of Ex-Governor Geary, of Pennsylvania. He afterwards went to McGregor's Academy at Wadsworth, Medina county, Ohio, and thence to Brown county, Ohio, where he entered upon the study of law with General Thomas L. Hamar, of Georgetown, a gentleman of extraordinary abilities as orator, advocate and lawyer, a soldier of the Mexican war, who at the battle of Monterey distinguished himself for coolness and courage, and when Major General Butler was wounded, succeeded him in the command.
He was admitted to practice in May, 1846, and the same year entered into partnership with Judge Ezra Dean, establishing a joint or branch office at Ashland. This partnership terminated the ensuing spring, when he removed to Wooster and formed a partnership with John McSweeney, which continued for eight years. In the spring of 1855 he engaged in professional relations with Hon. George Rex, which ran through a period of eighteen years, and until the elevation of Mr. Rex to the Judicial honors of the State.
After the lapse of several years, in 1877 he received J. R. Woodsworth into partnership with him in practice, which professional relationship still exists. Mr. Jones' entire time and energies since his attainment to manhood have been devoted to the study and prosecution of the law. At a suitable age he was placed in the office of General Hamar, one of the most brilliant men of his time, and an intimate friend and associate of his father, who had served cotemporaneously with him in Congress. It is therefore evident that his opportunities when a student were of the most