THE LORAIN STREET SAVINGS & TRUST COMPANY The Lorain Street Savings Bank Company was organized on the 11th of November, 1890. The first meeting was held in the trimming room of the Henry Leopold Furniture Company, directly across the street from the first and permanent location of the bank. There were present at this meeting : G. A. Tinnerman, Henry Leopold, H. Tiedeman, Herman Junge, G. A. Weitz, Charles Herman, Eranious Rice, J. J. Brunner, Jacob Theobald, Louis Perczel and George P. Faerber. The original capital stock of the company was $100,000.00, divided into two thousand shares of $50.00 each. The first stockholders of the bank were the following: G. A. Tinnerman, Charles Herman, Henry Leopold, Herman Junge, Mary K. Weitz, G. A. Weitz, Eranious Rice, Louis Perczel, Charles W. Davis, Theodor Kundtz, Hertel Brothers, Isidor Nunn, James Hopwood, D. H. Kimberly, L. E. Meacham, W. J. White, F. H. Biermann, William Leopold and Mars Wagar. Of the original stockholders, Eranious Rice, Theodor Kundtz, Hertel Brothers, William Leopold and Mars Wagar still survive and are doing business with the bank today. The first board of directors consisted of the following members : G. A. Tinnerman, Charles Herman, G. A. Weitz, Louis Perczel, James Hopwood, Henry Hertel, W. J. White, Herman Junge, Henry Leopold, Eranious Rice, D. H. Kimberly, Isidor Nunn, F. H. Biermann, L. E. Meacham and Mars Wagar. - 351 - 352 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The first meeting of the board of directors of The Lorain Street Savings Bank Company was held on the 28th of March, 1891, on which date the following officers were elected : D. H. Kimberly, president; Herman Junge, first vice president; Charles Herman, second vice president; G. A. Tinnerman, third vice president; Louis Perczel, secretary; J. A. Melcher, treasurer. The first correspondent of the bank was The United States National Bank of New York city. The first statement of the bank was rendered on August 5, 1891: Assets, $146,447.02; liabilities, $146,447.02. The statement of condition of The Lorain Street Savings Bank Company on May 3, 1892, after one year's operation, was as follows : Resources, $296,232.40 ; liabilities, $296,232.40. On the 22d of June, 1910, the capital stock of the bank was increased from $100,000.00 to $200,000.00, divided into two thousand shares of $100.00 each. Following is the condition on December 31, 1929: Resources, $14,024,654.71; liabilities, $14,024,654.71. The bank has always been located on the northeast corner of Lorain avenue and Fulton road and has had a steady and prosperous growth from the very beginning. On November 4, 1896, on account of the increasing business, the banking room at that time was remodeled. In 1918 the bank had again outgrown its quarters and work was begun on the erection of a modern, five-story bank and office building of Italian Renaissance architecture. The style of that period is used throughout the entire building, including the furniture and fixtures. Heavy doors of solid bronze guard the main entrance of the bank and lead to a vestibule of bronze and glass. The entire banking room is finished in Tavarnelle marble and bronze and the upper walls and ceiling are of Caen stone, beautifully decorated in colors, modeled after the Italian Renaissance. The floors in the main room are of Tennessee marble, while the floors in cages and other parts of the bank are of cork. Two check desks in the main THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 353 banking room are of solid bronze, with glass tops, lighted from underneath. The private offices of the officials are of bronze and glass. The walls, ceiling and floor of the vaults are of marble, railroad steel and concrete, and three thicknesses of steel, bolted, make them fire and burglar proof. Furniture modeled after the Elizabethan period is used in the directors' room, the walls of which are panelled in oak, while the remainder of the room is finished in mahogany. The four floors above the bank are leased and used as offices by the leading professional and business men of the west side of Cleveland. The strategic position of the institution is one of the most desirable in the city of Cleveland. The new bank was opened to the public on the 12th of February, 1919, at which time The Lorain Street Savings Bank Company became The Lorain Street Savings & Trust Company, On the 16th of October, 1929, The Lorain Street Savings & Trust Company, at a meeting of the directors, voted to buy the Community Bank of Lakewood, which was effected by outright purchase. The Lakewood institution had been organized in 1924 and had resources of $2,000,000. It is located at 16010 Detroit avenue and is one of the two branches of The Lorain Street Savings & Trust Company, the other being at 13021 Lorain avenue. The Lorain Street Savings & Trust Company is a member of the Cleveland Clearing House Association. G. A. Tinnerman occupied the presidency of the bank from May 12, 1897, until his death in April, 1925. The present officers are as follows : A. H. Tinnerman, president; George Weckerling, executive vice president; E. Rice, vice president; Henry Hertel, vice president; A. F. Leopold, vice president; John R. Cleary, treasurer; R. W. Hones, secretary; L. F. Acklin, assistant treasurer; R. W. Reitsman, assistant treasurer; R. C. Elmer, assistant secretary; W. C. Markworth, assistant secretary; Carl W. Schaefer, trust officer and counsel; Adeline Reinker, assistant trust officer; and 354 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS M. E. Reinker, comptroller. The directors are Morris Amster, M. G. Firestone, J. A. Foerstner, Henry Hertel, James Holan, Christ Koblenzer, A. F. Leopold, John M. Loeblein, Frank H. Meilander, E. Rice, Carl W. Schaefer, Henry G. Schaefer, George G. Schuele, Fred C. Smith, Raible C. Theurer, A. H. Tinnerman, F. A. Werk and George J. Whelan.   CHARLES E. FARNSWORTH   The name of Charles E. Farnsworth has been continuously associated with banking interests of Cleveland for forty-two years, and his is a record of an orderly progression that has brought him to the fore in financial circles of the city as executive vice president of the Union Trust Company. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, January 18, 1865, and is a scion of one of the colonial families of America. His parents were Emory and Mary Buffum (Dudley) Farnsworth, the former a native of Newton, Massachusetts, and the latter of China, Maine. The father, a business man of high standing, was widely known as one of the organizers of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Coming to Cleveland late in the '70s, he remained here until his death in 1919 at the advanced age of ninety-four years and the mother reached the sixty-eighth milestone on life's journey.   The advantages of a public school education were accorded Charles E. Farnsworth, who made his initial step in financial circles of Cleveland at the age of sixteen, obtaining a situation in the Ohio National Bank, with which he was connected from 1881 until 1883. For five years thereafter he was with E. B. Hale & Company and in 1888 went to El Paso, Texas, where he was employed in the First National Bank for a year. With his return to Cleveland in 1889 he entered the Euclid Avenue National Bank, of which he was paying teller until 1894, when he was made assistant cashier, and his next promotion came in 1898, at which time he was selected for the post of cashier. Following the merger of July 1, 1903, this became the Euclid Park National Bank,   - 355 -   356 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   of which Mr. Farnsworth was cashier until July 1, 1905, when the owners of the institution purchased the business of the First National Bank, and took that name. Mr. Farnsworth continued as cashier until December 31, 1920, when the Union Trust Company was organized, and has since been one of its vice presidents. Developing his powers through the exercise of effort, he has kept in close touch with the changing conditions that have wrought a marked revolution in banking methods in recent years and is regarded by his financial associates as a man of keen discernment, notably sound judgment and marked ability. In business circles of Cleveland he figures as a director of the Elwell-Parker Electric Company and the Kuhlman Car Company.   In 1889 Mr. Farnsworth was married in this city to Miss Bertha P. Hunt, by whom he has two sons and a daughter : Charles Dudley, who is with the Canfield Oil Company; Harvey R., associated with the firm of Black & Decker at Kent, Ohio, is the father of two sons, Charles E. (II) and Robert Harvey; and Mrs. Gladys Eloise Hower, at home. Mr. Farnsworth is a member of the Union, Mid-Day and Congress Lake Clubs. Genial and kindly, he enjoys the social side of life but his interest centers in the banking business and the strength that he manifests in financial affairs has its root in those qualities which insure progress and success, at the same time winning for a man the esteem and goodwill of his fellows.   JOHN GEORGE SPENZER, M. D., PH. D., F. C. S.   A man of high professional attainments, Dr. John George Spenzer, of Cleveland, was widely known by reason of his experimental researches, his important contributions to chemical and medical literature, his ability as a lecturer, educator and practitioner, and his scientific analyses in murder cases and other mysteries. Born on Webster avenue September 6, 1864, he was the second son of Dr. Peter I. and Mary T. (Molloy) Spenzer, of whom more extended mention is made elsewhere in this work.   During the period of his boyhood Dr. John G. Spenzer attended the Brownell Street grammar school, the Central high school, from which he was graduated in 1880, and also had a private tutor. The son of an apothecary and physician, he early decided to follow in the professional footsteps of his father, and his first laboratory training in chemistry was obtained at the old Wooster Medical College in the summer of 1878. Later, while a pupil in the Central high school, he received instruction from H. C. Foote, probably the best teacher of chemistry Cleveland has ever had. Subsequently his instructors in that science were Professors Morley, Buecking, Chantemesse, Drechsel, Fittig, Fournier, Friedel, Goltz, Hoppe-Seyler, Kohlrausch, Parker, Schmiedeberg, Scott, Solms-Laubach, Weber and Widal.   On the 15th of September, 1880, Dr. Spenzer entered the medical department of Western Reserve University, from which he won the M. D. degree in 1884, but according to the state laws could not be awarded a diploma until he attained his majority. From 1880 until 1884 he acted as lecturer   - 357 -   358 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   and laboratory assistant to Professor Edward W. Morley at the medical school and for three years thereafter was postgraduate lecturer and laboratory assistant in chemistry and mineralogy at Adelbert College, Western Reserve University. During the summer of 1886 he lectured on chemistry at the medical school in Cleveland, and in 1887 and 1888 was engaged in private research chemical work in his own laboratory on Central avenue. Due to financial reverses he was employed from 1888 until 1891 in the pharmacy of Fred W. Schueller at Rich and High streets in Columbus, Ohio, filling the position of chief prescription clerk.   On November 4, 1891, Dr. Spenzer matriculated as a candidate at the natural science faculty of the Imperial University at Strassburg, Alsace, Germany, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, October 24, 1893, completing the course in a shorter time than any other student in that institution. From October, 1893, until March, 1894, he did research work in pharmacology and physiological chemistry in the medical department of the Imperial University, and from the latter date until July, 1894, was a student at the University of Paris, where he attended the following schools: Ecole Pratique, Faculte de Medecine, Musee l'Histoire Naturelles, the Sorbonne and Ecoles des Mines.   With his return to Cleveland in September, 1894, Dr. Spenzer became instructor in experimental therapeutics and pharmacology in the medical school of Western Reserve University and so continued until May, 1896. Meanwhile, in 1895, he had been elected professor of chemistry in the dental school of the same university but refused to serve, although his name was kept on the faculty for two years. From May until September, 1895, he did research work in medical chemistry at the Medical Chemical Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland.   Dr. Spenzer was classed with the leading medical educators of the country. From 1896 until 1910 he was pro-   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 359   fessor of general and medical chemistry and pharmacology in the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical department of Ohio Wesleyan University, and from 1910 to 1917 was professor of chemistry, legal chemistry and medical jurisprudence at Western Reserve University. Early in his professional career he won fame as a toxicologist and as an authority on legal chemistry he furthered the cause of justice in the criminal courts of this country. He was the state's star witness in the trial of the late Mrs. Eva Catherine Kaber, who was convicted of the murder of her husband, Dan Kaber, in 1920. Dr. Spenzer's autopsy revealed traces of arsenic in the stomach of the wealthy Lakewood publisher. The discovery helped the police establish a motive for the murder, and later it was found that enough arsenic had been given Mr. Kaber at various times to have killed four men. Working on other famous murder cases, many of them in other states, Dr. Spenzer several times turned up important evidence through autopsies. He exposed sewage contamination in the lake here on several occasions, traced down typhoid epidemics, found that several persons who had died after a banquet near Cincinnati had been poisoned by olives, and in 1926 proved that a family of six, found mysteriously dead in Cleveland, had been the victims of carbon monoxide gds.   Some of. Dr. Spenzer's researches attracted universal attention and were accepted as authority by the medical profession. Among these were the following:   1881-1882. Crystalline glycerine, noticed for the first time in America and the second case described (Proceedings of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association, 1882) .   1887. Ethyl nitrate, color, boiling point and specific gravity (Proc. 0. S. P. A.) .   1891. Phenol—delicacy of tests for (Proc. A. S. P. A. and American Association for the Advancement of Science) .   1891-1893. On the behavior of allylmalonic, allylacetic and ethylidene propionic acids when boiled with caustic soda solutions; contributions to the knowledge of propylidene   360 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   acetic acid (Dissertation, Strassburg, Germany), published in Liebeg's Annalen, Transactions of the German Chemical Society, (Journal of the American Chemical Society, etc.). Theoretically, at least, a research of great value in explanation of the shifting of the double bond in unsaturated organic acids. Pioneer in character and repeatedly corroborated as regards the assertions and explanatory evidence therein contained.   1892. Crystallography of oxethyl dibrom methyl ketone napthalin (Strassburg, Groth's Zeitschr. F. Mineralogie).   1893. Crystallographic study of B-Bromvalerianic acid (Strassburg) (in American Journal of Science, February, 1895) (Groth's Zeitschr, fuer Mineralogie, 1893).   1894. The grade of ethernarcosis in relation to the amount of inhaled ether vapor. (Strassburg : Archly. Experimentelle Pathologie and Pharmakologie, Vol. 23, 1894, and Proc. A. A. A. S., 1894).   1895. On antidotes for hydrocyanic acid.   1898. On the production of carbohydrate from egg albumen; being a research work in opposition to the theories of Dr. F. W. Pavy, of England, 1895.   Besides these Dr. Spenzer published more than fifty papers of a scientific character on chemistry, hygiene, pharmacy, pharmacology and toxicology, and was the author of "The Principles of Pharmacology," 1899, A. 7. For many years he maintained a suite of offices on the sixth floor of the Rose building in Cleveland and here practiced successfully until within a short time of his death, which occurred in the Cleveland Clinic Hospital on July 26, 1932, after an illness of brief duration.   At Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, June 15, 1898, Dr. Spenzer was married to Miss Minnie Elizabeth Kittelberger, whose father, Christian Kittelberger, now deceased, was the owner of a tannery there. Besides his widow, who resides in the family home at 1825 East Ninety-third street, Dr. Spenzer   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 361   is survived by a son and a daughter, John C. Spenzer and Miss Caroline Spenzer.   Dr. Spenzer became a member of the Philomatic Society of Alsace-Lorraine, Germany, at Strassburg in 1892; a member of the German Chemical Society at Berlin in 1893 ; a fellow of the English Chemical Society at London in 1894; a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Cleveland in 1888 and a fellow of that organization at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1895 ; a member of the Ohio Pharmaceutical Association at Columbus in 1888 and an honorary member of the association at Cleveland in 1897 ; an honorary member of the Cleveland Pharmaceutical Association in 1897; a member of the Cleveland Chemical Society in 1894 ; of the Ohio State Medical Society in 1896; and the American Medical Association in 1898. Through his researches and discoveries, his lectures and writings, Dr. Spenzer materially advanced the progress of science in his particular fields, and judged from the standpoint of service, his life was a notably successful one.   BRUCE-MACBETH ENGINE COMPANY   The history of the Bruce-Macbeth Engine Company dates from 1870, when John Macbeth, John T. Stoney and Robert Chambers entered into a partnership relation. They built a small foundry and pattern shop at 2111 Center street, Cleveland, and the present plant still occupies that site but it has been enlarged from time to time to meet the demands of the trade. After a few years Mr. Stoney's interest was acquired by his partners, Messrs. Macbeth and Chambers, who maintained that relationship until 1886, when Mr. Chambers disposed of his stock to Thomas Macbeth, the eldest son of John Macbeth. As partners John Macbeth and his son Thomas carried on the business from 1886 until 1890, when the father retired, selling his holdings therein to his younger sons, Joseph P. and Andrew D. Macbeth, and Charles W. Kelly. The style of Macbeth & Company was adopted in 1890 but in .1901, when changes in manufacture took place, it was changed to the Macbeth Iron Company, a form that was retained for eight years. Due to the rapid development of the gas engine, this concern joined forces with another Cleveland firm engaged in the manufacture of gas engines, The Bruce-Merriam-Abbott Company, and in 1909 the two were combined under the name of the Bruce-Macbeth Engine Company. This corporation has limited its activities to the manufacture of gas engines, which are sold principally in the south and southwestern states, in the oil-producing centers. Throughout, their plant is completely equipped with modern machinery and during normal production they employ about one hundred men in the manufacture of gas en-   - 363 -   364 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   gines ranging from forty to four hundred horse power. Founded sixty-two years ago, this pioneer house has an enviable record of steady progress and ever increasing usefulness. It is a member of the Associated Industries of Cleveland.   The officers of the Bruce-Macbeth Engine Company are : Thomas Macbeth, president; Charles E. Curtiss, vice president and sales manager; Charles J. Snow, treasurer; L. W. Sanborn, secretary. Associated with them on the board of directors are Theodore Weber, assistant secretary, Gardner Abbott and B. W. Charlton, the last named is factory manager. Messrs. Snow, Curtiss, Sanborn and Weber have been with the Macbeth Iron Works and its successors since 1901.   WILLIAM E. CROFUT   William E. Crofut is president and general manager of The Forest City Rubber Company, with main offices and factory at 1276 Ontario street in Cleveland, which he organized in 1905. Throughout the intervening period of more than a quarter of a century he has developed an extensive and profitable enterprise in the manufacture and jobbing and of exporting rubber specialties, including a complete line of foot comfort appliances.   Mr. Crofut was born in Syracuse, New York, September 5, 1874, his parents being Elmer B. and Harriet (Davis) Crofut, the former a hardware and seed merchant. Both the father and mother are deceased. William E. Crofut supplemented his early education by attendance at Syracuse University and subsequently was engaged in newspaper work for eight years, spending two years of that period with the Syracuse Courier and six years with the Syracuse Post in a reportorial capacity. He next became associated with W. T. Gridley as manager of the National Mercantile Agency in Boston. Massachusetts, and in 1898 opened the Cleveland office, which in three years he made the best paying office in the United States. Following his resignation from the National Mercantile Agency, he became treasurer of the Ohio Rubber. Company, in which official position he continued for three years. It was in 1905 that he organized The Forest City Rubber Company, manufacturers and jobbers of rubber specialties, with factories in Cleveland and Mansfield, Ohio. He has since remained at the head of the concern, which specializes in the "Comfort" foot-aids. Among the thirty   - 365 -   366 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   different items manufactured for foot comfort and the correction of foot ailments are the following : corn pads, callous pads, bunion pads, arch supports, heel cushions, heel straights, arch binders, callous removers and metatarsal supports, bunion shields, toe straighteners, corn salve, ankle and arch supports, foot cooler powder, handy bandages, hose savers, heel liners, combination heel cushion and hose saver, and Comfortene Formula, a remedy and preventative for athlete's foot and ringworm infections. An attractive illustrated pamphlet issued by the company, "A Foot Aid for Every Foot Ailment," describes the various specialties produced, all of which are prepared especially for chain store merchandising. The product was first displayed in the Kresge stores on the 18th of April, 1931, and is now handled in all chain stores throughout the United States and Canada. Sales offices are maintained in New York city, Montreal, Canada, and London, England, and employment is furnished to seventy-five people. The official personnel of The Forest City Rubber Company is as follows: W. E. Crofut, president and general manager; W. E. Crofut, Jr., vice president; and E. W. Ebert, secretary.   On the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, June 1, 1931 The Forest City Rubber Company issued a leaflet reading as follows : "Twenty-five years ago the present management of The Forest City Rubber Company laid the foundation of 'Forest City' service. In reviewing the accomplishments of this quarter-century, we desire to thank our friends for making possible the following recent manifestations of growth :   Since January 1st we have greatly enlarged out plant for the manufacture of many of our specialty products.   Since January 1st we have opened New York offices, where a part of our national and export business is handled.   Since January 1st we have added to our department of mechanical rubber goods, the extensive line manufactured by the Hewitt Gutta Percha Rubber Corporation of Buffalo,   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 367   New York. This company is modern and aggressive, and strong in its financial structure.   Since January 1st we have more than doubled our staff of efficient, trained salesmen. Despite the so-called hard times and prevailing pessimism, we have, during the past sixty days, more than doubled the sales of the best corresponding period in our history.   "For these achievements we are indebted to our loyal and stanch friends. Many of these friends we served when we first began business a quarter of a century ago. They are today among our most prized assets. Besides these old friends of 'Forest City' there are newer ones, none the less prized, who have more recently come to know the meaning of 'Forest City'. service and 'Forest City' quality merchandise. Among our sources of supply we have retained and cultivated all that were desirable and competent. Always we have been alert to grasp connections that would enable us to place with the trade the most modern developments in rubber technique. Never have our future and our immediate present been so bright. Never before have we been favored with such a volume of business. We thank our many friends for making this achievement possible. We pledge a continuance of the policies which have been responsible for our growth."   The first wife of Mr. Crofut, who was in her maidenhood Ruth Paul, of Concord, New Hampshire, passed away in 1918, leaving a son, William E., Jr., who is married and has one child. For his second wife Mr. Crofut married Elizabeth Ballard, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and they are the parents of a daughter, Jane Burr. Mr. Crofut has membership in the Mayfield County Club, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Union Club of Cleveland. He is active in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association and is a director of the Canadian Campfire Club. An expert fisherman, he is also fond of snow-shoe trips in the north and likewise finds pleasurable relaxation in golf and horseback riding.   GEORGE WELLS BAKER   It has been said : "Imagination is a priceless crystal in the vision of the man who achieves." Liberally endowed with this quality, which was supplemented by energy, ambition and keen sagacity, the late George Wells Baker made important contribution to the world's work as an inventor and manufacturer and for many years was an outstanding figure in business circles of Cleveland. He was born in Chestertown, Warren county, New York, July 26, 1834, and was a son of Lyman H. and Susan (Linkfield) Baker. His earliest American ancestor, Francis Baker of Great St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1635 and was the first married man to settle at Yarmouth, on Cape Cod, locating there in 1641. From this Francis and his wife, Isabel Twining, the descent runs through their son Nathaniel and his wife, Desire Gray; their son Samuel and his wife, Elizabeth Berry; their son Samuel and his wife, Jane Gage; their son Heman, a Revolutionary war soldier, and his wife, Temperance Baker; and their son Samuel and his wife, Betsy Tiffany, who were the parents of Lyman H. Baker.   Educated principally in grammar and night schools, George W. Baker began his active business career in 1848 as a mechanic in a sewing machine factory and later he was a member of the Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Company at Orange, Massachusetts. Early in the decade of the '60s he traveled westward to Cleveland with Thomas Howard White and in 1865 they began the manufacture of sewing machines, embodying new features of Mr. Baker's invention. Two years later he sold his interest in the enterprise to Rol-   - 369 -   370 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   lin C. White, (no relation of Thomas H. White) and returned to New Hampshire and was engaged in the manufacture of sewing machines. In 1869 at the earnest solicitation of Thomas H. White he returned to Cleveland and formed a new partnership with him, for the perfection of his new sewing machine, and in 1876 aided in organizing the White Sewing Machine Company for its manufacture. Thereafter, during the last twenty years of his life, George W. Baker served the corporation as mechanical expert and general superintendent, playing an important part in its upbuilding and prosperity through constant contributions to the improvement of its product. As a man of real mechanical genius, he perfected inventions and improvements in other lines of construction, notably in roller skates, which he manufactured for many years in the White factory. He was president of the Euclid Roller Rink Company, devoted to exhibitions of the sport of roller skating, so popular in the last decades of the nineteenth century. His favorite recreations, hunting and fishing, he made notable by constructing his own guns, rifles and casting rods, as well as his own duck and sail boats, and frequently made presents to his friends of such products of his skill. Few sportsmen, indeed, have been able to emulate this example. Numerous conspicuous awards were given Mr. Baker in recognition of his contributions to the perfection of the modern sewing machine. Among these were the certificate of award and silver medal from the Southwestern Industrial Association of Vienna in 1873 and from the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and a certificate of merit from the board of lady governors of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. During the Civil war he rendered valuable service to the federal government through his ability to break horses for gun fire. He was a lover of fast horses and kept a fine stable. He was a man of unusual attainments, could play any musical instrument, and made his own bows and arrows.   On the 3d of February, 1859, Mr. Baker was married   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 371   to Jeannette Rowene Hall, a daughter of Warren Hall of Brattleboro, Vermont, and three children were born to them : Luella who died young; Ida Rowene, now Mrs. Frank L. Cody of Babson Park, Florida; and Walter Charles, whose sketch is published elsewhere in this work.   Mr. Baker was a member of the Ottawa and Winona Shooting Clubs. He gave his political support to the republican party and was a regular attendant of the Congregational Church. After his retirement from business he returned to the east and there remained until his death, which oecurred at Brattleboro, Vermont, October 22, 1896, when he was sixty-two years of age. His was a useful, well ordered life, replete with accomplishment, and his personal qualities were such as command respect and inspire strong and enduring regard.   WALTER CHARLES BAKER   With the history of the development of the automobile industry in this country the name of Walter Charles Baker, a Cleveland engineer, is inseparably associated. Nationally known as an automobile engineer and inventor, he was a pioneer in the building of electric motor cars and the founder and head of the American Ball Bearing Company, and the Baker Motor Vehicle Company, corporations which made notable progress under his expert direction and control. Born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, June 27, 1868, he is of English ancestry in the paternal line and traces his genealogy in America to the colonial epoch. His father was George Wells Baker, whose sketch is published elsewhere in this work, and the mother was Jeannette Rowene Hall.   After attending the grammar and high schools of Cleveland, Walter C. Baker enrolled in the Case School of Applied Science, pursuing a course in mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, but four months later left that institution when it was destroyed by fire to become connected with the engineering force of the Valley Railroad. At the death of the chief engineer of the road soon after he acted in that capacity but resigned the position soon afterward and resumed his studies at the Case School, completing his course with the class of 1890. This was followed by the organization of the Baker & McNaughton Engineering Company. Two years later he sold his interest and for two years was connected with the, White Sewing Machine Company in the capacity of a draftsman and in 1894 he entered the service of the Cleveland Machine Screw Company as assistant engineer   - 373 -   374 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   under John J. Grant in the ball plant. In 1895 Mr. Baker formed the American Ball Bearing Company, of which he was long the president, making this the largest enterprise of the kind in the United States, and designed and manufactured axles for Cadillac, Packard, Lozier, Pierce Arrow and Peerless cars. His company, which was later merged with the Standard Parts Company, produced a general line of standard parts for automobiles. Inheriting his father's mechanical genius, Mr. Baker has given to the world many original devices of particular value to the automobile industry, and as an inventor and designer of ball bearings he became widely known. Constantly experimenting, he brought out the first "tongue" drive from motor to axle in 1898, and in 1900 was the first manufacturer in America to build a rear axle bevel gear for an automobile. Against the advice of experts, he developed this bevel gear and he also had patents on bevel geared rear axles. For many years he made axles and ball bearings for the Lozier, Woods, Peerless, Cadillac, Packard and other cars of high grade and established friendly relations with the leading automobile manufacturers of the country. In 1899 he organized the Baker Motor Vehicle Company for the building of electric motor cars and was among the first in that field. Gifted with administrative power as well as inventive genius, a rare combination, Mr. Baker also prospered in this venture and under his guidance the Baker Motor Vehicle Company, now The Baker. R. & L., which is a combination of the Baker Motor Vehicle Company and Raugh & Lang Company, manufactured many cars. In 1900 he was an exhibitor at the first automobile show, which was held in Madison Square Garden, New York city, and sold the late Thomas A. Edison an electric car. Mr. Baker was the owner of the first steam automobile in Cleveland, a No. 19 Stanley steamer, which he later sold to Edward Strong, and also brought to this city its first electric car, a Woods electric. During 1917 and 1918, he was active in war work, getting war material and equipment of all kinds,   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 375   also assisting in the solution of the mechanical problems arising in the leading plants under government control at that time, and thus rendered service of great importance and value to his country at one of the most critical periods in its history. Formerly he was president of the Matthews Boat Company of Port Clinton, Ohio.   On the 27th of October, 1891, Mr. Baker was married in Cleveland to Miss Fannie E. White, a daughter of Rollin C. and Elizabeth White and they have a son and a daughter : Elizabeth, now Mrs. Harold McKelvey, of Cleveland; and Robert Wells, a student at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.   In Clifton Park, Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, Mr. Baker has a desirable residence and his winter home is on Vero Beach, Florida, while his office is located on the nineteenth floor of the Union Trust building in Cleveland. For recreation he turns to fishing, hunting and yachting and at one time was vice commodore of the Lakewood Yacht Club. Among his treasured possessions is a fine collection of scientific instruments. He belongs to the Union, Cleveland Athletic and Clifton Clubs and is a life member of both the Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Automobile Engineers. He is accorded a place of leadership in his profession and his achievements have brought additional prestige to an honored family name.   ALBERT LEWIS TALCOTT   Time has ripened the ability of Albert Lewis Talcott, a Cleveland lawyer whose activities in that line of professional service have extended over a long period and whose accomplishments have placed him with the leading attorneys of this part of the state. Born in the village of Jefferson in Ashtabula county, Ohio, February 8, 1859, he is a scion of an English family that has been represented on American soil for three hundred years and has back of him a long line of worthy ancestors, some of whom were personages of note in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.   Mr. Talcott's genealogy in this country has been traced back to John Talcott, who with his wife, Dorothy Mott, left Braintree, Essex county, England, and sailed for Boston on the ship Lion in 1632. The father and the paternal grandfather of John Talcott were both named John and lived in Colchester, England. In volume 1137, page 148, of the Harlean Manuscript, preserved in the Museum, containing the Herald's visitation of Essex county in 1558, are found the arms and genealogy of the Talcott family, which originated in Warwickshire, England.   Samuel Talcott, who was born in 1635, was the first member of the family to be born in America. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1658 and resided in Wethersfield, Connecticut, upon land devised to him in 1659 by his father, who had removed to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636, with other members of Rev. Hooker's company. This band of colonists had become dissatisfied with their first location at Newton (now Cambridge), near Boston, Massachusetts, and had gone to Connecticut to secure greater freedom for the   - 377 -   378 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   worship of their religion. In anticipation of this removal, in 1635 John Talcott constructed a dwelling which stood on the ground afterward long occupied by the historic "old North Church." This was the first house built in Hartford. John Talcott was one of its leading citizens and an influential factor in events that shaped the early history of New England. For many years he was a member of the general court of the colony of Connecticut, and in 1637 was appointed a member of the committee selected to consider the propriety of the war with the Pequot Indians, with whom hostilities broke out during that year.   His son, Lieutenant Colonel John Talcott, born in England was one of the patentees named in the charter granted by King Charles II to the colony of Connecticut in 1662. He was appointed in 1676, at the outbreak of the war with King Philip, to command the "standing army" of the colony. In the various battles with the redskins in which he was engaged he was always victorious and gained great renown as an intrepid Indian fighter. Lieutenant Colonel John Talcott was treasurer of the colony from 1660 to 1676. His daughter, Elizabeth, married Captain Joseph Wadsworth, whose name is familiar to all students of early colonial history. It was on the night of October 31, 1687, that Captain Wadsworth, aided by Lieutenant Colonel John Talcott, seized the charter of the colony and concealed it in an oak tree. Sir Edmund Andros, it will be remembered, was named as governor of New England by King James II and had been ordered to take possession of the charters of several colonies. After securing the charters of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, he attempted to take that of Connecticut but was prevented from doing so by the prompt action of Captain Wadsworth. This tree was designated as the "Charter Oak" and the story of the event is known to every American school child.   Elizur Talcott, the great-grandfather of Albert L. Talcott, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. His son, Nelson Talcott, the grandfather, removed to Mesopotamia, Ohio,   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 379   from Norwich, Massachusetts, in or about the year 1826, being accompanied by the father. Nelson Talcott finally settled in Nelson township, Portage county, where he established a chair factory in 1828. Subsequently he transferred his manufacturing activities to the village of Garrettsville, where he built up the largest business of the kind in the state.   His son Henry, the father of Albert L. Talcott, was born on the home place in Nelson township on December 28, 1832, and when a young man of twenty located in Jefferson, Ashtabula county, where he became a dealer in hardware, a line of merchandising to which he devoted forty years. He was also a manufacturer, banker and farmer and during the last twenty years of his life those interests became extensive. His death occurred July 12, 1894, when he was sixty-one years of age. He gave his political support to the republican party and as a young man had opposed the extension of slavery. In his later years his influence was exerted for the adoption of the interstate commerce act by congress and the pure food laws of Ohio. When the pure food law was adopted he became assistant dairy and food commissioner of Ohio through appointment of Governor Foraker.   On December 23, 1855, Henry Talcott married Cordelia J. Pritchard, who was also a native of Nelson township, Portage county, and her education was obtained in Nelson Academy and at Hiram College. She was a cousin of the late General B. D. Pritchard, commander of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, the regiment which captured Jefferson Davis and several of his cabinet while they were fleeing from Richmond at the close of the Civil war. After that conflict General Pritchard returned to Michigan and became a prominent banker of Allegan, that state. Henry and Cordelia J. (Pritchard) Talcott were the parents of five sons, all of whom were accorded the privilege of a college education. Three of them, John Carlos, Albert Lewis and William Ellsworth, became prominent members of the Cleveland bar and are represented in this work. Ralph Henry, a graduate of the Boston Conserva-   380 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   tory of Music, won success as a teacher of music in Cleveland. George Nelson, the youngest son, lives in Cleveland Heights and has always followed mercantile pursuits.   Albert L. Talcott made thorough preparation for the duties and responsibilities of life. At Poughkeepsie, New York, he attended the Eastman National Business College, which awarded him the degree of Master of Accounts in 1874, and three years later he received the Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Mount Union College at Alliance, Ohio, and for a year taught bookkeeping and penmanship at Eastman's Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York. He next enrolled as a student at Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1880 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, ranking fourth in his class. In December, 1880, he was admitted to the bar at Columbus, Ohio, and began practice at Jefferson, that state, with his older brother, the late John C. Talcott, under the style of Talcott Brothers. That partnership existed for a decade, terminating with the removal of Albert L. Talcott to Cleveland in October, 1890. Here he became assistant general land and tax agent for the New York, Lake Erie & Western, now the Erie Railroad Company, in which capacities he acted for about eighteen and one-half years, resigning in 1909 to resume the private practice of law and to engage in the real estate business. Prosperity attended his labors in both fields of endeavor and although seventy-three years of age, he remains active in legal work. His powers as an advocate and counselor have been manifest in the successful handling of many involved and difficult litigated cases and with the passing years his clientele has grown steadily in volume as well as in importance.   In Jefferson, Ohio, on the 4th of August, 1881, Mr. Talcott married Elizabeth J. Bailey, a daughter of William and Mary A. Bailey and of English lineage. Mrs. Talcott was born at Jefferson, February 17, 1860, and attended the village schools, afterward teaching until her marriage. She became the mother of three children. The eldest, Cora Mabel, born October 5, 1882, was married October 4, 1902, to Bruce   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 381   W. Huling, who is with the B. F. Goodrich Tire & Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, and is now located at Johannesburg, Union of South Africa. John Albert, the only son, was born March 8, 1886, and on January 29, 1910, married Harriet I. Finney of Toronto, Canada. Winifred Bailey, the youngest child, was born August 8, 1892, and is now Mrs. Herbert G. Hayes of Cleveland.   More than sixty years ago Mr. Talcott joined the Independent Order of Good Templars and retained his active membership therein for over thirty years, and has been a life-long total abstainer. While a student at Mount Union College he became a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity: In 1885 he united with the Jefferson Baptist Church and after removing to Cleveland took a letter from that church to the First Baptist Church of Cleveland in 1891. Keenly interested in the work of that denomination, he served as president of the Cleveland Baptist City Mission Society for two years and as secretary for seven years. In 1907, when the Baptist Home of Northern Ohio for Old People was established, Mr. Talcott was made its secretary and occupied that office for seventeen years, until 1924. He has ever been actuated by a humanitarian spirit which takes cognizance of the duties and obligations of the individual to his fellowmen. As a legal practitioner he has faithfully served his clients and to the best of his ability has upheld the majesty of the law. Four times he has been honored by the prohibition party for judge of the Supreme Court and although never making a vigorous campaign, polled more votes than any other nominee of the party, receiving in 1918, 106,273 votes and in 1928, 120,196. Since the adoption of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution he has supported the candidates so far as they were dry of the republican party, believing that by so doing he was aiding in the enforcement of said amendment which he heartily endorses.   ERNEST P. LENIHAN   In commercial circles of Cleveland, Ernest P. Lenihan is well known as head of the insurance company which bears his name and his success in its control has been based on nearly forty years of experience in this line of business. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan, October 5, 1873, a son of Patrick and Catherine (Duggan) Lenihan, who were natives of Canada. Towards the close of the sixties they crossed the border and the father became one of the pioneer lumbermen of Michigan.   Ernest P. Lenihan pursued his studies in public and private schools of his native state, and in 1890, when seventeen years of age, went west to Colorado and soon after became associated with the Equitable Life Insurance Co., in Colorado. In 1893 he made his way to Chicago and subsequently to the Atlantic seaboard and was prominently identified with the marine insurance business of the United States and England as an Average Adjuster. In 1901 he came to Cleveland as a representative of Willcox, Peck & Hughes (later merged with Johnson & Higgins) a marine insurance firm of New York city, serving on the directorate of both concerns, and capably managing their Great Lakes marine insurance interests. His business also took him to New York and to England, although he had located in Cleveland. In the meantime he had established an insurance business of his own in his adopted city and on January 1, 1929, he resigned his position with his eastern firm to devote his time to his own business which bears the name of Lenihan & Company and does a substantial and growing business. His company writes   - 383 -   384 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   all types of insurance and in its operation he maintains a high standard of efficiency. In addition he is a director of the Union Trust Company and the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway Company.   In 1902 Mr. Lenihan was married in Cleveland to Miss Anna Wamelink and four children were born to them : Theodore W., who is associated with his father in the insurance business and who married Miss Marion Denison and they have two children, Theodore Van Rennsalaer and Anne; Mrs. Katherine Caswell, of Cleveland, the mother of a daughter, Barrie; Pauline, who married Eugene R. Cashman, of Cleveland, and they have two children, Joan and William T., II; and Ernest W., Jr., who is engaged in the insurance business with Chubb & Son of New York. Mr. Lenihan is a member of the Pepper Pike, the Kirtland, the Mid-Day and the Union Clubs of Cleveland, and of the Association of Average Adjusters of the United States. He has always taken an active interest in civic matters and for ten years was a member of and for a time captain of a Cleveland Community Fund team. During the World war he was a member of the Military Training Camps Committee for this district, also served as a deputy United States Marshal and was captain of a Liberty Loan team. By nature genial and companionable, he enjoys the social side of life, and the strength that he manifests in business affairs has its root in those qualities which win for a man the respect and confidence of his fellows.   CARL D. ROGERS   Carl D. Rogers is president and manager of the American Oil & Paint Company, with plant at 9915 Harvard avenue, this being the only factory of the kind in Cleveland and perhaps the only one in the United States manufacturing roof coating exclusively. He was born at Galion, Ohio, in 1879, his parents being Davenport and Louisa Rogers, both natives of the state of New York, the latter of Holland Dutch lineage. In the paternal line Carl D. Rogers is of English ancestry, being a descendant of Thomas Rogers, one of the Mayflower passengers who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Davenport Rogers, the father of Mr. Rogers of this review, was one of the first men to engage in the oil business soon after the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania. He built a small refinery on the Miller farm, five miles north of Rouseville, Pennsylvania, and operated it successfully for several years, manufacturing lubricating and kerosene oil and selling to jobbers many years before the use of gasoline, which now valuable product was run off into the creeks or streams. Davenport Rogers came to Ohio, first taking up his abode in Galion, whence he removed to Cleveland and erected a cold storage plant on Woodland avenue, where he engaged in the wholesale butter and egg business for several years. In 1889 he started in the oil business near the old Market House on Canal street, Cleveland, which was destroyed by fire a year later. Then he moved to the corner of St. Clair and River streets, there continuing in the oil jobbing business until within a year or two of his death. To him and his wife were born two children : May, a native of Edison, Ohio, who is   - 385 -   386 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   a graduate of the Galion high school and now keeps house for her brother; and Carl D.   In the acquirement of an education Carl D. Rogers attended the Kent grammar school and the West high school of Cleveland. When a youth of eighteen years he went out on the road as a paint salesman, in which capacity he continued most successfully for nearly a decade or until 1906. In that year he embarked in business on his own account as an oil jobber, with downtown offices, buying from the manufacturer and disposing of the product through his sales organization. On the 13th of April, 1930, he incorporated his interests under the name of the American Oil & Paint Company, purchased a tract of land at 9915 Harvard avenue and erected thereon a modern paint factory. Here he has since been active in the manufacturing end of the business and has specialized in roof coating or American liquid roof cement, his being the only exclusive factory of the kind in Cleveland. Mr. Rogers' splendid sales organization is comprised of men whom he has trained in the business, and the trade extends as far west as California and south to Florida, the output being distributed over one-fourth of the United States. The American Oil & Paint Company manufactures a high-grade product and is doing a satisfactory business even in this period of financial depression. The executive officers are as follows : Carl D. Rogers, president and manager; Miss May Rogers, vice president; and J. T. Kenney, secretary and treasurer.   In Masonry Mr. Rogers has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, belonging to Forest City Lodge, F. & A. M.; Windermere Chapter, R. A. M. ; Cleveland Consistory, A. A. S. R. ; and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He also has membership in the Cleveland Club and the Chagrin Valley Golf Club and he is fond of fishing.   SPENCER MARCUS DUTY   Spencer M. Duty, president and treasurer of the Medal Brick & Tile Company, has been a lifelong resident of Cleveland and is numbered among its most prosperous business men and respected citizens. He was born September 28, 1878, his parents being Daniel and Sarah L. (Cozad) Duty, the former born in New York in 1832 and the latter in Cleveland, Ohio, July 22, 1844. Andrew Cozad, the maternal grandfather of Spencer M. Duty, was a native of Washington county, Pennsylvania, born in 1801, and came to Cleveland with his parents, Samuel and Jane (Mcllrath) Cozad, in 1806, when this city was a tiny village upon the border of Lake Erie, with the great unbroken forests stretching for miles around. The family settled on a farm between what is now Mayfield road and Cornell road on Euclid avenue, their house standing at the foot of Mayfield road. Andrew Duty, the grandfather of S. M. Duty in the paternal line, journeyed westward to Ohio from New Hampshire in company with his father in 1808 but subsequently returned to New York, where his son Daniel was born. The father of Andrew Duty was Ebenezer Duty, a native of Derryfield, New Hampshire, born June 2, 1782, who located with his family in Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he made brick for the county courthouse. He was accompanied to this state by his brother-in-law, Daniel Warren, also a brickmaker, and the two men manufactured the brick for the first penitentiary built in Ohio, which was in 1812. Daniel Warren was the founder of Warrensville, this state, the town being named in his honor. He was a son of Moses Warren, who settled at   - 387 -   388 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   Warrensville, Ohio, in 1815, while Daniel Warren had settled there the previous year. The Duty family moved to Painesville, Ohio, in 1818 but soon thereafter came to Cleveland. Here Ebenezer Duty and his son Andrew began the manufacture of brick, establishing the first hydraulic brick-press. They also became the owners of a farm on the present site of Euclid Heights. Daniel Duty, son of Andrew Duty, followed in the business footsteps of his father, and grandfather, continuing in the manufacture of brick to the time of his death, which occurred January 7, 1902.   Spencer M. Duty acquired his education in the public schools of Cleveland, completing his high school course with the class of 1897. He then began brick manufacturing with his father, who was at that time associated with a brother in the ownership of a business conducted under the name of Duty & Company. In 1897 Daniel Duty purchased the Collinwood plant, which Spencer M. Duty inherited at the death of his father five years later. S. M. Duty continued the development and expansion of the enterprise and in 1906, in company with Charles J. Deckman, of Cleveland, purchased a plant at Carrollton, Ohio. In 1908 the Collinwood and Carrollton plants, together with the plant of the Malvern Clay Company at Malvern, Ohio, which was one of the first to produce paving brick in the state, were combined under the name of the Deckman-Duty Brick Company, Mr. Duty being elected president of the company, of which he has been the executive head to the present time. In 1916 the name was changed to the Medal Brick & Tile Company. The Collinwood plant was sold in 1925. The Medal Brick & Tile Company now operates plants in both Wayne and Carroll counties of Ohio. Mr. Duty is first vice president of the American Face Brick Association and has long enjoyed high standing among the representatives of the brickmaking industry in this part of the state.   On the 12th of December, 1905, Mr. Duty was married to Miss Mabel Cummer, a daughter of F. D. Cummer, the   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 389   founder of the F. D. Cummer & Son Company, manufacturers of drying and asphalt machinery in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Duty are the parents of a son, Spencer Cummer, who was born February 9, 1907, and is a graduate of the University School of Cleveland. As an associate of his father he represents the fifth generation of the family to engage in the brick manufacturing business.   By his ballot Mr. Duty supports the republican party at national elections but is not strongly partisan in local affairs. He is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Canterbury Golf Club. He also belongs to the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church, which originally numbered in its membership the Cozad, Ford and Duty families, the old house of worship at Doan and Euclid having been erected entirely of brick given by his grandfather for the purpose. An earlier biographer wrote : "It will be seen that Mr. Duty is a representative of two of the oldest families of Cleveland, who through the intervening years have been prominently connected with those interests which have figured most largely in the city's substantial development and progress in other lines. His own record is in keeping with the history of an honored ancestry."   FRANK E. BROWN   Frank E. Brown, a substantial citizen and worthy native son of Cleveland, has represented the Hanna interests since the time he left school to make his start in the business world, and his long retention in the service of this prominent family attests his efficiency in the handling of important financial affairs. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, December 20, 1869, his parents being Francis H. and Fannie L. (Seward) Brown, also natives of the Buckeye state.   Francis H. Brown, was born near Ashtabula, this state, in 1838, and was a Great Lakes sailor, subsequently becoming the owner of several craft. He lived retired for a number of years prior to his death, which occurred in 1916. He was married in 1863 to Fannie L. Seward, a native of Cleveland, who still survives at the age of eighty-seven years, residing at 7004 Franklin avenue in this city.   Frank E. Brown enjoyed the advantages of a public school education in his youth and after putting aside his textbooks became identified with the M. A. Hanna Company of Cleveland. Later he did private work for Senator M. A. Hanna and became the confidential secretary of this noted statesman, while subsequently he was employed in a similar capacity by Daniel Hanna. He is now the representative of the M. A. Hanna family in the supervision of its financial interests.   On the 26th of September, 1898, Mr. Brown was united in marriage to Miss Alice Cremer, of Cleveland, daughter of John H. and Marguerite ( Toewater) Cremer. Her father was a native of Batavia, East Indies. John H. Cremer was a mining engineer who became one of the leading ore experts   - 391 -   392 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   of Cleveland and was the first man in America to make ferromanganese. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are the parents of three children, as follows : Cremer F., born November 3, 1900, who is a graduate of Cornell University and is married ; Marguerite C., twin sister of Cremer, who married Wallace C. Young, of Cleveland, and is the mother of three children; and Leonard E., born October 10, 1907, who is engaged in the insurance business in Cleveland and has a wife and one daughter. Mr. Brown has many warm friends among his fellow members of the Union Club, the Mid-Day Club and the Shaker Heights Country Club. He has traveled extensively abroad, going to Europe for the eighth time in the summer of 1932.   THE YODER COMPANY   The Yoder Company of Cleveland, builders of special and improved machinery for cold forming and shearing metal, was incorporated in 1910, under the name of the C. M. Yoder Company, with the following officers : Carl M. Yoder, president and general manager; M. H. Yoder, brother of Carl, vice president; and Harvey O. Yoder, secretary and treasurer. A biography of the last named, a cousin of Carl M. Yoder, may be found on another page of this work. Several years after the incorporation of the business, the name was changed in 1914 to The Yoder Company, which is a closed corporation.   Carl M. Yoder is the founder of the cold rolling process for sheet metal work, and the successful manufacturing enterprise of which he is at the head had its inception under his direction. He had conceived the idea of building a machine that would cold roll, bend and bead sheet metal and steel for industrial purposes. His first machine, which he designed and built at his home from his own drawings, patterns, etc., was finished in less than three months and was a complete success, being taken up immediately by leading makers of motor cars and by other sheet metal and steel manufacturers all over the United States and abroad. The name of Yoder is known in every manufacturing country in the world.   As soon as the machine had proved its worth, Mr. Yoder leased a small shop, forty by forty, at Euclid avenue and Fifty-fifth street, and began its manufacture in association with his cousin, Harvey O. Yoder. The partners began oper-   - 393 -   394 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   ations with one employee and at the end of the first year had five men working for them, increasing the number to twelve in the second year. At the end of the third year they began to realize that the forty-by-forty shack would no longer be adequate for their operations. In 1912 the struggling Yoder Company paid one hundred dollars down on fifteen lots in upper Walworth Run, on the Big Four Railroad, at the intersection of Walworth avenue and Fifty-fifth street. The ground was covered with tin cans and after removing them the Messrs. Yoder went into Ashtabula county and cut timber for their use. In a few months the first unit of the new plant was constructed. Then began a period of steady growth. The Yoders knew how to make machinery greatly needed by industrial concerns at that time. More men were added to the pay-roll. Orders began coming in from foreign countries. Soon another unit was added to the plant, then another. In 1922, when the business was growing by leaps and bounds, fire broke out in the factory and razed it to the ground. As soon as possible the work of rebuilding was started and the new plant stands as a tribute to what man has been able to make machinery do for him. In this fine institution, embracing more than sixty thousand square feet of floor space, about three hundred highly trained workers are building special machinery—machinery that does in a moment what human hands would require days to do. Industrial executives from all over the world have visited the Yoder plant at 5500 Walworth avenue. The enterprise, of course, grew up with the automobile business but it has expanded into many other fields, especially steel mill work. The company bought three more acres of ground in 1931 and completed a large and modernly equipped assembling plant directly across the street from the factory, this being two hundred and forty feet long and sixty feet wide. There is a crane rail at a height of twenty-five feet; and the handling and assembling of machines is facilitated by twenty-five ton cranes on the main floor, a side bay with ten-ton cranes and   THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS - 395   five-ton cranes in the basement. The new plant, which is considered one of the finest in Cleveland, was designed by Carl M. Yoder personally. It has fifty thousand square feet of floor space, is operated with individual units of electric power and equipped with the latest modern machinery. It is of brick, steel and glass construction and is well lighted and ventilated.   The Yoder Company builds cold roll forming machines weighing up to nine hundred and fifty tons that will form pipe of any thickness and any length, with metal traveling at one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet per minute. It maintains its own sales organization and has a staff of thirty engineers and draftsmen. All patterns are made at the plant, together with everything that goes into the construction of Yoder machines, with the exception of the foundry castings, which are produced in Cleveland foundries. Machines for plate and sheet metal work built by The Yoder Company include gang slitters, rotary shears, cold roll forming machines, crown fender rolling machines, beading machines, seaming machines, hood hinge brakes, power hammers, machines' for special purposes and continuous mills for forming standard pipe from one-half inch to thirty inches in diameter.   CARL A. PALMER   Carl A. Palmer, president of the Cleveland Real Estate Board, has been a successful real estate operator of this city for the past fifteen years. He was born in Washington county, Ohio, October 14, 1883, his parents being Moses H. and Matilda (Beck) Palmer, who came to Cleveland in the year 1887. Moses H. Palmer engaged in the teaching profession for a time, later turned his attention to the publishing business and subsequently became a traveling salesman. He is deceased, but his wife still resides in Cleveland.   Carl A. Palmer, who was about four years of age when his parents established their home in this city, enjoyed the advantages of a public school education. He became an employee of the Park National Bank, later the First National Bank in 1901, when a youth of about eighteen, and remained in the service of that institution for sixteen years, being advanced to the position of manager of the transit department. It was in April, 1917, that he entered the real estate field in association with Max J. Rudolph, with whom he carried on business under the firm style of Rudolph & Palmer during the succeeding decade. In 1927 he became an independent real estate operator, opening his own office on Chester avenue, later moving to the Citizens building. Mr. Palmer built the Crystal Market at 105th street and Euclid avenue and is now manager of the Citizens building. In 1920 he became a member of the Cleveland Real Estate Board and during the years 1926, 1927 and 1928 was a member of its valuation committee. He was elected to its board of trustees in 1929, served as treasurer in 1930, was chairman of the   - 397 -   398 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS   board of trustees in 1931 and was chosen president of the Cleveland Real Estate Board for 1932.   In 1906 Mr. Palmer married Miss Jennie R. Hudson, of Cleveland. They are the parents of a son and a daughter : Robert C., born December 25, 1912, who is a student at Dartmouth College; and Betty Jane, born January 3, 1917, who is attending the Shaker high school.   A public-spirited, enterprising and progressive citizen, Mr. Palmer takes an active and helpful interest in civic affairs. He served as clerk of the village of Shaker Heights from 1912 until 1920, was elected councilman in 1920 and has been reelected for each succeeding term, now serving as vice-mayor and as chairman of the finance committee. He is a member of the Cleveland Athletic Club and has won many warm friends in both social and business relations here.   WILLIAM HENRY CANNIFF   A distinguished personage among the railroad executives of the United States was the late William Henry Canniff of Cleveland, Ohio, president of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, known as the Nickel Plate, and whose long career in railroad work was one of fine achievement and indicative of his sterling character, his exceptional ability, and his self-attainment.   Mr. Canniff was a native of Litchfield, Michigan, where his birth occurred October 22, 1847, and he was a son of the late Lewis B. and Matilda L. Canniff. His education was limited to the common schools and, in the year 1863, when he was sixteen years of age, he first became connected with railroad work. In that year he was given employment as night watchman in Osseo, Michigan, for the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana Railroad. In February, 1865, he became agent for this road in Trenton, Michigan, and so continued until August, 1868, at which time he became joint agent for the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana and the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago railways in Salem Crossing, now known as Otis, Indiana. He retained this position until August, 1872, from which date until December, 1879, he was trackmaster of the Kendallville division of the. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad. Then, from the latter date to November, 1880, he occupied a similar place on the Chicago division of the same railroad. In November, 1880, he was appointed superintendent of the Lansing division; in 1881 to the Detroit, Hillsdale & Southwestern; and in 1882 to the Fort Wayne & Jackson Railroad. These roads were leased   - 399 -