CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 349 CHAPTER XII. (RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) ROSTER OF COLUMBUS STATESMEN FOR A CENTURY. Mention is made elsewhere of the action of Hon. Alfred Kelly, in preventing the repudiation, by the legislature of Ohio, of its canal bonds in the year 1841. The mansion below, which is still standing in a perfect state of 350 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS preservation, was the first building, public or private in the state capital; which could lay claim to architectural pretensions. Mr. Kelly, who probably had never studied architecture, was the architect of the building, and superintended, as well, the laying of every stone, the designing of every column, and the finishing of every cornice and chimney. It was this house and its once beautiful grounds that he pledged for the payment of his note for some thirty thousand dollars for money, borrowed in New York, to pay the overdue interest on the bonds of the state issued to build the Ohio canal system, the banking house preferring the private citizen's note to the special bond issue of the state to meet the interest charges. The legislature had passed through one house, a bill to repudiate the canal debt, and was awaiting Mr. Kelly's return to pass it through the other, in the event the emergency interest bonds had not been negotiated. Then it was that this old berea stone mansion saved the escutcheon of Ohio stainless, for had not the interest charges been paid, repudiation would have been inevitable under the dreadful stress of the financial depression that hung like a pall over the entire Ohio Valley. When it become known what Kelly had 'done-how he had jeopardized his entire fortune (and it was a large fortune in Columbus for that day) with absolute faith in the resources and integrity of the state and its government, it inspired men in every section with confidence, optimism and the determination to go to work and create prosperity by their united efforts. And that determination was carried out, the six per cent bonds, which were so nearly repudiated, went to a premium, and holders, for half a century, asked to have them refunded, the last refunding being at a shade above three per cent, and still they commanded a premium, and when no further extensions would be made at even three per cent, the holders reluctantly came to the state treasury and accepted the principal-some not calling for their money for years after the bonds matured. It seems singular to us of the present day, that the state did not acquire this historic estate, lying north of Broad and extending east and west from Fifth street to Grant avenue, after its owner had passed away, and maintain it for all time in some appropriate form as a memorial to the unselfish patriotic citizen who saved the honor of his adopted state unsullied, by putting all his earthly possessions in peril sooner than permitting the shame and disgrace of repudiation to befall it. Once this beautiful property might have been preserved intact. Now it is impracticable. But if we cannot understand the lack of commonwealth's appreciation of one of its real benefactors, what will our children and our children's children think of it and of us? Brief Sketches of Prominent Men of the City, in Congress and on the Bench. Columbus and Franklin county can boast of many distinguished statesmen, who served their people well during the century. The work of some of them would merit a volume; of some of the others almost as much, but a PAGE 351 - THE KELLY MANSION PAGE 352 - BLANK CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 353 brief summing up of each will suffice to excite the reader's interest in the wider histories of their achievements. Beginning with those who being residents served the city, county and district in the congress of the United States are: James Kilbourne. James Kilbourne was born in New Britain, Connecticut, October 19, 1770, and died in Worthington, Franklin county, Ohio, December 9, 1850. He was a. man of great force of character and did much toward the upbuilding of the commonwealth of Ohio during the first three decades of the century. He was reared on his father's farm and in early life was apprenticed to a cloth manufacturer and afterward became the manager of the business. Subsequently he was instrumental in introducing different kinds of manufacturing enterprises into the new state, which eventually made it largely independent of the east. When the Northwest Territory was erected by the ordinance of 1787 and the institution of slavery prohibited therein, young Kilbourne set about organizing an emigration society in Connecticut to form a settlement in the society in the Scioto valley. The Scioto Emigration Company was organized and conducted by him to Ohio in 1803 and located in the Scioto valley in the northern portion of Franklin county, where a large tract of land was purchased and divided among the stockholders and the town of Worthington founded. Later he brought out other colonies and assisted in locating them to advantage. The promotion of education. religion and agricultural and manufacturing industries occupied his mind to the exclusion of ambitious political projects .He accepted public office under protest and only to oblige his friends. Me was elected to the thirteenth congress in 1812, from the fifth district, embracing almost one-half of the superficial area. of the state, composed of Licking, Delaware, Knox, Franklin, Madison, Fairfield, Champaign. Montgomery, Miama and Darke, which have since been subdivided into almost twice, as many additional counties. In 1814 he was reelected to the fourteenth congress and was renominated for the fifteenth but absolutely refused to take a third election. He was one of the commissioners to settle the disputed boundary line between Virginia and the Northwest Territory. He was also the commissioner to select for the state of Ohio the public lands allotted for canal purposes and afterward known as the canal lands. He was an active and energetic advocate of roads. canals, railways and all forms of internal improvement. In 1820 he was chosen a. presidential elector and cast his vote for James Monroe. He acted with the democratic party up to 1824, when he began to diverge from it, supporting Henry Clay. With the organization of the Whig party. he wholly severed his political relations with the democracy and became an ardent whig, taking an active part in the campaigns of 1836; 1840 and 1844. He was, however. always tolerant in his party views. 354 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS Jeremiah McLene, Of Ross, and later of Franklin county, was not only one of the leading democrats but one of the leading public men of the state during the first thirty years of its history. He entered public life in 1807 as a member of the house of the sixth general assembly, representing Ross, Franklin and Highland. He served a single term. He was active in the militia organization and became a major general. He served as secretary of state for twenty-three years consecutively. having been elected by the legislature in 1808, and reelected seven times in succession, to terms of three years each. In 1832 he was elected to the twenty third congress from the eighth district comprising Franklin. Madison. Pickaway, Delaware and Marion counties, and was reelected from the same district to the twenty-fourth congress in 1834. He was an elector on the Jackson ticket in 1832. General McLene was born in Pennsylvania in 1767. In early life he emigrated to the territory of Tennessee, where, as a boy, he became acquainted with and warmly attached to General Andrew Jackson. From Tennessee he came to Ohio. He died at Washington, D. C., March 19, 1837, from a cold contracted while attending the inauguration of President Martin Van Buren. Heman A. Moore, Of Franklin county, was elected to the twenty-eighth congress in 1842 from the tenth district, Franklin, Licking and knox counties, and died in 1844 before the expiration of his term and was succeeded by Alfred P. Stone. He was born in Plainfield, Vermont, in 1810, and came to Ohio when a young man and served as adjutant general of the state for a brief period. He died in Columbus, April 3, 1844. Alfred P. Stone Was chosen to the vacancy caused by the death of Heman A. Moore in the twenty-eighth congress, 1844, from the tenth district, as above. On the 15th of June, 1856, William H. Gibson resigned the office of treasurer of state and Mr. Stone was immediately appointed to the vacancy by Governor Salmon P. Chase. At the October election, 1857, he was elected as a republican to the same office over James R. Morris, democrat, by a vote of 160,618 to 158,942. At the October election, 1859, he was reelected over William Bushnell, democrat, by a vote of 184,567 to 170,413. He served for a period of five years in the office. Mr. Stone was born in Hampshire county. Massachusetts, on the 28th of June, 1813. and came to Ohio when a young man. He, died in Columbus, Ohio, August 2, 1865. Samuel Galloway. Samuel Galloway was born in Gettysburg. Pennsylvania, March 20. 1811, and located in Columbus in early life, where he rose to distinction as a lawyer CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 355 and an orator. He was a Whig and afterward a republican, and while a recognized leader in these parties, never sought for the distinction of office, preferring the practice of his profession. He was noted for his incisive ability on the stump during the political campaigns for nearly a third of a century. He served a single term in congress, being nominated by his party without solicitation and was elected to the thirty-fourth congress in 1854 from the twelfth or capital district, composed of Franklin, Licking and Pickaway, which had elected Edson B. Olds, democrat, at the preceding congressional election. Samuel Sullivan Cox. Samuel Sullivan Cox was one of the imposing features in democratic politics in Ohio from 1852 to 1867 and afterward in the city of New York. He was born in Zanesville, Ohio, September 30, 1824, and died in the city of New York, September 10, 1889. He graduated from Brown University in 1846, studied law, was admitted to the bar and began practice at Zanesville in 1849. In 1853 he removed to Columbus and became editor of the Ohio Statesman, in which position he displayed unusual literary ability. In 1855 he became secretary of legation at Lima, Peru, but returned to Ohio in 1856 and was elected to the thirty-fifth congress from the twelfth district, Franklin, Licking and Pickaway counties. He was elected from the same district in the thirty-sixth congress in 1858, and to the thirty-seventh in 1860. In 1862, at the decennial apportionment of the state, he was placed in the seventh district, made up of the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark and Greene, which was regarded as safely republican, but in 1862 it elected him to the thirty-eighth. He was again a candidate for the thirty-ninth in 1864, but was defeated by a few votes. He removed from Ohio to New York in 1866 and formed a law partnership with Algernon Sidney Sullivan, this soon becoming one of the leading law firms of the metropolis. In 1868 the democracy of his new district sent him to congress, where he remained almost continually the rest of his life. His only unsatisfied ambition was his failure to be elected speaker of the house of representatives, which he nearly attained on two or three different occasions. He was a man of rare wit and humor, a brilliant lecturer and orator of great force and originality. For a long period he was one of the regents;. of the Smithsonian Institute. He was a man of practical ideas and applied them in legislation. To him was most largely due the organization of the lifesaving service, and increased compensation for letter carriers, and vacations without loss of pay. Mr. Cox traveled extensively in Europe and northern Africa, between 1880 and 1885. In 1885 he was appointed minister to Turkey by President Grover Cleveland. He enjoyed a wide reputation as an author. Among his best known books were "The Buckeye Abroad," "Eight Years in Congress," "Free Land and Free Trade." "Three Decades of Legislation" and "Why We Laugh." Hugh J. Jewett. Hugh J. Jewett was born in Hartford county, Maryland, in 1812, and died in he same state when past the age of seventy-five. The most of his 356 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS life, however, was passed in Ohio, at Zanesville and Columbus, where he was a leading lawyer, banker, railway president and promoter and democrat leader. He came to Ohio when a young man and was admitted to the bar at St. Clairsville in 1840, where he began the practice of his profession. In 1848 he located at Zanesville and entered the banking business, and was made president of the Muskingum branch of the State Bank of Ohio in 1852. He was a presidential elector in 1852 and supported Franklin Pierce for president. He was a member of the senate of the fifty-first general assembly and a member of the house in the fifty-eighth, and in 1853 was appointed United States district attorney for the district of Ohio. In 1855 he entered upon his railway career and became manager and afterward president of the Central Ohio road. He was subsequently connected officially with several of the leading Ohio railroads, in 1872 became receiver of the Erie road of New York, and managed its affairs for ten years. He was a. candidate for congress in 1860 but was defeated. In 1861 he was a candidate for governor and was defeated by David Tod, republican, by a vote of 206,997 to 151,774. He was an unsuccessful candidate for United States senator in 1863. He was elected to the forty-third congress in 1872 from the twelfth district, Franklin, Pickaway, Fairfield, and Perry counties, and resigned in 1874 to assume charge of the Erie railway. He retained his residence in Ohio until 1887 and then returned to his ancestral home in Maryland. George L. Converse. George L. Converse, of Columbus, was born in Georgesville, Franklin county, Ohio, June 4, 1827, and died in Columbus in 1898. He was a. lawyer of much ability and a prominent democrat leader for a quarter of a century. He attended the public schools and graduated from the Denison University, Granville, Ohio, in 1849. In 1851 he was admitted to the bar and became a leading attorney, both in civil and criminal law. He represented Franklin county in the house of the fifty-fourth, fifty-fifth, sixty-first and sixty-second general assemblies, and was speaker of the body during the sixty-second general assembly. He was elected to the forty sixth congress in 1878 from the ninth district, Franklin, Pickaway, Madison, Fayette and Delaware counties, and was reelected to the forty-seventh in 1880 from the same district. In 1882 he was elected from the thirteenth district, Franklin. Fairfield. Hocking and Perry counties, to the forty-eighth congress, and joined with Samuel J. Randall and other tariff democrats in defeating the democratic tariff reform measures of that session. His democratic constituents refused him a fourth nomination, and he retired to private life. During the last ten years of his life he was not in active sympathy because of the tariff issue. Joseph H. Outhwaite. Joseph H. Outhwaite, of Columbus, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, December 5, 1841, and was educated in the public schools of Zanesville and CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 357 taught for two years in the high school of that city and for three years subsequently was principal of the grammar school in Columbus. He was admitted to the bar in 1866 and practiced law at Osceola, Missouri, from 1867 to 1871, when he returned to Columbus and became a leading attorney. He was elected prosecuting attorney of Franklin county in 1874 and reelected in 1876, and held many local offices of trust in later years. In 1884 he was elected as a democrat on the tariff reform issue to the forty-ninth congress from the thirteenth district, Franklin, Fairfield, Hocking and Pickaway counties, and was reelected in 1886 from the thirteenth district, then composed of Franklin, Fairfield, Hocking and Perry: elected from the same district in 1888 to the fifty-first; and was elected to the fifty-second in 1890 from the ninth district, Franklin, Madison and Pickaway; and was elected a fifth time in 1892 from the twelfth district, Franklin and Fairfield. He played a conspicuous part in congress during the ten years of his service. He was appointed on the board of ordnance and fortifications by President, Cleveland and still retains that position. In 1896 he disagreed with the leaders of his party on the money question and supported John M. Palmer for the presidency on the single gold standard platform. David K. Watson. David Kemper Watson, of Columbus, was born on a farm near London, Madison county, Ohio, June 18, 1849, and was graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1871. Two years later he was graduated from the law department of the University of Boston and admitted to the bar. He was assistant United States attorney for the southern district of Ohio under the administration of President Chester A. Arthur, and in 1887 was unanimously nominated by the republican state convention for attorney general of the state; was elected and reelected in 1889. In 1892 Attorney General Miller appointed him special counsel for the United States in the suit brought by the government against the Pacific railroads.. In 1894 he was nominated and elected to the fifty-fourth congress, as a republiean, from the twelfth district, Franklin and Fairfield counties. The district was largely democratic, but he carried it over Joseph H. Outhwaite. democrat, by a plurality of 1,591, and was defeated in 1896 by John J. Lentz democrat. in the same district by less than 50 votes. In 1898 he was appointed by President McKinley as a member of the commission to codify the laws of the United States. John J: Lentz. John Jacob Lentz, of Columbus, was born near St. Clairsville. Belmont county, Ohio. January 27, 1856; attended district school and the St. Clairsville high h school; taught school four years; graduated from the National Normal University, Lebanon, Ohio. in 1877: attended University of Wooster one year: graduated from University of Michigan with degree of A. B. in 358 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS 1882; took both law courses at Columbia College, New York city, receiving the degree of LL. B. in 1883; admitted to the bar at Columbus in October, 1883, and since 1887 has been a. member of the law firm of Nash & Lentz; for five years was one of the examiners of the city teachers; and was appointed a trustee of Ohio University by Governor McKinley; in the democratic state convention, at Cincinnati, in 1893. Although refusing to permit his name to be presented to the convention he was voted for as a candidate for governor. He was elected national president of the American Insurance Union in September, 1896, and reelected in 1897, 1898 and 1899. He was voted for as a candidate for the gubernatorial nomination in 1897 and again in 1899, although again refusing to permit his name to be presented to the convention. In 1896 he was elected to the fifty-fifth congress, as a democrat from the twelfth district, composed of Franklin and Fairfield counties, and was reelected from the same district in 1898 to the fifty-sixth. In the famous contest which resulted in the election of, Marcus A. Hanna by the Ohio legislature, in January, 1898, Mr. Lentz was the only democrat who received a vote for United States senator. He was permanent chairman of the democrat state convention held at Dayton, August 23 and 24. In the first session of the fifty-sixth congress, no resolution attracted wider attention than that introduced by Mr. Lentz to investigate the use of the United States army in Idaho in connection with the labor troubles in the Coeur d' Alene mining district. The investigation was vigorously prosecuted by Mr. Lentz and closely followed by organized labor throughout the country, and attracted universal attention among all who watch the use of the military arm of the government. Mr. Lentz, although he has been in public life but a short time, has attained that eminence as an orator that he has been called upon to speak in almost all the principal cities from Milwaukee to New Orleans, and from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. Emmett Tompkins, an eminent attorney and son of former Congressman Cydnor B. Tompkins, was born in McConnelsville, Ohio, September 1, 1853. In 1865 he removed to Athens, both his parents being deceased. At'Athens he entered the law offices of General Charles H. Grosvenor and Judge Joem Welch, with whom he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1875, entered at once upon the practice and rose to great prominence in the profession. He served two terms as a city solicitor of Athens; two terms as mayor, and two terms as a representative in the general assembly of Ohio. He removed to Columbus to enter the broader field of his profession and in 1900 was chosen to congre ss and served one term. Since then he has been in the practice of his profession. Judge DeWitt C. Badger. Judge Badger was elected to congress in 1902, and served one term. He is now in the law practice in Ohio. PAGE 359 - TYPICAL COLUMBUS BANK AND OFFICE BUILDINGS PAGE 360 - BLANK CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 361 Edward L. Taylor, Jr. Edward L. Taylor, Jr., was elected to the congress in 1904; reelected in 1906, is still incumbent, and is the republican nominee for reelection. Longer sketches of the two gentlemen immediately preceding appear elsewhere in this work. United States Senator A. U. Thurman. Had it fallen to the lot of Plutarch to have written the lives of Allen Granberry Thurman and John Sherman he would have drawn the inevitable parallel between them. Politically they were antipodal. Personally they were on the friendliest footing. Mentally they were giants of equal stature. Thurman was so intensely democratic and so firm in his political convictions that a compatriot spoke of his as the type of Roman firmness. witty newspaper writer aptly interjected the phrase. "Why, he is the noblest Roman of them all." Thurman was democratic in all things, affable, companionable and easily approached. He had thousands of what the classic writers called "lovers" men who loved him as brothers love one another and who took as personal insults every slight put upon. him. Sherman was austere, reserved and dignified and was not approached easily. Early in his public career he was dubbed "The Iceberg." His friends were friends under all circumstances but far from enthusiastic. And yet Sherman was not an iceberg to them who knew him but a genial warm hearted man, and Thurman was a fierce and relentless hater of those who betrayed him. The worst enemies of each were in his own party-men of narrow ambitions and powerful leverage in the manipulation of party affair:. But for these enemies both would have reached the presidency, on which they had fixed their ambitions at different periods. These two men were contemporaneous during that period of our national history when Ohio was the nerve center of the mentality, conscience and military prowess of the Union. They did more for their respective parties than is yet appreciated. Sherman was the real pilot in the senate, who steered the republican party between the Scylla of centralization and the Charybdis of reconstruction excesses in a most critical period. His strong conservatism. joined to his party rectitude, kept his party within the line of discretion and safety. Thurman in the senate saved the democratic party from final dissolution after it had begun to recover from the awful cataclysm of 1860. He entered the senate in 1869, when the party lacked an efficient leader and a definite policy. There were barely enough democratic senators to demand a roll call when he entered the body; but before he left it, twelve years later, he had been chosen its president pro tempore. Strongly combating the republican party on all political issues, Judge Thurman evolved a modern democratic policy, which gave the party coherence in every section of the Union, and exercised a most beneficial influence upon the national legislation at a time when prejudice and partisan ambition threatened the direct injury to the highest public interests, emphasizing the fact that an intelligently con- 362 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS trolled minority is the great and necessary conserving factor in a popular government. Hence, it may be said, without reflecting upon their compeers, that these two men rendered the highest possible service to their respective parties, and to the country at the same time, in a most critical period, by so guiding and molding them that neither fell into irretrievable error. Allen G. Thurman was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, November 1813. He died in Columbus, Ohio, December 12, 1896. A few years after his birth, his parents moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, bringing with them not only a future United States senator in the person of their son, but a future United States senator and governor in the person of William Allen, Mrs. Thurman's nephew. Upon her devolved mostly the education of the two youth.. Mrs. Thurman educated her son in both English and French. and superintended his further education in the Chillicothe Academy, a private educational institution. While it was intended to send him to college, that he might enjoy a more thorough educational course, the circumstances of his parents were such that this was an impossibility. He was naturally inclined to the legal profession and fitted himself for it while earning a. subsistence by any honorable occupation which offered. Teaching and civil engineering were the principal means of supporting himself and his parents, while pursuing his legal studies. He was admitted to the practice in 1835 and rapidly rare to the head of his profession. In 1844 he was elected a representative in the Twenty-ninth congress and served but a single term in that body. When the supreme court of Ohio was reorganized under the constitution of 1851 he became one of the members of that tribunal, his associates being Thomas W. Bartly, John A. Corwin. Rufus P. Rannev and William B. Caldwell. He .served on the supreme bench until 1855, and his decisions were noted for their clearness and comprehensiveness. In 1868 he was elected United States senator over Benjamin F. Wade, the election being held on the 14th of January, and formally declared on the succeeding day at the joint session of the two houses. At the preceding election in October, 1867, he was the democratic candidate for governor, being defeated by Rutherford B. Hayes, who received 243,605 votes to 240,622 for Thurman. He lost the governorship, but the legislature being democratic in both houses he won the senatorship. He was re-elected to the senate on the 13th of January, 1874, over Edward F. Noyes. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the senatorship in January. 1880: December, 1880; and January, 1886. He was a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876, when Samuel J. Tilden was nominated; in 1880, when the nomination went to General Winfield S. Hancock; in 1884, when Grover Cleveland was made the demo cratic standard bearer; and in 1888 was unanimously nominated for vice pre.sident on the ticket with President Cleveland. He served with distinction on the Paris monetary commission, being one of the leading champions of the equal coinage of both gold and silver as the primary money of the commercial nations of the world and continued to advocate that policy during the remainder of his life. CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 363 Early in 1868 a conference of the leading democrats of Ohio was called to consider party affairs, and Judge Thurman was invited to be present. At the conference it was proposed to dissolve the party and organize a. new one. Several of the conferees spoke in favor of the proposition and the Judge, who sat as a silent spectator, was called on for his views. Taking an etra pinch of snuff and stretching to his full attitude, he said: "Gentlemen, this is a. very small room in which to decree the death of the great democratic party. Moreover, I doubt the jurisdiction of this tribunal in the premises. With your permission, I will withdraw from: your deliberations." Flourishing his famous red bandana handkerchief and blowing his nose with a bugle blast, he left the hall, and the conference broke up without the formality of a motion to adjourn. Attorney General Henry Stanbery. One of the most elegantly, courtly men known to the legal profession in Ohio was Henry Stanbery. He was in stature about six feet, erect, with dig nified bearing and a very pleasant face. His features were large and strongly marked, and when suffused with the light of his genial spirit nothing could be more captivating. Indeed he was grace itself and seemed as a prince among men. The memory of his fine presence is to many living a valued lifetime possession. And he was deserving of the regard which his presence inspired, for he was the soul of honor and integrity; scorned to mislead a court or jury, or to deceive an opponent by any misstatement of law or fact. He was kindness itself, never lost his control nor indulged in petulance nor passion. Ile was one of the first lawyers in the United States and entitled to the highest veneration and regard. He was a member of the Episcopal communion and in all his deportment and career showed his love for justice, truth and beauty. Henry Stanbery was born in New York city, and in 1814, when a lad of eleven years, came with his father, a physician, to Zanesville. He was educated at Washington College, Pennsylvania, studied law at Zanesville., and was admitted to the bar in 1821, when he was invited by Hon. Thomas Ewing to begin the practice at Lancaster and ride the circuit with him, which offer he accepted and for many years resided there. When in 1846, the office of attorney-general of Ohio was created, he was elected by the general assembly to be its first occupant. He then removed to Columbus, where he resided during his entire term of five years. In 1850 he was a member of the constitutional convention from Franklin county and was conspicuous in its debates. On leaving Columbus he for several years practiced law in Cincinnati. In 1856 he was appointed attorney-general of the United States by President Johnson, which office he accepted from a desire to assist in carrying the government safely through the perilous times following the war. He resigned this office to become one of the counsel of the president upon his impeachment. His health at that time was so delicate that most of his arguments on that trial were submitted on paper. He died in New York in 1883, aged eighty years. 364 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS Governor William Dennison, Jr. William Dennison, the first of Ohio's trio of war governors, was born at Cincinnati, November 23, 1815. His father was the proprietor of the highly popular and widely known "Dennison House" in that city, and a grand specimen of the old style of western landlords. He graduated from Miami university, and entered upon the study of law in Cincinnati in the office of Nathaniel G. Pendleton and Stephen Fales. In 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Shortly afterward he married a daughter of William Neil, of Columbus, the famous stage proprietor in the days of stages, and removed to that city. He practiced law until 1848, when he was elected to the Ohio senate by the Whig party. About this time he became interested in banking and railroads and was made president of the Exchange bank and also of the Columbus & Xenia Railroad Company. In 1856 he was a delegate to the convention which inaugurated the republican party, and the same year took a prominent part in the convention which nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency. In 1860 he was elected governor of Ohio by the republicans. He was elected chairman of the republican convention at Baltimore, which in 1864 re-nominated President Lincoln and was by him appointed postmaster general, holding that position until 1866, when President Johnson began to sail the union party and he resigned his portfolio. In 1880 he was a leader of the friends of Senator John Sherman in the effort to secure his nomination in the national republican convention of that year. Governor Dennison accumulated a handsome fortune in his private business and contributed largely to the Dennison College at Granville, Ohio. He died at his home in Columbus, June 15, 1882. Governor Dennison was a man of fine social connections, tall, courtly and elegant in manner, with a foresight and ability unsuspected by those not intimately associated with him, but which was fully demonstrated during his administration as governor of Ohio, during which the true, pure metal of the man rang out with a resonance that should have left no doubt as to its composition. Notwithstanding that in his political debates he had given evidence of ability and unexpected reserve power, the general public with singular pertinacity held to the opinion that he was superficial and of mediocre ability, and even after he had clearly shown by the valuable results of his measures that he had been misunderstood and his ability underestimated, the Ohio public were slow to acknowledge his merits and give him due credit for his valuable services to the state and nation. In the confusion and excitement at the outbreak of the war almost every citizen felt that he knew just what. ought to be done. Troops should be raised and sent to the front at once. Such matters as equipment, organization, etc., did not enter into their calculations and because this was not done by the saying of it, the governor must be inefficient. The critics, having prejudiced Governor Dennison, said so and it :seemed as though each citizen had received a special commission to join the critics and malign him. CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 365 Every step he took brought down senseless abuse from every quarter. Dennison bore it nobly, not a word of reproach escaped him, and when for some months the newspapers of the state were abusing him for mismanagement at Camp Dennison he uttered no complaint, but generously kept ±hence, when in truth he had at that time no more to do with the management of Camp Dennison than any private citizen of the state, it being under the control of the national government. A word from the officer in command at Camp Dennison would have shown the injustice of this abuse. Whitelaw Reid, in his comprehensive and valuable work on "Ohio in the War," says in reference to this unjust criticism: "To a man of his sensitive temper and desire for the good opinion of others, the unjust and measureless abuse to which his earnest efforts had subjected him was agonizing. But he suffered no sign to escape him, and with a single-hearted devotion and an ability for which the state had not credited him, he proceeded to the measures most necessary in the crisis." He succeeded in favorably placing the loan authorized by the million war bill. Having secured money, the "sinews of war," he then looked around for arms, of which Ohio had a very meagre supply, and learning that Illinois had a considerable number, he secured five thousand muskets from that state and proposed a measure uniting all the troops of the Mississippi valley under one major general. It was through governor Dennison that West Virginia was saved to the Union. He assured the unionists of that state that if they would break off from old Virginia and adhere to the Union. Ohio would send the necessary military force to protect him. And when afterward it. became necessary to redeem this pledge Governor Dennison sent Ohio militiamen (Not muttered into the service at all) who. uniting with the loyal citizens, drove the rebels out of West Virginia. Chief Justice Joseph R. Swan. Joseph R. Swan, jurist, was born in Westerville, Oneida county, New York, in 1802, and in 1824, after studying law with his uncle Gustavus Swan. in Columbus, he was admitted to the bar. In 1854 the opponents of the repeal of the Missouri compromise elected him supreme judge by over 77,000 .000 majority, and be eventually became chief justice. His prominent characteristic on the bench was great conscientiousness, o that neither personal interest or . sympathy could in any manner influence his judgment of right or law. He prepared a. number of elementary law books which stand very high with the profession and have been of wide-spread utility, as "Swan's Treatise," an indispensable companion for every justice of the peace; "Guide for Executors and Administrators;" "Swan's Revised Statue.'" "Pleading and Practice," etc. He died December 18, 1884. Associate Justice Noah H. Swayne. The late Noah H. Swayne, judge of the supreme court of the United States, was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1804, of Quaker parent- 366 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS age. When nineteen years of age, he was admitted to the bar and, disliking slavery came to Ohio. At the age of twenty-one he was appointed by General Jackson United States attorney for Ohio, when he removed from Coshocton, where he was located, to Columbus. In 1839 President l an Buren appointed him United States district attorney. He soon acquired high reputation as a. jury lawyer, his peculiar forte being the examination of witnesses and in skillful analysis of testimoney. On retiring from this office, he took no part in politics until 1856, when in the Fremont campaign he made speeches against the extension of slavery. In February, 1862, after the decease of Justice McLean, of the supreme court, he was appointed by President Lincoln his successor. THis was by the unanimous recommendation of the Ohio delegation in congress and in accordance with the oft-repeated expressed desire of Justice McLean, in his lifetime, that in the event of his decease he would be the beat person for his successor. This opinion of Judge McLean was coincided in by the leading members of the bar in Washington City, who had witnessed his display of eminent ability in some cases which he had argued before the supreme court and which also had a like effect upon the judges before whom he had appeared. He left several sons, the oldest of whom is the eminent General Wager Swayne, now of New York city, whose first name was the family name of his mother, a Virginia lady. Wager Swayne was at one time a partner with his father in the practice of the law. Another son, F. B. Sway ne, is now a law partner with a son of ex-President Hayes in Toledo. Alfred Kelly. Of all the men of his times in Ohio, from 1810 to 1850, Alfred Kelly was the best all-around man of the many virile and versatile men who made their indelible impress on the state's pioneer and subsequent history. He was born in Connecticut, November 7, 1789, attending the schools at Middletown, until his ninth year, when his father, Daniel Kelly, removed with his family to Lowville, New York. Here Alfred received a thorough training and later an academic education in the Fairfield (N. Y.) Academy, and being, boy and man, possessed of wonderful perceptive and receptive, as well a.: retentive, faculties, was no doubt the best educated young man as well as the most versatile and widely informed and instructed one in all this section of the Empire state as well as in northern Ohio. This presumption is strongly supported by his subsequent wonderful practical achievements in whatever sphere of activity he appeared. In whatever field of effort he entered be achieved a clear-cut victory, and each of which find a fittingly conspicuous place in the history of his adopted state. After completing his academic course, he entered the office of Jonas Platt, one of the supreme judges of the state of New York, where he took a thorough course in the reading and study of the principles of law. He removed from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, when nearing twenty-one years of age in 1810. On his twenty-first birthday, when he was eli- PAGE 367 - BOAT LANDING, OLENTANGY PARK AND VIEW OF OLENTANGY PARK AND VALLEY PAGE 368 - BLANK CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 369 gible, he was admitted to the practice of the law, and on the same day was appointed by the court as prosecuting attorney, which office he held for many years. His abilities as a lawyer were quickly recognized, and yet his subsequent fame does not rest on his great legal achievements. He was learned in many things and was master of all of them. Wherever he moved, he was at the head of the procession; in whatever council hall he was seated, he was at the head of the table; whenever an obstacle was to be removed, his was the first blow, and he did not look back to see whether his workmates were loitering, or where the debris was falling. He wrought by his own design, and to him, of absolute. verity, there was no such word as "failure"; no such condition as weariness; no such bugbears as defeat and discouragement. Notwithstanding his connection with the vast work of initiating and pushing to speedy completion the canal system of the state, he performed long and arduous and valuable services as a legislator, serving in the house of representatives of the general assembly in 1814-15-16-17-18-19-20-36-37-38-39 and in the senate in 1821-22-23-44-45-46-47. His first work in the legislature was to introduce a measure abolishing law cumbersome system of common law pleadings, in suits at law, as well as in chancery proceedings, modifying where not wholly superseding, and substituting therefore substantially the present forms of pleadings at law under the code. The present generation of lawyers, to say nothing of the laymen, can hardly realize the immense amount of legal rubbish thus cast into limbo, simplifying the practice and making more speedy and more certain the operation of law, as well as conducting to the administration of justice, intelligence as well as rapidity. The bill originally offered by Mr. Kelly was the prophet and fore-runner of our present state code and the procedure thereunder. Justice betweeen man and man no longer travel: at the snail's pace because of legal rubbish, but both truth and candor compels the statement that the system of retardation and unjust. and unjustifiable delay, practiced by the attorneys of wealthy corporation. and individuals until the weak are wearied out and emaciated by the strong, imposes unjust and unnecessary burdens upon litigants, as did the system that the young lawyer annihilated and which appeals as loudly and as insistently to the courts themselves as did the cry of similar litigants appeal to the legislature almost a. century ago, and is no less entitled to consideration. Connected with the reform, which led to the eventual foundation of the civil and criminal codes, was the equally significant one of abolishing imprisonment for debt. This relic of barbarism was adopted into the laws of Ohio from a Pennsylvania statute during the territorial period, and which, while not as rigidly enforced as in the older states, was none the less a disgrace to nineteenth century civilization. Even legislators were not immune from arrest for debts no matter how honestly contracted nor their inability to pay on demand. Representative Joseph Kerr, of Ross, who had previously been a. United States senator and a general officer in the war of 1812. was arrested for debt in 1820, when on 370 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS the eve of setting out to Columbus to attend to his legislative duties. So also, Senator Andrew F. Mack, of Hamilton, was imprisoned by the United States bank for a debt, at the date of the assembling of the legislators in December, 1828. In both instances the two houses overrode the alleged right of imprisonment and compelled the release of the prisoners. These and similar cases hastened the repeal of the odious law. The attack upon the principle of it by Mr. Kelly in the Ohio legislature was the first step taken in any law-making body in the world to stamp it out. But unfortunately for the full glory of Ohio, while her annual legislatures dallied with the question, New York took up the measure and passed it, thus honoring her own son while he was trying to confer the crown of honor on his adopted state-Ohio. But Mr. Kelly's greater work was the prominent part he took in the construction of the canal system from the beginning to the end. He was a greater engineer than all the experts hired by the state to do that work. He had a perfect comprehension of the work at every stage. He was not graduated as an engineer. In fact, he had but studied the science casually, as a very young man. Yet he was able to point out the errors of judgment of the state's engineers in the solution of the telegraphical problems they encountered and was able to do it in such a way that they put professional pride aside and by following his advice hastened the work, saved vast sums of money to the state, and gave the people all they paid for. Of course, an estimate of the cost of the work had been made in advance and the financial demands met. Many able individuals, engineers, financiers and business men took part in making the estimates. Mr. Kelly was the smallest of all, but so firmly did he maintain ;that the work could be done within that estimate, running at that time into a terrifying number of millions, that the others resented it. The work was done within the estimate the only instance of the kind in the world's history, in so great a relative undertaking up to that time or since. His detailed and sectional estimates were as accurate as the general one-hence it did not "happen" to come out on the right side of the ledger. He was a powerful factor also in negotiating loans that, were deemed impossible to negotiate by even a majority of the friends of the canal. Ho had a way of making others see a thing as he saw it, and when he did, he had won his battle. Firm as adamant, he was yet gentle, so firmly gentle that he inspired ninety-nine per cent of the day laborers on the hundreds of miles of work with his own invincible spirit of optimism, that he cut the time calculations between the Alpha and Omega of the work in half. He was a devoted son of his step-mother state. Her interests were his first and greatest concern. There was no blare of trumpets about him in the days of his activity. All who knew him, spoke of him with respect, admiration and enthusiasm. And yet there was no ostentation about him. He was the idealization of common sense in all that he said or did. A volume, rather than a sketch could be written of him, without exhausting the subject. All the stories about him are entertaining to generations who knew CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS - 371 him not. Each carried with it a moral which was always elevating. One will serve to show such manner of man he was. During the panic of 1837-41, about the time when he came to Columbus and occupied the great stone mansion on East Broad street, when state after state had repudiated its debts, and money was practically unattainable; and when the Ohio treasury was empty, the question was even mooted in Ohio's legislature to repudiate her debts, Alfred Kelly was in New York trying to borrow money by pledging bonds or selling them to secure money with which to pay the interest on the canal bonds which he had helped to negotiate. The New York capitalists refused to take the bonds as pledges of security. But Kelly was not to be balked. He offered his own notes as security for the state. He frankly admitted that his estate was far less in value than the sum he sought to borrow, and that to fail in the payment of his notes meant bankruptcy and poverty to him and his, at three score and ten, but that he had no fear of such a catastrophe. The money was advanced. Ohio's interest was paid. He came back and helped to rebuild the state's finances, and Ohio neither repudiated her bonds nor kept her creditors waiting from that time to this. The last of the bonds were paid off at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the holder parted with them with a sigh, for they were regarded as better than gold or government bonds. Alfred Kelly was the right man at the right time in several periods of Ohio's history. (RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE)