TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 175 TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY, OHIO 1623-1923 VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO AND TOLEDO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1923 BIOGRAPHICAL FRANK RAYMOND COATES Frank R. Coates, president and general manager of The Community Traction Company, also president and general manager of The Toledo-Edison Company, has bent every energy toward making these great corporations in deed and in truth "public service" corporations. Possessing splendid administrative power, executive force and initiative, he has at all times directed the activities of these great organizations along the lines of public benefit and improvement and by reason of the signal worth of his work he is accounted one of the foremost citizens of Toledo. Frank Raymond Coates was born on the 20th of June, 1869, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he completed his high school course and afterward entered Lehigh University, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree with the class of 1890. On that occasion he represented the mining class as a speaker and after pursuing his postgraduate course he was accorded the degree of Engineer of Mines in 1891. He not only made excellent record in his studies but for two years was, captain of the track team at Lehigh and for two seasons was manager of the baseball team. He was also one of the valuable members of the football team and for two years occupied the presidency of the Lehigh University Athletic Association. He was made chairman of the executive committee of the Pennsylvania Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association and for two years was vice president of the American Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association, being the acting president during the last year. It is said that he still holds the Lehigh record for the mile walk and that he is the possessor of an almost innumerable lot of medals won in his various athletic contests. Never has he ceased to feel a keen interest in athletic sports and in Toledo he has done much to stimulate activities and promote standards in this connection. He organized the famous Rail-Light Nine in Toledo to give the city 'a representative baseball team and he has also encouraged the organization and maintenance of athletic teams drawn from the employes of the company in all the different branches of the sport. This, however, has been incidental to the great purposes and plans of his life in connection with the management of business affairs. After completing his postgraduate work in Lehigh University, Mr. Coates started out in the business world as rodman with the Baltimore & Ohio. Railroad in July, 1891. He also acted as transit man with the engineering corps and in 1892 he was advanced to the position of supervisor of the Wheeling division of that road. Promotion came to' him again in May, 1893, when he was made assistant roadmaster of the New York division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and in December, 1895, he became roadmaster of that division, having charge of maintenance and the four-track construction. Each step in his business career has been a forward one, bringing to him a wider outlook and broader opportunities, and these opportunities he has never failed to utilize to the advancement of his own business career and the promotion of the interests under his directions. His progress has been made wholly as the result of merit and capability. He left the east in October, 1900, to become chief engineer of the - 5 - 6 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY Chicago & Great Western Railroad, with headquarters at St. Paul, Minnesota, a position which he occupied until 1904, when he entered the engineering and construction business, building bridges, electric railways and hydro-electric plants, spending a two-year period prior to October, 1909, in connection with the Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation, with headquarters at Boston. In October, 1909, he was elected to the vice presidency of the Inter Ocean Steel Company, with offices in Chicago, and so continued until December, 1911. It was the latter year that witnessed Mr. Coates' arrival in Toledo, to which city he came for the purpose of taking charge of the Toledo Railways & Light Company as president. In April, 1913, this property was acquired by Henry L. Doherty & Company, since which time Mr. Coates has given his time to the Doherty interests. In 1922 he was elected to the directorate of the Cities Service Company and much of his time is now spent in New York city. A contemporary biographer has said of ,Mr. Coates : "Like other. high executives in the Doherty organization, Mr. Coates is never too busy to render a decision or pass upon any matter which may be placed before him, in addition to receiving and interviewing throughout the day a steady stream of visiting officials from subsidiary companies and other business callers." The base of the creed adopted by Frank R. Coates might be summed up as, "May mine be a philosopher's life." Among other reasons for Mr. Coates' unusual progress are his "Ten Rules for Success," which have received wide publication, and are worthy of close study by the ambitious young men of the Doherty organization. Some of them follow : "A kind word quietly spoken will make friends." "In public utility service one should take the public into his confidence, laying all the cards on the table face up." "Every person is human and likely to err ; be patient in your dealings with everyone." "A corporation. office should be devoid of red tape ; the company's representative should always keep his door open to the public." "Do not make promises that cannot be kept." Mr. Coates was married on April 25, 1894, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Miss Julia Bullock Lineburgh of that city, and they have one daughter, Helen A. Mr. Coates has membership in Egbert Camp of the Spanish War Veterans, being eligible thereto from the fact that he served as regimental adjutant in the Fourth Connecticut Regiment in the Spanish-American .war, although not called out for active field service. As one of the leading railway engineers of the country he has many professional and social connections. He belongs to the New York Railroad Club, the Western Railroad Club, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Railway Engineering Association, the American Electric Railway Association, the. National Electric Light Association, the Engineers Club of New York and the Engineers Club of Chicago. He is likewise identified with the Whitehall, New York -Atlantic, Bankers, Reform, Metropolitan and Recess clubs, of New York, and with the Chicago Athletic Association and the Chicago Club. In Toledo he has membership in the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, .of which he has served as a director, the Toledo Club, of which he has been vice president, the Country Club, the Transportation Club, the Auto Club, the Inverness Golf Club, the Toledo Yacht Club, the Maumee River Yacht Club and is likewise a member of the Museum of Art, of the Toledo Zoological Society, of which he has served as president, and of the Young Men's Christian Association. He is also a member of the National Geographic Society, a trustee of the Newsboys' Association, and he is keenly interested in all of those forces which have for their object the safeguarding of the youth of the country and the TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 7 development of higher standards among the boys of the land. He has closely studied many of the important economic and sociologiCal problems before the country today and his influence is always on the side of advancement and improve-ment. Toledo regarded him as a valuable addition to her Citizenship when he cast in his lot here and in the decade or more .that has since passed public opinion has found its justification in what he has done for the city- and its improvement. CHARLES A. PECKHAM For more than a half century the name of Peckham Inas been a prominent one in business circles of Toledo, and Charles. A. Peckham, who represents the third generation of the family in this city, is also contributing in substantial measure to its commercial development and prosperity as president a: the Toledo Bridge & Crane Company, conducting one of the largest productive industries of the Maumee valley. He was born in Monroe, Michigan, December 16, 1869, and his parents were E. W. and Sophia (Hill) Peckham, the former a native of Utica, New York, while the latter was born on Summit street in this city. The father was an honored veteran of the Civil war, serving throughout that conflict as sergeant of a company of volunteers from New York, and after receiving his discharge he came to this city. For many years he was associated in business with his father, who was the founder of the Toledo Saw Company, and they became the owners of one of the most important industries of this section ofrsstate. Both Mr. and MA.Irs. Peckham passed away- in this city, leaving three chil-dren: Charles A., Mary Louise and Mrs. Fred E. Pile, all residents of Toledo. Charles A. Peckham attended the public schools until he reached the age of thirteen and then started out in the business world, entering the employ of the B. F. Wade Company, with which he remained for eight years, learning the printer's trade while in their service. He next joined the Toledo Bridge & Crane Company as assistant secretary, while later he was made secretary of the firm in which he became a partner in 1905, while he is now filling the office of president. The business has been sold to the Austin Machnow o Corporation, which is nowperating the plant, making machinery for road building. Mr. Peckham possesses the initiative, poise, broad vision and administrative powers necessary for the successful control of interests of magnitude and has labored effectively to broaden the scope of the concern, whose buildings now cover twenty-five acres of ground, while its employes number four hundred. Otheclaimness interests also claini the attention of Mr. Peckham, who is likewise serving as president of the L. F. Burdick Company- of this city and a director of the Northern National Bank of Toledo. On the 6th of September, 1893, Mr. Peckham was united in marriage to Miss Celia Bird Burdick, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leander Burdick, prominent residents of this city. He is a member of Trinity Episcopal church, of which he is one of the vestrymen, and in his political views he is independent, reserving the right to vote according to the dictates of his judgment. His social nature finds expression in his membership with the Toledo Club, the Inverness Club and the Toledo Yacht Club, of which he is commodore. From early boyhood his life has been one of unremitting industry and his is the record of a self-made man whose success has been won through merit and ability. Mr. Peckham is a worthy 8 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY representative of one of the old and highly respected families of Toledo and'. is loyal to all those interests which make for honorable manhood and progressive citizenship. EDWARD FORD Starting out as clerk on a river steamboat, Edward Ford advanced from his initial position in the business world to rank with the captains of American industry. He was the founder and promoter of the Edward Ford Plate Glass Company, controlling one of the largest enterprises of this character in the United States and continuing as the executive head of the business to the time of his death in 1920. He was a western man by birth and training and possessed the spirit of marked enterprise, and progress which has ever been a dominant factor in the rapid and substantial upbuilding of the Mississippi valley. Born in Greenville, Floyd county, Indiana, January. 21, 1843, he was the sixth in order of birth in a family of seven children, five sons and two daughters, whose parents were John Baptiste and Mary (Bower) Ford. The former was a son of Jonathan and Margaret (Baptiste) Ford and Margaret Baptiste was a daughter of John and Margaret (Schuck) Baptiste, who were married near Danville, Kentucky. The family is of French lineage, John Baptiste coming from France to the new world and casting in his lot with the pioneer settlers of Kentucky, where he introduced grape culture. John B. Ford learned the fl trade of saddler and shipbuilder at New Albany, Indiana, and devoted several years to that line of work, after which he became interested in glass manufacture and organized the Star Glass Company. at New Albany. About fifteen years prior to his death he established his home in Creighton, Pennsylvania, where he passed away at the very venerable age of ninety-one years. His wife also departed this life in Creighton. Edward Ford spent his youthful days largely in New Albany, Indiana, where he attended the public schools, later pursuing a course in the Bryant & Stratton Commercial College at Indianapolis. He first provided for his own support as a clerk on a steamboat plying between Louisville, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and for several years followed the river. He then became interested in glass manufacturing in connection with his father, remaining with the Star Glass Company of New Albany until 1873, when he removed to Columbus, Ohio, and there established the Columbus Window Glass Company, with which he Was associated for about three years. On the expiration of that period he erected a plant for the Jeffersonville Plate Glass Company at Jeffersonville, Indiana, concentrating his entire attention at that time upon the plate glass industry, of which his father has been known as the founder. After five years he joined his father at Creighton, Pennsylvania, where he established plate glass works under the name of the New York Plate Glass Company, while later the business was carried on under the name of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. For thirteen years Mr. Ford was actively identified 'with the business as president and manager, but in 1897 sold out and removed to Wyandotte, Michigan, where he became connected with the alkali works owned by his father. He dated his residence in Toledo from 1898, at which time he organized the Edward Ford Plate Glass Company and developed the largest industry of this kind in the United States. The factory at TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 11 Rossford covers thirty-five acres, all under roof, and is equipped with the most modem machinery and appliances for turning out large quantities of the finest plate glass. Employment was given sixteen hundred men and Mr. Ford remained the active head of the business to the time of his demise. The enterprise which he established is one of the foremost productive industries of Ohio and remains as a monument to the progressiveness and business ability of the founder. Mr. Ford also erected in Detroit, Michigan, a white glazed brick office building, nineteen stories in height, known as the Ford building, and later erected the Dime Bank building in that city and he became closely associated with various interests and activities of Toledo. He was one of the directors of the Second National Bank and also one of the trustees of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1861 Edward Ford was married to Miss Evelyn C. Penn, who passed away in 1870, leaving two children : Mrs. M. R. Bacon, now living in Wyandotte, Michigan; and John B., of Detroit, president of the Michigan Alkali Company. In 1872 Mr. Ford married Miss Carrie J. Ross of Zanesville, Ohio, and they became parents of two daughters and a son: Mrs. George P. MacNichol, Mrs. W. W. Knight and George Ross, all of Toledo. Mr. Ford belonged to the Presbyterian church and while residing at New Albany, Indiana, became a member of the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His political alle-giance was always given to the republican party. He was well known in club circles, becoming a leading member of the Toledo Yacht Club, in which he held the rank of rear commodore. In the spring of 1909 he built a fine steam yacht, one of the largest and best ever owned by a. member of the Toledo Club. Mr. Ford also belonged to the Toledo, the Country and the Middle Bass clubs and his busi-ness success enabled him in his later years to indulge his love of fishing and other sports. He was a man strong and purposeful, whose determination enabled him to accomplish whatever he undertook and his indefatigable energy declined no call to labor or service. Starting out in early manhood in connection with the plate glass industry when the business was in its infancy, he at all times kept abreast with the progress made and, in fact, was a recognized leader in improving methods and in advancing standards of manufacture. He knew the business thoroughly in principle and detail and today the town of Rossford stands as a monument to his enterprise, for it was there that he founded his plate glass plant and developed a manufacturing concern that employed hundreds of people who established their homes in the town of Rossford and directed their activities along lines which re-sulted in the material, intellectual, social and moral progress of the community. Back of all this Mr. Ford was a directing spirit and at all times he manifested a kindly and helpful interest in the work of public improvement that made his labors far-reaching and resultant. HARRY MITCHELL KELSEY Harry Mitchell Kelsey has for the past forty-five years been identified with the hardware trade in the interests of The Bostwick-Braun Company of Toledo, the service of which he entered as an office boy, working his way steadily upward to his present important position of executive control as treasurer of the corporation. Toledo gladly numbers him among her worthy native sons, his birth having occurred on the 13th of April, 1859. His early American ancestors resided in 12 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY Massachusetts and in Maine, while his parents, Joel W. and Mary Jane Kelsey, became pioneer residents of Lucas county, Ohio. The father, a farmer and lumberman who was also connected with the pork packing industry, won prominence in public affairs and for one term filled the position of county treasurer. Harry M. Kelsey completed a course in the Toledo high school by graduation with the class of 1877 and on the 14th of January of the following year entered the employ of The Bostwick-Braun Company in the capacity of office boy. At the end of five years he was sent out on the road as a salesman, thus representing the concern for three years, while subsequently he was chosen to his present responsible position of treasurer. No higher testimonial of his capability and efficiency could be given than the fact that he has been made an executive of the corporation with which he first became identified in a. most humble capacity, and his well-directed efforts have been no small factor in the continued growth and success of the business. On the 11 th of June, 1884, in Toledo, Mr. Kelsey was united in marriage to Miss Eleanor Louise Kline, a daughter of William and Martha S. Kline. Her father was for several years superintendent of telegraph for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad Company. Mr. and Mrs. Kelsey became the parents of a son and two daughters, namely : William Kline, who wedded Miss Gladys S. Hatt ; Florence, who became the wife of Frederick T. Lawton ; and Eloise, who gave her hand in marriage to Howard L. Barkdull. In his political views Mr. Kelsey is a stanch republican, while his religious faith is that' of the Unitarian church. He is a popular member of the Toledo Club, also belongs to the Royal Arcanum and for nine years served as financial secretary of Ideal Council of the National Union. He enjoys an extensive and favorable acquaintance in the community which has always been his home and has long been numbered among the substantial and representative business men of Toledo. SPENCER D. CARR In the demise of Spencer D. Carr, which occurred December 24, 1922, Toledo, Jost the dean of her bankers and a man who was honored, loved and respected by all. He was at the time of his death chairman of the board of directors of the Commerce-Guardian Trust & Savings Bank and for a period covering considerably more than a half century he figured prominently in connection with the material upbuilding and business advancement of the city. He was spoken of as Toledo's best beloved citizen and as the "grand old man of Toledo." His birth occurred at Chapinsville, New York, on the 24th of January, 1847, and in the acquirement of an education he attended the district school to the age of seventeen years, when he enlisted with the Union forces for service in the Civil war. When hostilities had ceased he returned to New York and there began his business career but in October, 1868, came to Toledo, being then a young man of twenty-one years. No special event or occurrence seemed to foretell what the future had in store for Spencer D. Carr, unless at that period one had analyzed the young man, finding that his salient characteristics were diligence, persistency of purpose and a commendable ambition. His first employment in Toledo was with the firm of TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 15 Warriner, Patrick & Company, which he represented for seven years, beginning as bookkeeper. He left the firm on the 1st of October, 1875, to become bookkeeper in the First National Bank and this constituted the initial step toward his steady and continuous advancement in the financial and banking circles of Ohio. For seventeen years he remained with the First National Bank, winning promotion from time to time until he had become vice president, his powers developing with the continued growth of this large institution. He then organized and became president of the Ketcham National Bank and later, through the reorganization as the National Bank of Commerce, he accepted the vice presidency in the new institution. At the annual meeting of the directors in 1894 he was elected to the presidency and so continued until 1920, when the institution combined with the Guardian Trust & Savings Bank to form the Commerce-Guardian Trust & Savings Bank, Mr. Carr becoming chairman of the board of directors. Under his wise guidance the bank business steadily grew and at all times his progressiveness was tempered by a wise conservatism that most fully safeguarded the interests of depositors and stockholders alike. In the conduct of the affairs of the bank he showed ready discrimination between the essential and the non-essential and he made the institution a most potent force in the material and commercial development of the city. The name of Mr. Carr on the list of stockholders of any business enterprise would insure for it a large following, and extending his efforts beyond the pale of banking, he became the treasurer of the Toledo Rail-Light Company and president of the Toledo Steel Casting Company. The board of directors of the Commerce-Guardian Trust & Savings Bank adopted resolutions of appreciation of Mr. Carr, the "dean of Toledo bankers," in which this tribute to his memory was recorded : "In formulating and placing on record its tribute to Mr. Carr, this board is doing, indeed, its formal duty. But it is doing something more—and something different. For no formal phrases can quite express our recognition and appreciation of the relations in which Mr. Carr has stood to this bank, to its officers, to its employes, to its patrons and to the public. It is rather a high privilege to endeavor to express and place on permanent record our sense of loss. First of all should be mentioned his loyalty to the banking interests with which he has been entrusted. He seemed to have had from the beginning an idea in his mind that a bank was in some sense and in the best sense of the word a public utility. He did not, indeed, formulate this idea in words, for he was not given to phrase-making, but it was in line with his character and it entered into all his relations with 'the bank and through it with the business world of Toledo. He served the banks with which he was connected well and loyally. And these banks through him have helped to sustain, foster and promote the best interests of the city. He had a sort of philosophy of banking, resting not so much upon any thought-out theory on his part as upon a certain large kindliness of nature which was felt by all with whom he came into contact. His was indeed the philosophy of — the larger heart, the kindlier hand. Next must be mentioned his relations with his fellow officers. They know best how much they are indebted to him for counsel and advice in all important matters, and they know the value of his long and peculiarly intimate knowledge of business conditions and business men in Toledo ; and best of all they know the kindly consideration on his part which entered into all their intercourse with him. The employes of the bank will miss him sorely. His personal acquaintance with them all—his cheerful daily greetings—his real interest in them—all these helped 16 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY to lighten and brighten their daily tasks. They all loved Mr. Carr. By his death this bank has lost a valued servant and a wise and lOyal counselor and all its officers and employes have lost a near and dear friend. We gladly place in our records this slight tribute of our affection and expression of our sense of a loss which cannot be replaced." Mr. Carr was married, in 1871, to Miss Martha Louise Richards, and their only son is William C. Carr, vice president of the Second National Bank. Spencer D. Carr belonged to the Toledo Club, the Inverness Club, and the Toledo Yacht Club, while fraternally he was identified with Sanford L. Collins Lodge, F. & A. M. His interest in beneficial agencies looking to the uplift of the individual and the betterment of the community at large was shown by his active coopera-tion in the Young Men's Christian Association and the Toledo Newsboys' Associa-tion. He was an attendant and supporter of the Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian church. He was ever ready to extend a helping hand where assistance was needed along the line of any good work done in the name of charity or religion. He ever judged his fellowmen not by the standard of wealth but of worth and he numbered his friends among young and old, rich and poor, all being proud to be classed in the circle of his friendship. His death was sincerely mourned throughout the city. The following editorial appeared in the Toledo Times : "Over the Christmas spirit, reigning today in the business world of Toledo, there comes a cloud. The passing of S. D. Carr, whose death is chronicled elsewhere in this issue, will bring sadness to the homes of many of Toledo's most prominent citizens. For Mr. Carr had a host of friends. He was rich in the love, esteem and respect of his fellowmen. His career was built on service to others and the success which he achieved could not be measured in dollars and cents. It was above a monetary valuation. In going he has left in the hearts of his friends and associates a feeling of distinct loss. They know they have lost a friend. The entire business life of the city may well pause and pay a tribute of respect to the memory of Spencer D. Carr. It- will indeed be a tribute of something more than respect, something perhaps better and very certainly rarer —a tribute of real affection such as comes to very few men. It was fortunate that the many friends and admirers of Mr. Carr could show him during the closing year of his life evidence of their high esteem for him. Less than twelve months ago a .dinner was given in his honor, attended by the leading business men of the city. It was their sincere effort to pay to him as high a compliment in words and actions as it was. within their power to do so. Higher tributes could have been paid no man than were accorded Mr. Carr upon this occasion. An editorial that was written at that time in appreciation of his service for Toledo is here with reproduced as a final tribute to the late dean of Toledo bankers : 'The career of Spencer D. Carr is conclusive evidence that unpropitious early conditions of fortune and circumstance are spurs, rather than handicaps, to the man of broad vision, self-reliant initiative and sound business judgment. From the position of bookkeeper in the First National Bank he has won his way to the top in his chosen profession. He is now chairman of the board of directors of the Commerce-Guardian Trust & Savings Bank of this city. As a boy he came to Toledo penniless and friendless. Hard work and high principles have carried him from the bottom rung to affluence and leadership. Loyal service to those who placed their trust in him is the corner stone upon which Mr. Carr has builded his success. The banking business has meant something more to him than mere money making. To elevate it above the plane that seeks profit only has been his TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 17 constant effort. He attached to the bank a duty of promoting the industrial development and healthy growth of Toledo. He sought to make it a real asset to the community in general. It was a part of his creed to extend the helping hand in the hour of greatest need. Many of the leading firms owe their present success to the judicious and generous attitude of this banker. His paternal interest in their welfare, during days of struggling infancy, was the beacon light which kept them off the rocks of financial ruin. Toward the individual he adopted the same course. His kindly advice and wise counsel have proven of inestimable value to many business men with whom he has come into contact. His influence has helped to lead them toward the goal of success. This is especially true of his own employes. There are numbers of officials now occupying positions in Toledo's banking institutions who owe their status to the early training they received from Mr. Carr.' " BERNARD A. BAKER Bernard A. Baker has been identified with business interests of Toledo for more than two decades and he is numbered among the leading. produce merchants of the city, being president of the NI. O. Baker Company, which is conducting a business of large proportions. A native of Canada, he was born in the province of Nova Scotia, November 5, 1880, and his parents, James E. and Lucille (Downey) Baker, were also natives of that province, in which they spent their lives, the father devoting his attention to agricultural pursuits. In their family were three children : Harry W. and Ruman S., who still reside in Nova Scotia ; and Bernard A. In the public schools of his native province Bernard A. Baker acquired his education and in 1901 he came to Toledo to join his half-brother, M. O. Baker, who had established his home in this city several years previously and had entered the wholesale fruit and produce business, organizing the M. O. Baker Company. The business was incorporated in 1917, M. O. Baker becoming president, so serving until 1920, when he disposed of his interest to Bernard A. Baker, who became president, while Walter C. Reber is filling the office of vice president, with Norman L. Crawfis as the secretary and treasurer. Mr. Baker keeps well informed on everything relating to his line of business and under his judicious management the undertaking has enjoyed a rapid growth. They handle general produce and are large distributors of California and Florida fruits, the volume of their trade now being equal to that of any of their competitors in the city. On the 22d of August, 1907, Mr. Baker was married to Miss Mabel M. Creswell, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Creswell of Toledo, and they have become the parents of two children : James, who was born in 1909; and Catherine, born in 1911. Both are attending the public schools of the city. Mr. Baker is a republican in his political views and through his connection with the Toledo Chamber of Commerce he does all in his power to promote the industrial interests of the city. He is a member of the International Apple Shippers Association, the National League of Commission Merchants of the United States, the Sylvania Golf Club and the Toledo Yacht Club. Fraternally he is a Knights Templar Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. In the control of his business interests he is forceful, energetic and determined and he has ever been actuated by a strong purpose that will not permit him to stop short of the successful accomplishment of 18 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY anything he undertakes. His progressive spirit and close conformity to a high standard of commercial ethics have established his position among the leading business men of Toledo and in matters of citizenship he is loyal and public-spirited. JOHN NORTH WILLYS John North Willys, president and founder of the Willys-Overland Company, is probably one of the most astute of the country's financiers and to him belongs the credit of the upbuilding of one of the largest automobile companies in America. John North Willys was born in 1873, in Canandaigua, New York. Since a boy he was fond of doing little business deals with his companions. At the age when the average boy leaves the nursery he had passed through many kinds of business experiences. He was doing well in his studies and working in a law office when his father died and he had to give up his college dreams. Bicycles were beginning to make their appearance and he saw in them a profitable outlet for his ingenuity as a salesman. He bought a sample bicycle and was duly authorized as a local agent for the manufacturers and at eighteen years of age he had organized a sales company. Gradually he worked into the wholesale distribution of bicycles and at the age of twenty-five did a business of five hundred thousand dollars a year. Then came the automobile and Mr. Willys early foresaw the predestined future of the motor car. First, there was that determination of the pioneer, who could vision ahead the concrete result of certain well defined dreams. Second, there was that quality of set purpose that characterizes only an isolated type of idealist. The idealist, the man of action and the man of keen business acumen were all successfully combined in John N. Willys, who always maintained that the automobile was a creation of service—a means to an end, which was economical, dependable transportation that the public could appreciate. Mr. Willys conceived the idea of a national distribution of automobiles. So in 1906 he formed the American Motor Car Sales Company and approached D. M. Parry, who controlled the Overland Automobile Company, with a proposition for Willys to take over the sole agency in the United States for the Overland company. Parry was amazed and thought to dissuade Willys by the statement that he expected to make five hundred cars that year. But Willys was equally certain that he could sell five hundred cars and entered into a binding contract with Parry to pay for five hundred automobiles a year. Willys then set out on a tour of the country, establishing agencies, and it was not very long before his allotment of five hundred cars was gone. He immediately wired to the company that he needed more cars, to fill the orders he had already booked. This was in 1907 and things had not been going so well at the factory. It was the time of the money panic and Willys was amazed to receive a return wire, stating that the company would have difficulty in filling the orders he had already booked and that he was to accept no more orders. Scenting a jam in Indianapolis, he took the next train west, and when he asked for an explanation from the manager he was blandly told that the concern was going into bankruptcy the following day. Willys promptly and emphatically disagreed and was told by the manager that the situation was absolutely hopeless. The company had issued checks to its workmen and would not have sufficient funds in the bank to meet them Monday morning. This information was given to Willys TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY - 21 on Sunday. With less than twenty-four hours to save himself and the company, Willys started to work. The company' was short three hundred and fifty dollars, but so far as its officers and management were concerned, it might have been three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This amount, which Mr. Willys raised, averted the threatened Monday morning calamity, but it did not entirely revive the condition of the company. More money was required and for five weeks Mr. Willys made frantic journeys here and there, gathering together small sums necessary to keep alive the spirit of industry in a sheet-iron shed three hundred feet long by eighty feet wide. Machinery was worn, material was short, and the days were dark ; only by superhuman determined effort did John Willys keep the working force supplied with the material and parts to continue turning out cars. The situation was this : The Overland company owed eighty thousand dollars and did not have eighty dollars to call its own. Affairs were desperate, when a friend came forward with fifteen thousand dollars, which later was cut to seven thousand five hundred dollars, and with this amount Mr. Willys started in to revolutionize the organization, put it on its feet and make cars in numbers hitherto unheard of, and within eight years he was offered eighty million dollars for his share in the company. In January, 1908, John N. Willys became president, treasurer, general manager, sales manager and in fact, the "whole works" of the organized concern. By September of the same year four hundred and sixty-five cars had been sold at one thousand, two hundred dollars each, and delivered. A profit of fifty-eight thousand dollars was shown that year and in the following year the company produced four thousand and sixty-five cars and made a million dollars. It was about this time that the plant was moved to Toledo. From then on, while the Willys-Overland Company has weathered some storms, like most large companies have, the growth of the organization has been nothing short of phenomenal. In 1908 the Willys-Overland plant comprised three hundred thousand square feet of floor space. Today it includes four million, two hundred and thirty-two thousand, four hundred and thirty-six square feet, or an equivalent of one hundred and twenty acres, entirely under roof. This means that the plant has been enlarged to almost fifteen times its original size through public appreciation of its popular models. During this expansion John N. Willys has stood out distinctly as the guiding figure in the destinies of the company, which today is one of the outstanding successes of the motor industry. It has been a hard, persistent fight, fought by a man who does not know how to quit, and out of the vast business experience accumulated by Mr. Willys a maxim was evolved, that is perhaps entitled to a place among famous business precepts. It is this : "Profits are in goods delivered —not in orders." Back in August, 1908, the Overland Company inventory showed a net worth of fifty-eight thousand dollars and some years later Mr. Willys was asked what he considered the biggest thing he had ever accomplished and he replied : "Making a million dollars in one year on a capital of fifty thousand dollars." And it was a big thing ; big in every sense of the word. It was achieved only by continually moving and today the Willys-Overland Company is in the midst of the biggest year in its history. Mr. Willys was the first manufacturer to apply the Knight motor to a low-priced car and up to the time he adopted the sleeve valve engine it had been in use 22 - TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY in only the higher priced automobiles. Like all big men Mr. Willys is free, unaffected, democratic. He is boyish and enthusiastic, and the huge financial problems with which he has had to contend in recent years have not dimmed his ardor. He works. The story is told that he was in Europe when the war broke out, and before he got back to America he had seized the opportunity to book orders for a large number of motor trucks. Another phase of every successful financier—he must be an opportunist. Willys is in every way a big man. He is big enough to be on a close friendly footing with his humblest employe. He is loved by every one of the thousands in the' big Willys-Overland organization at Toledo, a tribute to his democratic ways and manners. He occasionally finds time to steal away and let the big Willys-Overland organization run itself. Perhaps you wonder what is his philosophy of life. Only a short time ago it was revealed over his own signature. He said : "The older we grow the more certain we realize, I think, that the greatest blessing in life, outside of good health, is work. "The one thing above everything else that makes America great is that tre-mendous appeal of opportunity which this country offers, to call out from every individual the best work that is in him. "The boy who starts out blessed with parents who can teach him Ale importance of industry has a source of wealth and happiness which nothing can take away from him. “When a boy is growing, both mentally and. physically, he is very apt not to realize the satisfaction of being able to do one thing well, and many boys drift from one thing to another without learning that one fundamental truth. "Every boy should have some responsibility as early in life as possible, and he should be taught the wonderful truth of Disraeli's comment that, 'The secret of success is constancy of purpose.' " CLARENCE BROWN Clarence Brown, whose entire career reflected credit and honor upon the bar of Ohio during the long years of his practice in Toledo, was born in Massillon, Ohio, February 17, 1852, and was a son of Isaac H. and Elizabeth (Wheeler) Brown. He received his early education in the public schools of his native city and at the age of twenty years began the study of law in the offices of Scribner & Hurd at Toledo. Two years later he was admitted to the bar and then began, in 1874, the practice of law in this city, continuing as a distinguished and repre-sentative member of the bar here to the time of his death, which occurred July 30, 1918. In the year 1879 Mr. Brown was married to Miss Carrie Luce, a daughter of the late Hon. Charles L. Lute of Toledo, who survives him. Mr. Brown was frequently called to public office in connection with the profession. He served for four years, from 1875 until 1879, as assistant city solicitor under Hon. Frank Hurd and General J. Kent Hamilton, successively. In 1881 he was elected city solicitor and made a most creditable record in that position, faithfully defending the interests of the municipality in every way. For several years he was lecturer upon medical jurisprudence in the Northwestern Ohio