HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 975 All the best elements of manhood entered into the character of Doctor Shields, and no one who made his acquaintance ever forgot him, and, in fact, felt honored by his friendship. While in essential respects a typical Southern gentleman, he was so broad minded, so generous, so upright and so sympathetic that he required no superficial prestige to place him strongly in the love and respect of all. It is particularly indicative of his broad and tolerant character that, though a Confederate, in the years after the war he mingled freely and pleasantly with the Grand Army men in their memorial services, and some of his best friends in later years were men who had fought with equal loyalty under the stars and stripes. He was naturally a democrat of the old school, and never gave up an active interest in public affairs until advanced years and failing health compelled him to do so. He was a true Christian gentleman, was reared a member of the Episcopal Church, and as there was no church of that denomination in his neighborhood he liberally supported other churches, and for years was an active worker in the Sunday school. His funeral services were conducted by Archdeacon A. A. Abbott of Cleveland. His body, after a largely attended funeral, was laid to rest in Oakdale Cemetery at Marysville, Ohio. One of the addresses delivered at the services was by Hon. F. T. Arthur of Marysville, on behalf of the Children's Home, of which Doctor Shields was a trustee for a number of years. Perhaps the most significant address of all was an eloquent tribute paid by Colonel Knauss of Columbus, representing the Grand Army of the Republic, who paid the respects of that organization to one who had fought on the opposite side. He gave a splendid tribute to the memory of Doctor Shields, particularly as one who after the arbitrament of arms had decided the issues between the North and South had laid aside all personal animosity and had done what he could to cement the friendship and heal over the wounds between the two sections of country. As long as his health permitted, it should be recalled, Doctor Shields assisted in the Memorial Day services in his Ohio home, and again and again was a spokesman on such occasions, and thus gained for himself many friends in the North, at the same time keeping the admiration and love of his former comrades of the South. Until about two years before his death he had frequently visited in the South, and had usually attended the annual reunion of the Confederate Veterans. The late Doctor Shields was three times married. His first wife was Martha C. Bradley of Pikeville, Alabama. She died in 1859, and by this union two children are living. In 1863 Doctor Shields married Elizabeth J. Ford of Cumberland, Virginia. Their married life endured for nearly twenty years, until her death in 1882. Nine children were born to them, of whom A. W. Shields of Toledo is the eldest. JOHN ROBERT COWELL. While in a business way it is as secretary and director of The Ames-Bonner Company that Mr. Cowell is best known in Toledo, his name is also well known through his civic service and particularly as director of public service, an office from which he retired in 1914. For about twenty years Mr. Cowell has been connected with The Ames-Bonner Company, and is closely associated with the group of prominent business men who comprise that corporation. This company has increased Toledo's fame as a manufacturing center and turns out a great variety of goods with a world wide distribution under the standard mark of "A. B. C." brushes and mirrors. The only representative of this family in the United States, John Robert Cowell, is a Manxman and was born in Ramsey on the Isle of Man July 19, 1871. His ancestors were on that island at the time of its first historical occupancy, by the famed Vikings, who were among the boldest of the mariners and sea robbers of that time. His parents are John Robert and Margaret (Killip) Cowell, both of whom now live at Edmonton, Alberta. His father was for a number of years a business man in Ramsey, and also for a quarter of a century represented a constituency in the Isle of Man Legislature. This is the oldest legislature in the world and was in existence when England was in a state of savagery. John R. Cowell, Sr., is now clerk of the Provincial Legislature of British Columbia, having been chosen to that post on account of his long and valuable experience in legislative affairs in the old country. John R. Cowell, Sr., was born just outside the Town of Ramsey, while his wife was born in that town. They were the parents of twelve children, of whom John R., Jr., is the oldest. Five daughters and three sons are still living. Mr. Cowell grew up on his native island, acquired his early education in the public 976 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO schools of Ramsey and in a private college there, and at an early age became identified with his father in the lumber and building material business. He continued in that line until he was twenty-one and altogether was associated with his father in business for seven years. Mr. Cowell has lived in the United States since 1893. One of the primary objects of his first visit was to attend the World's Fair in Chicago. He also has some vivid recollections of the great financial panic which swept over the country about the same time. His first permanent location on coming to the United States was Cleveland, where he was employed in the auditor's office of the Cleveland Street Railway Company. From there he came to Toledo, and found work with the Ames-Bonner Company, the firm with which he is now identified as secretary. Since then he has been continuously associated with this local industry with the exception of four years when he was director of public service. That responsible public position he held from January, 1910, to January, 1914. From 1908 to 1910 he was a member of the city council of Toledo from the Second Ward and was re-elected to that body in the fall of 1909. However, immediately after re-election Hon. Brand Whitlock, then mayor and now United States Ambassador to Belgium, appointed him director of public service, and consequently he sat in the city council for only one meeting during his second term and until his successor could be appointed. In national politics Mr. Cowell is a republican, but is strictly nonpartisan in municipal matters. Besides his principal business as secretary and treasurer of The Ames-Bonner Company, he is also treasurer of the Toledo Webb Press Company. Fraternally he is identified with the Sanford L. Collins Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Toledo Chapter, Royal Arch Masons and with the Royal Arcanum. He is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club and the Trinity Episcopal Church. On August 25, 1896, at Ramsey, , Isle of Man, Mr. Cowell married Miss Lena Kate' Teare. She was born and educated in the same town as her husband, a daughter of Thomas and Emily (McFie) Teare. Her mother is still alive and living in Ramsey. Mrs. Cowell is a member of the Educational Club of Toledo and is secretary of the Toledo District Nurse Association. To their marriage was born July 14, 1898, a son named John Robert Cowell III. He is now a member of the class of 1916 Scott High School of Toledo, and has made his mark in high school athletics, being fond of outdoor sports of all kinds. He was fullback on the football team of 1915. JUSTICE WILSON, A. B., LL. B. Both in the law and in public affairs the range of Mr. Wilson's experience has been unusually broad and has brought him very influential associations and connections. He is now junior member of the law firm of Denman & Wilson, with offices in the Nicholas Building at Toledo. His partner is the Hon, U. G. Denman, former attorney-general of the State of Ohio and a distinguished citizen of Northwestern Ohio whose career is traced on other pages. Born in Toledo May 12, 1881, Justice Wilson is a son of Charles G. and Cornelia (Amsden) Wilson. His father, now a retired lawyer of Toledo, is mentioned on other pages. The mother died in Toledo January 18, 1911. She was a very active worker in the cause of charity at Toledo. While a boy Mr. Wilson attended the Toledo public schools, also the freshman and sophomore years of the high school, and then entered the noted preparatory school at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he was graduated in 1900. The following fall he entered Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut, and was graduated A. B. with the class of 1904. Mr. Wilson is a graduate in law from the University of Michigan, where he pursued his studies three years, graduating with the degree Bachelor of Laws in June, 1907. While in the university he was a member of the hoard of editors of the Michigan Law Review. Admitted to the Ohio bar in June, 1907, he at once began practice at Toledo as junior in the firm of Tyler, Tyler, Kumler & Wilson with offices in the Nicholas Building. In the spring of 1909 he left this firm to become assistant attorney-general of the State of Ohio under Hon. U. G. Denman and he remained at Columbus and handled many of the responsibilities of the state office from the spring of 1909 until the fall of 1910. He then resigned and became general manager and counsel of the Tiffin, Fostoria & Eastern Electric Railway Company, with headquarters at Tiffin for two years. On returning to Toledo November 1, 1912, Mr. Wilson became associated in law practice with Mr. Denman. This is now one of the HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 977 leading firms of Northwestern Ohio, and its practice is largely corporation work. Mr. Wilson is now general manager, vice president and general counsel of the Tiffin, Fostoria & Eastern Electric Railway Company. Outside of his profession he finds his chief recreation in the game of golf, and is an active member of the Toledo Country Club. He also belongs to the Toledo Club, the Toledo Commerce Club, the Lucas County Bar Association, and to all the Masonic bodies at Toledo, being a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He is a member of Sanford L. Collins Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Fort Meigs Chapter No. 29, Royal Arch Masons; Toledo Council No. 33, Royal and Select Masons ; Toledo Commandery No. 7, Knight Templar ; and Zenobia Temple of the Mystic Shrine. On January 30, 1909, at Tiffin Mr. Wilson married Miss Marian Lee Sneath, daughter of the late Samuel B. Sneath and Mrs. Laura (Stevenson) Sneath. Her mother is still liv-ing at the old family home in Tiffin, where her father died in 1915. Mrs. Wilson was born, rcared and acquired her early educa-tion in Tiffin, and subsequently attended the Curtis-Peabody School for Girls at Boston, where she was graduated in 1905. She is a woman of many accomplishments and active in social life, being a member of the Thalian Club and of the Collingwood Avenue Presby-terian Church. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have two daughters, Laura Lee and Justine Wil-son, the former born in Columbus and the latter in Toledo. GEORGE W. MILLARD is a son of the late Judge Irwin I. Millard, who was long one of the most distinguished figures in the bar of Northwest Ohio, and whose career is recited at some length on other pages of this publica-tion. For twenty years or more the son has enjoyed a secure position at the Toledo bar, and his name is also well known in civic and social circles. He was born at Toledo, December 24, 1872, the third in the family of four sons and three daughters whose parents were Judge Irwin I. and Mary C. (Keller) Millard. After an education in the Toledo public schools he was the first young man received as a law student in the offices of the firm of King & Tracy, who were at that time located in the Produce Exchange. Mr. Millard remained with the firm five years, and was admitted to the bar in 1894, and for two years continued with King & Tracy after his admission to the bar. His first office was in the Nasby Building, and when his father left the probate bench in 1903 the two formed a partnership under the firm name of Irwin I. and George W. Millard, and removed their offices to the Gardner Building. As a firm they enjoyed a widely extended practice and their association was continued with mutual profit and advantage until the death of the father. For several years now George W. Millard has had his offices on the fifth floor of the Spitzer Building. He has been more or less active and prominent in republican party affairs in Toledo and Lucas County. For three years lie was clerk of the park board, but resigned that office in 1901. He is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club. In the Trinity Episcopal Church he has served several years as superintendent of the Sunday school. On March 12, 1896, he married Miss Grace L. Beatty of Toledo. Her father, William Beatty, mentioned elsewhere, has been one of the most prominent citizens of Toledo and Ohio. Mrs. Millard was born in Toledo, graduated from the high school with the class of 1894, and since their marriage has devoted herself to her home and family, which consists of three children. Irwin W. graduated from the Scott High School with the class of 1913, and is now a member of the class of 1918 at Hobart College at Geneva, New York. Georgia G. is a member of the class of 1917 in the Scott High School, while the youngest, Mary Catherine, is a member of the class of 1920 in the same institution. All three of the children were born at Toledo. JAY CANNON LOCKWOOD. The only son and child of the late James Cannon and Mary (Chapman) Lockwood, Jay Cannon Lockwood was born in Milan, Ohio, December 8, 1882. Extended refcrence is made on other pagcs to his father, who was one of the foremost bankers and business builders in Northern Ohio, particularly in the vicinity of old Milan. His mother, who recently died at Toledo, as the wife of L. V. McKesson, was long prominent in social and philanthropic affairs in this city. A resident of Toledo since April, 1897, Jay C. Lockwood has concerned himself principally with the management of the real estate and business which he inherited from his father and mother, and he owns in his own right considerable valuable property in this 978 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO city and in Cleveland and in various parts of Northern Ohio. He received his early education in the Cleveland and Milan public schools, graduated from the New York Military Academy in 1900, and in 1904 graduated from Kenyon College. He is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon and Theta Nu Epsilon fraternities. He is also a member of the Toledo Club, the Toledo Commerce Club, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars and Toledo Automobile Club. He finds his chief recreation in travel. NORVAL BALDWIN BACON. On the basis of work accomplished in Toledo, and for his high standing in the profession throughout the country, the late Norval Baldwin Bacon was one of the eminent architects of the Middle West. For nearly forty years he represented the best ideals of his profession, and his skill and artistic ability were worked into the construction of many substantial office buildings and handsome residences which stand as monuments to his professional career. He was seventy-five years of age when he died at his residence, 2115 Parkwood Avenue, on April 14, 1913. Norval Baldwin Bacon was born at Hamilton, Madison County, New York, November 1st, 1837, a son of Norval C. and Janette (Terry) Bacon. On both sides there were ancestors who served as patriot soldiers in the War of the Revolution. His paternal grandfather, Colonel Asa Bacon, was born at Charlton, Massachusetts, spent his active career there as a tanner and currier, and died in 1862 at the age of eighty-five. The maternal grandparents were Isaac and Betsy (Livermore) Terry, both natives of New York, the former of Sangerfield and the latter of Waterville. The father, Norval C. Bacon, was born in Massachusetts in 1805 and followed his father in the business of tanner and currier. He died at Eaton, New York, in his seventy-seventh year. His wife was born at Sangerfield, Oneida County, New York, in 1808, was a graduate of the Hamilton Female Seminary, and for ten years before her marriage was a successful teacher. She died at her son's home in Toledo in 1883. The late N. B. Bacon, when nine years of age came with his parents to Tecumseh, Michigan, but two years later the family returned to the old home in New York, and there he continued his education in the public schools and at Hamilton Academy in Madison County. At the age of nineteen he qualified as a teacher and began earning his livelihood in that vocation and for a short time taught at Pooleville. For a time he was a student with Albert J. Purdy, who later became a famous portrait painter at Ithaca, New York. From 1868 to 1873 Mr. Bacon applied himself assiduously to the study of architecture at Utica, New York, and at Boston, Massachusetts. He took up architecture as a profession at the age of twenty-five, and in 1873 he came west to Toledo and with the exception of two years was active in his business. as architect until his death. In 1886 Mr. Bacon formed a partnership with Thomas F. Huber, to whom reference is made on other pages. Mr. Huber had been his assistant in the office four years before the partnership of Bacon & Huber was formed. Mr. Bacon retired from his profession in December, 1912. Many of the representative buildings of Toledo were designed by Mr. Bacon as senior member of the firm of Bacon & Huber. Some of the finest older residences of the city were also his creations. Special mention should be made of the Blade and Lorenz buildings on Jefferson Avenue, the Pythian Castle, the High School, the Traction Company Building, the Chamber of Commerce Building, the Spitzer Building, the Nicholas Building, the Ketcham Building, the Toledo Hospital and the Industrial School. Bacon & Huber in designing the Spitzer and Nicholas buildings provided two of the largest and most modern office structures in Northwest Ohio, and one of them was a pioneer building of its class. The late Mr. Bacon was a member of the Masonic Order and the Royal Arcanum, and for nearly thirty years was prominent in the Toledo Club. Both he and his wife were active members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. Politically he was independent of party affiliations, and made his vote count for what he considered the best man for the office. He cast his first presidential ballot for Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Bacon was a brother-in-law of the late President Grover Cleveland. Mrs. Bacon, who still resides at Toledo, comes of one of the old and prominent families of America, and has herself taken an active part in the philanthropic affairs of Toledo for many years. She received many special honors at the recent golden jubilee celebration of the Toledo Young Women's Christian Association. She was a member of the first Toledo Young HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 979 Women's Christian Association Board, and served as its president for six years. She was also president of the State Young Women's Christian Association eighteen years and a member of the territorial committee for sixteen years. On September 18, 1873, at Holland Patent, near Utica, New York, Mr. N. B. Bacon and Miss Louise L. Cleveland were united in marriage. Mrs. Bacon was born at Caldwell, New Jersey, a daughter of Rev. Richard and Anna (Neal) Cleveland. She was one of five daughters, and two of her sisters are still living. Two of her brothers served with distinction during the Civil war, and escaping from the wounds of battle lost their lives while returning home in the burning of the ill fated steamer Missouri. Mrs. Bacon is one of the closest living relatives of the late Grover Cleveland, who was twice president of the United States. Another prominent relative was the Rev. William Cleveland. Her father, Rev. Richard Cleveland, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1805 and died at Holland Patent, New York, in 1853, while his wife, Anna Neal, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1804, and died at Holland Patent in 1882. The Cleveland family has had a prominent place in the history of this nation. One of its prominent early members was Rev. Aaron Cleveland, who was an intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin, at whose home he died in 1757. Another was Lieutenant, Timothy Cleveland, who was a soldier in the Revolution. Other names of this family were those of General Moses Cleaveland, founder of the City of Cleveland, Ohio ; William E. Dodge, a philanthropist of New York City ; and Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe, of Buffalo, New York. Mrs. Bacon is the mother of two children. Her daughter, Janette Terry Cleveland, resides at the old home with her mother in Toledo. The son, Cleveland Frederick Bacon, is a successful New York City attorney. CALVIN S. BROWN, president of the Toledo Library Board, has been a resident of Toledo more than forty years, though his extensive business associations and interests have also identified him with a number of other localities. He is now in his seventy-second year, and largely retired from the active responsibilities of business life. Few men even so old have compressed such an interesting record of experience into a lifetime. He is a west- erner by birth and training, and saw and knew the typical wild and woolly West in its prime. He is an honored veteran of the Civil war. In ancestry he is of Scotch-Irish stock. His parents, James A. and Rachel (Stewart) Brown, were born and married in Pennsylvania. James Brown was a miller and farmer. His attention was early attracted to the frontier district west of the Mississippi. About the time the tide of emigration began to flow into what is now the great State of Iowa he started west from Pennsylvania on foot, and in that way covered practically the entire distance to the shores of the Mississippi. Arriving in Iowa. Territory he entered a quarter section of Government land in what is now Van Buren County. He was alone at the time and remained there several months, putting up a log cabin and clearing a small space for the cultivation of a crop. This done he retraced his steps back to Pennsylvania, where his family had remained in the meantime, and soon afterward they all started for the new destination in what was at that time the very far West. Going down the Ohio River on a flatboat as far as Cairo, Illinois, they then took a small steamer up the Mississippi as far as Warsaw, Illinois. Purchasing a yoke of oxen, loading a few household possessions in the wagon, James A. Brown made his own trail through the woods and finally arrived at the log cabin in Van Buren County. No individual or family knew what frontier life was better than the Browns during the early years of Iowa. Their home was on the banks of the Des Moines River about forty miles from Keokuk. The Brown family were among the vanguard of civilization in that region. All around them was an unbroken wilderness, filled with wild game and dangerous animals and Indians. When James A. Brown left his cabin to work in the fields he took his gun along for protection, and he also encountered innumerable hardships amid the stern conditions of time and place. James A. Brown should be credited with having put up one of the first, if not the first, grist mill in Iowa along the Des Moines River. In 1852 he built the Bentonsport mill and in 1854 erected a four-story brick grist mill. This brick grist mill was the fruit of his later enterprise in Iowa, and he had been a settler there for fifteen years before his activities culminated in its erection. James A. Brown was born in Pennsylvania in 1812 and died in Iowa in 1865 at the age of fifty-three. At 980 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO the time of his death he owned a grist mill, sawmill, paper mill, a linseed oil mill and a woolen factory, all of them in a row along the Des Moines River. He was a man of tireless energy, indomitable will, and one of those sturdy, energetic Presbyterians who never lost a minute's time. He was justly regarded as one of the foremost business men of Southeastern Iowa. His widow survived him many years and passed away at the old home in Van Buren County in 1900 at the ripe age of eighty-nine. In their family were nine children, five sons and four daughters, all of whom lived to grow up, and three of the sons still survive. The only one of the family in Ohio, Calvin S. Brown, was born in the pioneer home of his parents in Van Buren County in what was then the hunting grounds and reservation of the Sacs and Fox Indians, April 17, 1845. Naturally he came to know as a boy all phases of pioneer existence. The schoolhouse which he first attended in Iowa was a log cabin, fitted up with rough slab benches without backs, and all the paraphernalia of the schoolroom were of the simplest kind. He also attended the Bentonsport Academy in Van Buren County. Fellow seekers after knowledge in that same academy included several boys who attained a more than ordinary degree of fame in subsequent life. Two of them became United States senators, one being former Senator William E. Mason of Illinois and the other Senator Clark of Montana, both of whom are old personal friends of Mr. Brown. The first seventeen years of his life Mr. Brown spent on a farm, but never liked farming, and this disinclination to agriculture and the possession of an unusual fund of energy and enterprise soon led him away from the scenes of home. In 1862, at the age of seventeen, he started across the plains as a "bull whacker" and went to Pike's Peak. He remained there about a year prospecting in mining, herding cattle, living in mining camps and getting experience in the rough and ready life of the Far West in every phase of its existence, even as a cowboy. While in Colorado he enlisted for service in an organization headed by the great western scout, Kit Carson, but the regiment was disbanded before being mustered in. In the fall of 1862 Mr. Brown, with five others, started north to what is now the State of Idaho. Precious metals were being discovered in that region, and the first flow of white settlers was starting in that direction, but Mr. Brown and his companions got no further than 100 miles of Salt Lake City in Utah. The determined hostility of both the Indians and the Mormons drove them back, and after several narrow escape from the Indians the party burned their wagons, kept just enough provisions to supply them on their return journey and made their way back after two months of difficult traveling on the backs of their mules. They finally reached the San Miguel River in the extreme southwest part of Colorado. It should be remembered that all this varied experience came when Mr. Brown was a boy seventeen or eighteen years old. In the spring of 1863 he left the West and returned to his old home in Iowa, where for a brief time he remained on the farm and also attended the Bentonsport Academy until November, 1863. At that date his adventurous spirit led him to enlist in the Third Iowa Cavalry. With that gallant regiment he was in the field until the close of the war, and was finally given his honorable discharge in September, 1865. He participated in a number of noted battles and campaigns, including Guntown, Mississippi, in which he served under General Sturgess, and Tupelo, Mississippi, under Gen. A. J. Smith, was in service west of the Mississippi under Steele in Arkansas, was under Washburn in Tennessee and also under Maj. Gen. J. H. Wilson. He participated in what is generally regarded as the last battle of the Civil wan at Columbus, Georgia, April 16, 1865. The day after that battle Mr. Brown was twenty years of age. A veteran in experience though not in years, he returned after the war to Iowa and again resumed his studies, this time in the Birmingham College in Van Buren County. He remained a student until the spring of 1866, and then came east, and for the past fifty years has found his interest and pursuits largely in the district around the Great Lakes. He first went to Buffalo, New York, where he completed a course in bookkeeping at the Bryant & Stratton Business College. Following that he began contracting in the buying of supplies for the Buffalo Stock Yards, and remained at that business for two years. For the following eighteen months he was proprietor, of the Montgomery House at Fort Plain, New York, selling out then and returning to Buffalo, where he was once more a contractor for the stock yards. In the meantime he married, and in the fall of 1871 moved to East Aurora, New York, the old home town and center of industry HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 981 honored by the late Elbert Hubbard. From there he soon came to Toledo, and this city has been his home ever since. In Toledo he was at first assistant superintendent of the Toledo Stock Yards, a position he held until 1875. Then followed a somewhat disastrous experience. He built a store building on WoodVille Street and opened up a stock of general merchandise. At the end of eighteen months he had exhausted all his resources and his business was a failure. Losing no time in vain regrets, Mr. Brown at once made the best of the situation and accepted a place with the old wholesale dry goods house of Luce, Chapin and Bass. He remained with that firm. until 1880. In that year he was ap-pointed secretary of the Toledo Waterworks, and filled that office until 1884. After that his main line of active business was as a representative of several meter companies. For five years he traveled on the road over the Middle West for the National Meter Com-pany and then took a similar position for the Hersey Manufacturing Company of Boston, Massachusetts. That firm he represented seven years, and in that time traveled from Maine to California and covered practically every state of the Union. His next connec-tion was with the Neptune Meter Company of New York, and besides traveling for that firm a number of years he also acquired stock in the enterprise, is still on the payroll, and put in twenty years of efficient work for the firm. Altogether Mr. Brown gave thirty-two years of his active business life to the interests of these various meter companies. Since 1912 he has been largely retired from business, though he still has numerous financial connections. He is a stockholder in the McNaull Tire Company of Toledo, of the Batcheldor Marble Works of Detroit and the Economic Heater Company of New York. Politically he has always been a republican. Many years ago during the administration of Mayor Marks he served as city sealer of weights and measures at Toledo. For six years he was a member of the workhouse board, his first appointment being received under Mayor "Vince" Emmick. Mr. Brown was elected a trustee of the waterworks board and filled that office for two terms of three years each. Mayor Carl Keller appointed him in 1914 to the library board, and he has since filled a position with that organization, and in May, 1914, was elected president and was re-eleeted to that office for 1915 and 1916. He Vol. II-21 is an active member of the Toledo Commerce Club. Fraternally he stands high in Masonry, being affiliated with Sanford L. Collins Lodge No. 396, Free and Accepted Masons, with the Chapter, Council and Knight Templar bodies in Toledo, and with Zenobia Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Ile is also a member of Toledo Lodge No. 53, Benevolent and Protec-tive Order of Elks. Mr. Brown has found his chief recreation from business in the game of billiards. The late Mrs. Brown was one of Toledo's noblest women, and her whole life was one of unselfish devotion and of noteworthy work in the realm of practical philanthropy and charity. Her maiden name was Miss Jennie Eliza Fleetwood. She was born in Oneida County, New York, was educated in Auburn, graduating from the high school of that place, and she and Mr. Brown were married at Auburn, September 20, 1871. She died at her home on Glenwood Avenue, in Toledo, Feb-ruary 22, 1912, at the age of sixty years. Her father, N. J. Fleetwood, moved to Auburn when she was a small girl. At her death she left Mr. Brown and one daughter, Edna J., now Mrs. Carl B. Spitzer. Reference to the Spitzer family of Toledo will be found on other pages. Since Mrs. Brown's death Mr. Brown has made his home at the Belvidere, one of Toledo's best family hotels, on West Bancroft Street. The late Mrs. Brown and the late Mrs. Charles G. Wilson founded the Toledo Boys' Home. Mrs. Brown was closely identified with its welfare and maintenance for a quarter of a century, and when she died this institution had taken care of about 4,000 boys and found places for many of that number. The Boys' Home was maintained in various quarters until a number of years ago when funds were secured for the building of a permanent home. Mrs. Brown's heart went out with peculiar sympathy to the homeless, motherless boys, and the Boys' Home is truly a memorial to her love and unselfish care. She gave her time and efforts to its maintenance for a quarter of a century, and with the instituting of that noble work her name will always be closely associated. She was also a member of the 1896 Literary Club of Toledo, and was very prominent in church affairs, being a member of the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, of which Mr. Brown is also a member. In her later years one of her cherished ambi-tions was to provide suitable care, instruction and direction to the people of foreign birth 982 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO who were flocking in increasing numbers to Toledo, but she did not live to see those desires take a definite form of realization. FRANK R. COATES since 1913 has been president of The Toledo Railways and Light Company, the largest and most important public service corporation in Northwest Ohio. This company not only represents a tremendous amount of capital, equipment, and working organization, but is also a corporation which has commended it-self by the efficiency of its system and service to considerably more popular esteem than is frequently paid to corporations supplying such service to municipalities. The Toledo Railways and Light Company, popularly known as "The Rail-Light," was incorporated in 1901, and its capitalization now aggregates $28,000,000. Every modern device has been installed by the company for the purpose of rendering better service. The company's pay-roll includes 2,200 persons, and its annual outlay is $3,000,000. The company now op-erates 116.94 miles of city tracks, and it also supplies 25,000 customers with electric light. Besides furnishing power for electric trans-portation and for light, the company also operates an artificial gas plant and supplies heating facilities. The election of Frank R. Coatess as president of this great public service corporation was one act in a series of promotions which has carried him to a high position among railroad and public utility engineers since he left the university twenty-five years ago. Mr. Coates is a big man, big in physique and energy, big in accomplishment, and big in the scope and versatilityff his interests. He was born in Philadelphia June 20, 1869, graduated from the Philadelphia High School in 1887, and pursued a technical course in the Lehigh University, from which he was graduated Bachelor of Science in 1890, representing the mining class as speaker, and after a post-graduate course graduated in 1891 as engineer of mines. Many of those forceful qualities which have been conspicuous in his later career were manifested during school and college days. For two years he was captain of the athletic team at Lehigh, was manager of the baseball team for two seasons, was one of the strongest members of the football team, was for two years president of the Lehigh University Athletic Association, was chairman of the executive committee of Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and for two years was vice president of the American Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the last year serving as acting president. He still holds the Lehigh record for the mile walk, and his friends say that he has a drawer full of medals won in various athletic events. His interest in athletics has been carried into his later career, and at Toledo he has been the prime factor in upholding clean ndd wholesome sport. He organized the Rail-Light Nine at Toledo to give that 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 sport. After finishing his post-graduate year at Lehigh Mr. Coates in July, 1891, became rodman with the Baltimore&& Ohio Railroad. He was also transit man with the engineering corps and in the following year was made supervisor of Wheeling Division of the road. In May, 1893, he was promoted assistant roadmaster of the New York Division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and in December, 1895, was maderoadmaster ofr that division in charge of maintenance and the four-track construction. In October, 1900, Mr. Coates went west and became chief engineer of the Chicago Great Western Road with headquarters at St. Paul. From 1904 until December, 1909, he was in the engineering and construction business, building bridges, electric railways and hydro-electric plants, and for the last two years was in the service of the Stone & Webster Corporation, with headquarters at Boston. October, 1909, until December, 1911, he was vice president of the Inter Ocean Steel Company. In 1911 he came to Toledo to take charge as president of The Toledo Railways & Light Company. Since February, 1913, he has given his time to the Doherty Syndicate. Mr. Doherty recently arranged for the establishment at Toledo of a preparatory school for the training of young men, all college graduates, for careers in public service corpora-tion work. Mr. Coates is the. director of this school. The students will be paid wages while learning the business, and will be put through all the various details of public utility work, and the course will be equivalent to a thorough apprenticeship in every branch of operating a public service corporation, from tending the furnaces of the power plant to, HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 983 operating a street car as motorman or conductor. During the Spanish-American war Mr. Coates served as regimental adjutant in the Fourth Connecticut Regiment, but was never in the field of active service. As one of the leading railway engineers of the country he has many professional and social connections, including membership in the Toledo Commerce Club, Rotary Club (of which he is a director), Toledo Club, Country Club, Transportation Club, Auto Club, Toledo Maennerchor, Inverness Golf Club, Toledo Yacht Club, Maumee River Yacht Club, Museum of Art, Young Men's Christian Association, Toledo Zoological Society, of which he is a director; also the New York Railroad Club, Western Railroad Club, American Society of Civil Engineers, National Geographic Society, American Railway Engineering Association, American Electric Railway Association, National Electric Light Association, Chicago Club, Chicago Athletic Association, Engineers Club of Chicago, Metropolitan Club of New York, Recess Club of New York and Engineers Club of New York, and is a trustee of the Newsboys' Association. He was recently elected a member of Egbert Camp, Spanish War Veterans. WILLIAM C. ROWE. The qualities of a fine mind, the endowments of good natural ability and a faculty for leadership, together with a steady and persevering industry, have brought William C. Rowe a creditable place in the legal profession and he is now a member of one of Toledo's best known law firms, Southard, Southard & Rowe, whose offices are in the Nasby Building. He was admitted to the bar in December, 1903, at Columbus before the Supreme Court, while still a student in the law department of the Ohio State University. He graduated LL. B. from the State University in the spring of 1904, and in June arrived in Toledo, where he formed a connection with the law office of Southard & Southard, and as a junior in their offices looked after a growing business for a number of years. Then in October, 1912, he was made a member of the firm, and is now securely established both in the profession and in business affairs, being secretary and treasurer of a number of real estate companies in Toledo. He has specialized somewhat in real estate law, and has been very successful in handling that class of business. William C. Rowe was born in Fayette County, Ohio, January 23, 1878, a son of Isaac N. and Sarah J. (Craig) Rowe. Both parents were born in Fayette County and are now living there retired, their home being at Washington Court House. Isaac N. Rowe has for many years been prominent in that section of the state. He made a very creditable record as a soldier in Company C of the Fifty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war. Enlisting as a private and later serving with the grade of corporal he was with the western armies, fighting at Shiloh, in the siege of Vicksburg, at Chattanooga, and in many of the battles and skirmishes during the Atlanta campaign. He was captured near Atlanta, and spent nine months in that notorious prison pen at Andersonville. Some years ago he wrote a very interesting account of Andersonville prison which was at first published serially in the Republican Cyclone (now the Republican Herald), at Washington Court House, and has since appeared in book form. He was also a member of the commission which selected the different places for monuments on the battlefield of Shiloh, and rendered special service in marking the places occupied by his own and other regiments in his brigade during that struggle. Isaac N. Rowe served four years as county treasurer of Fayette County. He has been commander of John M. Bell Post, Grand Army of the Republic, at Washington Court House several years. William C. Rowe was one of three children and his two sisters are Mazie J., living at home, and Pearl, wife of J. W. Fisher of Sabina, Clinton County, Ohio. All the children were born at the old home in Fayette County, and were educated in the local schools and all graduated from the high school of Washington Court House. William C. Rowe after finishing the high school course with the class of 1895 spent one year in the Ohio Northern University at Ada, beginning in 1900, and then became a student at law in the Ohio State University. Mr. Rowe is a member of the Delta Chi law fraternity, and is affiliated with Charles Sumner Lodge, No. 137, Knights of Pythias, at Toledo. He belongs to the Lucas County Bar Association and the Toledo Commerce Club and the Methodist Episcopal Church. His home is at 530 Hackett Road. On February 1, 1909, he married Miss Josephine H. Carter of Kokomo, Indiana, in the vicinity of which city .she was born and reared. Mrs. Rowe is completely devoted to the interests of 984 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO her home and family. To their marriage has been born one daughter, Florence Jeanette. ESTHER ANTIN. That woman's work must be limited by no arbitrary distinction or traditional customs, but solely on the basis of fitness and ability, is rapidly becoming American practice and perhaps more slowly is being accepted by the moral and logical sense of the nation. The fields of education, art and music have long been open to woman's activities, and more recently commercial lines and the distinctive domains of law and medicine have yielded their rewards to woman. At the present time Northwest Ohio, so far as known, has only one practicing attorney. That is Miss Esther Antin, LL. B, who attained admission to the Ohio bar before she was twenty-one, and is now finding an abundance of work in the profession as well as in social and philanthropic lines, and has an office in the Spitzer Building at Toledo. Her ancestors before her were people of brilliant minds and of high attainments in the fields of scholarship and learning. Esther Antin was born on the rocky coast of Maine, at Rockland, March 4, 1895, and is a daughter of Max and Eva (Herschovitz) Antin. Both her parents were natives of Russia. Her paternal grandparents spent their lives in Russia, and her grandmother still lives at Minsk. Her grandfather was a physician and surgeon and died at Minsk. The maternal grandparents of Miss Antin, Mr. and Mrs. Max Herschovitz, are living in Toledo, and her Grandfather Herschovitz, who was a private tutor in Russia, still continues that profession at Toledo, teaching Hebrew and German. Miss Antin 's mother was educated in Russia, and was about seventeen when her parents came to the United States, landing in Boston. Max Antin was about the same age when he came from Russia, and he and his wife became acquainted in Boston, where they were married. Max Antin lived in Maine for some years, later in Boston, being in the real estate business in the State of Maine, and also a justice of the peace. While there he studied law privately for about a year and a half. From Rockland, Maine, the family came to Toledo in August, 1909. Max Antin since then has been in the laundry and dry cleaning business on West Delaware Avenue, being proprietor of the American Wet Wash Laundry and Dry Cleaning Company. He is a thorough American in spirit and practice, and served as a soldier in the Spanish-American war. He is a Mason and Odd Fellow and his wife belongs to the Eastern Star. The family all attend worship at the Temple B'nai Israel of Toledo. Their two daughters are Esther and Etta Rachel. Esther Antin drew the inspiration for her career largely from an unusual endowment of native intellect and high purpose. She attended the grammar schools of Rockland, Maine, and Manchester, New Hampshire, and after coming to Toledo became a member of the freshman class in the Central High School, where she was graduated in 1913. It is perhaps appropriate to say that she did not choose the law, but the law chose her. When she was a mere child, in seeking to express herself in the manner of children, her efforts were decidedly unconventional, since she found her greatest delight in trying to make stump speeches for the benefit of her playmates. Even then her desire was to become a lawyer, so that it is evident that an inclination for this profession was born in her. On leaving high school Miss Antin spent one year in the law department of the Toledo University. She then entered the law department of the Ohio Northern University at Ada where she was graduated LL. B. with the class of 1915. She finished the three year course in two years. She successfully passed the bar examination before the Supreme Court of Columbus in December, 1915, just after her twenty-first birthday. In August, 1915, she established herself in the office in the Spitzer Building that she now occupies, having for several preceding months been in the law offices of Southard, Southard & Rowe. Miss Antin expects to specialize as a criminal lawyer, since that is the branch of the law for which she has the greatest inclination. She has been a student of this branch of law under Judge Austin, the honored head of the judicial department of the City of Toledo. Since beginning practice Miss Antin has been more than pleased with the patronage given her and there can be little doubt that her destiny is to be one of large and important service. Naturally she is an ardent suffragist, and while in college organized a suffrage association. She won the first prize in the Franklin oratorical contest and the second prize in another contest while in college at Ada. In high school she was a member of the debating team which took the honors from a team of boys. At Ada she was a member of HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 985 the Franklin Literary Society and belongs to the Philalethean Literary Society of Toledo. Active in the Temple B'nai Israel, she teaches a class of boys in the Sunday School, and has set aside three evenings of every week for social work. She is assistant scout master of the Girl Scouts of America in Toledo. She is also a member of the Toledo Business Women's Club. CHARLES WALTER COLE. Now cashier of the Second National Bank of Toledo and secretary of the Toledo Clearing House Association, Charles W. Cole has been engaged in the banking business at Toledo since 1887, and is one of the thoroughly experienced and competent men now directing the affairs of a bank which in resources and general strength ranks among the largest in the Middle West. With its capital of $1,000,000 and its surplus of an equal amount, by its organization and service and the personnel of the officers and directors, it has fully made good its claim as "the strongest bank in Northwestern Ohio." Born at Toledo April 19, 1868, Charles Walter Cole is a son of the late Abner B. and-Julia Pierce (Macomber) Cole, representing a prominent family of Toledo reference to- whom is found in some detail in other paragraphs. Educated in the Toledo public schools and lacking only one term of graduating from high school, afterwards attending the Davis Business College, Charles W. Cole at the age of nineteen was taken into the Merchants National Bank of Toledo as a messenger. He proved trustworthy, diligent, and competent, and was advanced from one responsibility to another and continued with the Merchants National until it was merged with the Second National Bank in 1907. He was advanced to the post of assistant cashier, and later was elevated to his present place as cashier, which position he has held -to the present time. The other chief officers of this institution are M. W. Young, president ; W. C. Carr, T. W. Childs, vice presidents. Mr. Cole is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club and the Toledo Club, and is deacon and church treasurer in the Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church. His home is at 420 Melrose Avenue. On June 12, 1895, he married Miss Frances Simmons of Monroe-ville, Ohio. ISAAC E. KNISELY has for nearly a quarter of a century been actively identified with Toledo's banks, and is president of the North-ern National Bank, one of the oldest national banks in Ohio. In 1916 the Northern National Bank moved to its handsome new building, of classic style of architecture, at the corner of Superior Street and Madison Avenue. This is one of the finest banking buildings in the state. Just before the removal the bank had completed fifty years of active banking service, and it will not be out of place to mention some of the historical facts which were noted in . a little booklet issued by the bank at the time the new building was occupied. The Northern National Bank was estab-lished in 1865. The first board of directors was composed of Matthew Shoemaker, Charles A. King, John T. Newton, Ebenezer Walbridge, Roland B. Hubbard, Robert M. Shoemaker and J. H. Winters. These were among the most prominent business men of Toledo in their generation. The original capital was $150,000. It was increased to $300,000 in 1880, and to $1,000,000 in 1906. These increases were made without absorbing or affiliating with any other bank. At the present time the bank has surplus and undivided profits of over $550,000 and its total resources aggregate more than $9,000,000. The first banking room was on the west side of Summit Street between Jefferson and Madison. When the Produce Exchange Building was erected the bank occupied the room at the corner of Madison Avenue and St. Clair Street, where it remained until the present building was completed. It is a great bank, not only in the strength of its resources but also in the personality of the men who have been connected with it during the past half century. Fifty years hence a list of the present officers and directors will no doubt recall as many prominent business associations as the orig-inal board of directors of 1865. The active executive officials besides Mr. Knisely are : J. K. Secor, H. C. Truesdall and A. F. Mitchell, vice presidents ; and H. M. Bash, cashier. Among the directors are F. B. Shoemaker, Robinson Locke, Marshall Sheppey, C. A. Peckham, Charles T. Lewis, William S. Walbridge, W. L. Milner, N. W. Cunningham, A. G. Wright, James Bentley, F. L. Geddes and E. H. Close. Though seventy-seven years of age Isaac E. Knisely still maintains a vigorous hand in the management of the bank and in various other Toledo affairs. He was born January 23. 1839, at New Philadelphia, Goshen Township, 986 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and represents one of the very first families to settle in that section of the state. His grandfather John Knisely came to Ohio with his family in 1805. When he located it Tuscarawas County the nearest white inhabitant was four miles away at the Indian Mission at Goshen. He laid out the Town of New Philadelphia. David Knisely, father of the Toledo banker, was born .in York County, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1792, and came to Ohio at the age of thirteen. He married Sarah Bowers, who was born October 23, 1792, also in York County, Pennsylvania. Isaac E. Knisely received his early education in the New Philadelphia High School and in Wittemberg College at Springfield, Ohio. It was more than half a century ago that he began his active career, and in that time has successively filled positions as a farmer, school teacher, lawyer and banker, and has been in the banking business now for twenty-four years. He has taken a very prominent part in the Toledo Museum of Art from its inception until the present time. He has served as its treasurer and did much towards raising the money to build the magnificent structure that adorns the City of Toledo on Monroe Avenue near Parkwood. This is one of the handsomest structures of its kind in the United States. He has also been very active as a member of the advisory board of the Toledo Hospital Association, having served four years as chairman of the managing committee, and too much cannot be said of the good work he has accomplished in this most worthy institution. Since he cast his, first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 he has been a stanch and steadfast republican. He is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club and the Toledo Club. In July, 1861, he married Miss Lucinda Demuth. They were married at Pittsburg and Mrs. Knisely was the daughter of Joseph Demuth. Laura Allene Knisely, a daughter of Mr Knisely, married Frank Zimmerman and has a son Francis. Edward A. Knisely, a son of the banker, is married and living in Indianapolis and has two children. EMERY R. HIETT. In the public mind, undoubtedly the idea of financial prosperity is typified by the banker. All men, however, have neither. the chance nor the intellect to become one of this supposed favored class, but few there are who cannot, through thrift and self denial, make some advance toward a com petency. The acquisition of a fortune is often discouragingly slow, but one need not go back to old Scotch proverbs to prove that systematic saving results in accumulation. Because of this fact methods have been originated whereby the small saver may be encouraged and accommodated with banking privileges, after which his financial advancement depends largely upon himself. It has been quoted before this, that the late Russell Sage once said that it was easy to make money after the first thousand dollars had been acquired. There are reasons to believe that such stable and reliable financial institutions as the Peoples Savings Association, of Toledo, Ohio, have started many an individual on the path of saving that first thousand dollars. The Peoples Savings Association of Toledo is a strictly mutual organization and in law is known as a Savings Association, and in this case is commonly known as a Building and Loan Association. These savings institutions have proven to be the greatest, safest and best in every country in the world, and none have excelled the mutual savings associations under the Ohio law. The present officers and directors of the Peoples Savings Association are: T. H. Walbridge, president ; William C. Carr, vice president ; E. R. Hiett secretary and manager ; James F. Tracy and Frank A. Crosby, directors, while the firm of Marshall & Fraser, prominent in law circles at Toledo, are attorneys. In the fifty-seventh semiannual report of the institution for the half year ending July 31, 1915, the assets and liabilities balance with every proof of continued prosperity. This is one of the bulwark institutions of Toledo. Emery R. Hiett, secretary and manager of the Peoples Savings Association, was born November 14, 1852, at Sugar Grove, Indiana. He was educated in the public schools and at De Pauw 'University, Greencastle, Indiana, studied law and was admitted to the Indiana bar. For a time he practiced his profession at Lafayette, Indiana, but subsequently removed to Ohio and in 1884 was admitted to the Ohio bar, subsequently becoming a member of the law firm of Thomas and Emery R. Hiett, at Toledo. His solid acquirements in the law were shown when, in association with Judge Winters, he codified the building association laws of the State of Ohio, the same having since been used as a model in other states. Mr. Hiett was one of the organizers of the Peoples Savings Association at Toledo, which HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 987 was incorporated in 1887. He has been identified with it ever since and as secretary and manager is justifiably well pleased with its prosperous condition and with the fact that during the past six months the assets have been increased $99,000, the greater part of which consists of first mortgage loans on real estate. The association occupies a fine fireproof building at No. 337 Huron Street, which was erected in 1910. It is handsome both within and without and is equipped with all banking fixtures of most modern pattern. In 1889 Mr. Hiett was elected secretary of the Ohio Building Association League, in which office he served until 1895, when he became president and continued as such until 1902. In politics Mr. Hiett has always been a republican, but his ambitions have led him far from the path of office-seeking. He is identified with the Masonic fraternity and finds additional social recreation with the Inverness Club. He was reared in the Methodist faith and is a member of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church at Toledo. OSBERT D. TIFFANY. Not only has the record of the Peoples State Savings Bank of Toledo been somewhat phenomenal as a young and growing institution, but it stands well to the front in the estimation of the larger banks represented in this metropolis of Northwestern Ohio. It was largely due to the energy and the capability of O. D. Tiffany, who came to Toledo after a long experience in the country banks of Michigan about ten years ago, that the Peoples State Savings Bank was organized and has enjoyed such a great prosperity in the past eight years. At the present time there are only one or two other state bank stocks in Toledo which is quoted at a higher figure. It was in 1909 that Mr. Tiffany took charge of the organization of this bank, selling the stock and building the substantial structure at the corner of Starr Avenue and East Broadway, a three-story building, in which the first floor is occupied exclusively by the Peoples Bank. The doors were open for business May 1, 1909, with Mr. Tiffany in active charge as cashier. The present officers of the bank are W. H. Tucker, president ; William J. Von Ewegen, vice president ; V. O. Moore, vice president ; O. D. Tiffany, cashier ; and J. L. Griss, assistant cashier. The bank has a capital stock of $50.000, had surplus and undivided profits on July 1, 1916, of approximately $35,000, while its totals at the latter date aggregated approximately $1,000,000. Osbert D. Tiffany was born at Scriba, Oswego County, New York, October 14, 1874, a son of Almon C. and Eva (Peck) Tiffany. His parents were also born in the same cpunty of New York. His father was a wagon maker by trade, but resided on a fruit farm at Scriba, where O. D. Tiffany was born and spent the first seventeen years of his life. Mr. Tiffany's father was a man of great energy and good business ability, but was quite modest and was devoted to his own home and family and never mingled to any extent in politics or public affairs. He is still living at the age of sixty-eight, and is so well preserved that he might readily pass for a man much younger. The Tiffany family is of English descent, and has been established in this country since 1682, Humphrey Tiffany being the founder of the family. Genealogists have established practically a complete record of the Tiffany genealogy in America. The most distinguished branch of the family is naturally that in New York City represented by the great Tiffany Company, jewelers. The Tiffanys located at Toledo are of a lateral branch of the same stock. Mr. Tiffany's family On the mother's side, the Pecks, were also of English origin, and removed from New York to Western Massachusetts. Grandfather Peck was an officer in the Revolutionary war. O. D. Tiffany graduated from the Mexico Academy at Mexico, New York, a high grade preparatory school, with the class of 1892. In the spring of that same year his father sold his interests in Oswego County and moved to Michigan, buying a large farm near Ithaca. After leaving school Mr. Tiffany found plenty to do on the home farm and remained there three years, teaching school during' the winter. At the age of twenty he entered the bank at Ashley, Michigan, a private institution known as the M. Wallace Bullock & Company. In the next year his father sold his farm and bought a half interest in a private bank at Bellaire, Michigan, known as the Turrell-Tiffany Company, bankers. This was afterwards reorganized as the Bellaire State Bank. It was in the Bellaire State Bank that Mr. Tiffany laid the solid foundation of his banking experience, and remained as its capable cashier for twelve years. While there he had direct supervision of the construction of a banking office which at once became recognized as one of the best arranged in that 988 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO section of the state and reflected great credit upon the town. From Michigan Mr. Tiffany came to Toledo, and for about two years was assistant treasurer of the Commercial Savings Bank & Trust Company. He then resigned in order to organize the Peoples State Savings Bank, and he has since devoted all his best time and energies to the welfare of this institution. In Toledo Mr. Tiffany has allied himself with a number of local social and civic organizations. He is a member of Yondata Lodge No. 572, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Port Lawrence Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, Eutah Commandery of the Knights Templar, the Toledo Commerce Club, Toledo Automobile Club, Toledo Golf Club at Ottawa Park, and is a member and one of the stewards of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church. On August 4, 1896, at Toledo he married Miss Emila E. Bird. Mrs. Tiffany was born in Oxford, Michigan, was educated there, and was graduated from the high school at Ashley in that state in 1893. She is a daughter of Robert Morris and Justina (Rathbun) Bird of Oxford, Michigan. Her father died in Toledo in October, 1914, and her mother in 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Tiffany have one daughter, Alice Corene Tiffany, who was born at Bellaire, Michigan, and is now a student in the Monroe Public School of Toledo. Mrs. Tiffany has devoted much time as a member of the board of the Young Women's Christian Association at Toledo and gives much of her time to that institution and also to the Woman's Educational Club. While a very active business man, Mr. Tiffany like his father has proved his devotion to his home and family. He has built a very pleasant residence at 1053 Lincoln Avenue. HERMAN ARTHUR HILL. For fully eighty years and through three generations the services of the Hill family have been a distinctive feature of Toledo's life and affairs. Representing the third generation is Herman Arthur Hill, a grandson of Gen. Charles W. Hill and a son of Avery S. Hill, both of whom were prominent members of the Toledo bar. Born at Toledo September 8, 1879, Herman Arthur Hill chose, instead of the law, which his grandfather and father had adorned, the business of banking, and by long and persistent work in that field, beginning in early boyhood, he has .qualified as an expert in the management of savings banks, and is now cashier of the Union Savings Bank, one of the old and most conservative institutions of Northwest Ohio. The Union Savings Bank was organized in 1888, and its policy has always been strength and security, together with the highest consistent service as a general banking and savings agency. The total resources of the bank in 1916 stand at more than $1,600,000, with deposits of over $1,000,000. One of the organizers of this bank was the late Leander F. Burdick, who for many years held the post of cashier, and it was as his successor that Mr. Hill came to the Union Savings Bank. Mr. Hill was educated in the Toledo public schools, attending the high school until he was about seventeen years of age. On December 12, 1896, he began his career as a banker. His first position was as messenger with the Toledo Savings Bank and Trust Company. He was promoted to clerk, and remained with that institution five and a half years. On July 1, 1902, he became paying teller with the Dollar Savings Bank and Trust Company, and remained there with increasing responsibility and efficiency until January 15, 1910, when the Dollar Savings Bank was merged with the Ohio Savings Bank and Trust Company. He continued with the consolidated company about two weeks. When the First National Bank of Toledo opened a savings department, the man chosen to organize the new department and become its manager was Herman A. Hill and he continued as manager there until November 10, 1913. At that date he was called to the Union Savings Bank as cashier to succeed Mr. Burdick and to carry out and inaugurate a new policy for the growing ,institution. Mr. Hill is also a director of this old and prominent financial institution of Northwest Ohio. He is a member of the Toledo Chapter of the American Institute of Banking, of the Anthony Wayne Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, is identified with the Toledo Commerce Club, belongs to the Toledo Yacht Club and to several fraternal organizations, and is especially prominent in Masonry. He is affiliated with Sanford L. Collins Lodge No. 396, Free and Accepted Masons, with Toledo Consistory of the Scottish Rite, has been recorder of St. Omer Commandery of Knights Templar for the past nine years, belongs to Toledo Chapter and Council and to Zenobia Temple of the Mystic Shrine. For three years he was a member of the Trinity Cadets, an organization maintained under the auspices HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 989 of Trinity Church for many years, but now defunct. On October 5, 1912, at the home of the bride in Toledo, Mr. Hill married Miss Lucille I. Argue, daughter of Thomas and Frances (Stebbins) Argue, who now reside at Prairie Depot, Ohio. Thomas Argue has spent all his active career in the oil fields as a worker and producer, and is now living retired. His brothers were also active oil men in Western Pennsylvania and in other fields. Mrs. Hill was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, received her education in the public schools of Toledo, being a graduate of the Toledo High School, and finished in the Randolph-Macon School for Girls at Lynchburg, Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Hill have one daughter, Frances Elizabeth, who was born in Toledo. MANO S. RAMSEYER has figured large in Toledo business circles through his work as a practical and constructive real estate man. He is president and treasurer and has the controlling interest in the M. S. Ramseyer Company, which is primarily a corporation for carrying out work as contractors and builders. The firm also handles real estate, rentals, loans; insurance, and has membership in the Toledo Real Estate Board. Its offices are on the ground floor of the Spitzer Building at 306 Huron Street. The family of this well established business man has long been identified with this sec-tion of the state. He was born in German Township of Fulton County, Ohio, September 23, 1874, a son of Christian and Catherine (Miller) Ramseyer. His mother was born in Switzerland, while his father was born in Stark County, Ohio. Catherine Miller came to this country with her parents when about twelve years of age and the family settled in German Township of Fulton County. The old Miller homestead there, which was taken up by grandfather Miller from the Government, is now owned by John S. Miller and Mary S. Miller, uncle and aunt of Mr. Ramseyer. The latter's mother died in Fulton County when her son was about six years of age. Christian Ramseyer is now living retired in Pettisville, Fulton County. His parents were early settlers of Ohio, grandfather Ramseyer having come to this country when about eighteen years of age and settling in Stark County. He died at the age of seventy-five in London, Canada. Just before the Civil war Christian Ramseyer, who was born March 1, 1839, in Stark County, located in Fulton County. He hired a substitute to take his place as a soldier in the Union ranks during the Civil war. Since boyhood he has been a member of the Amish Church near Pettisville, though he is not particularly active in church affairs. Of the nine children of the family all grew to maturity, and the father never married after his wife's early death. Six of the children are still living, three brothers and three sisters. Joseph J. is a farmer near Syracuse, New York ; Mary is Mrs. Edgar C. Hawkins, wife of a farmer at Oak Shade in Fulton County ; Anna, now deceased, was the wife of Samuel Morning-star, of Fulton County ; Christian C., deceased, lived near Wauseon, in Fulton County ; Leah, deceased, was Mrs. Harmon, of Fulton County ; the next in age is Mano S. ; Benjamin F. is a farmer near Wauseon, in Fulton County ; Rachel is Mrs. Elias Davies, near Wauseon. All are substantial farming people, all the children were reared and received their early training on the old farm homestead and the only one to break away from agricultural and rural life is Mano S., who has in many ways found his early experi-ences as a farmer boy invaluable to him in his business transactions. His early education came from the public schools and he advanced by attending the Normal School of Fulton County, then known as the Fayette Normal, located at Fayette. He lived at home until about twenty years of age, and then established himself as a manu-facturer of butter and cheese at Oak Shade in his native county. That was his business for about five years, and in the meantime he married and began looking out for wider opportunities to test his business talent. After selling his interests in Fulton County he moved to Norwalk, Ohio, for a short time and in 1901 permanently located at Toledo. For a number of years after locating at Toledo, Mr. Ramseyer was identified with the Tiedtke Brothers Company, merchants, in the grocery department. He remained with that concern until he had become well established in the real estate business. He started han-dling real estate while still an employe of the Tiedtke Brothers and his first office was in his residence. On resigning his regular position he opened a downtown office in the Spitzer Building on the fifth floor in June, 1909. In June, 1915, the present firm of the M. S. Ramseyer Company established large and conspicuous headquarters on the ground floor of the Spitzer Building. These various locations 990 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO in themselves explain the growth and success of Mr. Ramseyer in his present business. He is a clean-cut business man who emphasizes and practices the Golden Rule in all his transactions. He believes in treating his customers so that they will have confidence in him and he is strongly opposed to misrepresentation of any kind, and always stands behind his promises and agreement. With contracting and building as his specialty he has made a success in the selling and building of residence properties, which are sold on the installment plan. In fact, he has almost a monopoly on a certain , class of business in Toledo. While not an architect by profession, he has the faculty of visualizing his ideas and has been very successful in the planning and execution of building plans. His plan of real estate operations comprising the selling of a lot to a customer on the condition that the M. S. Ramseyer Company may have charge of the building construction. The customer pays for the lot and the entire improvement either on installments or in cash in full. During the year 1915 the company constructed nearly sixty houses on this plan. The company also does a large brokerage business. Mr. Ramseyer has also done some platting and subdivision work, and his most conspicuous success in this line was Ramseyer 's West Park, a residence park of rare beauty located on Sylvania Avenue. It is a park for homes, and the surroundings are charming, with great shade trees to sentinel the streets, and the location is splendid. Mr. Ramseyer also platted Collingwood Heights Addition, located on Parkwood Avenue between Georgia and Highland Avenues and Collingwood and Kimball Avenues. It comprises thirty-four lots. The M. S. Ramseyer Company was incorporated February 27, 1914. Mr. Ramseyer associates on terms of easy familiarity with the leading business men of Toledo, and he is himself one of the progressive spirits of the city. He is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club, the Toledo Automobile Club, the Toledo Real Estate Board, and he and his wife are very active members of the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, especially in Sunday School work. On September 6, 1899, at Norwalk, Ohio, he married Miss Retta L. Fisher, who died December 16, 1915. She was born and educated in Norwalk, graduating from high school there. She was an active member of the Eurydice Club, one of the musical organiza tions of Toledo. Her parents were Eugene K. and Mary (Taylor) Fisher. Her father is now a resident of Toledo, practically retired. Her mother died in Norwalk. WEBSTER S. BRAINARD is one of the few survivors among the real pioneer business men of Toledo. His home has been in that city for sixty years or more. In that time his work and his interests have touched many of the important phases in Toledo's development. He has been a banker, a merchant, a factor in Toledo's position as a port on the Great Lakes, and has contributed his means and influence to the solid welfare of the city and its people. At the age of eighty-two years Mr. Brainard has still not relaxed entirely his hold on business affairs. He comes of some of the oldest pioneer stock of Ohio. His birth occurred on Brookline Ridge, now Dennison Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, August 30, 1834. His father, Harris Brainard, came to Cleveland as early as 1812, when the bare lake shore gave little promise of becoming the site of a great city. Hester Storer, the mother of Mr. Brainard, arrived in Ohio in 1818. Harris Brainard was born in Haddam, Connecticut, and his wife in Portland, Maine. In 1830 he bought the home on Brookline Ridge, where Webster S. Brainard was born, but in 1843 sold that and settled on a farm in Parma Township in Cuyahoga County, where he and his wife lived as successful farmers the rest of their days. The family still own the old homestead where the parents died. Their ten children each and every one had some taste of pioneer circumstances while growing up. There were six sons and four daughters, and of these four sons and three daughters are still living. Webster S. Brainard and his brother George Washington, who received his name because he was born on Washington's birthday, are the only ones of the family residing in Lucas County, George W. being now retired. Webster Brainard received his early education in Brookline Academy, near his birthplace, and was only eighteen years of age when he found his first regular employment in the county surveyor's office at Cleveland in 1852. Then in the spring of 1853, as member of a party of civil engineers, he came to Toledo and took part in the survey of the route from Toledo to Goshen, Indiana, this route now being the course traversed by the Air Line branch of the New York Central HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 991 line, which is now the main line of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. The headquarters of these civil engineers were at Toledo, but during much of the time Mr. Brainard was stationed at Bryan, Ohio, until February 1, 1857. In the spring of 1857 Mr. Brainard moved to Toledo and became associated with the wholesale lumber firm of Curtis & Thomas. In 1861 he was admitted to the firm as a partner, the name being revised to Curtis, Thomas & Company. In 1868 Mr. Thomas died, and the firm then became Curtis & Brainard, which title was familiar to the lumber trade and the transportation around the Great Lakes for a period of more than thirty years, until April, 1887. Their business was entirely wholesale, and they shipped both by canal, the Great Lakes and by railroad. The company owned a number of vesscls on the Great Lakes. They owned The Toledo & Saginaw Transportation Company and the Miami Transportation Company. The Toledo & Saginaw Transportation Company was sold in 1889, and on February 20, 1900, Mr. Curtis died and about two years later the Miami Transportation Company wound up its business. In the last sixty years Mr. Brainard has witnessed a marvelous transportation in Toledo, which when he first knew it, was a small town and he has been chief among those interested in its welfare and development. He was president and a director of The Toledo National Bank, serving as president from 1905 to 1907, when that institution was merged with The National Bank' of Commerce at Toledo, of which he is still a director and a member of the executive committee. The National Bank of Commerce is one of the largest banks in Northwestern Ohio, and has resources of over $11,000,000. Mr. Brainard is also a director in The Toledo Savings Bank & Trust Company, the pioneer savings bank of Toledo, having been established in 1868. In 1893 Mr. Brainard was appointed one of the two auxiliary advisory commissioners for the building of the Lucas County Court House and he gained much credit for the capable manner in which he performed his duties in this place of public trust. He has always been a democrat, having cast his first presidential vote for James Buchanan in 1856. Fraternally he is a member of Rubicon Lodge Free and Accepted Masons, at Toledo, is a member of the Commerce Club, a charter member of the Erie Shooting Club, and has been for the past fifteen years a trustee and is now president of the Miami Children's Home. Mr. Brainard maintains offices in The Bank of Commerce Building, though his time and attention are given entirely to the management of his private business affairs, particularly a large amount of valuable real estate in Toledo. His home has been at the corner of Seventeenth and Monroe streets since 1864. During 1873-74 he built a fine residence on that corner, one of the best in the. city at the time, and the family have occupied it continuously since 1874, for more than forty years. On May 28, 1861, Mr. Brainard married Miss Mary Catherine Thomas, .daughter of Augustus Thomas, who was one of the prominent pioneers of Toledo and who died there November 15, 1868. Mrs. Brainard's mother died in 1891. Both are buried in Forest cemetery. To their union have been born six daughters, four of whom are still living. Mrs. H. C. Lamb of Toledo was educated at Berginpoint, a school for girls in New Jersey. The other three daughters, still at home, are Julia, Mary and Florence, who finished their education in Ely's Female Seminary in New York City. The daughters were all born at Toledo and all graduated from the high school there, taking their finishing courses in the East. WILLIAM BEATTY has for many years been one of the prominent men in Toledo municipal affairs. On January 1, 1916, he took office as director of public welfare, having been appointed by Mayor Milroy, and he is one of the five men in the new mayor's cabinet. Like many men who do most for themselves, for their friends, and for their community, William Beatty was born poor and struggled against vicissitudes to attain for himself an honorable position in the world. He was born October 27, 1851, in Montreal, Canada, a son of John and Mary (Grey) Beatty, his father of Irish and his mother of Scotch stock. His formal schooling was very limited, and he himself says that he acquired his education in the "poor man's college," a printing office. He has spent many years of his active life as a printer and newspaper man, and still holds his card of membership in Toledo Typographical Union No. 63. Politically he is a democrat without modifications or qualifications. His popularity, his well known integrity, and his ability to do things well, have brought him many official 992 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO honors. For two years he served in the Legislature and for six years as a member of the Toledo City Council. He was for twenty-four years a trustee of the State Reform School at Lancaster and for twenty years was connected with the park department of Toledo as secretary and member of the board. This experience brought him into close touch with the development of the park and boulevard system of Toledo, and he has the distinction of having been a member of the last board be-fore the new city charter was adopted. One of the city parks has been named Beatty Park in his honor. His able services in these various positions was the basis of his appoint-ment by Mayor Milroy as director of public welfare. William Beatty is known throughout Ohio in the Order of the Knights of Pythias, and is Grand Keeper of Records of the Grand Lodge, and a member of the Supreme Lodge. He has attended hundreds of gatherings and banquets, and his ready wit and ability as a toastmaster always enlivens and is highly appreciated on these occasions. He is also a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and is Past Master of Toledo Lodge No. 144, Free and Accepted Masons. Mr. Beatty is a promi-nent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1908 was elected delegate to the General Conference of that denomination held at Baltimore, Maryland. He is a mem-ber of the board of stewards of St. Paul's Methodist Church. He is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club. On February 7, 1871, he married Mary Druillard, daughter of Thomas Druillard. Their children are : Mrs. Carrie M. Timpany, Mrs. Grace Millard, Mrs. Ervin F. Kemp, Miss Nina A. Beatty, Miss Myrtle R. Beatty, Elmer W. Beatty, Raymond R. Beatty, and William, Jr., who died in infancy. The chil-dren all received high school education and the sons attended the Chicago University. J. PRESSLY LYLE, M. D. For more than a quarter of a century an active member of the medical profession in Toledo, with offices in the Spitzer Building, Dr. Lyle both here and elsewhere has enjoyed an exceptional pri-vate practice and has taken the lead in various movements connected with his profession and with various social and philanthropic causes. Dr. Lyle engaged for thirty-five years in the drug business along with his work as a medical practitioner. He was one of the promoters of the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association and was one of the original peti-tioners for the Ohio pharmacy laws. He is a native son of Washington County, Pennsylvania, and the family had been identified with that interesting section of Southwestern Pennsylvania for several generations. Dr. Lyle was born March 10, 1850. His paternal grandparents were Joseph and Jeanette (McNary) Lyle, both natives of Pennsylvania, and they died in Washington County, the grandfather having reached the age of eighty-three. The maternal grandparents of Dr. Lyle were Robert and Ann (Lyle) Simpson, and they were born and spent all their lives in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Dr. Lyle is a son of John and Sarah Jane (Simpson) Lyle, both of whom were born in Washington County, the father on April .21, 1821, and the mother on July 19, 1821. Dr. Lyle's father was a farmer and in early life voted with the democratic ticket, but later transferred his allegiance to the republican party, and he was a stanch and loyal member of that organization until his death in 1907 at the advanced age of eighty-six. The mother was a devout Presbyterian and was identified with that church more than fifty years, while her husband was an elder in the Presbyterian denomination for more than half a century. There are five sons and two daughters in the family still living. Much of his early career Dr. Lyle spent in Washington County, Pennsylvania, where he attended the public schools. He also attended McNeely Normal College at Hopedale, in Har-rison County, Ohio, and still later, for one year, the Richmond College at Richmond, Jefferson County, Ohio. He then taught school for the three years of 1869, 1870 and 1871, and in 1871 entered the drug business in Unionport, Jefferson County, Ohio, and remained thus identified until 1879. He then went to Pittsburg and entered Passavant Hospital, having full charge of that institute for the two years of 1879 and 1880. In November, 1881 he entered Columbus Medical College, passing the medical examination in the spring of 1882, and received the degree of M. D. This is believed to be the first case on record where a student entered and graduated the same year. From 1882 to 1889 Dr. Lyle practiced in Unionport, Jefferson County, Ohio, and then sold his practice and removed to Cleveland, Ohio. In January, 1890, he came to Toledo, and has since enjoyed a large private practice as a physician and surgeon. He HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 993 is an honorary member of the Allegheny County Medical Association of Pittsburg, and while a resident of Unionport, Ohio, was an active member of the Jefferson County Medical Society. He was one of the first solicitors for the Pittsburg Medical Journal. Dr. Lyle has always taken much interest in social matters and in fraternal affairs. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Yondota Lodge No. 572, F. and A. M. ; became an entered apprentice September 13, 1911; passed October 25, 1911, and raised November 18, 1911. He is a member of Port Lawrence Chapter No. 176, R. A. M. ; Vistula Council No. 108, R. and S. M. ; Eutah Commandery No. 66, K. T., and O’ Ton-Ta-La Grotto, A. A. O. N. M. S., complete York Rite Masonry. He has been affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since 1876, with the Knights of Pythias since 1882, with the Knights and Ladies of Columbia since 1895, with the Order of Chosen Friends since 1897, with the Tribe of Ben Hur since 1898, and he himself was the organizer of Love, Light and Truth in 1903. He also belongs to the Protected Home Circle and is the Supreme Deputy Grand Riboni of the Order of the Philosophers of the Living Fire in the State of Ohio, the highest attainable position or rank in that order. He is also local examining physician for these various orders. In politics Dr. Lyle served as a committeeman in the republican organization for over twenty-five years, and is still republican in his views, though his strong desire to promote the public welfare frequently makes him independent of partisanship, and he gives his vote to the man he deems best fitted for office. In religion he is liberal and broad minded, and not affiliated with any denomination in particular, though his conduct has always been actuated by the highest moral standard, and he is a firm believer in the doctrines of universal brotherhood, well evidenced by his work in founding the Order of Love, Light and Truth. On May 30, 1875, Dr. Lyle was happily married to Miss Ellen Shoemaker. Mrs. Lyle was born in Jefferson County, Ohio. They are the parents of two children, Georgia O., who is the wife of W. F. Widell and has two children, Sigrid Caroline and Kathleen Ellen ; and Bessie A., deceased. MORRISON W. YOUNG is president of the Second National Bank of Toledo. This is a distinction in the financial affairs of Northwest Ohio well justified by Mr. Young's connection with business affairs and his enviable record as an executive, financier and citizen. The Second National Bank is one of the largest banks in the Middle West and has total resources of over $14,000,000. It was organized January 18, 1864, only a few months after the passage of the National Bank Act. Many men of prominence in Toledo's business and financial life were identified with its original organization and with its later development and growth. It began business with a capital of $100,000, and its first home was in a building on land adjoining the bank's new twenty-one-story skyscraper. The bank occupied several homes, and in January, 1894, it was in the path of the destructive fire which destroyed its building and a number of other structures in that part of Toledo. The magnificent structure which is now its home was completcd in 1913, and stands at the corner of Madison and Summit streets. The bank occupied its new home October 12, 1913. In the course of its fifty odd years of successful existence the Second National absorbed several other institutions in Toledo, and on May 1, 1907, it and the Merchants National were consolidated. Edwin Jackson, former president of the Merchants National, was made president of the consolidated institution, but death intervened before he took the place. Then on January 14, 1908, Morrison W. Young was elected president. During the eight years since Mr. Young became president the Second National Bank has more than doubled its resources, and at the present time its capital stock is $1,000,000, while surplus and undivided profits are nearly $2,000,000. Morrison W. Young was born in Maumee, Ohio, in September, 1860. He is a son of the late Samuel M. and Angeline L. (Upton) Young, reference to whose careers is found on other pages. Until 1876 Mr. Young attended the Toledo public schools, his parents having moved to Toledo from Maumee a few months after he was born. Prepared for college in the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven, Connecticut, and in the fall of 1879 entered Yale University, where he was graduated with the class of 1883. His first business experience on leaving college was with the Clover Leaf and the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroads. Two years later he engaged in the hardwood lumber business and in getting out ties for the Pennsylvania and Lake Shore Railroad. He was successfully identified with that business 994 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO until 1890. After the death of his honored father he took the management of the Young estate, and also became president of The Blade Printing and Paper Company, which for years had been his father's chief business concern. Mr. Young has for many years been connected with the Second National Bank, either as an officer or director, and it was his undoubted ability, his mature judgment, and his popularity in business circles which caused the directors to make him president as successor of the late Edwin Jackson. Mr. Young is also a director of The Northwestern Elevator and Mill Company and was formerly a director and vice president of The Toledo Gas Light and Coke Company. He has served as president of The Toledo Club and is a member of the Toledo Commerce Club and the Toledo Country Club. WILLIAM W. SMITH. Though he is a nephew of the founder of the extensive and important business establishment of which he is now the executive head, it is recognized that advancement has come to Mr. Smith through ability and sterling character, and that he well merits his secure status as one of the representative business men of the City of Toledo, where he is president of the J. W. Greene Company, one of the largest and most important concerns engaged in the wholesale and retail handling of pianos and other musical instruments and merchandise to be found in the State of Ohio. On other pages of this publication is entered a memorial to his uncle, the late John W. Greene, who was the founder of this great music house and whom he succeeded as president of the company. To the article in question ready reference may be made for more complete data concerning the development and upbuilding of the important enterprise that has contributed much to the commercial prestige of Toledo. Mr. Smith was born in Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio, on the 6th of April, 1872, and is a son of William J. and Laura (Greene) Smith, the latter a sister of the late John W. Greene, founder of the company that perpetuates his name. During the greater part of his active career William J. Smith was actively and successfully identified with the great fundamental industries of agriculture and stock growing, but during the last seventeen years of his life he lived in gracious retirement, near Fremont, where he was permitted to enjoy the just rewards of former years of earnest toil and endeavor and where he commanded unqualified esteem—indicative of the high popular estimate placed upon him in a community that represented his home during the greater part of his life. He passed away in 1904, his cherished and devoted wife having been summoned to the life eternal in 1886. Of their seven children, all of whom were born in Fremont, Sandusky County, two sons and two daughters are living—Mrs. Charles E. Jackson and Mrs. Marshall Keenan, of Millersville, Sandusky County; Charles E., who is a resident of Ovid, Clinton County, Michigan; and William W., who is the immediate subject of this review. William W. Smith is indebted to the excellent schools of his native county for his early educational advantages, and that he profited duly from the same is evidenced by the fact for several years he was a successful and popular teacher, principally in the district schools of Sandusky County. For about a year after withdrawing from the pedagogic profession he was identified with the oil business, and he then, on the 19th of June, 1896, established his residence in the City of Toledo, where he assumed a position as salesman in the J. W. Greene music house. For several years, both at headquarters and as traveling representative of the house, he continued his effective services as a salesman, and he then took a position in the office of the concern. When the J. W. Greene Company was organized and incorporated as a stock company, in 1899, Mr. Smith became secretary and treasurer of the company, of which dual office he continued the incumbent until shortly after the death of his honored uncle, on the 12th of August, 1908, when he was elected his uncle 's successor as president of the company, of which chief executive office he has since continued in tenure,- as has he also of that of treasurer. His thorough knowledge of all departments and details of the business has enabled him to give a most admirable administration of the extensive business and fully to uphold the high standard which was established and maintained by his uncle. There is much of significance in a man of still comparatively youthful years being at the head of so large and metropolitan an establishment as that of the J. W. Greene Company, and this very prestige gives to him assured prestige as one of the representative business men of the City of Toledo. The unsullied and high reputation of the great music house of the J. W. Greene Company HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 995 has been built up on honor, and its very name is a synonym for the best of service in all departments and of fair and honorable dealings a reputation that constitutes its best commercial asset. As a citizen Mr. Smith is essentially loyal and public spirited, and in politics he is aligned with the republican party in national affairs, but in connection with city and state governmental matters he gives his support to the men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment, without being restricted by partisan lines. He has had no predilection for practical politics or desire for public office, but gives his influence and tangible support in the furtherance of undertakings advanced for the general good of the community at large and for the industrial, commercial and civic advancement of his home city. Toledo claims his unbounded loyalty and admiration and he has deep faith in the city's still greater future. Mr. Smith is one of the progressive and successful business men and popular citizens of Toledo, where his circle of friends is limited only by that of his acquaintances. He is affiliated with Charles Sumner Lodge, No. 137, Knights of Pythias, holds membership in the Toledo Com-merce Club, and both he and his wife are members of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church. On the 12th of November, 1896, Mr. Smith wedded Miss Hattie Havens, who was born and reared in Fremont, Sandusky County, and who is a daughter of Burchard and Cath-erine (Overmeyer) Havens. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are prominent and popular factors in the representative social and musical circles of their home city. They have no children. SAM COHN. Born in Hungary of a wealthy Jewish family and educated to be a rabbi ; coming to America when a young man ; spending a time at Panama while the Frenchman de Lesseps was making his vain attempt to cut a canal through the isthmus ; traveling through the Central American Republic and through the Southern states as a pack peddler ; several times established successfully in business and as many times suffering disaster ; injured for life in a railroad wreck ; taking up his residence at Toledo in 1889, where he lost another modest fortune ; in Toledo politics for a quarter of a century, surviving the ups and downs of many political leaders, and ending his days as an honored public official of recognized high ability—such in summary was the life of the late Sam Cohn, of Toledo, who for years had cheerfully looked death in the face and who finally yielded to his importunities and passed away November 10, 1915. His death closed an unusual career. It was such a career in American life and politics as is found portrayed oftener in fiction than in reality. Within his fifty-nine years were compressed experiences such as rarely come to one man and still leaves his life a modest one. Dominating every other fact in his life was that he did more for others than he did for himself. Afflicted for years by physical infirmity before which most men would have quailed and become dependent, he had the quaint and sound philosophy which comes from having conquered suffering and constant trouble, and many others were dependent on him. His children were reared to comfortable situations. Hundreds of people in and out of his own faith found occasion to lean on his capable assistance ; many younger and older politicians looked to him for guidance ; he was the confidante of makers of governors, senators, and the president, and politicians and statesmen of much magnitude profited by his advice. Perhaps the keynote of his life was in a brief bit of philosophy which he once confided to a friend : "I never worry a minute over a thing I can't change." Mr. Cohn lived intensively in the present. He seldom became reminiscent, and it is only by piecing together many fragmentary incidents which he told his intimate friends that anything like a complete sketch of his life can be told. He was born in Nanash, Hungary, October 16, 1856. He was of pure Jewish blood, and his grandfather was a rabbi, and as already stated Mr. Cohn himself was educated to follow in the same vocation. He revolted against Old Country conditions, particularly of religious intolerance against the Jews, and set out for America in 1883. In the meantime he had married, taking his wife from the village of Vilmaney, Hungary. All their children except the youngest were born in Hungary. The youngest, a native of this country, is Mrs. Julia Salzman, wife of Dr. Sam Salzman. The other children who survive their father are : Mrs. Sarah Salzman, of Chicago ; Mrs. Theresa Kessler, of Toledo ; and Aaron B. Cohn, a Toledo lawyer. Another son, Jacob, died eight years before his father. Leaving his family in Hungary until he 996 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO could establish a home in this country, Sam Cohn arrived at Panama while the French were endeavoring to build the canal, and started out as a peddler. During a yellow fever scourge his partner fell a victim and Mr. Cohn, having won the good graces of the commander of a visiting American war vessel, was carried to New Orleans. Again he started out as an itinerant peddler and went through many of the rural districts of the South. Mr. Cohn was one of several well known Toledo men who got their start in that way. In time he accumulated capital which enabled him to establish himself permanently. In one southern city he conducted a laundry. For a time he was superintendent of railways in Baton Rouge. He reached the high tide of his business success in the South at Greenville, Mississippi. On the very banks of the Mississippi River he had a hotel and four. stores. The treacherous conduct of .the waters of the mighty river is well known, and in a single night this portion of the little city was undermined, and Mr. Cohn's entire fortune and property was swept away. About the same time a passenger train on which he was traveling ran off the track and he was crushed in the ruins. Mrs. Cohn came on from Hungary and by constant attention and the best medical science his life was saved, but his spine was twisted so that for his remaining years he walked with a crutch and cane. In 1889 Mr. and Mrs. Cohn came to Toledo, and sent for their children that remained in Hungary. Mr. Cohn is said to have brought $30,000 in cash with him to Toledo. For a time he conducted a. wholesale notion store successfully, but investments in the Findlay oil field caused his failure. He paid his creditors dollar for dollar. For a time Mr. Cohn conducted a saloon business, though personally he had no liking for that trade and it was only as a last resort that he accepted the opportunity. During the eleven months he conducted such a model place and fed so many men who didn't have work or didn't want it, 'that he found all his capital dissipated and he closed his doors. At this juncture he was afflicted with a long and severe illness, one of many such during his lifetime of battle against weakness and disease. His home at that time was on Canton Street in sections of the Fourth and Fifth Ward. At one election a candidate for assessor asked Mr. Cohn to electioneer for him. He accepted the responsibilities, and the man was elected, and immediately appointed Mr. Cohn his assistant. Such was his entry into Toledo politics. What he did in politics is well worthy of record, and might make a story that could be read with profit by every native American citizen. Some of the more significant .phases of his political career are best told by the Toledo Blade : "His subsequent political career is one of these which go to disprove the popular fiction that a politician's life is one of ease. Like most of those men who make honest politics a profession, Mr. Cohn worked early and late and it is well known he performed services which would have taxed seriously the strength of an able-bodied man. Yet Mr. Cohn's reward for his political service was small. He was appointed market master by former Mayor Guy G. Major, and continued in that position under Mayor Samuel M. Jones. This paid only $65 a month. During Governor Nash's term he was appointed superintendent of the Toledo State Free Employment Bureau, a $1,500 position, which he continued to hold under Governor Herrick and Governor Harris. "During these years Mr. Cohn stood the brunt of much political criticism and attacks from his opponents. It was when he was appointed member of the old Board of Review in 1908 to succeed the late James M. Brown that his real capacity for public service received recognition. He applied himself assiduously to his work. He studied tax authorities and eventually attained state prominence as a tax expert. So substantial was this recognition that twice, when his tenure of office was threatened by political changes, recommendations from Toledo real estate and business men that amounted to a public demand for his reappointment poured in on the state authorities. All Toledo newspapers, including those which had fought him in prior years, endorsed him. The public confidence thus expressed was regarded by Sam Cohn as one of the sweetest things in his life. But in spite of this public good will Mr. Cohn had to fight to hold this position. Before the Warnes law providing for a district tax board was passed, the members of the Board of Review were appointed by four state officials. Mr. Cohn's term expired before the Warnes law went into effect. Three of the four democratic state officials determined to appoint a democrat, and only the most vigorous public campaign in Toledo obtained Mr. Cohn's reappointment. HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 997 "Although a republican, Mr. Cohn stood high in the respect of former Governor Cox, and there was no question of Mr. Cohn's appointment as one of the two district tax assessors under the Warnes law. But when Cox was defeated there was a new state administration which knew not this modern Joseph of politics. Governor Willis removed the district tax assessors throughout the state. Again the realty and business men of Toledo came to Mr. Cohn's aid and hundreds of telegrams insisting on his appointment were sent to the governor. Governor Willis heeded the advice. Mr. Cohn was reappointed. He continued to pursue his consistent service and it is known that Governor Willis so valued him that he was in a fair way to become one of the closest advisers of the state administration. "One of Mr. Cohn's greatest assets as a tax official was the logical reasoning by which he persuaded large taxpayers to agree to high valuations of their property without resort to force. "Mr. Cohn became the adviser of many politicians of state and national importance. He frequently was the confidential representative of the late Senator M. A. Hanna. A story which signifies the important events which have at times swung on him relates to the memorable Taft-Roosevelt contest in the Ohio State convention in 1912. The fight was for the control of the four delegates at large. A majority of the district delegates were for Roosevelt. The Taft forces had a margin of only five votes in the state convention to elect the delegates at large. There were enough' Roosevelt men in. the Cuyahoga county delegation to switch the margin, but they were held for Taft by the unit rule imposed by the Burton organization. It became known they would vote for the Roosevelt candidate if a poll of the delegation could be obtained. The usual rules provided that any member of the delegation could demand a poll of the convention, but none of them would go that far. To Mr. Cohn was entrusted the task of securing the adoption of rules which would break this deadlock. He performed it. By the exercise of diplomacy he succeeded in having the rules committee adopt rules which were as usual except for one word. They contained the word convention instead of 'delegation.' If the rules had gone through the convention in this form it would have permitted anyone in the convention to challenge the vote of the Cleveland delegation. A poll would have been taken Vol. II-22 and, according to expectations, enough Cleveland delegates would have voted for the Roosevelt delegate to change the complexion of the convention. The plan did not quite succeed, since the Taft forces discovered the strategem and the offensive word was changed to its original form. Had the plan not failed, current history might have been different. It is a well established belief that if President Taft had not secured the Ohio delegation at large he would not have been a candidate before the Chicago convention, the Progressive wing of the party probably would have won, and the national split in the party probably would not have occurred." Many more incidents might be related to show the character of the late Sam Cohn, whether as a business man or politician. But enough have been told to explain those deep forces which moved his life and enabled him to move and influence an entire community. No better commentary of his hold upon people of all conditions and classes could be found than the tribute paid to him after his death. The funeral services were held in the Jewish Educational Building in Toledo, Mr. Cohn having been closely identified with the founding and life of the Jewish Educational League, the main purpose of which is to aid Jewish immigrants. He was also prominent as an orthodox Jew in the congregation of B'Nai Jacob, was a member of the B'Nai Brith, the Independent Order Sons of Benjamin and the Maccabees. A great cosmopolitan assemblage crowded in and around the doors of the building in which the last rites were held for Mr. Cohn. Court proceedings in the County and Federal buildings were suspended. County offices were closed during the hours of the funeral. Business establishments in the Canton Street district conducted by Jews who came under Mr. Cohn's aid and guidance under his lifetime, were closed. After the Jewish Educational Building was filled to the doors there stood outside in the rain judges of the Common Pleas Court, lawyers, professional men, politicians of prominence and hosts of others. Members of the Commerce Club, Central Labor Union, Real Estate Board, city officials, merchants and small shopkeepers and persons of all parties and creeds were represented. One of Mr. Cohn's closest personal friends was Col. John W. Dowd. Many years ago they made a compact that the survivor of the two would speak at the funeral service of the other. It is fitting that some of the words 998 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO spoken by Colonel Dowd over the body of his dead friend should be repeated : "I like to think of him as a lineal descendant of those noble old patriarchs who loved mercy, who dealt justly and who walked courageously all the days of their lives. "For the last twenty-five years of his life he was in the public service. Little by little, by industry and energy and earnestness and perseverance, his merits became known and received recognition. At last he became a member of the Board of Review, a sphere in which he found a scope for his abilities. He delighted in his work and it is no disparagement to others to say that he was largely instrumental in so equalizing the burdens of taxation that the homes of the poor paid no more than their just proportion in comparison with the rich and well to do. He always looked out for the poor. And when his term expired, men of all creeds, classes and conditions and parties, with practical unanimity demanded that he be retained in the position. And this confidence of the public in him rendered happy the last years of his life. "And all his success he achieved while suffering from ills that would have crushed the ordinary man. For the last fifteen years of his life he was never free from pain, and always his face was cheerful and always his heart was courageous. Outside of his home this man's chief delight was in the society of his friends. He radiated cheerfulness. It was always a happy crowd when Sam Cohn. was there. His smile, his cheer, his wit, his wisdom, these a host of friends can never forget." To conclude this brief sketch of one who must long be called a first citizen of Toledo, there should be quoted a brief tribute from the words of Rabbi Alexander, who took as the text of his discourse the words of Samuel, "Here Am I." Rabbi Alexander then continued: "The theme of his life was, 'Here am I to serve the people, to make sacrifices for the well-being of the community.' He lived a life of service as few men have lived it, blending the ideal of Judea and the ideal of America. He was an intense Jew and a staunch American. It has been said that he was an American before he reached these 'shores. True to the traditions of Judea, he had a big conception of the part America should perform in the drama of the world. Every act of his was a commentary on this text. He may not have been conscious of this philosophy, yet he lived it. The world honors such men. This great outpouring from all the walks of life testifies the esteem in which he was held." ROBERT CUMMINGS was one of the old and honored business men of Toledo, where he resided nearly half a century, and where he was closely identified with. a number of im-portant concerns. Born in 1827, he lived to be seventy-five years of age, passing away at his Toledo home November 17, 1902. His was a life of varied experience and he was one of the men who saw the excitement and adventure of California in the days following the discovery of gold in 1848. He went west around Cape Horn, and was in California for several years until 1856. In 1857 he located permanently in Toledo, and soon acquired the position of junior partner with the wholesale boot and shoe firm of W. W. Griffith & Company. Later Mr. John Cummings, his brother, bought the interests of Mr. Griffith and the firm there-after was known as the R. and J. Cummings. The brothers prospered, and at one time their business was the most extensive of its kind between New York and Chicago. Besides his part in building up this firm which played so conspicuous a part in To-ledo's wholesale history, Mr. Cummings' capital and business judgment connected him with a number of other enterprises. Though nominally retired, he was associated with business until stricken by his last illness. As a democrat he was one of the leaders in that party and at one time was elected to the office of county treasurer, serving one term with credit to himself and his party. He was held in the highest esteem by all his business associates and friends, and for many years was a consistent member of the Collingwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, and served it in an official capacity. Mr. Cummings was survived by his widow and two sons, Robert and Harry W., and a daughter, Mrs. Ralph S. Holbrook, of Toledo. Since then the oldest son, Robert, has died. Harry W. and his sister, Mrs. Holbrook, are still residents of Toledo. Mrs. Mary P. Cummings, the mother of these children, died at her home in Toledo May 28, 1908. She was closely identified with the Presbyterian Church, had contributed largely to the support of the old church when its home was on Huron Street, but at the time of her death was a member of the Col- HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 999 lingwood Avenue Church. She was also at the time of her death president of The Old Ladies' Home of Toledo, an institution to which she contributed both of money and her time and had served it as president for twenty-five years. ELIAS FASSETT, who died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. M. J. Riggs, at 3136 Collingwood Avenue January 22, 1906, at the age of seventy-nine was one of Toledo's most interesting pioneers. For nearly three quarters of a century he had lived in and about the city, had played his part with fidelity in all the varied relations of business and private and. public service, and had watched the growth and development of Toledo in all its conspicuous phases. He was never ambitious for those high positions which attract so much attention from the general public, but was content to perform the routine of commonplace service and to do the duty which lay nearest. He was a man of fine character, marked integrity and the type of model citizen upon whom every community relies for the best elements of service in the time of need. He came of interesting New England ancestry and was born at Cambridge, Vermont, January 15, 1827. He was the youngest of three children whose parents were John and Martha (Thomas) Fassett. The Fassett ancestors came from Scotland and settled in Massachusetts in 1715. From Massachusetts the family moved to Vermont. His great-grandfather lived at Bennington, Vermont, and took part as a soldier in the French and Indian wars. Elias Fassett's grandfather was a captain under the gallant General Richard Montgomery during the Revolutionary. war. For his services in that conflict Congress granted him the entire township of Cambridge in the State of Vermont. After Vermont had become a state in the compact of the Union he became an associate judge of the Vermont Supreme Court, an office he filled with distinction for a number of years. John Fassett, father of Elias, was born at Bennington, Vermont, December 17, 1769, and after the Revolution moved with his parents to Cambridge Town. He studied medicine, and along with his profession combined much foresight and judgment in business affairs and was highly prospered. He served as a surgeon during the War of 1812. In 1832 he came west to Port Lawrence, now a part of the City of Toledo. Here he bought a section of land on what is now the east side of Toledo, and now subdivided and known as Fassett's First and Second Addition to the city. However, he did not locate permanently on this homestead until 1837. In the meantime he lived on Locust Street, on the present site of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. The late Elias Fassett was only five years of age when he came to Northwest Ohio. He lived in the home of his parents until, seventeen, and was given the privilege of attending the select and district schools about three months each winter. While the opportunities for learning was limited in the time and place, he was a man who absorbed knowledge by observation and extensive reading, and always passed as a man of broad and thorough information. It may be justly said that the complete evolution of Toledo from a frontier village into a city occurred under the observation of the late Elias Fassett. He was not altogether a passive witness of the changes going on about him. He had the distinction of having been the first newsboy. in Toledo. On October 16,1834, James Irving Browne began the publication of the Toledo Gazette. It was printed on an old. Franklin hand press. When in his eighth year Elias Fassett was employed to deliver twenty-seven copies of the Gazette in the district bounded by Elm, Cherry and Huron streets and the Maumee River. For that service he was paid twenty-five cents a week. Not long afterwards he began his practical business career as a clerk in the dry goods store of Raymond & Fassett, one of the members of which was an older brother. After three years of this experience he returned to his father's farm on the east side, and remained there until his father's death on May 26, 1853. The next year he became a checking clerk in the Toledo office of the Cleveland & Toledo Railroad, one of the first railroad lines in this section of Ohio and now a part of the New York Central System. He was with the railroad about a year, and for the following five years was in the employ of the Wabash railroad in various capacities. He then returned to his father's old homestead, and gave his time and energies to its responsible management for many years. About three years before his death he and his wife went to live with their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. M. J. Riggs. When the Fassett family first became established on the east side it is said there were