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Cuyahoga County, Ohio
History & Genealogy

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Source:
History of Cleveland and its Environs
The Heart of New Connecticut
Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1918
 

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Frank C. Cain
FRANK CLARK CAIN has long been a well known figure in grain circles at Cleveland and is partner and an active factor in the grain and feed business conducted under the name E. I. Bailey, with offices in The Arcade.
     In the public way Mr. Cain has come into special prominence because of his valued services as mayor of Cleveland Heights.  He became mayor of that village in 1914, and not because he desired especially the official honor but for the opportunity it gave him to serve the public welfare.  At the urging of the best citizens and leading civic organizations of the village, he became a candidate for reelection in the fall of 1915, and again consented to be a candidate in 1917 on account of the almost unanimous demand.  He received a vote which was little less than a unanimous endorsement of the splendid work lie had done in the preceding four years.  Even so, Mr. Cain would hardly qualify for mention among the leading men in politics either in his village or in Cuyahoga County.  His spirit and attitude throughout bas been that of a man conscientiously devoted to the central purpose of the general public welfare, without regard to his personal reputation or any subsequent honors which might come from his present incumbency.  Prom 1910 to 1914 Mr. Cain was a member of the village council, and from that was promoted to the office of mayor.
     In 1914, when he took the office of mayor, Cleveland Heights had a population of 3,000.  The population today is 11,000, and that means that a tremendous amount of development has been necessary in the municipal facilities to keep pace with this growing population.  The chief credit for all this has been assigned to Mayor Cain.  He is personally fearless, does what he thinks is best for all the people, and his term of office has been characterized by a steadfast devotion to the principle of general rather than particular welfare.  The right kind of paving has been used, the right kind of improvements have been made, and improvements have been planned and carried out for the benefit of all and not some few.  The tone and spirit of his official administration was well described by a resident of the village: "Mr. Cain has made a real mayor of the Heights and the voters of the village realize it.  He has made his presence felt in the village and has done much for its advancement.  You will never find him unreasonable but always ready and willing to hear arguments for or against improvements or for other matters pertaining to the municipality.  His watchword is advancement.  He is never looking backward, and for those reasons he is just the kind of mayor we want in Cleveland Heights." During the very first year of his administration Mr. Cain introduced the element of efficiency into every department of the village government.  His appointments brought men of thorough qualifications to the law department, the tax department, he gave the Heights a real police department, improved local transportation facilities, gave a new emphasis to the matter of street and road repair and improvement, and in addition to one or two definite improvements, such as removing the obstacle of accessibility to the village in the road over Cedar Glen Hill, he set the forces of the village government to work upon a general plan of park and street development.  Throughout his first and only thought has been for the benefit of Cleveland Heights, and with that aim in view and with a council operating in unison with him, everything has moved along in perfect harmony and with results that completely justify Mr. Cain's reelection for the second and the third term.
     Mayor Cain was born at Springfield, Ohio, May 6, 1877, a son of Edward A. and Alice F. (Rogers) Cain.  His parents are now living retired at Cleveland.  The old home of the Cains was at Dayton, where the family settled in pioneer times, coming overland from New Jersey in wagons.  Mayor Cain's father's grandmother lived in the second house built in Dayton, and was a member of one of the first families to settle there.  The Rogers were early settlers of Springfield, Ohio, and Grandfather Rogers for many years was the leading shoe merchant in the city.  His name was James Rogers. The paternal grandfather of Mayor Cain was John Clark Cain, who lived at Dayton and was proprietor of a wholesale dry goods business in that city.  This wholesale business was conducted in a day when goods were distributed to the retail merchants over the country in wagons.  Edward A. Cain when fourteen years of age went to Cincinnati for the purpose of enlisting as a soldier in the Civil war.  It was not his fault that he did not become a soldier and take part in that great struggle for freedom.  He had gone to Cincinnati without his parents' permission, and the authorities would not gratify his ardent desire to shoulder arms.  Mayor Cain is a republican in the expression of his political views, but inheritance probably has no part in his choice of party affiliations, since his father was an ardent democrat and his grandfather Rogers a republican.  The grandparents on both sides were very active Methodists, and did much to support and build up the church in their localities.
     Frank C. Cain was third in a family of nine children.  Seven of them grew up, and one died at the age of twenty-one and the other at twenty-four.  Three daughters and two sons are still living: Mrs. George N. Clark, of Cleveland Heights; Frank C.; Grace B., of Cleveland; Allen Brooks Cain, who is connected with the Indiana Harbor Belt Railway and lives at Chicago; and Mrs. Charles P. Davis, of Springfield, Ohio.
     Frank C. Cain received his early educational advantages in Springfield.  As a boy he was working for a mercantile agency, and also studied law for a short time.  He has been a resident of Cleveland since 1895.  In this city he was with Corrigan & McKinney a short time and for eight years was with the Goff-Kirby Coal Company, beginning as a clerk and attaining some of the important responsibilities of the business before he left.
     Since then Mr. Cain has been a partner and an active associate of E. I. Bailey in the grain and feed business.  While he is a silent partner so far as the title of the business is concerned, he handles a large share of the responsibilities.  The firm are members of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Grain Dealers National Association, Ohio Shippers Association, and Ohio Feed Dealers Association.
     Mr. Cain is interested in Cleveland Heights real estate and in 1916 he built the Forest Hill Block, comprising twelve stores and a garage on Mayfield Road between Superior and Ridgefield streets, the stores all having living apartments above. Mr. Cain is a charter member of Heights Lodge No. 623, Free and Accepted Masons, a charter member of Heights Chapter.  Royal Arch Masons, and has been first and foremost in the civic activities carried on by the Cleveland Heights Civic Club.  He is fond of outdoor life and is one of the best tennis players in the city.  He is identified with the Cleveland Heights Tennis Club, and won the club championship, represented by a gold medal, in 1912, and in 1916 was again the club champion, and has a cup as a trophy of that achievement.
     In the opinion of his friends and contemporaries Mr. Cain is one of the successful men of Cleveland. He personally disclaims any particular credit or reason for any success he has won, but such as it is he finds its mainspring and source largely in the splendid woman whom he married eighteen years ago and who has literally been associated with him in practically every interest and experience since that date.  Mr. Cain and Alma D. Lambert were married Aug. 1, 1900, and they have lived continuously at Cleveland Heights since the day of their marriage.  Mrs. Cain was born and educated in Cuyahoga County.  From early girlhood she has been a reader and student, and in each succeeding year has added something to her activities and attainments in practical living, home making, and those cultural interests which are the adornment of community life.  Her home, her husband, her children, have always been first in her thought and plans, but with all the cares and responsibilities of real home making she has kept her mind fresh and her spirit alive and has joined with zest in several of the best known women 's organizations.  She is a member of the "Woman's Civic Club, The Cleveland Literary Guild, the Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Cleveland Red Cross.  Mr. and Mrs. Cain reside at 1769 Radnor Road.  Their three children were all born at Cleveland Heights and their names and respective ages are: Dorothy Alice, sixteen; Donald Lambert, eleven; and Lucile Hayward, six.  Dorothy is now beginning her senior year in the Cleveland Heights High School.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 54 - Vol. 2
  FRANK C. CAINE has a very distinctive place in the business history of Cleveland.  In 1894 he was the leading spirit in organizing the National Concrete Fire Proofing Company.  At that time, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the use of concrete was still in an experimental stage.  While plaster and adobe construction was much older, it is safe to say that anything like a modern concrete building of any size was not then in existence in the United States.  The National Concrete Fire Proofing Company has kept pace and at the head of the procession in the matter of concrete construction in all its multiple forms and uses.  It is not merely a trade name, since this company is truly national in scope and importance.  As contractors for fireproof construction of all descriptions and general concrete work, this company with general offices in the Citizens Building at Cleveland, can point to notable buildings in all the cities of the United States.  As pioneers in their line they have done their part in popularizing concrete as a construction material, and have adapted it to many of its modern uses.
     Just a few of the larger contracts handled by this company can be noted.  They constructed the State Hospital for the Criminal Insane at Lima, Ohio, a contract with the state involving $2,500,000.  They also erected the Syracuse Court House in Syracuse, New York, the Dollar Savings & Trust Company Building at Youngstown, the East Technical High School of Cleveland, the Illumination plant on East Seventieth Street, the Hotel Patten at Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Columbus Savings & Trust Company building at Columbus, the Whitney Power Block on Oregon Street in Cleveland, and also the Rich Knitting Works on Euclid Avenue, the L. N. Gross factory on Lakeside Avenue, the Lorain Street Savings Bank Building of Cleveland, and many others of this type.  They built the Normal school on East Boulevard and have done work of this character as far west as Grand Junction, Colorado, and as far south as Chattanooga, Tennessee.
     Frank C. Caine, president of the company, has been identified with Cleveland as a home and business center practically all his life.  He was born at Cleveland June 15, 1863, son of William and Jane (Caley) Caine.  Both parents were born on the Isle of Man, and their respective families were early settlers in the community of Cleveland.  Jane Caley was born in 1830, and when she was a year old her parents located in Warrensville on Woodland avenue, about a mile from the Shaker Heights Country Club, where she grew to womanhood.  William Caine was the first of his family to come to America, but later he brought all his relatives and settled them on a farm not far from Cleveland.  William Caine spent his active life in the shoe business.  He had a store on Ontario street, and was a merchant here for many years.  He was born in 1823 and died at the end of October, 1880, at the age of fifty-seven.  His wife died Feb. 28, 1895, aged sixty-five.  They were married in Ohio and were the parents of three sons: William O., vice president of the Union Commerce National Bank of Cleveland; Frank C.; and Charles C., who died at the age of' six years.
     Frank C. Caine was educated in Cleveland, attending the Spencerian Business College.  In 1880, at the age of seventeen, he began his business career with Gorham, Starke & Company, washboard manufacturers of Cleveland.  When this firm failed he went with the hardware house of George Worthington & Company as assistant bookkeeper, and in the ranks of that business he acquired the experience and developed the talent which eventually enabled him to become an independent businessman.  He was assistant bookkeeper for the company, in 1883 was promoted to general bookkeeper, and in 1885 to cashier.
     Mr. Caine resigned from the Worthington Company in October, 1891, and for about a year with other associates was in the machine and boiler business.  After that he was in the jobbing of saddlery hardware under the name of Grimm-Caine Company until 1894, when he took up the concrete fireproofing work which has developed into the National Concrete Fire Proofing Company.  A significant fact about this business is that there has never been a strike in its history.  While Mr. Caine is president of the company and a stockholder in many other organizations, he has been really retired from active responsibilities for the last five years, and has spent every winter of that time in California.
     Mr. Caine is a member of the Union Club, Cleveland Athletic Club,  Shaker Heights Country Club, Willowick Country Club, Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Cleveland Automobile Club, and his favorite recreation is golf.  He was brought up in the atmosphere of the Methodist Episcopal church, his parents being very active in that church.
     Nov. 10, 1891, at Chicago, Mr. Caine married Miss Gertrude Coffman.  She was born in Galesburg, Illinois, but was reared and educated in Chicago.  She is a daughter of Samuel and Mary (Burnside) Coffman.  Her father at the time of his death in 1910 was the oldest livestock commission man in Chicago.  For many years he was head of the commission house of Coffman, Ream & Adams Company.  Both of Mrs. Caine 's parents died in Chicago.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 54 - Vol. 3
  LEONARD CASE, JR.  It is the name of Leonard Case, Jr., that is borne by the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland, and it is to give the important facts of his life and something of his personal relations with the school that the following paragraphs are written:
     He was born at Cleveland June 27, 1820, a son of Leonard and Elizabeth (Gaylord) Case.  Leonard Case, Sr., was born in Pennsylvania July 29, 1786, the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and became identified with Cleveland as cashier of its first bank in 1816.  He died in 1864.  Leonard Case, Sr., hadonly two sons, William Case, who was born in 1818 and died in 1862; and Leonard, Jr.
     Leonard Case, Jr.
, was reared and educated at Cleveland and in 1838 entered Yale College, from which he graduated in 1842.  From 1842 to 1844 he studied law in Cincinnati, and was admitted to the bar.  Though he opened a law office, he used most of his abilities in assisting his father in the handling of the estate rather than in promoting a general practice.  He also used his generous means for extensive travel, and from early manhood was devoted to literary pursuits, and has left poems and other writings which justify his being ranked among the leading men of literature of his generation.  Upon the death of his father in 1864 he freed himself as far as possible from the cares of business by turning over his. affairs chiefly to Henry G. Abbey as his general business manager and confidential agent.  From that time until his death in 1880 Leonard Case, Jr., was able to devote himself to study, literary and mathematical, to the care of his precarious health and to the chosen friends whose society he enjoyed with keenest relish.
     Of his literary work his biographer has said: "We must not suppose Leonard Case could be for a moment idle.  From his earliest boyhood he was noted for his industry.  He never went from home without making most elaborate histories of the incidents and accidents of his journey; and to these are added full statistics and descriptions of all the places and persons he became acquainted with.  Many volumes of hundreds of pages each were filled with these writings, and other volumes with solutions of complicated and difficult problems which had been given out in astronomical and other journals for solution by anyone who could cope with the subject.
     "Besides were the poetic works; among them that most admirable and witty poem 'Treasure Trove, ' the racy and charming mixture of comedy, tragedy and satire, written about 1860 and published in the Atlantic Monthly; also a great many other shorter poems, including a translation from the Italian of 'The Swallow' which seems to show the highest poetic merit and by many thought to be a more successful rendering of the exquisite sentiments of the original than any of the translations made by William Cullen Bryant and other poets."
     Leonard Case, Jr., was one of the most unselfish of men.  In our modern generation he would have been called "a true sportsman," and in everything he did he exemplified the best qualities and ideals of sportsmanship.  He had no envy, was generous of his means but wise in their use, and there are many occasions on which he expended his assistance liberally to people and communities in distress.
     The two distinguishing acts of his life, the endowing of the Case Library Association and the founding of the Case School of Applied Science, were, as his biographer shows, carried out with the utmost freedom from ostentation or personal pride.  As to the founding of the Case School of Applied Science Judge James D. Cleveland, its president, wrote as part of the general biography the following statement:
     "In 1876 the project of devoting a share of his estate to the founding of a scientific school seems to have been fully perfected.  It is not necessary to enquire whether the idea was entirely original with him.  It was foreshadowed by his father's expressions of a desire to do something for the education of indigent youth, having been taught by the struggles of his early life how bitter is the lot of men who, born with a divine thirst for knowledge, are unable to attain it; and it was foreshadowed by the half formed projects of "William Case, who lived, moved and had his highest enjoyment in anticipations of libraries, galleries and museums of art and natural history; projects unrealized but never forgotten by the surviving brother.  It remained for Leonard, the last one of his family, to fully and carefully devise a plan by which he would benefit the youth of his native city.
     "It was a work to which he brought, the most generous spirit, a long foresight of the future wants of a country expanding and developing untold resources of mines and manufactures, and a religious regard for the honor and wishes of his father and the enthusiastic projects of his brother.  He sought every aid for the development of his thought by consulting others who had wisdom, experience, and love of learning.
     "He believed that he could do most to express the debt of gratitude which his father always acknowledged to be owing to the city in which he had prospered, by extending a helping hand to those who were making a start in life.  He had begun to do this in occasional instances; now he would put the business upon a broad and well founded basis, equipped, and fortified for all future time.  He believed that he could devise nothing better for the youth of Cleveland and his state than to provide them with the means of obtaining at their very doors, a sound, extensive and practical scientific knowledge.
     "He thought that colleges which only aimed at the culture of men by long years of devotion to the ancient Greek and Latin literature and mathematics ought to be supplemented by schools where the application of pure science to particular classes of problems would meet the demand of an age of progress in manufactures, arts, mining, railroads, and electrical engineering, and enable men to unlock the secrets of nature and our country's hidden resources.
     "He hoped to enable every lad whose capacity, ambition and strength of fibre were sufficient to pull him through the grammar and high schools of the city, and to profit by the opportunities offered him by a scientific school, to step at once into the practical application of all his knowledge and culture to the problems with which a daring, aggressive, energetic people were already wrestling.
     "The country was full of minerals and coals, and all the incidents of transportation and manufacture required engineering, chemistry, science, to give perfection and success to the forces and processes to be used.  Men must be thoroughly trained to do good work, and good work is alone of any value.  Others must be trained for original investigation; to carry the light into the darkest and remotest secret of the natural world, which gives up its best and most valuable things only to the hardest fighters, the most persistent brain, the most untiring searcher after truth.
     "To the foundation of a school of applied science, then, Leonard Case resolved to devote a handsome share of his fortune, leaving another large share for the law to distribute among his father's kinsmen.  He availed himself of the counsel of the Honorable Judge Rufus P. Ranney and his careful drafting of the legal papers to ensure the proper limitations of the trust and perpetuity of the benefaction.
     "On Feb. 24, 1877, he delivered the trust deed to Mr. Henry G. Abbey which invested him with the title of lands to endow The Case School of Applied Science, in  the city of Cleveland, in which should be taught by competent teachers, mathematics, physics, engineering, mechanical and civil chemistry, economic geology, mining and metallurgy, natural history, drawing and modern languages, and such other kindred branches of learning as the trustees of said institution might deem advisable.
     "As there was nothing he disliked more than notoriety, and especially such notoriety as is won by apparent ostentatious deeds of benevolence, the course he took in this matter effectually prevented any public knowledge of his purpose until he was beyond the reach of any public or individual gratitude.
     "His death occurred Jan. 6, 1880.  By an unremitting battle with disease he succeeded in reaching nearly his sixtieth year.  For the last six or eight years, however, it had been a struggle for mere existence, his broken health gradually but surely declining in spite of the best care and highest medical skill.
     "That day one of his oldest friends paid this tribute to his character:  'Those who knew him well must say that no kinder-hearted, no truer friend had lived than Leonard Case; and nowhere could be found a man more worthy of the name of gentleman in its highest sense.' "
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 477 - Vol. 3
  LEONARD CASE, SR.  The citizens of Cleveland are laid under a perpetual obligation by the extensive benefactions of the Case family.  While they enjoy the splendid resources of the institutions bearing that name, they may also read and study with increasing profit and inspiration the career of the citizen who was like one of the cornerstones of Cleveland's early prosperity and upbuilding.  He was a remarkable man not only for the wealth he gained and the influences he set in motion, but also for his personal character and the tremendous obstacles he overcame during a long and active life.
     He was born July 29, 1786, in what might be properly called the backwoods of Pennsylvania, in Westmoreland County, near the Monongahela River, three years before Great Britain and the American colonies had concluded peace after the long struggle of the Revolution.  But the colonies were still struggling with the problem of an adequate government, and it was nearly three years before "Washington was inaugurated as the first PresidentMeshach Case, his father, had been a soldier in the Revolutionary struggle, and the hardships of his service told upon his health, and he suffered so much from asthma that he was a partial invalid while Leonard was growing up.  Leonard was the oldest in a family of eight children.  He was of German and Holland ancestry, and lived in a substantial community of Western Pennsylvania, but whatever the desires and aspirations of the people may have been, the times were not yet mature for schools and extended opportunities for training beyond what every child could learn by active contact with the woods and the frontier.  An itinerant schoolmaster would open and hold a brief term of school in some of the log schoolhouses of Westmoreland County, and through such instruction Leonard Case learned between his fourth and eleventh years how to read, how to form the letters of the alphabet and the simpler use of figures and arithmetic.  He was endowed with vigorous and sound constitution.  At the age of seven he was cutting wood for the fires, at ten was threshing grain, and at twelve made a hand in the harvest field.  To understand his life it is necessary to refer more or less constantly to the customs and the environment in which he lived.  That part of Pennsylvania in which he spent his boyhood was close to the scene of the famous whisky rebellion.  The use of strong drink was unchecked save by individual prohibition, and even the ministers of the Gospel indulged freely in alcoholic beverages.  Everyone drank in those days, and whisky was liberally dispensed at harvest times and all other occasions of hard work or social commingling.  Mr. Case says in his autobiography: "To aid in making the ends, of the year come together, my father set up a distillery on a small scale about the year 1792.  It frequently fell to my part to stir the bur in the still white heating, to prevent the mash from
burring on the side and bottom of the still.  It was customary in those days for all men to drink whiskey.  Occasionally neighbors would meet at the still house and after having drank rather freely— good men and good friends with each other— would frequently say hard things to and of each other.  As I sat perched upon the furnace stirring the still and looking on, I made up my mind that drinking whiskey was a bad business and that I would not drink it, and from thence (about six years old) until the present writing [1853] I do not think I have drank a gill. *  *  *."
     In 1799 his father and mother, leaving Westmoreland County on horseback, traveled over that portion of Ohio known as the Connecticut Western Reserve.  They bought 200 acres of land in the Township of Warren, in Trumbull County. The following spring, Apr. 26, 1800, the family, after a journey from Westmoreland County, arrived at their new location, being accompanied by several of their Pennsylvania neighbors.  On the Fourth of July they celebrated the Independence anniversary, and there were not fifty people besides them in the entire domain of the Connecticut Land Company.
     Leonard Case was not fourteen years of age when he was transferred to the extreme limits of civilization in Northern Ohio.  From April, 1800, until October, 1801, he lived and enjoyed the life of the typical frontiersman.  He was the main dependence of the family, did the heaviest work, planted and cultivated and harvested the crops, killed the wild game, such as deer and bear, and acted as herdsman for the family cattle.  In the fall of 1801 he was pursuing his herd of cattle, which had strayed to a considerable distance from home pastures, and while overheated from the chase he crossed the Mahoning River by plunging into its cold waters and swimming to the other side.  This exposure brought on fever, the fever was complicated by ulceration, and the illness made him a cripple all the rest of his life.  There was never a day from that time until he died that he was entirely free from pain, and the achievements of his subsequent years must be read with constant reference to this semi-invalidism.  His sickness was prolonged, and two years passed before he was able to sit up in bed.
     Weakened in body, he was undaunted in spirit.  He resolved that he should not be dependent upon charity or upon the labors of others, and while slowly convalescing he applied himself to the mastery of reading and writing, invented and made instruments for drafting, and in order to secure books and clothes he used his skillful hands in putting bottoms on chairs and making riddles and sieves for the threshing and cleaning of grain.  In these products of his hands he discovered a way to make himself useful in the community, but his opportunities were not long confined to such a narrow field.
     His excellent handwriting had attracted the attention of the clerk of the court at Warren, and in 1806 he was appointed clerk of the Supreme Court of Trumbull County.  He began a diligent study of the laws and the land titles of Ohio, and he was especially concerned with the studying and copying of records of the Connecticut Land Company in the recorder's office.  This opened to him a branch of knowledge in which he subsequently became an unsurpassed expert.  In 1807 Gen. Simon Perkins, land agent for the Connecticut Land Company, made him his confidential clerk.  About that time Col. John S. Edwards, recorder of Trumbull County, which then included all the Western Reserve, advised the boy to study law and furnished him the books necessary to carry out the plan.
     During that period of his life Mr. Case made an abstract of the drafts of the Connecticut Land Company, showing from the records of the company all the original proprietors of the Reserve and the lands purchased by them.  This abstract was so correct that it became the standard and source of all searchers for land titles, and it is still copied and used by all the abstractors and examiners of titles in the counties of the original Reserve.  In a short time Mr. Case was given the duty of collecting the non-resident taxes in the Western Reserve.  This work and his increasing service as an expert on land titles occupied him throughout the period of the War of 1812, during which time he continued his residence at Warren.
     His active connection with the City of Cleveland came in 1816, when he was appointed cashier of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, the first bank of Cleveland, recently reorganized.  He removed to Cleveland, and besides performing his duties as cashier he practiced law and became a land agent.  The original bank of Cleveland fared as did nearly all other financial institutions of the time and was compelled to suspend operations, but later was revived with Mr. Case as president.
     The first half of the last century was not a period in which specialization in business or in the professions was encouraged or reached an important degree of development.  Mr. Case's example was as a noteworthy contrast to this rule, and his success was due to the acquisition of an experience and a range of knowledge covering every detail of the complications of land titles.  He had a natural taste for the investigation of land titles and was enthusiastic in pursuing his researches into the history of such transactions.  From 1827 to 1855 he had the agency for the Connecticut Land Company, and while this and his other business proved highly profitable, it also gratified his tastes for research.
     The early Village of Cleveland, as well as the modern city, owed much to Mr. Case's active and vitalizing public spirit.  He was one who looked ahead into the future, and brought influence to bear upon the improvement of the streets, the extension of the schools and the building up of strong religious influences.  He is credited with a civic plan which was put in operation a great many years ago and the results of which were seen in the planting of numerous shade trees along the streets, and that addition to the city's beauty more than anything else won for Cleveland the name "Forest City."  From 1821 until 1825 he served as president of the Village of Cleveland.  When Cuyahoga County was created he served as its first auditor.
     From 1824 to 1827 he sat in the State Legislature from Cuyahoga County.  In the Legislature he used his services effectively to carry out the plan of internal improvement in which another great Cleveland man and a contemporary of Mr. Case was so prominent.  He persistently labored in behalf of the Ohio canals, and he also originated and drafted the first bill in Ohio providing for the raising of taxes on lands according to their value.  Up to that time taxes had been assessed without discrimination, so much per acre, and he changed the method from a quantitative to an ad valorem basis.  It was Leonard Case's name that appeared at the head of the subscription list for the stock of the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railway Company.  Opposite his name was the amount $5,000.  He helped organize this first railway project for Cleveland.
     Among his personal characteristics it is recalled that a business rule from which he never deviated was to contract no debt beyond his ability to pay within two years without depending; upon a sale of property.  He had unlimited opportunities for buying lands in the early days, and while he bought on a large scale, he was not moved by that narrow speculative spirit which holds back progress rather than promotes it.  He never refused to sell lands nor put any obstacle in the way of settlement or improvement, and it was not his policy to keep large tracts out of the market until they benefited by the increase of value due to the work of others and the natural increase of population.  Mr. Case accumulated many acres that have since proved to be valuable portions of Cleveland, and in the course of time he was owner of a large estate which in his later lifetime became exceedingly remunerative.
     Leonard Case, Sr., was married Sept. 28, 1817, at Stow, in Portage County, Ohio, to Miss Elizabeth Gaylord, of Middletown, Connecticut.  From 1819 to 1826 the family lived at the corner of Bank and Superior streets in a frame house.  That house also accommodated the Commercial Bank, of which Mr. Case was president.  In 1826 he moved to the beautiful homestead on the east side of the Public Square.  His dwelling faced to the west, while his business offices fronted the square, nearer Rockwell Street.
     Leonard Case was a unique figure in the business and civic life of Cleveland during its first half century.  Physically he was feeble, and with the frailty of constitution which results from almost constant illness and an early stunting of growth.  But otherwise he was a tower of strength, broad, square and lofty in wisdom, character and financial stability.  He was in truth the source of all wisdom on all Ohio land laws, and had done perhaps more than any individual to mold those laws.  Along with the ability and judgment that resided in his intellect he had all the beauties of character and the heart.  It is said that hardly a person in Cleveland in those early days did not feel at liberty to approach and shake his friendly hand as he sat in his carriage in the streets or in his armchair in the office.
     Leonard Case. Sr., died at Cleveland Dec. 7, 1864, having lived to be more than seventy-eight years of age.  His wife died Aug. 30, 1857.  His first son, William, was born at Cleveland, Aug. 10, 1818, and died in 1862. He was survived only by his son Leonard Case, Jr., who was born June 27, 1820, at Cleveland, and died Jan. 6, 1880.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 328 - Vol. 3
  JOHN THOMAS CASSIDY is a Cleveland lawyer, now assistant director of law in the civil department.   All his life has been spent in Cleveland and he is a member of a well known family of the city.  He was born Aug. 18, 1886, son of the late John M. Cassidy and Bridget (O'Hare) Cassidy.  His father was born in Belfast and his mother in Limerick, Ireland, and they were married in Cleveland, where Mrs. Bridget Cassidy still lives.  She came to this country with brothers and sisters, other members of her family having preceded her.  John M. Cassidy, who came to America alone at the age of seventeen, was a stationary engineer by trade.  He filled the position of engineer of the Cleveland City Hall under the late Mayor Robert E. McKisson and was also city hall engineer from 1909 to 1911 under Mayor Herman C. Baehr.  He was very active in his ward in republican politics, was a man who made and retained friendships and had a large following in the city.  He died at Cleveland, May 21, 1914. when nearly sixty years of age.  In the family two sons and one daughter died in early childhood and those still living are four daughters and three sons.  James T. Cassidy is a twin brother of Charles A., and they were fourth in order of birth.  Charles A. is now manager of The Progress Cloak Company at Columbus, a store owned by the Sunshine Cloak and Suit Company of Cleveland.  May is now Mrs. Ferd A. Henry; Florence is now Mrs. E. J. Burke of Cleveland, while Anna, Agnes and Harry are still at home.
     James Thomas Cassidy received his education in the Hough School, one year in the St. Thomas Aquinas Parochial School, and subsequently was a student in St. Ignatius College and for a year and a half in Adelbert College. In preparation for the law he entered the Western Reserve University, spending two years there and then studying privately.  In June, 1913, he passed the Ohio State Bar Association and began practice alone with offices in the Engineers Building.  He practiced until January, 1916, when he was appointed assistant director of law.  He has the responsibility of looking after the negligence branch of the law and the trial of personal injury and damage cases.
     Mr. Cassidy is an active leader in republican politics in Cleveland.  He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, City Club, Cleveland Lodge No. 18 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Young Men's Business Club of Cleveland, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic parish.  Mr. Cassidy is fond of all forms of out-of-door sports.  He is still unmarried and lives at home with, his mother at 1339 East Ninety-third Street.*

Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 293 - Vol. II
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* 1339 E. 93rd Street is no longer there.
  BRUCE CHISHOLM, youngest son of the late Wilson B. Chisholm and Mrs. Nellie A. (Brainard) Chisholm, is the third generation of a prominent Cleveland family, and is a young business man who for his age has an unusual equipment of experience and forceful ability.
     He was born in Cleveland Dec. 12, 1894.  His liberal education was derived from attendance at preparatory schools at Asheville, North Carolina, Lake Placid, New York; Fessenden School of Boston, and elsewhere.  From school he went into his father 's factory, the Champion Rivet Company, but in a short time engaged in the automobile industry for himself.
     He is best known in automobile circles as head of the Boyce Moto Meter Agency for Ohio and Kentucky and in 1918 he became state agent for Ohio of the Biddle Motor Car Company.  The Biddle motor car is not one of the widely known popular cars, but is a highly individualized car, made and sold to those who are satisfied only with certain standards of quality and distinction and regard price as a secondary consideration to these essentials.  Mr. Chisholm 's business headquarters are at 2366 Euclid Avenue.
     At Cleveland, Sept. 18, 1917, he married Miss Rita Parsons.  They reside at 2207  St. James Parkway, Cleveland Heights. *

Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 157 - Vol. 3
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* Home still standing as of 2021
  HENRY CHISHOLM.  Cleveland has been for so long and in so important a degree one of the great centers of the iron and steel industry of America, that the growth and power of that business could never be completely illustrated through the activities and achievements of one man or even any group of men.  But completeness and adequacy would suffer least and leave fewer big gaps and deficiencies in the story, if the detailed activities of the late Henry Chisholm were surveyed than probably would be true of any individual of the past.  He was not only one of the big men of Cleveland but one of the big men in America in the iron and steel manufacture.
     Like America's most famous ironmaster he was a native of Scotland, and came of a family not wealthy but self respecting and above the plane of real property.
     He was born at Lochgelly in Fifeshire Apr. 22, 1822.  His father Stewart Chisholm was a mining contractor and died when his son Henry was ten years old.  It was this tragedy in the family history which abbreviated Henry Chisholm's advantages in schools and forced him into the ranks of wage earners at a comparatively early age.  His school days ended at the age of twelve years, and as a journeyman he worked in Glasgow for three years.  This brought him to the age of twenty, and in 1842 he crossed the ocean and settled at Montreal.  He had not a dollar when he arrived there, and at that time there were probably a million young men of his age, with equal or more abundant opportunities, and with the world turning as bright an aspect upon them as upon this young Scotchman.  He was in Montreal seven years.  Part of the time he worked at his trade for others, and finally got into business on his own account and developed a considerable organization for handling various building contracts up and down the St. Lawrence River.
     When Henry Chisholm came to Cleveland he was twenty-eight years of age.  That was in 1850.  With a friend from Montreal he built a breakwater for the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railway Company at the lake terminus.  It was a big contract, and he gave it his direct personal supervision for about three years.  So thoroughly and well was it done, that other offers and a large volume of business was presented to him as soon as it was completed.  Thereafter for several years his services were busily employed in building piers and docks along the lake front of Cleveland.
     By 1857 Henry Chisholm had amassed a modest fortune for those days of about twenty-five thousand dollars.  That was only the foundation of his real success.  He entered the ranks of iron manufacturers in 1857 and was one of the pioneers in establishing that industry in Cleveland.  He was first a member of the firm Chisholm, Jones & Company, who established a rolling mill and manufactured railroad iron.  Later the name was changed to Stone, Chisholm & Jones.  That mill employed about a hundred fifty men and produced about fifty tons a day.  The new rails were manufactured from iron from Lake Superior ors.  To convert these ores into pig iron the firm erected a blast furnace at Newburg in 1859.  It was the first blast furnace in that part of Ohio.  The following year another furnace was erected, and the company modified its facilities for the manufacture of other classes of rolled iron besides rails.
     From Cleveland as a center and with Mr. Chisholm as the organizing genius the business spread rapidly and steadily.  A rolling mill was erected in Chicago.  Blast furnaces were established in Indiana, and these blast furnaces were supplied with ores from Lake Superior and Missouri.  In 1864 Stone, Chisholm & Jones organized the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, into which the partnership merged.  The company soon bought the Lake Shore Rolling Mill.
     One of the plumes of distinction accorded to Mr. Chisholm and his associates was the construction in 1865 of the second Bessemer steel works in the United States, and not only second but one of the most successful and perfect plants of its kind.  This plant began with a capacity of twenty thousand tons annually.  At the end of forty years its capacity was a hundred fifty thousand tons annually, and employment was furnished to about six thousand men, while the value of manufactured products was twelve million dollars.  The mill manufactured steel rails in great quantity, but also many thousands of tons of other classes of steel and for almost every conceivable purpose.  In the course of time the company acquired its own mines in the Lake Superior district and at these mines something like three hundred men were employed.  In the course of time the company acquired its own mines in the Lake Superior district and at these mines something like three hundred men were employed.  In the course of Henry Chisholm's lifetime the value of the products of the different establishments of the company in Cleveland reached about fifteen million dollars annually.
     In 1871 he organized the Union Rolling Mill Company of Chicago, an institution independent of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company.  He and Chicago partners erected a rolling mill at Decatur, Illinois.  He lived to see the business of these concerns aggregate twenty-five million dollars annually and furnish employment to eight thousand men.
    These are some of the achievements which have led to an assertion, hardly possible of contradiction, that no iron industry in the United States had such small beginnings in such a short space of time.  In less than eighteen years the business which Mr. Chisholm established in 1857 had come to rep0resent an investment of ten millions.  No panics materially affected the business of his concern, and in fact his industries were on such permanent basis that they were frequently able to extend financial assistance to some of the large and small railroad companies during periods of financial depression.
     Henry Chisholm was a fine type of the old fashioned employer, the real industrial leader, the man who went in and out among his workmen, understood some of the details of their commonplace existence as well as their rated capacity for doing a given quantity of work, and always remained accessible to the humblest man in his  industries.  Wealth never spoiled him and his simplicity of manner and unaffected sympathy were some of the finest fruits of real democracy.  His authority was based upon something more than autocratic and arbitrary power.
     Henry Chisholm died May 9, 1881, comparatively young in years, not yet three score.  At the time of his death he was giving employment to more people than there were in Cleveland when he came here.  The news of his death affected the community like a blow.  The men in his employment immediately stopped work and went to their homes.  They could not go on.  The societies with which he was connected passed appropriate resolutions, the works were closed down, and the community felt that one of its best men had been taken.  He was a man of great power but above all of love for his fellowmen.
     He was never a figure in political life and yet no one could have done more in the line of public service.  Any good charity could command his means, and institutions of religion and benevolence did in fact lean heavily upon him.  The individual cases of assistance were unmeasured in number and unrecorded in memory except by the persons themselves.  Mr. Chisholm was a trustee or director of four of the charitable institutions of Cleveland, for twenty years was an active member of the Second Baptist Church, and had a large number of business and financial connections with banks and manufacturing corporations.
     In Scotland Henry Chisholm married Miss Jean Allen of Dumfermline, Fifeshire.  They were the parents of five sons and three daughters.  Henry and Stewart died in infancy, and Christina at the age of five.  The oldest, William Chisholm, now deceased, became manager of the rolling mills established by his father at Chicago and later took his father's place in the Cleveland Rolling Mill.  He was vice president and general manager of the Rolling Mill of Chicago for seventeen years, and father his father's death was president and director of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company.  He was a very able business man.  The second son, Stewart H., has also been a big figure in iron and steel circles in Cleveland.  The third son, Wilson B., is deceased.  The daughters are Catherine, Mrs. A. T. Osborn, and Janet, Mrs. C. B. Beach.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 504
  STEWART HENRY CHISHOLM.  In 1849 Cleveland had a population of eighteen thousand.  In that year Stewart Henry Chisholm, a child of three years, came to the city with his parents.  One of the greatest cities of America has grown up around him.  In that city, especially in its industrial and business affairs, he has played a role of increasing activities and ability corresponding to the growth of the community.  He is a real part of Cleveland as Cleveland is a part of him.
     The work of many years can be briefly summarized and suggested by nothing his important business connections as vice president of the American Steel & Wire Company, and of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, and as president of the H. P. Nail Company, the Chisolm-Moore Manufacturing Company, the Long Arm System Company, the American Grass Twine Company, and as a director and stockholder in a number of other corporations.
     Mr. Chisholm was born at Montreal, Canada, Dec. 21, 1846, a son of the late Henry and Jean (Allen) Chishol m, to whom a separate sketch is dedicated on other pages.  Mr. Chisholm as a boy attended the Cleveland public schools, and his first employment was with Stone, Chisholm & Jones, which later became the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company and finally as a branch of the United States Steel Company became the material plant of the American Steel & Wire Company.  It is to this industry he has devoted practically half a century of his lifetime, and from it his connections have spread to numerous other corporations.
     Mr. Chisholm is a member of the Union Club, Country Club and the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, and in politics is a republican.
     September 25, 1872, Mr. Chisholm married Miss Harriette Kelley, daughter of George A. and Martha J. (Eastland) Kelley of Kelley's Island, Ohio.  She died Dec. 30, 1895, the mother of three sons: Wilson K., a graduate of Yale University with the class of 1898, now connected with a hardware supply company; Clifton, who after two years in Yale University, became associated with the American Steel and Wire Company; and Douglas, a graduate of Yale in 1909, in 1910 married Edith Collings, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Geo. E. Collings and she died in 1917 leaving two children Douglas and Margaret JeanDouglas Chislom is in the banking and bond business.  Jan. 23, 1900, Stewart H. Chisholm married Mrs. Henry P. Card who died Mar. 17, 1901.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 503
  WILSON B. CHISHOLM.   During a life of sixty-five years, all but two years spent as a resident of Cleveland, Wilson B. Chisholm gained a distinctive place among Cleveland manufacturers, being especially prominent in the iron and steel industry, and was also prominent in social affairs and widely known among the horsemen and promoters of high class sports.
     He was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1848, a son of the late Henry Chisholm, one of the foremost iron and steel manufacturers of Cleveland, concerning whom more particulars will he found on other pages.  In 1850 the Chisholm family came to Cleveland, when Wilson B. was two years of age, and he grew up and received his education in the city, and in early manhood entered the business which his father had helped to found.  For fifteen years or more he was vice president and manager of the Cleveland Rolling Mills Company, and subsequently was president of the Champion Rivet Company, in which he was an interested stockholder at the time of his death.  He was also one of the large stockholders in the Chisholm & Moore Manufacturing Company, and a director of the Chisholm-Phillips Automobilium Company.
     Hard work and constant associations with business responsibilities threatened a breakdown in health, and in consequence he withdrew from business affairs largely in 1902, and during the next twelve years kept himself constantly occupied with sports and interests that brought him into the out-of-doors.  Horse racing was, perhaps, his greatest enthusiasm, and as a man of wealth he owned some of the finest horses and racers in the country.  One of his daughters, Mrs. Ruth Newcomer, before her marriage was a noted horsewoman and one of the best woman golfers in the Cleveland district.
     Wilson B. Chisholm died at his beautiful home, "Thistle Hall," in East Cleveland, May 10, 1914.  He had been a member of the Cleveland Athletic Club, Colonial Club, Union Club, Country Club, Euclid Club, Roadside Club, had served as vice president of the Gentlemen's Riding Club, and was a director in the Forest City Livestock and Fair Company.
     At Cleveland Mr. Chisholm married Nellie A. Brainard.  She and their five children, all of whom are married, survive.  The three daughters are Mrs. E. S. Burke, Jr., Mrs. John H. Hord and Mrs. Frank C. Newcomer, all of social prominence in Cleveland, and the two sons are Henry and Bruce, both of Cleveland.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 156 - Vol. 3
  WILLIAM JOSEPH CLARK, head of the William Joseph Clark Company, investment securities at Cleveland, is distinctly a man of action, and has crowded his still youthful years with experience, work and varied business responsibilities.
     He was born at Kennedy, New York, September 18, 1879, and comes of old and solid New England ancestry on both sides.  He is the fifth William Joseph Clark in as many generations of the family in America.  Two miles from his birthplace at Kennedy is the Town of Clark which was named in honor of his grandfather, William Joseph Clark, a prominent lumberman.  The parents of Mr. Clark are Egbert R. and Christina (Lent) Clark, both natives of New York State.  Both are now living retired at Jamestown.  Egbert Clark was engaged in the lumber industry in his younger days, and is also connected with the Erie Railway and in business up to 1908, when he retired.  At one time he was superintendent of right of way for the A. A. & T. Company, controlling the Bell Telephone System.
     William Joseph Clark of Cleveland is the only child of his parents. He was educated in the public schools at Jamestown, and in the spring of 1898, while in high school and not yet eighteen years old, he was the second boy from his community to enlist in the service of the Spanish-American war.  He got his father's consent, but his mother refused to sign the necessary papers required for a youth of that age, and at the end of thirty days he was dismissed with the equivalent of an honorable discharge.  He enlisted in the Sixty-fifth Regiment of New York National Guard.
     An interesting opportunity for experience came to him in a clerical appointment to serve with the United States-Alaska Commission during 1901-02.  He went to England with the commission and with London as his headquarters he extended his travels in all directions over Europe.  While there he completed a course at the University of London, where he specialized in automobile engineering.
     Returning to the United States, Mr. Clark located at New York City in 1905 and took up the automobile engineering profession and also the stock and bond business, and was busily engaged in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Pittsburg.  In May, 1912, he removed to Cleveland, and has since continued and extended his business interests, the handling of stocks, bonds and investment securities, and general promotion work.  His offices are in the Hippodrome Building.  Mr. Clark is president and treasurer of the William Joseph Clark Company and is an officer in several other business organizations in Cleveland and elsewhere.  He is unmarried and resides at 2098 East One Hundredth Street.Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 456 - Vol. 2

N. J. Clarke
NORRIS J. CLARKE.   Among the business men of Cleveland who have come to the forefront rapidly in recent years, one who has distinctively impressed his abilities upon the community in several positions of importance is Norris J. Clarke, who, although still a young man, has large responsibilities and is the possessor of much practical experience.  He has worked his own way to his present standing, having commenced his career in a minor capacity and has had to rely on no outside influence to gain advancement.  Mr. Clarke is a native son of Cleveland, and was born Aug. 29, 1883, his parents being Jay Newton and Pauline (Doll) Clarke.
     Jay Newton Clarke was born at Sandusky, Ohio, and during the early 70 's came to Cleveland, where for many years he was connected with steel manufacturing companies.  In 1907 he became sales manager for the Bethlehem Steel Company, which position he retained until Apr. 1, 1917, when he resigned to take charge of the sales department of the Clarke, Thomas & Clarke Company, of Alliance, Ohio, manufacturers of shop garments.  Mr. Clarke is widely known in business circles as a man of much ability and of absolute integrity.  He was married at Cleveland June 1, 1874, to Pauline Doll, and they have been the parents of four children: Eunice, who is now Mrs. H. C. Hoak, of Cleveland; Harry N., president of the Corte Scope Company, of this city; Alberta, who died in October, 1889; and Norris J., of this notice.
     Norris J. Clarke attended the graded schools of Cleveland and the Central High School, and in 1896 received his introduction to business affairs as office boy for the Bourne-Fuller Company, steel and iron merchants.  He gradually won promotion through various offices by a display of energy, progressive spirit and a mastery of details of the business, until he reached the position of salesman, and in 1904 was made manager of the Pittsburgh office of the company, remaining in that city until Jan. 1, 1912.  At that time he returned to Cleveland, and was elected secretary and a director of the Upson Nut Company, a subsidiary company of the Bourne-Fuller Company, and in addition to holding these offices also discharges the duties of treasurer and as a director of the Steel Car Company.  Few men are better known in the steel industry here, and he also has a wide acquaintance in business circles generally.  A man of wide influence and broad experience, he has already won the right to be numbered among those who are contributing to Cleveland's prestige in industrial and manufacturing affairs.  He is an active member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and of the Civic League, and gives the benefit of his abilities to movements founded for the betterment of the city and its people.  In Masonry he belongs to Babcock Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, McKinley Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Oriental Commandery, Knight Templars, and is a Shriner of Al Koran Temple.  He is likewise well known to club life, belonging, among others, to the Union, Mayheld Country, Cleveland Athletic, Hermit, Roadside and City clubs.  Mr. Clarke is a republican, and his religious connection is with the Episcopal Church.
     On June 24, 1907, Mr. Clarke was married to Miss Kathern Pearson, of Pittsburgh, daughter of Gen. Alfred L. and Elizabeth (Harwood) Pearson, and to this union there have been born two children: Kathern Pearson and Marguerite Norris, both of whom are attending the Hathaway Brown School.

Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 75 - Vol. 3

H. C. Cummings
HERBERT C. CUMMINGS, attorney and counselor at law, and secretary, treasurer and manager of the Credit Adjustment Company, is one of Cleveland's successful young men.  The story of how he gained success is a lesson and incentive.  There were many stubborn difficulties to overcome in the way.  He was about sixteen when thrown upon his own resources.  He was active, alert, was willing to accept the humblest employment, but was steadily persistent in looking for something better.
     Opportunity came to him in the guise of a position as elevator boy in the Lake Shore Railway offices.  He operated the elevator there just one week.  In those six days he asked the head of every department in the building for a job.  The manager of the advertising department took him out of the cage and put him to work with the office force.  He remained in that department nearly two years and the experience and training meant more to him than any other one factor in his life.
     Herbert C. Cummings was born at Cleveland, Apr. 28, 1887, a son of John F. and Carrie (Chatterton) Cummings.  His mother is still living in Cleveland.  His father, who died in November, 1913, was a traveling salesman, also followed the trade of barber, and for several years operated as a holder of concessions in the parks around Cleveland.  He had brilliant qualities as a business man but placed too much confidence in others and when he died at the age of forty-one he was still far short of a successful position.  Both parents were born in Cleveland.  Mr. Cummings' mother was the daughter of Joseph Chatterton who was a city councilman at the time of his death.
     The only child of his parents, Herbert C. Cummings attended the public schools of Cleveland and from the age of sixteen until he was twenty-six struggled for a better education by attending night school.  During that time he held every sort of job from elevator boy to an office auditor.  As a student of night school he attended the West High and the Central High, finishing the high school work while a student of law.  He was in the Berkey & Dykes Business College and the Metropolitan Business College, and a student of higher accounting in the Young Men's Christian Association School.  He was already an expert accountant when he took up the study of law at the age of twenty-three.  From the railway office he had gone as a bookkeeper for a local firm, and continued his work as an accountant with different companies until he was ready to establish himself in business.  Mr. Cummings attended the law school of the Baldwin-Wallace College, and in 1913 was given the degree Bachelor of Laws Magna Cum Laude, and he also took the faculty prize at the time of his graduation.  He was admitted to the Ohio bar in June, 1913, and on the first of August of that year began practice alone, with offices in the Engineers Building.  A year and a half later he moved his quarters to the Illuminating Building, where he is still located.
     Mr. Cummings handles a general law practice but has specialized in mercantile law and is counsel for several local firms, including the Ohio Provision Company, with whom he was formerly connected in the capacity of bookkeeper.  In October, 1913, he organized The Credit Adjustment Company, for handling mercantile collections.  The service of this company is exclusively for manufacturers and jobbers, and handles no retail accounts.  Mr. Cummings is practically the head of this organization, being its manager, secretary and treasurer.
     In politics he is a republican and is affiliated with Halcyon Lodge No. 498, Free and Accepted Masons, Thatcher Chapter No. 1, Royal Arch Masons, and the Sigma Kappa Phi college fraternity.  His recreations are fishing, swimming and automobiling.  As a fisherman he has the distinction of being the only person who ever caught a sturgeon around Cleveland with only a hook and line.  This feat occurred on Rocky River at its juncture with Lake Erie.
     In May, 1913, Mr. Cummings was admitted to practice in the United States Courts.  On May 30, 1907, he married Miss Florence E. Heeney of Cleveland, daughter of Thomas and Pauline (Brooking) Heeney.  Her parents are still living in Cleveland.  Her father was born in Ireland and her mother in Canada Mrs. Cummings was born and educated in Cleveland, and studied vocal music under Prof E H. Douglas and also in Our Lady of Lourdes Convent of Cleveland.  She is a well known musician and is a member of the Cleveland Chapter of the Eastern Star.  Mr. and Mrs. Cummings' daughter Ruth La Verne was born in this city.

Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 209 - Vol. II

C. R. Cummins
CLYDE R. CUMMINS is president and owner of The C. R. Cummins Company, general railroad contractors, with offices and headquarters in the Leader-News Building at Cleveland, but with an operating service that covers several states, though chiefly in Ohio.  Mr. Cummins has been identified with railroad construction practically since he was a boy, and has been an independent contractor almost continuously since he reached his majority.  He has handled contracts involving the expenditure of many millions of dollars for the Pennsylvania and other large railway corporations and his business record is a highly creditable performance for a man still under forty.
     The C. R. Cummins Company enjoys at least one enviable and enjoyable distinction of being the largest Ohio incorporated company doing business in this class of work.
     Mr. Cummins is a native of Ohio, born at Wellsville Aug. 16, 1881, son of Charles B. and Emma (Riggs) Cummins.  His father, who was born at Massillon, Ohio, went through the Civil war as a private soldier in the Thirteenth Ohio Regiment, and practically fought from the beginning to the end of that great struggle.  After the war for a period of thirty-five years he was a bridge engineer and engaged in construction work for the Pennsylvania Railway.
     Clyde R. Cummins was educated in the Wellsville public schools and when about eighteen years of age gained his first experience in railway construction.  As an independent contractor he has built many miles of railroad in Ohio and also in Indiana and Illinois.  At the present time the company has sixteen contracts for railroads under construction.  The company has in course of construction eight miles of new line for the Wheeling & Lake Erie, is double tracking twenty-nine miles on one division of the Pennsylvania, and is also building all the passing tracks on one of the divisions of the Pennsylvania lines in Ohio.  The company has its forces at work on five different divisions of the Pennsylvania lines.  The C. R. Cummins Company was incorporated in 1913.  Its first headquarters being in Chicago, from where they were moved to Cleveland, with branch offices elsewhere in Ohio.  Among other contracts Mr. Cummins is constructing a large engine house at Sandusky for the Pennsylvania, and in the past and today most of his business has originated with the Pennsylvania and the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railways.  The operations of more than 1,000 men are controlled and directed through the main office of the company at Cleveland.
     It is significant that Mr. Cummins counts his chief recreation and pleasure as railroad contracting and his earnestness and enthusiasm in the business have undoubtedly been primarily responsible for the signal success he has won.  As minor recreations he acknowledges an interest in motoring and baseball.  He is a republican in politics, and is both a York and Scottish Rite Mason.  He has affiliations with the Scottish Rite Consistory and Shrine at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he lived in 1913, is a member of the Knights Templar Commandery at Wabash, Indiana, and is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Greencastle, Indiana.  He is also a member of the Cleveland Automobile Club, the Clifton Club at Lakewood and the Cleveland Athletic Club.
     Mr. Cummins and family reside on Erie Cliff Drive in Lakewood. July 9, 1906, at Chicago, he married Miss Mary A. Evans.  She was born and educated in Indianapolis, where her mother, Mrs. Lillian B. Evans, still resides.  Two children have been born to their marriage, John Thomas, born at Indianapolis, and James Evans, born at Cleveland.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 179 - Vol. II

NOTES:

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