|
Biographies
Source:
History
of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
Published by D. W. Ensign & Co.,
1879
< BACK TO BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX FOR 1879 >
< BACK TO ALL
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEXES FOR CUYAHOGA COUNTY >
| |
JOHN W. ALLEN
was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1802. He resided
in Chenango county, New York, from 1820 to 1825, when he removed
to Cleveland, where he has ever since lived. He was
admitted to the bar the next year, and for several succeeding
years was engaged in the active practice of his profession.
In 1831, Mr. Allen was elected president of the
village of Cleveland, and was re-elected each of the succeeding
four years. During this time a great amount of grading and
cutting down streets was done to facilitate access to and from
the river; causing loud complaints from many property-owners,
who thought nature had already arranged the grades about right.
In 1835 he was chosen to the State senate, in which he served
two years. In 1836 he was elected to Congress, taking his
seat at the extra session called in September, 1837, and in 1838
was re-elected. In 1841 he was elected mayor of the city
of Cleveland. Looking ahead to the probably necessities of
the future, while in the legislature, he procured the passage of
an act to incorporate the "Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati
Railroad Company," but the memorable financial collapse of 1837,
extending through several subsequent years, prevented action
upon it. In 1846 the subject was revived, and after many
struggles the company was organized, and Mr. Allen was
chosen the first president.
About that time "The State Bank of Ohio" was
authorized, with branches in the principal towns of the State;
five commissioners being appointed to examine the applications,
ascertain the means of the applicants, and determine whether the
law had been complied with. Mr. Allen was selected
as one of these commissioners.
Another subject on which he was long and earnestly
employed was the settlement of the claims of Ohio in regard to
the public lands. At an early day Congress had granted to
the State of Ohio every alternate section of the public lands.
At an early day Congress had granted to the State of Ohio every
alternate section of the public lands for five miles in width,
on each side of the line of the proposed Maumee canal, in aid of
its construction, and had also granted half a million acres in
aid of the Ohio canal, on which there were no public lands.
This latter land was to be selected out of any unsold public
territory. In making the selections of these lands, many
mistakes were made through ignorance or carelessness, and many
tracts to which the State had no claim were sold the occupants
of which were liable to be dispossessed at any moment.
The State had made two or three settlements with the
general government, and its officers had thrice acknowledged
satisfaction in full, but Mr. Allen, believing that some
of the rules on which settlement was made were grossly
erroneous, proposed to the legislature, in the winter of
1849-50, to make a thorough examination and revision of the
whole business. That body consented, and the governor,
under its authority, appointed Mr. Allen as the agent to
do the work. For his compensation he was to have one third
of any additional lands he might obtain; the State in no event
to be called on for expenses of any kind.
By getting the rules governing the former settlement
modified or reversed, and thereby extending the scope of the
grants, and by securing two acts of Congress, the last ceding to
the State not only all the lands erroneously selected, but all
the scattered remnants of government land in the State, Mr.
Allen added one hundred and twenty thousand acres to the
amount previously admitted by the government to belong to Ohio -
and secured a perfect title to every acre of it. To
accomplish this required five years of time, and involved a
heavy outlay for expenses.
Unfortunately for Mr. Allen, during all this
time the State officers had gone on selling land, and when he
had finished his work there was but little left, and that of
slight value. After years of painful delay, he was
compelled to take the money about one-sixth part of what his
third of the land would have been worth had it been conveyed to
him as agreed. This is the only case of practical
repudiation with which the great State of Ohio stands
chargeable, so far as now known
In 1870 Mr. Allen was appointed post master of
Cleveland, and was re-appointed in 1874 but resigned the
position the following year.
Mr. Allen was married at Warren, Ohio, to
Miss Anna Maria Perkins, who died the succeeding year.
In 1830 he was married, at Lyme, Connecticut, to Miss Harriet
C. Mathews, who is still living.
Among the enterprising and energetic young men who
lived in Cleveland in its early days, no one was more
conspicuous or more serviceable in advancing the interests of
the village, and city than the subject of this sketch, according
to the testimony of Cleveland's oldest and most reliable
inhabitants.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio - Published by D. W.
Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 327 |
S. J. Andrews |
SHERLOCK J. ANDREWS, a son
of Dr. John Andrews, was born in Wallingford, New Haven
county, Connecticut, on the 17th of November, 1801. His
father was a prominent physician of Wallingford, and in later
years was a resident of Cleveland. The younger Andrews
pursued his preparatory studies at the Episcopal academy at
Cheshire, Connecticut, and subsequently entered Union College at
Schenectady, New York, whence he was graduated in 1821.
Subsequently he was employed as private secretary and
assistant in chemistry by Professor Silliman, a
relation which proved equally satisfactory to both.
Professor Silliman says of him in his diary: "He was a young
man of a vigorous and active mind, energetic and quick in his
movements and decisions, with a warm heart and genial temper; of
the best moral and social habits; a quick and skillful penman;
an agreement inmate of my family, in which we made him
quite at home. * * * He continued about four years, serving with
ability and the zeal of an affectionate son, without whom I
could scarcely have retained my place in the college."
During the above engagement Mr. Andrews had
studied law at the New Haven law school, and in 1825 he removed
to Cleveland where, after obtaining admission to the bar, he
commenced the practice of his profession in company with
Judge Samuel Cowles. In 1828, he married Miss
Ursula Allen of Litchfield, Connecticut, daughter of John
Allen a member of congress from that State, and sister of
Hon. John W. Allen, of Cleveland.
Soon after the retirement of Mr. Cowles, Mr. Andrews
formed a partnership with John A. Foot, Esq., to which in
1837 Mr. James M. Hoyt, for many years among the most
successful general practitioners in northern Ohio. In 1840
he was elected to represent the Cleveland district in Congress
and served one term, after which he was obliged, on account of
impaired health, to retire from public life and from the most
active part of professional duty. He continued, however,
to act as counsel and advocate in important cases until 1848,
when he was elected judge of the superior court of Cleveland.
In 1840 he was chosen a member of the convention to form the new
constitution of Ohio, and rendered valuable service as a member
of the committees on judiciary, revision and temperance.
The new constitution having revised the judiciary
system and dispensed with the superior court, Judge Andrews
resumed his legal practice. In 1873 he was again chosen
one of the members of the convention to revise the constitution
of the state, having received the nominations of both the
Republican and Democratic parties. His ripe experience and
superior ability were here called into requisition to aid in the
improvement of the judiciary system. He was made chairman
of the committee having this matter in charge, a position which
he filled in the most satisfactory manner.
Judge Andrews early won great celebrity as an
advocate of the bar of Ohio. In a cause in which he was
satisfied that he had justice and the law on his side, there was
not an advocate in the State whose arguments were more nearly
irresistible before a jury. He was unsurpassed in the use
of those weapons so effective in debate - logic, sarcasm, wit,
ridicule and pathos, without ever descending to coarseness or
invective. His legal opinions have ever been held in very
high esteem, being distinguished for clear conceptions of the
principles of law in their varied relations to practical life,
and evincing rare ability in judging as to the probable verdict
of a jury on mixed questions of law and fact. Eminent for
legal learning, he combined with accurate knowledge of
precedents unfailing discernment of the underlying principles
which invested them with lasting value. As a jury lawyer,
Judge Andrews is permanently identified with the
traditions of the bar and the history of legal practice in
northern Ohio.
The older lawyers still cherish vivid recollections of
many cases when he was in full practice, in which his insight
into character, his power to sift testimony and bring into clear
relief the lines of truth, his ability to state legal principles
so as to be clearly comprehensible by the jury, his humor, his
wit, his pathos, his scorn of fraud, and his impetuosity in
advocacy of the right, were all combined with such
incisive utterance and such felicitious illustration as to make
the deepest and most lasting impression upon all his hearers.
By universal consent he was recognized as having few equals and
no superior.
As a judge he commanded the highest respect of all.
His decisions were never influenced by personal or political
predilections, and were given entirely according to the merits
of the case and the requirements of the law. There is but
a single record of any reversal of his decisions by a higher
court, and that was owing solely to a clerical error made in the
clerk's office.
In politics he took little active part. Although
constantly identified with the Whig and Republican parties, his
habitual conservatism prevented the approval by him of any rash
or extreme measures.
Judge Andrews has through his log and active
life commanded the highest respect as a man, a citizen, and a
friend. We quote the following tribute by a life-long
associate to his many excellent qualities: "Highly as Judge
Andrews has adorned his profession, it is simply just to say
that his unblemished character in every relation has equally
adorned his manhood. He has ever been more than a mere
lawyer. With a keen relish for historical and
philosophical inquiry, a wide acquaintance with literature, and
an earnest sympathy with all true progress in the present age of
his life has also been practically subordinated to the faultless
morality of Christianity. A community is truly enriched
when it can present to its younger members such shining
instances of success in honorable endeavor, and such sterling
excellence in character and example."
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio -
Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 327
Portrait Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio - Published by
D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 64a |
| |
WILLIAM M. ARMSTRONG, the
editor-in-chief of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the
president and principal stockholder of the Plain Dealer Printing
Company, was born at New Lisbon, Columbiana county, Ohio, in the
year 1833. In 1848, at the age of fifteen, he became an
apprentice in a printing office at Tiffin, the county seat of
Seneca County. He worked at his chosen occupation until
1852, when his activity and ability caused him, though only
nineteen yeas old, to be appointed registrar of the bank
department of the State treasurer's office, of which position he
performed the duties for two years to the entire satisfaction of
his superiors.
On retiring from the treasurer's office in 1854, young
Armstrong returned to Tiffin, purchased the Seneca County
Advertiser, published at that place, and entered on his
majority and his editorial career about the same time. The
young editor being an ardent Democrat, the Advertiser
was conducted as a Democratic organ of the strictest sect,
and he being also a vigorous writer and a good business manager
he soon made his paper a power in northwestern Ohio. His
strength in his party was manifested in 1862, when, although
still but twenty-nine years old, he was elected by the Democracy
secretary of State of Ohio.
After he had served one term of two years the
Republicans returned to power, and Mr. Armstrong was
again at liberty to resume his favorite pursuit of journalism.
He accordingly, in 1865, purchased the material of the lately
suspended Cleveland Plain Dealer, and transferred his
efforts to the metropolis of northern Ohio. Owing to the
death of the lamented J. W. Gray, and subsequent
unskillful management, the Plain Dealer had been brought
into a very unfortunate condition, as was indicated by its
suspension. It is a severe task to revive a deceased
newspaper, yet Mr. Armstrong not only did that but in a
few years made the Plain Dealer one of the leading
newspapers of the West.
A clear, vigorous and ready writer, he naturally took a
bold, aggressive course, and neither friends nor enemies ever
had the slightest difficulty in knowing exactly what he meant.
He showed himself on all occasions a Democrat of the old school
of Jackson and Benton, unswerving in favor of State rights, home
rule and hard money, and these time-honored principles he was
prepared to maintain against all opponents.
His business management of the Plains Dealer has
been as sound as his political course has been vigorous; he has
raised it from the lifeless condition in which he found it,
until its circulation is now second only to that of the
Cincinnati Enquirer among the Democratic journals of
Ohio, and its finances are in the most flourishing condition.
He has lately transferred it to a stock company, but of that he
is the president and the directing power.
What he is in his office he is out of it, a man of
decided convictions and strong will, always a potent force in
the conne__s of his party and in the community in which he
resides.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio - Published by D. W.
Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 329 |
|
