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Biographies
Source:
History
of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
Published by D. W. Ensign & Co.,
1879
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ALFRED KELLEY.
Hon. Alfred Kelley, the second son of Daniel Kelley,
was born in Middletown, Connecticut, Nov. 7, 1789. He was
descended in the fifth generation from Joseph Kelley
(1st) who was one of the first settlers of Norwich, Connecticut.
His great-grandfather, Joseph Kelley (2d), son of the
person just named, removed to Vermont, and died there in 1814 at
the age of nearly ninety years. Alfred Kelleys
grandfather, Daniel Kelley, lived in Norwich,
Connecticut, where Daniel Kelley (2d), the father of the
subject of this memoir, was born on the 27th day of November,
1755. He married Jemima Stow, daughter of Elihu
and Jemima Stow, and sister of Judges Joshua and Silas
Stow, of Lowville, New York, on the 28th day of January,
1787. He died at Cleveland Aug. 7, 1831. Mr. and
Mrs. Daniel Kelley had a family of six sons. They
removed from Connecticut to Lowville, New York, when Alfred
was nine years of age, where the head of the family was
principal judge of the court of common pleas of Lewis county,
being also one of the founders of Lowville academy and president
of its board of trustees.
Alfred Kelley was educated at Fairfield academy,
New York, and read law in the office of Jonas Platt, a
judge of the supreme court of that State. In the spring of
1810 he traveled on horseback in company with Joshua Stow
and others to Cleveland. He was admitted to practice in
the court of common pleas in November, and on the same day,
being his twenty-first birthday, he was appointed by the court
to act as prosecuting attorney. He was continuously
appointed prosecuting attorney until 1821, when he declined to
act any longer in that capacity. In 1814 Mr.
Kelley was elected a member of the Ohio house of
representatives; being the youngest member of that body, which
met at Chillicothe, then the temporary capital of the Sate.
He continued, with intervals, a member of the legislature from
Cuyahoga county until 1822, when he was appointed, with others,
State canal commissioner.
The Ohio canal is a monument to the enterprise, energy,
integrity and sagacity of Alfred Kelley. He was the
leading member of the board of commissioners during its
construction, and the onerous and responsible service was
performed with such fidelity and economy that the actual cost
did not exceed the estimate! The dimensions of the
Ohio canal were the same as those of the Erie canal, New York,
but the number of locks was nearly twice as great. Mr.
Kelley's indomitable will and iron constitution triumphed
over all difficulties, and the Ohio canal connecting the Ohio
river with Lake Erie, was finished in 1830. During its
construction Mr. Kelley removed first to Akron and then
to Columbus, where he made his home during the remainder of his
life. After the canal was finished he resigned the
position of commissioner in order to regain his health (badly
shattered by close application to the duties of his office), and
to devote himself to his private affairs.
In October, 1836, Mr. Kelley was elected
to the Ohio house of representatives from Franklin county, and
was re-elected to the same office in the next two legislatures.
He was chairman of the Whig State Central Committee in 1840, and
was one of the most active and influential managers of that
campaign, in which Gen. Harrison was elected to the
presidency. He was appointed State fund commissioner in
1840. In 1841 and'42 a formidable party arose in the
legislature and State, which advocated the non-payment of the
maturing interest on the State debt, and the repudiation of the
debt itself. Mr. Kelley went to New York and was
able to raise nearly a quarter of a million of dollars on his
own personal security, by which means the interest was paid at
maturity, and the State of Ohio was saved from repudiation.
In 1844 Mr. Kelley was elected to the State
senate from the Franklin district. It was during this term
that he originated the bill to organize the State Bank of Ohio
and other banking companies, which was generally admitted by
bankers and financiers to be the best American banking law then
known. While Mr. Kelley was a member of the
legislature many valuable general laws originated with him, and
most of the measures requiring investigation and profound
thought were entrusted to his care. He was the author, in
1818, of the first legislative bill - either in this country or
in Europe - to abolish imprisonment for debt. It failed to
become a law, but in a letter to a friend Mr. Kelley
said: "The time will come when the absurdity as well as
inhumanity of adding oppression to misfortune will be
acknowledged."
At the end of this senatorial term Mr. Kelley
was elected president of the Columbus and Xenia railroad
company, which enterprise he was actively engaged upon until it
was finished. He also accepted the presidency of the
Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati railroad, and carried on that
work with his usual ardor and ability: his labors being only
surpassed by those upon the Ohio canal. With his own hands
he dug the first shovelful of earth and laid the last rail.
In 1850 he was chosen president of the Cleveland, Painesville
and Ashtabula railroad company (afterward absorbed in the Lake
Shore Company), and was soon actively engaged in the
construction of the road. During this period occurred the
famous riots of Erie and Harbor Creek, in opposition to the
construction of the road through Pennsylvania. The success
of the company in this contest was largely due to Mr. Kelley's
efforts. After the completion of these roads he resigned
the presidency of their respective companies, but continued an
active director in each of them to the time of his death.
Mr. Kelley closed his public life as the member
from Columbus of the State senate of 1857. During the last
year of this service his health was declining. Yet such
was his fidelity to his trust that he went daily to the senate,
and he carried through the legislature several important
measures for the purpose of ascertaining the condition of the
State treasury, and securing the safety of the public funds.
He was also, during his legislature career, very active in
remodeling the tax laws, so as to relieve land-owners from
excessive taxation and place a part of the burden on those who
had property in bonds and money.
At the end of this term of the senate his health was
much broken down (caused by an over-taxation of mind and body),
and he seemed to be gradually wasting away without any settled
disease. He was only confined to his room a few days
before his death, which took place on the 2d day of December
1859. So gentle was the summons, when his pure spirit left
its earthly tenement, that his surrounding friends were scarcely
conscious of the great change.
It has been said of him, that few persons have ever
lived who, merely by personal exertions, have left behind them
more numerous and lasting monuments of patient and useful labor.
Mr. Kelley was married on the 25th of August,
1817, to Miss Mary S. Wells, daughter of Melancthon
Wells, Esq., by whom he had a family of eleven children,
viz.: Maria Jane, who became Mrs. Judge Bates,
of Columbus; Charlotte, who died at six years old;
Edward, who died at the age of two years; Adelaide
and Henry, who died in infancy; Helen, who became
Mrs. Francis Collins, of Columbus; Frank, who died
at four years old; Anna, who married Col. C. J.
Freudenberg, U. S. A.; Alfred; and Kate, wife
of Rev. W. H. Dunning, of Cambridge.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
- Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 364 |
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THOMAS M. KELLEY
* Thomas M. Kelley, a brother of Alfred Kelley,
the subject of the preceding sketch, was born at Middletown,
Connecticut, on the 17th of March, 1797. In the following
year his father removed with his family to Lowville, Lewis
county, New York, where the subject of this memoir resided until
he came to Cleveland in 1815. In that place he made his
home continuously till his death on the 11th of June, 1878.
Although the facilities for education were not, as a general
rule, abundant in his childhood, yet at Lowville there was,
besides the common schools, and academy where the higher
branches were taught, and from the specimens of its graduates
who settled here we should infer they were taught with
more than ordinary success.
For many years Mr. Kelley was engaged in
mercantile pursuits, and especially in packing and shipping beef
and pork, pot and pearl ashes, furs and some minor articles, the
products of this then new region, down lakes Erie and Ontario
and the St. Lawrence river to Montreal, a distant, but, for such
articles, the most accessible market. After the completion
of the Erie canal, in 1825, a large part of this trade was
diverted through that channel. In later years, Mr.
Kelley was largely concerned in real estate operations and
in banking, and in 1848 was made president of the Merchant's
bank.
He did not, however, give his whole mind to the management of
business affairs. He was a man of unquestionable integrity
and unusual intelligence, and was an industrious reader, not
only of current literature, but of standard works. He
formed his opinions deliberately, and generally correctly, and
then, like all his brothers, was prone to adhere to them
persistently.
He was a member of the legislature, and as such did his
constituents and the State valuable service. Under the old
constitution the State was divided into a dozen or more judicial
circuits, in each of which was a "president judge" (a lawyer)
who held courts in the various counties, and who was assisted in
each county by three associates, usually among the best men but
not lawyers, who could and sometimes did override the president,
and who in his absence could hold
terms without him. In 1846 Mr. Kelley was
appointed one of these judges, and, in the absence of the
president judge, charged the grand jury in a manner much
superior to that generally exhibited in such cases.
In 1841 Daniel Webster, Secretary of State under
President Harrison, offered the office of marshal
of the United States for the district of Ohio, then embracing
the whole State, to Mr. Kelley, who agreed to
accept it, but the speedy death of General Harrison
and the political difficulties which arose between his
successor. President Tyler, and the Whig
Congress, delayed and finally defeated any action upon the
proposition. This offer was the more complimentary
because, owing to the then recent "Patriot War," the relations
of the United States with Great Britain were in a very disturbed
condition; the northern frontier swarmed with men eager to
involve, the two countries in war, and the duties of a marshal
required him to be a man of very great courage, firmness and
discretion, such as Mr. Webster knew Mr.
Kelley to be.
In 1833 Mr. Kelley married Miss. Lucy
Latham, of Vermont, a most estimable woman with whom he
lived happily till her death in 1874. The fruits of this
union were four children—one .who died in early childhood; a
daughter who married Col. George S. Mygatt and died not
long afterwards; another daughter, now the wife of Mr.
Chester J. Cole; and a son, Thomas Arthur Kelley;
both of the survivors now reside in Cleveland. In his
domestic relations Judge Kelley was kind, liberal and
affectionate, and among his associates in the outer world he was
very much esteemed. In public matters he was an active
participant, and was a free contributor in money, labor and
influence to all undertakings that promised to advance the
common weal.
---------------
*By Hon. J. W. Allen.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
- Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 365 |
C. G. King |
CHARLES GREGORY KING.
The following brief sketch of a business life, with the portrait
of its subject, will introduce to our readers Charles Gregory
King, a pioneer lumber merchant of Cuyahoga county. He
was born in the town of Sand Lake, Rensselaer county, New York,
on the 27th of September, 1822, and is one of a family of
fourteen children, all of when lived to reach the age of manhood
and womanhood. He was early initiated into the practical
details of farming, which was his father's avocation. The
necessity of constant industry early inured the boy to habits of
self-denial, but seriously interfered with intellectual culture,
for which he manifested a strong desire.
At the age of sixteen his father died, leaving bereaved
hearts and an encumbered estate as an inheritance to his family.
With the courage and determination which have characterized his
whole life, Charles, together with some of his
brothers, provided a home for their beloved mother and their
younger brothers and sisters. Seven years of his life were
thus occupied; then his long fostered desire for mental
improvement would brook no further repression,and he felt at
liberty to devote the proceeds of the next few months' labor to
defraying the expense of tuition in the Brockport Collegiate
Institute, located in western New York.
In alternate study and teaching he spent the years
until 1849, when he started west in search of occupation.
After a long and tiresome trip, which extended into Michigan, he
returned toward the East without accomplishing his object.
At length, however, his courage and perseverance overcame his
ill-fortune, and at Erie, Pennsylvania, he was engaged as a
buyer for a house which was shipping lumber to the Albany
market. His latent ability as a business man soon
exhibited itself, and, after various promotions, he removed to
Cleveland in 1852, becoming a partner in the well-known firm of
Foote & King, which established the lumber yards
on River street.
In the year 1862, owing to the failing health of Mr.
Foote, the firm was dissolved, and for three years Mr.
King conducted the business alone, at the end of which time
Mr. D. K. Clint became a partner. In 1866 a new
yard was established on Scranton avenue, and the house of
Rust, King & Co. commenced the manufacture and sale of
lumber. In 1874, when the River street yard was given up
to the city for the purpose of building the viaduct, new
relations were entered into, the firm name becoming Rust
& Clint, which it still continues to be.
Commencing with limited capital, Mr. King has
carefully and thoughtfully built up an extensive business,
furnishing employment to many and sharing its benefits with a
liberal hand. Amid all the fluctuations of monetary
affairs, he has never been called to suffer serious financial
loss, and at the age of fifty-six years we find him with the
harness on, still pursuing the even tenor of his business life,
loved and honored in his domestic relations and esteemed by all
as an upright Christian citizen. Whatever of success has
attended Mr. King in his calling thus far, he attributes
to the blessing of God upon the faithful use of his natural
powers.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
- Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 366 |
Z. King |
ZENAS KING
was born in Kingston, Vermont, May 1, 1818. His father was
a farmer in that State, but removed to St. Lawrence county, New
York, in 1823. Zenas remained on the farm until he
was twenty-one years of age, when he came to Ohio and turned his
attention to other occupations. He settled in Milan, Erie
county, and abegan to take contracts for the erection of
buildings, in which business he developed that mechanical
ingenuity which he has shown in after life. In 1848 he
formed a partnership with Mr. C. H. Buck and engaged in
the mercantile business, which he followed successfully for
eight years.
His health partially failing, Mr. King disposed
of his interest and engaged as a traveling agent for an
agricultural-machinery house in Cincinnati; after which he
became an agent for the Mosely Bridge Company.
While connected with this company he became impressed with the
defects of wooden bridges, and he continued to study upon the
matter until he originated the "King Iron Bridge." In 1861
he obtained a patent for his invention.
The next year Mr. King removed his family to
Cleveland, and erected extensive and commodious works on the
corner of St. Clair and Wason streets for the purpose of
manufacturing his bridges, and also steam boilers. His
partner, Mr. Freese, on a dissolution of the firm took
the boiler department, while Mr. King retained the bridge
business.
The introduction of the bridge was a great task, for it
was hard to make people believe that an iron bridge could
possibly be built for fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars,
when the old iron one cost six to eight times as much, and yet
were so heavy that they were capable of sustaining far less
weight than the light and inexpensive ones invented by Mr.
King. Knowing the value of his invention and the
correct mechanical principles involved in it, he resolutely
pushed its claims until his bridges are now spanning rivers and
minor streams in all parts of the country from Maine to Texas,
he being the first who introduced the use of iron to any extent
for ordinary highway bridges.
Mr. King has already built a hundred miles of
bridges, and is making larger additions to the number every
year. In 1871 he organized the "King Bridge
Manufacturing Stock Company," of which he is the president and
manager. He is also president of the St. Clair and
Collamer railway company. The "King bridge" is not
only a monument of the inventive genius and business ability of
Zenas King, but is also a great public benefit, and as
such it will doubtless be recognized in the near future.
Mr. King has long been a vestryman in St. Paul's
Episcopal Church. In 1844 he was married to Miss M. C.
Wheelock, of Ogdenburg, New York; they have four children
living.
Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio -
Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 366
Portrait Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio - Published by D.
W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 346a |
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JARED POTTER KIRTLAND Source: History of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio
- Published by D. W. Ensign & Co., - 1879 - Page 367 |
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