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Biographies
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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BIOGRAPHICAL INDEXES FOR CUYAHOGA COUNTY >
Elbert H. Baker |
ELBERT H. BAKER,
president and general manager of The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Publishing Company, has had forty years of active newspaper life
in Cleveland. He is one of the veterans of the profession
and is also widely known as a citizen and business man.
He was born at Norwalk, Ohio, July 25, 1854, son of
Henry and Clara (Hall) Baker. He began life with a
public school education. In 1877 Mr. Baker became
connected with the Cleveland Herald as bookkeeper and later as
advertising manager. In 1882 he became advertising manager
of the Cleveland Leader and was for ten years a member of its
board of directors. He continued in active charge of the
advertising department of the Leader until 1897. In 1898
he became associated with the Cleveland Plain Dealer as general
manager, on the death of Liberty E. Holden. In 1913
Mr. Baker was elected president of the Plain
Dealer Publishing Company.
Mr. Baker is a member of the board of directors of the
Associated Press and of the American Newspaper Publishers
Association, serving as president of the latter association in
1812-14. Mr. Baker ahs exemplified much of the
stalwart public spirit which has characterized Cleveland
citizenship and made it first among Ohio cities. He is
chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Euclid Avenue
Congregational Church, and a trustee of the Cleveland Young
Men's Christian Association. He is a member of the Western
Reserve Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and the
Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. He has membership in
various clubs including the Union Club, Cleveland Athletic Club,
Chagrin Valley Hunt Club.
Mr. Baker and his family reside at Gates Mill,
Ohio. He was married June 1, 1876, to Miss Ida A. Smith
of Cleveland. They have reason to be proud of their
children. The eldest, Louise Hall, is now rs.
Benjamin Hastings of Cleveland. Mrs. Hastings
is a graduate of the Woman's College of Cleveland with the class
of 1901. Frank Smith Baker, who graduated from
Adelbert College of Cleveland in1902, is now publisher of the
Tribune at Tacoma, Washington. Elbert H., Jr., who
was a student at Cornell University for three years, is the
efficiency engineer of the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company
with residence and office at Tacoma, Washington. Alton
Fletcher Baker, was graduated from Cornell University with
the class of 1917 and is now serving at the front in France as a
first lieutenant in the Automobile Convoy.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New
Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and
New York - 1918 - Page 150 - Vol. 2 |
Webb C. Ball |
WEBB C.
BALL was born in Knox County, Ohio, and educated in the
public schools of that county. His father being a farmer,
the boy learned to handle the somewhat crude farm implements of
that day, but this machinery did not satisfy his inclinations
for mechanics of a higher grade and finer type. His was
undoubtedly the natural genius which has given America some of
the greatest of world's experts in the field of mechanical
invention.
The result was that Webb C. Ball was soon
apprenticed to a watch maker and jeweler for a term of four
years. The schedule fixed his wages at $1 a week for the
first two years, while during the third and fourth years he was
to receive $7 a week. Thus he was put to work in handling
the tools and repairing the delicate machinery of watch and
clock mechanism. Mr. Ball has been in the
jewelry business since May 13, 1869. From 1875 to 1879 he
was business manager of the Dueber Watch Case Manufacturing
Company, whose plant was then located in Cincinnati. This
is now a part of the great Dueber-Hampton Watch Company of
Canton, Ohio.
On Mar. 19, 1879, Mr. Ball established himself in
business at Cleveland. The site of his first shop was
Superior Street, corner of Seneca. He was in that location
thirty-two years. The Webb C. Ball Company, of
which he is president, is now located in the Ball
Building on Euclid Avenue. Beginning business in Cleveland
with a very limited capital, his shop consisted of two show
cases and a work bench on one side of the room. There was
a steady increase in the business both in quality and volume.
In 1891 a stock company was formed. Prior to that Mr.
Ball had been sole owner and manager of the business.
The Webb C. Ball Company was incorporated under the laws
of the State of Ohio with a paid up capital of a $100,000.
For several years Mr. Ball was manager and
treasurer of the company, after which he became president.
During 1894-95-96 he was associated with the Hamilton Watch
Company at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as vice president, director
and mechanical expert. As a jewelry house the Webb C.
Ball Company is one of the largest in the Middle West, but
as the home of railroad standard watches it is without doubt the
greatest watch business in America.
Mr. Ball has devoted practically his
entire life to originating and improving watch mechanism,
adapting it to every test and requirement of railroad service.
He has improved railroad watch movements and many invented
appliances used in their construction. His business is
both a wholesale and retail jewelry house, and the fame of the
firm is by no means confined to the United States but extends
throughout Canada and Mexico.
The occasion which prompted him to the development of
that great service which is his chief contribution to American
railroad life was a tragedy. On Apr. 19, 1891, there
occurred a collision on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
Railroad between a government fast mail train and an
accommodation train. The engineers and firemen of both
engines and nine United States postal clerks lost their lives.
Investigations and trials followed by the public authorities.
In these trails Mr. Ball was frequently called
upon for expert testimony. It was finally proved that the
accident was due to defective watches in the hands of the
trainmen in charge of the accommodation train. Mr.
Ball, as a recognized expert on watch construction, was
soon afterward authorized to prepare a plan of inspection and
investigate conditions on the Lake Shore lines.
Those who are in any way familiar with the efficient
system of watch and clock time regulation now in use on
practically all railroads of the country will be interested at
the results of Mr. Ball's personal investigations.
He discovered that no uniformity existed or was supposed to be
essential in trainmen's watches. Watches were of any make
which the owner wished to use. The clocks in roundhouses
and dispatcher's offices were seldom regulated to any uniform
schedule. After this careful study and investigation Mr.
Ball evolved a plan of inspection and time comparison for
the watches used by railway employees and for the standard
clocks as well. This plan provides that watches of
standard grades must be carried by men in charge of trains.
No discrimination is permitted against any watch factory
provided its products meet the requirements. There are now
seven leading watch factories whose watches are accepted under
the uniform standard inspection rule.
Thus Mr. Ball was responsible for the
establishment of the first watch inspection service on the Lake
Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in 1891, and since then that
service has been extended to include the New York Central and
all other Vanderbilt lines, the Illinois Central, the Rock
Island and Frisco systems, the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific
Oregon Short Line, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis,
Missouri, Kansas City and Texas, El Paso and Southwestern, Sun
Set Central lines, Western Pacific Railway, Lehigh Valley
Railway, Boston and Albany, New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad. Fully seventy-five per cent of the railroads
throughout the country employ the system of inspection
instituted by Mr. Ball. As a result of that system thousands of
lives have been saved, the general efficiency of railroad
operation has been promoted, and a vast volume of railroad
property has been conserved.
The main office of this extensive inspection service is
located at Cleveland and local inspectors are appointed at
division points along the various railway lines. To these
local inspectors trainmen must report every two weeks for time
comparison. They are furnished with a clearance card
certificate which must record any variation in their watches,
the limit being thirty seconds per week. If anything is
found amiss the trainman must secure a standard loaner watch and
leave his own for adjustment. These loaned watches are
furnished without expense to the trainmen. By this card
system a perfect record is kept and the trainmen cheerfully
comply, as it safeguards the service and themselves as well.
The Ball inspection service requires a large office force
in Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco and Winnipeg, with a number
of traveling assistants. The railroad lines in eastern and
central districts are administered from the Cleveland offices
while the railroads in the Chicago, middle western and southern
districts are administered from the Chicago office, the Pacific
lines from the San Francisco office, and from the Winnipeg
office the Canadian Railroad lines are handled. Correct records
of all the watches carried by the employes of the different
railroads are on file in one or other of these offices.
Today the name "Ball" is a synonym for accuracy
in construction of railroad watches throughout the entire
country. In this field Mr. Ball's ingenuity
and mechanical skill have a free play. He made a special
study of the requirement of railroad men in the matter of
timepieces and has been able to keep abreast of the marvelous
strides of recent years in railroad speed and equipment.
His genius as an inventor has produced several distinct watch
movements, covered by his own patents and trade marks, and each
adapted to fulfill the requirements of their users. Many
times Mr. Ball has been referred to in recent
years as "the man who holds a watch on one hundred seventy-five
thousand miles of railroad" and also as "the time and watch
expert."
Besides his noteworthy place among Cleveland citizens
as a business man Mr. Ball is a charter member of
the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Union Club
and Advertising Club, a director of the Cleveland Convention
Board five years and its president in 1902. In politics he is a
republican. Mr. Ball was married in 1879 to
Miss Florence I. Young, of Kenton, Ohio. They have one
son and three daughters.
In August, 1913, Mr. Ball established a
wholesale watch and jewelry business in Chicago, known as the
Norris-Alister-Ball Company, with his son
Sidney Y. Ball as president. Branches have since been
opened in San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon;
"Winnipeg, Manitoba; Birmingham, Alabama; Cleveland, Ohio; and
Syracuse, New York.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New
Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and
New York - 1918 - Page 117 - Vol. 2 |
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WEBB C. BALL COMPANY
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of
New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago
and New York - 1918 - Page 119 |
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AUGUSTUS W. BELL
is an attorney engaged in a general practice.
He spent most of his life in Cleveland and is a graduate of both
the literary and law departments of Western Reserve University.
Mr. Bell was born at Keene Center, Essex County,
New York, Feb. 10, 1886, son of Thurlow W. and Ida I.
(Palmer) Bell, the father a native of Wilmington, New York,
and the mother of Elizabethtown that state. They were
married at Westport, New York. The Bells were
Scotch-Irish people who came from the north of Ireland and
settled around Montreal, Canada. Grandfather William
Bell was born in Canada, removed to Wilmington, New York,
and died there in 1902 at the age of eighty-two.
Thurlow W. Bell grew up and learned the business of
merchandising at Keene, New York, where he had a general store
but for many years has been a traveling salesman representing
the Williams Manufacturing Company of Cleveland. He
formerly gave all his time to traveling, and has carried his
grip and sold goods in practically every part of the United
States. He now travels only in the winter and spends his
summer looking after his farm of 136 acres in Essex County, New
York, near Wilmington. His wife's people are an old New
York State family of English and French extraction. Mrs.
Bell's great-grandfather served in the Revolution.
Mrs. Thurlow Bell died suddenly of heart
failure at Cleveland, Aug. 30, 1913. She was born Sept.
18, 1861.
Augustus W. Bell is the only surviving child,
his brother Richard having died in infancy. He was
educated in Elizabethtown, New York, and in 1904 graduated from
the East High School of Cleveland. He then entered the
literary department of Western Reserve University, took the
classical course and graduated A. B. in 1908. The next
three years he spent in the study of law at Western Reserve, and
received his Bachelor of Law degree in 1911. He was
admitted to the bar in December of that year, and took up
general practice on Feb. 29, 1912. He maintained offices
in the Society for Savings Building
until Jan. 1, 1918.
Mr. Bell is a member of the Cleveland Bar
Association, of the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, of which he
has been retained as legal adviser, and takes considerable part
in local republican politics, being a member of the Lincoln and
Willis Republican clubs. He was formerly a member of the
Cleveland Grays. His college society is the Phi Beta
Kappa. Mr. Bell is very fond of outdoor life
and of books and literary things in general, his chief pastimes
being golf, tennis and swimming.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New
Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and
New York - 1918 - Page 290 - Vol. II |
John J. Boyle |
JOHN J. BOYLE.
For several years John J. Boyle has carried some of the
important responsibilities in connection with the municipal
government of Cleveland, and was recently inducted into the
office of county treasurer of Cuyahoga County, having been
elected in the fall of 1916.
Mr. Boyle has spent most of his life in
Cleveland and came up from the ranks of labor and has the broad
sympathies of a man who had to earn his living by the sweat of
his brow. This active sympathy has no doubt been
responsible in part for some of the valuable reforms he has
instituted in the methods of transacting public business, all
for the benefit of the general public rather than for the
favored few.
Mr. Boyle was born in County Mayo,
Ireland, June 2, 1868, the oldest child of Patrick and
Winifred (Stanton) Boyle. When he was five years of
age his parents came to the United States, first locating in
Mercer County, Pennsylvania, where his father was employed in
the iron business. In 1879 the family came to Cleveland.
The father is still active for his years, in good health and
enjoying life. The mother died Dec. 7, 1913. There were
three sons and three daughters, the daughters all dying in
infancy in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. John J. was
the only child of the family born in Ireland. All the
others claim Mercer County, Pennsylvania, as their place of
nativity. His brothers are Thomas S. and Michael
J. Thomas has been connected with the Standard Oil Company
at Whiting, Indiana, since it began operations there more than
twenty-eight years ago. Michael has been connected
with the Postal Telegraph Company for the past fifteen years,
and prior to that was employed by the Western Union Telegraph
Company.
John J. Boyle has lived in Cleveland since he
was eleven years of age. He received his early education
in the public schools of West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, and in
Cleveland also attended public night school, taking a course in
mathematics and bookkeeping under the well known old educator,
Professor Blandin. He became self supporting
when a boy, and for a number of years was employed in the mills
of the old Cleveland Rolling Mills Company at Newburg.
In 1892 he took up insurance work with the Metropolitan
Life and the Prudential Life. He was with those two
companies in various capacities, both in the field and on the
road traveling. The Metropolitan Life sent him out as a
general inspector, locating agencies in the West and throughout
the South, where he opened offices for the company at Memphis,
Nashville and Chattanooga, and also at Rockford and Freeport,
Illinois.
Leaving his insurance work in 1900, Mr. Boyle
was given a post in the Cleveland city government by Mayor
Farley. He was employed in the inspection
department, especially in looking after underground construction
work and seeing that all public utility corporations had the
necessary work installed before streets were paved. He
continued also through the administration of the late Tom L.
Johnson. In May, 1905, he was selected as secretary of
the commission that had charge of the erection of the new
Cuyahoga County court house, and continued his duties as
secretary of the commission until the building was completed in
1913.
An interesting feature of his work with that commission
is told in the report of Nau, Rusk & Swearingen,
certified public accountants to the Cuyahoga County Building
Commission, under date Sept. 28, 1915. In that report,
Mr. Boyle was complimented upon the methods installed
by him of keeping the records and accounts of the Building
Commission, and the public accountants in connection with their
report stated: ''We examined all contracts and vouchers,
and journal entries supporting disbursements of funds and find
no disbursement which was not properly authorized by the
commission. We found the books of account and records to
be comprehensive and adequate, and the supporting date preserved
in the files in such a manner as to be readily accessible to the
end that all transactions of the commission since its
organization can be readily verified, and we take this
opportunity to commend the neatness and accuracy of the work of
the secretary in recording the minutes of the commission in the
journal, and the excellent system of accounting installed by
him." It should be noted in this connection that all of
the $4,668,155.96 expended in the construction of the new court
house passed through the hands of Mr. Boyle.
On Sept. 4, 1913, Mr. Boyle became chief
deputy county treasurer of Cuyahoga County under P. C.
O'Brien, and filled that post four years. In the fall
of 1916 he was elected on the democratic ticket to the office of
county treasurer, and began his duties Sept. 3, 1917. This
date by an interesting coincidence was the tenth anniversary of
his wedding, and his induction into office was the occasion for
numerous floral pieces sent him by his friends.
While the record of Mr. Boyle's service
as county treasurer has only just begun, there is one feature of
it which must not be allowed to pass without the comment which
it deserves. This refers to the abolition, as a result of
a legislative measure introduced by Mr. Boyle, of
the notorious tax title sales which have been an onerous burden
upon the real estate owners of Ohio for many years. The
system has prevailed in practically all other states of the
Union, and the advanced position taken by Ohio as a result of
Mr. Boyle's influence will undoubtedly be closely
studied and followed by all interested in the subject throughout
the country. The facts of the case are well stated by
Mr. Boyle in an announcement he had publicly
circulated soon after taking office. These facts are of
such value as to deserve complete quotation.
"For more than fifty years in the State of Ohio, the
law compelled county treasurers to hold yearly sales of tax
titles. Your treasurer, Mr. Boyle, regarded
the sale of these lax titles a decided injustice to those
taxpayers, who, through no fault of their own, were unable to
pay their taxes.
"When sold, property owners lost title to their
property, and were compelled to pay to the tax buyer the
exorbitant and unjust premium of fifteen per cent penalty the
first year, and twenty-five per cent penalty the second year,
with interest at six per cent per annum, from date of sale, in
order to redeem their property.
"After two years, if not redeemed, these tax title
buyers by applying to the county auditor would receive what was
known as a deed of conveyance, and in many cases after the
issuance of this deed, property was entirely lost to the
original owner. The last two tax sales in Cuyahoga County
resulted in the sale of tax titles to the amount of $136,824.11.
If these titles were redeemed during the first year, the tribute
paid to tax buyers would amount to $29,964.78, or one-fifth of
the total. If none of these titles were redeemed until two years
had elapsed, the tribute paid to the tax buyers would amount to
$54,929.66, or more than one-third of the total sale. The total
amount of unpaid taxes for 1915 tax year in the State of Ohio,
as disclosed by the records in the State Auditor's office was
$2,420,777.83.
'' Through the efforts of your county treasurer a bill
prepared by him was passed by the 1917 State Legislature,
eliminating tax sales in the State of Ohio for all time.
Under this new law a more equitable method for delinquent tax
adjustment is now possible. Under the provisions of this
law taxpayers are relieved of the burden or exorbitant penalties
exacted by the tax title buyers, and the necessity of having to
deal with individuals living outside the state, in order to get
title to their own property as all adjustments are now made
through the County Treasurer's office. Property on which
taxes have not been paid for two consecutive tax paying periods
is advertised (but not sold) and certified delinquent to the
state auditor, and eight percent interest per annum is added,
plus sixty cents for advertising, and twenty-five cents for
certificate. This plan of collecting unpaid taxes not only saves
taxpayers a large amount of money, but they do not lose title to
their property.
"For the convenience of taxpayers, your County
Treasurer, Mr. Boyle, has established a department for the
purpose of mailing tax bills to property owners, thereby
relieving them of the necessity of writing for them at each tax
paying period or applying at the tax office for them. This
method has met the approval of the taxpaying public."
Mr. Boyle is a democrat in politics, but
his sterling Americanism has always been predominant over
partisanship. He is affiliated with the Knights of
Columbus, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Knights of
Equity, Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, City Club, and the
Cleveland Real Estate Board. He is an ardent baseball fan,
and takes his recreation as a pedestrian. For the past ten
years Mr. Boyle and family have been communicants
of St. Agnes parish. Before that he was a member of the
Holy Name parish. In St. Agnes church, Sept. 3,
1907, he married Miss Julia Marie Perkins. She was
born and educated in Cleveland, being a graduate of the Ursuline
Academy at Nottingham. Her parents, Marcus
Lafayette and Anna Marie (Volmar)
Perkins were both born in Cleveland. Her father
died when she was an infant. Her mother afterwards married
William F. Thompson, who was known as the pioneer in the
manufacture of the steel rod and wire industry of America.
Mr. and Mrs. Boyle have one son, John J., Jr.,
born at Cleveland, Apr. 2, 1909.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New
Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and
New York - 1918 - Page 330 - Vol. II |
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