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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 >
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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 President. Meshach 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
-----
* 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
-----
* 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 Jean.
Douglas 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: |
