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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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HENRY CHISHOLM
OSBORN is one of the successful young business men of
America. Forty years old, he has for the post fifteen
years been the directing executive head and president of The
American Multigraph Company. That position alone would be
sufficient to inspire interest in his personal career and
achievements on the part of probably a majority of the world's
workers in commercial affairs.
There are many ties and associations to identify him
with Cleveland. He is a native of the city, born May 10,
1878. The family has been prominent in Cleveland for over
half a century. Before coming to Cleveland the Osborns
were residents for several generations of New York State.
Grandfather William Osborn was born Feb. 6, 1799, in
Albany, New York, and for many years was a merchant tailor of
that city. He had an active personal friendship with many
of the prominent public men of New York, and was especially
intimate with Thurlow Weed of the Albany Journal.
He was one of the New York abolitionists. William
Osborn died in 1887. He married Ann Amelia
Hotchkiss, a native of New York, and she was the mother of
five children.
Alanson T. Osborn, father of Henry C. was
born in Albany County, New York, Apr. 11, 1845, and for many
years was prominent in manufacturing and business affairs at
Cleveland. He acquired a public school education in New
York State and his business experience prior to coming to
Cleveland was as chief clerk in the Horseheads postoffice in New
York. In September, 1862, at the age of seventeen, he
arrived at Cleveland and his first employer was R. P. Myers,
a stove, tinplate and tinners' supply manufacturer.
Eventually he acquired an interest in the business, conducted as
Myers, Osborn & Company. In 1868 he
transferred his active business connection to the
Sherwin-Williams Company and for fourteen years was one of the
contributing factors to the success of that great paint
industry. In 1882 he employed his wide and valuable
experience to engage in the retail paint and supply business,
and conducted a successful enterprise at Cleveland until he
retired in 1906.
Almost from the time he came to Cleveland Alanson T.
Osborn took a prominent part in church and civic affairs.
He became one of the leading members of the Euclid Avenue
Baptist Church, was president of the Board of Trustees of the
Baptist Home of Northern Ohio, was president and vice president
of the Cleveland Baptist Mission Society, and was trustee,
treasurer and served on most of the important committees of the
Young Men's Christian Association. He was early identified
with the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and in politics has
steadily adhered to the cause of the republican party, having
come into that party largely as a result of his boyhood service
as a Union soldier. He served a brief time with the One
Hundred and Fiftieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
On Oct. 7, 1868, Alanson T. Osborn married
Catherine A. Chisholm, daughter of Henry and Jean (Allan)
Chisholm of Scotch ancestry.
Henry
Chisholm was one of the founders and later president of
The Cleveland Rolling Mills. Mrs. Alanson T. Osborn
shared with her husband an active interest in many causes,
served as member of the Board of the Protestant Orphans Home, as
president of the Board of Lady Managers of the Baptist Home of
Northern Ohio, and in the Ladies Society of the Euclid Avenue
Baptist Church. The fine old Osborn home was
at 2317 Euclid Avenue, where the family lived until 1912, when
they moved to East Seventy-Fifth Street. They also have a
country home at Hazeldean on Gardner Road in Nottingham.
Alanson T. Osborn and wife have two sons and a daughter.
William A., the oldest, is a graduate of Cleveland Public
and High Schools and Yale University, completing his
post-graduate work in the latter institution in 1894. He
was for a time chief chemist for The American Steel & Wire at
Cleveland and has devoted much of his time to amateur
photography and chemical research and was one of the first
amateurs to use color photography. The daughter, Jean,
is the wife of R. G. A. Phillips, vice president of The
American Multigraph Company.
Henry Chisolm Osborn undoubtedly acquired some
prominent talents from his for-fathers, though inheritance would
not be sufficient to account for his achievements. He was
educated in the public schools of Cleveland, in the University
School and the Case School of Applied Science. With a
thorough training as a mechanical engineer he became connected
with the Amstutz-Osborn Company, which he organized for
the purpose of developing inventions. The firm name was
later changed to The Osborn-Morgan Company. Thus
was provided the business organization in which the multigraph
invention found a favoring environment. It was in 1901,
while Mr. Osborn was president of The Osborn Morgan
Company that Mr. H. C. Gammeter, inventor of the
multigraph, and concerning whom an interesting sketch is
published on other pages, brought to Mr. Osborn's
attention what was then called the Gammeter multigraph.
It was described as nothing more than an inventor's dream.
Mr. Osborn fortunately for the inventory and for the
business world, realized its value and the possibilities of the
future. He placed at the disposal of the inventor every
means in his power for the adequate development of the machine.
In 1902 The American Multigraph Company was organized
with Mr. Osborn as president. This new company took
over the property of The Osborn-Morgan Company, which
then consisted of a one-story frame factory, with 4,000 square
feet of floor space located at East Fortieth Street and Kelly
Avenue in Cleveland, and a general equipment of machinery.
The first multigraph was placed on the market in March, 1905.
As a machine, the multigraph, one of the greatest additions ever
made to commercial office and labor saving machinery, is too
well known to require elaborate description. Its
popularity was almost immediate, and the business grew so
rapidly from the start that in July, 1906, a four-story brick
building with 36,000 square feet of floor space was erected on
the site of the old factory. In March, 1909, two
additional stories were added, in July, 1913, an entirely new
building was constructed, and in February, 1918, a 50,000 square
foot addition was added. In March, 1909, the Universal
Folding Machine Company of Chicago was absorbed, giving the
Multigraph Company a line of machinery for the folding of
stationery and thus increasing the company's list of office
appliances.
At the present time The American Multigraph Company has
branch offices in the United States and Canada. These are
all under the business supervision of The American Multigraph
Sales Company, a subsidiary organization of The American
Multigraph Company. The officers of the latter company
are: Henry C. Osborn, president and general
manager; R. G. A. Phillips, vice president and secretary;
W. C. Dunlap, treasurer; L. W. Jared, general
sales manager; A. E. Ashburner, foreign sales manager.
As illustrating the versatility of American industry,
The American Multigraph Company's plant has recently been
adapted for an important service to the foreign governments and
now to the American Government. Besides manufacturing
multigraphs the company has turned out large quantities of
munitions for England, and the plant ahs been running day and
night on materials for the United States, since it entered the
war, for both the Army and Navy. Fourteen hundred people
work in the plant on East Fortieth Street. In 1916-17 this
plant produced a million time and percussion fuses for the
British government, as well as 6,000,000 artillery cartridge
case primers.
Mr. Osborn was the founder and is the president
of The Cleveland Brass and Copper Mill, Incorporated, a
$3,000,000 corporation, which has erected and put in operation
of brass and copper sheets and rods. He is a member of The
National Marine League and the American Defense Society, and has
active affiliations with the Union Club, Country Club, Tavern
Club, Roadside Club, Cleveland Automobile Club and the Chamber
of Commerce. He is a member of the Euclid Avenue Baptist
Church. Mr. Osborn is a man of many interests not
only in a business way but in the pursuits and pastimes oaf home
and society. He was one of the first of Cleveland's
motorists, delights in golf, fishing and other outdoor sports.
On Apr. 25, 1905, he married Miss Marion DeWolf Tracy, a
native of Escanaba, Michigan, and daughter of Dr. James
Horace and Marion (DeWolf) Tracy. They have two
children: Henry C., Jr., attending the Hawken
School for Boys; and Tracy K.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of
New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New
York - 1918 - Page 303 |
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