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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
1789 - 1881
History of Cincinnati, Ohio
with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A. M., and Mrs. Kate B. Ford
L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers
1881
(Transcribed by Sharon Wick)
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HON.
W. S. CAPPELLER, auditor of Hamilton county, was born
in Somerset county, Pennsylvania, Feb. 23, 1839, and removed
when still a boy to Wayne county, Indiana. Having lost his
father in 1852, he was apprenticed to the Hon. D. P. Holloway,
then editor of the Richmond Palladium, to learn the
trade of a printer; but his uncle Philip Dom, of Mt. Healthy,
Ohio, offered him the opportunity of obtaining a finished
education at Farmer's college, of which he availed himself.
His mother, who is still living, watched carefully over his
instruction, and he attributes his success in life to the care
and attention she bestowed on his early education. In 1859 he
was elected clerk of Springfield township, and also clerk of
the township board of education, and was reelected three
times. In 1870 he was appointed by the court of common pleas
one of a committee of three to investigate the accounts of the
officials of Hamilton county, and discharged his duty with
such fidelity and thoroughness as to elicit the commendation
of the people as well as the press; and the general assembly
of the State, acting upon the report made by the committee,
amended the law relating to the compensation of county
officials by a bill known as the “Hamilton Fee
Bill,” which is
still in force. Mr. Cappeller served several years as tax
omission deputy in the office of county auditor of this
county, and in the fall of 1877 was himself elected auditor,
after one of the most spirited campaigns in the political
history of the county, being the only Republican elected on
the ticket. He was reelected in October, 1880, by a majority
of three thousand eight hundred and forty-five, receiving the
largest vote and largest majority of any man on the ticket.
His thorough familiarity with all the details and duties
pertaining to the office has enabled him to meet without
embarrassment its increasing labors and growing intricacies;
and he distributes to the different funds of Hamilton county
five millions of dollars annually with as much ease and
accuracy as his earlier predecessors distributed one-tenth of
that amount.
For many years Mr. Cappeller has been prominently identified
with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, contributing to its
publications, delivering addresses, etc., and as
representative in the grand lodge of Ohio has always been
considered a wise and judicious counsellor. He was installed
Worthy Grand Master of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge of Ohio,
at Canton, on the sixteenth day of May, 1878,and filled the
position with singular ability and intelligence. In December,
1880, he was elected to represent the State of Ohio in the
Sovereign Grand Lodge of the world.
Mr. Cappeller is an original thinker and an effective public
speaker, as is evidenced by the demands made upon his time and
services during political and other campaigns. He is a
gentleman of fine social as well as executive qualities, and
by industry and a courteous demeanor towards all has been
successful in life and attained an enviable and justly
deserved popularity.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 448
(Submitted by Sharon Wick) |
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MILTON
THOMPSON CAREY, M. D., born near the town of Hardin, in
Shelby county, Ohio, July 22, 1831. The advantages for
acquiring an education during his early boyhood were somewhat
meagre and limited; but notwithstanding this, at the age of
eighteen years his preparatory education was of sufficient
character to justify him to enter upon the study of medicine.
After three years' pupilage, and shortly before he was of age,
he graduated in medicine in the Ohio Medical college, and, as
a reward of merit and distinction in the class, after a
competitive examination, was appointed resident physician of
the Commercial Hospital and Lunatic asylumn. After his term of
service expired in this institution he began the general
practice of his profession. He received appointment as
attending physician to the Venereal and Contagious hospital in
1852-3; was appointed demonstrator of anatomy by the trustees
of the Ohio Medical college, which position he occupied until
the spring of 1856; and was elected coroner of Hamilton
county, Ohio, in the fall of 1857, and served two years. At
the breaking out of the war he was examined by the State board
of examiners, was appointed and commissioned surgeon
Forty-eighth regiment Ohio volunteer infantry November 21,
1861, and assigned to duty as post surgeon at Camp Dennison,
Ohio. After organizing a post hospital and assisting in the
organization of several regiments he was ordered into active
duty in the field in the spring of 1862, took part in the
battle of Pittsburgh Landing, or Shiloh, and was captured on
the first day of the battle, April 6th, and remained a
prisoner of war until July 2, 1862, at which "time he was
paroled and returned home. Soon after his arrival at home he
was ordered to Camp Chase, Ohio, and assigned to duty as post
surgeon, in which capacity he served until October of the same
year, at which time he was ordered to join the army at Fort
Pickering, Tennessee. He was with with the army at the time of
the assault upon Vicks-burgh, was likewise a participant in
the battle of Arkansas Post, January n, 1863, and was attacked
with camp fever at Young's Point, in consequence of which his
health became so impaired that he was compelled to resign his
commission and return home. Not content to remain idle in the
great struggle in which the government was engaged, as soon as
his health was somewhat restored he made application for and
received the appointment of acting assistant surgeon, and was
assigned to duty as surgeon in Woodward Post hospital in this
city, in which capacity he served until the war was well nigh
ended. He was reelected coroner of Hamilton county in 1865 and
served two years; was elected to the common council in 1872
and served two years, and was elected by the common council a
member of the board of directors of Longview asylum. After
serving nearly two terms he was reappointed to that position
by the governor of the State. He was elected as a
representative of the Twenty-second ward to the board of
education in 1880 and 1881, and is now a member of the
Cincinnati Relief union, which position he has held many
years, likewise member of the board of directors and
vice-president of the eleventh district associated charities.
As an evidence of his success in his profession there are but
few medical men in Cincinnati who have been more successful in
a financial point of view than he. He began poor, but by
energy, economy and industry his investments yield him a
liberal competency aside from the income of his profession. As
a medical officer in the army he attained some distinction as
an operator—see reports on file in the medical department, and
circular No. 2, page 23, surgeon-general's office at
Washington, D. C. The many tokens of confidence upon the part
of his fellow-citizens are highly gratifying to him, and it is
but fair to say that every trust has been faithfully and
scrupulously discharged.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 441
(Submitted by Sharon Wick) |
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ALBERT
CARRY, foreman of the Dayton Street brewery, is a
native of Germany. At the age of fourteen he began to
learn the brewer’s trade, which he followed while in
Germany. In 1869 he came to the United States, and
went to Jersey City, where he worked as a brewer some two
years. In 1871 Mr. Carry came to Cincinnati,
and began work in the Western brewery. The last two
and a half years of his stay at this brewery he was foreman,
but left to take the foremanship of the Dayton Street
brewery. He is recognized as one of the best posted
brewers in the city.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 525 |
Alice Cary
Phoebe Cary
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THE
CARY SISTERS. Alice and Phoebe Cary
were born near Mount Pleasant (now Mount Healthy), in
Springfield township, the fourth and sixth children of
Robert and Elizabeth Jessup Cary. The former was
born Apr. 26, 1820, the latter Sept. 4, 1824. They are
the brightest stars in the literary galaxy of Cincinnati or
of Hamilton county. They were of good blood on both
sides. Their father was descended from Sir Thomas Cary,
a cousin of “Good Queen Bess,” and a Pilgrim Father in New
England. Robert, of the sixth generation from
Sir Thomas, came with his father Christopher
to the Northwest Territory in 1803, and in due time settled
as a farmer near Mount Healthy, upon the site known as
Clovernook in Alice’s stories. The mother was
of a family in which poetic talent was developed. The
following lines, by one of the sisters, descriptive of many
another pioneer home in the Miami valley, as well as of the
Cary dwelling, deserve a place just here:
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OUR HOMESTEAD.
Our old brown homestead reared its walls
From the wayside dust aloof,
Where the apple-boughs could almost cast
Their fruit upon its roof;
And the cherry-tree so near it grew
That, when awake I've lain
In the lonesome nights, I've heard the limbs
As they creaked against the pane;
And those orchard trees—O, those orchard trees!
I've seen my little brothers rocked
In their tops by the summer breeze.
The sweet-brier under the window-sill,
Which the early birds made glad,
And the damask rose by the garden fence
Were all the flowers we had.
I've looked at many a flower since then,
Exotics rich and rare,
That to other eyes were lovelier,
But not to me so fair;
For those roses bright—O, those roses bright!
I have twined them in my sister's locks,
That arc hid in the dust from sight.
We had a well—a deep, old well,
Where the spring was never dry,
And the cool drops down from the mossy stones
Were falling constantly;
And there never was water half so sweet
As the draught which filled my cup,
Drawn up to the curb by the rude old sweep
That my father's hand setup ;
And that deep, old well—O, that deep, old well!
I remember now the plashing sound
Of the bucket as it fell.
Our homestead had an ample hearth,
Where at night we loved to meet;
There my mother's voice was always kind,
And her smile was always sweet;
And there I've sat on my father's knee,
And watched his thoughtful brow,
With my childish hand in his raven hair —
That hair is silver now!
But that broad hearth's light—O, that broad hearth’s
light!
And my father's look and my mother's smile,
They are in my heart to-night! |
The sisters had only the limited
advantages for education which the schools of their early
day afforded. When Alice was eighteen her poems
began to appear in the Cincinnati press, and Phoebe,
though but fourteen, had been making rhymes for a year or
two. The first of Alice’s pieces published
appeared in the Sentinel, and was entitled The Child of
Sorrow. In 1849 their first
book, Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary, for which they
received a hundred dollars, was published by Moss &
Brother, of Philadelphia. The next year
Alice went bravely to live in New York, and support
herself by the labors of her pen. Phoebe and a
younger sister followed in the spring of the next year.
Their subsequent life is known to all the literary world.
The two series of Clovernook Papers, with Clovernook
Children, Pictures of Country Life, Hagar, a Story of
To-day, The Bishop’s Son, Married, Not Mated— these in
prose; with Lyra, and Other Poems, Lyrics and Hymns, Poems
and Parodies, Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love, and other
books in verse; and some good editorial work, as of Hymns
for all Christians, published in 1869— these volumes, by one
or the other, or both of them jointly, brought them money
and renown. Alice died in New York city Feb.
18, 1871; Phoebe in Newport, Rhode Island, July 31st,
of the same year.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 273 |
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THE CARY SISTERS
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 419
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J.
B. CHICKERING, founder and proprietor of the
Chickering Scientific and Classical Institute, was born
August 10, 1827, in the town of New Ipswich, New Hampshire.
His grandfather, Captain Abner Chickering,
served in the Revolutionary war, and his father was a captain
in the War of 1812. His father was the only brother of
Joseph Chickering, the celebrated piano
manufacturer. The subject of our sketch spent the first years
of his life on a New England farm, where he was trained to
habits of hardihood and economy. At the early age of eight
years he lost his father. From the age of eight to the age of
sixteen he worked on a farm earning his own livelihood and
assisting in the support of his mother. He found time for
study, and manifested great quickness of apprehension, with
remarkable power of memory. When sixteen years old it was
thought best that the boy should shift for himself, and,
Yankee-like, he started out eagerly to try his fortune. The
cash capital with which he began life on his own account, was
but forty-two cents. Impressed with the excellent Yankee
notion that education is the prime essential to success in any
business or profession, young Chickering determined to
go to school awhile, at all hazards. He made arrangements by
which he could barter honest work for solid knowledge, and in
1843 entered Appleton institute, a most excellent
classical and scientific school, located in his native town.
For six years he worked and studied on a average of eighteen
hours a day, and at the end of that time graduated at the head
of his class. The continuity of his course at the academy was
broken by the necessity of increasing his earnings, and he
found winter employment in teaching district and high schools.
His active habits and ready skill in imparting instruction
made him very popular as a teacher. For two or three years
after graduating Mr. Chickering continued a
post-graduate course of study, giving most of his time to
reading Latin authors; but circumstances prevented his
completing a full collegiate course, as had been his
long-cherished plan. Subsequently he found time to give three
years to the study of the French and German languages, but he
took a greater interest in and gained greater proficiency in
mathematics and natural sciences, for which he possessed a
peculiar aptness. The cast of his mind is peculiarly practical
and methodical. He readily seizes the general features of a
subject, and is rarely mistaken in his judgment as to the
relative value of studies to individuals, or as to the real
breadth or capacity of others, whether they be teachers,
learners, or neither. The term "shrewdness" well describes the
character of his mind. Education has in every way sharpened
and strengthened his faculties, but the executive genius by
which he has won so good a reputation and accomplished so
useful a work, is inborn, like his common sense and gay, good
humor. The following is clipped from the Cincinnati Gazette
of September 17, 1877:
It is thirty-three years since the principal of the
well-known Chickering institute first commenced his
career as a teacher in the grammar schools of New England.
Here he taught with marked success in grammar and high schools
for eight years, when he was induced to come to Cincinnati on
account of a generous offer made him by Miles
Greenwood. This was in the autumn of 1852. After eighteen
months spent as a private tutor, Mr. Chickering
opened a private school in the beautiful village of Avondale.
Inducements being offered for him to come to the city, he
determined to do so, and in 1855 Chickering academy was
opened in George-street-engine-house, with an
attendance the first week of thirty-seven, and during the year
increased to fifty-one. The second year the school record
showed an attendance of seventy-six. Each successive year the
attendance continued to increase until the year 1859, when it
was determined to build for the better accommodation of the
pupils. The site of the present building was purchased by
Mr. Chickering, a two-story building was erected,
and Chickering academy changed its name to the
Chickering Classical and Scientific institute. The first
year in the new building the school numbered one hundred and
fifty-five. Within two years it was found necessary to
add another story to the building for the better accommodation
of the primary department for young boys. From that time to
the present has been a series of years of most remarkable
success in the school's history, the average attendance
catalogued being two hundred and fifteen per annum. During
all these years it has enjoyed the reputation of being not
only one of the largest (probably the very largest) private
schools for boys in the country, but is certainly one of the
best managed and conducted in every respect.
This school may well challenge comparison in the almost
invariable success of its many graduates to pass the required
examination of the colleges and scientific schools of this
country and of Europe. Since 1864 the institute has presented
the graduates of both classical and scientific departments
with diplomas. No one is graduated unless he has an average
standing of seventy-five per cent, during the middle and
junior years, and of eighty per cent, in senior year. This
rule is rigidly adhered to. This demands of students most
earnest and faithful study and work in all departments, and
hence the reason why those who enter colleges and scientific
schools from this institute have always succeeded without
being dropped from their college classes. At present the
school has a most able corps of fourteen teachers, selected
with special reference to their fitness to fill the places
assigned them in the school. None but experienced teachers are
ever employed. The liberality and discriminating judgment of
Mr. Chickering have been the means of inducing
several eminent educators to cast their lot for a longer or a
shorter period of time in the institute. Among these may be
named G. K. Bartholomew} principal of the young ladies'
school bearing his name, Professor Henry P. Wright, of Yale college, Professor Tracy Peck, of
Cornell university, Professor E. C. Coy, of
Phillips* Andover academy, W. H. Venable, author of
United States History and several other works. Mr. Venable
has been associated with the institution for seventeen
years and has contributed very largely to its present eminent
success.
Any sketch of the life of Mr. Chickering
would be incomplete if it did not allude to his character as a
citizen and a Christian worker. He is known in the city of
Cincinnati as a most scrupulously honest and: prompt man of
business, and as such has the respect and confidence of the
business men. His industry knows no rest. He never delegates
even the details of his work, to agents, but attends with the
utmost care to every item of his own business. Mr.
Chickering is a vigilant and indefatigable working church
member. Perhaps no man living ever gave more faithful service
to Sabbath school interests than he has done. He is never
absent from his post of duty, and his punctuality is
proverbial. During thirty-three years he has never been once
late at the opening exercises of his school, nor absent
therefrom a single day. Blest with an unusual degree of
health, his energy knows no rest. Although so exacting of his
own time and energies, he is nevertheless generous toward
those who do not attain his own standing of promptness and
punctuality.
On the fifteenth of July, 1857, Mr.
Chickering was married to Sarah M. Brown, of
Harvard, Massachusetts. Since then their pleasant home has
been blessed with five children, the eldest a daughter, and
four sons, all of whom are living. In closing our sketch it
may not be uninteresting to state that the Chickering
family is of the old English stock, and the lineage can be
traced in an unbroken line to 1138. His mother, whose maiden
name was Boutelle, was of French descent.*
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 454
* The above is a
production first written by W. H. Venable for the Biographical
Cyclopedia of Ohio. |
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DeWitt C. COLLINS
Source: History of
Cincinnati and Hamilton Co., Ohio, Past & Present -
Illustrated - Publ. Cincinnati, Ohio - S. B. Nelson & Co.,
Publishers - 1894 - Page 501 - Portrait on Page 504a
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WILLIAM HENRY COOK. William Henry Cook, A.
M., M. D., was born in New York city, January, 1832. His
father was a builder; and soon after moved to Williamsburgh
(East Brooklyn), where he was a leading contractor and
prominent citizen greatly respected. The family moved to
Canada in 1840, and returned in 1847. The son, an early and
eager student, received a classic education, the removal in
1847 interrupting his college course. He chose medicine as
his profession by the advice of L. N. Fowler, with whom he travelled several months; and graduated at Syracuse. After
some practice in the country, he opened an office in New York
city and attended the hospitals there for a year or more. In
October, 1854, he took up his residence in Cincinnati.
Independent in thought and of great energy, he adopted the
Physio-Medical system of practice, believing it to be based on
the immutable laws of nature. To him, numbers and mere human
authority are nothing; for these, if in error, will be
overthrown by the truth, and to find this truth in science is
to him the only object worthy of an honest man. He is a
tireless worker in his espoused cause, bringing to it a
philosophical mind, thorough education, fine literary talents,
and the enthusiasm of profound conviction. He has elevated
this system to a very high scientific standard, and is its
acknowledged head. Dignified arid courteous, he never uses
personalities toward opponents, but respects their motives
while differing from their opinions and believing that some
day all will see medical truth alike in Nature. His opponents
bear testimony to his uprightness, sincerity, and high
scholarship. He was the mover in organizing the Physio-Medical
institute in 1859, and has ever since been its dean and one of
its professors, and for eleven years has held the chair of
Theory and Practice. He is a superb teacher, and enjoys a wide
experience and the culture obtained from one of the largest
private medical libraries in the city. His lectures draw
students from Maine to Oregon, and he is professionally
consulted from every State. He has been eminently successful
in several lithotomy operations and other capital surgery.
While making a business, he taught some private classes in
botany and chemistry. In May, 1861, he saw the coming need for
female nurses, organized a Florence Nightingale society of
nearly one hundred prominent ladies, and instructed them in
nursing and hospital duties. General McClellan warmly approved
this work, which was the initiatory movement to the famous
Sanitary commission of the war. In 1871 Lawrence university,
Wisconsin, conferred on him an honorary Master of Arts. In
1872 and subsequently he conspicuously advocated a system of
State medical laws, by which a very high standard of
professional education would be enforced and corrupt colleges
be overturned, yet the rights of the people and of individual
conviction be secured. His articles were very widely copied.
He is a rapid writer; clear, elegant and forcible in style.
Few men surpass him in literary taste and power, or in
literary culture. Since January, 1855, he has edited the
Cincinnati Medical Gazette and Recorder, and published the
following textbooks: Physio-Medical Surgery, octavo; Woman's
Book of Health, duodecimo; Physio-Medical Dispensatory, large
octavo; Spermatorrhea, duodecimo; Science and Practice of
Medicine, large octavo, two volumes.
Dr. Cook is a modest and retiring gentleman, carrying the
impress of the refined and dignified scholar. He is greatly
beloved by his patients, as well for his faithfulness,
tenderness, and glowing cheerfulness, as for his high
professional skill. He is an embodiment of professional
courtesy and honor; and a city or a country, as well as the
several medical societies to which he belongs, may be proud of
such a gentleman and scholar.
For more than thirty years he has been a consistent member of
the Methodist church, in which he holds the highest official
positions. M. C. W.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 474 |
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S.
F. COVINGTON was born in Rising Sun, Indiana, November
12, 1819. His father was a native of Somerset county,
Maryland, and came west and settled in Rising Sun in 1816. He
was married, January 7, 1819, to Mary Fulton,
daughter of Colonel Samuel Fulton, who
built the first log house in that section of the country in
1798, on the place where Rising Sun now stands. Colonel
Fulton was a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania,
and with his father had served in the war of the Revolution.
Upon the restoration of peace they removed west, first
stopping a couple of years at Newport, Kentucky, then locating
where Rising Sun now is. The father, John Fulton,
died in 1826. Colonel Fulton, after a residence
there of fully fifty years, during which time he held many
important positions under both the Territorial and State
governments, died January 15, 1849, in the eighty-seventh year
of his age.
The subject of this sketch received his education, with
the exception of a single year at Miami university, at the
schools of his native village, which was famed for its good
schools from its earliest history to the present time. At the
age of twelve years he entered a country store, and for the
next six years took as much time from that employment as his
means would allow in attending school. Leaving college in the
autumn of 1838, he engaged as clerk on a steamboat, where he
continued, with intervals in shipping produce to the south by
flatboats, until March, 1843, when, at the solicitation of his
fellow-citizens, he established and took charge of a newspaper
at Rising Sun called the Indiana Blade; the object being to
procure a division of Dearborn county and the location of the
county seat at Rising Sun. Efforts for the accomplishment of
this object had been made at intervals for the thirty years
preceding. The Blade divided the county, and, in 1844, Rising
Sun was made a county seat.
Soon after the establishment of the Blade\ on the
second of April, 1843, Mr. Covington was married
to Miss Mary Hamilton, second daughter of
Jonathan Hamilton, then a resident of Rising Sun, but
whose family, originally from the same section of Pennsylvania
as Colonel Fulton, were among the pioneers of
Columbiana county, Ohio. Five children were born of this
union. The eldest, George B., entered the Union army
July 4, 1861, having then barely entered upon his seventeenth
year. After serving as quartermaster-sergeant of the
Seventeenth Indiana regiment, he was promoted by Governor
Morton to the adjutantcy of the same regiment, and
shared in its many engagements, commencing in Virginia and
continuing through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. He was
wounded in battle at Pumpkin Vine Church, Georgia, May 24,
1864, and died June 1, 1864. The second son, John I.,
graduated at Miami university in 1870, and has since devoted
himself to insurance, being at this time superintendent of the
Insurance Adjustment company of Cincinnati, an institution of
great value to both insurers and insured. The eldest daughter,
Harriet, graduated at the Cincinnati Young Ladies'
seminary in 1868, and in 1874 was married to Rev. James H.
Shields, now pastor of the Presbyterian church of South St.
Louis, Missouri. The second daughter, Mary, graduated
at Highland institute, Hillsborough, Ohio, in 1874, was
married to Joseph Cox, jr., son of Judge
Joseph Cox, in 1879, and died July 26, 1880.
Florence, the youngest daughter, graduated at Highland
institute in 1880, and remains with her parents. When the new
county of Ohio was authorized in 1844 the sheriff appointed by
the governor to attend to its organization was called from the
State by business. He appointed Mr. Covington
his deputy, so that he was the first person to act officially
in that county. He was chosen auditor at the first election in
the county without opposition. The county was small and there
was but little for county officers to do, the fees and
emoluments of no one of them being sufficient to devote the
hours required by law in attending at the office. The
occupants of the several offices had a pride in being the
first officers of the new county, which was their only motive
for accepting the places. This led to the appointment of Mr.
Covington as a deputy, and at one time when he was
auditor he acted as deputy clerk of the circuit court, deputy
county recorder, deputy county treasurer, and deputy school
commissioner, really attending to the duties of every county
office except those of sheriff and coroner. In the spring of
1846 he was chosen a justice of the peace by an almost
unanimous vote. He was well known as a Democrat of the most
pronounced type, yet when he came before his fellow-citizens
as a candidate he was supported strongly by the Whigs. Soon
after being elected justice of the peace he was appointed
postmaster at Rising Sun, and served in both capacities until
the autumn of 1847, when, having been elected a member of the
State legislature from the district composed of the counties
of Ohio and Switzerland, and which was pretty evenly divided
between the two parties, by a vote of more than two to one
over his Whig competitor, he resigned the office of justice of
the peace, because of the constitutional prohibition in
relation to the same person holding two offices under the
State constitution. One legislative term satisfied all his
ambition in that direction, and he resolved never again to be
a candidate for legislative honors. About this time he made a
narrow escape from a considerable loss by being security on an
official bond, and he resolved never to accept an office
requiring an official bond or go as bondsman upon one, to
which he has ever since adhered. He holds that if the electors
select a dishonest or incompetent man they should be held
responsible for his frauds and his errors, and not some
innocent bondsman whose family may be forever pecuniarily
ruined. While a number of the legislature he purchased the
Courier newspaper at Madison, Indiana, and upon the
adjournment of the legislature resigned his office of
postmaster and removed to Madison and took charge of that
paper. This was the year of the Presidential contest between
General Cass and General Taylor.
Madison was a strong Whig city, but very few of her
merchants or leading men being Democrats. The Banner a Whig
paper, was published daily and weekly and had a good
patronage. The Courier was a weekly paper and had but a
limited patronage. The new editor took hold with a
determination to make the Courier a success. He was
uncompromising in his politics, yet he advocated the cause of
the Democratic party in a way so as to avoid giving personal
offense, and soon the business became prosperous. In due time
a daily Courier was issued. It gave attention to the business
interests of the city, took the telegraphic news, which the
Banner did not, and with all its sins of Democracy soon grew
into public favor. The Banner has long since ceased to be
published. The Courier has enjoyed prosperity from the day of
its first appearance, now thirty-two years ago.
In 1848 Mr. Covington sold the Courier to
Colonel M. C. Garber, recently deceased, and returned
to Rising Sun and engaged in merchandising, which he continued
but a short period. He again turned his attention to shipping
produce south in flatboats and to insurance, engaging in the
latter business in Cincinnati in 1851, and in which business
he has ever since, with but slight interruptions, continued,
having been associated with the management of companies in all
these intervening years, and is at this time president of the
Underwriters' association. He was one of the incorporators of
the Globe Insurance company of this city, in March, 1865, and
was its first secretary, having resigned the secretaryship of
the Western Insurance company of this city to accept that
position. He was chosen vice-president of the company in 1867,
and president in January, 1874, which position he now holds.
At the spring election in 1870, Mr. Covington
was elected from the Seventeenth ward .as a member of the
first board of aldermen, was appointed chairman of the
committee on the fire department, and thus became, ex-officio,
a member of the board of fire commissioners. The next year he
was chosen president of the board of aldermen, at the close of
which he retired from the board.
The legislature of Ohio at its session of 1875-76
enacted a law providing for a board of police commissioners
to be appointed by the governor for the city of Cincinnati.
Without solicitation on the part of Mr. Covington,
or any previous knowledge of the wishes of the governor, R.
B. Hayes, the appointment was tendered him by telegraph,
and accepted. Mr. Covington was chosen president
of the board at its first meeting, and served until the duties
of the office became such a tax upon his time and so
interfered with his business that he was compelled to resign.
As a delegate from the Cincinnati chamber of commerce,
he attended the convention held in February, 1868, at which
was organized the National board of trade." He was elected a
vice-president of the Cincinnati chamber of commerce in 1868,
again in 1869, and again in 1870. In 1872 he was chosen
president of the same body, and was reelected in 1873, thus
serving two terms. He was elected a representative of the
chamber to the National Board at Chicago in 1873, and was then
elected a vice-president of the National Board, and was
elected a representative annually and continued a
vice-president of the National Board up to 1880, when the
Cincinnati chamber of commerce withdrew its membership from
the National Board of Trade.
Mr. Covington was elected president of
the Cincinnati board of trade in 1878. In 1879 the board of
trade and the board of transportation were consolidated, and
in 1881 he was elected president of the consolidated board,
being the first instance in which any person had been elected
a second time to the presidency of that organization. Mr.
Covington has for many years taken an active part in
all matters affecting the business interests and commercial
prosperity of Cincinnati. His familiarity with transportation
and insurance, his knowledge of boating and boatmen, and the
deep interest he has taken in the improvement of the
navigation of our river, have made his services in that
direction of great value to the transportation interests of
our city. He was for a long time chairman of the committee of
the chamber of commerce on the Louisville and Portland canal,
and as such contributed largely to the early and successful
completion of that important work, by going before the
committee on commerce in Congress and presenting its claims to
their consideration. He also represented the chamber before
congressional committees in opposition to bridges across the
Ohio river likely to obstruct its navigation. He was, during
several years, chairman of the committee on river navigation
in the board of trade, and by his reports upon that subject
attracted public attention to the value of our river or public
highways, and their importance to the manufacturing and
commercial interests of the city or routes of transit, and
thus secured congressional aid for their improvements.
Mr. Covington's whole
life has been passed so near the city, and so much of it
within the city, that he may during the entire time be
classed, with no great impropriety, as a citizen of
Cincinnati. Commencing as far back as 1833, he was familiar
with the city and acquainted with very many of its citizens.
That acquaintance has been so kept alive by almost daily
communication when a resident, and by frequent visits when not
a resident, that but few persons now living here know more of
the city and its inhabitants, during the past fifty years,
than he does. He has seen it grow from a population of but
little, if any more than thirty thousand, to its present great
proportions, and watched its progress in all these years with
a deep interest and just pride, feeling closely identified
with it in all its material interests, and that its prosperity
conduced to his own.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 462 |
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BENJAMIN
HIRAM COX, lawyer, is the
second son of Judge Joseph Cox, and was born in Storrs
township (now Cincinnati), Hamilton county, Ohio, March 16,
1851. He received his education at the common and high schools
of the township, and in bookkeeping at Gundry's commercial
college. He, at a very early age, showed great aptitude for
business and was appointed to a position in the county
clerk's office, by T. B. Disney, esq., chief
clerk. Here he remained through the different successors of
the office for nearly ten years, issuing subpanoes and orders for sale for
all the courts, and officiating as clerk for one of the rooms
of the supreme court. While thus employed he studied law under
his father and graduated at the Cincinnati law college, and in
1875 was admitted to the bar and resigned his position in the
clerk's office, and began the practice of law in Cincinnati,
in partnership with Charles W. Cole, esq. Afterwards they
associated with them his younger brother, Joseph Cox, jr.,
under the name of Cole, Cox & Cox. Previous to this, in 1871
he was elected a member of the school board, from the ninth
ward, and selected from that body as a member of the union
board of high school directors. In 1878 he was elected a
member of council, from the ninth ward, and was appointed
chairman of the committee of law and contracts, in which he
served for two years with great intelligence and ability.
Removing into the twelfth ward about the close of his term, he
was unexpectedly nominated, by an overwhelming majority, to
represent that ward, and was elected without opposition. Mr.
Cox is a fine specimen of our business young men. Of large,
powerful physique and commanding presence, he is polite and
affable to all, yet firm and tenacious in his views. He is
active and energetic in business, has an unbounded faith in
the progress and success of everything in Cincinnati, has,
perhaps, bought and sold as much real estate in the city as
any other young man of his age, and generally knows a bargain
when he sees it. The firm of Cole, Cox & Cox has a flourishing
business, being counsel for some of the best business men of
the city. In addition to this, Benjamin is a master
commissioner of the courts, and, being popular with most of
the lawyers, is entrusted with the sale of a great deal of
property, under orders of court, of which, by his activity and
knowledge of the business, and large acquaintance with
capitalists, he has been markedly successful in disposing at
good prices. In politics he is an ardent Republican and an
active worker. His wife is Emma L., daughter of James S. Burdsal, one of the oldest and most prominent druggists of the
city. By this marriage he has four children.
Joseph Cox, jr., of the law
firm of Cole, Cox & Cox, of Cincinnati, and son of the
prominent and well-known citizen, Judge Joseph Cox, of
Cincinnati, was born January 11, 1858, in Storrs township. He
received his education in the high schools of Cincinnati,
graduating therefrom in 1877. In 1879 he graduated in his law
studies in the Cincinnati law school, since which time he has
practiced his profession. In September, 1879, he was married
to Miss Mary Covington, of Cincinnati, daughter of
Mr. S. F. Covington, a leading citizen of that place. His
wife died in June, 1880.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 431 |
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HON.
JOSEPH COX, judge of district court and court of
common pleas of Hamilton county, and an eminent lawyer, is a
native of Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, born August, 4, 1822,
son of Dr. Hiram and Margaret (Edwards) Cox.
His paternal grandfather was a pioneer in western Virginia,
and his maternal grandsire in western Pennsylvania.
Both were soldiers of the Revolution and of the Indian wars
that followed, and the latter was killed in an Indian fight
near Wheeling about 1795; the other was killed by the
premature falling of a tree, leaving a young family, among
whom was Hiram Cox, father of the subject of this
sketch. He was early apprenticed to a saddler, but had
an aptitude for scholarship which made him a teacher at the
early age of sixteen, and at twenty-one head of a
flourishing academy at Chambersburgh, which he maintained
for ten years. He was united in marriage to
Margaret Edwards during this period. Their second
child was Joseph, who inherited not only a love of
learning, but great physical vigor, energy, and ability to
sustain continuous and severe labor. In February,
1829, the elder Cox, having meanwhile studied
medicine, removed his family to Cincinnati, and shortly
after to Dayton, Ohio, and there practiced his profession
for two years. He then returned to Cincinnati, took a
course and graduated at the Ohio Medical college, practiced
four years in Clermont county and then returned to Hamilton
county, where he spent his remaining years, dying at a good
old age in 1867. His son Joseph had already,
upon arrival in the Miami valley, although but seven years
old, advanced beyond the rudiments of learning in his
father's school. His education was carried on in the
schools of Clermont county, and in a singular but very
efficient academy popularly called the "Quail-trap college,"
kept in a log cabin upon a farm near Goshen, by the Rev.
Ludwell G. Gaines, a Presbyterian clergyman and very
distinguished educator. Young Cox early became
himself a teacher, at first as an assistant in the academy
kept by Mr. Thompson, at Springdale, in Springfield
township. He made use of his earnings here to maintain
himself as a student at Miami university, in which he took a
partial course. He studied medicine for a time, but
eventually determined to become a lawyer, and read the
literature of the profession with Thomas J. Strait
and Messrs. Cary and Caldwell, all prominent
practitioners in Cincinnati. Admitted to the bar in
1843, he began practice in partnership with Henry Snow
which lasted about five years. His fortunes were cast
with the Whig party of that day, by whom he was twice
nominated to the office of prosecuting attorney, while still
a young practitioner; but the party was then in a hopeless
minority in the county, and he could not expect an election.
He was, however, elected to the post of 1855 by a large
majority, and had a laborious and eventful, but thoroughly
able and reputable term of service, during which he was
successful, in breaking up a strong gang of counterfeiters
and sending ten of them to the State penitentiary.
Other important public services were rendered by him; and he
abundantly earned then, and by subsequent fidelity in
his more private practice, in promotion which came to him
(he being then a Republican) in 1866, in his election as the
judge of the common pleas court for the first judicial
district. To this post he was reelected in 1871, and
again in 1876, and has thus been fifteen years on the bench.
In 1867 he was very strongly recommended by the Cincinnati
bar for appointment as United States district judge, to fill
a vacancy caused by the resignation of the Hon. H. H.
Leavitt. His judicial, as well as his
professional, career, has been marked by eminent and
pronounced success. He has also strong literary and
antiquarian tastes; has written much for the public press,
and delivered numerous lectures, several of which have been
published. Indebtedness to certain of them will be
found acknowledged in various portions of this history, to
which he has also made important contributions in the course
of private conversation. He is one of the most affable
and popular of men, while he cultinates none of the
arts of the demagogue. Madisonville, six miles from
Cincinnati, the place of his residence, and the Scientific
and Literary society of that village, owe not a little to
the sympathy and cooperation of Judge Cox in every
good word and work. He has also done his party much
service by his speeches in advocacy of its principles and
policy, as he did to the Union cause in many ways during the
bloody years of the Rebellion.
On the ninth of May, 1848, Judge Cox was married
to Miss Mary A., daughter of Benjamin R. Curtis,
of Richmond, Virginia. They have had nine children, of
whom six are still living. Three of his sons are
graduates of Cincinnati law school and engaged in the
practice of the law - Walter T., Benjamin H., and
Joseph, jr.; another, Samuel C., is well known in
the book trade.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 430 |
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