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SAMUEL
EELLS was born in Westmoreland, Oneida county, New
York, on the eighteenth of May, 1810. His father was
Rev. James Eells, for many years pastor of the
Presbyterian church in that town, and he was third in a
family of seven children. This culture and habits of
his home were eminently adapted to his peculiarities of mind
and heart during the opening years of his life, and he was
wont to refer to the influences that affected his childhood
as having determined his whole career. This was more
remarkable on account of his natural self-reliance and
independence, and afforded proof in his boyhood of that
union of an affectionate disposition with vigorous intellect
which was so pleasing in his mature year. He has
admirably qualified to be a leader, in whatever circle he
might be, winning by the kindness that always was prominent,
exciting interest by his wit genius, and swaying by the
acknowledged force of his character and mind; so that, being
chief among the young persons of his native village, he
furnished occasion to not a few of the prophets who cast his
horoscope, to predict a brilliant career for one who so
often delighted and surprised them by his exhibitions of
rare gifts.
In August, 1827, he became a member of the freshman
class of Hamilton college, but in a few months his health
failed, and it was doubtful whether he could continue his
studies; but after a year's interval, during which time he
travelled much by sea and land, he resumed his college life,
and was able to pursue it till he graduated in 1832.
The discipline and education of this year, just at the
period when they would have most influence, were probably of
more importance as bearing on his future, than the
contributions of any other single year of his life. He
had tested and learned himself, than which there is no
knowledge of more value to one who proposes to attempt an
elevated career. He had studied men, and the lessons
furnished him so early opened the way to success on many
occasions of difficulty afterwards. He had come in
contact with the rough world and encountered some of its
severest tests of the human will and energy, and felt that
he could face what might meet him hereafter without
trembling, though no aid should be given him save that of
the unseen Helper. The stripling who took his place in
college the second time, was very unlike the boy who was
there before, and he was soon able to make his mark among
the unusual number of brilliant young men who were at that
time in the institution. After preparation in the
office, and under the instruction of Hon. Sampson Mason,
of Springfield, Ohio, Mr. Eells commenced the
practice of law in Cincinnati, in February, 1835, poor,
unknown, without patron or friends. For several weeks
he did not have a case, and his first opportunity to appear
at court was assigned him by the judge in defence of a man
without money or friends, who was indicted for larceny.
By degrees, yet very slowly, he attracted the attention of
some of the eminent men who at that time occupied the bar in
Cincinnati, and in November of that year was invited by
Salmon P. Chase to become his partner. This was
more than his ambition could have anticipated, far more than
he had dared to hope. Mr. Chase had been in
successful practice for several years, and even then had
given promise of the distinction he afterward attained; so
that the young man to whom he was attracted, realized the
necessity now imposed on him to task every power to do
justice to his position, and to the duties which were at
once thrust upon him. As an advocate he was likely to
succeed, as he did, because of his fondness for forensic
address, and the gifts which especially qualified him to
affect those before whom he might so appear. But, as a
counsellor, he needed much thorough study and the more
established habit of discriminating thought, and he resolved
in his respect to excel. His success may be best
learned from the words of some of the distinguished men who
knew him well, and are pleased to honor one who was their
associate for but a short time.
Chief Justice Chase said of him:
To a most persuasive and prevailing
eloquence, he joined the grace of high literary culture and
the strength of profound legal knowledge, while in the walks
of private companionship he was equally endeared by his
tenderness and his manliness. If I were to rely wholly
on my own recollection, the account would be brief indeed;
but it would be all eulogy - a sun that scarcely rose above
the horizon ere it hastened to its settling, but during its
course all radiant with the light of mind, and its setting,
but during its course all radiant with the light of mind,
and its setting with new and softer glories from the world
which needs no sun.
Hon. W. S. Groesbeck wrote of him thus:
Samuel Eels was an extraordinary
young man, and if he had lived would today have been known
and honored throughout the Nation. He had every
quality to make himself distinguished. He rose here,
at our bar, very rapidly, and had a reputation which has
never been surpassed among us by any one so young.
Young as he was, he made to the courts and juries some as
able and eloquent arguments as I have ever heard. It
was a great pleasure to hear him. He was logical and
classical, and at times very grand and eloquent. There
was nothing foolish about him. and he was equal to any
situation in which he found himself. It is not often
we meet such a man. Once known, he can never be
forgotten.
Mr. Eells remained in partnership with
Mr. Chase for three years, during which time the
business of the office increased, and he became so well
known that it was evident he would be wise to assume an
independent position. Advised by the firm and
excellent friend whose kindness and established reputation
had bee of so much advantage to him, and also by others who
desired his advance, he opened an office of his own in
November, 1837. His business multiplied beyond his
strength, and was of a most desirable kind. His
acquaintance soon became extended. His reputation
passed beyond the limits of the city to which he had so
lately come as a perfect stranger, and the path seemed upon
to the realization of the most glowing visions his ambition
had ever pictured.
He was flattered by frequent persuasions from his
friends that he would enter political life, and high offices
in the State were offered him, but he declined to be turned
in the least from the profession he had chosen, with
prophetic devotion replying that he did not expect to live
more than a few years, and he was resolved to crowd those
years with as much success as a lawyer as God would give him
strength to attain. He lived less than six years in
that profession, if we reckon those fragments when he was
absent and when he was disabled, though still attempting to
do something in his office. Yet it is believed that
few young men in our country have reached more satisfactory
rewards, and left more eminent and abiding proofs of success
than Samuel Eells.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 475 |
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EDWIN
OSCAR ESHELBY, comptroller of the city of Cincinnati,
is of English stock on his father's side. His mother
was born in Dublin, but her parents were also from England,
though the family name, Drennan, seems to indicate
Irish descent. The former, James Eshelby, was a
native of Sunderland, in the North of England, born in 1807.
The two came separately to America, sometime between 1836
and 1838, and met in Cincinnati, where they were married
about the year 1839. Mr. Eshelby was at first a
shoemaker, and finally went into the manufacture of
vegetable wines. He was a Government official in the
late war, and after closing that service settled at
Stevenson, Alabama, where he engaged in his former business,
and died there in December, 1870. Mrs. Eshelby
died in Cincinnati the same month, only three weeks before
her husband. They left two surviving out of a family
of nine-children - Edwin, the subject of this sketch,
and an older sister, Isabella Frances, now Mrs. W.
H. Hudson, of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati.
Edwin O. Eshelby was born in this city on the
twenty-eighth day of May, 1851, the youngest child of
James and Margaret (Drennan) Eshelby. He received
his elementary education in the public schools, and closed
his formal training with the intermediate department.
When the war of the Rebellion closed, and his father made
his home and began business in the sunny South, young
Eshelby, then but fourteen years old, could no longer
brook the restrains of the schools, and was determined to
make an early beginning of active life. He was
permitted to join his father at Stevenson, and in a year or
two entered the telegraph office of the Nashville &
Chattanooga railroad at that place, easily mastered the
details of the business, soon became an expert telegrapher,
and, within three months after his first efforts, was made
night operator in the same office, at sixty dollars per
month. He was subsequently, as he grew older, during
about four years, otherwise in the employ of the railroad
company as freight agent, express agent, telegrapher at
various points, and for a time in the very responsible
position of night train despatcher at Nashville.
He was then scarcely more than eighteen years of age.
He presently returned to his old home, and operated in the
Western Union offices here and in Chicago. While here
he attended two full courses of lectures in the Cincinnati
law school, and took his diploma of bachelor of law from
that institution in the spring of 1875, and was then
admitted as a full-fledged practitioner at teh Hamilton
county bar. He finds the knowledge and practice gained
by his attendance upon the law school specially useful in
his present responsible and difficult position.
Nearly a year before his admission to the bar, June 1,
1875, Mr. Eshelby was united in marriage to Miss
Fannie Jane, daughter of Mr. Jacob S. Lape, a
well-known resident of Cincinnati. For some years he
had been an active worker among the young men of the
Republican party in the county, but had not put himself
conspicuously at the front, particularly in the demand for
public office by way of reward for services rendered.
He was one of the early members of the Lincoln club, founded
in February, 1879, and was elected one of the directors.
He was, however, never a candidate for the office at the
hands of the party until the second meeting of the
Republican city convention, in the spring of 1880. He
had no thought then of receiving a nomination, being engaged
in profitable business with his father-in-law, in the firm
of Lape & Brother. At the urgent solicitation
of his friends, however - the prospects of the party, for
special reasons, being then rather doubtful, and the
nomination of a new man on the ticket for this important
office, then newly created by the legislature, being deemed
desirable - he consented to stand in the canvass, and, with
no effort on his part, he was triumphantly nominated on the
second ballot against three trained politicians and strong
candidates, who had carefully worked up their respective
canvasses. Only four days thereafter he was
triumphantly endorsed at the polls by the electors of the
city, receiving, after his short but energetic campaign, a
majority of four thousand and sixty-two against the highest
majority of any of his fellow-partisans of the ticket of but
one thousand six hundred and four, and against an opponent,
Mr. Silas W. Hoffman, who was a veteran and popular
politician, and had long been an incumbent of the office of
city auditor, to which Mr. Eshelby's present position
corresponds. Within ten days he took charge of the
comptroller's office, whose affairs were then considerably
in public discussion and were in the utmost confusion, and
at once set about making necessary reforms. A complete
system of checks and balances with other departments of the
city government was introduced, and a thorough-going,
business-like system of book-keeping inaugurated, which has
resulted in a reformation of the whole financial business of
the city, so far as is related to this office. The
importance of this fact may be inferred from the simple
statement that about six million dollars, the property of
the city of Cincinnati, passes through his office every
year. The burdened tax-payers of the Queen City may
well be congratulated upon the marked change in the
administration of affairs in this department, than which
there is none more important, or, indeed, as important, in
the city government. Under what is known as the
Worthington law, ordained by the legislature, the
comptroller has the veto power upon all measures involving
the expenditure of money from the municipal treasury; and it
is fortunate that this power is now reposed in judicious and
honest hands.
Mr. Eshelby has two children - May Amanda,
born May 14, 1875; and Isabella Sarah, whose natal
day is April 23, 1877. The family reside in the city,
at No. 69 Laurel street, in the west end.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 451 |
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MR. CHARLES EVANS was born
in Warren county, Ohio, in 1843. He graduated from the
Ohio Wesleyan university in the class of 1863. After
the war he read law with Mr. Samuel Shellabarger, of
Mansfield, Ohio. He graduated from the law department
of the University of Michigan in 1866. After this he
settled in Springfield, Ohio, where he practiced until 1872;
thence he came to Cincinnati, where he has practiced ever
since. He was elected county solicitor in the fall of
1880. Mr. Evans was appointed United States
district attorney for the southern district of Ohio in
March, 1878, and resigned in the fall of 1879.
Source: 1789 - 1881 History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches - Publ. L. A.
Williams & Co. - Page 485 |
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