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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
The History of the City of Dayton
and
The Montgomery County, Ohio.
by Rev. A. W. Drury
1909
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DANIEL VALENTINE YOST Source:
The History of the City of Dayton and Montgomery Co., Ohio
by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ. 1909 - Vol. II - Page 748 |
Edmond S. Young |
EDMOND
STAFFORD YOUNG, for many years a leading and
distinguished member of the Dayton bar, was the eldest son
of George Murray Young, (a sketch of whose lie
precedes) and of Sibel Green his wife, and was born
at Lyme, Grafton county, New Hampshire, Feb. 27, 1827.
At the early age of eight he came west with his parents, who
had removed from New Hampshire to become residents of
Newark, Licking county, Ohio.
While a resident, of Newark, Mr. Young, attended
Grandville College (now Denison University) near that city,
where he completed his sophomore year in 1845, but his
parents having removed to Cincinnati, he subsequently
entered Farmers' (now Belmont) College at College Hill, from
which he was graduated in 1847. This institution,
though comparatively small in size, has had among its alumni
not a few men of distinguished ability and reputation, and
among them Mr. Young was associated as a schoolmate
with President Benjamin Harrison, Murat Halstead
and John W. Herron, of Cincinnati, and Hon. L. B.
Gunckel and Judge Henderson Elliott, of Dayton.
Soon after leaving college he began the study of law in
the office of Hon. William J. McKinney of Dayton, and
subsequently was graduated at the Cincinnati Law School in
the year 1853, after which he served for a term as head
deputy in the office of the clerk of the courts of
Montgomery county, Ohio, an experience which he always
considered of great value to him as a lawyer. After
entering the practice of the law he became associated
successively with George W. Brown, Hon. David A. Honk
and Oscar M. Gottschall, his relation with the latter
continuing from 1866 to 1879. In the spring of 1878
Mr. Young's eldest son, George R. Young, was
admitted to the firm, which, under the name of Young,
Gottschall & Young, continued for a year, at the end of
which period Mr. Gottschall retired. Mr.
Young and his son subsequently remained together in the
practice under the name of Young & Young until his
death in the year 1888.
In September, 1856, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Mr. Young married Sarah B. Dechert, a daughter of
Elijah Dechert, a leading lawyer of Reading,
Pennsylvania, who was a son of Captain Peter Dechert,
a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Mrs. Young's
mother, Mary Porter Dechert, was a daughter of
Judge Robert Porter, also of Reading, Pennsylvania, who
sat for more than twenty years on the bench in that city and
who was descended from Robert Porter, a native of
Ireland, who emigrated to Londonderry, New Hampshire, and
afterward removed to Montgomery county, Philadelphia, where
he resided until his death. His most prominent and
successful son, Mrs. Young's great-grand-
grandfather, was General Andrew Porter, who was a
prominent Revolutionary officer and a close personal friend
and associate of Washington. After the close of the
war he was commissioned major-general of militia of
Pennsylvania, and he was subsequently tendered the position
of secretary of war by President Madison, but
declined the honor. His son, Judge Robert Porter,
while still a mere youth but eleven years of age, served
with his father in the army and having been commissioned
lieutenant of artillery was probably the youngest soldier
and officer in the colonial service. Both General
Andrew Porter and his son, Judge Robert Porter,
were members of the Order of the Cincinnati, an honor which
has passed to their descendants and a detailed sketch of
their lives is published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography, vol. IV, No. 3, published by the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Young
is now one of the oldest members of the Daughters of the
American Revolution.
When the Civil war broke out Edmond Stafford Young
firmly espoused the Union cause and became a stanch
supporter of President Lincoln's administration.
On Oct. 16, 1861, a military committee was appointed by the
governor of Ohio, to which was given charge and control of
all recruiting and organization and of military matters
generally in Montgomery county. Mr. Young
served as chairman of this committee, and he was thus
closely identified with the organization and enlistment of
practically all the regiments raised in Dayton and its
vicinity. In the fall of 1861 he was one of the
"Squirrel Hunters" so called, who rallied to the defense of
Cincinnati when that city was threatened by the Confederates
under General Kirby Smith, and later he was appointed
by Governor Brough commissioner of the draft for
Montgomery county and made the largest draft in the state.
Throughout the period of mob violence and strife, which for
years ran riot in Dayton, as a hot-bed of what was then
known as "copper-headism," and which at one time brought
that city under martial law, Mr. Young was always a
conspicuous and commanding figure, and his voice, influence
and example were always exerted to the full in the cause of
loyalty and union.
After the close of the war, while devoting most of his
time to the work of his profession, his interest in public
affairs still continued unabated. He took a deep
interest in the public schools and served efficiently on the
board of education and he was a member of Dayton's first
non-partisan police board, appointed in 1873, by which the
present metropolitan police system was inaugurated. He
was also one of the founders of the Dayton Bar Association,
now known as the Dayton Law Library Association, by which
Dayton's excellent Law Library (now in point of completeness
the fourth in the state) has been collected, and he served
for years on its board of trustees.
During the course of his practice his name was
frequently suggested for judicial honors among others, a
place on the supreme bench of the state, but he always
personally discouraged such movements, preferring to remain
at the bar and in the active practice of his profession.
He was a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, in which
he frequently took a leading part and also of the American
Bar Association. He died suddenly Oct. 14, 1888, while
still in full practice and at the zenith of his powers,
leaving surviving him his widow and two sons, George R.
and William H. Young, all of whom still survive,
and a daughter, Mary , a young woman of most lovable
personal traits and marked intellectuality, who died Aug.
13, 1895.
Of Mr. Young, a contemporary biographer has well
said: "He was a man of striking physical appearance and of
marked mental characteristics. He was born to be a
lawyer. His breadth of intellect, his strong
determined will, his sound impartial judgment, his
remarkable reasoning powers, his gift of nice and correct
discrimination, made up a mental organization distinctively
legal; while at the same time his large and well
proportioned head, with its high expansive forehead, set
firmly on his broad square shoulders, gave him a personal
appearance in keeping with his mental characteristics.
He was a strong and pure type of that class of American
lawyers, who, eschewing outside schemes for the promotion of
wealth and personal aggrandizement, devote to their
profession the full measure of their powers and seek
happiness in the conscientious discharge of their
professional, domestic and civic duties."
Source: The History of the City of Dayton and
Montgomery Co., Ohio by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ. 1909 - Vol.
II - Page 1035 |
George Murray Young |
GEORGE MURRAY YOUNG
was in Litchfield, Connecticut, Apr. 1, 1802, and was of
Scotch-Irish descent and parentage, his father, Dr. Hugh
Murray Young, who was born in 1742 and died in 1815,
having been an early Irish emigrant to America, whose
participation in the Emmett rebellion caused him to leave
Ireland and seek a refuge in the New World. George
Murray Young obtained his education at Exeter and
Poughkeepsie academies. He was fond of study, but,
being thrown upon his own resources at an early age by the
death of his father, he left school and learned the
printer's trade, becoming both a practical printer and
publisher before reaching his majority.
While residing at Lyme, New Hampshire, in the year 1826
he married Sibel Green, a daughter of Benjamin
Green of that place, and a grandaughter of
Colonel Ebenezer Green, a Revolutionary soldier, whose
grave may still be seen in the old Lyme burying ground.
Colonel Green had married a daughter of Benjamin
Grant, also of Lyme, New Hampshire, who was the
great-great-grandfather of Alice and Phoebe Carey
and whose parents were also the ancestors of General U.
S. Grant.
In 1835 Mr. and Mrs. Young came west with their
children and located at Newark, Ohio, where for ten years
Mr. Young was extensively engaged in mercantile
pursuits, being the owner, among other business properties,
of a line of boats on the Miami & Erie canal. In the
year 1840, having attained prominence in his new home, he
became the whig candidate of Licking county for the state
senate, and despite that county's usual strong democratic
majority, ran far ahead of his ticket and came within forty
votes of an election.
In 1845 Mr. Young removed to Cincinnati, where
he conducted a large produce and commission business until
1851, when he took up his residence at Dayton, Montgomery
county. After coming to Dayton, he retired from
mercantile pursuits and served for some years as a justice
of the peace, after which, in the year 1854, he was elected
mayor of the city and subsequently reelected in 1855.
Some years later he was appointed United States
commissioner, an office which he filled with credit and
ability until his death. His wife died at Dayton in
the year 1865.
Mr. Young was pronounced in his opinions and was
an earnest friend and supporter of all moral and religious
movements, being especially prominent in his labors for the
cause of temperance. While residing at Cincinnati, he
was grand worthy patriarch of the Sons of Temperance, when
that society numbered thirty thousand in Ohio, and he was
one of the editors of its official paper, The Organ and
Messenger.
He was, from early manhood, a prominent member of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, by which organization he
was elected to many prominent and responsible offices, and
in whose charitable and beneficial work he at all times took
a warm and active interest. In politics he was first a
whig and later a republican, and he was always a bitter and
outspoken opponent of negro slavery.
While he resided in New Hampshire and for years after
coming to Ohio he was prominently identified with the
Congregational church, and when, subsequently, about the
year 1869, the local church of that denomination at Dayton
passed out of existence he was one of its deacons, and being
especially appointed for that purpose, closed its financial
affairs and disposed of its property. He, thereafter,
at once allied himself with the Third Street Presbyterian
church at Dayton, of which he continued a leading member
until his death.
Mr. Young's natural abilities were of a high
order. He early made up for his lack of collegiate
education by wide and diligent reading, and he was well
informed in politics, history and general literature, having
at the same time a mind well stored with that diversified
practical information when comes from daily intercourse with
men and extensive business experience.
While he was never admitted to the bar, he had
published law books in his younger years, had read law
attentively and had acted to such an extent as notary
public, conveyancer, master commissioner and receiver and in
other ways closely related to the law and the courts, that
his legal knowledge and ability were well recognized and
highly respected.
He was a great admirer of the Puritan race and
character and was himself the possessor of many pronounced
traits which gave marked evidence of his New England birth
and education. While naturally modest and retiring in
manner, he had the full courage of his strong convictions,
and, when aroused, he was outspoken in their advocacy and
fearless and uncompromising in their defense.
Faultless in honor, fearless in conduct and stainless in
reputation, he passed away at Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 30, 1878,
having always enjoyed in whatever he lived the unqualified
confidence and respect of all with whom he was associated.
Source: The History of the City of Dayton and
Montgomery Co., Ohio by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ. 1909 - Vol.
II - Page 1032 |
George R. Young |
GEORGE R. YOUNG.
In the history of the legal profession in Montgomery county
the name of Young has now figured prominently for
nearly sixty years, for during that period, the father,
Edmond Stafford Young and the sons, George R. and
William H. Young, have successively and continuously
been leading members of the Dayton bar. And, in the
course of time, it has come to pass that the firm name "Young
& Young," under which the brothers are still associated
and which has now existed for over thirty years, has become
the oldest in use among Dayton lawyers.
George R. Young, one of Dayton's native sons,
was born in that city, Oct. 2, 1857. He obtained his
education in the Dayton public schools, having graduated
from the Central high school (now the Steele high school) in
1875 as valedictorian of his class and having received a
good medal for scholarship. For a time he then studied
under private tutors, but soon took up the study of the law
in the office of his father Edmond Stafford Young, a
sketch of whose life precedes.
He was admitted to the bar in April, 1878, and was
probably at the time the youngest attorney in Ohio, having
been admitted some months before reaching his majority.
Mr. Young has made the practice of law his life work,
and without any of those digressions which result from
office holding or lengthy vacations, he has pursued it
steadily ever since his admission with a diligence and
ability which have both merited and achieved success.
Mr. Young is recognized as a sound lawyer and a
forcible and convincing speaker, either before the court or
jury, and his unusual command of pure and correct English
always secures and retains for him close attention and
careful consideration. His firm has always enjoyed a
large and representative clientage, having been retained in
many of the leading cases tried in the courts of Montgomery
and adjoining counties. For the last ten years the
brothers have been located in their own building, the
Young Building, where their handsome suite of offices is
widely celebrated for its commodious size and the unusual
perfection of its arrangement and equipment.
Mr. Young was president of his local bar
association when little more than thirty years of age, and
he has been for years a member of both the Ohio State and
American Bar Associations. Ever since his father's
death, in 1888, he has been a trustee of the Dayton Law
Library Association, having succeeded his father in that
position, and during that period he has been either its
treasurer or vice-president.
Mr. Young is popular, not only in his profession
but among a large circle of friends in his native city,
where he enjoys the respect and esteem of the entire
community. He is a charter member of the Dayton Club,
was the first president of the High School Alumni
Association and one of the founders and supporters of the
Dayton Literary Union, which flourished for many years in
Dayton. He has always been interested in literature
and the diffusion of useful knowledge and is now the
president of the Dayton Astronomical Society, formed to
promote the study of astronomy and kindred sciences.
In politics Mr. Young has always been a
republican, but never a politician in the sense of seeking
office as a reward for party fealty. While absent in
the east in 1881, without his solicitation or knowledge, his
party nominated him for prosecuting attorney of Montgomery
county. Remaining on the ticket with reluctance,
notwithstanding a customary democratic majority of more than
a thousand he was beaten by only a few hundred votes.
In 1885 he was again nominated for office this time for city
solicitor of Dayton. The city was then reliably
democratic, and though he ran far ahead of his ticket he was
again defeated by a small majority. Since then he has
neither held nor sought political office, confining his
attention entirely to his professional duties.
In the fall of 1894, upon the elevation of Judge
John A Schauck from the circuit to the supreme bench,
Mr. Young, without solicitation on his part, was
prominently mentioned as his successor. A petition of
Governor McKinley for his appointment was circulated
and signed by practically every member of the Montgomery
County Bar, but owing to lack of time, in case of success,
to close up his private practice, Mr. Young withdrew
his name from consideration. Having been more recently
asked to be a candidate for nomination for the supreme court
judgeship and promised the united support of his county
delegation, he declined to enter the contest, preferring the
independence of private life.
Neither George R. Young nor his brother
William H. Young have ever married; but since their
father's deceased, together with their mother, Mrs. Sarah
D. Young, who at the advanced age of eighty-four years
is still well preserved both mentally and physically, they
have maintained their family homestead in the city, which
they have greatly enlarged and beautified, and where, as
well as at their country home "Willowbrook," near Dayton,
they have dispensed a ready and agreeable hospitality.
Source: The History of the City of Dayton and
Montgomery Co., Ohio by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ. 1909 - Vol.
II - Page 1039 |
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SAMUEL
YOUNG, an industrious and enterprising agriculturist
of Montgomery county, is entitled to be classed among the
self-made men of this vicinity. A native of Ohio, he
was born in Jefferson township, this county, Jan. 27, 1845,
a son of Thomas and Susan (Dull) Young. The
parents were natives of Maryland who came to Ohio about
1837, settling in Jefferson township, where the father
became identified with farming. In 1847, they removed
to Jackson township. In their family were the
following children: Mary Catherine, John Thomas, Sarah
Ann, Henry, Samuel and Susan.
The last named was reared on his father's farm and soon
became familiar with the work that falls to the lot of the
country lad. At an early age he undertook the task of
providing for his own livelihood and throughout the
intervening years has been identified with the agricultural
interests of his community. Energetic, industrious and
persevering, he has also been most careful in the management
of his business interests until today he ranks among the
progressive and prosperous farmers of this district.
On the 28th of October, 1873, occurred the marriage of
Mr. Young and Miss Sarah Catherine Weaver, a
daughter of George W. and Eliza (Patterson) Weaver,
and as the years have gone by their home has been blessed
with two children, Izore Ellen and Florence Elsie,
both of whom are now married and have families of their own.
The parents are members of the United Brethren church and
have always been deeply interested in its various phases of
work, doing all in their power to further its influence in
the community. Mr. Young has never allied
himself with any fraternal organization, seeking his
happiness in the companionship of his own home, to which he
is most devoted. Politically he supports the
republican party at the polls but has never sought nor
desired public office as a reward for party realty.
Depending upon his own resources from an early age, with no
special advantages at the outset of his career, he has,
through indefatigable energy and undaunted perseverance,
made his way upward in the business world until he is today
recognized as a substantial and prosperous representative of
agricultural interests. His life has been one of
continuous activity in which has been accorded due
recognition of honest labor, while his sterling
characteristics make him an honored and respected citizen of
Jackson township.
Source: The History of the City of Dayton and
Montgomery Co., Ohio by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ. 1909 - Vol.
II - Page 860 |
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WILLIAM
H. YOUNG, who for more than a quarter of a century
has been active in the practice of law at Dayton, is the
second son of Edmond Stafford and Sarah (Dechert) Young,
and was born in his home city, Mar. 2, 1860. Upon his
father's death in 1888 he became a member of the well known
law firm of Young & Young, in which he has ever since
been, and still is, associated with his brother George R.
Young. His education was obtained in the Dayton
public schools, and upon leaving the high school he studied
law in the office of his father and brother, being
subsequently admitted to the bar in the year 1884 at
Columbus, Ohio, after passing the examination prescribed by
the rules of the supreme court. For many years after
his admission he took a keen interest in politics, serving
shortly after attaining his majority as president of the
Blaine and Logan "First Voters," and during hits
period he made many campaign speeches, some o which made so
strong an impression that they are still frequently recalled
and gained for him a wide reputation as a ready, eloquent
and convincing speaker. At a later period he was often
urged to become a candidate for the legislature or for
congress, but, although possession much personal magnetism
and enjoying great popularity and being in all respects
admirably fitted for public life, like his father and
brother, he has continuously declined to enter politics.
When he was only about ten years of age Mr. Young
suffered from a very malignant attack of scarlet fever, from
which hip disease and other complications ensued, confining
him to his bed for nearly four years, resulting in permanent
lameness and causing a decided limp in his walk, but this
disadvantage, which would have proved a serious handicap to
many, has in his case, served only to add to his already
marked personality, without detracting in any appreciable
degree from his energy, his activity or his usefulness.
In Dayton, his native city, he has long been a conspicuous
and familiar figure, and his genial manners, unfailing good
humor and buoyancy of spirits, together with his strong and
unique personality, in many respects bearing marked
resemblance to his father's, have been such that it is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that he has been known to
almost every man, woman and child in the city. He has
also a large circle of acquaintance throughout the state,
not only among members of the legal profession, but
including those who for the past twenty years have been
prominent in political and official circles.
His personal characteristics are such that he is a good
mixer and makes friends easily, and when once seen by any
one he is rarely forgotten. He has, at various times,
taken a leading part in public movements at Dayton, for the
promotion of charitable objects and moral and civic reforms;
and the removal from office, a few years ago, of an
objectionable chief of police, who had obtained a strong and
apparently impregnable foothold, was almost wholly due to
his seasonable initiative and courageous, able and untiring
efforts. His goodness of heart and sympathy with his
kind are well known and constantly remarked upon, not only
as exemplified by his devotion to his mother and brother,
and to his sister, now deceased, but also by a broad
philanthropy extending to persons in all walks of life which
has earned for him the deserved gratitude of many who have
been assisted by his timely advice and personal aid in hours
of sorrow, sickness and adversity.
At the bar he has always borne a reputation on a strong
jury advocate, and in this field, affording as it does,
opportunity for the display of his attractive individuality,
his sound common sense and great knowledge of human nature,
his efforts have been attended by marked success. He
is strong in his likes and dislikes and outspoken in his
opinions, but while he is slow to forgive an injury or
wrong, he never forgets a friend. While he gives close
attention to professional matters, being an excellent judge
of land values and experienced in matters of general
business, he devotes a part of his time to the management of
his own and his brother's real-estate holdings, and to their
other private interests.
Being unmarried, Mr. Young lives at home with
his mother and brother in the family homestead, where his
father formerly resided, spending part of the year at their
country home near Dayton, whose beauty and popularity are
largely due to his excellent taste and to his thoughtful
care and attention.
Source: The History of the City of
Dayton and Montgomery Co., Ohio by Rev. A. W. Drury - Publ.
1909 - Vol. II - Page 1043 |
NOTES: |
