Wayne County, Ohio - Chapter 19: Wooster, 1878 (part 6 of 8)

He was married September i, 1853, to Miss Ann E. Jacobs of Wooster, eldest daughter of James and Elizabeth W. Jacobs, by which union they have two sons, both of whom are living, namely, James Jacobs and Willard Field Robison. He became a member of the Presbyterian church of Wooster, in April, 1858, his wife uniting with this denomination seven years prior to this, while attending school at Steubenville, Ohio. Mr. Robison is still engaged in mercantile speculation in Wooster* at the old stand where he embarked in business in 1845. His corner is about as well advertised and known, we were going to say, as Nasby's Confederate Cross Roads, and between the management of it and the Presidency of the Bank, he is restrained from indulging in any lingering whims of mischievous boyhood. As the narrative shows, he is a public-spirited, enterprising, projective man. By virtue of his very mental organization he is a progressionist. He has plenty of independence of character and many good reasons for it.

Had the metalic creeds of Westminster been burned upon his brain with a rod of iron he would not have carried the whole of the impression to his grave. He has faith enough, but then he thinks a great deal more than he believes. If he is not much over fortyfive, he has arrived at a good many conclusions. He believes, for instance, that a man may carry a gold-headed cane and wear a wooden head. He is of the opinion that a man who is willing to pay will do so sooner than one that has the means to do it. He considers greenbacks in the vault more desirable than a note of 60 days, at 10 per cent., secured by mortgage, where the maker fails to meet it promptly at maturity. This is his, and a very wise conception of business.

He is a Wayne countian, and as indigenous to the soil as the massive elms in his door-yard ; but he has heard a fair share of the roaring of the outside multitude. He was not wholly educated at Hudson, but has learned much from the light of the conflicting flints of the world. The rifleman, before he enters upon the hunt and chase, puts up his target, which, for the time, is the object of his skill. He set up a motive, pinned up a purpose before he marched out against life, and now, in its exciting pursuits, it is constantly before him. He gave to life an aim, and no sooner was it done than the brain-children began unfolding it, as the rays of the morning's light unfolds the convolvulus.

He consecrates himself to an idea - that idea is his business. He is equally at home at the bank as well as at the counter. He would have been correspondingly efficient in any chosen sphere of activity and labor. His judgment is sound, his propositions usually supportable by facts and argument, with both of which weap- ons he can adroitly and forcibly maintain himself against an adversary. What reasons may have influenced him against entering upon the legal profession we do not pretend to solve, but he would have made a lawyer, just as sure as you are born, and a good one, too.

His opinions are characterized by commendable catholicity, yet there is unction and earnestness in his convictions. But, most of all, his business is his charmed circle. It is here where he manifests his power. He binds his energies in the quiver of his will, and hurls them with the precision of Indian arrows. His executive ability is of a fine order. What he undertakes he proposes to finish. He strikes his irons only when they are at white heat ; then every blow counts one. He wants gas in the city because it brings light ; banks, because they are the light of commerce ; a university, because it bears a shining torch in its hand.

He has great elasticity of constitution, a superabundance of good feeling, and a sunshiny gaiety of imagination. He is a warm friend, a cool and dignified enemy. In conversation he is original and animated. When aroused his tongue vitriolizes his speech, though he inclines to give hik opponents a wide berth. His correct and upright business habits, his probity and integrity, have anchored him safely in the confidence of the public.

Angus McDonald was born February 7, 18 18, at Woodside, in Aberdeenshire, then two miles from the city of Aberdeen, Scotland, but now a portion of said city, and the birth-place of the father of Patrick Henry, the celebrated Revolutionary patriot. His father, a Highland Scotchman, still living, was born it 1798, in Fort Augustus, Invernes-shire, a large maratime county of Scotland, extending across the island from sea to sea, and traversed its whole length from south-west to north-east by the Caledonian Canal. He is now living in Aberdeen. The genealogical tree is strictly and emphatically Highland Scotch. They descend from a rugged, stalwart and powerful ancestral line, the family being a branch of the McDonald clan of the Highlanders, who bore for their motto a Bloody Hand with a triple cross, and the armorial inscription, ''per mare, per terras" - through sea and land.

The name is as familiar in the annals of Scotland as that of Kenneth, Gregory, Malcolm, Macbeth, Duncan or Montieth. The father of A. McDonald, as might be expected, was a soldier. He inherited the martial spirit from a line of warriors, and the very force and bent of his inclinations would drive him to the soldier's tent. At the age of seventeen he entered the British army, joining the 42d, under Colonel Macara, Scot's Royals - "the Black Watch" - which was brigaded with the gad and 44th regiments, and which was commanded by General Picton at the battle of Waterloo.

On the first day of the fighting at Quatre Bras, June 16, 1815, his brigade suffered most severely. They were stationed near the farm house of Quatre Bras, and were the object of a most destructive fire, as the French had the advantage of the rising ground, while they were covered to the shoulders among tall rye, so that they could not return the volleys with precision. A desperate charge of French cavalry succeeded, which was resisted by each of these regiments separately, each one throwing itself into a solid square. The approach of the enemy being partly concealed by the nature of the ground, the 42d was unable to form a square in the necessary time. Two companies were, therefore, instantly swept off and cut to pieces. Some of the men stood back to back and maintained an unyielding conflict with the horsemen until they were cut down. Here the veteran Colonel Macara, of the 42d, and the Duke of Brunswick fell. Here, also, Mr. McDonald was wounded, having been shot in the head with a musket ball. He was subsequently discharged, on this account, from the military service, and receives until this day a pension from the British Government. After the battle his family, hearing no tidings of him, and not having been reported at the hospital, came to the conclusion that he was killed, and for six months went in mourning for him. It was a terrible and overwhelming surprise to them, after the lapse of that time, to see their soldier son, then a young man of 17 years, make his appearance at the family door. After his retirement from the army he became manager of a cotton factory at Printfield, where he sojourned for 30 years, when he removed to Aberdeen, and engaged in business with his son David, who visited A. McDonald in the summer of 1870. He was married to Margaret Monro, of Rosshire, a Highland Scotch lady, by which marriage he had 8 children. In July, 1843, Mr. Ronald McDonald came to America to see the country and visit his son, then living at Massillon, Ohio, where he remained until May, 1844. Having contracted the ague, he left the country in disgust, saying, "I would not live here if you would give me all the country between Zoar and Massillon. You feed mercury to your people, sir ; don't I know what mercury is ? "

Angus McDonald, the subject of this sketch, is the eldest son and the eldest child of the family. In his earliest boyhood he first made the experiment of labor and tasted of the fruits of toil. When but seven years old he entered the cotton factory at Printfield, and here he remained until he was fourteen, when his business was somewhat changed, as he was put into the Grand Holm foundry, at Woodside, where an opportunity was offered and where he acquired a knowledge of his trade of moulder. In 1838, he went to London, but in that boisterous maelstrom, that cyclone of contending human forces, he found little enjoyment. Being then but twenty years of age, he abandoned the thronged metropolis of the world, when he set out for Liverpool and commenced work in what was then called Berry's foundry, and while engaged in this establishment he first conceived the intention of coming to America. After pursuing his work for some time in Liverpool he returned to his home, at Aberdeen, on a visit, when he was married to Kate Dinwiddie, of his native Woodside.

In February, 1840, he set sail for the United States for the purpose of making observations of the country, and with the design of returning to Scotland should he not be favorably impressed with the country, and calculating to remain if it suited him. After thirty-five days passage he planted his feet upon the soil of the New World, and hearing of Massillon, repaired thither with but little delay, finding employment immediately with Messrs. McMillen & Partridge, as foreman in their foundry. With these gentlemen he remained one year, at the end of which time they were unwilling that he should leave them and he, being satisfied with the country and its remunerations of labor, resolved to stay, whereupon he sent for his wife and child, who arrived in Massillon in the spring of 1842. In that foundry he served in the capacity of foreman for seven years, but on account of his wife's illness, and the malaria so prevalent there at that time, he concluded to come to Wooster, where he arrived February 12, 1847.

Of the eleven children born to Mr. McDonald but seven remain. His four sons, William, Angus, David and Harper, are severally in his employ, and assist in conducting his business.

Mr. McDonald is now sixty years old, and considering the fact that his more vigorous years were spent in the severe and nervetesting discipline of the moulder's room, he is nevertheless wellpreserved and well conditioned, hearty in body and healthy in mind. We pronounce him a good specimen of the Highland Scotchman - all he wants is the costume to sustain the character. He is a grain of good Scotch seed that has fallen upon a responsive soil ; or perhaps we had better say, he is a graft upon our New Worldtree which, under the influence of genial suns and rains, produces our choicest fruit. Upon his tongue there is perceptible the Scottish accent. And for all this, we can say. Amen; for as the local expounder of Robert Burns, he can the better interpret him to us and draw us nearer to the soul and spirit of his poems by lending a truer understanding of their charms and beauties. He hails from a country that has been and is the nucleus of human intellect. A closer analysis of him would discover that, not only his tongue but his thought, his conduct and character, are accentuated with the Scotch. Thackeray says, "to have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St. Peter's." To have been born on the soil that produced a Scott, a Burns, a Thomas Erskine, a Haddington, or John Brown, is in itself a kind of renown.

He is five feet ten and a half inches high, of corpulent, but athletic frame, and weighs over 200 pounds. He has a broad, square, intellectual face, lighted up by a pair of keen, blue eyes, and a heavy burgherly chin, indicative of will-force, and the energetic, affirmative man. His brow is arched, and presents traces of the pencilings with which Nature adorns her best works; his cheeks are full, fleshy and ruddy as the blossoms of the June clover. There is a sedate dignity and complacency in his countenance that is seldom ruffled, which, under all circumstances, is the best expression of the human soul. In him is seen the -

If excited, he has considerable facility in concealing it. A machinist himself, he allows but little jar or friction among either his physical or mental cogs and wheels. Simplicity and plainness characterize his dress. A solid, but unostentatious gold chain, and a gold watch - an heir-loom of generations in the family - constitute his jewel ornaments. He sustains the port of a well-bred gentleman ; is urbane, decorpus and polite. He is free, flexible, and fluent in conversation ; is well familiarized with the history and literature of England, Scotland and America. He has been at the Hustings, passed up Grub street, and can talk for hours and days upon the Mermaid and Literary London.

Scotland,. Scottish ballads, rare, old unfathered fragments, queer and quaint legends, form an interesting chapter in his antique acquisitions. In addition to his large stock of general knowledge he has made many scientific acquirements. In the field of geology he has spent hours of profitable leisure and delight. On his shelves lie the books of his great countryman, "the representative man of Scotland," as Tom Brown chooses to call him, "the stonemason of Cromarty," the immortal Hugh Miller. In these volumes of the Great Interpreter of the Rocks, he discovers prolific sources of thought and study.

Mr. McDonald is a practical, well-balanced, firm-purposed man. He seldom loses his self-possession, has much force of character, sagacity, decision, logical acuteness and great alertness of faculty. What he has accomplished he can put down to his own credit. In the mountains of his Highland home he found no buried gold. When he slept Fortune filled not his pillows with her treasures. He lived to toil and toiled to live. He has forged and beat out his life by the blows of his arm. He conducts the largest, most intricate and most ramified business in the county. There is true sandstone grit in him. In his reapers and mowers are not found all of the steel ; his blood has steel in it. He is the personation of uniformity. He is clean-shaved to-day, was yesterday, and will be to-morrow. The sun in his comings is not more regular than his habits, nor does the moon pay her quarterage with greater precision. With him it is always twelve o'clock at noon. His watch must say this, or he will get one that will. His steam-whistle is Shrewsbury clock and Greenwich time in all the city. His machine shops are models of method. It is an army of captains and subalterns, governed by West Point discipline. When "time" is called the work begins, the loungers are left out.

Mr. McDonald is a Democrat, but in no sense a politician. Had he sought promotion in this field, he likely would have achieved it, for he has the elements of popularity, as well as strength of self-assertion. During the rebellion he was a staunch supporter of the Government - was what was called "a War Democrat." He was appointed by Gov. David Tod a member of the

Military Committee, and served with an emphasis of patriotic zeal in every position the appointment conferred. In those dark days * when the great manufactures of the country languished, he confronted financial depressions and revulsions with Spartan resolution. Prostrations and oppositions were met with manly vigor, and Samson-like, he carried off the gates that were swinging to " imprison him. Looking only to the main chance, he fought to the front.

Though he stands now on the Pisgah hights of three-score years, he has, as we may infer, much of life and the first enjoyments of its decline before him.

To the blue skies of his native Scotland he has often turned the wishful eye, but, since his departure from it, has never visited the scenes of his childhood. In a strange land and among strangers he took up his abode, and here he has dwelt with us, building himself up with the ideas of the great Republic, interlacing himself with its giant industries and imbibing the inspirations of its institutions. Under their influences he has raised a family, which are entwined with the affectionate and benevolent goodness of his heart, and here he has constructed a name that will not soon vanish from the eye or the memory of man. His instinctive generosity - for "hedowna see a poor man want" - and enterprising spirit will live and be cherished when he shall have passed the portal and the river.

The first water works established in Wooster were constructed under a contract negotiated between the original proprietors of the town and the County Commissioners, bearing date May 13, 181 1. The conditions of the contract were that the county-seat should be permanently located at Wooster, and, among other specifications, it was agreed that the proprietors were to bring " the water of the run, which at present runs through the town in pipes of sound white oak timber of a proper size, well bored and laid, and raise the water ten feet above the surface at the center of the town."

This contract was complied with by the proprietors, and water was delivered to the town of Wooster conducted through these pipes from 1815 to 1829. When the authorities of the town undertook to repair the pipes conveying the water one of the lotowners through whose premises the pipes were laid prohibited them from so doing by an injunction of the court, and from that time no further attention or effort was made to sustain the enterprise.

More recently the subject of supplying the city with water from the springs of Mr. Reddick to the north of the city became a matter of grave and earnest consideration. May 14, 1874, G. Gow and John Brinkerhoff, civil engineers, gauged the stream and found it sufficient to protect the city against fire. The work being inaugurated the reservoir was constructed under the supervision of G. Gow during the summer of 1875, by throwing a dam across the ravine immediately below the springs, thus raising the water to the depth of 18 feet. No further labor was performed until the spring of 1876, when the present works were commenced and conducted through the summer of 1 876, under the immediate and energetic supervision of John Brinkerhoff, civil engineer.

In the construction of the system the pipe used was 3,989 feet of twelve inch, 4,988 feet of ten inch, 6,432 feet of eight inch, 26,024 feet of six inch and 4, 844 feet of four inch pipe, in all 46,277 feet, or over 8 miles of pipe.

The total cost of pipe and special castings was $36, 390, the entire cost of the works being ^76,256.27. Improvements have since been made, making an additional cost of about ^10,000. The surface of the water at the reservoir is 128 feet above the public square. The water from 88 fire-plugs, located on the lines of the streets, can be projected to various hights, ranging from 40 to 100 feet above the surface by the force of gravity alone. Gravity being the agent acting in the propulsion of the water, the expense of running the works is merely nominal. The supply of water is sufficient for all the wants of the city, and under improvements introduced by M. M. Smith, Superintendent, during the summer of 1877, the water delivered in the city is pure spring water.

The works are now the most popular of any enterprise in which Wooster has engaged. Many citizens were at first, however, very hostile to their construction, to the extent of presenting written remonstrances to the City Council, condemning the project generally, predicting its failure to supply water to the city. But, notwithstanding such serious resistance, the Council proceeded energetically with the work, ending in success greater than the most sanguine anticipated. The active Councilmen in this were Angus McDonald, Jacob Stark, R. J. Cunningham, B. Barrett, J. K. Mc- Bride, J. J. Stevenson, Mortimer Munn, D. W. Immel.

Ohio F. Jones was born in Wooster, November 28, 1822. His earlier years were spent with his father in the village and upon the farm, during which time he had advantage of the educational opportunities that were afforded at that period. At the age of eighteen he went to Fredericksburg, attending the institution there, then under the supervision of Edward Geary, brother of Ex-Governor Geary, of Pennsylvania. He afterwards went to McGregor's Academy at Wadsworth, Medina county, Ohio, and thence to Brown county, Ohio, where he entered upon the study of law with General Thomas L. Hamar, of Georgetown, a gentleman of extraordinary abilities as orator, advocate and lawyer, a soldier of the Mexican war, who at the battle of Monterey distinguished himself for coolness and courage, and when Major General Butler was wounded, succeeded him in the command.

He was admitted to practice in May, 1846, and the same year entered into partnership with Judge Ezra Dean, establishing a joint or branch office at Ashland. This partnership terminated the ensuing spring, when he removed to Wooster and formed a partnership with John McSweeney, which continued for eight years. In the spring of 1855 ^^ engaged in professional relations with Hon. George Rex, which ran through a period of eighteen years, and until the elevation of Mr. Rex to the Judicial honors of the State.

After the lapse of several years, in 1877 ^^ received J. R. Woodsworth into partnership with him in practice, which professional relationship still exists. Mr. Jones' entire time and energies since his attainment to manhood have been devoted to the study and prosecution of the law. At a suitable age he was placed in the office of General Hamar, one of the most brilliant men of his time, and an intimate friend and associate of his father, who had served cotemporaneously with him in Congress. It is therefore evident that his opportunities when a student were of the most

His first partnership with Judge Dean was of brief duration, but between him and the old patrician gentleman there existed the most cordial mutual relations. During the eight years of professional relationship with Mr. McSweeney is when the latter rose to be the central light along the headlands of the law.

Combined with his legal acquirements and conceded acumen in the trial of causes, he is a practical business man, with a projective, mechanical mind, full of expediencies, fertile of contrivances and capable of taking a broad angled view of things. He is a good interpreter of human motive, and deduces from given circumstances and situations certain results, which the strongest direct testimony sometimes fails to disprove. The forces, both mental ^and physical, which propel him are strong and well-defined. He is aggressive, and when he follows the beck of his resolution he is impetuous and belligerent. He is enterprising and zealous, associating himself, at all times, with the best interests of his town and the community. He is social, genial and possessed of an inexhaustible revenue of spirit and humor. His friendships are firm and lasting when once made, though with him they are not "plants of hasty growth," but need the test and culture of good responsive soils. He exhibits the warmest adhesion towards his kindred - a distinct trait of the Jones family. He is independent in action, mind and thought, and maintains a "prudent empire o'er himself."

W. C. Moore, M. D., was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, June I, 1822. His parents removed to Wayne county, and settled in Chester township, on the farm now owned by Robert Christie, in the year 1832. He remained with his father until he was twenty years of age, and at the expiration of this time, and in 1842, he began the study of medicine with Dr. Leander Firestone, then practicing in Congress village. Congress township. With Dr. Firestone he continued as a student of medicine for three years, engaging in school teaching in the winter seasons. After concluding his elementary readings, and having graduated, he be- gan practice with his preceptor in 1845, continuing there a year, at the end of which time he removed to Rowsburg, where he remained another year, the partnership continuing, when he returned to Congress village and remained with Dr. Firestone for ten years.

Dr. Moore, though not a politician, is especially popular with his party throughout the county, and in 1859 was elected by the Democracy to the Legislature of the State of Ohio, serving from January 2, i860 to January 6, 1862. By his ability, genial manner and many qualifications as a member of that body, he acquired popularity both as a speaker and as a business representative.

In 1862 he removed to Wooster, since which time he has resided there. He was married to Louisa A. Hamilton, of Ashland county, Ohio, having but one child, Ernest Eugene Moore.

In his profession his skill is acknowledged, his good judgment being recognized by his competitors, as well as his kind care and sympathetic attention at the bed of sickness. His mind is bright, analytical, dissective, and he arrives at conclusions, or rather they are suggested and forced, not simply as a result of his logical premises, but by his actual and comparative knowledge. He is well acquainted with the philosophies of practice, as well as the principles of the medical science, and possesses all the elements of a good physician, which he is conceded to be.

His social developments are of high order, and his h^art and soul are not hidden under ice, but lie near a warm, tropical surface, where they expand into sunshine and burst into flowers.

Dr. Moore is a man of refined and cultivated literary tastes, and incHnes at times to float in Pierian waters. He believes, with Coleridge, that "poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language."

Mother

MOTHER. [Thoughts suggested on visiting her grave in Wooster Cemetery, 1870.] Mother, as here I breathe thy name my tears unbidden start, And memories bright as rays of heaven come clustering 'round my heart; 'Twas thee that taught my lips to lisp a little infant prayer, And pointing upward to the skies, informed me heaven was there ; And Scripture stories you'd repeat - tell how the good and wise, If faithful here, would live again immortal in the skies - Until enraptured by your themes, for hours I've gazed at even. Expecting through some parting clouds to catch a glimpse of heaven.

Dear mother, tell me of that realm. Is it a starless sphere? No ivied urn, no ruined arch nor broken column there ? Does spring eternal clothe its plains in robes of liveliest green ? Amid those ever vernal vales what brightening beauty's seen ? Does glittering glory gild the day? celestial zephyrs blow? And purer crystal streamlets there in living lustre flow ? Oh ! tell me, is all light and love within that realm on high ? Does peace unfurl her banner there, the rainbow of that sky ?

Hath Jesus there a banquet spread with fruit from life's fair tree ? Does man partake with nobler guests ? Oh ! was it spread for me ? Do angel bands there strike their harps to new unearthly strains? And wandering pluck the amaranths upon those shining plains? One question more, dear mother ! Is our little Willie there ? You'll know him by his angel smile and by his shining hair ; Oh ! search each winding, flow'ry vale where wandering angels stray - He'll surely be among the first to cull his bright bouquet.

S. R. Bonewitz was born November 28, 1820, in Wayne township, Wayne county, Ohio. His parents were of Virginia and Pennsylvania ancestry, and removed to Wayne county as early as

1815, settling on a farm of 190 acres, all in timber, purchased of Joseph Eichar and owned by Christian StoU, deceased. At the age of twenty-one Mr. Bonewitz engaged as a clerk for his father, who had purchased an interest in a dry goods store at what was then known as Naftzger's Mill, a mile west of Bridgeport.

In this business relation he continued for some time, and while thus employed, October 14, 1841, he was joined in marriage to Louisa Booth. He then entered into business for himself in the village of Mechanicsburg, where he staid until 1843. Having concluded to make Wooster his home he removed there in March, 1844, and at the end of one year (having studied law a year prior to his removal) was admitted to the bar in St. Clairsville, Ohio, whither and back he went on horseback. He read law with William McMahan, Esq., of Wooster, then occupying the office in which he has held forth for over thirty years.

In 1853 Mr. Bonewitz was elected Mayor of Wooster, and has served as Justice of the Peace and in various other capacities with credit and ability. He was the first insurance agent that ever transacted business in Wooster and the first representative of the well-known .(Etna Company.

Mr. Bonewitz is devoting himself exclusively to his professional duties. He was never disposed to indulge in the fierce warfare of the advocate, the strong bent of his mind inclining him more particularly to the preparation of pleadings and a strictly office business. Personally, he is a genial man, full of life and sociability.

Alf. Howard, son of Horace Howard, and brother to Harvey, Charles and William, of this city, died at Prophetstown, Whitsides county, Illinois, on Sunday, February 23, 1873, of congestion of the lungs. Mr. Howard was born in Wooster, January 25, 1824, and was consequently entering upon his fiftieth year at the time of his death. He was a man - a phenomenal genius - that acquired a continent-wide celebrity by his extraordinary musical power.

He developed in his earher and more tender years a peculiar talent and fondness for instrumental music, at the age of ten challenging the sweetness and magic of the fife and other instruments of that character.

of the wife of Harvey Howard, Esq., of this city. After a brief service with Mr. Bissell he proceeded to Niks, Berrien county, Michigan, on a visit to his old friend, Mr. Carrollton Hoyt, where he remained for a short time. Here, in fact, he conceived and inaugurated his programme of musical peregrinations, to which his entire subsequent life was devoted. At Niles he organized a troupe of musicians and made his debut before the public, entertaining enthusiastic audiences in the Western States, penetrating the vast regions on the sunset side of the Father of Floods.

In 1842 he appeared with the celebrated circus combination of June, Turner & Co., with which he traveled for the season, and with which he returned to Wooster. Here he proceeded to the organization of a minstrel company, and once more embarked for the far West. After the fulfillment of this engagement he suddenly appeared in Philadelphia, bursting into that city with the blaze of a meteor, and here he obtained the flattering sobriquet of the American Ole Bull. This was in 1844. Next he was the focus of attraction at Barnum's, New York, where, with the articulate speech of his violin, he delighted expectant houses.

The succeeding canto in the great song of his life was a visit to the Old World, where a number of years were spent, and where he enjoyed an agreeable popularity. The remaining portion of his career, after his return from Europe, was occupied exclusively in travel, he having made the tour of every State in our great Federal Union.

Mr. Howard was a remarkable, and in some respects, probably, an eccentric man. His object in his profession was surpassing excellence and superiority. While his attainments with the violin were incomparable and inimitably great, and while money poured into his hands, money was not the motive of his indefatigable aim. He played for reputation, sought for Fame, wooed the fickle Queen, and won her.

Among the earliest settlers of the West were many of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent, who had been trained in Presbyterian principles from their youth. Such persons brought with them to the new territory, not only a zeal for their special forms of faith, but likewise a love of learning in general, and a determination to secure educational facilities for their children as soon as possible.

The first Home Missionaries who followed in the track of this emigration, and sought to gather and organize its religious element into churches, were mostly graduates of some college, or men whose careful training had taught them the inestimable value of a collegiate education. Their impression, and that of the people influenced by them, may be seen most prominently in the early history of those college enterprises that were undertaken by the State, and in many other efforts of a kindred nature, some of which have been failures, while others proved partially successful. One of their favorite ideas was that of combining religious with intellectual culture, for mutual education of head and heart, holding that all mental training should be purified and strengthened by the development of man's spiritual life in connection therewith, to secure complete manhood. This conviction they strenuously sought to impress upon the early State institutions where they obtained controlling influence. With these young colleges, where in some cases they long held the chief management, they were content to cast in their lot, while as yet their own church membership and finances were feeble.

But other denominations, as they grew up to power, began to found institutions devoted especially to the instruction of their own youth, and to the education of candidates for their ministry from their own ranks. It also became apparent that, in so far as the State was concerned, little could be hoped from the colleges then directly under its control, and espceially nothing of mentionable benefit to the Presbyterian church, which was greatly in need of an educated ministry.

The colleges founded upon the plan of union between the Congregationalists and Presbyterians had been among the most efficient and successful in the State ; but still, as a historical fact, had not drawn largely upon the sympathy and co-operation of the Scotch- Irish element of Presbyterianism, which was by far its most numerous and influential element in Ohio. There was thus no institution in the State to which they were heartily disposed to send their sons or to contribute of their means; and a large majority directed their patronage to the Presbyterian colleges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which were thus filled with crowded classes for many years, and from which the Presbyterian ministry in the West was mainly replenished.

for the benefit of the public as well, was steadily agitated year after year by the leading Presbyterian ministers and elders of the State, among whom it will not be invidious to name one who long ministered at the State capital, and from that position exercised an important power over the whole State, the late Rev. James Hoge, D. D.

The necessity of such an institution was annually canvassed in Synods and Presbyteries, and as early as 1847 began to take formal shape in committees, and positive efforts at location and the securing of endowment. The older and wiser fathers among both the clergy and laity grew more and more interested in these enterprises, and sorely lamented the failure to unite upon any feasible plan. Attempts at combining the three Synods into which the church in Ohio was then districted were repeatedly made, but no Synodical College was founded, and many of the people seemed disheartened at the prospect. At length in 1866, after nearly 25 years of agitation and earnest effort, the object was consummated in the estabhshment by these three Synods of the then old school Presbyterian church, - the Synods of Ohio, Sandusky and Cincinnati - of the University located at Wooster.

After severally agreeing to undertake the task, a joint committee had been appointed by the Synods to arrange the plans. Offers of grounds and means for the erection of suitable buildings were received from several localities, which places the committee visited in person, comparing the relative value of the propositions and the suitableness of location. Ephraim Quinby, Jr., Esq. , a wealthy and liberal citizen of Wooster, generously offered a handsome site adjoining that town, upon a gently elevated knoll, containing 21 acres of oak forest, from which is afforded a commanding view of an exceedingly fertile and beautiful valley extending for miles, surrounded by wooded hills and fruitful fields, which together compose an outlook of rare variety and attractiveness. The citizens of this county, with great enthusiasm and without regard to denominational lines, uniting their efforts with noble liberality, raised a subscription of over $100,000, which they offered for the erection of a building upon the Quinby grounds. After deliberate consideration the Synodical Committee decided upon this location for the new College as the most desirable and valuable in all respects.

The Synods having appointed Trustees, according to requirements of the State law, proceeded, in December, 1866, to secure a charter for the University, under the act of April, 1852, and

In the charter the object of said corporation was declared to be " the promotion of sound learning and education under religious influences, such as is usually contemplated in colleges and universities." The succession of Trustees was appointed as follows: The Synod of Ohio to appoint at least five Trustees from resident freeholders of Wayne county (to conform to the law authorizing such corporations), and one from each of the Presbyteries under its care. The Synods of Cincinnati and Sandusky were each authorized to elect a number of Trustees equal to the number of their Presbyteries, these Trustees to hold office for three years, and until their, successors are elected. The University was declared to be under the care of said three Synods, and such other t Dr. Robinson, so long pastor at Ashland, was'one of the early projectors and advocates of the Synodical College, and frona the start has been one of its most faithful friends and President of its Board of Trustees. The institution owes much to his wisdom and zeal.

X Mr. Quinby, in addition to the grounds, contributed about $30,000 to the funds of the institution, as did also Captain J. H. Kauke in an equivalent sum. And to the deep interest and great personal activity of these gentlemen, together with the untiring aid of all the other resident members of the Board in Wooster, and especially to the zealous and efficient help of the Treasurer, John McClellan, Esq., is owing the establishment of this institution on a liberal, broad and permanent basis.

1[ Dr. Taylor was early a prominent member of one of the committees of conference upon a Synodical College from the Synod of Cincinnati, when a Ruling Elder in the Central Presbyterian church of Cincinnati. Removing to Cleveland, as an Elder in the Westminster church, he continued to be deeply interested in the movement, and subscribed liberally towards the endowment. He was elected one of the first Trustees by the Synod of Sandusky, and was one of the committee who came to Wooster, examined the site and agreed upon the location of the University at this point. He died in Cleveland, February, 1868. At a later date, his only son was elected second President of the University, to succeed Dr. Willis Lord.

Synods as might thereafter unite with them in the enterprise. Provision was also made for the union of any Presbyterian Synod of any other ecclesiastical connection in this control, upon concurrent assent of the original Synod. No part in the control was given to State officials, or any one outside of the election of the Synods.

Immediately after incorporation the Board appointed a fiscal agent and canvassing agents,* and issued an appeal to the pastors of the churches in the Synods interested. In this appeal was contained several resolutions, declarative of the object of the University, which were passed at the first meeting of the Board, as follows :

Whereas, We are deeply convinced that education is a real blessing only when imbued with the spirit of Christianity, and that any enterprise may hope for success only as it enjoys the Divine blessing and is devoted to the promotion of the Divine glory ; therefore,

Resolved, That we enter upon the work of establishing the University of Wooster with the single purpose of glorifying God, in promoting sanctified education, and thus furthering the interests of the church, and its extension over the whole earth.

Resolved, That we will in every way possible strive to imbue all our operations with the spirit of Christianity, and bring religious influence and instruction to bear earnestly upon all who may be connected with the institution.

Resolved, That in addition to a thorough literary and scientific course of study, we will aim to endow a chair for instruction in the evidences of Christianity, and the relation of science to religion ;t and also a chair for instruction in the languages, religions and literature of the modern Pagan nations, with special reference to the preparation of young men for the Foreign Missionary field.

These resolutions display the broad, catholic spirit of Christianity upon which it was the design of its founders to place the institution, rather than upon any narrow, sectarian and sole, ecclesiastical basis. An executive committee, consisting of the President of the Board and the resident members in Wooster, having been appointed, urged on the work of securing endowment from the churches, and matured plans for the erection of the building. Work, however, was not begun on the building until the opening of the spring of 1868, and the corner-stone was laid June 30, 1868, with appropriate services.

General Fiscal Secretary, and the Board fixed the amount of endowment to be raised at ^500,000. In the autumn of this year the Synods concerned severally endorsed the work, urging its continuance and promising support. Later in the year an effort was made to secure from the State Legislature the location of the contemplated State Agricultural College at Wooster, to be connected with the University, which effort proved ineffectual. At the meetings of the Synods in October, 1869, the executive committee reported that subscriptions to the endowment fund to the amount of ^251,- 614* had been secured, and that the main building, exclusive of the projected wings, was nearly finished. Subscriptions had been made payable, conditioned upon the securing of ^250,000 by the 1st of October, which condition the Board formally declared to have been fulfilled.

As the income from this fund would not accrue until the following year, it was deemed advisable not to open the institution for instruction until that time. The friends of the University were greatly elated at the success of the movement, which was largely due to the Fiscal Secretary and Financial Agents, and to the earnest co-operation of the pastors and churches of the Synods of Ohio and Sandusky. In December, 1869, the Board accepted the resignation of the Fiscal Secretary, and Rev. W. R. Marshall, D. D. , was elected his successor.

During the year 1869 the reunion of the old and new school branches of the Presbyterian church had been consummated, and in the spring of 1870 the Synods of the two bodies had been consolidated and their territories reconstructed. By this act the Synods of Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati had been made the legal successors of the Synods formerly united in the control of the University, and by the terms of said act had become "entitled to the possession and enjoyment of all the rights and franchises, and liable to the performance of all the duties " of those Synods. The members of the Board of Trustees, therefore, placed their resignations in the hands of the new Synod, when their successors were immediately elected. Resolutions accepting the trust of the University were adopted by these Synods, and the University passed into the hands and under the control of the reunited church. But in the re-allotment of Synods in the State, a new Synod, that of

*In the raising of this fund the system of single and cheap scholarships was avoided, and the amount was secured mainly from members of Presbyterian congregations.

Cleveland, covering a considerable portion of the territory of the former Synods, had been erected. An equal share of ownership and control in the institution having been tendered by the Trustees to this new Synod, was by it respectfully declined, with the adoption, however, of resolutions commending it to the "confidence, sympathy, prayers and patronage " of the Presbyteries comprising

In the spring of 1870 the Board completed its arrangements for a course of instruction, for the election of a Faculty, and the formal opening of the Collegiate Department in the fall of that year. The admission of students of either sex to the classes had already been agreed upon, as well as the reception of students to partial or special courses, according to their preparation therefor. Rev. H. M. Robertson was also elected an additional Fiscal Secretary. According to these arrangements, at a meeting of the Board September 7, 1870, the University was formally dedicated and opened, when a historical address was made by Rev. John Robinson, D. D., President of the Board, and Hon. John Sherman, United States Senator, delivered an additional address. Rev. Willis Lord, D. D., was inaugurated President of the University and delivered an inaugural address*. On the following day the institution was formally opened for instruction, with the following Faculty :

Rev. Willis Lord, D. D., President, and Professor of Biblical Instruction. O. N. Stoddard, LL. D., Professor of the Natural Sciences. Rev. W. H. Jeffers, A. M., Professor of Greek Language and Literature. Rev. A. T. Fullerton, A. M., Professor of English Language and Literature and Rhetoric.

A circular containing the Faculty-elect and the proposed plan of study had been previously issued during the summer. Both a classical and scientific course had bee'n arranged and made to run parallel through the four years. The basis of the former was mainly that of Princeton College, New Jersey, and the standard of study was fixed upon a level with that in the catalogue of the lat-

*These addresses were subsequently published, together with the annual report of the Board of Trustees for this year, in a pamphlet. The following persons also took part in the proceedings: Rev. David Hall, of Mansfield, Rev. J. A. Reid, of Wooster, and Rev. A. A. E. Taylor, of Cincinnati. The reports of the Board for the two preceding years had also been published in pamphlet form.

When the first classes were organized, at the opening of the institution, it was found that applicants were present for each class, many students, particularly of Presbyterian proclivities, and of the immediate vicinity, who had been scattered in other institutions, having rallied at once around the new enterprise. During the course of the year the classes grew to the following numbers : Seniors, 6; Juniors, 14; Sophomores, 19; Freshmen, 22; total, 61. Among these 14 were partial students (all but two of them young women), while but one young woman was admitted to the regular course, entering the Freshman class. But very few entered the Scientific course. After a prosperous year, the Senior class, numbering six, was graduated at the first Commencement, in June of the following year, all receiving the Classical degree.

During this year valuable apparatus had been secured, at a cost of $5,000; a liberal subscription of the same amount from C. S. Bragg, Esq., of Cleveland, as a Library Fund, laid a foundation for the Library, which was increased by other generous donors ; and a good beginning was made towards a cabinet of mineralogical and geological specimens. The tuition and fees had been fixed at a low rate, and it was found that boarding could be secured in private families at from three to four dollars per week.

In the second year of the institution the number of students was slightly increased, and the Faculty was enlarged by the election of Rev. D. S. Gregory to the Chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. Eight young men were graduated, all in the Classical course. At the end of this year Professor Fullerton resigned, because of ill-health, having proved very successful in his position.

The opening of the third year, however, showed a very decided increase in students, the catalogue for that year registering about 140, including an increased number of young women. A Preparatory course running through two years was also opened, with 35 students, under the direction of Rev. J. A. I. Lowes. Valuable additions continued to be made to the Library, Apparatus, Cabinet, and other departments ; the classes became more thoroughly organized and the work better systematized. At the close of this college year thirteen young men were graduated, twelve in the Classical and one in the Scientific course. President Lord finding the work too severe for his physical strength, and desiring to prepare the results of his former labors in the Chair of Theology in the

Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the North-west for publication, felt constrained to offer his resignation, which was accepted at the end of the third year of the University and of his Presidency. His administration had proved most successful, especially in the matter of organization and in his management of the students, and the institution owes him a lasting debt of gratitude for his efficient labors and wise counsel in its behalf. As a mark of their appreciation the Trustees conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D.* The Trustees immediately elected as his successor, Rev. A. A. E. Taylor, D. D., of Cincinnati, who had been a Trustee from the opening of the institution. The new President entered at once upon his work, and was duly inaugurated at the opening of the fall term in September, 1873. During the four succeeding years the University has steadily increased in popular favor and added to the number of its students about thirty annually, until the present year, when there are enrolled in the Collegiate and in the Preparatory about 300 students.

In 1874 J. Adolph Schmitz, A. M., was elected Professor of Modern Languages and Literature, and J. O. Notestine, A. M., Adjunct Professor of Latin Language and Literature.

In January, 1875, Professor Jeffers received a call to the Euclid Street church, of Cleveland, and proffered his resignation as Professor of Greek. He, however, continued his labors during the year.

Professor James Black, D. D., President of Pennsylvania Female College, was elected his successor, and entered upon the duties of his chair at the beginning of the sixth University year, September, 1875.

*The proceedings of the inauguration of President Taylor were published in pamphlet form, and consisted of Farewell address by President Lord ; address of Induction by Rev. John Robinson, D. D., President of the Board of Trustees, and Inaugural address by President Taylor, versity through the agency of Rev. T. K. Davis, Financial Secretary, who served with great efficiency during these years ; and in 1875, W. D. Johnson, of Clifton, Ohio, in his will, donated $25,- 000 for the endowment of an additional chair. Four chairs have been thus endowed in the sum of ^25,000 each by the following persons : Mr. J. H. Kauke, of Wooster ; E. Quinby, Jr., Esq., of Wooster; B. J. Mercer, of Mansfield, in his will; and W. D. Johnson, as above. Funds were added for the increase of the Library, until it has reached about 4,000 well-selected volumes. Large additions have been made to the Museum, and the collection of Indian remains is already one of the finest in the State, comprising nearly eight hundred specimens.

In the summer of 1874 Professor Stoddard, with about twenty students, organized an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, to be absent about two months. As the result a cabinet of minerals and fossils of great value was added to a rich collection previously obtained from Professor Hayden, of the United States Exploring Expedition, through the agency of Rush Taggart, Esq. By courses of lectures delivered during several winters by the Professors, a fund of about one thousand dollars was raised with which a very handsome telescope was obtained from the celebrated manufacturers, Cooke & Sons, Liverpool, England, and was imported free of duty. Largely through the influence of Professor Kirkwood, and by aid of the Faculty and classes of the institution, members of the Synod and citizens of the town, a handsome Observatory has been erected on the University grounds in which the telescope is elegantly mounted for the use of the students. In view of the increase of the Library a Reading Hall was established, open during eight hours each day, in the Library Room, and furnished with the leading reviews, magazines and newspapers of the day. Rev. T. K. Davis was, in 1877, appointed Librarian and, with his assistants, keeps the Library constantly open for the issuing of books to the students and for consultation concerning subjects upon which the Library gives information. A large number of dictionaries and other books of reference have been secured for this purpose.

Founded in the midst of one of the richest agricultural regions in the State, and among a generous and hospitable people, it has been found, by experiment, that expenses may be as economically managed by those who desire to obtain an education upon small outlay, as in any other college of the land, and at a far less rate than in other schools where the advantages are not nearly so great, and especially far cheaper than in Eastern colleges. About $15,000 are paid out annually by the Trustees to secure Professors and Teachers of the highest grade, and of wide-spread reputation for ability and efficiency. The student is charged less than half the actual expense of his tuition, not counting the investments in grounds and buildings, and students find, upon experience, that the worst way to economize in seeking an education is in cheap teachers. The high standing of the institution, equal to that of the best American colleges, has been faithfully maintained by securing, at high cost, the best instructors to be found, and the character of the graduates passing out from their hands is such as to satisfy the friends of the University of its great excellence and efficiency. It has proved a wonderful advantage to the community, to have drawn to it educated families from abroad who desire to give their children a first-class education, and the University pours annually into the currency of the community no less than ;^70,ooo, drawn from over fifty counties of the State, and from twelve other States, whence students now come. This is so much fresh blood poured into the money veins of the community, year after year a steady stream reaching the humblest tradesman, and making itself felt in the whole region around the institution. Already it is estimated that the money paid out by the citizens to secure the University in their midst has been repaid to them in threefold measure, and as the years roll on, this will prove to be an investment of the best character, producing a large and constant interest. Added to this is the fortunate opportunity afforded to the county to secure the superior education of its sons and daughters near at home.

During the eight years of its establishment, considerably over 800 students have been in attendance, and the graduates for this period number about 160, an average of 20 per annum - a result unequaled by any institution ever established in the West, and scarcely ever, if at all, in the whole country. The objection to this institution because of its newness has been removed by the employment of life-long teachers in the Faculty, whose combined experience is fully equal to that of any Faculty in a college of equal size in the land, thus securing the effect of long experience and age for the University itself. The Ancient and Modern Languages, Natural and Mental Philosophy, Mathematics, English Literature, Rhetoric, and all the branches needful to secure a complete colle-

At its annual Commencements, held usually on the third Wednesday of June, eloquent and distinguished speakers from abroad address crowded audiences ; while the other exercises, in which the students themselves take part, especially those of the graduating class on Commencement Day, in the grove, attract audiences that number several thousand, drawn from over the whole county. This is a constant excitement to the educational spirit, and awakens the minds of the community to the superiority and power of an educated brain.

One peculiar feature of the institution, the admission of young women to all the classes, has fully established the mental power of the sex in competition with young men. Young women of the more thoughtful and studious class are drawn to an institution where they can secure instruction in studies that develop the faculty of thought from superior teachers, such as the schools they usually attend have not the means to employ. They are prepared for teachers, or for an adequate appreciation of literature, science and life in general, and are enabled to reason for themselves and act with superior judgment, moving without embarrassment in the most cultivated society and fitted to adorn the highest walks in social life. Among the small number who have already graduated, are those of whom any institution might well be proud. Under careful management the evils that have been so often imagined and exaggerated are wholly avoided. Good conduct and good health have been constantly secured for a time sufficiently long to make the experiment a decided success, and the number of young women in attendance has increased steadily until it mounts above sixty.

The general character of the students is of the highest order ; and by a well devised system of entrusting them largely with duty under careful supervision, and with sufficient study to give them full employment, they are thrown upon a sense of their manhood at an early age, and feel the pressure of their personal responsibility in conducting themselves as gentlemen, thus avoiding the dangers that imperil thoughtless youth. The usual police system of schools for older students simply incites them to attempt their worst, while a generous and helpful confidence excites them to do their best.

pleted, but, as it stands, it is sufficient for all the wants of five hundred students. Tlie finest building in the county, it is built of brick, trimmed with sandstone ; eighty feet front by one hundred in depth ; rising five stories in hight above the basement, that stands eight feet above ground.

In the basement of the building room is temporarily found for an ample laboratory for the analytical practice of chemistry, where separate tables are provided for the students. The other floors contain eight recitation rooms, each about thirty-two feet square, with ceilings fourteen feet in hight, and lighted by five large windows, that render the rooms cheerful and healthful. The Library and Museum now occupy two of these rooms. Four additional recitation rooms, twenty-three by twenty-five feet in size, are situated upon the first floor, one of which is devoted as a reception room exclusively to the use of the young ladies, who have, also, constant access to the reading room. The whole rear of the building, from the second to the fourth stories, is occupied by Kauke Chapel, named for Captain J. H. Kauke. This chapel is a room fifty-two by fifty-six feet in size, with a light and graceful gallery running around three sides of it, on a level with the third story of the building.

It is seated in circular form as an amphitheatre, furnished with wainscoting and seats of native wood, handsomely frescoed and furnished comfortably, accommodating eight hundred persons. Over the chapel two rooms, each fifty-two by twenty-eight feet large, are fitted up for the use of the Literary Societies. The fifth floor remains unoccupied. A broad, central hall, through which ascends an ample staircase, with wide transverse halls, renders all departments readily accessible. This building, finished throughout in native oak and walnut, furni.shed with heating apparatus and lighted by gas, the whole surmounted with a handsome Mansard roof and tower, is surpassed in convenience, spaciousness and practical utility by few educational edifices in the West.

To the Preparatory department particular attention has been paid during the last five years. The object of the Faculty in this matter has been twofold. On the one hand, they desire to secure to those persons who may not intend to pursue a full college course a thorough, practical and advantageous training in elementary English branches, beginning with the lower studies and carrying the student up to an excellent knowledge of English, together with an elementary training in such branches as may enable them to fill a teacher's place with acceptance and honor in the district school and other schools of like grades. All the purposes of a superior normal school are thus obtained under the care of experienced teachers, and many pass out thence yearly to fields of usefulness.

On the other hand, a necessity was felt for an efficient preparatory training for the college courses, including elementary work in Greek, Latin, German, Algebra, History and Drawing. Only by securing faithful and sufficient work in the beginning of these studies, could the student become ready for the full benefit of the higher classes in the University proper. To this end, selection has been made from among the best teachers, and particularly from the graduates of the College. Two of these alumni, especially Professors J. O. Notestine, A. M., and James Wallace, A. M., natives of the county, and standing at the head of their classes at graduation, with Professor William W. Wallace, A. M., long a successful teacher in another institution, have devoted themselves, with great zeal and untiring labor, to set this department on a level with the noted academies of New England. For thoroughness and accuracy, the acquisition of exact knowledge of the first principles of the studies that lie at the foundation of the college course' their work is nowhere excelled, since it is performed with the utmost care and in a conscientious sense of duty to the pupils. The young women who have entered these classes have also found great benefit therein, and have proved themselves able to rival their brothers for high standing and the possession of the prizes.

The theory of this institution is, that the secret of success in college lies in a preparation that shall make the student fully and familiarly acquainted with those elementary principles that, starting at the root, still pervade every subsequent stage of progress in any study. And to accomplish this end and produce scholars of a high grade, the Preparatory department is made the subject of constant attention and diligent care. This department has met with great favor, has grown constantly from the start, both in size and in excellence, and is annually sending up to the college classes students capable of maintaining the highest standing, and of graduating with honor to themselves and to the University.

The citizens of Wayne county need no longer send their sons beyond its limits to secure for them a classical, scientific, normal or academical education equal to any that can be obtained in any part of the land.

The Medical Department was established at the beginning. At the time of the organization of the University, Charity Hospital Medical College, in Cleveland, was received into connection with the University under the charter of the latter, and was formally reorganized as its Medical Department. Having been previously conducted for five years under the direction of such able and distinguished Professors as Drs. G. C. E. Weber and Leander Firestone, with their coadjutors, it had already gained a high position. This alliance thus obtained gave increasing character and influence to the University, and the Medical Department has continued to increase, until now its Faculty numbers thirteen and its students aggregate about one hundred, with above thirty graduates annually. Being situated in Cleveland, because of the superior advantages of proximity to hospitals and a larger range of disease, its friends, and especially its devoted Faculty, have secured for it a handsome and well furnished building, in which its classes meet and are trained for their future profession. This department is rapidly making its mark among Medical Colleges, and its fame is extending to the East as well as in the West. Its graduates already number three hundred and sixty, and have gained for themselves a fine reputation wherever they have located.

Thus this University of our county, turning out, from its two main departments, sixty alumni annually, is rapidly winning a reputation beyond the limits of its own State, and within these bounds has already taken a recognized stand in the first rank. In 1877, the seventh year of its existence, it graduated from its Collegiate department the largest number of classical alumni of any college in Ohio, thus taking the lead of its older companions. With the confidence and support of the citizens of this county, in whose midst it is set as a shining light, and who should take a patriotic pride in its success, and aid it by every means in their power to tower above every other institution of the kind in the State, it will in return give to the county and to the city of Wooster, the county-seat, whose name it bears, a reputation and a fame for literary culture that shall be national and enduring - a fame which, in the future, may rival the names of Princeton, Cambridge and New Haven, the great educational centers of America.

As a matter of historical interest for the future, we append the names of its present Faculty and ofljcers of collegiate and preparatory instructors :

O. N. Stoddard, LL.D., Kauke Professor of the Natural Sciences. S. J. Kirkwood, Ph. D.. LL.D., Johnson Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy.

L. Firestone, M. D., LL.D., Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene Rev. James Black, D. D., Quinby Professor of Greek Language and Litera-

President Taylor was born in Springfield, Clarke county, Ohio, in 1834. His father, Dr. Edward Taylor, of Cleveland, Ohio, was also born in this State. His grandfather and great-grandfather came together from New Jersey to Ohio in the year of Wayne's Treaty with the Indians, and settled in Ross county, naming the town in which they located Bainbridge, in honor of Commodore

Bainbridge, a brother-in-law of the latter. His remoter ancestors came from England in 1692, and settled in Garret's Hill, Monmouth county, New Jersey, where many of their descendants still reside.

His great-grandfather upon the mother's side was Colonel James Gordon, of Virginia, a part of whose diary is published in Dr. Foote's Sketches of Virginia. Colonel Gordon was a Scotchman, and an elder in the Presbyterian church of which Rev. Samuel Davies was pastor; and Rev. James Waddell, D. D.,the "blind preacher," whose eloquence was celebrated by William Wirt, married Colonel Gordon's daughter, the sister of Dr. Taylor's grandfather. The eldest daughter of Dr. Waddell, who was first cousin to Dr. Taylor's mother, was married to Rev. Archibald Alexander, D. D., the distinguished Princeton Professor for whom Dr. Taylor was named. Drs. J. W. and J. A. Alexander were therefore second cousins to Dr. Taylor.

Dr. Taylor was a student from early life, and graduated at Princeton College at the age of nineteen, 1854. He studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and was licensed to preach the Gospel by the Presbytery of Cincinnati in 1857. He was shortly afterward ordained, and settled as pastor over the Presbyterian church of Portland, Kentucky, where he remained two years. Thence he was called to the charge of the First Presbyterian church of Dubuque, Iowa, in which he labored successfully for six years. During this period he became a regular correspondent of the Presbyterian, of Philadelphia, over the signature of "Hawkeye," the familiar sobriquet of the people of Iowa. At the close of the war, in 1865, he was called to the Bridge Street Presbyterian church of Georgetown, D. C.

From this field he was called in 1869 to the pastorate of the Mt. Auburn Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, Ohio, a new and promising organization. After a four years' pastorate, during which the membership of the church increased to over 200, Dr. Taylor was unanimously elected, in June, 1873, by the Board of Trustees, as successor to Rev. Willis Lord, D. D., as President of the Synodical University of Wooster. Having been a member of that Board for several years, and greatly interested in the success of this young University, after having contributed freely for the purpose of putting the endowment in a good condition, he accepted this position and entered upon its onerous duties in September, 1873.

Dr. Taylor has been a member of the Boards of Education and of Church Extension of the General Assembly. He has also been a member of the Boards of Directors of the North western Theological Seminary, at Chicago, 111., and of the Western Theological Semmary, of Allegheny, Pa. He was a member of the General Assembly at which the reunion of the two branches of the Presbyterian church was consummated in 1869. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by the Wooster University in 1872.

Dr. Taylor is a man of medium size and kindly aspect, of fine talent and impressive address, of unusually genial temperament, and well adapted to win the affections of students, and interest all with whom he meets in the University, to the building up of which he has devoted himself with all his energies. The first year of his incumbency, though the position was new and very difficult to fill, was crowned with great success in securing the entire confidence of all connected with the institution, in the increasing number of students, and in the enjoyment of a powerful work of grace by which a large proportion of the inmates of the College were hopefully converted. Some of these have already turned their faces toward the Gospel ministry.

The uttered part of a man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small, unknown proportion ; he himself never knows it, much less do others.

There are certain proprieties which, in obedience to a code of necessity, are uniform, will prevail and have prevailed for all time. It is proper that we should have astronomers to keep track of the planets and discover new ones ; philosophers to dogmatize upon truth and discuss "the science of realities;" geologists to rake the ashes of the past, creep into the fissures of rocks, exhume mummies, ransack catacombs and announce the infancy of time ; masters in the realm of ethics ; discoverers in the empire of mechanics and mind, to aid muscular energy, economize time, produce wealth, reconcile fact with principle, earth with sky, creation with Creator, and elevate and ameliorate the moral and physical condition of the world.

few. The trees of the forest attain not to the same hight, yet the smaller ones and the undergrowth have each their specific use and sphere. Nature was conscious of her eternal policies when she pronounced or decreed her discriminations with mankind. To each was assigned his weight of talent ; to each his sphere of exercise and employment. To this primal arrangement of things she has set her fixed and endless adaptations. Every hfe, when properly lived out, is supposed to have filled the measure of its possible and prescribed activities, and every trade and profession has its several departments requiring separate and peculiar talents. One man may excel in a given branch of a profession and be wholly inefficient in another.

In medicine there are but few men who combine all the traits indispensable to the true physician. This fact seems to be much better understood with Europeans than in America, where the various branches of medicine are divided into separate and distinct professions. A man may practice skillfully in the materia medica and be but an indifferent surgeon, or he may excel in the science of compounding and be ill-suited to preside over the education of others. Moreover every profession has its literature and morale, and he may wield a pen with elegance, power and point who would prove but a blunderer in the dissecting-room.

Dr. Firestone has not only vindicated his claim to an exalted rank in surgery, but in every department of the occult mysteries of medicine. He wields a strong and trenchant pen, talks with the freedom of the gushing brook, and presides over the studies of others with eminent success, and to the fame he has achieved with the scalpel he adds the luster of the teacher.

He was born in Saltcreek township, Wayne county, Ohio, in the year 1819. After he attained his fourteenth year his time was spent in performing such service, during the summer, as a boy of that age was competent of doing upon the farm, while during the winter he had the occasional opportunity of attending the country school. He now went to Columbiana county, near Salem, where he had some sprightly jostling with the world, and where he obtained some scant instruction in a district school from a Mr. Kingsbury and a Mr. Mills. From there he went to Portage county, Ohio, where for three months he indulged in the health-inspiring, muscle-expanding, chest-enlarging, lung-invigorating occupation of chopping cord-wood, and that for three shillings per cord, and hard beech at that.

Whether the Doctor was so successful as to acquire distinction as a cord-wood carpenter and champion of the wedge and maul, we are not at liberty to tell, but fancy, however, that with all his preconceived conceits of the dignity of labor that he did not desire to extend his knowledge of his occupation beyond an exact rudimentary limit.

Adopting the Westonic method of locomotion, he then proceeded to Chester township, Wayne county, making his home with his uncle, John Firestone, two miles north of New Pittsburg, with whom he remained until he was eighteen years of age. On the farm of his uncle he found " ample room and verge enough" for his developing and powerful muscular forces, - felling grand old trees, rolling and tumbling logs, plowing among stumps and stubborn roots, an occupation sufficient indeed to test the patience and manly fortitude, not only of the youthful Firestone, but of the sternest Calvinist of the faith of Brown or good old Ebenezer Erskine. In the fields and woods the summer was spent; in the dingy school-room the winter.

He taught his first term in what is now Perry township, Ashland county, then in Wayne county, in what was called the Helman district, receiving for his services twelve dollars per month, and boarding himself. By appropriating the intervals between labor and sleep to hard study, he obtained his education, and laid the marble on which is built the superstructure of his professional name.

If he did not, like Pope, teach himself to write by copying printed books, he managed to acquire the art by other equally novel methods. He wrung the secrets from Kirkham and the Calculator by the blaze of burning brush-heaps. During this time he made weekly recitations to Rev. Thomas Beer. In addition to such studies that directly qualified him for teaching, he devoted himself to botany, philosophy, chemistry and other branches of natural science. He had no collegiate education. The farm was his academia and university ; the teeming fields and valleys, the trees and brooks his tutors. Life was his school, where ' ' the clink of mind against mind" strikes out those brighter intellectual sparks which shine forever, and reflect light in endless irradiations. He studied hard, and had a clear understanding of what he read.

Industry and perseverance are stout levers when fulcrumed upon a resolute will. Possunt quia posse videntur is a maxim full of pith as in any time past. There is a marvel in earnest study. He adopted the idea of Bacon: "Read to weigh and consider" - not too many books but all good ones well. For "some books," adds he, "are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested." Under difficult and adverse conditions he studied and struggled, "unfolding himself out of nothing into something." Or as Carlyle would say, he drew continually toward himself in continual succession and variation the materials of his structure, nay his very plan of it, from the whole realm of accident, you may say, from the whole realm of free-will building his life together, a guess and a problem as yet not to others only but to himself.

On the 26th of August, 1838, he was married to Susan Firestone, and the nejift year, then but 20 years old, began the study of medicine with Dr. S. F. Day, an eminent practicing physician of the county at that time, and for whose great and consummate skill as a practitioner, to this day, he entertains a profound regard. With him he remained for nearly three years, during which time he took a course of lectures at the Medical College of Philadelphia.

On the 28th of March, 1841, he located at Congress village. Congress township, where he began his first floatings on the abysmal sea of professional life.

His residence and office were in the first house north of the hotel, then kept by James Huston and known as the Homer Stanley property. Here he continued for 13 years, where he had an extensive and lucrative practice and acquired a signal local reputation during which more than a decade, he graduated from the medical department of the Western Reserve College, then located at Cleveland, Ohio. We have said he had now attained to a local celebrity. More than that. He had not only impressed the community that embraced his circumference of visitation of his superior ability and where he had been saving

But the noise of his skill and the echo of his professional exploits had reached the ear of the broader and more scientific public. The college, from which he had but recently graduated, was in need of an occupant for one of its professional chairs, and in its survey for a suitable man to fill it, the abilities of Dr. Firestone were recognized, and in 1847 he was made Demonstrator of Anatomy in that institution. This position he held until 1853, where his reputation as an anatomist and dissecting-room instrucwo OSTER - SKE TCHES. 525

He next was appointed Superintendent of the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, located at Newburg, which position he filled with conspicuous fitness until August 6, 1856, when he removed to Wooster, where he has lived ever since, and engaged in a successful and sweeping practice. In 1858 he was elected President of the State Medical Society, then holding its sessions at Columbus.

In the winter of 1864 he was made Professor of Obstetrics and the Diseases of Women in Charity Hospital Medical College at Cleveland, which position he has continuously held ever since, excepting two years, during which he occupied the Chair of Surgery in the same college. In the summer of 1870 this institution was constituted the Medical Department of Wooster University, in which he continues Professor of Obstetrics and the Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women, and Class Lecturer on Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene to the University students at Wooster.

The title of LL. D. was conferred upon Dr. Firestone by the University of Ohio, at Athens, June 24, 1874. This honor was bestowed, not simply in appreciation of his brilliant attainments in the medical profession, but for his distinguished and pre-eminent achievements in the departments of science and literature, and the literature of science.

He has had eight children - three girls and five boys - all of whom are dead, save his two sons, W. W. Firestone, M. D., and M. O. Firestone, M. D.

Dr. L. Firestone is now at the very zenith of his powers - standing on the mainlands of professional eminence. Being yet in the prime, the noon of his years, and considering his past progressive elevations, we have not the courage to forecast his future. We see what he has, but know not what he might have accomplished. He stands over six feet high, is massively built and solid as a forest oak. He is fleshy, but not corpulent, stout-limbed, broadchested, and altogether well proportioned. His face is classic, his forehead is symmetrical, oval and dome-like. Causality, compari son, ideality, are as perceptible as the snow-summits of the Sierras. His countenance is expressive of thought, benignity, reflection, repose. Time has made reprisals upon his hair and what has not been pludered is slightly brushed with gray. He is accessible, sociable and communicative, yet he has the secret of secretiveness. He does nothing by proxy, not even his own thinking; has faith in himself, in his ability to decide for himself. All men do not know his thoughts ; he cages them like canaries, and when he lets them out, like carrier pigeons, they perform an errand. He understands himself, and is a skillful tactician. He has perfect control of himself and never does anything in haste. Hurry, rush and run are not in his dictionary. He is cool, imperturbable, self poised and stands solid on his feet. With him there is time enough for all things. He will amputate your arm in less time than a barber will shave you, and do it with as little concern. He has an exuberance of animal spirits and may well feel discouraged over the prospect of dying of hypochondria. He is as full of mirth as a spring rivulet is of water, and his sense of the ludicrous is as keen as Halliburton's. He can tell a story with the same ease that Tallyrand could turn a coffee-mill or a kingdom. He believes with Sterne that "laughter, like true Shandeeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs." He is fond of music and will never die with all of it in him. "He has a strong hand at one end of his arm and a strong head at the other."

He is a mechanic in his profession as he would have been out of it. He would have made a better lawyer than nineteen-twentieths of those already at the bar. In the pulpit he would have been a fire-kindler and segregator of sin, preaching from inspiration, and as all ministers should, without manuscript. His voice is susceptible of immense slides and modulations - is smooth enough for the evening party, strong and bellowing enough for anniversary pageant. He has many friends who are warmly attached to him. His enemies we imagine are few and he will get the best of them in the end. As a public lecturer he is popular. His addresses are eloquent and masterly productions, replete with pathos and sentiment, and chaste and sublime in imagery. His descriptive power is terse and brilliant ; his analyzations methodical and thorough ; the feeling, of the higher key and reflective. In this field he excels - rshines, for the same reason that the sun gives light. As a professional instructor few aspire even to be his equal.

He is indeed a born surgeon, enjoying peculiar adaptation to this branch of his profession. He possesses firmness and dexterity of hand, a calm, cool brain, a quick perceiving eye, a stout nerve, physical endurance and tenacity of will. In his operations he is resolute and decided, and in case of unforeseen complications he is ever guarded against surprises. Like Dr. Mott, his motto is, "Recognize the advance of science with the growth of the world,"

We may imagine, with his strong and composite elements of character and hardy vigor of intellect, how he has attained to professional distinction and honor. Every power and faculty of mind and brain were subjected and made tributary to his ambition and will. He willed to succeed, and success crowned him. Laborious toil and indefatigable industry are the Doric and Corinthian pillars of the edifice he has built. Day was a host, a besetting legion, in the splendor of his manhood, but on his pupil of 30 years ago has fallen, not only his mantle, but a wider name and a richer munificence of honors.

W. W. Firestone, M. D., was born in Congress village. Congress township, Wayne county, Ohio, February 25, 1842. A member of the family of Dr. Leander Firestone and wife, it would be superfluous to add that the home-culture and government to which he was subjected would be of the kind and character both to develop and discipline the boy.

The education that underlies and is the sub-stratum of human character, upon which its possessor builds in after life, and which is the brightest spot in the long, green fields of memory, is that which is imparted by those two natural and God-commissioned instructors of the youthful mind - the father and mother ! In this respect we are justified in the inference that W. W. Firestone received assiduous and requisite attention.

His other opportunities of education were promptly supplied by an open passage to the public schools of the city of Wooster, and to select and graduated teachers, under whose tutelage he completed his desired course of study. He attended the Mt. Union College for three years.

In the year 1861 he began reading medicine with his father. Dr. Leander Firestone, when a term of four years was spent in study, in professional assistance of his father, and attendance on lecture courses, at the expiration of which period he had graduated from Charity Hospital Medical College, Cleveland, Ohio, now the Medical department of the University of Wooster.

Since 1865 he has devoted himself wholly to the profession of his selection, and soon found himself partner in the office of L. Firestone, M. D.

He was married, July 6, 1862, to Miss Sarah A. H. Webster, daughter of W. C. Webster, a musical artist and accomplished lady, by which marriage they had five children, three of whom are living, W. L., Alice M. and F. Sylvia Firestone.

W. W. Firestone, though one among the younger of the medical practitioners in our midst, has rapidly risen to success and popularity in his profession. Having barely attained the meridian of life, he has a future of great assurance and promise before him.

As a physician he has secured the confidence of the people, and if the standard of professional eminence is to be measured by success, he has fought his way to the summit, and is justly entitled to the colors he has won. Constant, watchful, sympathetic, and possessed of good judgment and quick insight and comprehehsion, he possesses the normal elements of successful practice.

As a man and citizen he is genial, hospitable and generous, alive to enterprise and ready to perform an honorable part in the promotion of the common good. Honesty and integrity constitute the parallels between which he moves. With him, all the domestic "nerve-centers" are concentrated in home. In this "charmed circle" are to be found his attachments, for surely here all the sweet atmospheres of this world are breathed.

Martin Welker was born in Knox county, Ohio, April 21, 1 8 18. His father, who was of German descent, was an early settler in Ohio, and having but little means to educate a large family, the subject of this sketch was obliged to rely almost exclusively upon his own resources, which did not consist of money, influence or friends. His educational advantages in youth were necessarily limited to a few years winter instruction in the log cabin schoolhouses of the West.

This primeval educational structure - this old-time, antiquated and vanished predecessor of the modern university - we will not more faithfully or succinctly undertake to describe than Mr. Welker has himself, in a speech delivered by him at the dedication of the Wooster High School, October, 1870. From this speech we extract the following :

We may well be proud of our Common School System. Now no youth of scholastic age need be deprived of the benefit of public instruction in the endowments of education at public expense, so that, poor or rich, all are equally provided for within the borders of our State.

-The scene before me to-day recalls to me days of other years, far back in the history of common schools of our State. I shall never forget the first school in which I entered and the house in which it was held. On a cold December morning I walked through a heavy snow, three miles, to the school-house, on the banks, of Owl creek, in Knox county. I there found a little log cabin, sixteen feet square, with puncheon floor, clap-board door and roof, greased paper in the windows, the whole end of the house one wide fire-place, with a chimney made of clay and sticks, built on the outside, and a blazing log fire in the ample fire-place. The benches or seats were split logs, with the flat side uppermost, with round sticks for legs, on which we sat, with our feet dangling above the rude floor. The " Master," as the teacher was then called, had the only desk, and that was a flat board, with four legs, standing in one corner. The " writing-tables" consisted of wide split slabs along one side of the room, supported by pins driven in the logs of the house. In this public building - and it is a fair representative of its day - we were provided a school for three months in the year, the winter season only.

It was under such circumstances and possessed of such meager facilities of education, that Martin Welker was to receive the mental training that was to prepare him for the discharge of duties that an active public life was to impose. At an early age he developed a powerful inclination for books and the acquisition of knowledge, and such was his assiduity and habit of application that he very soon achieved familiarity with the English branches taught at that time in the schools.

At the age of thirteen he abandoned his father's farm, and obtained a situation as clerk in a store in a neighboring village, where he remained five years, in the meantime appropriating much of his leisure time to the investigation of the higher branches of an English education.

When a clerk in the store an event occurred which, no doubt, largely influenced, and, to an eminent degree, imparted purpose and determination to his career in life. He was called as a witness before a grand jury at Mt. Vernon. He had heard of Courts and Judges, but this was his first opportunity of witnessing either. The Hon. Ezra Dean was then the Presiding Judge, and a man of commanding appearance and dignified deportment and manner.

This single but extraordinary circumstance so wonderfully impressed the then plastic mind of the young witness, for the first time in court, that he then and there resolved to be a lawyer, and if possible to be worthy, and to attain to that higher and nobler distinction of the Judge - the position so well and admirablybeing filled by Dean. This resolution ripened into a firm and settled purpose. His boyhood associates heard his declaration, and many of them lived to see it verified.

He never lost sight of this young ambition, and how earnestly, zealously and indefatigably he has labored to accomplish and vindicate it, his remarkable Judicial record most eloquently explains. At the end of twenty years' hard and unremittent labor, and of many changes of fortune, he was elected Judge of the District over the same Judge Dean, who was his competitor, and actually occupied the same chair in the same old Court House at Mt. Vernon. This was the position he had declared to an associate that he would aspire to attain, and on its attainment his youthful friend, but now an eminent physician, warmly congratulated him upon the fulfillment of his boyish dream, the realization of his early and most laudable ambition.

At the age of eighteen, having made considerable progress in a general education he entered a lawyer's office and commenced the study of a profession, in the multitudinous and complex intricacies of which he has acquired a national reputation. While engaged in the study of the law he occupied a portion of the time in probing the roots and exploring the beauties of the Latin tongue. Nor did he omit to carefully peruse the pages of ancient and modern history, and thus lay deep the foundation for the superstructure of his future eminence. In the literary societies with which he was identified he soon acquired reputation as a cogent reasoner, an apt and skillful debater, as well as an accomplished and vigorous writer.

In the political campaign of 1 840 he took a very active part for one so young and inexperienced. The editorial department of the paper published in the county in which he resided received many keen and valuable contributions from his pen.

In 1 846 he was appointed Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Holmes county, for a term of seven years, serving but five, when he resigned and resumed the practice of law.

At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the bar, and rapidly rose in distinction as a jurist and advocate. Since then we might almost say of him, as Phillips said of Bonaparte, his path has been "a plane of continued elevations." After he had been practicing ten years he was nominated and elected District Judge of the Sixth District of Ohio, which then included Wayne county, and served the constitutional term of five years. At the close of this period he was unanimously re-nominated, but on account of much political excitement at the time, growing out of the Presidential contest of 1856, and being a Whig in politics, and the district largely Democratic, he lost a re-election, though running largely ahead of his ticket.