Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men Part 13

Though shipping absorbed the greater portion of Captain Bradley's attention, his interest was not wholly confined to this branch of business. His time, means, and energy were largely employed in the manufacture of iron, and in other commercial interests. It is his pride that though so largely interested in business of different kinds, he has had but one case of litigation, and that with an insurance company. His record needs no eulogy; it speaks for itself as the record of a man of energy, enterprise and prudence.

Captain Bradley's health had for some years not been good, but is now improving, and there is a reasonable prospect that one who has done so much to develop the shipping interest of the port will live for some time yet to enjoy the fruits of his energy and industry.

Mr. Bradley was married in August, 1849, to Ellen Burgess, of Milan, Ohio, who is still living. Of the marriage, four children have been born, three girls and one boy.

Wellington P. Cooke.

The history of W. P. Cooke is an instance of what can be accomplished under the most adverse circ.u.mstances, when to persistent energy and laudable ambition are added the patience and faith born of religions training.

The parents of Mr. Cooke were pioneer settlers in Otsego county, New York, where his father died whilst Wellington was quite a small boy. His mother removed to a still newer country, Macomb county, Michigan, and there died, leaving the lad to fight his own way through the world without the advantages of either money or education. In the year 1838, being then but thirteen years old, he became a printer's apprentice.

Subsequently he removed to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where he secured some educational privileges at a seminary, obtaining the money for his necessary expenses by working early in the morning, at night, and on Sat.u.r.day. He found employment in the village and among the neighboring farmers. But with all his efforts his lot was a hard one. He often needed the necessaries, to say nothing of the comforts of life, frequently making his morning and evening meal out of potatoes and salt, the former being of his own cooking, as he boarded himself. These articles were purchased in many instances by money received for sawing wood on the school holiday of Sat.u.r.day.

In 1843, he came to Cleveland, tramping in from Chagrin Falls on foot, and having half a dollar as his sole capital with which to commence life in the city. His first attempt to gain work was in a printing office, where he succeeded in getting a case, receiving his pay, according to the custom of the times, in orders on grocery and clothing stores. After this he was foreman and compositor in the office of a monthly publication, called the Farmers' Journal, where he continued to devote his spare time to reading and study. Subsequently he became a clerk in a grocery store at a salary of ninety-six dollars a year. With this small sum he not only supported himself, but gave pecuniary aid to a sister, and something to the church.

In 1848, he obtained an interest in the business, and the partnership thus continued for three years. His reputation as a moral and religious man, together with a great spirit of enterprise, rapidly enlarged his business, and pointed out new channels for money-making.

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. P. Cooke]

In 1850, he disposed of the grocery business, and directed his whole efforts to the hide and leather trade. In this he showed much judgment, for the business he selected has proved to be one of the most extensive and profitable of the West. A nephew, since deceased, about this time became a partner. The premises occupied became too small, and a lot on Water street was purchased, where a fine store was erected, which is the present place of business.

The firm, which for some time existed as W. P. Cooke & Co., has been changed to Cooke & Denison, the junior partner being a former clerk, and under that name it is well known throughout the country, and especially in the West, as one of the largest establishments in the West dealing in leather, hides, wool, pelts and oil.

Mr. Cooke joined the Methodist Church at a very early age, and to the religious influences with which he was thus surrounded, he attributes much of his success in life. As a Church-member he was led to avoid all places of doubtful morality, and thus escaped the temptations and vices which destroy so many young men. He has always been strictly temperate, and does not use tobacco in any form. He is now prominently connected with the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Cleveland, and is noted as a zealous laborer in the Sunday School cause.

Mr. Cooke's religion is not of that kind that is left in the church pew on Sunday night, to remain undisturbed until the next Sunday morning, but is carried into all his relations of life and influences all his movements. The principles of justice and charity taught by the Christian faith are by him carried into his business dealings and social relations.

Strictly just in business transactions, liberal in his charities to worthy objects, and generous to the church, he exemplifies in his life the fact that true Christian principles are not incompatible with strict business habits, and conduce to commercial success. Remembering his early difficulties, he takes particular interest in young men, sympathizing with them in their struggles, and aiding them with counsel and timely a.s.sistance where needed.

Hiram Garretson.

The firm of Hanna, Garretson & Co. has already been mentioned. The second member of the firm, while it existed under that name, Hiram Garretson, came like the others from Columbiana county, where he had been brought up, although not a native of the county. Mr. Garretson was born in York county, Pennsylvania, his parents being respectable members of the Society of Friends. When he was very young the family removed to Columbiana county, Ohio, where the senior Garretson opened a country store in New Lisbon. Hiram was sent to school, receiving a good district school education, and was then taken into his father's store as clerk, in which occupation he remained until he was nineteen years old. At that age he left home and engaged in trade on the rivers, taking charge of a trading boat running from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. This cla.s.s of boats has not yet entirely pa.s.sed away from the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The villages along the river banks were small and badly supplied with stores, depending mainly for their supplies on the coasting boats. These are rudely constructed craft, well stocked with merchandise of all kinds, that drop leisurely down the river, tying up at every village or place where there is probability of a trade, and remaining there as long as the stay can be made profitable, then pa.s.sing on to the next. When New Orleans has at last been reached, the boat is sold to be broken up for its materials, and the trader returns by steamer to get ready for another voyage down. It was in business of this description that Mr. Garretson engaged for a time, and in his voyages down the river and dealings with all sorts of people in different States, he acquired a valuable knowledge of business and men that has stood him since in good stead.

At length he tired of this kind of trading and returned to New Lisbon, and carried on a moderately successful business until the Winter of 1851. At that time a marked change came over the fortunes of New Lisbon. Up to that period it had been a flourishing business place, its advantages of location on the ca.n.a.l in a fertile district, making it one of the best places of trade in that portion of the State. But the construction of Fort Wayne and Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroads effected a great and disadvantageous change in the business of New Lisbon. The Fort Wayne road pa.s.sed it a few miles north, and the Cleveland and Pittsburgh road ran about an equal distance west. Thus New Lisbon was cut off from all the commercial cities, and found its sources of supply tapped at every point by the railroads. Realizing the fate that had overtaken the town, Mr.

Garretson, at the opening of the year 1852, closed up his affairs in Columbiana county and removed to Cleveland. There he became a.s.sociated in business with Messrs. Leonard and Robert Hanna, and the firm of Hanna, Garretson & Co. was established.

The successful operations of that firm have already been chronicled in these pages, and it only remains in this place to note the fact, that to the success achieved, the energy and uprightness of Mr. Garretson contributed in full proportion. The partnership lasted nine years.

On its dissolution Mr. Garretson established the house of H. Garretson & Co., on Water street, with a shipping house on the river. The business of the new firm was exactly similar to that of the old one, including a wholesale grocery trade, with a Lake Superior commission and shipping business. A line of fine steamers was run to Lake Superior, and the high reputation Mr. Garretson enjoyed among the people of that section of country, enabled him to build up a very large business in supplying their wants. In addition, the new firm found customers rapidly increasing in northern and western Ohio, in Michigan, and in other adjoining States. The operations of the firm extended rapidly until it stood, at the close of the year 1867, among the very foremost in the amount of its annual sales, whilst the business was eminently a safe and solidly successful one.

On the first of November, 1867, Mr. Garretson sold out his wholesale grocery business, and thus closed a mercantile career extending in this city over sixteen years. His attention was then turned to banking. No sooner had he retired from mercantile life than he projected and organized the Cleveland Banking Company, which went into operation under his presidency February 1st, 1868, with a capital of three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. It immediately found all the business it was able to do, and under the skillful management of Mr. Garretson it has become one of the most reliable and important financial inst.i.tutions of the city.

It can truthfully be said of Mr. Garretson, that his success in business has been owing not more to his shrewdness and foresight than to his mercantile honor and social qualities. He made personal friends of his business customers, and by courteous attention, as well as by scrupulous regard for their interests, retained their good will and secured their custom. In all the relations of business and social life, Mr. Garretson has uniformly borne himself in such manner as to win the respect and confidence of those brought into contact with him.

John Barr.

John Barr was born in Liberty township, Trumbull county, (now Mahoning,) Ohio, June 26th, 1804. His ancestors, on both sides, were from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, though on his father's side they originally came from the north of England, in the days of William Penn; and his mother's, from Germany.

His grandfather, Alexander Barr, was killed by the Indians, in 1785, on the Miami, a short distance below, where Hamilton, in Butler county, now stands. His parents removed from Westmoreland county, Pa., to Youngstown, in 1800; and his father settled as the Presbyterian pastor of a church in that place, and resided there till 1820, when he removed to Wooster, Wayne county, in this State. The subject of this sketch was raised on a farm, literally in the woods, and experienced the usual privations and vicissitudes attendant on pioneer life. The new country and poverty of his parents prevented his receiving a common English education, and it was not until after he was of age that he mastered Murray's syntax and Daboll's arithmetic.

On leaving home in 1825, he repaired to the Ohio ca.n.a.l, (then in process of construction,) where he labored for two years, at various points between Boston and Tinker's creek; where, with hundreds of others, he was prostrated by the malaria of that unhealthy valley.

In 1828, he settled in Cleveland, and acted as deputy for the late Edward Baldwin, sheriff. He took the census of the county in 1830, and was elected sheriff that year, which office he held till 1834. Cleveland city at that time, contained one thousand and seventy-one inhabitants; its northern boundary was the lake, Erie street on the east, and the Cuyahoga river on the west.

In 1835, when the idea of connecting Cleveland with other places by means of railroads, was conceived by John W. Willey, James S. Clarke, T. P.

Handy, Edmund Clark, R. Hilliard, O. M. Gidings, H. B. Payne, Anson Haydn, H. Canfield and others, Mr. Barr joined in and spent a good deal of time in furthering the project. Late in the Fall of that year, he visited Cincinnati, distributing pet.i.tions along the line of a proposed route to Cincinnati from Cleveland, and spent most of the Winter at Columbus, during the session of the Legislature. A charter for that road, and one for a road to Pittsburgh, being granted, Mr. Barr brought the first copies of them, duly certified under the seal of the State, to this city.

During 1836 and 7, Mr. Barr devoted a good deal of time in collecting statistics of this port, the business of the city, its population, &c., &c., and also of the west generally, and laying them before the public in the papers of Philadelphia and other eastern cities. In company with Mr.

Willey and the late Governor Tod, he visited Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, endeavoring to enlist the attention of capitalists to aid in those enterprises. But the crash of 1837, and the general prostration of business, that followed all over the country, rendered it unavailing. In the Winter of 1838, Mr. Gidings, S. Starkweather, Frederick Whittlesey, Wm. B. Lloyd and Mr. Barr were appointed a committee to attend a railroad convention at Harrisburgh, Pa., to promote the project of the railroad from Cleveland to Philadelphia, by way of Pittsburgh. In 1838 and 9, at the request of John W. Willey, he still spent much of his time in sending a series of articles on the importance of the project, that were published monthly in the North American, a paper in Philadelphia devoted to such projects.

Through the disastrous state of the times, these various measures had to yield, and become, for the time being, failures; but time has shown that those who were engaged in them were only in advance of the spirit and means of the age.

In 1844, when this subject again arrested the attention of the Cleveland public, Mr. Barr, although crushed by the storm of 1837, again resumed the subject with his pen, and gave to the public in the National Magazine, published in New York, quite a history of the city, its early settlement, &c., together with a full description of the shipping on their lakes, tonnage, trade, &c., that cost weeks of hard labor and patience, more particularly to place our city in a favorable view before the eastern public.

In 1846, a friend of Mr. B. sent him a pet.i.tion to circulate and send to the Hon. Thomas Corwin, one of Ohio's Senators, asking Congress for aid to survey and establish a railroad to the Pacific.

In circulating this pet.i.tion, Mr. Barr was gravely inquired of by one of our citizens, "if he expected to live to see such a road built?" Mr. Barr replied, "if he should live to the usual age of men, he did expect to see it commenced, and perhaps built." The reply was, "If you do, you will be an older man than Methusalah!" Both have lived to know that great work has been achieved.

Mr. Barr procured over six hundred names to his pet.i.tion, which was duly presented by Mr. Corwin. Cleveland has now reason to be proud of the interests she manifested in that great work, at so early a day.

In 1857, Mr. Barr brought the first petroleum to this city, made from cannel coal, to be used as a source of light. This was new and regarded as utopian. The article was very odorous, and failed to be acceptable to the public, but as time rolled on, improvements in refining were made, and now the largest manufacturing business in our city is that of petroleum.

Few, if any, of citizens have spent more time and pains in collecting and giving to the public reminiscences of early days and early settlers--those who located in this region, and who under such privations, trials, hardships and sufferings commenced levelling these mighty forests, erecting log cabins, and in due time made this formidable wilderness "bud and blossom as the rose." In that respect Mr. Barr has done much to preserve and lay before the public from time to time, brief histories of many of those brave men and women who left their homes and friends in the east, and comparative comforts, to settle in the western wilderness, to build up homes for their children and future generations. Howe's history of Ohio, and Col. Chas. Whittlesey's history of the city of Cleveland, bear witness that his generous heart and gifted pen have furnished tributes of respect to the memory of the n.o.ble pioneers, after the battle of life with them was over, and thus supplying links to our historic chain that makes it comparatively perfect.

Among the many reminiscences of early times related to us by Mr. Barr, there is one we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of relating, and preserving: William Coleman, Esq., came to Euclid in 1803, selected a lot of land and with his family settled upon it in 1804. For several years the few settlers experienced a good deal of inconvenience in having only the wild game of the country for meat, and which, at certain seasons of the year, was unfit for the table. In the Spring the streams that put into the lake abounded with excellent fish, and the season lasted about four weeks.

The question arose, "could these fish be preserved in salt for future use?" The universal answer was No! The idea of preserving _fresh water_ fish in salt seemed incredible; the red man was appealed to, but he shook his head in contempt at the idea, and in broken English said, "put him on pole, dry him over smoke." One Spring Mr. Coleman repaired to Rocky River, famous for its fine pike and pickerel, and laid in his stock, carefully laid them down in salt, which cost him over thirty dollars a barrel, (at a great risk, as his neighbors thought,) and watched them carefully from time to time till harvest. Much to his own and his neighbors'

satisfaction, he found it a success, and proved not only a happy change of diet for health, but also a luxury, unknown before. From this circ.u.mstance, small at that time, originated a new source of comfort, which proved, in time, a mine of wealth to the West, and a luxury to the persons who located in the interior of the State. Well was it said by the school boy of Ma.s.sachusetts about those days, "Tall oaks from little acorns grow, large streams from little fountains flow."

Mr. Barr says he made this circ.u.mstance a matter of much research and inquiry, and fully believes that to William Coleman belongs the credit for so useful and important a discovery.

J. B. Cobb.