New York New York

Biography of David D. Banta

David D. Banta is the business manager and principal owner of the Riverside Mills. This mill was built by the Riverside Mill Company, Walker & Banta, in May, 1887, and conducted by that firm until the death of Mr. Walker in 1888, since which time Mr. Banta has had the sole management of the enterprise. The Riverside Mills ranks as one of the leading industries of the city, being 106 x 40 feet, and is fitted with the most improved machinery for the manufacture of doors, sash, moldings and all class of work required in building and interior finishing. Mr. … Read more

Biography of Cecil K. Reiff

Cecil K. Reiff, principal of the Central high school at Muskogee, was born in Wabash county, Indiana, October 23, 1888, and is a son of Jacob and Catherine (Baer) Reiff, the former a native of Wurtemberg, Germany, while the latter was born in Ohio. The father was but thirteen years of age when he was brought to America by his parents, the family home being established in Ohio, where he completed his education and afterward took up the occupation of tilling the soil. During the period of the Civil war he served on guard duty near Washington, D. C., and … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Michall F. Donovan

Donovan, Michall F.; manufacturer; born, Corning, N. Y., 1863; son of John and Mary Leary Donovan; educated, Corning, N. Y.; married, Auburn, N. Y., 1905, Margaret Holmes; learned the printer’s trade, starting when 14, and worked at it for eight years, working in large cities of New York State, Syracuse, Albany, Troy and New York City; became interested in the manufacture and sale of typewriting machines in 1885; in 1892, started the making of typewriter ribbons in Cleveland; later added the making of carbon papers; see’y and treas. The Buckeye Ribbon and Carbon Co.; member Cleveland Credit Men’s Ass’n

Biography of Douw Henry Fonda

DOUW HENRY FONDA AN ALBANIAN who has long been actively and successfully engaged in an important, special commercial interest in this city, and who, at the same time, has taken an active part in the promotion of sound education and municipal prosperity is Douw H. Fonda, the popular, enterprising wholesale druggist, of Nos. 70 and 72 State street. Born on the loth of September, 1831, in the picturesque village of Fonda, N. Y., he comes from a substantial line of Holland ancestry, noted in the olden times, some of whose members have held important and responsible public positions in this … Read more

Judson Scott Todd of New York NY

Judson Scott Todd9, (Joshua M.8, Eli M.7, Eli6, Jonah5, Abraham4, Jonah3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born May 16, 1867, married May 14, 1908, Elizabeth Hall. They lived at 23 East 73rd Street, New York City. Children: 2687. Judson Scott, b. May 26, 1909. 2688. Merwin Scott, b. May 22, 1911.

Biographical Sketch of James Rudolph Garfield

Garfield, James Rudolph; ex-Secretary of the Interior; born, Hiram, O., Oct. 17, 1865; son of James Abram (20th President of the U. S.) and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield (q. v.); brother of Harry Augustus G. (q. v.) ; A. B., Williams College, 1885; studied Columbia Law School.; (LL. D., University of Pittsburg, 1909) ; married, Helen Newell, of Chicago, Dee. 30, 1890; admitted to bar, 1888; member Ohio Senate, 1896-1899; member U. S. Civil Service Commission, 1902-1903; commissioner of corporations, U. S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor, 1903-1907; Sec’y of the Interior in cabinet of President Roosevelt, March 4, 1907-March 4, … Read more

Slave Narrative of Rev. Wamble

Interviewer: Archie Koritz Person Interviewed: Rev. Wamble Location: Gary, Indiana Place of Birth: Monroe County, Mississippi, Date of Birth: 1859 Place of Residence: 1827 Madison Street, Gary, Indiana Occupation: Wagon-maker Archie Koritz, Field Worker Federal Writers’ Project Porter County-District #1 Valparaiso, Indiana EX-SLAVES REV. WAMBLE 1827 Madison Street Gary, Indiana [TR: above ‘Wamble’ in handwriting is ‘Womble’] Rev. Wamble was born a slave in Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1859. The Westbrook family owned many slaves in charge of over-seers who managed the farm, on which there were usually two hundred or more slaves. One of the Westbrook daughters married a … Read more

Biography of Dr. Louis Ostrom

Dr. Louis Ostrom, A. B. M. D., was born in Helsingland, Sweden, May 1, 1874, and came to America when six years old. His father is a pipe-organ builder, known among hundreds of churches all over the country. Young Ostrom attended public schools, and as soon as he was able to work, was at one time or another employed during vacations in nearly all the shops of Moline. After becoming a student of Augustana College, he worked during the different vacations as section hand on the street car line, printer in a job office, and pressman to the Moline Daily … Read more

Biographical Sketch of John J. Sullivan

Sullivan, John J.; attorney; born, New York City, Oct. 25, 1860; son of Daniel J. and Mary (Sheehan) Sullivan; came to Trumbull County, O., at the age of 12; educated, common schools, and Academy at Gustavus, O.; married, Dec. 28, 1886, Warren, O., Olive S. Taylor, daughter of the late Matthew B. Taylor of Warren, O., prominent banker of Warren and former partner of Ex-Gov. Tod and J. V. N. Yates of Cleveland; issue, two daughters, Adaline and Mary Sullivan; Prosecuting Attorney, two terms, Trumbull Co.; State Senator, two terms, Trumbull-Mahoning Senatorial District of Ohio; United States atty. nine years; … Read more

Ira Todd of New York NY

Ira Todd7, (Uel6, Oliver5, Abraham4, Jonah3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born July 13, 1814, died May 3, 1860, married frist, Sarah Brown, second, Emma Ashwell. He was a hat and fur merchant in New York City. Child: 1515. Ida Waterman, m. Robert L. Woods, Jr. They live at 428 Brown St., New York, N. Y.

Biographical Sketch of S. H. Weis

Weis, S. H.; architect; born, New York City, September, 1888; educated in the grammar and High Schools of Cleveland, and University of California; married in Cleveland in 1911; pres. and treas. Esplanade Realty Co.; member Chamber of Commerce.

Biography of Colonel John Feudge

Colonel John Feudge was born in Waterford, Ireland, November 3, 1824. His parents came to the United States immediately after the inauguration of President John Quincy Adams. The subject of this sketch was first engaged assisting his father, who kept a market garden in the suburbs of New York City. When about sixteen years of age he was apprenticed and learned printing and stereotyping. He had worked some time, before becoming an apprentice, at type casting, by the old hand-mold method, and also as composing room devil, fly-boy, and wrapper-writer in the offices of the two great commercial papers of … Read more

Biography of Dr. Albert L. Beahan

Dr. Albert L. Beahan, an eminent physician of Canandaigua, Ontario county, New York, has attained his present distinguished position by many years of patient and unremitting toil, united with inflexible and unfaltering courage in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties. His noble efforts to relieve human suffering have earned for him the high esteem of his fellow citizens, and the universal good opinion of his professional brethren, this forming the best standard of judgment in such cases. His father was James Beahan, of Watkins, who died in 1907, and who had been engaged in the occupation of farming during all … Read more

Biography of George Lord

George Lord, President of the Society of California Pioneers of San Bernardino County, and a representative of the best type of “Forty-niners,” is a native of New York City, and was born June 27, 1800, and consequently was eighty-nine years old his last birthday. His father, George Lord, was a sea captain, who died of yellow fever at quarantine in New York harbor, having contracted the disease in the West Indies, whence his vessel had just returned. The subject of this memoir being left self-dependent went to enlist in mercentile pursuits. Stopping for a time in Louisville, Kentucky, he was … Read more

Wallace Beri Todd of Ridgely MD

Wallace Beri Todd7, (Beri M.6, Melicu5, Gideon4, Gideon3, Michael2, Christopher1) born May 8, 1833, in Bristol, Conn., died Feb., 1914, in Ridgely, Maryland, aged about eighty. Married Emma Green. He was of a sanguine temperament, a bright, sunny disposition, and with good health, he appeared a much younger man. Optimistic in his views, he anticipated with undaunted energy and courage, a very happy old age in his new home and its surroundings. At an early age, he took a trip nearly around the world, visiting many important places. On his return, he went into the mining district of California, where … Read more

Biography of James Wesley Hutt

JAMES WESLEY HUTT ONE OF the most thorough-going and competent men in the express business is James W. Hutt, general superintendent of the National Express Company, whose head-quarters are in Albany. He belongs to a substantial old family of Schoharie county, N. Y., of Holland-Dutch origin, who early came to this region and took an active part in the civilization and progress of the country and afterward in defending their homes in the attacks of British and savage foes. Those old pioneers were men of the simplest habits, loyal in their attachment to the principles of civil and ecclesiastical liberty … Read more

Biography of Haman C. Lewis

HAMAN C. LEWIS. – This dauntless pioneer of the earliest times in our state was born in New York City January 31, 1803, and was the son of a ship carpenter. He early was apprenticed to learn the trade of a cooper, but while only a boy of fourteen went to sea, serving six months as cabin boy, and later was apprenticed to the ship carpenter. At eighteen he went as sailor – or perhaps more strictly speaking as “fillibusterer” – to the Gulf coast, taking service on a Mexican privateer. For a number of years he followed a most … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Louis D. Collins

(III) Louis D., son of Chauncey Brooks Collins, was born in Rose Valley, Wayne county, New York, 1852. His education was acquired at the high school. He established himself in the wholesale drug business in the city of New York, continuing this for seventeen years, and then removed to Ontario county, New York, and for a time lived retired from business responsibilities. In 1897 he took charge of the New York Central Iron Works in Geneva, and ten years later erected an entirely new plant for the manufacture of steam boilers and hot water tanks. This war, incorporated under the … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Roger C. Enwright

Enwright, Roger C.; broker; born, Bellevue, O., and educated in the public schools, formerly connected with the McIntosh-Huntington Co., wholesale hardware as treas. and credit man; after several years spent in New York City and Reading, Pa., as manufacturer’s agents, returned to Cleveland, in 1900, and engaged in the brokerage business with Borton & Borton; member Cleveland Stock Exchange and member Board of Governors; Chamber of Commerce, Euclid, Century, and Hermit Clubs; Republican.

Biography of Willis S. Paine

WILLIS S. PAINE IN the exacting, complicated, and responsible duties connected with the history and oversight of banking institutions in our state no man has gained a more exalted reputation or been more generally commended for his official acts than the subject of this sketch. His public services are well known, even beyond the limits of our own state, and his career is replete with interest to banking men and financiers. Born in Rochester, N. Y., on the 1st of January, 1848, he spent his childhood in that beautiful city; growing up under the tender and watchful care of cultured … Read more