Part 6

As soon as business prospects warranted the investment, Mr. Hilliard secured a lot on Water street, and erected the block now occupied by Raymond & Lowe, and on taking possession of the new place of business, commenced the wholesale branch, and continued the same until 1856, when, being on his way home from New York, he took a severe cold, which was soon followed by congestion, and after one week's illness, died, deeply regretted by all who knew him.

He was a man of great business ability, and of strict integrity. He was not always appreciated, because his accurate foresight led him to advocate projects which the public generally were not ready to adopt. He labored most indefatigably for the construction of our Water Works, because he saw what the future wants of the city would be. The scheme was strongly opposed by many on account of the debt it would involve. But it was finally accomplished, and we are more indebted to Richard Hilliard for its achievement than to any other man.

Shortly after coming to Cleveland he became engaged to Miss Mary Merwin, daughter of Noble H. Merwin, who died before the marriage. He then brought his sister Sarah A. (now Mrs. O. Cutter) to live with him. In about a year from this time he was married to Miss Catharine Hays, of New York, who died about four years before Mr. Hilliard, leaving seven children.

S. H. Sheldon.

The lumber trade has grown to be a very important branch of the commerce of Cleveland, and some of its best and most enterprising citizens have been, or are now, engaged in it. Among these the name of Mr. Sheldon holds honorable prominence as one of the earliest in the trade, and who has always held place among the foremost engaged in it.

Mr. Sheldon's birth place was in Clinton, Oneida county, N. Y., where he was born August 12th, 1813. His early days were not passed among thornless roses. His father, a hard working farmer, died when the future lumber merchant was but eight years old. Young Sheldon remained on the homestead until he was sixteen years old, working hard, as did the others of the fatherless family, and snatching such crumbs of knowledge as could be obtained in the winter days, when time could be spared for schooling. On nearly reaching his sixteenth year, he went to Troy, N. Y., where he was received as an apprentice to the drug business, and served seven years in that capacity. As soon as his term of apprenticeship expired he set his face westward in search of fortune, as so many hundreds had done before him, and hundreds of thousands have done since.

In the year 1835, he reached Cleveland and at once started in trade as a druggist on Detroit Street, then in Ohio City, but now the West Side of Cleveland. At that time the West, generally, was enjoying seeming prosperity; everything was inflated and everyone was growing rich, on paper. Ohio City was then the city of the future, and fortune smiled on all its residents, and particularly on those who held real estate within its borders.

Four years later the commercial earthquake came and toppled over the whole fabric of trade and commerce in the West, reducing it to ruins. The entire West was devastated, and Ohio City received a blow from which, as a separate municipality, it never recovered. Among the others who suffered greatly by the disaster was Mr. Sheldon.

In 1842, he sold out his drug business, and went into the employ of another firm as an accountant, continuing in that position about two years. From this he went into business on his own account once more, this time dealing in groceries and provisions, which he continued to trade in until 1846, when he was attracted to the lumber trade, which he entered, in partnership with S. H. Fox. Four years later he disposed of his interest in the firm, and operated in lumber on his own account, not keeping a yard, but buying and selling by the cargo. In 1852, the firm of Sheldon & French was formed, a lumber yard opened, and the firm continued until the failure of the health of Mr. C. French. For a year after this event Mr. Sheldon carried on his business alone, and then took into partnership his son, Edward P. Sheldon, the firm becoming Sheldon & Son.

In April, 1869, the firm of Sheldon & Son merged into that of S. H. Sheldon & Co., being comprised of S. H. Sheldon & Son, and Sears & Holland, of East Saginaw, Mich.

The lumber trade of the city has been, generally, one of steady growth, and Mr. Sheldon's share in it has been of that character. It developed gradually, as the city grew in size and importance, and as the demand from the interior increased with the growth of towns and villages on the lines of canal and railroads. The beginning was small, and the earlier years of its progress full of difficulties, but in the end the trade reached large and lucrative proportions. Its highest point of prosperity was during the war, when the establishment of permanent camps through the State created a sudden and extensive demand for lumber, to build the numerous camp buildings. At that time the only perplexity of the lumber dealer was to find a supply sufficient for the demands pressing in from all quarters, for certain qualities.

From lumber to ship building is an easy transition, and Mr. Sheldon, five or six years since, became interested in lake craft, and added a fine three masted schooner to the lake marine. With the growth of manufactures in the city, he became interested in that direction also, connecting himself with the Etna Iron and Nail Works enterprise. He also took a deep interest in the formation of the People's Gas Company, for the supply of the West Side with gas, being one of the original supporters of the organization, and at present one of its directors.

In all his undertakings Mr. Sheldon has kept steadily in view the necessity of industry and economy, and it is the practice of these two mercantile virtues that has brought about his success. One trait of his business character is peculiar. He has, so far as possible, avoided recourse to law, holding the doctrine that, in most cases, when a debt could not be collected without the aid of a lawyer, it was not worth spending money for. In religious principles Mr. Sheldon is a Congregationalist, and has been connected for more than thirty years with the First Congregational Church, and during most of this time has discharged the duties of deacon, serving the church with fidelity and acceptance, in this official position. He has been identified with Sabbath school labors, as teacher and superintendent, and to his zeal and liberality the Detroit street Mission Sabbathe school largely owes its prosperity, and its present commodious chapel. In every Christian enterprise Deacon Sheldon has been among the foremost. No benevolent cause, whether local or general, has appealed to him in vain for pecuniary support, or Christian sympathy and countenance.

In 1836, Mr. Sheldon was married to Miss Cordelia H. Buxton, of Cleveland, a descendent of the English Buxtons, of philanthropic memory. Of the family of six children, one, the eldest, Henry A. Sheldon, died in 1842. The only surviving son became a partner with his father in 1866.

Charles Hickox.

Whether the conversion of wheat into flour can more properly be classed among manufactures or trade and commerce is a question for casuists to determine. There can be no question, however, that Charles Hickox takes his place, by right, among the merchants and commercial men of Cleveland, whether the grinding of wheat be a manufacture or not, for it is not alone by the milling business that Mr. Hickox has identified himself with the commerce of the city. He has gone through all the phases of Cleveland commercial life, having been connected with the produce and commission trade, owned lake vessels, and otherwise qualified himself for a place among the merchants and "river men," aside from the business in which he is widely known--that of an extensive mill owner.

Mr. Hickox came to Cleveland in 1837, from the state of New York, making his debut in the Forest City in the year of its greatest depression. For the first two years he engaged as clerk, and served his employers faithfully. Then, gaining confidence, and seeing an opening he struck out boldly for himself, setting up, as was usual in those days, in the commission and produce business. The constantly growing commerce of the place increased his business and made it lucrative. With far-seeing enterprise Mr. Hickox pushed his operations so that his trade rapidly increased and his consignments steadily grew in number and quantity. To accommodate it he purchased interests in shipping on the lake, and eventually became a large ship owner.

Seeing his opportunity, Mr. Hickox turned his attention to milling, and commenced operations at a mill in Akron, which he soon made known to the commercial world by the excellence and reliability of its brand. To this was, in time, added the water mill, on the canal, in Cleveland, near the weigh lock, which he held for five years and then sold. After the sale of the latter mill, he purchased the Cleveland Steam Mills on Merwin street, with a capacity of about three hundred and fifty barrels per day, and in 1867, he added the National Steam Mills, with a capacity of from five hundred to six hundred barrels daily. Whilst a large capital is invested in these mills, the number of men employed is less than in establishments where labor saving machinery has not been brought to such a pitch of perfection. About fifty men are directly employed in the mills, and a large number additional in the manufacture of barrels and sacks. A very large proportion of the flour from these mills is sold in sacks, from the fact that the entire product is sold in the home market, which speaks well for the estimation in which the brands are held. Mr. Charles W. Coe is in active partnership with Mr. Hickox, in the milling interests, the firm name being Coe & Hickox.

Mr. Hickox has taken deep interest in the railroad affairs of the city, and has been for some time a director of the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad Company. He is still as active and energetic as ever, well preserved in body and mind, and making his positive influence felt in all departments of business in which he becomes interested. He never tires of work, and, as he says of himself, he "holds his own well, at fifty-five."

Alexander Sackettt.

Alexander Sackett, son of Augustus Sackett, of Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., was born August 17th, 1814. He received a good mercantile education in New York City, and came from thence to Cleveland in 1835, and at once engaged in the wholesale and retail dry goods line, in the old block of Mr. Weddell, on Superior street. He continued with success in this business until 1854, when he went into commercial business on the river, and in which he remained until 1868, when he retired from trade circles to devote his whole attention to his real estate interests.

Mr. Sackett was married in 1836, to Harriet, daughter of Levi Johnson, Esq., of this city. They have five children living, and have lost two. The eldest daughter is the wife of Mr. Virgil T. Taylor, of this city, and the son is in his father's office.

Mr. Sackett is still hale, and may reasonably expect, without accident, to long enjoy the fruit of his labor.

George Mygatt.

Mr. Mygatt is a genuine pioneer of the Western Reserve, having come with his father, Comfort S. Mygatt, at the age of ten years, to the new settlement at Canfield, Mahoning county, Ohio, in the year 1807. He was born at Danbury, Ct., on 14th of June, 1797, when that village had not recovered from its conflagration by the British, during the Revolution. There were then visible, and for many years during his boyhood, buildings which were charred by fires kindled by English soldiers.

Mr. Mygatt's father was a merchant and farmer, at Canfield. He was an active, honest and successful man. The year previous to his emigration, his daughter, Polly, was married, at Danbury, to the late Elisha Whittlesey, who removed at once to Canfield, Ohio. Mr. Whittlesey, his son-in-law, took the contract to clear a piece of ground for Mr. Mygatt, laboring on the job with his axe and team.

At Danbury, George had as good an opportunity in school as any Connecticut lad could have, under the age of ten years. At Canfield there was little opportunity for gaining book knowledge. He was engaged with his father as clerk and general helper, until he was twenty years old. In 1818, he became clerk in the Western Reserve Bank, at Warren, and remained in that position two years, when he engaged in mercantile business in connection with his father-in-law, Mr. A. Adams. This partnership lasted five years, after which he carried on the business alone until 1833.

From 1829 to 1833, he was sheriff of Trumbull county, and had the disagreeable office of executing the murderer, Gardner.

In 1834, Mr. Mygatt became a financier, which may be said to be his profession. He was then appointed cashier of the Bank of Norwalk, Ohio. In 1836, he was appointed cashier of the Bank of Geauga, at Painesville, Ohio; and in 1846 he became President of the City Bank of Cleveland, holding the last named office until 1850. The firm of Mygatt & Brown was then formed, for private banking, and continued until 1857.

In 1855, he was elected a member of the House of Representatives, from Cuyahoga county, serving two sesssion.

The Merchants Bank of Cleveland, in 1857, became deeply involved, by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, of Cincinnati. Mr. Mygatt was appointed cashier at this time, when a memorable panic in finances was sweeping over the country. The bank sank a large part of its stock, but maintained its integrity, and continued to redeem its notes.

In 1861, he retired from active business, but, with his long habits of employment, it soon became irksome to him to be out of work, and in 1865 he became Secretary of the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad Company, a position he still retains, for the sake of being employed.

A large portion of Mr. Mygatt's time and means have always been devoted to benevolent purposes; Sunday schools, the annual contributions for the poor, the church, industrial schools, and, in fact, all charitable movements have found in him a ready response; he will long be remembered for his work's sake.

As a business man he was characterized by the strictest integrity, always preserving a quiet, considerate policy, and by incessant industry accomplished a great deal. For one who has reached the age of seventy-two, he possesses remarkable vigor, and we should judge, from the position he occupies, that his mental faculties are little impaired.

Mr. Mygatt was married in March, 1820, to Miss Eliza Freeman, of Warren, who is still living. Of their six children, four of whom arrived at mature age, and were married, only Mrs. F. T. Backus now survives.

Martin B. Scott.

Among the names of those who have done business on the river during the past quarter of a century, that of M. B. Scott, until his retirement a few years since, held a foremost place. Mr. Scott is a native of New York, having been born at Deerfield, near Utica, in that State, in March, 1801.

Mr. Scott is of Quaker stock; a lineal descendent in the sixth generation from the first American Quaker, (Richard Scott, one of the first settlers of Providence, R. I.,) and in the nineteenth generation from William Baliol Scott, of Scotts-Hall, Kent, England, in the line of Edward I. His Quaker ancestors suffered persecution at the hands of the Boston Puritans in 1658. The daughters of Richard Scott were cast into prison by Endicott, for avowing their Quaker faith, and his wife Katharine (_né_ Marbury, youngest sister of the famous Mrs. Anne Hutchinson) was publicly scourged in Boston by order of court, for visiting and sympathizing with her Quaker brethren in prison.

One of the maxims of Mr. Scott's life, was to despise no honest employment, however laborious; if he failed to obtain such business as he desired, he took the next best opportunity that offered, a principle that might be profitably practiced by many young men of the present day. Deprived of a liberal education, by the pecuniary embarrassments of his father, who had a large family to support, he left the Utica Academy in 1820, and made an effort to learn a mechanical trade, with only partial success. He, for a time, alternately taught a country school in winter, and was engaged for the remainder of the year in internal commerce, as master of a boat, or as forwarding clerk, in the then prominent houses of De Graff, Walton & Co., and Cary & Dows, on the Mohawk river and Erie canal. This early training in the elements of commerce and navigation was the nucleus of his subsequent pursuits, and the foundation of his commercial success, although his operations were not on the gigantic scale of many others, who either amassed great fortunes, or sank into bankruptcy; he managed his affairs with such prudence, sagacity and integrity, that he never had occasion to compound with his creditors, or even ask for an extension.

Mr. Scott was interested in the first line of canal boats that ran through from Utica to New York. In the outset of Erie canal operations it was supposed that canal boats could not sail down the Hudson, and the freight was consequently transhipped at Albany. Experiment proved the fallacy of this belief, and thenceforward canal boats ran through to New York. A new line of steam tow-boats on the North river, called the Albany & Canal Tow-Boat Company, was formed, and Mr. Scott was appointed principal manager, first at Albany and then at New York.

In 1836, his health failed, owing to his close application to business, and under medical advice he performed a horseback journey through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. On his way westward he stopped at Cleveland and was favorably impressed with what was then a small but flourishing town. In 1837, he returned from his western journey and resumed business, but again his health failed, and he was ordered to permanently abandon Albany and seek a more favorable climate. Remembering the advantages of Cleveland both for business and residence, he concluded to remove to that point.

Here he continued his connection with the forwarding business by opening an agency for the American Transportation Line of canal boats on the Erie canal, his office being at the foot of Superior street. In 1841, he engaged in the purchase and shipment of staves, the markets for which were Albany and New York. This branch of business he continued for about five years.

In 1844, he built a steam elevator on River street, near his old stand, it being the first brick building erected on the river front. With the completion of this building he turned his attention more particularly to grain, receiving it by canal from the interior. On the opening of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati railroad, his elevator was easily connected with that line, and the first load of railroad wheat stored in Cleveland was received into his elevator.

About the year 1840, Mr. Scott became interested in the lake marine by the purchase of the brig Amazon, of 220 tons, then considered a craft of good size. At the time of the purchase, the West was flooded with wild-cat money, and specie was very scarce. The brig was sold by order of the Chancellor of Michigan, and specie demanded from the purchaser, a condition that made buyers shy. In 1842, Mr. Scott purchased the schooner John Grant, of 100 tons, and in the following three years added to his little fleet the schooner Panama, of 100 tons, and the brig Isabella, of over 300 tons, the latter being something highly respectable in the way of lake shipping.

Prudence, foresight, and careful enterprise made all his ventures reasonably successful. In 1865, he resolved to quit business and enjoy the competence he had acquired, first in foreign travel, to free himself more thoroughly from business cares, and then in lettered ease at home. In pursuance of this purpose he spent six months in Europe, returning with recruited energies to the enjoyment of the well stocked library of rare volumes collected during his years of active business, and largely added to during his foreign travels.

A few facts in Mr. Scott's life, exhibiting his thorough confidence in the Government and the cause of the Union, should not be passed over. The first investment in the original War Loan taken in Cleveland, if not in Ohio, was made by Mr. Scott, August 12th, 1861. He still retains and exhibits with justifiable pride, a certificate from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, dated August 29th, 1861, stating that five thousand dollars had been received from him on account of the three years' treasury notes, and promising that they should be sent him as soon as prepared. From that time to the present he has invested freely in Government securities, being fully convinced of their safety.

Since his retirement from business and return from European travel, he has employed his leisure in literary pursuits, especially in genealogical and historical studies, and has frequently contributed to the journals of the day curious and interesting facts relating to the early settlers in New England, in correction of erroneous beliefs regarding them.

In 1840, Mr. Scott was married to Miss Mary Williamson, by whom he has had seven children, of whom three still live.

J. P. Robison.

Among the soldiers present at Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne, near Pittsburgh, was John Decker Robison, an American of Scotch descent, who also did good service during the Revolutionary war. When the war was over he married a Hollander living on the North River, and when a young family grew up about him, moved to western New York, where, building the first house in Canandaigua, he received a patent of six hundred acres of land and settled down as a farmer in Vienna, N. Y. One of his family was a boy, Peter Robison, who stuck to the farm until the ex-Revolutionary soldier had gone down to the tomb, and until he himself had reached several years beyond the meridian of life, when he obeyed the general law of American human nature, and moved toward the setting sun. Years before this step was taken he had married Miss Hetty H. Havens, of Lyons, N. Y., and raised a family of children, among them J. P. Robison, the subject of this sketch, who was born in Ontario county, on the 23rd of January, 1811.

Like his father, young Robison spent the earlier years of his life in working on the farm, and it was not until his sixteenth year that it was decided to give him a good education. He was then sent to Niffing's High School, at Vienna, N. Y., where he attained considerable proficiency in his studies, including Latin and Mathematics. Having developed a taste for medical studies he was admitted as a private pupil of Professer Woodward, of the Vermont College of Medicine, and graduated in November, 1831. Immediately on the completion of his studies he moved into Ohio and commenced practice in Bedford, Cuyahoga county, in February, 1832. He soon succeeded in building up a good practice, and for eleven years continued in the exercise of his profession.

Then Dr. Robison concluded to change his business. In company with W. B. Hillman he engaged in mercantile business at Bedford, opening a store and at the same time carrying on other descriptions of trade, such as milling, packing provisions, dealing in land, and other operations such as the speculative American is always ready to engage in. Among other things he started a chair factory and a tannery, and his active mind was always revolving projects for the increase of business, and, of course, of business profits.