No words can too strongly describe the high repute in which is held the business house of which Col. Strong is the head. It is among the most prominent, popular and successful in the trade. It represents some of the largest mills in this country engaged in the manufacture of dress goods, flannels, blankets and other woolens and worsteds, also important accounts in cotton goods. It has branch houses in Boston and Philadelphia for the supply of the trade in those markets. The firm was organized January 1, 1870, as above stated, and has continued in uninterrupted and successful operation ever since. Through all the panics and business disturbances that have visited this country at various periods since 1870, the house passed in safety with increased business prestige and financial strength. The able business management of this large commission house is proverbial in mercantile circles.
All that has been said in the above, in commendation of the house of which Col. Strong is the visible head, may be truthfully repeated of himself in his personal relations. His connection with many enterprises of importance in the business community and his prominent position in the same, are evidences of the business ability which he possesses and which his associates have so practically recognized. Modest and unassuming, his clear and analytical mind grasps the problems of business with such skill that fortune has smiled upon every enterprise with which he is or has been associated. His connection with so many financial institutions as director or president, further attests the confidence of the public in his integrity and marked ability.
While his business qualifications are of very high order, there are other traits in the character of Col. Strong that are no less marked. He is a man of the people, and his sympathies are wholly with the people. No worthy object to relieve or to make the struggling masses happy, ever fails to receive from him the substantial sympathy which his broad mind and liberal heart so freely give. He is an American, in every sense of the term. Plain and simple in his habits, he frowns upon everything that seeks to make one man higher than another, except as merit or exceptional service, have elevated him. He is, as one has well said, “One of the few men equal to the occasion, wherever placed, and deservedly possesses the entire confidence of the people.”
Hon. George Hoadly, Ex-Governor of Ohio.
George Hoadly, who has won at the bar of New York, a position of eminence equal to that he for years maintained in Ohio, is, in all the essentials of affection and personal loyalty, yet an “Ohio man,” for he remembers the home of his youth, the scene of his early labors and professional advancement, and the State that chose him to the highest position within her gift. Like General Ewing and Col. Strong, he is already a well-known figure in the metropolis, and is one of the men by whose labors the Ohio Society has been made what it is.
If a man is aided by the “sort of grandfathers” he has inherited, Judge Hoadly had as fair a start as is given anyone. The older lawyers of Ohio speak with tender remembrance of “Squire Hoadly,” who for years was one of the imposing figures of the bar of Cleveland, and whose purity of character was matched only by his legal knowledge, and the justice with which, in his magisterial character, he arbitrated the affairs of his fellowmen. He made Cleveland his home in 1830; served one term as Mayor, and for fifteen years as justice of the peace, then an office of greater honor and responsibility than in these days of multiplied minor and municipal courts.
The son, George Hoadly, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 31, 1826, of a mother (Mary Anne Woolsey), who counted Jonathan Edwards among her direct ancestors, President Dwight her uncle, President Woolsey her younger brother, Theodore Winthrop, Sarah Woolsey, (“Susan Coolidge,”) her nephew and niece. Carried to Ohio when but four years of age, his primary education was received in the private school, conducted by the late Franklin T. Backus, afterwards the leader of the Cleveland bar, and Judge William Strong of Oregon. When fourteen years of age he entered Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1844. It had already been impressed upon him by natural bent of mind and inclination, and by the advice of those who had studied his character and watched his growth, that the law was his proper profession, and he accordingly spent a year in study at the famous law school at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was under the instruction of Judge Story and Prof. Greenleaf. One more year of close study was passed in the office of Judge Charles C. Convers, at Zanesville, Ohio, and then young Hoadly went to Cincinnati, and in the fall of 1846 entered the law office of Chase & Ball, where he completed his studies, and was admitted to the bar in August of the following year. An incident of more than passing moment in his personal and professional life grew out of this connection. “Young Hoadly,” says one of the governor’s biographers, “at once attracted the attention and secured the warm and lasting friendship of his preceptor, Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was well aware of the importance of attaching to himself young men of ability, and, after a period of service as a clerk, Mr. Hoadly was admitted, in 1849, as a junior partner into the firm, which took the name of Chase, Ball & Hoadly. Mr. Chase was soon thereafter elected United States Senator, and withdrew from professional activity in Cincinnati, and this led to Hoadly’s appearing in important cases very early in his career.”
Strong and able in his profession, and popular with the people, the young lawyer’s way to official distinction was soon opened. In 1851, the State Legislature elected him Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, for the residue of the term to which that court had been limited by the constitutional convention. He ably served in this position until 1853, when the court ceased its functions, and he then formed a co-partnership with Edward Mills. He was city solicitor of Cincinnati in 1855, and 1856, and became a member of the present Superior Court in 1859. Twice was he offered a seat upon the Supreme Bench of Ohio, but each time he declined. In 1856, the proffer came from Governor Chase, and in 1862 from Governor Tod. In 1864 he was re-elected to the bench, but resigned in 1866, at which time the firm of Hoadly, Jackson & Johnson was formed. The late Judge Alphonse Taft was his successor upon the bench. The new combination was soon ranked among the great law firms of the country, and Judge Hoadly was classed as one of the ablest and soundest of American jurists. Of this period of his life, an historian of Ohio has said: “They (the above mentioned law firm), have successfully tried some of the great railroad cases of the day, and are as noted in these cases in Ohio as was Samuel J. Tilden in New York ten years ago in litigation of the same kind. Judge Hoadly has also appeared as counsel in the most important litigations of other kinds tried in Ohio of late years, having among others conducted victoriously the cases involving the use of the Bible in the common schools of Cincinnati, the constitutionality of the Pond and Scott laws, and in the United States Supreme Court overthrown the Federal trade-mark system, and compelled the State of Tennessee to redeem the issues of the Bank of Tennessee.”
A position where his peculiar legal powers were called into play, and his knowledge of constitutional law and readiness in debate made him a leader, was his membership in the Ohio constitutional convention of 1873-4, to which he was elected without opposition from Hamilton County. Yet while engaged in the manifold duties of his profession, he found time to engage in other fields of usefulness, serving as professor in the Cincinnati Law School, a chair of which he held for over twenty years; a trustee of the University of Cincinnati, and of the Cincinnati Museum; member of the Committee of the School of Design; and was in other ways the patron of the arts and sciences, and a promoter of their development in his home city. Among other self-imposed tasks, he made himself acquainted with the Spanish and German languages, and became as he calls himself “a poor stenographer.”
While Judge Hoadly had thus far allowed his name to be used only in connection with official positions directly in the line of his profession, and while he had little taste and less time for the practical part of politics, he still held pronounced views upon public questions, and carefully watched the drift of events. He was from the first a Democrat—as his father had been before him—a believer in democratic principles as enunciated by the founders of the party who were among the greatest of the founders of our government. And being a Democrat to the logical conclusions of democracy, he took issue with his party upon the question of human slavery. During the war, he acted politically with the Union elements; when peace was restored and the slave freed, he took part in the Liberal Republican movement of 1872, and was a member of the Cincinnati convention, and of its Committee on Resolutions, but disapproved of the nomination of Mr. Greeley with whom he had no political principles in common except hatred of slavery and belief in hard money. He withdrew from the convention immediately after the nomination was made, and entered into correspondence with leading Democrats, endeavoring to bring about the nomination of a Democratic candidate whom he stood ready to support. Failing in this, he reluctantly voted for Grant’s second election.