years. He then retired to a farm in Minnesota. President Grant appointed him Commissioner of Pensions, and he held the office from 1871 to 1875. The ancestors of William Henry Gibson, Treasurer of State, were Irish and Welsh, although both his parents were born in America. He was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, May 16, 1822. When a babe his parents removed to Seneca County, and spent the remainder of their lives there. William received a commonschool education, with a two-years' course in Ashland Academy. He then learned and worked at the carpenter's trade, though he had but little taste or fitness for it. He studied law and became a fluent public speaker. He settled in Tiffin in 1843 and died there November 22, 1894. He was elected State Treasurer in 1855, but in the embarrassments which followed he resigned the office. He enlisted in the service of his country early in 1861, and organized the Forty-ninth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was steadily promoted until he became Colonel. His first battle was at Pittsburg Landing, where he had three horses shot under him and was carried off the field suffering from a terrible bayonet stab. He commanded a brigade for more than two years, and retired with the brevet of that rank. He was commended by every superior in the reports of all the campaigns and battles in which he participated, and every officer and private with or under him was his devoted friend. In addition to being State Treasurer, he was Adjutant General and Canal Commissioner of Ohio. Francis Mastin Wright, Auditor of State, was born in Frederick County, Virginia, July 14, 1810. His parents were of Scotch Irish descent. When he was ten years of age the family removed to Ohio, settling in Clarke County. He was educated in the country schools, except for a few terms in Dayton. He engaged in mercantile pursuits, first as a clerk in Springfield and afterward as a partner in an establishment in Urbana, Champaign County. For several years he was County Auditor, having been. elected by the Whigs. He was elected Auditor of State in 1855 and proved a splendid official, but declined to run for a second He returned from Columbus to Urbana in 1860, and was appointed Internal Revenue Collector by President Lincoln, having the distinction of being the first man in the United States to be appointed to such an office by him. He filled the position until 1867, when he resigned. He died January 16, 1869. Jacob Brinkerhoff, Supreme Judge, was the son of Henry I. Brinkerhoff, a native of Pennsylvania, and Rachel Bevier, a native of New York. He was born August 31, 1810, in Niles Township, Cayuga County, New York. In 1816 he removed with his father to Groton, Tompkins County, New York, where he resided until 1825, and during this time he attended the district school. In 1825 the family removed to Steuben County. He worked on a farm until he was twenty years of age and desired to remain an agriculturist for life. Being poor he was unable to purchase a farm, and decided to study for a profession and to work his way through college by teaching. His first idea was to study medicine, but his researches led him to the conclusion that he was better suited for the law, which he studied in different offices in his native State until the Autumn of 1835. In 1836 he removed to Ohio, where his father had purchased a Judge, was born at Zanesville, Ohio, July 1860. farm in Richland County. They arrived in the village of Plymouth on May 22d, and exactly one year later, or on the 22d day of May, 1837, he was admitted to the bar at Lebanon, Warren county. Peter Hitchcock was the Presiding Judge at the examination and Thomas Corwin Chairman of the Examining Committee. Shortly afterward he removed to Mansfield and formed a partnership with Thomas W. Bartley, subsequently Governor of Ohio. In 1839 Mr. Brinkerhoff was elected Prosecuting Attorney, and reelected in 1841. In 1843 he was elected to Congress, as a Democrat, from a district composed of the counties of Richland, Marion and Delaware. While serving in Congress he became affiliated with the Freesoil party, and drew up the anti-slavery proviso intro- Francis D. Kimball, Attorney General, duced by David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, was a resident of Ohio only a short time, and since known by his name. The original The original but proved himself a power in politics. draft of the resolution in Mr. Brinkerhoff's Raised and educated among the hills of New handwriting is preserved by his descendants Hampshire, where he was born in 1820, he as an heirloom. Several copies of the reso- was aggressively opposed to slavery and the lution were made and distributed among the defenders of that institution. He was reared Freesoil members of Congress in order that a Whig, but his belief was that of an Abowhoever among them was first recognized litionist. In 1842 he came to Medina by the Speaker might introduce it. Mr. County, Ohio, where his abilities were soon Wilmot was the fortunate man and there- recognized and he was elected to a county fore his name is associated historically with office. He was a zealous champion of the the famous proviso, instead of Mr. Brink- Anti-Nebraska movement in 1854, and one erhoff's. He remained in Congress two of the founders of the Republican party in terms and then resumed the practice of the State. He attended as an active parlaw in Mansfield. He served three terms ticipant both the preliminary National Conon the Supreme Bench, or fifteen years in vention at Pittsburg and the first regular all, his first term beginning February 9, National Convention at Philadelphia. At 1856. His written opinions are to be found the latter meeting he contracted an ailment in the Ohio State Reports, volumes five to that eventually terminated in his death. In twenty, inclusive. They are characterized the Convention of 1855 he was nominated "by a fluent and perspicuous style," says for Attorney General of the State and the memorial of that Court at the time of elected in October following. He was an his death. able lawyer and brilliant orator. He died Charles Cleveland Convers, Supreme quite suddenly August 15, 1856, while hold ing the office of Attorney General, and was succeeded by Christopher P. Wolcott, of Summit County, by appointment of Governor Chase. Alexander G. Conover, Member of the Board of Public Works, was born at Day ton, Ohio, in 1819, and removed to Piqua when but a boy. He worked as an engineer on several of the Ohio canals and also two of the principal railways of the State. 1855 he was elected a member of the State Board of Public Works, serving but one term. In CHAPTER III. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856. THE PITTSBURG CONVENTION.* EVERAL States have laid claim to the honor of having been the birthplace of the Republican party, and many of its members to having first called the party by its present name, but it is not open to dispute as to where its first National Convention was held. It is probable that the name was first suggested by Major Alvan E. Bovay, of Ripon, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in a letter to Horace Greeley, February 26, 1854, published by him in the New York Tribune, and that the first Republican State Convention, so called from a resolution adopting the name, was held under the oaks" at Jackson, Michigan, on Thursday, July 6, 1854. But it is beyond controversy that the first Repub lican National Convention was held in Lafayette Hall, at the corner of Wood and Fourth streets, in the city of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, convening at eleven o'clock on Friday morning, February 22, 1856. It was a mass convention, in which twentyfour States and four Territories were represented, and it was held in pursuance of the following call, issued at Washington, D. C., January 15, 1856: To the Republicans of the United States:-In accordance with what appears to be the general desire of the Republican party, and at the suggestion of a large portion of the Republican press, the undersigned Chairmen of the Republican State Committees *We quote literally from the files of the Pittsburg Commercial Gazette. of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, hereby invite the Republicans of the Union to meet in Informal Convention at Pittsburg, on the 22d of February, 1856, for the purpose of perfecting the National organization and providing for a National Delegate Convention of the Republican party, at some subsequent day, to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency to be supported at the election in November, 1856. ALFRED P. STONE, Ohio. JOHN Z. GOODRICH, Massachusetts. It will be noticed that while the body of the call mentions nine States, its signatures represent but five. The time for holding the proposed Convention was so near that it was considered advisable to issue the call Chairmen of the other States to see and without waiting a fortnight or more for the sign it. They all approved it, by letter, however, and Ohio properly heads the list, for no man was more active or influential in bringing this great and important Convention together than Alfred P. Stone. Pittsburg was aptly chosen as the place of meeting. It was centrally located, for that day, and had long been noted for its pronounced anti-slavery sentiments. No party can boast a freer or more patriotic origin than the party here organized on a National basis. The Pittsburg meeting was clearly the most spontaneous convention in our political history. The delegates were not chosen by any settled plan or rule, nor was there much regard, if any, paid to the number of votes a State might cast in the adoption of any policy or basis for future action. In Ohio, and most of the other States, no attempt had been made by State Conventions, or through State Committees, to select the delegates, or designate the number or method of their selection. It was a meeting of free men called together by a common impulse to do that which seemed wisest to the majority in order to stem the strong tide of the aggressions of slavery. No body ever met with a more patriotic purpose, and none has ever seen such momentous results so quickly follow its actions to the infinite good of their country and humanity. Aside from Pennsylvania, the largest attendance was from Ohio, with New York second. From Ohio there came Joshua Reed Giddings, then in Congress, and in the fullness of his fame; Francis D. Kimball, Attorney General; William H. Gibson, Treasurer of State; Jacob Brinkerhoff, Supreme Judge; William Dennison, Jr., a future Governor; Joseph Medill, subsequently famous as the editor of the Chicago Tribune; George H. Frey, editor of the Springfield Republic; and Rufus P. Spalding, James M. Ashley, Charles Reemelin, James Elliott, Daniel R. Tilden, John A. Foote, Hiram E. Peck, James M. Brown, Jacob Heaton, Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Eugene Pardee, Richard D. Harrison, Cyrus Spink, Oliver White, Henry Everts, Henry Howard, Thomas Bolton, Daniel McFarland, Oliver Harmon, L. H. Hall, Richard Steadman, Dudley Baldwin, Seth Day, Henry Carter, Frederick Wadsworth, Sidney Edgerton, Dudley Seward, D. C. Coon, I. M. Benson, A. J. Page, I. H. Wilkinson, Robert Rogers, W. B. Fish, John L. Wharton, Lafayette G. Van Slyke, Alfred P. Stone, and many other prominent and active anti-slavery men of the State. Salmon P. Chase, who had been elected Governor of Ohio the year before, took a deep interest in the meeting at Pittsburg. Though unable himself to attend, many of the delegates were present at his express request. He had visited Pittsburg in November, 1855, and in a consultation with the late David N. White, editor of the Commercial Gazette, suggested the calling of the Convention and formation of a National Republican party, and from that time on both did much to forward the movement. The Convention was called to order by Lawrence Brainerd, of Vermont, and twenty-four States-sixteen free and eight slave -were found to be represented. Mr. Brainerd read the call and nominated John A. King, of New York, as Temporary Chairman, and he was unanimously elected. William Penn Clark, of Iowa, and James W. Stone, of Massachusetts, were elected as Temporary Secretaries. Prayer was offered by Owen Lovejoy, a brother of the martyred Elijah P. Lovejoy, of Illinois, whose peculiar power and earnestness made a deep impression. He presented "a petition to Almighty God, signed by all the truehearted lovers of equality and liberty in the Republic," praying that "the present wicked Administration might be removed from power and its unholy designs on the liberties of the people be thwarted." Committees were appointed on Permanent Organization and Resolutions, including a plan for National Organization. The Ohio members were Lafayette G. Van Slyke and William Dennison, while John A. Foote was appointed as one of a committee of three to prepare a list of those present from each State, which, unfortunately, was not done. |