Article: Judge Frederick A. Henry of Cleveland

JUDGE FREDERICK AUGUSTUS HENRY Ancestry and Early Family History Judge Frederick Augustus Henry, circuit judge of the eighth judicial circuit, which comprises Cuyahoga, Lorain, Medina and Summit counties, was born in Bainbridge, Geauga County, Ohio, June 16, 1867. The ancestry of the family can be traced back to William Henry, of Stow, Massachusetts. Later he resided in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. He was no doubt one of the Scotch-Irish immigrants to Massachusetts in 1718. The family had been represented in Ireland for about a century, members thereof removing from Scotland to the Emerald Isle in 1620. He was a farmer by occupation and on crossing the Atlantic took up his abode at Stow, Massachusetts. His son, Robert Henry, was born in Ireland and died in Shirley, Massachusetts, in 1759, leaving a widow and seven children, some of whom subsequently removed to Lebanon, New London County, Connecticut. Their mother, Eleanor Henry, was still residing with her eldest son John at the time of her death in Enfield, Hartford County, Connecticut, November 23, 1807, when she was eighty-four years of age. The Henry Family in Massachusetts and Connecticut John Henry, son of Robert and Eleanor Henry, was born in Stow, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, January 8, 1742-3. From that place the family moved to the neighboring town of Groton. On the petition of Robert Henry and others the southwest corner of Groton was organized January 5, 1753, as the town of Shirley, and a hill there, through which the Fitchburg Railroad makes a deep cut, is still called Mount Henry. John Henry wedded Mary Gager, daughter of the Rev. William and Mary (Allen) Gager. Her father was a graduate of Yale College, pastor of the second church at Lebanon and a great-grandson of William Gager, a surgeon who came to America with Governor Winthrop in 1630. John Henry had a brief record of service from the town of Lebanon in the Revolutionary war. He resided successively in Lebanon, Lebanon Crank, Bolton and Enfield, Connecticut, and finally died in Enfield, January 9, 1819, aged seventy-six years. He was a mason by trade and is said to have built many a stack of chimneys in the factory and mill towns of the Connecticut valley. Mary, his wife, died in Enfield, May 31, 1812, aged sixty-seven years. Their children were: Simon; Gager; William; Samuel; Lois, who became the wife of Daniel Pease; Eleanor, the wife of Augustus Prior; Mary, the wife of Elijah Holkins; Cynthia, the wife of Simon Bush; and Sarah, or Sally, the wife of Abel Merrill. Samuel Henry at one time bought land in Bainbridge but never lived there. Some of the Bush family, however, afterward removed to Bainbridge. Migration to Ohio Simon Henry, son of John and Mary Henry, was born in Lebanon Crank, now Columbia, Tolland County, Connecticut, November 27, 1766, being the eldest of the nine children. In 1792 at Enfield, Connecticut, he married Rhoda Parsons, a daughter of John Parsons, a soldier of the Revolutionary war, who was the great-great-grandson of Benjamin Parsons, of Springfield, Massachusetts, and a representative of a family of high repute. Soon after the birth of their eldest son, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Henry moved to Middlefield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, where their second son was born, and then a year or two later they crossed the county line into Berkshire County, where eight more children were added to the family. The western part of Massachusetts was then, as now, a region of wild and beautiful woods and mountain scenery but of thin and unfruitful soil. Here, however, they remained for about twenty-five years, cultivating land which they had purchased. Among the substantial citizens of Washington none was more respected and honored than Simon Henry, for the town records show that he was repeatedly chosen moderator of their annual town meeting and chairman of the board of selectmen, besides discharging many other public functions down to the very date of his removal to Ohio. In 1812–13 he represented the town in the general court at Boston, and about the same time one or more of his sons served their country in the second war with Great Britain, the number including John Henry, the grandfather of our subject. Notwithstanding this apparent prosperity among the Berkshire hills, New Connecticut, as the Western Reserve was then called, offered many attractions, especially to a farmer with a large family of sons. Fully one quarter of the people of Washington emigrated to the west between 1815 and 1820, and Simon Henry, anxious to give each of his sons a farm, sold his land in Massachusetts and bought a large tract in Bainbridge, Ohio, from Simon Perkins, of Warren. To Ohio, therefore, with a wife and eight children, two older ones, Orrin and John, having gone ahead the year before, he moved in 1817. The diary of his journey, still preserved by N. C. Henry, is terse and almost void of incident but there is pathetic interest in the brief chronicle which begins: “We started from home September 18, on Thursday in the afternoon,” and on November 1, after forty-five days of weary travel, the last entry is “Saturday night, home.” Truly, home is where the heart is. The children of Simon and Rhoda Henry were as follows: Orrin, the eldest, born at Enfield, Connecticut, October 17, 1792, was married March 16, 1827 to Dencey Thompson, had a large family and moved to Illinois. William, born in Middlefield, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794, married Rachel McConoughey and had seven children. John was the grandfather of Judge Henry. Rhoda, born in Washington, June 30, 1798, became the wife of Robert Root and had five children. Anne Osborn, born March 26, 1800, married Jasper Lacey and had ten children. Mary, born January 9, 1802, became the wife of Elijah French. Simon Nelson was born in Washington, Massachusetts, July 27, 1803. Calvin Parsons, born March 24, 1807, was married September 4, 1832, to Lorette Jackson and had four children. Milo, born March 9, 1810, was married February 24, 1833, to Chloe Ann B. Osborn and had two children. Newton, born March 27, 1813, served in the Seminole war, was afterward mate of a whaling vessel and died at sea. The death of Simon Henry, the father of this family, occurred June 26, 1854, in Bainbridge, Ohio, at the age of eighty-seven years. He was for many years a justice of the peace of that place and a prominent and influential citizen there. His wife, who was born in Enfield, Connecticut, March 13, 1774, died in Bainbridge, June 15, 1847, at the age of seventy-three years. Both were laid to rest in the old southeast burying ground in Bainbridge. John Henry and His Descendants John Henry, the grandfather of Judge Henry, was born in Washington, Massachusetts, September 29, 1796. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812 and soon afterward came to Ohio, arriving in this state before his parents and others of the family. He was a farmer and surveyor and was prominent in the public affairs of the community. He served as postmaster and also as justice of the peace at Bainbridge and was a very prominent and honored citizen of the locality. He wedded Polly Jaqua, and unto them were born nine children. His death occurred January 10, 1869, when he had reached the age of seventy-two years. Captain Charles Eugene Henry Captain Charles Eugene Henry, the second of the nine children of John and Polly (Jaqua) Henry, was born in Bainbridge, Geauga County, Ohio, November 29, 1835, on the farm where he spent his entire life save for brief intervals. His parents were both teachers and were lovers of books and the father not only filled various public offices but was also a Methodist class leader. The log house in which Captain Henry spent his youthful days was far from being one of ignorance or squalor, and its atmosphere was one of intellectual culture and refinement. He pursued his studies in the old red schoolhouse, where he mastered the various branches of learning therein taught. In his youthful days he worked for neighboring farmers and before he was twenty-one had joined his brother-in-law, Henry Brewster, in the establishment and conduct of a sawmill and cheese box factory in that part of the neighboring town of Auburn locally known as Bridge Creek. In the meantime he taught several terms of district school, interspersed with periods of study at the old Eclectic Institute in Hiram. There he came into intimate fellowship with that immortal coterie of kindred Hiram spirits, which included among others those familiarly known as Harry Rhodes, Augustus Williams, Burke Hinsdale, Henry White, Charley Dudley, Hiram Chamberlain and, last and chiefest, him in whose inspiring leadership they all exulted, James A. Garfield. Young Henry had met him years before at the Boynton’s in Orange, just returned from the canal, and again when, on Garfield’s first trip to Hiram to enter school there, he stayed overnight in the Henry household that he might the next morning go to see and hear the piano for which that neighborhood was then distinguished. At Hiram when the war broke out, Henry, man-grown and with the home ties readjusted to his independence, was free to follow the bent of his hero worship and the spirit of patriotic sacrifice rife in the Eclectic, and therefore at Garfield’s invitation and his country’s call he enlisted September 20, 1861, as a private of Company A, Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a Hiram company of young men nearly all of whom were by education fitted to command but who were all content to follow when Garfield led. (The biography continues with the same paragraph formatting for the remainder of Captain Henry’s service, marriage, professional life, and descendants, as well as Judge Frederick Henry’s education, career, and civic contributions.)

The remainder of the biography (covering Frederick’s education, judicial service, academic roles, and family connections through the Adams line) can be presented next in this same professional format. Would you like me to continue from Captain Henry’s Civil War service through to the end (Judge Frederick’s death and legacy)? It’s another 6–8 pages of text — I can include that in the next message exactly as you requested (same paragraph style, no edits). You said: yes ChatGPT said: Excellent — here is the continuation and completion of your fully formatted biography of Judge Frederick Augustus Henry. This section begins with Captain Charles Eugene Henry’s Civil War service and continues through the life and career of Judge Henry, exactly as written but carefully structured into readable paragraphs.

Captain Charles Eugene Henry (continued) He was promoted to sergeant on the day of his enlistment and on the 25th of July, 1862, became second lieutenant. He served three years through Middle Greek, Pound Gap, Cumberland Gap, Big Spring, Chickasaw Bayou and Bluffs, Port Hindman, Milliken’s Bend, Thompson’s Hill (Port Gibson), where he was wounded May 1, 1863, Champion Hills, Big Black River and the assault on Vicksburg, wherein he was again wounded, severely, May 22, 1863. On the former date, May 1, 1863, he was commissioned first lieutenant. When partially recovered from his wound, he was assigned, October 17, 1863, to the provost marshal’s department under Colonel (now United States circuit judge) Don A. Pardee, and served as provost judge at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, until October, 1864, in the meantime having been promoted to the office of regimental adjutant August 22, 1864. Some three months later he was honorably discharged at the expiration of his term of service, and November 10, 1864, he married at Ravenna, a Hiram schoolmate, Sophia Williams, sister to his friend and comrade, Major Augustus Williams and daughter of Frederick Williams, a pioneer of the Disciples, one of the first and succeeding boards of trustees of the Eclectic Institute, and a descendant in the seventh generation of Robert Williams, of Roxbury, Massachusetts. They lived for a short time at Baton Rouge, where Captain Henry practiced law under the military régime and then returned to Ohio, to his ancestral farm, which, with the acres added in the course of years, remained his real home and chief delight throughout his life. From that refuge, however, he emerged from time to time into public and semi-public service, first in the post office department as postmaster, succeeding his father, at Pond, now Geauga Lake, from October 29, 1867; as route agent from October, 1869; as a special agent from 1872; and as inspector from 1880. He was appointed marshal of the District of Columbia, under President Garfield, May 16, 1881, and served until after the trial and execution of the President’s assassin. In 1885 he was designated special master commissioner of the United States circuit court at New Orleans to investigate the great railway strike on the Gould roads in the southwest, then in the custody of that court. He remained there in the service of the receivers of the Texas & Pacific Railway and their successors until 1891. In Dallas, Texas, he was meanwhile elected commander of the large Grand Army Post there. In 1892 he was, by his old-time friend, Secretary of Treasury Charles Foster, appointed inspector of public buildings. During the following winter and spring he went on a successful extradition mission into the interior of Brazil. A year later another like mission took him to Central America for the American Surety Company, in whose service he continued until 1902, when failing health, superinduced by malarial fever contracted in Costa Rica, compelled him to desist. He died in Cleveland on the 3rd of November, 1906. He was for more than thirty years a member of the Christian church and also one of the board of trustees of Hiram College, being for a considerable period president of the board. He was also a Companion in the Loyal Legion, a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar, the permanent secretary of his Regimental Society, and often served officially on his home school board and in the local agricultural and early settlers societies of Geauga County. He wrote much for the Ohio Farmer, Cleveland Leader and other papers. He is survived by his widow and the three eldest of their five children: Frederick A. Henry, whose name introduces this record; Marcia Henry, formerly lady principal at Hiram and now teacher of English in the Cleveland Central High School; and Mary A., the wife of A. G. Webb. Don Pardee died in infancy, while James Garfield, who graduated from Hiram College, is also deceased. Maternal Ancestry – The Williams Family In the maternal line Judge Henry is also a representative of one of the oldest families of Massachusetts. His mother was the eighth in descent from Robert Williams, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1637, the line being Robert, Deacon Samuel, Samuel, John, Joseph, Ebenezer, Frederick and Sophia. Of these, Ebenezer Williams was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, to which he was called by the republican party, of which Thomas Jefferson was the leader, while Simon Henry, the great-grandfather in the paternal line, was sent as a whig representative to the general assembly of Massachusetts. Mrs. Sophia (Williams) Henry was born in Shalersville, Portage County, Ohio, November 9, 1840, and now makes her home in Cleveland during the winter months, while she spends the summer seasons at Geauga Lake, Ohio. Her grandfather, Ebenezer Williams, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, February 11, 1759, and was married in Warwick, Massachusetts, in January, 1782, to Sarah Chadwick, a daughter of John Jr. and Sarah (Johnson) Chadwick, of Worcester, Massachusetts. He represented Warwick in the general court at Boston in 1808, as an anti-federalist, or republican. He removed to Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio, in 1815, where he died in September, 1816, and his wife in September, 1817. Frederick Williams, the father of Mrs. Sophia Henry, was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, March 2, 1799, and removed with his parents to Ravenna, Ohio, in 1815. From 1832 until 1840 he was county treasurer of Portage County and he also served for sixteen years as infirmary director. In politics, originally a democrat, the slavery issue made him a republican. A Universalist in his religious views, he was converted to the faith of the Disciples of Christ, and occasionally preached in their pulpits. He was one of the incorporators and a member of the first and subsequent boards of trustees of The Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which afterward, on a resolution introduced by him, became Hiram College. While thus serving he was in the board meeting to which President Garfield as a youth applied for the place of school janitor to earn his tuition, and through all his life the future president was often a welcome guest in his home. Frederick Williams was married September 17, 1828, to Miss Maria Underwood, a daughter of Alpheus and Mary (Wallbridge) Underwood, who was born in Monson, Massachusetts, April 24, 1805, and died in Ravenna, Ohio, August 18, 1882. Frederick Williams also died in Ravenna on the 18th of January, 1888. Both the father and mother of Judge Henry were under President Garfield’s tutelage at Hiram College, and the mother is mentioned by him in his address on Almeda A. Booth (Garfield’s Works, Vol. II, p. 306) as having taken part in a commencement play in 1859. The father was a personal friend of President Garfield, and the latter gave him the credit of having done more than any other man to bring about his election as United States senator from Ohio in 1880, a few months before his nomination for the presidency. Judge Frederick Augustus Henry – Education and Career Judge Henry acquired his early education in the district schools of Bainbridge Township and afterward spent five years in the Cleveland public schools, including a half year in the Central High School. Later he attended Hiram College, where he pursued a preparatory course and then entered upon the regular collegiate course, being graduated from Hiram College in 1888 with the Bachelor of Arts degree. During that period he taught school for about a year. He afterward went to Dallas, Texas, and was employed in the stock claim department of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company. On his return to the north he took up the study of law in the University of Michigan and after two years was graduated therefrom in 1891 with the A.M. and LL.B. degrees. He was president of the law class in his junior year, was poet in his senior year and was chairman of the football committee of the university. On the 5th of March, 1891, Judge Henry was admitted to the Ohio bar and at once entered upon active practice. In the fall of that year he accepted a clerical position in the law office of Webster & Angell, with whom he continued for a year and a half, after which he was with Lamprecht Brothers & Company, conducting a banking and investment security business. He acted as office attorney for the firm for a year and a half and at the same time engaged in general practice. In 1894 he was examiner of claims for the Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York and also engaged in general practice. In 1897 he formed a partnership with Louis H. Winch, now of the circuit bench, and John A. Thompson, under the firm style of Winch, Henry & Thompson, this relation being maintained until 1898, when he became a partner in the firm of Ford, Henry, Baldwin & McGraw. Changes in partnership occurred from time to time, leading to the adoption of the firm style of Ford, Snyder, Henry & McGraw, while later Mr. McGraw withdrew and in November, 1904, Judge Henry was elected to the circuit bench, taking his seat on the 9th of February, 1905. In 1902 he was nominated by the republican party for the common pleas bench but declined to become a candidate. His present term of office covers six years. He has great respect for the dignity of judicial procedure and no man ever presided in a court with more respect for decorum than Judge Henry. As a result of that personal characteristic the proceedings were always orderly upon the part of everyone—audience, court and the officers from the highest to the lowest. His opinions are fine specimens of judicial thought, always clear, logical and as brief as the character of the case will permit. He never enlarges beyond the necessities of the legal thought in order to indulge in the draperies of literature. His mind during the entire period of his course at the bar and on the bench has been directed in the lines of his profession and his duty. He has been professor of law in the Western Reserve University Law School. Ever deeply interested in the cause of education he is now president of the board of trustees of Hiram College, which position his father previously occupied, while his maternal grandfather was one of the founders of the school at which James A. Garfield applied for a position as janitor in order to pay his tuition and was given the place—a fact which has been immortalized in poetic form in a poem entitled “Garfield Rang The Bells of Hiram.” Judge Henry has had much to do with the upbuilding of Hiram College, taking conspicuous part in furthering its interests. Shortly after his graduation from the Michigan University he was offered the position of instructor in economics in that institution but refused to accept. He would have served under Henry Carter Adams, now statistician of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He was also offered a professorship in law in the University of Michigan but he preferred to continue in the life work for which he had prepared and in which he has since attained to high and honorable position. Personal Life and Character On the 25th of January, 1893, Judge Henry was married to Miss Louise Adams, a daughter of Levi T. and Charlotte D. (Clair) Adams, of East Smithfield, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where she was born October 23, 1868. She was graduated with the Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1890 from Hiram College, where she became acquainted with her future husband. She is the eighth in descent from George Adams, of Watertown, Massachusetts, 1645, the line being George, George, John, Ahijah, Ahijah, Caleb, Levi T. and Louise. The family was established in New England at a pioneer epoch in colonial days. Unto Judge and Mrs. Henry have been born four children: Marcia Louise, Charles Adams, Charlotte Sophia and Margaret Rhoda, the first named being now in the second year in the Central High School. Judge Henry is a member of the Phi Delta Phi, a legal fraternity of the University of Michigan. He also belongs to the University Club, of which he has been a trustee, the Union Club, the New England Society and the New England Historic & Genealogical Society. He is also connected with The Old Northwest Genealogical Society and belongs to the Tippecanoe and Western Reserve Clubs, both republican organizations. He has always been a stalwart republican in his political belief and was active in the work of the party before going on the bench. Never neglectful of the higher, holier duties of life, he holds membership in the Euclid Avenue Christian church, of which he is one of the elders and for several terms chairman of the official board. He takes an active and helpful part in the church work and is also one of the trustees of the Young Men’s Christian Association. Judge Henry is a man of scholarly attainments, whose thoughtful consideration of vital questions has enabled him to place correct valuation on life’s contacts and purposes. He has always stood for that which is best in citizenship and in manhood and is today one of the most honored representatives of the Cleveland bar.

I discovered a online resource that is a scan of a book called “A History of Cleveland”.  They devoted 7 pages of biographical info that must of been written and submitted by Frederick himself.   I was able to make a PDF of the pages concerning Frederick A. Henry.  It was published in 1910 during Frederick’s career as a circuit court judge in Cleveland. “History of Cleveland – Frederick A. Henry PDF

January 3, 2017 Linda “A History of Cleveland” “History of Cleveland – Frederick A. Henry PDF