Henry Bishop Perkins

Henry Bishop Perkins, the youngest son of General Simon Perkins, was born at Warren, Ohio, March 19, 1824. General Perkins died when Henry Bishop Perkins was but twenty years old, yet, at that early age, lie had already manifested those splendid qualities of manhood, justice and unimpeachable integrity, which he carried through his long and useful life. Possessing a keen sense of responsibility, a fine dignity, and attractive physical presence, he immediately took the position in the community made vacant by the death of his distinguished father. Remaining at the old homestead in the town of his birth, be devoted his entire life toward higher ideals of good citizenship in the community. He bestowed generously of his time and money to the encouragement of those less fortunate than he and contributed a very large share toward making Warren the beautiful city it is today. Mr. Perkins, with that true democracy which had characterized his ancestors and descendants, was a student in the schools of Warren and later entered one of Ohio's first institutions of higher learning. Marietta College. After a tour of Europe where he gained valuable experience by travel and broadened his sympathies by contact with people of many lands he entered diligently upon the work of the management of the estate left to his care.

Notwithstanding the many demands upon his time, in conducting his private business, Mr. Perkins never failed to assume and discharge every duty which falls to a good citizen in a growing community. He served fifteen years on the Warren Board of Education and to his excellent judgment in a large degree the high standard of Warren schools and her beautiful schoolhouses are attributable. Xor did he confine his educational interest to his home city, but in connection with his brothers, endowed a professorship in the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio.

Removed but a generation or two from the pioneers who had blazed the first trails in a new country, Mr. Perkins inherited also that love of nature without which one rarely becomes a sympathetic and well-rounded man. The grounds surrounding his home on Mahoning Avenue were filled with rare trees, shrubs, plants and flowers, while his fine farms in Trumbull county were examples of the painstaking husbandman who appreciates that Nature is a good accountant and gives in the measure that she receives. Mr. Perkins realized that agriculture is the true basis of all prosperity and he farmer well, just as he did everything well. He was twice elected president of the Trumbull County Agricultural Society, was twice appointed a member of the State Board of Agriculture and was for many years a trustee of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. To the duties of each position he gave that same thorough attention which he devoted to his private business. Always a over of the beautiful and artistic, Mr. Perkins laid out. ornamented and maintained Monumental Park, in Warren, which among other things, will always remain to allow his memory in the city he loved so well.

With a multiplicity of private and public duties demanding his constant attention. Mr. Perkins was in the most ideal sense a home man, devoting every attention to his family and extending the radius of his sympathy and assistance to his neighbors and friends. In 1855 Mr. Perkins was married to Miss Eliza G. Baldwin, a daughter of Norman C. Baldwin, a prominent and popular man, who was conspicuous in the early business life of Cleveland. Mrs. Perkins is a woman of keen intellect, generous impulses, remarkable dignity and has contributed her full share in maintaining the high standards of excellence and worth of the descendants of General Simon Perkins. Four children were born to them: Mary B., now Mrs. E. A. Lawton. of Warren; Olive D., now Mrs. Samuel W. Smith, of Cincinnati; Jacob, who died in 1902, and Henry Bishop, Jr., who died in 1900.

Mr. Perkins believed in teaching people to help themselves, and in a practical way he tided many business men over crises, helped young men through college and without ostentation gave assistance to helpless women and children. Before the days of bonding companies, men of menuwere called upon to stand sponsor for men in public office. Mr. Perkins during his lifetime was probably on the bond of more men in public and private matters than any other man in his community. When thanked for these favors, he always quietly replied that he could perhaps better afford to take the risk than others, and did not therefore deserve any praise. He served as president of the Oakwood Cemetery Association, and gave a great deal of time and thought to the beautifying of the grounds.

A generation ago the Warren Library was not the prosperous institution it is today. It was then without means, and it seemed that unless assistance came the library must close its doors, but it was enabled to continue its work by generous donations from Mr. Perkins. His practical experience and sound advice were always in demand, and when Trumbull county's stately new court house was being planned and erected in 1895 Mr. Perkins was appointed to advise with the commissioners in carrying out that important work. He never at any time sought public office, but accepted it rather as a duty which a good citizen owes to his community when called upon to serve. Thus in 1879 he was elected to the Ohio Senate, and re-elected in 1881. which position he held four years. In 1888 he was a Bepublican elector for Benjamin H. Harrison, then a candidate for president, which honor was particularly gratifying to Mr. Harrison, as Mr. Perkins' father. General Simon Perkins, had been a personal friend to President William Henry Harrison, the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison.

Mr. Perkins was one of the commissioners chosen by Governor Bishop to establish the boundary line between Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1879. Perhaps one of the most notable incidents of Mr. Perkins' public career was in connection with the great Garfield-Grant-Conkling mass meeting, which he was largely instrumental in bringing to Warren in 1880. It was at this historic gathering that bitter and warring political interests were reconciled, which assured the election of James A. Garfield for president in the November following. Senator Conkling, Senator Cameron,

General Grant and William McKinley were all entertained at the hospitable home of Mr. Perkins upon that occasion.

Mr. Perkins early became one of the stockholders and directors of the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad, now one of the most important branches of the great Erie System. In 1852 Mr. Perkins was elected a director of the Western Reserve Bank, which was one of the oldest banking institutions in Northern Ohio. Upon the expiration of its charter in 1863, the First National Bank was organized, and Mr. Perkins was chosen president, which office he held until the time of his death, nearly forty consecutive years. Mr. Perkins" conservative business judgment, his unquestioned integrity and his general popularity fitted him for this position of trust. Recognizing his high standing, experience and ability, in 1861 Secretary Chase, of the United States Treasury, selected Mr. Perkins to assist in making the first national loan necessitated by the Civil war.

Added to his many other public duties, Mr. Perkins served for many years as trustee of the Cleveland Historical Society, and was appointed by Governor McKinley a trustee of the Cleveland State Hospital. With liberal and unselfish views, he lived his life from day to day, and when he died, March 2, 1902, there was left a vacancy in the community that has never been filled. Mr. Perkins was a supporter of the Presbyterian church, but in his philanthropy and liberality he did not confine himself to any one church or denomination.

For more than three score years Hon. Henry Bishop Perkins stood a pillar of strength in the old Western Reserve city of his birth, and his entire life was without stain. Kind, exemplary to a high degree, thoughtful, industrious, systematic in all he thought and did, generous and dignified, but ever finding time to aid the lowly and encourage the ambitious, his career forms the best possible example fur those who have come after him. His was the old school of citizenship, embodying in his life a certain chivalry, yet with all a becoming simplicity, which formed a connecting link between the old and the new and rendered him one of the most beloved men Trumbull county ever produced.

Charles A. Hakkixgtox. president of the Second National Bank, at Warren, Ohio, who has been for many years a prominent character in the affairs of the Buckeye state, is a native of Ohio, born in Greene township, Trumbull county, June 16, 1821. He descended from the Puritanic stock of New England, being the son of William and Helena (Baseom) Harrington, who were natives, respectively, of Brookfield, Vermont, and Chester, Massachusetts. The father was born February 5, 1794. William Harrington, whose father died early in life, was bound out in his youth, but purchased his time before attaining his majority and went to Canada, which, country he left on the outbreak of the war of 1812. In March, 1817, in company with his mother, he came to Trumbull county and settled in the midst of the woods on his claim, his mother keeping house for him until his marriage in 1821. He followed agriculture, and was much interested in the early development of the county, acting many Mars as a justice of the peace of honor, ability and popularity. Both he and his faithful wife were communicants of the Congregational church, in which he was frequently a lay-reader. He died in 1885, more than ninety-one years of age. Their five children all survive save William A., who passed from earth June 5, 1893, and Coydon, who died about 1896.

Charles A. Harrington, one of the five children mentioned, was reared on the farm, continuing to reside there until twenty-one years of age; attended the public schools of his home neighborhood, after which he was for a time a student at the Grand River Institute. Austinburg, Ohio, and subsequently entered Oberlin College, which institution he left during his junior year. For about twelve winters following he taught school, and in 1845 established a select school in Greene township, which proved a decided success, through the able management and assistance of the able corps of assistants whom Mr. Harrington drew about him. While teaching he also studied law. and in 1849 was admitted to practice, in 1860, after eleven years of constant practice, he was elected clerk of the court of common pleas, serving two terms and retiring from that office in 1867. During that year, without solicitation, he was nominated by President Johnson, ami confirmed by the Senate, as assessor of internal revenue for the nineteenth district, which office he held until it was abolished by law. Mr. Harrington then resumed his law practice in partnership with William T. Spear, which relation existed until 18T9, when Mr. Spear was elevated to the bench as judge of the common pleas court. Mr. Harrington practiced alone until 1887, and in November of that year accepted a position as cashier of the Second National Bank, at Warren, which position he resigned in May, 1898, and in January. 19(10. was elected to his present office as president of the bank. Mr. Harrington was originally a Whig, but upon the formation o!' the Republican party he immediately.joined its ranks. His constituents have honored him by an election to the hoard of education of Warren, in which capacity he faithfully servedfor twenty-five years. Fraternally, he is a Master Mason, ami was one of the first trustees for the Children's Home for Trumbull county, at Warren. Higreatest happiness has been noted while serving others, rather than himself

In 1848 Mr. Harrington was married to Elvira, daughter of William A. Bascom, by whom two children were born: Charles Frederick and Frank Wales, both of whom are deceased. The mother died in February, 1892. In 1864 the elder son, a graduate of the Western Reserve College, entered the army and served until the close of the Civil war. Hi returned home, and was for a number of years in the United States coast survey service, with which he was connected when he died, in the month of October, 1871. He had married Miss Skinner, of New Yoik. but left no children. His death Mas caused by diseases contracted while serving his country. In November, 1893, Charles A. Harrington married I'mhis second wile Sophia M. Smith.

Frank Wales Harrington, the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles

A. Harrington, graduated at the Western Reserve College in 1879, and was a practicing lawyer for several years, but. on account of ill health, was obliged to abandon his profession. He married Miss Park, daughter of S. W. l'ark. a merchant, and a son and a daughter were born to them: Charles A. Harrington. Jr., now a senior at Cornell University, and Priscilla Park Harrington, a student at Wellesly College. The husband and father died on October 7, 1893.

As printed in A twentieth century history of Trumbull County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests (1909). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.