Henry Chisholm

Henry Chisholm (April 22, 1822 – May 9, 1881) was a Scottish American businessman and steel industry executive during the Gilded Age in the United States. A resident of Cleveland, Ohio, he purchased a small, struggling iron foundry which became the Cleveland Rolling Mill, one of the largest steel firms in the nation. He is known as the "father of the Cleveland steel trade".

Early life Henry Chisholm was born in Lochgelly, Fife, Scotland, on April 22, 1822. His father, Stewart Chisholm, was a mining engineer. The Chisholms were a respectable, lower-middle-class family, and Henry was educated in the local public schools. His father died when he was ten years old, and he left school at the age of 12 to take a position as an apprentice carpenter. He was elevated to journeyman carpenter at the age of 17, and moved to Glasgow.

When he was 20 years old, Chisholm emigrated to Montréal, Québec, Canada. He arrived in the city practically penniless. He worked in Montréal as a carpenter and construction contractor until 1849, constructing various buildings and other works up and down the St. Lawrence River. He established his own construction business, which in time became one of the largest in the city. it was the first continuous open hearth Bessemer furnace west of the Allegheny Mountains and only the fifth such furnace in the nation. By the end of 1872, the combined Cleveland plants had two puddling mills; two blast furnaces; two Bessemer converters; a boiler plate mill; two rail and rod mills; a wire mill; and a bolt, nut, and spike manufacturing shop. The Newburgh plants were producing so much pig iron, cast iron, and steel that Cleveland Rolling Mill became one of the principal metalworks in the state.

Cleveland Rolling Mill continued to expand in the last two decades of the century. In April 1880, the firm issued new stock to double its capitalization, purchased the "Canal Tract" from John D. Rockefeller, built the Central Furnaces on the site from 1881 to 1882 In 1882, the firm erected a Garrett rod mill, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

Other steel interests In 1864, Chisholm purchased the Lake Shore Rolling Mill, an iron and steel works which had been constructed on the shore of Lake Erie at Wason Street (now E. 38th Street).

In 1871, Chisholm, Charles Crumb Jr., and five other investors, co-founded the King Iron Bridge Company. That same year, Chisholm founded the Union Rolling Mill of Chicago, and put his son, William, in charge of the plant. He also erected a rolling mill at Decatur, Illinois, which included two blast furnaces to furnish the Chicago plant with pig iron. Chisholm sold his interest in the Chicago firm in 1879. The couple had several children: William (born May 22, 1843); Catharine Arnot (born June 30, 1845); Stewart H. (born December 21, 1846); Wilson B. (born July 26, 1848); and Janet (born January 1, 1851). Two sons, Henry and Stewart, died in infancy; a daughter, Christina, died at the age of four.

Chisholm was a lifelong Baptist. He was a member of the Second Baptist Church of Cleveland (later known as the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church). He and his friend and fellow church member, John D. Rockefeller, made the largest contributions when the church erected its new building in 1871.

Death

After a three week long unspecified illness, Henry Chisholm died at his home in Cleveland on May 9, 1881. Several hundred of the city's most important citizens attended the funeral, which was held at Chisholm's home. More than 4,000 employees of the Cleveland Rolling Mill filed past the home during the funeral.

Chisholm was temporarily interred at Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland.

Legacy Henry Chisholm erected a Tuscan Villa style mansion at 408 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. The mansion ranked among the city's finest homes. His neighbors included Samuel Livingston Mather Sr., John D. Rockefeller, Amasa Stone, and Jeptha Wade. This and other magnificent homes helped Euclid Avenue earn the nicknames "Prosperity Row" and "Millionaires' Row" for the large number of extremely wealthy people who lived on the street.

In 1880, Alva Bradley commissioned a wooden, screw-driven freighter, which was named the SS Henry Chisholm in Chisholm's honor. The ship was lost on October 20, 1898, after hitting a reef near Rock of Ages Light off Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

In November 1881, workers at the Cleveland Rolling Mill and citizens of Cleveland's 18th Ward (in which the mill was located) began an effort to erect a statue in Chisholm's honor. A fundraising committee, led by local industrialists Jeptha Wade, John Walker, Joseph Perkins, William F. Thompson, and W.E. Way, raised more than $8,800 ($ in dollars) from 5,000 workers and citizens to build the monument. Cincinnati sculptor Charles Henry Niehaus was selected to design and sculpt the piece. Niehaus completed his work fairly swiftly, and exhibited a model in Cleveland in May 1882. The statue and bas-relief panels were cast by a Cincinnati foundry. The work was erected just inside the Euclid Avenue entrance of Lake View Cemetery on December 6, 1884. Senator Henry B. Payne and Ohio railroad executive John H. Devereux spoke at the unveiling. The memorial depicts a larger-than-life size statue of Henry Chisholm, his left hand resting on a small-scale model of a steel rolling mechanism. Bas-relief panels on three sides of the pedestal depict the conversion of iron ore into steel.