Part I……The Letter
(First of a 4 part series)
The opened letter lay on the small table in the front hallway. It was addressed to Mr. Samuel Hine, Pittsburg Street, Poland, Ohio. It was a warm Saturday morning in the spring of 1882 and each day for the past week Mr. Hine had come downstairs and looked at the unanswered letter. “That General Tom Sanderson is causing me trouble,” he muttered under his breath. “He’s a good friend, and he should know I don’t have time to write my family’s biography. Where did he get such a crazy idea that people would buy and read a book containing the family histories of all the local community leaders? That old Union soldier must have fallen off his horse in Murfreeboro. Tenn., at the Battle of Stones River and landed on his head.”
After breakfast when his children had gone outside to play in the side yard, Mr. Hine picked up the letter and sat down in his favorite chair next to the window. He sat there for several minutes staring out the front window at the Presbyterian Church beyond the Village Green. He began to think about another spring morning fifty years earlier when he was just a boy sitting in the front pew of the downtown Presbyterian Church. His father was reading from the Old Testament about Noah and his sons replenishing the earth after the flood. What did his father later tell him about his ancestors? All those old names and dates are recorded in the Family Bible. Perhaps that would be a good place to start the biography. He walked over to the writing desk in the corner and picked up the Bible, found a piece of writing paper, dipped a pen into a bottle of ink and began writing.
“My great-grandfather was James Hine who was born in New Milford, Connecticut, in 1696. He became dairy farmer. He married a woman named Margaret Noble and they had two sons, Austin and Noble, and several daughters. Noble was my grandfather who also farmed and when the Revolutionary War started, he joined the Connecticut Militia and rose to the rank of Colonel. He died in 1795, leaving three sons, one of whom was my father, Homer Hubbell Hine. My father’s youngest sister, Sophia, became the wife of Rev. Charles A. Boardman who for many years was pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Youngstown, Ohio.”
Samuel looked over the page he had just written and then back at the General’s letter. “I’ll finish my father’s biography later,” he thought, “right now I want to start on an outline of my own life.” He found another piece of paper and began writing again.
“I was born on March 31, 1816. I had two older sisters who enjoyed taking care of me as a baby. We all lived in a very small frame house in Youngstown, Ohio. When I was 2 years old, my father moved us into a large farm located at the end of East Federal Street where Crab Creek empties into the Mahoning River. Five more brothers were born there and when I was 17 years old tragedy struck our family. My one year old twin brothers died from measles. In 1836, while I was in my second year of college in Hudson, Ohio, father wrote to say he had sold a small strip of land along the river to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal Company. The pending arrival of the canal convinced me to leave college and become part of the new economic growth which would soon be coming to the Youngstown Area. I talked my brother-in-law, Henry Wick, into hiring me to work in his mercantile business. After several years I had enough money to open my own store in Hubbard. It was there that I met a pretty young girl from Coitsville by the name of Ellen Louise Montgomery. We were married on June 26, 1844 and had daughter, Mary and son, Cecil.”
At this point, Samuel Hine’s five children to his second wife, Emma Caroline Kirtland, came running into the room. Their ages ranged from 5 to 15. He put down his pen and placed his biography and Sanderson’s letter in the Family Bible. He would work on it another day.
(to be continued)
Editor’s Note: Thomas W. Sanderson was a leading lawyer in Youngstown when he enlisted in the cavalry in 1861. As a brigade commander he fought in all the Army of the Cumberland engagements. The rank of Brigadier-General was conferred to him for gallantry in action at Bear Creek Station, south of Atlanta. His own biography is among the 600 he received in reply to the letters he mailed to prominent citizens in Mahoning County. His compilation was finally published in 1909 and is on the reference shelf of the Poland Library.
Samuel Hine (1816-1893)
Part II……The Portrait
(Second of a 4 part series)
A whole year had passed since he had first sat down to begin his biography. It was now May of 1883 and his son, Samuel Jr., would soon be graduating from Poland Seminary. A lot had happened in the last 12 months. Just before Christmas his mother had died and he had to make all of the arrangements to have her buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery next to his father, Homer. That was not easy as his mother had been living on the old Skinner homestead in Painesville after moving from Youngstown ten years earlier to live with her son Homer. Samuel then had to telegraph his brother Augustus in Pasadena, California. Mary Skinner Hine, one of Youngstown’s earliest pioneers, had been mentally alert until her death at 93.
Mr. Hine had not forgotten Thomas Sanderson’s letter. Just before the funeral he had sent the General his father’s lengthy biography. He was now working on his own. However, Emma had given him a more important project. “I want a family portrait,” his wife said one evening at supper. “My children will be leaving home before you know it. Young Samuel will be heading for college in a few months and I want you to arrange for a photographer to come to the house and take some pictures of our family while we are all living together?”
Now the day for the portrait taking had arrived. The photographer set up his camera in the large dining room where the lighting was the best. Mr. Hine sat down in his favorite chair that was brought in from the parlor and Emma chose to sit in Billius Kirtland’s chair. It had been her father’s favorite chair. The photographer gave the following instructions. “I want 6 year old Charles to stand between his mother and father. Now we will have 9 year old Homer put his arm on his father’s shoulder and we will have 11 year old Alfred lean on his mother’s chair. Fourteen year old Ellen…you can stand behind your father and Samuel, since you are 16 and the oldest, it is best that you stand in the middle of the photograph. Good! I like that arrangement. Now look at the camera and don’t be frightened by the flash.” Below is the Samuel and Emma Kirtland Hine family portrait that has been preserved in the Hine Family Album for over 120 years.
Many thanks to Edward “Ted” Kirtland Hine, Jr. of Louisville, Colorado,
who provided this photo from his album of the Hine and Kirtland Families of Poland, Ohio,
Samuel Hine (1816-1893)
Part III…Called Away
(Third of a 4 part series)
A Pioneer Resident of the
County Dead.
RIPE IN YEARS AND HONOR,
Death of Samuel Hine, one of the
Best Known of Mahoning Men
_____________________
Samuel Hine died at 9:27 o’clock this morning at his home in Poland at the age of 77.
The deceased was a pioneer resident of Mahoning county and has lived in this community all of his life.
About six years ago he was prostrated by a severe sun stroke, from which he never fully recovered. Last December he slipped on the walk at his home and in falling broke his leg at the hip. Owing to his advanced age he never rallied from the shock and he steadily faded away. His death was due to a gradual dissolution known as old age and was hastened by the severe shock his injury of last winter occasioned.
Samuel Hine was born in this city on March 31, 1816, at the old house that stood for a number of years near the Lake Shore passenger station. He was the oldest son of Homer and Mary Hine. His early days were spent in this city and when he became a young man he entered Hudson College. He left college before he graduated and formed a partnership at Brookfield with Henry Wick, the firm doing a general mercantile business.
He soon returned to this city, and in (1836) he removed to Hubbard, where he again embarked in mercantile pursuits. Soon afterwards he located to Poland and has since been engaged in looking after his vast real estate interests.
The deceased married Miss Ellen Louise Montgomery, daughter of Robert Montgomery, June 26th, 1844. Two children were born of this marriage, Cecil D. Hine, of the firm of Hine & Clarke, and a daughter, who now resides in Missouri.
Mrs. Hine died May 18th, 1865, and her husband was afterwards wedded to Miss Emma Kirtland, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Billius Kirtland, of Boardman. His second wife and her five children survive him, as follows: (Samuel) Kirtland, Miss Ellen, Homer, Alfred and Charlie.
The deceased was an intelligent man of great force and character, and was respected by all who knew him. His dealings in real estate, which at the time of his death, amounted to a vast fortune. He was a brother of Mrs. Henry Wick, of Cleveland, and Mrs. Dudley Baldwin. The deceased was a director in the Farmer’s bank of Poland and his death will be a great loss to the village.
The funeral services will be held Monday at 2 p.m., at his late residence.
________________________
Editor’s Note: The above obituary appeared on May 19, 1893 in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator. It was apparently written by a young journalist who believed that not many persons reached the very old age of 77. Perhaps it was then, but not today. As you read this I will be turning 77 and I do not believe that I’m gradually dissolving. “Ripening” is a better term to use.
Samuel Hine was buried in the Family Plot in the Riverside Cemetery and directly north of the Civil War Monument. At the time of his death his personal property was valued at $40,000 and his real estate at $90,000. His wife, Emma, inherited the house and property on South Main Street. His first son, Cecil, being a 44 year old attorney was declared the executor of the will. Named in the will were Samuel’s five children to his second wife and Lizzie W. Hine, wife of Cecil. Mary his first daughter was deceased.
Samuel Hine (1816-1893)
Part IV…His Legacy
(Final of a 4 part series)
After the funeral services Samuel Hine was laid to rest in the family plot at the Riverside Cemetery. The Hine family life continued. Emma, his wife, stayed in the large house her grandfather, George Kirtland, had built in 1845 at 441 South Main Street in Poland, Ohio. Then in 1914 she died at the age of 73 and was laid to rest along side her husband of 27 years. All of Samuel Hine’s children were well educated and went on to be prominent and successful in their respective fields of endeavor.
Samuel Kirtland Hine (1867-1942) who had graduated in engineering in 1892 from Rensselaer Polytechic Institute went on to become a respected industrialist, chemist, and finally general manager of A. M. Byers of Girard. He married Alma Paige of Painesville and had no children.
Alfred Blakelee Hine (1872-1942) later graduated from R.P.I. in 1895 and became half owner and Vice President of the McKelvey-Hine Company, a Pittsburgh based construction and engineering firm which built railroad bridges. In 1899 he married Marguerite Hull Gibson and had two daughters, Elinor and Marguerite.
Homer Henry Hine (1874-1958) obtained a degree in Electrical Engineer-ing from Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland and in 1901 moved to Seattle, Washington. There he became superintendent of construction for the Independent Telephone Company. Later Homer became half owner of Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel Company. In his mid-thirties he married Rose Belle Turner in 1910 and had three children, Thomas, Ruth and Edward. It was Edward’s son,
“Ted” Junior, who has compiled a vast collection of history and photographs of the Kirtland and Hine Families on a computer CD, which he has made available to the Riverside Review.
Charles Potter Hine (1877-1942) obtained a law degree from Yale University and became a founding partner in the Cleveland law firm of Thompson, Hine, & Florey which today is still one of the city’s largest law firms. It is interesting to note that when Charles Hine graduated from Yale in 1898 a whole century had passed since his grandfather, Homer Hubbell Hine, had graduated from the same institution. (See Issue No. 41)
Ellen Louise Hine (1869-1955) never married and continued to live in the family homestead until her death. Her life story was covered in detail in the Riverside Review back in Sept. 2004.
The year 1942 was a particularly tragic period for the Hine Family. Three of Samuel Hine’s children died within 6 months of each other. First Samuel Kirtland died on April 24th following a year of illness, then Charles Potter died on September 4th, and finally Alfred Blakelee died on October 24th. Four of Samuel’s 7 children are buried in the Riverside Cemetery. The Mary, Alfred and Charles graves are located elsewhere.
Of particular interest is the last will and testament of Samuel Hine’s son, industrialist Samuel Kirtland, who inherited his father’s love for the Poland Village Green and, having no children, left 1/8 of his estate equaling $218,752 to Poland Village for the maintenance and improvement of the Green and the Old Cemetery adjacent to the Presbyterian Church. Today a Board of Trustees, appointed by the Village, work hard to see that the Village Green is properly mowed, leaves picked up, and the Green and Cemetery are planted with flowers.