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History of COLUMBUS Franklin County, Ohio Pictorial and Biographical N E IV YORK AND CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING CO. 1909 £Lu^j t^tÛj Colonel $amt& Mbourne nl (Enlumhua AMES KILBOURNE was born in the city of Colum bus, where he now resides and enjoys the confidence and respect of the entire community, on the 9th day of October, 1841. His grandfather, also Colonel James Kilbourne, was a distinguished pioneer of this state. His father, Lincoln Kilbourne, was prominent among the early merchants of the borough even be fore the present state capital was organized as a city. He graduated from Kenyon College in 1862, A.B. and A.M., member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Nu Pi Kappa Societies and of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. From Harvard Law School, 1868, LL.B. Was a soldier during the Civil war, rising from the ranks to Brevet Colonel of United States Volunteers. Founder, president and general man ager of the Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Company, one among the largest plants of the kind in the world, with trade in nearly all the world's leading markets. He has held the following positions in civil life: President of the Co lumbus Board of Trade; president for eight years of the Board of Trustees of the Columbus Public Library; founder and president of the Columbus Chil dren's Hospital; president of the Columbus Club and of the Arlington Coun try Club; president Ohio Centennial Commission; president of the Columbus Neighborhood Guild; president of the Old Northwest Genealogical and His torical Society; president of the Central Ohio Harvard Club and of the Kenyon College Association of Central Ohio; vestryman St. Paul's Protestant Epis copal church; chairman Board of Trustees Midland Mutual Life Insurance Company; director of the New First National bank; the Hayden-Clinton Na tional bank; the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railway and the Colum bus & Cincinnati Midland Railway; of many private business corporations, and president for many years of the Magazine Club, the oldest literary club in central Ohio. A member of the following organizations: The National Civic Federa tion; The National Conference of Charities; The National Geographic So ciety; The Ohio Vicksburg Battlefield Commission; The National Forestry Association; the American Economic Association; the American Society of 6 Colonel gamej Mftourne Political and Social Science; The Ohio Historical and Archaeological So ciety; The National Child Labor Association; The Ohio Society of New York; vice president of the National Irrigation Association, and honorary member of the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly and of the Columbus Building and Trades Council. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war he offered his services to the governor of Ohio in capacity, but was disappointed in the fact that there arose no exigency requiring those services. Delegate from the 12th Ohio district to the Democratic National Con ventions in 1892 and 1896, and delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention of 1900 and was chairman of the delegation. Candidate for dis trict elector for president from the 12th Ohio district in 1908. He was nominated by acclamation for governor of Ohio by the Demo cratic State Convention in 1901. President (1903-04) of the Ohio Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and a member of the "Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims" and of the Society of Descendants of the Mayflower, being descended on his mother's side from Elder William Brewster. He served during the Civil war in the 84th and 95th regiments, O. V. I., and on the staffs of Gen. J. M. Tuttle and Gen. John McArthur, command ing divisions of the Army of the Tennessee. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Union Veteran Legion; and (1908-09) is first vice president of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee and commander of the Ohio Commandery of the Mil itary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He was married October 9, 1869, to Miss Anna B. Wright, the eldest daughter of Gen. George Bohan Wright. There were born to them three sons, James Russell, George Bancroft (died November 22, 1906), and Lin coln; and one daughter, Alice, who married Hon. Robert H. Jeffrey, former mayor of Columbus. It is said, in the restricted, or neighborhood sense, that a man's character may be most largely judged by the company he keeps. In the broader and more comprehensive sense, he is to be judged by the breadth and versatility of the field of his activities, the self-evident purpose of those activities, the transparent frankness of his aspirations and the nobility of his ambitions, all of which are manifested in the final results of each and the last analysis of the achievement. Col. Kilbourne has been thus estimated in the past, is being estimated in the present and will be measured and weighed by the same rule in the future. He has not been a make weight at any time along any of these sum- Colonel 3 a meg foiluourne 7 marized lines of endeavor, but always a "live wire," to use an expressive phrase of the current era, in every one of them. The man who, as the leading factor in a great manufacturing plant, re quiring the labor of his fellow men as employes up into the thousands, day by day, month by month, through a long series of years, naturally did a great deal in building up the city, and making possible the building of many homes by means of fair compensation for honest toil, accomplished much of life's mission, that is told between the unimpassioned lines of the foregoing para graphs, and the writer would not presume upon a long and intimate ac quaintance and friendship, to detail that which would afford him much pleasure, knowing as he does that Col. Kilbourne's right hand and left hand have always kept their secrets from each other, secrets that were not trumpeted into men's ears, but were felt in many humble homes and treasured in human hearts. It suffices to know that in all he undertook he never failed to achieve a measure of good results, which set the standard and gauge of the world a little higher. Absorbed as he has been in his large industrial affairs, he has never failed to perform all his civic duties, although he has never been an office-holder or an office-seeker. No public or private charity but touches his pocket-book first and his sympathies afterward. No movement for the furtherance of education, but received his cordial assistance. The founder of a Hospital for Children, his hand is still helpful toward every other movement to assuage and alleviate the sufferings of mankind. In short, he is a human being with human sym pathies. His three sons were, after they reached maturity, associated with him in business. James Russell Kilbourne, the eldest, attended the University of Vir ginia. In 1895 he was elected as a democrat to the Ohio Legislature, at its twenty-second assembly. He was a lieutenant of battery in the O. N. G. At the time of the beginning of the Spanish-American war he was abroad; on his return home he recruited a company of cavalry. The service was, how ever, overcrowded and the company was not mustered in. Mr. J. R. Kil bourne is vice president and assistant general manager of the Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Company and president of the Board of Trustees of the Columbus Public Library. George Bancroft, the second son, was a graduate of Williams College, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and of the Sigma Phi fraternity. He enlisted as a private in the Fourth Ohio Volunteers, served in Puerto Rico and was promoted to second sergeant for gallantry in action, and was one of four officers and men in his regiment recommended to receive a medal for bravery. After the war he was commissioned captain and adjutant of the 8 Colonel gameg liillioutnc 14th O. N. G. He was a young man of exceptional endowments and a most brilliant and promising career seemed before him. He was placed at the head of the Chicago branch of the great Kilbourne & Jacobs Company and was meeting with the most flattering success when in the late fall of 1906 he was stricken with pneumonia and passed away November 22, 1906. His youngest son, Lincoln, born September ô, 1874, is purchasing agent and one of the directors of the Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Company. He presented himself for enlistment during the war with Spain, but 'was rejected on account of sickness at the time. He attended Williams College and is a member of the Sigma Phi fraternity. He married Miss Flora Burr and they with their three children, two daughters and one son, reside at "Hawk- hurst" in Bullitt Park. Alice Kilbourne, the only daughter of the house, as already noted, is the wife of Ex-Mayor Robert H. Jeffrey. She was born August 7, 1877. They reside with their three children, two sons and one daughter, in their country home of "Kelveden" in Bullitt Park. c/~. /^ ê^. £«. /^^6^TAA*4L^ MUNSELL X C9N.Y Lincoln Mftourne INCOLN KILBOURNE was born October 19, 1810, in Worthington, which town was founded by his father in the northern part of Franklin county—the seat of a Connecticut colony piloted into central Ohio at the beginning of the nineteenth century by his father, James Kilbourne, whose name was intimately connected with the early growth and development of Franklin county.

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