S. C. Hale

S. C. Hale

In the work of this nature no space is more appropriately filled than that devoted to the capable and consistent marine and commercial editor. Such a one is the subject of this sketch, S.C. Hale, who for a long time held those responsible positions on the Cleveland Leader, a newspaper of national reputation.

Mr. Hale was born in Bath, Ohio, March 9, 1838, a son of Jonathan and Sarah (Cozad) Hale, the former of Glastonbury Conn., and a descendent of Col. Nathan Hale, a patriot of the Revolutionary war, who lost his life in the service of his country. The mother was a daughter of the Cozad family, who also came out of New England, and were pioneers of Cleveland, when but three or four houses constituted the embryo "Forest City." Mr. Hale's father was born in 1777, and his mother in 1800; they were united in marriage at Cleveland in 1832.

The district school in Bath, presided over by teachers of more than ordinary ability, was the scene of Mr. Hale's early education, after which he attended the Richfield academy. He acquired his college education at Michigan University, leaving that institution in the year 1862. He then returned to Cleveland and found employment in the dry-goods house of E.I. Baldwin & Co., remaining in their employ two years.

In 1864 he was appointed and assigned by the American Missionary Association to labor among the freed people of South Carolina, his particular field being Beaufort and Hilton Head. He continued two and a half years in this field when he was transferred by this Missionary Society to Lexington, Ky., and labored there until Gen. O. O. Howard, who at the close of the War of the Rebellion was at the head of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, appointed by Mr. Hale, as assistant superintendent of colored schools in Kentucky, his territory being the fifty eastern counties in that State. This difficult position he successfully filled until discharged early in the year 1869.

On his return to Cleveland in 1869 he became partner with a young man in a country store at Shiloh, Ohio, passing a year and a half in that business. In 1871 he returned to Cleveland, and entered the employ of Raymond, Lowe & Co., wholesale dry-goods merchants at the corner of Water and Frankfort streets, the firm moving later to the corner of Bank and St. Clair streets. He was with this firm seven years. From the fall of 1878 to the spring of 1882 he was also salesman in the employ first of Keeler & Smith, and later of E. A. Palmer & Brother in the grocers' sundries trade.

In 1882 Mr. Hale commenced his marine and commercial editorial work on the Cleveland Leader, filling both departments with credit to himself and the paper until 1889, when he resigned his marine work, and continues as editor of financial and commercial to this date. In connection with his newspaper work he opened a book store in a small way in 1865, which has developed into a lucrative business, and with ample stock he is now located at No. 202-203 Cuyahoga Building. In 1886 he purchased the Cleveland Price Current to which he devotes some of his time. The field of this paper is among the produce commission merchants and others interested in commercial affairs.

Mr. Hale has been an active and conscientious member of the Congregational Church since 1857, at at the time of this writing is superintendent of the Sunday School of the Park Congregational Church, he having filled that office during the past four years.

In September 1867, Mr. Hale wedded Miss Vira Gould, of Biddeford, Maine. Her brother, Jesse Gould, was a member of the State Legislature of Maine, and interested in the advancement of the colored people of the South, and Miss Gould by Act of the Legislature of the State entered the field as a teacher; she was stationed at Beaufort, Hilton Head, and Charleston, S. C., where she first met Mr. Hale. Their children are Hattie Lillian, a graduate of the Cleveland high and Normal training schools, and a teacher in the Cleveland schools for six years; and Jesse Gould, also a graduate of the Cleveland high schools. He is associated with his father in the book store, the firm name being S. C. Hale & Son. By good business methods Mr. Hale has acquired considerable property. The family homestead is at No. 760 Doan street, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.