Notable Ohioans Who Shaped our Past and Present

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft (Sept. 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930). William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati. He was appointed first to the superior court of Cincinnati and later to the federal circuit court for the 6th District, before becoming the 27th president of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913. He later became the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1921. He died in Washington in 1930, the same year he retired from the Supreme Court.

Salmon Portland Chase

Salmon Portland Chase (Jan. 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873). Salmon Portland Chase was born in New Hampshire. In 1849, Chase was elected to the U. S. Senate. In 1855, he became governor of Ohio and was re-elected in 1857. In 1860, he again was elected to the U.S. Senate. Throughout his political career, Chase fought vigorously against slavery. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Chase the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He died in New York in 1873.

Noah Haynes Swayne

Noah Haynes Swayne (Dec. 7, 1804 – June 8, 1884). Noah Haynes Swayne was born in Virginia. At the age of 22, he was appointed local prosecuting attorney and was later elected to the state legislature in 1829. The next year, President Andrew Jackson appointed Swayne U. S. attorney for the district of Ohio. President Abraham Lincoln then appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862, where he served until 1881. He died three years later in New York.

John McClean

John McLean (March 3, 1785 – April 3, 1861). John McLean was born in New Jersey and moved to Ohio in 1796. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1813, but resigned in 1816 to take a seat on the Supreme Court of Ohio, where he served from 1816 to 1822, when he resigned his judgeship. In 1829, McLean was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Andrew Jackson. McLean wrote a number of antislavery opinions, including one as a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. He died in Cincinnati in 1861.

Stanley Matthews

Stanley Matthews (July 21, 1824 – March 22, 1889). Stanley Matthews was born in Kentucky. From 1851 to 1853, he served as a common pleas court judge in Ohio. He later served in the Ohio Senate from 1855 to 1857. In 1863, Matthews was elected to the Cincinnati Superior Court. Newly elected President James A. Garfield appointed Matthews to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1881. He sat until illness forced him off the bench in 1888, and he died in Washington the next year.

Edwin McMasters Stanton

Edwin McMasters Stanton (Dec. 19, 1814 – Dec. 24, 1869). Edwin McMasters Stanton was born in Steubenville, Ohio. In 1837, Stanton was elected prosecuting attorney of Harrison County and from 1842 to 1845 he served as reporter of decisions for the Supreme Court of Ohio in Columbus. In 1860, President James Buchanan appointed Stanton to serve as U.S. attorney general. During the Civil War, Stanton served as secretary of war. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Stanton to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he died of chronic asthma before taking office.

Morrison Remick Waite

Morrison Remick Waite (Nov. 29, 1816 – March 23, 1888). Morrison Remick Waite was born in Connecticut. He was a member of the Ohio legislature from 1849 to 1850, served on the Toledo City Council in 1851 and was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1874. He served as chief justice on the Supreme Court for 14 years. He drafted opinions and led the Court almost up to the moment of his death in Washington in 1888.

William Rufus Day

William Rufus Day (April 17, 1849 – July 9, 1923). William R. Day was born in Ravenna, Ohio. In 1899, President William McKinley appointed Day to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Day to the U.S. Supreme Court. Day sat on the Supreme Court for almost 20 years during an era when the court made numerous decisions increasing the involvement and police powers of both the federal and state governments in the economy. He died on Mackinac Island, Mich., in 1923.

William Burnham Woods

William Burnham Woods (Aug. 3, 1824 – May 14, 1887). William Burnham Woods was born in Newark, Ohio. Woods was elected mayor of Newark in 1856. He was later elected to the Ohio General Assembly and re-elected in 1859. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Woods to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Woods to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1880. In 1886, Woods was struck with an unspecified illness and later died in Washington.

John Hessin Clarke

John Hessin Clarke (Sept. 18, 1857 – March 22, 1945). John Hessin Clarke was born in New Lisbon, Ohio. After practicing law, he became part owner of the Youngstown Vindicator. In 1914, he became a judge on the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916 and served until 1922. During his career, Clarke supported such progressive liberal causes as trust-busting, labor standards, and world peace. He died at his home in San Diego in 1945.

Harold Hitz Burton

Harold Hitz Burton (June 22, 1888 – Oct. 28, 1964). Harold Hitz Burton was born in Massachusetts. He won a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1928 and in 1935, he was elected mayor of Cleveland. He later was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 1940 until his 1945 appointment by President Harry S. Truman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Burton served on the court for 13 full terms before resigning in 1958. He died of Parkinson’s disease in Washington  in 1964.

Potter Stewart

Potter Stewart (Jan. 23, 1915 – Dec. 7, 1985). Potter Stewart was born in Michigan. In 1954, when Stewart was only 39, he was appointed to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until his retirement in 1981. He is perhaps best known for his take on obscenity. It may be indefinable, Stewart wrote, “but I know it when I see it.” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964). After retiring from the Supreme Court, Potter continued to sit for several years as a judge on federal courts of appeals. He died in Hanover, N.H., in 1985.

Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison (Aug. 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901). The grandson of William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio, but moved as a young adult to Indianapolis, where he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1881. Harrison served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893 during the four years preceding the depression of 1893. His administration produced the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, the most important piece of legislation of its kind in the nation’s history. He died in Indianapolis in 1901.

Ulysses Simpson Grant

Ulysses Simpson Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885). Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He fought in the Mexican and Civil Wars, where his victories led to his appointment as general in chief of all Union armies. In 1869, Grant became the nation’s 18th president, serving from 1869 to 1877. The 15th Amendment of the Constitution banning racial discrimination in voting rights was ratified during his first year in office. Grant was re-elected in 1872. He died of throat cancer in 1885.

James Abram Garfield

James Abram Garfield (Nov. 19, 1831 – Sept. 19, 1881). James A. Garfield was born in Orange Township (now Moreland Hills), Ohio. In 1862, Garfield was elected to Congress as a representative from Ohio’s 19th District and in 1880 was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1881, Garfield became the 20th president of the United States, but his presidency was short-lived. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station. He died 11 weeks later and is buried in Cleveland.

Warren Gamaliel Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding (Nov. 2, 1865 – Aug. 2, 1923). Warren G. Harding was born near Blooming Grove, Ohio. He served two terms in the Ohio Senate and was lieutenant governor from 1904 to 1906. In 1914, the first year in which U.S. senators were directly elected, Harding was elected to the U. S. Senate. In 1920, he was elected the 29th president of the United States. Three years later, while still in office, Harding suffered a heart attack, bronchial pneumonia, and a cerebral hemorrhage, resulting in his death. He is buried in Marion, Ohio.

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison (Feb. 9, 1773 - April 4, 1841). William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States from February 1841 to April 4, 1841, was born in Virginia. In 1799, Harrison was elected the first Northwest Territory delegate to the U.S. Congress. He went on to serve in Congress and in the Ohio Senate from 1816 to 1828. In 1840, he was elected to the U.S. presidency, but served only slightly more than a month before dying of pneumonia in Washington.

William McKinley

William McKinley (Jan. 29, 1843 – Sept. 14, 1901). William McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio. After law school, he opened a practice in Canton and in 1869, was elected prosecuting attorney for Stark County. In 1876, McKinley was elected to Congress from Ohio’s 17th District. McKinley went on to become governor of Ohio in 1891. In 1896, he became the 25th U.S. president, serving from 1897 to 1901. During McKinley’s second term as president, he was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz during the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. He died shortly thereafter and is buried in Canton, Ohio.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Oct. 4, 1822 – Jan. 17, 1893). Born in Delaware, Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives after fighting in the Civil War. In 1868, he served the first of multiple terms as governor of Ohio. Hayes primarily was responsible for establishing The Ohio State University. In 1877, he became the 19th president of the United States (1877 to 1881). He died from an attack of angina pectoris a few months after his 70th birthday.

Joseph Warren Keifer

Joseph Warren Keifer (Jan. 30, 1836 – April 22, 1932). Joseph Warren Keifer was born near Springfield, Ohio. In 1876, he was elected to the first of his seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served as speaker from 1881 to 1883. He was appointed major general during the Spanish-American War and later served as the Ohio commander of the Loyal Legion. Following that, he returned to Congress, where he remained until his defeat in 1910. He later died in Springfield, Ohio.

Nicholas Longworth

Nicholas Longworth (Nov. 5, 1869 – April 9, 1931). Nicholas Longworth was born in Cincinnati. He was elected to the Cincinnati Board of Education in 1898 and later served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1899 and 1900 before moving to the Ohio Senate from 1901 to 1903. He then was elected to the U.S. Congress and served from 1903 to 1913. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912, but was successful in 1914 and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1915 until his death in 1931.

John Andrew Boehner

John Andrew Boehner (1949 – present). John Boehner was born in Reading, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. The son of a bartender and second oldest of 12 brothers and sisters, he attended Cincinnati’s Moeller High School and Xavier University, and started his own small business. In 1990, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Eighth Congressional District of Ohio, where he was elected as House Majority Leader in 2006 and chosen to become House Republican Leader later that year. On January 5, 2011, Boehner took the gavel as Speaker of the House. He retired in 2015 and returned home to Ohio and joined a global law firm as a strategic advisor.

Albion Tourgee

Clarence Darrow

Florence Ellinwood Allen