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cessful hymnal remain. He was buried at Mother of God Cemetery, Covington. Hellebusch, Juliana Mattei. “B. H. F. ‘Teacher’ Hellebusch (1825–1885),” NKH 1, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1994): 13–23.
Karl Lietzenmayer
HELM, CHARLES JOHN, SR. (b. June 21, 1817, Hornellsville, N.Y.; d. February 1868, Toronto, Canada). Charles John Helm Sr., who became a lawyer, a military officer, the U.S. consul general, and a Confederate agent to Havana, Cuba, was the first of six children of Francis T. and Sallie B. McKinney Helm. In 1817, his birth year, his family moved to Newport, where in 1834 Francis Helm, a veteran of the War of 1812, became Newport’s first mayor. Educated in Newport, Charles was tutored in law by John W. Tibbatts, a noted attorney, congressman, and infantry colonel, and a sonin-law of Gen. James Taylor Jr., founder of Newport. Upon admission to the bar in 1842, Helm practiced law in Tibbatts’s firm until Tibbatts, on April 9, 1847, organized the 16th U.S. Infantry Regiment (which included 4 of the 10 companies from Kentucky), which had been reactivated on February 11 for the Mexican War. Helm was appointed a 1st lieutenant and later reached the rank of brevet major. The regiment was disbanded on August 16, 1848, and Helm returned to his law practice in Newport. Helm was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives for one term in 1851. President Franklin Pierce named him U.S. commercial agent to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1853. In 1854 Helm married Louise A. Whistler in Newport. They had five children. Back in St. Thomas, Helm successfully negotiated to have the Danish government revoke certain imposts that had hampered U.S. merchant shipping. In 1858 President James Buchanan appointed Helm as the country’s consul general to Cuba. That strategic Spanish shipping hub became very important when the Civil War commenced in 1861. Rumors spread that Helm might defect to the Confederacy, whereupon U.S. secretary of state William Seward made several attempts to retain Helm in his position in Havana, even to the extent of sending him a silk flag, according to some accounts. Nevertheless, Helm resigned as consul general and returned to the United States, evading all attempts to have him arrested for his allegiance to the South. Confederate president Jefferson Davis sent Helm back to Cuba in July 1861 as a special agent for the Confederacy; his circuitous journey took him through Canada and England to Havana. Helm worked to ensure Cuba’s neutrality during the Civil War, while simultaneously acting as the monitor of Confederate blockade-running activities. After the war, fearful of arrest for treason, Helm moved his family to Toronto, Canada, where an enclave of former Confederate politicians and senior military officers lived. He was in the welcoming party for the visiting Jefferson Davis at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, after Davis was released from federal prison in 1867. The exiled Helm died in
Charles Helm.
Toronto in 1868. His wife, Louise, and their three surviving children, Charles John Helm Jr., born in St. Thomas; Louise, born in Havana; and William W., born in Canada, returned to Newport, where Charles Jr. and William practiced law, the former becoming circuit judge. Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1. Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882. Perrin, William Henry, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffi n. Kentucky: A History of the State. Louisville, Ky.: F. A. Battey, 1888. Reis, Jim. Pieces of the Past. Vol. 2. Covington: Kentucky Post, 1991. Roberts, William Hugh. Mexican War Veterans: A Roster of the Regular and Volunteer Regiments in the War with Mexico, 1846–1848. Washington, D.C.: A. S. Witherbee, 1887.
Robert Michael Venable
HEMINGRAY, ROBERT (b. June 22, 1820, near Johnstown, Pa.; d. December 27, 1898, Covington, Ky.). Robert Hemingray joined Ralph Gray to found the Gray & Hemingray Glass Works in 1848. They were pioneer industrialists in the Northern Kentucky region, providing a product eagerly welcomed by a market hungry for a local source of quality glassware. Gray died in 1863, and in 1870 the glass works was incorporated as the Hemingray Glass Company. The company became recognized worldwide as a leader in the production of domestic and industrial glassware. Robert’s parents, William and Ann Hemingray, arrived in the United States about 1818 from England and settled on the Conemaugh River, near Johnstown, in western Pennsylvania. William found work making salt from the saline springs that abounded in the area. Robert Hemingray was born in a salt-camp cabin in 1820. William Hemingray moved his family to Pittsburgh in 1825 and opened a small general store. Unfortunately, William drowned November 22, 1832, and Ann died August 29, 1834, leaving Robert Hemingray orphaned at age 14. Despite trying circumstances, Hemingray managed to obtain a sound education, completing a college course prior to marriage and embarking on his life’s work. He was employed by the Phillips
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Glass Works, located in “Pipetown,” an industrial Pittsburgh suburb located east of the city along the Monongahela River. Because of his education, Hemingray was engaged in the business aspects of the company rather than the actual manufacturing of glass. The “Great Fire of 1845” destroyed essentially all of industrial Pittsburgh and most of its residential neighborhoods. The Phillips Glass Works was consumed by the fire as was, most likely, the residence of the young Hemingray family. Conditions in Pittsburgh became grim as thousands were put out of work and many people were left homeless. Soon after the fire, Hemingray joined forces with Ralph Gray, a glassblower living in Birmingham, Pa., an industrial community across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh. Together they descended the Ohio River to Covington with hopes of starting their own glass works. The two were unsuccessful in immediately acquiring a suitable site in Covington and were forced to lease a small lot in Cincinnati. They quickly constructed a furnace for making glass, obtained the necessary raw materials, and procured molds; they began producing glassware in late 1848. In 1852 they purchased a small lot near the intersection of Second St. and Madison Ave. in Covington and moved the production of glassware to Covington while maintaining the sales room in Cincinnati until 1881, when it also was relocated to Covington. Hemingray was progressive as well as innovative in the art of glass manufacturing. Once he and Gray had overcome the obstacles confronting them in their start-up of the glass works, he was able to focus on improvements in operational efficiency and product quality. He received patents for improvements in machinery and product design from 1860 to 1887 and encouraged his partners and employees to seek enhancements that resulted in additional patents assigned to the glass works. Robert married Mary E. Carroll June 6, 1842, in Pittsburgh, and the couple had eight children. Gray’s younger brother Anthony married Susan Carroll, a sister of Hemingray’s wife. Anthony died April 27, 1865, and Susan died two years later. Robert and Mary Hemingray took the five Gray children into their home to be raised to adulthood. The oldest son, John C. Gray, became superintendent of the Hemingray Glass Company in 1897 and was elevated to the position of general manager upon the death of Hemingray. Hemingray was not politically active. While he voted with the Whig Party, he did not seek public office, nor is there any indication that he played a role in politics behind the scenes. Northern Kentucky had strong pro-Union feelings before and during the Civil War. When the area was threatened by an attacking Confederate force in September 1862, Hemingray joined Amos Shinkle’s Covington militia company as a sergeant. Hemingray’s leadership capabilities were sorely tested during the war years, especially after the death of his partner, Ralph Gray; however, Hemingray managed to hold the company together. Robert Hemingray died at his home at 219 Garrard St. in Covington in late 1898; Mary died