HAWES, HARRY BARTOW
production numbers, the Harvard Piano Company manufactured about 30,000 pianos from 1885 until the business was discontinued in 1925. For many years after it closed, there was a bowling alley in the piano company’s former building. “Newport Shop to Build Air Ships, Report,” KP, August 18, 1917, 1. “Piano Plant to Resume Operations,” KP, February 4, 1908, 5. Piano World. “Piano Forums.” www.pianoworld.com (accessed December 21, 2005). Renfrow Piano Tuning Home Page. “Cincinnati Piano History.” www.pianocincinnati.com (accessed December 21, 2005). “What Becomes of the Old Churches?” KP, August 27, 1913, 4.
HATFIELD, J. T. (b. February 25, 1865, Lincoln, Ill.; d. July 19, 1938, Cape May, Mass.). James Tobias Hatfield, a coal merchant and a philanthropist, was the son of Henry C. and Amelia Hatfield, who moved with their family to Covington when James was a teenager. In 1882 James opened a small coal yard there on 15th St. and from that location delivered kindling wood and coal to homes in his neighborhood, using a small wagon he pulled by hand. As his business grew, he purchased a mule and a cart for making deliveries. Five years later he purchased the Bond Brothers Coal Company and renamed it the J. T. Hatfield Coal Company. Continued business growth led him to branch out into other aspects of the coal business in subsequent years. He operated a coal mine near Reed, W.Va., and bought steamboats and barges to transport the coal to Cincinnati. As he became more successful, he was asked to become a director of many local companies. He was also named president of the Atlas Coal Company, the Great Kanawha Improvement Association, and, in Kentucky, the Pomeroy Dock in Carrollton. About 1920 the Hatfield Coal Company merged with six other coal companies, and Hatfield was made vice president of the newly formed Hatfield-Reliance Coal Company. When the company’s president, Julius Fleischmann, died in 1925, Hatfield became president. Hatfield became involved in many philanthropic causes and often gave free coal to poor families. He was a member of several clubs, including the Covington Industrial Club, the Fort Mitchell Country Club, and, in Ohio, the Queen City Club and the Cincinnati Club. He was the founder of the Covington Boy Scouts and served as the first council president of that organization. In 1891 Hatfield married Ellen Daisy Methven, and they had eight children. After suffering a stroke in 1933, Hatfield reduced his workload by resigning from many of the positions he held. He died at age 73 at his summer home on Cape May, Mass. Over the years, he and his family lived at several Covington locations. At the time of his death, his home was at 400 Wallace Ave. in Wallace Woods. His wife, Ellen, five daughters, and three sons survived him. He was buried at Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell. In 1977 Hatfield’s daughters, Louise and Virginia, had a large stained-glass window
installed in the Covington Trinity Episcopal Church in memory of their father. “Coal Man Succumbs in East,” CE, July 21, 1938, 2. “Eight Northern Kentuckians in 1928 Edition of Who’s Who,” KP, April 4, 1928, 1. “Hatfield Is Recipient of Fine Testimonial,” KP, October 16, 1919, 1. “Patriots Will Dine,” KP, October 10, 1919, 1. Steamboats.org. “Sternwheeler Towboat J. T. Hatfield.” www.steamboats.org.
Jack Wessling
HATHAWAY, HENRY, JR. (b. March 14, 1804, Belfast, Maine; d. July 28, 1877, Eaton, Ohio). Henry Hathaway Jr., a humanitarian and a reputed abolitionist, was the son of Henry and Abigail Chase Hathaway. His father, born in Massachusetts, became an early and prosperous settler of Cincinnati and left an estate of $2 million when he died in 1852. Henry Jr. married Jane Hubbell, a native of Clark Co., Ohio, in March 1827. For a short time, he operated a store and pork-packing facility in West Alexandria in Preble Co., Ohio, where his son Hannibal Chase was born in 1831. That business failed, and by the late 1830s, Henry Jr. and his family moved to Texas and remained there about five years; their daughter Eliza Jane was born in Texas in 1838. By 1843 Henry Jr. had moved back to Cincinnati, and resided on W. 5th St. in Hathaway’s Subdivision in Cincinnati’s West End; by 1849 he operated a store on that street. In the same year, he purchased slightly more than six acres of land at 1210 Highway Ave., in what is now West Covington, for $14,250. This was a high price for the times and generally confirms the belief that the property already contained a stately home. Situated on a hill overlooking the Ohio River, Hathaway Hall, as it came to be known, featured a spectacular view of the river valley and of the West End of Cincinnati. According to oral tradition, Hathaway used his home as a stop along the Underground Railroad. He presumably concealed slaves in a small cellar room, which was entered through a trap door from one of the parlors and was connected to a ser vice tunnel that once led from the house to the river. The probability of Hathaway’s abolitionism is strengthened by a number of facts. First, he was a client and friend of Salmon P. Chase, a noted abolitionist lawyer of Cincinnati and later a member of President Abraham Lincoln’s administration (whether Hathaway’s mother, Abigail Chase, was related to Salmon P. Chase is unknown at this time). Second, Hathaway’s family, as evidenced in legal documents such as wills, were trusted friends of noted Cincinnati abolitionists Samuel Lewis and Nicholas Longworth. Third, Hathaway had familial and property ties to Preble Co., Ohio, a hotbed of the abolitionist movement. Fourth, other family members owned land in areas well known for their abolitionist activity. For instance, his son Hannibal Chase owned 72 acres in Crosby Township of Hamilton Co., west of Cincinnati and along the Underground Railroad routes into Indiana. Finally, Hathaway demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. He
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originally belonged to the Enon Baptist Church on Sycamore St. in Cincinnati, which later became a Disciples of Christ congregation. By 1859, he was an elder of a mission church of the Disciples of Christ on the west side of Freeman Ave. in Cincinnati’s poor West End neighborhood. The church was within walking distance of Hathaway’s home in West Covington, via the Fifth St. Ferry. That ferryboat crossed the Ohio River near Hathaway Hall into Cincinnati’s West End, terminating close to yet another “Hathaway’s subdivision” with a street named Hannibal (presumably after Henry’s son). In September 1855, Henry and his wife conveyed Hathaway Hall and its six-plus acres to their son Hannibal Chase; however, they continued to reside there for many years. In 1871 Jane Hathaway died at the home, and four years later, in 1875, Hathaway Hall and its acreage were advertised for rent. Henry Hathaway died in 1877 at his residence in Eaton in Preble Co., Ohio. An obituary in the Christian Standard stated that “for the last thirty years and more he devoted his time to the preaching of the word among the poor.” He was buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery in the Cumminsville neighborhood of Cincinnati. Hathaway Hall in West Covington was sold in 1952 to Joe Spratt, a local manual arts teacher at Ludlow High School, who attempted to restore the house to its original beauty. He found the task overwhelming and eventually sold the property to Arnold Ingram, a real estate developer. Ingram had the house torn down in 1969 and, in its place, built a high-rise senior citizens apartment building, which he named Hathaway Court. Deed Book 14, pp. 196–97, Kenton Co. Court house, Independence, Ky. “Hathaway Hall Coming Down,” KP, March 12, 1969, 6K. History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. Williams and Bro., 1881. Kenton Co. Public Library. “Hathaway Senior Citizens Apartments.” www.kenton.lib.ky.us/genealogy/ history/covington/article.cfm?ID=218. Niven, John, ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers. Vol. 1, Journals, 1829–1872. Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 1993. Salmon P. Chase Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Mysteries of Ohio’s Underground Railroads. Columbus, Ohio: Long’s College Book Company, 1951. “This Old House,” CE, November 12, 1961, 4F. Versailles, Elizabeth Starr, ed. Hathaways of America. Northampton, Mass.: Gazette, 1970. “West Covington,” Ludlow Reporter, April 17, 1875, 2.
Paul A. Tenkotte and Jack Wessling
HAWES, HARRY BARTOW (b. November 15, 1869, Covington, Ky.; d. July 31, 1947, Washington, D.C.). Harry B. Hawes, a U.S. senator, was the son of Smith Nicholas Hawes and nephew of Confederate brigadier general James Morrison Hawes. Harry Hawes’s mother was the former Susan Elizabeth Simrall, daughter of well-known Covington attorney Charles Simrall. Harry Hawes moved to St. Louis, Mo., in 1887. He graduated from