Person Page 3,859

History of Scioto County (per findagrave.com):

Benjamin Brayton Gaylord was born in Westernville. Oneida County, New York, November 26, 1811. His father was Dr. Chester Gaylord, and his mother was Lydia Brayton. When he was a child, his parents removed to Litchfield, Herkimer County, New York. There at the age of 15, under the preaching of Rev. Abner Towne, father of Judge Henry A. Towne, of Portsmouth, Mr. Gaylord became a member of the Presbyterian Church and continued such all his life. In the year 1839, he came to Portsmouth and was employed as a clerk for several years by his cousin, the late T. G. Gaylord, of Cincinnati, in the Gaylord rolling mill in Portsmouth.

In 1844, he became manager of Clinton Furnace and remained such four years. He was also a stock-holder in the same furnace.

In 1845, he married Margaret Jane Hempstead, daughter of Dr. G. S. B. Hempstead.

Returning to Portsmouth in 1848, he assumed full control of the Gaylord Mill and remained in charge until December, 1874, when, on account of failing health, he was compelled to retire.

He was an incessant worker, a superior financier. He had the faculty of being able to attend to a great many things at once. He was a man of remarkable foresight and would anticipate a coming crisis when others would fail to understand the situation. He was an eminently practical man and gave his personal attention to his business. He made a specialty of the manufacture of boiler iron and built up a reputation in this line second to none in the country. He held the love and affection of his employees, and they always regarded his interests as carefully as they would their own. He had but one strike in all his business career.

He took special pains to encourage economy, and exerted his influence to induce his employees to save their money and obtain homes for their families. In this way he gathered round him a class of steady, industrious laborers, many of whom became well-to-do and influential citizens of Portsmouth. To assist those who were willing to act upon. his advice, he advanced them money for the purchase of property, and gave them convenient period for payment.

When the civil war opened out and the Government invited proposals for the making of gun-boat iron, the other mills along the Ohio river were afraid to undertake to make the iron because it involved such enormous expenditures and such expensive changes of machinery, but Mr. Gaylord accepted a contract with the Government to make the iron to sheathe the gun boats. His execution of the contracts were entirely satisfactory to the War Department and he made a very large sum of money for himself and for those in business with him.

He was not a graduate of any college, but was a self educated man. He read a great deal and digested what he read. For a great many years he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Marietta College and contributed several thousand dollars towards its endowment. He also gave liberally to the Lane Seminary at Cincinnati, and in many instances, assisted young men in acquiring an education. His benefactions to the churches and other parties were of the most liberal character. His pastor, the Rev. Dr. Pratt, said of him.

"He cared for the poor and needy, sending coal and provisions often to their homes when they knew not from whence they came." Dr. Pratt also said of him that if every one who had received a special favor of him, were to bring a spray of evergreen and throw in his grave, he believed it would fill it to the top.

He was one of the most upright and conscientious men in the community. To show his peculiarities of conscience,one of his business associates had employed a young lawyer to collect a bill for about one-half what his services were worth. Mr. Gaylord ascertained the circumstances and sent the lawyer a check for .$50 more to make his fee what it should have been. At another time, he bought a lot of pig-iron of an agent for the furnace. The bill called for one hundred tons, and on re-weighing the iron, it was found to weigh One hundred and sixteen tons. Mr. Gaylord settled for the sixteen tons extra, although it was billed to him at one hundred tons. He bought at one time a lot of miscellaneous bar iron from the old rolling mill of Means, Hall & Company. They asked $2,500 for it, but he offered them $2,000, and they accepted that sum. He sold it in St. Louis better than he expected to, and on his return, he paid Means Hall & Company $500 additional.

In 1873, he was a candidate for State Senator on the Republican ticket, but was defeated by Hon. James W. Newman. In 1862, he was a member of the Board of Military affairs of the city and on the Military Committee of the county.

Mr. Gaylord was for many years a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Portsmouth, Ohio. He had a family of six children, only three of whom survive; Martha B., Helen and Benjamin H. After his death on September 1, 1880, his family removed to Riverside, California, where they now reside. The employees of the Gaylord rolling mill attended his funeral in a body, and no man was ever more deeply mourned than he.