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32 HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
the wife of Dr. M. O. Terry, of Utica. Their home is in Mamaroneck, New
York. In memory of her first husband she established a home for old people, called
the A. M. McGregor Home, which now shelters a family of twenty-five. The
other daughter is Mrs. McCrosky. She bore the maiden name of Sophia Lord
Barber and she was married to James McCrosky in 1857. They lived in Rushville,
Illinois, for a time but in 1865 returned to Cleveland. Mr. McCrosky then
purchased a tract of land on Euclid avenue in East Cleveland and planted a
large vineyard, where he was extensively engaged in the production of fine
grapes. Their family numbers but one son, Frederick, who lives in California.
In church and charitable work they are identified with the Presbyterian denomination
and have been very active. Various benevolences have also received
from them generous assistance, for it is the purpose of their lives to
make their native talents subserve the demands which conditions of society impose
at the present time.
GEORGE H. OLMSTED.
During a residence of more than forty-two years in Cleveland, George H.
Olmsted has enjoyed in the fullest degree the confidence and good-will
of his fellowmen by reason of his reliability in business, his loyalty in citizenship and
his fidelity in social relations. He is prominently known to the business world as
a leading representative of insurance interests, operating under the firm style of
Olmsted Brothers & Company and also of George H. Olmsted & Company.
A native of Lagrange, Lorain county, Ohio, Mr. Olmsted was born September
21, 1843, his parents being Jonathan and Harriet (Sheldon) Olmsted. In
1872 the parents became residents of Cleveland, where the father died in 1877
at the age of sixty-eight years. Previous to his removal to this city he had devoted
his life to general agricultural pursuits.
The youthful days of George H. Olmsted were passed in his native county
and his education was there largely acquired, although he also pursued a course
in the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York. His occupation in
early manhood was that of school teaching, to which he devoted three years,
after which he became bookkeeper and salesman in a store at Grafton, Ohio,
where he remained for a year. He was next occupied as agent with the introduction
of a doorbell in Michigan. Since the spring of 1867 Mr. Olmsted has
given his attention entirely to the insurance business, locating at that time in
Cleveland as the representative of the Atlantic Mutual Life Insurance Company,
of Albany, New York, with which he was associated for ten years, or until their
retirement from business. During the last two years of that time he was superintendent
of agencies for the United States and Canada, for he had gradually
worked his way upward and had given proof of his ability and keen insight in
business affairs. For a year or two thereafter he traveled as special agent for
the Brooklyn Life Insurance Company of New York and then resigned to become
equal partner with S. S. Coe in an insurance agency, the relation between
them being maintained until the death of Mr. Coe in 1883, although the business
was conducted under the firm style of Coe & Olmsted until the death of Mrs.
Coe in 1889. In that year Mr. Olmsted became sole proprietor of the business
and organized the present firm of George H. Olmsted & Company and also the
firm of Olmsted Brothers, being associated in the latter connection with O. N.
Olmsted. Later E. B. Hamlin was admitted to the firm, which originally had
taken the state agencies of both Ohio and Indiana for the National Life Insurance
Company of Vermont. Today the firm of Olmstead Brothers & Company
are conducting a business double in volume to that which was being conducted
by the National Life Insurance Company in the entire United States at the time
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