Gazlay Family History
 

SearchBiography: Theodore Gazlay

This brief biographical sketch of Theodore Gazlay appears in the History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio, Their Past and Present, S. B. Nelson and Co., publishers; S. B. Nelson and J. M. Runk, 1894. Pages 550-551. The entire text is presented below (formatting varies from the original).

THEODORE GAZLAY, attorney at law, was born in Cairo, a small village near the Hudson river, in Greene county, N. Y., in 1815, the youngest in a family of twelve children. His brothers were James W., for many years a prominent attorney of Cincinnati; Sayres, a Presbyterian minister, and Aribert, an Indiana merchant. The father, James Gazlay, and the mother, Huldah (Carter) Gazlay, were born in this country, and both were of English descent. The father came to this city with his family in 1822, and here in the public schools Theodore Gazlay laid the foundation of his education.

As a lad, he learned the printing business in the office of the Independent Press, a weekly newspaper published and edited for a few years by his brother James W. He then formed a partnership and conducted a job printing business with James A. James for a period of three years. His health failing him in this employment, he abandoned it, and repaired to his father’s farm near Lawrenceburg, where he began the study of law, which he subsequently pursued in Lawrenceburg, Rising Sun, and Patriot, Ind. He was admitted to practice in 1841, removed to Cincinnati shortly thereafter, and continued in the practice of his profession until 1885, when he abandoned it, now devoting his time to the management of his estate. Mr. Gazlay was for twelve years associated with the Ohio & Mississippi Railway Company, as its managing attorney. He acquired a competency from the practice of his profession, and is, with his children, by inheritance from his nephew, Allen W. Gazlay, eldest son of James W. Gazlay, the possessor of more than a half million dollars’ worth of real estate in the heart of Cincinnati.

In Lawrenceburg, Ind., in 1844, Mr. Gazlay was married to Jane E. Fitch, whose parents, Harris and Hannah Fitch, were of English and Irish descent, respectively. Of the children born of this marriage, one son and five daughters survive, viz.: William H. Gazlay, the Cincinnati agent of the Chrome Steel Works, of New York; Hannah F. Gazlay; Mrs. Huldah Miller, wife of Albert W. Miller, now, and for some years past, city clerk of Sandusky, Ohio; Mrs. Emma G. Donaldson, wife of Andrew Donaldson, one of the vice-presidents of the New York & Erie railroad; Julia D. Gazlay, a talented vocalist, and Mrs. Clara J. Kuhn, wife of Oscar W. Kuhn, an attorney of Cincinnati. Mr. and Mrs. Gazlay, son and unmarried daughters reside at No. 105 Park avenue, Walnut Hills; Mr. and Mrs. Kuhn at North Ingleside, Walnut Hills; Mr. and Mrs. Miller, at Sandusky, Ohio, and Mr. and Mrs. Donaldson, in New York City. Mr. Gazlay is a Republican, but has never had any aspirations for political preferment. His wife is a member of the Methodist Church.

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