25 Facts About Henry Chisholm

Henry Chisholm was a Scottish American businessman and steel industry executive during the Gilded Age in the United States.

Henry Chisholm is known as the "father of the Cleveland steel trade".

Henry Chisholm was born in Lochgelly, Fife, Scotland, on April 22,1822.

The Chisholms were a respectable, lower-middle-class family, and Henry was educated in the local public schools.

Henry Chisholm's father died when he was ten years old, and he left school at the age of 12 to take a position as an apprentice carpenter.

Henry Chisholm was elevated to journeyman carpenter at the age of 17, and moved to Glasgow.

When he was 20 years old, Chisholm emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Henry Chisholm worked in Montreal as a carpenter and construction contractor until 1849, constructing various buildings and other works up and down the St Lawrence River.

Henry Chisholm established his own construction business, which in time became one of the largest in the city.

In 1850, Henry Chisholm won a contract to build a breakwater for docks of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad, which was in the process of completing its line into Cleveland and through the city to its rail yard on the shores of Lake Erie.

The breakwater was completed in 1853, and Henry Chisholm won several more contracts to build docks and piers in the city.

Henry Chisholm built a 60-foot high, 16-foot wide blast furnace in 1864 near the west end of what is Saxe Avenue, and the following year erected its first Bessemer converter.

In 1864, Chisholm purchased the Lake Shore Rolling Mill, an iron and steel works which had been constructed on the shore of Lake Erie at Wason Street.

That same year, Henry Chisholm founded the Union Rolling Mill of Chicago, and put his son, William, in charge of the plant.

Henry Chisholm erected a rolling mill at Decatur, Illinois, which included two blast furnaces to furnish the Chicago plant with pig iron.

Henry Chisholm sold his interest in the Chicago firm in 1879.

Unlike fellow Scottish American immigrant and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, whose career and Chisholm's mirrored one another, Henry Chisholm focused on eliminating waste in iron and steel manufacturing rather than lowering the cost of production.

Henry Chisholm's plants were the first to successfully roll rods and wire from steel, and in 1871 his plants produced the first steel screws.

At the time of his death, Henry Chisholm's companies employed more than 8,000 people and were generating about $25 million a year in revenue.

Henry Chisholm was elected a director at three of Cleveland's largest banks, including the Second National Bank.

Henry Chisholm was active in both religious and charitable affairs, and was a director of four charitable institutions in Cleveland.

Henry Chisholm was a member of the Second Baptist Church of Cleveland.

Henry Chisholm erected a Tuscan Villa style mansion at 408 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.

Cincinnati sculptor Charles Henry Chisholm Niehaus was selected to design and sculpt the piece.

The memorial depicts a larger-than-life size statue of Henry Chisholm, his left hand resting on a small-scale model of a steel rolling mechanism.