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Friends and Acquaintances 31 |
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Some of these friends and acquaintances we shall bow to in subsequent chapters. We are ready now to meet a select few.
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Stephen's oldest friend in Cincinnati was that picturesque figure, Michael P. Cassilly, veteran merchant, then well past seventy and living very comfortably in retirement with his wife, Sophia B. Cassilly. Cassilly typified the pioneer stock that had made the earlier West. Born in Ireland in 1774,5 he had come to the United States with the wave of Irish emigrants at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and had settled in Western Pennsylvania. After living in Pittsburgh, where they were intimate friends of Mr. and Mrs. William B. Foster,6 the Cassillys moved to Cincinnati in the late 'twenties. For a short time Cassilly was in partnership with Joseph Thompson, but after 1831 for many years he was in ousi-ness alone, a dry goods merchant.7 Cassilly became a prosperous citizen. His real estate holdings included the large office building at Broadway and Front Street, known as Cas-silly's Row.8 This was the building in which Stephen sat at his bookkeeper's desk in the office of Irwin & Foster. In 1847 Cassilly was honored when, as the Gazette reported,9 "the first brig ever built in the Queen City of the West" was given the name M. P. Cassilly.
Concerning Mrs. Cassilly we learn from the records of the First Presbyterian Church of |
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