On the sixth of August, 1869, the citizens of Cleveland were surprised and pained at the announcement of the death, on the morning of that day, of Charles Jarvis Woolson, one of the most active and respected business men of the city. Few were aware of his illness, and even by those acquainted with the facts his death, up to within a very short time of the event, was wholly unexpected.

Mr. Woolson was born in Chester, Vermont, and received careful educational training, the family being in good circumstances. His father was engaged in various manufacturing enterprises, including cotton and wool fabrics, and the making of machine and hand cards. He was one of the very earliest manufacturers of cooking stoves in the country.

At the age of nineteen, Mr. Woolson went into business on his own account, choosing the newspaper profession instead of manufactures for his debut. His first venture was as editor and publisher of a newspaper in Grafton county, New Hampshire. Two years later, he sold out and removed to Virginia, where he assumed charge of the Charlotteville Advocate. But the political and social atmosphere of the South was uncongenial to one born and bred in the free air of Vermont. He could neither feel nor affect to feel anything but abhorrence of the "institution," and so he soon terminated his connection with the press of Virginia, and returned to the land of churches, free schools and free speech. In 1830, he married Miss Pomeroy, of Cooperstown, New York, and removing to Keene, New Hampshire, engaged in mercantile business; but he who has once dabbled in journalism imbibes a taste which it is difficult afterwards to eradicate. Mr. Woolson was not at home in a mercantile store, and before long he purchased the New England Palladium, a Boston daily newspaper, and conducted it for two years, when he bade a final adieu to journalism as a profession, disposing of his property in the Palladium and removing to Claremont, New Hampshire, where he engaged with his father in the manufacture of stoves. Here he remained until 1840, when he removed to Cleveland, taking with him the patterns and materials connected with the stove business, and commenced on his own account in a small way, his capital having been seriously crippled by the financial convulsion of 1837.

Mr. Woolson had, in 1845, succeeded in getting his business into a flourishing condition, when, through the defalcation of a trusted partner, he was very nearly ruined. But he did not stop his works one day on account of this disaster. Collecting together his scattered resources, he set to work all the harder, and as the Fall of the year approached, had succeeded in accumulating a fine stock of wares for the Fall trade, which he had stored in a warehouse at the rear of his factory, but which he neglected to insure. A fire broke out, and the building, with its contents, was completely destroyed, resolving the valuable stoves into a heap of old iron. Even this did not stop the works. With his characteristic energy, Mr. Woolson had the ground cleared and set to work with redoubled zeal, making new stoves out of the old iron, and succeeded in doing a tolerable business that winter, in spite of his accumulation of disasters.

When Mr. Woolson commenced business in Cleveland, it was but a lively village. His stove foundry, the first of importance in northern Ohio, when running to its full capacity, employed but ten hands, and its trade was limited to the immediate vicinity, and a few towns on the canal. But few of the farmers then used cooking stoves, the fire on the hearth serving for all purposes of cooking and warming. The works now employ about one hundred hands when running full, and the customers are found in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa. The firm was changed several years since to Woolson & Hitchcock, and subsequently to Woolson, Hitchcock & Carter. Death removed the senior and junior partners of the firm within a few months of each other.

Mr. Woolson's death was caused by erysipelas, brought on by debility; after an illness of two weeks the disease yielded to medical treatment, and he seemed to gain strength rapidly. On Saturday, the 31st of July, he joined a party of friends and drove in his buggy twenty miles into the country, believing that the fresh air would invigorate him as it had done many times before when his health gave way. But the old remedy failed, and, leaving his horse behind, Mr. Woolson took the cars and reached home in the evening very much exhausted. After lingering five days, typhoid symptoms appeared, and at eight o'clock Friday morning he died, unconscious, and without suffering, after a life of 63 years and one month.

Mr. Woolson possessed a very genial and sociable disposition, was highly intelligent and well informed, and in spite of an infirmity of deafness was a charming companion. His business qualifications are proven by the success of the establishment he founded, in spite of the succession of unforeseen and unavoidable disasters with which it had to contend. He was a man of very domestic habits, and these habits were mellowed and refined by many family losses that might have crushed one less hopeful, and less patient and uncomplaining. To his family he was entirely devoted, and all the affection of a loving household clustered around him with an intensity that made the blow of his sudden loss one peculiarly hard to be borne.

Mr. Woolson had long been connected with Grace Church (Episcopal), of which he was senior warden, and very tender domestic ties, sundered by death some years since, made that church peculiarly dear to him.