Henry Chisholm

Henry Chisholm (April 22, 1822 – May 9, 1881) was a Scottish American businessman and steel industry executive during the Gilded Age in the United States.[4][14] What would, in time, become the Cleveland Rolling Mill was established by brothers and Welsh immigrants David and John Jones in 1856 to manufacture flat bottomed railway rails.[21] On November 9, 1862, Stone, Chisholm & Jones reorganized and became the Cleveland Rolling Mill after receiving investments from Henry B. Payne, Jeptha Wade, and Stillman Witt.[22] The company built a 60-foot (18 m) high, 16-foot (4.9 m) wide blast furnace in 1864 near the west end of what is now Saxe Avenue,[23] and the following year erected its first Bessemer converter.[31] That same year, Chisholm founded the Union Rolling Mill of Chicago,[32] and put his son, William, in charge of the plant.[33] He also erected a rolling mill at Decatur, Illinois,[4] which included two blast furnaces to furnish the Chicago plant with pig iron.[34] At the time of his death, Chisholm's companies employed more than 8,000 people and were generating about $25 million ($789,300,000 in 2023 dollars) a year in revenue.[34] Historian William E. Van Vugt has called Chisholm one of the most "outstanding" Scottish immigrants in American history both for his "historical significance" and for being one of the most successful at business.[50] The ship was lost on October 20, 1898, after hitting a reef near Rock of Ages Light off Isle Royale in Lake Superior.[53] A fundraising committee, led by local industrialists Jeptha Wade, John Walker, Joseph Perkins, William F. Thompson, and W.E.[59] 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.