The biographical encyclopœdia of Ohio of the nineteenth century:

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLO'PfEDIA.
steadily increased from year to year, until, for the past
three years, he has surpassed all others in the same line,
not only in the city, but west of the Alleghenies. It has
been a matter of surprise and astonishment to importers
and manufacturers ill the East that his business has grown
to such enormous proportions. He employs no travelling
agents, but relies upon strict integrity and honorable dealing as the best advertisement; a customer once secured,
rarely ever leaves him. He has effected arrangements with
the manufacturers by which he monopolizes his own
specialties in articles of jewelry, silver and plated ware; so
that the same patterns cannot be found in any other house.
He also has special contracts for the celebrated Seth Thomas
clocks and the Longine watch. He is also constantly in
the receipt of large importations of French clocks and other
goods from Paris, and also from Pforzheim, the most extensive jewelry manufacturing place in Baden, Germany.
He employs a large number of first-class jewellers, who
manufacture to his own taste and design the greater portion
of his domestic goods, and who do work to order, such as
setting diamonds, also solid gold and silver work. During
the past year his sales amounted to $325,ooo; and are increasing at the rate of $25,00ooo per annum. His residence
is at Walnut Hills, one of the most beautiful suburbs of
Cincinnati, and is surrounded with large grounds, five acres,
elegantly laid out, the value of this property being over
$50,oood. He is also the owner of other real estate in Covington, Kentucky, his former place of residence, which is
also worth over $5o,ooo. ie was prominent as one of the
Building Committee and also as Trustee in the erection of
the beautiful edifice on Sixth street, Covington, called the
Church of the Mother of God, which is built after the style
of St. Peter's Church, Rome, and is one of the finest ecclesiastical structures in the Western country; and great credit
is due him for the assistance be rendered Rev. Father Ferdinand Kuehr, as well as the congregation, for the interest
he manifested in its erection. From the foregoing remarks
it will be seen that he is the architect of his own fortunes,
emphatically a self-made man; a nd no one in the comm unity i s more respected and no business ma n stands
higher than himself. He was married in Cincinnati, May
ctlldren5, to Elizabeth Specker, and is the father of eleven
children, ten of whom are living.
h EI LEBUSH, CLEMENS, Wholesale Jeweller,
w a i s born a, December i8th, I832, in the village
yro f Boeringhausen, near Damme, in the southern
part of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, Ger man y, and is a son of H ermann and Elizabeth
Hellebush. His father, as well as his two elder
brothers, wer e sc ho ol teachers, the former having followed
that call ing for ove r half a century. From these he receiv e d a go od German education, and when fifteet years
old concl u ded to seek h is fortune s i n the United States,
whit her h i s br other Fr ank had already preceded him, and
was at that time teaching a school in Cincinnati. On his
arrival in the latter city h e joined his brother, with whom
h e remained a year in the capacit y of pupil and assistant
teacher; he also learne d music, his brother being a celeI)rated composer, and for thirty years organist in the Church
of the Mother of God, in Covington, Kenttucky. Clemens
was also educated with a view of becoming a teacher, but
he elected to enter into mercantile pursuits. When seventeen years old be entered the house of Messr-s. Storch &
Co., Cincinnati, where be remlained nine monlths, and then
obtained a situation as clerk in the dry-goods house of J.
L. Boutellier, the largest retail house on Fourth street.
He there occupied the responsible position of cashier,
handling larle sulms of money daily, the dutties of which be
performed to the entire satisfaction of his employer. He
here acquired a knowledge of business which has been of
great advantage to him throughout his career; but the
wages he there received did not appear to him enough
compensation for the services he rendered, and at the end
of eighteen months be entered the jewielry house of Theodore Oskamp, who had recently started in the wholesale
trade. In about four years after his employment commenced the proprietor died, leaving the bulsiness in the
hands of his brother, Clemens Oskamp, wzho gave to
Clemens Hellebush an interest in the business under a
contract which had five years to run; anld, at the expiration
thereof, renewed the said contract for another term of five
years, and increased his interest to one-third of the profits.
At the expiration of the second term of five years of the
partnership, having now been fourteen years connected
with the house, he saw other fields in which he could
better his condition and build up a business of his own, and
which he thought, in the end, would be more profitable,
and certainly pleasanter. Accordingly, not only firom his
own conviction, but acting on the advice of his friends, and
also upon the solicitations of the many customers which he
had made, he opened, in January, I866, a wholesale jewelry house at the northeast corner of Pearl and Main
streets, where he yet remains and where his lbusiness has
.538
marrie(I his present wife, Mrs. Mary K. Sutherland,
daughter of Charles Oscar. Tracy, a prominent lawyer
of Portsliiouth, Ohio.
64
RKENBRECKER, ANDREW, Starch Manufac turer, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was born at Heilgers dorf, near Saxe-Coburg, Bavaria, July 4tb, I821.
He eiloyed the best educational advantages until
be emigrated to the United States with his father,
Henry Erl,,enbreckei-, his mother and sister Mary.
They lai-ided at New York, July i8tb, 1836, and thence
proceeded westAard; after a journey of four months they
reached Cincinnati, and there settled on the farm of Major