works for elevating coal to the surface; erected about forty comfortable tenements for the workmen and miners, and, in short, used all their past experience to make this a model mine. It is the nearest coal bank to Cleveland now open. They also, in connection with the late W. A. Otis, Charles A. Otis and James Lewis, leased and purchased several hundred acres of coal lands in Brookfield, Trumbull county, Ohio, and opened the extensive works known as the Otis Coal Company's bank. A shaft on this tract was sunk to the coal eight by sixteen feet and a hundred and fifty-five feet deep, in sixty-one days by Isaac Halford, superintendent, through solid rock, said to be the quickest work ever known in the valley. This tract produces an excellent quality of the Briar Hill grade of coal; a locomotive railroad connects it with a branch of the Mahoning Railroad, and the works are capable of mining and raising three hundred tons of coal per day. In February, 1867, Mr. Cross retired from the business, and the present firm of Payne, Newton & Co., composed of N. P. Payne, Isaac Newton and Charles J. Sheffield, now carry on the extensive business of the entire concern. They have ample facilities for mining and handling five or six hundred tons of coal per day. After the completion of the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal was abandoned, the Railroad Company having obtained control of the stock, and fixed so high a tariff as to cut off all competition with themselves. This effectually killed the canal, except that portion between Akron and Kent. The active trade on this part of the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal will insure its preservation, and as it is an important feeder (supplying water and trade) to the Ohio canal, the State will undoubtedly take possession of it. The capital invested by this concern in the coal trade is about $250,000. Since his retirement from the coal trade, Mr. Cross has been actively interested in the Winslow Car Roofing Company and the Cleveland Steam Gauge Company, both carrying on their manufactories in Cleveland. Religious