Edward D. Woodward
The banking, brokerage and investment business early attracted the interest of Edward D. Woodward and for fourteen years he has concentrated his attention along those lines. He is now president of the Edward D. Woodward Company, one of the most prominent and successful concerns in the banking and investment business at Cincinnati. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, he was born in 1876, a son of Tryon J. and Anne (Geyer) Woodward. One of his ancestors on the paternal side was Sir William Tryon, the last of the Colonial governors of New York. When the Colonies revolted against the mother country the governor sailed for England and there spent the reminder of his days. John Geyer, the grandfather on the maternal side, was a prominent furniture manufacturer of Cincinnati prior to the Civil War. He was a warm friend of William Henry Harrison and was active in the log cabin campaign of 1840 when great mass meetings were held and as many as fifty to eighty thousand persons attended some of these gatherings. At a meeting held at Dayton, Ohio, one hundred thousand people were present. The parents of our subject were married in 1864. The father engaged in the tea and coffee business and for forty years past has been actively identified with public service at St. Louis. He is a member of the Democratic Party and is now connected with the office of collector of water rates in St. Louis.
Mr. Woodward of this sketch received his early education in the private schools of his native city and later matriculated at St. Louis University from which he was graduated with the degree of B. A. in 1895. Subsequently he received the degree of M. A. from his alma mater. He took special courses in corporation law at Johns Hopkins University and the Harvard Law School, thus laying a secure foundation for the business in which he has since engaged. In 1897 he began in his own name in the banking and brokerage business in this city. The enterprise prospered from year to year and in 1909 the firm was incorporated as the Edward D. Woodward Company, with Mr. Woodward as president, the other officers being: Warren Dohmer, a banker of West Milton, Ohio, vice president; W.R. Bradford, a banker of Florence, Kentucky, as secretary; Charles T. Wulff as treasurer; and Frederick Utz, of Erlanger, Kentucky, as chairman of the executive committee. The company has connections at the principal business centers of the country as bankers and is making a specialty of handling public and quasi-public bonds. The company also owns large tracts of unimproved land, which are being developed for the market upon an extensive scale.
Mr. Woodward was married in July 1911, to Miss. Ida Stephan Neu, a member of one of the old families of Brown County, Ohio. He is a member of the First English Lutheran Church and also holds membership in the Cincinnati Gymnasium. He possesses the qualities of clear perception and sound judgement so necessary in projecting and carrying forward important business affairs and is recognized as one of the leaders in the lines with which his name is connected. He has through life shown strong purpose and his success has been due to his close application and unfaltering diligence. His course has been such ever since the beginning of his business career as to commend him to the confidence and good will of his fellow men wherever he is personally known.
From Cincinnati, The Queen City, Volume III, by Rev. Charles Frederic Goss, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1912