Horace Lendol Sloan was born in Ashtabula Co., Ohio, Sept. 25, 1826, and died at Redlands, June 12, 1891. He received his early education at Kingsville Academy and early showed a talent for music, which seemed to overpower all other inclinations. When fifteen years old he went to Erie, Pa., and entered at eighteen the law office of Judge Galbraith, where he devoted himself to hard study for two years. He decided, however, that he would prefer a different career than the law. In or about 1852 he went to Illinois, and opened a general store in a small town, but returned to Ohio in 1854, to be married to Eliza Agnes Castle, like himself a native of Ashtabula County. With her at his side he helped pioneer the town of Kewanee, Ill., and opened a banking office there which he conducted until 1861. In that year Mr. Sloan responded to the call for “a hundred thousand more,” and served with the Army of the Tennessee until disabled by illness. He returned north broken in health, a condition from which he never wholly recovered. In 1863 he went to Chicago and engaged in insurance, in which he was very successful until the great fire of 1871 swept away all the results of his labors. Soon after he was appointed paying teller in the sub-treasury of the United States, under General Webster, and remained in this position until the general’s death, eleven years later. After this Mr. Sloan held positions of trust in the city comptroller’s office and the revenue stamp department of the United States custom house until 1887, in which year he came to Redlands, arriving, with his family December 16.
February 20, 1888, Mr. Sloan opened the Sloan House, the first hotel in the business portion of Redlands, which had been built under his supervision, by his brother, Dr. Sloan of Chicago. The Sloan House did an excellent business, and Mr. Sloan made many friends in Redlands. Lovers of music recognized in him a leader. He organized and drilled the Redlands orchestra. In Chicago Mr. Sloan had been a member of the famous Harmonia Quartette, which traveled two seasons with Annie Louise Cary, and Mr. Sloan’s voice was acknowledged to be the finest bass in the city. In the death of Mr. Sloan many recognized the loss to Redlands of a worthy citizen, an intelligent man, a thorough gentleman, and one who was honest and upright in every sense of the word.
(Source: Illustrated Redlands, 1897, p. 52)
