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his parents came to Youngstown, and here he grew up and acquired his education in the public schools, including the Rayen High School. At the age of seventeen he began earning his own living. His first employment was with the old Forsythe Scale Works, later with the Youngstown Bridge Company. In 1893 he became a clerk for the Erie Railroad and later for the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, and after ten years of service was promoted to chief clerk, an office he held four years. In 1904 he took a new line of employment with the Mahoning Gas Fuel Company, now the East Ohio Gas Company. In 1906 he returned to Pittsburgh and remained in railroad work for two years.
Mr. Welsh became associated with the traffic department of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company in 1908. At that time this department employed only one other man, Mr. Graham. Now it is one of the best governed and systematized departments of any similar corporation in the country, and has an active force of ten employes.
Mr. Welsh is a Mason, a republican in politics, and is a member of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. December 3o, 1896, he married Miss Minnie B. Hover, of Youngstown, a daughter of John W. and Lucy (Hollibaugh) Hover. Mr. Hover was a conductor in the employ of the Erie Railroad Company practically all of his life. Lucy Hollibaugh was a daughter of William and Kate Hollibaugh, who were farming people in the vicinity of North Lima, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Welsh have two children: Edna Bell married Raymond J. Stiles June 3o, 192o. Mr. Stiles is with the operating department of the Republic Iron and Steel Company. William Wilson is attending high school.
SAMUEL W. RICE, a resident of Youngstown since 1901, as an individual and the head of a business organization represents a service of the highest and most distinctive value to the city. Mr. Rice as a boy showed an artistic temperament, and turned his talents to the decorative art, and long since rose from the grade of artisan to artist. The people of Youngstown have came to rely upon and appreciate his artistic judgment, and his work is found in the best residences and in some of the finest and most distinctive public buildings of the city.
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, April 26, 1865, son of Charles R. and Ruth (Sloan) Rice, he grew up in his native city, had a public school education, and since the age of twelve has been out in the world on his own responsibility. As a youth he acquired the technique of the decorator's art, involving the use of varied materials—paints, oils, varnishes and stains, wallpaper and other material. He followed his line of work with some of the leading firms at Boston and Pittsburgh, and since coming to Youngstown in 1901 has concentrated his abilities entirely upon the finer side of the decorative art, as hand made architecture. Both at Youngstown and elsewhere he has supplied the decorative features of many homes and churches. One of the best and most widely known examples of this art is found in the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church of Youngstown. Mr. Rice possesses not only the detail skill of workmanship, but that much greater quality, the ability to see the picture as a whole and ensemble, and again and again has made his work expressive of the spirit and atmosphere of art.
Mr. Rice is a member of the Rotary Club. In 1885 he married Miss Catherine Russell. Their two children are Samuel W., Jr., and Ruth Katherine. The son was a lieutenant in the aviation section in the American army, but like many others in that department had to be content with home duties.
EDGAR. J. REILLY, one of the prominent younger men in the iron and steel industry at Youngstown, has for many years been associated with the William B. Pollock Company.
Mr. Reilly, who is a brother of W. C. and Albert A. Reilly, both mentioned on other pages of this publication, was born in Youngstown. He had a common and high school education, and was seventeen years of age when he went to work as clerk and weighmaster at the Hannah Blast Furnace of the Mahoning Valley Iron Company. By practical experience he learned much of the iron and steel industry. The only important interruption in this experience was the several years he spent on the staff of the Youngstown Telegram, at first as reporter and later as editor of the iron and steel department.
Mr. Reilly left journalism in 1902 and since that year has been with the William B. Pollock Company. He began in the sales department, and since Two has been general sales agent. He is a member of the American Iron & Steel Institute, Youngstown Club, Youngstown Country Club, Rotary Club and the Youngstown and Pittsburgh Chambers of Commerce. He is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus and with various other social and benevolent organizations.
October 15, 1902, he married Mary Rita Dignan, daughter of Martin and Mary (Kelly) Dignan. Their three children are Edgar Cyril, Lois and Rita.
EUGENE FORBES CRAIG, president of the. Peoples Ice & Cold Storage Company of Warren, was born in this city on December 20, 1881, the son of the late Judge Samuel Baxter Craig.
Judge Craig was born on October 2, 1844, in the log cabin built by his father in Braceville Township, Trumbull County. His father, Samuel Craig, was born in Ireland, came to the United States when a young man, married Margaret R. Darling in Pennsylvania, and settled on his own land in Braceville Township when that section was practically a wilderness.
Judge Craig attended the district schools, the Warren public schools, Western Reserve Academy and Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, graduating from the latter in 1871. He read law in the offices of Hutchins, Glidden & Steele of Warren, was admitted to the bar in 1873, and for over a quarter of a century he practiced law in Warren, becoming one of the leaders of the Trumbull County bar and one of the foremost men of Warren. He served for six years as probate judge, for six years as a member of the Warren School Board, and for many years as clerk of Warren Township.
Aside from his profession Judge Craig was interested in business affairs, and was long a director
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of the Union National Bank, and he was one of the organizers of the Peoples Ice and Cold Storage Company and was its first president, serving in that capacity until his death. He was a member of Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, of Mahoning Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Methodist Church.
In 1874 he married Mary Ellen Forbes, daughter of James and Lovina (Covert) Forties, who came into the Mahoning Valley from Pennsylvania. Judge Craig died on October 12, 1913. His widow is still living.
Eugene F. Craig was graduated from Allegheny College in 1903, just thirty-two years after his father's graduation from that institution. He began his business career with the Warren Savings. Bank, and later was for six years teller in the Union National Bank of Warren. In 1910 he became identified with the Peoples Ice and Cold Storage Company as manager, and in 1916 was made president of the company. He is also a director in the Trumbull Savings and Loan Company, and the Second National Bank, and a director in the Warren Development Company.
Mr. Craig has been active and prominent in republican politics. He was chairman of the republican county committee for several years and served as tax commissioner during the administration of Governor Willis. He is a member of the Warren Board of Trade, the Rotary Club, the Masonic Club, Elks Club and the Buckeye Club. He is a member of Old Erie Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Ma-honing Lodge, Independent Order of. Odd Fellows, and is a vestryman of Christ Episcopal Church.
Mr. Craig married Anna Grace Montague, of Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
ARTHUR PAUL STILLWAGON, president and treasurer of the Storage, Transfer & Supply Company of Warren and Niles, is one of the young business men of the Mahoning Valley who has won success in business and prominence in the affairs of two cities, and through his ability and personality has developed what is now one of the leading enterprises in its line in this section of Ohio. Mr. Stillwagon is a product of the valley and has spent his entire life in Trumbull County. He was born on the Stillwagon farm near Niles on March 9, 1885, and is the son of Samuel H. and Calistia (Hake) Stillwagon, well-known citizens of Trumbull County, of whom biographical mention is made elsewhere in these volumes. He was graduated from the Niles High School in 1905, and in the fall of that year entered Hiram College, and was a student at that college during the scholastic years of 1905-6-7. He began his independent career in 1908 at Warren in the employ of the Mahoning branch of the National Electric Lamp Company (later absorbed by the General Electric Company), where he ultimately became assistant superintendent.
In 1911 Mr. Stillwagon became identified with the Storage, Transfer & Supply Company, at which time that company was doing a limited business in the handling of coal, storage and building material at its yard in Niles. Under his management the company has been developed into one of the largest concerns in the Valley engaged in its line, and now owns two thoroughly equipped plants, one at Niles and the other at Warren, with general offices at Warren. With its large yard trackage and modern equipment, consisting of warehouses, a twenty-ton locomotive crane and a fleet of "White" trucks and forty head of horses, the company is capitalized at $125,000, is doing an annual business of half a million dollars. This development, from a small enterprise, working on limited capital and equipment, with its trade confined to a small territory, has been due to the efforts of Mr. Stillwagon more than to any other one man, for it has been his genius for organization, his executive ability and his own personality that have made possible the success of the company and earned for it a reputation for efficiency, reliability and sound methods among the contractors and owners of the entire Valley.
Aside from the Storage, Transfer & Supply Company Mr. Stillwagon has other important financial interests, and he is identified with a number of important enterprises, among which are the Warren Guaranteed Mortgage Company, the Warren Building & Investment Company, the Trumbull Securities Company, the Warner Hotel Company, the Wilbur .Wright Roofing Company of Cleveland, and the American Zinc Products Company of Greencastle, Indiana.
He is a member of the Niles Chamber of Commerce, the Warren Board of Trade, the Warren Real Estate Board, the Warren Builders Exchange, and the Mahoning Valley Credit Association. He is a member of the Niles Club and the Trumbull Country Club, and he became a charter member and stockholder in the Golf Land Company, the predecessor of the Country Club.
Both as a business man and as a citizen Mr. Still-wagon has won a place among the worth-while men of the Mahoning Valley, and, though still a young man, he has become a force in the affairs of Trumbull County.
In August, 1908, Mr. Stillwagon was united in marriage with Mary Catherine Krehl, the daughter of Frederick Krehl, of Girard; Ohio, and to them the following children have been born : Helen Louise, born in 1909; Mildred Jean, born in 1911; and Frederick Krehl, born in 1918.
JUDGE, DAVID REVILO GILBERT. Prominent in the professional, business and civic affairs of the Ma-honing Valley for many years, Judge Gilbert, of Warren, has won a high position among the worthwhile men of the community.
Judge Gilbert is a native of the valley, he having been born at Vernon, Trumbull County, on October 22, 1846, and is descended from two pioneer families.
David Gilbert, father of Judge Gilbert, was born in Connecticut in 1818, a son of Eli Gilbert, also a native of that state. David Gilbert married Sylvia E. Haynes, who was born at Vernon, Trumbull County, Ohio, and died April 19, 1919. She was a daughter of Judge Asa and Sarah (Rice) Haynes, the latter of whom was a daughter of Isaac Rice, a soldier of the American Revolution, who died in Trumbull County and was buried at Vernon. Judge Asa Haynes, who served as one of the associate judges of the Trumbull County Court under the old state constitution prior to 1854, was born in Con-
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necticut and came to Vernon, Ohio, in 1816. His father, Asa Haynes, Sr., was a native of Rhode Island and from there moved into Connecticut. He married Mary Fuller, the first of which family in America came over the sea on the Mayflower, and the family name is inscribed on Plymouth Rock among those other Pilgrim Fathers.
David Gilbert, father of Judge Gilbert, learned the cabinetmaking trade at New Haven, Connecticut, and from there came to Vernon in about 1840, where two of his married sisters were then living. He bought a tract of land on which he erected a shop and residence, both of these buildings still intact, and worked at his trade until 1856, when he removed to Gustavus Township and died there May 2, 1869. He was an honest, industrious and frugal man.
David R. Gilbert had both common and high school privileges in youth and was prepared for college under the tutelage of Rev. Johnson Wright, later attending Oberlin College for four years as a member of the class of 1872. Before graduation, however, he was compelled to return home, the death of his father making it necessary for him to take charge of the estate and look after his mother, who was an invalid. In the fall of 1871 he came to Warren and in the following spring began the study of law in the office of Taylor & Jones. In the fall of 1873 he was admitted to the bar at Canfield, Ohio, and entered into practice at Warren, being alone for a time, but later becoming associated with Judge Taylor, one of his preceptors, under the firm style of Taylor & Gilbert. This partnership continued until 1885, when Mr. Gilbert was elected probate judge of Trumbull County. He was re-elected in 1888, serving two full terms of three years each.
Soon after retiring from the probate bench and resuming private practice at Warren he was elected councilman from the Second Ward and served in the City Council for eight years. Subsequently he was president of the City. Council for four years, then for four years was city solicitor, and at present is serving in his second term as councilman-at-large, and is chairman of the finance committee. Judge Gilbert is a director in the Union Savings & Trust Company and is a member of the Warren Board of Trade. He is an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Warren.
On July 20, 1887, Judge Gilbert was united in marriage to Miss Agnes Biggar, who was born in Canada, February 26, 1861, daughter of George and Anna Biggar. In her childhood her parents moved to Iowa, and later (1881) she was graduated from Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville, Ohio, and was assistant superintendent of the High School of Corning, Iowa, when she and Judge Gilbert became acquainted. Judge and Mrs. Gilbert have one son, David Alva Gilbert. He was born at Warren, May 28, 1888. After his graduation from the high school of his native city he was graduated from the Western Reserve University with the degree of A. B., and from the Case School of Applied Science with the B. S. degree, class of 1911, taking the double course, as it is termed. On leaving college he entered the service of the American Bridge Company at Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and was there when the United States entered the World war. About the first of May, 1917, he enlisted in the Officers' Reserve Corps and was sent first to Fort Niagara and later to Camp Meade, where he was commissioned captain and on or about July 1, 1918, went to France as captain in command of Company E, Three Hundred and Fourth Engineers, Seventy-Ninth Division. He was abroad until June, 1919, when he was ordered back to the United States and a few weeks later was honorably discharged and mustered out, immediately returning to the American Bridge Company. Captain Gilbert, like many of his comrades, is not fond of recalling his overseas experiences and very modestly disclaims the assertions of his friends that he was a valorous soldier as well as efficient officer. He was married at Ambridge, Pennsylvania, December 25, 1918, to Miss Laura Isabel See.
JOSEPH RICHARD DAVIS. Intimately associated with the growth and development of Warren, Joseph Richard Davis has been rewarded for his public-spirited efforts by a personal success that must be gratifying, and the gratitude of a wide circle of warm, personal friends. He is engaged in a prosperous mercantile business and is also interested in a number of other enterprises and is in every way worthy of the consideration which is shown him by the people of the Mahoning Valley, for he has won it through his own acts.
Joseph Richard Davis was born at Youngstown, Ohio, December 31, 1867, a son of Thomas A. and Anna S. (Samuels) Davis. Thomas A. Davis was born at Tredegar, Monmouthshire, England, a son of Richard Davis, a native of Wales, an iron-worker, who for years was superintendent of the Tredegar Iron Works, at that time probably the largest and most important iron works in the world. Many of the early iron manufacturers of America learned the process of making iron under the fostering care of Richard Davis at the Tredegar Iron Works. He never left England, but died there. Anna S. Samuels was born at Swansea, Wales, a daughter of Joseph Samuels. Thomas. A. Davis and his wife were married at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where they remained until 1873, and then left that city for Girard, Ohio. He was a mill man by occupation, and for many years was employed in the mills of the valley. His death occurred at Girard in 1905, when he was fifty-nine years of age, his widow surviving him until 1911, when she passed away, aged sixty-three years.
Joseph Richard Davis was seven years old when the family moved to Girard, and he began attending the Boardman Street School at Youngstown when he was six years old, and completed his education at Girard. Leaving the high school of Girard when he was eighteen years old, he began working in the same mill that gave his father employment, but by the time he was twenty-two he felt the lack of a knowledge of business methods and so took a course in the Spencerian Business College at Cleveland, Ohio. Before he had completed his course, however, he received so flattering an offer as bookkeeper from a concern at Girard that he accepted it and left the college two weeks before his graduation. For the subsequent three years Mr. Davis was bookkeeper for W. M. Boyd, who operated stores at both Girard and Warren, and in 1895 he came to the Warren store to take charge. of the books and also as sales-
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man. Mr. Boyd finally sold out his stock of goods at Warren, and in two Mr. Davis rented the storeroom at No. 28 Main Street, purchased a new stock, and began to make practical use of the knowledge he had been acquiring, and has remained at this same location ever since.
He began his independent career as a merchant in a very modest way, and has steadily advanced from year to year until he now as one of the leading merchants of the valley controls a fine trade and does an annual business which runs into large figures. Mr. Davis is one of the finest examples of the self-made man to be found today. He saved, only through strict economy, enough money to go to business college, and all he has he made himself. Little by little, through constant self-sacrifice, he accumulated enough money to lay in his first stock of goods, and bravely ventured on his own account. Better, however, even than his knowledge of the mercantile business and his habits of industry and thrift were his innate honesty and conception of the golden rule, for his customers, realizing that in his store they could get a fair deal, came back, told others, and in this way his trade was built up. Mr. Davis believes in giving to those who patronize him the worth of their money, and has their interest at heart, and that they appreciate this his continued prosperity proves.
Mr. Davis has other interests and is a director of the Peoples Savings Company of Warren; is a stockholder of the Union Savings & Trust Company and the Trumbull Savings & Loan Company, and has borne his part in the expansion of the city's business.
Fraternally. Mr. Davis belongs to Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, and he is also a chapter, council and commandery Mason and also is a member of Al Koran Temple, Mystic Shrine, of Cleveland, Ohio. At present he is eminent commander of Warren Commandery No. 39, Knights Templar, of Warren. Mr. Davis is also a member of the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Elks, and belongs to the Masonic and Elks Clubs.
In 1912 Mr. Davis was married to Grace Snyder, a daughter of D. Tod and Mary (Erwin) Snyder, of Bloomfield, Trumbull County. Mr. and Mrs. Davis became the parents of the following children: Charles L., who is the eldest; Ruth, who died at the age of eleven months; Mary, who died at the age of fifteen months; and Thomas A., who is the youngest.
ROBERT J. MULLALLY, assistant general manager of the Brier Hill Steel Company at Youngstown, is one of the prominent men in the steel industry in the Mahoning Valley. He was born at Milton Center, Wood County, Ohio, May 28, 1879, a son of William Mullally, and grandson of William Mullally, the latter a native of Ireland, of Scotch-Irish extraction, and the progenitor of this family in the United States.
William Mullally, the younger, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and came west hi young manhood, and for a time was connected with the Proctor & Gamble Company at Cincinnati, Ohio. Later he was engaged in the lumber business in Wood County, and still later was in the oil business in the same county, and was connected with the Ex change Oil Company. He was married in Wood County to Ima Campbell, and they had four children. William Mullally died in 1918, but his widow survives him and lives at Madisonville, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Robert J. Mullally grew up in his native county, and there received his preliminary scholastic training. About 1898 he was graduated from the Weston High School, and then for a time was employed in a country grain elevator, buying grain from the farmers for the Churchill Grain Company. In January, 1902, Mr. Mullally came to Youngstown, Ohio, and entered the employ of the Carnegie Steel Com. pany as an apprentice in the electrical department. He was advanced in the regular line of promotion until 1913, when he had become assistant chief electrician, but at that time he left to come to the Brier Hill Steel Company as chief electrician. In 1916 he returned to the Carnegie Steel Company as chiet electrician in the construction of the new McDonald bar mills, in 1918 being made assistant superintendent of these mills, and served as such until the early part of 1919, when he was promoted to be superintendent. In March, 192o, he resigned from that position to become superintendent of the plate and jobbing mills of the Brier Hill Steel Company, later becoming assistant general manager of the company:
When Mr. Mullally first came to Youngstown he attended night school at the Young Men's Christian Association, and continued his studies in this manner for a period of four years, specializing in electrical and mechanical engineering. This knowledge stood him in good stead in his subsequent endeavors.
On June 1, 1904, Mr. Mullally was married to Betsy Jacobs, a daughter of Orrin Jacobs of Youngstown. Mr. Mullally is a member of the Memorial Presbyterian Church of Youngstown. In his political affiliations he is a republican. He belongs to Hillman Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons; Youngstown Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Buechner Council, Royal and Select Masters ; Saint John's Commandery, Knights Templar, and is also a member of Al Koran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Professionally he belongs to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Engineers Club of Youngstown, and the Association of Iron and Steel Electrical Engineers, and he is an active factor in the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce.
WILLIAM G. LAMB. For many years William G. Lamb has been prominent in the business and civic life of Warren, and he has contributed his full share to the progress and development of the city. Although now retired from the commercial field, his large property interests and financial investments claim a measure of attention and provide Mr. Lamb with an outlet for still vigorous energies, which are directed with the same sound judgment that has prevailed throughout his long and busy career.
William G. Lamb was born on the old Lamb farm in Lordstown Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, November 12, 1848. His parents were John and Mary (Richardson) Lamb, both natives of County
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Tyrone, Ireland. They were married there and left Ireland for America in 1831 with their four children. They landed in Canada, where three of their children died from smallpox. Their objective point was Lordstown Township, Trumbull County, where they had relatives. They crossed Lake Erie to Ashtabula. Ohio, and came the rest of the way by wagon. John Lamb worked at Warren for a time for Asel Adams and afterward bought a farm in Lordstown Township, which he' operated until 1865. He then returned to Warren and lived here retired until his death in 1888, surviving his wife one year. Of their family of six. sons and six daughters, two only survive: Mrs. Emma A. Ernest, widow of Silas S. Ernest, of Warren, and William G., who was the youngest born.
Mr. Lamb grew up on his father's farm and attended first the country schools and the old Lords-town Academy, afterward the public schools of Warren, and finally took a business course in the Duffy Commercial College at Pittsburgh. He remained on the farm until 1865 in which year he came to Warren. In 1873 he embarked in the retail shoe business in partnership with his brother, James R. Lamb, under the firm name of Lamb Brothers, and this partnership was unbroken for twenty-five years. Mr. Lamb was one of the incorporators of the old Warren Savings Bank, of which he was a director, and when it was taken over by the Union National Bank he became a director of that institution, and when the Union National was reorganized into the Union Savings & Trust Company he was made a director in that bank. Mr. Lamb owns with other realty several store properties, all situated in the heart of the business section of the city, and is interested financially in different industries at Warren. He is an ex-president of the Warren Board of Trade, and is a member of Warren Lodge of Elks, No. 295, and of the Elks Club.
Mr. Lamb was married in 1883 to Anna M. Derr, who was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Derr family came to Ohio and settled first at Newton Falls, removing later to Warren, where the parents of Mrs. Lamb died. Her death occurred in 1891, a daughter surviving her, Olive Marie. Miss Lamb was graduated from Wellesley College and later, during the World war, spent a year in Red Cross work in the. City of Washington, after which, in compliance with an urgent request from Warren, she returned home and devoted herself to the local Red Cross organization until in January, 1920, at which time she gave up that work to go on a tour of South America with her father. They sailed from New York on February 5, 1920, and returning, landed at the same port on May 15th of the same year.
JUDGE THOMAS IRWIN GILLMER, of Warren, long a recognized leader of the bar of the Mahoning Valley, was born on a farm in Newton Township, Trumbull County, on May 13, 1844, and is of the third generation of his family in the valley. His grandfather, Thomas Gillmer, was a native of Scotland, and he and his wife, Margaret, came to America at the close of the eighteenth century and settled first in Pennsylvania, but in 1807 or 1808 came into the Mahoning Valley and located. on Dutch Creek, Newton Township, Trumbull County, where they spent their last years, he dying in 1819, and she in 1850.
William Gillmer, son of Thomas, and father of Judge Gillmer, was born in Pennsylvania in 1796. He learned the printer's trade at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked for a time, and then joined his parents on the farm in Newton Township, and there he died in 1852. He married Catherine Miller, who was born at Little Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1800, and died in 1883. She was the daughter of Leonard and Christina Miller, who came into the Mahoning Valley, settling in Newton Township, Trumbull County, in 1807 or 1808. The Miller family made the journey from Pennsylvania in wagons drawn by oxen. Reaching Warren, they spent the night there, and in the morning started for their 640-acre farm seven miles distant, and a full day was required to reach it. At that time all of Trumbull County was covered with forest trees, there were no roads, and they had to follow the trail which was indicated by marks which had been blazed on the trees. In the beginning they, in common with other settlers, cleared small patches of land and planted wheat, which they would shell when green. To this they would add wild honey, and the product was a very palatable and wholesome cereal.
William Gillmer died when his son, Judge Gillmer, was only eight years old, and when the boy reached the age of twelve he took charge of his mother's farm and conducted it for her and continued to look after it during the period he was acquiring his early educational training by attending the district schools and the Newton Falls Academy. In 1868 he was graduated from the Iron City Commercial College at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in that year began reading law under the preceptorship of ,the Hon. John F. Beaver at Newton Falls. In 1870 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of his profession at Newton Falls in association with Mr. Beaver, which connection was continued until the latter's death. In September, 1874, Judge Gillmer settled in Warren, and in 1875 he was elected prosecuting attorney, and was re-elected to the same office in 1877, making a fine record- for himself in this connection as an able and fearless official. In 1880 he formed a partnership with L. C. Jones, under the firm name of Jones & Gillmer, and they remained together until 1886, when Judge Gillmer was elected common pleas judge of the Second Division of the Ninth Judicial District, and remained on the bench for seventeen years, resigning in 1903 to return to active practice, with his son, Irwin R. Gillmer, under the firm name of Gillmer & Gillmer, which is still maintained.
Judge Gillmer is president of the Trumbull County Bar Association, and is a member of the Ohio Bar Association. He is president of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Public Library ; is treasurer and a trustee of the Warren City Hospital ; and is a director of the Union Savings & Trust Company. Fraternally he belongs to Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons.
On January 26, 1870, Judge Gillmer was united in marriage with Helen Earl, of Newton Falls, who was born at that place in 1853, and died at Warren in 1908. She was a daughter of. Daniel Earl, an
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attorney at Newton Falls in its early days. Judge and Mrs. Gillmer became the parents of the following children : Elizabeth A., who married James W. Packard, of Warren, was graduated from Vassar College; and Irwin R., who is an attorney and junior member of the firm of Gillmer & Gillmer, married May Woods, a daughter of Dr. J. R. Woods, and she died, leaving one daughter, who is a graduate of Vassar College.
JOHN C. HARTZELL. A life of signal honor and usefulness was that of the late Capt. John C. Hartzell, who was one of the influential citizens of Mahoning County at the time of his death, which occurred April 25, 1918. Going forth as one of the gallant young soldiers of the Union in the Civil war, he won marked distinction as an officer, as did he also in special executive service, and in the later times of peace he manifested the same loyalty and the same self-reliance that characterized his military career, with the result that he achieved worthy success and ever commanded the unqualified confidence of all with whom he came in contact.
Captain Hartzell was born in Deerfield Township, Portage County, Ohio, November 27, 1837, and thus he was in his eighty-first year when his life came to a close. He was a son of Frederick and Mary (Ickes) Hartzell, honored pioneers of whom more specific mention is made on other pages, in the sketch of their son Jesse M. The future captain was a boy at the time of the family removal to Mahoning County, and here he was reared to adult age, his educational advantages being those of the pioneer schools. Here he continued his association with farm enterprise until the call of patriotism led him to tender his aid in defense of the Union. He was mustered in on the 21st of August, 1862, and received his honorable discharge at Cleveland, Ohio, June 8, 1865. He became a member of Company H, One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and he was chosen second lieutenant of his company. From a history of this gallant regiment that was written by the late Judge Albion W. Tourgee is taken the following record of the service of Captain Hartzell :
"He enlisted in Company H, was appointed second lieutenant; was promoted to first lieutenant; captain after the death of Captain Wilson. He was in command of Companies H and C with the division train during the battle of Chickamauga, and had much trouble with stray major-generals who insisted upon abandonment of the train and the formation of the two companies in line to take the place of their own lost commands. In the spring of 1864 he was detailed, by special order of the secretary of war, to the duty of forwarding recruits from northern depots to the armies of the west, carrying back and forth large sums of money to be paid the recruits on their arrival at destination, these sums ranging from $10,000 to $65,000 a trip. He continued in this special service until the close of the war. Captain Hartzell traveled, in the discharge of his duty, over 40,000 miles, and had all sorts of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. He was an inveterate wag who could always be counted on to find something funny in the most lugubrious circumstances. This quality has not forsaken him, and at each reunion of the survivors of the Thousand he is expected to furnish them fresh food for their mirth, and has never yet disappointed."
Owing to financial reverses in his father's career, Captain Hartzell early assumed heavy responsibilities, and upon the death of his father he assumed charge of the family affairs—a circumstance that prevented him from preparing himself for the legal profession, which had been his ambition. There can be no doubt, however, that the captain found his maximum potential in connection with the basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing, with which he continued to be actively and prominently identified during his entire independent career. He and his brother, James R., made two trips to Europe, and as a result were the ones to introduce the Percheron strain of draft horses and also Shetland ponies in their home community, besides being pioneers in such introduction in Ohio. He continued as one of the leading exponents of farm industry in Mahoning County for many years, and through this medium he won success worthy of the name. A man of exalted ideals and high aspirations, he was well qualified for leadership in community thought and action, and he made his life count for good in its every relation. The following estimate is well worthy of preservation : "Captain Hartzell was the soul of honor and integrity—a man revered and esteemed by all. As a boy and man he was dear to the hearts of his family and hosts of friends, his ready sympathy, appreciation and desire to help, combined with that ever-present quaint humor, combined to form a unique personality that made him a favorite. He was a great reader, a man well versed in all the topics of the day and of history. He was of keen sagacity, wit and intellect, and every company was brightened by his coming."
Captain Hartzell maintained deep interest in his old comrades and signified the same by his affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. His civic loyalty was of the highest type, he was a republican in politics, and both he and his wife were earnest members of the Presbyterian Church.
In August, 1865, was solemnized the marriage of Captain Hartzell to Miss Louise Ann Laurie Thompson, daughter of John and Mary (Wilkinson) Thompson, and concerning the children of this union brief record is here entered Dr. Thomas B. Hartzell, Mrs. F. E. Kenaston and Miss Ruth W. Hartzell reside in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Lucy is the wife of Emerson B. Fritchman, who is individually mentioned on other pages; and Miss Bertha O. Hartzell remains on the old homestead, between Beloit and Sebring.
EMERSON B. FRITCHMAN has been identified with business activities in the fine little industrial Town of Sebring, Mahoning County, since the time of its inception, and has been prominently concerned in the upbuilding of the large and prosperous business of the Leonard Hardware Company, of which he is a leading stockholder and executive. He was born in Andrew County, Missouri, March 7, 1868, his parents having there established their residence
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in 1866, upon removal from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. In 1872 the family home was established on a farm near Winona, Columbiana County, Ohio, and there the parents, Joseph and Mary Fritchman, passed the remainder of their lives. Joseph Fritchman was born and reared in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and at Pittsburgh, that state, he enlisted for service in the Civil war. He proceeded with his command to the front after and continued in active service until he was severely wounded in the battle of Gettysburg. He was taken to a military hospital in the City of Philadelphia, and there received his honorable discharge. Mary Hutton, his wife, was also born in Westmoreland County, of Quaker parents, being the eldest daughter in a good old fashioned family of nine children. She was a gracious lady, beloved of all who knew her.
Emerson B. Fritchman was four years of age at the time of the family removal to Columbiana County, Ohio, where he passed his boyhood on the home farm, and he attended the excellent school maintained by the Society of Friends at Winona, as did he later a Friends' school at Westtown, Pennsylvania. As a youth he learned the carpenter's trade at Winona, and for several years he was employed at his trade at Salem, Columbiana County. There he next took a position as patternmaker in the factory of the Buckeye Engine Company, and as a skilled workman at this trade he came to Sebring at the time when this place was made a manufacturing center. In 1902 he here became associated with the pioneer hardware establishment of H. G. Leonard, and with this enterprise he has since continued his active alliance, the while he has contributed much to its development and up-building. The establishment is now modern in all equipments and facilities, and a specialty is made of tin and slate roofing, under contract stipulations, and the installing of plumbing and heating plants. From a small inception the business has grown to large proportions, and the company now employs an average force of fifteen men. A large stock of heavy and light hardware is carried, and all departments are tinder effective management, according to the best modern standards. The business was incorporated in 1918, with a capital stock of $5o,000, and under the title of the Leonard Hardware Company. The company owns the building in which its business is conducted and Mr. Leonard has retired from active association, his home being now at Massillon, Stark County. Mr. Fritchman and his family reside on the beautiful old homestead of his father-in-law, the late Capt. John C. Hartzell, to whom a memoir is dedicated on other pages of this work. This home is situated about midway between Sebring and Beloit and is a center of representative social activity, with Mrs. Fritchman as its gracious and popular chatelaine.
June 22, 1898, recorded the marriage of Mr. Fritchman to Miss Lucy Hartzell, whose father, the late Capt. John C. Hartzell, was one of the honored and influential citizens of Mahoning, County, and of the two children of this union Frederick died at the age of seven years. The daughter, Mary Louise, has received the best of educational advantages and is a popular factor in the social life of the community.
DANIEL ADDISON GEIGER, president of the Western Reserve National Bank of Warren, Ohio, is one of the best known bankers and financiers of the Mahoning Valley. His excellence as a financier, as an administrator and as an organizer of large business interests and his equally high moral repute have brought him into official connection with the direction of probably twenty of the now well established business enterprises of importance to the City of Warren, among the corporations with which he is interested being the Warren Iron and Steel Company, of which he is vice president and director, and the Warren Rubber Company, of which he is director and treasurer. His banking connection with the Western Reserve National Bank goes back to the time of its organization, and for some years prior to that he was in the employ of the Trumbull National Bank, of which the Western Reserve National Bank is the successor ; in all, a service of thirty-seven years, during the greater part of which time he has had an important part in the financial, industrial and public activities of the City of Warren. The success of the Western Reserve National Bank has been in no small way the result of Mr. Geiger's developed genius as a financier and executive. The institution and the man have grown together until the one has become one of the strongest of Ohio banks, the other one of the state's most able bankers. Probably no citizen of Warren has exceeded Mr. Geiger in zeal to promote the public welfare. All public movements have had his assistance. Especially was this true during the World war, when he gave up the major part of his time to war work. Generally, it may be stated with assurance that his thirty-seven years of residence in Warren has been beneficial to that city, which has grown more than threefold during that period.
Although Mr. Geiger was not born in the Mahoning Valley he is descended from two of the old families of this section. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Geiger, came from Germantown, Pennsylvania, in about 1845 and settled in Howland Township, Trumbull County. His maternal grandfather, Lambert Camp, came from Allentown, Pennsylvania. in about 1840 and settled in Southington Township, Trumbull County, where his daughter Polly, mother of Daniel Addison Geiger, was born. So that although Mr. Geiger, of Warren, spent the first six or seven years of his life in Michigan, he might almost be claimed as a native of the Mahoning Valley, and certainly as a descendant of a Mahoning Valley family.
Jacob Geiger, grandfather of Daniel A., married in Pennsylvania, and for some time thereafter evidently lived in that state, for Ezekiel, father of Daniel Addison, was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Jacob Geiger did not remain in the Mahoning Valley for many years, the record showing that he went with his family into Michigan at about the time his son Ezekiel attained majority, and there Jacob Geiger settled for the remainder of his life. Ezekiel Geiger returned to Trumbull County to marry Polly Camp, daughter of Lambert Camp, of Southington Township, Trumbull County, returning
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again to Michigan, and for some years thereafter farming in that state. In 1873 Ezekiel Geiger brought his family back to the Mahoning Valley, and for a while lived in West Farmington, Trumbull County, later moving to 'Cortland, 'Trumbull County, subsequently to North Lewisburg, Champaign County, Ohio, and thence to Union City, Pennsylvania. In 1883 the family came again into Ohio, taking up residence in the City of Warren, where Mrs. Polly (Camp) Geiger died in 1911, and her husband, Ezekiel Geiger, two years later.
Daniel Addison Geiger son of Ezekiel and Polly (Camp) Geiger, was born on the parental farm in Calhoun County, Michigan, February 8, 1866. He was about seven years old when his parents returned to Trumbull County and settled at West Farmington. He attended the public schools of West Farmington and Cortland, Trumbull County, Ohio and of North Lewisburg, Champaign County, Ohio, and completed his high school course at Union City, Pennsylvania. After graduating therefrom he entered Mount Union College, Ohio, where he took a special course, graduating in 1883. The day after his graduation from Mount Union he entered the employ of the old Trumbull National Bank of Warren as assistant bookkeeper and collector. When the Trumbull National Bank became the Western Reserve National Bank Mr. Geiger was made bookkeeper of the new bank. His subsequent promotion was steady, and indicated his merit and reliability. He became teller in 1892 and cashier two years later, and as the years passed his official capacity increased in scope and responsibility until on January 1, 1917, he became president of the bank, succeeding Mr. S. W. Park, who had been president for more than a generation. The standing of the Western Reserve National Bank of Warren among the leading banking institutions of Ohio is in great measure due to the efficiency, caution and conservative judgment of Mr. Geiger. His financial operations in behalf of the bank have always been based upon the fundamental principles of safe banking, and his judgment has been clear and logical Many of the now stable corporations of Warren have had cause to be thankful to Mr. Geiger for his expert assistance in guiding their affairs to solid establishment. As before stated, he is connected with very many of the substantial corporations, industrial mainly, of Warren, among which may be mentioned the following: The Warren Iron & Steel Company, of which he is vice president ; the Warren Rubber Company, of which he is treasurer; the American Welding and Manufacturing Company, of which he is treasurer ; the Warren Acreage & Investment Company, of which he is treasurer ; and the Park View Home Sites Company, of which he is vice president. He is also a director in from fifteen to eighteen other corporations. In state banking circles he is well regarded. He is a member of the Ohio Bankers' Association, and also of the American Bankers' Association, and during the World war was of great service to the Warren committees formed to achieve in Warren and Trumbull County the purposes of the national administration in the vital matter of war loan issues. Mr. Geiger not only proved himself to be whole-heartedly patriotic in this and other war work, but also one of the most helpful of workers. In like degree he has entered into the general affairs of the City of Warren. He was one of the founders of the Warren Board of Trade and has been a director of that trade body since its organization. He is a charter member of the local lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and also of the Warren Rotary Club. Socially he is a member of the Country Club. He is a liberal supporter of religious and charitable institutions.
In 1887 he married Jessie, daughter of Henry O. Frisbee, a merchant of Union City, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Geiger, since she has lived in Warren, has entered much into church, social and community movements, and taken enthusiastic part with the leading and public-spirited women of Warren in the various phases of war work entrusted to patriotic women for accomplishment. Mr. and Mrs. Geiger enjoy unqualified popular esteem in the City of Warren.
FRED WHITTLESEY ADAMS. The remarkable growth of Warren during the last decade primarily is due to a number of her citizens who, with faith in the city's future and with unselfish ambition to have a place in that future, have faithfully and consistently labored to promote the development of Warren into one of the progressive cities of the entire country. And among those men is found Fred W. Adams, who for thirty years has been an important factor tin the business development of the city, and a vital force in her civic affairs.
Fred W. Adams was born in Warren and his entire life has been spent in this city. He is descended from one of the oldest of American families, one which has been in the Mahoning Valley for five generations, each generation playing its part in the history of the valley, especially in the history of Warren.
Fred Whittlesey Adams is in the eighth generation of American descent from that of the progenitor of the family in America. John Adams, the American grand-ancestor, came over on the ship Fortune, which some records state arrived in Massachusetts Bay prior to the arrival of the Mayflower, but this probably was not so, unless the present available data, which gives the date of the arrival of the Fortune as November II, 1621, is incorrect, for the Mayflower arrived on December 21, 1620. Still, John Adams was one of the responsible members of the Massachusetts settlement, and was a member of the Council that formed the Incorporation of Plymouth (1633), which was the first compact of self-government .entered into by the Pilgrim Fathers. He married Ellen Newton, who came from England in the ship Ann in 1623. He died at Plymouth on October 24, 1633. His widow and their three children removed subsequently to Mansfield, Massachusetts, where she died on December 6, 1681. John Adams was in New England several years before the coming of Henry Adams, progenitor of the American branch to which many famous Americans belonged, including Samuel Adams, one of the leaders of the Revolution, John and John Quincy Adams, presidents of the United States.
James, son of John and Ellen (Newton) Adams, was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, June to, 1826. He married Frances, daughter of William Vassale,
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of Scituate, Massachusetts, who was a son of John Vassale, alderman of the City of London, England, who in 1583, at his own expense, fitted out and commanded two ships of war, and himself joined the royal navy to oppose the Spanish Armada.
Richard Adams, second son of James and Frances (Vassale) Adams, was born April 19, 1651. He married Rebecca, daughter of Robert Davis, of Sudbury, Massachusetts. Richard removed to Norwich, Connecticut, of which he was one of the early proprietors. He was the soldier of that name who was wounded in the "Great Swamp Fight with the Narraganset Indians," December 9, 1675. He died August 24, 1738.
William, youngest son of Richard and Rebecca (Davis) Adams, was born at Sudbury, Massachusetts, January 19, 1690. He married Susannah, daughter of David Woodward, and died August 1, 1727.
Phineas, son of William and Susannah (Woodward) Adams, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, September 7, 1726. He married Lydia Fitch, born January 30, 1734, daughter of Colonel Jabez Fitch and granddaughter of William Bradford, second governor of the Plymouth colony. Phineas died January 7, 1779.
Asahel, son of Phineas and Lydia (Fitch) Adams, was born at Canterbury, Connecticut. He was a soldier of the Revolution, enlisted in the Seventh Regiment of the Connecticut Line at Norwich May 5, 1777, was transferred to the Guards April 1, 1778, served until the termination of hostilities, And was discharged May 5, 1781. He was with General Washington at Valley Forge, was at the Crossing of the Delaware, and at the battle of Trenton. The records of the Connecticut Land Company show that on November 17, 1795, there was conveyed to Asahel and Jabez Adams, Moses Cleveland and three others one township, five square miles, and twenty-eight lots in the Western Reserve, which land was in Trumbull County, Ohio, and part of which is still in the possession of the Adams family. In 1800 Asahel Adams located at Girard, Ohio. He married Olive Avery at Canterbury, Connecticut. She died on April 21, 1813, and five years later he married Olive Mansfield.
Asael, son of Asahel and Olive (Avery) Adams, was born in Canterbury, Connecticut, July 9, 1786. He was a school teacher in Cleveland during the winter of 1806-07; in 1811 he carried the United States mail between Greenburg, Pennsylvania, and Warren, Ohio, by. way of Youngstown; and in 181213, during the period of the war with England, he carried the Federal mail between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Cleveland, Ohio. In 1814 he became established in a general store business in Warren, and for more than half a century was one of the leading merchants of Warren. He. was a director of the old Western Reserve Bank, and in 1828 was one of the organizers and eventually a stockholder of the Warren and Ashtabula Turnpike Company. Five years later he was among those instrumeBtal in promoting the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. He comes prominently into civic records of Warren, for he was in 1834 a member of the first common council of Warren. He was a capitalist of sincere public spirit, and was a benefactor of the First Presbyterian Church of Warren, and also of the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio. He died in 1852, aged sixty-eight years. His wife, Lucy Mygatt, whom he had married on March 20, 1814, lived a widowhood of thirty-three years, her demise not occurring until March 8, 1885, she having reached her ninety-first year. She was born at Danbury, Connecticut, July 28, 1794, daughter of Comfort S. and Lucy (Knapp) Mygatt, who came into Ohio in 1807, settling in that year at Canfield, Mahoning County.
Whittlesey, son of Asael and Lucy (Mygatt) Adams, was born in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, on November 26, 1829, and died June 26, 1916. His father being well-circumstanced, he was afforded a superior education, attending the Western Reserve College, and later entering Yale College, from which he graduated with the class of '57. He was admitted to the legal bar in 1860. Prior to entering Yale College he had to some extent entered into commercial affairs; from 1849 until October, 1852, he was a clerk in the Warren postoffice, and after graduating from Yale he again took up civil service, being clerk of the Probate Court of Trumbull County, Ohio, from October, 1858, until April, 1860. In 1864 he was appointed by President Lincoln paymaster, with the military rank of major, but did not qualify. Like his father, he also took a prominent part in the affairs of Warren and Trumbull County ; he was school examiner of Trumbull County from 1859 to 1868; was one of the three examiners of Western Reserve College in 1867; was president of the Philozetian Society of that college from 1853 to 1855; and also was one of the benefactors of that institution. In 1859-6o, he was secretary-treasurer of the Warren and Lake Erie Plank Road Company. From 1865 to 1869 he was a member of the then well known dry goods house of McCombs, Smiths and Adams of Warren. His main business effort, however, was in the development of the Adams Insurance Agency, which he established in 1857, and with which he remained identified until his death. The agency he then established is still in active operation, in fact is still the largest insurance business in Trumbull County. Whittlesey Adams, however, had several other business interests in Warren and other places. He was a benefactor of the Warren Presbyterian Church, a member of the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland, member of the Society of Sons of the American Revolution, and of the Society of Sons of Colonial Wars. He was a trustee of the Independence Lodge, Knights of Pythias, of Warren, and a member of the Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons. On May 19, 1864, Whittlesey Adams married Margaret, daughter of the late Charles Smith, of Warren. The latter was born at Glens Falls, New York, settled in the Mahoning Valley in 1811, and was for many years one of the business leaders in Warren, Ohio, He was one of the builders and for many years a director of the Cleveland and Mahoning Railway, was one of the incorporators and subsequently president of the Trumbull National Bank, which now is known as the Western Reserve National Bank. He married Ann Eliza 'Scott, born in Warren in 1813, daughter of James Scott, who came from Washington County, Pennsylvania, to
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Warren in 1803. The antecedents of Fred Whittlesey Adams of Warren are therefore closely connected with the history of the Mahoning Valley since its pioneer days, as well as with the establishment of the first New England colony.
Fred Whittlesey Adams, son of Whittlesey and Margaret (Smith) Adams, was born in Warren on February 28, 1868. He was educated in the public schools of Warren, and when twenty-one years old became associated with his father in the operation of the Adams Insurance Agency. He has continued to be identified with that business since that time, and since 1911, when the business took corporate scope, under the name of The Adams Insurance Agency Company, he has been its secretary and treasurer. He is a man of optimistic spirit and much initiative, has since early manhood interested himself actively in the public affairs of his native city, and has long been among the leading business men of the city. His estimable standing in moral and material integrity and as a conservative man of sound business ability has brought him into association with many important corporations of Warren, including the Second National Bank, of which he is vice president. For many years he has been a director of the Warren Board of Trade, and one of its most active workers for the increase in prosperity of the city, and he has also been an active member of the Warren Rotary Club, which body has of recent years taken increasing part in movements that promise benefit or industrial advantage to the city. Socially he is a member of the Masonic and Country clubs; and fraternally he is a member of the Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, and also of Warren Commandery No. 39, Knights Templars. One of Mr. Adams' most creditable activities has been his indefatigable co-operation with the work of the Red Cross and other local patriotic committees during the progress of the World war. He is a director of the Red Cross Society, and was county chairman of the Civilian Relief and Home Service Committee of that organization. He also participated in almost all other phases of war work in his district, personally subscribing to the limit of his resources to the various funds established by the national administration for the proper prosecution of the war, in the success of which Mr. Adams was so vitally interested, having given his two sons to the nation for military service. Fortunately he was destined to have both sons eventually returned to him without serious hurt, but after strenuous service in France. Mr. Adams married Olive Palmiter, who was born in Illinois, daughter of Luther and Sarah (Bailey) Palmiter. They have two children. Norman Whittlesey, who was born February 2, 1894, was educated at the Western Reserve College and at Yale University, and during the war, 1918-19, was attached to the Aviation branch of the United States Army. He is now associated with his father in business, being vice president of the Adams Insurance Agency Company. Fred Dean, who was born in Warren, Ohio, August 5, 1895, and was educated in the Warren schools and at Colgate University. He was among those first called into national service, September 17, 1917, under the selective draft, and was fortunate enough to eventually cross the ocean as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces. He was promoted to the grade of corporal, and was in the St. Mihiel major battle, September 14, 1918 during which he was wounded and gassed. While lying wounded on the field he noticed a German gunner endeavor to bring a machine gun into operation in the rear of the advancing American troops. That man he shot. For several months thereafter he was in hospital, not being able to rejoin his regiment until January 22, 1919. He served with the Army of Occupation in Germany, and was in July, 1919, honorably discharged from a meritorious service.
ROBERT WEASNER. The Village of Berlin Center, Mahoning County, claims Mr. Weasner as one of its venerable retired citizens, and he was a child at the time when his parents established their residence in this county, which has represented his home during the long intervening period of nearly eighty years. Here he was reared and educated under the conditions that marked the middle-pioneer period of the county's history, and from this county he went forth as a gallant young soldier of the Union when the Civil war was precipitated on the nation. As a citizen he has ever commanded unqualified popular esteem, and prior to his retirement he had been for many years actively identified with farm industry in Mahoning County.
Mr. Weasner was born in Hardeston Township, Sussex County, New Jersey, December 31, 1836, and in the same state were born his parents, William and Mahala (Boyd) Weasner. In the autumn of 1841, when the subject of this review was about five years old, the family came to Ohio and joined Robert Weasner, a brother of William, who had established his home near the .present dam of Lake Milton in Milton Township, Mahoning County. A part of the old farm of Robert Weasner is now covered by the waters of the lake mentioned, this being virtually an artificial body of water. Here Robert Weasner passed the remainder of his life, and in the same township his brother William secured a pioneer farm, near the old Vaughn Cemetery and on the west side of the Mahoning River, a part of this farm likewise being now covered by Lake Milton. William Weasner, a man of energy, good judgment and high integrity, developed and improved his farm and became one of the prosperous exponents of agricultural enterprise in the county. In addition to his original homestead he became the owner of another farm, of 105 acres, and this tract is now a part of Lake Milton. On the old home farm William Weasner died at the venerable age of seventy-eight years, and the remains of himself and his wife rest in the Vaughn Cemetery. Both were active members of the Baptist Church at Newton Falls, Trumbull County, about nine miles distant from their home. Mrs. Weasner survived her husband by several years and was more than eighty years of age at the time of her death, the names of both meriting high place on the roll of the sterling pioneers of Mahoning County. John P. Simpson and Henry Winfield, who married sisters of William and Robert Weasner, came to Mahoning County about the same time as the Weasner brothers, and all settled in the same neighborhood. Following is a brief record concerning the children of William
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and Mahala Weasner: Susan, who became the wife of J. H. Vaughn, died in middle life; Rebecca became the wife of Leonitus Carson and was a resident of Kansas at the time of her death; Robert, of this review, was the next in order of birth; William, who died in June, 1862, at Tuscumbia, Alabama, was at the time in service as a member of Company D, Nineteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in which command he enlisted at the beginning of the Civil war; James is still a resident of Milton Township; Margaret became the wife of William Dietz and died at Newton Falls ; Susan is the wife of J. H. Vaughn; Sarah is the wife of Moses McClure, of Newton Falls ; Hanna, wife of John VanWinkle, of Milton Township, died in 1919; Jeffrey died in young manhood; Lois died at theage of sixteen years; Grace, wife of Addison Cronk, at Canfield, Ohio; Horace, who married Mary Eckes, is a retired farmer residing at Gar- rettsville, Portage County.
As before stated, Robert Weasner was reared to manhood in Mahoning County, where he early gained full fellowship with the arduous work of the pioneer farm. On the 5th of March, 1857, he wedded Miss Rachel Best, of Berlin Township, and they established their modest home in the little village of Frederick, on the Mahoning River and also on the old stage line between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Ravenna, Ohio, the village mentioned having been in those days a place of not a little business importance, though now its site is mostly covered by Lake Milton. The village had, however, practically disappeared before the construction of the lake was instituted. When the dark cloud of Civil war cast its pall over the national horizon Mr. Weasner responded to the call of patriotism, though this implied his leaving his young wife and sacrificing much in a business sense. He enlisted in 1861 as a private in Company D, Nineteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of which his brother William likewise became a member, as did also Josiah Vaughn, John Davis, Walter Vaughn, Harvey McCollums, Wallace Shoemaker and two other young men of the same neighborhood in Mahoning County. The command proceeded to Louisville, Kentucky, and thereafter lived up to the full tension of the conflict on southern battlefields. The regiment was with Sherman's forces on the historic march from Atlanta to the sea, but physical disability led to the discharge of Robert Weasner after he had been in service only a few months. He continued with his regiment until it was found necessary to send him to a hospital, and his condition thereafter was such as to render him ineligible for further field service, on which account he was given his honorable discharge. In later years he has signalized his continued interest in his old comrades by maintaining affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic.
After the completion of his military career and his return home Mr. Weasner opened a general store at Frederick, but after conducting the same about eight months he purchased a farm which included nearly all of this old-time village, together with the sites of the old taverns that had been popular stopping-places on the pioneer stage route. The landed estate which he thus acquired comprised about goo acres and included the old farms of Frederick Byers and Peter H. Bean. In addition to giving his personal supervision to his own farm property Mr. Weasner also operated a farm of 172 acres belonging to his wife's father. On the Byers farm, near the old village of Frederick, he erected new buildings and made other improvements indicative of his progressiveness, and later 148 acres of his valuable landed estate were requisitioned in connection with the formation of Lake Milton, the waters of which now cover this area. The remainder of the land Mr. Weasner has given to his children, the Bean farm, of 150 acres, having been given to his daughter Leeta A., the wife of Charles Kline. The remainder of his old farm estate is now owned by his granddaughter, Iva Lulu Barringer. His wife inherited the old farm of her father, and this property likewise is now owned by their daughter, Mrs. Kline. Mrs. Rachel (Best) Weasner was summoned to eternal rest in 1906. Of the three children, Alva H., who died at the age of twenty-nine years, was graduated in a medical college at Cleveland, and at the time of his death was associated in practice with Doctor Hughes at Berlin Center ; Maud died at the age of nine years ; and Leeta is the wife of Charles Kline, of Berlin Center. In 1911 Mr. Weasner married Theda Porter, who was born in Berlin Township, Mahoning County, and they have a pleasant home in the Village of Berlin Center, no children having been born of this union.
Mr. Weasner continued for more than half a century as a successful exponent of agricultural and live-stock industry in Mahoning County, and since his retirement he has made a specialty of extending mortgages on farms in connection with other financial transactions and interests. He served fifteen years as a justice of the peace in Milton Township, and later was elected to the same office in Berlin Township, an office which he retained until his resignation. He has ever been an advocate of the basic principles of the democratic party; and was at one time a candidate for county commissioner, meeting defeat with the rest of the democratic ticket in that election. He is not so constrained by partisanship that he will not vote for a candidate on an opposing party ticket if he considers that candidate the more worthy. As a youth of sixteen years Mr. Weasner became a member of the Disciples or Christian Church, and later he united with the Lutheran Church at New Berlin. He served thirty years as Sunday School superintendent, and developed a school of about 300 members. He has always been zealous in Sunday School service, and has made an admirable record as a teacher in this important field of church work. He has been prominent and influential also in connection with the work of the Grange or Patrons of Husbandry, his enthusiastic service having contributed much to the success of the organization in his county. As a stock grower he made a specialty of raising beef cattle of the best grade, particularly the Shorthorn type, and he was distinctly successful also in the raising of Plymouth Rock poultry. He was deputy organizer of Granges and has delivered many public addresses in connection with Grange work and the furtherance of advanced
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standards in agricultural and live-stock industry. A man of high ideals and marked ability, Mr. Weasner has been a leader in community thought and action, and as the shadows of his life lengthen from the golden west he is placed "where every prospect pleases" and where he is assured of the confidence and high regard of all who know him.
EDWARD E. KLOOZ, vice president and general manager of the Portage Silica Company, Youngstown, was born at Cleveland, Ohio, April 30, 1868. He was educated in the schools of his native city and at Case School of Applied Science, graduating from the latter institution in 1891. He had specialized in chemistry, and spent a year in the iron industry, being connected with the mines on Gogebic Range. He then entered the analytical laboratory of the Grasselli Chemical Company, remaining with that concern until 1897, at which time he became connected with the Bronson Portland Cement Company in his professional character of analytical chemist.
In 1898 Mr. Klooz came to the Mahoning Valley, and for eleven years was superintendent of the cement plant of the Brier Hill Iron & Coal Company. In 1909 he was chosen as general manager of the Portage Silica Company, in which capacity he has continued until the present time. In 1915 Mr. Klooz became a vice president of the latter company, which is now among the leading producers of special grades of sand and road building material in this part of the country.
JAMES W. BIGGERS. Several of the best residential sections of Warren have been opened and developed through the efforts of James W. Biggers, familiarly known as "Jimmie," and of the firm of J. W. Biggers & Son, and he has not confined his effective operations to real estate, but has branched out into other fields of activity.
James W. Biggers was born in the City of Ottawa, Canada, on January 15, 1853, a son of William H. and Mary (Stewart) Biggers, both natives of the same city. The paternal grandfather, Isaac Bigger, as the name was then spelled, was a native of the north of Ireland, where he was married. He became a pioneer of Ottawa, Canada, settling there when it was known as Byetown, having been named in honor of General Bye, an English officer. The maternal grandfather, James Stewart, was also born in the north of Ireland, where he was married, and he, too, came to Ottawa, Canada. The Stewarts, however, were of Scotch origin.
William H. Biggers was a tanner by trade, and in 1864 he came to Niles, Ohio, from Canada, and worked in the steel mills. In 1871 he came to Warren and was employed in the old flax mills. He continued to reside at Warren until his death, which occurred in 1901, when he was about seventy-three years old, his wife having passed away in 1891.
In 1868 James W. Biggers came to Warren, three years prior to the removal of the family to this city, and spent about three years in the employ of the Austin House, then the leading hotel between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Leaving the hotel business, Mr. Biggers became news agent on the Franklin branch of the old Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, his run being between Meadville and Oil City, Pennsylvania. Returning to Warren, he learned the carriage trimming trade and worked at it for ten years, for Drennan & Sons, the then leading carriage manufacturers of Warren, and since 1885 he has been in active business for himself. In 1903 Mr. Biggers became interested in real estate, and embarked in his present business, he and his son William J. forming the firm of J. W. Biggers & Son, which still continues. This firm has opened and developed the Homewood Avenue Allotment, and the Columbia Circle Allotment, both splendid residential sections, and in the latter the firm has built altogether fifty homes.
Mr. Biggers has other interests and is a director of the Warren Board of Trade, of which he is a charter member, and for many years has been active in public matters. For four years he served on the Board of Public Service of Warren, and in 1910 he was a member of the Board of Tax Appraisers under the Smith "one per cent" law. Mr. Biggers belongs to Warren Lodge No. 29, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; to Trumbull Encampment No. 147, and to the Canton at Warren, since the latter's organization. He is also a member of Warren Lodge of Elks, No. 295. He is a member of the Episcopal Church.
The first wife of Mr. Biggers bore the maiden name of Ellen Black, and she was a daughter of William and Jessie Black of Cotbridge, Scotland. The first Mrs. Biggers died in 1898, leaving three daughters, namely : Jessie M., who married D. A. McArthur, of Winnipeg, Canada; Minnie, who married William A. Spill, of Warren, an attorney-at-law now residing at Pasadena, California; and Elizabeth, who married Frank M. Levens, of Chicago, Illinois. In August, 1899, Mr. Biggers was married to Mrs. Sarah J. (Biggin) Wolford, widow of John Wolford and daughter of William H. and Emily Biggin, of Vernon, Ohio. Mr. Biggin died in April, 1918. By her first marriage Mrs. Biggers had two sons: Louis Wolford, who lives at Vernon, Ohio, married Beatrice Reed, a daughter of Charles Reed, of Vernon, and they have one son, William R.; and William J., junior member of the firm of J. W. Biggers & Son, who married Ellen, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Loveless, of Warren.
RAY Y. CLIFF, treasurer and general manager of the Saxon China Company, secretary of the French China Company, and director of the Strong Manufacturing Company, all of Sebring, is one of the leading business men of that place, and one of the principal executives of the vast pottery interests developed in that part of Ohio by the Sebring family. His biography shows that he is a man of superior academic attainments and varied experience, and that he is a man of high moral principle, and, holding as he does important business appointments, he must be a business executive of proven ability.
He was born in New Richmond, Wisconsin, March 21, 1884, the son of a merchant of that place, and he was afforded a good education, which culminated in his gaining the baccalaureate degree at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, from which university he graduated with the class of 1907. He appears to have early evidenced the possession of a fervent religious inclination, and for
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 587
four years after graduating he used his talents to further religious teaching and evangelical work
throughout the country. During that time he associated with Evangelist Biederwolf, acting as his
secretary and pianist, and it was while he was in such work that he became acquainted with Miss
Hazel Sebring, daughter of O. H. Sebring, of Sebring, Ohio. That acquaintance was destined to
greatly influence his life; it brought him to Sebring in February, IonI0n,d was the fundamental cause of his introduction then to the pottery interests of the Sebring family. His four years of executive and organizing work in the evangelistic field while essentially different from executive work of industrial enterprises was not without value as a training for business life, and when he was appointed secretary of the French China Company of Sebring he soon demonstrated good qualities as an executive. He was reliable, conscientious and capable; was of that type which seeks to know more than the superficial. He was not content with an ability to satisfactorily carry through matters of office routine entrusted to him for execution; he entered the shops, resolved to master the details of manufacture. And in course of time the company had sufficient confidence in his knowledge of factory operation to appoint him factory manager as well as secretary. In October, 1911, married Hazel Sebring, and thus became even more closely associated with the affairs of the Sebring family. On January 1, 1917, when the present owners purchased the Saxon China. Company of Sebring, Mr. Cliff was selected general manager of the company, and also elected to the directorate and made treasurer, although retaining his corporate connection with the French China Company. The Strong Manufacturing Company was later organized, and Mr. Cliff is on its directorate, but that company has no connection with the other two companies with which Mr. Cliff is identified.
The affairs of the Saxon China Company and the French China Company over which he has supervision as general manager and treasurer of one and as secretary of the other are affairs of consequence, which will be realized when it is stated that each of the enterprises find constant employment for about 300 people, and annually produce pottery approximating $1,0,000,000 value. And Mr. Cliff's methods of supervision have been such as to bring him the respect of the employes as well as of the employers.
In civic and communal affairs, and especially in church activities, Mr. Cliff has been much interested. He is a steward of the local Methodist Episcopal Church, and he and his wife are constantly active in social functions in the neighborhood, and especially in those of religious or sacred purpose. Mrs. Cliff, who is agraduate of Mittelberger's Academy, Cleveland, has taken a leading part in women's activities in Sebring and in Alliance, which is four miles distant, and during the World war (lid much effective work in the home sector in connection with the local Red Cross and other phases of women's war work. The Cliff home is one of Sebring's most desirable residences, and both Mr. and Mrs. Cliff are socially popular and hospitably inclined. They have three children, two daughters and a son, the children in order of birth being
Harriet Elizabeth, Martha Jane and Oliver Sebring.
Fraternally Mr. Cliff is a Mason and a member of the Alliance Commandery of Knights Templar, Alliance, Ohio. He is generally well-regarded in the Sebring district, and has shown helpful, elevating citizenship.
HENRY O. BONNELL was born in Newlay, Yorkshire, England, January 11, 1839, and died at Youngstown, January 16, 1893. He had been from 1875 forward the most conspicuous figure in the iron industry at Youngstown, during that period one of the most important iron centers in the world. In addition to this Mr. Bonnell had been associated with so many other local enterprises and had given so much of his time and ability to the public interest that he was probably the most widely known and certainly one of the most popular citizens of the Mahoning Valley.
Mr. Bonnell came to this country with his parents in 1841, when he was two years of age. His father, William Bonnell, was a practical ironworker and a man of more than ordinary ability. After residing for a short time at Pittsburgh, Connellsville and New Castle in turn, he took his family to Youngstown in 1855. Here the same year he formed a partnership with others and took over the old and at that time idle mill of the Youngstown Rolling Mill Company. The son attended school for one term and then entered the mill, being at that time sixteen years of age. He learned the practical side of the business and fitted himself to take his father's place, which he did when death called the elder Bonnell in 1875. The Brown, Bonnell & Company partnership was that year formed into a corporation under the same name, and Mr. Bonnell was made vice president. He was, however, the real head of the enterprise and under his management it became one of the most important and widely known iron works in the world.
In 1879 a group of capitalists headed by Herbert C. Ayer acquired control of the Brown, Bonnell & Company corporation by purchasing a majority of the stock. Henry O. Bonnell did not approve of the sale and he and others contested in court for the controlling power, but Ayer and his associates were able to hold on. After the case was decided Henry O. Bonnell headed a group of local capitalists who purchased the Valley Mill on Cran Creek and put it into operation. In 1886 this company was chartered and Henry O. Bonnell made president, and he managed the plant from that time until his death, which was due to overwork and a complication of diseases resulting from this.
At the time of his death Henry O. Bonnell was president of the Mahoning & Shenango Valley Manufacturers' Association, in which he had been one of the moving spirits from the time of its organization ; president of the Mahoning National Bank; president of the Hubbard Rolling Mill Company ; director in the Ohio Steel Company, the Lakeside Nail Company and the First National Bank of Youngstown.
Those who recall Henry O. Bonnell describe him personally as of a type of men of whom each generation has produced one or more in the Mahoning Valley. He was a most genial character, although very modest and quiet in his manner. His ability and
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judgment were such that his advice was sought on all kinds of questions, and in the midst of untiring work in the upbuilding of his business he always found time to do something for the good of the community.
It was largely because of the great ability and foresight of Henry 0. Bonnell that the works of Brown, Bonnell & Company grew to their large importance. He was always able to see the advantage of extensions on a large scale and had the vision necessary for establishing the business on a firm basis and laying the foundation for the future of the industry in this locality. He will have a place in local history as one of the great captains of industry in his time and will be remembered as a genial friend by hundreds to whom his democratic disposition and generous nature endeared him.
JUDGE WILLIAM RAYEN was one of the most noted among the early citizens of Youngstown. He was generally known as Colonel Rayen or Judge Rayen, and was entitled to both appellations, as we shall presently see.
William Rayen was born October 21, 1776, in Kent County, Maryland. He came to Youngstown in 1802 and opened a hostelry known as Rayen's Tavern. This he conducted until 1812, having in the meantime started a store, which, with farming, occupied his attention until about 1837. He prospered in both of the last named occupations, and became one of the most popular and progressive citizens in the village. Part of the time he was in partnership in the mercantile business with James Mackey, but for the greater part of the time conducted his business alone. He is recalled as a man who was always able to see ahead and to advise anyone who consulted' him, as well as one who was always eager to assist any man who deserved assistance and justified his confidence. It is a matter of record that he had a large part in the development of the coal industry in the valley, chiefly through help which he extended to Governor David Tod when the latter first undertook this task, and there were many others among the earlier financiers who owed to him a part at least of their success, because of timely aid rendered them.
Colonel Rayen took an active interest in public affairs from the beginning of his residence in Youngstown. The first town meeting was held at his inn, and he served in a number of minor offices. In 1804 he was township treasurer; in 1805, township clerk, which office he held intermittently for years. His title of Colonel was won by his command of the First Regiment, Third Brigade, Fourth Division, Ohio Militia, at the head of which he went to the western frontier in 1812. From 1818 to 1839 he was postmaster of Youngstown, and kept the office at his store on West Federal Street. During a part of this time he served as justice of the peace, and on August 27, 1820, he was appointed by Governor Ethan Allen Brown an associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Trumbull County, an incident to which he owes the title of judge, by which he was best known among his friends. In 184o Judge Rayen was elected by the Legislature a member of the Board of Public Works at Columbus.
Judge Rayen was among the first purchasers of land from John Young and secured one of the "out lots" laid out for farms. He cultivated this during most of the remainder of his life and took much interest in the development of agriculture. He was one of the organizers of the first agricultural society in Trumbull County, which seems to have been the first of its kind in Ohio. He was one of the promoters of the Ohio-Pennsylvania Canal and served on the board as a director. Likewise he was one of the men who helped to build the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad, and was among the original stockholders. There was no movement, social, political or financial, in the struggling young community in which Judge Rayen did not have a part, and he was, because of his good sense, geniality and popularity, possessed of influence far beyond his means, although he was considered wealthy at his death, which occurred in 1856, at the ripe age of eighty years. One of the institutions enjoying the benefit of his wise counsel in its early days and still flourishing is the Mahoning National Bank of Youngstown, in which he was one of the directors when it was organized in 1850, and also its president during the remainder of his life.
Judge Rayen seems to have had a large influence on the life of the Village of Youngstown, as would be natural when we consider his varied public and personal activities. It is said that he knew every man, woman and child in the town by name until the time when the building of the canal, the opening of coal mines and other activities brought an influx of strangers. It is related of him, also, that he respected and encouraged all forms of public worship, even though he was not himself a communicant of any church. And he has left a striking testimony to his breadth of mind in the provision made in his will for the founding of a school for the higher education of children in Youngstown. Always an advocate of education, he devoted the greater part of his wealth to providing a school for the children of others, since he was himself childless. This document contains a clause reading as follows:
"As this school is designed for the benefit of all youth of the township, without regard to religious denominations or differences, and that none may be excluded for such or the like reasons or grounds, I hereby prohibit the teaching therein of the peculiar religious tenets or doctrines of any denomination or sect whatever : at the same time I enjoin that no others he employed as teachers than those of good moral character and habits."
Details concerning the establishment of Rayen High School are given in the chapter dealing with educational activities in Youngstown. It may be said here that this institution is a splendid monument to a man whose generosity, liberality and foresight were forward of his time. It is a great honor of itself to have been the first man in a community like Youngstown to set the example of devoting personal wealth to the public good, a practice which in this country seems to be growing much more rapidly among those who have acquired great wealth by their own efforts than ever was the case in Europe, or even in America, for that matter. It is an equally great honor to have been among the first in a new community to definitely and effectively declare for the liberality of spirit which has come to be one of the marks of progress and intelligence in any community, but which was not always regarded in that light.
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There are not many people now living who can recall the genial faced, white-haired old gentleman known as Judge Rayen, but his memory will always be kept green by the school in which successive generations of youth acquire the blessing of higher education amid traditions which make this institution one of which any city might justly be proud.
EVAN E. THOMAS One of the worthy citizens, efficient public officials and deservedly popular men of the Mahoning Valley is Evan E. Thomas who is serving his second term as sheriff of Trumbull County and is the nominee of the republican party for re-election (September, 1920.)
Mr. Thomas is a native of the Mahoning Valley. He was born on the Thomas farm in Liberty Township, Trumbull County, on January 1, 1877, the son of William J. and Anna (Williams) Thomas, both natives of South Wales, where the father was born in 1835 and the mother in 1838.
William J. Thomas worked in the coal mines of South Wales until 1869, and in that year he came to the United States and located at Crab Creek (now in the city limits of Youngstown), and worked in the different mines of the Youngstown district for many years, making his home on his farm in Liberty Township. Late in life he retired from active work and removed to the City of Niles, where he died in 1911. His wife preceded him to the grave, she dying in Niles in 19o4.
Evan E. Thomas came to Warren in 1892 and began an apprenticeship at the blacksmith's trade in the shop of the late Henry A. Strong, for whom he worked, as apprentice and journeyman, for six years without losing a day from his work.
In 1899 Mr. Thomas and his brothers, William J. and David W., formed a partnership and engaged in general blacksmithing in Niles. In 1914 Evan E. was elected sheriff of Trumbull County on the republican ticket; in 1916 he was nominated for re-election, but was defeated and rejoined his brothers in business at Niles. It has long been the custom in Trumbull County to reward a faithful and efficient official with re-election; and as there had never been any question raised as to Mr. Thomas' faithfulness and efficiency, he decided to see vindica- tion in 1918, and was renominated at the primaries and elected at the regular election, and served out his second term with such satisfaction to all concerned that in 192o he was renominated, leading the republican ticket at the primary election, by an increased majority.
Mr. Thomas is a member of Mahoning Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Falcon Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Niles Lodge, Knights of Pythias, the Red Men and Royal Arcanum, all of Niles City.
On August 27, 1914, Mr. Thomas was united in marriage with Anna Evans, daughter of John E. and Anna Evans, of Niles, Ohio. Both Mr, and Mrs. Thomas are members of Niles Methodist Episcopal Church.
JONATHAN WARNER was one of the pioneers in the blast furnace industry of the Mahoning Valley. He was born at Oaks Corners, New York, February 8, 1808, and died at Youngstown, Ohio, April 18, 1895.
Vol. III-13
He was a partner in the construction and operation of the first bituminous coal furnace in the valley except that at Lowellville, this being the Eagle at Brier Hill; and later erected two other furnaces at Mineral Ridge, where the successful use of black band ore was first accomplished on a large scale.
It is probable, however, that the most far reaching activity of Jonathan Warner was in the development of the Lake Superior ore region, from which more than 68,000,000 tons of ore are now mined annually, and on which depends almost the entire iron and steel industry of the United States, 64 per cent of the ores smelted in American furnaces having come from this region in 191& Mr. Warner was one of the first men to foresee the tremendous development of the demand for iron and steel in this country and likewise among the first to realize that the limited supply available in this locality could last for but a short time. He was interested in the Mesabi Range before any ore from that range had been brought down the lakes, and used to go there when the Indians were the only persons who knew the location of iron mines. He was the first president of the Republic Ore Mining Company, the first to make shipment down the lakes a success. His efforts to enlist capital in the opening of the Lake Superior region met with many difficulties, as in that early day it was difficult to convince practical business men that iron ore could be transported 1,000 miles without exorbitant expense, but he persisted and was rewarded before his death in seeing the Marquette, Menominee, Gogebic, Vermilion, Mesabi, Michipicoten and Baraboo ranges all shipping ore down the lakes and supplying every furnace between ,the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi River.
Jonathan Warner was the progenitor of the Warner family whose members have been so conspicuous in the iron and steel industries of the Mahoning Valley for three generations. He was the grandfather of Jonathan Warner, president of the Trumbull Steel Company and one of the leading figures in the industry at this time.
REUBEN MCMILLAN. Among Youngstown educators of both old and modern days there is one who always stands foremost in the minds of the greatest number. Mention of his name awakens only the fondest recollections in the mind of any Youngstown person past the age of two score years who received his or her education in the public schools here.
Reuben McMillan was born at Canfield on October 7, 1820, his father being a native of New Jersey and his mother a native of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. His early educational opportunities were limited, but he received some instruction in the township schools and by private tuition until thirteen years of age, when he began to learn the trade of harness making. He remained at this work for four years, but his inclinations, were in another direction, and at seventeen he determined to obtain a better education. Even while working at his trade he studied Latin and other academic branches, pursuing this study and algebra and geometry, at home in the evenings after his day's work was done.
In 1837 he became a teacher in the rural schools, obtaining in this manner sufficient funds to permit him to pursue an academic course. From- 1839 to
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1843 he studied at a private academy, and in the latter year was named assistant to the principal of the academy. While teaching he also studied and continued to advance in his chosen profession. In 1849 he was elected superintendent of the public schools of Hanoverton, Columbiana County, and after a short stay there was made superintendent of schools at Lisbon, then New Lisbon, county seat of the same county. Failing health compelled him to give up this position, and he returned to Canfield, where he lived on a farm and taught a private academy during the winter until 1853, when he was engaged as superintendent of the Youngstown schools. In 1855 he accepted a similar position at Salem, remaining there until 1861, when he was again retained to head the Youngstown schools. His stay this time was for six years, but in 1867 his health again failed. In that year he was offered the superintendency of the Cleveland schools, but was unable to accept this offer.
His health restored by five years' retirement, Mr. McMillan was again called to the position of superintendent of the Youngstown schools in 1872, holding the position on this occasion until 1886. It was just thirty-three years prior to this that he had first accepted the Youngstown superintendency, and for twenty-two years of this period the schools here were under his charge.
It was not mere length of service, however, that endeared Youngstown school pupils and Youngstown men and women of mature years to Reuben McMillan. Blessed with great ability, he was also one of the kindliest of men, tender, considerate, devoted to his work and caring little for personal gain. The poorer children of the schools were the object of his special solicitude. His beauty of countenance of itself stamped him as one of nature's noblemen. He was a tutor by example as well as precept, living the God-fearing life that he encouraged in the youth of Youngstown. In religion he was a Presbyterian, and for some years was an elder in the old First Church here.
The Youngstown school library was built up largely through the efforts of Superintendent McMillan, and in 188o he was one of the incorporators of the Youngstown Library Association. It was due to his deep interest in this work that the Youngstown Public Library was made the Reuben McMillan Public Library when the library association was reorganized in 1897. It is a tribute rarely paid a man that he was thus honored before his death, and it was a still more rare tribute that was paid him when the present library building was named in his honor. Usually this distinction goes to the person whose financial assistance makes a public building possible. Reuben McMillan had labored for love of others and love of his work and acquired little competence in his almost four score years of life, but in this instance golden deeds were given preference over offerings of gold, and even though a great philanthropist subscribed liberally to the library fund the building bears the name of Youngstown's beloved educator of more than a generation ago.
On severing his connection with the Youngstown schools Mr. McMillan retired again to Canfield, where he lived a quiet existence until his death on June 23, 1898. He was survived by his widow, who was Susan Campbell, daughter of John Campbell, of Salem Ohio, and whom he married on June 30, 1849.
HORACE W. SPEAR. A resident of Mahoning County for half a century, while Horace W. Spear is widely known over this populous section of the state as one of the county commissioners of Ma-honing County, his chief interests and labors have been centered in Goshen Township at Garfield, where through the early activities of his father, continued by the son, one of the big sources of fruit production has been established.
Horace W. Spear, who is a veteran in all branches of horticulture, including marketing and distribution, was born at Salem, Columbiana County, February 17, 1857, son of Dr. Benjamin Wells and Elizabeth B. (Ware) Spear. His paternal grandparents were Alexander and Rebecca Spear, the former probably a native of Scotland. Dr. B. W. Spear was born at Mount Jackson, Pennsylvania, in 1822, and in 1845 began the practice of medicine in Niles, Ohio, later in North Jackson and then in Salem. For twenty years he did the strenuous work of his profession, riding and driving over the country and willingly enduring the labors and hardships of such work. His health broke down, and though he had to abandon his professional labors he still had an interest and enthusiasm, that gave him a long continued lease of life and an opportunity for continued usefulness. This was the growing and handling of fruit, and in 1865 he moved to Garfield, where he developed a fine fruit farm in Goshen Township. In 1873 he built the large cold storage apple house at Garfield, and for a number of years continued to be engaged in the buying and shipping of fruit from this section. For ten years he was in business as B. W. Spear & Son, his son Horace being his partner. Doctor Spear removed to California in 1890 and lived in the genial climate of the southern part of that state, in Pasadena until 19I4, when at the advanced age of ninety-one he died, leaving a record of honorable action and character that made him widely esteemed. His wife was a native of Mahoning County, and prior to her marriage, which was celebrated January 17, 1856, she was a teacher. Her death occurred in 1912 in Pasadena. Doctor and Mrs. Spear had four children : Horace W., Mary E. Harting, Eliza R. Hole and Arthur D. Spear.
Horace W. Spear has been a resident of Garfield since he was eight years of age, and was educated in the local schools and Mount Union College. In 188o, at the age of twenty-three, he became associated with his father in the apple business, and since the retirement of his father in 1895 has been the active head of the industry, now for a quarter of a century. He had a farm of eighty-five acres, a large part of which was devoted to the production of fruit, but sold this property in 191o. He continues the operation of the plant for the storage and marketing of the product of many of the orchards in this section of Ohio.
Mr. Spear married Isabella Stanley, daughter of Jonathan and Hannah (Miller) Stanley, of Salem. She received a high school education in her home town, and subsequently attended the Western Female Seminary at Oxford, Ohio, and Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana. For several years be-
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fore her marriage she was a teacher in public schools.
Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Spear united with the Presbyterian Church of Salem, and still retain their membership in that church. Mr. Spear for all the cares of business has been active in politics for thirty years, serving a long time on the election board, eight years as township trustee, and in 1916 was made a member of the County Equalization Board and in 1918 nominated and elected county commissioner by an exceptionally good vote. He grew up a republican, and has been stanchly devoted to the success of that party and its principles.
The qualities that have brought him success in business and in public affairs have at their basis a strong public spirit, which has made him an interested and willing worker in every movement for the uplift of his community and the country. No one in his section has taken a keener interest in the building of good roads, and with a thorough understanding of what good roads mean to a country community he has been able to advocate and direct his influence in many ways to securing such improvements. During the war he was a leader in his community for the raising of funds,. particularly in the Liberty Loan campaigns.
JOHN M. EDWARDS, lawyer, newspaperman, historian and public-spirited citizen in many respects, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, on October 23, 1805, a son of Henry W. Edwards and Lydia Edwards and a grandson of Pierpont Edwards, one of the original members of the Connecticut Land Company.
Graduating at Yale in 1824, Mr. Edwards read law with Judge Bristol at New Haven and in 1826 was admitted to the practice of law in Connecticut. He followed this profession at New Haven until 1832, when he responded to the call of the West, a move that was but natural on his part, as other members of the Edwards' family had been identified with the Western Reserve from its earliest days. After a few months' stay in Youngstown he left for northern Trumbull County, where he was engaged in the land business until August 3o, 1838, when he was admitted to practice in the Ohio courts and opened a law office at Warren.
Mr. Edwards' inclinations, however, were always toward writing rather than toward practice of the law, and as he was at all times deeply interested in public questions it is not surprising that 184o saw him engaged in editing the Trumbull Democrat as well as practicing his profession. This newspaper was a weekly journal, published at Warren. In 1841 he was appointed commissioner of bankrupts for Trumbull County and in 1842 was the democratic candidate for member of Congress for the Nineteenth District. Although unsuccessful in his candidacy, he cut down the usual great whig majority to the minimum. In 1841 he was also commissioned captain of a militia company and in 1843 was named school examiner, for Trumbull County.
In 1846 Mahoning County was organized and Mr. Edwards removed to Canfield, then the county seat. Here he opened a law office, but the lure of journalism was too strong for him and within a few months he was engaged as editor of the Mahoning Index, a newspaper launched in that year. In 1855 he became the Canfield correspondent for the Mahoning Register, published at Youngstown. This correspondence, appearing over the name of "Quill Pen," was an especially attractive feature of that newspaper. In 1846 he had been named school examiner of Mahoning County and in 1863 was again appointed to this office, retaining the office for several years.
In 1864 Mr. Edwards removed from Canfield to Youngstown. In that year he became associate editor of the Mahoning Register, in the winter of 1864-65 was clerk of the Senate at Columbus and in 1865 became the Youngstown correspondent of the Cleveland Herald, remaining in this capacity until 1879. In April, 1869, he was elected justice of the peace of Youngstown Township and was re-elected in 1872 and 1875, serving until 1878. On July 14, 1842, he was married at Warren to Miss Mary P. Crail, who died on May 15, 1877. Mr. Edwards, or 'Squire Edwards, as he was known in the later years of his life, died in 1886.
While his life had been a useful one in many respects, it is as a historian that he performed services to which Youngstown and Mahoning County will ever be indebted to Mr. Edwards. From the day of his arrival he had been keenly interested in historical happenings on the Western Reserve. Possessed of a good mind, a judicial temperament and a retentive memory and being painstaking by nature and free of prejudices, he was exceptionally well qualified for the work of preserving the story of early days here in Northeastern Ohio. When the proposal was made for the organization of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society in May, 1874, Mr. Edwards entered heartily into this work, and his especial fitness was recognized when he was selected to deliver the address of welcome at the first Pioneer Reunion, held at Youngstown on September to, 1874. As one of the corresponding secretaries of the society elected on this occasion he was commissioned to help in the work of assembling data concerning the founding and building of the Western Reserve. Much of this in. teresting information was presented at the second Pioneer Reunion, in 1875, and in 1875-76 Mr. Edwards and William Powers edited the "Historical Collections of the Mahoning Valley," a work that gave testimony from living witnesses of happenings from the founding of Youngstown and the settlement of surrounding townships. It is not too much to say that if this information had not been gathered and preserved at that time it would have gone into oblivion. In addition to this work Mr. Edwards continued until his death to assemble historical data. This information, in the form of documents, letters, etc., has recently been presented to the Mahoning Valley Historical Society by Mr. Edwards' daughter, Mrs. Stanley M. Caspar, of Denver, Colorado.
Kindly, charitable, deeply interested in his home land and its people and caring little for financial gain, and patriarchal in appearance in his later years, Mr. Edwards is fondly remembered by older residents of Youngstown, while younger ones owe him a debt of gratitude.
EPHRAIM QUINBY, founder of the City of Warren, was born in New Jersey on May II, 1766, and located
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in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1795. While not a New Englander himself, Mr. Quinby thus settled in a New England colony, for Washington County people were of the same stock as the Connecticut men and women who had so much to do with the building of the Western Reserve.
When the Reserve was thrown open to settlement in 1798 Ephraim Quinby became interested in its possibilities, and late in that year he made a trip to this section, being accompanied by Richard Storer, also of Washington County. As the country came up to their expectations they arranged to purchase land in township 4 of range 4, now Warren Township, and in April, 1799, returned to make a permanent settlement.
Mr. Quinby had been married to Ammi Black-more in 1795, and they were the parents of three children, Nancy, Samuel and Abrilla, when they decided to cast their lot in the Ohio country. It was late in 1799 when Quinby brought his wife and family on to Warren, and here eight more children were born to them, Elizabeth, William, Mary, James, Warren B., Ephraim, Jr., Charles A. and George.
As an extensive landowner and public-spirited citizen Mr. Quinby became influential in the young settlement of Warren, and his counsel was often sought and highly valued. At the first term of the Trumbull County Court, in August, 1800, he was one of the judges of the court and was also one of the leading figures in the McMahon-Captain George tragedy, an unfortunate happening that he had tried earnestly to prevent. To Warren he gave the public square that is now the beautiful courthouse park. He was a farmer, miller, land seller and one of the organizers of the Western Reserve Bank. He died June 4, 185o, his wife having preceded him in death on March 16, 1833.
CHARLES CLEVELAND MCKINNEY. While he is now practically retired from business, Charles Cleveland McKinney for a quarter of a century handles with an admirable degree of success several enterprises in the Town of Struthers, and no one has turned his resources to the lines of investment and upbuilding that have reflected greater advantage to the community at large.
Mr. McKinney was born at Mineral Ridge in Trumbull County, Ohio, March 16, 1868. His father, Dr. Samuel S. McKinney, graduated in medicine at Glasgow, Scotland, and coming to America entered upon a general country practice at Austintown about 1850. Later he moved to his permanent home three miles from Mineral Ridge, where his life of usefulness continued until his death at the age of forty-six, in 1880. Doctor McKinney married Nancy A. Tibbit, a daughter of Elmira (Cleaveland) Tibbit, who was a daughter of Judge Camden Cleaveland, a brother of Moses Cleaveland, the founder of the City of Cleveland, Ohio. Mrs. McKinney was born on a farm between Mineral Ridge and Austintown in 1838. Her father served "as a soldier in the Civil war. She died at the age of seventy-six, having spent her last ten years with her children in Cleveland. She was the mother of three sons and three daughters : Idella A., wife of John Marks, an undertaker at Columbiana, Ohio; Charles C.; Clyde Avery, a contractor and liveryman at Girard, Ohio; Myra S., unmarried, living at Cleveland, who looked after her mother during her old age; Charlotte L., wife of Dr. S. B. Russell, of Cleveland; and John E., who is now active head of the oldest and largest furniture business at Cleveland, formerly the Vincent-Barstow Company. The president of this business is Doctor Russell. During 1918 the company sold goods at retail valued at a half million dollars.
Charles C. McKinney lived at home to the age of "twenty-five. He was educated in local schools and had a good home environment calculated to bring out the best of his talents. He was engaged in the livery and transfer business at Mineral Ridge until the street car line was built through. Since July, 1896, his business interests and his home have been identified with Struthers. Here he entered the livery, transfer and ice business, and built his home and his barn on a lot on Bridge Street. In 1916 these structures were removed to make way for a brick block 44x120 feet, the largest and finest business block in the town up to that time. The first floor is for business purposes, in the basement are facilities for bowling alleys and pool rooms, and the second floor contains offices and apartments. The old stable has been removed, and there is now a garage. Mr. McKinney's home was also one of the best when built, and now stands facing Yellow Creek Park. Its grounds reach to the Lowell Road.
Mr. McKinney when he entered the ice business at Struthers had a trade demanding only a ton of ice, delivered twice a week. Before he sold the ice, livery and transfer business he had wagons delivering, twenty-five tons a day. Most of his supply was obtained from the Crystal Ice Company at Youngstown, and he was that concern's largest customer, his bills for ice running between four hundred and five hundred dollars a month during the season.
Mr. McKinney has made some valuable investments and mostly in improvements that are directly beneficial to the town and its citizens. He is one of the popular men of Struthers, and has identified himself with every public movement in the community, though he has never sought nor desired office. He is a stockholder in the Struthers Furniture Company, one of the successful enterprises of the town, of which John Pierce is manager. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and is a charter member of Struthers Lodge No. 933 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
September 26, 1900, Mr. McKinney married Miss Clara S. Schuman, daughter of Otto Schuman. Her father, now retired, is the oldest furniture merchant of Youngstown. Mr. and Mrs. McKinney have two sons, Charles Schuman McKinney, born in 1902, a junior in the Struthers High School, and Kenneth Wayne, born in 1909.
JAMES WARD, pioneer ironmaster of the Mahoning Valley and for almost a quarter of a century one of its most active influential and useful citizens, was born November 25, 1813, near Dudley, Staffordshire, England. He came to America with his parents in 1817, residing at Pittsburgh from that date until 1841, when he came to Niles as head of the firm of James Ward & Company. James Ward's father was a practical iron worker, and the younger man obtained a knowledge of the business from association with him,
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as well as by special study of the science of rolling mill engineering, then beginning to be understood as something more than mere rule of thumb. As a consequence, when he entered the business as an executive he was more than ordinarily well equipped and soon became recognized as one of the leading authorities on rolling mill practice as it existed at that time.
The success of the Ward enterprise at Niles brought to its principal head considerable wealth, but what was more important it secured for him a wide circle of friends and a place of honor in the industry and his community. Much of this success was due to James Ward's untiring zeal for progress. He never hesitated to adopt methods that promised efficiency or economy in the production of iron. To him belongs the credit for establishing the value of blackband ore as a substitute for the native ores then being so rapidly exhausted as to threaten the extinction of the iron industry in the Mahoning Valley. Without this substitute at that time it is entirely possible that the present position of the Mahoning Valley in the iron and steel industries might never have been attained. James Ward rolled the first iron made with Mahoning block coal in its raw state, proving that iron made with the new fuel could be worked in spite of the doubts of many others. In these things he led the way out of an extremely difficult situation confronting local industries and rendered a service of almost incalculable value to them and to the public.
It was the privilege of the author of this sketch to know James Ward intimately during his early life, his first experience in the iron industry having been gained under the fine example and instruction of Mr. Ward while acting as shipping clerk and later assistant manager of the rolling mills of James Ward & Company at Niles. It affords him the greatest pleasure to record in these pages a faint appreciation of the high character, the ability and the sterling integrity of this leader among the captains of industry in his generation.
James Ward was married in 1835 to Miss Elizabeth Dithridge, his wife being a member of a family that had achieved distinction in the early history of iron-making in that city. They had seven children, only one of whom, James Ward, Jr., reached the age of maturity.
James Ward met his death on July 24, 1864, under circumstances so painful that not even the lapse of more than fifty years has softened them or brought forgetfulness of the shock to the community. This tragic event may be said to have been one of the most unfortunate occurrences in the history of the Ma-honing Valley, throughout which the memory of James Ward is universally revered and most deeply cherished by those who knew him best.
THE HEATON BROTHERS. Daniel and James Heaton, fathers of the blast furnace industry in the Mahoning Valley, came to this locality at least as early as 1803. It is entirely probable that they arrived before that date, as Daniel made an agreement under date of August 31, 1803, with Lodwick Ripple for the iron ore and timber on certain lands along Yellow Creek. This contract is not on record, but it formed the basis of a recorded contract by which Heaton later sold the first blast furnace built in the valley to Robert Montgomery, James Mackey, David Clendennin and David Alexander on June 23, 1807. Reference is also made in this later contract to one which Heaton had made with Turhand Kirtland at an earlier date, but this date, which would probably fix quite accurately the date on which the Heatons came here, is unfortunately omitted from the record. According to documents left by the late John M. Edwards, his mother, afterward married to Robert Montgomery and probably in possession of the facts, stated that Daniel Heaton came to the Mahoning Valley in 1800.
James Heaton and several other brothers were evidently associated with Daniel from the beginning of the latter's activities here, although their names do not appear in any of the earliest records. James disposed of any interest he may have had in the original blast furnace and started operations at Niles soon after the building of this furnace. There is no question, however, that these two brothers built the first blast furnace in the Mahoning Valley. The construction of this furnace, together with the operations of the Heaton Brothers at Yellow Creek, is fully described in the chapter dealing with the industries of the Mahoning Valley.
Not much is known as to the ancestry of these men. In Sanderson's History of Mahoning County the statement is made that they were the sons of Theophilus Heaton, a deputy in the British East India Company, a man of wealth and influence, who brought a Puritan colony to Massachusetts in 1637. This seems to be an error, since Mrs. Hannah E. Kendall, a daughter of Daniel Eaton, residing in Harper, Keokuk County, Iowa, writes, in 1878, concerning her father :
"Dan Eaton was born near Winchester, Va., March 24, 1773. When he was eighteen years old (in 1791) he became disgusted with the practice of having the bottle brought to the table. He then set resolutions not to aid in making or using intoxicating liquors. Some years later we find him in Poland, Ohio, erecting a furnace. The next we find him in Weathersfield raising fruit and still adhering to his principles. He and Miller Blatchley formed a society of temperance and collected some eighteen or twenty members. This was some years before my birth, but as soon as we all became old enough our names were enrolled. My mother died before I was six years old. I had two sisters younger than myself and five living brothers, all older."
From this it would appear that when Daniel Heaton sold the Hopewell Furnace to Montgomery, Clendennin & Company, June 23, 1807, he joined his brother James in the enterprise which the latter had started at Niles, and it is known, also, that he took some part in the erection and management of the furnace built by the Heatons on Mill Creek in 1825 or 1826, and that for some years later he lived on a farm about one-half mile west of the junction of Mill Creek with the Mahoning.
During his residence in Weathersfield Township, Trumbull County, Daniel Heaton did other things besides raising fruit. He was not an educated man in the sense of school experience, but he possessed an active and vigorous mind and used it energetically in the consideration of public questions. It has been seen that he was one of the organizers of the first temperance society in this locality, a society that must
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have required the full courage of conviction on the part of its members and which may also be said to have been about a century in advance of the times. He also devoted much time to politics and did a great deal of reading, writing and talking upon subjects widely differing in their nature. In 1813 he served as state senator from the Trumbull district, and in 182o was a member of the State Legislature, his colleague being Hon. Elijah Whittlesey, afterward secretary of the treasury at Washington. He took great interest in financial legislation, a result, perhaps, of the troubles he experienced in financing his iron enterprises, and prepared a bill containing fourteen sections designed to establish a system of national finance very similar to the present national bank system. This bill, with a numerously signed petition for its adoption, was presented to Congress in 1857, but was not reported favorably by the committee to which it was referred.
Daniel Heaton was originally an ardent Methodist, but later changed his religious opinions, becoming a Deist and writing a book called "The Christian's Manual." Although referred to here as Daniel Heaton, the legal name of this pioneer during the greater part of his life was Eaton, as he had applied to the Legislature and was permitted to drop the initial "H," the ground alleged in his petition being that it was entirely unnecessary.
From his record of his activities the reader will be prepared for the following description of Daniel Heaton left by a warm personal friend—a description which, incidentally, might apply to many of the hardy, independent and courageous men who helped to lay the foundation of the industrial development of the Mahoning Valley :
"He was a man of strong prejudices and fiery passions, which, when aroused, made him fearful to contemplate. He would, then consign to the lowest depths of infamy any man who would advocate injustice or tyranny. He was a generous philanthropist and a man who understood the universal brotherhood of man. He was a perfect hater of slavery and the slave system, and would go the full length of his cable on this question."
About 1850 Daniel Heaton sold his farm on Mill Creek and went to live with his daughter, Mrs. Hannah E. Kendall, at Keokuk, Iowa, at whose home he died soon afterward at an advanced age.
James Heaton was a man of somewhat different type. He, too, had energy and ability, courage and the determination to win which were so essential to men who launched in the wilderness the •enterprises which the Heaton's founded and carried on. But James seems to have had few of the aggressive qualities of his brother and none of the latter's liking for politics. He was deeply engrossed in his business and devoted his energies to the solution of the problems it involved, rather than of such things as the reformation of the currency system or the service of his fellow citizens in creation of new laws. He was also more religious and perhaps more genial, and it is not recorded that he, recognized in strong drink the evil aspect which it wore to Daniel. Neither was he dissatisfied with his patronym, which he continued to use in its original form until the end, a fact which has led various historians into much confusion as to the correct spelling of the family name.
James Heaton dissolved the partnership existing between him and his brother shortly after the erection of the first blast furnace and went to what is now the City of Niles, where he established industries which are more fully described elsewhere, and which entitle him to rank as the pioneer manufacturer of bar iron in Ohio: He was evidently a man of vision and foresight, and his integrity must have been above reproach, for he was able to borrow sums that in those days were large.
To him belongs not only the distinction of having shared in the foundation of the blast furnace industry in the Mahoning Valley, but also the honor of being the founder of Niles, which was originally known as "Heaton's Furnace," and which was given a new name when the postoffice department reached the conclusion that the old one was likely to cause confusion and impair the efficiency of its service.
James Heaton has left little to record concerning his character and personality other than that he was a shrewd and determined business man, gifted with vision and enthusiasm, and worthy, because of the things he did, of a place in the history of the Mahoning Valley.
Both of the Heaton brothers, as might have been expected from this brief and inadequate reference to their achievements, were men of strong constitutions and physically above the average. They probably learned the iron business in Virginia and, imbued with the love of adventure as much as with the hope of reward, came westward seeking a locality where this knowledge would be of advantage to themselves as well as to their fellow pioneers. Few of these pioneers did so much to impress their personalities upon or to direct the destiny of the Ma-honing Valley.
Note—Many of the facts here stated have been obtained from papers kindly loaned to the author by Mrs. Stanley M. Caspar, daughter of the late John M. Edwards, who had gathered this and much other interesting historical information during the latter part of his life, but had never published same.
WILBUR C. SIMON. Having been born on his present farm, July 21, 1855, Wilbur C. Simon takes more than ordinary interest in the development of Boardman Township, of which his parents, Jesse and Betsey (Williamson) Simon, were very early settlers, coming to this locality in February, 1830. Their house was the third one to be erected in this region, and it is still standing, and was so substantially built that it served as the family home until 1872, when a new one was erected by Jesse C. Simon, assisted by his sons. Another residence had been built by Wilbur's grandfather, Jacob Simon, as the pioneer one. This was followed by a second log house in 1819, still standing. The family was founded in Mahoning County in 1808 or 1809 by the grandfather, Jacob Simon, who acquired 151 acres of land and put up a log house, long since torn down. He put up a second one in 1819 that is still in use as a stable. About the time of the outbreak of the war between the states Jacob Simon died, but small as he was at that time, Wilbur C. Simon remembers him quite distinctly. In the year following his marriage Jacob Simon was drafted for service in the War of 1812, but secured his release by paying $90 for a substitute. In order to secure
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this sum, a large one for those days, he was obliged to sell his household possessions except the beloved pewter plates which had been brought with so much care from the old Pennsylvania home. All his mature years he was very active in the German Lutheran Church, and assisted in establishing the one in his township. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Elizabeth Stemple, survived him for some years, being in her eighty-ninth year at the time of her death. She was born in Preston County, West Virginia, and revisited her old home several times, making the trip once on horseback and once in a buggy, her companion on that occasion being her son Jesse, then still a lad. Their children were as follows : David, who lived at Canfield when that was the county seat, and served for a time as county auditor, but returned to Boardman Township, where he died; Levi, who was a farmer and preacher in Wood County, Ohio, died in that county; Stilling, who was a farmer, moved to Wood County, Ohio, and died there ; Gideon, who also moved to Wood County and died there ; Jesse, who is mentioned below ; Delilah, who married George Wormley, lived in Jackson Township, Mahoning County, where she died at an advanced age ; Salinda, who married a Mr. Shaffer, moved to Indiana ; Salome, who married Moses Weber, had two daughters, Lizzie, who died a few years ago, and Laura, who now lives near Wilbur C. Simon; and Lydia M., who married a Mr. Ruper and moved to Indiana.
Jesse Simon spent all of his life in Boardman Township, buying out the other heirs in the home and was engaged in general farming. An excellent man of good standing, he was oftentimes selected to act as judge at the county fairs. After the organization of the republican party he gave it his strong support, but never would accept nomination to office. His wife was a daughter of Piatt and Anne Williamson, and the present South Side High School of Youngstown stands on the site of their old residence, in which Mrs. Simon was reared. Jesse Simon died on November 6, 1917, and his widow in August, 1918, and they are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Originally a Lutheran, he later connected himself with the Christian Church and was very active in religious work. In addition to his farming Jesse Simon had a large sugar camp and produced considerable maple sugar and syrup each year. The children born to him and his wife were as follows : Wilbur C., whose name heads this review ; Wade, who lived at Flint Hill, Ohio, came to Boardman Township after his father's death to take possession of his portion of the old farm, and died in January, 1919, but his widow and his son and daughter still live on his farm; and Evan, who is now a resident of the State of Washington, the youngest of the three to reach maturity.
Wilbur C. Simon has always lived on his farm, which is two-thirds of the original property, and is located four miles south of Youngstown. Here he has carried on general farming and has a very desirable and valuable place. Independent in his political views, he generally supports the candidates of the republican party, and served as township trustee for one term. When he was twenty-eight years old Wilbur C. Simon was united in marriage with Hannah Harding, of Canfield Township, a daughter of George and Elizabeth (Linn) Harding, both now deceased. They were formerly residents of Canfield, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Simon became the parents of the following children: C. H., who is employed by the Home Savings & Loan Company of Youngstown, lives on a part of the old farm, married Alf retta Walters, and they have three children, Virginia, Howard and Altabelle ; Emma, who lives at home ; Horace W., who lives at home, married Alice Gieger and has one son, Paul; Alma, who lives on the farm, married Fred Webber, a pattern maker, and they have a daughter, Dorothy ; and Bessie, who lives at home, is a saleslady at Youngstown, and sings in the choir of the Christian Church and is active in Sunday school work. All of the family belong to this church. During the many years that he has been associated with agricultural life in this neighborhood, Mr. Simon has impressed his personality upon his associates, and won recognition from them for his dependability in every phase of life.
DR. JOHN B. HARMON. Reuben Harmon was, in some respects, a pioneer of pioneers, although his activities in the Mahoning Valley were of short duration and his name is familiar to the general public chiefly through the activities of his son, Dr. John B. Harmon, the pioneer physician of the Mahoning Valley, and for many years a much esteemed and widely known resident of Warren, and others of his children equally prominent in the life of that community.
Reuben Harmon was a native of Vermont, in which state he served in the Legislature, was an extensive land owner and possessed the privilege of coining copper into legal tender—a privilege sometimes given in those days to men of acknowledged probity and standing, but in these later times a function jealously guarded by the Government. His connection with the history of the Mahoning Valley began with the purchase from the estate of General Samuel H. Parsons, in 1796, of goo acres in Weathersfield Township, Mahoning County, on which were the salt springs which had been regarded as a bonanza and which finally led General Parsons to his death, in 1789, while seeking to demonstrate that their product could be safely rafted down the river. Harmon came to this locality during the summer of 1797 and began the manufacture of salt. Reference has been made in the chapter on industries to the fact that nothing. is known of the pioneers in this industry, and this is true of the first salt makers; but it was probably Reuben Harmon who first conducted this operation regularly and for any length of time. After working at it for three winters, and demonstrating to his own satisfaction that salt could be made in commercial quantities, and returning to Vermont each summer, Reuben Harmon arranged to bring his family to the Mahoning Valley. This he did in the late summer of 1800, and with them came a family named Barnes, who settled in the vicinity of what is now Fowler. The trip began in June and ended only in August, the party having halted at Beaver for some time on account of reported danger from Indians farther up the valley. The Harmon family consisted of the father, mother, four daughters and four sons. They began the manufacture of salt on a larger scale and continued this for several years. Dr. John B. Harmon began the practice of medicine, which he had studied for several years in Connecticut,
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at the same time helping his father to make salt. In 1806 Reuben Harmon returned to- Vermont to finish settling up his affairs there, and Doctor Harmon went with him to resume the study of medicine. During the absence of the elder Harmon, the man left in charge of the salt works decamped with all of the proceeds and also a sum of money sent on from Vermont, leaving the owner without capital and with the problem of caring for a large family. In doing this he probably undermined his health, as he was taken ill and died of pulmonary affection on October 29, 1806. His widow, who was the first white woman in Weathersfield Township, faced the situation bravely and reared her children amid trials and dangers that are almost past belief. It was related of her that sometime after her marriage, while her husband was in the Revolutionary army and she, with their oldest child, an infant in arms, was visiting at Sunderland, Massachusetts, that town was burned by the British and Indians during the closing days of the Revolution. Mrs. Harmon caught an unbroken colt in the pasture, bridled it and, with her baby, escaped from the town. She had many thrilling experiences with the roving bands of Indians still in this vicinity, and showed the same courage and resourcefulness in dealing with them.
Of the Harmon children, Dr. John B. deserves special mention. For many years he devoted his time exclusively to the practice of medicine, but later became greatly interested in farming and other occupations. He owned at one time half of his father's original acreage at the Salt Spring tract, and also 250 acres in Warren Township. It is said that he was the first man in Ohio to use horsepower in raking hay, having made himself a horse-rake by setting pins in a bar to which a horse was hitched. As the contrivance had no wheels and no means of releasing they hay except by lifting the rake, its operation involved so much labor that farm hands could not be persuaded to use it, and it was many years before the old hand rakes were abandoned.
Doctor Harmon was a man of education, well versed in Latin, well read in medicine, and with a great taste and capacity for memorizing poetry and the Scriptures. He is said to have had the Bible and Shakespeare at his tongue's end. He was a democrat in politics at first, but finally became a whig, as did so many others in this section. In spite of his love for out-door exercises, his passion and great skill for hunting, and his huge size and indomitable energy, he was a tender and studious physician, a most skillful and up-to-date surgeon, and was loved and respected by the whole countryside. No one was too far away and no night too wild for him to mount his horse and make his way over the trails and across the unbridged streams to where he was needed. Tradition credits him with often sleeping on horseback on these long night rides, and even details how his horse once walked across the Mahoning on the stringers of a bridge from which the planks had been removed, the doctor waking only after the animal had stepped on solid ground on the opposite side. Even more interesting is the story of how, in the severe winter of 1816, he became lost in a fierce storm in the woods and was forced to spend a night in the open, with the wolves snapping at his horse's heels, and how he lost his watch in the snow during the night and found it again the following spring. In this same winter he attended a family at Aurora in which the parents and six children were all stricken with typhoid pneumonia. He rode to them each night, tended them and then stretched himself on the hearth until it was light enough to ride in the morning. They all recovered, but Doctor Harmon had over exerted himself and was taken ill with the disease. He went to his mother's house at Salt Springs, hired a nurse and told her what to do if he became delirious and thus prepared for the siege. He recovered from this illness, but was never as strong as before and for a long time was compelled to use a cushion on his saddle, so great was his emaciation. He kept up his practice until 1857, and then spent some months visiting his old home and that of his wife in Vermont. Returning to his home in Warren, he was taken ill the following year and died on February 7, 1858.
Besides being a splendid example of the pioneer and having in his career exemplified the courage, energy and physical strength necessary to meet the conditions of that time, Doctor Harmon was a man of unusual intellectual attainments and a physician and surgeon whose excellence was only guessed at during his lifetime. He ranks with the greatest surgeons of his time. He was, moreover, an energetic and successful citizen, taking great interest in the development of the community and the welfare of his neighbors. Few men are gifted with such broadness, intellect, charity and high professional ideals as was this, the earliest and one of the greatest physicians of the Mahoning Valley.
DAVID TOD-WAR GOVERNOR OF OHIO. In the history of this country no great emergency has arisen without men having been provided to meet it, a fact to which we owe the endurance of our institutions and their opportunity to demonstrate to an incredulous world that human freedom and self-government are not merely an "iridescent dream." One of these men was David Tod, war governor of Ohio, friend and supporter of Lincoln, leader of leaders in the Union cause, diplomat, lawyer, captain of industry and beloved citizen of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.
David Tod was born at Youngstown, February 21, 1805, his father, George Tod, having been among the first residents of the Western Reserve. He spent his boyhood on the Tod farm at Brier Hill, and enjoyed little opportunity for education. Nevertheless he was educated in the truest sense, as is often the case with men of large mental capacity and untiring energy to whom has been denied the opportunity to secure school and college training. At the age of twenty-two years he was admitted to the bar at Warren, and practiced the profession of law with marked success for about fifteen years.
Of restless, eager temperament, fond of adventure and of coming into contact with his fellow men, he naturally drifted into politics. His father had been a whig, and it was somewhat of a surprise when the son David, in the heated campaign of 1824, when Andrew Jackson was the democratic candidate for president, took the stump in favor of Jackson's election and thus definitely allied himself with the opposing party. He was only nineteen, but his convictions favoring the principles of the hardy and
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picturesque candidate nicknamed "Old Hickory" were strong and persisted until the end of his life, although the vicissitudes of later years were to separate him to some extent from the democratic party. In the Jackson campaign David Tod proved himself a good leader and a convincing orator. Politics and the law were, in those days, practically inseparable, and the young attorney took an active part in the local affairs of his party, as well as in local military affairs, which were then a great deal more stirring than they have been in later times of peace. His first official activity was of the latter order, being as inspector of the Fourth Brigade, Fourth Division, Ohio Militia, in which position he served with credit and acquired a taste for and knowledge of military affairs which were to serve him in good stead during the Civil war. He was appointed postmaster at Warren by Andrew Jackson in 183o, serving until 1838, when he was elected state senator from the Trumbull-Mahoning District. This gave him an introduction into state politics and enabled him to attract the attention of the state leaders, and as a result he was nominated as the democratic candidate for governor of Ohio in 1844 and again in 1846. He was not successful in these gubernatorial contests, being defeated in the first by the whig candidate, Hon. Mordecai Bartley. Ohio was at that time strongly whig, but Tod's popularity cut down the majority of his opponent to 1,271 votes, in spite of the fact that a month later the state went against the democrats by 6,000 in the presidential campaign. The election of Mordecai Bartley as governor in 1844 created a situation without a parallel in American politics, as he succeeded his son, Thomas Bartley, who had become governor by reason of the fact that he was president of the Senate in 1843, when Governor Wilson Shannon resigned. Thomas Bartley was a democrat and was a candidate for the democratic nomination for governor against Tod in 1844. Had Tod not won this nomination, father and son would have contested for election at the polls, the father as a whig and the son as a democrat.
Governor Tod appears to have been unfortunate in the conditions under which his two first contests for governor occurred. The political pendulum swung backward and forward with great rapidity in those days, and the state went democratic in the year intervening between these two contests. In 1844 Tod almost overcame the large whig majority, the democratic state ticket was elected in 1845, and in 1846, Bebb, the whig candidate for governor, won out by the slender majority of 2,300.
In 1847 David Tod was nominated by President Polk as Minister to Brazil, to succeed Henry A. Wise, who had aroused the ire of the country and Emperor Dom Pedro by indiscretions and had to be recalled in order to prevent a war with that country. In this mission David Tod accomplished the purpose for which he was chosen and restored the good relations between the two countries. So grave was the emergency that he sailed for Brazil on a man of war, the State Department deeming it unwise to wait for a passenger vessel, lest official notice of the recall of the Brazilian minister and the handing of passports to Wise, which was already known at Washington in an unofficial way, should make it impossible for him to undertake the task of soothing the ruffled feelings of the South American empire and preventing an actual declaration of war.
The day on which David Tod left Youngstown to embark on this mission is still recalled by some of the older people living in the Mahoning Valley. A great crowd gathered at the landing stage of the canal to see him off, among them being many persons from Warren, Niles and Brier Hill. He stood on the deck, surrounded by friends, bowing and acknowledging the cheers of the crowd until the boat was out of sight. The journey to Brazil was then regarded as something from which one might never return, and it was, in fact, not an entirely simple matter. As has been noted, the party sailed on a war vessel, the Ohio, ordered to sea especially for the trip. Tod was accompanied by his wife, five children, his family physician, Dr. Timothy Woodbridge, his sister-in-law and two servants. This party sailed for Rio de Janeiro on June 2o, 1847, and the mission to Brazil occupied more than four years and was entirely successful, restoring the friendship between the two countries and placing it on such a basis that it has endured to this day without interruption. He was given a notable reception at Washington and in his home town on his return in November, 1851.
After the gubernatorial campaign in 1844 David Tod devoted himself to his private affairs for a short time, still retaining his interest in politics. He had, through his efforts to render comfortable the declining years of his parents, come into possession of the farm at Brier Hill on which he was born, and there, some time previously, had opened one of the first commercial coal mines in the valley. This mine was now enlarged and he set about to find some way of disposing of its product, which could be loaded on canal boats and sent to Cleveland if a market could be created there. His efforts in this direction, referred to in the chapter on industries, were successful, proving the beginning of the great coal industry in this region. Just before he went to Brazil he had taken much interest, with a number of Warren capitalists, in the construction of a railroad to connect the Mahoning Valley and Lake Erie. This enterprise had languished for several years, but at the time David Tod returned from Brazil was taking definite shape in such a way as to leave Brier Hill and Youngstown without railroad transportation. He at once took steps to prevent such an error, and in this was successful. He was also concerned in the reorganization and removal from Akron to Brier Hill of the company which later became the Brier Hill Iron & Coal Company, and of which he was president at the time of his death. He was actively interested in various other enterprises and did much for the development of the great resources of the Mahoning Valley. These achievements are referred to more fully in other parts of this work. It will suffice here to say that we find his name connected with almost every contemporaneous enterprise of importance in this locality and that he was regarded as the leading citizen of his community. How much his pleasing personality, unquestioned business integrity, enthusiasm and persistence did to bring here necessary capital and encourage the development of local industries it is difficult to estimate,
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and there are living yet men who recall with gratitude the willingness of David Tod to help any man or any enterprise that was really worthy of assistance.
It is as a neighbor, friend and fellow citizen that those who personally knew David Tod prefer to recall, him; but his most signal service and the achievements upon which his claims to greatness chiefly rest were on behalf of his country and his native state. These activities began with his mission to Brazil. They were renewed in 1860, a year that was big with the fate of the nation. There had arisen two factions in the democratic party, one seeking to control the Government in defiance of the will of the majority, the other seeking to secure for the party the approval of a majority of the people. The question at issue was slavery, and the inflamed and embittered condition of the public mind on that question can scarcely be imagined by those not living at the time.
David Tod stood with the democrats who sought a peaceful solution under the constitution for the slavery problem. He was made vice president of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston in 1860, and took the chair and held the convention together for the nomination of Douglas after its chairman, Caleb Cushing, had deserted with the Alabama delegates upon realizing that Douglas had a majority of the convention. Later the seceders organized a rump convention and named John C. Breckinridge for president, and a third faction in the party also placed a ticket in the field. Tod supported Douglas loyally, but he made no secret of the fact that he was opposed to the Breckinridge faction and would prefer to see Lincoln elected if Douglas were to be defeated. It was a time of great trial, and many democrats essentially honest in their convictions were being misled by the extraordinary prejudices and animosities then embittering and beclouding men's minds as at no other period in the history of the republic.
In the latter part of 1860 the election of Lincoln and the rebellious attitude of hot-headed leaders in the South made it apparent that the "Irrepressible Conflict" long dreaded was at hand. Then David Tod rose to the occasion, choosing between the elements in control of the machinery of his party and the government they openly defied, as any clearheaded, earnest patriot had to choose. He used all his eloquence and influence to steady the ranks of his party and prevent its members from being stampeded by the passions of the hour. He counselled loyalty and denounced in unmeasured terms those who hesitated, as not a few did when confronted with the ghastly spectacle of civil war. Thus David Tod became known as a "War Democrat," to distinguish him from those in his party who, seeking to avoid war, were inclined to compromise with the insubordination and threatened secession of slave states.
Ohio was a most important state in this crisis, and a group of Cleveland men interested more in the preservation of the Union than in party success organized the union party, the purpose being to afford an opportunity for all who stood for the integrity of the nation to register their voices without the handicap of party. Ohio was, as a whole, absolutely loyal, but there seemed a possibility that in the disordered state of the public mind the wrong man might be elected governor and the administration at Washington be thus deprived of support absolutely essential at that critical period. In 1861 the union party chose David Tod as its candidate for governor, and the people approved his selection by a majority of 55,000—the largest ever given any candidate in the State of Ohio up to that time.
The election occurred five months after the war had opened, but there had been no question from the beginning as to where David Tod stood. He had counselled peace through the recognition of national authority by the secessionist element, but when Fort Sumter was fired on he no longer thought of peace. One of his first acts was to organize a company among his friends and neighbors, equipping the soldiers in part from his own means. He took the governor's chair January 1, 1862, and from that time forward made every effort to aid the imperiled Government, establishing the record which has entitled him to national fame as "Ohio's Great War Governor."
This record is on file in the archives of Ohio and is part of the glorious history of this state. It may be said, however, that Governor Tod's position was one of extreme delicacy and difficulty. With men's minds inflamed as they were and the uncertainties that had been thrown around the issue by the flood of eloquence and the rancor of partisanship, together with the unfortunate result of early campaigns, no border state was absolutely safe for the Union. Upon the governor depended to a great extent Ohio's attitude and even more of its usefulness. An ill-timed or indiscreet word was likely to cause trouble—perhaps light fires of treason. On the other hand, a wavering, vacillating policy would rob the state, no matter what its resources, of most of its power for good, and endanger even its actual loyalty. Through all this David Tod conducted the State of Ohio with credit to it and to himself. His zeal for the welfare of Ohio soldiers was so intense that he sometimes indulged in communications that raised the ire of the military authorities, but they usually brought an answer in the provision of things needed for our men in the field. David Tod has been criticized for the severity with which he denounced seditious utterances, but in the light of history and a clear understanding of his motives it must be conceded that his measures were justified, even in the case of the arrest of Vallandigham, a case Which was of peculiar interest and caused much discussion in the Mahoning Valley. So much for Governor Tod's Ohio record.
Leading one of the three greatest states on the Union side, Governor Tod naturally exercised a tremendous influence on national affairs at that period, and it is here that we find his most signal service to the country. Early in the crisis he became the close friend of Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania, who had been elected in the same year, and together these men did more to save the Union cause and shorten the war than has ever been made public. Their full part in this( tremendous drama can only be appreciated by those privileged to know it from personal contact with one or the other and to appreciate what their activities meant under the circumstances and at the time.
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Tod and Curtin were strangely alike in many ways. Both were of Scotch descent and the conditions surrounding them in boyhood were very similar. Both entered politics in the same year and in the same way. They were about the same age and their facial resemblance was extraordinary. Both were intensely loyal, fiercely impatient with official blundering, absolutely intolerant of seditious acts or utterances. Both naturally made many enemies as well as many friends during their administrations, and both were confronted at the end with precisely similar situations, as will appear later.
The energy, vigor and natural capacity for leadership made these two men leaders among the governors of the loyal states, a position which they shared with Governor Andrew of Massachusetts. It was these three men who arranged the memorable Altoona Conference. Tod and Curtin presented the plan to Lincoln, who approved it heartily, and Governor Andrew agreed to it as the only course, in view of the critical situation then existing. The disaster on the Peninsula, following a series of unfortunate engagements, had deeply depressed the North, and it was felt that unless some action was taken to crystallize Union sentiment and make it clear what was the real issue of the struggle it would be difficult for the administration to secure the sup- port that was absolutely essential to national safety. The war had been in progress more than a year and the South had, a rently, the advantage. The wave of loyalty swept hundreds of thousands into the Union ranks was receding, and there were, in almost every loyal, state, many persons who openly discussed the propriety of some sort of a compromise with the rebellious states. It was to place the issue definitely before the people of the North and at the same time pledge the entire resources of the loyal states to the Union cause that the Altoona Conference was called on September 14, 1862. The day before it met Lincoln made public his proposed emancipation policy, and it was fully approved by the conference. This had been arranged by Governors Tod, Andrew and Curtin, who pledged the eighteen governors invited to the meeting to its acceptance, and thus for the first time made safe and possible a concrete statement of the issues involved. That this had a tremendous effect is beyond question. The people of the North now knew not only what the war was about, but they knew that it was to be fought to a finish, and they rallied behind the president as never before.
Concerning this conference Governor Curtin, in writing to Alex. K. McClure in 1892, says:
"Governor Andrew, Governor Tod and myself consulted Mr. Lincoln, and he highly approved of our purpose. He did not conceal the fact that we were on the eve of an emancipation policy, and he had from us the assurance that the Altoona Conference would endorse such a policy."
The Altoona Conference was attended by the governors of eighteen states, and it not only endorsed the war policy and the emancipation policy, but it went even farther, urging the president to call for 100,000 men in addition to the 300,000 called out a short time previously. It is generally admitted that this gathering marked a turning point in the war. This incident is sufficient to indicate the important part played by Governor Tod in national affairs at this critical time. Others might be cited almost without number. In his labors on behalf of the state and the nation during his term as governor he did not spare himself in the slightest. But perhaps the greatest sacrifice he made for the Union cause was his refusal to insist on renomination for a second term. He had been practically without opposition and the delegates from eighty-eight counties had been instructed to support him for nomination on the Union ticket. At the last moment, however, the republican leaders, counselled beyond doubt by the administration leaders at Washington, decided to nominate John Brough and, following a fiery patriotic address by that gentleman, the convention was stampeded to him.
Governor Tod was present and immediately made an address, congratulating Brough and pledging his support, but he would have been more than human had the decision of the convention been anything else than a grave disappointment to him. Secretary of War Stanton, Secretary of the Treasury Chase and even President Lincoln telegraphed to Governor Tod assurance of their regret that he had not been nominated, but it is known that these assurances did not carry with them conviction that the affair had not been arranged, or at least approved, at Washington, and to the end of his life Governor Tod rightfully cherished a sense of injustice at the hands of men and officials for whom he had done much and from whom he had every right to expect gratitude.
The causes for the movement to name another candidate in place of Governor Tod are not difficult to find, although they do not constitute a justification.
The year 1862 had been a discouraging, even a disastrous, one to the Union cause. In the field the Confederacy had been generally successful and the news from the front had reacted in the elections. In that held in October, 1862, the democrats carried Ohio, electing their candidate for secretary of state, who headed the ticket that year. They were successful in Indiana and Pennsylvania and elected Horatio Seymour governor of New York State. This democratic victory was unmistakably an indication of lack of confidence in the administration and created much apprehension at Washington.
Governor Tod had not been merely staunchly unionist. He had been aggressively so. He had made enemies among the democrats and had alienated the weakwilled by his arrest of Vallandigham. There were complaints of hardships from the soldiers in the field, and the time had come when the people were to crowd around the newspaper offices impatiently waiting for the list of the dead and wounded after each battle. No one knew what would be the attitude of many voters, for the enthusiasm of the first days had vanished and the nation had been forced to face the war as the fearful tragedy it was. Early in 1863 it became apparent that the democrats of Ohio would nominate Vallandigham for governor, and the fainthearted looked about for someone less objectionable than Tod to the compromise element. Tod was sacrificed because he had been boldly defiant of treason instead of trying to pursue a cowardly middle course. Perhaps there was some excuse for the lack of courage shown by the political leaders who, as far as lay within their power to do