1000 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY in their native country and coming to the United States they located at Oberlin in 1854. William Evans was a stonemason by trade and for thirty years wby employed in that capacity by the Big Four Railway Company. They were members of the First Congregational Church at Oberlin, and he had become affiliated with the Manchester Unity Order of Odd Fellows before leaving his native land. In politics he was a republican. William Evans, through poor when coming to A.merica, made an enviable success and in his later years He bought a farm and at the time of his death owned fifty acres. The only survivor of four children, Alfred B. Evans, grew up in and around Oberlin and gained his education both in country schools and in the town schools. He learned his father's trade and for four or five years was associated with the older Evans in that work for the Big Four Railroad Company. He then took the management of his father's farm, and has lived on it ever since. He now owns ninety-eight acres of well improved and valuable land, and has prospered as a general farmer and stock raiser. In 1880 Mr. Evans erected a fine brick home, one of the best in the rural districts surrounding him, and in 1913 he remodeled and effected many other improvements on his barn and other outbuildings. In 1886 he married Miss Mary Z. Cole. daughter of George W. Cole, an early settler of Medina County, Ohio. They have three children, Marjorie, Mildred and William. The daughter, Marjorie. married Cecil Grills, a Lorain County farmer, and they have one child. Raymond Eugene. Mildred is now attending Dean Academy at Franklin. Massachusetts. William is a student in the schools at Oberlin. Mr. Evans is a member both of the subordinate and the encampment degrees of Odd Fellowship, and has filled all the chairs in the local branch of the order. In politics he is independent. M. L. DISBROW, SR., has been closely identified with the farming enterprise and good citizenship of Penfield Township many years. He has a record of distinctive accomplishment, and his name is one of the most honored in that section of Lorain County. He was born in LaGrange Township of Lorain County A.pril 13, 1852, a son of Terry and Clarissa (Langdon) Disbrow. Both parents were natives of Jefferson County, New York. The paternal grandfather James Disbrow, came. to LaGrange Township in 1825 and located on what was then almost the frontier of civilization. Perry Disbrow was born July 13, 1814, came to Lorain County at the age of eleven, and he contributed his youthful strength to the clearing up of his father's farm until he was twenty-two years of age. On September 4, 1836, he married Clarissa Langdon, was born in Jefferson County, New York, in 1814 and who died in 1893, being a member of an old French Huguenot family. After their marriage Perry Disbrow and wife bought land in Lorain County, and lived there until 1857. Then as his father before him had pioneered from fort to west, he also set out for what was then the Far West, beyond the Mississippi River, and with wagon and team crossed the intervening country to the new state of Iowa, where he acquired 160 acres of land near where Atlantic City now stands. In 1881 he sold that farm and he lived in Lewis, Iowa until the death of his wife, when he lived among his children. He and his wife were active members of the Baptist Church and at different times were connected with the churches at LaGrange, Ohio, and at Atlantic and Lewis, Iowa. He was a sterling and upright citizen, and wherever He lived he enjoyed the complete confidence of his community. He filled only one office, that of township trusteeowaTurkey Grove Township in Iowa. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1001 Politically he was a republican. Perry Disbrow and wife had eleven children, and the four now living are : Edgar, a retired farmer at Arapahoe, Nebraska ; Hannah, widow of Benton Morrow and living at Atlantic, Iowa ; M. L. Disbrow, Sr.; and Elnora, wife of Ben. Howell, who lives at LaPorte, Texas. M. L. Disbrow, Sr., spent his early youth in Iowa, gained his education in the district schools there, and in 1882 returned to Lorain County and bought thirty-four acres in Penfield Township. He purchased twenty-three acres more in 1888 and has since made a good farm home and has all the improvements and comforts of a good home. He does general farming together with some dairying. He is a republican, and for about eighteen years filled the offices of school treasurer and township treasurer. On December 29, 1874, Mr. Disbrow married Floretta Langdon, a daughter of William and Margaret (Denham) Langdon, Mrs. Disbrow being of the same ancestry as Mr. Disbrow's mother. William F. Langdon, father of Mrs. Disbrow, was born November 16, 1819, in Schoharie County, New York, a son of Forester, who was Mr, Disbrow's maternal grandfather, and a grandson of Lewis Langdon. Forester Langdon was married in New York State to Hannah, daughter of Moses Frederick Delos LaDernier, who came from Nova Scotia. Her ancestors were French Huguenots who settled in Nova Scotia, where they acquired a patent to government land, but on account of the subsequent activities of the family in behalf of the American Revolutionists they came to the colonies, and several members of the Langdon family served in the Revolutionary war and one of Mr. Disbrow's paternal ancestors was also in the revolution and another was in .the War of 1812. The first child of Forester Langdon and wife was Clarissa, who married Perry Disbrow, and became the father of M. L. Disbrow, Sr. The second daughter, Matilda, married Samuel White and died in Michigan, February 7, 1890. The third child was William F. Langdon, father of Mrs. Disbrow. The other children were Hiram A., who became a physician ; Maria. who married Lyman Webber ; Orilla, who married Samuel Disbrow ; Lucinda, who married Horace Cragin ; Washington L.; and Lionel. Forester Langdon brought his family to Ohio in 1834, driving the entire distance and arriving in LaGrange Township after twenty-one days. His wife died in this county April 21, 1835. William F. Langdon grew up in Lorain County, and learned the carpenter and wagon maker's trade. In 1846 he went to Louisiana and was employed in the lumber regions for a time. On January 22, 1850, he married Margaret Denham, who was born November 9, 1825, in Scotland, a daughter of Peter and Margaret (Lyle) Denham. The Denhams were also early settlers in Penfield Township of Lorain County. After his marriage William F. Langdon bought on credit fifty-seven acres of land in Penfield Township, and for twenty-five years worked at his trade and acquired a comfortable competence, He and his wife had only one child, Margaret F., who became the wife of M. L. Disbrow, Sr. Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Disbrow are members of the Methodist Church and both are affiliated with the Grange. Their only son, M. L. Disbrow, Jr., was born in Penfield Township June 9, 1878, was educated in the district schools and at Oberlin, has a farm and is one of the successful agriculturists in Penfield Township. He married Clara May Barbour, a daughter of H. O. Barbour of Well-ington Township. To their union has been born one son, Herbert Myron. W. J. KREBS is one of the most highly respected citizens of Penfield Township, where through his business activities, his varied service to the people in a business and official capacity, he has made his life count 1002 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY for benefit and of notable usefulness both to his family and to the community. A native of Ohio, he was born in Orange Township of Ashland County, December 13, 1846. His grandfather was Christian Krebs. His father, Daniel G. Krebs, was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, July 14, 1814, and was married in Orange Township of Ashland County to Catherine Rickett, who was born at East Bethlehem, Washington County, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1818, a daughter of Christopher Rickett and Mary (Horn) Rickett. The Rickett family went to Ohio in June, 1823, and was the third family to locate in Orange Township of Ashland County. Daniel G. Krebs was a farmer, was a democrat in politics, and died when still young of typhoid fever on January 19, 1857. He was laid to rest in St. Luke's cemetery in Orange Township. His widow survived him many years until her death on November 9, 1902, and in that year the body of Mr. Krebs was removed and lays beside his wife in Lawnwood cemetery. Lodi, Ohio, After her husband's death she was left with the care of seven children, and in very limited circumstances. She had learned the trade of weaver, and spent most of the summer months in making homespun cloth, W. J. Krebs was about ten years of age when his father died, and he soon left home and worked for Peter Snyder, a farmer, getting wages of five dollars a month during the summer and half of this amount went to his widowed mother. During the winter seasons he continued his education in the local schools. He saved every penny he could and in the spring of 1864 moved to Rochester Township in Lorain County where several years later he and his mother and one brother purchased a small farm. On November 17, 1872, Mr. Krebs married Sarah H. Andrews, who was born August 4, 1850, in Wiltshire, England, daughter of Thomas Andrews, who came to the United States in 1852, locating in Spencer Township of Medina County. After his marriage Mr. Krebs moved to a farm in Rochester Township, renting from A. B. Stroger for three years. Then having sold his third interest in the homestead of 140 acres, where the family had located in 1867, he bought a place of his own of ninety acres, but after a year sold out. On March 1, 1877, he moved to Penfield Township and with his brother R. B. engaged in the mercantile business which he conducted successfully for twelve years. During the administration of President Hayes he served as postmaster of Penfield. and was reappointed by both Cleveland's administrations, serving altogether ten years. For thirty-three years Mr. Krebs was justice of the peace, and finally retired from that office on January 1, 1916. He also held the office of township clerk fourteen years and was real estate assessor one year. He has been a trustee of the Children's Home of Lorain County ever since it was organized in 1900. His chief business for several years has been clerk at sales, and his services have been much in demand for clerking for thoroughbred sales all over the state, and during a recent season so many demands were made upon him for this work that he could not fill all his engage-ments. He now handles real estate and is guardian and executor for a number of estates and individuals. He is a stanch democrat, and has always been temperate in habits and a man of absolute integrity in all his dealings. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and he has served as trustee and in other offices and was secretary of the Sunday School for several years. Mr. and Mrs. Krebs have two daughters: Stella and Carrie May. Stella is the wife of Guy Smith of Spencer Township in Medina County, HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1003 and their three children are Gladys, wife of Royal Waltz, a teacher in Spencer Township; Doris and Robert, both at home, Carrie May married A, J. Andrews, a farmer of Penfield Township, and their three children are Howard, Illa and Karl. GEORGE W. HOLLINGSWORTH. A resident of Lorain County from the time of his birth to the present, Mr. Hollingsworth is one of the successful farmers and stock growers of the county and is a steadfast, sincere and loyal citizen who commands the respect and good will of community, his well equipped farm being situated in Pittsfield Township and one of his important departments of enterprise being that of conducting a successful dairy business, his products from the dairy farm being shipped principally to the city of Cleveland. He raises thoroughbred cattle and his fine little farm of forty acres also yields excellent returns in the field of diversified agriculture. Mr. Hollingsworth was born in Lorain County on the 12th of November, 1861, and is a son of George and Sarah (Oxby) Hollingsworth, both natives of England, the former born in the year 1832, and the latter in 1833. Their marriage was solemnized in Lorain County, Ohio, where their acquaintanceship was formed. George Hollingsworth was reared to manhood in his native land, where he received a common school education, and he was twenty-one years of age at the time when he established his home in Lorain County, Ohio. Here he was employed for a number of years in connection with the operation of a stone quarry and he then purchased a farm of fifty acres, in Pittsfield Township, where he continued to devote his attention to agricultural pursuits until his death, which occurred on the 18th of February, 1915, his devoted wife having passed away in September, 1912. Of the seven children the subject of this review is the elder of the two now living, and Richard resides in the city of Oberlin, where he is a carpenter by trade and vocation. George Hollingsworth gave his allegiance to the democratic party until the campaign that resulted in the election of President Cleveland, and thereafter he was a supporter of the cause of the republican party until the time of his death. His wife had been in her native land a communicant of the Church of England, but in Ohio she united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which she continued a zealous member until her demise. George W. Hollingsworth gained his early education in the district schools and has been identified with farming from his early youth, his success having been won through industry, close application and good management. He takes a lively interest in community affairs and is progressive and public-spirited as a citizen, with his political predilections indicated by his alignment as a supporter of the principles of the republican party. He has passed the various official chairs in the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is affiliated also with the ancient craft body of the Masonic Fraternity and with the local Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. In 1885 Mr. Hollingsworth wedded Miss Ella M. Keihl, who was born in Stark County, this state, where her paternal grandparents set-tled in an early day, both having been natives of Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth have no children. HARLEY O. BECKLEY of Rochester Township has lived at one home in that locality forty years, and is accounted one of the most successful citizens in Lorain County. He represents some solid old American stock in Northern Ohio, and his family have lived in this part of the state fully a century. The Beckleys were New England people. Selah Beck- Vol. II-29 1004 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY ley was born. in Connecticut in 1767, and in 1812 came to Ohio, locating in Summit County. In 1787 he married Caroline.Beckley, who was born in 1768. Their children were: Hepzibah, Noel, Lotan, Hepzibah second of the name, Rowena, Elnathan S., Lois, Edwin, Ahira and Sally. Selah Beckley was a blacksmith by trade, and died in 1817. Elnathan S. Beckley was' born in Berlin, Connecticut, April 2, 1801, and was eleven years old when the family came to Ohio. He grew up on a farm and spent his life as. an agriculturist. On June 1, 1825, he married Polly Wilcox, who was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1805. Of their two children Eloise is now Mrs. Madison Andrews of North Amherst, Ohio. Elnathan S. Beckley and wife lived for some years near Cuyahoga Falls, but in 1842 moved to Huntington Township, Lorain County, and lived in the southwest part of that township for a number of years. In 1863 they moved to Rochester Township, where Elnathan. died December, 1872, his widow making her home with her son Lyman until her death in May, 1890. Both parents were members of the Universalist Church and in politics he was a democrat. Lyman Beckley, only son of this pioneer couple, and father of Harley O. Beckley, was born April 5, 1827, in Stowe Township of Summit County, Ohio, was educated in the district schools and was fifteen years old when his parents moved to Lorain County. For a time the family lived with an uncle in a single room cabin and experienced all the primitive hardships of the time. October 26, 1848, Lyman Beckley married Mary J. Sage of Huntington Township, where she was born October 16, 1831, a son of H. P. and Susan (Mallory) Sage, who came from New Haven, Connecticut, to Ohio about 1825. H. P. Sage was a man of culture and great influence in the new country, and taught public school and also taught a class of music and in higher mathematics, and at one time assembled in his home some students of theology. He held several offices of trust and was especially a leader in religious worship, being a minister of the Universalist Church. He died in Huntington in 1887 and his wife in 1870. After their marriage Air. and Mrs. Lyman Beckley settled on a farm he had toiled to improve, but in 1863 moved to Rochester Township, where he spent most of his time in dairying. In 1869 in partnership with a neighbor he built what was known as the Beckley Cheese Factory. In 1876 he sold his farm to his oldest son, and then bought a farm in Huntington Township. He and his wife were active members of the Universalist Church and he was a democrat. Their four children were: Alma R.., who was born September 13, 1849, and died at the age of fourteen months; Harley O.; Ellis S.. who was born in 1848 and died in 1861 ; and D. I., born May 26, 1861, died July 10, 1900. Harley O. Beckley was born in Huntington Township of Lorain County, June 6, 1851. Besides the district schools he attended the Wellington High School for two terms. In addition to working on the farm. he occupied himself with dairying, and then entered the Beckley Cheese factory under George Bush. This factory was located near the old home, but after two years in the factory he returned to the farm. On October 4, 1871, Mr. Beckley married Miss Mary A. Peet. who was born in Rochester Township, a daughter of Homer and Charlotte (Kelsey) Peet. Mr. and Mrs. Beckley began housekeeping in a little house on his father's farm, and subsequently he bought that little place and it was the nucleus of his extensive operations as a farmer and land holder. Mr. and Mrs. Beckley have one daughter, Chloe A., the wife of Henry Laughery, a carpenter, and they live with her parents. In 1876 Mr. Beckley moved to his present farm in Rochester Town- HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1005 ship. Since then he has operated extensively as a dairyman, although his operations also class him as a general farmer. In 1892 he built a large barn at the cost of $2,000 which is considered one of the most substantial structures of the kind in the county. He and his wife are members of the Universalist Church, and he was a church trustee a number of years and also superintendent of the Sunday School. Mr. Beckley is a trustee of Rochester Township, an office he has filled six or eight terms, His good judgment in business affairs has brought him a generous prosperity, and he is now reckoned as the heaviest tax payer in Rochester Township and one of the largest land owners. He owns over four hundred acres of highly improved and well cultivated land. For two terms he was township real estate assessor. Mr. Beckley is a democrat in politics. GEORGE F. BURSLEY is a citizen of Lorain County who has made farming pay by the exercise of the same qualities of business enterprise which makes a successful merchant, manufacturer or professional man, His home is in Rochester Township, and his farm comprises 238 acres of improved land, which is devoted to mixed farming. He has a flock of thoroughbred Delaine sheep, and formerly raised some fine Holstein full blood cattle, and still keeps a registered Holstein bull. He has built a large barn, and has made many other improvements to increase the value and productiveness of his place. He is a native of Huron County, Ohio, born at Wakeman, February 13, 1862, a son of Israel and Susan (Fletcher) Bursley. Both parents were natives of New York State, and came to Huron County when quite young. His father was born in 1826 and died December 28, 1888. His mother was born in 1824, a daughter of William Fletcher, who came from Pennsylvania to Huron County and spent his active career as a farmer there, and the Fletcher family was represented in the Revolu-tionary war by William Fletcher's father, who was a gallant soldier in the war for independence: Mrs. Susan Bursley did in 1884. She was an active member of the Congregational Church. Israel Bursley. who was a republican in politics, followed a career as farmer, and made a success, leaving an estate of 157 acres. Of eight children born to their union five now living are : Elvira of Kipton ; Melvina is the wife of S. M. Hanes, a farmer in Camden Township, and they have three children, Albert, Iva Effie, Everett ; Lovina lives with her brother ; George F.; and Henry, a farmer in Camden Township, married Gertrude Tillinghast and has two children, Charles and Harold. The three children who are deceased are Dennis, Ellen and Milo. Ellen married J. D. Bates and left two children, Earl and Lynn. George F. Bursley grew up on a farm, attended the Wakeman schools, and also had a course in the Northern Indiana University at Valparaiso. He made his start as a farmer in his native county, and in 1.893 came to Rochester Township, where he bought 115 acres, and has since more, than doubled his landed possessions. In 1886 Mr. Bursley married Ida Lang, a daughter of John B. and Ruth (Boone) Lang. The father was a well-to-do farmer of Huntington Township. Mr. and Mrs. Bursley have one daughter living, Neva May, who is still at home with her parents, and a daughter, Edna, died aged six years. The family are members of the Methodist Church, and politically Mr. Bursley is a republican. He has shared his time and work for the community benefit, and for fifteen years served as a trustee of Rochester Township, his official service being represented by many local improvements. 1006 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY FRANK S. WHITNEY was born in Pittsfield. Township, this county, on the 24th day of June, 1871, and his paternal grandfather, Joseph: Whitney, was numbered among the sterling pioneers who played a large part in the civic and material development and upbuilding of Lorain County. Joseph Whitney was born in the state of Massachusetts and became a farmer in Vermont, where he remained until 1837, when he came with his family to Ohio and settled on a tract of wild land in what is now Pittsfield Township, where he reclaimed a productive farm and where he continued his residence until his death, at the exceedingly venerable age of ninety-four years, He whose name initiates this article is a son of Mark and Cordelia (Gifford) Whitney, the former of whom was born at Peru, Vermont, in 1818, and the latter of whom was born in New York State in 1825. Mark Whitney acquired his early education in his native state and was about seventeen years of age at the time of the family removal to Lorain County. Ohio. Mr. Whitney was about eighty-eight years of age at the time of his death, in 1906, and his loved wife passed away in 1916. He was one of the representative farmers of the county for many years and was the owner of a large and valuable landed estate at the time of his demise. Frank S. Whitney was reared to manhood in Pittsfield Township and after duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools he further fortified himself by the completion of a course in a business college at Oberlin. From his youth to the present time he has been a loyal and effective exponent of agricultural and live stock industry in his native county, and he established himself on his present homestead in 1892. Here his original farm comprised only forty-six acres, but he has added to the area of his estate until he now has a fine demesne of 259 acres. In addition to the many other substantial improvements he has made on his farm he erected his attractive and modern two-story frame residence, which is one of the pleasant and hospitable rural homes of the county. In connection with his general agricultural operations Mr. Whitney gives special attention to the dairying, and the raising of high-grade Holstein-Friesian cattle, of which he is a successful breeder from blooded stock. His landed estate is divided into three separate 'farms, and on each of them he has fine herds of cattle, the milk and other products from his dairy being shipped principally to the city of Cleveland. Mr. Whitney accords unwavering allegiance to the republican party and has served long and efficiently as a member of the school board, of which he was president for ten years. He is secretary of the Farmers' Mutual Insurance Company of Lorain County and has been influential in the developing of its substantial and prosperous business. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and they are popular factors in the representative social life of the community. In 1892 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Whitney to Miss Lon Emma Green, daughter of William Green, a venerable and honored citizen of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this volume, In conclusion is given brief record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Whitney: Herbert, who continued his studies in the public schools until he had profited duly by the advantages of the high school at Wellington, also spent two terms in the Oberlin Business College, and owns a farm in Pittsfield Township; Roena is the wife of James M. McConnell. and they reside on their farm in Pittsfield Township, she being a graduate of the Wellington High School: Perry is a member of the class of' 1916 in the high school at Wellington, as is also Eva: Blanche is HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1007 a sophomore in the same school; and Arthur is still attending the graded schools. WILLIAM GREEN. Though he has been a resident of Pittsfield Township, Lorain County, since his boyhood days, Mr. Green has the dis-tinction of claiming the "right little isle" of England as the place of his nativity. During the period of more than sixty years of his residence in Lorain County he has been unwavering in his allegiance to the basic industry of agriculture, of which he has been a prominent and successful exponent, and he still resides upon his fine homestead farm, his landed estate comprising 250 acres of most productive and well improved land. Mr. Green is one of the honored and influential citizens of the county and is entitled to definite recognition in this history, for he has lived and labored to goodly ends and made his life count for good in all of its relations. William Green was born near Lincolnshire, England, on the 4th of October, 1848, and is a son of William and Mary (Marshall) Green, representatives of staunch old English families. William Green, Sr., was born in 1805 and thus was nearly eighty years of age at the time of his death, in 1884. His wife was born in 1809, and was summoned to eternal rest in 1873. Of their three children the subject of this sketch is now the only survivor. Soon after immigrating with his family to America Mr. Green came to Ohio, and in 1854 he established his permanent home in Lorain County, where he purchased fifty acres of land, in Pittsfield Township. He reclaimed and improved this farm, and with increasing prosperity he added to the area of his landed estate and became one of the substantial agriculturists of the county, even as he was one of its honored and public-spirited citizens. He was a man of superior intellectual force, and kept himself well informed concerning the questions and issues of the day, besides having always manifested studious proclivities and having been an earnest and appreciative reader of the Bible, both he and his wife having been zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and his political allegiance having been given to the republican party. He to whom this sketch is dedicated was a lad of about six years at the time the family home was established on the pioneer farmstead in Pittsfield Township, There he was reared to maturity in a normal and benignant atmosphere of work and play, and his early educational advantages were those afforded in the schools of the township. As previously stated, his entire career has been one of unwavering association with agricultural pursuits, and the concrete results of his long, faithful and well ordered labors are shown forth in his ownership of one of the valuable landed estates of the county. He still gives personal super-vision to his large and well improved farm, which is devoted to diversified agriculture and to the raising of excellent grades of live stock. His political support has ever been given to the republican party and he has been influential in community affairs of a public order, as shown by the fact that he served for some time as township trustee, His religious faith is that of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1871 Mr. Green married Mrs. Roana Probert, who was born at York, Sandusky County, Ohio, and she was called to the life eternal in 1876, her only child being Lou Emma, who is the wife of Frank S. Whitney, individually mentioned on other pages of this work. In 1878 Mr. Green wedded Miss Anna Jordan, who was born in Pittsfield Town-ship, this county, and who died in 1881, without issue. In 1884 he wedded Miss Kate- Rogers, who likewise is a native of England, and 1008 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY they have one son, Walter H., who has the active management of the homestead farm. STEWART MCCONNELL. This is a name bespeaking a large family relationship with pioneer settlers in Lorain County. The McConnells came here more than ninety years ago, had their share in pioneer things, with agriculture as their chief vocation, and an examination of the rec-ords shows them to have been stanch defenders of their country, upholders of morality and religion, and people of the finest qualities of neighborliness and usefulness. The success of Stewart McConnell, who represents the third generation in this county, has been due to hard .work and an unusual degree of enterprise in managing his affairs. Born in Rochester Township February 2, 1852, a son of W. R, and Lovina (Garvey) McConnell. His paternal grandfather, James McConnell, was of Irish stock, and was born in Ireland or his father before him was a native of that country. About 1824 he brought his family out to Rochester Township, when only two families lived in the entire Township. He married Elizabeth Roorback and had five children, all of whom have passed away. Mr. McConnell's maternal grandfather, William Carvey, was also an early settler in Rochester Township. W. R. McConnell was born at Onondaga Lake in New York in 1816, and was eight years old when his parents brought him to the locality near New London, Ohio. His father acquired a tract of land from the Connecticut Land Company. W. R. McConnell was a very influential and successful man in Lorain County, and at the time of his death possessed an estate of 500 acres. He had begun housekeep-ing in a log house with only one room, and after three of his children were born he built a large frame house in 1861. As a republican he filled many offices of trust in his township and was well educated and well read. He died in December, 1914. His wife was born in Rochester Township in 1823, a date which indicates the early settlement of the Carvey family in this county, and she died in 1904. Of her six children the four living are: Stewart ; Edward, a farmer in Rochester Township ; Ettie, wife of Jacob Motter, living near New London; and Nellie, wife of A. E. Sellers, a farmer on the old McConnell home farm in Rochester Township% Stewart McConnell grew up on his father's farm. His education came from a small district school in the corner of Rochester Township, and most of his training was by practical experience on his father's farm. He went to work with a will, was thrifty and intelligent in the use of his resources, and had acquired 100 acres of land before his marriage. In 1879 Mr. McConnell married Augusta Close of Sullivan, Ohio. She died in 1904, leaving one daughter, Letha Beattie, who is the widow of Frank Beattie, and is living at New London. She has three children, Frances, Mary and John. In 1905 Mr. McConnell married Ida (Miller) Stevens of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Mrs. McConnell is a member of the Lutheran Church. For thirty-six years Mr, McConnell has been one of the leading stock buyers and wool buyers of Lorain County. He has 100 acres of well improved land in his homestead and owns fifty-six acres in another place. He also has. property in New London, and owns a considerable part of the stock in the Third National Bank of that city, in which he has been a. director since its organization. He now rents most of his land, and in 1904 he built a comfortable residence and has all the improvements and conveniences which make country life enjoyable. Politically he is a republican. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1009 HENRY W, MANLEY. In speaking of the old time families of Lorain County that of Manley is one that frequently comes into the record both as substantial farmers and as citizens, beginning nearly a century ago and from that time down to the present. Lorain County had only a sprinkling of pioneer population when the first of the Manleys arrived, and they were practically the first to inhabit the wilderness of Wellington Township. Now living retired from his business as a farmer, but still active in business affairs, Henry W. Manley, who was born at Wellingon, March 27, 1861, is a grandson of Josiah B. and Betsey (Webster) Manley, who came from the State of Massachusetts to Ohio in 1821. Their journey made by primitive means of transportation occupied forty days and forty nights. They located in Wellington Township and opened up a brand new farm in the forest, Josiah B. Manley had only a brief period of activity in this new country, since his death occurred August 22, 1.824. His was the first death in Wellington Township. After his death his widow showed herself a brave and self-reliant woman, and in order to support her family she taught school for three successive seasons in her log cabin, and also taught two terms in the regular district school. She died at the home of her son, Frederick B,, at the advanced age of eighty-three. Frederick B. Manley, father of Henry W., was born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, March 10, 1817, being the oldest son of his parents, He was four years of age when brought to Lorain County and was only seven when his father died. He received most of his early education from his mother, and grew up in the midst of privations that were common in this section of the West eighty or ninety years ago. For a time he attended a select school, but early took up the task of farming, to which he devoted the best years of his life. He also became well known as a stock man, buying and selling and raising much live-stock on his own place. By dint of hard labor and good management he brought his farm into an excellent state of cultivation, and constructed many useful buildings. One feature of the old home which helped to constitute it a landmark was a splendid elm tree in the dooryard known far and wide as Manley's famous elm. On March 10, 1847, Frederick B. Manley married Mary L. Wads-worth, a daughter of Major Judson and Lucinda Wadsworth of Welling-ton. Frederick B. Manley lived a long and useful career, and was honored as one of the best of the old time citizens when he passed away April 9, 1900. In fact he was the oldest surviving early settler of Wellington Township for some years before he died. He cast his first presidential vote for the whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, and was afterwards a loyal republican. During the war he was enrolling officer. He served his home township as constable one term and as assessor eight consecutive years, and for seven years was president of the agricultural society. Henry W. Manley is the only son and child of the late Frederick B, and Mary L. Wadsworth Manley. He grew up in his home town of Wellington, attended the public schools, and- early adopted farming as his permanent vocation in life. In 1903 Mr, Manley removed from his farm to Wellington, but he still owns his beautiful homestead of 224 acres, For a number of years he has been in the fertilizer and silo business, has sold fertilizer to the farmers of Lorain and adjoining counties for the past twenty years, and has been agent for various silo manufacturers for the past fourteen years. Thus he has been instrumental in carrying modern improvements to the farming district of this section. In politics he is a republican, Mrs. Manley belongs to the Congregational Society. 1010 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY In 1879 Mr. Manley married Adele Hawkes, a daughter of Frederick E. and Mary Jane (Broome) Hawkes. Her father was a native of New York State, moved to Huron County, Ohio, in an early day and was a tinsmith by trade. He died in 1911. He served during the Civil war with an Ohio regiment, was in many engagements, and was captured and was a prisoner in Libby and Andersonville. While in prison he applied his art as a tinsmith in making tin cups and other tin vessels, and exchanged these for beans, a much prized article of diet to these prisoners. Frederick E. Hawkes was a son of B. F. Hawkes, who served with the rank of colonel in the Civil war. Mrs. Frederick E. Hawkes is still living. Mr. and Mrs. Manley have one son, Floyd D., who is now engaged in the automobile business at Lorain. He married Elizabeth Matt of Cleve-land, Ohio. SALONAS A. WILLIAMS. In recent years Salonas A. Williams of Wellington has given his mature experience and ability to public service as state oil inspector. With the exception of a portion of his boyhood, which he spent in the Union army during the Civil war, the career of Salonas A. Williams has been identified with Lorain County practically all his life. He has worked hard and done well every task assigned him by destiny. Oftentimes he has worked against .the cur-rent rather than with it, and has made himself worthy of the success and esteem which belong to him in the later years. He was born in Eaton Township of Lorain County May 2. 1849. a son of Alanson and Elizabeth (Jay) Williams. His mother, who was born in Broome County, New York, was a granddaughter of John Jay, one of the most conspicuous characters in early American national history. Mr. Williams' paternal grandfather, Nathan Williams, came out of New York and bought a farm in LaGrange Township in the' very early times. Later he moved to Iowa, where he died at the age of ninety-five. He acquired extensive holdings in the new lands of that then western state and was a man of considerable influence and was considered wealthy for his time. Manson Williams was born in Binghamton, Broome County, New York, in 1818 and died in 1851. He did what many boys of spirit and adventure do. ran away from home, and at the age of eighteen came to Lorain County. He lived the life of a farmer, was a quiet and well esteemed citizen, and at the time of his death left a small farm in LaGrange Township. He married his wife in Lorain County. They were the parents of three children: Lorinda married Philander Nichols, who was a carpenter and died at Wellington, and she now lives with a daughter at Creston in Wayne County, Ohio; Caroline, .the other sister of Mr. S. A. Williams, is now living in Kansas City, Missouri, the widow of Demetrius Johnson, who was a soldier and afterwards a stonemason, and died in Kansas. Salonas A. Williams was twelve years old when the war broke out. Most of his education was received after the war and He attended the public schools only a few terms prior to his enlistment on August 17, 1864, in Company A of the Sixty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He reached the front in time to participate in some of the most striking campaigns of the war, and was with Sherman on his march from Atlanta to the sea and up through the Carolinas, and was granted an honorable discharge at the close of hostilities. After the war he attended Oberlin College two terms, and has been a resident of Wellington almost continuously since 1868. For a time he worked as clerk in the Bending Works for W. R. Santley. and after two years transferred his services to D. L. Wadsworth in the latter's planing mill, where he remained five HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1011 years. He then assisted Mr. Wadsworth in constructing a planing mill and had charge of its machinery five years. Again he was in the employ of the Santley Works for Mrs. Santley. For ten years Mr. Williams was elected and served as marshal of Wellington. On September 18, 1872, he married Frances Avery, daughter of Lewis B. Avery, who was an early settler in Pittsfield Township and also owned a farm in Wellington Township and a sawmill. He was killed while working. in the sawmill. Mr. and Mrs. Williams had seven children. Myrna B. is the wife of Elmer Kissinger, a farmer at Creston, Ohio; Lewis Archie lives in the West; Gerald Avery conducts an automobile line and has an establishment near Kent, Ohio ; Maude is the wife of Jud Jackson, a farmer in Penfield Township ; Beulah married Archie Davis, a railroad man at Columbus; Ward is a granite cutter living at Ashland, Ohio; Russell M. is in the railroad service and lives in Columbus. Recently Russell Williams was given an award by the commission who have charge of the Carnegie hero medal fund of $2,000 for having saved some boys from drowning, and he is at this writing preparing to spend this money wisely, or a portion of it at least, in taking up a technical course. The mother of these children died in June, 19,09. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Williams has been very prominent in fraternal affairs and particularly so in the Grand Army organization. He is now serving his third term as chairman of the Sailors' and Soldiers' Relief Commission. He has served as commander of the Grand Army Post. He is a member and was state organizer for the Knights of the Maccabees, He has been through all the chairs of the subordinate and encampment degrees of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and for six years served as district deputy grand master. He is also affiliated with the Masonic Order. Politically Mr. Williams is a republican. He was appointed and on July 1, 1915, took charge of the office of oil inspector, having charge of the fifteenth district, including Lorain County and parts of Cuyahoga and Huron counties. He and his family occupy one of the pleasant homes of Wellington. FRED A. DAUGHERTY. A resident of Wellington for forty years, Fred A. Daugherty has been known in that village and over a wide stretch of surrounding territory as a merchant. He is also known as a man who has been the architect of his own destiny. His start was in the humble capacity of a clerk and general utility boy around a Wellington store, and by making himself master of detail and showing himself fit for increased responsibility he finally acquired a partnership, and for a number of years has directed a very profitable and excellent business. He was born at Spencer in Medina County, Ohio, September 21, 1863, and was brought to Wellington in 1875 at the age of twelve, by his parents, Z, H. and Hattie (Sawyer) Daugherty. His father was born in New York State, a son of Charles Daugherty. Z. H. Daugherty was only six months of age when his family moved to Medina County, where he grew up and received his education, and he died when still a young man. He was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church and a demo-crat in politics. He and his wife left four living children: Estella, now Mrs. Pittinger, a widow of Portland, Oregon ; Fred A.; Bert, a traveling salesman at Cleveland; and Carl, a telegraph operator at North Olmsted, Ohio. Fred A. Daugherty completed his education in the Wellington schools and after some experience as a farm hand became clerk in a store at the age of seventeen. Twelve years matured his abilities and made him com- 1012 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY petent for independent business, and he then bought an interest in the business conducted by Chapman & Robinson, and since then the firm name has been incorporated with a capital stock of $18,000 as the Daugh-erty-Robinson Company. This is the leading clothing house in the City of Wellington. Mr. Daugherty really has all the active responsibilities of the business. In 1890 he married Ada Linder, who was born at Wellington, a daughter of Edward Linder, who for a number of years was a general mechanic at Wellington. Mr. and Airs. Daugherty are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and he is a republican in politics. Their three children are: Louise, a kindergarten teacher; Margaret; who is attending the Ohio State University at Columbus, Ohio; and Albert, now a senior in the Wellington High School. HERBERT E. ARNOLD. One of Oberlin's substantial business men, proprietor of the chief laundry establishment of the town, Herbert E. Arnold has had a wide and extended business experience, having spent a number of years as a traveling salesman. He comes of old New York State stock, and was born in Otsego County of that state June 4, 1863, a son of Alfred and Abigail (Bundy) Arnold. His grandfather, Elias Arnold, went from Connecticut into New York State about 1835 and took up his home in a sparsely settled district where he carved a home out of the wilderness, On the maternal side Mr. Arnold is descended from a still older family of New York State. Alfred Arnold was born in Connecticut in 1820 and died in 1889. His wife was born in New York State in 1826 and died in 1910. They were married in Otsego County, where Alfred Arnold followed farming for a number of years. He was an active republican in politics, hold-ing several local offices, and was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Four children were born to their union, and the two now living are Darwin, a farmer in Otsego County, New York, and Herbert E., who was the third in age. Herbert E. Arnold grew up on a farm in New York State, attended one of the little red schoolhouses and also a union school in the town. His early, experiences were those of a farmer until nineteen years of age, and after that he taught school two years and for eight years was a. traveling salesman. He first engaged in the laundry business at Cleveland, and remained there for fifteen years. In June, 1905, he bought the laundry at Oberlin, and has since completely remodeled and rearranged the service and has made it second to none in quality in Lorain County. In 1891 he married Miss Emily Sessions, who was born in Otsego County, New York. They have three children : Fannie, who is now student in the Conservatory of Music in Oberlin College; Rossleene, a senior in Oberlin College, and Herbert S,, now a student in the second grade of the public schools. Mr. Arnold is a member of the First Congregational Church, and is a member of the Masonic, order. In politics he is a republican and since coming to Oberlin has been chosen to serve on the school board. In 1916 he was appointed on the Board of Trustees of the Lorain County Children's Home. JOHN WESLEY HOUGHTON. While the Houghton family has been identified with Lorain County since early times, its associations with the American states and colonies go back to almost the first years of New England. Probably every one in that section of Lorain County tributary to the Village of Wellington knows and esteems the kindly and genial HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1013 Dr. John W. Houghton, who has lived a long life, is now past four score, has practiced medicine and has been engaged in business at Wellington, and is one of the best known older citizens in the county. The interest and value of this publication will be increased by the presence of the following record concerning Doctor Houghton and the various branches of his ancestry. Born in Batavia, New York, November 24, 1834, John Wesley Houghton is in the seventh generation from the original American settler. For nearly six centuries the family lived in England before one of its representatives crossed the ocean to the New England colonies.. The earliest Houghton ancestor went with William the Conqueror from Normandy to England in 1066. His Norman name was "Herverus." In the distribution of the territory among his followers King William gave to Herverus large possessions in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lancashire, in which last place he settled. The land being somewhat more elevated and hilly than the surrounding country, the natives came to call the family "Hoctunes" (Hightown people), which name as the years went by was changed in spelling to Hocton, Hogton, Hoghton, Haughton and Houghton. In New England the name is pronounced as though spelled "Hoton," while in New York and many other places as though spelled Howton. From the original Herverus there were descendants in direct line down to the present owner of Houghton Tower in Lancashire, England. This tower is said by travelers to be the finest remaining ex-ample of Norman architecture in England. The founder of the family in the United States was Ralph Houghton. He was born in 1623 in Lancaster, England, and came to America in 1645-47. After a temporary settlement in Watertown, Massachusetts, he rcmoved to Lancaster in 1650-52. He was a farmer, surveyor, selectman, was a beautiful penman, and was the first clerk and served continuously in that office at Lancaster for twenty-six years. After the massacre of inhabitants and burning of Lancaster by the Indians under King Philip he moved to Milton, which later became a suburb of Boston, and is now a part of that city. His farm was made into a park and cemetery where he and his family are buried. Ralph Houghton was a Puritan in religion and is said to have left England in order to obtain religious freedom. The records show that he joined a church in Milton June 18, 1682, and no doubt it was of the Congregational form. With nine others Ralph Houghton bought a tract of land from the Indians which was incorporated in 1652, but in which a settlement had been made a little previous to 1650, it having been a trading station as early as 1643. Ralph Houghton was well educated for his day, and was a strong character and leading man in the settlement. His wife was Jane Stowe, and the tradition is that she came from England with her husband. Nothing is known of her life or character, but as she reared a family of nine children, all of whom reached maturity and filled honorable places in society, it is proper to conclude that she filled a not unimportant place in the world. In the second American generation the lineage is carried by James Houghton, who was born about 1650 and died in 1711. He married Mary Sawyer, who was born February 14, 1653. His home was in that part of Lancaster later set off and named Harvard. On land given him by his father he built what is known as a garrison house, the walls being lined with brick and stone as protection against the Indians. This is still standing, having been handed from father to son through five generations. The last owner was Edward Warren Houghton, and he and an only child, an unmarried daughter, were for many years the sole occupants. This daughter, Anna, died in March, 1911, and Edward 1014 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY W. passed away March 13, 1912, since which time the premises have passed into other ownership. Edward Houghton, of the third generation, Was born in 1705 and died March 17, 1777. His wife, Abigail Coye; died February 6, 1822. Until after his marriage his home was at Lancaster, and he then lived at Pomfret and Uniontown, Connecticut. At Uniontown he built the -first mill in that section. Nehemiah, of the fourth generation, was born March 23, 1728, and married Eunice Curtice. After his marriage he settled in Winchester, New Hampshire, and lived there until his death, having reared a. family of ten children, He was a farmer by occupation, held various local offices, and during the war of the Revolution was a lieutenant and captain in the Continental forces. The fifth generation is represented by Nehemiah Houaton, Jr., who was born August 9, 1767, and died in 1854, He married Lydia Dodge, who was born August 30, 1764. In the southeast corner of the state of Vermont at Vernon he settled on a farm which remained his home the rest of his life. He was a man of great energy and thrift. and though his opportunities were limited he succeeded in acquiring a competence. He was a director of one of the earliest banks at Brattleboro, and held that post until late in life. It is remarkable that every one of his ten children developed strong and worthy characters and filled hon-orable places in society. Doctor Houghton's father was Asa Houghton, representing the sixth generation. Asa was born in Vernon, Vermont, September 1, 1795, and died at Wellington, Ohio; September 10, 1875. In younger years he was a noted athlete. He was a natural mechanic, and in pioneer days when the nearest village was twenty miles away and roads only trails he became his own shoemaker, blacksmith, carpenter and joiner, cabinetmaker, brick-and stonemason, and it is said -that he- could fabricate or do almost anything that needed to be done in a new country. This was a. skill and. variety of accomplishment that stood him and his neighbors in good stead when he moved to Northern Ohio More than eighty years ago. He was in his element When working: with machinery and constructed several labor-saving devices. While practical in many ways, he was also a great reader, and works of theology, philosophy, astronomy and poetry furnished. him his greatest pleasure, Though possessing little more than a common school education. he gained knowledge far beyond the ordinary, had taught in his youth, became a farmer at Batavia. New York, and in twenty-two years had put himself in comfortable circumstances for that day and generation. After selling out he bought a large tract of heavily timbered land in Northern Ohio, and settled in the middle of a section a mile and a half from neighbors, with no roads in any direction, and a second time: started to hew his way out of the woods. Asa Houghton had come to. Ohio and invested in raw land with a purpose to make homes for his children about him that- they might. not be separated from parents and one another as he had been. He was a leading member of .the 'Methodist Episcopal Church in pioneer times, and retained that relation to' the end. In politics he was a whig until the republican party was born, and thereafter affiliated with that organization. He was reserved and modest to excess, and avoided all public places of responsibility. However, his nature and sound convictions made him a reformer. and he kept in active sympathy with human progress, Intolerance and bigotry found no place in his genial soul. With every opportunity to do so he never allowed himself to lapse into indolent ease, His brave and noble HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1015 patience, his cheerfulness, dignity and courtesy were a rare example of a fine nature tempered by grace. Asa Houghton was first married May 16, 1816, to Tamzin Bigelow, of Batavia, New York. She died September 17, 1829, the mother of four sons and two daughters, all of whom lived to a ripe age and had not only physical vigor but intellectual and moral powers that made them quite the equal of those of their day and opportunities. For his second wife Asa Houghton married Clarissa Cole. She was born August 27, 1798, and died March 17, 1881. As the mother of Doctor Houghton it will be proper to trace her American lineage briefly to the first ancestor in this country. James Cole, born in Highgate, a suburb of London, and married in 1624, Mary Lobel. In 1632 he came to Saco, Maine, and in 1633 located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He bought land on which rests the famous Plymouth Rock, and soon afterwards opened the first public house in Plymouth, if not the first in all New England. The second generation from James was represented by Hugh Cole, who was born in 1627, and married Mary Foxwell. He was a surveyor, a shipwright, civil engineer, a man of great prominence and influence, served as representative from 1673 to 1689, and was active in the war against King Philip. The third generation is also represented by Hugh, who was born March 8, 1658, and died February- 17, 1738. He married Deborah Buckland. Their son, Hugh, of the fourth generation, was born May 30, 1683, and died June 14, 1753. He was married December 13, 1705, to Martha Luther, and his home was at Swansea, Massachusetts. In the fifth generation was another Hugh, who was born September 19, 1706, and was married August 13, 1730, to Jane Sisson. He lived at Swansea. In the sixth generation was Sisson, who was born June 20, 1746, in Rhode Island, and died in Richfield, New York, March 28, 1845. Sisson Cole was a soldier in the Revolution. He married Elizabeth Hunter, who was born January 18, 1746, and died November 12, 1842. James Cole, of the seventh generation, was born February 16, 1778, in Rhode land, and died in 1873 in the State of Michigan. He married Lydia Paine. He was an active member of the Free Will Baptist Church from its organization, was a pronounced anti-slavery man, and as a farmer and business man succeeded well. Clarissa Cole, of the eighth generation, and the wife of Asa Houghton, was a woman of great energy. She was proficient in all the arts of the pioneer housewife, including the skill to card wool by hand, spinning, weaving cloth for men's clothing and woolen sheets for bedding, and working up linen made from the raw flax. From girlhood she was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In her long line of ancestry were many who were distinguished in law, medicine, religion, art and science. Clarissa Houghton had a remarkable memory for names, dates and events, and retained her mental faculties to the last. A son of Asa and Clarissa (Cole) Houghton, Dr. John W. was only a child when he came with his parents to Northern Ohio. Up to about twenty he lived on a farm for the most part, and gained his early education in common schools that were far below the standard of the equipment and facilities found in schools of the same grade of the present time. Like others of the family his horizon and outlook were never bounded by immediate circumstances and necessity. After completing the freshmen year in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, he taught for a short time, then entered Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, and on June 13, 1860, was graduated A. B., and in 1863, the same institution awarded him his master's degree. In the meantime he had carried along with his literary studies work in medicine and received his 1016 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY degree M. D. in the spring of 1860, the same time he graduated from the department of arts and literature. In the year of his graduation Doctor Houghton settled at Wellington, and has thus been identified with that community fully fifty-five years. He took tip the practice of medicine, and served a large and appreciative clientage for about fifteen years. On account of frail health he then gave up active practice and engaged in the drug and book trade, which was continued to the spring of 1909. Since that year he has only been engaged in the practice of optometry, which he had practiced along with his drug business. From 1876 to 1885 Doctor Houghton owned, edited and published the Wellington Enterprise. In politics he has been a republican since the party was organized in 1856. However, his voting has not been entirely confined to one party, and in later years he has been actively engaged in temperance reform. His public service has been as a member of the town council, school board, as president of the school board, as mayor, and as justice of the peace. Since he was eighteen years of age he has been a member of the Methodist Church, has served on the official board of the Wellington Church in various capacities continuously since 1866, and had charge of the building of the present Methodist Church and was largely in charge of the addition for the Sabbath school. He is president of the board of trustees. November 26, 1861, Doctor Houghton married Mary E. Seymour. She was born April 13, 1839, in Rochester, New York, and died Sep-tember 6, 1873. Her parents were Henry and Clarissa (Whitney) Seymour, of Tallmadge, Ohio. Her father was a draughtsman and carriage builder, had a leading part in the Methodist Church, and held various township offices at Tallmalge. Mrs. Houghton gained a somewhat limited education at Baldwin University in Berea. and taught school for several terms before her marriage, She is remembered as a woman of great dignity and strength of character, and one who combined with intelligence a remarkable fortitude and courage. On October 22, 1874, Doctor Houghton married Mary E. Hayes. She was born March 26, 1837, in Penfield, Ohio, daughter of William L. and Aurilla (Lindsley) Hayes. Her father was a pioneer in that township and an active and prominent leader in civil, religious and educational enterprises. In Mrs. Houghton's ancestry were many distinguished persons, a record of whom has been kept in continuous line from their first coining to America, Mrs. Houghton early in life manifested a passionate fondness for literature, read widely and well, developed unusual clearness, force and elegance of diction as a writer, and for nine years was associate editor and the chief contributor to the columns of the Wellington Enterprise. She also contributed to the columns of various other newspapers and periodicals. She is a mem-ber of the Cleveland -Woman's Press Club, which was the Ohio Woman's Press Club until that of Cleveland withdrew, taking its present name. She is also a. member of the oldest literary club of Wellington, is an honorary life member of the Ohio Womans Christian Temperance Union and of the Woman's Missionary Society, both home and foreign. The children of Doctor Houghton, all by his first wife, were three in number. Elmer Seymour Houghton, born September 11, 1862, is a graduate of the Wellington High School, was a student in Oberlin College, and all his life has been a reader of literary and scientific work and a forcible writer. Since school days he has been a compositor on the Cleveland Leader and Plain Dealer, and since 1903 has operated a linotype machine in the Plain Dealer composing room, and it is said that he has scarcely ever los.: a day from his duties and has a record that is a HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1017 model of faithfulness, energy and conscientiousness. Elmer S. Hough-ton married Ellen Miller, of Cleveland, who was born February 10, 1860, and died February 3, 1892. For his second wife he married Mary John-son on December 24, 1894. She was born November 8, 1869. The second child of Doctor Houghton was Flora Ellen, who was born April 19, 1864, and died February 7, 1879. His daughter Mary Josephine, born February 10, 1872, was handicapped from early childhood by an attack of cerebro-spinal meningitis. Notwithstanding she has acquired an unusual literary culture and her memory of historical events, names and dates is almost unexampled. She has fairly mastered the use of the typewriter and prepared for the press the principal part of the genealogical history of the Houghtons in America, lately pub-lished. She is also active in church work, and is still at home with her parents at Wellington. While only the briefest outline. of Doctor Houghton's activities has been attempted, it will be appropriate in conclusion to express an estimate of his character and activities from the viewpoint and largely with the words of a friend and associate. He is a man of decided opinions, keen moral sense, admitting of no prevarications, and almost entirely lacks those instincts of policy that safeguard self interest. In fact he is liberal to prodigality in dealing with his fellow men, and is charitable to everyone's faults and weaknesses but his own. His pronounced liter-ary tastes are in the realm of the philosophic and logical rather than the imaginative or descriptive. He is disposed to get to the foundation of things and always requires proof or good reasons for conclusions. To study in his company is not to find easy reading. To engage his time or attention a piece of writing must be worth while. At the same time this seriousness in his reading pursuits does not preclude, his hearty enjoyment of humor and social life. He has always been a -contributor as well as a participant in the genial companionship and friendship with his equals. His friends are not hastily chosen but once in the enclosure of his confidence are likely to abide there. His domestic virtues dominate all others. He is known "as a liberal in theology and takes into his fellowship all of whatever name or doctrine who are trying to "deal justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God." WALTER E. BROOKS. In the management of large business affairs Elyria has had no more conspicuous figure during the last forty-five years than Walter E. Brooks. -With an inheritance of the rugged New England stock which peopled Northern Ohio in pioneer times, with a vigorous training from the country districts of Lorain County, Walter E. Brooks first became a figure in commercial affairs at Elyria in 1870. Since then his name has been associated with some of the largest companies and industrial and business affairs in the city. Born in Avon Township, Lorain County, August 13, 1846, he is a son of James E. and Elizabeth (Sweet) Brooks. The paternal grandparents were Joshua and Polly Brooks, who were natives of Vermont and were among the early settlers of Avon Township, where his grandfather cleared a home from the wilderness and was an influential figure, as long as he lived. The maternal grandparents also came from Vermont, and the names of Waterman and Amy Sweet are also to be numbered among those found in the early history of Avon Township. James E. Brooks, the father of Walter E., came when a boy from Vermont to Ohio, and for many years conducted a typical country store in Avon Township. He also held the office of justice of the peace while living there, but after 1870 lived in Elyria until his death. Walter E. Brooks was twenty-four years of age when he identified 1018 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY himself with the City of Elyria. In the meantime he had attended country schools, and had gained considerable knowledge of business in his father's store and elsewhere. On moving to Elyria he engaged in the agricultural implement and hardware business, and he laid the foundation for his larger success by eighteen years as a merchant. For many years one of . his distinctions in business affairs has been as president and active head of the prominent local firm. of Topliff & Ely Manufacturing Company. He first became interested in this concern in 1888, and afterwards acquired most of its stock. The range of his business interests has been very extended. From 1890 to 1895 he supplied the capital and enterprise for the drilling of many oil wells in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and he also carried on extensive operations in the Ohio oil fields. Mr. Brooks for a number of years has served as president of the American Construction & Trading Company, a million dollar corporation with headquarters at Elyria, Ohio. For the past ten years he has also been prominent in the construction and extension of telephone service both in this and other states. In 1905 he hecame president of the Elyria Telephone Company, and likewise was president of the Elyria Southern Telephone & Telegraph Company. He took an active part in a number of companies that built telephone exchanges in various sections of New York State. Mr. Brooks is a director of the Elyria National Bank and his property interests include real estate at Elyria. and Lorain and in cities outside Lorain County, As a business man he has never failed to live up to his obligations as a citizen. For four years he was president of the Elyria City Council. The public spirited movements which have been undertaken and carried out under the auspices of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce have always had his hearty support and approval. He is a member of the Country Club, is a thirty-second degree Mason, and has served as exalted ruler of Elyria Lodge No. 456, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He was initiated April 27, 1868, into King Solomon Lodge No. 56, Free and Accepted Masons: into Fellow Craft, December 28, 1868 ; and was made a Master Mason March 8, 1869. He and his family attend the Congregational Church. ln 1877 Mr. Brooks married Fannie Topliff, daughter of the late John A. and Caroline (Beers) Topliff. At her death in 1893 Mrs. Brooks left two children : Margaret B., who married Theodore E. Faxon ; and John Prentice. In 1902 Mr. Brooks married Marella Davis, daughter of Professor Noah K. Davis, formerly of the University of Virginia. DAVID A. WILLIAMS. The career of David A. Williams is a noble illustration of what independence, self-faith and persistency can accomplish in America. He is a self-made man in the most significant sense of the word, for no one helped him in a financial way and he is practically self-educated. As a young man he was vigorous and self-reliant ; he trusted in his own ability and did things single-handed and alone. Today he commands esteem as a successful business man and a loyal and public-spirited citizen. Much of his time has been devoted to his business as foreman of the Thew Automatic Shovel Company. A native son of the Buckeye State, David A. Williams was born in Norwalk, Ohio, January 21, 1870, and he is a son of David O. and Cornelia Ann ( Spoors) Williams, both of whom are now deceased. The father was born in Ohio and the mother in Pennsylvania. their marriage having been solemnized in the former state. Mr. Williams was an engineer on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad during the greater part of his active career and he met with death by accident at the railroad crossing in Jackson, Michigan. while on duty, at which time HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1019 he was but thirty-eight years of age. During the Civil war he enlisted in Company G, Twenty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served as corporal.until he was promoted to the office of captain in Company A, that regiment. He received the latter distinction for recapturing the flag which had been taken by the enemy. This flag is now on exhibition at Columbus, where Mr. and Mrs. David A. Williams saw it while on a visit recently. Mrs. Williams, mother of the subject, passed to the life eternal at Norwalk, in 1914, aged eighty-nine years. There were ten children in the Williams family—five boys and five girls, of whom five are at the present time, in 1915, as follows: Henry is a resident of Norwalk, Ohio; Ellis O. is a passenger conductor on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and resides at Galesburg, Illinois ; Phoeba. Ann is the widow of Thomas Cherry and makes her home at Norwalk; Addie is the wife of Joseph Lillard, of Gilroy, California; and David A. is he whose name forms the caption for this review. After the demise of his father David A. Williams lived at Bowling Green, Ohio, with his aunt, Adafna Slinker, and in that place received his early schooling. Subsequently he began to work in a grocery store and at the age of sixteen years he returned to Norwalk and entered the shops of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, where he learned the trade of forger. After twelve years' experience in those shops he accepted a position in the Wheeling & Lake Erie shops at Norwalk, remaining there for fifteen months. Thence he went to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where he worked at the trade of forger in an automobile shop for a time, In 1901 he came to Elyria, Ohio, and here he has since resided. His first position in this place was as a forger for the Thew Automatic Shovel Company and he has been with this concern during the past eleven years, during most of which time he has served as foreman. At the time of the inception of the Spanish-American war, in 1898, Mr. Williams enlisted in Company G, Fifth Ohio Volunteer Regiment, as a sergeant and he subsequently served as sergeant-major in the Third Battalion. He did not see-active service in the war, however, but went as far as Tampa, Florida. Prior to the outbreak of the war he was a member of the Ohio National Guard. In political allegiance Air. Williams is a stalwart republican and he has recently become actively interested in local politics. In the primary results of August 10, 1915, he was nominated on the republican ticket for the office of president of the city council of Elyria, winning over his opponent, J. A. Rawson, by a vote of 691 to 467. In his campaign for the nomination he announced himself in favor of a municipal lighting plant and of other public utilities as conditions might warrant, and was elected at the November election and made president of that body. He considers the sidewalks of as much importance as the streets and believes in considering the interests of the property holder in establishing new grades. In a fraternal way Mr. Williams is a member of Elyria. Lodge, No. 103, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he is now past noble grand ; and he is likewise affiliated with the time honored Masonic fraternity, being a member of King Solomon Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons: Marshal Chapter, No. 47, Royal Arch Masons; Elyria Council, No, 86, Royal and Select Masters, of which he is present conductor; and Elyria Commandery, No. 60, Knights Templars, of which he is past eminent commander, He and his wife are members of the Order of the Eastern Star and he is likewise connected with the Yeomen. October 11, 1899, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Williams to Miss Sarah Gladys Tough, a daughter of Samuel C. and Mary Ellen (Kile) Tough, who are residents of Townsend Center, Ohio, where Mr. Vol. II-30 1020 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Tough is engaged in the grocery business. Mrs. Williams was born at Norwalk, Ohio, and she completed her educational training at Collins, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Williams have one daughter, Ethel Bernice, a pupil .in the graded schools of Elyria. The Williams family occupy a beautiful residence at No. 627 East River Street, directly opposite the beautiful grounds of the Elyria Memorial Hospital, and the same is the scene of many attractive social gatherings. In religious faith .Mr. and Mrs. Williams are devout members of the Congregational Church, to whose good works they are liberal contributors. Mr. Williams is a progressive citizen, a splendid business man. and a great lover of the home fireside. J. H. CALKINS. For about three-quarters of a century the Calkins family has been substantially identified with Lorain County. They have been known as energetic and successful farmers, as loyal and public spirited citizens, and as people who have carried more than their in-dividual burdens in the affairs of the community. Of the second generation in Lorain County is J. H. Calkins, whose fine home and farm is located near Kipton in Camden Township. He was born in Huntington Township of Lorain County, April 5, 1866, a son of Nathan and Sarah (Cook) Calkins. and a grandson on the paternal side of Archer Calkins, who died soon after he brought his family to Lorain County from New York State, and on the maternal side a grandson of William W. Cook. William W. Cook, a 'native of New York State, came to Camden Township in Lorain County in 1832 and was one of the pioneers, only two or three families having preceded him to that locality. He acquired his land direct from the government, and spent his life as a practical farmer. He cleared up with his own labor a large acreage, and built and lived for a number of years in a log house. Nathan Calkins was born in New York State in 1816 and died in 1897. He was married in Lorain County in 1858 to Miss Cook, who was born in Camden Township in 1837 and died in 1911. Nathan Calkins was twenty-one years of age when he came to Lorain County in 1837. He had been educated in New York State, and on arriving in Lorain County assumed the heavy responsibilities of a pioneer farmer. He started out in the midst of the wilderness, bought a tract of land, and finished clearing it up and developing it before he left it, His home for twenty-five years was in Huntington Township, after which he moved to Camden Township and after about eighteen months of retirement bought a farm and started over again the work of improvement and development. He burned brick on his own land. and that brick was molded into the structure of a beautiful two-story home which is still standing and for years has been one of the model farm houses of Camden Township. Nathan Calkins before his death had acquired the ownership of 517 acres of land, and all of it was the direct result of his labor and intelligent management. While regarded as one of the wealthiest men of the township he was equally noted for his kindly interest it) the community and his progressive spirit. He was a republican and his wife was a member of the Baptist Church. To their union were born seven children, and the five now living are: Nathan Webster. who is unmarried and lives on a farm in Camden Township ; J. H. Calkins; William W., a farmer in Camden Township ; Reuben, who is unmarried and is a Camden Township farmer ; and Frank J., a farmer in Camden Township. J. H. Calkins grew up in a home of plenty and of liberalizing influences and high ideals. He secured an education in the township schools and was trained to a life of industry on his father's farm. He remained with his father an active assistant in the management of the HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1021 farm until twenty-five years of age. For a few years he rented land, and in 1899 bought his present estate, a place of ninety-five acres, which he devotes to general farming. He has a farm which has well repaid all his energies, and shows in every corner an efficiency and system which might well be studied by less progressive agriculturists. On December 24, 1890, Mr. Calkins married Miss Sarah E. Freeman, a daughter of George and Caroline (Coydendall) Freeman. Her father was a native of England and for many years was an active farmer in Lorain County. Mr. and Mrs. Calkins have two daughters, Mabel B. and Elsie A. The daughter Mabel is the wife of Vernie Taylor of Pittsfield Township. Mrs. Calkins is an active member of the Baptist Church. In politics he is a republican and is affiliated with the Knights of the Maccabees. Having always taken an active interest in public affairs, and his work in his own interests having won the confidence of his fellow citizens, he was honored in 1913 by election as township trustee, and his first term was given a vote of confidence by reelection in 1915. LEROY PETER BURGETT. A member of the young generation of business men of Lorain who is winning success because of the knowledge and mastery of a useful trade, is LeRoy Peter Burgett, who is connected with the well known contracting and building firm of L. A. Burgett & Company. He is a native son of Lorain, a product of its public schools, and received his training here, and his entire career has been passed within its limits. Mr, Burgett was born at Lorain, November 10, 1892, and is a son of Lawrence Anthony and Josephine B. (Miller) Burgett. LeRoy Peter Burgett attended the public schools of Lorain, following which he further prepared himself for his career by attending a commercial college at Lorain, in which he completed a business course. At that time he was apprenticed to the trade of bricklaying, a vocation which had honorably been followed by his father and grandfather be-fore him, and after serving four years as an apprentice, became a journeyman bricklayer. In this line he secured one year's further experience, and in January, 1913, joined the forces of the concern of L. A. Burgett & Company, with which he has continued to be connected. Mr. Burgett is a master of business singularly adapted to his inclinations and abilities, and the fact that his work is congenial adds not a little to his possibilities of continued advancement. He is unmarried. With the other members of the family, Mr. Burgett attends Saint Mary's Catholic Church, and is a valued and popular member of the Knights of Columbus. JAMES L. EDWARDS. A prominent and old established real estate man of Oberlin, James L. Edwards has been identified with this city in a successful and public-spirited manner for thirty-five years. and is numbered among those who have been instrumental in helping to promote many projects for the upbuilding and progress of the community. His present position of prosperity and influence is the more notable for the fact that he early became dependent upon his own efforts to advance himself in the world and has really had an active business career since early boyhood. He was born in Gorham; New York, April 25, 1862, a son of Thomas and Rachel (Morgan) ) Edwards. Both parents were born in Wales, where their respective families had resided for generations. Thomas Edwards was born in 1823 and died in 1914, and the mother was born in 1824 and is still living though past ninety-two years of age, They were married in England, and in 1860 emigrated to America and settled in New York State. Thomas Edwards was a carpenter and contractor. 1022 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY and kept at his work until a year before his death, which occurred when he was ninety. In 1873 he removed to Elyria, followed his trade there for a. time, and afterwards at Cleveland, and about 1904 established his home in Oberlin, where he spent the rest of his years. Thomas Edwards had the gift of song. like so many Welshmen, and took a prominent part in the musical activities of his church and also in the early days taught a great number of singing classes. Though not a citizen of the United States at the time, he enlisted for service toward the close of the Civil war and served as a carpenter in the army. There were seven children in the family, and the five now living are: Sarah, who lives in Oberlin; W. G., who lives at Oberlin and was for eleven years in the hardware business; James L.; M. F,. in the advertising business at Chicago; and Thomas L., a mail carrier at Cleveland. James L. Edwards finished his education in the high school at Elyria. When only thirteen years of age he gained his first experience as cash boy in a store. For five years he was employed as a clerk by Henry Brush of Elyria and he then went on the road and sold the goods of the Henry Brunt Pottery Company at East Liverpool, Ohio. He did that work for about six months and in 1881 arrived at Oberlin, where he spent three years with the Johnson & Whitney dry goods store. On account of failing health he was compelled to go to the open prairies of Dakota, and he spent about two years there. In 1891 he established himself in the grocery business at Oberlin and after three years sold out his stock, and has since been in business as a real estate man. Mr. Edwards is one of the reliable dealers in real estate, and his transactions have covered the entire State of Ohio and he occasionally handles lands outside the state limits. In 1890 he married Ella Crittenden, of Ruggles Township, Ashland County, Ohio. Mrs. Edwards was educated in the Academy and the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin. They have one child, Gertrude, wife of R. L. Curtis of Saginaw. Michigan. The family are members of the Second Congregational Church at Oberlin. Mr. Edwards is a member of the Knights and Ladies of Secur-ity, and in politics is a republican. For a time Mr. Edwards served as village assessor, has been president of the local Board of Commerce, has been secretary and is a director of the State Savings Bank, and for fully twenty years has been very active in the Lorain County Agricultural Association, of which he is serving his second term as vice president. In fact, everything that concerns his community is a matter of concern to Mr. Edwards himself. In addition to his regular business he represents the Studebaker automobile with agency covering three townships. He resides in a beautiful home in the suburbs of Oberlin. and owns a tract of twenty acres surrounding it. HENRY OTIS FIFIELD. It is given to few men to round out such a life of varied service as that of Henry Otis Fifield, the veteran editor and well known citizen of Wellington. He can properly claim to be one of the oldest printer-editors in the State of Ohio, and is still using his pencil or typewriter and making copy every working day. At this writing in the spring of 1916 he enjoys the best of health at the age of seventy-four, and his friends join with him in hoping to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. His interesting career began at Corrina, Maine, August 7, 1841. At an early age his parents moved to Bangor, where they resided several years. He is a son of Samuel Stillman and Naomi (Pease) Fifield. His mother died in 1848. In 1863 Samuel S. Fifield, Sr., together with his two sons, Samuel S., Jr,, and Henry O., went west and located in Pres- HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1023 cott, Wisconsin, where they resided until after the Civil war, when the father joined his oldest son at Osceola Mills, Wisconsin, and died in 1869. In 1858 at the age of seventeen Henry O. Fifield left school and en-tered the printing office to learn the "art preservative of all arts," and with the exception of three years' service in the Union army during the Civil war has since been engaged in the newspaper business in various parts of the country. April 19, 1861, he enlisted in the famous First Minnesota Regiment, which was the first regiment accepted by Mr. Lincoln. for three months' service. The command was sent south in May, arriving in Washington in time to take part in the first battle of Bull Run, where it lost 182 men and retired from the field in good order. For that act the regiment was recognized as one of the best in the service at that time, and during the entire war it kept up its record for bravery and gallant performance of duty. At Antietam, September 17, 1862, the regiment lost 147 men and stood its ground to the end of the battle. At Gettysburg it again distinguished itself sustaining the greatest loss of any regiment in the war-83 per cent. This act of almost unprecedented heroism came on the evening of the second day of Gettysburg at 7 o'clock. The regiment was ordered by General Hancock to charge against four times its numbers at an important place in the line, where there existed a gap between the third corps and the main line of the second corps extending to the cemetery. In responding to this command the colors fell seven times and of the 264 officers and men who made the charge only 47 came out alive, while 17 out of the 23 officers lay dead and wounded upon the field. And historical critics say that not a man skulked or was missing. Up to date Mr. Fifield has been in the printing business upwards of fifty-seven years and in the early days he helped carry the influence of the printing press to the bounds of civilization on the frontier. In 1869-72 he conducted the Bayfield Press on Lake Superior, moving the plant from that place to Ashland in 1872. He was the pioneer printer there. In fact the town existed only on paper when he began the publication of his paper in the primeval forest, where there were more Chippewas than white men. However, Ashland was the lake terminus of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, now known as the "Soo road" and within a few years it became a prosperous city and one of the great iron shipping ports on Lake Superior. After he left Ashland in 1873 he worked on the Stillwater Lumberman and also the Gazette of the same city. In 1879 he bought the Menominee (Mich.) Herald, and for twenty-three years issued that sheet, both as a daily and weekly. In 1902 Mr. Fifield removed to Wellington, Ohio, where he has since resided, owning and editing the Wellington Enterprise. In poli-tics he has been a republican since that party was born "under the oaks at Jackson, Michigan," and has the honor of being a stalwart all these years. September 25, 1866, at Osceola Mills, Wisconsin, he married Miss Emma L. Walker. They had one son who died at the age of twenty-nine, and his daughter is now living with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Fifield. JOHN PATERSON. A native of bonnie old Scotland, where he was reared and educated, a scion of fine old Scottish stock, Mr. Paterson possesses in marked degree the sterling traits of character that have always designated the sturdy race from which he is sprung. About one year after his arrival in the United States he established his home at Lorain, and here he has become one of the representative and especially 1024 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY successful contractors and builders of Lorain County, in the domain of brick, stone and concrete construction. His fine technical ability as a brick and stone mason is supplemented by energy, ambitious purpose and marked executive and business ability and thus he has been able to develop an extensive and prosperous enterprise as a contractor, in which con-nection he has been identified with the construction of virtually all im-portant buildings of the more elaborate order in Lorain County within the last decade, his interposition having been sought in the providing and installing of the high grade cut stone work on many fine buildings that in this respect stand as enduring monuments to his skill. His character and achievement have gained him secure place in popular esteem and he is one of the well known and influential business men of the younger generation in Lorain. Picturesquely situated on the River Tay, in Perthshire, Scotland, is the Village of Errol, which figures as the native place of Mr. Paterson, his birth having there occurred on the 20th of September, 1879, and that village being still the home of his honored parents, Thomas and Margaret (Watson) Paterson, his father being a stone mason by trade and vocation. Mr. Paterson duly availed himself of the advantages afforded in the schools of his native land and as a boy he gained his initial knowledge of the stonemason's trade under the effective direction of his father. He served a thorough apprenticeship and in due time became a skilled workman, especially in cut stone architectural work, In 1903, when about twenty-four years of age. Mr. Paterson severed the gracious ties that bound him to home and native land and, amply fortified in ambition and in practical knowledge of a trade which ever offers excellent oppor-tunities for the expert artisan and faithful worker, he immigrated to the United States. He passed the first year in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. and then came to Ohio and established his permanent residence in the City of Lorain, his good judgment in taking this action having been effectually demonstrated by the large and worthy success he has here achieved. Mr. Paterson is a young man of vigorous and buoyant nature and greatly enjoys outdoor sports. especially football. He is actively affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which his maximum prestige is represented by his membership in the Lorain commandery of Knights Templars. This popular young Scotsman, who has entered fully into the spirit of American customs and institutions. still permits his name to remain enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors in Lorain County. CHARLES MANNING IRISH, During a period of nearly thirty years Charles Manning Irish has been identified with the business and financial interests of Lorain, and while he now gives the greater part of his attention to banking matters. in his capacity of secretary and treasurer of the Lorain Banking Company, he is still interested in the general merchandise store which he opened on first coming. to Lorain and of which he is half owner. It has been his fortune to have contributed to the making of financial and commercial history here during several decades. and in this time he has always maintained a high reputation for strict fidelity and integrity which has made him the repository of a number of public trusts. Mr. Irish was born September 14, 1862, at Pittsfield, Lorain County, Ohio. and is a son of Charles and Jane (Ware) Irish, his father being a blacksmith and farmer. The public schools of his native community supplied him with his early educational training, and as a youth he adopted the vocation of farming. an occupation which he followed for some seven or eight years, or until coming to Lorain, in 1886. Here he joined the business colony as the proprietor of a small general store, HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1025 which proved successful from the start, the young merchant seeming to possess just those attributes and characteristics which attract prosperity in any line. Courteous, enterprising, ambitious and industrious, he built up an excellent trade. Having succeeded so well in his initial venture, Mr. Irish was encouraged to enter a different line, and accordingly opened a grocery store, in which he now owns a half interest. The Lorain Banking Company was organized in September, 1905, with a capital of $125,000, its first officers being : Capt. Richard Thew, president ; Orville Root, first vice president ; L. M. Moore, second vice president ; and E. M. Pierce, secretary and treasurer. Its officers in 1915 are the same, with the exception of Charles M. Irish, secretary and treasurer, with Irven Roth as assistant secretary and treasurer. The capital remains as $125,000, but the institution at this time has surplus and undivided profits of $10,000, and deposits of $500,000. The new banking house is a handsome three-story brick edifice, 28 by 120 feet, including the banking rooms, offices and apartments, and the institution, which pays 4 per cent on savings, is considered one of the strong, substantial and conservative concerns of northern Ohio. Mr. Irish is a director of the National Bank of Commerce of Lorain and is variously interested in other ventures. As a citizen he has taken an active part in public affairs, having been elected county treasurer in 1905 and serving two terms beginning from 1906. He has been a member of the city council for a long period, and for fifteen years a member of the school board, and in the latter body served four years as president, until his resignation. His public life has been characterized by the same fidelity to duty and unswerving integrity that have made notable and successful his personal affairs. Fraternally, Mr. Irish is a thirty-second degree Mason and belongs to the Knights of the Maceabees and the Knights of Pythias. On February 9, 1887, Mr. Irish was united in marriage with Miss Florence Baker, of Kipton, Lorain County, Ohio, and to this union there have been born four children : Blanche Irene, Ruth Marie, Glenn Marion and Warren Baker. NATHAN MILLER. Of those farm homes in Wellington Township which represent the last word in improvement, cultivation, fertility and skillful management, the Nathan Miller farm is one of especial interest, not only because it represents those various qualities enumerated, but also because it is the home of one of the sterling citizens of Lorain County. Born in Medina County, Ohio, June 29, 1849, Nathan Miller is a son of Silas and Lydia (Branch) Miller. The family are of New England stock. His grandfather, Ephraim Miller, was born in Massachusetts, and came out to Ohio at the advanced age of eighty-six, and lived to be ninety-three. The maternal grandfather, Nathan Branch, was a native of New York State, lived for a number of years in Ohio, but finally moved to Michigan, where he died. Nathan Branch was both a farmer and physician. Silas Miller was born in Massachusetts, April 2, 1802, and died June I, 1883. He came from Medina County, Ohio, in 1839, took up a farm, afterwards sold it and moved to Russia Township in Lorain County in 1851, where he acquired land at $10 an acre. After two years he sold his farm for $25 an acre and his next home was on a farm in Amherst, and. in 1864 he moved to Wellington Township, where he established his permanent home on a farm of 174 acres and lived there until his death. Silas Miller married for his first wife, Cynthia Holcomb, and they were the parents of three children, one of whom is still living. He was married in Medina County to Lydia Branch, who 1026 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY was born in 1809 and died in April, 1886. By that union there were five children, and the two now living are Lucinda Whitehead, wife of a gardener in Penfield Township of Lorain County; and Mr. Nathan Miller. Both parents were members of the Congregational Church, and Silas Miller was a republican in politics. Nathan Miller acquired his early education in the district schools at Amherst and at Wellington. He grew up on a farm, took to that voca-tion naturally, and though he started out on a modest scale he has acquired a prosperity that speaks well of his persistent industry and his good judgment. He now owns 475 acres of land, including his father's old homestead. He bought out the other heirs to this place for $8,150 and for many years has conducted his farming operations on a broad and extensive scale. While engaged in general farming he also conducts a dairy a about forty cows, and has altogether some eighty-five head of cattle. He specializes in the thoroughbred Holstein. In the course of his many years of residence in Wellington Township Mr, Miller has effected numerous improvements, and he and his family now reside in a very fine country home. In 1883 he married Miss Elizabeth Dute, a daughter of Casper Dute, who was born in Germany, but spent his active career as a farmer in Amherst Township. Mr, and Mrs. Miller had nine children : Herbert C., who lives on his father's farm, married Blanche Myers, and they have three children, Grace, Harold and Harriet E.; Laura, wife of Don Barber, who is employed in the postoffice at Wellington, and they have one child, Robert ; Minerva, who is a typist and makes her home with her father ; Rollin, at home; Lida, widow of A. L. Bacon, reference to whom is made on other pages; Clara. who married William Warren, has one child, Ralph, and lives on a farm in Russia Township ; Archie. at home; *Wesley, at home; and L. G., who is still attending school, The family are members of the Baptist Church and in politics 'Mr. Miller is a republican. OTIS E. PEABODY. One of the factors in the mercantile enterprise of Oberlin is Otis E. Peabody, Who belongs to some of the stanch agricultural stock of Lorain County, and who about fifteen years ago engaged in business in the college town as a dealer in implements and farm hardware. He gives his best energies and time to the management of this flourishing business, and has been very successful. The family represented by this merchant has been identified with Lorain County for more than seventy years. Otis E. Peabody was born on a. farm in Lorain County October 6, 1871, a son of Harvey M. and Martha (Petty) Peabody. The Peabodys are of old New England stock. Grandfather David Peabody was born in Vermont July 10, 1812, and settled in Lorain County in the year 1843, when the inhabitants still were living in the midst of comparative pioneer conditions and had a heavy task to perform in clearing up the country. David Peabody lived to be ninety-three years of age. He was a very saintly man and the esteem felt for him was not confined to one locality. The maternal grandfather was Thomas Petty, who was an Englishman and brought his family over to America in a sailing vessel, locating in Lorain County about 1840, Harvey M. Peabody was born in Vermont October 20. 1837, and was only six or seven years of age when he came to Lorain County. His career was spent as a farmer until 1897, at which date he retired and moved into Oberlin. He owned a fine farm, and was quite prosperous, He died March 25, 1914, In politics he was a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife was born in Lorain County in HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1027 1842, and is still living. The parents were married in 1863. Their five children were : William H,, a farmer living at Elyria; Clayton D., a Lorain County farmer ; Otis E.; Mattie B., wife of Harry I. Squire, a coal dealer at Oberlin; and Ethel B., wife of Homer Worcester, a contractor at Youngstown, Ohio. Otis E. Peabody grew up on a farm, His education came from the district schools, with one year in city grammar school and with a course in the Oberlin Business College. He and a brother managed the home farm for their father for a number of years, but in 1902 Mr. Peabody came to Oberlin and set up a business as a dealer in implements and farm hardware. He was the only dealer in that line when he first began and has since extended his trade over a wide radius of country. In 1893 Mr, Peabody married Laura Wellman, a native of Lorain County. They have two children, Doris W. and Lois L., both attending school. Mrs. Peabody died November 5, 1910. She was a devout member of the First Baptist Church. On July 24, 1913, he married Louetta Siemens. She was also born in Lorain County, and is a member of the First Presbyterian Church, while Mr. Peabody is a Methodist. In politics he has been identified with the republican organization since casting his first vote, and his work and influence have not been without substantial benefit to his community. He served as township assessor eight years and is now in his third successive term as a member of the city council of Oberlin. Mr. Peabody recently completed a splendid new home at Oberlin, equipped with all the modern comforts and conveniences. A. W. MITCHELL. One of the thrifty, honorable and highly esteemed citizens of Rochester Township, A. W. Mitchell several years ago reached that fortunate point in life where he was able to retire from the heavier responsibilities of business, and is now enjoying the comforts supplied by his many years of capable work as a farmer. Mr. Mitchell is one of the surviving veterans of the great Civil war, and besides his military serv-ice rendered in the critical days of the '60s, he has made his influence count for value in various local offices in his home county. He was born in Rochester Township of Lorain County, December 10, 1846, and is now approaching the seventieth milestone on life's journey. His parents were Peter and Catherine (Conklin) Mitchell, His father was born in the North of Ireland in 1790, came to the United States when young, and was married in New York State to Miss Conklin, who was born near Kenyon, New York, in 1815, and died in 1904. They came to Lorain County and settled in Rochester Township in 1844, where Peter Mitchell died in 1853. When he came to Ohio he brought with him twenty oxen and one horse and wagon, and was a rather successful man for his time. He cleared up a tract of land in Lorain County, and owned 165 acres at the time of his death. He was a whig in politics, and adhered to the abolitionist cause and afterwards was a loyal republican, His wife was a member of the Baptist Church.. They had a large family of sixteen children, three of whom are still living: Sidney, a farmer in South Dakota : Frank, a farmer in Rochester Township ; and A. W. Mitchell, who is the youngest of the family. Several of the sons served as soldiers in the Civil war. George was a soldier, and was murdered shortly after his return home. Sidney was in the army from 1861 until his honorable discharge in 1865. and was in all the engagements in which the Third Ohio Cavalry participated. A. W. Mitchell was not yet fifteen years old when the war broke out, and after restraining his patriotism several years he enlisted August 13. 1864, in Company F of the Third Ohio Cavalry and was with that regiment until the close of hostilities. He took part in practically all 1028 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY the campaigns from Chattanooga to Atlanta and thus participated in one of the severest campaigns of the entire war. At Peachtree Creek he was wounded and he still carries the bullet in his body. Prior to entering the army he had attended the district schools and. afterwards he learned the blacksmith's trade and followed it steadily at Rochester for twenty-six years. He then bought on credit his father's old homestead, paid for it after a number of years of hard work and good management and finally sold out and retired. Mr. Mitchell still owns a nice place of fifteen acres in Rochester, and his means are such that he is under no necessity to perform hard labor any longer. He first married Dora Vosburg. who died in 1885, leaving one daughter, Rena, now the wife of Charles Call, a worker in the foundry at New London. In 1887 Mr. Mitchell married Rachel Curry, who was born at Troy, Ohio, but came to Lorain County with her parents when a small girl. Mr. and Mrs'. Mitchell attend the Baptist Church, he is a member of the Grand Army Post, and in politics is a republican. For seven years he acted as marshal of Rochester and was a member of the village council seventeen years. PERRY MENNELL, farmer and dairyman whose homestead is on Island Road in Eaton Township, near Grafton Postoffice, was born on the old family homestead in Grafton Township May 29, 1844, and is a son of Crispin, better known as Duke, and Mary (Hardy) Mennen. The history of the Mennell family is given on other pages. He grew up as a farmer boy, lived with his father until twenty-one, and then started farming on a place of fifty acres given him by his father. He also spent some time in his early life in Kansas and Nebraska. April 10, 1887, he married in Grafton Township, Miss Mary Mole, who was born in Eaton Township a daughter of Henry and Ann (Gardner) Mole, natives of England. Her parents after marriage came to Lorain County, and her father lived on a farm in Eaton and afterwards in Grafton townships. Mr. Mennen since his marriage has accumulated property and made a striking success as a farmer. He now owns 172 acres in Grafton Township, and -in 1897 bought his present home place. He and his wife are the parents of four children : Louis M., born in Grafton Township, married Treva Benton, and they have one child; their home is on a farm in Grafton Township. The son Harry died at the age of seven years. Thena is now a sophomore in the Elyria High School. Alton is also in the sophomore class of the Elyria High School. Mr. Menne11 is independent in politics, and he and his wife attend the Disciples Church at Eaton. L. F. CLLFFORD of Wellington Township, is one of the oldest living native sons of that locality in Lorain County. He is now eighty-two years of age, and he represents a family which has been identified with Wellington Township since the first settler broke open trails into that then wilderness. That was nearly 100 years ago. L. F. Clifford on his farm home has some interesting relics of pioneer times in this town-ship, in the shape of a frame barn which was the first frame building erected in Wellington. His great-grandfather was a native of Germany and came to America ill time to serve in the Revolutionary war. In the archives at Wash-ington is a record of his honorable discharge. His wife, the great-grandmother. lived to be ninety-three years of age, and passed away December 9, 1844. The pioneer in Lorain County of this family was John Clifford, the grandfather of L. F. Clifford, John Clifford was born in 1777. while the revolution was still in progress, at Providence, Rhode Island. He HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1029 married Miss Margaret Williamson, and their family of children was as follows : John, Jr., born September 8, 1797, and died December 25, 1857; Daniel, born February 7, 1799, and died January 31, 1886; Luther L., born March 8, 1801, and died March 12, 1864; Hannah, born July 15, 1803, and died April 2, 1857 ; Theodosia, born May 15, 1805, and died May 31, 1880; George W., born June 18, 1807, and died September 28, 1861 ; Elijah, born March 13, 1810, and died in July, 1880; Pollie M., born June 6, 1813, and died July 1, 1849; Benjamin F., born Janu-ary 9, 1816, and died December 21, 1885; Harriet, born March 30, 1819, and died December 5, 1869; Adeline, who was born September 23, 1821, after the family came to Ohio, and died September 2, 1841. The mother of these children was born March 15, 1779, and died May 22, 1845. It was in 1818 that John Clifford came to Ohio, accompanied by four men, making the journey during the dead of winter and driving a horse and cutter, The other four, who should also be remembered as the first pioneers of Wellington Township, were Ephraim Wilcox, William Welling, Joseph Wilson and Charles Sweet. Having selected a suitable tract of land on the bank of Wellington Creek about half a mile from the present Town of Wellington, John Clifford returned east for his family. Then with wife and ten children he arrived at his new home in March, 1820, and a week later had cut the timber and erected a lag house. This first home of the Cliffords in Wellington Township was a place of much historic interest. It served as the first schoolhouse, the first meeting house and the first tavern, and it was the first point that a traveler would reach on coming into the settlement. It was in that humble home that the first sermon was preached by Presiding Elder McMahon, a Methodist, and at that meeting Adam Poe received his license to preach. John Clifford was proverbial for his industry and thrift, and while clearing up a farm he also followed his trade as shoemaker, and for many years supplied his neighbors with all the footwear. When John. Clifford died September 17, 1869, he possessed 79 grandchildren, 97 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild-188 in all. Daniel C. Clifford, father of L. F. Clifford, was born February 7, 1799, at Tyringham, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and was about tweirty-one years of age when he came to Wellington Township of Lorain County. There he spent the rest of his life as an active and prosperous farmer. On March 13, 1825, he was married in Lorain County to Sarah P. Hall, who was born in Connecticut in 1802. They became the parents of twelve children, and the four still living are: Christopher, of Medina County ; L. F. Clifford ; A. J. Clifford, who lives near Toledo; and C. T. Clifford, who lives with his son at Ypsilanti, Michigan. On March 13, 1875, Daniel C. Clifford and wife celebrated their golden wedding. Both survived past their sixtieth wedding anniversary. Daniel Clifford died January 31, 1886, after having lived on one farm for sixty-six years. He was a man of industry and encountered all the difficulties of pioneer existence. He was a member of the First Methodist Church in Wellington Township. His widow passed away January 23, 1887. She should also be remembered as one of the remarkable pioneer women, full of energy, with a courage equal to all difficulties of existence in an unsettled country, and always cheerful and happy in every circumstance. She was widely known and loved as "Aunt Sarah." A son of these honored parents, L, F, Clifford was born in Wellington Township, April 18, 1834. He has a keen recollection of the primitive circumstances and environment of his early boyhood, and for an education he attended one of the subscription schools in his home township. His schooling was confined to a few months each winter. For half a century or more he was one of the active and prosperous farmers of 1030 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Wellington Township, and he still carries on his farming and keeps a dairy herd of thoroughbred Jerseys. His farm now comprises seventy acres, and is well improved and a valuable place. Mr. Clifford also served as township trustee twelve years and as town assessor four years. He is a republican and a member of the Methodist Church. In 1866 Mr. Clifford married Mrs. Alice (Houghton) Drake. She was born in Medina County, a daughter of Edwin Halpin, To their union were born two children: Paul Carlton, born August 18, 1870, was educated in the Wellington High School, and now actively managing his father's farm. He married Elsie Mitchell, and their three children are Pauline, Albert and Merritt. Robert Houghton, born December 28, 1872, is a graduate of the Wellington High School and of the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland, and is now a civil engineer at Tiffin, Ohio. He married Ella Warren, but they have no children. The mother of these sons died in 1900. FRANK FANNING JEWETT. A scholar and author who has attained national and international recognition, Frank Fanning Jewett has been a resident of Oberlin for thirty-five years, and during the greater part of that time, until recently, held the chair of chemistry and mineralogy in Oberlin College. The Jewett family in America was founded by Edward Jewett, who came from Lincolnshire, England. in 1638 and settled at Rowley, Massachusetts. His grandson, Eleazar, moved to Griswold. Connecticut, and founded Jewett City. Mr. Jewett's grandfather was Joseph Jewett, who was born in 1762 and died in 1832, having spent all his life in Connecticut as a farmer. Charles Jewett, father of Professor Jewett, was born at Lisbon, Connecticut, in 1807 and died in 1879. Ht. became a practicing physician at Providence, Rhode Island, but filially gave up that profession in order to become one of the early advocates and promoters of the temperance cause and followed it steadily until his death. In the early days he went out to Minnesota, and while living there he took up a claim and also served as a member of the State Legislature. In politics he was -a republican. Two of his sons, Charles and Richard H. L., also proved up claims in the Northwest. and both were soldiers in the Civil war. R. H. L. Jewett was badly wounded in one of the battles in which he was engaged. These brothers were identified with the first colored regiment to enter the service of the Union army from Massachusetts. The other brother, John, was killed in Chickamauga. The mother of Professor Jewett was Lucy A. Tracy, who was also born in Lisbon, Connecticut, in 1811. and died at Norwich in that state December 13, 1898. The parents were married in 1830. Both were very active members of the Congregational Church. Of their thirteen children Professor Jewett is the only one now Frank Fanning Jewett was born at Newton Corner, Massachusetts, January 8. 1844. He inherited the best traditions of New England life and it is noteworthy that his maternal grandfather, Fanning: Tracy, after graduating as valedictorian of his class at Yale in 1746 spent nearly all his career as a teacher. Professor Jewett acquired his early education in several schools and institutions, and prepared for college at Norwich Academy in Connecticut. He attended Yale University and is now the oldest living member of the class of 1870. He graduated A. B. and in 1873 was awarded the degree A. M. During his freshman year he was a member of the Gamma Nu, later, in his junior year, became a member of Alpha Delta. Phi, and received admittance to the honorary scholarship fraternity Phi Beta Kappa at his graduation. After leaving Yale Professor Jewett spent two years as an instructor HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1031 in the Norwich Free Academy. He returned to New Haven to pursue graduate studies in chemistry and mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School and for one year was abroad as a student of chemistry in the University of Goettingen. On his return he was invited by Dr. Wolcott Gibbs of Harvard University to become his private. assistant. From .1875 to 1880 he was professor of chemistry in the Imperial University at Tokio, remaining there nearly four years. Then in 1880 he accepted' the chair of professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Oberlin College, The credit must be given to Professor Jewett for organizing and establishing on a permanent basis the chemistry department of Oberlin College. He built it right. up from the beginning and in recent years there have been few institutions of the country that offered a more complete and thorough course of this science than Oberlin. After serving fifteen consecutive years as professor and the last year as dean of the college, he went abroad for another year of study under Professor Lieberman of Berlin, Germany, He then resumed his work at Oberlin and continued his active professorship Until 1912, when he retired on the Carnegie Foundation. He has been a member of a number of scientific societies, He is a member of the American Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft. He is author of “Tables of Qualitative Chemical Analysis," 1883 ; "Laboratory Manual of Inorganic Chemistry," 1885. He has also taken an active part in public affairs at Oberlin. For eight years he was a member of the town council and is now president of the board of trustees of public affairs, and has served as president of the Oberlin waterworks and as a member of the board of health. He and his wife are both active in the Second Congregational Church and also in Sunday school affairs. Professor Jewett was at one time clerk and has been a. deacon in the church for a number of years. He has served as trustee and treasurer of the Oberlin Missionary Home Association. At Tokio, Japan, on July 30, 1880, Professor Jewett married Frances Gulick, who was also teaching in Japan at 'that time. The only child of their marriage, Charles, died in infancy. Mrs. Frances Gulick Jewett is one of the distinguished women of Ohio. She was born at Ponape, Micronesian Islands, October 13, 1854, a daughter of Luther Halsey (M. D., D. D.) and Louise (Lewis) Gulick. Her father was a distinguished physician and was for several years agent for the American Bible Society in Japan and China. Mrs. Jewett is a sister of Luther Halsey and Sidney Lewis Gulick, the former distinguished as a physician, educator and author, and the latter as a missionary whose work has identified him largely with Japan. Mrs. Jewett was educated in the seminary at Painesville, Ohio, and by private tutors and with a special course at Berlin in 1894-96. She is a member of the Ohio Woman's Press Club. In literary circles she is known as the author of the following works : "Luther Halsey Gulick, Mission-ary," 1895 ; author of five books of the . Gulick hygiene series : "Good Health," 1906; "Town and City," 1906 ; "The Body at Work," 1908; "Control of Body and Mind," 1908 ; " The Body and Its Defenses," 1909; " The Next Generation," 1914. JESSE E. FORD, a resident of Lorain County since 1908, owns a farm of seventy-five acres in Russia Township, and has devoted his time to general agriculture and dairy farming. A native of New York, and a representative in both the maternal and paternal lines of families that came to America in the colonial period, 1032 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY he was born in Chautauqua County December .7, 1874, a son of John H. and Helen U. (Brightman) Ford. His father was born in Chautauqua County in 1833, and his mother at Brookfield in Madison County, New York, October 4, 1838. The paternal ancestry in America goes back to Joseph Ford, who came from England in colonial days. From him the line descends through Nathanial, Amos, Nathaniel to Stephen Ford, the father of John H, Ford. Stephen Ford was one of the early settlers of Chautauqua County, New York. John H. Ford during his active 'career was a farmer in New York State, and had his home in Chautauqua County until 1916, since which time he has lived with his son, Jesse E. Ford, in Lorain County. He is an active supporter of prohibition, is a member of the Grange, belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his wife, who died May 24, 1901, in Chautauqua County, was also a member. January 29, 1856, occurred the wedding of John Ford and Helen U. Brightman. She was a daughter of Joseph Brightman, who was born in Madison County, New York, and afterwards became a farmer in Chautauqua County, Members of the Brightman family were soldiers in the War of the Revolution. John H. Ford and wife had three children. The two older are: Arthur, a farmer in North Dakota; and George, a fruit grower near Tacoma, Washington. Jesse E. Ford spent his early life on the old homestead in New York State, attended the district schools and also the high school at Mayville, the county seat of Chautauqua County. After reaching his. majority he bought a farm in Chautauqua County and remained there for a number of years. Selling out. he came to Lorain County March 1.7, 1908, and at that time bought his present farm. He has introduced a number of improvements, and has a substantial residence and other farm buildings. Most Of his time is taken up with dairy business, and his dairy products are sold in the City of Cleveland. His farm is sit-uated half a mile south of Oberlin, Mr. Ford joined the progressive party in the national campaign of 1912 and is thoroughly in accord with the principles of its platform. He is a:member of the local Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, while he and his wife are members of the Second Congregational Church of Oberlin. On April 18, 1900, he married Clara Abigail Hewes, a daughter of Jared and Lorilla (Weir) Hewes of Chautauqua County, New York, where her father was born in 1848, and where he still resides. Her mother, who was born in Washington County, New York, in 1846, died in April, 1915. Jared Hewes is a public spirited farmer and secretary of the Chautauqua County Patrons Fire Relief Association. His father, Daniel Hawks Hewes, was born at Richfield Springs, Otsego County, New York, .November 15, 1819, and died February 12, 1913. Robert Hewes, father of Daniel, was a native of New York State. and a son of George Robert Twelves Hewes, who was a soldier throughout the Revolution and was a member of the Boston Tea Party and at his death the last survivor. He was one hundred nine years of age when he died, and on his hundredth birthday the women of the City of Boston tendered him a reception to honor him for his service to his country. Another ancestor of Mrs. Ford was Mehitable Wing, wife of William Prendergast and daughter of Jedediah. who was the fourth great-grandfather of both Mr. and Mrs. Ford. William Prendergast was a colonist who led an uprising to oppose the impositions of unjust taxation levied by the English government, and when the Colonists were defeated by the King's soldiers, was sentenced by King George to be hanged. but escaped the penalty owing to the bravery of his wife. Their son, Mathew, was one of the first white children born in Chautauqua County, New York, HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1033 Lillius Prendergast, daughter of Mathew, became the wife of J ared Irwin, a pioneer of Chautauqua County, and their daughter, Abigail, became the wife of Daniel Hawks Hewes. Hiram Weir, the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Ford, was born and reared in Washington County, New York, but in 1865 moved to Chautauqua County. Mrs. Ford was born and reared in Chautauqua County, attended the public schools, including the Mayville High School, and afterwards took a course in Pratt institute at Brooklyn, New York. Air. and Mrs. Ford have two children : Helen Lorilla, born June 15, 1902, and now a student in the public schools of Oberlin, and Jared Hewes, born June 14, 1911. PERRY S. WILLIAMS. Of the editors and newspaper publishers who now control the destinies of the Lorain County press the name of Perry S. Williams has longer been prominent than any other, Air. Williams having since 1896 been identified with the publications of The Republi-can Printing Company. These now include The Elyria Republican, the oldest journal of the county, and The Evening Telegram, the most widely read daily publication between Cleveland and Toledo, During Mr. Williams' administration the company has also taken over The Lorain County Reporter, daily and weekly, and The Elyria Democrat, weekly, merging them with the publications of his company, of which he has been the general manager and editorial head since 1900. A native of Toledo, Ohio, and a son of R. H. and Lucy (Stearns) Williams, Perry Williams has spent most of his life in Elyria, His father was of Welsh descent and his mother belonged to the Stearns family, originally represented in Vermont, and also identified with the pioneer settlement of Lorain and Cuyahoga counties, Ohio. Since graduating from the Elyria High School with the class of 1895, Mr. Williams has been almost continuously identified with newspaper work in some form or other. In 1900 he became editor and manager of the Elyria Republican which was founded in 1829 and is now one of the oldest papers in the Western Reserve. A few years later Mr. Williams became the instrument in effecting one of the most important consolidations in the history of the Lorain County press. In March, 1907, the Elyria Reporter, the principal competitor of the Republican, went into the hands of a receiver. Mr., Williams, acting for his company, bought the property at the receiver's sale, and combined the Weekly Reporter with the Republican, continuing the daily issue under the new name of the Evening Telegram. In 1916 the subscription list and good will of the Elyria Democrat were also taken over by Mr. Williams and merged with his above mentioned publications. The company also operates the largest commercial printing business in the county. For many years Mr. Williams has identified himself with the important affairs of Lorain County particularly politically, but always as a side line incident to his publishing enterprises. He has never sought or accepted any office or commission which would take his whole time and attention to the exclusion of his newspaper work. His political activities began in 1900 when he was president of the First Voters Club of Elyria at that time the only active republican club in the city. Later he became secretary of the Republican County Executive Committee, serving two terms. He was elected city treasurer in May, 1902, and twice re-elected, serving for seven years in all, and holding that office until January 1, 1910, at which date President Taft commissioned him as supervisor of census for the Thirteenth Ohio District, comprising seven counties. In 1912 he was a representative of the Fourteenth Ohio District at the National Progressive Convention in Chicago which nominated 1034 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Theodore Roosevelt for president. From August, 1913, to August, 1915, he was Lorain County License Commissioner, acting as chairman of the board for the troublous first year of its operations when it put seventy Lorain County saloons out of business to meet the requirements of the new Ohio law. In 1914 Williams was chosen chairman of the Lorain County Pro-gressive Executive and Central Committees and in 1916 was again named a representative to the National Progressive Convention at Chicago, Mr. Williams is affiliated with King Solomon's Lodge No. 56, Free and Accepted Masons, with Elyria Lodge No. 465, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Elyria Lodge Fraternal Order of Eagles, Sons of Veterans, Young Men's Christian Association, Elyria Chamber of Com-merce, Elyria Country Club, and other local organizations. M. G. BROWN represents a very old family in Ohio, one which has been identified with this state for upwards of a century. Mr. Brown's home has been on a fine farm in Henrietta Township for the past twenty years, and he is well known in Lorain County. He was born in Freedom, Portage County, Ohio, October 19, 1842, a son of D. A. and Minerva (Sherman) Brown. His paternal grand-father, Daniel Brown, was born in Massachusetts and came to Portage County, Ohio, in 1820, and spent the rest of his days there. The maternal grandfather was Pardon Sherman, a native of Connecticut and was also a pioneer farmer in Portage County. D. A. Brown was born in Massachusetts in 1812, came to Ohio at the age of eight, finished his education in this state and after many years spent in practical farm-ing moved with his wife to Oberlin, where he died in 1886. His wife was born in Connecticut in 1815 and she also died at Oberlin in 1887. They were married in Portage County. She was a member of the Baptist Church, while D. Brown, though a member of no denomination was a good moral Christian, a worthy citizen, was affiliated with the whigs and afterwards with the republicans, and for a. number of years served as justice of the peace. He was also a Knight Templar Mason. Of six children the two now living are M. G. Brown and D. R. Brown. The latter resides in Portage County and has been quite successful in conducting a plant for the manufacture of horseradish. M. G. Brown was brought to Lorain County at the age of four years by his parents and grew up and received his education in Camden Town-ship. He lived there until he was thirty years of age, then spent fifteen years in Huron County, and in 1896 returned to Henrietta Township. In 1864 Mr. Brown married Addie Kingsberry, a native of Lorain County. She died in 1875, and her one son, Fred Brown, is now in the ice business at Newark, New Jersey. In 1882 Mr. Brown married Hannah Cook, daughter of C. M. Cook, who was an early settler in Henrietta Township and after clearing up a farm from the wilderness spent the rest of his life there. M. G. Brown is a member of the Masonic Order at Wakeman in Huron County. and in politics is a democrat, For a number of years he has devoted his time and attention to the improvement and cultivation of his eighty-five-acre farm in Henrietta Township, and he also owns another place of fifty acres. REV. JOSEPH G. SHEFFLELD, who has devoted all the strength and resources of his life to the service of the Catholic Church, is pastor of St. Joseph's at Amherst. His work as a priest has been characterized not only hy spiritual leadership but also by constructive ability of a HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1035 high order, and every parish with which he has been identified has been left the better and stronger for his effort. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, August 8, 1872, a son of John Bernard and Christine (King) Sheffield. His grandfather, John Shef-field, was born in Alsace Lorain, and on coining to the United States settled in Baltimore. He was the father of six sons and three daughters, and one of these sons, John T. Sheffield, was for a number of years a beloved priest of the Catholic Church in Elyria. The maternal grandfather was August King, also a native of Alsace Lorain, who on coining to America settled in Baltimore. Father Sheffield's parents were both natives of Baltimore. His father was born in 1839 and died in 1885 and his mother, who was born in 1835 is still living at the venerable age of eighty-one. They were married in Baltimore and had three children of their own besides two adopted: John T. for the past three years has been pastor of St. Michael's Church at Cleveland, the largest church in that city, and was graduated in 1880 from Canisius College at Buffalo; the second in age is Father Joseph G.; Albert J. is now assistant superintendent of the Consolidated Electric Railway at Cleveland; Charles J., an adopted son, is transient manager of a lyceum bureau; and Sarah, now deceased. The father of these children was a very prominent architect and builder. Immediately after the Civil War, in which he served with a creditable record, he located in Cleveland and followed his profession there for many years. The most substantial buildings of the early days still standing were erected by him. He was a very active republican in politics. During the war he enlisted at Baltimore in the Fifty-sixth Maryland Volunteers and was in service throughout, par-ticipating in the battles of Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge and many others marking the progress of the Union armies through Eastern Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. He was twice captured but made his escape both times, once from Knoxville. Father Sheffield as a boy attended the St. Ignatius Jesuit College in Cleveland and went abroad for his university course in the Royal Im-perial University at Innsbrueck, Austria, where he spent six years. He was ordained a priest in 1896 and his first charge as pastor was at Payne, Ohio, where he built a church. The next twelve years were spent in St. Augustus Church at Barberton, Ohio, and while there he erected a church school, a home for the sisters and a priest's house. He was connected with St. Michael's Parish in Cleveland during its period of reconstruction, and on December 16, 1915, was called to St. Joseph's Church in Amherst. Already he has formulated plans for important constructive work, including the erection of a new church building. Father Sheffield presides over a parish of 116 families and is not only popular in his church but is a very broad minded and public spirited citizen. He is a member of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce and belongs to the Knights of Columbus. WELLS A. CHAMBERLAIN, now living retired at his farm home in Grafton Township at the age of seventy-one, has had a quiet and unpre-tentious career, but nevertheless one of worthy activity and broad usefulness to his community. He is an honored veteran of the Civil war and has made farming his principal vocation. For nearly half a century he and his wife have lived in Grafton Township, and they have reared a family of children who do them credit and honor. The Chamberlain home is 2 1/2 miles south of Grafton on Rural Route No. 3, and comprises an estate of fifty-three acres, while Mr. Chamberlain owns another farm of eighty acres in the same township. He was born at Virgil, Cortland County, New York, March 7, 1845, a Vol. II-35 1036 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY son of John and Amy (Perkins) Chamberlain. His father was born on a farm near Burlington, Otsego County, New York, and in the same locality the mother was also a native. They grew to maturity there, were married, and a few years later, in 1850, came to Lorain County, settling in. Grafton Township a mile south of where Wells A. Chamberlain now has his home. There the father acquired thirty acres of laud, which had been improved to the extent of some clearing. of the forest and had a log cabin on it. About a year later the father died there, and his widow was left with ten children, several of whom were grown and married, and she kept the younger children together and did a worthy part by them. Wells A. Chamberlain grew to manhood on the old home farm, and gained a country school education. He was only sixteen years old when the war broke out and two years later he went to Cleveland and on October 19, 1863, enlisted as a private and was assigned to Company F of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry. He spent some time drilling in camp at Cleveland and on. Johnson's Island, and later was at Camp Dennison. From there his regiment was sent south to Nashville, later to Lexington, Kentucky, and finally went into Eastern Kentucky to cut off General Morgan's raiders at Mount Sterling, and many of the regiment were killed though Mr. Chamberlain came through safe. He was hit by a spent bullet, but it struck a package of hardtack in his pocket,. and that saved him from a hip wound. In the same battle he captured the red sash of a Confederate major and he still has that trophy in his possession. From there his command followed Morgan to Lexington and at Cynthiana, Kentucky, took part in a battle in which Morgan's troopers were completely routed. The following is the list of battles in which Mr. Chamberlain participated, together with the locality, date and officers: Mount Sterling, Kentucky ; June 9, 1864; Confederate commander, John Morgan; Federal commanders, Gen. S. G. Burbridge and Lieut. Col. R. H. Bently ; Cynthiana, Kentucky ; June 12, 1864 ; Confederate commander, John Morgan; Federal commanders, Gen. S. G. Burbridge and Lieut. Col. R. H. Bently ; near Lebanon, Kentucky ; July 30. 1864 ; Confederate commander, Captain Alexander ; Federal commander, F. A. Dubois; Cumberland Mountains; September, 1864 ; Confederate commander, Breckenridge; Federal commanders, Col. R. W. Ratliff, Lieutenant Colonel Bently ; Saltville, Virginia, No. 1; October 2. 1864; Con-federate commanders, Breckenridge and Early ; Federal commanders, Gen. N. C. McLean and Lieutenant Colonel Bently ; Moosberg, Tennessee; December, 1864; Confederate commanders, Breckenridge and Outpost; Federal commander, Lieut. Col. R. H. Bently ; Kingsport. Tennessee; December, 1864; Confederate commander, Basil Duke ; Federal commanders, Gen. Geo. Stoneman and Lieutenant Colonel Bently : Bristol, Tennessee; December, 1864 ; Confederate commander, Basil Duke: Federal commanders, Gen. Geo. Stoneman and Lieutenant Colonel Bently ; Abingdon, Virginia, No. 1; December, 1864; Confederate commander, Vaughan; Federal commanders, Gen. Geo. Stoneman and Lieut. Nelson Holt; Abingdon, Virginia, No. 2; December, 1864; Confederate commander, Vaughan; Federal commanders, Gen. Geo. Stoneman and Lieutenant Colonel Bently ; Wilkesville, Virginia ; December 16, 1864; Confederate commanders, Vaughan and Duke; Federal commanders, Gen. A. T. Gallen and Maj. J. F. Herrick ; Marion, Virginia ; December 17 and 18, 1864; Confederate commander, Breckenridge: Federal commanders, General Stoneman and Maj. J. F. Herrick; Saltville, Virginia, No. 2; December 21, 1864; Confederate commander, Breckenridge; Federal commanders, General Stoneman and Lieutenant Colonel Bently ; Chick River, Virginia ; December 23, 1864 ; Confederate commander, HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1037 Colonel Prentice; Federal commanders, General Burbridge and Major Herrick; Salisbury, North Carolina; April 12, 1865; Confederate commanders, Pemberton and Graham; Federal commanders, General Stoneman and Lieutenant Colonel Bendy; Dallas, North Carolina; April, 1865; Confederate commanders, Vaun and Duke; Federal commander, Maj. E. C. Modwell; Catawba Bridge, South Carolina; April 18, 1865; Confederate commanders, Vann. and Duke; Federal commander, Maj. E. C. Modwell. Mr. Chamberlain's command rode sixty-eight days without drawing a ration from the Government. After considerable service Ain the Mississippi Valley the war closed, and on. November 21, 1865, he received his honorable discharge and returned to his mother's home. On February 7, 1867, he was married in Grafton. Township to Miss Cynthia A. Aldrich. She was born on a farm in Grafton Township, Lorain County, May 21, 1849, a daughter of James L. and Harriet (Clark) Aldrich. She was well educated and before her marriage had taught three terms of school. She was married when only seventeen years of age. The thirty acres of the old home farm fell to Mr. Chamberlain as his inheritance, but after a short time he sold that and bought the eighty acres in Grafton Township which he still owns. For several years he and his wife lived on the farm of the latter's father until 1873, and they then acquired the homestead which they have continuously occupied for more than forty years. Mr. Chamberlain's father was a democrat but the son soon adopted the principles of the new republican party and cast his first presidential ballot while in the army for Abraham Lincoln. Besides looking after the duties of his farm he has at various times filled posts of responsi-bility in the local government. He served two terms as trustee and afterwards as assessor for Grafton Township. He was then elected justice of the peace, an office he filled for eight years and it is noteworthy that only one appeal was ever taken from his decisions, and his decision in that case was sustained by the higher court. During its existence he was an active member of the Grand Army Post at LaGrange, and has attended many of the national reunions, being accompanied by his wife. He was reared in the Baptist faith and both he and his wife are active members of the church at LaGrange, in which he is a deacon, while his wife was formerly a teacher in the Sunday school. Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain have three children, and a brief record of each will conclude this article on one of Lorain's most respected citizens. The daughter Lucia, who was born in Grafton Township, was given a liberal education, having taken a course in the New York State Normal School at Cortland, where she graduated, and after teaching one year in New York she returned to Lorain County and taught a year in the high school at Elyria. She then married Calvin P. Wilcox, who was at that time night editor of the Cleveland Leader. By this marriage there is one child, Kathryn, who was born in Cleveland and is now a student in the high school of that city. After a few years of happy married life Mr. Wilcox died, and Mrs. Wilcox then resumed her profession as a teacher and is now principal of the Gordon School at Cleveland. Clark W. Chamberlain, the older son, was born at Litchfield in Medina County, Ohio, where his father was at that time a renting farmer. From the country schools he continued his education in Doane Academy at Granville in Licking County, and then entered Dennison College, where he was graduated, spent three years as a teacher at Hudson, Ohio, and then entered the University of Chicago and afterwards Columbia University at New York, from which institution he has the degree Doctor of Philosophy. As a scholar he has already made his mark in scientific lines, and has invented several instruments of value in 1038 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY scientific research. He was married in Norwalk, Ohio, to Miss Jessie Husted, of Norwalk, daughter of Daniel Husted. Doctor and Mrs. Chamberlain have four children: John H., Margaret, Stewart and Elizabeth. Doctor Chamberlain is now president of Dennison College, a school in which he was once a student. For five years he was an instructor in. Vassar College, and while there he continued his education in Columbia University and was granted his Ph. D. degree. John A. Chamberlain, the youngest child, was born in Grafton Township of Lorain County, attended the same academy and college as his older brother, and then. entered the Western Reserve University Law School, where he was graduated LL. B. He began the practice of law and is now a. member of the well known firm of Stearns, Chamberlain and Rogan at Cleveland. He is also a well known author and contributor to legal literature. He is author of "Principles of Business Law," published in 1908, and of another work on commercial law which was published in 1910 and has been adopted as a text book by the American School of Correspondence at Chicago. He was one of the leading workers in closing the saloons on Sunday and at midnight in Cleveland, Ohio. John Aldrich Chamberlain was married at Cuyahoga Falls to Miss Frances Hind. They have one child, Mary Louise. F. M. SPONSELLER, M. D. For the past six years Doctor Sponseller has quietly and efficiently performed his duties as a physician and surgeon in the community of Wellington. There is no profession which presents greater opportunities for usefulness to humanity than that of medicine, and Doctor Sponseller, though young, has already become recognized as one who has accepted every opportunity for faithful performance of duty and through his extended practice has gained an esteem which is not less satisfying than the other material accompaniments of a successful career. A native of Seneca County, Ohio, where he was born June 4, 1879, Doctor Sponseller is a son of David P. and Eleanor (Moore) Sponseller. His people were of moderate circumstances but of great intrinsic worth, and he inherited from his ancestors some very valuable qualities in his own makeup. His grandfather, Frederick Sponseller, was born in Stark County, Ohio, moved from there to Seneca County, and died on his farm there. Grandfather Moore was a native of Wood County, Ohio, and was killed in a railway accident. David P. Sponseller was born in Bloomville, Ohio, in July, 1850, and died in October, 1914. His wife was born in Wood County, Ohio, in 1853, and is still living. They were married at Bloomville. Of the ten children born to them seven are still living. The parents were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the father was a democrat. He followed farming until about a year before his death when he rented his farm and moved to the little town of Melmore. By hard work he accumulated a small competency, and he and his wife sacrificed much in order to give their children educational advantages. The third in the family of children. Doctor Sponseller grew up on the farm in Seneca County, attended the country schools, and in 1903 graduated bachelor of science from Heidelberg College at Tiffin. From there he entered the Eclectic Medical College at Cincinnati, where he was graduated M. D. in 1907. With a thorough literary and scientific training, Doctor Sponseller entered upon the practice of his profession at Sycamore, Ohio, but after three years moved to Wellington in 1910. Considering the brief time he has lived in that community he has acquired a really remarkable patronage, and has more than his time and strength permit him to attend. He is a member of the Lorain County HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1039 and Ohio State Medical societies and of the Eclectic State Society, and the National Eclectic Medical Association. On September 11, 1904, Doctor Sponseller married Bertha Wilson of Tiffin, Ohio. Their three children are William H., Marian Maude and Fred M., Jr. The two older children are already in school. Doctor and Mrs. Sponseller are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and take much part in church affairs. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of the Maccabees and the Tribe of Ben Hur, and is medical examiner for both the local lodges. Politically he is a democrat. CYRUS W. HAWLEY has spent all his life in Lorain County, received his education in the local schools, and by much hard work and good management has acquired a gratifying success. He bought his present farm from his father, and now owns eighty-two acres. Most of its improvements represent his individual labor and supervision and he is cultivating it to general crops. He was born in Huntington Township of Lorain County, April 11, 1861, a son of Myron and Emily (Haley) Hawley. Both the Haley and Hawley families were New England people and came to Ohio in early times. Grandfather Hawley first settled in Cleveland when it was a small village and from there moved to Lorain County and afterwards went to Michigan, where he died. Myron Hawley was born July 20, 1824, and died June 20, 1890. His wife was born February- 24, 1828, and died November 15, 1881. They were married in Huntington Township of Lorain County. Of their twelve children four are living: Cyrus W.; Charles L., a farmer in Huntington Township; C. C. Hawley, a retired farmer at Sullivan, Ohio; and Lillie, widow of Oliver Sprinkle of Huntington Township. Myron Hawley was a democrat in politics, and filled the offices of township trustee and township assessor. He was a very progressive and prosperous man, and acquired 330 acres of land in Huntington Township. and also operated an extensive dairy. On August 1, 1901, Cyrus W. Hawley married Hannah Kelsey, a daughter of Elam and Lois (Tillitson) Kelsey. Elam Kelsey was born at Berlin, Connecticut, February 1, 1810, and died in Huntington Township of Lorain County, February 23, 1866. His wife was born at Pittsford, Monroe County, New York, October 2, 1817, and died March 31, 1897. Of their nine children the three now living are : Mrs. Hawley; Astor Kelsey, formerly a lumberman and now living retired at Caladonia, Michigan ; and Frank Kelsey, who is employed in the rubber works at Akron. Mr. and Airs. Kelsey were members of the Universalist Church. They were married in Huntington, Lorain County, and Elam Kelsey came to this county with his parents when only two years of age. During part of his youth he worked for wages, and finally bought fifty acres of land, later fifty more acres, and cleared up and developed a good farm in Huntington Township. His father was Zenas Kelsey. who was one of the very first settlers in that township. Mr. and Mrs. Hawley are both members of the Grange, and he is a democrat and has served as township supervisor for a number of years. MILES S. BASSETT. Throughout a period of more than eighty years there has accumulated a great wealth of associations for the Bassett family in Russia Township. More than four score years ago there arose on a small clearing in the midst of the heavy woods in that section a log cabin, 14x16 feet, which was the first home and shelter of the family of Nathan Bassett in Lorain County. That humble dwelling was replaced a year or so later, in 1836, by a frame house, and that stood for a great many years. It was filially relegated to a second place, and the advance- 1040 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY ment and prosperity of the family were given further material evidence in the large house of more modern type and the splendid group of barns and outbuildings which are still standing in that part of the county. It was in the second homestead that Miles S. Bassett was born, and for a great many years he has been an active factor in the farming and dairying enterprise of the township, and is one of the best known citizens of Oberlin. Nathan Bassett, grandfather of Miles S., was born August 12, 1763, at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and was descended from some of the first settlers of the Massachusetts colony. On April 4, 1793, Nathan Bassett married Sarah Standish, who was also born at Bridgewater, December 10, 1775.. She was a lineal descendant, being in the sixth generation, from the noted Miles Standish, who landed at Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower in 1620. Nathan Bassett has been described as a man of extraordinary vitality and of wide and varied experience. Toward the close of the Revolutionary war, which had begun when he was about twelve years of age, he volunteered in a regiment which went to Rhode Island. to assist in repelling a threatened British invasion. He also spent seven years in the early merchant marine, in the service of the West India Company. During the War of 1812 he was an American soldier stationed at Buffalo, New York, and was wounded in one engagement. About 1812 he moved to Chili in Monroe County, New York. He showed his indomitable will and courage by his final removal and migration, when past seventy years of age, into the still wilderness of Lorain County, where he arrived in 1834. In Russia Township he located on the farm subsequently occupied by his son Charles and began the heavy task of improvement. He bought sixty-seven acres of land, and in that community spent the rest of his days. He and his wife had traveled the journey of life together for sixty years. Nathan Bassett died in 1853 and his wife in 1854. He was ninety when death came to him and it is said that until the last few months he had been almost as active as many men of sixty. In politics he was an old line whig. He died about the beginning of the new movement which culminated in the republican party. After coming to Lorain County He filled several township offices, particularly that of school examiner. He and his wife were the parents of nine children, named Thomas, Phoebe, Sarah, Naomi, Betsey, Freelove, Amanda, Emily and Charles. Charles Bassett, who was for many years an active, vigorous factor in Russia. Township, was born at Chili, Monroe County, New York, March 10, 1820, and was the youngest in the family. He was fourteen years of age when the parents came to Lorain County, and he finished his education in some of the primitive schools then taught in this section of Ohio. He followed in the footsteps of his father as a farmer, and made that a very profitable vocation. Beginning with the original sixty-seven acres bought by his father in 1834, he developed his interests until he owned several hundred acres of well improved land in Russia Township. He was very practical and industrious, and was always relied upon as one of Lorain County's most trustworthy citizens. For a number of terms he filled the office of township trustee, also justice of the peace, and beginning with early manhood he filled the office of school director for thirty years or more. On September 7, 1846, Charles Bassett married Emma Parsons, who was born in England July 28, 1819, a daughter of John and Ann (Yetman) Parsons. The Parsons family has likewise been prominent in Lorain County, and John Parsons and wife brought their children to America in 1832. After a short stay at Mentor in Lake County, Ohio, HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1041 he came to Russia Township, the permanent settlement being made there in 1833. Charles and Emma Bassett became the parents of five children: Emma, born April 26, 1847, and who married Frederick E. Griffin of Amherst ; Charles Henry, born April 26, 1850; Miles Standish, born December 1, 1851; Helen, born January 20, 1857; and Harvey Lewis, born July 3, 1859. Charles Bassett died September 29, 1912, at the age of ninety-two years, his wife having preceded him by eleven years. Miles Standish Bassett was born on the old homestead in Russia Township, December 1, 1851. He acquired his early education in the country schools and learned farming from his father and has followed that vocation without interruption to the present time. On April 21. 1881, he married Lois Orlissa Eggelston. She was born at Auburn, Geauga County, Ohio, a daughter of Alanson and Harriet (Bentley) Eggelston. Her parents were both natives of New York State and came to Ohio in early days, settling on a farm, where they lived a number of years. They afterwards moved to Hiram Rapids in Portage County, where Alanson Eggelston engaged in the grocery business. Mrs. Bassett was the youngest of five children. Mr. and Mrs. Bassett have two daughters: Marian Jessie, who graduated from the Oberlin High School in 1902, spent two years in the Conservatory of Music ; and Cora Eloise, who is now a student of voice at Oberlin. Mr. Bassett and family are members of the Congregational Church at Amherst. He is affiliated with the Royal Arcanum and also with the local Grange. .As a republican, like his father and grandfather before him, he has filled various offices. having served as township trustee four years and as school director. It was in 1878 that he bought the farm upon which he still lives. He owns 116 acres and while operating the land for general farming purposes, he conducts an extensive dairy, keeping from twenty to twenty-five milch cows. About 1890 he erected his beautiful home, a two-story house with all the comforts and conveniences. and surrounded by excellent barns and other buildings. EDGAR DAY MILLS. In the Village of North Eaton a man of enter-prise in a commercial sense is Edgar Day Mills, proprietor of a general mercantile store, which has been conducted by the Mills family in that locality for the past thirty-five years. This store more than any other one thing has given distinction to that point in Lorain County as a place of trade. It was in the little Village of North Eaton that Edgar Day Mills was born, February 16, 1882, a son of Byron T. and Mary A. (Day) Mills. His father, who was the founder of the present business, was born on Butternut Ridge in Eaton Township, grew up on a farm, had a common school education, and for a number of years conducted farming. In 1881 he opened a stock of general merchandise on the south side of the street at North Eaton, but later put up the building where his son is now located. He was a well liked and popular business man, and though a republican, never sought office. He died June 22, 1915. He was the father of three children : Charles, a farmer in Columbia Township; Edgar D.; and Frank, who is now a resident of Cleveland and is married and has one child. Edgar Day Mills acquired a common, school education and practically grew up in the business of which he is now proprietor. When quite a boy he began clerking there and is thoroughly familiar with the routine of merchandising. In June, 1902, in Eaton Township, he married Miss Catherine Tiltjies, who was born in Olmsted, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a daughter of John 1042 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Tiltjies. The year he was married Mr. Mills moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he spent about twelve years. In that time he learned and followed the machinist's trade. Then in 1912 He returned to North Eaton and bought out his father's business and has since made that a source of satisfying prosperity. He and his wife have three children: Calista, who was born in Pittsburgh; Russell, born in North Eaton; and Thelma, born at North Eaton, January 20, 1916. Mr. Mills is a republican, and he and his wife are active members of the Disciples Church. SIMEON NASH has for a number of years been recognized as one of the men who has supplied the requisite energy and enterprise to the agricultural life of Lorain County. At one time he was only a renter and started life with little capital, though he had inherited from his ancestors sterling characteristics which stood him in good stead in all the problems of existence. He has succeeded above the ordinary, has a splendid estate in the vicinity of Oberlin, and is a highly esteemed citizen. He was born in Lorain County, September 21, 1.870. His grandfather, Jerrid Nash, died in New York State, where He was a farmer. The maternal grandparents were Orin and Anna Elizabeth ;Freeman) Gibson. Orin Gibson was one of the prominent early settlers of Lorain County. He was born in New York State in 1807 and died in May, 1883. Coming to Lorain County in an early day, he made settlement. here four years after his father, Timothy Gibson, had located. Both these names are deserving of much honor and respect on account of their important relations with the early agricultural activities and development in this county. Orin Gibson died at the age of eighty-five. The parents of Simeon Nash were Nathan B. and Louisa (Gibson) Nash. His father was born in New York State, September 7, 1830, and died December 26, 1910. He was four years of age when brought to Lorain County by his mother, who acquired a farm, and he grew up and received his education in Russia Township and in Oberlin graded schools. As soon as old enough he started farming on his own account and though he too had to begin with. practically nothing he succeeded very admirably and left a good estate. In politics he was first a whig and afterwards a republican. Nathan Nash was married January 3, 1860, to Miss Gibson, who was born in Russia Township of Lorain County, March 28, 1837. She is still living, now in her eightieth year. Of the seven children born to them six are still living. Winfield S., a farmer in Eaton Township of Lorain County; Anna A. Bemis, wife of an Eaton Township farmer; Orin T., who died at the age of seven years: Elizabeth B., who lives with her mother ; Simeon ; Charles B.. a farmer in Eaton Township; and Walter, who resides at the old 'homestead with his mother. Simeon Nash spent his early life in Russia Township. attended school there, and was still young when he assumed some of the heavier respon-sibilities of his father's farm. He continued to live with his parents until twenty-four and for the next six or seven years operated as a renter. His thrift and industry enabled him to make his first purchase of fifty acres, and from that he has steadily climbed upwards to a larger prosperity until he is now the owner of 31.0 acres. While classed as a :general farmer, he makes cattle raising his principal source of profit, and he keeps a herd of about seventy head, many of them registered Herefords. He also does some dairy business. On March 19, 1895, he married Miss Augusta L. Schramm, daughter of Daniel Schramm, who was a well known early settler in Russia Town-ship. Mr. and Mrs. Nash have one son, Chester, born March 2, 1896. HISTORY OF LORA IN COUNTY - 1043 Mr. and Mrs. Nash are active members of the Grange and in politics he is a republican. ED H. BRAUN. If success consists of making the best of one's opportunities in life, Ed H. Braun is properly considered among Lorain County's successful men. He has a fine farm in the vicinity of Kipton, has a good home and a growing family, and is regarded as one of the leaders in his industry and also in the county Grange movement. A native of Lorain County, he was born in Henrietta Township May 11, 1883, a son of Henry and Christina (Dute) Braun. Both parents were natives of Germany, and the paternal grandparents came to the United States and died in Lorain County. Henry Braun was born in Germany in March, 1845, and his wife in 1842. They were married in Lorain County in 1866. Henry Braun came to the United States in 1861., being a poor boy at the time, and has acquired success by hard work and persistent application. He had learned something of the stonecutter's trade. and his first employment here was in a quarry at Amherst. Later he bought a farm in Amherst Township and lived there fourteen years and then moved to Henrietta, living there thirty-four years. His prosperity now includes the ownership of 145 acres of land and it is sufficient for all the needs of his declining years. He is a democrat in politics, and he and his wife are members of St. Peter's Church. To their marriage were born seven children, and the five now living are : Anna, wife of Louis Kothe, a Lorain County farmer ; Martha, wife of Andrew Shubert, a farmer in Lorain County ; Rosa, wife of Henry Maims of Russia Township ; Ed H.; and Will M., of Henrietta Township. Ed H. Braun grew up on the farm in Henrietta Township, attended school until completing the eighth grade, and was still a boy when he started his vocation as a farmer. He gradually accumulated a little capital by thrift and industry. and in 1909 was enabled to purchase his present farm of 100 acres. In the last seven years he has effected many improvements. has remodeled the building, and has a substantial brick house and all the necessary outbuildings. In 1909 Mr. Braun married Hattie Sedelke, a daughter of Frank Sedelke, a prosperous farmer of Russia Township. Mr. and Mrs. Braun have two children: Grace Edna, born January 10, 1912; and Earl William, born August 15, 1915. The family are members of St. Peter's Church and in politics Mr. Braun is a democrat. He is still giving all his energy and time to his work as general farmer. and besides the staple crops he grazes a number of high grade cattle and milks some cows. He is one of the leading men in the Grange organization of his part of Lorain County. HON. SEWARD HENRY WILLIAMS. In none of the professions is the importance of comprehensive training more evident than in the domain of the law. A university education is a vital necessity if the devotee is ambitious to reach a plane beyond the practice of the small courts and the mediocre level of pettifogging. Prior to entering upon the practice of his chosen calling, Hon. Seward Henry Williams, of Lorain, prepared himself with patience and thoroughness, with the result that he was able to immediately take his place among the leaders of the bar, and since his entrance into professional life has not only gained a position of standing among the legists of Ohio, but has become a public figure of national reputation, being a representative from Ohio in the Sixty-fourth United States Congress. Congressman Williams was born at Amsterdam, New York. November 7, 1870. and is a son of John J. and Maria Louise (Montonye) Williams. His father, a weaver by trade, enlisted in Company 13. One Hundred and 1044 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Fifteenth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil war, and was captured by the forces of "Stonewall" Jackson, at Har-per's Ferry, Virginia. On May 7, 1865, at Chesterfield Heights, Virginia, he was wounded, this being one of the many battles of the Wilderness, but recovered and filially received his honorable discharge at the close of hostilities. After attending the public schools of his native place, Seward H. Williams enrolled as a student at Amsterdam Academy, and when his course there was completed entered Williams College. This was followed by attendance at Princeton College, where he took the law preparatory course, the head of the law preparatory department of the institution at that time being Woodrow Wilson, now President of the United States. His regular law course was pursued at Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1895, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and immediately came to Lorain, where he entered active practice. He has since continued in the enjoyment of a constantly-increasing business, which includes all branches of the profession. Mr. Williams served four years as city solicitor of Lorain, as well as a member of the Lorain Board of Education, and was then sent to the Seventy-ninth Ohio Legislature, succeeding himself in the eightieth session of that body. While thus serving he was a. member of the committee on Judiciary during both sessions, and took part in much active legislation, being the father of the so-called "gun-toting" bill, which made the carrying of concealed weapons a penitentiary offense. The quality of his public service brought him most favorably before the public and in 1914 he was made the candidate of the republican party for election of the national House of Representatives, from the Four-teenth Congressional District of Ohio. Elected in November, 1914, he took his seat in that body in 1915, and has worked most faithfully in the interests of his constituents. He was appointed to membership on the following committees: Election of President, Vice President, and Rep-resentatives in Congress and Railways and Canals. The congressman is connected fraternally with the Masons, in which he has attained to the thirty-second degree ; the Knights of Pythias ; the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Loyal Order of Moose, of which he is first dictator, and also holds membership in the Sons of Veterans. With his family, he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church. On September 29, 1897, Mr. Williams was united in marriage with Miss Jeannette Reynolds, of Lorain, daughter of John T. Reynolds. To this union there have been born a. son and a daughter: Seward Reynolds and Margaret Louise. JAMES H. SHELLEY. One of the most prominent millers in Ohio was the late James H. Shelley of Wellington, where for many years he owned and operated a mill, though the milling interests at present are in Shelby, Ohio. He was born in Union County, Ohio, July 12, 1860, a son of John and Helen (Manion) Shelley. Both parents were natives of Ireland, where the father was born in 1822 and the mother in 1829, and the former died in 1887 and the latter in 1874. After their marriage the parents came to America and in 1861 settled in Union County, Ohio. John Shelley was also a miller, and finally moved out to the State of Washington, where he died. He was a member of the Catholic Church and was a. republican voter until the election of R. B. Hayes, after which he was a stanch democrat. Of the four children, the oldest was John, who was born in Ireland and who died in 1904; James, of this review; Mrs. Helen Ramer, a widow, lives at Elyria ; Mary is the wife of John Fern, a railway man:living at Elyria. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1045 James H. Shelley acquired his early education in the public schools of Amherst, Ohio, and when only a boy gained his practical experience in milling and has made it his lifelong pursuit. For seventeen years he worked in a mill in New York City, and it was by careful economy and by learning the business in all its details that he was able to buy his first mill at Wellington, to which point he came in 1897. Here he owned and operated a mill with a capacity of 150 barrels until 1914, when he sold out. He then bought a 200-barrel flour mill at Shelby, Ohio, the noted Heath Mill, and with the assistance of some others of the family made this one of the best known mills for its products in Ohio. The flour manufactured at Shelby is shipped to all parts of the state. In 1880 Mr. Shelley married Jane McKernan, who was born at Sandusky, Ohio, a daughter of Thomas McKernan, who was a native of Ireland and spent many years following the trade of plasterer in Sandusky. Mr. and Mrs. Shelley have four children. Nellie is the wife of G. A. Gott, a farmer in Wellington Township. Anna is the wife of F. W. Evans, who is associated in the flour milling business at Shelby with Mr. Shelley. Jennie, wife of Henry Brandt, who is also interested in the Shelby Mill. Olive is a reader and vocalist and makes her home in Wellington. The family are members of the Catholic Church. Mr. Shelley was a democrat, and at Wellington has served as a member of the town council and on the water board. Fraternally he was affiliated with the Elks of Elyria, Royal Arch Masons and also With the Knights of Pythias and Knights of the Maccabees. Though he started out a poor boy, he made a success of his career, and besides his various business interests he enjoyed the comforts of a fine brick home in Wellington. Mr. Shelley died May 22, 1916, and was buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery, Sandusky, Ohio. LEON H. WADSWORTH. For more than eighty years the Wadsworth family has had its seat in Lorain County and members of three successive generations have wrought their influence and ability into the life and affairs of several communities. The late David L. Wadsworth is well remembered throughout the county for his prominence in local affairs and also in state politics. Leon H. Wadsworth has for many years been in business at Wellington and more recently at Elyria. He has also recently closed a successful administration of the postoffice at Wellington. The late David L. Wadsworth was his father. David L. was born at Becket, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, June 1, 1825, the youngest and seventh son of Lawton and Nancy R. Wadsworth. When David L. Wadsworth was eight years of age he accompanied the family on its emigration to the wilderness of Lorain County. A team of horses drew their wagon by the overland route, and on the 9th of May, twenty-four days after starting, they had completed their 600-mile journey to Wellington, Ohio. As a young boy, David thenceforward spent his youth in a typical frontier community. However, he acquired a. good common school education, and for several terms attended Oberlin College. He was a man of versatile intellect, of great energy, and did well whatever he undertook. For seven years he taught in district schools. In 1840 he began the study of medicine, but that profession was not to his liking and he gave it up. In 1868 he turned his attention from other matters to the lumber business, purchasing a planing mill, and then became an extensive dealer and manufacturer of lumber, shingles, lath and other materials. He also added a cheese and butter box factory. Later he established a lumber yard and planing mill at Greenwich, Ohio. Successful in business, David L. Wadsworth was equally liven known in politics. He was a loyal democrat, but during the war was what was known as a war democrat, and no citizen of any party surpassed him in 1046 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY loyalty and devotion to the Union. He called the first meeting at Wellington for raising volunteer troops. He lived in a republican district, and yet again and again he was paid political honor. April 1, 1878, Governor Bishop appointed him a trustee of the Cleveland Insane Asylum. Governor Hoadley appointed him a trustee of the Blind Asylum, and he served during that administration and also under Governor Foraker. In 1875 he was nominated by his party for the office of state treasurer, and was defeated by just two votes. He was also nominated for Congress, and succeeded in reducing the republican majority by more than 400. While not a church member, he was a thorough Christian and worked for the extension of church and moral influences of every kind. He also attained thirty-two degrees in Scottish Rite Masonry. David L. Wadsworth died at his home in Wellington, October 7, 1892, his death resulting from heart failure. Funeral services were preached by the pastor of the Congregational Church, and were also under the auspices of the Knight Templar Oriental Commandery at Cleveland, to which he had belonged for twenty years. On October 22, 1850, David L. Wadsworth married Rosenia C. Wads-worth of Rochester, Lorain County, a daughter of Hiram and Caroline L. (Wells) Wadsworth. Mrs. Wadsworth was born in Bristol, New York, and came with her parents to Lorain County in 1832. She became the mother of three children : Kitty May, who was born May 20, 1856, and died April 6, 1858; George M., born September 25, 1861 ; and Leon H. Leon H. Wadsworth, who for more than thirty-five years has been furnishing enterprise and enthusiasm to the business and public life of his section of Lorain County, was born at Rochester, Ohio, October 13. 1864. Reared in Wellington, he attended primary schools there, later became a student in the University of Michigan, and was graduated in law in 1882. However he did not take up the law as his regular profession and instead became associated with his father in the lumber business at Wellington. In 1885 he removed to Greenwich and established a lumber yard and planing mill and was active as a contractor and builder. At the death of his father in 1892 he returned to Wellington and managed the estate for one year. He then bought the lumber plant at Wellington and continued this line actively until 1907. He then established himself in the undertaking business at Wellington, and on April 15, 1913, extended his enterprise to Elyria where he now has headquarters and a complete equipment including automobile service. Everything connected with the public welfare of his home town has always made a strong appeal to Mr. Wadsworth, and he has worked conscientiously to better and improve his home community. In 1903 he was appointed postmaster at Wellington and served continuously until March 1, 1916, when he was succeeded by the present incumbent of the office. On October 14, 1885, Mr. Wadsworth married Mary E. Trinter, only daughter of Capt. William and Sophia Trinter of Vermillion, Ohio. Mrs. Wadsworth died February 4, 1914. There is one son, Luther W. who took a course of embalming at Boston, graduating from the Dodge School in 1907, and has since supplied the professional and technical skill to the undertaking business conducted by him and his father. The son also served as assistant postmaster under his father and still continues under the present incumbent. Mr. Wadsworth is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason. MILO CORNELIUS KENDEIGH, widely known in Lorain County as a stock man and public spirited citizen. represents a family that became identified with this portion of the wilderness of Northern Ohio more than ninety years ago, and its various members have contributed their labors HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1047 and the influence of their characters to the upbuilding of this country. By his enterprise combined with a long experience Mr. Kendeigh was successful in making the Kendeigh stock farm for many years a notable center for the raising of high grade horses and other stock. He is now practically retired from business, and owns only seventy-three acres of land. He is also president of the Lorain County Board of Education. He is of German origin, and in the earlier generations back in Pennsylvania his family name was spelled Kentisch and Kintich. The Kendeigh family was established in Lorain County in the spring of 1824. when his grandparents, John and Nancy Kendeigh, moved to North Amherst. They were among the early settlers there, and finding the country a wilderness they left the impress of their activities in a well improved farm. Samuel Kendeigh, father of Milo C., was born in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania, July 17, 1823. As a young man he learned the trade of mechanic and carpenter, and was reared and educated in Lorain County. After his marriage he spent seven years in clearing and improv-ing his farm in Henrietta Township, but then crave up farming for milling. conducting his mill at North Amherst eighteen months. The mill was then exchanged for a farm in Elyria Township on what is now Lake Avenue. A year and a half later, having sold that property, he returned to North Amherst. and bought the old Peter Rice farm, which later became the property of the Cleveland Stone Company. After living there some years Samuel Kendeigh removed to the farm which his son Milo subsequently developed as the Kendeigh Stock Farm, a place of 120 acres in Amherst Township. He also owned more than 100 acres in Russia Township. Samuel Kendeigh was one of the highly honored citizens of Lorain County, and his death on February 15, 1905, concluded a life which for eighty years had been identified with this county. The maiden name of his wife was Jane Strickler, who was born in Fayette County. Pennsylvania, and who died December 24, .1900. There were six children in the family : Esther A.. who died at South Amherst. the wife of Bruce Gibson; Charles D.; Milo C.; Jennie L.. who married Rev. Marston S. Freeman, a Congregational minister ; Lottie, who mar-ried II. G. Wilford : and -Lula. a twin of her sister Lottie. Born in Henrietta Township October 1, 1859, Milo Cornelius Kendeigh has utilized to the full the advantages and experiences that have mine to him with increasing years. His home has always been in Lorain County except for a portion of the year 1883 when he was on a grain ranch at Fort Collins, Colorado. His education came from the common schools. a preparatory course at Oberlin College and a course in the Spencerian Business College at Cleveland. For a number of years he managed his father's farm, and inherited sixty-two acres from his mother, subsequently buying the interests of the other heirs to the home estate. With that as a nucleus he developed a splendid farm in Amherst Township. comprising 101 acres. and also owned other lands in Russia Township. In later years he has reduced his holdings preparatory to retire-ment from business. His chief success came from the raising and handling of high grade stock. He did his first work in that line soon after returning from Colorado. buying a stallion and two mares of Percheron stock. While in business he imported many registered horses, and his stock farm became known to buyers throughout the country. In his home township he has always exercised his influence for local improvements. and has served as a justice of the peace, twelve years as a member of the school board and two terms as a trustee. His interest in schools has been especially prominent, and led to his election to the present office he holds as president of the Lorain County Board of Education. Politically he is a democrat. Mr. Kendeigh is affiliated with 1048 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Stonington Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, with Plato Lodge No. 203, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which his father was also a member, and with Hickory Tree Grange at Amherst. September 25, 1901, he married Clara G. Gillman. She was born at Mineral Ridge in Portage County, Ohio, a daughter of Charles and Mary (King) Gillman. Her father died at Mineral Ridge and her mother spent her last years in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kendeigh. Mr. Kendeigh has two children, Samuel Charles born December 18, 1904, and Vivian Esther born December 31, 1906. THE THEW AUTOMATIC SHOVEL COMPANY. The principal distinction of some cities is that the name at once suggests a product of world wide use manufactured there. A number of instances will occur to anyone as familiar examples of this fact. To the great world that regards such a city as Lorain as but a point on the map, the works by which the city is best known are undoubtedly the products of The Thew Automatic Shovel Company. In many widely sundered localities hundreds of thousands of people have seen and admired the excavating machinery- of this type, and consciously or un-consciously have taken note of the name Thew linked with that of Lorain. In the work of mining in the gold fields of the far North the Thew Automatic Shovel is a favorite machine. In railroad construction, in street grading, in brickyards, coal mines, in almost every form of constract and construction work, the Thew Automatic Shovel reigns supreme. Among the thousands and thousands of men who follow the contracting business in America and different parts of the world, there is hardly one who is not acquainted with the efficiency of the Thew automatic shovel. It is impossible to speak of this industry, which ranks second among the great concerns that have their home at Lorain, without paying a tribute to Richard Thew, who is vice president and general manager of the company, and whose brains and patient industry originated the first type of the Thew automatic shovel. His work of course was only the nucleus of the present mammoth concern. The company for years has employed expert engineers and skilled mechanics in the various departments, and this staff of experts also deserve credit, since it has been largely due to the co-operation of the heads of the various departments for the one and sole purpose of producing a machine of distinctive merit that The Thew Automatic Shovel Company represents what it does today. Mr. Thew, like most men of that class, began his industry many years ago at Lorain with very little capital, and has earned a high place both as an inventor and as an organizer. It was in 1899 that The Thew Automatic Shovel Company was organized and started manufacturing operations on its present site at the western edge of the steel plant district in the City of Lorain. The product of the plant was then as it is now a steam shovel. The factory of that day covered about 15,000 square feet. In less than twenty years the home of the Thew shovel has increased in size as rapidly as its products have attained a world-wide. distribution. The present plant covers many acres of ground, and is actually one of the cornerstones of Lorain County's industrial prosperity. As the plant has developed so has its product. Though the original principles are still maintained in every steam shovel that is built, the design has been adapted for many varied purposes, and there is now a Thew shovel for practically every class of excavation. Most of the executive members of The Thew Company are practical engineers. and the results of test, experimentation and practical use have borne new fruit from year to year and the company is constantly striving to reach new standards of perfection. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1049 Through long years of development and service this shovel has demonstrated its merit and adaptability to classes of work for which no ordinary steam. shovel can be advantageously employed. The more typical operations in which the Thew shovel is employed are cellar excavation, shallow cutting for street paving, the cutting off of hills for road construction, widening and deepening railroad cuts, for stone quarry service, for the mining of anthracite coal by the stripping process, dig-ging hydraulic ditches and for irrigation work, for working underground in mines and in tunnel construction, where the power is electricity or compressed air. In fact it would be difficult to enumerate every class of service to which the Thew automatic shovel has been put during the last twenty years. In size the shovels range from a fifteen ton machine, to be operated by one man and built for such typical work as brick-yard and small excavation service, to the sixty--five ton digger-giant. Unique features in design give the Thew shovel a place of prestige among machines of its type. Most important among these characteristics is what the Thew engineers call the "full swing" principle, by virtue of which a steam shovel of any type is enabled to describe with its boom and bucket a full circle. The shovel swings through a complete circle, deliv-ering the excavated material at any desired point, either at the side or in the rear of the machine. The value of this feature is obvious. However, the feature most characteristic of the Thew machines is what is known as the "horizontal dipper crowding motion," or the "trolley motion." By this device the dipper bucket is carried directly forward without changing the angle of the bucket face with the ground. The advantages of this feature can also be readily understood by persons who are not practical engineers. There is a minimum of lost motion and power in the Thew excavator. This feature is of special advantage in street excavation and grading, since the dipper cleans a floor absolutely to the grade upon which the shovel is being operated. Thus it is that the shovels which are performing, a large share of the excavation work in the western continent are literally a Lorain product. It is also true that The Thew Automatic Shovel Company represents brains, organizing efficiency, industry and experience of a group of men. Their combined efforts, carried on through many years. have been crystallized within the towering walls that today enclose the home of the Thew steam shovel. More than twenty-two years ago Richard Thew turned his inventive genius to the creation of a steam shovel, designed for the handling of the ore and coal cargoes on the docks of lake ports. Thus the first Thew shovels were not excavation shovels at all, but were built primarily for unloading of cargoes. It is noteworthy that some of the modifications of standard shovels now in use include booms which make the Thew machine applicable for the work of clam shell buckets, there is another boom for use as a crane, there is a shovel with a sewer trench boom, especially adapted for the construction of trenches at considerable depth below the surface, and there are booms for handling of coke and for use in many other types of work. The originator of these shovels was formerly a resident of Cleveland, and his first shovels were built in Cleveland shops. In recent years the machines turned out by the Lorain factory have been used almost over the entire civilized world. One of them was used in the building of the Panama Canal. They have been used for burrowing for gold upon the Arctic circle, they are helping to irrigate the deserts of New Mexico and other parts of the arid and semi-arid West, and they have been used for uncovering the granite in New Hampshire, for the mining of anthracite and bituminous coal. for the building of great tunnels. It is therefore not difficult to understand that The Thew Automatic Shovel Company is one of Lorain's industrial foundation stones. Next 1050 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY to the mammoth plant of The National Tube Company, the factory of the shovel company is the largest in the city. The buildings are located at the corner of East Twenty-eighth Street and Fulton Road and are admirably adapted to manufacturing purposes. They furnish a floor area of many thousands of square feet, and approximately 500 men are employed the year around. The buildings are of brick built around a skeleton work of steel, and they present massive architectural outlines and represent in their facilities for lighting, heating and ventilation the best the engineering world has to offer in a factory building design. In the equipment of machinery the last word has been said in the matter of the Thew plant. The officers of this Lorain County corporation are: F. A. Smythe, president; Capt. Richard Thew, vice president and general manager; and E. M. Pierce, secretary and treasurer. WILLIAM JAEGER. The members of the Jaeger family have been identified with Lorain County for more than seventy years. Three generations have been represented here, and it is a representative of the third generation that William Jaeger has an important place as a farmer and general business man in the vicinity of Birmingham in Henrietta Township. He is a native of Brownhelm Township, where he was born June 12, 1870, a son of John and Catherine (Able) Jaeger. Both branches of the family came from Germany, the grandfather, Adam Jaeger, was a German school teacher, a man of unusual education for his time, and after coining to America he located on a farm in Lorain County in 1843 and lived there until his death, being both prosperous and influential. The maternal grandfather of William Jaeger died in Gertnany. John Jaeger, the father, was born in Germany in 1837 and died in January, 1905. His wife was born in 1833 and died in June, 1905. They were married in Lorain County. and their five children are : Adam, yardmaster at Collinwood near Cleveland; George, who lives at South Euclid, Cleveland, and has a little farm laid out in city lots and is rapidly becoming prosperous; William, Elizabeth, wife of G. G. Mcfiraith, former chief of police of Collinwood ; and Dora, wife of George P. Krapp, a butcher at Lorain. The parents were both members of the German Reformed Church and in politics the father was a democrat. He cleared up a large tract of land in Lorain County and was substantially fixed and. prosperous in his later years, owning a farm of 138 acres on which he died. William Jaeger had the usual environment of a country boy, attended the public schools at Brownhelm, and was reared and trained in farming pursuits. For thirteen years he worked a farovedhe shares, and in 1912 moved to Henrietta Township and bought the eighty acres comprising his well improved and valuable homestead. On February 24, 1895. Mr. Jaeger married Mary Akerman. She was born in Erie County, Ohio, a daughter of Martin Akerman, one of the early settlers of that county. To their marriage have been born two daughters: Dorothy. wife of Lewis Kreig, a farmer in Henrietta Town-ship; and Minnie, living at home. Mr. Jaeger and family are members of the German Reformed Church and he is affiliated with the Knights and Ladies of Security. In politics he has always been loyal to the democratic party, and in the fall of 1915 was elected trustee of Henrietta Township. an office to which he gives a full measure of his time and interest. His work is that of general farming he also does some dairy business, and He has also developed a considerable enterprise in the sale of fertilizer. and during 1915 sold approximately $2.500 worth of that product. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1051 E. C. HANING in his agricultural operations has adopted modern methods, and has acquired a full measure of returns from the labors he has expended upon his fine property near Wellington. While general farming has interested him principally, Mr. Haning has also done considerable stock raising., has given that branch considerable thought and study and is one of the thoroughly progressive men of Lorain County. An Ohio man by birth, he was born in Meigs County, April 16, 1864, a son of Eli and Margaret (Spring) Hailing. His paternal grandfather was Mathew Haning. and his maternal grandfather Peter Spring. Eli Hailing was born in the State of Ohio in 1801, about the time Ohio entered the Union and he thus represents one of the very oldest families in this section. For his first wife he married Abitha Gibson and had six children. His second wife. Miss Spring, was born in Guernsey County, Ohio, in 1823. and died in 1899. They were married in Meigs County, where Eli Hailing had his home for many years. He died in 1875. His career was spent as a farmer and he acquired a large amount of land. He and his wife were members of the Methodist Church and in politics he was a republican after the organization of that party. He and his second wife had nine children and the five living are: Nancy Jane. widow of Ezekiel Martin; John Peter, a farmer in Meigs County; Lusetta, wife of Robert Dixon, a farmer at Vinton, Ohio; Howard, a Meigs County farmer; and E. C. Haning. Mr. Hailing grew up on a farm, gained a district school education in Meigs County, and started his career as an independent farmer in that county. Later He sold his property there. bought a farm in Brighton Township of Lorain County, and some years later, in December, 1910, acquired his present estate. He has 125 acres in his farm, devotes it to general farming and dairy purposes, and he is regarded as one of the thoroughly substantial men of his community. In 1893 he married Mary Evelyn Zimmerman, who was born in Morgan County, Ohio. They have two children. Elva is a teacher in Camden Township. The daughter, Irma, is still at home. Mr. and Mrs. Haning are active members of the Grange and in politics he is a republican. CHARLES: ALBRIGHT. A resident of Lorain County since his boyhood, Mr. Albright is a representative of a family whose name has been worthily linked with the history of this county for the past sixty-five years, and, like his honored father before him, he is a prominent and substantial exponent of agricultural industry in the county, and has a finely improved homestead farm in Russia Township. Mr. Albright was born in Germany, on the 27th of August, 1844, and is a son of Frederick and Catherine Albright, who continued their residence in their native land until 1851, when they immigrated to the United States and established their permanent home in Lorain County, Ohio. Here the father reclaimed and improved a good farm and became one of the prosperous and highly esteemed citizens of this favored section of the Buckeye State, where both he and his wife continued their residence until the time of their death. Frederick Albright was a staunch supporter of the principles and policies of the democratic party but had no predilection for the honors or emoluments of public office, though He was ever ready to lend his co-operation in the furtherance of enterprises advanced for the general good of the community. Of the five children the subject of this review is the second in order of birth; Otto, the eldest of the number. is likewise one of the successful farmers of Lorain County; Frederick, Jr., Harmon and Henry also represent this sterling. family as substantial farmers and progressive citizens ofVol Vol. II-36 1052 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Lorain County. The parents were folk whose lives were guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity and. both were earnest communicants of the Lutheran Church. Reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm, Charles Albright grew to maturity in Lorain County, which has been his home since he was a lad of about seven years and in which he has achieved success worthy of the name. He profited duly by the advantages of the public schools of the locality and period and as a youth he served a practical apprentieeship to the trade of carpenter, to which he continued to devote his attention for a period of twelve years. He was a successful contractor and builder during a considerable part of this time and in this connection it is specially worthy of note that since his retirement from the active work of his trade he has shown his technical skill and architectural taste by the erection of his fine farm residence, which is one of the model rural homes of the county. Upon abandoning his activities as a carpenter and builder Mr. Albright purchased his present farm, which comprises seventy acres, which he has brought to a high state of cultivation and upon which he has made his best of permanent improvements. His energy, progres-siveness and good judgment have enabled him to win large and worthy success as a representative of the basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing and he has shown a lively interest in all that has concerned the progress and prosperity of the county that has been his place of residence for so many years and in which he has secure place in popular confidence and good will. Mr. Albright accords a staunch allegiance to the democratic party but has shown no desire to enter the arena of practical politics. He is affiliated with both the lodge and encampment organizations of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and both he and his wife hold membership in the Congregational Church. In June, 1871, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Albright to Miss Catherine Schwartz, who was born and reared in Russia Township, this county, and who is a daughter of the late Jacob Schwartz, one of the honored pioneers of that township. Mr. and Mrs. Albright have three children : Jacob is one of the progressive farmers of Lorain County ; Ruth, of Elyria, this county; .and Clarence remains at the parental home, as his father's valued assistant in the work and management of the farm. Generous prosperity has attended the earnest labors of Mr. Albright and he is a citizen well worthy of representation in this history. CHAMBERS D. REAMER. The record of an old soldier and of a solid business man is one that deserves the fullest possible record in this publication. Chambers D. Reamer was with an Ohio regiment during the Civil war, and for a great many years has been prominent in business affairs at Oberlin and elsewhere. He was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, May 10, 1843, son of Daniel and Mary (Krill) Reamer. His paternal grandfather was Daniel Reamer, a native of Germany who came to the United States when quite young and located first in Pennsylvania and afterwards moved to Ohio during the decade of the '30s, settling in Wayne County, where he was a farmer. Mrs. Daniel Reamer was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1803, and died in 1884. Daniel Reamer himself was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1798 and died in 1871. They were married in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and in 1849 the family moved to Ohio and located in Wayne County, where Daniel Reamer followed his occupation as a weaver and as a farmer. During the course of the war in which several of his sons were soldiers he moved to the HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1053 vicinity of Oberlin in 1864, buying a small farm which he occupied and. which he cultivated until his death. He was a man of quiet, unassuming disposition, was well read and educated, but never sought the conspicuous positions. He was a democrat, and a member of the First Congregational Church. Of six sons in the family the only one now living is Chambers D. Jacob, born January 29, 1827, was killed at the battle of Chancellorsville May 2, 1863, having left a wife and four small daughters to enter the army; Samuel, born September 6, 1828, served four years in the Civil war and died at the Ohio Soldiers' Home in 1913; Daniel Paul, born March 10, 1833, and died January 14, 1900, was employed in taking care of the wounded in front of Petersburg during the war, afterwards for many years was one of Oberlin's leading mar-chants; John Frederick was born September 10, 1838, and died in 1899. He was a four months soldier in the war; George Washington, born December 12, 1840, went through the war as a member of the Cleveland-Grays and died from the effects of the campaign on September 10, 1864. Chambers D. Reamer received his early education in the public schools of Wayne County and had spent one term in Oberlin College when he responded to the call of patriotism and on August 11, 1862, enlisted in Company I of the One Hundred and Second Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served for three years, being in the army of the Cumberland, and taking part in all the leading campaigns and battles of that command of his own regiment. After the war Mr. Reamer spent another year in Oberlin College and then engaged in business with his brother, D. P. Reamer, in 1868, and the brothers were associated until 1871. He then continued in business with Mr. Eckert under the firm name of Reamer & Eckert until 1878. Having sold his interests at Oberlin, Mr. Reamer went on the road as traveling representative for the Art Metal Construction Company, and successfully promoted the business of that concern in various sections of the South, having his headquarters at Atlanta, Birmingham and Chattanooga. Altogether he was on the road for twenty-five years. In 1910 Mr. Reamer returned to Oberlin and has since employed his time in fire and life insurance and real estate business, and he promoted and developed the Reamer Addition to Oberlin. On May 5, 1868, he married Miss Frances Cole, daughter of Stephen Cole, a well known and prominent citizen in this section of Lorain County. They have two children: Daniel Albert, who completed his education in Oberlin College, is now a young architect located at Cleveland ; Robert is also an architect in Cleveland and has made a fine reputation for himself, having built some of the leading hotels in the National Park. Mr. Reamer and wife are members of the First Congregational Church, fraternally he is identified with the Woodmen of the World and in politics is a republican. ELIAB WIGHT METCALF. Few families identified with Lorain County have contributed so many distinguished and useful workers in various fields to the world as the Metcalf family, still represented in the county by Irving W. -Metcalf, prominent business man and religious worker at Oberlin ; W. V. Metcalf of Oberlin, who has made a national and inter-national reputation by his able and important work as a student of chemistry ; Maynard M. Metcalf, also of Oberlin, who has only a less extended reputation as a zoologist ; Dr. Henry M. Metcalf of Elyria ; and John M. P. Metcalf, who for a number of years has been president of Talladega College in Alabama. Another member of the same family 1054 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY is Gen. W. S. Metcalf, who for many years has been a business man in Kansas and made a gallant record as an officer in the Philippine war. The family has been in America for nearly three centuries. Michael Metcalf, who headed the first American generation, was a manufacturer of tapestry at Norwich, England. He arrived in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1637, having left England because of religious persecution, being a zealous nonconformist. He was one of the Yorkshire Metcalf family, whose name first appears in 1278 as Adam Called Medecalfe, and who was said to be the eighth in descent from the Dane Arkefrith who came to England with King Canute in 1016. Michael Metcalf's service in Dedham included in his later years teaching in the first public school-house erected in this country. He married Sarah Elwyn, a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Elwyn of Hingham, Norfolk County, England. The second generation was represented by Michael Metcalf, third child of Michael and Sarah Metcalf. He married Mary Fairbanks, daughter of John Fairbanks, Sr., who built the "Fairbanks House" at Dedham. In the third generation is Eleazar Metcalf, the fifth child of Michael and Mary, who married Meletia Fisher. Michael Metcalf, of the fourth generation, second child of Eleazar and Meletia, married Abigail Colburn. Peletia H. Metcalf, of the fifth generation, was the oldest child of Michael and Abigail, and married Hepzibah, daughter of Rev. Samuel Mann, who was the first minister of Wrentham. Peletia Metcalf, of the sixth generation, and the second child of Peletia and Hepzibah, married Lydia Estey of Thompson, Connecticut. Isaac Metcalf, of the seventh generation, and the sixth child of Peletia and Lydia, was born at Royalston, Massachusetts, where he was a very successful teacher, both there and in adjacent towns, and later in Boston. Isaac Metcalf married for his first wife Lucy Heywood, daughter of Silas and Hannah (Goddard) Heywood. For his second wife be married Anna Mayo (Stevens) Rich, widow of Charles Rich of Warwick, Massachusetts, and a daughter of Wilder Stevens of Warwick and Elizabeth Mayo of Roxbury. Charles Wilder Rich, who lived on Sixteenth Street in Elyria, was the oldest child of Charles and Anna Mayo (Stevens) Rich, and was the father of George Rich, still living on the home place in Lorain County. Charles W. Rich married Albina S. Kittridge of Milo, Maine, and they moved to Elyria in 1865. The youngest child of Charles and Anna Mayo Rich was Anna Elizabeth Rich, who was born at Warwick, Massachusetts, was a teacher, first in a private school in Boston and then for twelve years in Bangor, Maine, was later assistant principal at Westfield Academy at Westfield, New York, and in charge of a young ladies seminary in Racine, Wisconsin. In 1853 she married Elijah DeWitt, AI. D., of Elyria, and resided in Elyria until her death in 1897. Anna Mayo Stevens Rich was one of the pupils of Isaac Metcalf in Warwick, Massachusetts, while a girl, and after her second husband's death she lived among her children in Elyria, where she died in 1866. Isaac and Anna Stevens Metcalf had four children, one of whom, the oldest, was Isaac Stevens Metcalf, who resided in Elyria, and was the father of Gen. W. S. 'Metcalf of Lawrence, Kansas, above referred to, and of Dr. Henry Martin Metcalf, also of Elyria, and father of John M. P. Metcalf, the educator above mentioned. The fourth child of Isaac and Anna Stevens Metcalf was Eliab Wight Metcalf, whose name stands at the head of this article and who was thus in the eighth successive generation of the American branch of the family. From 1851 to 1865 E. W. Metcalf was in the lumber, ship chandlery and ship building business in Bangor, Maine. Though unable to join the army because of physical disability, he spent most of the time during the war with the army as confidential agent of President Lincoln HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1055 and in the Christian Commission service. After the war he removed with his family to Elyria, which was already the home of his brother Charles W. Rich and Isaac Stevens 'Metcalf and of his sister Anna Rich DeWitt: After coining to Lorain County he dealt in timber land, chiefly in Pennsylvania, 'Michigan and Wisconsin. Having lost a vessel burned by the English-built cruiser Shenandoah, he spent twelve winters in Washington urging that the forty-nine marine insurance companies who claimed many millions of the Geneva award, were entitled to nothing unless they could show actual loss above war premiums received. Congress finally adopted this view and the vessel owners were paid from the Geneva award all the actual losses caused by all the Confederate cruisers for which the losers had received no indemnity and also about a third of the proved losses by the payment of war insurance premiums. Having won this long fight Mr. Metcalf served as attorney before the court of claims collecting claims for many others as well as himself. In his twelve years' fight against the insurance companies he received practically no financial or other assistance. He was fighting for a prin-ciple, and a vigorous stand for justice and truth seems to have been a prevailing and dominating trait of character in the Metcalf family. He later had important lawsuits before the Supreme courts of Wisconsin and the United States, involving new principles of law which were carried to successful issues. He was from young manhood much inter-ested in temperance legislation, first in Maine, later in Ohio. He aided in organizing the Anti-Saloon League and wrote the local option bill which has been the basis of the local option legislation in many states. From 1880 until his death in 1899 he was a trustee of Oberlin College. Throughout his life he was, with his wife, active in church work, local missionary work and philanthropy. From its organization he was a member of the republican party, always avoiding office himself, but influential in its councils in early days in Bangor and later in Elyria effective in overthrowing local bosses. Among his friends were many of the most prominent figures in our national life. E. W. Metcalf married Eliza Maria Ely. daughter of. Rev. William and Harriet (Whiting) Ely, and descended from a long line of ministers and physicians, most of whom were graduates of Yale University. Her parents lived at Easthampton, Massachusetts. Before her marriage Mrs. 'Metcalf was "lady principal of Williston Seminary." E. W. Met-calf and wife were, during their residence in Bangor, members of the Central Avenue Congregational Church, and afterwards of the First Congregational Church of Elyria. They became the parents of five children, Irving W., Lucy H., Edith Ely, Wilmot V. and Maynard M. Irving W. Metcalf, the oldest child, was born at Bangor, Maine, November 27, 1855. grew up in Lorain County, graduated A. B. from Oberlin College in 1878, subsequently pursuing his studies in the Andover Theological Seminary during 1879-80, and in 1881 graduated with the Divinity degree from Oberlin Theological Seminary. He was ordained for the Congregational ministry in 1882, served as pastor of a church in Columbus from 1881 to 1889, of Hough Avenue Church in Cleveland 1889 to 1894, as associate pastor of Pilgrim Church in Cleveland from 1.894 to 1897, and though still continuing an influential connection with church affairs has since been in business. He was located at Lawrence, Kansas, from 1897 to 1899, and from that date in Elyria until 1892 and since then at Oberlin. He is president of the Duane Building Company, secretary of the Middleburg Stone Company, a director of the Elyria Savings and Banking Company, director of the Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland. president of the S. Mills Ely Company of Binghamton, New York. From 1892 to 1897 he served as secretary of the Congregational City Missionary Society of Cleveland 1056 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY and of the Ohio Congregational Board of Ministerial Reiief. He was moderator of the Congregational Association of Ohio in 1902, and since 1898 has been chairman of the church property committee of the National Council of Congregational churches. He is a trustee of Oberlin College, a trustee of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League, a trustee of Thessalonica Agricultural and Industrial Institute at Salonica, Turkey, and a trustee of the Oberlin Missionary Home Association. He is secretary of the Living Endowment Union of Oberlin College and a corporate member of the A. B. C. F. M. He is well known in Cleveland where he is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the National Municipal League, the Religious Educational Association, the National Geographic Society, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He married May 20, 1885, Flora Belle Mussey of Elyria. Lucy Heywood Metcalf, the second child, married Rev. Augustus G. Upton, who was a teacher in Oberlin College, then a Congregational pastor and later president of Weiser Academy in Idaho, but is now deceased. Edith Ely Metcalf was a student of art for some years at Boston, London and Paris, and is now living in Chicago, where she has built a home including rooms for a free kindergarten and has done much service among the poor of that city. Wilmot V. Metcalf, who graduated A. B. and M. A. from Oberlin College and Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University, afterwards con-tinuing his studies in physical chemistry in Wuerzburg, Bavaria. and in Leipsic, served as professor of chemistry in Carleton College in Minne-sota, professor of physics at Fisk University in Tennessee, and is now engaged in private study of chemistry at his home in Oberlin. November 4, 1889, he married Caroline G. Soule of Taunton, Massachusetts, who for a time was a teacher of Greek in Wellesley and also a teacher in the American missionary schools in the South. Maynard M. Metcalf, the youngest of the children, was born at Elyria, March 12, 1868, graduated A. B. from Oberlin College in 1889, and received his Doctor of Philosophy degree at Johns Hopkins Uni-versity in 1893. He also has the honorary degree D. Sc. from Oberlin. From 1893 to 1906 he was associate professor and professor of biology in the Woman's College of Baltimore, was for several years professor of biology in Oberlin College, but is now engaged in the private study of zoology at his home in Oberlin. He is a trustee of the Marine Biologi-cal Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Society of Zoologists, of the American Society of Naturalists, the Biological Society of Washington, the Ohio Academy of Science, the National Geographic Society, the National Municipal League, the National Council of the National Economic League, the American Economic Asso-ciation, the Western Economic Association, and also belongs to the Authors Club of London. He has contributed scientific articles to both American and German publications and is author of "An Outline of the Theory of Organic Evolution." September 10, 1890, he married Ella M. "Wilder of Elgin, Illinois. EDGAR FRANKLIN ROSECRANS. For fully forty years Mr. Rosecrans has been one of the progressive and enterprising business men of Lorain County. He has been known as a butcher and retail meat dealer, as a successful farmer, a buyer and dealer in livestock, and his friends assert that he makes a success of every undertaking. He was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, April 3, 1853, a son of Franklin and Frances (Hines) Rosecrans. Both parents were natives of St. Lawrence County where the father was born in 1816 and HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1057 the mother in 1821. They were married in New York State and came to Lorain County in 1865, locating in Russia Township, where the father died in 1882 and the mother in 1891. Franklin Rosecrans bought 100 acres in Russia Township, and by much hard work cleared up and improved this place and was very successful. He had brought with him to Ohio a capital of about $4,000 and by good judgment as a farmer steadily prospered until his estate represented a much higher value at the time of his death. He was a republican in politics, active in public affairs, and his wife was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Of their fourteen children nine are still living, and Edgar F. was fifth in order of birth. The maternal grandfather Hines, who spent his life in. New York State, was an old time school teacher, and was proficient not only in the arts of instruction in the fundamentals but was also a noted writing or penmanship teacher in the early days. Edgar Franklin Rosecrans was about twelve years of age when his parents came to Lorain County, and finished his education here in the district schools and also the schools in Oberlin. From early boyhood he showed special inclination for the handling of live stock, and he soon began buying and also became an expert butcher. On December 7, 1876, he married Miss Ida M. Beam, a daughter of Peter Beam. Mrs. Roseerans was born in Lorain County, and is the mother of seven children: Louise, wife of Lewis Morris, a butcher at Oberlin ; Jesse, who is in the butcher business at Oberlin; Jennie, wife of Jesse Harris of Toledo; Arthur, who is a very prosperous stockman in the State of Idaho; Elmer, also in the stock business at Idaho; Gertrude, who lives with her brothers in Idaho; Ralph, who is employed as feeder of lambs for his brother in Idaho, and often has had the superintendence of as high as 2,200 lambs in a single season. Mr. Rosecrans and family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a Maccabee and in politics is a republican. A short time before his marriage be bought a. farm in Russia Township, but later traded that for a 200-acre place in Carlisle Township, which was his home for five years. Selling out, he returned to the vicinity of Oberlin, and has since enjoyed one-of the finest country homes in Lorain County, situated about a mile south of the college center. In 191.0 he put up his beautiful two-story house, and he also has a number of substantial farm buildings. His farm there comprises about ninety-six acres. For many years he operated a slaughter house on his farm and for twenty years he sold meat over the country from wagons, after which he established a meat market in Oberlin and continued the business actively for a number of years. He now gives most of his time to. buying and selling stock and is one of the largest stock dealers in this section of Ohio. Among other property he owns seven good lots in Elyria and one in the City of Lorain. CAPT. RICHARD THEW. At the age of sixty-eight years, with the vigorous step and active mind of a man of fifty, Capt. Richard Thew still attends to the duties of his large interests, and keeps himself abreast in knowledge and sympathy of the new generation. One of the best known figures in shipping circles of Lake Erie, he is prominent also among the manufacturers of Ohio, and at Lorain has been active in. the development of several industries that have been material con-tributors to the business prestige of this thriving and prosperous city. Captain Thew was born in Marion County, Ohio, October 27, 1847, and is a son of William P. and Susan (Davis) Thew, natives of Lincolnshire, England, who in Ohio were engaged in agricultural pursuits. 1058 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Richard Thew was educated in the public schools and until reaching his twenty-sixth year was engaged in assisting his father in the work of the homestead place. He has always possessed a predilection. for mechanics and much natural ability in that direction, and when he left the home farm. secured a position with a manufacturing company at Ashland, where he remained one year. He next purchased an interest in a hardware and machinery business at Caledonia, Ohio, which he conducted for fourteen years, and then began building steamers on Lake Erie, including his own vessel, the freight steamer William P. Thew, an iron ore boat operating out of Lorain. It was while he was the owner of this vessel that he began the development of the harvest-ing and binding machinery, and in 1899 he came from Cleveland and established his plant at Lorain, this business including the manufacture of various kinds of machinery for large companies. In 1898 Mr. Thew became the organizer of the Thew Automatic Shovel Company, of which he has since been vice president and manager, and erected a plant 75 by 200 feet. There, in the first year, the company employed fifty men and built twelve shovels, but to give an idea of the growth of the business, in 1915 the concern employed 400 men, mostly skilled labor, and manufactures 250 shovels. The present plant is 75 by 800 feet, while the new pressed brick office building is 45 by 65 feet. and two stories in height. Mr. Thew was the organizer also of the Lorain Casting Company, of which he is vice president and manager, and is well known in banking circles of Lorain as president of the Lorain Banking Company. He has always taken a keen interest in development work, both in Ohio and California, in which latter state half of his time is passed. In 1901 Mr. Thew went to Alaska, where, with others, he became interested in mining ventures, and in the Nome district developed several good and valuable properties. He is president of the board of trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lorain. On October 14, 1873, Mr. Thew was married to Miss Sarah Priscilla Lawrence, of Marion County, Ohio, daughter of Rev. Rithed Lawrence, a minister of t.he Methodist Epthere haveurch. To this union there.have been born three daughters: Susan Priscilla, who resides with her parents; Carol Belle, who is the wife of James R. Fauver, of Exeter, California, manager of various California properties and owner of several orange groves; and Edna Lawrence, who died at the age of twenty-four years. GEORGE FREDERICK WIGHT, A. M.. D. D., LL. D., F. G. S. A.. the son of Walter and Mary Peabody Colburn Wright, was born January 22, 1838, in Whitehall, Washington County, New York. His boyhood was spent on a farm near the head of Lake Champlain, amid scenes replete with reminiscences of the struggle between the French and English to take possession of Lake George and with those of Burgoyne's campaign. His preparation for college was made at the seminary at Castleton, Vermont. While but sixteen years old he taught his first district school in Hampton, New York, near the residence of the celebrated William Miller, who created such a sensation throughout the country by prophesying the end of the world in 1843 to 1848. In the fall of 1855, Mr. Wright entered the freshman class at Oberlin College, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1859. During his college course he taught winter district schools in Franklin, Madison, Fayette, and Belmont counties, thus early becoming familiar with the varied interests of Ohio. Immediately after graduating from college he entered the theological seminary at Oberlin, in the class that graduated in 1862. But on the outbreak of the war in 1861 He enlisted in HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1059 Company C of the Seventh Ohio Volunteers. Early in the service a severe attack of pneumonia left him in such physical debility that he was discharged at the end of five months. On completing his theological course in 1862 he was married, August 28th, to Huldah Maria Day, daughter of Judge William Day of Sheffield, Lorain County, thus cementing still further his interest in the State of Ohio. For the next nine years and a half, or until June, 1872, he was pastor of the Congregational Church in Bakersfield, Vermont, a township in the northwest corner of the state at the foot of the Green Mountains, and not far from the Canada line. Here in addition to his pastoral duties he pursued a comprehensive course of private study, reading his Bible through in Hebrew and in Greek, translating from the German Kant's "Critique of the Pure Reason," and from the Greek large portions of Plato's "Dialogues." Meanwhile, he was taking an active part in the agricultural interests of his parish and spending his spare time in studying the geology of the Champlain and the St. Lawrence valleys, giving the results of his studies in the local newspapers and at the same time attracting the attention of geologists outside the state. Before leaving Bakersfield he published his first important article in periodical literature, in the New Englander, the organ of Yale College. This was upon "The Ground of Confidence in Inductive Reasoning." This attracted wide attention, being highly commended in leading Scotch periodicals. In June, 1872, he accepted a call to one of the Congregational churches in Andover, Massachusetts, where he at once came into intimate relations with the professors of Andover Theological Seminary, which was then in the height of its career. By the invitation of Prof. Edwards A. Park he began a series of contributions to the Bibliotheca Sacra, the oldest and one of the most learned of the theological quarterlies in America, establishing a connection with this quarterly which has continued to the present time. Meanwhile, a scientific problem of great interest. and importance connected with the Glacial Period was awaiting solution within a short distance of his parsonage. This was a series of gravel deposits, known as Indian Ridge. which had been described by President Hitchcock in a paper before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1842 and later in his popular text-book on geology. These ridges he considered to be of marine origin. and this explanation was accepted until the appearance of Mr. Wright's explanation in 1875, when in a paper before the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, he pronounced them of glacial origin, marking lines of drainage in the closing stages of the period when stagnant ice continued to determine its course. This explanation was at once accepted and applied to deposits known in Europe as "kames" or "eskers." In 1876 a detailed statement of the facts leading to this explanation was made in a paper published by the Boston Society of Natural History entitled, "Some Remarkable Gravel Ridges in the Merrimac Valley ;" and which at the same time announced a discovery, just made and communicated to Mr. Wright by Clarence King, of the great terminal moraine which borders southern New England. A year or two later a full report of these investigations was incorporated in the third volume of the New Hampshire Geological Survey. In the summer of 1880 Mr. Wright was invited by Professor Lesley, the head of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, to trace this moraine across that state. This he did in company with Mr. H. Carvill Lewis. The results of this survey were published as volume Z of the Pennsyl-vania report. Meanwhile, in 1880, Warren F. Draper, of Andover, published for Mr. Wright "The Logic of Christian Evidences," which 1060 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY has had extensive use as a text-book, six editions having been called for, amounting to several thousand copies. At the same time a collection of his essays was made and published two years later entitled, "Studies in Science and Religion." His statement in this of the Darwinian theory was pronounced by Darwin to be "most clear and powerful," while Profs. Asa Gray and J. D. Dana were constantly conferring with him in his attempts to adjust the relations between science and revelation. During the latter years of his residence in Andover he was a trustee of the Boston Society of Natural History, an.d in intimate relations with the eminent scientific men composing that society. In 1881 Mr. Wright was called to the chair of New Testament Language and Literature in Oberlin Seminary. As this position afforded him three or four months' vacation in the summer, he was able to employ that leisure in exploring the glacial boundary west of Pennsylvania. This he did under the auspices of the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland, whose president was Col. Charles C. Whittlesey, and its secretary Judge C. C. Baldwin. Through the efforts of Judge Baldwin and of his brother, D. C. Baldwin—both of Elyria—funds were raised to pay the expenses of this survey through the following three years, at which time it was carried to the Mississippi River. Thus the glacial boundary between the Delaware and Mississippi rivers, which appears on all geological maps, is the result of Mr. Wright's field work. His first report was published by the Western Reserve Historical Society as Tract Number 60, entitled, "The Glacial Boundary in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky." Subsequently the United States Geological Survey employed him to complete various details of the survey and pub-lished his report in Bulletin Number 58, entitled, "The Glacial Boundary in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio., Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois." Meanwhile, besides publishing two volumes in the direct line of his professorship, namely, "The Relation of Death to Probation," in 1882, and "The Divine Authority of the Bible," in 1884, Mr. Wright led an expedition to Alaska in 1886, where he spent a month in camping beside the great Muir Glacier, and brought back with him the first detailed report upon any of the Alaskan glaciers. Here the United States authori-ties have attached his name to both a mountain and a glacier. The facts were so remarkable that his report secured for him an invitation to give a course of Lowell Institute lectures in Boston in 1887. Later, after having been given in Baltimore and other cities, these were expanded into a volume of 800 pages, entitled, "The Ice Age in North America and Its Bearing upon the Antiquity of Man," published by the Appletons in 1889 and the fifth edition by Bibliotheca Sacra Company in 1911. In 1891 Houghton, Mifflin and Company published for him the life of "Charles Grandison Finney." In 1892 there appeared in the International Scientific Series his "Man and the Glacial Period," which has passed through several editions. Meanwhile, Mr. Wright spent one summer in the Rocky Mountains, and another in Europe, where he was warmly welcomed by the geologists both of England and of the Continent. In 1894 Mr. Wright and his son, Frederick B.. accompanied Frederick A. Cook in his ill-fated expedi-tion to Greenland, where they were wrecked at Sukkertoppen. near the Arctic Circle. However, excellent opportunity was afforded to survey a portion of the great Greenland icefields that came down to lkamiut Fiord, where the Danish survey has subsequently honored him by attach-ing his name to one of the most prominent nunataks in that region. The results of this expedition were recorded in "Greenland Icefields and Life in the North Atlantic ; with a new Discussion of the Causes of the Ice Age," D. Appleton and Company, 1896. In 1892 Mr. Wright HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 1061 was invited to give another course of Lowell Institute lectures in Boston on the "Origin and Antiquity of Man." which twenty years later, in 1912, were expanded and rewritten and published in an illustrated volume of 600 pages by Bibliotheca Sacra Company. Again in 1896 another course of Lowell Institute lectures was given on "Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences," elaborated into a volume and published the following year by D. Appleton and Company. Meanwhile, in 1892, he had been transferred to a special professorship of the Harmony of Science and Revelation. In 1900 Mr. Wright and his son, Frederick B., crossed the continent of Asia for the purpose of investigating the glacial phenomena supposed to exist in that region. On the way, six weeks were spent in giving scientific lectures in the principal centers of Japan, in recognition of which he was made one of the three foreign members of the Japanese Imperial Education. Society. Crossing over to China they organized an expedition during the month of May which went from Peking to Kalgan and from Kalgan into the eastern portions of Mongolia, demonstrating the absence of glacial phenomena in that region. Returning to Peking they left the city on the last train before the breaking out of the Boxer Revolution. Crossing over to Port Arthur they were for-warded by Admiral Alexieff on a construction train which took them as far as Teling, a short distance beyond Mukden. From there they were forwarded 200 miles in Chinese carts, being entertained from time to time by the engineers who were constructing the railroad, and being guided and guarded from one section to another by Cossack soldiers, to the other terminus of the road, 100 miles south of Harbin. Thence, after going down the Sungari River to Khabarovsk and by rail to Vladivostok and back again, in July they started up the Amur River, all in. ignorance of the progress of the revolution in China. At Vladivostok they paid $8 to send home by- cable two words announcing their safety. But at Blagovestehensk they were detained a week during the bombardment of the city by the Chinese army which was investing it. Escaping from the city, they boarded, twenty miles above, a steamer which had been used to bring down Russian troops and was to return empty, and after two weeks reached the Siberian Railroad at Stretensk. Following this road 2,000 miles with pauses and short detours on the way, they left it at. Omsk, and having ascended the Irtish River by steamer 200 miles, they bought a tarantass and drove 1,400 miles along the border of the Tianshan Mountains to Tashkend, in Turkestan. Thence by the Transcaspian Railroad, with various pauses along the way (the longest of which was at Samarkand), they crossed the Caspian Sea, reaching the western shore at Baku, the great oil center of Russia. Thence, going through the Transcaucasus region, and pausing a while at Tiflis, they passed on to Batum on the Black Sea and thence to Trebizond, where they made a most important and significant discovery of a recently abandoned shore line 750 feet above the present level of the sea—indicating a recent elevation of the land to that extent. Returning to Tiflis, and crossing over the Caucasus Mountains by the celebrated Dariel Pass, they went on northward to Moscow and St. Petersburgh and thence to Odessa, taking, on the way-, Kiev, where remarkable remains of glacial man had been discovered. The remainder of their trip took in Constantinople, Beirut, a horseback journey of ten days from Damaseus to Jerusalem, an excursion to the southern end of the Dead Sea, a trip up the Nile to Assouan. a visit to Naples, Palermo, Rome, Florence, Paris and England. After fourteen months they reached home. having traveled, without accident, by every possible mode of conveyance, a distance of 44,000 miles. The results of this expedition appeared in papers pub- 1062 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY lished in the Journal of the London Geological Society, in the bulletins of the Geological Society of America, in McClure's Magazine, in. the Review of Reviews, and in a series of articles in the New York Nation; and all is summed up in two highly illustrated volumes on "Asiatic Russia," published by McClure, Phillips & Company in 1902. His first wife having died in 1899, Mr. Wright was married a second time, in 1904, to Miss Florence. Eleanor Bedford of Springboro, Warren County-, Ohio, and with her has made two visits to Europe. During the first they visited England, Denmark and Sweden; spent six weeks in Russia, visiting there St. Petersburgh, Moscow, Rostoff on the Don and the Crimea; and thence went to Constantinople, Smyrna and Beirut, from which an expedition was made also to the terminal moraine on which the cedars of Lebanon are growing, and a visit was made to Baalbek and Damascus. In returning home, Egypt, Italy and Northern France were visited. In the second visit, Holland, Belgium and Northern France were visited preliminary to a six months' stay in Southern England, where glacial studies were continued. In 1904 Mr. Wright was invited to give the Stone lectures at Princeton on "Scientific Confirmations of Oki Testament History." the substance of which appeared in a volume under that title published by Bibliotheca Sacra Company in 1906 and the third edition in 191:3. This has been translated into Dutch, Swedish and German, and an edition has been sold in England. The latest literary works of Professor Wright have been a small volume entitled, "See Ohio First," and the editing of the present history of Lorain County. Meanwhile he has been. for twenty-five years a member, and for the last six years president. of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, whose museums at Columbus and Fremont are among the most interesting and creditable institutions, of the state, and indeed of the Whole country. During the last thirty-two years, also, he has been the editor of Bibliotheca Sacra. the oldest theological quarterly of the country, now in its seventy-third year, and for twelve years associated with his son in Washington as editor of Records of the Past. In conducting Bibliotheca Sacra he is supported by the ablest and most advanced scholars in Germany. Holland. Sweden. Great Britain. and the United States, in the defense of the historical truth of the Bible. For eight years he has been relieved from profes-sional duties in college, receiving a Carnegie pension. • He is in vigorous health, and hopes to accomplish much more in the completion of the literary work for which his experience has prepared him. He had four children by his first wife, all of whom are living—Mary Augusta (Berle) now in Cambridge. Massachusetts: Frederick Bennett in Washington, D. C.; Etta Maria. helping him at home: and Helen Marcia, engaged in settlement work. In 1887 Mr. Wright was made Doctor of Laws (LL. D.) by Drury College, and Doctor of Divinity (D. D.) by Brown University. He is one of the charter members of the Geological Society of America (F. G. S. A.).