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and now lives in comfortable retirement at Atwater, Ohio; Wilhelmina, who married F. H. Beard, of Struthers; Louisa R., who married Frank Renkenberger, and died when she was forty years old: Edwin G., of whose life more is written below ; and Charles P., a well-known farmer of Beaver Township.
Edwin G. Moff, son of Philip and Catherine (Perren) Moff, was educated in the schools of Beaver Township, and after leaving school began to teach. For a professional career he was prepared in the Northeastern Ohio Normal School at Canfield, and he began to teach when he was twenty-one years old, up to which time he had lived at home, and had throughout the period of his teens helped considerably in the work of the home farm. He taught in the local school for eight years, and also for one summer taught in a school in the State of Montana. Next, in partnership with his brother William, he entered the general store business in Salem, Columbiana County. For two years he and his brother conducted the store, when Edwin bought his brother's interest and himself conducted the business for about two years, after which he again took up his professional work in the local school for a while. Eventually, however, he took to farming, renting a farm in the county for six years, after which he took over the operation of his mother's farm, as she wished to retire. He operated the farm, and he and his sister Wilhelmina cared daily for his mother for the remainder of her life; and at her death the property might have been divided had he not bought out the other heirs. The property became his absolutely and wholly in 191o, and since that year he has continued to use the whole acreage, and has effected many improvements to the property, thus giving indication that his farming has been successful and lucrative. He has remodeled the old house, adding somewhat to it, and installing many modern conveniences, including hot and cold water and acetylene lighting. He has remodeled the barn, enlarging it and building a silo. The farm takes its name "Crystal Brook Dairy Farm" from its abundant water supply from springs and brooks; and as a dairy farm it is a valuable property. Mr. Moff has a herd of Holstein cattle, and believes in holding the herd to a high standard. The milk is sold to wholesale companies, and while dairying is the main part of the farm work Mr. Moff has for many seasons grown potatoes extensively, selling at wholesale. He has given most of his time to the work of the farm, but has nevertheless found time to take part in township administration. He has served as township assessor and land appraiser for several years, and he is now understood to be an independent republican in political allegiance, although he was a democrat in early manhood. In all matters pertaining to agriculture Mr. Moff has always been much interested and he has in some activities taken prominent part. He has been a member of the County Farm Bureau since its organization, and for many years has been connected in membership with the local Grange. With matters pertaining to the County Fair he has been identified for some years. For three years he has been a director of the fair board, and in 1919 was in charge of the hog and sheep department, the fair of that year being probably one of the most successful ever held in the state. Mr. Moff in his conduct of the Crystal Brook Dairy Farm has shown that he has closely followed modern developments of scientific farming. He has been ready to introduce many of the approved modern ideas, and has not flinched at expense when he has been satisfied that such would effect improvement in his property. He has laid much tile on his land, and with lime and fertilizer of artificial class has maintained his land in a high state of fertility. As a patriotic citizen Mr. Moff has an enviable record. During the stress of the great World war he took part actively and usefully in almost all local phases of war activities, and especially in the War Chest campaigns, which yielded such immense sums of money to the Government and to governmental agencies. Personally he contributed as much as he was able, and he used his best efforts and energies to make the fund campaigns notably successful in his home district. Generally Mr. Moff is well-regarded in the township, and considered to he one of its leading residents and most representative and progressive farmers.
He was married in 1890 to Ada G. West, of Beaver Township, daughter of Charles K. and Elizabeth (Whitaker) West, both of whom are now deceased. She was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but passed her girlhood in Beaver Township, was a graduate of Columbiana High School and was a teacher in the Mahoning County schools until she married. The five children born to Edwin G. and Ada G. (West) Moff are: Nora is the wife of Joseph Oliver of Beaver Township. Sergeant Albert G. is a veteran of the World war, with an honorable overseas record. He was a member of the Three Hundred and Thirty-Second Machine Gun Company, which after training in France was sent to the Italian front. Before going overseas he was instructor in machine gun tactics at Camp Sherman. Altogether Albert G. was one year in Europe.. He is now in business in Youngstown. Charles W. is at home with his parents and takes part in the operation of the home farm. Oliver E. is still in school, and Wilbur is an invalid.
GEORGE. CHELEKIS. Measured in terms of enterprise, commercial ratings, George Chelekis is easily one of the most successful merchants of Youngstown. Hard work and persistent energy have put him where he is today.
He was born at Zoopena, Greece, in 1873, son of Nicholas and Demetroula Chelekis. His mother died in Greece and his father came to this county in 1913, and is now seventy-nine years of age. George Chelekis acquired the equivalent of a common school education in Greece and then for three years worked for an uncle in a restaurant at Athens. He had just enough money to bring him as far as Chicago in 1888. Ten months later he arrived at Youngstown and went to work for John Checery on the Diamond Square in the same locality where the Chelekis business is located today. After ten years he was in business for himself as a dealer in California fruits. For the past fifteen years Mr. Chelekis has given special attention to candy as a dealer and manufacturer. Ten years ago he started his dairy lunch in
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the basement under the Central Bank. Eleven years ago he established Candyland at II West Federal Street. His business associates are his brother James and another Greek, Aleck Cummings. Candyland at it West Federal Street is one of the handsomest stores of its kind in Eastern Ohio. They also operate another store at 5 Central Square.
In 1904 Mr. Chelekis returned to Greece and married Afrodite Anastasopoulon. They are members of the Greek Orthodox Church.
EDGAR F. KIDD, traffic manager of the Republic Iron & Steel Company, is one of the strong men in the iron and steel industry at Youngstown. He was born at Front Royal, Virginia, November 17, 1876, a son of Landon R. and Anna Mary (Bryant) Kidd, both of whom were natives of the Old Dominion, the former now being deceased.
Until he was eighteen years old Edgar F. Kidd lived in his native town, during which time he received a thorough training in the ordinary branches of education. At eighteen he began learning telegraphy, and served as an operator on the Norfolk & Western Railroad until 1899, when he went to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the same capacity, and gradually worked into the relief agency of the road. During this time he had been moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in 1906 he left the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to become assistant bookkeeper for the Sharpsburg Sand Company. When the Republic Iron & Steel Company removed their general offices from Chicago to Pittsburgh Mr. Kidd secured employment with this concern, first as assistant in the traffic department, and came to Youngstown when the company removed the general offices to this city, and has been with them ever since. He worked in various capacities until he was appointed assistant traffic manager, and when Henry R. Moore, traffic manager for the corporation, died, Mr. Kidd was made his successor, taking charge on August 26, 1919.
On October 22, 1902, Mr. Kidd was united in marriage with Miss Edith M. Soles, of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Kidd have two children, namely : George L. and Forrest A. Mr. Kidd is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is affiliated with the Methodist Protestant Church. In politics he is an independent voter, supporting more often the man and measure rather than party. Mr. Kidd's rise has not been spectacular, but rather the result of thorough understanding of the details of each position he held and a reaching out for additional practical knowledge of the one just ahead. When the opportunity came he was always found capable of taking upon himself new and more important responsibilities, and he has thoroughly justified the trust placed in him and his abilities.
WARREN LUCIUS RIPLEY was a representative of the prominent pioneer family of Ripleys in Mahoning County. His life, which was largely spent in his native township of Ellsworth, came to a close on February 15, 1920. He served four years as a Union soldier during the Civil war, and participated in the thick of the fighting from the beginning to the .end of that struggle. His life for half a century was devoted to the farm, and he finally enjoyed a comfortable retirement in the Village of Ellsworth.
He was a grandson. of Gen. William Ripley, who acquired his military title from service in the Ohio Militia. He was born in Connecticut, May 27, 1782, and died December 7, 1866. He was one of a group of pioneers, including his brother Hervey, and Captain Coit and Andrew Fitch, who came west from Connecticut in 1805. General Ripley acquired land from the Connecticut Land Company located in Ellsworth Township, and he erected a substantial building on his land, which was the home of many members of the Ripley family. On returning to Connecticut in 1807 General Ripley married Susan Bingham, who through her mother was a descendant of the noted Bradford family of Massachusetts. General Ripley served as township treasurer and in other local offices. He was in every sense a leading citizen. The pocket-knife which he carried and which he used to shave himself is now more than 100 years old and was carefully preserved by his grandson Warren. Mrs. William Ripley died when nearly ninety years of age. Their children were : Adeline, who became the wife of Joseph Colt and died at the age of twenty-nine; Edwin, born in 18o9, died at Princeton, Illinois; Emily became the wife of Josiah Fitch and died in Wisconsin; Susan was married to Joseph Edwards and died at Marquette, Michigan ; Hervey was the father of Warren L. Ripley; William, born in 1818, married Anna M. Fitch and became a Chicago lumberman, dying in 1906; and John Bingham, born in 1824, was chaplain of the Marine Corps, founded a sailors' home and died at Philadelphia while on duty in 1862.
Hervey Ripley, father of Warren L., was born in Ellsworth Township February 23, 1816, and spent his active life on the old home farm. He and other children lived in the home erected by General Ripley, and Hervey looked after his parents during their declining years. The Ripleys have been Presbyterians in nearly all the generations, though Edwin was a Methodist.- Hervey Ripley served as an elder and prominent church worker for many years. He died April 25, 1894, at the age of seventy-eight. January 7, 1838, he married Hulda Henrietta Sackett, who died in 1874. Her parents were Moses and Cornelia (Fox) Sackett, early settlers of Mahoning County from Connecticut. Hervey and Hulda Ripley reared a large family of children. Judith Perkins, born in 1838, spent her last years at Ellsworth, and her husband, Walter Smith, died in the service of the Union army in Kentucky in 1862. Thomas Corwin born in 1840, enlisted in the Third Iowa Infantry, was discharged on account of sickness, and after the war became a contractor in the rebuilding of the City of Atlanta, Georgia, and died while there. His first wife was Sarah Hughes and his second Annie Ogden. Warren Lucius Ripley was the third of the family. Ward, who was born in 1844 and is now livin the West, enlisted in Company F of the Forty-First Ohio Infantry, was assigned work at headquarters and remained in the army four years and three months. He married Ella Woodward. Edgar, born in 1846, was in a hundred days regiment during the war and is now a resident of Olathe, Kansas. Florence never married, lived with her father, and died in middle
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life. Emma Cordelia died in childhood. William was born in 1859 and died at the age of twenty-one. Margaret Virginia is unmarried and living at Ellsworth Center.
Warren Lucius Ripley was born on the old Ripley homestead a mile west of the Village of Ellsworth, April 26, 1842, and as a boy attended district schools and the College Hill Academy. In September, 1861, at the age of nineteen, he was one of twenty young men of the locality who volunteered, expecting to join the Twentieth Ohio Regiment. Subsequently they went to Cleveland and joined the Forty-First Ohio. Mr. Ripley became a member of Company F. He was the last survivor of these volunteers at Ellsworth. Among others in this section of Ohio are Philo Beardsley of Canfield and R. A. Gault of North Jackson. Mr. Ripley enlisted for three years, but in 1863 veteranized and was not mustered out until November 27, 1865. At the close of the war his regiment was sent to Texas for duty against the threatened invasion from Mexico. He was in the army of the Cumberland, was in all the battles of his regiment and never had any serious injury, though for a number of years during the latter part of his life he suffered from rheumatism brought on by his service. He participated in nearly sixty battles and skirmishes, the first being Shiloh in April, 1862, and the last important battle was at Nashville, December i6, 1864. He was exposed to constant fire all but three of the TOO days of the advance upon Atlanta. He became a second sergeant of his company.
On January 17, 1866, soon after his return from the army, Mr. Ripley married Susann Miller, daughter of Eli and Catherine (Gee) Miller, whose old home has been the residence of Mrs. Ripley most of her life, though the house was remodeled by Mr. Ripley. Her great-grandfather, Philip Miller, came from Germany and was an early pioneer in Mahoning County, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and had a local reputation as a musician. Mrs. Ripley's grandfather, John Miller, was born in 1789 and lived to the age of ninety-four. He married Susann Stambaugh and for many years was prominent among the farmers of Ellsworth Township. His son Emanuel was the father of John Miller, the noted Jersey cattle breeder. Eli Miller, father of Mrs. Ripley, was born in Ellsworth Township in 1821 and died in 1891. His wife, Catherine Gee, was born in New York in 1822 and died in 1903. She was brought to Mahoning County in 1825 by her parents, Rev. Nicholas and Nancy (Furman) Gee. Rev. Nicholas Gee was one of the pioneer ministers of the Methodist Church in Eastern Ohio.
Eli Miller was one of six sons, the others being Jeremiah, John Peter, Emanuel, David and Abraham. Mrs. Ripley was the only child of her parents and was born October 1, 1846, two and a half miles from Ellsworth Center, but since childhood has lived in the old home of her parents at the village. Mr. and Mrs. Ripley owned jointly 140 acres, and he also owned forty acres of the old Ripley farm. Mr. Ripley was a member of Truscott. Post of the Grand Army at Salem, was a republican, was honored with local offices, and with his wife was an active member of the Methodist Church. Two children were born to their marriage: Catherine, born July 14, 1883, and died April 20, 1891 ; and Sehon Miller, born September 11, 1890. The son was well educated, and is now one of the progressive young farmers of his locality, having assumed the burdens of farm management from his father. Sehon Ripley married Hazel Hoy and their two children are Delbert and Donald S.
ROBERT EASTMAN WOODRUFF. Examples that impress force of character on all who study them are worthy of record. By a few general observations may be conveyed some idea of the characteristics and worthy career of Robert E. Woodruff, who is now occupying the responsible position of general superintendent of the Erie Lines, West, having his headquarters and residence in Youngstown. Beginning his career with the Erie Lines in a humble capacity, he has pursued the even tenor of his way in a quiet and unostentatious manner, attending strictly to his duties and winning advancement from time to time. The elements of a solid and practical, nature, which unite in his composition, have won him a conspicuous place among his compeers, and today he enjoys the confidence and regard of his associates to a notable degree.
Robert Eastman Woodruff was born at Green Bay, Wisconsin, on September 11, 1884, and is one of three children born to the marriage of Walter H. and Bell (Eastman) Woodruff. The father was a fruit grower and lumberman, in which he met with splendid success. He has acquired a comfortable competency and now divides his time between his homes at. Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Florida.
Robert E. Woodruff lived at Green Bay, Wisconsin, until twelve years of age, when the family moved to Benton Harbor. He secured his elementary training in the public schools and then entered Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana, where in 1905 he was graduated from the scientific and civil engineering courses, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. While there, also, he joined the Theta Xi fraternity. Five days after his graduation Mr. Woodruff began his career in railroad work at Warren, Ohio, his record from that time to the present being as follows: Track laborer, track foreman, transitman, inspector of construction work, Warren, Ohio, June so, 1905, to June I, 1906; assistant division engineer, Mahoning Division, Youngstown, June 1, 1906, to December 1, 1906; division engineer, Meadville Division, Pennsylvania, December r, 1906, to November, 0908; train master, Cincinnati Division, Galion, Ohio, November, 19o8, to March, 1909; general agent, Chicago terminal, Chicago, March, 1909, to December, 191o; superintendent, Rochester Division, New York, December, 1910, to May 14, 1912; superintendent, Kent Division, Marion, Ohio, May 15, 1912, to October 3o, 1916 ; superintendent, Mahoning Division, Youngstown, November 0, 1916, to November I, 1917; superintendent of transportation, Lines West, Youngstown, November 1, 1917, to June 15, 1918; general superintendent, Lines West, June 15, 1918, to the present time. The lines under his immediate supervision extend from Salamanca, New York, to Hammond, Indiana, and comprise a vast mileage, with a tremendous volume of business. By natural adaptation and training Mr. Woodruff is peculiarly well qualified for the responsible work in which he is
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engaged, and his record in the various capacities in which he has served the Erie Lines is one in which he is justifiably proud.
Fraternally Mr. Woodruff is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons, in which he has attained the degree of Knight Templar. He is also a member of the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club, the Railway Signal Association, the American Railway Engineers' Association, and the International Fuel Association. His marriage with Beatrice Bruck, of Columbus, Ohio, was celebrated on June 8, 19o7. Although modest and unassuming, Mr. Woodruff possesses a strong and vigorous personality, and in the best sense of the term is a born leader of men and well fitted to manage important work and large enterprises.
THOMAS B. VAN ALSTINE, president of the Central Savings and Loan Company and chairman of the board of directors of the Central Bank and Trust Company, is one of Youngstown's oldest business men, with a continuous record of residence and activity in the city for more than half a century.
He was born at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, February 13, 1843. He grew up there, had the advantages of the common schools and at the age of twenty went to the State of Connecticut. While there he learned and worked at the trade of carpenter. Three years later he was in the oil district of Western Pennsylvania, and was a witness of and participant in many phases of the excitement and business development.
Mr. Van Alstine has been a resident of Youngstown since 1867. For a time he worked at his trade as a carpenter, did some general contracting, and in the fall of 1875, with three associates, bought a planing mill and lumber yard and organized the Youngstown Lumber Company. This business was conducted on a prosperous and enlarging scale, and in 1898 Mr. Van Alstine became sole proprietor of the yards and mill. In the spring of 1916 the Youngstown Lumber Company and six other similar organizations consolidated as the Union Wholesale Lumber Company, a corporation in which he is still financially interested as a stockholder.
Mr. Van Alstine has been interested in the real estate business, and in several local industries. He was one of the organizers of the Central Savings and Loan Company, and has been its first and only president. This company organized the Central Bank and Trust Company, and after the resignation of Mr. Jacobs Mr. Van Alstine became chairman of its board of directors.
For many years he has been a stanch and active member of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, is chairman of the board of trustees of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, and in a half century his name has been associated with many of the organized movements for Youngstown's growth and upbuilding. In 1868 he married Miss Susanna Wehr. They were the parents of three daughters, Blanche W., Jessie and Ruth. The only one now living is Blanche.
CLINTON GERALDYS THOMAS. Members Of the Thomas family have been identified with the iron and steel industry of the Mahoning Valley for more than half a century. A grandson of the pioneer of the family in the valley, Clinton G. Thomas, has long been known as an executive in several of the larger industries of the valley, and is a resident of Warren.
His grandfather, Thomas Thomas, came from Wales and settled in the Mahoning Valley about the close of the American Civil war. He had several sons, one of whom is William A. Thomas, president of the Brier Hill Steel Company. Clinton G. Thomas' father was a native of Wales, and for many years a leading dry goods merchant at Niles, where he died in 19o1. The mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Evans, was born in Paris Township of Portage County, Ohio, and died in 1912.
Clinton G. Thomas was born at Niles, March 12, 1882, grew up in his native city, and made the best of his opportunities in the public schools. In 1900, at the age of eighteen, he entered the offices of the Thomas Steel Company at Niles, and continued with that establishment until it was sold to the Brier Hill Steel Company. In the meantime his industry, alert mind and natural fitness for industrial work have promoted him to the position of vice president and general sales manager. With the change in ownership he became assistant to the president of the Brier Hill Steel Company, his uncle, and remained in that capacity until 1914, when he gave his time to the promotion and organization of the Western Reserve Steel Company at Warren. Mr. Thomas served as president of the Western Reserve Company until its plant and business were sold to the Brier Hill Steel Company in 1917. Since then he has had much to do with the building up of another important industry in the valley, the Sykes Metal Lathe & Roofing Company of Niles, of which he is vice president. He still retains his home at Warren.
Mr. Thomas is a member of the Niles Masonic Lodge, Warren Commandery of Knights Templar, Warren Board of Trade, Country Club, Youngstown Club, Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh and the Cleveland Athletic Club. He married Layte Hice, who was born and reared at New Castle, Pennsylvania. She is a daughter of Samuel Hice.
LOUIS H. YOUNG has done a large amount of important contract work in connection with railroad construction, bridge building, road improvements, etc., in the Mahoning Valley, and is now president of the L. H. Young Contracting Company, which controls a large and prosperous business. He owns and resides on one of the fine farms of Lordstown Township, Trumbull County, this place being attractively situated seven miles south of Warren, judicial center of the county, and nine miles west of Youngstown, county seat of Mahoning County.
Mr. Young was born in Austintown, Mahoning County, October 18, 1861, and is a son of Henry and Julia (Wappler) Young, who were born and reared in Nassau, Germany, whence they came to America in 1851, within a short time after their marriage. The sailing vessel on which they took passage required forty-nine days to make the voyage across the Atlantic, and soon after landing in the port of the national metropolis the young couple came to Cleve-
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land, where a cousin of Mr. Young was then conducting a hotel. In his native land Mr. Young had learned the trade of brick and stone mason, and at Cleveland he engaged in contracting at his trade. Three years later he came to Trumbull County, as contractor in the erection of the iron furnaces established at Mineral Ridge by Jonathan Warner. He had charge of the building of the foundations and other work in this connection, and after completing the service he established his home at Austintown, Mahoning County, and became a general contractor in stone and brick work. He developed a substantial business in this line, as a skilled and careful artisan and competent executive, and his loyalty to the land of his adoption was significantly shown at the outbreak of the Civil war, for he promptly enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he went to the front and took part in the many engagements in which the command was involved, his service having covered virtually the entire period of the war. He held the office of corporal at the time he was mustered out with his regiment and duly received his honorable discharge. He became afflicted with cancer, and as a result his death occurred in 1874, when he was comparatively a young man. His widow survived him many years and was summoned to the life eternal in 1892, the last eighteen years of her life having been passed in the home of her son Louis H., of this review. She was a woman of marked ability, and after the death of her husband she maintained a good home for her children, some of whom were of adult age at the time of the father's death. Susan, eldest of the children, is the wife of August Kroeck, of Austintown; William was engaged in the contracting business at that place at the time of his death, when twenty-eight years of age; Elizabeth is the wife of Henry Ruhlf, of Austintown ; August is a successful farmer in North Jackson Township, Mahoning County, and has been associated with his brother Louis in contracting operations; Louis H., immediate subject of this review, was next in order of birth; Rose died at the age of eighteen years; Julia became the wife of Thomas Creed and died in middle life; and Miss Louisa resides in the home of her brother Louis H.
Louis H. Young gained his early education in the public schools of Mahoning County and was about 13 years of age at the time of his father's death. He had gained practical experience in connection with the contracting business conducted by his brother William, who had taken a contract for grading and masonry work on the line of railroad between Warren and Lowellsville and who was engaged in this work at the time of his death, and Louis H. then assumed the contract, though he was not yet twenty-one years of age at the time. He had been foreman on the work for his brother, and thou he sublet a part of the contract, he completed th greater part himself, with a corps of eighty men. This contract was for $70,000, and his energy and ability enabled him to complete the work successfully in eighteen months. In order to obtain necessary working capital he borrowed $500 from a friend, who also endorsed his note for the requisite working equipment, and C. H. Andrews, then president of the road under construction (now a part of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad), was so impressed with the ambition and determined purpose of Mr. Young that he assured him of assistance in carrying out the contract, which was co, pleted to the satisfaction of all concerned. On tit contract Mr. Young realized sufficient profit to enable him to continue independent operations as a c tractor, and his record in this line has been one continuous success, his reputation in itself constituting a valuable asset at all stages. He has handled large and important contracts for mason work and heavy railroad construction work, including the erection of railroad bridges in several counties in this section of Ohio. He built nearly all bridges on the line of the Mahoning Valley Railroad, has employed as many as 125 men in connection with specific contracts and has always been "right on the job" himself, to insure utmost fidelity to the terms of contract. About ten years ago he became one of the first contractors in road improvements carried forward with the aid of the state, and this has constituted the leading feature of his contracting business since that time. He has been prominently identified with the construction of good roads in Northern Ohio, and in 1915, to facilitate the handling of his business he effected the incorporation of the L. H. Young Contracting Company, which is capitalized for $10,000, and of which he is president and general manager. His associates in the company are Ross O'Rourke, of West Austintown, and William P. Kseeker, of East Youngstown. This vital and progressive company does general contracting, including street paving, construction of sewer systems, etc., as well as road work, and its contracts for the year 1919 aggregated $200,000. In the business is invested about $5o,000, and the working equipment is of the best modern standard, including five five-ton motor trucks. Mr. Young gives practically his entire time and attention to the management of the contract business of his company. He was for fifteen years a stockholder of the Mineral Ridge Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of mine and mill equipment, cars, tipples, hoists, etc., but in 1917 the plant was converted into a tube mill and the name changed to the Ohio Steel Products Company, Mr. Young having been president of the company, the annual business of which averaged about $200,000. He is a director of both of the banks at Niles, and to the old home place, of about thirty acres, he has added until he now owns a valuable landed estate of about 40o acres. He has made the best of modern improvements on his farm property, which is devoted to diversified agriculture, to the dairy business (with an average of about twenty milch cows), and to the raising of horses and sheep of the best types. Mr. Young takes pride in his fine herd of thoroughbred Holstein cattle. His varied and important interests mark him as one of the representative business men of the Mahoning Valley, and he is liberal and progressive as a citizen, with naught of political ambition.
In 1890 Mr. Young wedded Miss Ida Ohl, daughter of William and Eliza Jane (Maurer) Ohl, of Austintown, and they have five children: William C. is manager of the aeronautic department of the Goodyear Rubber Company at Akron, Ohio, and in this connection he had charge of the demonstration of the company's airship which met with accident and crashed down upon one of the leading banking institu-
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tions of Chicago, causing loss of life, many injuries and much material damage, as was exploited fully in newspaper accounts of this deplorable accident ; Laverne remains at the parental home and is a popular teacher in the Central High School at Lordstown ; Lamar is a student in the University of Ohio; and Arthur and Imogene are attending the local schools.
HARRY H. GEITGEY. Continuously since he left college and came to Youngstown in 1901 Harry H. Geitgey has been in the service of and one of the chief factors in the success of the Federal Savings & Loan Company, of which he is vice president and manager.
Mr. Geitgey was born at Wooster, Ohio, February 4, 1875, a son of David and Eliza (Kaercher) Geitgey, his father a native of Ohio and his mother of Pennsylvania. His parents were of remote German ancestry, their respective families having been established in the American colonies at an early date. His grandfather was George and his great-grandfather Adam Geitgey. Adam Geitgey came from the vicinity of Philadelphia, with wife and seven sons, and early in the last century entered land in Wayne County, Ohio. He died only a few years later, when his children were still small. Many of the Geitgey family are still represented in Wayne County. George Geitgey was the second among the children, and spent his active career as a farmer. He was killed by the falling of a tree. He married Margaret Geiselman. David Geitgey also followed farming, and was a carpenter and was a man of good education and enjoyed the high esteem of a large community. He died in 1910 and his widow in 1911.
Harry H. Geitgey, who was one of four children, grew up on the home farm, and this homestead where he was reared has never been out of the family possession since entered by Adam Geitgey in 1802. It is now occupied by Harry Geitgey's sister, Mrs. Gertrude F. Miller. Harry Geitgey received a district school education, also attended high school at Apple Creek, Ohio, and later entered Wooster College, where he continued his studies until the conclusion of his sophomore year. He then left college and for three years taught school, one year in his home district and two years as superintendent of schools at Burbank, Ohio! After that interval he resumed his studies at Wooster, and continued until graduating with the Bachelor of Science degree in mot. On coming to Youngstown Mr. Geitgey became secretary of the Equity Savings & Loan Company, the name of which company was later changed to The Federal Savings & Loan Company, and Mr. Geitgey has since acquired the responsibilities of vice president and manager. When he became identified with this corporation its total deposits aggregated only $8,000. In 1920 the books of the company showed deposits of over four and one-half million dollars, and its prosperity and the service it has rendered reflect a high degree of credit upon the financial ability of Mr. Geitgey.
The latter is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, treasurer of the Rotary Club, is honorary president of the Real Estate Board, a member of the Credit Men's Association and the Knights of
Pythias. July 3, 1901, he married Miss Hallie E. Neumeyer, of Burbank, Ohio. Their two children are Evelyn Gladys and Harry H., Jr.
EDWARD PARKS, ex-mayor of Warren, Ohio, was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, May 29, 1855, the son of John and Mary Ann (Gott) Parks. His parents were both born in Ireland of Scotch-Irish ancestry. John Parks was born in County Leitrim, and his wife, Mary Ann Gott, in County Cavan. John Parks was a cattle buyer in Ireland for the English market. He died in Ireland in 1912, at the age of eighty-four years. His widow is still living in her Leitrim home, now being seventy-eight years of age.
Edward, son of John and Mary Ann (Gott) Parks, was reared in Ireland, and he attended the public schools of that country. He was seventeen years old when he came with his mother and sister to this country on a visit to relatives in the neighborhood of Warren. However, before the visit was terminated, young Parks had resolved to remain in America, his mother and sister returning to Ireland without him.
Mr. Parks' first work in America was as a hired hand on the farm of Samuel Johnson, west of the City of Warren, and for the next eight years he worked on neighboring farms. He was next in the employ of John Stull, attorney of Warren, and later worked for Doctor Harmon of that city. In 1893 he entered the employ of the Buckeye Pipe Company of Warren and continued for five years with that company. In 1898 he became a member of the Warren City police force, and continued on the force for the following fifteen years. His strong personality, his faithfulness, and efficiency brought him into favor and popularity, and in 1913 he was nominated by the republican party and elected mayor of the city. He served as mayor in 1914 and 1915, and in 1918 he was re-elected, his re-election indicating the quality of his service as the chief administrator of the city, a city which is noted for its many capable men of affairs.
During the period in which Mr. Parks was mayor Warren had a notably rapid expansion in many directions, and many important improvements were instituted in the public administration and much public work initiated and carried to satisfactory completion. The police and fire departments were reorganized upon a more efficient and comprehensive standard, and fourteen miles of pavement were laid, as were also several miles of sewerage. The bridge built at the Summit Street crossing of the Mahoning River was constructed during his administration, and bears a plate upon which has been inscribed a public recognition of the efficient civic labors of Mayor Parks. The place Mr. Parks has earned for himself in the records of. the City of Warren is clearly a consequential one, and it has been said of him by another chronicler, "The success and popularity- of Mayor Parks has come by his course in public affairs, his one creed being summed up in the few words : `A moral city, and a square deal to every man—be he rich or poor.' " That he has held ever before him such a worthy motive in his public works gives indication of his personal character, and explains why his administrations were effective and to the general satisfaction of the people of the city. His public life
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has been estimable, and his private life has been also quite as commendable.
Mr. Parks is a member of the Episcopal Church of Warren and of the Warren Board of Trade, the Knights of Pythias and the Order of Moose.
He was married on April 26, 1893, to Emma J. Foster, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Creigmiles) Foster, of Warren. Mrs. Parks has entered much into social movements in the community, having very many friends.
HENRY QUIMBY STILES, whose name for over twenty years has been prominently associated with merchandising, banking and manufacturing at Warren, has added his own achievements to those of two preceding generations of the Stiles family in the Mahoning Valley.
The family are of Scotch lineage, and were among the early representatives of Scotland in New England. Henry Stiles, founder of the family in the Mahoning Valley, was born at Danbury, Connecticut, in 1798. Three years later, in 18o1, he was brought to Canfield, Mahoning County, with the family of his stepfather, Comfort S. Mygat, a name that has some interesting associations with pioneer life here. At the age of fourteen Henry Stiles became an apprentice at the trade of saddler and harness maker at Warren. The trade was his regular occupation until 1833, when he became a general merchant, and for many years conducted business as Henry Stiles' Sons & Company. He was still active in affairs up to the time of his death in 1869. His wife was Mary Reeves, a native of Pennsylvania, who died in 1859.
Their son William Reeves Stiles was born in Warren April 29, 1827. It has been characteristic of the family to take up the serious business of life at an early age. In 1842, in his fifteenth year, W. R. Stiles became a clerk in his father's store. In 1858 he was admitted to membership in the firm of Henry Stiles Sons & Company, but in 1882 withdrew from that business and in 1887 was elected cashier of the First National Bank of Warren. As a banker his work was continuous until ill health compelled him to resign. He married, January 15, 1853, Eliza Potter, who was born at Wooster, Ohio, a daughter of Samuel and Lucy (Quimby) Potter. Their two children are Lucy Potter, wife of R. A. Cobb, of Warren, and Henry Quimby.
Henry Quimby Stiles was born at Warren May 19, 1870. He was liberally educated, first in the Warren schools, then in Peekskill Military Academy in New York, and finally in the Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie. He was only eighteen when in 1888 he began his business career as clerk in his father's store. The extensive business interests that distinguish his name have been chiefly formed in the last twenty years. In 1900 he was one of the organizers of the Western Reserve Furniture Company, and has served as secretary and treasurer since its incorporation. He is president of the Warren Hardware Company, a director of the Union Savings & Trust Company, a director in the Winfield Manufacturing Company, a director in the Warren Opera House Company, and a trustee of the Warren City Library. Fraternally Mr. Stiles is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, Warren Commandery, Knights Templar, Cleveland Consistory Scottish Rite thirty-second degree, and Al Koran Temple of the M Shrine.
June 2, 1892, Mr. Stiles married Lena Belle Thayer. She was born at Southington, Ohio, her father, Rev. I. A. Thayer, being a minister of the Disciple. Church. Mr. and Mrs. Stiles have two children, representatives of the fourth generation at Warren, named Henry Thayer and Rolland Cobb Stiles.
B. FRANKLIN LEAR, the leading doctor of chiropra. practic in Trumbull County, enjoys a large pr in his home city of Warren and surrounding tar' and has through his personal character and skill much to advance the prestige of chiropractic this section of Ohio.
Doctor Lear was born at Pekin, Indiana, Angus 1885, son of James and Alice (Bowman) Lear. father was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1852, o' Dutch descent, and has given all his life to the business of farming. He is still living at Pekin, Indiana, Alice Bowman, his wife, was born at Salem, Indi in 1857, and is descended from an old Vir family.
Doctor Lear was educated in the common and schools of Pekin, attended the Central Normal lege at Danville, Indiana, and after leaving co was a commercial traveler for eight years. He the road to enter the Palmer School of Chiropr at Davenport, Iowa, and was graduated with D. C. degree in 1917. In June of the same. Doctor Lear began practice at Warren, with office the Western Reserve Building. He has gain large following and has been directly responsible the widening appreciation of the science of chimp tic. It is said that the practice in chiropractic increased at least 75 per cent since he came Warren. He is the only graduate of that school 'la the city.
Doctor Lear is a member of the Mahoning V. Chiropractic Association, the Ohio State Chiropra Association and the Universal (National) Chiropractic Association. He is affiliated with Little
Rock Arkansas, Lodge of Elks No. 29.
CALEB B. ARNER, esteemed resident of Ellsworth, Township, Mahoning County, Ohio, is a grandson of Philip Arner, who was the first settler in Ellsworth Township, coming to it in 1803, when the section was part of Trumbull County. Caleb B. Arner now operates the farm, and his father lived for ninety years on the same farm, being born on it in 1820 and upon it he died in 1910. The farm is on the Canfield-Ellsworth Road, and it was the birthplace, also of Caleb, who was born January 28, 1853.
Philip Arner, pioneer settler in Ellsworth Township in 1803, owned over 400 acres in the township and outlined the road through his farm and across Meander Creek, which bordered of the length of the farm. His wife was Susan Broadsword, and parently they lived in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, and two children were born to them before they came into Ohio. Philip Arner presumably came on into the wilderness alone in 1803, and afterward his wife's brother came and settled where the village
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of Ellsworth eventually was established. Philip's wife and children then, possibly, came from Bedford County, Pennsylvania. All their other children were born in Ohio, and Ellsworth Township was thereafter their home. Philip Amer lived almost fifty years in the township, his death occurring in about 1851, at the age of seventy-five years. His widow survived for a further fourteen years, dying in 1865, at about the time of the erection of the house now standing and in occupation. She was probably much past eighty years old when death came. Her son Daniel bought out all the interests of the other heirs after his father's death, and cared for his mother during her widowhood. All the other members of the family left, and he took over the operation of the entire tract of 400 acres. He lost some of the land through an absconding friend for whom he stood as bail, but his wife appears to have retained the home farm. Daniel was an extensive stock dealer, and in the early days drove herds of cattle and sheep across the mountains to Philadelphia. He made many such trips, and thus became known to many people in Pennsylvania. He was one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Ellsworth, its first church building standing on his property. He was buried at Ellsworth. His wife,' who predeceased him by twenty-five years, was a daughter of Adam and Nancy Harklerode, whose farm was somewhat more than a mile from the Arner homestead, and on Meander Creek. She was born there, and her parents were original settlers. Daniel D. Amer and his wife, Elizabeth Arner, were the parents of four children, who, in order of birth, were : Lee L., who developed a good farm in Ashtabula County ; Adeline, who married Mark Gensler, and died when she was twenty-nine years old; Caleb B., of whose life more is written later herein; and Wesley P., who became a physician at Fowler, Trumbull County.
Caleb B. Arner, son of Daniel D. and Elizabeth (Harklerode) Arner, was born January 28, 1853, and he has lived all his life on the farm upon which he was born. His wife has also lived the greater part of her life on the homestead, and as one of the Amer family, for she lost her mother when she was only two years old, and she definitely came into the Amer family when she was ten years old. She was cared for as one of their own children by Daniel D. Arner and his wife, and grew up with their children. She, Winona Vesey, was a daughter of Alexander and Margaret (Cammert) Vesey. Her father, who was a veteran of the Civil war, lived in Canfield Township, and later in Warren, Ohio, where he died in 1906, aged seventy-five years. Her mother, Margaret Cammert Vesey, died at the early age of thirty years, when Winona was in infancy. The latter married Caleb B. Amer when she was eighteen years old, and was glad in later life to be able to return the affection and kindness of Daniel Amer and his wife by caring for them in their old age. From early manhood Caleb operated the home farm, and he has lived a commendable life of useful industry. Politically he is a democrat, as was his father, but he has not entered very actively into political affairs, and has never sought political office. Mrs. Amer is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and both Mr. and Mrs. Arner are generally well regarded by the people of the district, and especially by their near neighbors, who know them to he sincere, helpful and hospitable. They are the parents of nine children, the children in order of birth being : Elizabeth, who married Clyde Johnson, of Boardman Township; Josephine, who married John W. Bunts, of Ellsworth Village Ray C., of Canfield Township, whose life is the subject of further reference elsewhere in this work ; Margaret, who married Frank Stewart, both of whom are now deceased, Mrs. Stewart dying at the age of twenty-six years; Lulu, who married Hugh Goodrich, a hardware dealer in Cleveland, Ohio; Mary, who married Harry Roberts, of Youngstown ; Bertha, who married Vernon Brooks, a lumber dealer and manufacturer of Berlin City, Ohio; Myron L., who until recently was a successful farmer of Boardman Township; and Helen L., who is still in school.
RALPH HOMER ALLISON, of Warren, was born at Mount Vernon, Ohio, September 16, 1879, son of John and Mary (Vail) Allison. His great-grandfather, William Allison, a native of New York State and of Scotch-Irish ancestry, came with a brother and settled at East Palestine, Ohio, at a very early date. Mr. Allison's grandfathers were Obediah Allison, a native of Lisbon, Ohio, and William Vail. a native of Morrow County, Ohio, and a son of Thomas Vail. John Allison, father of Ralph H., was born at East Palestine, was for many years engaged as a wood buyer and commission merchant at Mount Vernon, and is now living retired at Delaware, this state. His wife, a native of Morrow County, died in 1897.
Ralph Homer Allison was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1903 with the Bachelor of Science degree. He immediately took up teaching, a profession he followed for sixteen years in Ohio. Mr. Allison first became identified with Warren in 1913 as principal of the Warren High School, and he remained the active head of that institution until 1919. He made a host of warm friends in the city as a school man, and had an important following when he entered the real estate business. Mr. Allison organized the North Park Development Company for the purpose of developing land in and around Warren. The company is incorporated and Mr. Allison is its president. He is an active member of the Warren Real Estate Board, the Warren Board of Trade, the Warren Rotary Club, and is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, the Masonic Club, Independence Lodge No. 8o, Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the college fraternity Phi Delta Theta. His church is the First Methodist.
Mr. Allison married Mary Osborn, a native of Mount Vernon, Ohio, the daughter of Byron and Emma (Brokaw) Osborn. They have two children, Helen and Richard Hamill.
JUDGE JUDSON CANFIELD. The Canfield family, which was one of prominence in Connecticut in colonial days and in the early years of the republic, was importantly connected with the early history of the Mahoning Valley of Ohio, and the village and
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township of Canfield in Mahoning County were so named directly because of the connection of the Canfield family with their settlement.
Judge Judson Canfield, who was born January 23, 1759, and died February 5, 1840, comes into Ohio records as the owner of extensive landed property in the vicinity of Rocky River, to the westward of Cleveland. He did not, however, himself come into Ohio, although he constantly had connection with business affairs in Ohio during the last forty years or so of his life. He was one of the group of leading and wealthy Connecticut men who owned the vast Western Reserve in Ohio, and for the purpose of handling that territory formed the old Connecticut Land Company of Sharon, Connecticut. Judson Canfield was the agent in Connecticut for that company, which sent agents into Ohio in the first years of the nineteenth century to survey the land and handle its local interests. One such agent was Henry Canfield, son of Judge Judson Canfield, and he became chief of the early settlers in Canfield, Mahoning County. He was not the first settler, but he and his father had such close part in the planning of the village that he should rightly be considered as one of its founders. Judge Judson Canfield was an eminent Connecticut jurist, and at one time took a leading part in legislative activities in that state, being elected to the State Senate. He married Mabel Ruggles, of New Milford, Connecticut, on March 5, 1786. She was born on November 8, 176o, and of much historical interest are the old ambrotypes of Judge Judson Canfield and his wife, and also those of his and of her parents, all of which were taken from paintings in the possession of descendants of these old colonial families. The ambrotypes are owned by Julia Canfield, great-granddaughter of Judge Judson Canfield.
Henry Canfield, son of Judson and Mabel (Ruggles) Canfield, was the pioneer settler of the Canfield family in Ohio. He first settled at Rocky River, near Cleveland, his purpose probably being to look after the extensive landed estate of his father in that section. It was there that he met Sally Ferris, whom he soon afterward married, and their son, Judson, who was born in 1828, was probably born in that place. About five or six years later Henry Canfield permanently settled in Canfield, Mahoning County, in which vicinity Judge Judson Canfield personally owned 6,000 acres. The village of Canfield had been laid out some years anterior to the coming to it of Henry Canfield, and the first surveyors had named the place Campfield, but the name was soon changed to the patronymic of its principal owner. The town had been planned similarly to Sharon, the Connecticut home of the Canfield family, and when Henry Canfield came into the village to take up permanent residence he chose as the site for his home a spot similar in location to that of his father's home in Sharon, Connecticut.
Henry Canfield was a man of superior education, and in Ohio lived more the life of a squire than a farmer. Certainly he was a better scholar than farmer, and he had been reared under conditions such as were customary in the homes of New England gentry. He graduated in letters at Yale College, as did his father before him, and when it became necessary for him to give thought to agricultural matters he approached it more in the manner of the student and philomath. He entered into a special study of sheep, and as one would expect in a man of his general education and aptitude for assimilating knowledge, he eventually became an authority on the subject, and put his knowledge into public record, being the author of the book "Canfield on Sheep." He was much given to bibliolatry, and during his residence in Canfield collected a fine library. He lived, in general, the life of a gentleman-farmer, of studious inclinations. He died in about 1856, his wife, however, living for almost a generation longer, her death not occurring until 1881, she being then eighty-five years old. They were the parents of two children, Julia and Judson. Julia eventually married Colden Ruggles, a cousin, but died in early womanhood, in about the same year as that in which her father died. Her husband met his death in military service during the Civil war. He was a paymaster in the Union Army, was taken prisoner and unfortunately incarcerated in that dreaded military prison, Andersonville, Georgia, where almost 13,000 Union soldiers died in captivity within fifteen months, Paymaster Ruggles among them, such an appalling death roll being directly due to the inhuman practices, barbarities, and neglect of the Confederate jailors, chief among the instruments of misused authority being Henry Wurz, a Swiss, who after the war was found guilty and hanged.
Judson, the other child of Henry and Sally (Ferris) Canfield, was about six years old when his parents settled in Canfield, and in due course he also was a soldier of the Union during the Civil war, being a provost marshal. In later life he was a surveyor, and spent almost all his years in Mahoning County. For some years he was county surveyor, and was so familiar with the territory that, it is said, he could locate any corner stone in the county. He inherited the parental estate in Canfield, and made Canfield his home throughout his life. He died 1900, at the age of seventy-two years. In 1854 he married Betsy M. Turner, daughter of James and Rachel (Reed) Turner, of Canfield. Her death preceded his by about nine years. They had five children, namely : Julia A., who spent her life in Canfield; Maud M., who married J. Allen Klein, of Canfield, regarding which early family of Mahoning County note will be found elsewhere in this edition; Walter Henry, who became an official of the Erie Railroad and lives in Youngstown; Judson Turner, who is in professional life, a civil engineer in Lisbon, Ohio; and Colden Ruggles, who lives in Oregon.
Walter Henry Canfield was born in Canfield, May 13, 1869. His education was received in public school, in Northeastern and in the Ohio Normal College. In 1887 he was engaged with the Erie Railroad and was with that company until 1913. He then gave his attention for seven years to his property affairs, which include the Canfield Apartment Block erected by him in 1912. It is a fine, modern, three-story brick building accommodating twelve families and is located on the northwest corner of Market and Delason streets. Recently he resumed his connections with the railroads. He is a republican, but
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not active in politics. Mr. Canfield married, July 18, 1892, Mary R. Newton, a daughter of Henry Newton, of Boardman. They have one son, Judson Newton Canfield, and one daughter, Lillian Adelaide Canfield, at home.
FRANK L. BALDWIN was admitted to the Ohio bar thirty years ago. He has held many responsibilities in his profession, and also in the civic affairs of his home city of Youngstown. He is a former mayor and now and for several years past has been secretary and counsel for the Youngstown Humane Society.
He was born at Youngstown, June 29, 1863, son of Timothy D. and Lucretia Kirtland (Manning) Baldwin. The Baldwins are an old and prominent Connecticut colonial family, transplanted to that Colony from England. The grandfather of Frank L. Baldwin was Samuel Baldwin, who was born in the State of New York in 1793 and settled in Portage County, Ohio, more than a century ago. He was a substantial farmer and held several places of responsibility and trust in his community. He died in 1874, at the age of eighty-one. Timothy D. Baldwin, father of the Youngstown lawyer, was born in Portage County in 1827 and came to Youngstown in 1848. He had taught school, and at Youngstown became a bookkeeper. In 1859 he was elected auditor of Mahoning County, and was honored with a second term. He also engaged in business at Cleveland, and for six years was manager of a New York business house. He died October 21, 1903. His wife, Lucretia Manning, was daughter of Dr. Henry Manning of Youngstown. She died November 5, 1897, the mother of ten children.
Frank L. Baldwin was the eighth among these children, and spent most of his early life in Youngstown. He attended the Rayen High School and prepared for college at the Western Reserve Academy at Hudson, and was graduated in 1887, with the A. B. degree, from Adelbert College of Western Reserve University at Cleveland. Three years later he received the Master of Arts degree from the same institution. Mr. Baldwin read law with C. D. Hine and John H. Clarke at Youngstown, Ohio. The latter is now a justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was admitted to the bar December 5, 1889, and for several years he practiced his profession in Leadville and Denver, Colorado. In June, 1898, he returned to Youngstown, and has been a leader in his profession and civic affairs ever since. While in Leadville, Colorado, he served as city solicitor one term during 1893-94. Mr. Baldwin has been the man. whose kindly spirit and judgment have made the Youngstown Humane Society the instrument of local welfare for the past twenty years. He was elected counsel for the organization in January, 1899, and for the past ten years has also been secretary. He was chosen mayor of Youngstown in 19o5, and the two years of his administration struck a high point in municipal improvement and efficiency. During that administration the work of widening West Federal Street from the original survey was undertaken, an improvement that stands out as one of the cheapest and best among municipal undertakings.
7Mr. Baldwin is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and Elks, is a member of the Youngstown Club and the Alpha Delta Phi college fraternity. September 12, 189o, he married Miss Bessie G. Graham, of Indianapolis, who died March 28, 1894, the mother of one daughter, Imogen Baldwin. His daughter is now completing her junior year in the Medical Department of Johns Hopkins University. She is a graduate of the Rayen High School at Youngstown and of Mount Holyoke College. On June 19, 1912, Mr. Baldwin married Miss Elizabeth E. Bycroft, of East Palestine, Ohio. They have one son, Frank Frederick.
MIVERT J. BARNES proved in an emphatic way the success-possibilities in connection with agricultural and livestock industry carried forward according to the best modern standards and scientific methods, and the fine landed estate which he accumulated and developed in Mahoning County fully attests the consistency of the foregoing statement. He died March 24, 1920.
Mr. Barnes was born in Lexington Township, Stark County, Ohio, December 21, 1854, and was a son of James and Elizabeth (Haines) Barnes. James Barnes was born and reared in England, whence in 1827 he came to America in company with his brothers John, Harry and Joseph, an elder brother, in consonance with the English rule of primogeniture, having inherited the greater part of the family property. Thus the four brothers who came to the United States had but little financial fortification, but they were endowed with youthful energy, self-reliance and ambition—thoroughly fortified for the achieving of independence through personal effort. All of these brothers came to Portage County, Ohio, within a short time after their arrival in America, and James Barnes obtained a tract of heavily timbered land in Portage County, where he made a clearing and erected a log cabin. When this cabin was later destroyed by fire his only commercial asset was represented in an ax, and with this he made his way to Girard, where he found employment in connection with the construction of a dam across the Mahoning River. Thus he earned enough money to buy necessary provisions, which he purchased at Youngstown. There he bought bed-ticking, from which to make shirts that would prove more durable than the type then commonly used, and he and his brothers established their home on their embryonic forest farms in Deerfield Township. There James Barnes continued his arduous work of reclamation and improvement until about 1850, when he left his original homestead and removed to a farm about nine miles distant therefrom and within 2 1/2 miles of Alliance, Stark County. This he developed into one of the valuable properties of the latter county, and there he continued to reside until his death, March 4, 1873, at the age of sixty-seven years. His brother Joseph eventually went to Essex County, Ontario, Canada, where representatives of his family still remain. The other two brothers remained in Ohio until their death. Mrs. Elizabeth (Haines) Barnes was born in South Township, Mahoning County, a member of a pioneer family of prominence,
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and she died in 1875, at the age of fifty-eight years. Of the children of James and Elizabeth (Haines) Barnes six attained to maturity : John, who went to visit his uncle Joseph in Essex County, Ontario, remained there, developed a farm, married and reared his children, he having there passed the remainder of his life. Joseph was a resident of Iowa at the time of his death. James is a farmer in Edinburg Township, Portage County. Mary E., the widow of Walter Notman, resides in Deerfield Township, Portage County. Sarah married while visiting at the home of her brother John in Ontario, Canada, where she passed the remainder of her life. Mivert J. is the immediate subject of this review.
Mivert J. Barnes acquired his early education in the public schools of Stark County, and there he, as well as his brother Joseph and his sister Mary, remained at the parental home until the death of their father. Later the old home farm was sold, and about this time, in 1877, Mivert J. Barnes came to Ellsworth Township, Mahoning County, where his marriage had previously occurred. He had attended district school in Lexington Township, this county, and for two years had been a student in Union College, besides which he had taught two winter terms of school in the old home district. Miss Mary Alice Diehl was born and reared in Ellsworth Township, Mahoning County, a daughter of Eli Diehl and a sister of Jesse Diehl, in whose sketch, on other pages of this work, are given further data concerning the family history. After the marriage of Mary A. Diehl to Mivert J. Barnes, the latter, whose financial resources were most meager, worked for three years on the farm of his wife's father. He then purchased a farm in the same neighborhood, and there he continued his well ordered activities as an agriculturist and stock grower for the ensuing thirty-seven years, at the expiration of which, in December, 1912, he removed to Berlin Center, where he died. Success attended his vigorous efforts, and he eventually added to his original holdings until he became the owner of about 700 acres of valuable land, divided into eight farms and equipped with five sets of buildings. In initiating his independent work as a farmer Mr. Barnes assumed an appreciable indebtedness in the purchasing of a partially improved farm, for the cultivation of which he provided a few essential implements. He developed this place into one of the best and most attractive farm properties in Ellsworth Township, and the tract is today considered one of the choicest in Mahoning County. On the farm is a field of sixty-five acres which he cleared and made available for cultivation in the early years of his residence on the place, and this field is half a mile in length. He forthwith began to provide requisite tile drainage for his land, and when his incidental expenses brought his financial resources down to a point where it was necessary for him to get funds to continue his progressive activities, his name and reputation proved valuable assets, as he was always able to get credit at the First National Bank of Salem. The effective tilling of the land enabled him to produce large crops and by degrees to add to the area of his landed estate. He lived up to every obligation, and the old saying, "His word is as good as his bond," was specially applicable. He expended thousands of dollars in installing tile drainage on his various farms, and in making other improvements which likewise denoted his enterprise and good judgment. Mr. Barnes became the owner of the old Diehl mill property, which was purchased by Eli Diehl in 1858, Mr. Diehl having retained the property and operated saw and grist mills for many years, his ownership continuing until his death, in 1901, at Ellsworth Center. Lake Ellsworth, the source of power for the operation of these mills, now covers thirty-five acres and is one of the beautiful spots in this section of the Buckeye state, celebrated alike for its scenic attractions and as a center for sport with rod and gun. In connection with his farm enterprise Mr. Barnes showed equal discrimination in the selection and raising of fine grades of horses, cattle and sheep. For years he was active and liberal in the promotion and support of the annual agricultural fairs held at Canfield, seven miles distant from his farm, and he was always at the forefront in furthering movements and enterprises tending to advance the general welfare of his home community and county. He served thirty years as a member of the school board, was township trustee two terms and was twice defeated for the office of county commissioner, owing to normal political exigencies. On the last occasion he had a majority of 1,700 votes outside of the City of Youngstown. He insistently denoted himself as opposed to the liquor traffic, but in his candidacy for the position of county commissioner he received majorities in some of the most definitely “wet" townships of the county. During the last three years of his life he served as road inspector, during the period of constructing modern improved roads in Berlin Township. In a generic way his political allegiance was given to the democratic party, but his inherent independence was not restricted by partisan dictates or lines.
Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had three children, to each of whom he gave a good farm : Stella is the wife of George A. Read, of Ellsworth Center ; Emlen D. has the active management of one of his father's farms; and Harry J. resides on and operates the fine old homestead farm.
LYNN B. GRIFFITH, a lawyer of Warren, repre sents two of the early families of Trumbull County.
He was born at West Farmington in that county on October 30, 1887, son of Herbert F. and Lovira (Snyder) Griffith. His father spent all his active life as a farmer and stockman and died November 5, 1909, while the mother passed away March 2, 1911 Herbert Griffith was born at West Farmington October 24, 1855. His father was Chauncey Griffith, and his grandfather, William Griffith, a native of Connecticut, was one of the very early settlers of the Western. Reserve. Lovira Snyder was born at North Bloomfield, Trumbull County, on April 27, 1854. Her father was Cyrus B. Snyder, a native of Brookfield Township of the same county, and her grandfather, David Snyder, came from Pennsylvania, and was likewise a pioneer.
Lynn B. Griffith spent his early life on his father's farm and had a thorough training in its duties. He attended the West Farmington High School, the old
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Western Reserve Seminary, spent one year in Dwight L. Moody's School for Boys at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, and in 1910 was graduated with the A. B. degree from Oberlin College. He took up the study of law through the year 1912-13 at the University of Pennsylvania and then entered the senior class of the Law Department of Western Reserve University, graduating LL. B. in 1914 and was admitted to the bar in June of the same year.
Mr. Griffith at once began practice at Warren in association with W. B. Kilpatrick, and has been one of the earnest and hard working members of the local profession ever since. He has served continuously since 1915 as clerk of the County Board of Elections, and in 1916 he held the post of director of public service of Warren under the administration of Mayor Kilpatrick. Mr. Griffith is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, Warren Commandery No. 39, Knights Templar, Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland, and Farmington Lodge No. 33, Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the Warren Automobile Club.
September 9, 1916, he married Miss Stata Miller, who was also born at Farmington. Her parents were Dennis E. and Lillian J. (Norton) Miller, members of old Trumbull County families. Mr. and Mrs. Griffith have one son, David Miller Griffith, born September 14, 1917, and one daughter, Patricia Ann Griffith, born April 15, 1920.
FRED R. KANENGEISER was born at Sharon, Pennsylvania, November 23, 1878, a son of Adolph and Emma L. (Bowden) Kanengeiser, natives of the Keystone State, where the father followed the profession of architect. In 1881 he came to Youngstown and pursued his vocation until his death, in 1889, at which time he was at the head of his profession here, having designed many of the important churches, residences and public buildings which still stand. Fred R. Kanengeiser was but three years of age when brought to Youngstown, and here he grew to manhood, attending the public schools and graduating from the Rayen High School when George F. Jewett was principal. Following this, he spent a year in post-graduate work with Professor Jewett, and then, in the fall of 1899, entered the Case School of Applied Science, at Cleveland, from which he was graduated in 1903 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Three years later he received the degree of Mechanical Engineer by special thesis work. Mr. Kanengeiser entered the employ of the Cleveland Furnace Company, and worked through the different grades until he had become chief engineer of the company.
In February, 19o5, Mr. Kanengeiser went to Bessemer, Pennsylvania, as general superintendent of the Bessemer Limestone Company. This position he retained until 1916, when he became general manager. In March, 1917, he removed to Youngstown and was made vice president of the company, at the same time retaining his position as general manager. Under his management this corporation has developed from a comparatively small operating concern to one of the largest and best producing plants in the country. He has also developed the paving brick busi-
Vol. III-5
ness, material for which burdened the company's holdings until that feature has enabled the concern to become the third largest of its kind in the United States, and has the distinction of having the largest single paving brick plant in the world. This company were pioneers in the development of the tunnel continuous kiln. This type of kiln was installed, developed and brought to its present state of perfection by Mr. Kanengeiser. In 1917 the brick department of the business was sold and attention was confined to limestone production. In 1919 Mr. Kanengeiser was instrumental in the organization of the Bessemer Limestone and Cement Company, which took over the Bessemer Limestone Company and further entered the cement field, and Mr. Kanengeiser continues in the same capacity with the new concern, as vice president and general manager. Incidentally he is president of the Liberty Clay Products Company. He is a member of the American Ceramic Society, the Engineers Club of the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys, the Youngstown Club and the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, and is a thirty-second degree, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Mason.
Mr. Kanengeiser was married October 4, 1905, to Miss Florence L. Foster, of Cleveland, Ohio, and they are the parents of six children : Ellen, Fred R., Jr., James Robert, Jeanette, Herbert Cornelius and Katherine. Mr. and Mrs. Kanengeiser are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown.
PRIOR TANNER JONES, for the greater part of a long and active lifetime a successful farmer in Canfield Township, Mahoning County, and at one time a successful breeder and exhibitor of Devon cattle, has lived in comfortable retirement in Canfield Village, Canfield Township, since 1901. He is now in his eighty-fifth year, and has lived all his life in the county, his recollection linking the present with the pioneer days of his youth. The Jones family should have good place in Mahoning Valley history for it is one of the pioneer families, having been in Mahoning County since 1804.
Prior Tanner Jones was born in Ellsworth Township, Mahoning County, Ohio, on June II, 1836, the son of James and Huldah (Tanner) Jones, both of whom were also born in Mahoning County, he in Ellsworth Township, the son of Thomas and Sarah (Wilson) Jones, and she in Canfield, the daughter of Edmund Pryor and Fanny (Chapman) Tanner. Thomas Jones, grandfather of Prior Tanner Jones, and the pioneer settler in Ohio of that family, came with his wife from Maryland into Ohio in 1804, and then settled on wild land in Ellsworth Township. Edmund Pryor Tanner, whose daughter married James, father of Prior Tanner Jones, came with his wife from Connecticut in 1802, and settled in Canfield Township, the original Tanner homestead being still in the possession of the family, latterly being held by his grandson, Pryor Tanner. It is situated about one mile from Canfield, in a southwesterly direction. Edmund Pryor and Fanny (Chapman) Tanner lived in Canfield for the remainder of their lives, both attaining old age. Edmund Pryor Tanner served in the War of 1812, near Sandusky, and was in the army for about a year. His father also was
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of military record, having served as a lieutenant during the Revolutionary war. He was one of thirteen soldiers of the Revolution to take up residence in Canfield, Ohio. He died in 1836.
Thomas Jones, grandfather of Prior Tanner Jones, died in about 1852. He had remained on his Ellsworth Township farm since he first came into the territory in 1804, and had done considerable development work. The farm, however, is now in the hands of strangers.
James, son of Thomas and father of Prior Tanner Jones, was born in Ellsworth Township, and was reared under the arduous conditions that necessarily came with pioneer life. In later life he to some extent followed the trade of tanning in association with his brother Joseph, but lived mainly upon his farm, which was part of the original homestead in Ellsworth Township. He sold that property in 1852 and settled about one mile distant from Canfield, to the westward, and that remained the family home for the remainder of his life. He died in 187o, aged sixty-three years. His widow, however, lived until 1899, reaching her eighty-sixth year, she having been born the day next following that upon which her father returned to his home after war service. She was one of three sisters to be married on the same day and in the same church, the slippers she wore at her wedding being still in the possession of her son Prior T. The sisters referred to were Mary, who married Lyman Warner, and Jane, who became Mrs. Hollister. The children of James and Huldah (Tanner) Jones were: William, who removed to Kansas and died there when about twenty-five years old; Prior T., regarding whom more follows ; Fannie C., who married James Turner, of Canfield Township, and both are deceased, and their two children, daughters, are Elsie, who married Vance Blim, of Canfield, and Lettie, who married John Crowell, of Lisbon, Ohio; Laura, who married Frederick Beardsley and went to Gibson City, Illinois : she is now an invalid, and cared for by her brother Prior T.
Prior T., second child of James and Huldah (Tanner) Jones, passed his youth in Ellsworth Township, on the original homestead of the Jones family. He attended country school, and when sixteen years old went with his parents when they moved into Canfield Township, after his father had sold the old homestead. And since that time he has lived almost wholly in Canfield Township. He was twenty-four years old when he married, and practically from that time he took over the operation of his father's farm, which eventually became his own. He was thirty-four years old when his father died. He remained on the old farm and cared for his mother until her death, twenty-nine years later, and two years afterward he sold all but sixty acres of the farm and moved into Village, where he has since lived in retirement and in such public work as he has been interested in. He is esteemed in Canfield and that township, having by his capable farming and useful public work become generally well regarded, and looked upon as one of the representative men of affairs in the township. In his active farming days he was an extensive cattle breeder, and his Devon stock, which he exhibited with much success at agricultural fairs, brought him into wide repute among agriculturists.
One commendable public service was his connection with the Infirmary which his father had part in establishing in 1858. From January, 1892, to December, 1897, Prior T. Jones was a director, his associates in the good work being William Kirk and John Park, both of whom are now deceased. He was twice re-elected to the directorate of that institution, serving for six years, and being connected With the public service at a critical time, when demands for help were extreme.
Politically Mr. Jones has been affiliated with the republican party, and has closely followed national and local political movements. He is a consistent Christian, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He has many almost life-long friends in Canfield, having lived in the township for sixty-eight years.
On August 22, 1860, he married Ellen Bond, daughter of Jonas and Eliza (Story) Bond, who were both born in Connecticut. Jonas Bond came into the Western Reserve in 1819, returned to Connecticut two years later, in the following year, 1822, again coming into Ohio, this time with his wife, and settling in Canfield Township. He lived for the remainder of his life in the township, dying in 1876, at the age of eighty-two years. His widow died in 1884, aged eighty-four years. Mrs. Ellen (Bond) Jones has a sister living, Mrs. Mary Ruggles, at Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio, in which county Mrs. Jones was educated. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had the gratification of celebrating their golden wedding, at which fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1910 Jennie Ewing, widow of Julius Tanner, who was a bridesmaid at their wedding in 186o, was present, as were also many friends who had known them practically through life. They celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary August 21, 192o. Prior Tanner and Ellen (Bond) Jones are the parents of the following named children : Lester L., who has had a somewhat distinctive literary career. He has been connected with leading newspapers of Chicago and New York City for many years, and at one time was the editor of a paper at Missoula, Montana. Latterly he hi been secretary of the Publishers' Association of Ne York City. Harry Truman, who became an attorney, in practice in Chicago, died in 19o1, aged twenty-five years. Amy B., who is a graduate of Canfield Col• lege, is at home with her parents.
James B., the fourth child, was born on May 8, 1874, and was given an extensive musical education. He studied at the Bush Temple, Chicago, and is a widely known and very successful teacher of the pianoforte. His love of music has brought him much into public prominence, in choral and orchestral functions in his native county, and he is also highly esteemed in his home township as a public worker. His standing in the community may be gauged by the fact that for four years he has served as mayor of Canfield, vacating the mayoral office on January 1, 1918, and being re-elected in the fall of 1919 for two years. During his administration, many important public works have been instituted, and generally he gave ample proof of his ability and faithfulness in civic administration. He is unmarried, is a prominent
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 463
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and interests himself in almost all phases of public work. Mr. and Mrs. Prior T. Jones are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in earlier years took active part in church work.
LEO GUTHMAN. To some men philanthropy appeals both as a pleasure and a duty, and perhaps Youngstown offers no more marked example than can be found in Leo Guthman, organizer and head of the City Playground Association, who donated the South Side Park land to Youngstown for this purpose.
Leo Guthman was born in Germany and came from that country to America in 1870, subsequently joining his brother, E. L. Guthman, who was a well-known business man of Youngstown. Mr. Guthman soon became interested along mercantile lines and in 1873 went South, where he was engaged as a bookkeeper for a wholesale firm. In 188o he came back to Youngstown and for several years was a student of law in the office of J. P. Wilson, in 1882 entering the University of Virginia, from which institution he was graduated and later was admitted to the bar. While not a continuous practitioner, his thorough knowledge of law has been most helpful in the different activities in which Mr. Guthman has been at times engaged and in the wide field of public usefulness with which his name is indelibly associated at Youngstown.
After five years with the prominent firm of Theo-bald & Company, as auditor and credit man, in 1892 Mr. Guthman took the agency for the Equitable Life Insurance Company and handled investments and takes pride in being a member of the Equitable Veteran Legion, a body of particular honor in this old line company. He is a member of the Ohio Bar Association, but practices only in an advisory capacity.
In many ways Mr. Guthman has been a useful citizen of Youngstown and is a man of wide but practical benevolence. For a number of years as secretary of the City Hospital he worked for efficiency combined with economy, and it was through his efforts that the city was saved great expenditure when the trustees were convinced that the present hospital site was more desirable than others offered. In donating land for the use of the Playground Association Mr. Guthman was influenced by the apparent need of such accommodation, and other men of capital and like motives showed approval of his plans and investment by likewise contributing, Judge Johnson's bequest being $3,000 and Henry Stambaugh's reaching $5,000. Although very modest as to his part in this great work, Mr. Guthman is pardonably proud of what has been accomplished.
In 1886 Mr. Guthman was united in marriage to Miss Flora Levy, and they have three children, namely : Seymour; Corinne, who is the wife of M. H. Daniels, chief chemist of the Republic Rubber Company; and Isabella, who is the wife of William I. Louis, mechanical engineer with the Ohio Steel Works. During 1906-8 Mr. Guthman and his family enjoyed a visit in his native land and other interesting parts of Europe. He has, however, thoroughly identified himself with American interests and during the World war gave patriotic support to all war measures, was a subscriber to the $1,000 limit that gave him membership in the War Savings Club, and was generous and openhanded concerning war charities. Mr. Guthman belongs to the Rodef Sholem Congregation. He has long been identified with the Masonic fraternity, and with many benevolent organizations, in which, as one of his appreciative fellow citizens remarked, "he can exercise his hobby of doing good to some one." This is the keynote to Mr. Guthman's character. His motto is:
"One's aims and efforts may be ever so praiseworthy, yet
"When all is said and done, and life is ended and closed, service rendered to one's fellow men, is all that remains worth while."
WARNER ARMS. While at least three generations of the Arms family have been actively identified with the increasing industrial prominence of the Mahoning Valley, a great deal of the technical genius of the family and its business ability were centered in the late Warner. Arms, of the second generation.
Warner Arms, who at the time of his death was president of the Republic Rubber Company, was born at Youngstown, November 30, 1851, son of Myron I. Arms. He was a descendant of William Arms, an Englishman and a colonial settler in Massachusetts, who died in 1731. The next generation was represented by Daniel Arms, whose son Israel Arms was the father of Myron I. Arms. Myron I. Arms married Emeline E. Warner, and of their six children Warner was the second. Myron I. Arms was born in New York State in 1829, and came to Youngstown in 1846, for a time clerking in the store of Jonathan Warner, whose daughter he married. He was a merchant, a coal operator, and also interested in the Pioneer Eagle Furnace at Brier Hill. He died in 1864.
Warner Arms secured a public school education, also attended Western Reserve College at Hudson, and later attended Cornell University from which he graduated. He made his first mark in a business way with the firm of Arms & Bell operating a nut and bolt works, and with his brother Myron I. second, took charge of the Falcon Iron & Nail Company of Niles and also the Falcon Sheet & Tin Plate Company. In 1899 those industries were sold to the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company, and Warner Arms remained with the larger corporation as vice president and for many years was president of the local companies.
Warner Arms in 1903 became president of the Republic Rubber Company, and successfully directed the affairs of that corporation through a period of unprecedented prosperity until his death on May 16, 1910. Warner Arms was a man of exceptionally fine character and commanded the confidence of not only his business associates but a large circle of friends as well.
In 1875 he married Fannie Williamson Wick, a daughter of Dennick Wick. Their five children to reach maturity were : Helen, wife of Ralph E. Cornelius; Fannie, wife of William H. Heywood;
it
464 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
Louise, who married John L. Dennett ; Myron I.; and Emily E.
Of this family Myron I. Arms is the third in as many successive generations to bear that name, but is usually known as Myron I. Arms second to distinguish him from his uncle. He was born at Youngstown, September 22, 1884, and for a man of his years played a prominent part in local business affairs. He had a public school education, attended the Harvard Preparatory School at Chicago one year, spent two years in Cutler's School in New York, and for three years was a student in the famous preparatory school at Lawrenceville, New Jersey. After his education he became an official with the Republic Rubber Company and was actively identified with that Youngstown corporation until 1919. Mr. Arms is a member of the Youngstown and the Youngstown Country clubs, is a republican and affiliates with the First Presbyterian Church.
May 18, 1910, he married Margaret Powell Robinson. Their three children are Warner, Charles S. and Margaret S.
EDWARD H. BRAUNBERNS is a civil engineer by profession, has had a wide and diversified experience in Trumbull County, and is now serving as director of service of the City of Warren.
Mr. Braunberns was born at Warren December 27, 1883. His grandparents, Emil and Mary Braunberns, were natives of Germany and many years ago established their home in Youngstown, Ohio. Both were skilled tailors and engaged in that business at Youngstown for many years. They were owners of considerable property, and sold to the City of Youngstown the right of way for Madison Avenue, which was cut through from Ford to Belmont Avenue.
George Braunberns, father of Edward H., was born at Buffalo, New York, and has lived at Warren since 1872. For many years he was a cigar manufacturer, operating a cigar factory, and now has a cigar store and billiard hall. He married Anna Klein, who was born at Berlin, Germany, a daughter of Conrad Klein. At the age of six years she came to the United States with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kayser, early citizens of Warren, and grew up in their home. She died at Warren in September, 1918.
Edward H. Braunberns acquired his education in the city schools of Warren, and took up the civil engineering profession in 19o4 under E. M. Milligan, then city engineer. He has given all his time to engineering for the past fifteen years. He served as assistant city engineer from 1910 to January 1, 192o, and at the latter date assumed his duties as director of public service under the McBride administration.
Mr. Braunberns is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, also Warren Lodge of Elks, and is a member of the Buckeye Club and with his wife belongs to Christ Episcopal Church. He married Celia McCormack, daughter of James and Parnella McCormack, of Youngstown. They have two children, James, born in 1914, and Robert, born in 1917.
BARNEY J. GILLEN. With the unprecedented increase of population within the last decade has come a corresponding development of the powers and duties of municipal government at Warren, necessarily in., volving an increased police protection. However, th police department's growth has been notable not so much in numbers as in increased efficiency, and no one is that efficiency due more than to the preset chief, Barney J. Gillen.
Mr. Gillen, who has been connected with the Warren police force for fourteen years, through fo city administrations, has spent nearly all his life ib this city. He was born in County Antrim, Ireland August 7, 1869, and was about a year old when his parents, James and Jane (Dale) Gillen, left that country and settled at Warren. James Gillen was an expert tile layer, and in later years also followed with great success the profession of landscape gardening. He died at Warren February 12, 1905, at the age of seventy-two, and his widow survived until January 6, 1913, aged seventy-eight.
Chief Gillen was educated in the public schools, and served an apprenticeship at the puddler's trade. That occupation gave him the means of livelihood for about fifteen years. He entered the police department March 24, 1906, as patrolman, held that rank until 1915, was then promoted to detective, and December 29, 1917, became captain and on May 21, 1919, was given the duties and responsibilities of chief. All these promotions have been made under Civil Service rules and on the basis of his exceptional qualifications. Chief Gillen is a very popular man in the city, but nevertheless has the faculties of the disciplinarian, possesses rare skill and judgment and has extraordinary diligence and resolution in handling every emergency and performing the routine work of his office. For these reasons the people of Warren regard him "as one of the finest." In his time he has discharged the difficult duty of handling notable cases of crime and has a natural fitness for his work. Few cities of the present size of Warren have a police department handled more nearly according to the highest ideals of efficiency.
In 1919 Chief Gillen was presented with a handsome gold watch and a gold and diamond chief's badge by the members of the department and the merchants of the city. The badge contains fourteen pure white diamonds, representing, by an interesting coincidence at that time, not only the number of years he has been on the board, but the number of men then under him in the department. In Iwo the police force consists of twenty-six men, a chief, one captain, three sergeants, and one plain clothes man, two motor cycle men and eighteen patrolmen. Mr. Gillen is a member of the Ohio Police Association. Mr. Gillen is affiliated with Warren Lodge of Elks and St. Mary's Catholic Church. He married Mary Baker, daughter of John and Henrietta Baker, of Braceville, Trumbull County. Their three sons are William, John and Raymond.
CHARLES LIVINGSTON. Many of the most interesting stories of business are derived not from great corporations but from the enterprise of the many thousands of individual retail merchants who in the aggregate represent the largest force of business energy in the country.
A story of struggle, the overcoming of difficulties, battle against adversity and misfortune, and on
the,
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 465
whole of successful results is that of Charles Livingston of Youngstown. He was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, September 13, 1870. He was only an infant when his parents, John L. and Freda Livingston, died. His life since then has been such as he has been able to make it. He was reared in his native county and educated in public schools. As a youth he became a trained newsboy, and sold his goods on railroads, one of his routes leading through Youngstown.
Mr. Livingston has lived at Youngstown since December, 1889. He continued with the News Company until 1892. In the meantime, in 1891, he married Miss Anna Solinsky. His real career had its start when with the aid of his capable and industrious wife he embarked in 1892 in the retail grocery business on Phelps Street. They were confronted with much hard work and privation, but they did their work with a hearty good will and with a thankfulness that there was work to do, and looking back a quarter of a century Mr. Livingston regards that as perhaps the happiest time of his life. The year following began the great panic and business depression of 1893. Many other stores were going bankrupt. However, Mr. Livingston had taken the rather unprecedented course of selling strictly for cask. On that basis he did $30,000 worth of business a year. So small was the establishment that he frequently delivered goods on foot when he could not hire or afford to hire horde delivery. His wife constantly helped him, even doing such work as scrubbing the floors. In 1896 Mr. Livingston sold out to W. D. Jones. At that time his cash capital aggregated $3,000, though he had begun with the modest sum of $380. In the fall of 1896 he started again, this time in the Manning estate property at the corner of Federal and Walnut streets. He stocked his store with light dry goods, and immediately had a good trade, and the business expanded rapidly. At that time he introduced a limited credit system, but soon saw the wisdom of returning to the original cash basis. This chapter of his business career covered seven years. The first year his transactions aggregated $21,000 and the last year $185,000. Poor health led him to sell out in 1906, and for a time he was practically retired. Mr. Livingston in 1910 became general manager and a fifth owner in the Central Stores Company. Here he had an active part in one of the larger commercial organizations of the Mahoning Valley. The first year the business amounted to $121,000, and the last year of his association with the company the total volume amounted to $500,000. During 1910-11 Mr. Livingston was also connected with the J. N. Euwers Sons Company. Following that he was in the real estate business and in 1915 he established at 225 West Federal Street a new store, specializing in high class women's wearing apparel. This business was totally destroyed by fire on December 10, 1917. As soon as possible a new building was erected, and in this building is housed his present satisfactory and profitable business.
Mr. and Mrs. Livingston had three children : Lester C., George F. and Lillian N. The son George was a corporal in the American armies during the recent war period, but was never sent overseas.
EDWIN A. KERN. The name of the late Edwin A. Kern, of Niles, is indissolubly linked with the history of the development of the iron and steel industry of the Mahoning Valley. He was for twenty years a constructive force in the mills of the Valley and as such became widely known both in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Kern was a native of Michigan, born at Roseville, Macomb County, that state, on December 22, 1844, and was of French-German extraction. His father was a soldier under Napoleon (I), and for bravery and gallantry on the field of battle he was cited to appear before his emperor. However, he was at that time preparing to come to America, and the summons to the presence of Napoleon was not heeded. The mother of Edwin A., was a De Long, a member of a well-known family of that section of France. Upon arriving in this country the Kern family settled on a farm in Macomb County, Michigan, and upon that farm Edwin A. was born and reared. He learned carpentry and as a young man went to West Middlesex, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, where he later combined carpentering with mill-wrighting.
From 1866 to 1871 Mr. Kern worked at his trades in Pennsylvania, coming to Niles, Ohio, in the latter year to become millwright and later superintendent of the Cherry Valley Iron Company. In 1881 he was made superintendent of the Haselton, Ohio, mills and the Andrews Brothers and Company. In 1882 he became superintendent of the Girard, Ohio, mills and later was superintendent of the Warren mills, then owned by the Wick interests. From Warren the same company transferred Mr. Kern to their plant known as the upper mill in Youngstown, and later again transferred him to their Warren plant. In 1891 he returned to Niles to take charge as superintendent of both the Falcon Iron and Nail Company and the Russia mill, and continued with that company until it was absorbed by the American Sheet Steel Company (trust) in 1900. In 1901 he was associated with the organization of the Youngstown Iron and Steel Roofing Company, and it was while building this new plant at Haselton that he was fatally injured and died on May 29, 1901.
In 1867 Mr. Kern was married in Pennsylvania to Dianna Musser, who was born in Pennsylvania, of an old Keystone state family of Holland-Dutch extraction. Mrs. Kern died in 1906. To Mr. and Mrs. Kern two children were born, namely : Mrs. Belle Kern Metz of Munhall, Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Maud Kern Gillmer, of Warren.
Mr. Kern was a live-long member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was a steward of the Niles First Methodist Episcopal Church at the time of his death. He was also a member of the Odd Fellows, Temple of Honor and Royal Templars fraternal organizations.
HARVEY ALBERT BURGESS has been one of the popular member of the Trumbull County bar for the past seven years and in a public way he has earned distinction for special efficiency as assistant prosecuting attorney.
Mr. Burgess was born in Cleveland, Ohio, January 28, 1886. He grew up in the Cleveland suburb of
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Willoughby, where he attended common and high schools. For one year he was a student in Western Reserve University, and then went to Kansas, where he completed his education in the law at the University of Kansas. He graduated with the LL. B. degree in 1911, was admitted to the Kansas bar that year, and for one year practiced at Greensburg, Kansas. Returning to Ohio, Mr. Burgess located at Niles, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1913, and employed his talents in a growing general practice at Niles until January 1, 5917. At that date he was appointed assistant prosecuting attorney of Trumbull County. In April, 1918, he enlisted in the Lake Division of the Red Cross, and was assigned to the Thirty-Second Division, and attached to a sanitary train. April 19, 1918, he went overseas, for a time was on duty on the Alsace front, but saw service with the sanitary train during the great drive at Chateau Thierry, also at Vic-Sur-Aisne, and during the Argonne the Thirty-Second Division was on the immediate firing line and kept its station there until the signing of the armistice. Subsequently the division crossed the Rhine into Germany. Mr. Burgess held the rank of captain in the army and as inspector in the Red Cross.
Returning to United States January 28, 1919, he was honorably discharged in February of the same year, but for nine months was incapacitated for professional work. He then resumed his duties in the prosecuting attorney's office, and in the fall of 1919 removed to Warren. While a citizen of Niles, in 1916, Mr. Burgess served a year as director of public service. In the 192o primaries he was the choice of the republican voters for nomination as prosecuting attorney. This nomination in Trumbull County is equivalent to election. He is a member of the Trumbull County Bar Association, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias at Niles and the Elks at Warren. October 11, 1920, Mr. Burgess married Ethel Williams, daughter of the late Sheriff William Williams of Warren.
GEORGE MELVILLE GLASSCO, D. O., is one of the leading representatives of osteopathy in Northeastern Ohio, and has gained a secure place in his profession at Warren.
He was born at Tuscola, Illinois, March 26, 1886, son of George Melville and Sarah Elizabeth (Bond) Glassco, both natives of Illinois. The Glassco family is of Scotch-Irish stock, the name having formerly been spelled Glasscock. John Glassco, grandfather of Doctor Glassco, was born in Kentucky and was the pioneer of his family in Illinois. The Bond family is of Scotch-Irish stock, though it is an English family name. Thomas Bond, maternal grandfather of Doctor Glassco, founded the family in Illinois. Doctor Glassco's parents now live at Urbana, Illinois, where his father is in the real estate and insurance business.
Reared in his native state, Doctor Glassco attended the grammar and high schools and also acquired a normal school education at Charleston, was a teacher for one year in that state, and then went out to North Dakota, where he took up a homestead and while proving up his land was a teacher for two years. In 1911 he entered the American School of Osteopathy at Kirkville, Missouri, remained three years and graduated with the D. O. degree in 1914. Doctor Glassco has never been satisfied with present attainments but is a constant student. Following his graduation he spent a year of post-graduate work in the Chicago School of Osteopathy. He began practice at Rockville, Indiana, remaining there until June, 1918, when he came to Warren. During 1918 he took four weeks of post-graduate study, took a ten weeks' course in 1919, and in 1920 devoted thirteen weeks to professional study. His studies have been directed to specialization in ear, nose and throat and rectal diseases.
As one of the prominent members of his profession Doctor Glassco has contributed articles to the journal of the American Osteopathic Association, of which he is a member, and likewise, he is a member of the American Osteopathic Ear, Nose and Throat Association. In the summer of 1920 he read a paper before the convention of that association in Chicago. While his offices are in Warren his home is in Cortland. Doctor Glassco married Ivah J. McClaren, who was born at Rosedale, Indiana, daughter of John and Jane (Ogden) McClaren.
CHARLES CLEVELAND HOWARD after an active business career of more than half a century is now living retired at Warren, which is his native city. Mr. Howard represents some of the old and prominent family names of Trumbull County and Northeast Ohio.
He was born in Warren August 7, 1846, son of Charles and Olive A. (Cleveland) Howard. His grandfather, George Howard, was a native of Connecticut and of English descent. Charles Howard was born in Chenango County, New York, and came to Trumbull County in 1842. For over thirty years he was in the marble and granite business in Warren. He died in that city in 1901. Charles Howard's wife, Olive A. Cleveland, was born on the site of Mill Creek Park in Youngstown, August 16, 1816. Her father was Judge Camden Cleveland, a brother of Moses Cleaveland, father of the. City of Cleveland. Olive Cleveland Howard died in 19o8, at the age of ninety-two. Her children were: Horace F. Howard, born November 20, 184o, now a resident of Fairfield, Wayne County, Illinois; Charles C.; George C., born November 25, 1848, now living at Los Angeles, California ; Frederick W., born July 7, 185r, lives at Warren; Franklin and Olive, both of whom died in childhood.
Charles Cleveland Howard grew up at Warren, was educated in the public schools, graduated from the old Duff Business College at Pittsburgh, and about the time he reached his majority began his business experience as clerk in a Warren drug store. For ten years he was associated with B. H. Fitch, a wool buyer located at Warren, and for another ten years was associated with Homer Baldwin in the flour mill business at Youngstown.
In 1895 Mr. Howard was appointed agent at Warren for the Freedom Oil Company. Subsequently he became manager of the local business, and was instrumental in introducing the Freedom Oil to this section, and built up and developed a large and prosperous business for the company. Mr. Howard
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was actively associated with the Freedom Oil Company for nearly a quarter of a century, until he resigned and retired from all business connections.
He is a member of Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons. His maternal grandfather, Judge Cleveland, was one of the local Masons who obtained the original charter for this lodge from the Connecticut Grand Lodge in 1803. Mr. Howard is affiliated with Morning Light Chapter No. 8o, Order of the Eastern Star, and is a charter member of the local United Commercial Travelers, is a member of the Warren Board of Trade and the Warren Automobile Club. August 19, 1888, he married at Honeoye Falls near Rochester, New York, at the home of the bride, Miss Susie A. Peer, daughter of Benjamin and Hannah (Lee) Peer. Mrs. Howard is a member of Christ Episcopal Church and the Eastern Star.
AUGUSTUS EDWIN SMITH, M. D. Two of Warren's able physicians, specialists in diseases of children and gynecology, are Drs. Augustus Edwin and Elizabeth C. Smith, both of whom pursued their medical courses at Philadelphia concurrently and received their degrees in medicine in the same year.
Augustus Edwin Smith is a native of Pennsylvania. His grandfather, John T. Smith, was born at Newark, New Jersey, and was descended from old New England stock. He and his brothers and brother-in-law, Otis Boyden, were pioneers in the leather business and manufacturing of shoes, at
Newark. Subsequently John T. Smith went to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and spent the rest of his life on a farm near Uniontown. He married Rebecca Hadden, who was descended from the old Fitz-Randolph family which came over from England with the second Pilgrim ship.
Doctor Smith's father, Thomas Hervey Smith, was born in Smithfield, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, December 5, 1844. He has been interested in growing small fruits and flowers all his life, and still owns and operates greenhouses at his home near Uniontown. He married Susan Junk, who was born near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, February 2, 1845, daughter of Thomas Junk, whose father was one of the early settlers in that community. Both the Smith and Junk families have been in the United States for at least five generations.
Doctor Smith was born on the Smith homestead near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1880. He attended the country schools and in 1900 graduated with the M. E. degree from the Southwestern State Normal School of Pennsylvania. His first work was that of an educator, and he was a school principal in Pennsylvania until 1906, having also spent some vacation periods in the University of West Virginia.
In 1906 he entered Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, took the optional five year course, and graduated with the M. D. degree in 1911. In the fall of the same year he began general practice at South Fork in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and from there came to Warren in 1918. While his abilities have been successfully exerted in a general practice, he is regarded as a man of special skill and success in obstetrics. He is a member of the Trumbull County and Ohio State Medical societies and the
American Medical Association, is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the Warren Rotary Club and the First Presbyterian Church.
Dr. Elizabeth C. Smith was born in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, daughter of William H. and Margaret (Kelley) Cisney, the Cisneys being of French Huguenot and the Kelleys of Scotch-Irish stock. Doctor Smith attended Dry Run Academy and the Carlisle High School in Pennsylvania, also the Southwestern State Normal School, where her husband was a student, and in 1906, while he was in the Jefferson Medical College, she entered the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia and graduated with the class of 1911. She has specialized in gynecology and is a member of the Trumbull County, Ohio State and American Medical associations. Doctor Smith is president of the Professional and Business Women's Club of Warren, and with her husband is a member of the First Presbyterian Church. They were married on May 6, 1903, and they have four children. Edwin, Jr., the oldest, was born in Philadelphia, the next two, Isabel and Randall Boyden, were born in South Fork, Pennsylvania, and Margaret, the youngest, was born in Warren.
HENRY HERMAN HOPPE is a prominent young lawyer of Warren, one of the junior members of the old and prominent law firm of Fillius & Fillius. He came to Warren from Cincinnati, where his people have long been prominent in business.
Mr. Hoppe was born in Cincinnati, June 24, 1894, son of Henry and Frances (Wuebben) Hoppe. His parents were born in Cincinnati in 1861 and 1867 respectively. The Hoppe family originally lived at Pottsdam, Germany. That was the home of the Warren attorney's great-grandfather, Dominic P. Hoppe. The grandfather, Dominic Hoppe, Jr., was born at Pottsdam, and because of participation in the Liberal movement in Germany in 1848 was with a host of others practically expatriated. He left a German port in 1848, but it was nearly a year before he landed in the United States at New Orleans. He came up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and the old Erie Canal to what is now the corner of Clay and Canal streets in Cincinnati. Later he built himself a home within a block of the place of landing, and lived there the rest of his life. He died in 1896. In Cincinnati he established the commission business of D. Hoppe & Sons, an old and prominent firm still carried on under the same name and on the original site on Broadway.
Henry Hoppe, father of the Warren attorney, was reared in Cincinnati, educated in its public schools, and at the beginning of his career went into the service of the Western German Bank of Cincinnati, now the Western Bank & Trust Company. He is now vice president of that institution. Frances Wuebben, his wife, is the daughter of John and Gertrude Wuebben, who were natives of Germany and came to this country in 1849. They met and were married in Cincinnati, where John Wuebben was for a number of years engaged in the lumber business. He died in that city in 1874, and his widow is stilt living.
Henry Herman Hoppe graduated from the Walnut Hill High School of Cincinnati in 1912. In 1916 he
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received his A. B. degree from the University of Cincinnati, following which he took his law course in the Harvard Law School and graduated LL. B. in 1919. Mr. Hoppe is one of the best educated young professional men of Warren. He was admitted to the Ohio bar July 4, 1919, and at once began practice in association with the firm of Fillius & Fillius. He is a member of the Trumbull County and Ohio State Bar associations. He is a Member of the college fraternities Phi Delta Theta:, Sigma Sigma and Tau Kappa Alpha, and also of the Knights of Columbus and the Trumbull Country Club. April 29, 1920, Mr. Hoppe married Miss Helen Margaret Flanagan, of Cleveland, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John R. Flanagan.
JAMES P. GARGHILL. One of the representative men of the Mahoning Valley who is not only a product of the Valley but has achieved his business success in the community is James P. Garghill of Warren. He is a self-made man, for his success has been achieved through his own efforts.
The Garghill family is of Irish stock and has been in the Mahoning Valley since 1858, in which year Philip Garghill, father of James P., brought his family to Mineral Ridge. Philip Garghill was a native of the south of Ireland, born in County Meath in 1822. In young manhood he went to England to work in the coal mines, and there met and married Isabell Daugherty, who was born in England in 1822, the daughter of William Daugherty, a native of Ireland, who went to England in early life and died there.
In 1852 Philip Garghill brought his wife and two children to the United States, first locating in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, where he spent six years working in the coal mines. In 1858, having learned of the promising opportunities to be found in Ohio, he set out on foot for this state, looking for a location. His first stop was at Youngstown, where he thought he had found that for which he was seeking. He was offered two acres of ground situated near the Diamond in Youngstown for $200 an acre, and was considering buying and locating permanently in that city. Finally, however, he decided that a newer town offered better opportunities, and he declined to purchase the property and pushed on to Mineral Ridge, where he settled. At Mineral Ridge he went to work at coal mining in the then practically undeveloped mines of that section, and later his experience and ability as an expert miner promoted him to a superintendency. In 1880 he removed to Warren, where he died in 1914, his wife having died in 19̊4. To Philip and wife the following children were born : Margaret and John, both deceased, were born in England. Jennie, Catherine, Mary and Rose (Rose now deceased), were born in Pennsylvania. James P., Isabell and Agnes were born at Mineral Ridge, Ohio.
James P. Garghill was born on November 10, 1859. He received his schooling at Mineral Ridge, and when but a lad went to work in the mines, spending ten. years there. He came to Warren in 1886, and for the next four years was in the retail coal business, going into street railroading in 189o, and remaining in that line of work for six years, a portion of which time he was a conductor on the old Trumbull Street Railway, which was the first road running between Warren and Niles. In 1896 Mr. Garghill was appointed patrolman on the Warren police force, and continued a member of that force for ten years, when he resigned.
In 1906 Mr. Garghill embarked in the real estate business at Warren, beginning in a small way by handling property on commission, and it was then that he "found his level," as from the first he was successful, and each year has witnessed his growing success until he now buys and sells outright. He has handled many large transactions in the way of factory sites and allotments, and has been uniform successful in all of his operations. Fraternally he belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he is a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church.
In 1886 Mr. Garghill was united in marriage with Margaret Stottler, born at Austintown, Mahoning County, Ohio, daughter of Michael Stottler, an old settler of that section, who was a native of Alsace Lorraine, France. Mr. and Mrs. Garghill became the parents of the following children: Philip E., who was born in 1888, died in 1914. John W., who born in 1889, was educated in the Warren schools and is in the employ of the Warren Iron and Steel Company. He belongs to the Knights of Columbus and the Elks and St. Mary's Catholic Church. Nellie who was born in 1891, married Walter Immerman, now general sales manager of the Metals Welding Company, with offices at Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They have one son, John Walter.
During the great war John W. Garghill served in Company E, Three Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Regiment, going from Camp Sherman to France in June, 1918. Later he was reclassified and transferred to the Department of War Risks, with headquarters at Tours, France. He was discharged on February 14, 1919, and returned home.
The Garghill family residence at Warren is one of the most beautiful of the many modern homes of the Mahoning Valley. Situated on Mahoning Avenue and on a bluff overlooking the Mahoning River at a sweeping bend in that river, the handsome and commodious house surrounded by spacious grounds, its well-kept lawns dotted with flowers shrubbery and fountains, the Garghill home presents a most picturesque bit of city landscape, a picture pleasing to both the eye and the mind.
JOHN R. DAVIS. During an active life in business and public affairs the late John R. Davis left a strong impress upon the Mahoning Valley. His business interests are still continued by members of his family at Youngstown, and from the close of the Civil war until his death, at the end of the century, the name of John R. Davis was one of the most conspicuous in the affairs of city and county.
Born in Portage County, Ohio, July 26, 1840, he was a son of Rev. Rees and Esther (Evans) Davis, Both his father and mother were natives of Wales. His father settled in Eastern Ohio in 1830, and for many years was active in the ministry of the Baptist Church. He died in 1858 and his wife in 1861.
John R. Davis grew up on a farm and had a common school education, and from 1864 until the c1ose
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of the war was a private in Company C of the One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth Ohio Infantry. His business career at Youngstown began in 1867, when with. W. T. Hughes he entered merchandising. He was a merchant until 1872, when, having been elected sheriff, he gave all his time to the duties of that position for four years. On retiring from office in 1877 he entered the real estate and insurance business. His wide acquaintance in Mahoning County, his personal probity and high character brought him a clientage of the highest class and a very profitable business. Mr. Davis died February 13, 190o, and the business was continued as the John R. Davis' Sons.
The late Mr. Davis was one of the prominent leaders of the republican party in Mahoning County. He was elected sheriff in the fall of 1872 and reelected for a second term. While he was sheriff the courthouse was removed from Canfield to Youngstown. He was also president of the Youngstown Board. of Education for a number of years, and in 1889 was elected a member of the General Assembly, being re-elected for a second terra in 1891. He was long a consistent member of the Baptist Church, serving as deacon and trustee.
January 1, 1867, he married Maria S. Richards, who was born at Llanelly, Wales, being a sister of a former lieutenant governor of Ohio. Her parents, William and Sarah Richards, were both natives of Wales. Mrs. Davis died January 17, 1920. The children born to John R. Davis and wife were: Albert Rees (died June 14, 1919) ; Charles W.; Sarah E. (Mrs. Chauncey A. Cochran) ; John R., Jr., and Ralph G.
WILLIAM M. McFATE, vice president of the Trumbull Steel Company of Warren, was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the son of William Fletcher and Mattie (Moore) McFate. His descent in both paternal and maternal lines is Scotch-Irish, although the family has in the paternal line been for three generations resident in America. William McFate, grandfather of William M., sailed from Londonderry, north of Ireland, in 1839, settling in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, but later moved into Lawrence County, of that state, where he acquired a farming property, upon which he spent the remainder of his life. The bed rock on the old McFate homestead in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, was limestone, and since the time of the grandfather McFate these limestone areas have been extensively quarried.
William Fletcher McFate, father of William M., and son of William, was born in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, in 1856, and died at Youngstown in 1900. He spent the greater part of his life in Youngstown, going to that city in early manhood. For many years he was identified with the old American Tube Works of Youngstown. He married Mattie Moore, who was born in Philadelphia.
William M. McFate was reared in Youngstown and was educated in the public schools of that city. His first employment was with the Crystal Ice and Storage Company of Youngstown, for which company he did clerical work for a while. He then became a clerk in the Dollar Savings & Trust Company of Youngstown. In May, 1913, he became connected with the Trumbull Steel Company of Warren and for a short time was employed in the sales department, following which he was made assistant secretary and treasurer. One year later he returned to the sales department, and for the succeeding eighteen months was assistant sales manager, leaving the sales department to take the position of assistant to the president, later becoming secretary of the company, which position he held for four years. In 1919 he was elected a vice president of the company.
Mr. McFate is a director of the Western Reserve National Bank, is a member of the Warren Board of Trade and of the American Iron and Steel Institute. He is a member of Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, of Warren Commandery No. 39, Knights Templar, and of Al Koran Temple Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Trumbull and Youngstown clubs.
Mr. McFate married Hattie C., daughter of H. A. Ditmauson, who has been connected with the Republic Iron & Steel Company of Youngstown for twenty-five years, and here his daughter Hattie C. was born. To Mr. and Mrs. McFate a son was born on April 8, 1920, William M. McFate, Jr.
SAMUEL RIDDEL RUSSELL, cashier of the Western Reserve National Bank, has been closely identified with the financial interests of Warren for the last fifteen years, during which time he has won recognition as one of the able bankers of the Mahoning Valley. He is a native of Pennsylvania, in which state the Russell family has been prominent in financial and banking affairs for seventy years.
His father, the late William Russell, an able banker and business man, was closely associated with the big men of his state for many years. A native of Gettysburg, he was for a number of years cashier of the old Lancaster County Bank. He became a personal friend of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens, two Pennsylvanians who in somewhat contrasted spheres were national leaders for many years. When the Lancaster County Bank went out of business, during the fifties, the three friends entered the iron business as owners of the Caledonia Iron Works at Lancaster. James Buchanan was the successful candidate for President in 1856, and at about that time Mr. Russell established a private bank under his own name at Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Later his son George L. was admitted to the partnership, the title being changed to William Russell & Son. William Russell died in 1886, but the bank was continued under the same name. Samuel R. Russell entered the business in 1890 and in 1914 the institution was chartered as the Russell National Bank of Lewistown, the family still retaining a controlling interest. This bank occupies the site of the old private bank and is a large and highly prosperous institution. William Russell married Miss Mary Grace Mayer, of Lancaster.
Samuel R. Russell was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1868. He acquired his early education in the schools of Lancaster and was a student at the Lawrenceville Preparatory School in New Jersey, planning to complete his education in Princeton University. The death of his father overthrew these plans and ended his school days. After a course in Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, he entered his father's banking
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house, and was associated with the management of the bank until 19o3, when he came to Warren.
In 1905 Mr. Russell became teller and a director in the Second National Bank of Warren, and in 1912 entered the Western Reserve National Bank as assistant cashier. Since 1918 he has been cashier of that bank. Mr. Russell is also a member of the Warren Board of Trade, the Country Club and the Masonic Order.
He married Mary J. Martin, daughter of Andrew P. Martin, of Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Two children were born to their marriage, one deceased. The living daughter is Lavinia.
DECKER R. FITHIAN is the general superintendent of the Youngstown plant of the Sharon Steel Hoop Company, one of the largest corporations of its kind in the country. Although he was born at Poland, Ohio, May 30, 1876, Youngstown has been his home all his life with the exception of six years of his early youth, and here all his interests are centered, and here he has gained his success.
Charles L. Fithian, his father, rose to prominence as a contractor, and built the Lake Shore Railroad from Youngstown to Andover. He also served his country during the Civil war as a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company M, and the close of his life came in 1904. He had married Mary Jane Powers, a daughter of Fleming Powers and a granddaughter of Abram Powers, one of the early pioneers of this valley.
Decker R. Fithian was reared in Youngstown and knows no other home. His early educational training was obtained in the old Central School on Front Street, and his business career was begun in the capacity of fireman on a freight engine for the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad Company, and for three years he worked on as a railroad fireman. His next employment was in the rail mills of the Ohio works of the Carnegie Steel Company, continuing his connection with that great corporation until 1900, at which time he entered the service of the Youngstown Iron & Steel Company as a labor foreman. He was still identified with this corporation when the name was changed to the Youngstown Iron & Steel Company, and about this time he was made superintendent of labor and construction. When this corporation was finally merged into the Sharon Steel Hoop Company Mr. Fithian was retained in the same capacity, and on the 1st of September, 1918, was made the general superintendent of the plant, a position he has since continued to occupy. He has also served as the president of the Peoples Trust & Savings Bank of East Youngstown since the organization of this institution.
Mr. Fithian is a member of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Army Ordnance Association of the United States of America, the purpose of which is to keep available the highly specialized knowledge necessary for arming the manhood of the nation by stimulating interest in the design and production of ordnance material; to promote mutual understanding and to effect cooperation between American manufacturers, civilian engineers, reserve and regular army ordnance officers; and to provide, when required, the services of competent committees to investigate and report upon special ordnance subjects. Mr. Fithian is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, belongs to the Knights Templar, York Rite, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and also belongs to Al Koran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of Cleveland. Mr. Fithian is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
He was married on the 17th of July, 1898, to Miss Gertrude E. Cartwright, of Youngstown, a daughter of Benjamin Cartwright and a granddaughter of the Rev. Elijah Cartwright. On the maternal side Mrs. Fithian is a granddaughter of Alexander Caufield, one of the early pioneers of the Mahoning Valley. A son and daughter, William C. and Margaret Gertrude, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Fithian. The family are members of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, in which Mr. Fithian's people were among the first members. His political allegiance is given to the republican party.
CHARLES WELSON HART. While his home and business headquarters have been at Warren for the past eight years, Charles W. Hart's name and his interests have almost a national scope, for he is the brains and mainspring of a wonderfully systematic real estate business that covers the entire Middle West. It is stated on reliable authority that his real estate campaigns are probably doing more to advertise the great industrial advantages and opportunities of the Mahoning Valley than can be credited to any other source.
Mr. Hart was born at Hicksville, Defiance County, Ohio, November 2, 1874. His grandfather, John Hart, was of Scotch-Irish stock and an early settler in Putnam County, Ohio. John S. Hart, his son, was born in Putnam County in 1842, and at the beginning of the Civil war, in 1861, at the age of nineteen, volunteered and enlisted in the Twenty-First Ohio Infantry. He was in service four and a half years, through two enlistments, and made a splendid record as a fighting soldier. He was three times wounded, and was also taken prisoner and confined in Libby prison at Richmond, Virginia. His release from that famous prison two weeks later was due to the evacuation of Richmond, practically at the close of the war. When the war was over he took up farming and stock buying and feeding, and is still living, an honored and respected citizen .of Hicksville. His wife, whose maiden name was Anna Countryman, was born in Ashland County, Ohio, in 1851. Her father, Christian Countryman, a native of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, was an early settler in Ashland County. John S. Hart and wife had a large family, noted briefly as follows: Ulysses S. Grant Hart, now deceased; Altha, wife of Arthur Cole, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Addie, wife of J. J Lower, of Hicksville; Charles W.; May, wife o M. H. Bevington, of Hicksville; J. Sherman, who, served in the Philippine wars and during the Wo war was purchaser of forage for the Allied arms Bertha, wife of James Coon, of Auburn, India! Lavern, who married Orlo Lybarger, of Hicksville Jessie, the wife of Stephen Cromley, of Hicksvill and Lelah, deceased.
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Charles W. Hart grew up at Hicksville, attended public school there, and practically all his life from boyhood he has been engaged in business as a dealer, handling livestock, lands and other forms of property. From Hicksville he removed to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1908, where he was proprietor of a vholesale feed and horse business, and in 1912 located a Warren.
Since coming to Warren Mr. Hart has been developing his real estate business on a large scale. Is chief business is handling farm property, not only locally and in Ohio, but over several states. He low has the best systematized and most widely dvertised real estate business in the United States. Most of the land he handles is in the states of Ohio, ndiana, Illinois and Iowa. He is known personally T by correspondence in every town of over 2,000 population in all these states. He has his correspondnts and co-operates with many real estate brokers. His sales force consists of zoo men, in four different states.
Mr. Hart has recently been engaged in the organization of several notable companies. One is the arm Brokers' Association of Ohio, of which he is resident. This operates under the auspices of the Ohio State Association of Real Estate Boards. Anther is the Farm Holding & Investment Company, pith capital stock of $200,000, of which he is presient. He is also incorporating the Farm Management & Improvement Company, capitalized at $50,000 and another company is the Farm Sales Company, capitalized at $10,000, with Mr. Hart as presient. Mr. Hart individually owns property in twelve Cates of the Union. He is actively engaged at the resent time in agricultural development all over Ohio, helping to solve the problems of marketing and istribution and all community interests problems, of only purely agricultural but also industrial. He is the author of a set of resolutions adopted by a rominent organization and offering a practical pro-ram for many of the ills to which agriculture is ow subject. Mr. Hart is a frequent contributor to real estate periodicals, including the Chicago Real Estate News and the National Real Estate Journal. le is publicity manager for the National Association of Realty Brokers, Incorporated, of which he is an ex-president. He is also a member of the Warren Real Estate Board, the Warren Board of Trade, the Ohio Association of Real Estate Boards. Fraternally he is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons, belongs to the Warren Masonic Club, and is president of the H H Class of the Christian Church.
In 1895 Mr. Hart married Tootie Beerbower, aughter of William and Elizabeth (Swan) Beerbower of Hicksville. They have one son, La Due Hart, born January 5, 1902, and now a young man actively associated with his father in the real estate business.
W. W. PIERSON is a lawyer of successful practice and high standing in Trumbull County, lives in Girard, and is the present city solicitor.
Mr. Pierson was born on a farm near Vienna in Trumbull County, February 2, 188o, a son of Charles A. and Mary (Woodford) Pierson. His parents are still living, the father sixty-three and the mother sixty-two years of age. Charles A. Pierson during his early life was in the employ of Mike Quilty at Vienna, and later became a farmer. He had much ability in the handling of livestock, and kept some splendid Jersey cattle and trotting horses. During the World war he was president of the local draft board at Niles, is an active democrat in politics, has filled various local offices, including membership on the school hoard, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. Charles A. Pierson and wife have two children: W. W. and Olive. The latter is the wife of T. C. Cochran, of Mercery, Pennsylvania. W. W. Pierson graduated from the Hartford High School at the age of eighteen. He put in one year teaching in Trumbull County, attended Westminster College in Pennsylvania one year, and after his marriage moved south to Richmond, Virginia, where he was employed one year as a street car conductor, and then traveled over Virginia and North Carolina representing a wholesale house.
On coming back to Ohio Mr. and Mrs. Pierson located on a farm, the old Clawson place, and he remained there five years. This period re-enforced the steadily growing dislike which he first acquired when a boy, as a result of being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night to milk thirteen cows. As has been the case with thousands and thousands of farm trained boys, that feature of the farm work made the business revolting to him, and in order to learn something better and more to his tastes Mr. Pierson left the farm to enter the Ohio Northern University at Ada, where he expected to take a technical course, but eventually pursued the study of law. He graduated from the law school in 1907, and at once began practice at Youngstown. He had soon acquired a living practice there and continued to make his offices in Youngstown until he began his duties as city solicitor of Girard, where he has always had his home.
Mr. Pierson married Miss Minnie J. Clawson, daughter of William Clawson. They have one son, Virginius. Mr. Pierson is affiliated with Youngstown Lodge of Masons, the Knights of Pythias, the Elks and the Maccabees, is a republican in politics and a member of the Church of the Disciples.
CHARLES H. LAWRENCE. With an unprecedented growth of population in a decade Warren has had to expand and improvise its municipal facilities from those appropriate to a countrty town to those of an important industrial city. A large part of these problems are highly technical, and depend for their solution upon the trained skill and experience of a municipal engineer. Warren has been fortunate in the incumbent of the office of city engineer during this period. Charles H. Lawrence, city engineer, has been active in his profession for over twenty years, and had been on the engineering staff of some of the great industrial corporations before he took up municipal engineering.
Mr. Lawrence was born at Elyria in Lorain County, Ohio, July 16, 1877, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Lawrence. His father was born in Wales and his mother in England. Thomas Lawrence died at Elyria in 1912.
During his early life at Elyria Charles H. Lawrence attended the graded and high schools of the
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city, and in 1898, at the age of twenty-one, acquired his first experience in engineering as a rod man with the National Tube Company at Lorain. In 1900 he joined the civil engineering force of the American Steel and Wire Company at Cleveland as transit man, remaining there two years. In 1902 he went to Colorado as construction engineer for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company at Pueblo. On his return to Elyria Mr. Lawrence was engineer in charge of construction for a road district engaged in building some of the modern highways in Lorain County. Then in 1909 he was elected county surveyor of Lorain County, serving the term 1910 to 1912. At the conclusion of his term as county surveyor he opened an office and began practice as an engineer at Elyria, remaining in that city until May, 1913.
At this date he came to Warren as assistant to the engineer, and in 1917 under the Civil Service rules was appointed city engineer. For four or five years he has had charge of the larger construction enterprises undertaken by the city or involving the city's franchise, and in addition an enormous amount of routine work has been referred to his department as a result of the unusual demands made upon the municipal facilities. All his work has been handled with great discretion and ability.
Mr. Lawrence is a member of the American Engineers' Association, and is a member of Carroll F. Clapp Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Warren Commandery No. 39, Knights Templar, and of Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member of the Masonic and Automobile clubs. He married Miss Verna F. Farmer, daughter of Frank and Laura Farmer, of Elyria; Ohio.
LEO GEORGE GORMAN, purchasing agent for the Trumbull Steel Company of Warren, was born at Mount Alton, Pennsylvania, April 4, 1886, son of James and Sarah E. (Crowell) Gorman. All his grandparents were natives of Ireland, and came to the United States during the large immigration from Ireland in the fifties and sixties. His father was born at Vandalia, New York, and his mother at Cuba, New York, James Gorman has spent practically a lifetime in the sawmilling business in the three states of New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. His wife died n 1905.
Leo Gorman had a common and high school education in Pennsylvania, but left high school before graduating to begin work as a stenographer in a railroad freight office, in 1904. Later, for two years, he was rate clerk in the traveling department of H. J. Heinz Company at Pittsburgh, and in 1909 became traffic manager under Mr. Jonathan Warner of the Empire Iron & Steel Company at Niles, Ohio. From that corporation he was called to the Trumbull Steel Company at Warren in 1912 as purchasing agent and traffic manager. This industry has had a tremendous growth and enlargement since Mr. Gorman entered the service and by January 1, 1914, the purchasing department had collected responsibilities sufficient to require all the time and energies of Mr. Gorman, and he then relinquished his duties as traffic manager.
Mr. Gorman is a member of the Purchasing Agents' Association of Pittsburgh, of the Niles Chamber of Commerce, and is affiliated with the Elks, Knights of Columbus at Niles, the Trumbull Country Club and with the Warren Automobile Club.
PHILIP H. SCHAFF, vice president of the Youngstown Securities Company, has been a resident of this city since 1914, except for the two years he spent in the army.
He was born at Kansas City, Missouri, April 12, 1886, and comes of a family of distinguished theologians and scholars. His grandfather, Rev. Philip Schaff, of Union Theological Seminary, New York was accounted the greatest church historian of the time, and served as president of the American Com mission for the revision of the authorized version of the Bible. The father of the Youngstown banker is Professor David S. Schaff, who was ordained Presbyterian minister in 1877, was pastor of th church at Kansas City from 1883 to 1888, and sine 1903 has been a professor in the Western Theological Seminary at Pittsburgh. He is also widely know as an authority on church history.
Philip H. Schaff spent his boyhood in the various communities where his father was a pastor, and for two years lived in Germany, while his father was attending one of the universities of that country. He graduated from Princeton University in 1906, and for the following three years was connected with the Peoples National Bank of Pittsburgh. During a sojourn of several years in Idaho he engaged in farming and fruit growing there, and also conducted a small bank, doing all the work of the establishment, even to making the fire by which the banking room was warmed. After returning East, Mr. Schaff was representative in New York and Pittsburgh for Lee, Higginson & Company of Boston, and in 1914 came to Youngstown as the vice president of the Realty Trust Company.
He resigned this office in May, 1917, and entered the First Officers Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He was commissioned captain of infantry in August, sailed for France in May, 1918, and was abroad until February, 1919. September 3, 1918, he was commissioned as major of infantry, and was discharged with that rank.
Mr. Schaff was elected president of the Morris Plan Bank upon its organization, and has been head of that institution in Youngstown ever since. This is an addition to his duties as vice president of the Youngstown Securities Company. He is a member, of the Youngstown Club, Youngstown Country Club and other social and business organizations. January to, 1920, Mr. Schaff married Jane A. Boot daughter of Charles H. Booth of Youngstown.
WILLIAM WHITING DUNNAVANT, of Warren, was born at Sidney, Shelby County, Ohio, on November 18, 1848, the son of Thomas B. and Mary J. (McKee) Dunnavant. The family is of Virginian origin, the name being encountered in old records of that state. Thomas B. Dunnavant, father of William W. Dunnavant, was born in Richmond, Virginia, and in his early manhood came into Ohio, settling at Lancaster and subsequently at Sidney, Ohio, in which latter c
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he was for many years engaged in the tailoring business.
William W. Dunnavant attended the public schools of Sidney and at the age of thirteen began" to learn the printing business in the office of the Shelby Democrat. He was an active boy, energetic and confident, and of an adventurous disposition, and eight months after entering the printing office he forsook the "art preservative" for the to him more congenial occupation of driver of canal boats on the old Erie Canal, making the trip from Cincinnati to Toledo. Seven years later he went to live in Windham, Trumbull County, having by that time entered the employ of the old Atlantic and Western Railway Company as telegraph operator at Mahoning Station. He later became night operator at Warren, and four months later was promoted to the position of day operator at Greenville, Pennsylvania, so that his stay in Warren at that time was not of long duration. But he returned to Warren in 1873 to take charge of the ticket and telegraph office of the A. & G. W. Railroad.
In 1879 he was appointed traveling passenger agent of the .Atlantic and Western and of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railways, with headquarters at Pittsburgh, his territory including all between Marion, Ohio, on the west, and Baltimore and Philadelphia on the east. For eight years he traveled over that territory and became widely known. In 1887 he was appointed division passenger agent of the Erie System, having charge of the line from Greenville, Pennsylvania, to Marion, Ohio, the New Lisbon and Newcastle branches, and the Mahoning Division.
In 1890 he severed his connection with the Erie company and went to Pittsburgh, but in the following year returned to Warren as ticket agent for the P. & W. Railway. In 1894 he was appointed traveling passenger agent of the Queen and Crescent Railway, his territorial bounds being Columbus, Ohio, and Sandusky, Ohio. He continued in railroad work until 1915, in which year he retired from that business after a successful career extending over nearly .a half century of time. In 1907, while still a railroad official, he invested money in a moving picture venture in Warren, which he continued to operate until 1918. In that year he retired from all active business.
In 1881 Mr. Dunnavant joined Pittsburgh Lodge No. 45, Free and Accepted Masons, and he passed through all degrees of the order, including that of Knights Templar, Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree, and the Mystic Shrine. He has been a member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks since 1889.
He married Louise P. daughter of Joseph and Louise (Bach) Senior, of Warren, and to them has been born one son, Frederick Edward, who is engaged in the automobile business in Warren.
RALPH GARRY TAYLOR, Civil engineer and well known and popular citizen of Warren, has been active in his profession and in connection with some of the leading industries of the Mahoning Valley for the past fifteen years.
Mr. Taylor is descended from two old Mahoning Valley families. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Taylor, who was a native of Ireland, and on coming to America settled in Canada. He married Margaret Foster, and in 1852 they removed to Ohio and settled at Bloomfield, Trumbull County.
George J. Taylor, son of Thomas and Margaret Taylor, and father of Ralph G., was born at Smith Falls, Canada, February to, 1849, and was three years old when the family came to Trumbull County. He was educated in the North Bloomfield schools and in 1870 engaged in the hardware business at Niles. In 1896 he disposed of his hardware business and entered the insurance and real estate business, and in November, 1897, became one of the organizers of the Home Building and Loan Company of Niles, of which he was elected secretary. Later the name of that company was changed to the Home Savings and Loan Company, Mr. Taylor continuing as secretary. On February 17, 1876, he married Hannah M. Harris, who was born at Covington, Kentucky, on October 27, 1855, the daughter of James and Hannah M. (Carpenter) Harris who came to Youngstown in 1864 and to Niles in 1865, where he built the Harris-Blackford Sheet Mill and remained in the steel business until he retired from active business.
Ralph G. Taylor was born at Niles, September 27, 1884. He was educated in the public schools, leaving high school in his seventeenth year to go to work in a Niles jewelry store. Subsequently he was in the employ of the Harris Automatic Press Company at Niles, but in 1903 began his studies and practical apprenticeship in civil engineering with William Wilson, then city engineer of Niles. In 1908 became a draftsman in the employ of the Empire Iron & Steel Company at Niles, and when that company was consolidated with the Brier Hill Steel Company at Youngstown he remained with the larger organization for some time. From June 15, 1913, to March 8, 1920, Mr. Taylor served as deputy county surveyor of Trumbull County. Since the latter date he has been in the office of the city engineer of Warren. At the August, 192o, primaries Mr. Taylor was nominated on the republican ticket for county surveyor by a plurality of 432 votes. The republican nomination in Trumbull County is practically equivalent to election.
Mr. Taylor is a member of the American Association of Engineers and the Ohio Engineering Society, and is a member of the Niles Club. On October 2, 1911, he was united in marriage with Miss Rena M. Boyes, the daughter of George E. and Kate (Ingersoll) Boyes. Her paternal grandparents were Joseph and Ann Boyes, who came to Warren in 1854. Her maternal grandparents were William and Elizabeth (Welborn) Ingersoll. To Mr. and Mrs. Taylor three children have been born, as follows : George J., born on September 20, 1913; Robert G., born August 27, 1915; and Jean E., born October 23, 1917.
WARREN THOMAS, attorney at law of Warren, Ohio, was born at Niles, Ohio, on October 27, 1876, the son of Melancthon and Emma (Calhoun) Thomas. He was admitted to the bar in October, 1899, since which time he has practiced his profession in Warren. He was elected in 1903 a member of the Ohio House of Representatives and re-elected in 1905, and served as chairman of the judiciary committee during the session of 1906-08. He introduced the act now known as the Thomas Banking
474 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
Law, providing for the examination and inspection of state banks. Mr. Thomas is a republican and has served his party on both state and county committees.
ROBERT J. BANNER is one of the best known of the skilled men employed in the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. He is a roller in No. 2 skelp mill of that industry, and outside the routine of his work is also a highly regarded citizen of Youngstown, influentially identified with various social and civic organizations.
Mr. Banner was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, March 18, 1869, son of Josephus and Ellen (Ball) Banner. His parents were natives of England, were married in Scotland, and came to the United States shortly after the close of the Civil war. From Wheeling, where they lived for a time, they moved to Cohoes, New York, remaining there about ten years, and in 1879 came to Youngstown. Josephus Banner has spent all his active life as a roll turner in iron and steel mills. His wife is now deceased, and he is a resident of Youngstown, celebrating his eighty-first birthday in February, 192o. Of his eight children seven are living.
Second in the family and the oldest son, Robert J. Banner has lived at Youngstown since he was about ten years of age. About a year after he came to the city he began learning the trade of roll turner under his father in the upper mill of the Carnegie Steel Company. He was with that industry until 5892 and for three years was with the Brown-Bonnell plant. He then returned to the industry where he had begun his apprenticeship, and later went to take charge of the roll turning in the old Buhl steel works at Sharon, Pennsylvania. After about a year he took up similar duties at Warren with the American Steel Hoop Company.
Mr. Banner has been with the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company for the past seventeen years. He began his service in charge of roll turning June 16, 1903, and on the 16th of August of the same year took charge of the No. 2 skelp mill as roller. He filled both positions for the rest of the year, and since then has given all his attention to rolling in the skelp mill.
During the World war Mr. Banner was a member of the executive committee of the War Chest, and is now serving on the executive committee of the Community Corporation. He is active in several fraternal organizations, and his career and work have been such as to give him the well merited confidence and esteem of all classes of citizens.
November 12, 189o, he married Miss Mary A. Furlong, daughter of William and Mary (Collins) Furlong, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of England. Her father came to America with his parents in infancy, and spent an active life as a blast furnace worker. He died in February, 1913. The only son of Mr. and Mrs. Banner is Robert Earl Banner, who was born July 4, 1893, and is now in the automobile business at Youngstown. During the World war he was employed by the French government as inspector of war materials, and at the close of the war was chief inspector in the Youngstown District. Robert Earl Banner married Miss Myrtle A. Michaels.
THOMAS L. KNAUF has for many years been identified with the progressive leadership in the agricultural sections of the Mahoning Valley. A farmer and stock raiser of Green Township, Mahoning County, he is a member of the board of directors and for the past three years has been president of the County Fair Association, a position where he has been able to exercise a distinctive influence for good in the new agricultural uplift of the county. The present policy of the directors of the fair is to encourage participation on the part of young men and women by emphasizing the displays of the various corn, pig and other clubs and thus giving a direct incentive to encourage the boys and girls, to stay on the farms. The correctness of this policy has been fully demonstrated, the 1919 fair being the most prosperous ever held. There are ten members of the board of directors.
Mr. Knauf is an advanced farmer himself, and has just the qualities required for leadership in the rural life movement in Mahoning County. Mr. Knauf, who is a member of an old and prominent family of Green Township, was born in that locality. March 16, 1864, son of John and Amelia A. (E Knauf. Mahoning County was still a pioneer district largely in the woods when his grandfather Nicholas Knauf, came here an orphan boy and grew up with a family of early settlers in the northern part of the township. Nicholas Knauf was born in Germany, and came to America at the age of six years, his parents dying of yellow fever soon after they landed. Nicholas Knauf founded one of the first mills in his section of the county, operated by water power, and the old mill structure was still standing up to a few years ago. Nicholas Knauf lived to advanced years, and reared a large family of children. His son, John Knauf, was an active factor in the agricultural section of Green Township, and spent his life on the farm. He died May 4, 1903, and his wife on May 15, 1905. They were members of the Lutheran Church. Their children to reach mature years were Etta E., Thomas L., Rose R., Harvey W., Martha M., Arthur H., Hugh A. and Eunice J.
Thomas L. Knauf attended the public school of his native township and for thirty-five years has given his chief energies to farming and stock raising. His farm of 140 acres is just three quarters of a mile east of the railroad station of Calla, and in August, 1905, he entered upon his duties as postmaster of Calla, serving nine years, until he retired in 1913. Since then his time has been given to his farm and to his duties with the Fair Association.
Mr. Knauf is properly proud of the fact that all three of his children offered their personal services and not merely their money and auxiliary work to the Government during the World war. No family in Mahoning County has a better patriotic record. Mr. Knauf married September 29, 1887, Miss Elva D. Cochel, daughter of Joseph M. Cochel of Calla. Their happy marriage continued for thirty years, until the death of Mrs. Knauf on November 30, 1917. She