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Konold, who when fourteen years of age was brought to the United States. During the residence of the Konold family at Collinsville, Connecticut, he first worked with the Collinsville Axe Company. He possessed all the expert skill of the family as a worker in iron. In 1868 he moved to Pittsburgh, where he became one of the organizers of the Kloman & Berkly Company, tool makers. In 1874, following the great panic of the preceding year, this company failed, but subsequently was reorganized as the Iron City Tool Works, with Christ Konold as superintendent. He remained in that post of responsibility with the company until November, 1888. Christ Konold married Mary Hoveler, who was also born at Frankfort, Germany, and was brought to this country when a girl. She died in 1880.
Their son, George Frank Konold, was born at East Douglas, Massachusetts, June 25, 1864, and from the of four was at Evergreen, a Pittsburgh suburb, re he attended village schools. At the age of en he was on duty in the plant of the Iron City Tool Works, at first as a helper, then as a hammer-smith with, and by practical experience acquired a knowledge of every branch of the forge industry. At the time of his father's death in 1888 he was twenty-four years of age, and well equipped and qualified to become his father's successor as superintendent of the plant. That post he filled for twenty-three years.
It was in 1911 that Mr. Konold became identified with the industrial affairs of the City of Warren. He and his brother M. J. Konold, and J. D. Robertson of Pittsburgh organized in that year the Warren Tool and Forge Company. Ground was broken in December of the same year, and the plant was completed and equipped with machinery of Mr. Konold's special design and the first shipment of products was made in June, 1912. Mr. Konold is the practical man of the concern, has his residence in Warren and gives the closest personal supervision to the operations of the industry. He is treasurer and general manager of the company. The president is Mr. Robertson and the vice president is M. J. Konold, both of whom reside at Pittsburgh, where they have other extensive business interests.
Mr. Konold is also president and treasurer of the American Block and Manufacturing Company of Warren, is a director in the Malleable Iron Company of Warren, and a director in the Tri-State Foundry and Machine Company of Wellsburg, West Virginia.
For years he has been a well known figure in the iron and steel industry, is a member of the American Iron and Steel Institute, and at Warren is actively associated with the Board of Trade, is a member of the advisory board of the Old Colony Club, and is affiliated with the Trumbull Country Club, Warren Rotary Club, and a member of the executive board of the Boy Scouts. He is a life member and past master of Corinthian Lodge of Masons at Pittsburgh, and is also affiliated with Warren Commandery of Knights Templar and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland.
Mr. Konold is happily married and two of his sons were in uniform during the World war. He married in 1889 Hannah I. Saints. She was born at Allegheny City, now part of Greater Pittsburgh, daughter of William H. and Mary J. (Reynolds) Saints. Her father was a prominent business man and manufacturer of Pittsburgh. The oldest of the three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Konold is George F., Jr., who was born at Pittsburgh, February 2, 1892. He graduated from the Aspinwall High School in Pennsylvania and the Western Reserve University, class of '14, degree of A. B., and in 1917 left his official position as secretary of the Warren Tool & Forge Company, which he had held since 1914, and became a private in the Signal Corps of the United States Army. He attended an officers training school and was commissioned a second lieutenant, but the armistice was signed before he was sent overseas. He is affiliated with Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Warren Lodge of Elks. His wife was Elizabeth Miller, daughter of Edward G. Miller, manager of the Warren and Niles Telephone Company. They have a daughter Elizabeth Hannah, born October 22, 1919.
The second son, William Saints Konold, born June 1, 1898, left school to enlist in the United States Marine Corps in 1917, and was on active duty for a year and a half on board the battleship Arizona. He is now preparing for college at Saltsburg, Pennsylvania. The youngest son, John Reynolds, was born February 2, 1900, is a graduate of the Warren High School, and is now pursuing a scientific and technical course in the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland.
HOWARD F. WOLFCALE. Though organized in 1916, the Service Supply Company is one of the most familiar business organizations at Youngstown, and in a space of a few years has become one of the largest concerns handling builders' supplies and coal.
This business, whose plant is at 217 Oak Hill Avenue, has from the first been under the management of Howard F. Wolf cale, who is also secretary and treasurer of the company. The president is E. L. Flad.
Mr. Wolfcale was born in Youngstown, June 28, 1883, son of William and Rebecca (Crum) Wolfcale. His father was born at Youngstown in 1859, and he and his wife are still living here, both active members of the First Christian Church. William Wolfcale has had an active part in local business affairs, formerly having been associated in the lumber business. He is now employed as a pattern maker at the Youngstown foundry. His wife was born in Jackson County, Ohio, and from there her people moved to Indiana and later to Youngstown. William Wolfcale and wife had five children: Howard F.; Charles, connected with the Cadillac Motor Company of Detroit; Delbert, with the Republic Iron and Steel Company ; Mabel, wife of Lawrence Eyster; and Ward, a steel worker.
Howard F. Wolfcale acquired his early education at Austintown through the eighth grade, and after leaving school lost no time in getting into real work. For a time he was under L. A. Treat in the engineering department of the Carnegie Steel Company, and for sixteen years was employed on construction at the Ohio Works. For a year he did contracting in cement, road building, sidewalks and paving. Following that in 1916 he became active in the organization of the Service Supply Company. In the
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month of August, 1919, this company handled 451 cars of, building supplies, coal and other material. One feature of their plant on Oak Hill Avenue is the finest gravity tipple recently installed in Ohio. It is located along the Lake Erie and Eastern tracks, the tipple containing seven bins, each with a capacity for ten cars of coal, the combined capacity being 3,500 tons.
Mr. Wolfcale is a member of the Ohio Builders Exchange, the Youngstown Credit Association, the Mahoning Valley Credit Association and the Youngstown Builders Exchange.- In 1907-he married Emily Torrence, daughter of James Torrence, an old timer in the steel industry of Youngstown. Mrs. Wolfcale is a member of the St. John's Church. They have one daughter, Blanche.
WILLIAM H. VAHEY. Many Youngstown people have known William H. Vahey for a quarter of a century or more. They perhaps remember the time when he was down at- the bottom of the ladder struggling and working to secure a foothold and earn an honest living. It was in those days of obscure struggle that William H. Vahey laid the foundation of the Vahey Oil Company, a prosperous corporation of which he is president.
He was born at Port Deposit, Maryland, in 1869, a son of Thomas and Katharine (Noon) Vahey. His parents were natives of Ireland and his father was for some years an iron worker in the mills at Youngstown. William H. Vahey secured his education in St. Colomba's parochial school. He refused further school advantages at the age of twelve and went to work in the rolling mills, picking coke out of the cinders. He was paid 30 cents a day for that work. Eventually he was advanced to the rank of puddler, one of the skilled occupations and commanding a high rate of pay at that time.
In 1893 came the financial panic and the general prostration of all the basic industries of the Mahoning Valley. An unmarried man had the greatest difficulty in finding work that would keep him alive. William H. Vahey when unable to secure employment from others created a job of his .own. He borrowed $100 from his brother Thomas J. A gold watch which he greatly prized as a gift from his mother he pawned to Sam Phau for a wagon. He paid $to and used his credit for the rest of the price of a horse and borrowed a set of harness. With this equipment he started his present oil business. He began peddling oil, and did the hardest kind of work developing a. trade. When the roads were so bad that he could not get his wagon over them, he carried oil by hand to his customers. He paid his debts. When the trade in oil was slow he peddled produce. He was constantly at work, his mind was constantly filled with ideas, and through all his struggle he built up a reputation for square dealing and in spite of competition succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. He was not afraid of hard work, and in the early days he not only drove his own wagon but unloaded cars, and every night he went to bed physically weary.
When after some years he incorporated his business he had two trucks and two wagons, and all that was necessary to secure capital to incorporate was an intimation to some of his friends, when he was supplied abundantly. At the present time the business employs seven trucks and one wagon, and there is a large plant 160 by 200 feet, on Rayen Avenue, and also one in Warren, Ohio. The company maintains nine filling stations, and was the first organization to install curb filling stations in Youngstown. They also do a wholesale business over all of Ohio, and the volume of trade during the past year exceeded $1,000,000. Mr. Vahey is president, J. L. Marsh, vice president and general manager, and E. C. Woods is secretary. The company erected its first tank in 1912 and now has five tanks in Youngstown and four in Warren. Mr. Vahey is also interested in a number of other enterprises and is connected with companies producing oil in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and recently organized the Youngstown Oil Company, an 'Ohio Corporation operating in Ohio, Kentucky and Texas. He has leased a large tract of land in the Texas oil field for development purposes.
JAMES M. BANE has shown marked circumspection and progressiveness in his real estate operations in Trumbull County, where he established his residence in the spring of 1908. He laid out and developed an important addition to the City of Warren, and is now giving his attention to similar enterprise at Newton Falls, where he maintains his home. His activities have been potent in the furtherance of civic and material advancement, and he is one of the liberal and public-spirited men of Trumbull County.
Mr. Bane was born in Monongalia County, West Virginia, on the 21st of March, 188o, and was there reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm, the while he profited fully by the advantages offered by the public school. He continued his residence in his native state until he came to Ohio and settled on a farm two miles south of Warren. Within the ensuing four years he had sold this property, in small tracts, and he then purchased land one mile south of that city, which tract of seventy-five acres he platted as Banes Subdivision of Warren, the addition extending from Tod Avenue to Highland Avenue. He improved the property, upon which he himself erected several houses, and he still retains possession of a portion of this subdivision. In 1918, with a clear conception of possibilities and demands, Mr. Bane purchased the Peter Butts farm of twenty-five acres, lying partly within the corporate limits of Newton Falls, the house on the place being in the village. Here he established his home and instituted development work on this tract, besides which he became associated with Warren W. Klingerman, of the Albert Nichols tract of forty acres, with the old residence on the place situated within the village limits. The first tract, as duly platted into village lots, was added to Newton Falls under the title of Newton Heights in July, 1918, and all lots have now been sold, with several houses already erected and others in course of erection at the time of this writing. The exploitation of the second tract is being carried forward with equal discrimination and success, and the two enterprises gave been of marked value in furthering the progress and general attractiveness of the fine little City of Newton Falls. Mr. Bane was one of the organizers of the recently incorporated building and
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loan association at Newton Falls, and is a member of its board of directors.
Mr. Bane is a republican in politics, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, in which he has passed all of the official chairs, besides having been a representative to the Grand Lodge, and both he and his wife are active in the affairs of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he being a member of its official board. In October, 1903, Mr. Bane wedded Miss Mary E. Lee, of Noble County, Ohio, and the first of their children, Harold, died in childhood. The five children who lend vitality to the home circle are Chester, William, Eva, James and Audrey.
EDWARD W. ROSENBERGER is manager of the interests of the H. W. Johns-Manville Company in the Youngstown district. In an industrial and commercial organization whose business is world wide Mr. Rosenberger has climbed by successive steps in less than eleven years from a clerkship to a leading executive responsibility.
He was born on a farm near Leipsic in Putnam County, Ohio, October 4, 1885, son of Jacob B. and Anna M. (Weaver) Rosenberger. His parents were also natives of Putnam County. His father died in at the age of forty-four, and his mother in 1893, at the age of thirty-two. Jacob B. Rosenberger during his brief life was a successful farmer and especially interested in raising fine live stock. In other ways he was a man of prominence in Putnam County. He and his wife were members of the Methodist Protestant Church. In earlier years they were of the Dunkard religious faith. Of their six children three are still living: Charles L., who conducts the old homestead farm in Putnam County ; Dr. H. C., a physician at Cleveland; and Edward W.
Edward W. Rosenberger attended Crawfis College, taking a preparatory course, and for two years was a country school teacher. For one term he attended the Tri-State Normal College at Angola, Indiana, and later was a pupil in the Ohio State Business College at Ottawa, Ohio. For one year he was engaged in Young Men's Christian Association work at Cleveland, and then entered the purchasing department of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad. About two years later Mr. Rosenberger formed his first connection with the Johns-Manville Company a clerical capacity. Six months later, in 1908, he transferred to Youngstown, as representative of corporation and has had active charge of its iness affairs here ever since. He has a territory comprising ten counties in Northeastern Ohio, and the business of the company in this district has reached an enormous and imposing total during the past ten years.
Mr. Rosenberger is a member of the Youngstown Engineering Club, the Builders Exchange and Chamber of Commerce, the Youngstown Country Club and the Rotary Club.
October 12, 1911, he married Margaret M. McCarthy, daughter of James McCarthy of Youngstown. Their two children are Alice Jane and Edward W., Jr.
FRANK P. WHITESIDE. Actively identified with one f the leading industries of this section of the coun, Frank P. Whiteside, of Youngstown, is ever busily employed, being manager of the factory branch of the Kelley-Springfield Tire Company, the Youngstown district, of which he has control, being composed of four Ohio counties, Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula, and of six Pennsylvania counties, Beaver, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, Forest and Erie. Having had eighteen years experience with the automobile trade, beginning his work in Charles Gaither's repair shop at the west end of Wood Street, Mr. Whiteside is familiar with motors from A to Z, knowing them up side down and inside out, and knows how to make the parts.
A native of Youngstown, Frank P. Whiteside was born April 13, 1884., his birthplace having been at the corner of Rayen Avenue and Walnut Street. His father was a practising dentist, Dr. T. H. Whiteside, of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Acquiring his elementary education in the Wood and Covington Street schools, he entered the Maryland Nautical Academy, where he took a special course in marine engineering, ship architecture and navigation, graduating therefrom with the class of 1904.
Returning home, Mr. Whiteside embarked in the automobile business, and having become somewhat familiar with its details while in the employ of Mr. Gaither, as above mentioned, opened a machine shop on his own account. He subsequently invented a casting machine, which he manufactured for three years, selling them in great numbers during that time. Then, in company with Emile Renner, John Kuntz and Henry Kuntz, Mr. Whiteside organized the City Garage Company, with which he was associated for three years, being located at the corner of Phelps and Front streets. Inventing then a furniture hand truck, he had it patented, and it was afterward manufactured by Homer S. Williams. Mr. Whiteside later took the agency for the Puncture Proof Tire, and handled it successfully until accepting his present responsible position as manager of the manufacturing branch of the Kelley-Springfield Tire Company.
Mr. Whiteside married, December 4, 1923, Miss Edith MacDonald, of Morristown, and into the household thus established three children have made their advent, Thomas Scott, Edith E. and Wilmah Jeanne. Mr. Whiteside is a member of the Youngstown Automobile Club, of the Chamber of Commerce, and has served as vice president of the Kiwanis Club. He and his family are members of the Presbyterian Church, and are liberal contributors towards its support.
MICHAEL FERRANDO is a talented young lawyer of Youngstown, and has made good use of his opportunities since entering practice three years ago.
He is a son of Anthony and Gabriele (Marquette) Ferrando, both of whom were born in the Province of Campobasso, Italy. Anthony Ferrando came to the United States when a boy, and for a time worked in the mines near Hubbard, later becoming a farmer in that vicinity. He had done well by his family and was rapidly acquiring a competency when overtaken by death at the age of forty-five. He was a republican, a member of the Catholic Church at Hubbard, and was a leader among his people in that community. His wife came to America at the age of four years, and after his death she became the wife of Marco Antonelli of Youngstown. She died December 4,
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1917, at the age of forty-eight. Anthony Ferrando had the following children : Philip, who was a member of the Youngstown police force at the time of his death in February, 1919; Martha, wife of Henry Sammartino, a jeweler on East Federal Street ; Michael ; Joseph, who was killed by an insane man when six years of age; Cassie, a graduate of the dental department of the University of Pittsburgh and practicing that profession.
Michael Ferrando was born February 12, 1889, and acquired a liberal education. Graduating from the Rayen High School of Youngstown in 1910, he entered Miami University, received his A. B. degree in 1913, and finished his law course in the Cincinnati Law School in 1916. He located for the general practice of law in Youngstown, where he has built up a very creditable practice. His offices are at 820-21 Home Savings & Loan Building. He is a member of the Greek letter fraternity Phi Alpha Delta. Mr. Ferrando resides at Hubbard. He is a republican in politics. June 17, 1915, he married Lena, daughter of Ambrose Wespiser, of Oxford, Ohio.
JOHN NICHOLAS HELTZEL. While his name has been identified with the citizenship of Warren less than a decade, there has grown up in the city, largely as a result of his original genius and executive ability, a large and important industry bearing Mr. Heltzel's name, known as the Heltzel Steel Form & Iron Company, of which he is president and treasurer.
Mr. Heltzel, who possesses the singular combination of inventive talents with constructive business energy, was born on the old Heltzel farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 14, 1882. He is a, descendant of Nicholas Heltzel, who coming from Germany bought the land now included in the Heltzel homestead, and the old parchment deed, signed by King George of England, is still in the family's possession, as well as the land itself. Jacob Heltzel's History of Adams County, Pennsylvania, states that the old Heltzel home on that farm was built from brick brought over from England, which brick was carted from Philadelphia to the farm, a distance of 104 miles. The old house is still occupied. The farm, seven miles out from Gettysburg, was in the zone of the famous battle of Gettysburg during the Civil war. A description of the deed to the Heltzel homestead contained in a recent issue of a Hanover, Pennsylvania, newspaper, subscribed by William Heltzel, son of Nicholas, states that the writing in the old deed is in most beautiful black ink and legible; the corner and boundary lines are taken from oak trees, streams and rocks; and the deed itself is about two feet long. The Western Maryland Railway and the Lincoln Highway pass through the farm.
Mr. Heltzel's grandfather, Nicholas Heltzel, was born on that farm. He was a man of prominence in his section of Pennsylvania and served two terms in the Pennsylvania Legislature, refusing a third re-election. His wife, a Miss Nepley, was of Scotch-Irish and English stock, and was descended from a titled English family.
Charles Heltzel, son of Nicholas F., was born on the Heltzel farm. He married Elizabeth Felty, a native of Abbottstown, Adams County, Pennsylvania, and daughter of George Felty, a native of the same county. Charles Heltzel and wife are now living at York, Pennsylvania. Charles, the father, was a newspaper man until he retired from active business some years ago.
John Nicholas Heltzel lived on the ancestral farm to the age of eight years, and after that in Abbottstown, where he attended public schools to the age of sixteen. The family then removed to York, where he went to work as an apprentice boilermaker at wages of $2.50 a week. After completing his apprenticeship he went to Baltimore, and while pursuing a course in mechanical engineering at the Maryland Institute he supported himself and earned wages at his regular trade. He was employed in different plants and also in the shipyards at Baltimore until he finished his engineering education.
At the age of twenty-two years Mr. Heltzel was a writer on engineering subjects, contributing articles to technical periodicals, and his work on locomotive boilers was highly commended by W. H. Wood, an engineer of international note and a recognized authority on modern engineering, in a letter to Mr. Heltzel for Mr. Wood written in long hand.
At Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he had charge of the laying out and development of all plate work in the new mills of the Harrisburg Pipe & Pipe Bending Company, continuing there until the mills were completed. He was next engineer in charge of boilers in the plants of the United States Leather Company, these plants being scattered at different points throughout the country. His next employment was with the Pittsburgh Industrial Iron Works as superintendent, and following that he was assistant general foreman boilermaker of the Erie Railroad, Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Heltzel on leaving the railway company bought a half interest in the Streator Boiler Company at Streator, Illinois. While there he invented steel forms for various types of concrete construction, and with a practical demonstration of their value and vision of the importance of his invention he sold his interest in the boiler company and gave that company the manufacturing rights on his patented forms in western states for the life of the patent. He then started out to look up a location for establishing a plant for the manufacture of his forms for the eastern market. This investigation was continued for several months and carried him to many of the industrial centers of the East. The City of Warren presented to him the most convincing arguments as a site for his proposed industry, and incidentally he became assured of the wonderful industrial future for the entire Mahoning Valley. In October, 1913, Mr. Heltzel bought the plant of the Vulcan Furnace Company, recently built, and during the early months of 1914 equipped the plant with the necessary machinery and began business under the name Heltzel Steel Form & Iron Works. The business began on a sure foundation and by 1915 the accumulation of orders made it necessary to increase the size of the plant. During that year Mr. Heltzel bought the form business, including the machinery and the other interests controlled by the Streator Boiler Company, handling the western territory, and concentrated all the equipment at Warren. Further additions were made to the machinery equipment in 1915 and also some minor
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improvements in the plant technique. In 1916 the Heltzel Steel Form & Iron Company was incorporated with the personnel of its executives as follows: J. N. Heltzel, president and treasurer ; F. O. Heltzel, vice president and M. C. Boyd, secretary. W. E. Calder-wood later succeeded Mr. Boyd as secretary.
With the entrance of America into the war almost the entire organization was turned over to Government work. At the beginning about half of the plant's capacity was devoted to the manufacture of steel forms used to facilitate the rapid construction of Government work. In order to render a maximum service to the Government the rest of the plant was devoted to the fabrication of ship work for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The plant also manufactured for the Government gun slides and loading platforms for sixteen-inch guns, and constructed steel tanks for the navy department.
In order to increase the output of war materials the company bought the plant of the Newton Falls Construction Company, and this was operated as the Heltzel Steel Form & Iron Company until after the signing of the armistice. With the disposal of the final contracts for Government work, and owing to the inconvenience of operating two plants, the company determined to sell the one at Newton Falls. Its purchaser was Mr. John Heltzel in person, who at once organized and incorporated the Ohio Structural Steel Company, of which he is president; and this has continued as a highly successful business.
While the facilities of the Heltzel Steel Form and Iron Company were increased Ioo per cent in 1917, a similar duplication had to be made as a result of tremendous increase of business by 1919. At present the plant covers three acres of ground and 125 skilled men comprise the labor pay roll. Besides making the steel forms the company manufactures steel tanks, stacks and general plate construction. The products are shipped to the Atlantic on the East and the Pacific on the West, and the output is generally used by practically all important contractors in concrete construction work both in the United States and Canada.
Mr. Heltzel is also vice president, and a director of the Columbian Home Building Company, the company building the new home for the Knights of Columbus at Warren. Besides looking after his industrial plant he served on different committees in charge of war work, including Liberty Loan committees, Welfare organizations, Savings Stamps, and was identified with the splendid work done by the Warren Automobile Club. He was especially active in raising funds for the prosecution of the war activities of the Knights of Columbus. He is treasurer of the Warren Council of the Knights of Columbus, a member of the Warren Rotary Club, Warren Board of Trade, Ohio Manufacturers Association and National Association of Manufacturers, and he and his family are members of St. Mary's Parish. Mr. Heltzel is also financially interested in the Hotel Warner. Mr. Heltzel has never used tobacco or intoxicating liquors.
He married Miss Mabel Coffman, of Erie, Pennsylvania, daughter of Hart and Sarah (Heintz) Coffman. They are the parents of four children, John Nicholas, Jr., Carl, Paul and Mary.
FRANK PARMELEE WICK. Industrially the foundation of Youngstown is the coal and iron business, and with both branches of that great industry Frank Parmelee Wick was closely identified through almost his entire lifetime.
Mr. Wick was born in Youngstown, November 3, 1847, a son of Daniel Johnson and Emeline (Griffith) Wick. While he lingered long enough in the public schools to acquire a substantial education, he was doing for himself at the early age of thirteen. He had practically every phase of experience in coal mining and iron milling. From the coal mines he was made superintendent of the Mahoning Valley Mill, but later resumed business as a coal operator and was associated with a number of capitalists and with enterprises that were then vital in the history and progress of the Youngstown district.
Mr. Wick died October 30, 1900, at the comparatively early age of fifty-three. He was a strong republican in politics but never held office.
December 10, 1874, he married Miss Emma E. Powers, daughter of Milton and Lucy (Silliman) Powers. Her grandfather, Abraham Powers, was a Scotch-Irishman who founded his family in Eastern Ohio in earliest pioneer times, settling in the deep woods that then covered the site of Youngstown and clearing a farm from the wilderness. His agricultural efforts were carried on on land that subsequently became the site of some of the steel and iron plants of Youngstown.
Frank P. Wick and wife had five children : Caroline, born October 10, 1876, and died at the age of 2 1/2 years ; Milton Powers, born November 11, 1878, who is employed in the Carnegie plant of the United States Steel Corporation of Youngstown, Ohio, as is also his brother, Frank J.; Frank Johnson, born November 5, 1880; Ella Louise, born October 13, 1883, now secretary of the Youngstown Chapter of the Red Cross, and served overseas in the base hospital for two years ; and Lucy, born June 1o, 1889, and died March 3, 1903.
JAMES L. WICK, JR. Possessing many of the striking business abilities associated with the family name James L. Wick, Jr., while interested in Youngstown's basic industry, iron and steel, has been chiefly identified with the ice industry, and has been the virtual head of that business in the Mahoning Valley for a number of years. At one time he served as president of the Middle State Ice Producers' Exchange.
He was born at Youngstown January 28, 1883. The story of his father, for whom he was named, is given appropriate space on other pages of this publication.
Mr. Wick was reared and educated in Youngstown, and after leaving the Rayen High School entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, where he was graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1906. He is therefore not only a practical business man, but one of thorough technical training and experience. For one year after leaving college he served as assistant to the master mechanic, and another as assistant to the chief engineer for the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. He left, that industry to become manager of the Crystal Ice
680 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
& Storage Company, and has been one of the leading officials in that organization for the past ten years, serving as secretary and treasurer. On July 1, 1918, he again resumed work with the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company as special agent. On May 1, 1919, he became a partner and is now secretary of the Falcon Bronze Company.
Mr. Wick has served as president of the Youngstown Council of the Boy Scouts of America, of which he is now vice president. He is also former president of the Youngstown Association of Credit Men, a former director of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Rotary Club and Youngstown Club, and is now a trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association and secretary of the sinking fund commission of the Youngstown City School District. Mr. Wick is also a member of the American Iron & Steel Institute and the Youngstown Engineers' Club. In 19o8 he married Clare Mary Dryer, of Terre Haute, Indiana. They have two children, Warner Arms and Mary.
JOHN P. O'ROURKE. An amply financed and ably managed business house of Youngstown is the Peoples Furniture Company, the vice president of which is John P. O'Rourke, formerly sergeant in Company C, Forty-seventh United States Infantry, that helped turn the tide of battle at St. Mihiel and Argonne Woods, France, during the darkest days of the great war. In addition to being a brave and sacrificing soldier Mr. O'Rourke has many business triumphs to his credit.
John P. O'Rourke was born at Niles, Ohio, March 29, 1893, a son of James J. and Catherine (O'Connell) O'Rourke, the latter of whom died May In, 1906. The mother of Mr. O'Rourke was born at Niles, but the father was born in Canada. He lives at Niles, where he is assistant superintendent of the Warren City Tank & Boiler Works.
In the parochial and public schools at Niles John P. O'Rourke obtained his education, and after passing through the high school supplemented his acquirements by a business course in a commercial college at Youngstown, from which he was graduated in 1914. He immediately entered the employ of the Republic Iron & Steel Company, where he continued until he entered military service, and after a short period of training was sent with the American Expeditionary Force to France. As noted above, Sergeant O'Rourke went through what history will always call "A baptismal of fire," during which comrades fell all around him to rise no more, while he was carried from the field with three machine gun bullets in his body. He received his honorable discharge May 23, 1919.
After a period of recuperation Mr. O'Rourke felt ready to resume business, and identified himself with the Peoples Furniture Company as office man and salesman. In September, 1919, in recognition of his business qualities of a high order, he became vice president of the company and a member of the Board .of Directors. The business is in a prosperous condition, and under Mr. O'Rourke's progressive leadership undoubtedly will further expand.
On May 22, 1918, Mr. O'Rourke was united in marriage to Miss Mary Lyden, who is a daughter of William G. and Bridget E. (Burke) Lyden, the latter of whom survives and lives at Youngstown. The father of Mrs. O'Rourke died at Youngstown in 1915, where he had lived for forty years, being a pioneer mill man. Mrs. O'Rourke is a capable business woman, and in September, 1919, was elected secretary and treasurer of the Peoples Furniture Company. She is a graduate of the Immaculate Conception College at Youngstown. Both Mr. and Mrs O'Rourke are faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church, and Mr. O'Rourke belongs to the Knight! of Columbus. They are very highly esteemed both in business and social circles.
PAUL H. MCELEVEY, who is secretary and assistant trust officer of the Dollar Savings and Trust Company, has enjoyed some very active and confidential associations with local industries and financial corporations of Youngstown, where he has lived the greater part of his life.
Mr. McElevey was born at New Castle, Pennsylvania, February 25, 1872, son of Gustavus H. and Sarah J. (Bonnell) McElevey. His mother was the oldest daughter of William Bonnell, the pioneer iron manufacturer of the Mahoning Valley, and whose-career is adequately sketched on other pages. Gustavus H. McElevey was an architect by profession, and in the earlier part of his career did much important building work in Philadelphia. On account of ill health he abandoned the architectural profession, and going West became a coal operator in the great bituminous district at Brazil, Indiana, where he lived until his death in 1878. His widow and her four children soon afterward removed to Youngstown, where she lived until her death in 1913.
Paul H. McElevey was about seven years of age when he came to Youngstown and finished his education here in the public schools. He also attended a preparatory school one year. His first banking experience was employment as a collector in the Mahoning Bank. Later he became shipping clerk for the old Youngstown Rolling Mill, now the upper mill of the Carnegie Company. Following that he was bookkeeper of the old Second National Bank, and for two years was associated with the Port Royal Coal Company at the American Sault in Upper Michigan.
On his return to Youngstown in two Mr. McElevey entered the service of the Dollar Savings and Trust Company, with which he remained ten years. He then joined the Wick Brothers Trust Company which was absorbed about a year later by the Dollar Savings and Trust Company, and this brought Mr. McElevey back to the service of the latter corporation, which he is now serving as secretary and assistant trust officer.
Mr. McElevey is a member of the Youngstown and the Youngstown Country clubs, and is a member of the First Presbyterian Church. Politically he is a republican. July 26, 1919, he married Mrs. Eva (Little) Carpenter.
CHARLES F. WALKER. The late Charles F. Walker, who died at his home in Youngstown November 3, 1919, had exemplified during a long and active career a life of service in varying business capacities. He
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assessed the ability to do anything he undertook well, and he also enjoyed the esteem and confidence of a large circle of friends.
Mr. Walker, who lived in Youngstown from 1862, was born in Upper Phalanx, Portage County, Ohio, June 3, 1848, son of John B. and Ellen (Whiteley) Walker. His parents were both born in Yorkshire, England, and came to the United States when young people. They were married in Illinois. John B. Walker was a master in all branches of woolen manufacture. As a youth he had learned the weaver's trade. He lived at Newton Falls, Phalanx, Leavittsburg, and in the early sixties came to Youngstown. He operated the old woolen mill on the canal, about the present site of the Baltimore and Ohio freight pot. Subsequently he moved this plant to Girard, Ohio, where it was operated under his management for some time. John B. Walker was an excellent business man, and also exemplified many personal sits that endeared him to his community. He was great student of co-operation, and possessing an en temper was never known to quarrel. He died wile on a business trip to Akron, Ohio, and was rvived by his widow a number of years. They !re the parents of seven children, and the five to reach mature years were Eli B., Charles F., William A., Mary E., wife of William P. Prindle, and Samuel B.
Charles F. Walker acquired his education in the public schools of Youngstown, including the Rayen High School, and lived at home and worked in his father's woolen mill .until about twenty-four years age. Then followed a varied experience as clerk a dry goods store and shoe store, as shipping clerk for the Erie Railroad at the Brown-Bonnell plant, and for three years as a railway mail clerk. For out two or three years he was engaged in the limestone business at Moravia, Pennsylvania, and on returning to Youngstown he became cashier for the Home Gas Fuel Company. For about ten years he was a salesman for the Ohio Powder Company. wring the later years of his life, from May, 1901, Mr. Walker gave most of his time to his duties as business agent for the Wick estate, being manager the Federal Building at Youngstown, and also collector for the Wick Building. He was known to his associates in business as a man of sterling integrity, and possessed a genial and hearty disposition. He was affiliated with Western Star Lodge No. 21, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Youngstown Lodge No. 55, Benevolent and Pro-live Order of Elks.
November 15, 1872, Mr. Walker married Miss Leulu McElhaney, daughter of Samuel McElhaney, a prominent old time resident of Youngstown. Mrs. Walker is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has given her time unselfishly to Philanthropic work and to the general good of her community.
THOMAS E. ANTONELLI is one of the prominent d popular younger members of the Youngstown r. and has been in active practice for four years, time sufficient to demonstrate his thorough talents d abilities.
Mr. Antonelli, who is one of the best educated young men in Youngstown, was born in this city
August 14, 1890, son of Marco and Giovina Antonelli. Marco Antonelli was one of the first Italians to locate in Youngstown, and has always been a leader of his fellow countrymen in this vicinity. He was born in Italy in 1857 and came to Youngstown in 1873. His first employment here was in the Brown-Bonnell steel plant, in which he rose to the position of foreman. Later he was in the grocery business, finally in the Foreign Exchange Bank, and is now living retired with an ample competency. He has shown splendid business ability, and in many ways has guided and counselled his fellow countrymen to their good and for the good of the community. He is a liberal in his views, has been a leader in the republican party, and a thorough believer in education. He has given his own children the best advantages to be had, and also well educated the children of his second wife by a former husband. Marco Antonelli was possessed only of a good spirit and physical strength when he came to America. He returned to Italy for his bride and she lived at Youngstown until her death on January 4, 1896. In 1898 he married Gabriele Ferrando, who died in 1917. His four children by his first marriage were: Christina, wife of Gelsie Passarelli, a Youngstown business man; Josephine, wife of Carman Milano, formerly in business for himself, now associated with the Republic Rubber Works; Rocco M., a physician and surgeon at Akron, Ohio, who for one year was night surgeon at Speers Memorial Hospital in Dayton; and Thomas E.
Thomas E. Antonelli first attended the Front Street School, graduated from the Rayen High School in 191o, and took his college work in Miami University, where he completed the four years' course in three years and received his A. B. degree in 1913. Mr. Antonelli entered the Yale University Law School, and graduated LL. B. in 1916. One of his instructors at Yale was former President Taft.
Mr. Antonelli married September 5, 1918, Mary Adovasio, daughter of Louis Adovasio, a prominent Youngstown business man whose name is mentioned elsewhere. They have one son, Edward Marcus. Mr. Antonelli is an Elk, and with his family is a member of the Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church. Mr. Antonelli has been an instructor in the Young Men's Christian Association (night) Law School for one year. He is a great believer in education, law and order, and has wielded an influence for good in the Italian colony of Youngstown.
FRANK W. POWERS. The Powers family was one of the earliest to establish homes in the Youngstown District, and through the individual representatives of several generations it has been a family of striking commercial ability and of the soundest achievement in local industrial and public affairs.
The founder of the family in Ohio was Abraham Powers, who was intimately associated with the founder of Youngstown, John Young, in making the preliminary surveys for the town, and he is also credited with building the original grist mill in the Mahoning Valley. While engaged in those pioneer enterprises he retained his home in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, but became a resident of Youngstown in 1801, locating on the Salts Spring Road.
A grandson of this interesting pioneer character
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was Milton Powers, who was born at Powers Hill, now West Mahoning Avenue, October 14, 1811. For many years he was a substantial farmer and stock raiser, and his business affairs in the buying and shipping of livestock extended over the mountains to Eastern markets. He was a well known "drover," and was regularly engaged in the business of taking his horses and cattle by the overland roads to market before the era of railroads. He also operated a mine on the old Powers homestead, known as the Powers Coal Company. He died at Powers Hill December 25, 1885. February 14, 1841, he married Lucy Silliman, daughter of Abijah and Naomi Silliman, who came from Connecticut to the Western Reserve about 181o. Mrs. Milton Powers died March 3, 1893.
Frank W. Powers, one of the eleven children of Milton Powers, was born at the family homestead in Youngstown June 8, 186o, and after getting his education in the public schools became actively associated in the coal industry with the old Valley Mill and later with the Hubbard Mill. He operated the old Leadville Coal Mine, which had been practically abandoned, and made this a paying proposition. The last fifteen years of his life he was devoted to the coal business. For a number of years he was a local representative for one of the largest coal companies of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. As a real estate man he handled largely the property of the Powers estate, much of it without a change of title from the original acquisition from the Government until sold by him. Mr. Powers was a prominent republican and a member of an old Presbyterian family. He was a member of the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club, Chamber of Commerce and was deeply interested in everything that pertained to the advancement of his home city.
June 29, 1882, he married Miss Lida M. Ward, who was born and reared at Niles, Ohio, daughter of Duncan and Pamelia Medbury Ward. Mrs. Powers' maternal grandfather was Asel Medbury, one of the pioneer settlers of the Mahoning Valley. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Powers were born three children: Charles, Helen and Laura.
HARRY LEVINSON was born February 14, 1881, in England, being a son of Wolfe and Sarah Levinson. His father coming from abroad, settled in Philadelphia with his family when Harry Levinson was eleven years of age, and it was here that Mr. Levinson obtained his first business experience. Seven years later the family located in Columbus, and about this period Harry Levinson started out to gain the broad experience of worldly contact, eventually joining the Forepaugh-Sells Circus as publicity man. Five years later he became identified with the Grand Opera House at Youngstown in publicity work, and finally assumed the managership of the original Dome Theater.
Subsequently Mr. Levinson developed a business project for a chain of motion picture theaters, but owing to the failure of associates to consummate arrangements, he was without position and finances. However, the trait of making the best of all circumstances, a dominant characteristic of Mr. Levinson, asserted itself and securing two diamonds in a chamois bag, he began a new career as jeweler.
He opened his first business headquarters in a small office space on the second floor at 101 West Federal Street, and a few months later engaged a front office of his own, which proved to be the foundation of his later brilliant success, advancing step by step until 1916, when he opened his first jewelry store at 27 North Phelps Street.
Dame fortune, ever gracious in her recognition of merit, continued to smile upon Mr. Levinson, and four years later his business growth necessitated more adequate quarters and he opened his present store at 102 West Federal Street, which jewelry store is now recognized as comparing favorably with the most noted jewelry stores of the country. Mr. Levinson is now known nationally as a prominent jeweler, as a connoisseur and authority upon precious stones, and more especially diamonds.
Public-spirited and a citizen with tremendous civic pride, he early became identified with all progressive municipal movements, and notwithstanding his ever increasing business success he never disassociated himself from community needs and was a conspicuous figure in all things calculated to make Youngstown a better city. He has been a dominant figure in the success of all the large financial campaigns in Youngstown, having eminently contributed to the success of the campaigns for such institutions as the Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Red Cross, and during the war he was prominently identified with every Liberty Loan drive.
Mr. Levinson is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and a past director, and has been a member of many important committees of that body. He is a director of the Children's Service Bureau, an executive member of the Soldiers' Memorial Committee, a member of the War Chest Council, a member of the Community Corporation Council, a director of the Red Cross, vice president of the Youngstown Association of Boy Scouts of America, a trustee of the Rodef Sholem Congregation, and is a recognized leader in Jewish activities in Youngstown.
On March 19, 1903, Mr. Levinson married Miss Blanche Liebman, great-granddaughter of Jacob Spiegle, the first Hebrew settler in Youngstown. Mr. and Mrs. Levinson have one son, Ritter, born in 1904.
WILLIAM W. MCKEOWN. The riches of a lovable character and a gifted personality were the source of the great community esteem which came to William W. McKeown through his active life to inspire the deep and loving memory for his name. Probably no man ever enjoyed more thoroughly the pleasures of fellowship and friendship than Mr. McKeown. It was this happy gift and his own charming personality that made his business as a pioneer druggist secondary to the importance of his store as almost a social and club center of the city.
For many years he was head of the well known drug firm of Manning & McKeown. Mr. McKeown was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, May 17, 1836, and died at Youngstown August 16, 1904. He had lived in Northeastern Ohio from the age of seven, and became a resident of Youngstown when about twenty years of age. He was first employed as a clerk in the drug store of M. T. Jewell, but one
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year later entered the services of Dr. John Manning in a similar capacity. In 1863 he and Henry Manning formed the drug partnership of Manning & McKeown, but eventually he became sole owner of the business.
This drug store, on West Federal Street, was the favorite resort for many of the prominent men in professional and business life, and its social atmosphere was more appreciated than that of many clubs. Mr. McKeown himself was the wit and soul of the goodly company that assembled there. He loved to have his friends about him, and many were drawn to his store by the irresistible quality of his cheerfulness and humor. He possessed an unswerving honor, and his life was marked by upright conduct in relations with his fellow citizens and public spirit for the good of the community. As would be expected of a man of his type, he was extremely considerate of others, and had a sympathy that made him constantly generous in relieving the suffering and troubles of others. For all his devotion to business and his friends he was essentially a home man, and had few outside interests beyond his store and his home. He was a republican in politics.
For a number of years he conducted the Opera House in Youngstown. The community owes to him the influence which brought to Youngstown the Thomas Orchestra at the height of its fame as a musical organization. In former years whenever a picture was painted on the easel of a local artist or a famous picture sent here for exposition, the work was usually placed in the windows of the Manning & McKeown store. T. J. Nichol, artist, had his studio above the store. Orchardson, an English artist, and Crawford, the best portrait artist probably this country ever produced, held exhibitions in the store.
October 14, 1858, Mr. McKeown married Miss Adeline Powers, daughter of John Wesley and Miranda (Gee) Powers. They had a family of six children : William W., Jr., who married Helen Hartzell and has one child, William W.; Robert Burns; Myra; Ella, deceased, who married John Aubrey Wright, and had two children, Adeline Ford and John Aubrey, Jr.; Maud, who married Bernard L Lee, deceased, had one child, Eleanor McKeown; and Theodora, who is single.
ROBERT J. NICHOLSON is a member of the firm Nicholson & Warnock, both able lawyers, and constituting a firm handling some of the most important practice in the Mahoning Valley. Mr. Nicholson had a very thorough and varied training in business affairs before he took up the profession of law, and that experience had much to do with his success in his profession.
Mr. Nicholson was born at Brookville, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, January 21, 1878, and was named for his grandfather. The Nicholson family has lived for a century and a half in Western Pennsylvania. His great-grandparents were Robert and Elizabeth Nicholson, both natives of Westmoreland County, where Robert was born in 1782. Robert J. Nicholson, grandfather of the Youngstown lawyer, was born in Westmoreland County February 6, 1823, and for many years was actively engaged in the lumber business. He represented his district in the
Pennsylvania Legislature during 1856-57. When the Civil war came on he became a first lieutenant in Company B of the One Hundred and Fifth Pennsylvania Infantry, and was quartermaster of his regiment and acting brigade quartermaster. His oldest son, Barton A. was killed in the second battle of Bull Run. Robert J. Nicholson of Youngstown is a son of James D. and Sadie (Schubert) Nicholson. His father was also in the lumber business at Brookville, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1912.
Robert J. Nicholson lived in Brookville until he was about twelve years of age, when he entered the high school at Warren, Pennsylvania, and continued until graduating. On coming to Youngstown in 1897 he was employed in a clerical capacity for the old Brown-Bonnell Iron Company in the office at the foot of Champion Street. In 1902 he removed to Mansfield, Ohio, as secretary to James A. Leonard, former superintendent of the city schools of Youngstown and then superintendent of the Mansfield Reformatory. After eighteen months Mr. Nicholson went to Chicago as private secretary to John C. Stubbs, then traffic director of the Harriman Railroad.
After nearly ten years of experience in confidential business relationship Mr. Nicholson returned to Youngstown in 1906 and began the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1911, and at first was a member of the firm Hine, Kennedy and Manchester. In 1914 he was appointed first county assistant prosecutor, and on leaving those duties in 1917 became a member of the firm Nicholson & Warnock.
Mr. Nicholson is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a member of the Odd Fellows Club, is a republican, and a member of the Brown Memorial Methodist Church.
September 21, 1905, he married Miss Barbara Henderson, daughter of William and Justina (McKenzie) Henderson. They have one daughter, Jane.
THE HUGHES FAMILY. For nearly forty years the Hughes family has been identified with the growth and development of the Mahoning Valley, and the family industry and character has been impressed upon the community so as to justify some brief record of the worthy people of that name.
In 1881 Roland Stanley and Catherine (Jones) Hughes located at Girard and a year later moved to Youngstown. Roland S. Hughes was a merchant tailor and enjoyed many congenial business associations with the people of Youngstown for a number of years. He and his wife had the following children : Catherine, born September 21, 1876, at Alliance, Ohio, is now Mrs. Albert Dye, of Michigan; John, born October 8, 1878, is a resident of Youngstown; Evan, born December 20, 1890, is an electrician at Youngstown; Ella, born February 21, 1892, is the wife of Joseph Humphrey, of Youngstown.
The family are members of the Elm Street Congregational Church. Politically they have usually acted and voted as republicans. Mrs. Catherine Hughes is a daughter of John and Ellen (Jones) Jones. Her parents spent all their lives in Wales, where her father was a farmer and stock raiser. John Jones and wife had the following children: Evan E., who became a Pittsburgh contractor and died three years ago and is buried at Youngstown; Robert, a farmer in Wales; Catherine, who came
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to the United States in April, 1872, and first lived at Pittsburgh; Richard, a mason contractor at Pittsburgh; William, a resident of Chicago; Ellen, who died in Wales; John and Owen, twins, both deceased; and Margaret, deceased.
Mrs. Hughes has been the witness of many remarkable developments in the Mahoning Valley since she came here, and is esteemed as one of the real pioneer women of Youngstown.
JOHN HENRY CHALMER LYON, whose home is at Poland, has been an active member of the Youngstown bar for the past fourteen years, and in that time he has achieved a distinctive reputation over the Mahoning Valley as a jury trial lawyer.
Mr. Lyon was born at Clarkson in Columbiana County December lo, 1878, son of Marcena and Hannah (Lewis) Lyon. One of his brothers is Arthur M. Lyon of Struthers, and another brother, H. 0. Lyon, is well known in Youngstown business life. His grandfather, John Lyon, was a first cousin of the famous General Lyon, the hero of the battle of Wilson's Creek in the Civil war. Through his mother Mr. Lyon is connected with another line of interesting ancestry, leading to the Young family. Philip Young was the last surviving Revolutionary soldier at Mount Jackson, Pennsylvania, where he was buried. A sister of Philip Young married a Mr. Lewis, and their children were Philip, Clark. Robert, John, James Lewis, Beckie, wife of William Pitzer ; Jane, wife of Peter Ripple; Christiana, wife of John Brown ; and Hannah and Catherine, both of whom married brothers of the name of Ghost, but they died in comparatively young age. Mr. Lewis was a builder of stone bridges on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Pittsburg to Lucas, Ohio. He was at one time an associate contractor with the father of Mark Hanna. Philip Young, the Revolutionary soldier, was a relative of John Young, founder of Youngstown. The Mr. Lewis who married Miss Young was a cousin of Merriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He expected to join that expedition, but sickness intervened and prebuvented. He had settled at Beaver Point, Pennsylvania, where he lost his lands through defective title. All the Lewis sons were soldiers in the Civil war. The only survivor is Stephen Lewis, now of Oklahoma, who recently attended a national G. A. R. encampment. He had enlisted at Clarkson in Columbiana County. He was captured, but on the way to Andersonville made his escape and was from fifteen to twenty days in getting back to the Union lines. The house he built in 1856 is the present home of the grandmother of J. H. C. Lyon. Her name was Elizabeth Thomas, and she is now ninety-six years of age. Her present family name is Altdoerffer, and some reference to this remarkable woman is found in a sketch under that name. Stephen Lewis, who was a greatbuuncle of the Youngstown lawyer, at one time owned the canal boat Declaration, which he operated on the canal to Youngstown.
John H. C. Lyon grew up at New Waterford, Ohio, attended Mount Hope College and the Northeast Ohio Normal College at Canfield, and at the age of sixteen began a career as teacher. For several years he was in school work, and for two years was principal of the Canfield village schools. He was principal of the second ward schools at Alliance. He began the study of law in the office of J. F. Johnson at New Waterford, and subsequently attended the law school of the Ohio Normal University at Ada. Mr. Lyon was admitted to the bar in June 1906, and for a time practiced with his brother Everett L. at Palestine. On December 10, 1906, he came to Youngstown, and began his career with hardly enough capital to pay his board. While serving his novitiate and establishing a reputation he had a partnership with David G. Jenkins and Clyde Osborn, which was continued until Jenkins was nominated for city solicitor. Mr. Lyon for a time lived in an attic at Struthers, and ate his meals at Cable's restaurant, getting two sandwiches for 9 cents. About that time his brother Walter I. Lyon was admitted to the bar and joined him. The practiced with Mr. Henderson, and when Henderson was elected prosecuting attorney in 1912 Walter became his assistant. Beginning in 1913, Mr. Lyon was in the firm of Lyon & Hammond, his partner being G. F. Hammond for three years. His present law partnership is Lyon, Matthews, Wall & Miller, his associates being I. G. Matthews, Clinton J. Wall and Ralph Miller.
While his is a general practice Mr. Lyon has had much experience in municipal law and particularly has shown his ability in jury trials. A case that contracted wide attention was his defense of Begola, tried for the murder of B. O. Shulman, a Youngstown lawyer. The case was bitterly fought and Lyon got his client off with a verdict for manslaughter on defense of temporary insanity.
Mr. Lyon has always been active in politics. As a student of political, economic and social issues he became attracted to the wonderful program of the progressive party in 1912, and did his first stump speaking in that campaign. He has since taken part in republican campaigns, working side by side with Hiram Johnson, Roosevelt and other leaders, and in 1916 spoke with a party of notables, including Governor Willis, Mr. Hughes and Vice President Fairbanks. He was a member of the State Republican Central Committee in 1912, but when the split came, resigned with nine others. He was for thirteen years attorney for the City of Struthers, but resigned in February, 1920. During that period he devoted much time and effort to the interests of the city. For nine years he was attorney for Lowellville, for two years was attorney for East Youngstown, and for five or six years was attorney for Poland, serving as attorney for several at the same time. Mr. Lyon is affiliated with the Masons, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Elks, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church.
June 1, 1910, he married Lucille C. Strong, daughter of Ashley E. and Anna (Malmsberry) Strong, of North Benton, Ohio. They have one child, Ashley Marcena, horn October II, 1913.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND WINTER, secretary of the Youngstown Real Estate Board, gives to that organization not only the service of a widely experienced real estate man, but an advertising spe-
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cialist, former newspaper publisher and editor, and a man with a real gift of publicity and literary attractiveness.
Mr. Winter was born at New Bedford, Pennsylvania, April 23, 1867, a son of Rev. T. W. and Mary (Woods) Winter. His father, who was a minister of the United Presbyterian Church, was born in Xenia, Ohio, in 1824, and was educated in Franklin College and in a theological seminary. He was active in the ministry for half a century, beginning in 1848. He was an associate and personal friend of the senior Doctor Frazier, well known as a historical character in the Mahoning Valley in pioneer times. Rev. T. W. Winter died at New Castle, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1901. During the Civil war he was a member of the Reserves, but was never called to active duty. He married a daughter of Dr. Robert McClelland, of Mount Jackson, Pennsylvania, and sister of the late Adjutant General McClelland of Pennsylvania, a member of the Loyal Legion, who by will passed his honors and membership in the Loyal Legion to his namesake, Robert McClelland Winter, and the latter prizes very highly his associate companionship in the Loyal Legion. Mrs. T. W. Winter was born September 25, 1840, and is still living at New Castle, Pennsylvania. She is the mother of three children : Robert McClelland, the subject of this article Elizabeth, who lives with her mother ; and Wallace W., who died February 5, 1912, at the age of forty-three.
Robert McClelland Winter acquired his primary education at Jamestown, Pennsylvania, under Doctor Abbott, and spent three years in Oberlin College. He did his first practical newspaper work at Omaha, in which city he spent two years. He was with the World Herald when W. J. Bryan was city editor. He was also connected with the Omaha Bee. Another year he was in Denver on the Rocky Mountain News, and for three years was editor of the New Castle News in Pennsylvania. For eighteen months Mr. Winter was editor of the Marion (Ohio) Transcript, and during that time came very close to the late Senator Hanna, and had some part in the Bushnell-Foraker controversy which is well remembered in Ohio politics. For two years Mr. Winter was assistant to George W. Dunn, manager of the Daily Citizen at Columbus.
Mr. Winter acquired his early real estate experience with the Union Realty Company of Pittsburgh, a company that subsequently developed into the Iron City Trust Company, a $2,000,000 corporation. Mr. Winter was manager of its savings department from 1902 to 1906. Following this he was public manager of the Land Trust Company until 1909, and then took charge of the publicity campaign and other interests of the Florida Association. It was the Florida Association that developed St. Petersburg and Pinillas Park on Pinillas Peninsula in Florida, selling 1,000 ten-acre farms on the peninsula. Mr. Winter for some time was located at Detroit as manager of publicity and director of sales for the Webster-Oliver-Streeter Company. On January 1, 1918. Mr. Winter came to Youngstown, and has been busily engaged in real estate and advertising work. He is author of a number of advertising pamphlets and booklets which stand as the finest example of
Vol. III-19
advertising art. Besides his literary ability he has a real genius for organization and promotion work. He has used his influence effectively toward securing better housing conditions in the Youngstown industrial district. Mr. Winter is a republican, a Mason and a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh.
December 9, 1909, he married Edna May, daughter of Samuel K. Dunkle, superintendent of the Wheeling & Benwood Railroad, a subsidiary of the National Tube Company.
JAMES M. MODARELLI is a well known Youngstown lawyer and has many diversified interests in the city. He is also prominent in business, being president of the McGuffey Realty Company and president of the Youngstown Wire and Iron Company.
Though a resident of Ohio nearly all his life he was born in the Village of Colbraro, Province of Potenza, Italy, May 8, 1889. About six months after his birth, in December, his parents, Joseph and Louisa (Carbone) Modarelli, set out for America. Joseph Modarelli for twenty-nine years was a hard working employe of A. M. Byers & Company in the Girard Iron plant. He and his wife are faithful members of the Catholic Church. Their six children are : Anthony, a chemist with the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company ; Patrick, a clerk with A. M. Byers & Company ; Mary, wife of Stephen S. Sferra, who is in the socket shop of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube plant; Isabella and Joseph, Jr., at home.
James M. Modarelli was a leader in his studies and among his fellow students of the Girard High School, being manager of both the baseball and football teams. He learned the trade of barber and followed it several years. A speech by W. J. Bryan awoke in him aspirations and ambitions for a larger and broader career of usefulness. He was supplied with books of an historical nature by Doctor Williams, and has been a constant reader and student ever since. Work at his trade enabled him to enroll as a student in the University of Michigan, and he earned much of his college expenses as a barber. He received the well-earned degree LL. B. from the law department in 1911, and for the past eight years has enjoyed a steadily increasing practice at Youngstown. He has done much corporation and commercial law work, and has also represented the interests of many of his fellow countrymen.
October 3, 1912, he married Mary Mango, daughter of Gaetano Mango. They have one son, James M., Jr., and a daughter, Lucile Marie. Gaetano Mango is a successful contractor, and was a member of the firm which completed the notable piece of re-enforced concrete construction known as the Milton Dam. His home is at Niles, Ohio, the birthplace of Mrs. Modarelli. Mr. Modarelli and family are members of Mount Carmel Catholic Church at Niles. He is a member of the Elks and Knights of Columbus.
WILLIAM E. BEADLING, a resident of Youngstown for the past twelve years, and at present secretary and a director of the Valley Investment Company, was born at McKee's Rocks, Pennsylvania, July 24; 1888. He is one of ten children, of whom nine are
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still living, born to the marriage of James H. Bead0ling and Martha Doubt. Thomas Beadling, the father of James H., was a native of England, and immigrated to the United States as a young man, becoming a miner in the Pennsylvania coal fields. He was married in this country to Ann McIntosh who was a native of Scotland, but had lived in England prior to coming to America.
James H. Beadling was reared in Pennsylvania and from early manhood was identified with railroad work, having been a locomotive engineer on the Pennsylvania & Lake Erie and Monongahela railroads. He is still connected with the latter line and is one of its most trusted employes. William E. Beadling spent his first seventeen years at McKee's Rocks. When sixteen years old he left the grammar school and for a time was engaged in office work for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He then took a business course in the Southwestern State Normal School at California, Pennsylvania, following which he spent a short time in the service of the Monongahela Railroad Company and was also employed elsewhere. In 1908 he came to Youngstown, where he was employed in a minor capacity by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, later entering the blast furnace department. In February, 1910, he accepted an office position with the Valley Investment Company, with which he has been identified to the present time. He is vice president and a director of the Youngstown Sanitary Laundry Company and a director of the Mahoning Valley Mortgage Company, and is a member of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce. He holds membership in the Youngstown Club, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Phi Sigma Phi fraternity.
Mr. Beadling was married July 10, 1915, to Florence A. Stoffel, a native of Pittsburgh, and they are the parents of two children: Dorothy Wilma and Mary Bernice. Mr. and Mrs. Beadling are members of the Third Reformed Church.
SEBRING FAMILY. Sebring, the youngest community in Mahoning County, has a history so interwoven with that of the Sebring family that a story of one is not complete without a story of the other.
The Sebring brothers were born and raised in or near East Liverpool, Ohio, which has been the pottery center of Ohio and the United States for twobuthirds of a century. It was in 1854 that George Sebring, their father, who had spent his earlier life in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, established his home in East Liverpool.
In 1856 he married Elizabeth Larkins, a woman of some remarkable and admirable characteristics. It was from their mother that the Sebring brothers inherited much of the energy and will power which have made them successful. They were the parents of ten children. The boys were Oliver H., George E., Frank A., Joseph (died 188), Ellsworth H., Charles (died in childhood), Fred E. and William (died 1904). The girls were Eva (Mrs. John H. Norris) and Emma (Mrs. Charles Albright, now Mrs. James Barclay).
Living in East Liverpool, it was only natural that the brothers early became identified with the trade of potters. In time George became foreman in the plant of Knowles, Taylor and Knowles, and Oliver and Joseph were employed as journeymen potters in the same factory. Frank and Ellsworth became engaged in the grocery business. They were all ambitious and soon conceived the idea of combining their skill and energy in a business all their own, which they decided should be a manufacturing business.
Thus it happened that in 1887 the five older brothers, in company with S. J. Cripps, bought the small three kiln Agner and Foutts plant on Second Street, and from that time on East Liverpool was entertained and her admiration aroused by the struggles files and achievements of the hustling Sebring boys. Many are the stories told by the old timers of the startling innovations and ingenious schemes they originated to keep afloat financially. Each brother was in charge of a department of the pottery and worked at his trade at the bench along with the hired employes. It very commonly happened that there would be only funds enough on pay clay pay off the help, and the brothers would go home to their families without pay envelopes. For a long time hardly money enough for the necessities of life were drawn by the brothers, almost every cent earned going back into the business.
A fire in October, 1890, destroyed the plant, but by strenuous efforts it was rebuilt. Many, many nights the midnight oil burned as the brothers met together to work out their plans for the future. It was by such harsh self-sacrifice and unceasing toil that success was finally achieved.
When success came it came abundantly. In the '90s, in addition to the much enlarged original pottery, a new plant called the French China Company was built and operated until the removal to Sebring. Later the plants of the Ohio China Company and the East Palestine Pottery Company were built by the Sebrings at East Palestine, Ohio, and operated by George and Fred respectively until the new town of Sebring claimed all their attention Joe Sebring died in 1889, but the forces were increased later by the addition of the two younger brothers, Fred and William. The latter brother was killed in 1904 as a result of being struck by a train
East Liverpool was so crowded and so hemmed in by hills that the brothers began to look afield for a location offering opportunities for the larger expansion they could see coming. Many localities Ohio and Pennsylvania were looked over, but finally the choice settled on a spot in northwestern Mahoning County that exactly answered their requirement —four miles from Alliance, Ohio, on the main trunk line of the great Pennsylvania Railroad system.
In 1900 the brothers acquired 1,000 acres of land comprising some twenty farms. The older farmers in Smith Township remember well the excitement of the occasion when it was learned that a new town was to be established on the site that had been so quietly purchased. Some of the farmers who had sold were so angry that for years afterward they would not drive through Sebring but would make a detour to avoid it. But today this old feeling has disappeared and the utmost cordiality exists between the townspeople and the farmers of the township.
On the land selected a townsite was soon laid out
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and work begun on the factories, stores and homes. The building of new towns is usually associated with the big West, but the people of Eastern Ohio in that year beheld a city of splendid homes, substantial business blocks, handsome public buildings and immense factories spring up as if by magic where but a few months before had been only grainfields and orchards. It was not a boom town proposition, but an enterprise carefully planned by men of business acumen and indomitable will and energy.
Today, with its miles of paved streets, electric system, interurban trolley service, gas system, waterworks and sewers, it is an up to date and attractive industrial city far in advance of other places of the same age and population. It already has a child and namesake in the town of Sebring, Florida, founded in 1911 by George E. Sebring and his son H. Orvel Sebring.
There are now five large and prosperous potteries in Sebring, beside two affiliated plants in Niles and Salem, all engaged in the manufacture of semi-porcelain dinnerware. The first plant built was the Oliver China Company (1900). For years this business was conducted by George Sebring, but in 1911 it was purchased and changed to the E. H. Sebring China Company, with E. H. Sebring and John M. Horton at the head.
The next factory erected was the Sebring Pottery Company (19ot). Frank A. Sebring managed this concern until his son Charles L. assumed the managership.
The French China Company's building was finished in 1912 and the affairs of that company have been managed ever since by Oliver H. Sebring, together with his son Burt H.
In 1903 the Limoges China Company constructed their factory. Fred E. Sebring was at its head until 1909, when Charles Albright (husband of Emma Sebring) took charge. Mr. Albright met his death in an automobile-trolley car accident in 1910, following which William I. Gahris (a son-in-law of F. A. Sebring) was put in charge of the business. This company has the distinction of being the first general-ware plant in America to use the continuous tunnel kiln, a radical improvement over the old system of intermittent kilns.
The Saxon China Company was organized in 1911 by Fred E. Sebring, who remained in control until 1917, when a change in ownership occurred and Ray Y. Cliff (a son-in-law of Oliver H. Sebring) was made manager.
Two cooperage factories serve the various potteries in Sebring and vicinity. They are the ,Sebring Cooperage Company and the Columbiana Cooperage Company, and they make barrels and boxes of all kinds for the packing of pottery products.
A sixth clay-working plant is the Gem Clay Forming Company, manufacturing porcelain electric fixtures.
The Strong Manufacturing Company, making enameled kitchenware and lighting reflectors, removed from Bellaire to Sebring in 1911, erecting a modern plant. They employ 300 people, with a yearly production worth $1,500,000.
The youngest industry is the Sebring Tire & Rubber Company, who manufacture automoblie tires under the management of John Hotchkiss.
From the above it will be seen that Sebring is today a highly developed industrial community. It has a payroll amounting to $6o,000 a week, with a population of about 4,000 people. The population is not really a correct measure of the town's industrial standing, for the payroll would justify a population of ro,000. A large number of those who earn their living in Sebring have their homes in Alliance, Beloit, Damascus and other nearby towns.
Sebring is situated on the main line of the Pennsylvania system from New York to Chicago and through Alliance has access to the best through train service in the country going east, west north or south without change. It is also an important point on the Stark Electric Interurban Road, through which it has direct communication with every larger city in Eastern Ohio. Sebring also has a second class postoffice and free mail delivery, a service which probably no other community of like size can boast. Miles of paved streets, sanitary sewers with modern disposal plant, natural gas, electric lighting, two telephone systems, comfortable homes, owned by the workers, in fact all the conveniences of modern life, coupled with an intelligent, well paid and contented citizenry make Sebring one of the most pleasant industrial spots in Ohio.
FRANK A. SEBRING. Of the men who bear the name Sebring and have had a part in the building up of the great business of that family and the founding and development of the community of Sebring, no one is better known than is Frank A. Sebring. He is a splendid example of the family traits which have made the name Sebring a synonym for success in industrial and business life.
Frank Sebring was born on July 20, 1865, at Vanport. When he was one year old his parents moved to East Liverpool, Ohio, where his boyhood was spent and his education secured in the public schools, after finishing which he attended a normal school. When he was seventeen" years old he accepted a position at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as manager of a shoe store, and remained in that capacity for two years. He then returned to East Liverpool and entered into a partnership with his brothers in a grocery business under the name of Sebring Brothers. He and his brother Ellsworth had the active management of the business, and conducted it so successfully as to make possible the later ventures of the brothers.
It was while this enterprise was at its height that the brothers decided to get into something bigger, and entered upon the pottery enterprise described in the story of the Sebring family preceding this sketch. When the new pottery was started Frank Sebring became the head of the concern and managed the office and sales end of the business. The original Sebring Pottery Company incorporation has never been changed, and he has been at its head as president from the beginning until very recently, when he voluntarily gave up the position, which is now filled by his son Charles.
When the East Palestine Pottery Company's plant was leased by the Sebring brothers, Mr. Sebring co-
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operated with his brother George E. in the active management of that concern from 1894 to 1899. In 1901 he and Mr. E. J. Owen built the Owen China Company at Minerva, Ohio, which plant has since passed into other hands.
In 1903, after the removal to Sebring, Mr. Sebring organized the Limoges China Company, of which he has been the controlling factor ever since, and the president until succeeded by his son-in-law, W. I. Gahris. He is also the organizer and principal stockholder in two other potteries, the Tritt China Company of Niles, Ohio, and the Salem China Company of Salem, Ohio, of which latter company his younger son, Frank H., is president. The combined output of the potteries controlled by Mr. Sebring will amount in value to at least $3,500,000 each year. While Mr. Sebring does not now enter actively into the management of these industries he holds the position of chairman of the Board of Directors in each of them.
He was married in 1884 to Emma Harbison, of Pittsburgh, and they are parents of six children: Charles L., Helen L. (deceased), Frank H., Ruth G., Nina E. and Marjorie. They all reside in Sebring except Frank H., whose home is in Alliance. In 1917 this latter son was married to Margaret Ramsey, of Alliance, and they are the parents of one son, Willis Ramsey.
Mr. Sebring is counted one of the most progressive as well as one of the most successful potters in America. He has devoted much of his time to the development of new processes and machines, and the pottery industry is indebted to him for several radical improvements for the better and cheaper manufacture of dinnerware. The installation of the Dressler tunnel kilns at the plant of the Limoges China Company was the result of the courageous pioneering of Mr. Sebring, who was willing to risk his capital in a venture, which if successful, would mean a tremendous advance in the business of potting.
Of late years Mr. Sebring has interested himself in the town of Sebring, Florida, realizing the great possibilities in Florida land. Sebring, Florida, is located in DeSoto County, which is considered the best citrus belt in the state. The town was built in 1912 by George Sebring and H. Orvel Sebring, who purchased 20,000 acres of citrus land, on which there are today nearly 500,000 fruit trees. Mr. Frank Sebring has taken over a considerable portion of the Sebring holdings, and is applying his energy and ability to making Sebring one of the great winter resorts of Florida. The town now has a .winter population of four or five thousand people, attracted by splendid hotels, medicinal water, a golf course, beautiful lakes and many other natural attractions.
Mr. Sebring is a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of Al Koran Shrine in Cleveland. He is a member of the Methodist Church, and has always taken an active interest in philanthropic, educational and community betterment undertakings.
OLIVER H. SEBRING, oldest brother of the famous Sebring family and prominent in all the achievements covered by the name Sebring, was born at East Liverpool, Ohio, on July 14, 1857, and is in the prime of his life today.
He attended public school until about fourteen years of age, when he went to work in the old Bagott pottery in East Liverpool. His job for the first two years was driving a one-horse wagon, and wages, and his amounted to $1.00 a week, a magnificent sum to him at that time. Later he was taken into the pottery and put to work at running molds, for which his wages were $2.50 per week. After two year in the shop he was promoted to the pressing department, in which he finally became a journeyman presser, and remained at that work for fifteen years when he went into partnership with his brothers in their own enterprise, as told elsewhere in this book. In 1880 Mr. Sebring was married to Matilda Hume, who was born at East Liverpool, Ohio, a daughter of William and Emma (Danks) Hume. They have five children, all living : Anna, wife of William L. Murphy, cashier of the Citizens Banking Company of Sebring; Burt H., who is vice president and treasurer of the French China Company; Pearl wife of Homer J. Taylor, president of the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles Company in East Liverpool. Hazel, wife of Ray Y. Cliff, treasurer and general manager of the Saxon China Company of Sebring and Wilda, his youngest daughter.
In 1899, two years before the time when all the Sebring interests were removed to Sebring, Mr. Sebring and his brother Ellsworth H. organized the French China Company and built a plant at East Liverpool. Just as their plans were completed the seven brothers decided to amalgamate all their interests under one firm name, operating each plant for the holding company. This plan was continued after the removal to Sebring, but in 1903 the interests were again divided, the brothers taking over the different plants to he run independently and on a competitive basis.
Oliver and Ellsworth conducted the French China Company jointly until 1911, when the interests of Ellsworth were purchased by Oliver and his father who today are in control of the company. The French China plant is a modern plant of twenty-three kilns, employing three hundred people.
Mr. Sebring has ever since the founding of Sebring been a leader in the industrial life of the community. He is a large land owner and has built hundreds of modern houses for the use of the workers in the potteries, besides erecting several creditable business buildings.
Today Mr. Sebring is president and largest stock-holder of the French China Company, the Saxton China Company, the Strong Manufacturing Company, the Sebring Cooperage Company and the Citizens Banking Company. The concerns named above employ more than one thousand people, with an annual payroll of over a million dollars, and a total output valued at $3,500,000. The Citizens Banking Company is one of the strongest banking institutions in this section, and has assets running well over a million dollars.
Oliver Sebring is a typical example of a live wire business man. He is energetic and forceful, and unusually successful in the development of his various business interests. His three major business
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occupations, potting, steel enamelling and banking, each receive his painstaking attention, and their great growth under his guidance reflects his organizing and managing ability.
JOHN M. HORTON, general manager of the E. H. Sebring China Company of Sebring, Mahoning County, Ohio, has for many years taken a leading part in the affairs of that community. The manufacturing company with which he is identified is one of the conspicuous factors in the prosperity of Sebring, and Mr. Horton's direction of that plant is maintaining that prosperity.
He was born in Burslem, England, on January 20, 1873, the son of John and Ann Horton. Burslem is the center of the famous Staffordshire pottery district, and it was only to be expected that the father should have been identified with that industry. John Horton, Sr., was an expert potter in England, and when he brought his family to America in 1879 he went directly to a pottery center, East Liverpool, Ohio, and there followed his trade.
John M. Horton was only six years old when his parents brought him to America. After passing through the public schools of East Liverpool, Ohio, he began to learn the potter's trade ; and in association with his father he passed through every department. He was a responsible official of the Sebring Company at East Liverpool, and when the Sebrings built their first plant at Sebring, which plant is now operated by the E. H. Sebring China Company, Mr. Horton was sent as one of the departmental managers. In the course of time he took more comprehensive responsibility, and in 1911 he and E. H. Sebring acquired the plant and business from its owner, George E. Sebring. He became general manager, and has since held that position.
Politically Mr. Horton is a republican, although he has not shown any inclination to enter actively into political life. His efforts have been devoted to the development of his company and of the Village of Sebring. He has been a councilman, and a member of the Christian Church, and is a good supporter of the local church of that denominations. Fraternally he is a Mason of thirty-second degree, and has been prominently identified with the functioning of the local body of that order, and for the last four years has been worshipful master of Sebring Lodge No. 626.
In 1898 he married Mollie Dailey, of East Liverpool, Ohio, and to them has been born one child, Leland J., now a lad of seventeen years and a high school student. Mrs. Horton has been a leading church worker, and has interested herself actively in affairs pertaining to the foreign missionary movements. During the great war both showed wholehearted patriotism, entering earnestly into the various home movements of war purpose. Both have good place in the community in which they have made their home for so many years.
W. I. GAHRIS. The first general ware pottery in America to use the Dressler Tunnel Kilns was the Limoges China Company of Sebring, Ohio. This revolutionary step required courage and capital, both f which were possessed by that concern. Experts have said the tunnel kiln could not be used successfully—the Limoges experiment proved it could. The head of the Limoges China Company, which took this momentous step, is Willard I. Gahris, the subject of this sketch.
He was born in Tiffin, Ohio, on October 3, 1881. He was educated in the public schools of Tiffin and at Heidelberg University. After leaving school he identified himself with the slate industry, in the sales end of which he was very successful.
On April 2, 1909, he was married to Helen Laurie Sebring, the capable daughter of Frank A. Sebring, of Sebring, Ohio. Shortly afterward Mr. Gahris made Sebring his home, becoming attached to the manufacturing departments of the Sebring Pottery Company. He made such rapid strides in mastering the executive dptails of the pottery business that in 1911 he was made president of the Limoges China Company, to fill the vacancy caused by the tragic death of Charles Albright. His success in that position has been very noticeable. The company has grown in size of plant and output, and today occupies a prominent position in the industry, both because of its general progress and because of the fact, as mentioned above, that it is the first general ware pottery in America to use the tunnel kiln in place of the old style intermittent kiln.
Mrs. Gahris (Helen Sebring), the daughter of Frank A. Sebring, was born in East Liverpool, Ohio, and educated at Harcourt Seminary, Gambier, Ohio; Washington Seminary, Washington, District of Columbia; and Lasell Seminary of Boston, Massachusetts. As stated above, she was married to Mr. Gahris in 1909. Their only child, Gretchen Sebring Gahris, was born on September 13, 1913. Mrs. Gahris died suddenly on August 26, 1919, leaving a large circle of friends to mourn her untimely death.
Mr. Gahris is a Mason of high degree, being a member of the Salem Commandery, of the Consistory at Cleveland, and of Al Koran Shrine at Cleveland. He is popular socially and as an employer, and is held in the highest regard in the community and the industry.
ELLSWORTH H. SEBRING, one Of the founders of the City of Sebring, Mahoning County, was born in Meigs County, Ohio, July 3, 1861. At the age of three years he removed with his parents to East Liverpool, where he was a student in the public schools until fifteen years of age. At that age he followed the example of his older brothers and entered a local pottery, spending four years at the trade of presser in the clay shop. When nineteen years old he engaged in the grocery business, together with his brother Frank, under the name of Sebring Brothers. This was the first cash grocery ever conducted in that vicinity and was very much of a success. At this time the older brothers presented to them a proposition for a partnership for entry into the pottery manufacturing field. They accepted, with the resulting history as told in another part of this volume.
In the late nineties Ellsworth and his oldest brother Oliver joined together for the purpose of erecting a new plant to be called the French China Company.
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When completed, however, a new working plan was agreed upon whereby all the interests of the brothers were pooled under one company, each plant being operated for the interests of all. This arrangement lasted until 1903, when it was agreed that independent and competitive management would be better.
Accordingly a division was made, and Ellsworth and Oliver once more took independent charge and control of the French China Company, which they made an exceedingly prosperous concern. In 1911 Ellsworth sold all his interest to Oliver and his family.
At this time George Sebring and his son Orvel, who had been conducting the Oliver China Company, desired to transfer all their attention to their Florida interests, so the Oliver China plant was purchased by Ellsworth and reorganized as the E. H. Sebring China Company. It is conducted as such today, Mr. Sebring having associated with him his son Kenneth C. and John M. Horton.
Mr. Sebring was married in 1881 to Lida Hancock, who died in 1887, leaving one daughter, Elsie Winnifred, now Mrs. George E. Clarke, of Sebring. Mr. Sebring married for his second wife, Edna F. Coyle, of Steubenville, Ohio. Their children are: Kenneth C., Thelma, Elizabeth, Kathryn, Margaret and Doris.
CHARLES L. SEBRING, president and general manager of the Sebring Pottery Company, is one of the younger generation of Sebrings, who in a little more than thirty years have made this section of Ohio one of the great centers of the pottery industry in America.
Mr. Sebring, who was born in Pittsburgh on July 9, 1885, is the oldest child of Frank A. Sebring, one of the leading spirits in all the remarkable accomplishments of the Sebring family. His early boyhood was spent in East Liverpool, Ohio, and he was just entering young manhood when the Sebrings removed all their interests to the new town of Sebring, Ohio. He attended Mount Union. College and also Wooster University after finishing his pubbulic sch00l education.
In 1904, at the age of nineteen, he entered the pottery operated by his father, the same plant of which he is now the active head. A practical apprenticeship was served in the shop itself, which gave him a thorough knowledge of the technical processes of the manufacture of chinaware. His progress was rapid, and he soon became known through the industry as a potter and business man of ability. He has been exceptionally zealous in the development of new ideas and inventions for the betterment of the art of potting and has investigated all phases of the industry in this country and in England and continental Europe in order to gain first hand knowledge Of the most advanced methods in use. His high standing in the industry is indicated by the fact that in 1919 he was honored with the influential office of president of the United States Potters' Association.
Mr. Sebring was married in 1905 to Jessie Morgan, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. C. L. Morgan of Alliance. She died in 1906, leaving him one daughter, Evelyn. In 1911 Mr. Sebring married Conradine Uran, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T. C. of Alliance. They have two children, Josephine and Barbara Lee.
Mr. Sebring is a trustee of Mount Union College and a thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner0. He is a golfer of no mean ability, taking part in many tournaments in various parts of the country. Sebring is a public-spirited citizen who stands high in his community and section, and socially he is popular to a gratifying degree.
WILLIAM B. CURTIS. One of the most reliable and progressive of the younger business men Youngstown, who stands high in native ability as a man of broad business and financial judgment is William B. Curtis, president and treasurer of Steelduct Company. While his career has been comparatively short, it has been one in which he secured experience in diversified lines, all ten to contribute to the equipment which is gaining success in his present undertaking.
Mr. Curtis was born at Washington, D. C., August 28, 1884, a son of William T. S. and Mary Alida (Barnard) Curtis, a review of the family being found elsewhere in this work in the sketch of Myron S. Curtis. Reared in his native city and at Chevy Chase, Montgomery County, Maryland, to which place his parents removed when he was a boy, William B. Curtis attended the public schools and Columbia Preparatory School at the national capital. Later he pursued a course at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and George Washington University Washington, District of Columbia, where he specialized in engineering, and with this preparation entered upon his career in the employ of the Columbia Cotton Oil and Provision Corporation at Relee, Virginia, as chemist and assistant superintendent. Later he became assistant branch manager of the United Motor Washington Company. In 1911 Mr. Curtis came to Youngstown, and for three years served in the blast furnace department of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube. Company, first as a stove man, then trestle foreman, later stockhouse foreman and finally as blower. He was then transferred to the down-town city office, where for about a year he acted in the capacity of advertising manager. Next entering the sales department, he continued to be identified there with until September 15, 1919, with the exception of the period that he served in the army.
On May 28, 1917, Mr. Curtis took the examination at Frankfort Arsenal for the Officers' Reserve Corps, and August 1, 1917, was commissioned first lieutenant He was called to active duty September 17th following, at the office of the chief of ordnance at Washington, District of Columbia, was commissioned captain January 8, 1918, and continued on duty until finally discharged January 2, 1919. Captain Curtis was instrumental in the organization of the Steelduct Company, which was created primarily for the selling of rigid steel conduit. This company was incorporated October 21, 1919, with an authorized capital under the laws of the State of Ohio for $100,000, the officers being : William B. Curtis, president and treasurer ; John A. Logan, vice president and secre-
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tary and William B. Curtis, John A. Logan, Paul Wick, Lloyd Booth and J. H. Fitch, Jr., directors.
Captain Curtis is a member of the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club, the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Theta Delta Chi college fraternity. He has numerous civic connections and is known as a valuable citizen who supports stanchly constructive and developing movements. With his family he attends the First Presbyterian Church. On April 11, 1916, he married Miss Dorothy Wick, daughter of Charles J. and Sallie (Thorn) Wick, and to this union there has been born one daughter, Sallie Wick Curtis.
JOHN B. MORGAN is one of the thoroughly capable lawyers of the Youngstown bar, and his professional career both in Youngstown and in his home town of Leetonia has brought him the substantial honors of a lawyer who pursues his career with singleness of purpose and with unqualified good citizenship. Mr. Morgan was born on a farm near Leetonia in Columbiana County, April 6, 1869, son of William and Frances A. (Stoffer) Morgan. His grandfather, John Morgan, was one of the early settlers in Columbiana County. The Morgan family as a rule have been agriculturists.
One of two children, John B. Morgan spent his early life on a farm, graduated from the Leetonia High School, and spent three years in Mount Union College. He also taught school for a portion of two years. He pursued his law studies in the office of Charles N. Snyder at Leetonia. He was admitted to the bar October 5, 1892, and at once began practice in his native town. Twenty years later, on September 1, 1912, he opened an office in Youngstown, and here as in his native community has found abundant opportunities for his talents. He has always practiced alone, has never made a specialty of any line of law work, and from his youth, when he worked for his education, has never had outside assistance, but has depended upon his own energies to bring him success.
While in Leetonia he took an active part in politics, though never as a seeker for office. From 19o8 to 1912 he was chairman of the Republican County Central Committee. During the war he was chairman of the Legal Advisory Draft Board No. 3 in Youngstown. Mr. Morgan is affiliated with Youngstown Lodge of Masons and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He enjoys the dignity of the office of secretary of the Mahoning County Bar Association and the Mahoning County Law Library Association. He is also a member of the Ohio State Bar Association.
June 6, 1900, he married Miss Alice A. Aiken, of Leetonia. They have two daughters, Dorothy and Katherine. Mrs. Morgan is a member of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church.
WALTER E. MEUB has given his active services to the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company for more than ten years, and has enjoyed regular promotion in the honors and responsibilities of that great corporation until recently he was made secretary of the company.
Mr. Meub was born at Warren, Ohio, June 15, 1884. His father, Henry Meub, a native of Germany, came with his parents to the United States at the age of twelve years. The family left Germany and came to America while the Franco-Prussian war was in progress. Henry Meub became a shoemaker, for many years followed his occupation and business at Warren, but is now living in California. He married Caroline Smith, who died October 6, 1901.
One of four children, Walter E. Meub, grew up at Warren and finished his education with three years at high school. His business career began with the opening of the twentieth century, and the first eight years were spent with the Erie Railroad Company. He began at the age of seventeen handling freight, and successively worked as clerk, cashier, ticket agent and yardmaster until he left the Erie in 1909 and joined the working force in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company.
His first duties with this corporation were as clerk, then cost clerk, then in the order and sales department, was for over four years chief clerk in the auditing department, and in January, 1917, was elected secretary to the president. He is still secretary to the president of the corporation, and since January, 1920, has been also secretary of the company. Mr. Meub is secretary of the Buckeye Land Company, of the Buckeye Coal Company and of the Youngstown Steel Products Company, all subsidiary organizations of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company.
He is one of the active and progressive young business men and citizens of Youngstown, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason, member of Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland, and belongs to the Youngstown Club. In religion he is affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church. September 15, 1916, Mr. Meub married Edna M. Smith, of Youngstown, daughter of William and Emma (Shelar) Smith, a family that formerly lived at Niles. Mr. and Mrs. Meub have one son, Walter E., Jr.
HENRY K. WICK. In his time the late Henry K. Wick was one of the greatest coal operators in the country, and with home at Youngstown and one of the most notable figures in the family of that name in the Mahoning Valley his interests were practically nation wide. He was distinguished not only by greatness and ability but by a genuine philanthropy, and many engaging personal qualities that made his friendship esteemed both at home and abroad.
Only a few words are required to place him in the Wick family genealogy. His grandfather, Henry Wick, was born on Long Island in 1771, and came to Youngstown in 18o1 from Washington County, Pennsylvania. He was one of the pioneer merchants of the Mahoning Valley. The father of Henry K. Wick was Col. Caleb Wick, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1795 and died in Youngstown in 1865. Colonel Wick was intimately identified with the early history of the iron industry of the Mahoning Valley.
Henry Kirtland Wick was born at Youngstown,
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August 31, 1840, one of the ten children of Colonel Caleb and Maria Adelia (Griffith) Wick. He was reared and educated in Youngstown, and in 1856, at the age of sixteen, entered the old Mahoning County Bank. From that time until his death, nearly sixty years later, he pursued an active business career and for nearly half a century was especially prominent in the coal and iron industry. In 1884 he opened an office in Buffalo under the name H. K. Wick & Company, and Buffalo was the headquarters of this organization, one of the largest coal producing and handling concerns in the country. Mr. Wick and his associates developed and worked out some of the most productive mines in the Allegheny region. He also owned large timber and coal interests in the South.
While coal was his main business, he did a pioneer work in iron manufacture. About thirty-five years before his death he became associated with a Russian, a former employe of the Brown-Bonnell plant at Youngstown, who possessed the secret of making Russian plannished sheet iron. Mr. Wick made a personal trip to Russia to study the method, and later built a mill at Niles, where the first plannished product was produced in America. Later he sold his interests in this industry. He was also a pioneer in the rubber industry and inspired the formation of the Republic Rubber Company of Youngstown, becoming its first president. He was also an original stockholder in the Sheet & Tube Company, was a director of the P. Y. & A. Railroad Company and the Youngstown Dry Goods Company.
Mr. Wick loved to mingle with his fellow men, and was a splendid entertainer. He owned a beautiful residence in Youngstown, also a country place where much of his generous hospitality was extended. He. was a generous patron of local institutions, including the Memorial Presbyterian Church and the Mahoning Institute of Art.
A special tribute was paid by one of the local papers to his public-spirited generosity in the following editorial: "The late H. K. Wick is the first of the group of rich men of Youngstown to do anything for the city in which he made his fortune at all in proportion to his wealth. Mr. Wick's will not only makes provision for an art center unequaled in any minor city in the country, but there is no doubt that he has made ample provision for its maintenance and expansion to meet the community needs as the city grows.
"If possible even better than the gift to art is the noble park of four hundred acres which will always be easily accessible from all parts of the city, and if the present rate of growth is maintained will soon be a recreation center well within the city limits, for which tens of thousands of people will always be grateful to the giver and for which they will hold his memory in highest regard, humanly speaking, for all time to come."
Henry K. Wick died March 16, 1916. He was twice married. He is survived by his widow. May 16, 19oo, he married Mrs. Mellicent R. Clarke, daughter of Daniel Talcott Hunt and widow of Archibald Clarke, both prominent at Rochester, New York. Mrs. Wick by her first marriage had two sons, Talcott Hunt Clarke and Archibald Clarke. Her son Talcott received a major's commission in the World war, being commander in the motor convoy service, and while still on duty died at Detroit, December 5, 1918. He left a widow, formerly Miss Helen Hudson Aldrich, of New York City, and four daughters, Helen, Harriet, Elizabeth and Mellicent. Archibald Clarke, married Miss Ruth Coleman, and they have three children, Coleman Wick, Jean and Genevra, and this family resides at Youngstown.
WILLIAM B. POLLOCK, a pioneer pig iron manufacturer and blast furnace builder in the Mahoning Valley, was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1832, son of Thomas and Susanna (Morrow) Pollock. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and the fourth to bear that name in this country.
He attended the common. schools of Pittsburgh until he was thirteen years of age, when he moved to Poland, Ohio, where his father had preceded him to install steam operated machinery in the grist mill of that village, which was the first to adopt steam power in that section of the country. After installing the machinery, which was shipped from Pittsburgh, his father was engaged to operate it, and liking the place, later in the year 1845 moved the family to Poland to reside permanently.
While living at Poland he attended the old Poland Academy, and out of school helped his father at the grist mill. He had a strong mechanical bent, and at this early age perfected and improved a slide-valve engine which attracted the attention of men from many sections. Among them was Mr. Garrison, of the old Garrison Foundry of Pittsburgh, and the original builder of the engine in operation at the Poland Grist Mill, who was impressed both with the invention and the inventor, and expressed a desire to take the boy to Pittsburgh for further advancement in his studies, which offer was refused by the family because of his youth. However, Mr. Garrison adopted the boy's invention and its special characteristics are still used by leading engine builders.
While attending the Poland Academy he became acquainted with the late William McKinley, and theirs was a friendship which lasted until the death of the President.
In 1850 he moved to Youngstown, finding employment under his uncle William Pollock as engineer at the Brier Hill Iron & Coal Company, but soon after left that company and for a long period of years he was closely associated in the erection of blast furnaces in Northeastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and various other sections of the country. He designed and built and superintended the first blast furnace erected in the cities of Chicago and St. Louis, including the first furnace erected by Jones & Laughlin at Pittsburgh. During this period he invented many improvements of value in the operation of blast furnaces, which tended to increased capacity and economy of operation, among which was a patented cast iron hot blast stove which is used to this day in some parts of the United States and European countries.
The nature of his business required extensive he traveling, and he had visited every state and territory in the Union. Being well studied in chemistry, particularly iron ore, he was brought in contact with other minerals, and for a year was asso-
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ciated with Governor Grant of Colorado, in the smelting of silver ore at Leadville, where silver had just been discovered, and which place was reached by stage from Denver.
Coming to Youngstown when it was little more than a village, Mr. Pollock not only witnessed its remarkable development, but was himself a material by active, honored factor in this advance, growth and development.
He was a thorough student, and after his retirement from active business in 1885, devoted much time to study, being widely read in the best literature.
December 25, 1860, he married Alice Kirk Jones, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Clark) Jones pioneers of the city, and she survives him, living at the family residence established on Elm Street in 1875. There were four children of whom one, Porter Pollock, survives.
In 1882 he was elected to the State Legislature, but declined a reelection on account of his business, although urged by his friends in all the political parties, as attested by the newspaper publications of the period.
In 1863 he established the firm of William B. Pollock & Company at Youngstown, Ohio. This, however, was in the nature of a side line to his regular business of operating blast furnaces, the entire responsibility of operating being placed in the hands of his brother, Robert A. Pollock, and William Pelen, a practical plate worker brought from Pittsburgh.
The William B. Pollock Company is still one of the industries of the valley. Its president is Porter Pollock, a son of William B. Pollock and Alice (Jones) Pollock.
William Browning Pollock died at his home in Youngstown on January 7, 1914, after a short illness and at the age of eighty-two years.
Porter Pollock was born in Youngstown, Ohio, February 8, 1864, attended the public schools, and entered the William B. Pollock Company in 1883. He is a director in a number of corporations, including the First National Bank and the Dollar Savings & Trust Company.
In 1897 he married Miss Mary Wick, daughter of Paul Wick. Their two children are Mary Wick Pollock and William Browning Pollock. The family are Presbyterians.
WILLIAM STRUTHERS, who was a nephew of the Thomas Struthers for whom the Town of Struthers was named, spent a long and active life in the Mahoning Valley, his chief business interest being centered in farming and lumbering.
He was born in Coitsville Township of Mahoning County, January 16, 1830, and died August 2, 1892. He as one of the nine children of John and Sarah (Duff) Struthers.
At the time of the Civil war he was living at Pittsburgh and enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment, serving for a time in the Army of the Potomac and later under General Thomas in Tennessee. He was in many battles, but was never wounded. Three of his brothers and two of his brothers-in-law were also soldiers in the same war.
William Struthers, while never aspiring to political honors, was a strong republican and a man of much influence in political and civic affairs. He possessed strong convictions and had a wonderful faculty for logic. His performances in the old debating societies led his friends to predict a highly successful career for him as a lawyer had he chosen that profession. He and his wife were Presbyterians. His wife died November II, 1903. They were the parents of three children : Earl ; Minnie, Mrs. Charles Summers; and Helen, wife of Charles S. Thomas, of Youngstown.
JESSE A. HILLIARD. Possibly there is no more widely known organization in the whole insurance field than that operating under the name of the Prudential Life Insurance Company, the financial standing of which may well be illustrated by its trade mark, the rock of Gibraltar. It is a familiar and even a reverenced name in city, town, hamlet and remote places of this vast country wherever men and women have recognized the prudence of providing in either small or large way for the inevitable future. Honorable fulfillment of all obligations light its background, and promise of future like security is one of its foundation stones. Connected with an organization of this stability one might expect to find able men of business acumen and unquestioned integrity, and such is the case. Mention may be made of Jesse A. Hilliard, who has been identified with this company throughout the best period of his business life, an interval of twenty years, and who is now superintendent and district manager of the Youngstown District.
Mr. Hilliard was born at Watersonville, Pennsylvania, February 4, 1875, and is a son of Herman and Mary Hilliard. He attended the public schools of Kittanning, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, until old enough to be self-supporting, then entered the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works at Ford City in that state, where he learned the trade of polisher, afterward working in other capacities in various plate glass plants. Possessed of inherited mechanical talent, he then learned the plumbing trade at Kittanning, at which he worked for a time and then went into the soft drink manufacturing business in that city. Circumstances led to his then becoming an employe of the Prudential Life Insurance Company, and seemingly here he found a business in which he could engage with interest and even enthusiasm. The company has not been slow to recognize his ability and many promotions have followed his early days when he began as a solicitor and collector. He has been entrusted with many responsibilities and has had the satisfaction of knowing that his devotion to the company has been recognized and appreciated. Perhaps no superintendent in the company is considered more efficient, for he has proved a remarkable organizer and builder up of business. Prior to coming to Youngstown in 1919 he had charge of various districts, including Tarentum, Butler, Dubois and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Lafayette, Indiana.
In 1905 Mr. Hilliard was united in marriage to Miss Bertha Miller, who is a daughter of Isaac and Sarah Miller, residents of Kittanning, and they have four children, namely: Beulah, who is the wife of Wesley Ferry, of Corning, New York, and Sarah, Herman and Meriam. Mr. and Mrs. Hilliard are
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members of the South Side Methodist Protestant Church. Fraternally he belongs to the Knights of Malta, and politically is a republican. Personally he is genial and in marked degree possesses the courteous manner that is an asset of his profession.
WILLIAM FREDERICK MAAG. Germany has contributed some of her best citizens to the United States —men who have here entered into the spirit of our institutions, and have not only gained pecuniary independence for themselves, but have also been a distinct acquisition to our population. In taking up this review of the life of the worthy gentleman whose name appears above attention is called to one who by a life of earnest and consecutive endeavor won for himself the sincere respect of all who have come into contact with him. For many years he has been a potent factor in the public and civic life of Youngstown and Mahoning County, where no name stands higher in the estimation of the people, and his career is eminently worthy of being preserved on the pages of the history of the city and county of his adoption.
William Frederick Maag, publisher of the Youngsbutown Vindicator, was born in Ebingen, Wurtemberg, Germany, February 28, 1850, and is a son of Johannes and Catharine Maag, both of whom passed their lives in their native land. At the age of fourteen years William F. Maag began serving a four years' apprenticeship at the printing trade, but at the age of seventeen years, before the completion of apprenticeship, he left his native land and came to the United States. His first location was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where for a time he worked on the Daily Herald. His next employment was at Watertown, that state, and then for four years he was a resident of Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was employed on the Indiana Staats Zeitung. In 1875 Mr. Maag came to Youngstown, and has remained a citizen of this city ever since. For about forty-two years he published the Weekly Rundschau, a German periodical, and in 1887 he bought the Youngstown Vindicator, with which he has ever since been identified. This was conducted as a weekly publication only one year under his management, since which time it has been issued as a daily. Under his management the Vindicator has become one of the leading newspapers of Ohio, wielding a potent influence for the best things in life and being characterized by a firm and unyielding stand for loyalty, cleanliness in politics and civic righteousness. It has taken advanced ground on many of the great issues of the times, and has always supported movements calculated to enhance the general welfare of the people. In 1912 Mr. Maag was elected a presidential elector during Wilson's first campaign.
As a democrat he was elected to the State Legislature in 1901, and during the session with which he was identified he was a member of the committee on railroads and public printing. In local affairs he has been active, exerting himself in behalf of worthy charitable and benevolent movements, most notable of which is the Glenwood Children's Home, of which charitable institution he has been a trustee since its organization. In addition to his business connection with the Vindicator he is treasurer of the Youngstown Arc Engraving Company.
Politically Mr. Maag gives his political support to the democratic party, and has been active in local public affairs. He is of that type of German born citizens who have been a credit to the land of their adoption. During the recent World war he rendered effective service as a member of Draft Board No. 1and in many ways contributed to the American war interests. Fraternally he is an appreciative member. of the Free and Accepted Masons, in which he has attained the Knights Templar degree and the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, and he isalso a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
While living in Fort Wayne Mr. Maag was married to Elizabeth DuCasse, of Watertown, Wisconsin, who died in 1909, and the fruits of that union are the three children living: Alma, who is the wife of William O. Brown, manager of the Vindicator; William F., Jr., editor of the Vindicator; and Arthur DuCasse, who is editor of the Sunday Vindicator; and the three deceased children are: Eda Irene, who died aged twenty-six years ; Mathilde, who died aged nine years; and Carl, who died when seven years.
Strong and forceful in his relations with his fellow men, Mr. Maag has not only made his presence felt, but he has also gained the good will and commendation of his associates and the general public, ever retaining his reputation among men for integrity and high character, and never losing that dignity .which is the birthright of a gentleman.
HON. JAMES KENNEDY, lawyer and former congressman from Youngstown, representing the Eighteenth District, is one of a group of Kennedys who have been constructive factors in the industrial life of the Mahoning Valley for over half a century, The constructive faculty is also a dominant characteristic of Mr. James Kennedy. It has been exemplified in his work as a lawyer and as a public leader. Among those to whom the public naturally look for advice and guidance Mr. Kennedy is one of the comparatively few who appear to have anything like a comprehensive understanding and grasp of the tremendous problems and issues involved in American statesmanship. His ability to diagnose evils and pro- pose remedies has brought the familiar charge of radicalism, though a careful examination of what he proposes is apparently more nearly akin to safe conservatism than the policies that receive the approbation of so many of the conventional politicians.
Mr. Kennedy was born on a farm in Poland Township of Mahoning County, September 3, 1853. His parents were Thomas Walker and Margaret (Trues. dale) Kennedy, both people of strong intellectual powers and fine character, whose qualities have been transmitted to their sons, practically all of whom have gained distinction in some way or another. Thomas Walker Kennedy, though he lived on a farm, was a carpenter by trade, and was the pioneer blast fur. nace engineer of the Mahoning Valley. He built the Struthers and Haselton furnaces and the rolling mill at Sharon, and for years exercised a technical influence throughout the iron and steel district. An. other interesting fact concerning his career is that he was a delegate from Poland Township to the first district convention of the republican party in 1856,
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Thomas W. Kennedy died when about seventy-seven years of age.
Of the eight children of these parents the oldest living is Julian, who was born March 15, 1852, and was a draftsman under his father in the construction of the Struthers Furnace, was superintendent of blast furnaces in the Mahoning Valley and Western Pennsylvania for many years, and for the past thirty ears has been a general consulting and contracting engineer, connected with nearly every important steel ant in the United States and Europe. His inventive genius is exemplified in many of the processes and mechanical equipment for the manufacture of iron and steel. It will be probably remembered by some of the older generations that Julian Kennedy won e world championship at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1876 in single scull oarsmanship, competed for by the colleges of the world.
James Kennedy is the second of this notable family. Hugh, the third, is vice president and general manager of the Rogers-Brown Iron Company of Buffalo. Rachel is the wife of John Becker and lives on the old homestead in Poland Township. Walter Kennedy, a mechanical engineer with home at Pittsburgh, at one time went to China and under the direction of Viceroy Chang operated and managed iron and steel mills in the Orient and produced the good steel rails in China. The next son is John Kennedy, general superintendent of the Rogers-Brown plant at Buffalo. Samuel A. Kennedy now tired, for many years was general superintendent of the Iroquois Iron Company of South Chicago. The youngest of the family is Thomas, now retired, ho was an expert in the construction and management of blast furnaces.
Mr. James Kennedy was therefore the only son to depart from the traditional family lines and engage in one of the older professions. He was educated in the Poland Union Seminary, graduated in 1876 from Westminster College at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and was a student of law under Gen. Thomas Sanderson at Youngstown. Admitted to the bar in 1879, Mr. Kennedy has been an active member of the Youngstown bar for over forty years.
In the early years of his practice he served as a member of the city council. In 1902 he was elected the by old Eighteenth Congressional District, and for four consecutive terms represented that district at Washington from 1903 to 1911. He became one of the influential members of the majority in the House, served on the interstate commerce committee, and helped frame the bill under which the Panama Canal as built. He was also active in behalf of pure food laws and much other constructive legislation credited to the republican congresses of that date.
Mr. Kennedy is a member of the Youngstown Club, the Sons of the American Revolution and the United Presbyterian Church. He married Miss Phoebe Erwin. Their only daughter, Grace Margaret, is the wife of Richard Mitchell, of Buffalo, New York.
BION W. BROCKWAY; vice president and general manager of the Brockway-Williamson Realty Company, which of late years has developed much Youngstown real estate, is well known and well regarded in that city, having been a responsible resident therein for more than thirty years, for the greater part of which time he has been prominently identified with Youngstown business.
He was born in Painesville, Ohio, and for many years was a wholesale fruit merchant in Youngstown, his establishment having been located on the site where the courthouse now stands. It will be remembered that he later conducted a substantial wholesale business on the corner of Boardman and Phelps streets. In 1904 he began to invest in .real estate, forming an association with W. P. Williamson, the two eventually, in 1914, incorporating their business under the name of the Brockway-Williamson Realty Company. More regarding the expansion of this firm will be found in the biography of Mr. Williamson written for this edition, but it may here be stated that the operations of the partners have brought about the development of many sections of Youngstown. The company has developed the Market Street district, Warren Avenue, East Evergreen Avenue and East Avondale, and has been interested in real estate in other sections. At the present time it is developing many large holdings, all of which have their effect upon the beauty of the city. Mr. Brockway is much interested in town planning, and for many years has shown a desire to co-operate in public movements having for their purpose the betterment of living conditions in the city.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Mac-Master, of Youngstown, and they have two children, daughters, Helen and Gladys.
WESLEY B. VAN GORDER. Since 1915 Wesley B. Van Gorder has been operating a general real estate business at Youngstown and has been connected with the development of the McKinley Heights Addition, an allotment between Niles and Girard, and with Jewel Heights Allotment at Hubbard, the McDonald Allotment at McDonald, Ohio, and others of importance. He operates under the name of the Van Gorder Realty Company and has offices at 221 Dollar Bank Building.
Wesley B. Van Gorder was born at Warren, Ohio, on July 26, 1876, a son of William P. and Elizabeth (Pinkard) Van Gorder, pioneers of the Mahoning Valley. William P. Van Gorder was captain of a canal boat and owner of a general store at Warren, and took an active part in business and politics in that community. With the exception of Wesley B. Van Gorder, the members of the family are all democrats. William P. Van Gorder and his wife are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Wesley B. Van Gorder attended the Warren High School, which graduated him at the age of sixteen years. Prior to this, when only twelve years of age, he, with an older brother, lived for several months on a preemption claim in the far West. At the termination of his school days Mr. Van Gorder went to Omaha, Nebraska, and later to Nome, Alaska. The trip to Nome was rich in experience, but a financial failure, and he took the position of waiter on the boat to secure his passage home. In speaking of his condition on that trip Mr. Van Gorder laughingly asserts that while he had enough to cover him, his supply of garments was not worth mentioning. However, in spite of the hardships he feels that this trip
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was one of the best factors in the development of his character and does not in any way regret it.
Returning to Ohio, he took a position as yard clerk with the Erie Railroad at Youngstown, and was promoted to be yardmaster. Having connected himself with the Youngstown Young Men's Christian Association, he was made its religious secretary and served as such for seven years, and having made a number of acquaintances found out the demand that exists for suitable and comfortable residences at a reasonable price, and so in 1915 embarked in his present real estate business. In it he has found his life work, and his success, while almost phenomenal, is but the logical result of talents rightly applied. Mr. Van Gorder is a republican and was a member of the Mahoning County Central Committee of his party for fifteen years.
In 1901 Mr. Van Gorder was married to Margaret E. Lapp, a daughter of John Lapp. Mrs. Van Gorder is a native of Youngstown. Both she and Mr. Van Gorder belong to Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church of Youngstown. He is an Odd Fellow and also bebulongs to the Poland Country Club, the Poland Country Gun Club and the Automobile Club. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Real Estate Board of Youngstown Mr. Van Gorder takes an active part in matters pertaining to the business life and expansion of the city, and is in every way a most desirable citizen.
EDWIN R. SMITH. The rapid growth of the City of Warren and the development of the Mahoning Valley, especially of the upper end of the valley, during the present decade is due primarily to the natural advantages of this favored section and to a number of men of vision, action and enterprise, with. the courage of their convictions. Some of these men were born and reared in the valley, while others have but recently become citizens here and who are styled by the older residents as "newcomers," and it is generally conceded that the latter class has done its full share in the work of development.
One of the men who might be classed as a "newcomer" is Edwin R. Smith of Warren, but class him as you may the fact stands out that he is a vital force in the valley, and that by his efforts he has contributed more to its development and progress during his few years of citizenship than many men who have spent their entire lives in the community, and to those men his business operations have been a revelation. Mr. Smith is a native born Ohioan, his birth having occurred on February 26, 1875, near Warsaw in Coshocton County. His parents, Ransom and Catherine (Snyder) Smith, were also natives of Coshocton County, and both were descended from old Ohio families, and the mother still resides at Dresden, Muskingum County. The father died February 22, 1920, being in his seventy-sixth year. The mother has reached her seventy-third year. Edwin R. was reared on the parental farm in Coshocton County, and was educated in the district schools, his educational advantages having been limited; however, what he lost for want of good school opportunities he made up with hard study at home at nights.
Mr. Smith left the farm when he was about twenty years of age to go to work as a laborer in the iron mills of Dresden.. His development into a skilled workman was rapid, and he continued to work in different mills until 1898, in which year he became a locomotive fireman on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Four years later, however, he resumed mill work in the Dover, Ohio, plant of the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company. But it is inevitable that a man like Mr. Smith would not be contented in a subordinate position and that sooner or later his ambitions would lead him into other fields of endeavor where his inherent abilities would be given opportunity for achievements, worth while achievements worthy of the man. By the year 1918 he had mapped out his future course, formulating after deep thought and investigation his plans and had selected his field of operation, so in that year he became a resident of Warren, and the city has been benefitted by his coming. Here he entered the real estate business, at first buying only improved city property. His operations rapidly grew in scope and volume, and soon he was handling the developing of real estate outside of the city. His greatest project to the present time was the organization of the Newton Realty & Construction Company, with headquarters at Warren. Having become impressed with natural advantages of Newton Falls and its environs, and realizing the future possibilities for industrial enterprise, in February, 1919, Mr. Smith began buying real estate in that location, and in the same year he organized this $500,000 corporation, purchased and platted 425 lots, laid pavements and sewers, and is building 400 modern six and room houses. He is general manager, secretary and treasurer and a director of the corporation.
Mr. Smith's operations as a promoter of enterprises in Warren and Newton Falls have resulted in great benefit to both communities. The Jonathan Warren Hotel Company, a $450,000 corporation, with its stock held by Warren people, was organize, by Mr. Smith for the purpose of building a much needed modern hotel in Warren, and the Jonathan Warren Hotel is a six-story brick building with 150 up-to-date rooms. Mr. Smith is secretary, treasurer and director of the company. He was one of the reorganizers and is a director of the First National Bank of Newton Falls, was a promoter of the ton Falls Savings & Loan Association, and is a director of it. He was a promoter of the Newton Falls Theater, and was a promoter in the locating of the Newton Steel Works at that point.
Mr. Smith purchased the Newton Falls Herald, a weekly newspaper, and the Niles Daily News in order that he might have a voice in the moulding of public opinion in the valley, and not as a means of boosting his own interests, which fact has since been proven by the policies of these publications.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Warren Board of Trade and of the Trumbull Country Club, and worships at the First Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Della Stiffier, a daughter of John and Catherine (Hamersley) Stiffler of New Philadelphia Ohio, and they have one son, Frank M., who was born on February 2, 1906.
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JOHN R. TRUESDALE. A creditman of long experieence, John R. Truesdale has developed and given to the Mahoning Valley and other sections of Ohio a highly valuable service as a mercantile agency. Mr. Truesdale was born at Canfield, Ohio, May 3, 1877, a son of Jackson and Luceba (Ripley) Truesdale. Both his father and mother were descendants of Revolutionary ancestors. The founder of the family in the Mahoning Valley was John Truesdale, who came from Pennsylvania and was identified with this Ohio country when the land was raw and unimproved. His son Jackson Truesdale graduated from the Western Reserve Medical College, practiced medicine a few years, was elected and served two terms as county auditor of Mahoning County prior to the Civil war, and then engaged in general merchandising at Canfield. After about 1890 he retired and died in advanced years in July, 1910. His wife died about 1907. Of their two sons the older, William J., now deceased, was for several years a teacher at Cleveland, and was twice married, leaving one son, Benjamin Orton.
John R. Truesdale grew up at Canfield to the age of nineteen and completed his education with one year in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware. From 1897 to 1907 he was a worker in the mills at Youngstown, and for five years a locomotive fireman with the Erie Railway. He then bought the Merchants Mercantile Company, a retail credit reporting concern, and has made that one of the leading and most reliable credit agencies in Eastern Ohio. As a credit man he has served several other organizations. From October, 1917, for two years he was secretary of the Ohio Grocers & Meat Dealers Association. For the past twelve years he has been secretary of the Youngstown Retail Grocers Association, and for three years has been secretary of the National Association of Mercantile Agencies. He is also secretary of the Youngstown Retail Credit Association.
Mr. Truesdale is a member of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, and is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. March 11, 1903, he married Clara Rose Justice. They are members of the Brown Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. Truesdale is assistant secretary of the Realty Security Company.
EDWARD MOORE was a pioneer character of Youngstown, was the father of the late William G. Moore, one of the city's leading lawyers and business men, and the family is still represented in the city.
Edward Moore was born, reared and educated in Ireland, and remained there after his marriage until two of his children were born. He was a Protestant, and it is probable that religious matters had something to do with his coming to this country, though a factor of equal importance no doubt was a desire to secure the superior advantages of the new world. Early in the decade of the twenties of the nineteenth century he brought his family to the United States and or a short time lived in Western Pennsylvania. His attention was soon attracted to the Mahoning Valley, and in 1827 he bought what is known as the H. K. Wick property in Youngstown. He lived there for a
time, later moved into the Town of Youngstown, and gradually acquired much real estate, bought and sold stock, and acquired a considerable fortune. He was a man of fine character, honest, upright and well qualified to meet the conditions of pioneering in the western world. He died in advanced years during the decade of the seventies.
William G. Moore, one of his sons, was born in Western Pennsylvania in June, 1823, and was an infant when brought to Youngstown. He grew up to sturdy manhood, and while without a collegiate training his practical judgment and keen observation more than made up for its lack. He took up the study of law, was admitted to the bar, and for several years diligently practiced. However, his thorough business ability soon led him to abandon his profession and devote himself to his private affairs. He acquired much property, was a recognized man of wealth in the community, and measured up to all the demands imposed upon good American citizenship.
William G. Moore married Leura Andrews, a sister of Chauncey Andrews. Of their marriage the only survivor is Miss Julia Moore, who lives on Park Avenue, opposite beautiful Wick Park in Youngstown.
HERBERT M. STEELE, vice president and general manager of the Newton Steel Company of Newton Falls, Ohio, and director of the Newton Realty Construction Company, of that place, has rapidly come into leading place among the steel manufacturers and officials of the Mahoning Valley. As an organizer his operations have proved to be of very great consequence to Newton Falls, which is rapidly being converted into an industrial center of much promise, the $2,000,000 steel plant which Mr. Steele and his associates have been instrumental in bringing into being representing a manufacturing plant such as would be considered of consequence to any community, and must be a very potent factor of encouragement to a place which but a few years ago was only a small village. The effect upon Newton Falls of the operations of the Newton Steel Plant has already been appreciable, and is shown in the development work of the NeWton Realty Construction Company, which is rapidly adding block after block of steel-workers' dwellings.
As an organizer Mr. Steele had already demonstrated the stability of his proposals, and the thoroughness with which he stabilized such enterprises gave to those with whom he had business association a confidence in his ability as an executive and business builder. In business organization he has shown an efficiency and aptness such as points to a wide experience, and his endeavors have been characterized by an honesty of purpose and a power of concentration such as invariably lead to thoroughness and success. It must be encouraging to the people of Newton Falls to know that the new steel plant, which promises so much for that community, is under the management of Mr. Steele, a man of two decades of responsible connection with steel and tin plate manufacture, and that the affairs of the Newton Steel Plant are his first concern.
He was born in Quaker City, Ohio, on January 19, 1874, the son of J. C. Steele, who died in 1891, and who was in his day a widely-known attorney. Herbert M. attended the public schools in due course, and eventually graduated from the high school at Cambridge, Ohio, after which he entered business
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life, his first employment being in the operating department of the Morton Tinplate Company, where he soon became familiar with the details of manufacture. From 1901 to 1917 he held responsible positions in the manufacturing departments of the American Sheet Steel Company and the American Sheet and Tinplate Company of Cambridge, Ohio, Muncie, Indiana, Canal Dover, Ohio, and Farrell, Pennsylvania. For three years his time was given almost exclusively to research work in connection with the operating departments of these important plants and with the industry in general; and in that connection he spent much time in visiting consumers, so that he might study their needs and how the plants could best fill them. He had early proved himself to be an executive of ability, and had advanced through the several managerial capacities to that of general manager, in which responsibility he gave increasing evidence of his thoroughness, his administrative ability and wide technical knowledge. He also manifested a broad and appreciative understanding of human nature, and a full recognition of the vital importance of confidence between employer and employe. He has the faculty of leadership, of being able to get the workman to understand that the greatest good would come to himself by aiming to do the best possible for his employer. The resultant profitable and harmonious operation of the plants has enhanced Mr. Steele's reputation as an able, tactful and appreciative manager. He probably has as many sincere friends among the employes as among the employers. In 1917 he resigned his connection with the American Sheet and Tinplate Company in order to take part in the organization of a tinplate manufacturing enterprise in Warren, Trumbull County. The outcome was the eventual establishment, in successful operation, of the Liberty Steel Company of that place, of which company he was vice president and general manager. In 1918 that company was absorbed by the Trumbull Steel Company of Warren, Ohio, to the substantial advantage of the original owners, which arrangement left Mr. Steele free to enter the organization of the larger project with which he has been chiefly identified, the Newton Steel Company, which now employs 800 men, more than was the total population of Newton Falls at the last census. As an incorporator Mr. Steele did good work ; he was elected to the original board of directors, was chosen the first vice president and appointed general manager. The construction of the modern plant has been under his direction, and he is generally responsible for its successful operation. He attends closely to his business, and in almost all his actions has shown himself to be a business man of broad measure. He was an original director of the Newton Realty Construction Company, a corporation with an authorized capital of $500,000, which company acquired a large tract of land conbutiguous to its plant and set itself to the task of erecting modern homes in necessary number for the steel workers at the Newton Steel Plant.
It will therefore be appreciated that the business operations of Mr. Steele and his associates are of much importance to Newton Falls and that vicinity. The success of the plant is of principal importance to Mr. Steele, and while he is a man of good public spirit and under different circumstances might take more prominent part in public movements, he feels it necessary at present to devote his entire time and thought to the growing affairs of the new steel plant.
He resides in Warren, Trumbull County, with his wife, Mary (McKetrick) Steele, whom he married in 1916.
C. H. KENNEDY. Undoubtedly the service that counts most in commercial affairs is that rendered with the full enthusiasm and energy of the individual in behalf of one institution or in one line of efforts over a long period of years. For nearly forty years C. H. Kennedy has been identified with the Commercial National Bank of Youngstown. This has constituted practically his entire adult life. He advanced from the lowest grades to the chief executive direction of the bank, which is noted as one of the soundest, most conservative and prosperous banking institutions of the Mahoning Valley.
Mr. Kennedy was born in Youngstown January 1, 1865, a son of Henderson G. and Esther E. (Stewart) Kennedy. His grandfather, James Kennedy, was a pioneer settler at Coitsville in Mahoning County and on his farm there Henderson G. Kennedy was born and reared, and married the daughter of a neighboring farmer. Early in the Civil war Henderson G. Kennedy enlisted in an Ohio regiment, and served until, as a result of disease contracted in the army, he was taken to a hospital at Washington and died there.
C. H. Kennedy was the youngest of three children, He was educated in the grammar schools and the Rayen High School in Youngstown, and spent one year in the State University at Columbus. He entered the Commercial National Bank in 1881 as a collector. In subsequent years, on the basis of merit, he was promoted to teller, bookkeeper, assistant cashier, cashier, and since June 3, 1919, has held the post of president.
Mr. Kennedy is a member of the Youngstown and Youngstown Country Clubs, the Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, Elks Club and the First Presbyterian Church. In 1888 he married Edith M. Orr, daughter of John S. Orr of Youngstown. Their two children are Margaret M. and Sarah Katherine.
W. A. THOMAS was born in Wales, June 8, 1865, his parents being Thomas B. Thomas and Margaret (Davies) Thomas, who came to America one year later and settled on a farm near Niles, where he spent his boyhood. He attended the public schools and, at the age of nineteen began his career as clerk in a dry goods store. He continued in the mercantile business for fifteen years, during which time he became a leading merchant in the City of Niles. Selling his store in 1899, he, in company with James Patterson and his brother, Thomas Thomas, organized the Niles Iron and Sheet Company, building a four mill sheet plant at Niles. Four years later the Thomas brothers acquired the interests of the others in the company and reorganized it under the name of the Niles Iron & Steel Company, Mr. Thomas becoming president of this concern. The plant was enlarged at the time by the erection of four additional mills and the installation of galvanizing and corrugated roofing depart-
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ments. On January 30, 1909, the company was again reorganized and the name changed to the Thomas Steel Company, the capital being at the same time increased to $500,000 and four additional sheet mills being installed.
Three years later the Brier Hill Steel Company was organized and Mr. Thomas became its first president, a position which he filled continuously until signed on December 31, 1919. Under his management this company, which is described elsewhere, became one of the leading corporations of its kind in country, and Mr. Thomas became widely recognized as an executive of great ability and untiring
While his time has been largely devoted to the management of the Brier Hill Steel Company since its organization in 1912, Mr. Thomas is also connected with numerous other activities and still retains his interest in their direction. Among the enterprises in which he serves as a director are the following: The Niles Trust Company, the First National Bank of Youngstown, the Standard Boiler & Plate Iron Corn, the Electric Alloy Steel Company and the Brier Steel Company. He is a member of the Youngstown Country, Union, Duquesne and Bankers clubs, India House, Ohio Society, American Iron & Steel Institute, Annadale Golf and other clubs and organizations, and also of the First Presbyterian Church, Youngstown.
Mr. Thomas was married on July 23, 1890, to Miss Mary Bentley, daughter of A. J. Bentley, of Niles, Ohio and they have four children, these being Mrs. Lloyd Booth, Margaret G., Wayne Bentley and Mary Jeannette. The Thomas home is one of the most charming residences on Logan Road, Youngstown.
WADE A. TAYLOR. During a period of three decades Wade A. Taylor has had a growing interest and intensive connection with the commercial life of the Mahoning Valley, chiefly centered at Niles, until recently he became located at Youngstown. Mr. Taylor is a banker, has been identified with the executive administration of several large industrial concerns and is a fine type of the broad gauge business man, and generous and public-spirited citizen.
The was born at Loudonville, Ashland County, Ohio, March 26, 1869. The earlier generations of his family on coming from England lived in Connecticut and Virginia. His parents were Adam A. and Priscilla (Wade) Taylor, now deceased. His father for many years was a flour miller in Ashland County.
The youngest of eight children, four of whom are still living, Wade A. Taylor spent the first sixteen years of his life at Loudonville. He had a public school education, completed his sophomore year at Wooster College, and for two years was employed in a grain office at Toledo.
Then, in 1890, he removed to Niles, and was put on the pay roll of the old First National Bank, which then was a new organization. He remained with that bank in different capacities until 1901. In 1895, with other associates, he bought a controlling interest, and from 1895 to 1901 served as its cashier.
In 1902 Mr. Taylor organized at Niles the Empire Iron & Steel Company and was its president until the business was sold to Jonathan Warner in 1906. The next important industrial concern with which his name and energies were identified was the Deforest Sheet. & Tinplate Company, which he organized in 1909 and of which he continued president until 1917. He then retired from the chief executive office, but kept his interest in the business until it was sold to the Republic Iron and Steel Company in 1919. Mr. Taylor also helped organize the Dollar Savings Bank Company and is still president of that institution. These facts tell very briefly his association with the important developments that in recent years have marked the rising power of Niles as au industrial and commercial center.
Mr. Taylor has had his home at Youngstown since 1918. In 1917 he organized the Valley Iron Company of Youngstown, an export concern. Its affairs were liquidated in 1919, after the close of the war. in June, 1919, the American Zinc Products Company of Warren was purchased by Mr. Taylor and associates, and the offices have since been moved to Youngstown. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club, the Niles Club, the Trumbull Country Club, the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce. In 1892 he married Miss Mabel Strickland, and they have one daughter, Laura Priscilla. Mr. Taylor is a republican in politics.
THOMAS B. JONES has given practically all his active life to the service of banking and other financial corporations in the Mahoning Valley. He is now treasurer of the Home Savings & Loan Company of Youngstown.
His father was the late James G. Jones, a native of Wales. At the age of fifteen he came to the United States with his parents, and soon afterward found employment in Eastern Ohio. He enlisted in a company raised at Weathersfield, and made an honorable record as a faithful soldier of the Union during the war. Subsequently he became active in public affairs, and died in September, 1878. He was one of the charter members of the Knights of Pythias Lodge at Coalsburg in Trumbull County. He married Mary Jones, also a native of Wales, who had come to this country at the age of thirteen.
Thomas B. Jones, who was one of a family of seven children, was born at Coalsburg in Trumbull County, December 14, 1878. From early childhood he lived with his parents at Cornersburg in Mahoning County, and received a public school education there. His real career began as a messenger in the Commercial National Bank. A few years later he became bookkeeper for the Mahoning National Bank, and for the past eighteen years, since 1902, all his service has been with the Home Savings & Loan Company. He began with that institution as teller, was promoted to assistant treasurer, and since 1910 has had the responsibilities of treasurer.
Mr. Jones is a Mason and Odd Fellow. He married in 1903 Della Jarvis, daughter of James and Mary (Ruggles) Jarvis. Their only daughter is Florence M.
CHARLES R. HOOD.. The prosperity and substantial welfare of a city or community are in a large measure due to the enterprise and wise foresight of its business men. It is the progressive, wide-awake men of affairs that make the real history of a community, and their influence in shaping and directing its varied