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Lloyd Booth, a grandson of Lloyd Booth the elder, is now president and treasurer of the Falcon Steel Company at Niles, and a director of the Mahoning National Bank of Youngstown and the Second National Bank at Warren. During the war he was a disbursing officer of the aircraft production department. He married Miss Lauretta Thomas, daughter of W. A. Thomas, president of the Brier Hill Steel Company. They have two children, Lloyd and Mary Bentley.
JAMES MCMURRAY, M. D. It was not until he had rounded out forty years of consecutive practice and service in his home community of Hubbard that, Doctor Murray gave up the active cares of his profession. He is one of the oldest medical men in the Mahoning Valley, and the people of Hubbard Township especially appreciate his personal abilities, professional skill and his long continued, unselfish devotion to their welfare.
Doctor McMurray, who belongs to an old Ohio family, was born at Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1848. His grandfather, John McMurray, was born in County Derry, Ireland, and on coming to America first located at Winchester, Virginia, and settled in Ohio just before the War of 1812, in which he served as a private. He was a farmer near Seceder Corners in Liberty Township of Trumbull County, and also helped organize the first Presbyterian Church of Youngstown and was one of its first elders. He died at Youngstown December 31, 1871, at the age of eighty-five.
Dr. James McMurray is the son of a physician, Dr. Jesse McMurray, who was born in Liberty Township September 6, 1820. In 1844 he removed across the state line to Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, and he also rendered forty years of professional service before his death in 1887, at the age of sixty-seven. Dr. Jesse McMurray married Cynthia Clark, of Pennsylvania, who died at Sharpsville at the age of eighty-three. Their three children were James and two daughters, one of whom died unmarried, and the other is Florence, widow of Joseph M. Kimble of Sharpsville.
James McMurray spent his boyhood days at Sharpsville, and from the schools of that locality entered the State Normal at Edinboro and pursued his medical course in the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, graduating with the class of 1875. He had formed the acquaintance of Doctor McGaughey at Hubbard, and that old-time physician died soon after Doctor McMurray graduated in medicine, and the latter succeeded to his office and residence. He still lives at the old McGaughey home. Through youth and middle age and with seasoned abilities he continued his work in this community, never seeking any outside interests or diversions until 1916, when he withdrew to enjoy a well-earned leisure. He is a member of the Trumbull County Medical Society. Doctor McMurray is a Presbyterian and has never interested himself in politics.
In 1880 he married Margaret Hall, who was born at Pulaski, Pennsylvania, in June, 1843, and as a child was brought to Hubbard and grew up on a farm on the Youngstown Road. Mrs. McMurray represents a family of distinction. Her parents were Isaac Gillespie and Catherine (Campbell) Hall. Her father was born in County Armagh, Ireland, October 9, 1798, and her mother in County Tyrone, February 14, 1809. They were married July 12, 1826, and in 1870 they left their farm and retired to Hubbard, where the father died May 26, 1873, and the mother on December 18, 1890. An uncle of Mrs. McMurray was Leonard Gillespie, who for sixty years was a surgeon in the British Navy, and became physician general of the fleet commanded by the great Admiral Nelson. In 1805 he was advanced to that position, and was on the Admiral's flagship, the Victory. A letter written in 1805 on board that vessel while cruising in the Mediterranean to his sister in Ireland tells lucidly events of the cruise and life op board. He was a special guest at the funeral of the Admiral at St. Paul's, London. Leonard Gillespie died at Paris in 1842, at the age of eighty-four, and his grave in the renowned Pere la Chaise Cemetery is marked by an appropriate monument erected by the British Government. One of Mrs. McMurray's brothers graduated from Westniinster College in Pennsylvania, also from Allegheny College, and was long a prominent minister and leader in the Presbyterian Church. His first charge was at Newton Falls in the Mahoning Valley, and from 1876 until 1890 he was pastor at Lima, Ohio, and at one time served as moderator of the Synod of Ohio.
Mrs. McMurray has always been deeply interested in church and its latest activities. Doctor and Mrs. McMurray have one daughter, Sarah Emily, who lives at home and for a number of years has been prominent in the social, literary and patriotic affairs of Hubbard. She is a graduate of the Rayen High School at Youngstown, of Western Reserve University with the class of 1904, and for a time was a teacher in the Hubbard High School. She is president of the Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, and also president of the Westminster Guild.
CALVIN R. STEWART. For a long period of years the community of Hubbard has felt a justifiable pride in the business institution and service conducted and rendered by Calvin R. Stewart as an undertaker. The business is now known as C. R. Stewart & Sons, and comprises also a large and well stocked furniture store. Undertaking has been almost a family profession of the Stewarts. One member of the family in pioneer days was an undertaker by virtue of the fact that he was a cabinet maker, two occupations closely associated in years when the principal office of the undertaker was to furnish a casket, made by hand and to order.
Calvin R. Stewart was born in Hubbard Village July 8, 1855, a son of Lowry A. and Lorena (Clingan) Stewart. His father was born in Vienna Township of Trumbull County, son of David and Mary (Sinclair) Stewart. The grandparents as a young married couple came from Center County, Pennsylvania, about 1818 and settled on land where Vienna and Hubbard townships corner, spending the rest of their days in that locality, where David Stewart died at the age of fifty-six and his wife at seventy-two. The chief owner of their old farm is now Calvin R. Stewart. They were the parents of two sons : Lowry and Robert Sinclair, and three daughters, Rosanna, who died in young womanhood, Mary Jane, who died
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unmarried at the age of thirty-five, and Sarah, who died aged seventy-two, the wife of Henderson Boyd, of Liberty Township. Robert Sinclair never married, and spent his life quietly on the home farm, dying at the age of fifty-six.
Lowry Stewart about 1853 married Lorena Clingan at Hubbard. She was a daughter of Jehiel and Maria (Tylee) Clingan. Maria Tylee was a daughbuter of Hubbard Township's leading pioneer, Samuel Tylee, who was the personal agent for the original purchaser of the lands in Hubbard Township from the Connecticut Land Company. Samuel Tylee and his family reached the township in 1801 and justly claimed distinction as the first settlers. Their cabins stood a little north of the present Corners of the village. Samuel Tylee in many ways was influential in the affairs and development of the country. He was the first justice of the peace in the township, and proved very careful in business and a man of much integrity. He was the principal patron of one of the earliest pioneer schools and he built the first frame house in the township. One of his grandsons was the noted soldier and statesman General Cyrus Bussey. Samuel Tylee was also chiefly instrumental in securing the establishment of the first Masonic Lodge in Trumbull County. He died in 1845. His first wife was Anna Sanford, who was the mother of ten children, and his second wife was Elizabeth Ayers. Lorena Clingan, granddaughter of Samuel Tylee, was born at Hubbard and died in 1856, at the age of twenty-three. Her only child was Calvin R. Stewart. After the death of his wife Lowry Stewart returned to the old farm, and married for his second wife Mary Ann Cowden, of Coitsville. He died in 1882, at the old homestead, at the age of fifty-six, his second wife surviving him. Lowry Stewart was the cabinet maker and pioneer undertaker previously referred to. He had a shop on his farm and made caskets to suit the requirements, usually doing the work after the death of the party to use the casket. By his second marriage he had six children: Ella, Mrs. Charles Malin, of. Youngstown ; David Cowden, a farmer at Sodom, Liberty Township; Houston E., a farmer and real estate man at. Sharon ; Emma Jane, who died at the age of twenty-five, the wife of Frank Coller ; James, who died at eighteen ; and Lillian, 'who lives at Hubbard, wife of William Wolf, an employe of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company.
Calvin R. Stewart at the death of his mother when he was a year old was taken by his grandmother Stewart and grew up on the old homestead with his grandmother, uncles and aunts. Besides helping in the work of the farm he acquired a liberal education, finishing in the Poland Union Seminary. At the age of eighteen he began teaching, and gave his winters to that vocation for fifteen years. He taught in the local schools of Liberty and Brookfield Townships, and his last year was spent at Hubbard as one of the ten teachers in the graded schools. In the meantime he was in the grocery and hardware business and was postmaster at Brookfield Center for two years. Mr. Stewart moved to Hubbard in 1892, and after one year as a teacher he established his present business and was the first regular undertaker in the town. Four years later he experimented by opening a small stock of furniture, displaying his goods in a small building in his own dooryard. He found the experiment profitable, and the business has grown and steadily developed. In 1917, for its accommodation, he erected a substantial brick block 34x96 feet, two stories in front and three stories in the rear, all now crowded, and the business is such that more space could be used. Mr. Stewart began his business career with only $400 or $500 invested, and went in debt for his first funeral car. At the present time a capital of more than $50,000 is required for the furniture and undertaking business. Besides one assistant he has three sons associated with him, the oldest son being a graduate and professional undertaker. Mr. Stewart still owns a two-thirds interest in the old Stewart homestead, and has platted an eight-acre tract as an allotment to Hubbard, known as the Stewart Plat.
Mr. Stewart has taken an active part in the famous school question in Hubbard, served five years on the Board of Education, and helped make the final settlement between the village and the township and was instrumental in the erection of the present handsome school. He began voting as a republican, and later concentrated his choice upon the prohibition ticket. He is an elder in the Liberty United Presbyterian Church at the place in earlier days known as Seceder Corners, and his grandparents were among the charter members of this church.
In 1882 Mr. Stewart married Ella J. Stewart, of Vienna Township, whose remote ancestors were the same as those of her husband. She died eighteen months after her marriage, and her only daughter died in infancy. In 1885 Mr. Stewart married Ella J. Mitcheltree, of Pulaski, Pennsylvania, and a descendant of that pioneer, Dr. John Mitcheltree, who was the first merchant and the first physician in Hubbard Township, his store being partly in Pennsylvania and partly in Ohio. The children of Mr. and Mrs.. Stewart are : Earl S., who was educated in the Rayen High School, has been associated with his father in busmess since boyhood, and is a licensed embalmer. He is active in the Chamber of Commerce, and by his marriage to Della Hibler has two daughters, Ruth Marie and Bettie Jane. James L., the second son, who is clerk of the Board of Public Affairs, is also a member of the family partnership. He married Ruth Wills. Lawrence M., the third son, like his brother James is a graduate of Westminster College. Besides his business connection he is clerk of the Board of Education at Hubbard. He married Nora Kerr. The three daughters are Neva M., Lorena M. and Mabel H. The oldest child, Ella Grace, died in infancy. Neva is a graduate in music and is musical supervisor of the Hubbard schools. Lorena graduated from Westminster College and is a teacher in Hubbard. Mabel is a student in Westminster College. All the children will have been graduated in Westminster College when Mabel there completes her course.
SAMUEL TYLEE, the first settler of Hubbard Township, has many descendants still living in this part of Ohio. He was agent for Nehemiah Hubbard, the original purchaser of the lands of the township from the Connecticut Land Company.
Samuel Tylee was born at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1766, of old Connecticut ancestry. In 1797 or
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1798 he helped survey some of the lands of the Western Reserve for Mr. Hubbard. These lands were divided into 200 acre tracts. In 1801 he brought his family to the wilderness by way of wagons, and at once took an influential part in the development of the community in addition to acting as agent for Hubbard. His first cabin was at a salt spring just west of the present schoolhouse. In 1818 he erected the house still standing, and in which he lived until his death on September it, 1845. This is the oldest house in the township. The nails were made by a blacksmith. He owned 150 or 160 acres where his first cabin was built, still another tract where the second house was erected, and owned several other farms in different parts of the township. One of these farms, on the Jacobs Road, was given by Hubbard to Mrs. Tylee as a reward for her braving the hardships of the wilderness. Samuel Tylee was one of the early sheep raisers in the early days and Introduced the Merino from Vermont. As a justice of the peace he was known as Squire Tylee. He also went back to Connecticut to acquire a charter for the first Masonic Lodge at Warren.
His first wife was Anna Sanford, who died in 1813, and is buried in the old North Cemetery of Hubbard. Her sons to reach mature years were: Samuel, born in 1798 and died in 1875, having spent his life on his father's original farm; Sanford, horn in 1803 and died in 1847, who lived on another of his father's farms ; and William, who was born in 1807 and went out to Kansas, where he died. The daughters of the family were : Nancy, born in 1794, married Augustus Adams and died in advanced years in Trumbull County; Laura, born in 1795, married William Mitcheltree and died at the age of eighty-two, while her son Samuel Tylee Mitcheltree attained the age of eighty-nine and his wife, Mary Clark, died at the age of eighty-eight, a daughter of this last named couple, Miss Letitia Jane Micheltree, being still a resident of Hubbard and a practical nurse; Mary, who was born in 1800, married a Mr. Gray and died in 1823; Eliza born in 1805, first married Horace Mallery, from Vermont, and her second husband was George Hager, and she died at Hubbard in 1898; Julia, born in 1809, died in 1842; Hannah, born in 1811, lived to the age of ninety-one, and was the wife of Rev. Amos Bussey, a Methodist minister, her son Cyrus achieving great distinction as a general in the- Civil war ; and Maria, born in 1813, lived to the age of ninety and was the wife of Jehiel Clingan.
Samuel Tylee's second wife was Bettie Ayres. Her daughter Olive, born in 1818, married Jacob Barnheisel, and they went out to California around Cape Horn and spent their lives in the far West. Mrs. Elizabeth Tylee lived to advanced years in Hubbard Township. The family still preserves Samuel Tylee's old Bible, which was printed at Oxford, England, in 1752.
His son Samuel Tylee, who was born in 1798 and died in 1875, retained the old farm except for a few lots he sold, and lived out his life there. He married Harriet Giddings, a cousin of Joshua Giddings, who visited the Tylees when he came to Trumbull County. She was born in 1800 and died in 1854. The children of Samuel Tylee, grandchildren of the pioneer Samuel, were: Samuel, horn June 8, 1828; Festus; who as a member of the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Infantry died in the Atlanta campaign; Lyman, a member of the Nineteenth Ohio Infantry, was killed at Stone River January 2, 1863; Martha married Augustus Dilley and moved out to Kansas; Mary became the wife of Samuel Clark, and died when about seventy years of age in Medina County. Samuel Tylee, in the third generation of that name in Trumbull County, married Nancy Jackson in 1857. She was born at Coitsville, Mahoning County, October 25, 183o, daughter of John and Jane (Johnson) Jackson. Her father was born in 1800 and died in 1868, and her mother died at the age of seventy-nine. Except for two years in Medina County Samuel Tylee made his home at Hubbard. For many years he was a driller testing for coal, and was employed in that capacity in all the important coal regions. In 1871 he suffered a stroke of paralysis and was an invalid for twenty-seven years, until his death on February 21, 1899. His widow is still living in Hubbard. Her children were: Charles J., born January 16, 1858, principal of the West Side School in Youngstown; Harlan, born May 6, 186o, died May 26, 1886; and Harry, who lives with his mother and is unmarried, was born September 22, 1868, and has devoted most of his years to farming the original tract of the pioneer Samuel Tylee.
EDWARD W. MCCLURE. The office of mayor of Newton Falls, which he now holds, seems an appropriate honor for a man who has for years been engaged in all the public spirited movements affecting the improvement and development of the region in and around that town. Mr. McClure has spent a large part of his life cultivating the soil and operating farms, but all the time has been working and co-operating with other good men of his community in promoting good roads, better schools and better conditions in general.
Mr. McClure was born 2 1/2 miles south of the village of Newton Falls in Newton Township July 23, 1867, son of Moses and Sarah (Weasner) McClure. His mother was a sister of Robert Weasner of Berlin Center. The grandfather, William McClure, came with his family from Donegal, Ireland, first settling in either Jackson or Poland Township in. Mahoning County, and finally moving to Newton Township of Trumbull County, where he died at the age of eighty-four. Edward W. McClure was ten or twelve years old when his grandfather died. Moses McClure was four years of age when brought from Ireland, and as a boy he hoed fields of corn on land now included in the City of Youngstown. He made his first independent home about a mile from his father, and during Civil war times he moved to the place where Edward W. McClure was born. Moses McClure lived there until his death on June 5, 1894, at the age of sixty-two, and is still survived by his widow, who is a resident of Newton Falls. In their family were four sons: Frank P4 a Newton Falls lawyer ; Edward W.; Albert, a farmer in Braceville Township; Arthur, on the old homestead.
Edward W. McClure lived with his parents until he established a home of his own, was educated in district schools, and for two years operated the home farm. August 13, 1891, he married Nettie Ebert, daughter of W. J. and Harriet (Hoefflinger) Ebert.
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Her parents still live on their farm northwest of Newton Falls. Mrs. McClure was born in Warren Township and is a graduate of the Newton Falls High School with the class of 189o.
After his marriage Mr. McClure lived on a farm owned by his father in Braceville Township for three years, then took charge of the homestead a year, and upon the death of his father he bought seventy-eight acres near the old farm. That place he sold twelve years later, and in January, 1907, came to his present home, the land bordering the river and partly within the corporation limits of Newton Falls. He had 52% acres here, and for about ten years used it for general farming purposes. He sold most of the land to the Newton Falls Steel Company, and it is now platted and being developed for industrial and suburban purposes. At the present time Mr. McClure has completed another home within the city.
For several years he was a township trustee, and was one of the leaders at the beginning of the good roads movement, when $50,000 in bonds were voted for road construction and nine miles of highway built. He was appointed supervisor during the building program and continued for two years longer as road supervisor of the township. He had the satisfaction of seeing 6 1/2 miles of modern highway constructed during his administration, and since then the program has been greatly enlarged. Mr. McClure is a democrat in a republican township. He had served four years as a member of the Newton Falls Council, up to January 1, 1920, when he took over the office of mayor. While in the council the electric lighting system was overhauled and remodeled. Mr. McClure has been a deacon and president of the Church Board of the Christian Church, is a Mason, and has been prominent in the Mahoning Valley Grange, being a member of Pomona Grange and acting twice as delegate to the State Grange. Mr. and Mrs. McClure had one daughter, Edna, who died April 17, 1919. She was the wife of Ira Hawley, of Portage County, and is survived by one son, Robert Leroy, who was born June 2, 1918.
J. W. HUMES is the active head of the Newton Falls Real Estate Company, an organization whose records would reveal an interesting story of the rapid growth and development of this Trumbull County town during the past few years. Mr. Humes and his organization have been directly responsible for much of the new industrial enterprise and the general upbuilding of this community.
Mr. Humes was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1866, and grew up as the son of a farmer and stock dealer. After leaving the farm he attended the Beaver Business College and for several years was engaged in the hotel business at Woodlawn, Pennsylvania. He moved to Newton Falls in 1913, and for two years conducted a restaurant. Then in 1913 he began writing insurance and dealing in real estate. At the beginning he barely paid expenses, but during the years 1917-18 handled more local property than had been sold for twenty years. Many local citizens believed that Newton Falls was retrograding rather than going ahead, and pointed out as evidence the numerous vacant houses. Mr. Humes helped fill up these with tenants and owners, and also worked effectively with the local Board of Trade in bringing to Newton Falls the plant of the Akron Maderite Tire & Rubber Company and was an active member of the committee to secure other industries. He has handled several allotments, and in recent years much of the property in which he has dealt has been his own. For the past three years he has also traded in and sold many farm properties. Altogether his business has far exceeded his expectations. More recently Mr. R. A. Scott has become interested as a partner in his business. They represent many of the standard insurance companies.
Mr. Humes is still on the Board of Trade, is a past master of his Masonic lodge and has, also filled chairs in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of the Maccabees. In 1906, in Pennsylvania, he married Daisy Isabel Ong, and they have one daughter, Rosetta.
LAWRENCE FRANDSEN On coming to Youngstown several years ago brought with him a• varied and successful experience as a builder and real estate operator, and his work in that line has brought him a most favorable position among the leading realtors of Youngstown.
Mr. Frandsen was born at Sandusky, Ohio, January 2, 1881, a son of Andrew and Eliza (Asmus) Frandsen. His mother was also born at Sandusky, but his father was a native of Denmark and came to the United States at the age of twelve years. For a number of years he did a large business as a building contractor at Sandusky, where he died in 1899, at the age of fifty-two.
Lawrence Frandsen acquired a public school education, also attended the Sandusky Business College, and took up his active career as a builder at the age of nineteen. The first year he built and sold two houses. The following year his business aggregated twenty houses, and the scope of his operations and the capital involved steadily expanded, eventually being merged into a general real estate business.
Mr. Frandsen in 1912 located at Akron, but the following year came to Youngstown. For the first two seasons he was a salesman for the Realty Security Company, but in 1915 engaged in business for himself. He has developed and sold many pieces of property in and around Youngstown and more recently has branched out into the handling of farm property. He now owns four fine farms in Mahoning County.
Mr. Frandsen married in 1906 Cora Lamb, member of one of the old time families of Sandusky. They have four children : Florence, Andrew, Roland and William. Mr. Frandsen is a republican, is affiliated with the Masonic Order at Sandusky, and with his family is a member of the Brown Memorial Church at Youngstown.
ALVIN W. HART, who was long and actively identified with industrial enterprises of broad scope and who has made an admirable record as a man of marked circumspection and ability in business affairs, is now living virtually retired at Newton Falls,
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Mahoning County, where his capitalistic interests are such as to make ample demands upon his time and attention, besides which he is president of the local board of education. He is president of the Savings & Loan Association of Newton Falls, is' a director of the First National Bank of Newton Falls, and is a stockholder in the Newton Realty & Construction Company and the Maderite Rubber Company.
Mr. Hart was born on a farm near Minerva, Carroll County, Ohio, December 27, 1859, and is a son of John and Susan (Mathias) Hart. John Hart was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and was child at the time of the family removal to Carroll County, Ohio, where he became a prosperous farmer and where for a number of years he also did a succssful business as a carpenter and contractor. He died in 1915, at the age of eighty-one years, as one of the honored pioneer citizens of Carroll County, and his widow, who celebrated her eighty-first birthday anniversary in 1920, still resides at Minerva, that county. Lewis C., a younger son, resides at Palmyra, Portage County, and is superintendent of the Liberty Clay Products Company.
Alvin W. Hart remained on the home farm until he was twenty-seven years of age, and in the meanwhile he profited by the advantages afforded in the public schools of his native county. He learned the carpenter's trade under the effective direction of his father, and after leaving the farm he was for six years engaged in business as a contractor and builder at Minerva. He then went to Waynesburg, Stark County, and became associated with the Whittaker Fireproofing Company, manufacturers of fireproof clay products. With this company he continued his active alliance eighteen years, and as salesman of its products to the retailers in several states he built up for the company a large and profitable business. Within the period of his connection with this enterprise the business had increased fully tenfold, and in addition to becoming a stockholder of the company Mr. Hart was its vice president for ten years. In the autumn of 1910 he became treasurer and general manager of the Diamond Brick & Tile Company at Palmyra, Portage County, manufacturers of fireproof building products, tiling, etc. In this connection his initiative and administrative ability, reinforced by previous technical experience, came effectively into play, and within the ten years of his association with the business he was a prime factor in furthering its success, about forty men having been employed at the plant. At the expiration of the period mentioned the plant and business were sold to the Liberty Clay Products Company. In the prosperous enterprise Mr. Hart had gained control of more than one-half of the capital stock, and he realized a substantial return when the business was sold for $50,000. It was at this juncture, in 1910, that Mr. Hart established his home at Newton Falls, where he has since lived practically retired and where he is well known for his civic loyalty and progressiveness. During two years he has been a member of the School Board and was made its president on the 1st of January, 1920. Within the period of his service have been perfected the plans and financial reinforcement resulting in the construction of the fine and essentially modern new school building at Newton Falls, the same being so designed as to serve as a general community building, with a large auditorium equipped for public use as well as school purposes. Mr. Hart has been one of the active and influential members of the Newton Falls Board of Trade from the time of its organization, and he takes vital interest in all things touching the social and material welfare of his home community. He is president of the board of trustees of the Christian Church at Newton Falls, as well as president of its Berean class. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Masonic fraternity, including the Order of the Eastern Star, in which latter his wife is now treasurer of the chapter at Newton Falls. In Masonry his local affiliation is with Newton Falls Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and he holds membership in the Chapter of Royal Arch Masons at Carrollton, while his chivalric affiliation is with the Commandery of Knights Templar in the City of Canton, Stark County. Early in 1920 Mr. Hart became one of the organizers of the Newton Falls Building & Loan Association, of which he is president, and for six years he was a member of the municipal board of public service. In national affairs he is a republican, but in local politics he is not hedged in by strict partisan lines.
At the age of twenty-four years Mr. Hart was united in marriage to Miss Della Iddings, of Minerva, Stark County, and she died eight years later, the three children of this union being Olive, Elizabeth and Florence. June 3o, 1903, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hart to Miss Alice 0. Nims, of Dorset, Ashtabula County, and they have one son, Donald Arthur. Of the children of the first marriage Olive became the wife of Arthur J. Derringer, and she died when twenty-two years of age; Elizabeth is the wife of Robert A. Campbell, associated with the Frazer Brick Company of Ginger, Texas ; and Florence is the wife of Clyde Gipson, connected with the Liberty Clay Products Company at Diamond, Ohio.
FRANK E. BECK, a successful farmer in Warren Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, for the greater part of his life, and latterly a resident of Newton Falls, Trumbull County, to which town he removed from his farm in 1919 so that he might take life less strenuously henceforward, has had life-long association with the Mahoning Valley. Three generations of the Beck family have had residence in Warren Township, and he himself has lived his whole life in Trumbull County. The Beck family, originally from Wurtemberg, Germany, is classed among the early settlers in the Mahoning Valley, and is of good record in Warren Township. Henry Beck, father of Frank E., was an enterprising farmer in that township, owned an extensive acreage, prospering also as a cooper, and eventually retired to the City of Warren, where he died about 1909. Frank E. Beck, who still owns altogether about 107 acres of good farming land in Lordstown Township, has an enviable standing among agriculturists of the section, and since he has taken up residence in Newton Falls he has shown much interest in the public affairs of the latter community. In fact, throughout his busy, productive life he has manifested a commendable public spirit and a fellow-feeling which has drawn him in-
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terestedly into co-operation with others in movements of civic or communal interest, and into actions which have stamped him as a reliable, helpful neighbor. He has never striven for public office, his public interest being free from ulterior motives, but he has consented to take the responsibilities of the township trusteeship, and at times has closely associated himself with educational movements of importance.
He was born in Warren Township, Trumbull County, on the old Beck homestead, which is situated about two miles to the southward of Leavittsburg, on May 13, 1862, the son of Henry and Catherine (Clink) Beck, both of whom were born in Germany. Henry Beck was born in Appigen, Wurtemberg, and was thirteen years old when he came with his parents to America, the family then coming to Ohio and settling in Warren Township, Trumbull County. Henry had four brothers, Stephen, Philip, Charles and Jacob, but all are now dead. Four remained near their parents in Ohio for the greater part of their lives, but Stephen early went to Kansas, where he died. They were all men of useful, trades, Jacob and Henry being coopers and farmers, and Charles, a wagonmaker. Charles eventually went into Indiana, where he died. He was the youngest of the five brothers, and survived them all, his death not occurring until about two years ago, he being in octogenarian age at that time.
Henry, father of Frank E., married in Warren Township, his wife, like himself, having also crossed the ocean from Germany in childhood. He began independent farming on a forty-acre tract, adding additional acreage as he prospered until ultimately he owned about 200 acres of good farming land. Until about 1878 he had an abundance of timber, and with commendable enterprise operated a cooperage on his farm, making flour barrels, butter firkins and such like articles, his enterprise finding employment for one or two additional men. Eventually he retired from farming and other business and moved into the City of Warren, where he died about 1909, he being then eighty-five years old. His wife was about five or six years his junior, but she also lived until she was eighty-five years old. Earlier in life Henry Beck had been township trustee, and he and his wife were sincere church people, attending the Lutheran Church at Lordstown for many years. They were the parents of twelve children, and succeeded in rearing ten to maturity. The ten children were : Samuel, Who went into Indiana, and there died at the age of thirty-one years; Emma, who married Levi Toot, of Warren ; Matilda, who now lives in Warren, and is the widow of Austin Packard; Addie, who died in young womanhood; Frank E., of Newton Falls, regarding whose life more is written below ; Alfred, who is a: carpenter, and lives in Warren ; Charles, who is in the real estate business at McKeesport, Pennsylvania; Harmon, who is a machinist at Warren; Clara, who married Edmund Bettiker, a farmer of Warren Township; George, who was in commercial life, an insurance agent, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he died when about thirty years old.
Frank E. was educated in the township schools, and after leaving school took energetically to farming. When he had about reached his majority he and his brother Alfred took over the farming properties of their father, and with their sister Addie as house keeper conducted the farm as partners for eight or ten years. Frank E. was about thirty years old when he married, and about that time he purchased one of the farms outright from his father, which farm of 107 acres he still owns, and farmed independently for more than twenty-five years. It was in 1892 that Frank E. Beck married Mary Sutton, daughter of William and Susan (Strock) Sutton, her mother being the daughter of George Strock and the first wife of William Sutton, whose second wife was Anna Strock, daughter of Aaron Strock, son of George, and grandson of Joseph Strock, the pioneer settler of that family in the Mahoning Valley. The association of the last-named with the earliest days of development in the Mahoning Valley is the subject of an article specially written for this edition of Ohio history, and further reference .will be found in the sketch regarding Warren A. Lawrence, present county commissioner. Mary Sutton was in the new house on the Sutton farm in Newt Township on December 18, 1866, and in due course attended the district school, eventually entering the teaching profession, and for seven or eight years taught in the district schools of Trumbull County. She taught in the Beck district school, and so came to know Frank E. Beck, whom she eventually married. Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Beck lived first nine years of their wedded life in the old Beck homestead in Warren Township, then acquiring the farm formerly owned by her uncle, Moses L. Strock, situated about two miles to the southward of Newton Falls, and adjoining the original George Strock farm now owned and occupied by Warren A. Lawrence. The farm of Moses L. Strock is about eighty acres in extent, and the Becks lived there until 1919, when they decided to move into Newton Falls. Many improvements were made to the old Strock farm by Frank E. Beck, who built a new barn, established a better water system, and installed good lighting and heating plants; and in addition Mr. Beck has laid much tile on that and on his other farm. The Beck farm is about seven miles distant from the Strock farm, and consequently Mr. Beck has for many years rented out the former, i but he still gives per- sonal attention to matters of improvements upon both farms.
Politically Mr. Beck is a democrat and in local public affairs has for many years been active. He has been township trustee, and has been an effective worker for better roads. He was a member of the board responsible for the building of the present School and Community Building. Generally he has shown himself to be a reliable, responsible and public-spirited citizen, a worker rather than a talker. Mr. and Mrs. Beck have one child, a daughter, Rilla M., who graduated in 1914 from the high school, and subsequently graduated in Domestic Arts from the Kent State Normal. She lives with her parents.
EDWARD F. AND FRANK KLINGENSMITH, proprietors. of the Leavittsburg Mills, arc progressive men of the present generation of the Klingensmith family, which has been identified with the Mahoning Valley for over eighty years. They are sons of Mr. John Klingensmith, whose long life has been recited at length on other pages.
A flour mill is always an interesting as well as
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 731
valuable institution in any community. Historically the earliest development of the water power at Leavittsburg for milling purposes seems to have been carried out by a Mr. Baldwin, of the same family and possibly the same man who was so important a factor in the early industries of Youngstown. The first mill was sold to Baxter and Kirk, who in 1871 disposed of the property to Malachi Powell and a Mr. Tower of Littsburg. The business was continued by the Powell-Tower Company with Mr. Powell in charge. At that time the dam was considerably higher upstream than at present: Mr. Tower was found dead in his office at Pittsburgh, and his property became involved, the mill being sold by a receiver to Johnson Brothers of Leavittsburg, who owned it when the stone buhr mill was burned about 1889. However, the Johnsons were owners merely, the operation being in the hands of other parties. Malachi Powell, whose interests in the property was absorbed at the death of his old partner, became miller for the Johnsons and thus continued until he died at the age of seventy-five.
It was in 1893 that the Klingensmith brothers bought the power plant, and in 1900 they erected the present fifty-barrel roller mill. They sold the power plant in 1908, and the mill was then removed to its present site on the Erie Railway.
The Leavittsburg mills are chiefly known through their quality brand of flour marketed under the trade mark "White Swan." This flour is in wide demand, and the output is always bought up a long time in advance of manufacture. The mill also operates to full capacity as a feed mill.
Edward F. Klingensmith was born on the Klingensmith farm along the Mahoning River March 11, 1866. Frank Klingensmith, his partner, was born June 11, 1874. Edward Klingensmith learned the milling business by practical apprenticeship and has full charge of the machinery and technical processes, while the sales, deliveries and other outside work are handled by Frank. Edward Klingensmith married in 1894 Minnie Toot, who died October 6, 1919, the mother of two children, Florence and Elmer. Frank Klingensmith married in 1900 Miss Louisa Bates. They have two children, Melvin and Esther. The brothers are active members and Edward is secretary of the Emanuel Lutheran Church at Warren.
HERBERT BATE, of Newton Falls, Trumbull County, Ohio, vice president and assistant manager of the Cleveland Cut Flower Company, the greenhouses of which are at Newton Falls, to which they add much in beauty and not a little in business, is an enterprising and public-spirited business man. Since he has resided and conducted business in Newton Falls he has made many friends, and has shown a generous and sincere interest in the affairs of that community.
He is a florist of much experience, is an enthusiastic student of and experimentalist in floriculture, and in his business is contributing to the welfare of Newton Falls, which needs an industry such as he has developed, for the neighborhood is rapidly being converted into a busy manufacturing center, with all the less beauteous adjuncts that seem of necessity to be a part of industrial progress in some lines. The throbbing of rolling mills, the belching of smoke day
and night from the stacks of busy furnaces, seem to have nothing in common with the beautiful colors and exquisite fragrance of flowers, but if such beauty and inspiration can be introduced into the dull matter-of-fact life of an industrial center it must have an elevating effect upon that community. Although the majority of the product of the Cleveland Cut Flower Company's greenhouses at Newton Falls is sent to Cleveland, and many other towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, it must bring some degree of moral good to the home place, and it is a good industry to have. Mr. Bate is giving his time very closely to the development of the business, and has exhibited an expert professional knowledge. He and his brother W. G. Bate have had good success in their enterprise during the seventeen years the Newton Falls plant has been operated, and have shown an appreciative understanding of the finer qualities of human nature, qualities that find expression in a demand for flowers.
Mr. Bate has shown his general interest in the affairs of Newton Falls by taking part in civic responsibilities. For two years he was a member of the village council, and in many other ways he has contributed to the advancement and well-being of the community, in the future of which he appears to have great faith. He has taken his place well among the enterprising, optimistic business men of that community, which is going ahead so rapidly.
He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and he married Amelia Flick, of that city. They have one child, a son, Roger. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bate enter actively into social, church and communal life of Newton Falls, and are both generally well regarded by those with whom they have become acquainted. Mr. Bate is a member of the Masonic and Independent Order of Odd Fellow lodges, is a life member of the Society of American Florists and a member of the Board of Trade.
JOHN KLINGENSMITH. For nearly eighty years the Klingensmiths have constituted a family of resourceful industry and good character in Trumbull County, and Mr. John Klingensmith, whose home is a mile and a half northwest of Leavittsburg in Warren Township, has himself lived in this section of the Mahoning Valley for seventy-six years. While some of his children have become business men, his own life has been devoted to the industry of the soil.
His present farm is along the banks of the Mahoning River. He was born not very far away, on the line between Warren and Lordstown townships, five miles southwest of Warren, January 7, 1844. His parents were Jacob and Wilhelmina (Greiner) Klingensmith. The grandfather, Samuel Klingensmith, in the early days owned and operated a sawmill on some land called "The Donation" near Greenville, Pennsylvania, and he spent his last days in that community. Jacob Klingensmith was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, May 5, 1817, and died December 31, 1860. In 1843 he married Wilhelmina Greiner, who was born in Wuertemberg, Germany, November 6, 1815. She was a child when her parents, Samuel and Barbara Greiner, came to the United States. The Greiners lived on a tract of forty-nine acres, and that little farm was given by Mrs. Barbara Greiner to her daughter Wilhelmina
732 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
and the mother spent her last years with a son, William, at Unity, Ohio. Jacob Klingensmith and wife immediately after their marriage took charge of the Greiner place and developed there a good farm of 126 acres. Jacob Klingensmith died December 31, 1860, and his wife survived him over a quarter of a century, passing away October 2, 1886. They were the parents of six children: Rosana, widow of Louis Failes, at East Palestine; John; Samuel on the old homestead; William, who was a baker at Newton Falls and died in 1915; Louisa, Mrs. Caleb Gepinger, at Newton Falls ; and Mary, Mrs. Emanuel Yarian, of New Springfield.
John Klingensmith was sixteen years of age at his father's death, and he immediately did the duty required of him, taking charge of the farm for his mother and working to good purpose in its management. He continued those responsibilities and in June, 1864, before he was twenty-one years of age, married Regina Groh, whose companionship was destined to be his chief source of comfort and inspiration for half a century. Regina Groh had come to this country from Germany four years before her marriage, and made her home with a brother near Greenville, Pennsylvania.
After his marriage John Klingensmith spent seven years on a small farm in Lordstown Township, and in 1872 acquired his present place along the Ma-honing River. The John Klingensmith farm contains 130 acres, and its owner has done much to improve its productiveness and has supplied it with a line group of buildings, including a basement bank barn. He also owns a seventy-seven-acre farm south of Leavittsburg, operated by his son. Mrs. Klingensmith was widely known all over this country district as a butter marker without peer. She supplied a large list of private customers, and some of them had been her regular patrons for over thirty years. Mrs. Klingensmith died in November, 1914. In the previous June they had celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and of the many guests on hand to felicitate the couple two had been present at their marriage fifty years before, one being Mr. Klingensmith's sister Rosana, while the other was the bridesmaid, Mrs. Leah (Busch) Powley, of Greenville, Pennsylvania. Mr. John Klingensmith and family are all members of the Warren Lutheran Church. The old St. John's Church of that denomination was organized in 1849, his parents being among the charter members. That church building stands on part of the old Klingensmith farm. Its first pastor was Rev. Mr. Becker, who served the community untiringly for fifty years, until he was superannuated. John Klingensmith and wife reared a large family, and were able to do a good part by each one of them in getting started in the world. A brief record of the children is as follows: Edward A.; Minnie S., wife of E. E. Williams, living on an adjoining farm; Henry, who is a farmer near Leavittsburg; Samuel, a mill operator at Newton Falls ; Frank J., in the milling business at Leavittsburg; William D., who operates the homestead; Anna, Mrs. William Blott, of Weathersfield Township; and Nettie Ellen, wife of Leonard Bacher, whose home is south of Leavittsburg.
William D. Klingensmith, who has spent all his life on his father's farm, was born there May 25,
1874. Besides general farming he has established the nucleus of a fine herd of pure bred Guernsey cattle, and is making that an important feature of his business. He is a member of the township school board and otherwise interested in community affairs. May 5, 1908, he married Alberta Yarian, a daughter of Hiram Yarian, and a niece of Emanuel Yarian, mentioned in preceding paragraphs. William D. Klingensmith and wife have three children, Alvin and Alta, twins, and Clarence.
WILLIAM H. KILCAWLEY, secretary of the Standard Slag Company, is one of the representative men of his line at Youngstown, and very active in the company he assisted in organizing. He was born at Painesville, Ohio, on May to, 1879, a son of Thomas and Joanna (Brown) Kilcawley, the former of whom is now deceased.
Growing up in his native city, William E. Kilcawley received his educational training in the grammar and high schools there and in a business college at Cleveland, Ohio. Having thus thoroughly grounded himself in the fundamental essentials. he began his career in business life as a clerk in a store, but after a short experience became timekeeper for the Fairport Warehouse & Elevator Company of Painesville, Ohio. Succeeding this he became timekeeper and bookkeeper for the T. M. Campbell Construction Company, and continued with it until 1906, when he became bookkeeper for the France Stone Company at Bloomville, rising to he office manager of the company, and still later was made its general manager. In 1914 Mr. Kilcawley assisted in organizing the Standard Slag Company, of which he was elected secretary and treasurer, and since 1916 lie has been a resident of Youngstown. This company is one of the prime factors in this industry at Youngstown. Mr. Kilcawley is president of the Virginia Slag Corporation of Clifton Forge, Virginia, secretary and treasurer of the Seiple-Wolfe Construction Company of Youngstown, Ohio, and secretary and treasurer of the Smith Construction Company, also of Youngstown, Ohio. Mr. Kilcawley has more than borne his part in establishing his concern in its present position.
In September, 1907, he was united in marriage with Miss Mattie W. Martin, of Bloomville. Mr. and Mrs. Kilcawley have one daughter, Anna. In his social connections Mr. Kilcawley maintains membership with the Youngstown Club. While his business duties keep him well occupied, he still finds time to be interested in those movements which have for their object the boosting of Youngstown and the expansion of its industrial life, and is recognized as a potent influence in his community.
HARRY B. JOHNSON, a merchant at Leavittsburg, and a trustee of his home township, is member of an old and prominent family of the Mahoning Valley.
His mother's maiden name was Eleanor Isabel Burnett. The Burnetts were not only early corners but were long of substantial resources and fine character in old Trumbull County. Samuel and Isabel (Mathews) Burnett established their home on a farm at Mineral Ridge in Trumbull County, subsequently moving to the vicinity of Newton' Falls, where she died in middle life, and where Samuel Burnett
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 733
passed away in old age.. Their son James was born at Kent, Ohio, September xi, 1820, and married Elizabeth Lightburn, a daughter of Joseph and Eleanor (Kyle) Lightburn of Austintown Township. The father of Eleanor Kyle was Joshua Kyle, whose vocation was that of a farmer and whose ownership extended to some goo acres, most of which is now included in the beautiful Mill Creek Park of Youngstown. Another daughter of Joseph and Eleanor Lightburn was Lavina, who married Luther Mathews, of Braceville Township, and whose son Lutie now resides in Warren. In 1873 James Burnett bought a Zoo-acre farm near Leavittsburg. His daughter Lavina Catherine married Sebeski Elwell, and they remained on the old home in Braceville Township. Mr. Elwell and his wife died during the same week in 1910. James Burnett died at the age of seventy-nine, his widow surviving him six years into her eighty-fourth year.
Eleanor Isabel Burnett was born November 20, 1847, and was married in 1879 to Reuben Johnson. They have two sons, James Victor and Harry B., both now partners in the mercantile business at Leavittsburg. The old Burnett farm near Leavittsburg has undergone a number of changes during the last fifteen or twenty years. Much of the land has been sold, and the old farm buildings were burned. Mrs. Isabel Johnson still retains a part of the land, and she and her son James Victor live together, while Harry B. Johnson has a neat home nearby. Harry B. Johnson was born at Leavittsburg, April 30, 1881, and for several years he and his brother operated a dairy on the homestead. With the loss of the buildings, they turned their enterprise in another direction, and in November, 1917, opened a stock of groceries at Leavittsburg, where they have had a steadily increasing patronage and enlargement of their capital resources.
Harry B. Johnson married in 1914 Cora Pearson, of. Kent, Ohio. They have three young children, Mary Jane, Aileen and Robert Burnett. Harry Johnson is now serving his third term as trustee of the township, and officially and as a private citizen has been instrumental in promoting the building of good roads and other measures of economic and social advantage to the community. He is a republican, has served as central committeeman, and practically ever since reaching his majority has been a member of the local election board. He is one of the live and progressive men of the community and is a Knight Templar Mason.
FRANK A. ROBERTS has been one of the active business men of the Kinsman locality for over twenty years. He started with an exceedingly modest capital, a mechanical trade being his chief asset, and has seen his affairs prosper and has always endeavored to make his individual influence count in the welfare of the community. He is also a trustee of Kinsman Township.
Mr. Roberts' place of business is at Farmdale Post Office, which is the name of the railway station for the old Kinsman community, being a mile and a half from Kinsman Village. Mr. Roberts in 1899 established a blacksmith and wagon shop there and in 1903 bought the hardware store of D. T. Root, who had been in business for about ten years.
Vol. III-22
Three years later Mr. Roberts moved 'to his present location, the site of his old blacksmith shop, and has enlarged his property and adapted it to a steadily increasing stock. His original merchandise had a value of about $3,000, while he now carries about $20,000 in hardware and kindred goods. The first year his business amounted to about $5,000, and it has steadily grown to a volume of about $3o,000. Mr. Roberts on January 1, 1920, established the F. A. Roberts & Company, his partner being Mr. Walter C. Jewell.
Mr. Roberts possessed only $150 when he identified himself with the Kinsman locality at the age of twenty-one. For fourteen years he served a practical apprenticeship under his father at the horse-shoeing trade. His father was the late Lorenzo W. Roberts, who was a farmer but also had a blacksmith shop on his farm. Lorenzo Roberts came to the Kinsman locality during the '5os, was born in 1833 and died at the old home farm in 1905. He was the father of five children : James W., who is common pleas judge at Jefferson, Ohio; Harriet, who lives at Kinsman; Frank A. Perry M., a carpenter at Geneva, Ohio; and Arba L., a blacksmith at Kinsman.
Frank A. Roberts was born August 24, 1867, and for four years lived with his parents in Pennsylvania. Mr. Roberts is a stanch advocate of good roads, and when he was elected township trustee it was as an avowed advocate of such improvements. The township issued bonds to the value of $90,000 to provide modern highways, and some opposition developing, Mr. Roberts several years later was chosen for a second time as trustee, largely as a majority approval of the policies he stood for. As a young man he also served as constable and is a republican in politics. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order at Kinsman and served as a trustee of the Masonic Building, the Masonic quarters being on the second floor of a brick block in Kinsman Village. He has filled all the chairs in the Blue Lodge and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge. He is also a Royal Arch Mason, and a chapter of that order has recently been organized at Kinsman. At the age of thirty Mr. Roberts married Martha Brockway, of Pennsylvania.
ADDISON E. BUTTS. While most of his life has been spent in the agricultural activities in the region around Newton Falls, where the family have lived for several generations, Addison E. Butts in later years has made his home in Newton Falls, and has found a number of active interests to occupy his time there.
He was born at Lordstown in Trumbull County, August 2, 1851, son of J. R. and Susan (Hoffman) Butts. The farm where Mr. Butts carried on agricultural operations is a mile north of Newton Falls, and he still owns the property. He grew up on it from boyhood, and from that home attended the local schools. Mr. Butts is a director of the banks of Newton Falls, and for several terms has served as a member of the Board of Education and as township trustee.
November 25, 1875, he married Edna Porter, daughter of Dr. James F. Porter, whose individual story appears on other pages. Mrs. Butts was born December 29, 1848, and died May 4, 1919. Mr.
734 - YOUNGSTOWN AND, THE MAHONING VALLEY
Butts now makes his home in the fine, residence of Doctor Porter at Newton. Falls. He is the father, of four daughters : Ethel Porter ; Alice Minerva, who has been a teacher in the local schools for twenty years; Lillian Edna ; and Althea Elizabeth, wife of Lewis B. Root, of Newton Falls. Mr. and Mrs. Root have one son, Norman Porter Root, who was born in 1917.
JAMES F. PORTER, M. D. The community of Newbuton Falls has many interesting and grateful memories associated with the late Dr. James F. Porter, who practiced medicine there for many years, and had other interests and associations that brought him into close co-operation with the leading men of the village.
Doctor Porter was born at Fallfield, near Meadbuville, Pennsylvania, February 1813. His father, Francis Porter, was born in County Donegal, Ireland, in 1769, and as a youth learned the trade of saddler. In 1791 he came to America, married Ruth Cook in Philadelphia in 1803, and in the same year walked across the country to Crawford County, Pennsylvania, where he bought some wild land on the Little Sandy. The same fall he and his wife rode horseback to take possession of their new home in the wilderness. Francis Porter in the War of 1812 served as a lieutenant with the American forces at Erie. His business interests were chiefly as a stock drover, and in the early days before the building of railways he took many herds of cattle, horses and sheep over the mountains• to eastern markets. He died in 186o, when past ninety years of age. When his oldest daughter died the average age, of his seven children was nearly eighty.
A prominent character of this family in Ohio was William Porter, a brother of James F. In 1827 he took the management of a store at 'Youngstown for a Mr. Hezlip, who owned several such establishments. William Porter made a number of trips over the mountains to Philadelphia and New York to buy goods. Later he became a lawyer, and in 1838 was chosen an associate judge of Mahoning County, filling that office until 1846. A democrat, he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention that nominated Van Buren, and later to the national convention that put Buchanan at the head of the ticket in 1856. During the war he became what was known as a war democrat, and was called to Washington to advise as to appointments of postmasters and United States marshals. He voted for Lincoln in 1864, and ever afterward continued an ardent republican. In 1896 he was carried to the polls in order to cast his vote for McKinley. William Porter was appointed postmaster at Milton in 1851. This village was later called Pricetown. He died at Bristol, Ohio. He married in 1832 Ann Smith, who died March 25, 1885.
Dr. James F. Porter began his studies with the idea of entering the ministry, but after joining his brother William in Ohio he took up the study of medicine with Doctor Bronson. He began his practice at Southington, and many times he recalled for the entertainment of his family and friends his first case, which was an attack of itch. He moved to North Jackson, where he lived until 1850, and then came to Newton Falls, where he was associated with Dr. Bronson. He also secured a farm a short distance away, but maintained an office in the village. He carried the arduous burdens of a country doctor for many years, and having satisfied his modest ambition for a competence, he sought to relieve himself of his profession. About that time he bought the Newton Falls Mills, including his home, now occupied by his son-in-law A. E. Butts. He put his sons in charge of the mills and eventually they became the sole property of his son Hiram, who sold the plant and the power to the Hydro-Electric Company. But Doctor Porter never escaped altogether from the cares of a physician. He was constantly being called into consultation by other doctors, and he was an intimate and cordial friend of such other local citizens as Doctor Rice, Barney Allen, William Reed, Andy Scott and many others. At one time Barney Allen called Doctor Porter for professional service, and remarked : "Bill Green has a new hearse and three or four of us old chaps are in a race to see which will get the first ride." However, Allen did not secure that honor, living several years longer. When he died according to his request a band led the funeral and free transportation was given to all who cared to attend. When Doctor Porter attended Allen a second time he admonished his patient to arrange his affairs, and with a humorous banter that was characteristic of him Allen said that he had already planted a monument in the mill pond by setting out a number of water lilies brought from Garrettsville. These lilies still abound in the old mill pond, and old friends sometimes refer to them as Barney Allen's monument.
A long and useful life was vouchsafed to Doctor Porter, who lived past his ninety-first birthday, dying May 6, 1904. He had served as postmaster of Jackson in 1840, and Governor Foraker gave him a commission as a notary public. By his first marriage his children were : Colwell, who was a Union soldier and was killed in service at Cynthania, Kentucky ; Elizabeth, who died in young womanhood ; Hiram, owner of the old mill property, as above noted, and who died at Newton Falls; Edna, who was the wife of A. E. Butts of Newton Falls ; William, twin brother of Edna, who died at the age of thirty ; and Charles, 'who died at the age of eighteen. Doctor Porter married for his second wife Lucy Austin Potter, who survived him several years.
MRS. LUCY DIANA EARLY, widow of Andrew Early, who lived a worthy life of industrious effort and useful public endeavor and was one of the leading residents of Coitsville Township, Mahoning County, Ohio, is a well preserved woman, mentally lucid and physically strong, bearing in mind her venerable age, ninety-five years. She was married seventy-eight years ago, December 15, 1842, has been a widow for thirty-nine years, since February 7, 1881, and has lived practically her whole life within a radius of ten miles of her present home on Early Road in Coitsville Township, east of Youngstown, that road having been named in honor of her husband. Mrs. Early is an entertaining conversationalist, engaging in her manner and very interesting when in reminiscent mood, for her recollection goes back clearly to the pioneer days within the county.
She was born at Hubbard, within six miles of her present home, January 23, 1825, the daughter of
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 735
Smith and Sarah (Huff) Burnett, her ancestry in both paternal and maternal lineage connecting with colonial America. The Burnett family has been resident in America since 166o, when three brothers of the name crossed from Wales and settled in New Jersey. The great-grandson of the progenitor in America of the line to which Mrs. Lucy Diana (Burnett) Early belongs was Edmund, grandfather of Mrs. Early. He was born January 1, 1755, in Sussex County, New Jersey, and is of honorable record as a soldier on the American side during the Revolutionary war. He married Sarah Smith, and in civilian life was a blacksmith. About the year 1800 he settled on Braddocks Fields, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the following year he came into Ohio and acquired a large tract of wild land in the Western Reserve. His tract was located in Hubbard Township, Trumbull County, and there for the remainder of his life he applied himself resolutely to pioneering work, his family of ten children having been reared during the greater part of their childhood under the rigorous conditions which surrounded the average pioneer family. Of the ten children of Edmund and Sarah (Smith) Burnett, Smith Burnett was the sixth born.
Smith Burnett was born December 28, 1793, and died December 19, 1846. He married Sarah Huff, who came of another old American family, of German antecedents. She was born in Virginia, October II, 1796, and died September 6, 1872. They, became the parents of twelve children, all of whom reached maturity and two of whom are still living; Lucy Diana, widow of Andrew Early, and Louisa, who married Charles Fowler, of Girard, Trumbull County, Ohio. Smith Burnett was a man of good reputation and of much influence in his community. For eleven years he was a justice of the peace, and was much respected for his judicial impartiality and integrity. He took much interest in the affairs of his district, and during the greater part of his life affiliated with the democratic party in politics. He was a good farmer, industrious and thorough. He has the distinction of having owned the first threshing machine operated in the district, using four horses and a straw piler, which had to be cleared by hand. During his early days of farming he had only hand scythes for the cutting of grain and mowing of hay. Many other interesting reminiscences of pioneer life and conditions in her youth are often told to her friends by Mrs. Early.
Andrew Early was born May 22, 1819, on the farm his widow still occupies, and in a dwelling only a few rods from the present family residence in Coitsville Township. His parents were Thomas and Jane (Breaden) Early, the former a weaver by trade and reputed to have been a skilled workman. Thomas Early was born in Ireland in 1779 and early in life came to this country with his wife and two children. He must have been industrious, for he owned several hundred acres of land in Coitsville Township, and kept adding to his acreage until he owned more than a mile of land. When his sons grew to manhood h was therefore able to give each a farm of substantial extent. His children were: Margaret, who married James Mackey and lived near Youngstown, Ohio; James, who died on the passage to America and was buried at sea; Thomas, who lived near Alliance, Ohio; William, who died at the age of sixteen; Elizabeth, who married David Bailey; Ann, who married John McMurran ; John, who removed to near Winterset, Madison County, Iowa; Jane, who married George Gray; Minerva, who married John Milligan; Maria, who became the second wife of John Milligan; Jeremiah, who went to California but eventually returned and died June 3o, 187o, at the home of his brother Andrew, who was the youngest of the family. Thomas Early died February 26, 1854, at the age of seventy-five years, Jane, his wife, having preceded him in death, dying October 28, 1838.
Andrew Early remained at home with his parents until he was twenty-two years old, and he then married Lucy Diana Burnett. He had been of material assistance to his father in the operation of the home farm from the time he had left school until he was more than twenty-two years old. At the time of his marriage his father gave him ioo acres, including the present home farm of Mrs. Early. At first they lived in a log house on the property, that somewhat primitive dwelling continuing as their home for about five or six years, by which time the husband was able to build the substantial and commodious house in which they afterward lived. Andrew Early in connection with his brother John was an extensive cattle dealer. He drove stock to Pittsburgh, and the partnership proved effective, the brother John spending his time in the neighborhood buying up stock, which Andrew would drive to Pittsburgh and there find a good market. He was well known in that section of Ohio, and in fact all the way to Pittsburgh, and had the confidence of farmers and cattle raisers and was known to be honest and reliable. Later in life he devoted his time mainly to the operation of his land, and was considered the leading agriculturist in the township; in fact, his farm assessment was the highest in the township.
He was an enterprising and public-spirited man, generous in his support of township affairs and an effective public worker. The laying of Early Road was brought from inception to successful completion mainly through his personal efforts and interest. The road passes through his property, and with commendable public spirit he donated the land necessary, his sisters also following his example in respect to adjoining and necessary land they owned. But before the road could be carried through it was essential to acquire right of way through the farm of a neighbor, who was obdurate and somewhat extortionate. Andrew Early personally bought out of his own resources the required tract, paying for it in gold. His widow had the honor of being the first to ride over Early Road when it was paved with brick, in 1915. Andrew Early was a staunch democrat, and was wont to give definite and emphatic expression to his opinions regarding political questions. He was a man of broad mind, was well read and generally well posted on matters of public interest. He was, however, essentially a man of domesticity. He loved his home circle, and throughout his life was a man of much influence in the community. Mr. and Mrs. Early were members of the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown, and throughout her life of seventy-eight years in Coitsville Township Mrs. Early has taken interested part, and in earlier years an active part, in church and social affairs. She, however, has
736 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
not taken kindly to the suffrage movement of recent years. Her life has been usefully lived in her own home, among her own friends, and in helpful work m her own community, and she has been content to leave matters of national politics and such like matters to her capable husband, who was better able to bear the brunt of political campaigning. Mr. and Mrs. Early became the parents of eight children, who in order of birth were : James A., who was an extensive dealer in live stock, his death occurring only a few years after that of his father. He married Jennie Hull, and died in Tennessee, October 17, 1884, and his wife is also now deceased. Their (laughter, Maud A., is now the wife of Dr. M. A. Gochnour, chiropractor, of Portland, Oregon. Sarah the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Early, married Isaiah Dustman, of Akron, Ohio. Alice M. married Thomas Greer, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, and her death occurred on the loth of June, 1908. Lucy Ann married Edwin Froggett, who was superintendent of the Youngstown furnaces for many years, but eventually retired to the Early farm in Coitsville Township, where they have since lived. They ,have no children. Florence Jane married Frank L. Decker, who now operates part of the old Early farm in Coitsville Township, and he has taken some part in the public affairs of the township, having served as superintendent of highways. Smith B., who lives in Youngstown, is a responsible county official, serving as road inspector for the county surveyor. He married Jennie Fellows, and they have two children, daughters, Blanche E. and Helen C. Louisa C. died in infancy. Addie B. is at home with her mother. For many years, however, she was in commercial life, having as bookkeeper been connected with many coal companies in Youngstown and Pittsburgh.
Mrs. Early has lived far beyond the life-span of the majority of the friends of her youth, but she has a host of friends of the next generation, who revere her for her many good qualities.
CARL G. OHLSON. While he is one of the more recent acquisitions of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, Carl G. Ohlson, superintendent of the roll turning department of this great plant, has demonstrated his ability and efficiency, as well as his great capacity for continued industry and his capability in the handling of men. He is a contribution to this country from Sweden, in which country he was born November 22, 1879, a son of Carl A. and Lina (Van Norstrand) Ohlson.
When Carl G. Ohlson was about six years of age his father, who had been a dry goods merchant at Norrkoping, died, and the lad completed his scholastic training at the Royal Technical School at Stockholm, where he specialized in mechanical engineering. In 1902 he came to the United States, only intending to make a visit, but opportunities opening up before him led him to take out his naturalization papers and become a full-fledged American citizen. On first coming to this country he found employment in the engineering department of the Bethlehem Steel Company at South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and there worked under such men as Frederick Taylor, Carl G. Barth and Owen Leibert, all of whom have since attained distinction in the steel industry. He later was employed in a similar capacity under Julian Kennedy at Pittsburgh, and following this worked consecutively in the Homestead mills and the blooming mill and rail mill of the Pennsylvania Steel Company. He was next made chief draftsman in the construction of a blooming mill for the Harrisburg Pipe Bending Company at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and from that position went to Joliet, Illinois, as roll turner in the employ of the Illinois Steel Company, and was employed by this corporation at Joliet and South Chicago, Illinois, and Gary, Indiana. At Joliet he became assistant superintendent of the roll department. In November, 1915, he came to Youngstown, Ohio, to fill his present position as superintendent of the roll turning department, the duties of which he has since ably discharged. Mr. Ohlson is a Presbyterian in religion and a republican in his political allegiance.
On June 12, 1906, Mr. Ohlson was married to Miss Maude Curran Barlsy, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of two children: Dorothy Lina and Mary Elizabeth.
AUSTIN KIRK KIMMEL, who began his career as a tinner's apprentice, is known as a vigorous
and enterprising business man who has seldom rested along the road of progress, and for the past ten years he has been president and chief owner of the Youngstown Furnace Company.
He is a product of the Mahoning Valley, and his people were pioneers in this section of Ohio. He was born at Coitsville, Mahoning County, Dec. 23, 1862, son of William and Jane (Kirk) Kimmel. William Kimmel was born on Struthers Hill, then a part of the farm belonging to his father, Tobias Kimmel, who was also born in this section of Ohio. In later years Tobias Kimmel lived in Struthers. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church. William Kimmel, who died in 1891, at the age of sixty-six, was a blacksmith and learned his trade in a shop on the hillside near the old cemetery on Wick Avenue. For a number of years he was employed in the Heimrod furnaces in the Mahoning Valley. Both he and his wife were active Methodists. Jane (Kirk) Kimmel, who survived her husband about ten years and died at the age of sixty-six, was a daughter of Rayen Kirk, of another pioneer family of the Mahoning Valley. The Rayen Kirk farm was just south of Hubbard about a mile.
Austin Kirk Kimmel received his early education in the grammar and high schools of Hubbard. A recent issue of the American Artisan and Hardware devotes a page to the career of Mr. Kimmel and emphasizes the fact that he is a product and graduate of the great school and university of traveling salesmenship, and has always been a practical man, learning his lessons by experience and always willing to profit from these lessons even at a loss to himself. In the words of this article "His life forms an instructive example to younger men who are still under the thrall of academic theories of business. It proves that there is no royal road to knowledge, but that the path to success can be straightened out at many a crooked bend by taking advantage of the experience of others. At the age of nineteen years,"
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 737
continues the article, "he entered the shop of H. W. Hescock at Hubbard for the purpose of learning the tinner's trade. During the three years which he spent in the shop, namely from 1881 to 1884, he applied himself with great energy and attention to the .study of every detail of the tinsmith's craft. The result was that he picked up more knowledge in that comparatively brief time than the average mechanic acquires in twice the number of years. In 1884 he went to Kansas City for Zehner and Bartel Company of that city. After six years he returned to Hubbard and again became connected with H. W. Hescock & Company, with which firm he remained for three years.
"Until 1904 he served as traveling representative of the Perfection Furnace Company of Toledo, and the Auer Furnace Company of Cleveland. In 1904 he became associated with the Youngstown Furnace and Supply Company of Youngstown. In 1909 he bought out that firm and changed its name to the Youngstown Furnace Company, assuming the position of president." First as a traveling salesman and for the past ten years as chief executive, Mr. Kimmel has been a leading factor in the growth and upbuilding of this industry. The furnaces manufactured by his company have been installed to the number of 7,000 in Youngstown alone. The product is also shipped as far west as Denver and as far south as Birmingham.
Mr. Kimmel is a thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner, and his family are members of the Grace English Lutheran Church. In 1886 he married Jane L. Shelling, of Wheatland, Pennsylvania. They have two children : Bessie, wife of Clinton Porter, an electrician at the Republic plant ; and J. C., who was given that brief initialed name, so his father explains, because the family was too poor to afford a larger and longer cognomen. J. C. Kimmel was secretary and treasurer of the Youngstown Furnace Company until entering the army. He saw twenty-two months of service, thirteen months overseas, and for a time was a military police at LeMans, France.
HENRY R. MOORE, who died August 8, 1919, was one of the responsible executive officials of the Republic Iron & Steel Company, and was an Ohio business man whose service and personal character won him a host of admiring friends.
He was born at Warrensville, Ohio, in 1856, and had a high school education. In the busy years that followed he was a constant reader and was distinguished for his sound intellectual traits. His first employment was as office boy for John D. Rockefeller at Cleveland. He left the service of the great oil king to take a position paying more, and in 1872 began railroading. For several years he was clerk and contracting agent for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway. From January, 1890, to July, 1899, he was general freight agent for the Cleveland, Canton & Southern Railway.
At the time of his death Mr. Moore was traffic manager of the Republic Iron & Steel Company, and had recently rounded out twenty years of consecutive service in that responsible position. He married Miss Harriet Burnham.
Mr. Moore is remembered as a man who was welcomed to the friendship and society of all classes. He was modest and quiet, but was a pleasant companion, and had in a high degree the faculty of making and retaining friends.
ALBERT W. LAW. One of the ambitious young men of Youngstown who has participated in its growth during recent years, and who is destined to become one of the leading men in his line, is Albert W. Law, president of the Albert Law Iron & Monumental Company, and owner of all of its stock. He was born at Berlin, Germany, in 1879, a son of Frederick and Emma Law, both of whom died in Germany.
In two Albert W. Law came to the United States, landing in New York City, where he remained for a short time and then went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, taking a position as a mechanic with a concern which manufactured chandeliers. A year later he went to St. Paul, .Minnesota, and worked for the Hersog Iron Company, first as a mechanic and later as foreman, having charge of 200 men. Here he remained for 2 1/2 years, leaving St. Paul for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to become superintendent of the A. F: Wagner Iron Company, holding that position for 2 1/2 years. Mr. Law then came to Youngstown, Ohio, having in view the idea of founding a business of his own, and while he was making the preliminary investigations he took the position of superintendent of the Youngstown Wire & Iron Company, and held it for a year. Then, although he had but a small capital, he formed a partnership with William C. Hogan and ventured the establishing of a blacksmithing business, and two years later bought out his associate and continued alone for a year. He then incorporated the Albert Law Iron & Monumental Company, with a capital stock of $350,000, of which he was elected president. From the start he controlled the stock and at the termination of seven years bought in the entire outstanding stock, so that he is now the sole owner.
Possessing as he does financial ability of a very high order and a convincing manner, Mr. Law was able to interest all of the banks and the leading men of Youngstown in his project, which of itself is a sound testimonial to his high character and capabilities. His remarkable success has justified the confidence displayed in him by those who backed his undertaking, and they are watching his progress with much interest.
In 1912 Mr. Law was united in marriage with Miss Ella Rodland, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and they have three children, namely : Laveena, Margaret and Albert, Jr. Mr. Law belongs to Elwood City Lodge No. 599, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He is a supporter of the Lutheran Church.
In his business Mr. Law employs upward of seventy-five men making structural and monumental steel, and has furnished this material for practically all of the Youngstown school buildings, the city hospital, the Tod House and similar buildings. Energetic and forceful, he possesses a broad vision and also the practical experience which enables him to carry out his plans, no matter how much effort is involved. During all of the time he has been at Youngstown he has taken a deep interest in the city's advancement, and has never failed to do his part in the work of civic betterment. It is such men as
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Mr. Law who prove the wisdom of our legislators in encouraging the better element of every country to immigrate here and to find expression, under our better laws, for their individuality. It would be difficult to find a better citizen or more highly respected man in Youngstown than this hard worker, enthusiastic booster and fine business developer.
ALEXANDER W. BEARD. The Beard family is an old and prominent one in Mahoning County, and for many years its activities have been chiefly associated with farming, livestock and dairying. At one time Alexander W. Beard was head of the organization chiefly responsible for milk production in and around Youngstown. He is a practical dairyman, having begun in a small way, and had the organizing ability that enabled him to handle and successfully supervise the work of many individual producers.
Mr. Beard, who is now practically retired from the dairy and creamery business, was born in Beaver Township of Mahoning County January 19, 1876, a son of George and Caroline (Neff) Beard.
The late George Sylvanus Beard, who died at Youngstown on January 18, 1919, was born in Beaver Township April 21, 1846, son of Jacob and Sophia (Leitsey) Beard. The Beards came to this country from near the Swiss border in Germany, and have lived in Mahoning County for fully a century. George S. Beard grew up on the old homestead, and farming and stock raising became his regular occupation. For a number of years he divided his attention between horses, cattle and sheep, and later' became associated with his sons in the creamery business. He was a democrat in politics and a member of the Lutheran Church. He married in 1868 Caroline Neff, who was born in Canfield Township, Mahoning County, daughter of Martin and Catherine (Wilson) Neff. George Sylvanus Beard and wife had two sons, Burton A. and Alexander W., the latter now occupying the home farm.
Alexander W. Beard attended school in Canfield and later the Lutheran School in Greenville, Pennsylvania, and at the age of twenty, with $500 of borrowed capital, started a dairy business. His day's work began at 2 o'clock in the morning and after milking his cows he carried the product to Youngstown, ten miles away. The roads were so bad that six horses were needed to draw the wagon. Mr. Beard gradually engaged in the creamery industry, and at one time operated as many as eight creameries in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, these creameries being patronized by 500 farmers. Mr. Beard also organized the Youngstown Sanitary Milk Company on Market Street. In 1916 he organized the Puritan Ice Cream Company and served as its president and manager, and later was sole owner until he sold the establishment. Mr. Beard owns 1,000 acres of land in Beaver Township and is extensively interested in a cattle ranch in the Big Horn Valley, Wyoming, where the specialty is thoroughbred White Face or Hereford cattle. Mr. Beard has also built a number of houses in Youngstown, including the Caroline Apartment, named for his mother.
MARTIN A. RAUSCH. The welding of metals is one of the mechanic arts that has undergone the greatest improvement and development in recent years until it has now attained almost a state of perfection. The art can be seen at its best in the plant of the Youngstown Welding Company, one of the founders of which was Martin A. Rausch. Mr. Rausch during the past twenty years has gained an experience in every phase of the welding art, and was a widely known expert before he came to Youngstown.
He was born in Germany in 1876, but has lived in this country since he was three years of age. His parents, Christian and Catherine (Frommer) Rausch, brought their family to America and are now living at Deposit, a town not far from Binghamton, New York. Christian Rausch for many years worked as a blacksmith.
Martin A. Rausch grew up at Eaton, Pennsylvania, where he attended school to the age of sixteen and then began an apprenticeship as a boiler maker in the shops of the Lehigh Railway. After nine years at Eaton he was sent to Elizabeth, where he was employed in the shops one year, and next located at Collinwood, near Cleveland, and from there went to Moline, Illinois, and had charge of the shops of the Rock Island Railroad. While at Moline he attracted much attention for his expert knowledge of welding and began specializing in that art. His duties with the Rock Island road required his traveling over seventeen states of the Union.
After leaving the Rock Island he became president and manager of the Great Lakes Welding Company at Cleveland, and from there in 1913 came to Youngstown and formed a partnership with Walter McKay, who a few months previously had started the Youngstown Welding Company. This business during the past five years has greatly expanded and developed. The shop was one of those selected by the Government for the placing of war contracts. The company has all the appliances and machinery for perfect production and the performance of every phase of welding work. They also do an extensive repair business, and are manufacturers of transformer tanks and boxes of all sizes and shapes, boilers, stacks and other sheet metal work.
Mr. Rausch married in 1897 Miss Annie Snyder, a native of New Jersey. She died in 1905, the mother of three children. For his present wife Mr. Rausch married Annie Bock Hoaglund. They are members of the Belmont Avenue Methodist Church. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Knights of Pythias, and during the World war was one of . Youngstown's citizens who contributed so liberally to the quotas of the city for Liberty Bonds, Red Cross and other purposes.
MILTON WILLIAM BECHTEL, secretary, treasurer and general plant manager of the Borden Company, one of Warren's important industrial plants, has been closely identified with the manufacturing, civic and social affairs of this city for over fifteen years, and during that time he has won a place among the foremost men of the community.
Mr. Bechtel was born at Akron, Ohio, on October 7, 187o. He began his business career at the age of eighteen years as bookkeeper for the old Schumacher Milling Company (now the Quaker Oats Company), at Akron. Four years later he became bookkeeper for the Cleveland Foundry Com-
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 739
pany (now the Cleveland Metal Products Company), at Cleveland.
When the Borden Company was incorporated in 1905 Mr. Bechtel came to Warren to accept the position which he now holds with that concern. The Borden Company was established in 19oo by William A. Neracher, B. T. Borden and M. E. Murray, for the manufacture of hand pipe-threading tools. The company's first plant was in a small shop on South Park Avenue, where only three workmen were employed. At the present time the plant on Dana Avenue covers about I1/2 acres of ground and employs nearly 300 workmen. Under its own patents the company makes a complete range of tools for cutting and threading pipes by hand, and its products find a market in all of the civilized countries of the world. The company has a capital and surplus of $5oo,000, and its executive officers are as follows : W. A. Neracher, president, A. F. Howe, vice president and general sales manager, and M. W. Bechtel, secretary, treasurer and general plant manager, the three forming also the board of directors, together with Alfred Fritzsche and T. A. Burke of Cleveland and S. S. Smith, r., of Warren.
Aside from the Borden Company, Mr. Bechtel has other local and important interests. He is a member of the board of directors of the Western Reserve National Bank, the Warren Building and Investment Company, the Warren Guaranteed Mortgage Company, and the Trumbull Securities Company.
Mr. Bechtel is interested in civic matters and is always found ready when called on to lend his support to movements inaugurated to promote the best interests of the community. As city chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee of Warren he rendered efficient and enthusiastic service during the great war, and on many other occasions he has given evidence of his good citizenship.
Mr. Bechtel is a member of the Warren Board of Trade, the Warren Rotary Club and the Country Club, and belongs to Old Erie Lodge No. 3, Free and Accepted Masons.
Mr. Bechtel married Amelia, the daughter of Gotlieb Reutschler, of Akron, Ohio, and to them one daughter, Martha, has been born.
MORGAN T. WHITEHEAD. A man of good business capacity, public spirited and enterprising, Morgan T. Whitehead is officially connected with one of the leading industrial firms of Youngstown, being secretary and treasurer of the W. J. Scholl Company, plumbing and heating engineers, and also secretary of the Youngstown Civil Service Commission. A son of Robert Whitehead, he was born November 13, 1882; in Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, where his parents lived for a time.
A coal miner by occupation, Robert Whitehead spent a few years in the Pennsylvania mines, and on returning to Ohio settled in Youngstown, where he resided until his death, February 22, 1917, at the age of seventy-eight years, during the latter part of his life having been associated in business with his brother G. L. Whitehead. He was a republican in politics, a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Yeomen of America, and both he and his wife belonged to Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Elizabeth Evans, a daughter of Owen Evans, Youngstown's first police chief, and of their union nine children were born, six of whom are now living, as follows : Mrs. John Hollingsworth, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Mrs. C. W. Martin, of Youngstown; Miss Amelia Whitehead, of Cleveland; Morgan T. subject of this sketch; Mrs. A. C. Sea- crest, of Cleveland; and George L., who served in France as a member of the American Expeditionary Force, and is now a resident of Los Angeles, California.
Morgan T. Whitehead was educated in Youngstown, attending the Wood Street School. Active and industrious as a boy, he delivered newspapers, carried press dispatches for both the Vindicator and the Telegram, and for three years was messenger boy for the Western Union Telegraph Company. One serious error that he made while thus employed Mr. Whitehead will never forget. He delivered at the home of Joseph G. Butler, Jr., on the day that President McKinley was there a guest a copy of the Vindicator instead of the Telegram which he should have left.
Giving up work as a newsboy, Morgan T. Whitehead was with the Republic Iron and Steel Company until 1906, when he located in Denver, Colorado, where he served as assistant superintendent of the Western Iron Mills for two years and as foreman for one year. Then, after serving for eight months with the Continuous Wire Mill at Pueblo, Colorado, he returned to Youngstown to accept his present position as secretary and treasurer of the W. J. Scholl Company. In October, 1918, Mr. Whitehead went to France, where he was in the Young Men's Christian Association service for several months, being stationed at Saint Aignan, under the command of Col. Philip Mathews, and acting as divisional accountant until April, 1919, when he became assistant to Major W. W. Francis, auditor of disbursements at Coblenz, Germany. Returning home in September, 1919, Mr. Whitehead resumed his position with the plumbing company, and was made secretary of the Civil Service Commission, to which he had previously belonged.
On June 4, 1905, Mr. Whitehead married Mayme E. Scholl, daughter of W. J. Scholl, of whom further notice may be found elsewhere n ths volume. Two children have been born of their union, William and Sallie. Fraternally Mr. Whitehead is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Chapter and Commandery, and is a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Since boyhood he has been identified with the Young Men's Christian Association, and both he and his wife are active and worthy members of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church.
HARRY W. KERR. While nearly twenty years or practically half his lifetime have been spent in the service of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company, Harry W. Kerr had •written for himself an interesting chapter of experience and usefulness before he took up his duties as paymaster of this great corporation.
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He was, born at Mercer, Pennsylvania, January 31, 1879, son of Henry George and Mary Elizabeth (Cozan) Kerr. His father, a native of Ireland, of Scotch parentage, came to the United States as a boy and grew up at Mercer, Pennsylvania. He became a cobbler, and made boots and shoes by hand before that industry was practically monopolized by machinery.
Harry W. Kerr was only an infant when his father died, and his mother kept him at Mercer and gave him the advantage of the local schools until he was nine years of age. Then, in 1888, he went to Struthers, Ohio, to live with an uncle, John S. Struthers. While there he also attended school, and on mornings and evenings and Saturdays worked in a grocery store. That accounted for three years of his boyhood. At the age of twelve he became an apprentice telegraph operator in the local station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Three years later he had completed his schooling and apprenticeship. His skill in handling the telegraph key and his faithfulness well qualified him for work as a telegraph operator. There was a bar to his regular employment, however, a law on the statute books of Ohio forbidding the employment of an operator at the early age of fourteen. An examination of the Acts of the Legislature about 1894 will disclose a special bill giving permission to young Kerr to be employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as an operator on the grounds that his assistance was required to help support his widowed mother and her other children. There are few parallel cases probably where a boy of fourteen went on the force as a regular telegraph operator. That was his work until 1899.
In that year Mr. Kerr came to the Republic Iron & Steel Company of Youngstown as freight voucher clerk. In January, 1900, he was transferred to the Valley Mill as production and consumption clerk. He resigned in July, 1901, and on the 17th of the same month became paymaster for the Youngstown Iron, Sheet & Tube Company, and has continued in the same capacity with the same company and with its successor, the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company, to the present time.
Mr. Kerr is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and of St. John's Episcopal Church, is a director of the Youngstown Automobile Club, treasurer and director of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company Relief Association, and a member of the Board of Education of Struthers, Ohio. On October 14, 1902, he married Jeane Marion Hadley, of Youngstown. They have one son, Harry Hadley Kerr, born September 19, 1906.
WILLIAM DOUBLE. Fifty-six years ago William Double was a young soldier doing duty with Sherman's army in the Atlanta campaign. He earned the lasting respect of his fellow countrymen during that war, and for over half a century has found many duties in civil life. He is now enjoying a comfortable retirement in an attractive rural home at 535 North Tod Avenue in Warren.
Mr. Double, who has been a resident of Trumbull County for, the past seventeen years, is spending his last days not far from where his parents were pioneer settlers. Mr. Double was born in Wells County, Indiana, October 8, 1841. His parents, Isaac and Mary (Francis) Double, moved from Canton, Ohio, about 1835 and settled in the dense timber of Northeastern Indiana. Isaac Double did his part as a pioneer, clearing up a farm, and lived there until his death, at the age of seventy-seven, his widow surviving to almost eighty-five. Isaac Double was an active and influential citizen in his Indiana community. William Double, being the oldest son, had to bear a part in clearing up the homestead, but after he attained his majority his younger brothers took his place on the farm. At that time the Civil war was in progress and in 1864 he enlisted in Company F of the One Hundred and Thirtieth Indiana Infantry. He was in the army a year and ten months, receiving his honorable discharge at Charlotte, North Carolina, December 14, 1865. He was with Sherman in the Atlanta campaign in the early fall of 1864, and after the fall of Atlanta his regiment was sent back to pursue Hood until the latter's armies were broken up in the battles of Franklin and Nashville. The regiment then rejoined Sherman's victorious troops marching through the Carolinas, at Goldsboro, North Carolina, and at the close of hostilities the regiment was scattered to guard various places in North Carolina. Mr. Double was hit five times by bullets, though blood was drawn only twice, and he was never disabled for duty. The results of his army service and wounds did not appear until some years later, when they impaired his general health. At one time while acting as rear guard of a wagon train he saw a rebel about to shoot him from a fence corner. Making a sudden rush he drove his bayonet into the enemy's breast, though the latter discharged his gun at the same time, the bullet cutting the tip of Mr. Double's ear. He seized the gun, though the Confederate refused to surrender until two of Mr. Double's comrades came up, one placing his musket at the rebel's head. He then surrendered. After examination it was found that the baybnet missed his heart by a slight part of an inch. The wounded southerner was cared for and recovered, and some months later he and Mr. Double met at a railroad junction and they had a brief and friendly visit. Upon parting at the train, as the rebel was going home, he broke down and cried like a child, though his companions reproved him saying they would not be so chicken hearted as to cry over 'any "damned Yankee."
The war over Mr. Double returned to the Indiana homestead, and continued the business of farming near that place for thirty-seven years. In October, 1903, responding to the persistent urging of his daughter, he came to Warren to join her, and now lives on a little suburban farm of 15 1/2 acres at the north end of Tod Avenue. He has rebuilt the house and erected a bank barn and has a valuable equipment for farming on a small scale.
Mr. Double was a charter member of the Grand Army Post at Ossian, Indiana, and is a member of the Post at Warren. On December 7, 1866, about a year after he came out of the army, Mr. Double married Miss Mary M. Mahnensmith. Though she was reared from the age of seven in Adams County, Indiana, not far from where the Double family lived, she also belongs to an old family of Trumbull County. She was born at "Soaptown" in Lordstown Township, a daughter of Peter and Abbie (Rupp-
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 741
recht) Mahnensmith. Her father was a farmer, shingle maker and broom maker. The oldest of Mr. and Mrs. Double's children is Susie J., who lives with her father and is a partner in his farm. She is the wife of James Whiteford, an engineer with a steam shovel outfit. Mr. and Mrs. Whiteford have two children: William, a student in Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware ; and Mary in high school. Emma F. Double is a successful teacher, formerly was in the schools at Berea, Ohio, and for the past seven years has been in the Market Street School at Youngstown. Essie M. was a dressmaker at Fort Wayne, Indiana, but died in Colorado. Mabel is the wife of William Schout, of Cleveland, and has one son, James William Schout. Lockie B. is the wife of August Chenoweth, a hardware merchant at Warsaw, Indiana, and is the mother of one son, August, Jr. Mrs. Chenoweth before her marriage was also a teacher in the schools at Youngstown. The family are all active members of the United Brethren Church at Warren.
FRANK W. CRAFT, who is now living retired in the City of Warren, Trumbull County, at 318 North Vine Street, has proved a valiant soul, in that he has proved himself undaunted by the physical infirmity of total deafness, with incidental speech deprivation, and he has been one of the world's productive workers, besides which he has stored his mind with a fine fund of information and knowledge through close attention to .study and broad and comprehensive reading. Thus his physical handicap has not constrained him, and he has found life well worth the living, the while he has set an example well worthy of emulation.
Mr. Craft was born at Bellaire, Belmont County, Ohio, August 6, 1862, and is a son of Mahlon and Margaretta (Faris) Craft, both natives of St. Clairsville, that county, within whose bordCrs the respective families were founded in the pioneer days. William and Rachel Craft, parents of Mahlon, were earnest birthright members of the Society of Friends, in consonance with the gentle faith of which religious body they lived their unassuming and worthy lives. For thirty-seven years Mahlon Craft was engaged in the jewelry business at Bellaire, and he then indulged his desire to retire and to establish his home within the confines of the historic old Western Reserve of Ohio. Accordingly, in February, 1886, he came with his family to Trumbull County and established his home at Warren, where he found excellent educational advantages for his children. Here he lived virtually retired until the close of his long and useful life. He passed away June 20, 1918, at the age of eighty-two years, and not long was he separated from the loved wife who had been his devoted companion for more than half a century, for she was summoned to the life eternal on the 24th of May, 1919, at the age of eighty years, their marriage having been solemnized in 1861. Both were devout members of the Central Christian Church at Warren. Mahlon Craft was a man of strong mental powers, was a deep student of the Bible, and though he was reared in the faith of the Society of Friends, his inquiring mind led him to study the tenets and practices of all Christian faiths in his efforts to decide which best represented the teachings of the Divine Master, and finally both he and his wife united with the Christian Church. He became firmly convinced that the doctrines of this church were most closely in accord with scriptural teachings, and he fortified himself in his opinions by wide and careful reading of religious and historical works, being tolerant in judgment until he had formed his convictions and then holding tenaciously to those convictions. He lived a "godly, righteous and sober life," and merited and received the confidence and respect of his fellow men. Mahlon and Margaretta Craft became the parents of six children: Nellie, who was graduated in the Cook County Normal School in the City of Chicago, and in historic old Hiram College, became a successful and popular normal teacher in the University of Utah, and she was thus serving at the time of her death, at the age of thirty-seven years. She was devoted to her profession and attained to high reputation therein, she having made numerous contributions to leading educational journals. Laura Faris Craft, also a graduate of Hiram College, became the wife of John S. Leedham, who was a leading photographist at Elwood City, Pennsylvania, and she likewise became a skilled artist in this line, as assistant in her husband's studio. She died at the age of forty-nine years, July 24, 1916, and is survived by one son, Wendell S. Della Pauline Craft was graduated from Hiram College and was for five years a popular teacher in the public schools of the City of Akron. She now resides in the City of Warren, and she conducted a prosperous business under the pleasing title of Craft's Needlecraft in past years, her sales of fine needlework having been specially large during the successive Christmas holiday seasons. Marguerite Craft is now the wife of James 0. Newcomb, of Cleveland, Ohio, she likewise having been educated at Hiram College. Addah, the fourth child born, died in infancy.
Frank W. Craft, subject of this sketch, became totally deaf as a result of illness in early childhood, and-thus has never learned articulate speech, though through having attended the Ohio State School for the Deaf, at Columbus, he received attention and advantages that enabled him to gain a really liberal education, to which he has materially added through his almost constant reading of the best in literature, as well as newspapers and current periodicals that have given him close touch with the questions and topics of the hour. For a number of years Mr. Craft conducted a successful market-gardening business on a well improved little farm near Warren, but he recently sold this property and is living practically retired at the time of this writing.
April 2, 1903, recorded the marriage of Mr. Craft to Miss Emeline G. Martig, who likewise is a deaf mute, and when she became doubly afflicted, through mental disorders, Mr. Craft's sister, Della P., unselfishly assumed the care of the three children, of whom the eldest is Paul Gilbert, now sixteen years of age (1920) and a student in the Warren High School; Dorothea May is twelve years of age ; and Winifred Margaretta is seven years old.
JOHN A. ANDERSON. While for a number of years past Mr. Anderson has been in business as an undertaker at Hubbard his business career has been one
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of interesting variety. During nearly all his life he has been closely identified with agriculture either as a practical farmer or as a farm owner. His mills also cleared up and converted many tracts of standing timber into lumber, both in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. He is a man well known for his business ability, his genial personality and his public-spirited citizenship.
From a time not long after the close of the Revolutionary war the Andersons as a family have had their chief seat over the Pennsylvania line in Lawrence and Mercer counties, though their interests have also extended into Trumbull and Mahoning counties in Ohio. John A. Anderson was born in Coitsville Township of Mahoning County, February 25, 1853. His parents were David and Rebecca (Robinson) Anderson. His grandfather, John Miller Anderson, was a son of parents who came from Ireland, of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and settled on the farm where John M. and David Anderson were born in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. David Anderson soon after his marriage in 1845 came to Ohio, but in 1859 returned to Pennsylvania and became owner of the old homestead which had been acquired by his grandfather. The last two years of his life he lived with his son John A. in Hubbard, where he died at the age of eighty-seven. His working interests were always identified with farming. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church at New Bedford, Pennsylvania. His wife, Rebecca Robinson, died in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, in 1873, at the age of forty-four. He also survived the wife of his second marriage, Eleatha Gundy. His four children by his first marriage were Lizzie, Mrs. Irving Caldwell, of West Middlesex, Pennsylvania; John A.; Fred, who lived on the old Pennsylvania farm and died at the age of forty ; and Lawrence, a carpenter at Hubbard.
John A. Anderson was six years of age when his parents returned to the Pennsylvania homestead, and he grew up there, having the advantages of the district schools, and remained at home to the age of twenty-one. At that time he married Sarah E. Bentley, of Mercer County, who had grown up in the same community as her husband. Her father was Hudson Bentley.
In 1890 Mr. Anderson bought the Joseph Mayers farm just east of Hubbard, containing too acres. He lived on that farm fourteen years. All that time and for a number of years previously he operated saw mills. He made a practice of buying tracts of standing timber and converting it into lumber. These mills he operated in Pennsylvania, in Coitsville Township and also in Hubbard Township. He supplied large quantities of timber for railroad car building. He built a house and barns and otherwise improved his farm, but in 1904 removed to Hubbard, where he engaged in the general undertaking business. He is a professional undertaker, having attended a school of embalming. His business has grown steadily and he has kept his facilities in the front rank, his equipment including automobile hearse and other equipment found in the best establishments of this kind.
Mr. Anderson has also worked loyally with other public-spirited citizens to establish local industries, and is a stockholder in several companies. For nine years he was a member of the Board of Public Affairs and is a director in the recently organized Chamber of Commerce. Politically he is a democrat, and is an elder and member of the session of the Presbyterian Church. He and his family enjoy the comforts of one of the neatest homes in Hubbard.
Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson: Orrie, who lives in Hubbard, but whose business is in Sharon, where lie is a foreman in the Carnegie Steel Company ; Grace, wife of Ray Mathews, an automobile dealer at Hubbard; Charles, who is assistant cashier of the Hubbard Banking Company ; and Dale, an undertaker at Butler, Pennsylvania, who died of the influenza in 1919, at the age of thirty-two.
CAPT. CHARLES M. REILLY. A resident of Youngstown since 1866, Captain Reilly has had an honored and useful place in local citizenship, has been active in business and in public affairs, and is father of a large and interesting family.
He was born at Blair's Gap in Blair County, Pennsylvania, August 14, 1846, son of Cornelius and Margaret (Lynch) Reilly. His people were pioneer settlers in Central Pennsylvania. Captain Reilly was educated in the country schools of Blair and Cambria counties, and spent his early youth on a farm. He was not yet sixteen years of age when in July, 1862, he enlisted in the 42d Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He was a brave and dutiful soldier in the army of the Potomac three years, until July, 1865, when he was mustered out with the brevet rank of captain of volunteers.
About a year later, in 1866, Captain Reilly moved to Youngstown. Here for some years he was an iron maker and contractor in the mills, but is best known to the business men of the city as a real estate and insurance man. He engaged in that line of business with Rice and Haney, and continued active in real estate until a few years ago, when he retired.
Captain Reilly has always been a very ardent democrat, and for many years was active in the ranks of his party, serving as a loyal worker and chairman. He was a member of the City Council from 1880 to 1884, and during his second term was president of the council. He was also a member of the County Board of Elections, and was a member of the first board of City Commissioners in 1891-92. From 1893 to 1896 he filled the office of justice of the peace.
May 28, 1867, Captain Reilly married Emily Woods. She was born at Youngstown, September to, 1847, daughter of William and Mary (Sheehy) Woods. Mary Sheehy was a daughter of Daniel Sheehy, one of the founders of Youngstown and one of its most interesting and forceful characters in pioneer times. Mary Sheehy was born in Youngstown in 1803.
To Captain and Mrs. Reilly were born twelve children, ten of whom are still living. The sons are William C., Carl W., Edgar J., Gallitzan I. and Albert A. The daughters are Mrs. C. W. Vogel, Mrs. P. B. Mulholland, Lucy M., Irma P. and Grace G. Reilly.
Albert A. Reilly, youngest surviving son of Captain and Mrs. Reilly, and a newspaperman by profession, was a valued assistant to J. G. Butler, Jr, in the
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preparation of this "History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley," being one of the two men engaged by him to collaborate in the assembling of historical data.
JOHN WILSON FARRELLY. A resident of the Mahoning Valley for a quarter of a century, John Wilson Farrelly has employed his talents both in business and the public interests, for a number of years was a successful educator, and is the present postmaster of Hubbard.
Mr. Farrelly represents a distinguished family of Western Pennsylvania. He is a grandson of General David Mead, distinguished as the founder of Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was a soldier of the War of 1812 and had many abilities to qualify him for leadership among the people of Western Pennsylvania.
David Mead Farrelly, father of the Hubbard postmaster, was a son of Patrick Farrelly, who came from Ireland in 1795, first locating in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and later moving to Erie in the same state. He was one of the founders of Allegheny College at Meadville, and he died in 1826, while representing Erie District in Congress. He had been educated for the Catholic priesthood, but in Western Pennsylvania was a Mason and achieved distinction in his profession as a lawyer. At one time there were several attorneys of the name Farrelly in that section of the state. David Mead Farrelly graduated from Allegheny College in 1824, at the age of sixteen, and became a successful lawyer of Meadville. He was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1837. He died at the age of eighty-four, and two years prior to his death he had surveyed a large farm during the severe cold of winter. For many years he was vice president of the Alumni Society of Allegheny College.
John Wilson Farrelly was born at Meadville October 25, 1862, graduated from the Meadville High School, and for ten years was a successful teacher. He also took up salesmanship, and in 1896 moved to Youngstown as sales manager for a Pittsburgh house. Mr. Farrelly has lived in Hubbard since 19oo. He served ten years on the local school board, nine years of that time as president, and was also the first chairman of the Trumbull County Board of Education, and impressed his influence upon the entire system of schools in the county. On January t, 1920, he entered upon his duties as postmaster, and has already done a great deal to improve the service and the facilities of the local office. Three rural routes radiate from Hubbard, and the office also requires two assistants.
At the age of thirty Mr. Farrelly married Miss Elise E. Burns, of Meadville. Five children were born to their marriage : Lucile E., a teacher in Coitsville Township; Walter Mead, a student at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania; Sophia, in high school; Esther and Alice. The family are members of the Presbyterian Church.
ROLLIN C. STEESE has for many years been associated with the business life of Youngstown. The group of men and interests with which he has been connected have been in no small degree responsible for the great name Youngstown has in the industrial affairs of the nation.
Mr. Steese was born at Akron, Ohio, December 26, 1867. His business career began in 1886 with the Dayton Coal and Iron Company at Dayton, Tennessee, but appreciating the necessity of further education he resigned his position early in 1888 to take a special course at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio. While attending ,this school he was also during vacation periods and other odd times in the employ of Mr. J. H. Cremer, chemist and metallurgist.
Mr. Steese came to Youngstown in 1890 as chemist for the Brier Hill Iron and Coal Company, which position he filled for one year, when he was promoted to that of general superintendent, an office whose responsibilities he discharged until the formation of the Brier Hill Steel Company in 1912. Upon the taking over by this company of the property of the Brier Hill Iron and Coal Company and other companies Mr. Steese was made its vice president and general manager, which position he filled until July, 1916, when he resigned from active business, devoting his time to his personal affairs.
Mr. Steese is a member of the Chamber of Commer‘ce, the Youngstown Club and the Youngstown Country Club. He is president of the North Heights Land Company, vice president of the Bessemer Limestone and Cement Company and a director in the Brier Hill Steel Company, the First National Bank, the Dollar Savings and Trust Company and the Realty Trust Company.
In 1894 he married Miss Lora Bucklin, of Youngstown. Their only child is Caroline C.
MICHAEL F. KANE. For a number of years Mr. Kane has enjoyed a solid and substantial position among Youngstown's business men and merchants, and more recently has found a new outlet for his enterprise at Niles, where he is a member of the firm of Kane & Caldwell, the Overland dealers for this territory.
Mr. Kane was born on Poland Avenue in Youngstown September 19, 1876. His parents, John and Mary (Berry.) Kane, were born and married in Ireland, and set sail at once after their marriage for the United States. Their first residence was at Cleveland, and from there they moved to Youngstown. John Kane was an iron and steel worker. He was connected with the Brown-Bonnell and various other plants in the Mahoning Valley and is remembered as a skillful and efficient worker and an all around good citizen. He died in 1914. His widow is now living on Norwood Avenue in Youngstown and is an active member of St. Edwin's Catholic Church. Of ten children five are still living, four sons and one daughter.
In a lifetime of less than forty-five years Michael F. Kane has given at least thirty to work and serious responsibilities. At the age of fourteen, after completing his early education in St. Columba's parochial school, he went to work in the plant of the Brown-Bonnell Company at Youngstown. He has various assignments of duty fitted to his strength and growing experience, and part of the time was employed in making links and pins for railroad cars. He was not entirely satisfied to follow a career as a mill man, and welcomed the opportunity to take employment as a salesman in the Youngstown store of the
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New Brothers, clothiers. Later he worked for Douglass & Graham, whose place of business was where the Scotch woolen mills are now. For twelve years Mr. Kane was an active member of the firm of Lenherd, Sheridan & Kane, with place of business at 247 Federal Street. Then, on November 18, 1919, the firm of Kane & Caldwell was organized to take over the business at Niles of John McKay Henderson. They now own and operate the Overland Garage, and have omitted no effort or expense to make the service unsurpassed for Overland owners and buyers.
Mr. Kane, while he has been a hard worker since boyhood, has also been a reader and has kept well informed on subjects of the time. He casts his vote independently, is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and his family worship in St. Patrick's Church. He married in 1902 Margaret Mullally. Their two children are Howard, now a student in the South High School, and Mabel, a student in St. Patrick's parochial school.
MARK W. ROE, consulting engineer and vice president of the Republic Rubber Company, is today one of the most widely known technical authorities on the rubber industry. His career has been noteworthy for its experience and achievements. Sheer force of will and hard work have carried him from the humble environment of a farm boy to a position where a report signed by him would command the respect of the ablest business men and financiers of the country.
Mr. Roe, who has been a resident of Youngstown since July, 1917, was born at Chester in Orange County, New York, January 27, 1873, son of Thomas H. and Mary Elizabeth (Cowdrey) Roe. His father was a farmer and was a member of the famous "Squirrel Hunters" Brigade in the Civil war. Both parents are now deceased.
Mark W. Roe grew up on a farm, had a country school education, and only after he had .begun earning his own living did he have the opportunity to. attend for one year a high school at Newburgh, New York. His special proficiency with mechanical tools caused him to remain in that school in the manual training department, and finally he completed his own studies and graduated in 1891. Not long afterward he passed a successful examination for the scholarship awarded under the auspices of the State Endowment Fund for Cornell University. In 1892 he enrolled as a student in this great technical school, and graduated in 1896 from the mechanical engineering course. For two years he remained an instructor of experimental engineering at Cornell. While there he also did special work in marine engineering and took courses on money, credits and banking in the School of Commerce.
After leaving the university Mr. Roe's first employment was as a draftsman with the Merrick Thread Company, Holyoke, Massachusetts, and he retnained with the successor of that firm the American Thread Company. He was not yet satisfied with his equipment and training, and determined upon a systematic study of all the branches leading up to the profession of consulting engineer. To that end he accepted work with the Foster Engineering Company, manufacturers of governors, regulators and steam pipe work. He remained with that concern one year, and while in their plant had access to all kinds of machinery, engines and battleship construction. Following that Mr. Roe was in the service of the Stirling Boiler Company at Barberton, Ohio, three years, at first as chief draftsman and then as assistant superintendent. Another three years he spent as chief engineer with the Cochecho Cotton Mills at Dover, New Hampshire.
About that time Mr. Roe recognized the wonderful future in the rubber industry, and resigning from the cotton mills he accepted a position as assistant mechanical engineer, at a smaller salary, with the Diamond Rubber Company at Akron, chiefly with the end of securing the value of experience. He went to Akron in the spring of 1906, and remained with the firm after it was merged with the B. F. Goodrich Company, continuing with that corporation until 1915. In the meantime he had risen to the rank of chief and consulting engineer. Then for two years he was consulting engineer of the McGraw Tire and Rubber Company at East Palestine.
In 1917 Mr. Norwood became president of the Republic Rubber Company of Youngstown, and he immediately surrounded himself with a group of technical experts of the highest qualifications. It was through Mr. Norwood that Mr. Roe was induced to come to Youngstown and become vice president and consulting engineer.
Mr. Roe is a man of independent spirit, and his self-reliance was the quality that enabled him to work his way through college and acquire the finest opportunities of a technical training. While in Cornell University, in spite of the fact that he was working his own way and was absorbed in his studies, he was keenly interested in athletics. For six years he was a member of the rowing crew of Cornell, and was one of the crew which represented Cornell in 1895 in England at the Henley Regatta. For four years he was the champion single sculler at the university.
He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is also a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. In 1901 he married Elizabeth Daugherty, of Akron. They have five children : Robert, Walter, Arthur, and Mark, Jr., and Mary, twins. The family attend the Episcopal Church.
THOMAS G. McDONALD is one of the oldest men in the service of the Carnegie Steel Company, having practically forty-five years of continuous service to his credit. For over a quarter of a century he has been at Youngstown, where since 1916 he has been consulting manager of the Carnegie Steel Company in the Youngstown District.
Mr. McDonald was born on a farm in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, November II, 1848, son of Patrick and Christiana (Foster) McDonald. Patrick, McDonald, who was born in the north of Ireland in 1823, was five years of age when his parents came to the United States and settled in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The father of Patrick died several years later, and the boy grew up in the home of Robert Black in Allegheny County. He had limited opportunities and advantages as a youth, but was a. hard working and honored citizen and farmer of
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Allegheny County for many years. Christiana Foster was also a native of the north of Ireland, being a daughter of Richard Foster. Patrick McDonald was a Union soldier during the Civil war, enlisting as a member of Company E of the Fifth Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, and served to the end of the war. He and his wife spent their last years in Youngstown, and of their large family of fifteen children only two died before reaching middle age.
Thomas G. McDonald grew up on his father's farm, had a public school education and as a youth learned the carpenter's trade. He entered the steel works of the Carnegie Company at Braddock in 1875, and by 1889 had been promoted to night superintendent of the converting department. From Braddock he went to the Allegheny Bessemer Works at Duquesne, Pennsylvania, also as night superintendent, and from there in 1893 came to Youngstown to become general superintendent of the Ohio Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. In the Mahoning Valley he has long been recognized as a master of all the technical processes of iron and steel manufacture, and has also been a very popular and efficient manager and business executive.
Mr. McDonald has taken a special interest in the school problems of Youngstown, and in 1917 was elected a member of the School Board. He is a republican, and is affiliated with the Masonic order. November 27, 1878, he married Miss Elizabeth Mc-Clary, daughter of James McClary, of Braddockfields, Pennsylvania. Their five children are Edna, Irma, James Harlan, Louis and Isabel.
JOSEPH SMITH has to his credit a quarter of a century's active membership in the Niles bar, and it is as a lawyer that he has performed his chief work and made his name most widely known and respected in the Mahoning Valley.
Mr. Smith was born December 25, 1870, at Upper Mitten, Worcestershire, England. In 1879, at the age of nine years, he came with his parents, George and Alice (Wimbury) Smith, to the United States. His father was a steel mill worker and found his first regular employment and made his home at Troy, New York. Joseph Smith attended the public schools of that city.
His residence at Niles began in April, 1885. He continued his schooling here in the intervals of other employment and was graduated from the Niles High School in 189o. Soon after coming to Niles he worked for a time for the old Falcon Iron & Nail Company, his immediate superior being Jonathan Warner, labor boss, now president of the Trumbull Iron & Steel Company. Other working experience in and around this city gave him a practical knowledge of farming. After graduating from high school he served a year as yard clerk for the Erie Railroad. The succeeding year he was a student in the Ohio State University, and left there to take up the study of law in the office of C. H. Strock at Niles. Mr. Smith was admitted to the bar in June, 1895, and since that date has been actively employed in a growing professional business. For the most part he has been alone in practice, but at the present time is senior member of the firm Smith & Giffen. He has also been called upon to use his professional skill in public affairs, and for nine years has served as a justice of the peace and for eleven years was solicitor for the City of Niles.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Trumbull County Bar Association, is a republican, a Presbyterian, is a past master of Mahoning Lodge No. 394 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, is a member of Mahoning Chapter No. 66, Royal Arch Masons, and is also a Knight of Pythias. He is a member of the Niles Chamber of Commerce.
September 5, 1906, Mr. Smith married Miss Blanche Hofius, who died February 26, 1919. His second marriage occurred November 19, 1919, when Elizabeth M. Woods, of Warren, became his wife.
WILLIAM N. SAXTON is a former railroad man, for a number of years was in the grocery business at Youngstown, and is now manager of the used car department of the F. B. Smith Company, a well equipped establishment at 114 East Boardman Street, Youngstown. He was formerly the local agent at Youngstown for the Stutz car.
Mr. Saxton was born in Unionville, Lake County, Ohio, January 6, 1871, son of Luman and Emma Grobetta Saxton. His father was a native of Massachusetts, and is now living at Cooperstown, New York. He is descended from the same ancestor as Ida Saxton, who married William McKinley. Luman Saxton was married in New York State, his wife being a native of England, and she died about 1884, when a comparatively young woman. Luman Saxton learned the jeweler's trade at Geneva, Ohio, and followed his work in Unionville, later at Milford, Otsego County, New York, and for a number of years has conducted a jewelry store at Cooperstown. .He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Presbyterian Church. His five children are all living. William N. has a sister, Grace, wife of Vernon Adams, living in New Jersey, and a brother, Vernon, proprietor of a dry goods store at Fort Plain, New York.
William N. Saxton acquired his early education in Geneva, New York, and in 1890 left school to go to work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He was successively brakeman, conductor and yardmaster, and was in the railroad service for fourteen years. Part of the time he was yardmaster at Youngstown. In 1904 he left the railroad and opened a grocery and tea store at 509 Market Street. He gave up this business when he opened his garage at 114 East Boardman, which is now operated by the F. B. Smith Company. Mr. Saxton is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and he and his wife are members of the First Baptist Church. June 27, 1900, he married Margaret Jones, daughter of Reese L. Jones, of Youngstown. Their daughter, Bessie, is now attending the South High School.
ALEXANDER DICKSON. The work and service rendered by the late Alexander Dickson as farmer, banker, county official and legislator were only incidental distinctions of a great and noble character and a life of enduring rectitude. He was a resident of the Mahoning Valley for over seventy years, and one of the most notable in a group of strong and able men who claimed Canfield as their home.
Alexander Dickson was born in County Down,
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Ireland, April 26, 1836. The Dicksons were Scotch-Irish. In 1840 occurred an immigration from County Down which brought a number of the Dicksons to America. The father of Alexander Dickson was James Dickson. James Dickson, his wife, four sons, William, Robert, Samuel and Alexander, and two brothers of James, William and John, with their families, left County Down April 18th, taking passage at Liverpool ten days later, and on the loth of June reached New York City, John and James Dickson started at once for Canfield, and James located in the southwest part of that township, in the neighborhood long known as Dublin. John Dickson settled in Ellsworth Township, where he died in his ninety-fifth year, while William Dickson subsequently followed the brothers and also became a resident of Ellsworth Township. James Dickson lived to the venerable age of ninety-four, and his wife also attained ripe old age. Their oldest son, William, became a Presbyterian minister, was for many years identified with the Canfield church and died at Youngstown at the age of about eighty. Alexander was the second son. Robert died in middle life, and Samuel, a farmer in Canfield, died in 1918. James, the only one of the five sons born in America, spent his life in Mahoning .County, and at his death at the age of fifty-seven was superintendent of the County Infirmary.
Alexander Dickson grew up on his father's farm and made good use of the liberal advantages accorded to the sons of the leading families of this community. He attended the district schools, and also the Ma-honing Academy in Canfield Village, two miles from the Dickson home. For several years he was a teacher, and at the age of twenty-four he was one of the first to respond to the call of Lincoln for volunteers and enlisted as a private in Company A of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio Infantry. His military service was one of distinction. He was present in every battle in which his regiment engaged, and remained until the colors were furled in victory in July, 1865. On the organization of his company he was elected second lieutenant on account of his fine figure and soldierly bearing, and later, on the merit of service and ability, was pro- moted to first lieutenant and finally to captain. The One Hundred and TwentybuFifth Regiment was known as "Opdyck's Tigers," and the regimental historian says: "Captain Dickson has a good, strong face, a fine figure, makes no mistakes in drill, maintains the dignity becoming a wearer of shoulder straps with an easy grace that excites no envy, and commands the respect and has the good will of every member of the company."
The war over, he again resumed the role of teaching, but about two years later was married, and he then bought a farm in Milton Township, at what is now known as Dickson's Corners. He gave his undivided time to his farm until 1874, when he was elected treasurer of Mahoning County. His capable administration so impressed the people of the county that he was accorded the unusual honor of serving three full terms. He also represented the people of his county for two terms in the State Legislature, as a member of the Sixty-Sixth and Sixty-Seventh General Assemblies.
What is now known as the Dickson's homestead, just east of Canfield, was acquired by Mr. Alexander Dickson in 1883. At the organization of the Farmers National Bank of Canfield in 1887 he was unanimously elected president, and was re-elected every successive year, giving the bank the benefit of his, judgment and character until his death. He also served as a director of the County Fair, and was one of the directors of the Northeastern Ohio Normal College. He was a member of Tod Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and from early life through the mature years of manhood was one of the most earnest and active members of the Presbyterian Church of Canfield. For many consecutive years he was an elder, and was one of the largest subscribers to the fund of the new building.
The Old family home in which he spent his last years is known as the Ensign Newton home, the house having been built by Eben Newton about 1860.
The late Hugh Manchester, who for twenty years was cashier of the hank while Mr. Dickson was president, paid the following tribute at the time of Mr. Dickson's death, which occurred May 8, 1912: "His earthly career is ended but he has left a good record worthy of imitation in many ways. He was honest, just and faithful, a good and loving husband, a kind and indulgent father, a useful, industrious and patriotic citizen, a man not of many words but full of good deeds, a good, kind neighbor and stanch friend of the writer of this brief tribute to his memory."
The wife of his youth and the companion of his old age is still living. In 1867 Mr. Dickson married Miss Serepta Johnston, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Osborn) Johnston. Her father was a native of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and as a lad came to Ohio with his parents, John and Mary Johnston, who were pioneers in Milton Township. Samuel Johnston spent his married life in Jackson Township, but retired to Canfield, where he died two years later, at the age of eighty-seven. His widow survived him seventeen years, passing away at the age of ninety-four. Samuel Johnston was a tanner by trade, and made leather as a home industry on his farm. Mrs. Dickson has two brothers and one sister living: J. F. Johnston, of Youngstown ; Stratton, of Buffalo ; and Mrs. M. S. Kirk, of Canfield.
The only son of the late Alexander Dickson is Harry J. Dickson, who has spent his active career on the old farm, where he and his family reside with their mother. He married Elizabeth Evans, and their two children are Alexander Neil and Bessie Thelman.
In conclusion should be quoted the following editorial tribute from the Youngstown Vindicator:
"To many of our older citizens the death of Hon. Alexander Dickson came as a personal sorrow. For many years Mr. Dickson was distinctly one of the most important and most respected citizens of Ma-honing County. His election to the General Assembly and three times treasurer of the county shows how instinctively the people turned to him when they had important public work to do or a great trust to he discharged.
"Mr. Dickson was a man of fine mind and high character, modest, unassuming, cordial and candid, and his popularity was not hounded by party lines. Albu
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ways a republican, many of his best friends and stanchest supporters were in the democratic party.
His passing takes away another of the group of strong men who made this county and valley so notable in the generation to which he belonged and which is now so rapidly giving place to younger men who can not do better than emulate such a life as this good and wise man lived."
CHARLES F. WINTER. The Village of Petersburg in Mahoning County for many years was an important center of trade and industry, and the chief institution to which it owed its importance was the enterprise of Winter Brothers, who about fifty years ago established a wagon and carriage making plant. Their average output for a number of years was a hundred buggies and wagons annually, and many families living about Petersburg derived their direct support from this industry. It was the advent and rapid popularity of the automobile that practically brought to an end the manufacture of carriages and wagons, and in recent years Winter Brothers have modified their plant into a repair shop for carriages and wagons and still continue the business. They are also the undertakers of the village. The partners are Charles Frederick and Gottlieb Winter, both of whom are veteran mechanics and old-time masters of the wagonmaking trade.
Charles Frederick Winter was born in Wuertemberg, Germany, October 21, 1849, oldest of the children of Adam F. and Veronica (Greiner) Winter. His father was born in 1798, and in Germany was a small farmer and also in the Government service looking after grain taxes. About 1853, when Charles was four years of age, the family came to America and settled in Mahoning County. Adam Winter acquired considerable wealth after coming to this country, but lost his fortune by being too generous in assisting a friend. He died at Petersburg at the age of seventy, and his widow survived him to a great old age. Their two sons were Charles Frederick and Gottlieb,. and the only daughter was Louisa.
Charles Frederick Winter has spent practically all his life in the Petersburg community, and has been a resident of the town since 1856. He attended local schools and served an apprenticeship at the trade of wagon making. Since learning his trade he has been identified with Petersburg with the exception of eight months. He taught the trade to his brother Gottlieb, and they became partners in 1872. Charles Winter became the local undertaker in 1876. For many years he was secretary of the Lutheran Church of Petersburg, and has been a recognized leader in the republican party in his section of the county. In 1903 he was appointed postmaster at Petersburg by President Roosevelt, and served an unexpired term and a full term of four years.
October 27, 1870, Charles F. Winter married Mary S. Piatt. Her paternal ancestors were French Huguenots. Her great-grandfather was Capt. William Piatt, who was a participant in the historic expedition under the leadership of General St. Clair to subdue the Indians of the Northwest Territory, and was killed by the Indians in that expedition. Her grandfather, James Piatt, a native of New York, was one of the first pioneers of Indiana. Samuel A. D. Piatt, father of Mrs. Winter, married Catherine Smith, of a Virginia family. Mrs. Winter was born in Switzerland County, Indiana. To Mr. and Mrs. Winter were born eight children: Charles Piatt, born August 28, 1871, who operates an automobile paint shop at Seattle, Washington; John F., born August 14, 1873, is a dealer in electrical appliances at Suffolk, Virginia; Clarence C., an employe of the by product department of the Republic Steel Company at Youngstown ; Kate, who died at the age of five years; Edward Arthur, born December 14, 1880, mechanic foreman for the Shuler Automobile, Carriage and Repair Shop at Youngstown ; Anna G., a former teacher, is the wife of Ross E. Liber, who has a machine and automobile shop at Homeworth, Ohio; William R., born November 4, 1887, proprietor of Winter's cash grocery at Petersburg; and Benjamin H., who died at the age of five years. The mother of these children, who was devoted to her home and an active participant in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, died February 2, 1912.
Gottlieb Winter became the father of five daughters and one son: Callie and Rena, both of whom died at the age of eighteen ; Mrs. Carl Wendt, whose husband was formerly a teacher at Petersburg and is now an electrical engineer at Cleveland ; Mrs. Alice Lee, formerly a teacher at Boardman, now lives with her parents at Petersburg; Grace is the wife of Harry Hoog, a farmer near Petersburg; and the only son, Paul F. Winter, was for three years a soldier in the United States Regular Army prior to the World war and is now connected with the Stambaugh Hardware Company of Youngstown.
HOMER C. KNOWLES represents in a prominent capacity, that of secretary and assistant treasurer, one of the important industrial corporations of the country, the Petroleum Iron Works Company of Sharon, Pennsylvania. Since 1914 his home has been at Youngstown.
Mr. Knowles was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, July 15, 1876, one of the eight children, and all living at the present time, of Oscar W. and Emma (Brotherton) Knowles, who now reside at Washington, Pennsylvania. Homer C. Knowles was a lad of eight years when with his parents he moved to Washington, Pennsylvania, where as a boy he attended the public schools. When he had attained the age of fourteen he started out to make his own way in the world, and slowly and persistently he has won the race and made for himself a name and place in the world of industry. His first work was as office boy in an oil refinery establishment, and while thus engaged he studied telegraphy, and for six years was an operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, was subsequently connected with the Western Union Telegraph Company, and later was with the Buckeye Pipe Line Company. In June, 1902, he was made timekeeper and general clerical helper for the Petroleum Iron Works Company, then located at Washington, Pennsylvania, and during the year 1907 represented this company for several months at Houston, Texas. At the close of that connection he returned East to Sharon, Pennsylvania, and since August, 1914, has resided in Youngstown. During a period of several years, from 1910 to 1916, Mr. Knowles was in the accounting department of the
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Petroleum Iron Works Company, having had the entire charge of that department, and during his connection with this corporation he has also served in the capacities of assistant secretary and assistant treasurer, and since the first of April, 1916, has been the secretary and assistant treasurer of the company and also a member of its board of directors. The inflexible purpose of Mr. Knowles during all these years has ultimately gained for him the hopes, aims and prospects of his earlier life, and he is now connected in an important capacity with one of the largest industries of its kind in the East.
On the 15th of September, 1906, he was married to Miss Margaret B. Hughes, a daughter of Williams M. Hughes, of Washington, Pennsylvania, and they have three children, James H., Margaret Jane and Charles B. The family are affiliated with the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown.
EDWARD J. LATTAU. Throughout his active career of nearly a quarter of a century Edward J. Lattau has been a merchant of Youngstown, and succeeded to a business established years ago by his father.
Mr. Lattau was born at Hubbard in Trumbull County, Ohio, February 6, 1875, son of Andrew and Frederica (Seifert) Lattau. His father was a native of Alsace-Lorraine and his mother of Germany, and both were brought to this country when young by their parents. The Lattau family located at Buffalo, New York, later moved to Wisconsin, and subsequently to Hubbard, Ohio, and from there to Youngstown. Andrew Lattau while living at Hubbard was a cattle dealer, and in Youngstown engaged in the grocery and meat market business. He. married at Buffalo and died at Youngstown, December I, 1916. His wife died December 27, 1904. In their church affiliation both were Catholics. Of their eight children four are living in Youngstown.
Edward J. Lattau, the only surviving son, was six years of age when brought to Youngstown, and received his education here in the public schools and in business college. He practically grew up in his father's store, and when his father retired he succeeded to the management and is proprietor of one of the highest class and best patronized retail groceries in the city.
Mr. Lattau is a democrat, but has given his time to business without aspirations for public office. However, for several years he served as a member of the Board of Education.
June 27, 1906, he married Miss Mary L. Woods, of Youngstown, daughter of John A. and Mary (Long) Woods. The mother of John A. Woods was a daughter of Daniel Sheehy, the historic character who was closely associated with John Young in the founding of Youngstown. Mrs. Lattau is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and during the World war was very active in local Red Cross and other war auxiliary causes. Mr. and Mrs. Lattau are members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church.
GEORGE G. McKAY is the founder and proprietor of one of the leading industries of Youngstown conducted under individual and personal management, the McKay Machine Shop at Rayen Avenue and Foster Street.
He has been a practical machinist for over thirty years. Mr. McKay was born in Nova Scotia, January 2, 1864, son of John and Mary Ann McKay, both of whom lived all their lives in Nova Scotia. George G. McKay acquired a common school education, and at the age of seventeen came to the United. States and began an apprenticeship at the machinist's trade at Ashtabula, Ohio. He was apprenticed with the Phoenix Iron Works and remained in the service of that company until 1892. After that he was employed by the Dennison Manufacturing Company at Warren, and on January I, 1893, started for himself in a small shop where the old laundry now stands in Youngstown. From there he moved to larger quarters at 476 West Federal Street, and thence to his present location at Rayen Avenue and Foster Street. Walter McKay, his brother, served an apprenticeship under him and later became his partner. The firm was McKay Brothers for several years, but Walter is now connected with the Youngstown Welding Company. In a quarter of a century Mr. McKay has kept his business to the front as a thoroughly reliable establishment, and he has done a great volume of important work and has filled many valuable contracts.
In 1887 he married Miss Lillian Was, of Ashtabula. They have one son, Robert. Mr. and Mrs. McKay are members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, and he is affiliated with Hillman Lodge Free and Accepted Masons. Youngstown Chapter No. 93, Royal Arch Masons, Buechner Council No. 107, St. John's Commandery No. 20, Knights Templar, Hiram Lodge of Perfection, Youngstown Rose Croix, and Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree, at Cleveland, and also Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, Cleveland, Ohio. He is a member of the Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce and Automobile Club and in politics a republican.
WALTER R. LALLEY is one of the younger business men of Youngstown, and after discharging his patriotic duties with the aviation department of the military establishment he engaged in business by organizing the Diamond Realty & Leasing Company, of which he is president.
Mr. Lalley was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, April 8, 1891, son of Frank E. and Mary Ann (Rowe) Lalley. He is of French ancestry. He had a distant relative, John Lalley, who was an aide under Napoleon. The founder of the family in America was Thomas Lalley, who reached this country about 1784 and settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most of the Lalleys have been merchants.
Walter R. Lalley is the only member of the family to identify himself with the Mahoning Valley. While his early life was spent in Bridgeport, his native city, he finished his education in Cornell University, graduating A. B. with the class of 1917. The following summer he came to Youngstown to gain a practical knowledge of the steel industry. This knowledge he acquired as a worker at the open hearth, soaking pit and rolling mill of the Brier Hill Steel Company. Soon afterward he gave up his civil status to enlist in the aviation section, and received his first training at Kelley Field in Texas. He was
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granted a second lieutenant's commission. He was sent to the Wilbur Wright field near Dayton, Ohio, as an instructor, and later was at the concentration .camp at West Point, Mississippi, preparing for overseas duty, when the armistice was signed.
Mr. Lalley was discharged January 4, 1919, and returned to Youngstown, resuming his duties with the Brier Hill Steel Company. However, in May of the same year he organized the Diamond Realty & Leasing Company. The purpose of this organization is to sell real estate, handle leases, and perform a general service of building management and building construction. With Mr. Lalley as president the company has entered upon a very extensive program, and has made its work favorably known throughout the Youngstown district.
November 22, 1919, Mr. Lalley married Mrs. Pearl Lucile (Huber) Fitch.
MATHEW J. GRIMES. In every city of appreciable size the furniture business is one of recognized importance, and at Youngstown are men who have been identified with the manufacture and handling of furniture throughout their entire business lives. They are men to whom the grain and texture of the wood, the color and smoothness of the finish, and tile artistic forms as well as the strength and utility of the finished products give as much pleasure as, perhaps, do music and other arts to those whose talents and training have been in other directions. In this connection reference may be made to Mathew J. Grimes, the president of the Henneberg-Grimes Furniture Company, and his wide furniture experience entitles him to a leading place in this commercial line.
Mathew J. Grimes was born in September, 1874, and was reared and educated in the City of Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in the furniture business, having practical training, and prior to coming to Youngstown in 1911 he had been with the Henneberg Furniture Company at Zanesville, and associated with Mr. Henneberg at Newark since 1904. After coming to Youngstown in 1911 the Henneberg-Grimes Furniture Company was organized, with Mr. Grim6 president and Mr. Henneberg vice president. In 1912 Mr. Henneberg sold his interest to Mr. Grimes. Reorganization later took place and at present Mr. Grimes has P. A. Lyden and J.. P. O'Rourke as fellow officials, the business being in a very prosperous condition. The products of this company may be accepted as standard in every particular.
In 1899 Mr. Grimes was united in marriage to Miss Minnie Eastberg, of Chicago, and they have had three children : Elizabeth, Dorothy and Stanley, but the last named, born in 1902, met an accidental death at Youngstown in September, 1918. While Mr. Grimes has never cared to be active in a political sense, he is a thoughtful, earnest, well balanced man and conscientiously performs the duties of a good citizen.
CHARLES W. MCCLURE. History and biography for the most part record the lives of only those who have attained military, political or literary distinction or who in any other career have passed through extraordinary vicissitudes of fortune. But the names of men who have distinguished themselves in their
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day and generation by the possession of those qualities of character which mainly contribute to the success of private life and to the public stability—of men who, without especially brilliant talents, have been exemplary in all their personal and social relations and enjoyed the respect, esteem and confidence of those around them—ought not to be allowed to. perish, for all are benefitted by the delineation of the traits of character which find scope and exercise in the common walks of life. Among the individuals of this class in Mahoning County was Charles W. McClure, vice president and general manager of the W. B. Pollock Company of Youngstown at the time of his death, in 1920. His life history was distinguished by the most substantial qualities of character, and his long and successful business career was marked with moderation and crowned with success.
Charles W. McClure was born at Chanute, Kansas, on September ro, 1869, and was a son of Zenas and Elizabeth (McQuistan) McClure. Zenas McClure was a native of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, where he followed farming pursuits. There he married, and with his wife and four children he moved to Kansas about the close of the Civil war. However, he was not satisfied with that section of the country and in about 1873 he returned East and located at Hadley, Pennsylvania, later removing to Ohio and finally locating at Youngstown, where he spent the remainder of his days, his death occurring in 1916. He was a man of splendid character, industrious and law abiding, and enjoyed to a marked degree the respect of those who knew him.
Charles W. McClure was practically reared in Youngstown and secured his educational training in the public schools of this city. At the age of about fifteen years he began working for William _B. Pollock & Company in a clerical capacity, and for over thirty-five years he was identified continuously with this house, both under the old firm name and, later, as the William B. Pollock Company. Beginning as a bookkeeper, Mr. McClure was later advanced to the position of an estimator. Later he was appointed assistant general manager, then secretary, and from 1911 he was vice president and general manager of the concern, one of the large and important business enterprises of Youngstown. Mr. McClure had thus actually grown up with the business, with every detail of which he was intimately acquainted, and his successive promotions had been richly earned. He was also identified as a stockholder with the First National Bank, the Dollar Savings and Trust Company, the Brier Hill Steel Company, the New Falcon Steel Company and other local enterprises. He was thus found a loyal supporter of all movements or enterprises which are calculated to advance the city's best interests, materially or morally.
On October 31, 1893, Mr. McClure was united in marriage with Jessie J. Woodworth, of Youngstown, a daughter of Hon. L. B. Woodworth, the first congressman elected from this congressional district. To Mr. and Mrs. McClure there was born a son, Donald W.
Mr. McClure, with his wife, held membership in the First Presbyterian Church, and Mr. McClure was a trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association of Youngstown. He belonged to the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club and the Youngs-