(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 450 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO church in the construction of which such a goodly number of the settlers participated and of the religious services held that same afternoon in the church, which in the early morning of that day had been trees growing in the forest, a notable event attended by practically everybody in the township, the annals say. We have told of the great Hinckley hunt the day before Christmas in 1818, the big feast that was served in the forest and the division of game on Christmas morn. All these and other events have been narrated in other chapters. Medina County is advancing in achievements in scientific agriculture as well as along industrial lines. Community solidarity is increasing ; the farmers are facing the problems of new conditions and are meeting them. Splendid work is being done by the young people in the 4-H Clubs and similar organizations ; the boys and girls are catching new visions of achievement, the generous ideals shown in their work are most gratifying. Never before to such an extent has there been, so generally such concentration on the things which make for individual success and the advancement of the neighborhood or community. In the west part of the county is the source of the Black River and Rocky River has its source near Montville. Medina is on the divide between the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. Some of the streams flow to the north emptying into Lake Erie and a number of small creeks flow southward and find their way into the Muskingham. Chippewa Lake, which takes its name from the tribe of Indians who used to camp along its shores, is on the boundary between Lafayette and Westfield townships and empties into Chippewa Creek. This lake has been a popular summer resort for generations, but has grown in popularity in recent decades and multiplied thousands visit it during the summer months. One cannot travel over the highways of Medina County without being impressed with the wonderful scenery, the hills and valleys, the woodlands that survive, the prosperous farms, the way the rich muck lands around Medina, once a vast swamp, have been reclaimed and made to yield abundant crops. And what beautiful villages Lodi and Leroy are ; how Medina and Wadsworth are growing. With the aggressive spirit that the people of these growing com- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 451 munities show, one can predict still more splendid results in the years which are to come. Here is the population of the seventeen townships of Medina County as shown by the census of 1930 : Brunswick Township, 1,063 ; Chatham, 787 ; Granger, 959 ; Guilford, 2,031 ; Harrisville, 2,262 ; Hinckley, 865 ; Homer, 639 ; Lafayette, 1,296 ; Litchfield, 838 ; Liverpool, 1,071 ; Medina, 3,709 ; Montville, 1,883 ; Sharon, 1,283 ; Spencer, 1,133 ; Wadsworth, 7,788 ; Westfield, 1,137 ; York, 933. The county seat town, Medina (population 4,071), has been spoken of frequently as one of the best business centers in North Central Ohio. Of Medina's population 2,948 is in Medina Township and 1,123 in Montville Township. In the center of the town is one of the prettiest parks of any community in this section of Ohio. It has such beautiful trees and the surroundings are so harmonious. To the east is the Franklin Sylvester Public Library, of which the town is so justly proud, its helpful influence steadily increasing in the community. The Medina County court house, also facing the park, is one of the landmarks of the community. It has been remodeled a couple of times. Paved roads radiate in every direction from Medina. The city of Cleveland, twenty-nine miles to the northeast, is reached over United States auto route 42 and state route 3 (CCC Highway) and twenty-five miles to the south of the CCC Highway is Wooster. Akron, nineteen miles to the east, is reached by state route 18 ; Wadsworth, which at the beginning of the present year attained city honors, is on auto route 57, ten miles southeast of Medina ; Elyria is twenty-five miles to the northwest on auto route 57 and Lodi eleven miles to the southwest on United States route 42. Medina is on the B. & O. and the Akron, Cleveland & Youngstown R. R. (N. Y. C. lines). Until the Cleveland & Southwestern Electric line was abandoned early in 1931, Medina and other towns along the line between Cleveland and Mansfield had traction line service. There are now a number of auto bus lines in operation giving frequent service. Medina being in the center of a rich farming district and its products so diversified, business depressions effect this community but little. Medina is fortunate in the spirit which its citizens show along the lines of community service and advancement. Mrs. R. L. Mansel is president, succeeding Albert Indoe, and Mrs. Norman Clark is secretary of the Medina community organization and the town has 452 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO a very active and alert Kiwanis Club, which does efficient work in behalf of every enterprise for the betterment of the community and county. The president is John A. Webber, who succeeded R. E. Snedden and the secretary is Sam H. Brainard, who is a district governor of Kiwanis for the seventh district. The county Y. M. C. A. has been doing a splendid work and a recent report showed that during 1930, 695 campers availed themselves of the advantages of Camp Crag in this county. Y. W. C. A. work is also being carried forward. Another very beneficial work for young girls is the Girl Reserves organization. In the county are fifteen senior high school girl reserve clubs, the schools being Brunswick, Chatham, Granger, Hinckley, Homer, Litchfield, Leroy, Medina, Seville, Sharon, Spencer, junior-senior and freshmen-sophomore clubs of Wadsworth, and the York school. Geraldine Landis, of Seville, is president of the county Girl Reserve Council and Miss Mitchell is the county secretary. When Medina completed its second community fund campaign last November, it was found that it was twenty-five per cent oversubscribed. The goal had been $8,000, the same as the previous year, but 2,100 subscribers gave a total of $9,729.98. In celebration of the victory there was a parade lead by the Medina High School Band and a victory dinner at the Medina Masonic Temple. Medina expects to complete during the present year the construction of a new sewage disposal plant, the heart of the remodeled sewage system of the town. The plans have been sanctioned by the state board of health and contract has been given to the Clement Company of Medina on its bid of $89,619.85. A big program of secondary road improvements in Medina County is to be carried forward during the present year. In Brunswick Township, six and one-half miles of road are to be constructed. Westfield will improve over four and one-half miles of road west from the Guilford line, just outside Seville to Road 35. Other road improvements will be made in Granger, Hinckley, Sharon, Montville, Wadsworth, Harrisville and Spencer. The state highway director has given assurance that a new bridge will be constructed over Rocky River at Riverby, north of Medina, this summer and some repaving on Route 42, north of Medina. Medina is confident of seeing its hopes realized of a new federal building as $95,000 for a building for this town was allocated in report of the Postmaster-General to Congress. Wadsworth is also expecting to get a postoffice building. Medina's postmaster is W. E. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 453 Gates. The business transacted at the last holiday season was the greatest in the history of this postoffice. Medina County spends $6,000 a year for health work. Medina is proud of its Masonic Temple on North Elmwood Avenue. It was formally opened in October, 1925. On March 12, 1931, Medina Lodge, No. 58, F. & A. M., celebrated the 111th anniversary of the organization of the local lodge, which has the original minute books, including the minutes of the meeting March 9, 1820, when the lodge was organized by John Snow, Grand Master, and A. I. McDowell, Grand Secretary. Abraham Freese was the Worshipful Master and the other charter members were Rev. R. Searle, Rufus Ferris, Seth Blood, Noah M. Bronson, Lathrop Seymour, W. L. Peets, Julius Chidister, Ransom Clark, Jason Hubbell, Lemuel Thayer, B. M. Atherton, Abraham George, F. A. Atherton, and George L. Chapman. Mention is made elsewhere of Medina's banks, the Old Phoenix National Bank and the Savings Deposit Bank Company. Report of building, loan and savings companies of Medina County is also most gratifying. Depositors and stockholders of these in the county had for 1930 dividend and interest earnings amounting to $73,000, being shared by 4,266 depositors and stockholders in the county. Resources of the building and loan associations in the county at the close of 1930 were $1,444,047, one of the highest points in their history. Medina has growing manufacturing industries, the largest of which is the A. I. Root Company, which will be spoken of further. Another is the Medina plant of the Henry Furnace and Foundry Company, which had contracts on hand early in the present year insuring steady work for many months to come. Last February the Northern Ohio Telephone Company exchange was removed to a new building; the company's wires in the business section are all in underground cables. Another of Medina's industries is the Medina Bending Works. There are a number of other substantial industries. Here is a sketch of the town's largest industry, the history of which is intensely interesting. A. I. ROOT COMPANY, MEDINA. Medina's most prominent manufacturing company, an institution whose fame has been heralded abroad because of the circumstances connected with its founding, how it was built up, and the spirit of the founder, is the A. I. Root Company. 454 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The real founding of the A. I. Root Company was in August, 1865, When, while he was standing in front of his jewelry store on the street in Medina with a few of his employes, a swarm of bees flying overhead attracted the attention of Amos Ives Root, and in response to some inquiry of his regarding their habits, one of his men asked him what he would give for them, to which he replied that he would give a dollar. His astonishment may be imagined when a short time later the man appeared with the swarm enclosed in a rough box which he had picked up and from that moment the A. B. C. of Bee Culture began to formulate itself in the mind of A. I. Root. His business for more than five years had been manufacturing coin silver chains and jewelry of various kinds for which he had not only a local output but a demand that extended far beyond the confines of his own locality and his plans were being laid for an extension and growth of his business that would have required his closest and most undivided attention. Early in his youth he had displayed a curiosity upon the subject of bees and their habits but had not indulged to any extent his desire for further acquaintance with them. Farmers and others who had had some experience had expressed the belief that the keeping of bees was unprofiable, although at one time it perhaps had not been so. He began to study the matter. He secured some books upon the subject and soon became so interested that he constructed an improved form of hive for his bees and even went so far as to purchase for twenty dollars a queen bee from Mr. Langstroth for his apiary. He very nearly lost all his bees the first winter but by the timely advice of a plain, practical farmer friend, who had had some experience, he finally brought them through. From that time he began increasing the number of his stocks, constructed for himself a simple homemade extractor with which in the year 1867, only two years after he had begun, he had extracted 1,000 pounds of honey from twenty colonies. A severe loss was experienced during the winter of 1867-68 in which he lost all but eleven of his stocks. But faith in ultimate success triumphed over his disappointment. He increased his eleven stocks to forty-eight the next season and succeeded in carrying the entire forty-eight through the winter without the loss of a stock. The following season he extracted over 6,000 pounds of honey from the forty-eight stocks. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 455 The news of his success became noised about and inquiries began to come in regarding his methods, the best form of hive to use, the most efficient extractor, etc. This opened up a demand for the hive and extractor which he had begun to make for his own use. In answering inquiries it soon became apparent that it would be wise to print a circular to answer the questions asked and finally in 1873 a quarterly periodical was issued by him upon the subject at the modest price of twenty-five cents per year. Very shortly it was increased to a monthly at seventy-five cents per year. The circulation of this extended over a good part of the United States. This was the beginning of "Gleanings in Bee Culture." In 1878 the first edition of A. B. C. of Bee Culture was published by A. I. Root, a book of 200 pages which has been enlarged with each repeated edition until today it has become an encyclopedia of beekeeping, containing 850 pages. It has gone through twenty revisions and editions, is translated into four foreign languages and more than 213,000 of them have found a place in the libraries of beekeepers all over the world. During this time the interest in the equipment manufactured in the A. I. Root factory had increased to such an extent that in 1876 he doubled his working force and ran his factory night and day during the busy season to take care of the increasing demand. In 1878 he sold his building upon the square up town where his jewelry manufacturing business, which he had abandoned, had formerly been conducted and bought a lot near the railroad station where shipping facilities were better. Here he built, as he supposed, a building large enough for his manufacturing business for many years to come. This first building was of brick, 40 feet by 100 feet, two stories and basement with a forty-horse-power engine and latest improved machinery. In 1883 his increasing trade made an enlargement imperative so the building was enlarged by adding a wing the size of the original building. Three years later another addition 44 x 66, was added, a ninety-horsepower engine was installed and so on every few years the need caused new buildings to rise. The present mammoth plant is the largest in the world devoted to manufacture of beekeeping equipment, attesting the truth of the old proverb, "Make your product better than anybody else and the world will beat a path to your door." 456 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Until 1894 the business was conducted under the name of A. I. Root. In November, 1894, the A. I. Root Company was incorporated with a capital stock of $100,000. A. I. Root was made president of the company ; his eldest son, E. R. Root, vice president ; and J. T. Calvert, secretary-treasurer. As a result of the increasing demand for the company's products there have been established four subsidiary companies, The A. I. Root Company of California ; The A. I. Root Company of Iowa ; The A. I. Root Company of Texas ; and The A. I. Root Company of Canada, Limited. In all of these companies the parent company retains a controlling interest. Each company manufactures bee supplies and carries full lines. From the first the need of printing catalogues and pamphlets, forerunners of "Gleanings in Bee Culture," had caused A. I. Root to install a few fonts of type and a printing press. This department has grown until today it has developed into a full printing and building plant, equipped with every modern machine and device. Twenty people are employed in that department alone. In the entire plant at the present time, three hundred people are employed. MEDINA COUNTY BUILDINGS Much history centers around Medina County's old court house, three stories and cupola, for it dates back a great many years and recalls the beginnings of the town. We have spoken of the first session of court, Medina as the county seat having been designated by special commissioners. Elijah Boardman, original owner of the township, had donated several hundred acres and four lots facing the public square had been reserved for public buildings. The court in April, 1818, appointed Miles Clark, Timothy Dean and Andrew Denning, county commissioners and they held their first sessions at the Rufus Ferris cabin. During the following year two double log houses were built for tavern purposes and here the officials of the new county met until the court house was erected. Late in 1818 or early in 1819, Benjamin Lindsley received the contract for the construction of a two-story rectangular brick court house with cupola at the southwest corner of Liberty and Court streets. Lindsley failed to complete the job and on Aug. 19, 1821, the commissioners, John Bigelow, Ebenezer Harris and Stephen Sibley contracted with HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 457 John Freese and Timothy Doane to finish the job for $1,500. It is supposed to have been finished late in 1826. In the meantime a log jail had been erected midway of the block that faces the public square on the west. In 1833 the commissioners contracted for a brick jail, which lasted until 1851 when a contract was given to Harris and Barnim for a jail costing $7,000, so the annals say. The old jail was sold to Barton Green for $900. That part of the jail containing the cells was of stone and the rest of it brick. In September, 1840, D. H. Weed was given a contract for a new court house, the price to be the old court house and $3,100. The building was completed in the following year. On March 30, 1872, the commissioners gave notice of their intention to make additions to the court house and in July of that year contract to W. G. Tilley for $17,300 was given, but it seems that before the contract was completed the cost of the building amounted to $23,036.07. In 1906 further additions and improvements to the building were made. The county infirmary farm of 273 acres was purchased a great many years ago and the first building erected, burned back in the '60s, and later a new infirmary building was erected. COUNTY OFFICIALS The following are the present officials of Medina County : Common pleas judge, Nathan H. McClure ; representative, Dr. H. A. Baldwin of Wadsworth; probate judge, Fremont 0. Phillips ; clerk of courts, Marion E. Garver ; sheriff, L. E. Buffington ; auditor, Hobart Edwards ; county commissioners, R. A. Auble, Wadsworth ; S. M. Overholt, George Zeigler ; treasurer, Otto Harp (Peter Yoder, treasurer-elect) ; recorder, Mrs. Edna T. Loomis ; surveyor, R. E. House ; prosecuting attorney, David D. Porter ; coroner, Dr. E. L. Crum, of Lodi. Appellate judges for the ninth district, consisting of Lorain, Medina, Summit and Wayne counties, are C. G. Washburn, of Elyria ; Wm. E. Pardee, of Akron ; and Ross W. Funk, of Wooster, the latter beginning his new term February 9, last. Congressmen for the fourteenth district, which includes Lorain, Medina, Summit and Portage counties, is Francis Seiberling, of Akron. 458 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO MEDINA VILLAGE OFFICIALS The mayor of Medina is John R. Moore and the other officers are: Clerk, C. D. Rickard; treasurer, F. L. Harding; marshal, E. E. Holtzburg ; members of council, Earl Gibbs, Charles Griesinger, E. E. Lee, Frank Renz, E. G. Tinstman and E. E. Wallace. Medina was incorporated in 1835. Medina annals tell of many notable events down through the years, one of which was the Fourth of July celebration in 1821. John Freese presided ; Dr. Bela B. Clark gave a talk ; A. G. Hickox read the Declaration of Independence; Rev. Searle delivered an oration, toasts were responded to and sweetened whisky was consumed. That the anti-slavery principle was recognized early in the Western Reserve is seen in the toast, "Freedom for the Africans," to which sentiment Capt. Herman Munson, aged eighty-three, responded. It was in that year that the first mail route from Canton to Norwalk by way of Medina was established. Josiah. Price of Canton, who was the carrier, had a tin horn which he always blew lustily to herald his coming. In 1824, John Wilson received the contract to carry mail over the Medina-Canton route on horseback once a week, continuing for several years. A noted hunter of Medina County was David Blocker, who from 1816 to 1833 killed and dressed 800 deer. In a single day he killed six. Medina experienced two very disastrous fires which destroyed many buildings, but which only intensified the determination of the fire sufferers to build anew and more substantially. One of these was on April 11, 1848, and the second was April 14, 1870. The story of the great sleigh-ride of March 15, 1856, in which folks from Cuyahoga, Medina and Summit counties participated, and the second ride three days later has often been told but is worthy of being referred to again, for it is said to have been the greatest sleigh ride in history. Of the 462 sleighs with four or more horses each, Summit County had 171, being thirty-one more than Medina County had and twenty more than Cuyahoga. The banner went to Summit County, but three days later the Medina County people, with 182 four- and six-horse teams, jingle-belled over the snowy roads to Akron. The Summit County folk acknowledged that they had been beaten and turned over to their rivals the highly prized banner. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 459 Another of the notable events, among the great number in Medina County history that might be chronicled in this connection, was the celebration Nov. 15, 1871—nearly sixty years ago—of the completion to Medina of the Lake Shore & Tuscarawas Valley R. R. An account of this event says that a Medina cannon with Seville battery was posted on Bronson hill and boomed out eight or ten times during the forenoon. At one o'clock on the afternoon of this eventful day, the train arrived, its coming being announced by prolonged whistle blasts when it reached York Center, four miles away. The train consisted of engine, baggage car and six coaches. Off came hats and shawls as the train pulled in and mighty shouts arose while whistles blew, bells rang and cannon boomed. Mayor Blake was president of the day and delivered the address of welcome. Mayor Pelton of Cleveland responded. The sentiment was expressed that with iron bands, Lake Erie had been connected with the Ohio River, the iron ore of the Lake Superior region and the coal of the Tuscarawas Valley meeting. Congressman James Monroe was present and promised the completion of the whole road by October, 1872. Among those present were General Duthan Northrop, T. W. Browning, C. G. Washburn, editor of the Elyria Democrat; A. W. Fairbanks of the Cleveland Herald ; Royal Taylor and Thomas Jones. The excursion train was' furnished by the C. C. C. & I. R. R. The guests were taken to the American House ; 1,200 people are said to have been fed at Empire Hall. In the evening stores and homes were illuminated, there was a display of fireworks and a grand ball at Phoenix Hall. A history of the first Congregational Church of Medina from 1819 to 1909 was published twenty-two years ago by the Rev. Dr. J. Edward Kirbye. It abounds in interesting historical facts regarding this church in the community, the ministers who have served it and some of the prominent members whose influence in church and community down through the years was so lasting and beneficial. The narrative throws light on the early history of Medina and important factors in its progress and development. It contains pictures of the old brick church, the public square in 1868, the south side of the public square before the big fire, besides likenesses of a number of ministers of the church. Compilers of histories of community organizations perform a very great service in preserving for posterity these valuable records that might otherwise be lost. 460 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The book, in addition to setting forth the history of the Congregational Church, tells of the service rendered to the community by the Protestant Episcopal, the Methodist, Christian, Baptist, and Roman Catholic churches. It mentions that each church has its special appeal and contributes to the life of the community and that the cordiality existing among these several organizations had been strikingly exhibited from time to time when some great community issue was at stake. There was frequent change of pastors of the Medina church, a common pastorate being two years, and only three men remaining six years. In the ninety years covered by the history there had been twenty-five pastorates. When the Medina church was first organized and four years thereafter it was considered on the frontier. Some of the ministers returned to the East and others being young men answered calls to larger fields. MEDINA COUNTY MINISTERS Medina County ministers as listed in March, 1931, were : Wadsworth, Carl Anthony, Wadsworth Catholic Church ; C. B. Etter, Wadsworth and Sharon Lutheran churches; G. H. Gebhardt, Wadsworth Reformed; R. L. Lubold, Loyal Oak and Acme Lutheran; W. S. Rowe, Wadsworth Methodist; W. S. Shelly, Mennonite ; H. S. Turley, Church of Christ. Medina, C. E. Bacon, Medina First Baptist; C. H. Baldwin, First Congregational; J. P. Brereton, Medina Episcopal and Weymouth Community; Leo J. Brissel, Catholic Church; F. S. Eastwood, Beebe-town Baptist ; V. S. Goodale, Medina and Brunswick Church of Christ ; H. W. Hunt, Chatham Congregational, (R. 5) ; C. A. Miller, Medina and York Pentecostal; H. F. Patterson, Medina Methodist; H. B. Rasey, Granger and Sharon Methodist. Seville, E. E. Bacon, Seville Presbyterian Church; E. F. Randall, Seville Baptist. Spencer, George Bates, Spencer Baptist Church ; Stanley B. Noffsinger, Black River Church of the Brethren ; L. J. Quade, Spencer and River Corners Methodist ; George Smith, Spencer and Homer Lutheran. Lodi, William Caven, Lodi Methodist ; Virgil Myers, Lodi Congregational. Brunswick, Merle Chaffee, Brunswick and Bennett's Corners Methodist ; C. H. Searles, Hinckley Ridge Baptist. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 461 Chippewa Lake, S. W. Ellis, Chippewa Lake, Egypt and Mount Pleasant United Brethren churches. Berea, H. T. Ficken, York and Mallet Creek Methodist. West Salem, R. A. Hall, West Salem and Homerville Methodist ; Rittman, C. G. Hamilton, Remson Corners Church of Christ; Friendsville, Don Heaston, Friendsville Reformed; Valley City, H. Huge, Valley City Lutheran (Missouri synod) ; J. M. Kitter, Liverpool Catholic ; A. Lamprecht, Valley City Evangelical Lutheran ; I. H. Wierth, Evangelical. Litchfield, B. W. Nichols, Baptist ; F. H. Schoot, Litchfield and Penfield Congregational. Chatham and Lafayette Methodist, Ira D. Rife, and Seville and Chippewa Lake Methodist, Paul P. Brown. Retired pastors of the county are S. M. Friend, Lodi ; A. B. Horst, Spencer, and John Yoder, Spencer. All three are retired Brethren pastors. Secretary of Medina County Y. M. C. A. is Burton C. Houseman and of the Y. W. C. A., Miss Metta Mitchell. MEDINA SCHOOLS Facts regarding the Medina County schools are given elsewhere in this history. The county superintendent is S. H. Babcock and the superintendent of the town schools of Medina is W. E. Conkle. The schools of Medina today include the splendid new high school building erected in 1923, one of the finest and best equipped school plants possessed by any town of its size in the state ; the Garfield building, erected about 1911, and the Lincoln building, which was the old high school. The high school has an auditorium seating about 950 and a gymnasium. Sidney Fenn is principal of the high school ; W. E. Kellogg, assistant principal, and the other high school teachers are Margaret Adkins, Edith Allen, Howard E. Claggett, Kitty Cooper, 0. C. Duke, Harley Linn, Gertrude Martin, Sam J. Masi, Florence Phillips, Losia Stewart, Floyd L. Thomas, Elberta Watters, Eleanor Wright, Elizabeth Aldrich, Esther Dining and Helen Pumphrey. Garfield building: Charles Bart, principal ; Marie Bigelow, Mary E. Cook, Pearl Drake, Helen Eastwood, Luella Gault, Mrs. Edna Herthneck, Mrs. Dorothy Kindig and Rose Wessel. Lincoln building: Ella Canavan, principal ; Netha Clark, Gladys 462 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Clift, Clara Masheter, Wilda Mounts, Florence Ramga, Maisie ToIlafield, Millie Tubbs, Thelma Van Arsdale and Mary Walker. Board of education : L. H. Randall, president ; N. S. Kellogg, vice president ; H. C. West, clerk ; R. H. Halderson and R. E. Snedden. The board of education at the time the new high school building was erected consisted of Grant McNeal, president; H. E. Aylard, clerk ; L. F. Garver, E. F. Gibbs, and Fr. H. P. H. Robinson. The architects were Ridley & Glazier and the general contractor, V. W. Surber. Prof. Conkle has been at the head of the schools for a number of years and was superintendent at the time the new building was built. Medina's newspapers are the Medina County Gazette, of which W. B. Baldwin, former postmaster of Akron, is publisher ; and the Medina Sentinel, published by Mrs. Mary K. Long and edited by George M. Denton, former mayor of Medina. One of Medina's noteworthy institutions is the Pythian Sisters' Home, dedicated in June, 1916. The farm was willed by Sophia H. Parker and the building is on a natural eminence at the northwest edge of Medina, overlooking a landscape of great beauty. On the J. K. Bihn farm in York Township, west of Medina, the National Airport Company is establishing a station for use as a landing place in case of emergency. A brick building is to be erected and a huge beacon light maintained. These stations are to be located every 200 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The president of the Medina County Farm Bureau is George Ganyard, of Granger ; vice president, Harold Rose, of Guilford ; secretary, A. B. Ruckel, of Sharon ; treasurer, C. G. Bohley, of York. The women directors at large are Mrs. A. B. Ruckel of Sharon, Mrs. C. D. Eastwood of Hinckley, and Mrs. C. G. Bohley of York. Granges of Medina County are at Sharon Center, Lafayette, Mallet Creek, Guilford, Hinckley, Leroy, Montville, Brunswick, Homer, Wadsworth and Westfield. The county has a Grange Theatre in which plays are presented at the county fair each fall. This movement has been very effective in developing the histrionic abilities of the young people in the various neighborhoods. The president of the theatre group is Mrs. Arthur G. Abbott of Wadsworth ; vice president, H. J. Kohli of Lodi ; secretary, Charles Eaken of Lafayette ; treasurer, O. C. Duke of Medina. Serving on the executive committee with the officers are John Keiser, Medina, county grand deputy ; V. D. Burris, and O. C. McIntyre, Medina County farm HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 463 agents. For a great many years there has been a county fair held at Medina. The one this year will be held September 21-23. Former Senator F. M. Plank of Medina has been secretary of the fair organization for a great many years. The president of the Medina County Bar Association is Arthur Van Epp ; vice president, William A. Caine ; secretary and treasurer, John A. Webber. A former Medina man who has attained prominence as an educator is Prof. John S. Kenyon, who is at the head of the department of English at Hiram College and teaches a class at Western Reserve University. He was employed recently by the publishers of Webster's International Dictionary to do some work for a new edition of the dictionary, his work including phonetics and pronunciation. Prof. Kenyon is also well known for his poetical works. One of Medina's well known poets is Mrs. Harriet M. Gleason, whose poems have appeared in quite a number of publications. The Western Reserve Power & Light Company is moving its offices from Cleveland to Medina, establishing offices on the upper floor of the Hemmetter block, West Liberty and North Court streets. It will bring a score of families to Medina. Particular attention to music is given in the Medina County schools, music appreciation having been emphasized for years as it has been in some of the other counties. Medina has a splendid symphony orchestra of sixty-nine members that has given concerts of a high order of merit. It also has a singers' club. Harry Lincoln is director of the Medina band ; Ernest Berry is business manager ; George Reinhardt, Jr., secretary ; and Stowe White, treasurer. Richard Venner is director of the Wadsworth band and Henry Eberwein directs the Creston band. Western Reserve University possesses the herbarium of the late Dr. Charles D. Freeman, Medina physician, who died in 1927. Dr. Freeman was an enthusiastic naturalist and sportsman ; he loved to wander through the woods, on which occasions he either had his gun or his pocket manual on botany. The book was marked on nearly every page and in some cases had been corrected to include growth conditions in Ohio. The collection, a very valuable one, contains a thousand specimens, each petal, sepal and leaf of which is mounted separately as well as the main parts of the plant. Dr. Freeman for many years was identified with civic affairs in Medina. 464 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO An early day publisher in Medina was Horace Canfield, afterwards publisher of the Cleveland Commercial Advertiser, forerunner of the Plain Dealer. The paper he published in Medina was the Watch Tower. The circulation of the Cleveland Commercial Advertiser in the late '30s was scarcely 400. This pioneer publisher was the father of Horace G. Canfield, at one time owner of the Akron Beacon and who died in January, 1920, at Akron at the age of eighty-nine years. The year 1930 will be remembered as the year of the great drought in so many parts of the country. People in those parts of Ohio that were little effected by the drought were quick to respond to the need of drought sufferers elsewhere and the need in the home counties. The Medina County drought relief committee was organized under the leadership of Virgil D. Burris, county agent, and on the committee were George Ganyard, Granger ; and Arthur Rucket, Sharon, representing the Farm Bureau ; John Keiser, Montville; and James McCoy, Seville, representing the Grange; C. W. Hoover, Lodi, representing the Bankers' Association; V. A. Homan, Lodi, hay dealer; Fred Snyder and Dwight Shepard, Medina, grain dealers; M. M. Perkins, Brunswick, elevators ; and Mrs. Earl Averill, Medina, the Red Cross. WADSWORTH, WADSWORTH TOWNSHIP Wadsworth, in the extreme southeastern part of Medina County, near the Summit County line, is practically in the metropolitan area of the rapidly growing city of Akron. A considerable number of Wadsworth people work in Akron, for it is only about ten miles into the heart of the Rubber City. Wadsworth has made substantial strides industrially in recent years. By the 1930 census its population was 5,930, an increase of nearly 1,200 over the preceding decade. Two and a half miles to the east of Wadsworth is the village of Western Star, on the county line. Its population is 206, 120 in Medina County and 86 in Summit County. The region around Wadsworth is one of splendid farms and enterprising agriculturists. Here is some of the finest scenery in all of Medina County. Wadsworth is not only advantageously situated, in a region of abundant resources, but it is also a city of enterprising, public-spirited citizens who have been aggressive in securing for the HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 465 community the institutions that make for the development of a citizenship of noblest type. It has especially good schools, excellent churches and civic organizations that are on the alert to the best interests of the town. For ten years it has had a municipal hospital that has been doing a highly beneficial work and is an enduring monument to those who labored so unselfishly to establish it. Back in July, 1814, the first religious services were held at the cabin of Oliver Dunham and for several years union services were held by settlers of various religious faiths. A Methodist class was organized in 1816, the Lutherans in 1817, the Congregationalists in 1819 and the Baptists in 1821, but there wad uniformly a spirit of co-operation in religious affairs as well as a neighborly spirit in behalf of the everyday affairs of the settlement. The Disciples later formed a class here. The township was named for General Elijah Wadsworth of Litchfield, Conn., who located at Canfield, Mahoning County, in 1799 and moved his family there in 1802. His Medina County holdings were large. Wadsworth Township, five miles square, contains 16,417 acres. The township is underlaid with limestone rock and there has been much coal mined in this region in the past. Dan Dean and Oliver Dunham, who reached the site of Wadsworth at the beginning of March, 1814, were from Vermont. At that time what is now the heart of Akron was merely a swamp. In 1817 Wadsworth Township received a number of settlers and in the following year was organized. Harriet Warner, in 1816, conducted the first school in the township in her father's log house and a schoolhouse was built the following fall. As in so many other of the North Central Ohio settlements, interest in education was quickly manifested and that influence can be traced all through the subsequent history of each community. The first house in the village is said to have been erected by Fred Brown. The first physician to serve the community is said to have been Dr. John Smith and the second, Dr. Austin. Dr. Nathaniel Eastman was the first physician to locate in the community. The first school above the common grade was held in the Congregational Church during the winter of 1830 and 1831. The community had been growing and in 1824 there were in the township 900 inhabitants. The early settlers found springs in nearly all parts of the township ; there had been splendid hunting in the region. In his memorial 466 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO of Wadsworth, the Rev. Edward Brown says that an Indian trader, John Holmes, from Montreal, was the first white man to have habitation in what is now Wadsworth. He lived an unsettled, roving life, didn't cultivate the land, but is recalled in the name of one of the streams of the township. Blocker's Run flows through Wadsworth and empties into the River Styx near the mouth of Holmes' Brook. Silver Creek rises in the southeast portion and meets the Chippewa a mile or two west of Clinton, Summit County. Marks on a tree cut down about 1834 lead to the belief that the Philip Ward who carved on the beech tree on the west bank of Holmes' Creek, his name and the year, 1797, and the other three, "T.D.; R. C.; and W. V.," whose initials were on that tree, may have been members of Seth Pease's surveying party. Holmes Brook and Blocker's Run were utilized for power for early day milling. Among those who erected mills considerably more than a century ago were Joseph and Sherman Loomis and Abel and George Beach. In 1826 John and Allen Pardee had the first store in the township on a hill east of Wadsworth. One hundred one years ago they erected stone buildings at the southwest corner of the public square in Wadsworth and moved to this location the store they had established four years before. They did a splendid business, drawing trade from as far west as Harrisville (Lodi). The first postoffice in the township was the one at Abel Dickinson's, which was removed to the Center four years later. The mail route of 1821 from Canton to Norwalk was through here and about 1824 John Wilson of River Styx began to go horseback over the Medina-Canton route once a week. A number of people served as postmaster during the years, one of them being Dr. George Pardee. Others were Charles J. Pardee, Sherman Blocker, John G. Houston, H. C. Pardee and Eli Overholt. The River Styx to the west of Wadsworth was a sluggish stream, oozing through the swamps, dreaded by the early travelers, and Abel Dickinson called the swamp lands "The Infernal Regions." Outcroppings of coal in the township were seen as early as 1829, but it was not mined to any great extent until the Atlantic & Great Western R. R. (now the Erie) was built in the early '60s. It is recorded that the first shipment of coal over the railroad was at Wadsworth in 1863, being brought from the Silver Creek mines. A branch line to the mines was constructed and the mining of coal for commercial purposes began in 1869. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 467 In 1866 Wadsworth was incorporated and the first officers were : Mayor, Aaron Pardee; recorder, J. C. Houston; trustees, C. N. Lyman, William F. Boyer, John Lytle, W. T. Ridenour, and L. P. Mills. Wadsworth's present officers are: Mayor, L. Earl Rickard ; clerk, Constance Baker ; treasurer, C. A. Curtis ; marshal, Thomas J. Lucas ; members of council, D. L. Rohrer, Sterling G. Sechrist, W. J. Wells, Irvin L. Zepp, Earl Deshler and George A. Ryland. Wadsworth having attained the rank of city at the beginning of December, 1930, a health board has been named by Mayor Rickard as follows : Dr. H. H. Biggs, former county health commissioner ; Dr. G. W. Parr, Mrs. George Miller, J. B. Hilliard and Sterling Sechrist. In the history of education in North Central Ohio the influence of John McGregor, the presiding genius of Wadsworth Academy, comes in for eulogistic mention. His fame went far, even beyond the state limits. It has been said of him that "few teachers have had so many pupils who have been successful mainly through the impulse given by one mind." In 1828 a group of young men met at the log schoolhouse and organized the Wadsworth Literary Club, also formed a rhetorical school with Capt. George Lyman as teacher. They met at Ben Agard's and concluded with an exhibition in the unfinished upper story of William Eyles' new house. Mention among the early teachers, besides Capt. Lyman, were Sherman Loomis, Lemuel North and John Nesmith. And then came the Scotchman, John McGregor, and in 1838 Wadsworth Academy was incorporated, an octagonal building erected. For a number of years the work of the academy was carried on with increasing success. He gave to his pupils an enthusiasm for learning; lessons were not conned over, but really learned. McGregor scorned all codes of rules. He used to say to the students : "You are ladies and gentlemen here for one purpose and that to learn. It is your school and you will see that nothing shall call me from the one work of giving instruction. I rely solely upon your own self-respect and sense of propriety and honor." He rarely reproved but it is said if it became necessary to administer discipline, "it left a scar." Leaving Wadsworth, Prof. McGregor and his son, Archibald, in 1848, founded at Canton the Stark County Democrat, which his son continued after the elder McGregor's death. The paper continued in 468 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO the McGregor family until the News-Democrat, in 1888, was sold to a company headed by General Isaac Sherwood. The public school system was established in Wadsworth and in 1869 a large brick building three stories in height and with mansard roof was erected at a cost of $25,000. This was two years after a town hall costing $5,000 was built. In 1908 a central school building was erected at a cost of $65,000. Wadsworth now has for its town schools three commodious buildings, which with equipment are valued at $650,000 ; there is a six-year high school and the total enrollment at the close of 1930 was 1,540. Frank H. Close is superintendent, the high school principal is C. J. Mayhew and there is a teaching force of forty-three. Wadsworth also has a centralized school, of which D. H. Ewing is principal. The other teachers are Vernon Isham, Marcella Alden, Mabel Hindman, Mildred Kirchberg, Anna Ward, Mary Carr, Lorna Gates, H. Mae Vining, Inez Goodman, Bertha Kuhn, Zelda Kuder and Mabel Partlon. Judge and Mrs. Eyles, pioneer residents of Wadsworth, were the grandparents of B. A. Hinsdale, noted educator, who in his youth lived in Wadsworth. Prof. Hinsdale became president of Hiram College, served as superintendent of the Cleveland schools and was a professor in the University of Michigan. Wadsworth was the birthplace of Mrs. Laura C. Spelman Rockefeller, who taught school in Cleveland and in September, 1864, wedded John D. Rockefeller, who became one of the richest men in the world. Mrs. Rockefeller, who died in 1915, was a philanthropist, a powerful influence in the life of the Standard Oil magnate. In the earlier days of his career, she kept his books, or helped him with it, and even later, when he had amassed multiplied millions, she advised him many times counter to his own ideas. "And her judgment invariably proved the better," said he, on one occasion. In Wadsworth, or near there, the poet-educator, Edward Rowland Sill, two of whose poems, "The Fool's Prayer" and "Opportunity," appear in many anthologies. He was born ninety years ago and died in 1887. He is buried at Cuyahoga Falls. Every school boy and school girl should be familiar with his "Opportunity" poem. James K. Durling, who died at Wadsworth March 12, 1911, at the age of eighty-six, is said to have made in a small building in Wadsworth the first matches in the state, antedating Barber a number of HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 469 years. From a wagon, as he drove from town to town, he used to peddle the product. It is said that he was active in procuring for Wadsworth the Atlantic & Great Western R. R. One of Wadsworth's largest industries today is the Ohio Match Company, at the head of which for many years was E. J. Young. There are a number of other important industries in Wadsworth. A rubber factory was started in Wadsworth a few years ago. J. C. Whitlam, owner and manager of the J. C. Whitlam Paint Company, died in February, 1931. He built up a thriving industry in Wadsworth, served as councilman for two terms. The Ohio Match Company, of which Don Young is president, resumed full-time operations last January. Another industry of Wadsworth is the Ohio Injector Company, which occupies the former salt works. Steps were taken last December to add to the corporation of Wadsworth fourteen acres of land to the south and east of the Ohio Injector Company's plant. Houses are on each of the pieces of property included in the annexation proposal, the Stauffer property of more than four acres being the largest of the tracts. The municipal ice plant established in Wadsworth when Dr. F. W. Boyer was mayor of the village, is said to have been the first municipal ice plant established in Ohio. Ten years ago, five years after it was established, it had more than paid for itself. It had a daily capacity of ten tons of ice and was turning into the village coffers a net profit annually of between $5,000 and $7,000. It obtained free water from the municipal water works and utilized waste steam from the municipal light plant in its manufacture of ice. Mayor Boyer for some time had fostered the idea of the ice plant ; Wadsworth citizens voted a $16,000 bond issue for the plant, after which it was discovered there was no law which would permit the village to operate its own ice plant. Whereupon Mayor Boyer proceeded to get the necessary legislation. Medina County's representative, Patrick Shank, drafted the bill and after several months it became a law. In the meantime prices of materials had advanced and it was found that the plant would cost $21,000, but the plant was built, notes being given for the balance. After a year's operation this $5,000 was paid and in 1921 the net profits had paid back all of the cost of the plant with interest and had given the village several thousand dollars for its sinking fund. Wadsworth became a municipality- 470 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO operated community with municipal light plant, water works, ice plant and a municipal hospital. MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL. In 1921 Wadsworth acquired a completely equipped $150,000 hospital, a building which the Ohio Match Company had owned and which was given to the community. Citizens and various groups in Wadsworth made substantial gifts, among the donors being the Red Cross Chapter and the Women's Hospital Auxiliary. Donations at the time of the opening of the institution increased the value of the hospital plant to more than $200,000. Dr. F. W. Boyer, at that time mayor of the town, and vice president of the Wadsworth Salt Company, became president of the board of hospital trustees and Miss Flossie Overholt, a Wadsworth nurse who had been practicing in Cleveland, became superintendent of the institution. The trustees at the time of the opening of the hospital, in addition to Dr. Boyer, were Dr. M. F. Miller, who became president of the hospital staff ; H. E. Mills, William Artman, and Mrs. C. B. Allen. The hospital staff at the beginning of the hospital included Dr. Miller, Dr. H. H. Biggs, Dr. C. A. Bolich, Dr. W. W. Everhard, Dr. E. J. Koontz and Dr. R. L. Johnson. During the years which have elapsed since then the hospital has been doing a work of very great benefit to the community, which is very proud of it. WADSWORTH CHURCHES. Churches in Wadsworth now include the Methodist Episcopal, the Reformed, Grace Lutheran, the Mennonite, Church of the Nazarine, the Christian and the Catholic. Remarkable stained glass windows, of thirteenth century type, are in Grace Lutheran Church, Wadsworth, said to be one of the best reproductions in the United States of the famed Rheims Cathedral. In a recent description of them, Alice Edison, in the Akron Times, says that 276 intricately designed medallions portray the career of the Messiah from the annunciation to the ascension. The windows are said to have been inspired by the pastor, the Rev. C. B. Etter, who for nearly two years compiled the story to be permanently wrought in glass for the windows of his beloved church. The artist HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 471 chosen for the designing was Toland Wright of Cleveland, and the windows are said to have cost $35,000. The church, Gothic in design, of tapestry brick and stone tracery and trimmings, cost $210,000. It has a seating capacity of 500 in the pews and chair space for 200 more. For all but two of the more than thirty-seven years of Pastor Etter's ministry, he has been at Wadsworth. The present church was started in May, 1916, and dedicated Sept. 14, 1919. Wadsworth, like Medina, is hoping to have a postoffice building, but it may not be an immediate project of the government. However, it is likely that before a very long period the hopes will have been realized, inasmuch as Wadsworth is growing steadily and its importance justifies a federal building. Rollie Reichard is commander of Wadsworth Post, American Legion, succeeding Glenn Brenneman. The other officers are William Simester, first vice commander ; Fred Moutes, second vice commander; Worth Westenbarger, adjutant ; Wade Hart, finance officer ; Robert Sherrard, sergeant at arms ; D. J. Burns, historian; Frank Hilliard and Herbert Tubbesing, executive committee. The Post is now planning the erection of a monument at Wadsworth commemorating soldiers who gave their lives in the World War. The memorial will be placed in the town park and a bronze tablet will contain the names of the Wadsworth soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice. The Y. M. C. A. in Wadsworth is conducting a number of activities. More than 100 boys are in the Hi-Y programs ; conducts Camp Crag, attended by young people of various groups, including Hi-Y, Girl Scouts, Girl Reserves, 4-H Clubs, and crippled children, besides the Y. M. C. A. itself. There are educational trips, conferences, inspirational addresses and life-saving instruction. One of the last survivors of the Sixteenth Ohio Infantry enlisted at Wooster in 1861, was a Wadsworth veteran, T. D. Wolbach, who died last September. Simeon Chapman of Columbus said, when he attended his comrade's funeral, that he was the last of the fighting regiment, the Sixteenth 0. V. I. "We were of the same age," said he. "Wolbach and I fought side by side for thirty-seventh months. We knew Grant and Sherman ; we fought for the flag ; and I am all that is left." Among the musical organizations of Wadsworth is the Nicodemus family orchestra, consisting of O. C. Nicodemus, who has completed 472 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO his sixth term as members of the board of education ; his wife and their five band-playing children. Another Wadsworth man who was the subject of a feature article some months ago is William L. Good, who has fifteen jobs, as follows: Funeral director, furniture store owner, township clerk, school board member, manager of a community auction sale, recording steward, financial secretary, and Bible class teacher of the Methodist Church ; Rotarian, notary public, bank director, vice president of a loan association, president of the Medina County Funeral Directors' Association ; vice president of the County Association of Township Trustees and Clerks, and president of a Parent-Teachers' Association. Andrew Auble, former Medina County man, now of Akron, son of Thomas M. Auble of Wadsworth, recently gave some of his experiences as rider of a safety bicycle forty-two years ago, and driver of the first automobile in Medina County. Forty-two years ago, when he rode back from Akron on his new "safety," Wadsworth gasped when he whirled into town and jumped from his wheel. "That was a great day for me," said he. "I got a loan from dad and started a bicycle shop. Dad thought I was crazy and grandpa was sure of it." In 1893 Auble, having equipped his bike with pneumatic tires, wheeled to the World's Fair in Chicago, riding over 100 miles in one day. The first auto in Medina County was a one-cylinder Oldsmobile which he bought in Cleveland. At the rate of five miles an hour he autoed from Wadsworth to Medina, passing horses got scared and a woman jumped from a farm wagon and hid behind a tree. His grandfather, who was with him on the ride, acknowledged that the machine would run, but was sure that it would never amount to much. He recalls when he took the Seville giant, Capt. Bates, for a ride ; also when the speed limit in Akron was five miles an hour. The first auto show in Akron in 1907 was in Auble's garage. R. A. Auble is president of the Wadsworth Auto Club and L. V. Blough, secretary. Andrew's father, now in his eighty-first year, resides in the valley of the River Styx, Medina County, where he, with his father's family, settled back in 1853. His father was a miller, operating several mills in that section. Thomas attended district school and then went to the Wadsworth Academy. He has been a member of the Wadsworth Methodist Church for nearly sixty years. He has a HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 473 splendid collection of Indian relics, picked up on his farms. He recalls the first train through Wadsworth over the Atlantic & Great Western. The engine burned wood. When William McKinley, afterwards President of the nation, was campaigning for the governorship, he and the late George Crouse had dinner in the Auble home. E. W. Arnold is president of the Wadsworth Merchants' Association and C. F. Motz is secretary. The president of the Wadsworth Ministerial Association is Rev. H. L. Turley, pastor of the Church of Christ ; vice president, Rev. G. H. Gebhart of Trinity Reformed Church; secretary, Rev. W. S. Rowe of the M. E. Church. The banks of Wadsworth are the First National and the Wadsworth Savings & Trust Company. The newspapers are the Banner-Press and the News. Western Star, two and one-half miles east of Wadsworth, has the following village officers : Mayor, Cloyd Seiberling ; clerk, J. H. Himelright ; treasurer, Clayton Spicer ; marshal, Joe Sandridge ; members of council, A. B. Davenport, Wm. Dick, R. J. Long, F. McManus, Bert Spicer and Ben Summers. THE WADSWORTH BANNER-PRESS. The Wadsworth Banner-Press is a consolidation of The Wadsworth Banner and The Wadsworth Press, the consolidation having taken place in the summer of 1906. The paper is the outgrowth of the old Wadsworth Enterprise, which was founded May 4, 1866, by John A. Clark and George A. Root. In October of the same year Mr. Root's interest was taken over by Mr. Clark. In 1885 The Wadsworth Banner was established by Jas. E. Cory and a few years later The Banner and The Enterprise were combined with the former name retained. Among the publishers, the late W. J. Swisher is best remembered by the present generation. The Wadsworth Press was established by W. H. Swift and in 1906 E. A. Day purchased The Press and the intangible assets of The Banner, combining the two papers into The Wadsworth Banner-Press. Mr. Day sold the paper in 1907 to the late Walter S. Hostetler of New York City, former publisher of The Doylestown Journal and The Canal Fulton Signal. Under Mr. Hostetler's management, The Banner-Press flourished and the job shop was modernized and enjoyed a liberal patronage. 474 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO In 1922 Nellie A. Harter, who had been an employee for some years, purchased an interest in The Banner-Press and upon the death of Mr. Hostetler in May, 1929, she assumed full charge as editor and general manager. Mr. Hostetler's financial interest is retained by his widow and daughter, Mrs. Vida Hostetler and Miss Kathleen Hostetler. A. J. Michel, formerly of The Berea News, Berea, Ohio, is associate editor and advertising manager. During the past year the building has been remodeled and modernized and numerous improvements have been made in the mechanical equipment, all tending toward the establishment of a modern printing plant. The newspaper's slogan is, "Established in. 1866—still growing and expanding," and the aim of the editors is to make the paper the outstanding weekly newspaper in Northern Ohio. The appreciation of the public is apparent by the largest representation of local merchants in the advertising columns during the twenty-seven years of the present editor's association with the paper. LODI, HARRISVILLE TOWNSHIP. One hundred twenty years ago the first settlement in Medina County was made at Harrisville, now Lodi, by Judge Joseph Harris, his wife and daughter. Judge Harris, a native of Connecticut, had been an agent of the Connecticut Land Company and took land at this place in payment for his services. Here in February, 1811, he erected a log cabin. He fled from the frontier when an alarm was sounded of danger from the Indians, but soon returned and resumed his life in the forest. He and his family became prominent in the community and in the little park at Lodi, where is also a soldiers' monument, is an Indian statue-fountain commemorating Judge and Mrs. Harris and their daughter, Mrs. E. Ainsworth, the latter being the builder of Lodi's water works and one of the founders of the Lodi Home for the Aged. She died in 1897. Henry Ainsworth was Lodi's first banker and a very liberal citizen. He died in 1886. Lodi, in the southwest part of Medina County, is on the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the B. & O.; also U. S. auto route 42, eleven miles southwest of Medina. The Cleveland, Southwestern line was formerly operated through here but has been discontinued. The popu- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 475 lation of Lodi in 1930 was 1,273. Here is the 1,200-acre truck farm of the Horr-Warner Company in what has sometimes been spoken of as the "million dollar kettle-bowl of Ohio," fertile truck land on which are raised onions, celery, potatoes, cabbage and where 400 up to 1,000 people are employed sometimes during a single season. There are some other industries, including sawmill and flouring mill. The newspaper is the Lodi Review. At the time of Lodi's centennial in 1911, Cunningham and Dunlap, who at that time were publishers of the Review, issued a very creditable booklet giving pictures of pioneers and of scenes in the village, together with a good history of the community. The next settlers in Harrisville, after the Harris's, were George Burr and wife and Russell Burr. Later came the Corbins and after the War of 1812 a number of families settled there. Russell Burr erected the first frame building in 1816; the first schoolhouse was erected in the spring of 1817 and Miss Diadema Churchill was the teacher. In October of that year the Congregational Church was established. The township was organized in 1817, Isaac Catlin being elected justice of the peace; Carolus Tuttle, constable; Timothy Burr, clerk ; and Joseph Harris, Isaac Catlin and L. Holcomb, trustees. In 1820 James Redfield brought the first stock of groceries and dry-goods. The population of the township was 231 in 1818. The name of Harrisville was changed to Lodi in 1829, the postoffice was established in 1834 and in 1859 Lodi had its first fair. The fair grounds are now a part of the Old Ladies' Home farm. Pioneer merchants of the village were Jeremiah Higbee and Henry Ainsworth, previously mentioned. The history pays tribute to the memory of Mrs. Ainsworth, who put in the water works and fountain in 1888 at a cost of $20,000 and in 1895, she and Mrs. Rounds established the Old Ladies' Home, endowing it with about $20,000. Joseph Harris died Oct. 2, 1863, and his wife in 1874. Lomer Griffin, a soldier of the War of 1812, was over 106 years old when he died Sept. 19, 1878. Lodi was incorporated in 1892, the first mayor being C. E. Parmelee. The Wheeling & Lake Erie R. R. was built through Lodi in 1881, the B. & 0. in 1891 and the Millersburg branch two years later. The high school building, erected in 1867, was used as an academy for some years. In 1904 the electric light plant was built and natural gas was brought by the Medina Gas & Fuel Company in 1911. A 476 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO noted hostelry of this section of the state is Taylor Inn. The village has a very active Rotary Club. At the head of the Lodi centralized schools is H. A. White and the other teachers are John Bilke, Frank Hurd, Harold Loomis, Marjorie Burtsfield, Evelyn Dunlap, Priscilla Payn, Elda Behnke, Lulu O'Hara, Freda Pelton, Merlin Parent, Lura Pelton, Evelyn Vanosdal, Carolyn Weimer, Kleo Martin, Ruth Blust, Pearl Wilford, Ruth Nichols, Sadie Edwards and Myra Whitney. A new $125,000 school building was completed in 1923. There is a centralized high school. The mayor of Lodi is D. A. Eaken and the other officers are : Clerk, Dale Clifford ; treasurer, Lillian Gridley ; marshal, W. W. Young ; members of council, Charles Archer, Herbert Falconer, Harold Fetzer, Herman Funk, N. A. Rice and J. Edward Warner. The Star Telephone Company built its exchange in Lodi in 1896. Charles Rowland of Lodi is a member of the board of directors of this company, which operates exchanges in Ashland, Burbank, Congress, Creston, Homerville, Jeromesville, Lakeville, Lodi, Loudonville, Red Haw, Savannah, Seville, Wadsworth and West Salem. S. H. Grabill, of Ashland, is president of the company, and Charles W. Good, of Ashland, secretary and general manager. The company has 4,000 phones in Ashland and 8,900 in the area. Lodi has two banks, the Lodi State Bank and the Peoples National Bank. One hundred fifty farmers are stockholders of the Lodi Farmers' Equity Association Exchange. Three aged Civil War veterans in Lodi are John Kime, eighty-nine ; Isaac W. Gates, eighty-eight; and William Musser, eighty-five. Comrade Kime recalls how he climbed into a wagon and drove through the mud of Congress to vote for Lincoln. Comrade Gates was in the army near Knoxville, Tenn., when he voted. Comrade Musser was at one time stationed at Washington and recalls Lincoln. He belonged to the Home Guards and had returned to his home near Shreve before the assassination of Lincoln. He was at Wooster drilling with the company April 15, 1865, when Col. Joe Carr told the news of the assassination of the President and there was no more drilling that day. SEVILLE, GUILFORD TOWNSHIP. An opening in the forests of Guilford Township was made in 1816 by Roger Newberry, Justin Ely, Enoch Perkins, Elijah White and HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 477 John and Dave Wilson. In February, 1817, came permanent settlers, Henry and Chester Hosmer, Mary T. Shaubil and Abigail Porter from Massachusetts. On the south bank of Hubbard Creek the men built a log house and at the beginning of March the entire colony moved in. Near by was an Indian village of ten wigwams, there being good hunting in the lowlands of Hubbard and Chippewa creeks, elk, deer, bear and wolves. Other early settlers of Guilford were David, John and Robert Wilson. When, on Dec. 18, 1818, at Lyman Munsun's, near Seville, David Wilson married Abigail Porter, people from nearby settlements were present. Squire Warner, of Wadsworth, officiated and at the close of the evening festivities the bridgegroom put his bride on the horse and they made their way to their home in the forest. This was the first wedding in the township and some of their descendants are still living there. By 1817 Guilford Township had advanced and roads had been built converging at the Hosmer's opening which became the site of the town. In 1828 Henry Hosmer asked County Surveyor Nathaniel Bell to plat the town of Seville, which was at one time called Guilford. The first postmaster after the establishment of a mail route from Huron County to Portage County was William Hosmer. The first school house erected, in 1821, burned the following year and a new one was built in 1823, in which year a military company was formed in the township. Seville, nearly twenty years ago, was known as one of the greatest poultry towns in the country and one writer asserted that as a poultry center it ranked next to Petaluma, Calif. Like some other towns in this region, a great deal of attention is given to beekeeping, much honey being produced. Seville is famed, also, for having been the home of giants. The house in which they lived is still standing near the village. Captain Martin Van Buren Bates, who died at Seville in January, 1919, in his seventy-fourth year, is said to have been at one time seven feet, eleven and a half inches tall and to have weighed 478 pounds but at the time of his death his height was seven feet, four inches, and his weight 380 pounds. His first wife, the Nova Scotian giantess, Miss Anna Swan, whom he wedded June 17, 1871, at the famous church of St. Martin-in-the-fields, London, while on a tour of England, is also said to have been within half an inch of eight feet tall. For a number of years, Captain Bates and his wife were star attractions of Barnum's Museum in New York City and of his 478 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO traveling companies. It is asserted that never since has there been a couple so tall as these. They appeared several times before Queen Victoria, who gave Mrs. Bates a diamond ring and Captain Bates an enormous gold watch and chain. They appeared before the Prince of Wales, afterward King Edward VI and before other notables of the old world. A daughter, twenty-seven inches tall and weighing eighteen pounds, was born to them but died at birth. They toured the continent and after returning to America in July, 1874, they bought a farm of 160 acres near Seville. The farm house built by Captain Bates was constructed with doors eight and one-half feet in height and the rooms had fourteen-foot ceilings. In this house their second child, a boy, weighing twenty-two pounds and twenty-eight inches tall, was born. He died in early infancy. Captain Bates, though still filling engagements as a circus attraction, took great pleasure in raising pedigreed livestock on his farm, Clydesdale and Norman horses, Shorthorn cattle. Early in the 80s, Captain and Mrs. Bates retired from the show business. The Nova Scotian giantess, Mrs. Bates, died in August, 1886. Captain Bates' second wife, Miss Lavonne Weatherby, daughter of a Baptist minister, whom he married in 1887, was a woman of ordinary height. For many years they continued to live on the farm, east of Seville, but a few years before the captain's death he rented the farm and they moved to the village. He was interested in religion, a member of the Baptist Church in Seville. He had been in failing health for some months prior to his death in January, 1919, and had decreased both in height and weight. Born in Kentucky, Nov. 9, 1845, Captain Bates in September, 1861, became a soldier, enlisting as a private in the Fifth Kentucky Infantry, and advancing to a captaincy. He was well read, was a keen observer and had a wealth of reminiscences of famous people, knowing personally most of the crowned heads of Europe. He left an estate of $26,250. In his will he made provision for his widow, bequests to relatives in Kentucky and $1,000 to the Ladies' Cemetery Association of Seville, to keep his lot in Mound Hill Cemetery in condition. From the executors of the Bates estate, George F. High, Medina jeweler, purchased the famous watch, chain and charm which Queen Victoria gave the giant in 1871. The watch, which bore the English coat of arms, was an eighteen carat case with about $150 HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 479 worth of gold. The massive chain was only nine carats. The watch was sold in 1929 to Robert Morrison of Medina. SEVILLE BEEKEEPER-PHILOSOPHER. Another interesting Seville man was the late M. D. Tyler, beekeeper and philosopher. He was a farmer but preferred to be known as "the bee man." During a period of more than thirty years he sold many tons of honey. One writer said of him that Tyler knew just how many trips a bee must take to gather an ounce of honey, just what flowers were blooming, where the best nectar came from, how the Queen and all her little Amazon subjects conducted themselves, how during the spring and summer days they worked for him and boarded themselves and how each little republic in each little hive fared in government and work accomplished. "I never get tired of bees or of their honey," said he some time before his death in 1916. "That's why I peddle the honey around. It gives me something to do. In the winter days when the bees have all clustered in their dark little homes, waiting patiently for spring, I'm waiting for spring, too ; not that I loaf in winter for there is plenty to do, cleaning old hives and preparing new ones. In the fall, I go over all my old colonies, seeing that each has a good queen, generally not over three years old. Each colony should have plenty of good bees and if left on their summer stands, they should either be in the chaff-hives or cell-packed with leaves. They must have honey enough to last them until May. "A queen quits laying eggs in October and doesn't resume her duties until the middle of March. During this time the bees should not be disturbed until they begin to fly in the spring. Then, if they are short of stores, you can feed them granulated sugar, making it into a hard taffy and laying it on top of their brood frames. If, during the dormant season they are well packed in, they will repay you tenfold when the sun shines warmly again. Yes, indeed, the sun means flowers, flowers mean bees, bees mean business, and business means honey." Seville village officers are : Mayor, C. V. Matteson ; clerk, Ralph Schwan ; treasurer, Alva S. Foster ; marshal, Charles Renneckar ; members of council, Joe Bonham, J. C. Murray, G. Pease, W. E. Rossel, Harry N. Shaffer and Irvin Swinehart. 480 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Teachers in the Seville schools are F. D. Riffey, superintendent ; Corl Edwards, Lola Wilson, Lucy Miller, Vienna Kerr, Ethel Kruggel, Ethel Richardson, Gladys Riffey, Margaret Ford, Dorothy Gunkleman, Ruth Ewing, Mabel Long and Margaret Bolles. SPENCER AND SPENCER TOWNSHIP. The village of Spencer in the west part of Medina County is on the Wheeling & Lake Erie R. R. and the Northern Ohio R. R. It is north of Homerville and it had a population of 592 in 1930. Sam Parkman of Vermont was the original owner of the Spencer Township lands. The township was first settled in 1823, John P. Marsh building his house along the Black River. The village was originally called River Corners. The township was organized in 1832 and named after Calvin Spencer, a mill owner. Churches of Spencer are Mt. Zion Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist. C. R. Spencer, hay and grain dealer, operator of gas and oil stations, was formerly mayor of the village and is now village clerk. He recently staged a Red Cross benefit show in the village ; it was quite successful. W. Q. McAdoo is at the head of the Spencer schools and the other teachers are Wayne Lawrence, Virginia Trundle, Marian Weidman, Edna Kiesz, Maude Hendricks, Dorothy Hoff, Hester Krohmer and Florence Kemery. THE SPENCER MANUFACTURING COMPANY. The Spencer Manufacturing Company, makers of automobile replacement parts, numbers on its payroll representatives of the majority of the families in Spencer and vincinity and distributes in wages approximately two hundred thousand dollars a year. It was organized by George C. Bouthinon immediately following the World War. Financial difficulties were experienced and in the spring of 1921 it passed into the hands of J. B. Childe as trustee in bankruptcy. Under the name of the Spencer Manufacturing Company it was reorganized in August, 1922, with a capital stock of $300,000. In 1929 the stockholders authorized the issuance of 50,000 shares of no par common stock, the outstanding stock to be exchanged share-for-share. The business has slowly developed into a profitable one and the company's products are distributed throughout the world. Over HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 481 sixty warehouse stocks are maintained in the United States and Canada, rendering replacement axle shafts, pinion shafts and propeller shafts promptly available to any point in that territory. The present officers of the corporation are : President, W. P. Witherow ; vice president of the Republic Steel Corporation ; vice president, secretary and general manager, J. B. Childe ; treasurer, J. H. Firestone, and assistant treasurer, J. B. Firestone. Grant Hull is mayor of Spencer ; C. R. Aldrich, clerk ; treasurer, Isie B. Miller ; marshal, A. C. Neidhardt. LEROY AND WESTFIELD TOWNSHIP. On the Benjamin Franklin Highway (state route 17), twelve miles west of Wadsworth, is the modern model village of Leroy, which some one has described as so "white, clean, and beautiful, it seems to burst right out of the fair fields and woodlands on a pretty hill in Medina county." This spotless town, as it has sometimes been called, has a population of 249, and its citizens are very proud of it and say that for a town of that size there is nothing like it in the world. This village is the home of the Ohio Farmers Insurance Company, a $5,000,000 corporation which co-operates in every movement for the benefit of the community. The village has paved streets, municipal electric lights and water, majestic shade trees, extensive athletic field, fine sidewalks, sewerage and in recent years a $400,000 high school building and auditorium was erected. Here is the Westfield Inn, noted for its entertainment and there are two churches, the Methodist and Universalist. Westfield Township was surveyed by George Collier ; James Fowler and Henry Thorndyke were the first individual land owners. When, in 1826, James Fowler laid out the village of Leroy, formerly called Westfield Center, he set off four acres for a public square. A postoffice was established in 1836 at Winston's Corners. On Feb. 8, 1848, the Ohio Farmers Insurance Company was organized at Leroy with fifteen charter members : Jonathan Simmons, who became the first president ; B. D. Austin, who was made secretary ; George Collier, Selah Beach, Luther King, Asa Farnum, J. 0. Simmons, Earl Moulton, Henry Chapin, Isaac Phillips, Isaac Jones, Timothy Burr, Amos Sheldon, Isaac Rogers and John Chase, The present officers of the company are: President and treasurer, F. H. Hawley; vice president, Blake McDowell ; secretary, D. W. 482 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Crane ; assistant secretaries, D. S. Reynolds, G. S. Valentine and Jean C. Hiestand. At Westfield Inn in Leroy in February, 1931, Pomona Grange of Medina County, sponsored a program with Westfield Grange, as host. The local granges forming the county organization are : Wadsworth, Sharon Center, Guilford, Montville, Brunswick, Homer, Westfield, Lafayette, Mallet Creek, Leroy and Hinckley. On New Years Day, 1931, the Rev. T. L. McConnell, sixty-seven, who for thirty-nine years had been in the ministry, six years of which were at Leroy, died of apoplexy. At the time of his death he was president of the county ministerial association. G. S. Valentine is mayor of Leroy and the other officers are : Clerk, Paul Wertenberger ; treasurer, Ted England ; marshal, Jay Tanner ; members of council, R. G. Beasley, W. W. Daniels, H. A. Haines, Jean Heistand, Arthur Kindig and W. W. Waters. CHIPPEWA LAKE, LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP. Chippewa-on-the-Lake village in Lafayette Township, incorporated in 1929, has a population of only twenty-two, but during the summer season, there is a large population as Chippewa Lake is a favorite place of resort for cottagers and excursion parties. The lake which covers 526 acres is twenty-two miles from Cleveland and 700 feet above Lake Erie. The township was organized in 1832. Ten votes were cast at the election and one man received three offices. In 1824 Rev. Joel Goodell preached in a schoolhouse near Isaiah Done's. The First Congregational Church was organized in 1835. Other denominations were also organized. The village officers are : Mayor, George M. Moses ; clerk, Ernest J. Hulland ; treasurer, A. W. Leesburg ; marshal, John Skala ; members of council, John C. Doering, Fred Lees, Sylvester Lowery, Charles Weidenmann, Louis E. Busch and William E. Curtis. At Lafayette, in this township, General Russell A. Alger, who was Secretary of War in President McKinley's cabinet, was born in 1836. He served in the Second Michigan Cavalry during the Civil War, became Governor of Michigan and in 1897 was chosen Secretary of War. He was appointed United States Senator from Michigan in HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 483 1902 and re-elected in 1903. He died in 1907. He was a poor boy and at the age of fourteen, worked as a farm laborer for three dollars a month and board. He was admitted to the bar in 1859. Chippewa Lake teachers are L. E. Gorham and Lucile Koppler. Lafayette teachers are Willard Plough, Margaret Gamble, Dorothy Fuller and Edna Culler. MALLET CREEK, YORK TOWNSHIP. Mallet Creek, in York Township, was formerly known as York Center. It was in this township in 1842 that George K. Nash, afterwards Governor of Ohio, was born. He entered Oberlin College in 1862 and in his sophomore year became a private in the One Hundred Fifty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. After the war he studied law at Columbus, was admitted to the bar in 1867, became prosecuting attorney of Franklin County, was on the Supreme Court Commission for two terms and Governor of Ohio from 1900 to 1904. He died Oct. 28, 1904. At Mallet Creek, a great many years ago, there were two publishing houses which did such a large business that the postmaster's salary became $1,400 a year. York Township teachers are : A. H. Kuder, Carl Karlovetz, Bernice Perkins, Grace Koontz, Laura Morrow, Lena Canfield, Ethel Smith, Bertha Rericha and Beulah Lawrence. VALLEY CITY, LIVERPOOL TOWNSHIP. Valley City is a village of Liverpool Township in the northwest part of Medina County. Four families came to this township in February, 1812, following Moses Demming, who had come the previous year. The salt springs attracted settlers and the making of salt was an early industry. A pioneer physician of Valley City and Lafayette was Dr. J. E. Parker, who was born a century ago. He served during the Civil War, practiced medicine at Liverpool Center (Valley City) and was the postmaster. Later he moved to Lafayette. He died in 1894 and is buried in Myrtle Hill cemetery, Valley City. In this township in 1842 was born Charles B. Lewis, who became a famous humorist on the Detroit Free Press. His writings were syndicated and he had a national reputation. He died Aug. 21, 1924. 484 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO OTHER VILLAGES AND TOWNSHIPS. Among the other villages and hamlets of Medina County are Abbeyville in York Township ; Codingville in Sharon Township, in which township is Sharon Center, where there was an academy, established in 1835, that became one of the leading schools of the county. Here the Rev. Joshua Crawford, minister and poet, a kinsman of Col. William Crawford, preached at one time. In the village of Litchfield the Rev. Dr. William E. Barton, famous minister, author and lecturer preached while he was working his way through Oberlin College. The historical Congregational Church at Litchfield will be 100 years old in 1933 and $6,500 is to be spent in building an addition to the church and remodeling it. Many interesting stories are told of early days in this township. The Methodist Church at Poe, in Montville Township, celebrated its 100th anniversary last October. It was founded in 1829 by St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church and was taken over the following year by the Methodists. In the village of Chatham Center was born, in 1854, the famous poet, Edith N. Thomas. She was educated at the Geneva Normal Institute, where she lived for many years, later locating in New York. In this village, when his father was pastor of the Congregational Church from 1877 to 1880, Charles S. Whitman, afterwards of New York State, lived. The family came to Chatham from Berea and after three years they moved to Canfield. Speaking of his boyhood, Governor Whitman said : "We lived in Chatham Center in the Congregational parsonage on the Medina Road. Charles Thatcher's family lived next door on the west and Mr. Sanford on the east. Some of the boys I knew were Allison Shaw, Archie Moody, and Roscoe Thatcher." Near Medina, Mrs. Florence Morse Kingsley, noted religious writer, was born in 1859. Hinckley Township, the northern part of which is in the area of the metropolitan park system of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, is famed for the Hinckley hunt of Dec. 24, 1818, an account of which is given in another part of this history. It will be recalled that in this event about 600 settlers participated. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 485 Judge Amos R. Webber, of Elyria, is a native of this township and has written interestingly of people and events of this locality. Prior to 1818 very little was known of this township for the rugged hills and rough country did not appeal to the first settlers in the county. But it was a wonderful hunting ground and as such had been used by the Indians and by early settlers in other parts of the county. Whipps ledges are in this region. This township was surveyed in 1819 by Abraham Freese of Brunswick. Judge Sam Hinckley owned this township and the land of a couple of other townships. The first township election was in a log house in 1825. In this township is Camp Crag, to which each summer various organizations of young people come to camp, also farm women. It is a very attractive region and is a delightful place for these outings. There are various other places in the county of which one might speak, for every section of Medina County is rich in interest and should be enthusiastically studied. It is to be regretted that space limitations prevent enlarging upon the numerous subjects of which we might write. CHAPTER XXXVII. MANSFIELD, SHELBY, RICHLAND COUNTY. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF MANUFACTURING CITY OF MANSFIELD -TYPICALLY AMERICAN POPULATION-JOURNEY TO COLUMBUS 101 YEARS AGO-FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE THROUGH MANSFIELD-COMING OF RAILROADS- INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS OF MANSFIELD TODAY-PARK SYSTEM-SCHOOLS- MAYORS OF MANSFIELD-GROWING CITY OF SHELBY -ITS NOTABLES-PLYMOUTH, BELLVILLE, LEXINGTON, BUTLER, LUCASOTHER VILLAGES. To obtain a comprehensive knowledge of the city of Mansfield, which is steadily growing in importance as a manufacturing city, as are some of the other cities and towns of North Central Ohio of which we have been speaking, one must study its historical background, the quality and spirit of its early settlers and those of Richland County ; the part that some of its citizens have had in the development of this section of Ohio, and for that matter on the destiny of this nation. Mansfield, a great many years ago, became known as the home of the statesman, John Sherman, who studied law here, was admitted to the bar on attaining his majority and soon entered upon the career that eventually made him an international figure. But Mansfield and Richland County have furnished many others who achieved fame. Mansfield was the home of two Governors of Ohio, Judge Mordecai Bartley and his son, Judge Thomas W. Bartley ; a Lieutenant Governor, Col. Thomas H. Ford ; a number of Congressmen and jurists, one of whom, Judge Jacob Brinkerhoff, as a member of Congress, was the real author of the famous Wilmot Proviso. Here Samuel J. Kirkwood, later Governor of Iowa, United States Senator and cabinet member, began the practice of law. South of Mansfield was the boyhood home of Governor John Peter Altgeld, of ; a few miles west of Mansfield was born, seventy years ago, United States Senator James A. Reed, of Missouri. Another - 486 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 487 noted man born near Mansfield, in 1817, was Bishop William Logan Harris of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The birthplace of Governor John W. Leedy, of Kansas, was in southern Richland County, near Bellville. Judge Mordecai Bartley, prior to becoming Governor of Ohio, represented this district for four terms in the Congress of the United States from 1823 to 1831. Others who served in Congress from Mansfield in addition to Judge Brinkerhoff, Mordecai Bartley and John Sherman, were William Patterson, Judge G. W. Geddes, M. D. Harter, and Winfield S. Kerr. William W. Skiles, of Shelby, also represented this district in Congress. Mansfield was the home of the famous penologist, General Roeliff Brinkerhoff ; the world traveler, Frank G. Carpenter, author of numerous books of travel, was a native of Mansfield, and is buried in the Mansfield cemetery. Among the famous novelists of today is Louis Bronfield, whose earlier years were spent in Mansfield. In other chapters mention has been made of Civil War leaders from Richland County. Commander Edward Parker Wood, of the Petrel of Dewey's fleet at the battle of Manilla Bay, was a native of Mansfield. Rear Admiral Benjamin F. Day, second oldest admiral living, who, in January, 1931, celebrated at Roanoke, Va., his ninetieth anniversary, is a native of Plymouth. Numerous other Richland County people who have achieved, and are achieving, prominence in the world's activities, could be cited. This 123-year-old city of Mansfield, which has grown from 17,640 in 1900 to 33,525 in 1930, is county seat of Richland County, which has a population of 65,902, made up as follows : Blooming Grove Township, 721; Butler, 516 ; Cass, 1,147 ; Franklin, 747 ; Jackson, 892 ; Jefferson, 1,943 ; Madison, 41,841; Mifflin, 680; Monroe, 1,410 ; Perry, 465 ; Plymouth, 1,447 ; Sandusky, 475 ; Sharon, 7,024 ; Springfield, 1,569 ; Troy, 1,229 ; Washington, 1,210 ; Weller, 1,023 ; Worthington 1,563. "Mansfield is typical America in its location, in the background of its population, in the agricultural community surrounding it, in its history in its railroad transportation--here it is a little better than typical—and in the nature of its industries and heir economic organization," says an editorial in the Mansfield Journal, which mentions that in 1921 the National Child Council selected this city for its health demonstration out of eighty communities. 488 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO "Mansfield stands on the last of the hills of the Appalachian highlands, just before they run down to the prairie. Mansfield has both upland and plain, not too much of either. One of the great continental divides passes within a few miles of Mansfield. "Richland County's population is typically American. Its main substance is the Scotch-Irish and the Pennsylvania Germans who came out on the westward wave of migration when this was the frontier, a little more than a century ago. It received at the same time a share of the New England population which filled and overflowed the borders of the Western Reserve, not twenty miles north of here. Mansfield lay nearly opposite two of the main routes of the settlers across the Alleghany highlands, and a third route, the Mohawk trail, lay to the northeast. Only one other gateway had an importance equal in American history to these three, and that was the one across the southern Alleghenies into Kentucky and Tennessee. The newer elements in Mansfield's population are also those typical of America. Like all manufacturing cities it has drawn from central and southern Europe and from the southern states. More rapidly than in the larger cities these elements mingle and Americanize." After speaking of Mansfield in a historical sense and its great men, the editorial speaks of the highway system, Mansfield's city plan as a happy mixture of New England and "Down East" ideas. It mentions that the public square is one of comparatively few in the region south of the Western Reserve. The people who laid out Mansfield planned it for a city. Yet the arrangement of alleys between the tiers of lots through the block centers is a Pennsylvania scheme. "Mansfield is typically American in its manufacturing interests," says the editorial, further. "Mansfield's open hearth steel furnaces are the westernmost extension of the Pittsburgh district. Mansfield is on the rim of the world's greatest iron and steel producing district, close enough away from the center to escape being dominated by steel. Industrially, we are a blend of nearly all the main currents in American production. We have grown a little faster than the average American town, due, probably, to our midway position in so many respects. The true average, paradoxically, can be better than the average. "Mansfield is in the midst of the markets, near the centers of national population and of the population east of the Mississippi, nearer still to the center of industry, close to raw materials of every HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 489 kind, with better-than-average transportation, possessing the representative American population. Mansfield's history has been quiet progress of the happy community, her future will be that of representative American midlanders. Mansfield is America's typical city and it's time she began telling about it." Elsewhere in this history we have told of the founding of Mansfield, the erection of blockhouses on the public square, scenes during the War of 1812, the first court of the county in the upper story of the old blockhouse on the square, the courthouse and jail of 1816, the brick courthouse of 1827, remodeled in 1851 and a third story added ; the completion of the present courthouse in 1873 and the elaborate remodeling in 1903. The brick jail erected at the northeast corner of East Third and Sugar streets (Franklin Avenue) was repaired several times and used for more than half a century. Here was incarcerated a negro who was hanged May 31, 1878. A high board fence which formed the inclosure for the gallows was torn down so that the multitudes might see the execution. This action was much the same as occurred at a double execution in Ashland, May 16, 1884, the last county seat execution in Ohio. The present Richland County jail, south of the courthouse, was built in 1880. The first Richland County infirmary in Weller Township was erected in 1845-46 at a cost of $3,000. This one burned in June, 1878, and a new one erected the following year. The present infirmary building was constructed following a fire Aug. 9, 1924, when two inmates perished in the flames of the structure. The infirmary population in the fall of 1930 was ninety-nine. Grover Dickson is the superintendent. The present Richland County officials are : County representative, Frank Cave, Mansfield ; probate judge, Charles L. McClellan ; common pleas judge, Charles H. Huston; clerk of courts, Robert A. Atton ; sheriff, Walter Underwood; auditor, Arthur S. Beck ; county commissioners, A. E. Piper, John C. Friday, G. W. McFarland ; treasurer, Arthur M. Lantz ; recorder, Norman L. Wolfe ; surveyor, Albert L. Allen ; prosecuting attorney, G. E. Kalbfleisch ; coroner, James K. Biddle; municipal judge, Robert E. Hutchinson. President of the Richland County Bar Association is Carl H. Henkel, Mansfield ; vice president, Charles J. Anderson, Shelby ; secretary, Harry F. Bell, Mansfield; treasurer, William F. Black, Mansfield. 490 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The first oysters ever brought to Mansfield were carried to this city from Columbus by Hugh McFall, in January, 1829-102 years ago—on his return from casting his ballot for Andrew Jackson as presidential elector from this district. The keg containing about three quarts was carried in his saddlebags. This early merchant of Manseld became postmaster soon after Jackson was inaugurated and served during both of Old Hickory's administrations. Hiram R. Smith, his brother-in-law, was his deputy and this writer recalls hearing Mr. Smith, who lived to be nearly 100 years old, tell of how at the age of seventeen he journeyed through the forests to Columbus with $1,200 in silver to be deposited in the Franklin Bank of the capital city. Stage lines were not then running. He went horseback, stopped at noon at Abner Ayers' hotel in Fredericktown. From Frederick-town a new road had been cut through to Sunbury ; at one place it was five miles between cabins, he said. That night he stopped at Potter's tavern near the west line of Knox County. He traveled all next day and in the evening lodged at Colonel Kilbourne's tavern in Worthington. The following morning he reached Columbus, deposited the money, visited the first State House. He returned home by way of Johnstown, Granville, Newark, Utica, Mt. Vernon and Bellville. Neighbors came to the store to congratulate him on his long journey, so successfully made. Mr. Smith said that the first stage line through Mansfield was started by Mr. Marsh, who kept the first hotel in Sandusky and Mr. Barney, of Mt. Vernon. They ran road wagons from Sandusky through Norwalk, New Haven, Mansfield, Mt. Vernon to Delaware, making a round trip once a week. About 1831 Neal Morr & Co. established a daily line of stages from Columbus, through Mt. Vernon, Mansfield and Norwalk to Sandusky, and a couple of years later a line of stages was established from Pittsburgh through Canton and Wooster to Mansfield. Mr. Smith, who later was in business in Mansfield for many years, used to tell of his trips by stage to Philadelphia to buy goods which were loaded on big Pennsylvania wagons, each drawn by six horses, and brought to Mansfield. Transportation cost from five to six dollars for every hundred weight. Upon the return trips the wagons carried cranberries, ginseng, beeswax, butter, flaxseed and furs. The first passenger train, which entered Mansfield over the Mansfield-Sandusky line, was on June 19, 1846. This is mentioned else- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 491 where. In 1848, the Mansfield Council authorized Patrick P. Hull to buy a new hand engine for $1,000, together with hose, etc., the bill totaling $1,510.58. Hull was made fire engineer. Shortly after this Samuel J. Kirkwood defeated Hull for mayor, but Hull was elected the following year. Later he went to California, where he became the husband of the famous danseuse, Lola Montez, who, a few years before, had upset the throne of Bavaria. It was in 1848 that the first telegraph line through Ohio was swung from Cleveland by way of Mansfield to Columbus and Cincinnati. Senator Sherman, in his memoirs, tells how at the close of a session of Supreme Court in Mansfield, the presiding judge, Hitchcock, asked him the road to Mt. Gilead. "I pointed to the telegraph wire, stretched on poles, and told him to follow that," says the Senator. "The old judge, who had been on the bench for over twenty years, laughed and said he had been misled by guide boards all his life and now he was glad to be guided by a wire." Work on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago line, east of Mansfield, began July 4, 1849. The first passenger train into Wooster over this line was Aug. 10, 1852. The artificial gas plant in Mansfield was completed in 1857, the price of gas being three dollars per thousand cubic feet. The Atlantic & Great Western through Mansfield was finished in December, 1863, the finishing point being three miles east of Ashland. With three railroads into Mansfield the town entered upon a new era. After having been talked of for years, definite action for the establishing of a waterworks system was taken in 1871 and in August of the following year the plant was put into operation. During the decades since then, additional sources of water supply have been obtained and extensions made. MANSFIELD OF TODAY. The population of Mansfield in 1890 was 13,474. It has grown to 33,525 in 1930. Within a radius of a mile of the city limits it is set forth that there is an additional population of about 7,155, making the population about 40,680. It is on three trunk line railroads, the Pennsylvania, Erie and the Baltimore and Ohio. It is on the Lincoln and Harding Federal Highways ; federal auto route 42, Cleveland to Cincinnati ; the Sherman Highway, route 13, Sandusky to Marietta, 492 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO this thoroughfare bearing the name of a distinguished Mansfield citizen, the statesman, John Sherman, being formally opened Sept. 26, 1930 ; and there are six other state routes through the Richland County capital. Many interesting facts about Mansfield's advantageous situation, diversified industries, its splendid institutions, abundant resources, and the aggressive spirit of its citizens are contained in the 1930 industrial survey by the Mansfield Chamber of Commerce, of which organization Arthur E. Courtney is president ; F. A. Chamberlin, first vice president ; N. A. Block, second vice president ; A. D. Caddell, secretary, and R. E. Moorhead, treasurer. Within fifty miles of both the actual center of industrial population and of manufacturing and distribution in the nation, Mansfield is certainly advantageously located and it is easy to see why it has had, and is still having, in increasing measure, such a splendid growth. Mansfield's municipal building, opened in 1925, is equal to the best in any city of its size. Sixty-five and a half miles of the 101 miles of the city's public streets are paved with brick or asphalt and nearly all the other streets are graveled or cindered. Seventy per cent of its area of over six square miles on elevations varying from 1,130 to 1,460 feet above sea level, is built upon. There are nearly a hundred miles of sewers, 73.4 miles of water mains and over 103 miles of sidewalks within the city limits. In the fire department service are thirty-four men, the department has been on a full paid basis since 1883 and for a number of years fully motorized. Equipment in the four stations is of the most modern type. In use over the city are eighty-nine alarm boxes and various industries maintain private fire alarm and patrol system. Frank May is fire chief. The police department, of which Ralph Schad, former sheriff of Richland County, is chief, has a force of twenty-five men. The equipment includes three squad automobiles, an emergency car, several motorcycles and a combination patrol ambulance. There are fourteen Gamewell boxes in the police signaling system. Eighty years ago Mansfield's only park was the public square, now Central Park. Upon it on the north side was the old brick courthouse and on the south side a dilapidated shed, the market house. It had no trees, no grass, nothing to delight the eye, in fact, it wasn't much more than a stable yard and through it ran what is now Park HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO- 493 Avenue, then Market Street. As some one has said : "The square was given up to country wagons ; the farmers' teams, unhitched, munched hay, and on summer days stamped flies all day long. Here the traveling circus pitched its tent. Here, also, political polls were raised and campaign bonfires lighted. Shortly before Perkins Bigelow was made mayor in the spring of 1852, a law student, who later became a judge in a western state, applied the torch one night to the old shed market house, the passing of which was hailed with joy by most of the citizens. With $200 raised by some ladies of Mansfield, the square was enclosed by a fence, though not until after a. fierce battle had been waged in the courts. After the square had been enclosed trees were planted, many of them by Mayor Bigelow himself. After the old courthouse had been condemned in 1869 and had been torn down, it was decided to erect the new temple of justice outside of the park so ground was secured and building erected on the present site. Now the city of Mansfield has seven parks containing a hundred and two acres valued at $872,140. In the establishment of Sherman-Heineman Park in 1887, Senator Sherman donated about eighteen acres, A. J. Heineman a fine tract of land, and additional lands were acquired by a donation or purchase until there was a park of eighty acres extending about a mile and a half from end to end. West of North Park is an amusement park, in the northwest part of the city there is Johns Park, donated by an ancestor of United States Senator Robert J. Bulkley. Through the foresight and generosity of public-spirited citizens, especially within the last fifty years, Mansfield has a park system that will be of increasing usefulness for decades to come. In the past thirty years some very substantial improvements to Sherman-Heineman Park have been made. The drives are beautiful and in North Park is a pretty lake where there is boating in the summer and ice skating in winter. For the children the city has ten well equipped play grounds. At the Westbrook Country Club there is an eighteen-hole golf course of delectable situation and there are in the city two public golf courses, one of eighteen holes and the other a nine-hole course. At the Richland County Fair Grounds, on Spring-mill Street, a splendid county fair has been held each fall for a great many years. On the fairground half-mile track, short circuit horse-races are held each summer. There are a number of tourist camps 494 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO within easy reach of the city, a couple of them within a mile of the city limits. In Mansfield's three high schools and ten grade schools were enrolled, in 1930, 6,254 pupils, and in the new parochial elementary school were 916 more. The new senior high school building, erected in the west part of the city a few years ago, cost $1,000,000. The Mansfield Commercial Institute, credited fully by the National Association of Accredited Commercial Schools, has been in operation for sixty-one years. Back in the 50s the Mansfield Female College flourished. The spirit of Mansfield is seen in its Community Chest Association, beneficiaries of its total annual budget of $83,543, raised by popular subscription, being a dozen organizations : Hospital, Friendly House, a settlement home for welfare purposes for both white and colored folk ; Mansfield Visiting Nurse Association ; milk fund ; Playground Association ; Boy Scouts ; Humane Society ; Associated Charities ; G. A. R.; Y. M. C. A.; Y. W. C. A., and Salvation Army. The Y. M. C. A., now on Park Avenue, West, but which has a lot purchased on West Fourth Street for a new building, had a membership of 750 in 1930, and the Y. W. C. A. had a membership of 1,129. The Salvation Army, which has a divisional headquarters in the city, owns a $75,000 building on South Main Street. Mansfield is a city of beautiful churches, the total membership of its thirty-seven churches and three missions is 20,350. In 1920 Mansfield was selected by the American Red Cross for its first Child Health Demonstration, money being spent liberally in the development of health work for children. Through this demonstration work and the inspiration given to the work of building good health among children, the standard of child health in Richland County has been raised materially. In the county are more than 4,000 Blue Ribbon children, who, upon examination, were found normal in every respect. In most cases it became necessary to have certain corrections made before the children could receive the Blue Ribbon. The Mansfield and Richland County Boards of Health are continuing the work. The Public Health Nurses' Association, school physicians and dentists co-operate in this work. When the Mansfield General Hospital on Glessner Avenue at Carpenter Road was opened for service in June, 1918, it was one of the most beautiful and completely equipped hospitals in the state and HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 495 was supposed to be adequate to the needs of the growing city for several decades, at least. Toward its erection in the center of a five-acre tract, 6,000 people contributed a total of $150,000, and a few years later $112,000 was donated for the erection of the Margaret Ritter Sterner Home for Nurses, so named because of the generous donation from Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ritter, in memory of their daughter. The Eleanor Thomas Sanitarium, a well-equipped institution, is on Lexington Road. Even with these ample provisions for hospitalization, there is a pressing need today for enlargement of hospital facilities. Mansfield has five lines of street railway in the city, the routes covering fourteen and eight-tenths miles with two modern auto bus lines to the northeast and southwest sections. The Mansfield and Shelby Electric furnishes passenger and freight service and there are nine intrastate and two interstate bus lines entering Mansfield. Over the steam lines there are thirty-five passenger trains in and out daily and eighty-eight freight trains. The Ohio Public Service Company which has a plant at Melco, southeast of Mansfield, with a capacity of 23,000 K. V. I. A. and generating 2,300 volts, furnishes light and power to the city. A steel tower line from the Mansfield substation interconnects with a 132,000 volt transmission system connecting all generating stations of the Ohio Public Service. Interconnections to this transmission line are maintained with a number of other power companies. The Ohio Fuel Gas Company furnishes gas supply, and telephone service is given by the Mansfield Telephone Company to 12,500 subscribers with a daily total of around 80,000 calls. For long distance service, the Ohio Bell Telephone Company will spend, during 1931, $335,000 in building and equipment in Mansfield. On a site with a frontage of 175 feet on West Second Street, the company will erect a two-story long distance telephone building and repeater station, to be used jointly by the Ohio Bell and the Long Lines Department of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, making Mansfield one of the foremost long distance centers in Ohio. The project will not be entirely completed for a couple of years. Between 1925 and 1929 long distance calls originating in Mansfield increased from 500 to 760 per day. Because of Mansfield's strategic location for telephone transmission the city was selected for this important long distance center. When the programme is 496 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO finished, there will have been installed in the new building close to 1,500 repeaters. The waterworks system, which has a pumping capacity of 12,500,000 gallons per day, is owned and operated by the city. Water from artesian wells is supplied through nearly seventy-three and a half miles of lines. There were, in 1930, 9,900 meters in service and 436 hydrants. The Cook Road reservoir has a capacity of 6,000,000 gallons and the North Main Street reservoir, 4,000,000 gallons. The city also maintains a garbage and disposal and refuse plant. Mansfield has an up-to-date postoffice building at the corner of West Fourth and Mulberry streets. The receipts of the office have grown from $84,542.29 in 1910 to $267,708.52 in 1929. The postmaster is H. E. Halley. Eight rural mail routes operate from the Mansfield office. Beside the Coliseum, which has a seating capacity of over three thousand, there are eighteen large public halls seating from one hundred to sixteen hundred each. Mansfield has a theatre on Park Avenue, West, showing vaudeville and movies and, during the winter months, road shows ; there is another combination house besides the moving picture theatres. The Hotel Vonhof building, a landmark of Main Street north of Third, was torn down in 1930 and a $450,000 modern theatre-mercantile building is to be erected during 1931. The Warner Brothers Theatre, with a seating capacity of twenty-five hundred, is to occupy the greater part of the building. There will also be five business rooms. Mansfield has fifteen hotels with a total of 714 rooms. The Hotel Southern, at the corner of South Main and South Park streets, occupies a site which has been used for hotel purposes almost from the time Mansfield was laid out, 123 years ago. The Hotel Brunswick, at East Fourth and Diamond streets, is another of the older hotels of Mansfield. It was formerly the Sherman House. Mansfield's largest hotel is the Mansfield-Leland, on Park Avenue, West. It contains two hundred rooms. It was built less than five years ago and is of the latest type of hotel construction. The Mansfield Public Library and the two daily papers, the News and the Journal, are referred to in other chapters. The 1930 survey showed that the city has fifty-nine wholesale establishments of all classes of mercantile products, serving a trade territory of about 125 miles around. There are also a number of branch warehouses HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 497 and shipping depots of national dealers. There are 795 retail stores of all classes, among which are 183 groceries, fifty-four restaurants, forty-nine meat shops, fifteen bakeries, seven modern dairies, twenty-two retail shoe stores, nine department stores, twenty-five candy shops, twenty-three plumbing establishments, fifty-six barber shops, thirty-one beauty parlors, twenty-four drug stores, thirteen hardware stores, forty-three filling stations, twenty-two coal dealers, ten jewelry shops, fifteen cigar stores, thirty-six auto garages, eighteen auto agencies, eighteen auto accessories, twelve furniture stores, ten exclusive men's shops, eight exclusive ladies shops, thirteen printers and publishers, fifteen hotels, fourteen battery shops, besides fifty miscellaneous. At the beginning of 1930 there were nearly nine thousand people employed in eighty-seven industries of Mansfield, of whom 7,678 were men. The annual payroll in 1929 was $13,405,197.04 and the value of manufactured products was $85,000,000, the Mansfield Journal says. The principal products are brass goods, sheet steel, electrical appliances, stoves, suspenders, novelty furniture, rubber goods, sanitary enamel ware, pumps, farm machinery, auto tires and tubes, cigars and gloves. Among the larger industries are the Ohio Brass Company, Empire Steel Corporation (Mansfield Branch) , Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, Barnes Manufacturing Company, Mansfield Tire & Rubber Company, Humphrey's Manufacturing Company, Tappan Stove Company. In 1929 the labor turnover in the city was three per cent, according to reports by the manufacturers. "The industries of Mansfield," says the Chamber of Commerce industrial survey, "have long been recognized as forward-looking and progressive, particularly in regard to facilities afforded the workers. Modern safety appliances have been adopted in every instance where an improvement could be made. The larger establishments all maintain emergency rooms, first-aid relief and medical supervision of employes. The harmonious relationship between the employes and their employers is a stamp of high approval for existing conditions. Eight or nine hours is the standard working day in the majority of instances. "In the main, factory workers in Mansfield are of an unusually high type of intellect, the peculiar nature of the work required in some of the larger establishments demanding men of more than 498 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO average intelligence. A very large percentage of the workers are home owners." Mansfield has three savings banks and one National Bank. Their record for 1929 being $109,509,895; capital stock, $1,625,000 ; surplus (1929), $1,856,250.96 ; total deposits, in 1929, $13,037,519.20, and total resources for that year, $16,702,281.16 ; total assets of Building and Loan Associations in Mansfield at the beginning of 1930 are given as $14,859,441.06. THE OHIO BRASS COMPANY. The Ohio Brass Co., now one of the world's largest manufacturers of high tension insulators and other electrical equipment, including electric railway and mine haulage material, also brass valves for steam, gas and water, had its modest beginning in Mansfield in 1888. It began in a rented building on the west side of Main Street, south of Sixth Street. Its original capital was $5,000; ten men were employed and the gross business for the first year was $21,000. Back in 1917 the company employed 1,000 men and it did a business of over $3,500,000 a year. Its assets in 1928 were $11,847,434. Its products are sold throughout the world, its principal customers being leading railroad, public utility and mining companies. Its main plant is at Mansfield and the plants of its subsidiaries, wholly owned, the Ohio Insulator Co., at Barberton, and the Dominion Insulator & Manufacturing Co., Ltd., at Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. These plants, modern in construction and equipment, occupy 109 acres of land and contain twenty-one acres of floor space. At the Barberton plant the company has an outdoor laboratory for making various tests. The Canadian plant, built in 1923 from profits, does a large business throughout the British Empire. Three of the men who started with the company back in 1888 were still in its employ at the close of 1930 and a number of others have been with the company for considerably more than twenty years. One of the company's large foreign orders of recent months was for high tension insulators and fittings for an irrigation development in northern Egypt. In February, 1931, the company purchased the General Electric Company's overhead trolley material business, sales of which amount to half a million dollars yearly. In 1883 John L. Baxter and his brothers established in Mansfield HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 499 the Baxter stove works, conducted until the plant was sold to the Westinghouse Company in 1917. The plant of the Eclipse Stove Company, which in recent years has become the Tappan Stove Company, one of Mansfield's substantial industries, was erected in 1888 and started with sixty employes. Now the company employs about 350 men. The company exports to Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Cuba, and other foreign countries. W. J. Tappan is president of the company. WESTINGHOUSE COMPANY. The Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company began operations in Mansfield in 1918 with a few hundred workers and now employs around 1,900 men and women. The works manager of this plant, one of the largest companies making electrical household devices, is Edwin M. Olin, prominent in the civic life of the community. In filling an order secured by the Westinghouse Company from the government a few months ago for code beacon on the national airways, the Mansfield plant is handlilng the plating of the reflectors used in the beacons. EMPIRE STEEL CORPORATION. Full time operations of the Empire Steel Corporation, which had been running part time, were resumed the later part of January, 1931, giving steady work to its 1,400 employes in Mansfield. The corporation has two plants in the city and has been a substantial factor in the advancement of Mansfield. Back in 1914 the Davey Bros. started in the city, the Mansfield Sheet & Tin Plate Co., which in five years was doing a business of $20,000,000 a year, a most remarkable growth. It is now a part of the Empire Steel Corporation. Attorney Carl H. Hinkle, of Mansfield, is president of the corporation. John Davey, one of the founders of the steel plant in Mansfield, died in January, 1931. Another large manufacturing industry built up in Mansfield is the Barnes Manufacturing Co., which was organized and began operations in 1895. Thomas R. Barnes, who for eight years had been with the Humphryes Co. in Mansfield, became secretary and general manager of the new company, which started with sixty men. For a num-