1950 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO devotion of his best years and energies. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a democrat, and has filled with credit several township offices. In this family were seven sons. John H., the oldest, is a machinist at Tiffin. Emmett E. lives with his father on the farm. The next in age is George N. Colman C. is janitor of the post-office building at Tiffin. Homer was formerly assistant manager of a five and ten cent store in Toledo and is now manager of a similar store at Ottumwa, Iowa. Orville F. is proprietor of a restaurant and bakery at Sycamore, Ohio. William F. is assistant manager of a five and ten cent store at Kokomo, Indiana, and recently enlisted for service in the United States Army. Mr. George N. Young grew up on a farm and obtained his education as best he could by attending the winter terms of district school and three years at the Ohio Northern University at Ada. At the age of sixteen he began teaching, and that was his regular vocation for seven years. Three years of this time Mr. Young taught in the Crawfordsville, Ohio, schools. That town is on the site of the historic ground where Colonel Crawford, a Revolutionary hero, met a tragic death at the hands of western Indians. Mr. Young in-the vacations between his school terms continued to live on a farm. He finally went into the dry goods and boot and shoe business at Bloomville in the fall of 1900, and was one of the progressive merchants of that little town until the fall of 1908. Mr. Young gave up business at Bloomville on account of his election as county clerk of Seneca County. He entered upon the duties of his office on August 2, 1909, and continued as clerk for three terms. He left that office August 7, 1915, but remained with his successor until October 1, 1915, and on February 1, 1916, became postmaster under appointment from President Wilson. On February 23, 1897, Mr. Young married Rosa A. Reiff. She was born and reared in Seneca County near Berwick. They are the parents of three children : Goldie Ruth, born in September, 1898, and graduated from the Tiffin High School in 1917. Naomi B., born in November, 1901, and now a student in high school. Faye, born in May, 1906, and now in the sixth grade of the public schools. The family are members of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Young has always taken much interest in fraternal affairs. He is a member of Seneca Lodge No. 80, Inter- national Order of Odd Fellows, is past chancellor of Pickwick Lodge No. 175, Knights of Pythias, is a past councillor of Council No. 136, Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and is now chaplain of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. He also belongs to the Elks and the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. Young has done much to build up and hold together an efficient democratic organization in Seneca County. While living at Bloomville he was treasurer of the village corporation and at different times has been a member of the County Central and County Executive Committees. PETER WESLEY MCREYNOLDS, A. M., D. D. An. institution that is distinctive of the high ideals for which the small American college has always stood is Defiance College at Defiance, Ohio, which is now completing its fifteenth year of work and existence. Because it is based upon a fundamental need in the educational life. of America Defiance College has made significant headway even in a century where the great university and the technical and special institution have flourished. The president of Defiance College from the beginning has been Peter Wesley McReynolds, who is not only an educator of high ideals, but is even more noin theas an executive and organizer. Doctor McReynolds has given the best years of his life to educational work, and is still a young man with years of usefulness before him. He was born in Kokomo, Indiana, March 16, 1872, a son of Raven and Nancy (Orem) McReynolds, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Tennessee. While his parents were not people of wealth, they maintained a home for their children and exerted influences over their forming characters which no home of luxury could excel. Raven McReynolds was a farmer, and both he and his wife exemplified some of the best of the Christian virtues. He died at Kokomo in 1911, at the age of seventy-seven, and his widow still resides in that city. Their kindly nature is perhaps best illustrated in the fact that they not only reared eleven children of their own, but also five orphans. All the eleven children are still living, and there are thirty-seven grandchildren. Raven McReynolds was an early settler in Northern Indiana, and by his industry cleared up a tract of 500 acres of land, making it a farm hardly excelled anywhere in the state for productivity and efficiency of management. On that farm Doctor McRey- HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1951 nolds and his brothers received their early. training. They were taught to be self-respecting, the value of toil, and at the same time due emphasis was placed upon the practice of Christianity and a broad and liberal acquaintance with literature and the arts. It is not surprising that several of the sons have attained prominence. One of them, T. C. McReynolds, is general manager of the Indiana Railways and Light Company, and his constructive ability has been the chief factor in the success of this $5,000,000 corporation. Another son, C. W. McReynolds, is general manager of the Kokomo Ice Plant. Still another son, J. R. McReynolds, is a bridge and road contractor. The rest of the sons are successful farmers. Peter Wesley McReynolds grew up on his father's farm until he was fourteen. He attended the local schools, the Kokomo High School, the Central Indiana Normal School, the Union Christian College, Hillsdale College, and in 1895 graduated A. B. from Hiram College in Ohio. That institution subsequently conferred upon him the degree Master of Arts. Doctor McReynolds also spent nearly a year in the University of Chicago as a student. For six years Doctor McReynolds was pastor of the Christian Church at Marshall, Michigan, and in the fall of 1901 accepted the call to Defiance to the office of dean of the Defiance Female Seminary. After one year he took an active part in the reorganization of this institution as Defiance College, and was elected the first and has served as the only president to date. Defiance College opened in 1902 with thirty-three students and the annual enrollment is now 600. The original building was Defiance Hall, a three-story brick structure, costing about, $12,000. Since then other buildings have been added and the campus now contains five structures. Trowbridge. Hall, used by the women, was built in 1905, and the Carnegie Addition was completed in 1907. Weston Hall is a three-story brick structure and is used for recitation rooms and various other purposes, containing a large auditorium. The most stately building on the campus is Sisson Hall, which was built in 1910-11, at an approximate cost of $50,000. It is the home for men. Another building is the Sutphen Memorial Home for the president. The Tenzer Science Hall is now under construction and is to be completed by July 1, 1918, at. a cost of $70,000. At the present time the assets of Defiance College aggregate approximately $600,000 in value. Defiance College .presents a course of study and instruction measuring up to the high standard college of liberal arts and sciences, and it also conducts a normal training school that is one of the best in Ohio, its diplomas being readily recognized as equivalent to state certificates. In 1904 Doctor McReynolds was given the degree Doctor of Divinity by Elon College of North Carolina. In 1914 he married Bertha Kniffen, of Los Angeles, California. Mrs. McReynolds is herself an educator, a woman of broad culture and of many qualifications as an artist. She was one of the first graduates of Defiance College, afterwards took post-graduate work in the University of Michigan, taught for several years in the Port Huron High School of that state, and for four years before her marriage was connected with the high schools of Los Angeles, California. GEORGE ALBERT GORSUCH, M. D., has had active affiliations with the medical fraternity of Northwest Ohio for twenty years. His attainments and special skill have led him more and more into the field of specialization of practice, and he stands in the front rank as a specialist in the treatment of eye, ear, nose and throat. Doctor Gorsuch practiced his specialty at Toledo for a number of years, but a couple of years ago came to Bowling Green, where he is established in handsome and well equipped offices and has all the work he can attend to in his particular line. Doctor Gorsuch was graduated from the Toledo Medical College in 1896, and as a general practitioner he spent two years in Helena, Ohio, and from 1899 to 1901 was in practice at East Toledo. In 1901-02 he was abroad pursuing advanced studies and attending hospital clinics in the City of Berlin, Germany. On returning to America he located on the -west side of Toledo, and in 1904 again took postgraduate work in Detroit. In 1905 Doctor Gorsuch concentrated his entire attention upon special lines, and for a number of months was in Chicago in the Chicago Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, the Chicago Policlinic and the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary. In 1907 he returned to Toledo and began practice as a specialist with offices on Michigan Street. From there he removed to Bowling Green in 1911, and has since been in practice at the Wood County seat, at first with offices on Main Street, and since January 1, 1917, at 1952 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO 126 West Wooster Street. Doctor Gorsuch has invested thousands of dollars in the elaborate and costly equipment which a specialist in his line requires. He is as much a student today as ever, and takes every opportunity to keep abreast of the times by the reading of standard literature and constant association with the leaders of his specialties. Doctor Gorsuch is a member in good standing of the Ohio State Medical Society, the Wood County Society, and the American Medical Association. Doctor Gorsuch is a native of Ottawa County, Ohio, born at Genoa forty-three years ago. He was educated in his native locality until seventeen, after which he removed to Toledo. His grandparents came to Fostoria, Ohio, from Maryland. His grandfather, L. L. Gorsuch, took up the profession of medicine after moving to Ohio and subsequently located in Toledo. From that city he practiced all over this section of Ohio, being one of the pioneer physicians who went about the country on horseback, with medicines in saddlebags, and there was hardly a better known practitioner than he. His death occurred in 1883, after a lifetime of service, and he was then eighty-five years old. Doctor Gorsuch's father was Russell B. Gorsuch, who was born on a farm near West Millgrove, Ohio. In early life he was a teacher and when the Civil war broke out he entered a cavalry regiment and served to the end of the war, being in many of the noted campaigns and historic battles. He was never wounded, but while in service he contracted organic heart trouble, from which his death finally resulted in 1916. For many years after the war he was a stave and hoop manufacturer in Ottawa County. Russell B. Gorsuch was married at Maumee, Ohio, to Harriet Champion, who was born near Maumee in Lucas County. She is now living in East Toledo at the age of sixty-seven. She is a Methodist, as was her husband, and he was a republican in politics. Doctor Gorsuch was formerly affiliated with Charles Sumner Lodge No. 137 of the Knights of Pythias at Toledo, which he served as chancellor" commander, and is now a member of Kenneth Lodge No. 158 of that order in Bowling Green. He has been one of the leading members of the Bowling Green Lodge of Elks, and was especially active in the promotion and production of the club's dramatic performances. This club produced two fine comic operas, " The Captain of Plymouth," and "The Kahn of Cathan," which were played before large and appreciative audiences. Politically Doctor Gorsuch is a republican. AUGUSTUS MARSHALL SMITH is sole proprietor of the A. M. Smith Marble and Granite Works at Findlay. It is a business estab. lishment that for a great many years has been a recognized asset of the city. Mr. Smith is one of the older business men of Findlay, and has had a career in which he has had few favors and has won out to a successful position by hard. work and an un-. usual concentration of energy under the stimulus of an ambition for something more than average achievement. He was born in the City of Cincinnati in 1854 and is of English stock. His parents were John and Sarah J. (Hopkins) Smith, and the family were early identified with Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Smith's parents were poor people, and he had few advantages either at home or in school. Altogether he attended country schools only four years, and those terms were often separated by wide intervals in which he was earning his own way. At the age of thirteen he went to Indianapolis, Indiana, lived and worked on several farms near that city and finally was made a fireman on a switch engine in the yards of the Panhandle Railroad Company, now part of the Pennsylvania system. The locomotive he fired was one of the old-fashioned wood burners. Mr. Smith witnessed the change from the wood to coal burning system, and he was the first man to fire in the new way on a switch engine. That was his work in the Indianapolis yards for three years, then for two years he had a freight run as a regular fireman, between Indianapolis and Piqua, Ohio, a distance of 115 miles. Railroading seemed to have limited opportunities for the future and he gave up the occupation and learned the trade of marble cutter in an Indianapolis shop. After serving his apprenticeship he became a traveling journeyman marble cutter and worked for four years at different places in the Middle West. Going to Cleveland he was made a foreman in the Thomas Jones & Son Marble Works, but in July, 1876, he came to Findlay and was employed as foreman for the Moses Lou-than & Son Marble Works. He remained with that firm four years and eight months. In that time he had managed to save $600. This was the capital with which he started in busi- HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1953 ness for himself. At first he had as a partner William White, and the firm was Smith & White. They established their yards and shop on January 1, 1881, on South Main Street. A year later Mr. Smith was able to buy out his partner and he has now been at the head of the business for over thirty-five years. In 1889 he purchased for his present location on West Crawford Street a lot 50 by 200 feet and built a shop and has since added to his facilities everything required for the handling of an immense business. Some of the finest carved monumental work done in Northern Ohio comes out of his shop and another product is cut building stone. Mr. Smith is a master of his trade in every technical process and does all his own designing. He has an expert organization and handles contracts all over Central and Northern Ohio. Mr. Smith married Julia A. Meyer, daughter of Dr. John Meyer of Wapakoneta, Ohio. Frank Eugene, the oldest of his children, lives in Bowling Green, Ohio, where he conducts a marble and monumental works, in which he is very successful. He married Anna Elizabeth, daughter of August and Elizabeth Gerouch. Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Smith have been married twenty-one years and they are the parents of four children : Corinne, Lettie, Arthur and Elizabeth. The daughter, Corinne, is now studying vocal music with Professor Hall of Chicago, and piano and dramatic reading with other noted artists of that city. Mr. Smith's second son is Harry A., also of Findlay. He married Esther Hoppenberg, daughter of Gustavus and Pauline Hoppenberg. Chester Price, the third son, is now nineteen years of age and is living in Detroit. Mr. Smith is a republican both in national and local politics. He is a member of the English Lutheran Church, and for twenty-five years has been a member in good standing of Lodge No. 73, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and also belongs to Rathbone Lodge No. 400, Knights of Pythias, Lodge No. 75, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World and the Tribe of Ben Hur. JOHN J. LEHMANN is one of the prominent members of the Fremont bar, where he has been in active practice for over twenty years. He has attended strictly to business, has gained the confidence of his clients and the public generally, and has also done much to promote the success of his party in politics. Mr. Lehmann represents one of the very earliest pioneer families of Scott Township, Sandusky County, where he was born October 4, 1863. He is a son of Leodegar and Barbara (Staub) Lehmann. His father was born in Baden, Germany, October 6, 1821, and died at his country home in Scott Township of Sandusky County, March 30, 1913, in his ninety-second year. When he was twelve years of age he came with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Leh- mann, to America in 1833. The family lived at Columbus, Ohio, for a short time, where Mrs. Leopold Lehmann died of cholera. In the fall of 1833 the remainder of the family went to Lower Sandusky, now Fremont, and about a year later moved to a tract of land in Scott Township. That was nearly eighty-five years ago. Only two or three families of white people lived in the entire township and the country was still wild and rough, filled with wild game and numerous Indians. The Lehmanns lived in a log hut, and at first their efforts at raising crops were rendered futile by the ravages of the squirrels, raccoons and birds. One of the oldest of the children, Harmon, had established a 'home in Cincinnati and he took two of his younger sisters with him to live until the family could pass the period of distress and poverty. Leopold Lehmann was a physician by profession and he finally engaged in practice at Fremont, but later returned to his country home and carried on farming as well as looking after his large country practice. Leodegar Lehmann in the absence of his father had to assume the heavier burdens and responsibilities of caring for the family. He worked in the woods and the fields, on the canals and at whatever he could get in order to earn money to buy the provisions and clothing for the family. He was earnest and industrious, and not only did his part by his brothers and sisters but also in time took a wife of his own and lived a long, prosperous, contented and honorable lifetime as a farmer and good citizen. When the family removed to Scott Township the nearest Catholic Church was at Tiffin. Harmon, the oldest brother, sent Leodegar to Tiffin and paid his board while he was making his first communion. Ever afterward Leodegar Lehmann was constant in his devotions and his duties as a church member, and in the early days he went back and forth over a route blazed through the trees to the church at Tiffin. It is said that he first saw his future wife 1954 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO while she was riding by the Lehmann home on horseback, either going after corn meal or going home with it. On November 9, 1851, he married Miss Barbara Staub. She was born while her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Staub, were crossing the ocean to America. Her birth occurred in May, 1833, and she is still living on the old homestead in Scott Township. Mr. Leodegar Lehmann took great pains to bring up his children as good citizens and Christians, and although his home was seven miles from the church at Millersville he and his family traveled over the road and went to church every Sunday no matter what the weather. He and his wife had eleven children : Mrs. Peter Bullinger, Adam Lehmann, Mrs. John H. Miller, Andrew Lehmann, Mrs. Simon D. Goodman,. John J. Lehmann, Mrs. Andrew Bach, Franklin Lehmann, William E. Lehmann, Mrs. David K. Morrison, and Henry Lehmann. When Leodegar Lehmann died he was also survived by forty-two grandchildren and twenty-four great-grandchildren. John J. Lehmann grew up in a home- of worthy ideals and good Christian influences and besides the education he acquired in the public schools he attended college at Ada. He began his active career as a teacher and taught for ten years in country schools and at Rising Sun, Ohio. While at Rising Sun he took up the study of law under 0 'Farrell & McSheehy at Fremont, Ohio, and later pursued a course in the law department of the university at Ada, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in 1894. Since then he has been in active practice at Fremont, and almost from the first he has made a good living from the clientage he has had in office and in court work. He now owns a good farm, and altogether is one of the very successful and influential men of Fremont. Mr. Lehmann was married October 16, 1894, the same year of his admission to the bar, to Miss Lillian B. Frye. Mrs. Lehmann was born near Rising Sun, Ohio, daughter of Jacob and Eliza Frye. Her father was a farmer in that community. Four children have been born to their union, three sons and one daughter : Lester L., who is sergeant in Company K of the Sixth Ohio National Guard and has recently been in service on the Mexican border ; Ruth E., still at home ; and William Elbert, and John F., both attending school. The family are members of St. Ann's Catholic Church at Fremont, and Mr. Lehmann is active in the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association. He is also a member of the American Insurance Union, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Woodmen of the World and the Maccabees. He has served as clerk in the camp of the Modern Woodmen since it was organized in 1895. Politically Mr. Lehmann is a democrat. He has done much campaigning and is an able speaker and a very logical and persuasive debater. He served in the office of township clerk, and he represented Sandusky County in the State Legislature during the Seventy-sixth and Seventy-seventh General assemblies. N. R. HARRINGTON has been a member of the Bowling Green bar thirty years. He has seldom allowed politics or outside interests to distract him from the strict lines of his profession, and he has enjoyed a high rank among the leaders of the Ohio bar. Mr. Harrington was born in Pickaway County, Ohio, in 1860. He spent most of his youth in Trumbull County, where he was reared and educated, and where he studied law with Hon. W. T. Speer, of the State Supreme Court, and with his uncle, C. A. Harrington, a leading member of the Trumbull County bar. While still a law student Mr. Harrington served as deputy county clerk. He was admitted to the bar in 1886 and in May, 1887, located at Bowling Green, where throughout the years he has steadily devoted himself to an enlarging general practice. His first law partner was Robert Dunn, Sr., and in 1890 he became associated in practice with Judge F. A. Baldwin, a partnership that continued over a period of twenty years. It was dissolved when Judge Baldwin was elected to the Court of Common Pleas in 1910. In 1915 Mr. Harrington formed a partnership with Robert Dunn, Jr., son of his former law partner, who was graduated from Dennison College in 1910 and from the law department of the Ohio State University in 1914. Much of the practice of this firm is now corporation work. They are local attorneys for the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway Company, the O. E. Street Railway Company, the Maumee Valley Railway Company, the City Waterworks, the Wood County Sayings Bank, of which Mr. Harrington is a director, and the Equitable Building and Loan Company, which Mr. Harrington organized and which he has since served as both director and president. Mr. Harrington has filled the office of city solicitor and was for twelve years a member of the board of education. He was HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1955 for a number of years president of the city council and has always aligned himself help-. fully with every movement for the local welfare. He is a republican in politics, has been president of the local Young Men's Christian Association, and he and his wife are active in the Presbyterian Church, where for many years he has served as an elder. He is a Knight Templar Mason, having affiliation with Commandery No. 7 at Toledo and belongs to Lodge No. 112 of the Knights of Pythias at Bowling Green. Mr. Harrington married January 1, 1889, Miss Laura Belle Case, of Trumbull County, Ohio. They have three children, Edward A., a member of the firm that publishes the Black and White Record, the largest Holstein paper in the country. Helen M., the daughter, is the wife of Wilson M. Compton, who is connected with the Federal Trade Commission, Washington, D. C. Frank A. Harrington, the younger son, a former Dartmouth student, is now serving in the United States marines. ROSCOE CARLE, of Fostoria, editor and publisher of the Daily Times, has been a newspaper man by active experience for twenty-seven years. During the greater part of this time his home has been in Fostoria and while building up the circulation and prestige of one of the leading papers of Seneca County, he has taken an active part in the public life of the community and is now serving as Fostoria's postmaster. Mr. Carle was born at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, May 20, 1863. His parents were Jonas and Priscilla (Egbert) Carle. His grandfather, James Carle, was a native of Knox. County, Maine, and spent his entire life there as a farmer. The Carles are of English stock. The maternal grandfather, Uriah Egbert, also of an old English family, was born in New Jersey and was a pioneer settler in Fairfield, Ohio, moving from there to Seneca County, where he spent his last years. In his family were thirteen children, Priscilla being the youngest daughter. Jonas H. Carle was born at Camden, Maine, and was married at Tiffin, his wife being a native of Seneca County. She is still living. Jonas Carle had a successful though brief career and died at the age of thirty-two. During the Civil war he enlisted in the 101st Ohio Infantry, and afterwards served two years as corporal in the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery in Battery B. For a time he was engaged in manufacturing in Southern Illinois, and from there moved to Wisconsin, where he died. He was a member of the Masonic Order. Roscoe Carle, who is the only survivor or two children, received his early ,education at Green Springs and in country schools near Tiffin. He attended Heidelberg Academy and spent four years in the Ohio State University and in 1890 graduated from Cornell University. While a college man he was interested in newspaper work, and began his active career as a reporter at Tiffin and Fostoria, and in 1902 he bought the Daily Times at Fostoria. Mr. Carle had succeeded in building up a circulation of 2,500 copies, and has not only a very influential newspaper but does a large printing business in his well equipped plant. He married September 11, 1906, Miss Dottie M. Hale. Mrs. Carle was born near Arcadia in Hancock County, Ohio. Her father, T. H. Hale, was a commission merchant. Mr. and Mrs. Carle have two children, Stanton and Constance. Mr. Carle's first affiliation with a secret order was the college society, Alpha Tau Omega. He is a Knight Templar Mason, has served as master of his lodge, and also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Grange. For three years Mr. Carle served as captain of the National Guard Company at Tiffin. He was elected and served in the State Legislature during the seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth sessions and for years has been one of the leading men in the democratic party in Seneca County. On May 1, 1915, he was appointed postmaster of Fostoria. He is also president of the City Library Board and member of the Fostoria Chamber of Commerce, the Country Club and is active in the local Chautauqua Association. ARTHUR ROSENBLATT is a Tiffin business man with a record of ability and strictest honor and has built up a large business for the collection and handling of all kinds of junk, including wood and other materials. He was born in Cleveland February 15, 1878, a son of Max and Rachael (Gottlieb) Rosenblatt. Both parents were natives of Russia. His paternal grandfather, Moses Rosenblatt, was a blacksmith in Russia, and was at one time employed in making bayonet points for the army. During the Crimean war he served as a guard to Czar Nicholas. When about forty years of age he brought his family to America and located in Cleveland, and that 1956 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO city was his home for sixty years. He lived to be a centenarian, and always followed the trade of blacksmith during his active years. Max Rosenblatt was very young when his parents settled in Cleveland. He was educated in the public schools there and spent his active life as a commercial man. He and his family were active and devout members of the Jewish Synagogue in Cleveland. He and his wife had ten children and the five now living are : Arthur ; Fannie, wife of Barney Barnett, a Cleveland tailor ; Jacob, who is employed by his brother Arthur at Tiffin ; Sarah, wife of Ben Schneckrod, a tailor in Tiffin ; and Harry, a Cleveland attorney. Arthur Rosenblatt attended school in Cleveland, including high school, and afterwards graduated from the Spencerian Business College. As a boy he learned the trade of blacksmith, and he followed that for three years in Cleveland, but on moving to Tiffin in 1904 entered the junk business, which he has since built up to large and successful proportions. In 1900 he married Miss Gertrude Barnette, of Wooster, Ohio. They have five children : Harold, Herman, Alton David, Bernard B. and Sarah, all in school except the youngest, who is now four years of age. Mr. Rosenblatt is affiliated with Lodge No. 94 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, also with the Knights of Pythias, and he and his family are members of the Jewish Church. HARVE DOTY is senior partner in the firm of Doty Brothers, general grocers, of South Main Street, in Findlay. He is a young and progressive business man, and like many whose careers in commercial affairs have proved notable, he spent his early life in the wholesome and invigorating atmosphere of a farm. Mr. Doty was born in 1879 in Amanda Township of Hancock County, a son of William C. and Anna (Shields) Doty, both of whom are of English ancestry. His parents are still living and his father has been one of the substantial men in the agricultural industry of Hancock County. Harve Doty gained his education in the country schools of Jackson Township. He learned the meaning and value of hard work when a boy, and he stayed on the farm helping his father from the age of eighteen until he was about twenty-four. Coming to Findlay in 1902, he laid the foundation of his independent business career by ten years of clerking for different grocers in the city. .He not only gained experience but thriftily laid aside all the money he could, and with this modest capital he and his brother, Harry C., in 1913 bought the grocery store of Ewing & Roberts at 534 S. Main Street. They have continued the business and have in many ways improved it and they now cater to a large and distinctive trade. In 1902 Mr. Harve Doty married Cora D. Hartman, daughter of Philip and Elizabeth (Elsea) Hartman of a pioneer family in Hancock County. Mr. and Mrs. Doty have two children : Harold, aged twelve, and Dorothy May, aged eight. Mrs. Doty, who was a splendid Christian woman, and a liberal supporter and member of the United Brethren Church, died January 16, 1917, leaving Mr. Doty with the care of his two young children. Politically he is democrat, and is affiliated with Lodge No. 400 of the Knights of Pythias. ALBERT E. CULBERT is one of the prominent lawyers of Fremont, where he began practice more than twenty years ago. His standing as a lawyer is supplemented by his extensive popularity and acquaintance over Ohio through his leadership in republican politics and his large personal following due to his prominence in the Knights of the Maccabees of the World. Mr. Culbert is a native of Sandusky County, grew up on a farm, and like many successful lawyers had an experience as a country school teacher before he was able to attain the real object of his ambition, admission to the bar. He was born March 27, 1862, a son of Elijah and Eliza (Day) Culbert. His father was a native of Ireland and his mother was born in Canada, the latter 's father being a native of England. The paternal grandfather, David Culbert, was born in Ireland and immigrated to Canada about 1832. He was a pioneer in Ontario. and founded and laid out the Town of Lindsey in that province. That was in the '30s, and he became the first postmaster of the town and continued to occupy a conspicuous place in the community until 1845, when he became lost in the dense woods of that section and was starved to death. He was succeeded in the postoffice by his son Elijah, who remained in Canada, married, and only left that country to come to the United States and take part in the Civil war which was then imminent. Elijah Culbert enlisted in the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry and served continuously and faithfully until the close of the HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1957 war. He was wounded, and being captured was confined in both Libby and Anderson-vile prisons. After the war he returned to andusky County and took up farming, which he followed until his death. He became a man of prominence in Sandusky County and was very active as a republican and a popular member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He had had military training and experience in Canada. He and his wife were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They were the parents of ten children, and the five now living are : Sophia E., who for over forty years has been a teacher in the public schools of Fremont ; Samuel J., a Michigan farmer ; Emily L., wife of John Nickles, a farmer near Fremont ; Albert E. ; and Mary E., who lives on her father's old homestead. Albert E. Culbert was educated in the public schools of Fremont and graduated from Fostoria College, where he prepared himself for teaching. At an early age he passed the teachers' examination and for twelve years. taught in the district schools of Sandusky and Ottawa counties during the winter terms, while each summer was spent on the farm. Mr. Culbert has shaped his own destiny in life, and has not only paid his own way but has made his profession a means of important service to others. Mr. Culbert pursued his law studies in the office of Buckland & Love at Fremont and was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court in 1894. In the same year he entered the probate judge's office as deputy under the late Judge John I. Garn and performed the duties of his office for three years. Since that time he has allowed little to interfere with a continuous and successful practice as a lawyer. His reputation as a lawyer is by no means confined to his native county and he has clients all over the northwestern part of the state. He is now senior member of the firm of Culbert & Culbert, his associate being his son Chester A. Culbert, who is himself .a capable lawyer. For many years Mr. Culbert was the great commander of the Ohio Great Camp, Knights of the Maccabees of the World. Through that position he gained a personal acquaintance with thousands of Ohio people, and it is said that he is as widely knon over the state at large as any other citizen of Fremont. He is also affiliated with other fraternities and has served as commander of Chester A. Buckland Camp of the Sons of Veterans. He has also proved himself active in the local Cham- Vol. III-40 ber of Commerce and the Sandusky County Automobile Club. Politics has been only an incident to his real career, but anyway he has entered the game, he has played it with remarkable efficiency, and but for the fact that he is a republican in a democratic stronghold he would undoubtedly have enjoyed official distinctions outside his own community. While a resident of Sandusky Township he was elected to various offices on the republican ticket, overcoming the democratic majority by his personal popularity. In 1904 he was elected city solicitor of Fremont. He also served as a member of the board of education and was elected clerk of the board four successive terms. In 1914 he was proposed by the Sandusky County Republican Club as republican candidate for the nomination for secretary of state. The strongest tie and interests of his life have been his family and children. He was married to Miss Mary Rose, of Oak Harbor, Ohio. Mrs. Culbert, who was very active in Methodist Church affairs and in the Lady Maccabees Society, died May 21, 1916, having reared a large family of nine children. Chester A., the oldest, was graduated from the Fremont High School, studied law under his father, and while practicing as a member of the firm of Culbert & Culbert has also served as city solicitor of Fremont. He made a very creditable record at the bar examination, standing sixth in a class of 252. Ralph P., the second son, is connected with the mining industry at Joplin, Missouri. Harold, who is now about eighteen years of age, is serving as a sergeant in Company K of the Sixth Ohio Infantry and has recently been in service with his regiment on the Mexican border. Iva is the wife of Edwin Juergens, a mechanical draughtsman living in Chicago. The younger children, Estella M., Paul, Raymond, Donald and Marion, are all at home and in school except Estella, who is her father's housekeeper. She took domestic science training in the Bowling Green State Normal. WILLIAM C. SCHROEDER, a vigorous and progressive young business man of Cygnet, is manager of the Cygnet Grain & Hay Company. He has been identified with this business from its establishment. It was first known as the Cygnet Elevator Company, but after a year, on July 1, 1913, was incorporated as The Cygnet Grain & Hay Company. The 1958 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO original capital stock was $16,000, and it now has a capital of $25,000. Lewis Pierson has been president of the company from its beginning. Mr. Harry Lillie is vice president, W. R. Tabbert is secretary-treasurer, and Mr. Schroeder, manager. The latter was the first secretary and assistant manager of the company until July 1, 1915, when he took the active control of the entire business. This company does a large amount of grain shipping, comprising about 150 cars annually. They are dealers in hay, grain, straw and coal, and handle all classes of building material. The company also has a mill for the custom grinding of feed supplies. The power for the plant is electricity. Mr. Schroeder was born in Benton Township of Ottawa County, Ohio, January 27, 1885. He grew up and received his education in the public schools there and spent his early life on his father's farm until twenty. He then had some experience as clerk in a store and in a local elevator, and his experience and capability caused him to be selected as one of the responsible men in the establishment of the Cygnet elevator and grain business. He helped construct the plant and turned the first wheel of the business. The trade of this company has constantly grown and prospered under his management, and his personality has been a factor in the increasing clientele and the reputation of the firm for strictly fair dealing. Mr. Schroeder is of German parentage, son of Charles and Mihnie (Hankammer) Schroeder. His father was born in Prussia in 1849 and his mother in Hesse Nassau, Germany, in 1851. The father came to the United States at the age of twenty-two, going directly to Illinois to work for an uncle. This uncle had paid his railroad fare from New York to Illinois. A year later he left his uncle's farm. His brother Fred, who had come across the ocean at the same time, is now living in Chicago, a pensioner of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He is now seventy-four years of age and has a family. At the age of twenty-three Charles Schroeder removed to Erie County, Ohio, where he met and married his wife. They started out as farmers, and their first children, Lena and Louis, were born in Erie County. In the fall of 1883 they removed to Ottawa County, and there bought their first farm near Rocky Ridge. Charles Schroeder continued his business as a practical farmer until his death eight years ago. His widow is still living on the old homestead, is sixty-six years of age, and has never used glasses and can thread a needle and read and sew by lamp light. Both parents were confirmed in the Lutheran Church in Germany. Charles Schroeder was a democrat and filled several local offices in Ottawa County. He possessed a good German education, and he also acquired a substantial knowledge of the. English language after coming to this country. Four other children were born to them in Ottawa County. William C.; Elizabeth, now Mrs. Below of Toledo, and the mother of a son and daughter ; Minnie, wife of Louis Drier ; and Charles, who is unmarried and lives with his mother. William C. Schroeder married at Jerry City in Wood County Grace Phillips. She was born at Jerry City March 13, 1882, and received part of her education there and also was for a time in the Soldiers and Sailors Home for Children at Xenia, Ohio. She is a daughter of Amos and Elnora (Simons) Phillips. Her father was a soldier in the One Hundred and Eleventh Ohio Infantry, whose commander was Gen. I. R. Sherwood, the present congressman of Toledo. He fought gallantly as a Union soldier from 1861 1865, and though in the many battles of his regiment escaped unhurt. After the war h returned home and died near Jerry City 1891, when about forty-five years of age. if widow is still living in Jerry City and is no sixty-seven years of age. She is an active member of the Church of the Disciples. Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder have no children of their own but on September 11, 1916, adopted a son, Philip Randolph. Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder are active members of the Christian Church, and he has always concerned himself with the affairs of the different communities where he has lived. He was formerly clerk of Rocky Ridge and a member of the board of education and is now serving his second term as city councilman at Cygnet. CARL D. FINCH, of Bowling Green, is head of the Finch Engineering Company of that city. He is one of the thoroughly experienced and well qualified civil and construction engineers of Northwest Ohio. The company which he organized and of which he is head has for a number of years conducted a large business in the building of stone and other roads over Northwest Ohio, in the paving of streets, building of bridges and in general engineering and construction enterprise. Before taking up his profession independently Mr. Finch was connected with HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1959 county surveyor and the Board of County Commissioners of Wood County from 1904 to 1911. During four years of that time he had complete control of the road construction laid out by the county commissioners. In that time the county constructed about 210 miles of stone, asphalt and cement roads. In the files of the records of the county commissioners under date of January 15, 1911, is a statement signed by the commissioners of that time with reference to the work of Mr. Finch as a civil engineer. This stated his connection with Wood County covering a period of five years. During that time, according to the statement, he had prepared plans .and specifications for and had full charge of improvements, including macadam and other roads, amounting to over $500,000, steel and rein forced concrete bridges to a value of over $400,000, street improvements and sewers and ditches to a value of over $300,000. The commissioners also noted that Mr. Finch had performed railroad work, land surveying and civil engineering, understood electrical engineering, and commented upon his excellent character and ability and the marked force and energy with which he had executed every undertaking. After leaving the employ of the county commissioners of Wood County Mr. Finch constructed at Portage a stone quarrying and threshing plant operated entirely by electrical power. It was the first plant of the kind with this power in the state. It was constructed. in the spring of 1911 and has since been in continuous operation. It has produced on an average from 6,000 to 100,000 tons of road building material each year. Mr. Finch acquired his early professional training at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, while connected with the Government Coast Artillery engineers. He had enlisted in that department when only eighteen years of age, and besides becoming an expert gunner was employed in other technical duties which gave him a thoroughly comprehensive knowledge of general engineering. He was in service three years and was given his honorable discharge September 4, 1904, and on the 13th of the same month he entered the service of Wood County. The Finch Engineering Company was organized in March, 1913. Mr. Finch is associated with F. J. Rudolph and A. G. Mercer in this company. Mr. Rudolph is an expert mechanical engineer, while Mr. Mercer is superintendent of construction. The combination is a very strong one. At the present time they have in process of carrying out a contract for asphalt construction in Weston township amounting to $56,000, and other road contracts bring the aggregate of business now on hand up to $150,000. Carl D. Finch was born in Indiana, December 7, 1882, and was four years of age when his parents located in Wood County. His great-grandfather came from England more than 125 years ago, and located in Massachusetts, where he \married a girl of Irish birth. It is believed that they spent their last years in that state. The grandfather of Mr. Finch grew up in Massachusetts, and subsequently went as a pioneer to Starke County, Indiana, where he spent his years as a farmer, and both he and his wife lived to be quite old. Mr. Pinch is a son of Douglas and Susanna (Philo) Finch, the former a native of Indiana and the latter of Wood County. Susanna Philo is in the tenth generation of the family from France. The Philos were pioneer settlers at Hoytville in Wood County. Douglas Finch and wife moved from Wood County to Findlay, Ohio, where Carl attended school eight years. His parents subsequently removed to North Dakota and are now living near. Denbigh, where his father has a horse and cattle ranch. Both parents are still under sixty years of age and are still vigorous and capable. Carl D. Finch has one brother, Joseph, who is a rancher in Montana, is married and has a family of five sons and daughters. Mr. Carl D. Finch was married in Wood County to Miss Anna Rudolph, a sister of F. J. Rudolph of the Finch Engineering Company. Both Mr. Rudolph and his sister were born in Milton Township of Wood County, were educated in the local schools and Mr. Rudolph took special courses in engineering in the Cleveland Scientific School and for a number of years was in the Railroad Signal Service. He is married and has a son, John B. The children, of. Mr. and Mrs. Finch are : Hulda, aged eleven ; Ruth, who died at the age of three years ; John, aged eight ; Mary, aged five ; Douglas, four years old; and Anna, now in her second year. Mr. Finch is an active member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Bowling Green, has served five years as esquire and one year as esteemed leading knight. A republican in politics, he has been a factor in the local party and was a Roose- 1960 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO velt delegate to the Chicago convention in 1912. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Finch is a lover of the wild and each fall spends a few weeks in the great north woods. Large game specimens killed by him are mounted in two of the state colleges. WILLIAM H. GOOD has been one of the practical business men of Tiffin for a long period of years, has built up a book and stationery business, his connection therewith dating back to the time of boyhood and while he was still in school. Mr. Good is one of the capable citizens of Tiffin, and has always manifested a public spirited interest in its affairs. He was born at Tiffin January 9, 1860, a son of Reuben and Mary J. (Winters) Good. The Good family originated in Germany but located in Pennsylvania several generations ago. His maternal grandfather was Rev. David Winters, widely known in Ohio as the marrying parson. " He held the record for many years in the performance of marriage ceremonies, and, he joined in matrimony over 5,000 couples. Reuben Good was born at Rehrersburg, near Reading, Pennsylvania, while his wife was born at Dayton, Ohio, in 1825, and is still living. They were married at Dayton. Reuben Good was educated in Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania and early identified himself with educational work. He came to Tiffin in 1850 with his brother, Dr. Jeremiah H. Good, and assisted in organizing Heidelberg College and gave the rest of his life to the work of that school, being professor of natural science. He was a leading member of the Reformed Church and in politics a republican. He and his wife had eleven children, and the five now living are : Rev. C. W. Good, a retired minister of the Reformed Church, living at Tiffin ; William H. ; Anna, wife of M. E. Kleckner, professor of chemistry and geology at Heidelberg College ; Lily, wife of Rev. H. E. Nicholson, pastor of the Reformed Church at Grove City, Pennsylvania ; and Irving, who is mono-type operator in a large printing office at Phil adelphia. William H. good was educated in Tiffin, and is a graduate of Heidelberg College with the class of 1883. In 1875, when only fifteen years of age, he joined his brother in the establishment of a book store at Tiffin, and with this business his time and energies have been absorbed since he left college. Until a few years ago he also conducted a printing office. Mr. Good keeps a very large stock of books and stationery and sells office supplies over most of Seneca County. In 1887 he married Miss Olive R. Smith, of Bloom Center, Ohio, daughter of John M. Smith, a farmer. Four children were born to, their marriage and three are still living. Eugene A. is a graduate of Heidelberg University, has been associated with his father in business, and is now an applicant with other college men for service in the American Ambulance Corps. He is a member of the Masonic Order. Helen M., the only daughter,' graduated in 1917 from the University of Michigan. Herbert is now attending high school. Mrs. Good died in September, 1908. Mr. Good is a member of the First Reformed Church and of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. In politics he is independent. He is a member of the Board of Regents of Heidelberg University and for years has kept in close touch with the Reformed Church and its institutions and for many years served as an elder. JUDGE FREDERICK L. HAY, judge of the Court of Common Pleas at Defiance, has been a member of the bar at that city for over thirty years, and though a republican residing in a democratic community, he has again and again been officially honored. He is a scholarly lawyer, a learned and upright judge, and a man whose character and abilities have commended him to the complete confidence and esteem of his community. Judge Hay was born at Girard, Pennsylvania, December 22, 1856, a son of James L. and Emma Bennett Hay. His father was a native of Pennsylvania. His mother, born in New Hampshire, lived in that state and in New York in her youth, and came to Pennsylvania with her parents, where she married. She taught school at Oneonta, New York, and also in Pennsylvania. After their marriage James L. Hay lived on a farm near Girard and finally retired to that city, where he followed merchandising until his death. Judge Hay was the only son of his parents. He has two sisters : Inez E. White, of Kalamazoo, Michigan ; and Birdie E. McEntire, of Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania. The first few years of his life Judge Hay spent in Girard with his parents. Later he lived for four years in Cleveland, paying his own way by work and also studying under Private tutors. Another two years he spent in Cincinnati, and in 1885 came to Defiance and in December of that year was admitted HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1961 to the bar and has since been steadily engaged in private practice in so far as his official duties have permitted. In 1888 Judge Hay was elected mayor of Defiance and re-elected in 1890. In 1893 he was elected probate judge of the county, served one term, and as a candidate for reelection was unable to overcome the democratic majority of that year. He also filled the office of city solicitor one term, and in 1912 was elected one of the judges of the third subdivision of the Third Judicial District, that district embracing Fulton, Williams, Defiance, Paulding and Van Wert counties. His dignified and impartial administration of justice has gained him favor among all parties and both with the profession and with the laity. Before his elevation to the bench he served as a member of the Board of Sinking Fund Trustees of Defiance. Judge Hay has taken an active part in party campaigns. In the Knights of Pythias order he has filled all the chairs and has been delegate to the Grand Lodge, and is a member of the various Masonic bodies at Defiance, including the Knights Templar Commandery. He is also a member of the Elks and the Knights of the Maccabees. In October, 1887, he married Miss Marguerite Daoust. They had three children. F. L., Jr., who is a law student and abstractor at Defiance, married Miss Elsie Cromley and they have two children, Helen Marguerite and Mary Louise. Roger D. is now serving his second term as prosecuting attorney at Defiance. Mamie D., the only daughter, is still at home. WAYNE CRAWFORD has long been well and favorably known in Hancock County, has c-n a hard and successful worker in his rivate business affairs and has performed with fidelity the various offices of trust to which his fellow citizens have called him. He is now serving as postmaster of Vanlue. Mr. Crawford was born in Amanda Township of Hancock County in December, 1859, a n of John and Mary A. (Thompson) Crawford. His father was a practical farmer. His grandfather came from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and settled in Bloom Township of Fair' field County, Ohio, in the early days. The Crawford family is of Scotch-Irish descent. John Crawford was one of the best known citizens of Hancock County. He filled the office of justice of the peace of Amanda Township for thirty-nine years, and served thirty-five years in that office without a break. The early education of Wayne Crawford was such as the country schools could afford. He did not attend continuously, but accepted every opportunity he had to get an education and he was twenty-one years of age when he finally left school. He worked as a farm laborer and at the age of twenty-seven removed to Findlay and entered the employ of the John H. Shull Novelty Works. He remained with that firm six years, performing the duties of an all around mechanic. He finally gave up the confining work of a manufacturing plant and removing to the vicinity of Mount Blanchard in Hancock County bought a farm of forty acres. After three years he sold that and bought a well improved place of ten acres near Vanlue. This he farmed and improved, and finally sold the property and bought ground and built a residence in the Village of Vanlue, where he has lived for many years. Mr. Crawford is an expert mechanic and for a number of years has been identified with contracting and building. He was appointed to his office as postmaster of Vanlue by President Wilson on May 1, 1914. He has given an efficient and economical administration and one that is more than pleasing to the patrons of the office. Mr. Crawford was also justice of the peace of Amanda Township, for a number of years and in 1911 was elected mayor of Vanlue, but resigned that position after 11/2 years. He is a democrat in politics. In 1884 he married Laura C. Davis, daughter of Henry and Isabella (Moore) Davis, her parents being farmers near Vanlue. Mrs. Crawford died April 28, 1900, leaving two children. Willard, the older, was born in 1885, and was married in 1916 to Verna Hill of Toledo and has an infant child, Willard, Jr., born in 1917. Edna was married in 1908 to Wheeler Kimmel]. of Wyandot County, Ohio, and they are the parents of four children. In 1901 Mr. Crawford married for his present wife Frances Byal, daughter of James Byal of Findlay. Mr. Crawford has been for thirty-five years an active member of Lodge No. 853, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, has held all the chairs including that of noble grand. He is also affiliated with Lodge No. 481, Knights of Pythias, at Mount Blanchard, and with the Masonic Lodge at 1962 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO Cary, Ohio. He and his family are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, of which he is a trustee and deacon. WILLIAM H. RHAMY. The people of Findlay have special reason to be proud of their fellow citizen William H. Rhamy, not only for the success he enjoys in business but for the capable citizenship he has manifested throughout his long residence in that city. Mr. Rhamy is now proprietor of the Feed and Builders Supply Company at 600 South. Main Street. He was born on a farm at Mohicanville in Ashland County, Ohio, in 1850, a son of Richard R. and Mary Rhamy. His parents were substantial farmers in Ashland County. The earliest known ancestor in America was a Hessian soldier who was hired by Great Britain to come to America and fight against the American colonists in the Revolution. This mercenary soldier after a brief service came to know the facts in the case and deserted from the British army and subsequently fought with the Americans. He received the protection and favor of a Virginia planter, whose daughter he subsequently married, and thus established the only line of the Rhamys in the United States. William H. Rhamy grew up on the home farm at Mohicanville and was a student in the country schools until he was fourteen years of age. As a boy he determined to make the best of his talents and opportunities in life, and he steadily pursued that purpose until he gained a successful position at Findlay. As a boy he worked as a farm hand, but at the age of twenty began learning the trade of blacksmith at Haysville in Ashland County. After two years of apprenticeship he came to Findlay in 1872, and was at once employed by a local blacksmith. After six months he started a shop of his own, and continued it with increasing patronage for twelve years. He conducted the first exclusive horse shoeing shop in Hancock County. While in that business he suffered an accident which injured him severely, and after he recovered he was compelled to give up the business. There are some men who when stopped in one course never make any further progress, but Mr. Rhamy was not of that type. Being obliged to give up his regular trade, he soon made other opportunities. For two years he was a salesman for the old Superior Iron Well Pump, and he sold hundreds of those pumps all over Hancock and adjoining counties. With the proceeds of this business he established the nucleus of a general store at Findlay and became a dealer in hay and feed. From time to time he increased his business, adding lime, cement and building materials, and besides the main business handled under the name Feed and Builders Supply Company he now carries a stock of crockery and garden seeds. His is the oldest and largest establishment of its kind in Hancock County. Mr. Rhamy was married in 1877 to Miss Anna L. George, daughter of Daniel and Martha (Opp) George, of Findlay. Her parents are now living retired. Mr. and Mrs. Rhamy have two children : Mabel is the wife of Bernard B. Biglow of Findlay, and they have two children, B. B. Biglow aged three, and George Vance, who was born in 1916. The second child is Edna, now Mrs. Harvey L. Dale of Fostoria, Ohio. Mr. Rhamy is a democrat in politics. He is affiliated with Lodge No. 85 of the Knights of Pythias, and he and his family attend the English Lutheran Church. FRANK W. STRATTON, who has lived in Wood County most of his life, has developed the leading mercantile business at the Village of Portage. His store occupies a two-story building with thirty-foot frontage and 132 feet in depth, and carries a full line of staple stock for both village and surrounding country. This is known as the "Big Store" and it thoroughly lives up to its name in prestige and volume of 'trade. Mr. Stratton built this store building fourteen years ago and his career as a merchant at Portage covers a period of twenty years. While most people recognize in him the leading merchant of Portage, he also has been closely identified with local agriculture and owns one of the best farms in Liberty Township. He has three hundred acres, all under the plow and improved with most substantial buildings. As a sample of his farm enterprise it may be noted that during the past year he had sixty acres of sugar beets, thirty acres of tomatoes, twenty-five acres of wheat and fifty acres of corn. Mr. Stratton was born at Monroeville, Ohio, February 13, 1850, but has lived in Wood County since 1861. His early life was spent on the old homestead in section 2 of Liberty Township. He is the son of Nathan T. and Jane A. (Smith) Stratton, both of whom were natives of Ohio. The paternal grandparents were born in Pennsylvania, and the maternal HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1963 grandparents in New York State, and all the families were identified with agriculture. The grandparents died in Ohio and all of them in advanced years. The Smiths were a Presbyterian family while the Strattons were Methodists. Nathan T. Stratton died in Toledo when past seventy and his wife passed away in Michigan at the age of seventy-two. They were liberal members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Frank W. Stratton married at Portage in 1874 Miss Harriet Caswell. Mrs. Stratton was born in Michigan, but her parents, Asa and Lucinda Caswell, were natives of New York State, having gone in an early day to Michigan and from there came to Portage, Ohio, where they spent many years of their useful and honorable lives. Both of them were quite old when they passed away. Mrs. Stratton's brother George Caswell was a Union soldier in the Civil war. In one battle he was captured and was sent to Andersonville prison, and was starved to death in that notorious stockade. Mr. and Mrs. Stratton have some very capable children. Fred, the oldest, received good educational advantages and is now clerk in his father's store. Charles, who also assists in the management of the mercantile business, married Fern Emsberger, and they have two children, Harriet L. and John Whitford, both of whom are still young. The only daughter, Lenna May, still living at home unmarried, is a very talented and cultured young woman. She attended the Woman's College at Oxford, Ohio, in the musical department, and also spent two years in the Conservatory of Oberlin College. All the family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Stratton and his sons are republican voters. CHARLES MARTIN. From the point of continuous service Charles Martin is the oldest merchant of Tiffin, and one of the oldest grocers of Northwest Ohio. His has been a career of much achievement and experience. He is a veteran of the Union Army and though a native of Germany he fought for his adopted country and has always shown great loyalty to American institutions. He was born in Baden, Germany, March 27, 1837. His father, Martin Martin, was born in Germany in 1786 and died there in 1844. He was a tailor by trade and a very industrious citizen. He and his wife were both members of the Catholic Church. Of their eight children Charles was the youngest and the only one now living. Reared and educated in Germany Mr. Charles Martin came to the United States in his seventeenth year with his sister. For a time he worked on a farm near Castalia, Ohio, 'and then removed to Melmore, where he attended school and perfected his knowledge of the English language. While there he worked in a general store. About that time gold was discovered in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado and he with thirty others started West with that point in view. He got only as far as Fort Kearny, Nebraska, and after one week on the frontier all returned home, except three who proceeded to the gold fields of California. Mr. Martin then located at Tiffin and became clerk in the grocery store of H. A. Buskirk. He soon returned to Melmore and found employment in a store there, and during 1862-63 was again in Tiffin, working for Sou-der and Carpenter. Mr. Martin volunteered his services for the defense of the Union in 1864 .with a 100 days regiment. During the four months he was in the army he was stationed out on the western frontier around Fort Kearny, Nebraska, where his earlier western experience had been. With his honorable discharge from the army he returned to Tiffin, and engaged in the grocery business with John H. Nighswander, under the firm name of Nighswander & Martin. That was fully half a century ago. The partnership continued until 1868, when it changed to Martin & Negele. In 1876 Mr. Martin became sole proprietor and has conducted the business under his own management and with the aid of his capable children for over forty years. He began merchandising with modest capital, and has always looked carefully after every detail of the store and his credit rating has always been first class. He has a large and well appointed store and one of the best stocks of merchandise in this line in Seneca County. In October, 1860, Mr. Martin married Sophia Fow. She was born in Crawford County, Ohio. Five children were born to their union, three daughters and two sons. James G, the oldest, is now proprietor of a cherry orchard at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The daughter, Emma, for over twenty years was manager of the Western Union Telegraph Office in Tiffin. Elsie married Jacob Gorgeon, a grain broker in Chicago. Florence is now her father's housekeeper and also assists in the store. Silas, the youngest, is a farmer in Wisconsin. Mr. Martin is an active member of the Meth- 1964 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO odist Episcopal Church. He is widely known in Masonic circles of Ohio, especially in the York Rite. He has filled many of the chairs in the Lodge, Chapter and Commandery. Masonry is a subject which has received his deep study and he is a recognized authority on its ritual. He was eminent commander of the Knights Templar for three years, 1886-88, and was high priest of the chapter from 1880 to 1887, inclusive. He also served as thrice illustrious master from 1872 to 1879. Politically Mr. Martin is a republican. O. W. DONART is one of the leading lawyers of Paulding, has been in active practice over twenty years, and has identified himself with many of the substantial interests of the city in a business and civic way. He was born at Wiltshire, Ohio, September 6, 1875, a son of George W. and Celeste (Hartzog) Donart. In the paternal line he is of. German and English ancestry. His father was born in Mercer County, Ohio, and his mother in Van Wert County. His grandfather, Joshua Donart, was a pioneer of Mercer County and developed and owned a farm there until he removed to Portland, Jay County, Indiana. He served as a soldier in the Civil war. George W. Donart was a carpenter by trade and after his marriage moved from Van Wert County to Mercer County and in 1896 settled with his family in Paulding County. He died at Pierce City, Missouri, October 23, 1915. He was a devout Methodist' and for five years superintendent of the Sunday school of his church. He was a democrat in. politics and a man who could be depended upon for straightforward and honorable action in every one of life's relations. During Cleveland's administration he held the office of postmaster at Mendon for four years, and was also a justice of the peace. For a time he was in the mercantile and milling business. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Improved Order of Red Men. The seven children are : Orin W. Clement F. ; Catherine L., wife of H. S. Webster ; Susie J., wife of Dr. J. Nicolay ; George F.; Nettie G., wife of F. Turner; and Miss Nell Donart. O. W. Donart spent the first twenty-one years of his life at home with his parents, and in the meantime attended the common schools and the high school at Mendon, and his higher education was acquired in the Ohio Wesleyan University and in Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, where he graduated in law with the class of 1896, He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in the same year and in 1897 admitted to the bar of Ohio and has since been in active practice at Paulding. He is associated with his brother in a large real estate business and they have handled much city property. Mr. Donart is a stanch democrat, has served on the county election board, has been active in the interests of his party and has also used his legal and business ability for the benefit of several Paulding enterprises. He is a member of the Methodist Church. On October 30, 1905, he married at Chicago Miss Edna Deane Barnes, of a family of early settlers in Paulding Count They have one child, Dean Orin Donart, born January 4, 1915. SAMUEL EMERSON RENNINGER is a successful plumbing and heating engineer, with headquarters at 621 South Main Street in Findlay. Mr. Renninger is a native of Northwest Ohio, grew up on a farm, left the fa to become a worker in the oil fields when the were first discovered, picked up as a mat ter of experience and at odd times a knowl edge of the plumbing business, and for many years has been established as one of the mos reliable men of his trade in Findlay. Mr. Renninger was born in Liberty Township of Hancock County, Ohio, on his far ther's farm October 20, 1876. He is a son of William and Sarah Elizabeth (Emerson) Renninger. His father moved to Hancock County in 1854 from Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He was one of the early settlers and pioneers and cleared up his land by his unaided labor. He held several township offices, being at one time school director and also served as township trustee. He was a democrat. He continued to follow general farming, and thereby provided a good home for himself and family until his death on September .21, 1899. His widow is still living at Findlay. Mr. Renninger is of German and Yankee stock. Some of the family were soldiers in the Civil war. As a boy he attended district schools in Liberty Township, and was sixteen years old when the great oil boom started in Northwest Ohio. In a very short time he had left the farm, given up his books and studies, and had joined the great crowd of men who had collected here from all quarters of the earth and was working around the wells. He did work as tool dresser, driller, and in other occupations for eleven years, all HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1965 that time being in the employ of the Standard Oil Company. He earned good wages and having an eye to the future he thriftily saved a portion of them and in 1904 he bought the plumbing business of H. E. Powell at 602 South Main Street in Findlay. In 1913 he removed to his present address and now has the organization and the facilities for handling almost any class of contracts for general plumbing and heating and sheet metal work. He takes contracts both in Hancock and adjoining counties, and has done a large volume of business. His largest contract was furnishing and installing the vacuum heating system in the Lincoln and Washington schools at Findlay, Ohio. He has also furnished the plumbing and heating apparatus and sheet metal work for many business blocks and other structures in Findlay and elsewhere. Mr. Renninger was married in 1899 to Miss Anna R. Brady, daughter of Matthew and Mary Ann (Gallagher) Brady. Her father died in 1897 and her mother is still living. Mrs. Renninger has three sisters and one brother. Mr. and Mrs. Renninger are the parents of three daughters, Mary, Margaret, and Martha. While his private business has occupied him so thoroughly, Mr. Renninger has not neglected a keen interest in public affairs and is public spirited and ready to work for any local improvement. He is an active member of the Findlay Commercial Club, is a democrat and is a member of the First Presbyterian Church. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Tribe of Ben Hur and the Modern Woodmen of America. JOHN W. HAFNER is cashier of the Tontogany Banking Company, an institution which, considering its environment, is one of the strongest and best conducted banks in Northwest Ohio. It is a state bank and state depository, and while the personnel of the officers and directors constitute an effective proof of the integrity of the management, the depositors have a further safeguard of a bond issued by a reputable .guarantee company, guaranteeing every dollar deposited in its vaults. This bank was organized in 1906, with an authorized capital of $25,000. The first president was G. G. Bennet and the first cashier was J. W. Swickard. Three years later Mr. Swickard was succeeded by O. C. Shanower, and he in turn was succeeded on February 1, 1912, by Mr. Hafner. Mr. Hafner has since had most of the active management of the institution. The five directors are all well known farmers and business men in this part of Wood County, as follows : Henry Wenig, E. B. Huff, Gus Wenig, John S. Phillips and C. W. McColley. The report of the condition of the company in June, 1917, showed total resources of over $181,000. The bank has $12,500 capital paid in and all its resources are carefully managed with a view to safety as well as service. The bank pays four per cent interest on time deposits and its deposits now aggregate nearly $170,000. The general condition of the surrounding country as well as the prosperity of the bank is reflected by the rapid growth of deposits during the past year. In March, 1916, deposits aggregated approximately $95,000, and in fifteen months the deposits almost doubled. Mr. John W. Hafner was born at Tontogany October 13, 1889. He grew up in that village and graduated from the local high school in 1909 and subsequently took a course in the Davis Business College. He is a very progressive young man and has a promising business future. He is of German ancestry. His parents were Karl Kasper and Margaret (Jahn) Hafner, both of whom were born in the Province of Hesse Nassau, Germany, and spent their lives there. The grandfather was a government employe and also a decorator, and was employed in the decoration of the buildings comprising the seminary or college at the old town of Schlectern. The family were all members of the German Reformed Church. Karl Kasper Hafner, father of J. W., at the age of twenty enlisted in the regular army and served three years, from 1873 to 1876. In 1882, when still unmarried, he came to New York and worked at his trade in that city for some months, but in 1883 removed to Toledo. On November 25, 1883, he married Miss Margaret Ault, who was also a native of Germany. Two days after their marriage they moved to the town of Tontogany, where the father opened a shop as a shoemaker and continued active in that work for a number of years, until 'shoemaking as an individual trade had to yield to machine made shoes, and he then engaged in the boot and shoe business and is still active in that line. He is one of the oldest merchants at Tontogany, and is the oldest shoemaker in the village. Both parents are still at Tontogany, 1966 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO active and hale for their years, and are devout members of the German Reformed Church. The father is independent in politics and for seventeen years served as a member of the town council. The Hafner family has an ancestry that goes back to the time of the Crusades. This is indicated by the coat of arms owned by the family. Karl Kasper Hafner and wife had the following children Charles C., who lives in Tontogany and married Flossie Ingold ; Rosa, who died at the age of fourteen ; John W. ; and Mary D., now a student in the high school. Mr. John W. Hafner married in Wood County, Gladys H. Killyen, who was born in Henry County, Ohio, July 28, 1889. She was reared in Wood County from the age of ten years and is a graduate of the Tontogany High School. Mr. and Mrs. Hafner have a bright young daughter, born February 3, 1917, and named Margaret Helen. The family attend the Methodist Episcopal Church and Mr. Hafner is a member of the Masonic Lodge at Tontogany and the Royal Arch Chapter at Bowling Green. Politically he is independent. FRED MEYER. The career of a dutiful, honorable and upright man, a thorough and diligent factor in business, and a useful, intelligent and patriotic citizen is illustrated in the enviable life record of Fred Meyer, one of the old and honored retired residents of Freedom Township in Henry County. He has lived in that county for half a century. In that time he has performed every duty with fidelity, has provided well for his chil- dren, and has well earned his peaceful retirement. He comes of a fine old German family of Hanover stock. His ancestors were all Lutherans. His parents were Dietrich and Catherine (Otto) Meyer, who were born in the same locality of Hanover where Fred Meyer was born. His father was born in 1800 and his mother five years later. All their children were born in the old country. Their daughter, Sophia, died about four years ago, the wife of Herman Schweka of Holgate, leaving two sons, both of whom are now married. Henry is now living at Gerald, and has a large family of children. He was a Union soldier during the Civil war. William is a retired farmer in Michigan and has a family of children. Fred Meyer was born October 25, 1845. At the age of twenty, in 1865, about the close of the Civil war, he came with his mother to America. They embarked on a sailing vessel at Bremen and were tossed about on the waves for seven weeks and one day before reaching New York. The passengers faced starvation and had many hardships in addition to the rough seas. Landing in October, Mr. Meyer and his mother came on to Ohio to join the sons and brothers who had preceded them. Mr. Meyer soon started out as a laborer with the Wabash Railway and was thus employed for several years. Later for seven years he was a sailor on the Great Lakes, and in that time visited nearly every harbor on Lake Erie. The last two years of the time were spent as an engineer. In the meantime he had carefully saved his earnings and invested his meager store of capital in eighty acres of wild land in section 15 of Freedom Township. There he started his career as an agriculturist in a log cabin. He worked hard to clear up the land and also cultivate it, and did a large amount of draining in order to render every acre productive. As a farmer he was soon making money and began investing his surplus in new tracts. From time to time he made purchases of land, each time of eighty acres, and usually improved each new purchase before making another. In that way five different tracts of eighty acres came into his possession and he bought the last farm of that size about five years ago. All of this land is now in a high state of cultivation and the building improvements constitute each eighty a separate farm. In 1905 Mr. Meyer purchased a small farm of twenty acres near the Village of Gerald, and has since lived there retired, having plenty of land to furnish him with abundant exercise and recreation and giving more or less active supervision to his larger interests placed throughout the county. Mr. Meyer has never neglected his duties as a citizen. He has held the office of township trustee, was township assessor six years and has filled other places in the local government. For nineteen years he was a director of the German Fire Insurance Company of Henry and Defiance counties. He was among the leaders in organizing this company many years ago. Every enterprise concerning the public welfare has a warm supporter and participant in Fred Meyer. He has long been prominently identified with St. John's Lutheran. Church in Freedom Township. He helped hew the logs which entered. into .the construction of the pioneer church edifice, and for many years has been one of HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1967 the official members. In Freedom Township he married Miss Mary Scheele, who was born and reared in Hanover, Germany, and came to America in 1870, with her father, Henry Scheele. Her father died when past sixty and her mother passed away many years before. The Scheeles were also Lutherans and as American citizens they voted the democratic ticket. Mrs. Meyer has a brother, Henry Scheele, who is a farmer in Freedom Township, and has a family of one son and three daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Meyer have eleven living children, all of whom were confirmed in the Lutheran Church. HARRY P. HUDSON is a leading factor in business affairs at the Town of Cygnet in Wood County. He has developed a large trade as a general merchant, and not only supplies the home community with goods of fine quality, but supplies much of the merchandise consumed and used in the surrounding territory, especially at Hammansburg, three miles from Cygnet. Mr. Hudson established himself in business six years ago. For fifteen years previously he had been a clerk in the old time store of F. M. Lowe, and there he laid the foundations of a business experience which made him many friends and brought him a large trade when he started for himself. Mr. Hudson was born in Cattaraugus County, New York, February 28, 1885, a son of Philip and Amelia (Hurford) Hudson. His mother was born in New York State, of German ancestry. They were married in the state of Pennsylvania, subsequently located in Cattaraugus County, New York, then returned to Pennsylvania, and in 1887 established their home at Cygnet, Ohio. Here the father became identified with the oil industry and in 1907 he and his wife and some of the children moved out to Elk City, Kansas. He is now foreman in the oil fields and also worked in the Oklahoma field. He and his wife are now past sixty years of age but both very active and in good health. The mother is a member of the Methodist Church and in politics the father is a democrat. Harry P. was the first son and second child among four: The oldest is Lottie, wife of A. J. McSweeney, present sheriff of Tulsa County, Oklahoma. The two younger children are Clarence and Mabel. Clarence is now foreman with an oil company in Oklahoma and by his' marriage to a Kansas City girl has one child. Mabel is the wife of John Conway and they live at Tulsa, Oklahoma and have three children. At Cygnet, Ohio, in 1908, Harry P. Hudson married Miss Lillian Bradford. Mrs. Hudson was born in Kentucky twehty-eight years ago, and was a child when brought to Wood County by her parents, Tillman and Orpha Bradford. Her parents now live in Cygnet and are about sixty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson have one son, Robert Harry, born October 27, 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson are members of the Christian Church and his wife is active in Red Cross work. He is a democrat and is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. JAMES D. WATSON. Engaged steadily in the practice of law at Tiffin for the past sixteen years, Mr. Watson has repeatedly demonstrated his ability and thoroughness as a lawyer, and has also handled interests in behalf of the community which make him one of the leaders in citizenship in Seneca County. Mr. Watson has spent practically all his life in and around Tiffin. He was born not many miles from that city in Wyandot County, December 18, 1872. His paternal grandparents were James B. and Mary Watson. The grandfather, a native of Pennsylvania, moved to Ohio about 1827, ninety years ago, and was one of the pioneer farmers of Seneca County. Mr. Watson's maternal grandparents were James and Mary Dunlap, both natives of Pennsylvania, and coming to Ohio in 1830 spent the rest of their active lives as farmers. David Greer Watson, father of the Tiffin lawyer, was born in Seneca County, Ohio, August 9, 1835, and died August 12, 1909, at the age of seventy-four. He had a varied and eventful experience. Prior to the Civil war he went out to California and for several years was identified with gold mining in the far West. When the war came on he enlisted in the Eighth Ohio Regiment and served three and a half years with the Army of the Potomac. He proved his mettle as a brave and gallant defender of the flag. He participated in a number of the historic battles of the war, 'and was twice wounded, first at Antietam and afterwards at Gettysburg. For many years he was a loyal and faithful member of the Grand Army of the Republic. After the war he traveled extensively in the West, and following his marriage he settled down on a farm and lived there until, his death. He married Rachel Ann Dunlap, who was born in Wyandot County, Ohio, March 28, 1846, and is still living. She is an active member of the Meth- 1968 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO odist Episcopal Church. They were married. in Wyandot County March 28, 1871, and James D. Watson was the first of their four children. The second, Glenn Cummins Watson, is a lawyer at Cleveland. Mary Gordon Watson is the wife of Mr. Gregg Seiple, foreman in the Ford Automobile plant at Cleveland. Anna, the youngest, is the wife of Luther A. Grubb, a clothing merchant at Sycamore, Ohio. David G. Watson was a republican in politics and was a man of thorough education considering his advantages and the times in which he lived. James D. Watson acquired a liberal education, beginning in the district schools and afterwards attending Heidelberg College at Tiffin, the college at Wooster, and finally entering Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, where he was graduated in the classical course and with the A. B. degree. For several years Mr. Watson engaged alternately in work as a teacher and as a student of law and in 1901 was admitted to the bar. Since then he has been in active general practice at Tiffin. For a time Mr. Watson was associated in partnership with Clyde C. Porter, who is now judge of the Probate Court of Seneca County. With that exception Mr. Watson has practiced alone. On January 1, 1907, he married Miss Delene Titus Fry, who was born in Seneca County, a daughter of Frank J. and Augusta (Titus) Fry. Her father was a well-to-do farmer of Seneca County and is now living retired at Tiffin. Mr. and Mrs. Watson have two children, Augusta Fry and James D. Watson. The family are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Watson was educated in Oberlin College and in the New England Conservatory of Music at Boston, and graduated from the Ursuline Convent at Tiffin. She belongs to the Pi Phi Sorority and Mr. Watson is a member of the college fraternity Phi Delta Theta. He is also affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, the Knights of Pythias, and in politics is a republican. He also belongs to the Ohio State and the American Bar associations. Mr. Watson has distinguished himself by fidelity and devotion to his practice as a profession and has never sought public office on his own initiative. However, he has served as a member of the board of review of the county and the board of elections, and is now president of the Tiffin Chamber of Commerce. W. D. KIDD is one of the living business men of Columbus Grove. He began his career there when a young man and in a clerical position. He showed his worth by fideli and industry, and from a valued and trusted employe he became a business man on his own account. His name is well known in Putnam County and at different times he has been called upon to act in positions of public trust. Mr. Kidd was born on a farm in Allen County, Ohio, June 19, 1851. He is a son of Nathaniel G. and Rhoda (Jennings) Kidd. The family were among the earliest pioneers of Allen County. His grandfather, William Kidd, moved to Allen County in 1831 with his family of eight children. He secured a tract of Government land consisting of eighty acres a mile west of Rockport, and after the trials of the pioneer were over he lived there in prosperity and contentment until his death. William Kidd served throughout the War of 1812 as an American soldier. He was a whir and after the party was organized he became a republican. Nathaniel G. Kidd was one of the prominent men of Allen County for many years. He was born in Washington County, Ohio, while his wife was a native of Perry County. In 1854 he located on a farm in Allen County, and his place of 120 acres was acquired direct from the United States Government. It was situated two miles from Rockport.. Nathaniel Kidd prospered as a farmer and was a man of substance in Allen County many years. He died in 1911. He was deeply religious, was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was class leader for upward of fifty years. One of a family of nine children, W. D. Kidd spent his early life on his father's farm. He attended the district schools of Allen County and for several years was a student in the Ohio Northern University at Ada. Farm work on his father's place was his chief occupation until he was twenty-three years old. After his marriage in 1874 he removed to Columbus Grove and became bookkeeper and superintendent for the Kun eke Lumber Company. He remained with that employer ten years, and subsequently clerked for the Hans-burger & Alt Dry Goods Store. Having acquired a thorough knowledge of business and merchandising Mr. Kidd used his modest savings as capital to start a business of his own. He entered the boot and shoe business, and his has been the favorite store in that line at Columbus Grove since 1891. As a side line and as a recreation as much as any- HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1969 thing else Mr. Kidd has for many years been a breeder of high grade poultry. His Partridge Wyandottes and Rose Comb Barred Rock fowls have won many honors in exhibitions and stand at the head of their class. Mr. Kidd is one, of the prosperous and public spirited citizens of Columbus Grove. He a member of the Board of Public Affairs during 1884-85. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Tribe of Ben Hur. On June 21, 1874, he married Miss Henrietta Lippincott. Their only child died in infancy. They have an adopted daughter, Emma Everett who married G. W. Needles and has two children, Everett E. and Georgetta. JOHN EDWARD LYTLE has used meager op-unity and has converted hard work and taut vigilance into a large and successful ness at Findlay and is now sole propritor of the Lytle Transfer Line, a business which employs a large capital and equipment and handles goods not only in Findlay but all over that section of Ohio. Mr. Lytle was born at Cary, Ohio, November 4, 1875, one of the twelve children, seven of whom are still living, born to Henderson Lytle and Mary Ann (Lowry) Lytle. The family is of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry. When John Edward Lytle was fifteen years of age his father died. That ended his schooling and being one of a large household he took it upon himself to become self-supporting. He worked at whatever he could, find to do for several years at Cary and also at Columbus. He then became a bridge carpenter for the Big Four Railroad Company. He learned the steam bending trade. In 1900 he arrived in Findlay, ambitious and energetic, but poor in purse. For four years he worked as a tool dresser in the oil fields. Then for a year he was employed as a teamster for the Frank Adams Transfer Company. He next joined the Howe & David Transfer Company, and was with them until 1911. For two years he was foreman of the company. The senior partner had sold his interests to Mr. David in 1909, and for the next two years the business responsibilities devolved almost entirely on Mr. Lytle. In 1911 he had a great amount of experience, but no capital. He used his experience to form a partnership with Thomas Hammond, under the firm name of Lytle & Hammond Transfer Company. They opened their quarters on South Main Street in the rear of No. 522. The business had not been conducted long until Mr. Lytle was able to buy out his partner, and he thus became sole proprietor of the Local Transfer Line. Many improvements and increased facilities have since been added. At the present time the company has its warerooms and garage and stables at 120-124 East Sandusky Street and also at 121-125 East Crawford Street. Besides many teams and wagons for local traffic, the business has the facilities of a number of big automobile trucks, and these trucks carry goods to all parts of Ohio and even to Michigan and Indiana. It is a large business and reflects credit upon Mr. Lytle as the proprietor. In 1904 he was married at Findlay to Miss Glenna A. Routson, daughter of Charles and Laura (Morehart) Routson. They have one child, Doris Lucile, born August 14, 1905. Mr. Lytle is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America and in politics is an independent democrat. F. K. HOGUE is one of Toledo's oldest and best known real estate and insurance men. He has had a varied career, beginning as a lumberman in Northern Michigan, and he also studied and practiced medicine several years. His experience has been very extensive in insurance lines, and for several years he represented some of the large companies both in Ohio and Indiana. He is now head of the firm F. K. Hogue & Son, with offices in the Nicholas Building. His associate is his son, C. W. Hogue. Mr. Hogue was born in Erie County, Ohio, August 20, 1851. His father, William Hogue, was also a native of Ohio, was a farmer during his active lifetime, and finally removed to Toledo, where he lived retired with his son until his death. He was a stanch republican and an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. F. K. Hogue was the only child of his parents. He attended the public schools in Erie County, Ohio, and completed his literary education in Olivet College in Michigan. He started out to earn his own living in the lumber woods of Northwestern Michigan and the Northern Peninsula. He spent two years there and had experience in every phase of lumbering and logging. While in that district he witnessed the disastrous fire of Mariette, Wisconsin, and was one of the party who went to the rescue of the victims and gath- 1970 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO ered up the dead and wounded. His next experience began at St. Paul, Minnesota, from which city he took a raft of logs down the Mississippi River. Returning to Escanaba, Michigan, he spent another two years in the ,lumber woods, and then came back to his father's farm in Fulton County, Ohio. Besides farming he taught a couple of terms of school in the county, and while there read medicine with Dr. L. A. Bassette. He pursued these studies four years, was granted a license to practice, and rendered his professional service in this line at Swanton, Ohio. After two years he gave up medicine as an uncongenial pursuit, and not long afterward took up real estate and insurance. He was first in this business at Swanton, and subsequently was appointed assistant state agent for the Continental Insurance Company. He subsequently removed his headquarters as representative of the company to Westerville, Ohio, and later was sent as state agent of Indiana to Warsaw, Indiana, where he was located a year and eight months. Mr. Hogue then became general agent of the American Fire Insurance Company of Cleveland. For two years he was general agent for the Millers Insurance Company at Minneapolis. He finally located in Toledo and combined the real estate and insurance business and in those lines he has built up a large and profitable clientage. He has also become interested in various business affairs in the city and is one of its most substantial citizens. Mr. Hogue is a Mason, a past grand and past chief patriarch of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a Knight of Pythias. In politics he supports the republican party and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In June, 1883, Mr. Hogue married Miss Flora A. Blake at her home in Fulton County; Two children were born to them, but the only one now living is Clyde W., associated with his father in business, and educated in the Ohio State -University. Clyde W. married Miss Bessie Dare of Toledo, and they are the parents of two children, Adelaide and Richard. WILLIAM E. DIEBLEY is one of the old time business men of North Baltimore and for many years has given the closest attention and study and care to the furnishing of a perfect undertaking service. Mr. Diebley is a graduate embalmer from the Dodge School of Embalming, then located at Columbus, Ohio, now in Massachuse He received his diploma there twenty-two years ago, and when by state law the e balmers were placed under a license sys he received Certificate No. 104 in 1902. Mr. Diebley has been a .resident of North Baltimore since the fall of 1888. He at first engaged in the livery business and conducted it successfully for many years until 1913. During that time he built and operated three barns and when he sold out in the fall of 1915 he was the oldest liveryman in the county. He has been an embalmer and undertaker of North Baltimore since 1894. He used horse drawn funeral cars, two of them, until 1915, and then introduced auto cars and now has two of the finest and best of these. While in the livery business Mr. Diebley was a breeder and raiser of fine horses. He kept for special use in his undertaking business eight pink skin grays, and considering them as a group these animals were not excelled by any in the state. He always had his drivers in livery. Mr. Diebley has witnessed many changes and modifications in funeral equipment and has always endeavored to keep his own plant in line with the advance of the times. His equipment and service are highly appreciated b the people of North Baltimore, and he is one of the city's most popular citizens. Mr. Diebley was born in the state, then the territory, of Montana, July 3, 1864. That was an extremely early date in the history of the Northwest. His father, William Diebley, had gone out to that territory as a gold miner in 1849, and lived there for a number of years. He returned from Montana to marry in Iowa Miss Amelia Sweet. Her parents were Vermont people and she was born either in that state or in New York. In 1865, when William E. Diebley was one year old, the family rc-turned to Ohio and located in Hancock County on a new farm in Big Lick Township. There the parents spent the rest of their days and died when both of them were eighty-four years of age. The father was born in Canton, Ohio, and his birth occurred very soon after his parents, both natives of Germany, had come to this country in 1826. Grandfather Diebley was accidentally killed at the age of thirty-four. He was a butcher by trade. Mr. Diebley 's parents were both of the German Lutheran faith, which was the church of their ancestors, but they subsequently became communicants of the United Brethren Church. The father was a republican. William E. Diebley married in Hancock HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1971 County, Ohio, Jessie I. Henderson. She was born there December 27, 1864, and was reared and educated close to her native home. Mr. and Mrs. Diebley have two daughters. Ethel, born in 1888, was educated in the North Baltimore schools and is now the wife of Charles Shimmons of North Baltimore. Hazel, the younger daughter, born in May, 1890, received good educational advantages in the public schools and business college and is now a stenographer at Toledo. The mother and daughters were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Diebley is a member of the Masonic Lodge at North Baltimore and was formerly identified with the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Politically he is a republican. He is now serving as a member of the city council and a member of the gas board. For twelve years he was township trustee, and in that office he was instrumental in securing the construction of the first stone road in the township and he practically led the way in the Good Roads movement in this section of the county. Among other property Mr. Diebley owns a fine farm of about ninety acres, most of which is within the corporation limits of North Baltimore and the rest just outside. This land is in the oil territory. JOSEPH N. EWALD is a native of Seneca County and a number of years ago started in a small way as a furniture merchant. He has built up at Tiffin one of the, best stores of that kind in Northwest Ohio. Besides looking after his .private business most successfully he has identified himself with the affairs .of his community and is a prosperous and influential citizen. Mr. Ewald was born in Seneca County August 9, 1871, a son of John and Margaret (Schmidt) Ewald. His paternal grandfather as Nicholas Ewald, who came from Germany with his family and settled on a farms in Sena County, where he died at the age of seventy-one in 1873. The maternal grandfather was Joseph Schmidt, who died in Germany. John Ewald was born in Germany in 1833 and died in 1897. He came to America with his father and received his education partly in Germany and partly at Tiffin. Farming was his regular vocation throughout, his active career and he died on the old farm in Seneca County. He was a democrat in politics and he and his wife were members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. His first wife was named Elizabeth Smith, and the two children of that union are : Anna, wife of Michael Wank of Star City, Indiana ; and John, living retired at Fowler, Indiana. John Ewald's second wife, Margaret Schmidt, was born in Germany in 1847 and is still living at Tiffin, where she was married. She was the mother of eight children and the four now living are : Joseph N. ; Otto, a farmer and stock raiser in Seneca County ; Rose, wife of Albert Krupp, a hardware merchant of Toledo ; and Charles, a partner of his brother Otto, living on the old farm in Seneca County. Joseph N. Ewald was reared on a farm and received his early education in the schools at Tiffin. At the age of twenty-six he left the farm and moved to Tiffin and the following year engaged in the furniture and undertaking business with A. J. Henzy & Company. He bought an interest in this concern and for four years was actively associated with Mr. Henzy and Charles Pahl, and still later Mr. Ewald and Mr. Pahl bought Mr. Henzy 's interest in the store. The firm of Ewald & Pahl continued for ten years. The partners then effected a division of their business, Mr. Pahl taking the undertaking department while Mr. Ewald concentrated all his attention upon the furniture business. He has since built up a large establishment, with three stories devoted to sales and exhibition rooms for a splendid stock of furniture. He also has several warerooms. In 1898 Mr. Ewald married Otillia Buchman. She was born in Seneca County, daughter of John and Elizabeth Buchman, her father a farmer of this county. Five children have been born to their marriage : John, who graduated in 1917 from the Tiffin High School ; Herman, now a senior in high school ; Margaret, Anna and Emma, the last two being twins, and all attending school. The family are members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Mr. Ewald has filled all the chairs in the Knights of St. John and some of the chairs in the Knights of Columbus. He is affiliated with Lodge No. 94, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and in politics is independent. He is now serving as treasurer of the Tiffin Chamber of Commerce, has filled that office five years and through the organization has brought his large personal influence to bear upon the business and civic welfare of the community. SAMUEL L. IRWIN is the oldest merchant in point of continuous service in Tontogany, 1972 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO where he entered business over thirty years ago. Mr. Irwin is a veteran in more senses than one, having fought with the Union army for the preservation of the country during the closing months of the Civil war. His life has been an honorable and straightforward one, and he has come to enjoy and richly merit the esteem paid him in Wood County. Mr. Irwin was born in Ontario, Canada, September 27, 1843, and is of old Welsh ancestry, though his people located in Ontario, Canada, in pioneer times. He is a son of Eli and Mary (Crone) Irwin, both of whom were born in Ontario. The maternal grandfather, John Crone, was a cattle herder in Canada for the English army during the War of 1812. He died at his home north of Toronto at the age of ninety-two, and was a prominent and highly intelligent man. Eli Irwin, who was born in 1811, died in 1863, and spent his active career in business at Newmarket in York County, Ontario. He was an active member of the reformed party in Canada and he served as a soldier during the Canadian rebellion of 1836-37. He was taken prisoner and was confined during that winter and had to witness the hanging of one of his comrades, Samuel Lount. This party was hung as an example to others and Eli Irwin always had a great admiration for him, and named his son, the merchant at Tontogany, in his honor. At the same time another man named Matthews was hanged. Mrs. Eli Irwin died in the same year as her husband. She was born in 1815. They were very devout and active members of the Christian Church. They became the parents of six children : John C., Henry L., Samuel L., William W., Harriet and Robert M. Those now living are Mr. Samuel L. and Harriet, widow of R. J. Kennedy, living in Ontario, and the mother of a family of sons and daughters. All the other children married and had families. Samuel L. Irwin grew up in the Province of Ontario and besides attending the common schools he learned the trade of tinner with his father. When a little past twenty years of age he came to Ohio and began working at his trade in Maumee with George Blaker. He had been here only a short time when in February, 1865, he enlisted in the Union army, in Company K of the One Hundred and Eighty-fifth Ohio Infantry, under Captain Black. He went to the front and during the eight months he was in the army was on detached duty. He accidentally suffered a broken foot, and at the close of the war was discharged by general order. Returning to Maumee, he resumed work at his trade, and in 1870 he moved to Weston, where he continued business until January, 1884, which was the date of his location at Tontogany Here he has since conducted a tinware and general hardware business and has built a large trade in the general and staple stock of goods. Mr. Irwin is a decided republican and in earlier years took much interest in local politics. At Maumee he married Ida Clark. She was a sister of Leroy Clark, now deceased, who was formerly county clerk at Toledo and for many years in the Internal Revenue Service. Mrs. Irwin was born in Perrysburg, Ohio August 14, 1848, and was graduated from the school at Maumee conducted by E. W. Lenderson. Her parents were Silman and Vesta Clark, both natives of Wood County, where they were married some time before the cholera epidemic of 1854. Her father established the Perrysburg Journal, which he published for a number of years, and when Mrs. Irwin was a child the family removed to Maumee, where her parents spent the rest of their days. Her father died in middle life and her mother at the age of seventy-two. Her father was a Henry Clay Whig and republican. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin had a happy companionship of over thirty-six years, until it was terminated by the death of his good wife in Tontogany on April 3, 1902. Mrs. Irwin was an active Methodist. There were the following children : Charles, who died in infancy; Lula, who lives in Toledo, the wife of L. J. Mauk and the mother of two daughters, Alice and Marion ; Hattie, wife of C. 0. Cummings, a Wood County farmer and county commissioner, and they have a daughter, Olive; Frank, who is engaged in clerical work in Toledo, Ohio, is married but has no children. For his second wife Mr. Irwin married in Wood County Hattie Phelps. She was born and educated in Michigan and married for her first husband George Abbs, who died without children. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin are active members of the Presbyterian Church and she is a devoted church worker. She is also chairman of the hospital supply committee of the Red Cross Society. Mr. Irwin is the oldest Mason in this section of Wood County and for many long years has been a member of Northern Light Lodge No. 40. Free and Accepted Masons, of Maumee, in which he has filled all the chairs. He was formerly HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO - 1973 identified with the Royal Arch Chapter and the Knights Templar. KIRK E. SUTHERLAND. Unless the banking interests of a country are carefully conserved the stability of credit is impaired and a panic sometimes results that is far reaching in its disastrous results. It is therefore extremely necessary to give banking authority to men Ito have had training and experience in financial affairs as well as established reputations for honesty and business ability. The Payne State Bank, of Payne, Ohio, one of the younger financial institutions of the state, but which is abundantly financed, has as officials and and directors some of the most affluent men of Ohio, and in its cashier has a young man whose entire business training has been in financial institutions. Kirk Sutherland, cashier of the Payne State Bank at Payne, Ohio, was born in Michigan, November 22, 1890. His parents are C II. and Rose (Alger) Sutherland, both of whom were born in Michigan and are highly respected residents of Clare, where the father has been cashier of the Clare County Savings Bank since 1871. He is also largely interested agricultural pursuits and owns 320 acres highly improved land. He is a Mason of h degree, belonging to the chapter and council, and in many ways is representative f the best interests of his community. Of family of four sons and one daughter Kirk is the fifth in order of birth. The family has been settled in Michigan since pioneer days. Kirk Sutherland attended the public schools at Clare and in 1901 entered the Michigan State Agricultural College and after creditably completing his course there chose a business career and began as a clerk in the Dime vings Bank at Detroit, Michigan, where he remained two years and then accepted the position of bookkeeper in the Boies State Savings Bank at Hudson, Michigan. Mr. Sutherland remained in that position for three ars. In December, 1914, he came to PauldIng County and accepted the position of cashier of the Payne State Bank, of Payne, Ohio, which was organized in 1912 and has a truly remarkable growth, largely as a result of honest and painstaking service, but primarily because of the high personal character of all its officials. The officers of the ayne State Bank are : Abe Ackerman, presient; Fred White, vice president ; David Green, vice president ; Kirk E. Sutherland, Vol. III-41 cashier ; o. C. Lehman, assistant cashier. The names on the directing board of the institution equally reflect sterling character and are as follows : Abe Ackerman, Fred White, David Green, Kirk E. Sutherland, all officers, and Simon J. Straus, T. J. Forman, F. V. Matzen, F. P. Wetli, J. W. Bradley, J. P. Elliott and Hugh E. Griffis. The bank was organized with a capital stock of $50,000. Quoting from a bank statement, the deposits on May 5, 1913, were $45,537.28 ; on May 4, 1914, were $33,122.73 ; on May 4, 1915, were $82,050.59 ; on May. 4, 1916, were $121,846.02 ; and on May 4, 1917, had reached the enormous amount of $222,000. The bank seems fully justified in taking as its watchword, "Watch Us Grow." Mr. Sutherland was married in Lenawee County, Michigan, in 1911, to Miss Ruth Mc-Kahn, who is a daughter of R. B. McKahn, a prominent resident of Hudson, Michigan. Mrs. Sutherland was educated in the public schools and is a lady of social tact and charm. Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland have two daughters, Maxine L., who was born in Michigan, March 24, 1914, and Virginia, born July 11, 1917. Mr. Sutherland is a member of the Congregational Church and a liberal encourager of its many benevolent enterprises. He is identified with the Masonic lodge at Hudson, Michigan. In his political attitude he is a democrat and, like other intelligent young men of the times, takes an active interest in public affairs. DAVID SEPPANEN has built up the largest trade as a custom tailor at Findlay, and is the head of a shop which in point of equipment, service, expert workmanship in all lines, and variety of stock and patterns carried might compare with the best tailoring shops in any of the larger cities. His place of business is in the Marvin Block. Mr. Seppanen is a native of Finland and all his people were of that country. He was born at Nyslot, San Miguel, in Finland, in 1874, a son of Peter and Kate (Peterson) Seppanen. His father was a farmer. In the public schools of Finland David Seppanen remained a student until he was sixteen years of age, and then went to the City of St. Petersburg, now Petrograd, in Russia, where he spent five years in learning the tailoring trade. After his apprenticeship he returned to Finland, was a workman at Waasa three years, and for eight months was employed at his trade in Sunswall, Sweden. Mr. Sep- 1974 - HISTORY OF NORTHWEST OHIO panen came to America in 1901, spending the first year in New York City, one year in Chattanooga, Tennessee, four years in Birmingham, Alabama, and then going to Chicago entered the Kroonburg Sartorial Academy, where he had expert instruction in the art of cutting. He was granted his diploma in 1908, and following that he spent three years as a cutter at Chattanooga, one year at New York City, and for a . few months was located at Toledo. Mr. Seppanen first came to Findlay in 1911, and was in business there 2 ½ years. He was then for six months located at Detroit, but in 1914 opened his first-class shop in the Marvin Building, and his success has since gone forward by leaps and bounds until he has the best business of its kind in Hancock County. Mr. Seppanen, who is unmarried, is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, attends the First Lutheran Church, is a republican in politics, and is a member of the National Association of Merchant Tailors of America and the Custom Cutters Association. EDWIN B. BARLOW, M. D. Since beginning practice at Toledo in 1897, Doctor Barlow has attained some of those professional interests and connections which are most desired by members of the medical fraternity and is one of the highly successful physicians and surgeons of the city. A native of Ohio, he was born August 11, 1874, in Madison County, a son of E. W. Barlow, who was a Vermonter by birth. E. W. Barlow is now living in the City of Urbana, Ohio, at the venerable age of suddenlythree. The youngest in a family of three sons and two daughters, Doctor Barlow spent most of his youth at Urbana, where he attended the grammar and high schools. His early ambition led him into pharmacy and he was licensed in 1894 by the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy. Subsequently he entered the Medical College at Columbus, where he was graduated M. D. in 1897. Doctor Barlow at once came to Toledo and has now been in practice in that city for over twenty years. He has been surgeon for the Ann Arbor Railway Company since 1908, surgeon for the Toledo-Detroit Railroad since 1913, and since 1910 has been treasurer of the board of pension examiners. He is an active member of the various medical societies, and in Masonry is affiliated with Sanford Collins Lodge No. 396, Free and Accepted Masons; Toledo Council, Royal and Select Masters; and Toledo Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. His offices are in the Colton Building. Doctor Barlow was married May 15, 1900, to Miss Della Gobson, son, of Kenton, Ohio. They have one son. C. Gibson Barlow, born November 18, 1903. GEORGE H. FORD is one of the veteran oil men of Wood County and for a long peroid of years has been connected with the Buckeye State Pipe Line, with home at Rudolph. Mr. Ford is a man of sturdy habits and of high standing with his company and has exerted all the power of his influence in behalf of community improvements. It seems appropriate that such a veteran in the oil industry should be a native of Western Pennsylvania. Mr. Ford was born in Venango County, in that state, September 19, 1861. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His grandfather, Solomon Ford, was also born and reared in Venango County and became a blacksmith and wagon repairer. He married a girl of the same state, and they lived and died there, he surviving his wife several years and passing away at the age of seventy. They were noble, upright Christian people and active in the Church of God. Their family consisted of four sons and two daughters, Geoge, John, David, Porter, Sarah and Mary, all of whom married except Porter. The only one now living is John, still living in Pennsylvania, where his brothers and sisters died. David Ford, father of George H., grew up in Venango County, Pennsylvania, and early in life bought a small farm of sixty acres and was industriously identified with its cultivation. In October, 1862, he died suddenly and tragically. He had been away from home, trading a yoke of oxen for a horse, and riding the horse home he arrived after night and on entering the barn he evidently dropped dead. His body was found the next morning by his wife, while the horse was wandering about barn lot with bridle and saddle still on. The exact cause and circumstances of his death were never known. David Ford married in Venango County. Mary Wareham, who was born in that part of Pennsylvania, of Pennsylvania Dutch parentage. The Wareham men were noted as family of splendid physical proportions, practically all of them weighing over 200 pounds, you with strength in proportion. Two of the sons were John and Stephen, both of whom were very large and portly men and they reared