1400 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Miss Anna G. Baldinger, daughter of the late John Baldinger, of Massillon, Stark county, Ohio, and they have two children,-Kathryn L. and Virginia B. LEWIS WOODRUFF is a life-long resident of Sheffield township and during many years one of its leading agriculturists. He is a member of a family which has been identified with the Western Reserve from an early period, and he is a son of Horace C. Woodruff, born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 181o. Horace C. Woodruff was a son of Amos and a descendant of Matthew Woodruff, who was born in England in 16o0 and came to the United States in 1636, settling at Farmington, Connecticut. Amos Woodruff was born in that place July 29, 1764, and moved from there to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and there died. He was twice married. Horace C. Woodruff was the first of this family in the Western Reserve. Coming to Lorain county, Ohio, in 1832, he bought land in Sheffield township, about one-half mile east of the residence of Lewis Woodruff, and put in a crop of wheat, and returning then to his old home at West Stockbridge he married, in 1833, Nancy Lewis, and in the same year returned with his bride to Sheffield township, where he ever afterward resided, dying in September of 145. The Lewis family has been long established in America, its first representative here being William Lewis, who was born in England and came over in the old ship "Lion" and landed at Boston September 16, 1632. William Lewis, the father of Nancy, born December 25, 1782, married Drucilla Courtwright, born January 15, 1785, and they had children : Nancy, Harriet, Abby, Hannah, Fanny and Mary. Six children were born to Horace and Nancy Woodruff, Lewis being the eldest. Edwin, the second son, married Sarah Burrell, and both are now deceased. They had one child, Harriet C., who married first Arthur Hecock and second Daniel Kotcher, and they are living in Redlands, California. Frederick, also deceased, married Thankful Boynton, and their union was without issue. Lyman was married three times, first to Diana Miller, who was the mother of all his children. He resides near Flint, Michigan, the father of Addie, Frederick, Allie, Al-vie, George and Elmer. Caroline is the widow of Russell Walker, and resides in Redlands, California. They had children : Robert Russell, Clara Estell and Grace Caroline, but the last named is also deceased. Harvey married Fanny Smith, deceased, and their children were Edwin, of Elyria ; Lewis, of Brownhelm, and Caroline, deceased. Lewis Woodruff was born in Sheffield township, Lorain county, July 5, 1834, and he has been identified with agricultural pursuits on the lake shore in that township during all the years of his active life. He is now living somewhat retired on his fine farm of one hundred and thirty acres. He has served, his township as a trustee, assessor and as a school director, and he has been connected with the Masonic order since 1864, having been made a Master Mason in King Solomon's Lodge, No. 56, at Elyria. He is a member of Queen City chapter, No. 66, Order of the Eastern Star, at Lorain, as was his wife. Mr. Woodruff married March 23, 1858, Huldah M. Hecock, who was also born in Sheffield township, January 3, 1832, a daughter of one of the pioneers of the township, Harry Hecock. She died on the 21st of December, 1908, the mother of the following children : Flora H., born December 3o, 1858, who married Charles Bair and died January 15, 1882, leaving one son, Ralph. Harry L., born February 14, 1861, married Carrie Quimby, from Iowa, and he is farming the Woodruff homestead ; they have two children, Flora and Edith. Mary C. born October 1, 1862, is the wife of Richard Harrison, and they are living • in Sac City, Iowa ; they have two children, Ida and Herold. Ida M., born April 27, 1864, died March 22, 1886. Luera, born December 28, 1874, married Charles Shellbach, and their home is in Evanston, Wyoming ; they have two children, Carl and Lewis. The name of Woodruff is ineffaceably traced on the pages of the history of Sheffield township. ORLO C. NELSON.-In the stability, scope and effective management of her financial institutions Cleveland has a source of just satisfaction and pride, and among the prominent concerns exercising important functions and fortified by all that is reliable in executive control and capitalistic reinforcement is the Citizens' Savings & Trust Company, which is one of the solid and popular financial and fiduciary institutions of the Ohio metropolis and of which Mr. Nelson is assistant secretary. He is known as one of the representative business men of his native city and is well entitled to consideration in this historical 'record concerning the Western Reserve and Its people. Orlo C. Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1401 on the 27th of January, 1854, and is a son of Newell and Alsina S. ( Stearns) Nelson, the former of whom was born in the state of Massachusetts, and the latter in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, where her father, Vespasian Stearns, was an honored pioneer and influential citizen of his community, where he followed the great basic industry of agriculture as a vocation and where he continued to reside until his death. Newell Nelson was a scion of a family founded in New England in the early colonial days, and the lineage is traced back through a long and distinguished English line, in which a representative was Lord Nelson, whose name is honored in the annals of the British empire. When Newell Nelson was a boy his parents removed from Massachusetts to Ohio and took up their residence in North Olmsted, near Cleveland, where they passed the residue of their lives and where he was reared and educated. In his youth he learned the trades of carpenter and machinist, to which he devoted his attention for a number of years, and he also owned and operated a valuable farm in North Olmsted, where he maintained his home until his death, in 1882, and where his widow still resides. He was a man of much business acumen, of sterling integrity and of fine mentality, so that he wielded an influence for good in all the relations of life. His political allegiance was given to the Republican party, and his religious faith was that of the Congregational church, of which his wife is still a devoted member. They became the parents of four sons and two daughters, and of the number two sons and the two daughters are now living, the other two sons having died in infancy. Orlo C. Nelson, the immediate subject of this review, was reared to maturity in his native city, to whose excellent public schools he is indebted for his early educational discipline, which was supplemented by a course in Oberlin College, where he continued his studies until 1878. After leaving college Mr. Nelson taught for several years and was for six years identified with the oil business and the manufacturing of paraffin. In 1889 he took a position in the offices of the Citizen's Savings & Loan Association, and in 1894 he was elected to the dual office of assistant secretary and treasurer of the association. Upon the reorganization of this important corporation, in 1903. he was chosen assistant secretary, and in this office he has since continued. His services have been effective in promoting the in terests of the institution with which he is connected and he has gained a high reputation as a careful and able executive officer and as a citizen essentially loyal and public-spirited. All that concerns the welfare and progress of his native city has ever been a matter of moment and interest to him, and no citizen is more appreciative of the attractions and commercial prestige of Cleveland than is he. He was a member of the directorate of the Citizen's Savings & Loan Association at the time of its reorganization, and since that time he has been a member of its advisory board. He is also a director in the Falls Rubber Company, of Akron, Ohio. For several years he held the position„ of treasurer of the Huron Street Hospital, and he has given his aid in support of other worthy institutions of his home city. Though never an aspirant for public office, Mr. Nelson has ever been aligned as a stalwart supporter of the principles and policies of the Republican party, and he is identified with various civic, social and fraternal organizations in Cleveland. He has a wide circle of friends in the city which has been his home from the time of his birth, and it is pleasing to here accord him representation among other successful business men of the historic old Western Reserve. ARTHUR J. WARREN.—Prominent among the families that came to the Western Reserve when the country roundabout was in its primitive wildness, and subsequently contributed their full share towards its development and improvement were those of the Warren family. Many of their descendants are active and influential citizens of this part of Ohio, among those worthy of note being Arthur J. Warren, of Perry township. Coming from distinguished Revolutionary stock, Arthur J. Warren is a great-grandson of that renowned partiot, General Joseph Warren, who while in command of a force of men at the battle of Bunker Hill, on June 17, 1775, lost his life. Wallace Warren, father of Arthur J. Warren, was born and bred in Connecticut. Migrating westward when a young man, he spent a brief time in New York state, from there coming to Ohio. Locating in Geauga county, he operated' a peppermint still in Thompson for a number of years, living in Perry until his death, in 1892. Arthur J. Warren was born August 20, 186o, at Thompson, Geauga county. His parents were Wallace and Cordelia Warren. 1402 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE, Arthur J. was educated at the district school and resided at Thompson, Ohio, until he was fourteen years of age. He then removed to Perry township and worked on the farm until he was twenty-two years old. Going then to Coldwater, Michigan, he engaged in the truck and garden business, which he conducted eight years, at the end of that time returning to Perry township, and he has ever since been engaged in farming, being one of the prosperous farmers of Perry township. Mr. Warren married November 1o, 1885, Miss Nellie Welch, of Painesville, Ohio, daughter of Mark Welch. They have four children, Ethelyn, Harold, Spencer and Meari. MAHLON C. BEMIS is one of the prominent agriculturists of Black River township. He is a son of one of the township's earliest pioneers, Nathaniel Bemis, who was born. in Massachusetts in 180o. The latter's father died when he was but eight years of age, and he was then bound out, but he ran away and in 1812 came to Ohio with his grandparents, who settled at Euclid. Cleveland at that time was a hamlet of not more than a dozen houses, and the grandfather deciding that the land about there was too poor for settlement he bought at Euclid, fourteen miles east. A few years after this Nathaniel Bemis came to what is now Lorain county and bought land at ten shillings an acre on the ridge south of what is now the city of Lorain. He owned at different times most of the land in that neighborhood, and finally settled on the farm now known as the Wilford homestead in Black River township, where he lived for many years. A few years before his death he moved to the Aikens farm on the Ridge road, where he died in 1877. His first wife was Abigail McGoon, and of the three sons and four daughters which blessed their union only two daughters are now living, and the wife and mother died in about 1848. In 1850 Mr. Bemis married Clarissa Crosier, who was born at Euclid, Ohio, a daughter of Jason Crosier, and she died in the fall of 1904. Of the son and daughter which were born of this second union, the latter, Carrie R., married James Bird Chapman and is living in Cleveland. Mahlon C. Bemis, the son, was born on the old Wilford farm on the Ridge road in Black River township, April 7, 1851, and he was reared and has spent his life in this section of the township. He attended the district schools, and he remained with his father on the home farm until the latter's death. In about 1879 he succeeded to a part of the Wilford farm and also to a part of the Aiken farm, and he built his present home on a part of the latter tract. He now owns a well improved farm of thirty-seven acres, with electric railroad facilities almost at his door. Mr. Bemis married, November 24, 1874, Ada M. Goodrich, born at South Bend, Indiana, on October 3, 1854, a daughter of Joseph D. and Henrietta (Chamberlain) Goodrich, the mother from Michigan, although her parents were from the Genesee valley in New York, and the father was also from the Empire state. Both families were of English origin and were early residents of the New England states. Joseph D. Goodrich served with the One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company F, during the Civil war, enlisting from Oberlin in 1861, and re-enlisting in 1863 he served throughout the entire war and died at Amherst, Ohio, in 1889. His wife died in the year of 1860. Of their three children one died in infancy, and Ida Lenora married Robert Patterson, a quarry superintendent for the Cleveland Stone Company, and their home is in Amherst. Three children have also been born to Mr. and Mrs. Bemis. Maynard Newton, born May 1, 1876, married Augusta P. Hamel, from Monroeville, Ohio, and he is now an auditor for the National Tube Company at Lorain. They have two children, Clara K. and Ranald De L. Bernard Deane, born December 28, 1879, is in business in Amherst. He married Gertrude Gove, from Lorain, and they have one daughter, Ola E. Clifford A., born August 20, 1884, is the manager of the telephone exchange at South Lorain. He married Lena M. Scott, and they have one daughter, Margaret Mae. Mr. Bemis has served Black River township as a school director, and in 1905 he was appointed a township trustee to fill a vacancy, and has been twice elected to that office, in 1907 and in 1909. Mr. Bemis is a Republican, and has served as a member of the county executive committee and for the past ten years has been central committeeman for Black River township. He is a member of the Maccabees fraternity, and both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.   MRS. A. JENETTE SHERMAN, widow of John Warren Sherman, was born January 16, 1839,in Brimfield township and is the daughter of Elbridge and Almira J. (Dunning) Moulton, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1403 the former born in Munson, Massachusetts. Elbridge Moulton was the son of Harrison G. Moulton, and grandson of Daniel Moulton ; they came to Brimfield township, Portage county, Ohio, in' 1817. Almira J. Dunning, mother of Mrs. Sherman, was born in New Milford, Connecticut, and was a daughter of Amasa and Polly (Squires) Dunning, who removed to Rootstown, Ohio, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1820. Elbridge Moulton and his wife had three children, A. Jenette, Lucy M., deceased, wife of Byron J. Stillwell, of Brimfield township, and John Quincy Moulton ; the latter was born November 15, 1846, in Brimfield township, and married Eliza, daughter of Elias and Mary Ann (Royer) Heckman. He has one child, Nina E., wife of Harry Williams, cashier of the City National Bank, of Akron, Ohio, and they have two children, Jeannette and Mildred. A. Jenette Moulton married John Warren Sherman, son of Captain Harris and Sallie (Morgan) Sherman, born October 29, 1834. Captain Harris Sherman settled in Brimfield township in 1831, locating on lot 52, which he cleared and improved, and lived there the remainder of his life. He was the son of Thomas Sherman, son of Thomas Sherman, son of Dr. John Sherman, who was the son of Rev. James Sherman, a. descendant of Dr. John Sherman, who emigrated from England in 1634, and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman were married September 7, 1862, and they became parents of two children, Florence A. and Howard C. ; the latter died March 25, 1867. Florence A. Sherman was born in Brimfield township, and was married February 22, 1900, to Edward M. Jones ; they live with her mother on the home farm, where they do general farming and stock raising. Mr. Sherman was a member and past master of Rockton Lodge, F. & A. M., of Kent. He died October 26, 1891, at his home in Brimfield township. LUCIUS F. BUTLER, an agriculturist in Rootstown township, was born in Atwater township of Portage county August 21, 1836. He is a son of Luther Butler, born in New Haven, Connecticut, November 13, 1801, and a grandson on the paternal side of David and Betsy (Foot) Butler, who with their family of thirteen children came by way of the Erie canal to Buffalo, New York, and thence by boat to Cleveland. Luther Butler had been a cod fisher, and he brought with him to his new home 1,400 pounds of codfish, which he traded for other edibles, and thus kept in provisions for a long time. The grandparents settled in Atwater township, their farm adjoining that of the Jones family. The son Luther subsequently married Eliza Jones, who was born in that township in 1808, a daughter of Jeremiah and Betsie (Natoon) Jones. Jeremiah Jones, a native of Connecticut, was one of the earliest settlers of Atwater township, where he located when the country was covered with timber and inhabited by wild, beasts. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Butler located on the farm he owned in Atwater township. He was a Republican politically and he served as a drum major in the state militia. He died in October of 1895, and his wife had died in 1889. Their six children are : Lyman Wooster, of Putnam county, this state ; Lucius F., mentioned below ; Sidney and Anson, both deceased, the former dying in infancy ; Susan, the wife of Marcus Norton, of Rootstown ; and Henry W., of Atwater station. Lucius F. Butler continued to live with his parents for four years after his marriage, and he then bought forty-five acres of land near Atwater and engaged in the manufacture of shingles. He was also engaged in a mercantile business at Atwater station with the firm of Brush and Alden, but after eight years there he sold his interest and moved to the farm he had bought in Rootstown township, which now contains over 200 acres of fertile and well improved land. He is engaged in a general line of farming and in the raising of draft horses. Mr. Butler married on July 9, 1862, Elvira R. Huffman, who was born in Rootstown township, a daughter of Abraham and Jane (Sumerill) Huffman, who were from Virginia. The two s children of this union are Mary L. and Clarence M. The daughter married Dr. S. W. Mellott, of Washington, D. C., and the son is in the employ of the pension department as special examiner in that department. Mr. Butler votes with the Republican party, and he has served his township as a trustee, and during, two terms as president of the board of education. FRANKLIN EARNEST REYNOLDS, who is operating the old William Teller farm in Nelson township (the title of which runs direct from the Connecticut Land Company), is identified with a family whose members are concerned not only in the material progress of the Western Reserve, but with the establishment and 1404 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE development of its religious institutions. He himself was born in Hayfield township, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, on December 2, i866. After obtaining a good education in the district schools of his native township and in the graded schools of Magnolia and Westchester, Ohio, at the age of seventeen he gave his time to farm work and continued to thus devote himself until he was twenty years of age. He then learned the carpenter's trade, which he followed for about a dozen years, returning then to his youthful avocation, to which he has since continuously devoted himself. He came into possession of his present fine homestead of sixty-three acres nine years ago. Rev. Daniel Franklin Reynolds, the father, was born in Pennsylvania November 14, 1824, and came to the Western Reserve when he was but a boy. He became one of the pioneer ministers of the United Brethren church and one of its leading organizers in the Reserve. He died September 17, 1909. He married Miss Polly Soles, daughter of Manson and Lucretia (Bragg) Soles, who died July 30, 1906, in West Salem, Ohio, mother of eight children, six of whom are living. On May 13, 1897, Mr. Reynolds, of this sketch, married Mrs. Rebecca Vesey (nee Leiby), daughter of John and Christina Leiby. Mrs. Reynolds is a native of Braceville, Ohio, where she was born December 5, 1868. Her father was born near Leavittsburg, Ohio, and died at Braceville in September, 1902 ; his widow (mother of nine children) is a native of Champion, Trumbull county, Ohio. Mrs. Franklin E. Reynolds passed away May 17, 1907, and is also buried at Braceville, mother of the following : John Franklin, born December 7, 1898; Clifford Jay, born April 26, 1900, and Gertrude Alice, born August 26, 1904. JOHN H. DEXTER 1S a native of the city of Cleveland, where he was born on May 12, 1868, and is the son of Benjamin F. and Merey A. Dexter, the former of whom was born and reared in the state of Vermont and came to the Western Reserve about 1845, and for many years he was identified with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railroad. John H. Dexter is indebted to the public schools of Cleveland for his early education, and his entire business career has been identified with financial institutions of this city. At an early age he became office boy and messenger in the People's Savings Bank, in which institution he advanced through the various grades of promotion until he became one of its principal executive officers. He was actively concerned in the administration of the business of this bank for a period of twenty years and at the time of his retirement was vice-president of the institution. Since 19o5 he has held the office of secretary and treasurer of the Society for Savings in the city of Cleveland. He holds membership in the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Union andEuclidd Clubs. JOSEPH W. ROTHGERY.—Among the pioneer German families of Lorain county is prominently numbered the Rothgerys, who established their home here in the year of 1842. The first representatives of the family in the United States were Nicholas Rothgery and his son Mathias, natives of Drees, Prussia. Nicholas and his wife Emma, together with Mathias and his wife, Gertrude Larscheid, and their three children, John Peter, Anna Mary and Mary Gertrude, left their home in Germany in the spring of 1842, crossed the ocean in a sailing vessel and landed in the harbor of New York. They stopped for a time in Cleveland, Ohio, and in the same year came to Avon township in Lorain county. Emma Rothgery spent the remainder of her life there, but Nicholas, her husband, died at the home of his daughter in Racine, Wisconsin, age eighty-nine years. Mathias Rothgery, born at Drees, Prussia, February 14, 1806, married there Gertrude Larscheid, and of the five children born to them in their native land two died before the emigration to this country, and the mother died in the year of 1846, at the age of forty years. Mrs. Gertrude Rothgery Schaden, daughter of Mathias Rothgery, was born February 2, 1842, at Drees, Prussia, Germany. She emigrated to the United States in 1842 and was married to Anthony Schaden August 19, 1867. She was the mother of five children. Nearly all of her life was spent in Lorain county. Her death occurred December 16, 19o9, at her home near Elyria, at the age of sixty-seven. For his second wife Mathias Rothgery married Catherine Krizer, who was born in Germany in 1808, and she died on March 19, 1883. At the time of her marriage to Mr. Rothgery she was a widow with three sons: Nicholas, aged thirteen years ; John, aged nine years ; and Mathias, aged seven years. This little family were ninety-three days in crossing the ocean to the United States, and upon their HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1405 arrival the mother bought ten acres of land on the Snow road in East Avon, Lorain county, Ohio, and with the help of her sons built a little cabin thereon. They at once began clearing their land. Their first little cabin home was destroyed by the falling of a tree, and the second little home was destroyed by fire. Of the three sons of that family : Nicholas died in Michigan, John died in Lorain and Mathias died in Michigan. Two sons were born to the marriage union of Mathias Rothgery and Catherine Krizer, and the younger son, Antone, lives in Cleveland. Mathias Rothgery died on December 6, 1887. When he came to Lorain county he bought a small farm in Avon township, on the Center road, but after living there two years he moved into Sheffield township and bought a farm one-half mile south of the Catholic church, in the town of Sheffield, spending the remainder of his life there. Joseph W. Rothgery, the first born son of Mathias and Catherine, was born on the Avon township farm April 19, 1849, and he was reared to farm life and attended school in the old log school houses, with slab seats, so common in the early days of Lorain county. In 1871 he bought a farm at Lake Breeze in Sheffield township, and there followed farming until his marriage in 1877 and removal to Elyria. But after one year there he returned to the old homestead farm in Sheffield township, a year later built a home at Lake Breeze and moved there, for three years from 1894 lived in Lorain, and returning again to the Lake Breeze farm has lived there to the present time. In 1892 he embarked in the farm implement, flour, feed, hay and grain business in Lorain, as a member of the firm of Root Brothers & Rothgery. Two years later the firm name became Root & Rothgery, and in 1907 Mr. Rothgery succeeded to the entire business. At that time the firm failed financially, but they were able to pay dollar for dollar towards their indebtedness, and the business is now in a flourishing condition, conducted under the name of J. W. Rothgery. In 1877 Mr. Rothgery married Anna Mary Frank, who was born in Iowa on January 18, 1854, a daughter of John Peter Frank, from the Fatherland of Germany and who resided in Avon township. Mrs. Rothgery on May 1, 1909, while driving, met with an accident and was instantly killed. A bolt in the buggy giving way, the shafts dropped to the ground, and in the overturning of the buggy she was thrown to the ground on the stone pavement. She was the mother of eight children : Joseph Mathias, Mary Theresa (deceased), Peter Frank, Anna, Julia, Carl F., Florence and Albert. Mr. Rothgery is a representative citizen of Lorain county. CAPTAIN NIELS M. RASMUSSEN, who is incumbent of the responsible, position of keeper of the United States life-saving station at Fairport Harbor, Lake county, has held this office. since 1898, and in the same has made an admirable record, with the able co-operation of his corps of eight assistants. On June 25, 1899, was effected the rescue of a boy who had fallen overboard from a passing vessel. August 26 of the same year the steamer -S. L. Tilley," of St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, caught fire nine miles off shore and was abandoned by the crew. Captain Rasmussen and his men rendered effective assistance in extinguishing the fire and the nineteen men, who had already boarded a passing schooner, were brought in safety to Fairport Harbor. On the 3d of the following September, a dredge was foundered in a gale and was abandoned, and the life-saving crew under direction of Captain Rasmussen, put in practically the entire night, which was cold and tempestuous, in searching for the men who had been on the dredge. It was finally discovered that they had been rescued by a tug. On August 20, 1903, the "Queen of the West," foundered off the shore about five miles distant from Fairport Harbor, and its crew and passengers were rescued by a steamer which went to their relief, after which the life-saving crew remained on duty until the vessel sank. On the 24th of the following month the steamer "Portage" went adrift, having lost anchor when about ten miles off shore. The life-saving crew, after eleven hours of arduous work in fighting a high sea, at night, was able to reach the vessel and bring to shore its captain and men. This was one of the roughest experiences encountered by the crew during the time that Captain Rasmussen has been at its head. On October 11, 1905, a scow that had been in tow of a tug broke loose in a storm and drifted ashore. The two men on the scow were rescued by the Fairport Harbor men, who found them greatly exhausted. On August 8, 1906, Mr. and Mrs. S. M. Hawkins, of Painesville, Ohio, were on the pier and Mrs. Hawkins fell into the lake, whereupon her husband jumped to her rescue and managed to maintain his hold until the life-saving crew could come to their 1406 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE aid. On the 22d of the following November the "Charles P. Hill" went aground at a point twelve miles below the Fairport Harbor station, from which point the service boats were towed down by a tug and took off the twenty-one men on the vessel, in a strong northwest gale. The life boats made three trips between the steamer and the tug, one-half mile off shore, and the stranded vessel was in eighteen feet of water. On July 2, 1907, the service crew rescued two young men from an overturned canoe to which they clung. On the 18th of the following month the "Kate White," a fishing tug, with seven men, went ashore close to the Fairport Harbor pier, in a terrific gale, and the life crew effected the rescue of all the men, after a period of severe exertion. The captain of this vessel, John Dailey, recently lost his life, while in command of the tug "Floss." On August 28, 1907, the fast naphtha tug "Marion" exhausted its supply of fuel when eight miles out, and after remaining out all night the little craft, with its two men, was towed in by the Fairport crew,—a distance ofthreee miles. On June 16, 1908, the crew towed in the naphtha launch "Alleretta," with nine persons on board, and provided for the passengers at the station. Within the regime. of Captain Rasmussen fully 150 persons have been rescued, and it is altogether probable that the greater number would have perished had not the gallant crew from the Fairport Harbor station gone to their. aid. The foregoing record is worthy of perpetuation in this publication, as indicating that the life of the brave rescuers maintained by the government is, not one of sybaritic ease but rather one of arduous toil and great perils, from the "merciful, merciless sea." The cases noted above indicate only a small part of the work done by the FairportHarborr crew during the period covered, but the record is sufficiently significant for the purposes of this sketch. Captain Niels M.Rasmussenh comes naturally by his love of the sea, as he is a scion of a maritime race whose valorous deeds have been the theme of song and story for centuries. He was. born in Denmark, in the year 1860, and the place of his nativity was Long Island, in the Baltic sea.He receivedd such educational advantages as were offered in the common schools of his native place, but he initiated his. career as a sailor when but fourteen years of age. From that time until he was eighteen years old ne was employed on various vessels, and his voyages brought him to the ports of, Iceland and the Mediterraneansea,—showing4 the diversity of his experiences. On April 21, 1878, he first landed in the United States, and thereafter he was identified with the navigation activities of the Great Lakes as a sailor' until 1881. In 1882 he entered the service of the United States navy, in which he served ten years and seven months, within which time he was assigned to duty on such vessels as the "Nipsic," the "Minnesota" and the "Powhattan." For seven years of his term he was on duty on the old United States "Michigan," on the Great Lakes, a boat now -known as the "Wolverine" and still retained in service on the lakes. In 1893 Captain Rasmussen entered the -United States life-saving service, and he was stationed at Erie, Pennsylvania, until 1898, when he was assigned to his present important charge, in which he succeeded Captain George F. Babcock, who had held the position for twenty-two consecutive years. The captain is a man of impregnable courage, calm judgment in the face of perils and emergencies, of genial, nature and of utmost integrity, so that he naturally holds the respect and confidence of all who know him, and especially those who have appreciation of his earnestandd useful career in the service of the United States government. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, and he and his wife hold membership in the Lutheran church, in whose faith he was reared. While a resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, Captain Rasmussen was united in marriage to Miss Emma Weber, who was born on :the island of Gottland, in the Baltic sea, and who is of Swedish Ancestry. Captain and Mrs. Rasmussen have three sons,—Martin, who likewise is identified with the United States life-saving service and who is nowstationed att Ashtabula, Ohio ; George, who is in the same service and stationed at Cleveland ; and Edward who is attending the public schools of Fairport Harbor. MARCENA MONROE HULBERT:—Prominent and well known among the agriculturists of Rootstown township in Portage County stands Marcena M. Hulbert, a native born son of the community and a representative of a family that has long been identified with Portage county. He was born on November 22, 1853, to the marriage union of Riley and Charlotta (Sabin) Hulbert. who were born respectively in Springfield township of Stark county and in HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1407 Suffield township of Portage county, and his grandparents on both sides, Jamin and Diadama Hulbert and Ephraim and Jerusha Sabin, were from Connecticut. But both families became pioneers of this section of Ohio, locating here when timber covered its lands, and here Riley Hulbert and Charlotta Sabin were married and began life for themselves in Suffield township. But after a few years there they came to Rootstown township, purchasing a little farm here of fifty acres, largely covered with timber, and Riley Hulbert in time became one of the prominent residents of his community and active in its political life, although he never held office. He died in the year of 1897, and his wife passed away in the following year. Of their three children Loring Hulbert is an agriculturist in Randolph township, and Albert died in 189o. Marcena M. Hulbert, the youngest of the children, lived at home with his parents until his marriage, when he became a farmer of Randolph township, but about five years later he purchased the interest of the other heirs in the home estate and has since lived on this homestead, but he has added twenty acres more to its boundaries and has made it one of the most valuable estates of Rootstown township. August 17, 1885, Mr. Hulbert wedded Mrs. Mary Allen Baker, who was born in Randolph township, a daughter of Luke and Lucy (Stanford) Allen, also of that township, and she is a granddaughter on the paternal side of Benjamin and Minervy (Beach) Allen, from Connecticut, and on the maternal of Leroy and Mirantha (Bartholomew) Stanford. She has been twice married, but her first husband, Sherwood Baker, of Edinboro township, was killed by a railroad train, leaving besides his widow a daughter, Jeannette, now the wife of Dr. John Brett, of Cleveland. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hulbert, Lawrence, Harry, Scoby and Carrie. Mr. Hulbert in politics supports the principles of the Republican party. FRANK C. CHAPMAN.—Recognized as one of the representative 'life insurance underwriters of the state of Ohio, Mr. Chapman is the senior member of the well known firm of F. C. Chapman & Co., general agents for the "Etna Life Insurance Company, of Hartford, Connecticut. The headquarters of the general agency are maintained in the Cuyahoga Building, in the city of Cleveland, and the firm controls a territory of thirteen counties, including all of those comprising the historic old Western Reserve and also the counties of Columbiana, Stark and Wayne. The upbuilding of the splendid business of this important agency has primarily represented the concrete results of the efforts of Mr. Chapman, who is a recognized authority in his field of enterprise and whose personal talents and executive .and initiative ability have made possible the up-building of what is conceded to be one of the most important of the general agencies for the stanch and historic old AEtna Life Insurance Company. Mr. Chapman's career has been one of interesting order, marked by service in the United States navy and by pronounced success in the domain of practical and productive business activity. Frank C. Chapman is a scion in the third generation of one of the old and honored families of the Western Reserve. He was born in Parkman township, Geauga county, Ohio, on August 7, 1854, and is a son of John and Catherine (Todd) Chapman, who now maintain their home in Garrettsville, Portage county, this state. John Chapman was born in the state of New York and is a son of Orasmus and Margaret (LaDow) Chapman, who came to the Western Reserve when he was a boy and numbered themselves among the pioneer settlers of Newbury township, Geauga county, where his father became a successful agriculturist and where both parents continued to reside until they passed to the life eternal. John Chapman was reared to manhood in Geauga county and early began to contribute his quota to the work of the home farm, in the meanwhile duly availing himself of the advantages of the common schools of the locality and period. Practically his entire active career was one of intimate and successful identification with the great basic industry of agriculture, in connection with which he finally removed to Portage county. He is now living virtually retired in the village of Garrettsville, having attained to the venerable age of seventy-five years (1909), and resting secure in the confidence and esteem ever begotten of subjective honor and integrity. His wife was born at Jamestown, New York, and is a daughter of Rev. Lewis C. Todd, who came with his family to the Western Reserve when she was a child. Mr. Todd likewise was a native of the old Empire state, where he was reared and educated and where he was editor and publisher of a newspaper for some time before his immigration to Ohio. He was one 1408 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE of the pioneers of Nelson township, Portage county, where he developed a good farm and where he became influential in public affairs and in the work of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he was ordained as a clergyman prior to coming to Ohio. He was a man of fine intellectuality and his life counted for good in all its relations. He finally transferred his membership to the Universalist church, in which he labored long and zealously as a clergyman. Both he and his wife continued to reside in Portage county until their death. John and Catherine (Todd) Chapman became the parents of two children, of whom the subject of this review is the elder and the younger of whom was Cora L., who died at the age of seventeen years. Frank C. Chapman gained his early educational discipline in the public schools of Geauga county, and after completing the curriculum of the high school he continued his studies for a time in Hiram College. Under the present system of congressional appointments to the military and naval academies of the United States he was the first to receive appointment to cadetship in the United States naval academy, at Annapolis, after competitive examination in which he secured a specially high average. The appointment was conferred through the late General James A. Garfield, who was then a member of Congress and who was later to meet a martyr's death while serving as president of the United States. Mr. Chapman made an excellent record. in the naval academy. After his return to Geauga county Mr. Chapman turned his attention to the pedagogic profession, and, for several years, he was a successful and popular teacher in the public schools of his native county. Thereafter he was for eight years a traveling representative for an extensive manufacturing concern in Albion, Michigan, and in 1885 he initiated his efforts in connection with the life insurance business, in which it has been his to gain much of prestige and success. He began his labors in the capacity of solicitor for the Ætna Life Insurance Company, and in the following year, 1886, he became assistant manager of the company's general agency in the city of Cleveland. Since 1890 he has been the head of this agency, which is conducted under the firm name of F. C. Chapman & Co., and the most effective voucher for his ability and well directed efforts is his retention in this important position. He has brought the Cleve land agency up to the highest standard of efficiency and has gained the earnest co-operation of the sub-agents and solicitors in the extensive and important territory covered from, the Cleveland headquarters. He is recognized as one of the progressive and alert business men of the Ohio metropolis and his course has been such as to gain and retain to him the most unqualified popular confidence and regard. He has identified himself with a num- ber of other business enterprises in his home city, and his capitalistic investments have been made with much discrimination. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party and he is identified with various fraternal and civic organizations of representative order. In the year 1874 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Chapman to Miss Olive E. Gates, of Middlefield, Geauga county, Ohio, where she was born and reared. She is a daughter of Joseph Gates, who is one of the honored pioneer citizens of the county and who now maintains his home in Middlefield. Mr. and Mrs. Chapman have four sons and one daughter, concerning whom the following brief data is incorporated : John W. is cashier in the office of the general agency of the Ætna Life Insurance Company in Cleveland ; Gale J. is a successful agriculturist in Nelson township, Portage county, Ohio ; May M. is a student in Columbia University, in New York City ; Earl C., is a successful attorney, and is employed in the liability department of the Ætna Life Insurance Company, with headquarters in the city of Cleveland and George B. is a solicitor for the same company, from the Cleveland agency. WILLIAM FREDERICK DAGER, M. D.—Among the successful and influential members of the medical profession of Lorain county is numbered Dr. William Frederick Dager, one of the most prominent practitioners in the city. of Lorain. He was born at Norwich in Oxford county, Ontario, Canada, February 7, 1872, a son of Daniel A. and Pauline (Caverhill) Dager. Daniel Dager was born at Herkimer, New York, a son of Marcus Dager, also a native of the Empire state, and he in turn was a son of John Dager, from Saxony, Germany. Pauline (Caverhill) Dager was born in Canada. Moving from his native state of New York to Canada Daniel A. Dager died in that country in 1897, but his widow still survives him. Dr. William F. Dager was reared on a HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1409 Canadian farm, attending the common and high schools, and learning pharmacy he followed that vocation for three years. He graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. with the class of 1897, and began the practice of his chosen profession at Fort Seneca in Seneca county, Ohio, remaining there for five years. Following this period he pursued post-graduate courses at the Chicago Clinical College and at the Chicago Polyclinical School, and in October of 1903 he located in the city of Lorain and has since been one of its most talented and successful physicians. He is a member of the County and State Medical Societies, of the American Medical Association and of the International Tuberculosis Association. He is also affiliated with the Board of Commerce and is a Knight Templar Mason. Dr. Dager married Lillian J. Stephenson, who was born in Oxford county, Canada, a daughter of James Stephenson. A daughter, Mildred Leona, has been born to Dr. and Mrs. Dager. ELMER C. HULBERT, who is numbered among the agriculturists of Rootstown township, was born in Knox county, Illinois, May 30, 1852, a son of Alva and Eleanor (Richards) Hulbert, who were born in Suffield township, Portage county, Ohio, the father on February 14, 18̊8, and the mother on February 22, 1818. The grandparents, James and Mary (Niles) Hulbert, the former from Virginia, and Joshua and Rachel (Cary) Richards, from Maryland, were among the early settlers of Suffield township, where they located when the country was covered with timber and they were obliged to clear a space before they could erect their little log cabins. Alva Hulbert and Eleanor Richards were married there in 1835, but in 1840 they moved from there to Knox county, Illinois, where they bought 16o acres of prairie land from the government. In time they placed their homestead under cultivation, and they lived and labored there until their deaths, Mr. Hulbert dying in 1892 and his wife in 1894. Their seven children were : Jamin, who was killed in Oregon in 1871 ; Frances, who died in 1852 ; Olive, the widow of Perry Kenyon and a resident of Lincoln county, Oklahoma ; Lorania, who died in 1858 ; Lyman B., of Jefferson county, Illinois ; Isabel, the wife of Charles J. Fox, of Fulton county, Illinois, and Elmer C. Elmer C. Hulbert remained with his parents as long as they lived, and then buying the interest of the other heirs in the home estate of 120 acres, he farmed it until he sold the land in 1896 and came to Rootstown township, Portage county, Ohio. His home here is twenty-five acres owned by his wife. He married on the 18th of January, 1898, Elizabeth Hulbert, the widow of Albert Hulbert and a daughter of Thomas and Mary Ann (Pike) Bell, the father from Belfast, Ireland, and the mother from Columbiana county, Ohio, and the grandfathers on both sides, Isaac Bell and Hugh Pike, were from Ireland. Mrs. Hulbert was first married on the 23d of November, 188o, to Albert Hulbert, from Portage county, who was born on the 26th of November, 185o. The children of that union were : Bessie, now Mrs. Hugh Pike and a resident of New Milford, Ohio, and Jessie Rose, the wife of Arthur Barnard, of Edinburg township. The father of these children died on the .16th of January, 189o. Elmer C. Hulbert is a Republican in his political affiliations.     LEVI CHAPIN.—Distinguished not only as the representative of an honored pioneer family of the Western Reserve, but for the substantial New England ancestry from which he traces his descent, Levi Chapin holds an assured position among the best known citizens of Harpersfield township, and is eminently worthy of special mention in a work of this character. A son of John Chapin, he was born May 30, 1858, in Ashtabula county. His grandfather, Solomon Chapin, was born in 1781, in Massachusetts, and from there moved to New York state. Subsequently following the tide of emigration still further westward, he located in the Western Reserve, and was here a resident until his death, in 1861. He married Lucy Warner, who was born in 1777, and died in 1867, at the advanced age of ninety years. They were the parents of eight children, as follows : Angeline, Lucina, John, Sarah Ann, Maria, Margaret, Jane and Rhaney. John Chapin, born January 15, 1818, died in October, 1902. He selected farming as his life occupation, and spent the greater part of his active career in Ashtabula county. He married Nora Haggerty, a native of Harpers-field, and they became the parents of ten children, namely : Maria, born in 1845 ; Adelaide," born in 1847 ; Albert and Alvin, twins, born in January, 1849; Lucy, born November 22, 1851; 1410 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Florence, born August 20, 1853 ; Frank and Frances, born March 14, 1856, died when small, and Levi and Lewis, born May 30, 1858. Levi Chapin, was born and reared on the home farm, and as a boy and youth attended school in Cork, Ashtabula county. He is now the owner of a good farm of forty acres, and in addition to successfully carrying on general farming with profit raises some fruit. Mr. Chapin married January 18, 1888, Phroscene Kelsey, and they have four children, namely : John, died when small ; Pearl, born September 23, 1891 ; Osa H., born March 20, 1892, attending school in Austinburg, Grand River Institute ; and Frank, born January 2, 1895, died in 1901 when six years of age. Politically Mr. Chapin supports the principles of the Republican party. HORACE B. CORNER.-A citizen of Cleveland for more than half a century, or since his boyhood, Horace B. Corner has been identified for over forty years with the progress of the Citizens' Savings and Trust Company, of Cleveland, of which he has been a director and the vice-president for many years. He is an Ohio man, born in McConnellsville on the 26th of June, 1846, and is a son of William M. and Mary T. (Bassett) Corner. The mother was a woman of broad education and remarkable talents as an educator. She was born in Hawley, Massachusetts, December 18, 1818, and was educated at Mount Holyoke Seminary under the noted Mary Lyon. For many years she taught a private school for young ladies in Cleveland, having previously been principal of Worthington (Ohio) Seminary and Howard University, Washington, District of Columbia. The last years of her life were spent in the south, her death occurring at Savannah, Georgia, December 10, 1893. Her two children were Horace B. and Charles, the latter a resident of Savannah, Georgia. Mr. Corner, of this sketch, commenced his business career at the age of fifteen and later went through 'Eastman's Commercial College, at Poughkeepsie, New York. This training, with his schooling in public and private institutions, furnished him with a substantial mental equipment for the discharge of the practical duties of life. He became connected at a later period with the Buckeye Insurance Company, of Cleveland, and in 187o commenced his identification with the Citizens' Savings and Loan Association, which was consolidated with the Savings and Trust Company in 1903, under the title of the Citizens' Savings and Trust Company. His official rise with the progress of the institution was steady and uninterrupted, and his election as a director of the association in January, 1889, was followed later by the office of secretary and treasurer. At various times Mr. Corner has also been treasurer of the Cleveland Bethel Union, Bethel Associated Charities and the Kalamazoo, Allegan and Grand Rapids Railroad Company ; registrar of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, and trustee for numerous funds. Whatever fiduciary duties he has assumed—and they have been many and important—have been performed with fidelity, energy and ability. On November 24, 1884, Mr. Corner married Miss Amelia C. Ranney, eldest daughter of Henry C. Ranney, of Cleveland, and two sons, Kenneth Ranney Corner and Horace Ranney Corner, have been born of the union. DR. ALBERT GORDON HINMAN is one of the most talented members of the medical profession in Lorain county, a skilled physician of the city of Lorain. He was fitted for his present work by a most excellent training, graduating from the West Bloomfield (New York) high school, from the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, New York, June 21, 1899, and in 1902 he graduated from the University of Syracuse, New York, while in 1905 he completed the prescribed course and graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College. Dr. Hinman was the youngest man to graduate from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College, and holds the highest scholarship of any graduate of that institution, which is the second oldest school of its kind in the country. He began practice in Lorain on the 23d of August, 1905, and is a member of the County and State Medical Societies, and of the American Medical Association. Dr. Hinman was born at Bloomfield in Ontario county, New York, June 17, 1881, a son of Charles A, and Emma C. (Kern) Hinman, who were also born in the Genesee Valley of Ontario county, the father of Puritan and the mother of German stock. It is a notable fact that both were born within the same hour on the 12th of April, 1860, and they were married when but sixteen years of age. Charles A. Hinman was by trade a, carriage maker, and both he and his wife are yet living. On the paternal side the grandfather of Dr. Hinman was a native of Massachusetts, but he was also HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1411 one of the pioneers of Dubois county, New York, where he owned the first flour mill and the first distillery in his community. The maternal grandfather of the Doctor was born in Berlin, Germany, and was a nurseryman. Dr. Hinman married Alice C., the daughter of N. C. Alten, a leading business man of Lorain. PHILANDER R. HIGLEY.—In the annals of Portage county the name of Higley has long held a place of prominence, Colonel Benjamin Higley, grandfather of Philander R., having been among the earlier settlers of Windham township, and an able assistant in developing its agricultural and industrial resources. Philander R. Higley was born, January 17, 1843, in Paris township, a son of Matthew P. Higley, who was born in Becket, Massachusetts, coming from a long line of substantial New England ancestry, the. emigrant ancestor of the Higley family, one Captain John Higley, having emigrated from Wales to this country in 1655, the line of descent being thus traced : Captain John Brewster, Captain Joseph, Micah, Colonel Benjamin, Matthew P., and Philander R. Colonel Benjamin Higley married Sally McKown, and subsequently came as a pioneer to the Western Reserve. A further account of his life may be found elsewhere in this volume, in connection with the sketch of William A. Higley. Matthew P. Higley came with his parents to Windham township when a small child, and was here bred and educated. On September 25, 1839, he married Luna C. Robbins, who was born- in Herkimer county, New York. Her father, Philander Robbins, born in Warren county, New York, married Lydia De Long, and in 1814 came with his family to Portage county, Ohio, driving across the country with ox teams. Locating in the northeast corner of Windham township, he bought eighty acres of timbered land, and on the farm which he improved lived many years. Having acquired a fair share of this world's goods, he bought a house and lot in Windham Center about 1856, and there he and his wife spent their remaining days. After his marriage, Matthew P. Higley purchased a tract of wild land, lying partly in Windham township and partly in Paris township, and ere many years had passed he had cleared fifty acres of his purchase. He subsequently bought 100 acres of adjoining timber land, and in course of time had a fine homestead, with improvements of es pecial value, the original log cabin having been replaced with a commodious house, very pretentious for those days, and this dwelling, with two frame barns that he erected, is still standing. Moving to Windham Center in 1870, he purchased the old academy place, in which he and his wife subsequently spent their remaining years, his death occurring November 10, 1893, and hers December 8, 1903. Of their six children four survive, namely : Lovisa, widow of Henry Walden, resides in Windham Center ; Philander R. ; Perkins B., of Windham, and Mack D., also of Windham. After his graduation from the Windham high school, Philander R. Higley attended Eastman's Business College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, becoming well fitted for his future career. In 1862, during the Civil war, he joined the Squirrel Hunters' Brigade, and went to Cincinnati to assist in defending that city. In May, 1864, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Seventy-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company I, and was stationed for three months with his regiment at Johnson's Island. Going then with his comrades to Cynthiana, Kentucky, in pursuit of Morgan's raiders, he, with the company, was captured by the rebels, and taken across the Licking river. While cross-, ing the stream a few of the prisoners belonging to the Masonic order were allowed horses, two of the men, Henry Earl, first lieutenant of Company I, and Frank Snow, second lieutenant, riding one horse. After landing on the further side of the stream, their horse had almost reached the top of the very steep bank it was climbing, when, suddenly, it went to its knees, and shot backward with its riders into the river. Mr. Higley and his companion,. Judge Ezra Taylor, who were trying to steady each other, were convulsed with laughter, and remember that as one of the most amusing incidents of the campaign. Receiving his honorable discharge from the army August 20, 1864, Mr. Higley returned home, and soon after bought the southern part of his father's farm. Selling out five years later, he bought one hundred acres adjoining his farm on the north, and seven years later sold his entire farming estate. Buying then twenty acres of valuable land in .Windham Center, Mr. Higley has since been numbered among the respected residents of this place. He is an earnest supporter of the principles of the Republican party, and has filled various public offices, having been township trustee eight years ; personal property assessor three 1412 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE years, and has been real estate assessor. Fraternally he belongs to the Earl Milliken Post, G. A. R., and religiously he and family are worthy members of the Congregational church. Mr. Higley married, October 12, 187o, Adelaide Cannon, who was born in Aurora township, and was there brought up, receiving her elementary education in its public schools, afterward attending Hiram College. Her father, Hon. R. P. Cannon, and her grandfather, Israel Cannon, were both born in Blandford, Massachusetts, as was her grandmother, Lucinda (Parks) Cannon. Hon. R. P. Cannon, born in 1820, came with his parents to Portage county when young, and subsequently became one of the foremost citizens of Aurora township. He was very active and influential in public affairs, in 1867 being elected to the General Assembly and being re-elected to the same high position in 1869. While there he had the distinction of writing and promoting the bill which provided for the establishment at Columbus of the agricultural_ college, which later became the Ohio State University. He was for many years a member of the State Board of Agriculture, in that capacity doing much to forward the farming interests of the Reserve. He died May 18, 1898, at his home in Aurora, Ohio. He married Betsey Baldwin, who was born in Aurora township, Portage county, Ohio, a daughter of Alanson and Ruth (Wallace) Baldwin, natives of Connecticut. Maud Higley, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Higley, was born December 20, 1877. ECKSTEIN CASE was born at Carlyle, Clinton county, Illinois, on the 9th of July, 1858, and attended school in his native town until he was fourteen years of age. In 1878 he gained a cadetship at West Point Military Academy, and after remaining there for two years returned to Carlyle, where he commenced his law studies in the fall of 1880. In July of the following year he entered the office of Judge J. E. Ingersoll, of Cleveland, with whom he remained for a year, and afterward studied the same length of time in the office of Ranney and Ranney. In the fall of 1883 he became a member of the senior class of the law school of the Michigan University, graduated therefrom in March, 1884, and was admitted to practice at the Michigan bar. In May of the same year he was admitted to the Ohio bar, at Columbus. He has practiced his profession to a limited extent only. In July, 1887, he was appointed to his present position with the Case School of Applied Science, and has since devoted his time to the furtherance of its interests .and as such was elected to the School Council in 1903 and served two years. In his politics, Mr. Case is a Democrat. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, and from 1887 to 1890 was secretary of the Scottish Rite bodies of Cleveland. He is also a member of the Greek fraternity, Phi Delta Phi. DAVID H. DEAN.—Prominent among the representative agriculturists of Medina county is David H. Dean, who was born in Ashtabula county, but raised on the farm which he now owns and occupies,     April 18, 1860, coming on both sides of the house of pioneer stock, and of substantial New England ancestry. Asa B. Dean, father of David H., was born May 25, 1831, in Portage county, Ohio, but was brought up and educated in Harrisville township, Medina county, where his parents settled when he was a small child. Choosing for his life occupation that of a tiller of the soil, he settled in Lafayette township, Medina county, in 1858, buying first 100 acres of land. Succeeding in his ventures, he subsequently bought sixty-five acres of adjoining land, a part of which was in Harrisville township, and continued the improvements lie had already begun, erecting a good set of farm buildings, and placing the land under cultivation., He stocked it well, keeping hogs, cattle, sheep and horses, and was here successfully employed in mixed husbandry until he retired in 1893. He married Julia Loomis, who was born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, a daughter of Sidney Loomis, who came from Connecticut to Ohio at an early day. She is still living, residing on the old homestead, with her son David. Her other child, Dora, is the wife of J. F. Garver, of Chatham township, Medina county, and Ida M. died in 1873 at the age of eighteen when she was about ready to graduate from the Academy of Lodi. Brought up on the home farm, David H. Dean attended the winter terms of the district school, remaining with his parents until becoming of age. At the retirement of his father, Mr. Dean assumed the management of the homestead property, his mother and father continuing their residence with him, and he is now owner of a fine property, near the old homestead in Harrisville township, which in improvements and appointments is one of the best HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1413 in the vicinity. He carries on general farming and stock raising, making a specialty of breeding sheep both for the wool, and for market, and is meeting with noteworthy success in his operations, his earnest and honest toil bringing him excellent returns. Mr. Dean married October 6, 1881, Ella Derrick, a native of Pennsylvania, and to them five children have been born, namely : Ida May, wife of Edward Warner, of Lodi ; Ada M., wife of Thomas Longsdorf, of Westfield township; Eda Grace, wife of Grover Rice ; Asa W., engaged in farming in Lafayette township; and David Gail. A stanch Republican in politics, like his father, Mr. Dean has served as township trustee and township assessor, and for many years has been a member of the local school board. JACOB MEYER.—One of the leading journalists, business men and public-spirited citizens of Lorain is Jacob Meyer, manager of, the Lorain Evening News, the leading Demo- cratic journal of Lorain county. He is also a native-born son of Lorain county and a descendant of one of its early German families. Jacob Meyer, Sr., his father, was born in Aisace-Loraine, Germany, in 1834, and coming to the United States in 1852, he made his way direct to Lorain county, Ohio, living for a time in Avon township. He then purchased and' ocated on the farm in Sheffield township which has been his home for over half a century. He married Mary Pitsch, born in the Fatherland in 1836, and she came to the United States in 1856. Jacob Meyer, their son, was born on the old Meyer homestead in Sheffield township, December 25, 1868, and there he also spent the days of his boyhood and early manhood and received his educational training in the neighborhood school. Going to Cleveland in 1888, he worked in that city until coming to Lorain in 1894. From that time until 1902 he was prominently engaged in contracting and building, retiring after a successful career in that vocation. In 'goo he became the manager of the Evening News and has since continued at the head of that publication, establishing in the meantime a record, both for himself and his paper, second to none in the history of the press of Lorain county. During all these years he has also been prominent and influential in city affairs. He was elected the president of the city council in 1899, serving one term in that office ; was a member of the state board of election supervisors from 1902 until 1906; was secretary of the Lorain Builders' Association from 190o until 1902, and for a time was a director in the Wood Lumber Company, of Lorain. As a newspaper man he is fearlessly independent, and while the News is the Democratic organ of the county, under his able management it has been fair and unbiased, always on the side of the best interests of its home city. On the 19th of September, 1894, Mr. Meyer was married to Rose Edwards, from Hudson, Michigan, and their two children are John Edwards and Marie Meyer. EDWARD P. CLARK.—Among the native-born citizens of the Western Reserve who have been conspicuously identified with the advancement of its agricultural prosperity is Edward P. Clark, of Windham, who has accomplished a satisfactory work as a general farmer, and is now living retired in Windham, enjoying a well-earned leisure. A son of Edward F. Clark, he was born December 31, 1840, of honored pioneer stock, being a grandson of one of the early settlers of this part of Portage county, Isaac Clark, and grandnephew of Dillingham Clark, one of the original purchasers of Windham township. Coming from Massachusetts to the Western Reserve in 1811, Dillingham Clark became one of the largest landholders of Windham township, buying an extensive tract of wild land in its northeastern part. He was a man of great enterprise, very active and influential in the affairs of the township, and in 1817 erected a frame house which is still standing, being in a comparatively good state of preservation. In 1818, when the first postoffice in the township was opened, he served as postmaster. The farm which he cleared from the wilderness is still in the possession of the Clark family, being now owned and occupied by Edward A. Clark, a son of Edward P. Clark. Isaac Clark came from Becket, Massachusetts, to windham township in 1817, and settled on a tract of wild land just north of the center, and on the farm which he cleared and improved and spent his remaining years. He established the first store in the township, which was on the Dillingham Clark farm. He married Anna Mack, a native of Massachusetts who proved herself a true wife and com- 1414 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE panion, performing her full share of the pioneer labor of bringing up a family in a frontier country. A boy when he came with his parents across the country to Ohio, Edward F. Clark grew to man's estate in Windham township, and after the death of his parents purchased the interests of his brothers and sisters in the parental homestead, and was there .employed in tilling the soil a few years. Exchanging it then for the farm originally owned by his Uncle Dillingham, he there resided until his death. In 1836 he married Mary A. Sayles, who was born in Mayville, New York, a daughter of Augustus and Mary (Walker) Sayles, who migrated from New York to Geauga county, Ohio, in an early day, settling in Parkman, making that their permanent place of residence. Six children were born of their union, as follows : Celia A., deceased, married L. D. Woodworth, of Youngstown ; Edward P., of this sketch ; Alvin W., of Windham township ; Mary A., deceased, married V. R. Canfield, of Lansing, Michigan ; Albert D., of Greenback, Tennessee, and Emma F., wife of M. G. Donaldson, of Windham township. After leaving the district schools, Edward P. Clark completed his early education at the West Farmington Seminary. On August 11, 1862, he enlisted in Company D, One Hundred and Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and for a year served under General Burnside in the Army of Ohio. In 1863-4 he was with Sherman in Tennessee and Georgia; and during his army service took part in thirteen battles and skirmishes, being in the engagements at Cumberland Gap, Knoxville, Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, Utoy Creek, Atlanta, Columbia, Franklin, Nashville, Old Town Creek, Wilmington and numerous engagements of minor importance, in each one having the good fortune to escape injury. On June 29, 1865, he was honorably discharged from the service, and immediately returned to the parental home. He subsequently bought land in the southern part of Windham township ,and there carried on general farming many years. After the death of his parents, Mr. Clark purchased the Old home farm, buying out the remaining heirs, and there lived until 1905, engaged in agricultural pursuits. Having acquired a competency, he then bought fourteen acres of land in Windham, and is now living retired from business cares. He is a Republican in politics, and has served several terms as township trustee. He is a member of the Congregational church, of which he is now deacon, and was for ten years superintendent of the Sunday school, which was started by his grandfather, Isaac Clark, in 1818. On November 13, 1867, Mr. Clark married Sarah M. Higley, who was born in Windham township, a daughter of Alfred M. and Mary R. (Knapp) Higley, natives respectively of Windham township and of Geneva, Ohio. She died January 4, 1874, leaving one son, Edward A. Clark, now living in Windham township, on the original Dillingham Clark farm. Mr. Clark married second, May 5, 1875, Emily A. Kingsley, who was born in Windham township, of pioneer ancestry. Her father, David B. Kingsley, born in Becket, Massachusetts, in 1804, was a son of Enos and. Sarah (Wadsworth) Kingsley, natives of Connecticut. He married Julia Fitch, who was born in Torringford, Connecticut, a daughter of Luther and Clarissa (Mills) Fitch, and in 1853 migrated from Becket, Massachusetts, where he was married, to Ohio, locating in Windham township. JOHN OTHELLO LICEY, the subject of this sketch, is identified with the interests of Medina county as a manufacturer, inventor, author, traveler and lawyer. His father, Hon. Alvan D. Licey, for more than sixty years has held a high place in the esteem of his fellow neighbors and numerous friends. His grandfather, John Wilson, located at Wilson's Corners, now River Styx, in 1814, coming directly there with his brother .David, from the service of the war of 1812, and therefore was one of the first settlers and pioneers of Medina county. He was one of the very first match manufacturers in Ohio, and until the opening of the Civil war employed as many as thirty-five hands, which was considered a great advancement those days in the infancy of the match industry, and he sold his product throughout the entire state. Mr. Licey's ancestry on his father's side came from Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and are descendants of Quaker stock, taking their land from William Penn. Mr. Licey attended the Ohio State Univerity in 1881 and 1882, and the University of Michigan in 1883-1884 and 1885, graduating with the degree of LL.B., as the youngest member of any law class ever graduated from that institution at that time. In 1888 he went to Norfolk, Madison county, Nebraska, and opened an office in that growing town, where HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1415 the first sugar beet factory in America was built, under the firm name of Mapes & Licey, where he prospered, and in 1892 was elected prosecuting attorney on the Republican ticket and re-elected in 1894, after which he entirely ceased his activity in politics, believing that a political life ruins the force of character and stability of any man, and that the very strong men who do something worth while for the people and country never bother with politics. In July, 1897, he left, properly equipped, for Southern Mexico, where he began the growing of coffee for a life's industry. After having been nicely started he was taken with yellow fever, from which it was many months before he had entirely, recovered. That put a check to his ardent coffee career, and he came home. He joined the United States Army as an immune in the hospital corps early in the beginning of the American-Spanish war, and was honorably discharged at Huntsville, Alabama, in March, 1899. He returned to Medina county and resumed the practice of law, a profession he has followed since 1888. Mr. Licey never cared much for the legal profession, because, as he says, it is not a science and incorporates poor logic. The opinion of any court is worth little until the highest tribunal has passed upon it, and they are as apt to guess one way as another. Again, lawing is an expensive luxury, and "lawyers' houses are built on fools' heads" ; that the profession, if it can be called such, with its quibbles, has a tendency to narrow one's mind, and prodigous things never come from the brains of a lawyer that is lasting and useful to posterity. He was born at the old homestead at River Styx, on April 11, 1866, and. has always considered Ohio his home, although he has been an extensive traveler. He has been admitted to the bar of the supreme. court of the states of Michigan, Ohio and Nebraska, and has an elegant law office in his residence town in the city of Wadsworth, Medina county, at the present time. Mr. Licey is a Roosevelt Republican in politics, and contends that he is the most forcible character that America has as yet produced, none excepted. In religion he is a free thinker and, as he says, no nation or people can long exist if the social organization is founded on myth, bigotry and superstition. He is considered one of the best students in his vicinity and prides himelf on having the best individual library of literature, science and arts in the county. He is vice-president and director of the Buckeye Match Company, Vol. III-10 and has been financially successful. As he remarks, there is no necessity of a person being poor ; that if he will concentrate his entire life on an individual subject, quit school at the age of fifteen, conduct himself honestly, sincerely and frankly, with economy always as the safety valve, success will follow any individual's efforts. Mr. Licey is the inventor of patent No. 833884, on hold-backs, a contrivance attached to the shafts of a vehicle, dispensing entirely with the breeching and back-band of a harness ; also inventor of patent No. 824,552, tobacco-cartridge, wherein granulated tobacco is confined within the leaves of a superior tobacco, under high pressure, fitting any pipe or devise, and can be chewed as well as smoked, which will revolutionize this branch of the tobacco industry in time. The cartridge has become already an important manufactory in America's industries. At spare moments he has been a magazine writer and has produced some articles of note, but his recent literary curiosities consist chiefly of the following works : "Antiquity of Man in the Mississippi Valley," in which he demonstrates that the human race was in existence more than twenty thousand years ago in the Mississippi valley, during and before the post-glacial epoch, establishing the fact by implements found they used, deposited in undisturbed gravel in glacial terraces and kames, results of high floods during the receding of the ice at that epoch of the world's history. Other works of interest to the lover of curiosities in books that are now going into print is his volume, "Licey's Lippard's Major General Benedict Arnold, His Glory, His Wrongs and His Crimes," giving the most unique and fascinating history of General Arnold in existence. This work shows wherein Arnold, without shoulder-straps or commission, fought the fifteenth decisive battle of the world on his black charger Lucifer, at Bemis Heights and Saratoga, saving the United States to the independence of the American people, which the Continental Congress failed to recognize, and which would promote treason in any ambitious nature. He asserts that Arnold was the only real Napoleon that America ever produced. His work, that has cost him many years of diligent research and an expensive literary Americana to substantiate his theory, "Did Columbus Discover America," is now going into print. In this work Mr. Licey contends that either the Egyptians or Phoenicians, 1416 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE which at one time dominated the whole discovered world, were maritime people, and that they sailed out of the Pillars of Hercules, coasted along the west shore Of Africa, where by accident they got into the great Southern Equatorial ocean current and the Trade Winds, and were driven westward at the rate of ten miles an hour until they struck the coast of Brazil, where the current divides, half going south and half north, entering the Caribbean sea and Gulf of Mexico, where these people were wafted by these strong currents, and at last established a permanent colony in Honduras and Yucatan long before the Christian era. That the wonderful, magnificent, ruined cities in Central America and Mexico of Copan, Uxmal, Palenque and Mitla are their work, and that these people being isolated from their mother country for hundreds of years, without any written records, became autochthonic or indigenous to their adopted land. That migration of the Chinese or Japanese in due course from their country by the way of the Aleutian Islands to America they amalgamated and assimilated, and this was the result of the races that Cortes found in ancient Mexico when he invaded that territory, and the .people that records now call Aztecs, Toltecs and the Mayas, which had arrived at such advanced stage of civilization. Mr. Licey is a zealous student, with new and advanced ideas, a good thinker and an enterprising personage in the community in which he lives. WALTER J. WRIGHT is a well known citizen and an influential business man living in Lorain, manager of the Austin-Wright Grocery Company and a member of the Lorain City Council from the Fourth Ward. He was born on a. farm near Elyria December 17, 1877, a son of Frank and Mary E. (Shook) Wright, both born in Huron, Erie county, Ohio, and a grandson on the paternal side of Ruggles Wright, one of the first settlers west of the Huron river in Erie county. His brother, Winthrop Wright, was in his day one of the wealthiest men of Erie county. Frank Wright and Mary E. Shook were married in Erie county, and soon afterward came to Lorain county and located on a farm in Elyria township. Later he was connected with the Lorain Brass Works for about five years. For about fourteen years Frank Wright was an employe of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company at Lorain. After severing his connection with the railroad he and his wife returned to Huron in Erie county, their present home, and Mr. Wright has served as a member of both the Lorain and Huron city councils. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows and the Maccabees fraternities and of two railroad men's organizations. Walter J. Wright received a public school training and-a course in the Sandusky Business College, and in 1897 he began clerking in the store of which he is now one of the proprietors, that of The Austin-Wright Grocery Company, probably the largest grocery concern in the entire city of Lorain, if not in the county. It was incorporated in 1904, being previously Irish & Austin for about eight years. Mr. Wright is also interested in Lorain real estate. He has been a member of Volunteer Fire Company No. 3 for eight years, and its treasurer during the past three years, and he was appointed a member of the Lorain City Council in 1908 to fill out an unexpired term, while in 1909 he was elected to that office on the Republican ticket by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Wright married Ada L. Shepherd, from Huron in Erie county, a daughter of William and Louise (Heyman) Shepherd, the latter's father, Charles C. Heyman, being a former mayor of Huron and one of the city's prominent and influential residents. William Shepherd was for several years postmaster at Huron. A daughter, Edith Eloise, was born on July 2, 19o9, to Mr. and Mrs. Wright. JOHN H. BRITTON was born January 24, 1832, in Van Buren township, Onondaga county, New York, and is the son of John and Betsy (Turner) Britton. John Britton was born in New York City, and his parents were natives of New Jersey. His wife was bore in Wash- ington county, New York ; her. father being a German and her mother a Hollander, and they were settlers in the Hudson river valley. John Britton, with his wife and eight children, removed to Ashtabula county, Ohio, in 1835, with a covered wagon and team of horses, and he purchased ma acres of land in Richmond township, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. He cleared the land of timber, and improved it until he had one of the best farms in the county. He spent the last years of his life on the old homestead and died at the age of sixty-five years ; his widow died at the age of sixty-nine. Of his ten children, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1417 all reached maturity. They were : James N., lived on a' farm in Richmond township, adjoining. his father, and died in 1909, in his ninety-first year ; Emeline, now in her eighty-ninth year, is the widow of Eleazer Marvin, and resides at Anacosta, Washington ; Adeline, died at the age of nineteen ; Docia Ann, widow of Alburtis Marvin, resides at Ashtabula, Ohio ; Harvey W., who was a carriage maker, died in his seventy-sixth year ; O. Morrill, died in middle life, in Cleveland, was a' mechanic and never married ; John H. ; Mason T., a mechanic, inventor and manufacturer of rowing oars, and inventor of machinery for coupling oars, died 'at Saginaw, Michigan, aged sixty-five years'; Betsy L., married Chauncey Griswold, and died at the age of sixty-five ; and Munson T., salesman for the Standard Oil Company, died at Cleveland, Ohio. Munson T. Britton was very popular in Grand Army of the Republic circles, having been a prisoner at Andersonville. He was a volunteer in the Second Ohio Cavalry, and later was transferred to army service in the regular cavalry ; he was detailed to train cavalry recruits at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. John H. Britton spent his early life on his father's farm in Ashtabula county, where he received his education, first attending school in an old log school house, which was later replaced by a better building. At the age of eighteen he began to work at building houses,. and as his father had a factory for manufacturing cheese boxes, he was familiar with the use of tools ; in 1851 he erected the second mill put, up in Ashtabula county; at West Andover; for planing and matching lumber. In partnership with another young man, he built a great many residences. After spending do years at this mill, he for three years manufactured cheese vats at Madison, Lake county. He spent the years 1861-2 in Cleveland, and then removed to Saginaw, Michigan, where for three years he was a contractor and builder of houses and steamboats. In 1865 Mr: Britton settled in Painesville and took a position as general salesman for the Union Iron & Wood Fence Company, which started there the year before ; the leading spirits of this enterprise were three King brothers and Charles A. Avery, and later they were joined by W. W. Herrick, of Ashtabula. They employed about 200 men in the manufacturing department, and their fences were principally of the ornamental variety for lawns. Mr. Britton became a buyer .of the fences, and employed several salesmen on his own account, having for his territory Ohio and the adjoining states. He did a good business for seven or eight years, amounting to some $300,000 or $400,000. This factory eventually burned, and for two or three years Mr. Britton was engaged in manufacturing brick. He then became connected with the Van Dorn Company, of Cleveland, manufacturers of ornamental iron fences, jail fittings, etc., and for fifteen or eighteen years has bought and sold their product. He is thoroughly familiar with the details of the iron fence manufacture and trade, and has been very successful along this line, at which he has spent so many years. For two years he was a contractor in building bridges, thus giving him a large experience in the line of iron and steel construction. Mr. Britton owns a pleasant home at Painesville, also a ten-acre pear orchard. He is very. much interested in horticulture, and is a member of the Horticultural Society. Mr. Britton married, in 1861, Margaret McClellan, then of Madison county, but born in Washington county, New York, and at the age of eighteen coming to the Western Reserve. They are the parents of one son, John Fremont. John Fremont Britton became a salesman for Van Dorn Company, and assisted his father at Atlanta, Georgia, when he exhibited the fences at the First Cotton Exposition. He handled stock at New York for a number of years, and for the past ten or twelve years has been a cotton broker, formerly at Atlanta, and now at New Orleans, where he resides. He married at Atlanta, Ida Duncan, and they have one daughter, Helen. ALFRED M. HIGLEY.—Not only was the late Alfred M. Higley one of the representative farmers and citizens of Windham township, Portage county; but he was also a scion of one of the old and honored pioneer families of the Western Reserve, in which he was a member of the Second generation in his native county. His life was guided and guarded by the highest principles of honor and integrity, and he well upheld the prestige of a name which has been identified with the annals of American history since the early colonial epoch, when the original progenitor in the new world . came from England and took up his abode in Massachusetts. Members of the family were numbered among the early settlers of Ohio, and to the Western Reserve of that commonwealth came worthy representatives 1418 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE to perpetuate the record of honor and usefulness in connection with the duties and practical activities of life. Alfred M. Higley was born in Windham township, Portage county, Ohio, on the 2d of December, 1822, and died on his fine old homestead farm in that township on the 17th of August, 189o, secure in the confidence and esteem of all who had come within the sphere of his influence. He was a son of Colonel Benjamin and Sallie (McKown) Higley, the former of whom was born in Becket, Massachusetts, in 1777, and the latter in Norwich, Connecticut. Colonel Higley was a son of Micah and Olive (Adams) Higley, both of whom were likewise natives of Becket, Massachusetts, and the latter of whom was a representative of the famous Adams family of that state, in which was cradled so much of our national history. Micah Higley was the second son of Captain Joseph Higley, son of Brewster Higley, and the last mentioned was a son of Captain John Higley, who probably was the founder of the family in America. In the summer of 1811, only a few years after the admission of Ohio to the Union, there came a somewhat numerous colony of citizens from Becket, Massachusetts, to the Western Reserve of Ohio, and they made settlement in the midst of the dense forests of Windham township, Portage county, where only one or two families had previously established homes. Of this sturdy band of pioneers Colonel Benjamin Higley, who had won his title -through service in the Massachusetts militia, was a prominent member, and in the new colony he became an influential factor. He secured from the Connecticut Land Company, the original owners of the Western Reserve, a tract of heavily timbered land in the northwestern part of Windham township, and the first labors that fell to his portion were those of felling trees and hewing the logs from which to construct his primitive log cabin, which became the family domicile. The various members of the little colony assisted each other in these preliminary labors, and goodly friendship and mutual helpfulness were ever in evidence among these worthy pioneers, who laid broad and deep the foundations for future development and opulent prosperity. The land secured by Colonel Higley was located just to the south of the present village of Windham, long known as Windham Center, and still so designated by many of the older inhabitants. With the passing of the years his arduous and well directed efforts proved fruitful in the reclamation and development of his farm, and his life was prolonged to a patriarchal age, so that he was, enabled to enjoy the rewards of former years of indefatigable toil and endeavor. He was in the ninetieth year of his life when he was called upon to obey the inexorable summons of death and he survived his wife, who had been a loyal and devoted helpmeet, by a number of years. He contributed his due quota to the civic and ma. terial development of Portage county, and in its annals his name merits lasting honor. Reared under the influences and conditions of the pioneer days, Alfred M. Higley bore his full share of the burdens and labors of the period, while he was not denied the gracious influences of the hearty good will and generous fellowship which obtained in the formative period of social development in this now favored section. He continued to. assist in the work and management of the home farm until and after his marriage. The major portion of the land, 164 acres, was by him reclaimed from the native forest and he developed the same into one of the valuable farms .of the county, making substantial improvements from year to year, including the erection of the large and well appointed residence. He continued to devote his attention to the supervision of his farm until his death, which occurred on the 17th of August, 189o, as already stated in this context. He was a man of indomitable energy, of keen business discrimination and of impregnable integrity. His genial and kindly nature gained to him a wide circle of friends and to him was ever given the implicit confidence and esteem of the community in which his entire life was passed and in whose welfare he ever maintained a loyal interest. In politics Mr. Higley gave a stalwart support to the cause of the Republican party, and he was called upon to serve in various offices of public trust in his township, of which he was clerk for twenty years prior to his death. He was for many years a member of the school board and in this position did all in his power to advance the educational facilities of the community to the highest possible standard. For many years prior to his demise he was a member of the board of trustees of the Congregational church at Windham, of which his wife also is a devoted member. On the 9th of January, 1845, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Higley to Miss Mary R. Knapp, who still remains on the old home- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1419 stead farm, which is endeared to her by the memories and associations o many years. In the ownership of the farm sfie was associated with her son, Arthur Stanley Higley, who had entire charge of its operations until his death. Mrs. Higley was born in Geneva township, Ashtabula county, Ohio, on the 16th of March, 1823, and is a daughter of Auren and Sallie (Burrell) Knapp, the former of whom was born in Connecticut and the latter in Massachusetts. Her father was a son of Caleb and Experience (Smith) Knapp, and her mother was a daughter of Jabez and Mary (Robbins) Burrell. Of the children of Mr. and Mts. Higley the following brief record is entered : Sarah Maria became the wife of Edward P. Clark and her death occurred on the 5th.of January, 1874 ; Burrell A. died October 17, 1885, at the age of thirty-five years ; he married Rilla Bosley, who survived him five months ; and Arthur Stanley. Arthur Stanley Higley was born on the home farm in Windham township, on the 1st of March, 1861, and on this place he continued to reside until his death, which occurred on the 24th of April, 1909. He was afforded the advantages of the public schools of Portage county and early became his father's able and valued coadjutor in the work of the farm, of which he became half owner upon the death of his father, as he was the only surviving child at the time. On the 27th of October, 1886, he was united in marriage to Miss Alta E. Hudson, who was born in Edinburg township, Portage county, Ohio, and who is a daughter of John and Emeline (Elliott) Higley, both of whom were likewise born in this county, where their respective parents were pioneer settlers. Arthur S. and Alta E. (Hudson) Higley be- came the parents of three children—Florence Mildred, Ruby Lucile and Alfred Hudson, all of whom remain at the parental home. Arthur S. Higley well upheld the prestige of the honored name which he bore and was one of the popular and influential citizens of his native township, where he held various public offices, including that of township clerk and member of the school board. He was a zealous member of the Congregational church at Windham, and was a trustee of the same at the time of his death. GEORGE WICKENS.—The late George Wickens, of Lorain, Lorain county, was one of the best known citizens of this section of the Western Reserve, and a man whose blameless life and rare character earned the esteem and respect of all who knew him. A son of Henry and Jane (Brant) Wickens, George Wickens was born at Basingstoke, England, on the 19th of July, 1852, and was reared and educated in his native town. Emigrating to Canada in 1871, he first located at St. Catherines, where he followed the carpenter's trade for two years. In 1873 he became a resident of Lorain, Ohio, where for ten years he conducted a substantial business as a contractor and builder. Before leaving his native country he had obtained a good knowledge of the furniture business while clerking in that line, and in 1883 he founded a furniture and undertaking establishment at Lorain. This enterprise has developed into what is now the extensive and important business owned and conducted by the Wickens Company. Subsequently taking a course of lectures at the Embalming College in Cleveland, Mr. Wickens acquired a thorough knowledge of the art and business, and in 1888 he was graduated from Clark's School of Embalming in that city. Thus thoroughly conversant with both the practical and scientific branches of his profession he began a career which brought him not only financial success, but what might be termed a national reputation. His business grew with rapidity, and in 1891 he erected his first brick business building, the three-story block on Broadway now owned and occupied by the Boston Store. In 1899 he enlarged his operations, opening a branch store on Tenth avenue, Lorain. In 1903 Mr. Wickens erected the Parkside Chapel, on West Erie avenue, as a home for his undertaking business. This building, which overlooks Gilmore Park, is made of buff pressed brick, with white stone front, and is as artistically and practically complete an establishment of the kind as can be found in any part of the United States. The following year, with characteristic enterprise, he broke ground for what is probably Lorain's handsomest business block, it being the company's furniture store. It is a five-story brick block, embodying all of the latest and most approved ideas in the erection of a business house, and since its completion, in 1905, has been the leading furniture establishment of the county. The death of Mr. Wickens, March 19, 1908, removed from the community one of Lorain's most active and valued business men and one of its most highly esteemed citizens. After his death the entire business was incorporated 1420 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE under the name of the Wickens Company, of which his son, George Brant Wickens, is president, Mrs. L. D. Lewis, vice-president, D. E. Baumbaugh, secretary, and Edward M. Wickens, treasurer. In 1886 Mr. Wickens became a member of the Funeral Directors' Association of Ohio, and in 1892 was made its president. In 1906, he represented the state of Ohio in the International Convention of Funeral Directors, held in a Southern city, at which time he had the distinction and honor of being appointed one of three members of the International Committee of Embalming, which was composed of a representative from the United States, one from England and the third member from Germany. Mr. Wickens was also very active in the Ohio Retail Furniture Dealers' Association, and in February, 1908, was elected its president. He was influential and prominent, likewise, in municipal affairs, ably and acceptably filling various positions of trust and honor. He was a member of the city council a number of terms, and in 1904 was elected, on the Republican ticket, as mayor of the city, and served two years.. During that time the National Tube Company's plant was located in Lorain, and in the possession of his family is the first pieceof steel manufactured at the plant. In 1903 he was elected a member of the first Board of Public Service, and in 1906 was re-elected, being a member at the time of his death. His worth as a public official is attested by all, and the impress which he left upon his time has a permanent endurance in the beautiful parks and the substantial public improvements, which he urged and energetically labored for during hisaofficial career. No man in Lorain as more highly honored and respected by the community than Mr. Wickens, who during his local career of thirty-six active and busy years contributed his full share towards the material growth and development of the city. Progressive and public-spirited, he advocated and worked for the supremacy of those ideas which would prove of lasting good to the entire community. He was a man of strong personality, warmhearted, generous and charitable, always ready to lend a helping hand whenever and wherever it was needed, being an especial friend to the unfortunate. An enthusiastic church worker, Mr. Wickens lived a life of love and human service, as a regularly ordained local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church being very active in religious circles his religion being expressed in thought, purpose and action. With his own hands he built the first Methodist Episcopal Mission, south of the Nickel Plate tracks, it being the second church built by that denomination in Lorain, and of that mission took personal charge, for a number of years serving as its preacher and Sunday-school superintendent. He was for many years officially connected with the First Methodist Episcopal church of Lorain as one of its trustees. Fraternally he belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to the Knights of Pythias, to the Modern Woodmen of America, to the Improved Order of Red Men and to other organizations of a similar character. Mr. Wickens was three times married. He married first Celia E. Chapman, who was born in Lorain county, Ohio, where her father, James Chapman, was a pioneer settler. Mrs. Wickens died June 16, 1876. The only child born of this union was a son, George Brant Wickens, now president of the Wickens Company. He married for his second wife, in 1877, while on a protracted visit to his old home in England, Mary A. Colly, who was born at Fordingbridge, England, and died October 20, 1904. They became the parents of three children, namely : William Arthur, who died April 23, 1906, aged twenty-eight years Elizabeth M., who married Lyle D. Lewis and Edward Mark. Mr. Wickens married for his third wife, October 17, 1906, Elizabeth Wallace, who was born in Lorain county, Ohio, a daughter of Captain Henry Wallace, who for twenty years was a vessel owner and commander on the Great Lakes. CHARLES A. OTIS, JR.—A representative business man of the city of Cleveland and a member of one of the honored pioneer families of the Western Reserve is Charles Augustus Otis, Jr., who is the owner and publisher of the Cleveland News and who is recognized as a citizen of prominence and influence in his native city. Charles Augustus Otis, Jr., was born in Cleveland on the 9th of July, 1868, and is a son of Charles Augustus and Eliza (Shepherd) Otis, the former of whom was born at Bloomfield, Morrow county, Ohio, on the loth of June, 1827, and the latter of whom was born at Aurora, Portage county, this state, on the loth of June, 1849. The father was reared and educated in Ohio and his en- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1421 tire active career was one of close identification with its important industrial and civic interests. He was a prominent factor in the iron and steel business for many years, and was the founder of the Otis Steel Company, one of the extensive industrial concerns of Cleveland. In politics he was a stanch advocate of the principles and policies of the Democratic party and he was essentially a progressive and public-spirited citizen. He served as mayor of Cleveland from 1872 to 1874, inclusive, and he ever commanded the unqualified confidence and esteem of the community in which the greater part of his life was passed. He died at the home of Charles A. Otis, Jr., in Cleveland on the 30th of June, 1905, and his wife died in the year of 1883. They became the parents of three sons and all are now living. The lineage of the Otis family is traced back to John Otis or Oates, who was born at Glastonbury, Somerset county, England, in 1581, and who came to America, in company with his family, in 1630. He settled in Hingham, in the Plymouth colony, and records extant show that he was there given several different grants of land. In 1653 he removed to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where he continued to reside until his death, on the 31st of March, 1657. On the 3d of March, 1635, he took the oath of allegiance and was made a freeman of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He was prominent in the political, religious and social life of his time and served in various positions of public trust. The name of his wife was Margaret, but further than this statement no authentic data concerning her or her family is to be found. From this sterling founder of the family in America the line of direct descnt to Charles Augustus Otis, Jr., is traced Briefly the following statements. John Otis, son of the above mentioned founder, was born in 1621, was married to Mary Jacobs in 1653, and died January 16, 1684. Captain Stephen Otis, son of John and Mary (Jacobs) Otis, was born in 1661, was married to Hannah Ensign on the 16th of June, 1685, and died August 26, 1733. Dr. Isaac Otis, son of Captain Stephen Otis, was born in 1699, was married to Deborah Jacobs on the 25th of May, 1719, and died November 11, 1777. His son Stephen was born November 4, 1728, married Elizabeth Wade and died in early life. William Otis, son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Wade) Otis, was born January 16, 1768, married Philena Shaw, and died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1836. Deacon William Augustus Otis, grandfather of him whose name initiates this review, was born February 2, 1794, married Eliza Proctor, and immigrated to Ohio in 182o. His death occurred on the 11th of May, 1868. Charles A. Otis, Jr., is indebted to the public schools of Cleveland for his early educational discipline, and here also he attended the Brooks School. He next entered historic old Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, where he continued his studies for one term. He later entered the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1890, and from which he received the degree of Ph. B. His original, business experience of an independent order was. in connection with the operations of the firm of Otis, Hough & Company, iron and steel brokers, with headquarters in Cleveland, in which firm he was one of the interested principals, as was he later in that of Otis & Hough, bankers and members of the New York stock exchange. He has been owner and publisher of the Cleveland News since 19o4, and under his able administration of its affairs the same has become one of the leading daily papers of the middle west. He is a member of the Associated Press and is known as an able and versatile newspaper man and as a citizen who is ever ready to lend his influence and co-operation in the promotion of all measures and enterprises tending to advance the civic and material welfare and progress of his native city. In politics Mr. Otis maintains an independent attitude. He is president of the Babies' Dispensary and Hospital,' one of the noble benevolent institutions of the Ohio metropolis. On the 11th of July, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Otis to Miss Lucia Ran-some Edwards, who was born and reared in Cleveland and who is a daughter of William and Lucia (Ransome) Edwards, the former of whom is president of the corporation of William Edwards & Company, engaged in the wholesale grocery business in Cleveland. Mrs. Otis was educated in private schools in Cleveland and in. Miss Cary's school in the city of Baltimore. Mr. and Mrs. Otis have two children—William Edwards, who was born on the 3d of April, 1900, and Lucia Eliza, who was born on the 11th of May, 1905. CYRUS H. BAKER.—A man of ability and worth, Cyrus H. Baker, late of Perry township, 1422 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE was well known throughout the community as a prosperous farmer and a respected citizen, at his death leaving a record for steadiness of purpose and persistent industry of which his descendants may well be proud. A native of Kentucky, he was born, November 27, 1837, in Hardin county, then Larue county, which was likewise the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. He came of thrifty pioneer stock, being a son of Olmstead Baker, and grandson of Elijah Baker, early settlers of Lake county. Elijah Baker, born in 1777, lived for several years in New York state. Coming with his family to Lake county in 1827, he located first in Concord township, finally taking up land in Perry township, on the South Ridge road, four miles east of Painesville, where he improved a homestead, on which he resided until his death, when past ninety years of age. He married Roxy Phelps, who was born in 1782, and attained a venerable age. They became the parents of nine children, nearly all of whom lived to more than four score years old, their names being as follows : Parkman ; Friend ; Jared ; Olmstead ; Nelson ; Linda M., who married Richmond Barber ; Halsey H.; Hendrick, twin brother of Halsey H., died in childhood, and Arad. The present residence of the Baker family, now being occupied by the third generation, was built by a Mr. Hanks, and is one of the oldest in the neighborhood, being, probably, a century old. Olmstead Baker was born, in 1814, in Cayuga county, New York, near Auburn. As a boy of twelve years he came with his parents to Ohio, and was here educated. Going as a young man to Kentucky, he was there employed as a teacher for a number of years, living .there for a while after his marriage. Returning to Lake county, he had charge of the lighthouse at Fairport Harbor until 1854, when he returned to the parental homestead, where he was busily engaged in agricultural pursuits the remainder of his active life, dying here in 1898, at the age of four score and four years. He married Sarah A. Dorsey, who died on the home farm in 1888, aged seventy-five years. Three children were born of their union, namely : Cyrus H., of this sketch ; Horace H., for many years a practising physician in Cleveland, died on the home farm at the comparatively early age of forty years, and Amelia M., wife of Wright W. Smith, lived for twenty-five years in Michigan, but is now a resident of Kansas City, Missouri. Succeeding to the ownership of the ancestral homestead, Cyrus H. Baker tenderly cared for his parents during their declining years, spending, practically, his entire life on the old farm, although he was for a few years a resident of Kentucky. Under his father's training he became skilled in agricultural labors, and as a successful farmer contributed his full share toward the development and growing prosperity of town and county. On May 27, 1906, having nearly rounded out the three score and ten years of man's life, he laid, down the burdens of earth, passing to the life beyond. He was twice married. He married first, when but twenty-one years of age, Minerva Paine, a daughter of Hiliman Payne. She died in 1870, leaving one child, Agnes, wife of S. W. Hurlburt, of Perry township. He married second, April 9, 1873, Ada DeWitt, who was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, on the same farm that his birth occurred, sixteen years before. His grandmother and her mother were relatives, and the families had visited each other, keeping in close touch. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Baker, namely : Mabel A. and Horace H. Mabel A. Baker was educated in the Perry High School and Lake Erie College, and for three years was a teacher in Columbus, and is now employed as teacher in Cleveland. Horace H. Baker, who is a skilful mechanic, lives with his mother on the home farm, which he is managing with excellent success. BERT A. J. FISHER.-A man of excellent business tact and ability, Bert A. J. Fisher, of Medina, Ohio, is widely and extensively known in the mercantile circles of many towns, cities and states, his duties as a commercial traveler having brought him in close contact with the leading merchants of the Middle West. A son of William R. Fisher, he was born August 9, 1854, in Jefferson county, Ohio. William R. Fisher, a native of Pennsylvania, settled in Jefferson county in early life, and there followed his trade of a shoemaker, and also the cooper's trade, for several years. Removing to Medina county in 1885, he bought land at Montville township, and was there successfully employed in tilling the soil until his retirement from active pursuits. He still resides on his farm, enjoying a well-earned leisure. He married Lydia Kirk, who was born in Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of ten children, namely : Lorain F., a farmer; Rev. Elmer K., a Baptist minister, now in charge of an independent mission in Cali- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1423 fornia ; Bert A. J.; Emma J., now widow of B. F. McFaddin ; Margaret, now Mrs. W. F. Freidel ; Elizabeth S., now Mrs. Edward Smith ; Jennie died at age of ten years ; Louis died at age of eleven ; Frankie and Willie died in childhood. After leaving the district school, Bert A. J. Fisher further advanced his education by taking a course of study at the Normal University, in Lebanon, Ohio. He subsequently taught school with good success for seven years, resigning the position to become traveling salesman for a Chicago firm, Tressing & Co., dealers in hardware. His route for many years passed through Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan, a very long and hard route. At present his territory is confined to , Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Virginias, and in these states he has an extensive and lucrative patronage, being one of the most popular hardware salesmen on the road. In 1879 Mr. Fisher married Katherine Ogden, of Illinois, and they have one daughter, Pauline 0. Fisher. Politically a Republican, Mr. Fisher has long been influential in local affairs, and from 1901 until 19o5 represented Medina county in the state legislature, serving while there on various important committees, and being chairman of the committees on agriculture, county affairs, and on roads. A man of sound judgment, who has won well deserved success by his thorough mastery of his calling, fidelity to his trusts, and his honest dealings, Mr. Fisher has accumulated property, owning city property, and takes genuine pleasure in doing what he can to advance the interests of his town and county. He has perhaps the best and most elaborate library in Medina county and of this he is very proud. BYRON G. NICHOLS.-A broad-minded, liberal man, enterprising and progressive in industrial movements of all kinds, Byron G. Nichols, a well known and valued citizen of Lorain, has been actively engaged in the real estate business for several years, his transactions in this line amounting to thousands upon thousands of dollars. A son of John Nichols, Jr., he was born, October 12, 1864, in Black River township, Lorain county, coming from pure English stock. His paternal grandfather, John Nichols, Sr., was born, reared and married in Wiltshire, England. In 1835 he emigrated with his family to the United States, settling as a pioneer in Erie county, Ohio, where he cleared and improved a homestead from the wilderness Born in Wiltshire, England, in 183o, John Nichols, Jr., was but five years of age when he came with his parents to the Western Reserve. He grew to manhood in Erie county, but subsequently settled in Lorain county, where, in 1852, he purchased a farm on West Erie avenue, Black River township, Lorain county, but two miles west of the city of Lorain. Here he was profitably engaged in tilling the soil until his death, in 1878. He was twice married. His first wife, whose maiden name was Martha Elwood, died in early life, leaving two children, E. C., of Calhoun, Missouri, and Violet, wife of W. E. Lowe, of Chardon, Ohio. He married for his second wife Deborah Lowe, who survived him and passed away in 1899. She belonged to the New England family of Lowes, and was born, in 1837, in Erie county, Ohio, the daughter of one of the pioneers of the Western Reserve, her father having removed to Ohio from Pennsylvania. Of this union five children were born, namely : Byron G. ; Charles A., a real estate dealer in Lorain ; John B., of Lorain, a civil engineer and real estate agent ; Edwin H., engaged in business in Lorain, and Grace E., a teacher in the city schools of Lorain. Brought up on the home farm, Byron G. Nichols attended the district schools as a boy, completing his early education at Baldwin University, in Berea. At the age of eighteen years he entered the employ of John B. Tunte, a groceryman, with whom he remained three years. Becoming familiar with the details of the trade, he was subsequently engaged in the retail grocery business on his own account for twelve years, when he sold out to his brother Charles, and for six years thereafter carried on a substantial trade in crockery ware. Opening then a real estate office in Lorain, Mr. Nichols has since been one of the most extensive dealers in realty in this section of the county, among some of his heaviest sales having been the Brass Works property, amounting to $60,000; the Boston Store, amounting to $25,000, and the S. W. Matthews farm on West Erie avenue for $22,000. He also bought the Knox Syndicate property, containing about three thousand acres. He has more recently sold property valued at $147,00o to Mr. Hartman, of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, who is now interested with Mr. Nichols in the Park Plan Land Company, which owns one hun- 1424 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE dred and fifty-five acres of land, .and, together with E. M. Pierce, Mr. Nichols represents the Black River Land Company. Mr. Nichols is also financially and officially connected, with various local enterprises, being, a director in the Lorain Banking Company, the Black River Telephone Company, and the Lorain Casting. Company. He is a member of the Board of Commissioners and treasurer of the. Public Library and of the Citizens' Home and Association Company. For five years Mr. Nichols was a member of the Lorain city council, serving as chairman of the Finance Committee, and for one term was township clerk. In the various positions which he has filled Mr: Nichols has performed the duties devolving upon him to the satisfaction of all concerned and with credit to himself, giving as exact and careful attention to the details of public affairs as he does to his own private interests. In addition to his real estate dealings he is also dealing in automobiles. Mr. Nichols married Elizabeth Brightman, a daughter of the late Pardon B. Brightman, of Huron county, Ohio, and to them three children have been born, namely : Howard K., eighteen years of age ; Enid L., twelve years old, and Millicent D., ten years of age. JOSEPH A. BIRCHARD.—Beginning the battle of life poor in pocket, but the possessor of an unlimited stock of perseverance and energy, Joseph A. Birchard, of Windham, Portage county, is an excellent representative of the self-made men; who, by untiring. industry and good management, have succeeded in acquiring a competence. A son of the late Martin Birchard, he was born April 6, 1830, in Keysville, Essex county, New York, being the only survivor of a family of four children. Martin Birchard married, in New York state, Florilla. King, and a few years later, about 1831, came with their little family to Trumbull county, locating at Newton Falls, where both died at an early age, the mother's death occurring in 1845. Thrown upon his own resources when but fifteen years old, Joseph A. Birchard lived in Windham township until attaining his majority being employed by the Alford family, who were to give him a certain amount of schooling each year, and a limited sum of money. Becoming of age, he worked by the month for wages, and by prudent thrift accumulated in the course of a few years a sufficient sum to buy a small piece of land lying northeast of Windham Center. To this he added other tracts by purchase, becoming the owner of two hundred acres of rich and fertile land, on which he was busily employed in tilling the soil for many years, being exceedingly prosperous in his operations. Subsequently selling the larger part of that property, Mr. Birchard, in 1883, purchased a residence and six acres of land in Windham Center,. where he has since resided, an esteemed and respected citizen. Mr. Birchard married, April 19, 1855, Sarah E. Russell, who was born, in February, 1835,. in Windham township. Her father, Philip Russell, a native of. New York state, and the descendant of a Revolutionary soldier, married Sally Jagger, who was' horn in Windham township. Portage county, a daughter of Aaron and Mercy (Seeley) Jagger, who were among the .original owners of the township, coming here in 1811 with the emigrants from Becket, Massachusetts. The Jagger family came from Scotland to the United States, descendants of the founder of the family serving in the Revolutionary war. Mr. and Mrs. Birchard have no children. Mr, Birchard is a Republican in his political affiliations, and has served as real estate assessor, and for three terms was township trustee. He is a member of the Congregational church, and one of its. trustees. LANCELOT SPENCER NICHOLSON.—A prosperous farmer and leading citizen of Nelson township, Portage county, Lancelot S. Nicholson was born in .the township named, March I, 1837, and received his early education at the district school about half a mile from the old farm. He also attended a select school at Nelson Center, but when about nineteen years old abandoned the training of. books for the education to be obtained from close contact with the world. He has since steadily progressed in the estimation of his associates and has made a high record as a progressive agriculturist and a useful citizen, having served long and well as township trustee, justice of the peace and member of the school board. In politics he is a Republican and in his fraternal relations a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The Nicholson. family is of good English stock, the paternal grandfather, Isaac Nicholson, being born in Northshields; England, where he married Miss Mary Richardson. In the latter part of 1801 they came to. the United HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1425 States, settling at Richmond, Connecticut. Two months after their arrival, however, was born their son, Isaac, his birth occurring on Long Island, New York, January 14, 1802. The latter married Mrs. Flavia. King (nee Spencer) and shortly afterward 'settled down to a long career of usefulness and honor at Nelson Center. Not long before he had come overland from Connecticut, covering most of the distance by stage, although his good feet had carried him from Ashtabula. Both parents spent the remainder of their lives in Nelson township, the father dying October 4, 1896. His wife, who was born in Simsbury, Hartford county, Connecticut, married as her first husband one of the Ravenna Kings. Her union to Isaac Nicholson occurred October 29, 1835, and of her three children by this marriage Lancelot 5 was the eldest. Cecilia Albina, the elder daughter, was born September 15, 1839, and Mildred Eliza, October 26, 1841. Lancelot S. Nicholson married Miss Frances D. Carpenter, daughter of Lewis and Phoebe (Walters) Carpenter, the ceremony occurring. January 1, 1861. Mrs. Nicholson is a native of Princeton, Indiana, born June 17, 1843, and has become ale mother of five children, as follows : Lewis Carpenter, Jennie Eliza, Eugene Spencer, Jessie Lee and Mabel F. Lewis C., who was born in Nelson September 14, 1861, married Bertha, Taylor, daughter of John and Demis (Smith) Taylor, and their two children are Alice Mildred and Lina Demis. Jennie, the eldest daughter, married Calvin Hedger, son of Joseph and Mary (Davis) Hedger, and the children of this union are Forest, Calvin and Lynn. Eugene S. Nicholson' was born November 12, 1867, and Jessie L., who was born July z 1, 1872, died on the 11th of July, 1888. Mabel F., who was born May 19, 1879, married George H. Bancroft, a hotel proprietor of Nelson, and has become the mother of two children, Hugh and Walter. (A sketch of Mr. Bancroft will be found elsewhere.) OREN N. PARKER was born September 4, 1838, across the road from his present home in Orwell township, Ashtabula county, and is a son of Nehemiah and Chloe (Cook) Parker. He attended Orwell Academy and worked on a farm until he was twenty-six years old. After his marriage he purchased eighty acres of his present farm, and has carried on dairying extensively since. He has lived in Orwell township all his life, and for the last fifteen years bought and sold cattle. He is a strong Democrat, although his first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln, and he has served three terms as township. assessor. He is a member of the Grange at Orwell and is a charter member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Orwell. Just prior to the war Mr. Parker belonged to the "Black String" Society. He is an industrious and thrifty farmer, and has made many improvements in his farm; he has. erected three buildings. Mr. Parker married, July 1, 1863, Marilla A. Dimmick, born July 18,. 1840, daughter of Jonathan and Lucy (Eaton) Dimmick, who died January 1o, 1902, aged sixty-two years. Their children were : Lucy E., born February I, 187o, Married- E. B. Hall, cashier of Orwell Bank, and has two children; Maud Valentine,. born February 14, 1875, married Henry Davis,. a real estate dealer of Cleveland, and has. three children, and Mattie Z., born February 2, 1879, 'harried Ford Goodrich', who was killed on a railroad, and had one child, Eloise.. Mr. 'Parker married (second), April 18, 1903, Adell Barr Kile, and though they have no children, they adopted two, (when they were first married), namely : Jennie Wicks, born September 17, 1863, married Robert Williams, of Orwell, and Fred Gram, living at Mantua, married .Rose Daniels, and has one child. Mr. Parker's second wife's father, Sumner Barr, son of James and Sarah Barr, was born July 27, 1811, in New York ; he married (first) Bethia Winslow and they had three children : Freeman, who died in the army ; Elizabeth, died at the age of eight years, and Sarah, Mrs. Van Ness, of Chicago, who has four children. Sumner Barr came to Ohio on horseback, in 1832, and there was married ; he worked in a mill. His wife died and he married (second) Mima Johnson, of Vermont, and they had seven children, namely : Martha, Darius, James, Emarett, Arile, Charles and Adell. Sumner Barr died May 26, 1886, and his second wife died in 1866, at the -age of forty-six years, when Adell was five years old. Adell Barr was born December 31, 1860, in Austinburg township, Ashtabula county, Ohio,. and married, July 20, 1884, Edson Kile, and they lived in Huntsburg, Ohio. Their children were : Ethel L., born March 26, 1887,, married Glen Tracy, and has three children, who live in Colorado ; Edith Adell, born August 28, 1889, married Blaine Kingdom, and has one child, Margaret L., and Neil, born June 14, 1896, attends school. Mr. Kile died 1426 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE November 6, 1896, in Grafton, Ohio, and is buried in Orwell. BERNARD H. NICHOLS, M. D.—A representative physician and surgeon of the younger generation in the historic old Western Reserve is Dr. Nichols, who is engaged in the active practice of his profession in the city of Ravenna, Portage county, and who is a native son of this county, where he is a scion, in the third generation, of one of the well known pioneer families of this favored section of the Western. Reserve. Dr. Nichols was born in Atwater township, Portage county, Ohio, on December 18, 1876, and is a son of Samuel and Ada (Wierman) Nichols, both likewise natives of Portage county. - Samuel Nichols was born in Atwater township, this county, and is a son of Henry Nichols, who came from his native state of Pennsylvania to Ohio and took up his residence in Portage county in the pioneer days. He became the owner of a farm in Atwater township, but devoted his attention largely to the operation of a saw mill and to the timber business, in connection with which he was most successful. He continued to reside in this county until his death and his name is held in honor as one of the worthy pioneers, of the Western Reserve, to whose development and progress he contributed his quota. Samuel Nichols was reared to manhood in Atwater township, to whose common schools he is indebted for his early educational training, and there he was for many years actively identified with agricultural pursuits, as the owner of a well improved farm of 100 acres. He is a carpenter by trade and to the same he has given more or less attention since his youth. He and his wife now reside in the city of Ravenna, where he follows the vocation of contractor and builder and where he commands the unqualified esteem of all who know him. His political proclivities are indicated by the stalwart support he has given to the Democratic party from the time of attaining to his legal majority. Mrs. Nichols was born in the village of Palerma, Portage county, Ohio, and is a daughter of Michael Wierman, who was a native of Germany and who became one of the early settlers of Portage county, where he passed the residue of his long and useful life. He was a tailor by trade and to the same he devoted himself during the greater part of his active business career. Samuel and Ada (Wierman) Nichols became the parents of three children, of whom the eldest is the subject of this review ; Walter is a telegraph operator and is now a resident of Lester, Iowa ; and Anah remains at the parental home. Dr. Nichols gained his rudimentary education in the district schools of his native township and thereafter continued his studies in the high school at Edinburg, after which he entered the Ohio State Normal School at Canfield, where he admirably fitted himself for the pedagogic profession, to which tie devoted his attention for a period of six years, with marked success, having been a popular teacher in the public schools of his native county. In 1898 Dr. Nichols was matriculated in the medical department of famous old Johns Hopkins University, in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, where he pursued his technical studies for two years, after which he entered Starling Medical College, Columbus, Ohio, in which old and finely ordered institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 19o4 and from which he received his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. Shortly after his graduation he located in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was engaged in the practice of his profession for two years and where he amply demonstrated the wisdom displayed in choosing his exacting and humane vocation. In the spring, of 1906 Dr. Nichols took up his residence in Ravenna, where he has built up a most satisfactory and representative professional business and where he has gained prestige as one of the able physicians and surgeons of this section of the state. He is thoroughly fortified in the most modern and approved methods obtaining in his profession and continues a close and appreciative student of both medical and surgical science as exemplified in the advanced theories and practice of the day. He retains membership in the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society and the Portage County Medical Society. In his political allegiance Dr. Nichols is found arrayed as a stanch and effective supporter of the cause of the Democratic party, whose interests he has done no little to advance in a local way. He is a valued member of the board of education of Ravenna, to which position he was elected in. 1908. He is affiliated with the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. He enjoys the esteem of his professional con- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1427 freres and is distinctively popular in the county of his nativity, where he has a wide acquaintanceship. In 1907 Dr. Nichols was united in marriage to Miss Myrtle Smith, daughter of Charles A. Smith, a representative business man of Ravenna. WILLIAM H. BASORE.—Possessing recognized business energy and ability, William H Basore, of Lorain, Th carrying on an extensive and remunerative business as proprietor of the Basore Livery and Transfer Company, one of the largest industries of the kind in Lorain county. A native of Ohio, he was born, December I1, 1874, in Ottawa county, a son of Jacob and Nancy (Whitcraft) Basore, both of whom were born and bred in the Hocking valley, Ohio. At the age of ten years William H. Basore went with his parents to Van Wert, Ohio, where he lived for six years, in the public schools of that locality completing his early education. The family then removing to Saint Louis, Michigan, William came to Lorain, and for the next few years worked at any paying employment. Thrifty and prudent, he saved a little money, and in 1899 embarked in the livery business, beginning in a modest way, with scarcely any capital. Successful from the beginning, his business soon began to increase, and in a comparatively short time he was enabled to add a transfer department, which has added substantially to his annual income. The extent of his industry soon demanding more commodious quarters, Mr. Basore moved, in 1902, to his present large and well equipped establishment on West Erie avenue. Here he keeps on an average forty head of horses and vehicles of all kinds, including the latest styles of carriages, his stock and business representing a capital of $25,000. In his transfer operations Mr. Basore does business in all parts of Lorain county. Mr. Basore married Barbara Hennis, who was born in Sheffield township, Lorain county, a daughter of Nicholas Hennis, and they have one son, Louis Alfred Basore. DR. ELROY MCKENDREE AVERY has stood for nearly forty years as one of the foremost educators of Cleveland, and for the greater portion of that period as one of the leading exponents of physical science in the United States. In that province he has attained unusual prominence as a teacher, a lecturer and an author; his high standing in pedagogy has been secured by the able discharge of duties connected with positions which demanded strong powers of administration. Dr. Avery has also exercised a marked influence in public affairs, his service both in the city council and the state senate being applied, in a marked degree, to the furtherance of charities and moral reforms through public legislation. Although an active Republican, trained amid the throes of the Civil war, he has little inclination toward political life, and much prefers to exert his influence in public matters as a private citizen and through the agency of those whom he trusts and who desire advancement in that field. Elroy M. Avery is a descendant of an old Norman family that migrated to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. The founder of the American branch of this family was Christopher Avery, who came from England with his only son and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, where we find trace of him about 1640. The records show that he was a selectman of Gloucester for eight years ; that he became a resident of Boston, and later moved to New London, Connecticut, where he was made a freeman in 1669 and died ten years later. His only child, James, the founder of the Groton Averys, married Joanna Greenslade, and soon followed the younger Winthrop, his intimate friend, to New London. Here he became a large land owner, and in 1656 built the "Hive of the Averys" at Poquonnock Plain, in the town of Groton, where he lived. After housing eight successive generations of the Groton Avery clan, the old "Hive" was burned in July, 1894. Captain James Avery was both a famous Indian fighter and peacemaker, two characters which were apt to be closely related. At his death, April 18, 1700, he had served for twenty years as townsman, twelve terms as a member of the Connecticut, general court, several times as peace commissioner, and for many years as assistant judge of the county court. He was twice married, his second wife being Mrs. Abigail Holmes. Through John (3), William (4.), Abraham (5) (an officer of the Revolution), and Amos Walker (6), the line descends to Casper Hugh (7), the father of Elroy McKendree. Lieutenant Abraham (5) Avery married Mercy Packer, of Groton, Connecticut, and about 1794 moved with his family to New York, settling later at Preston, Chenango county, and dying at Earlville, Madison county, in 1843. 1428 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Amos W., his third son, was a native of Colerain, Massachusetts, and in 1808 married Nancy McCutcheon. He resided successively in New York and Michigan, and died at La Salle, Monroe county, Michigan, in 1863. His oldest child, Casper H., was born at Preston, New York, July 25, 1809; settled at Erie, Michigan, in 1833, and on September 26, 1843, married Miss Dorothy Putnam. She died March 17, 1868, and he followed on March 5, 1873. Elroy McKendree Avery, the first-born of the couple just named, was born at Erie, Monroe county, Michigan, July 14, 1844. His father soon moved from his farm to the county seat, where the son received his early education and his first experience in business, as a newspaper carrier, billposter and distributor. Naturally a student, however, he was adjudged by the local authorities qualified to teach school in Frenchtown township when he was only sixteen years of age. When the "Smith Guards" was raised as the first company of Monroe county to respond to the call for Union. troops, young Avery joined it, but although it went to the front as Company A, Fourth Michigan Infantry, he was then denied a muster in on account of his years. On July 14, 1861, however, he rejoined his friends and classmates at Georgetown Heights, near Washington City, just on the eve of the advance toward Bull Run. The first week of his seventeenth year closed with the first battle of Bull Run, and the youth returned to his home with the First Michigan regiment after its three months' service. Subsequently he enlisted in the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Michigan regiments, but was prevented from being mustered in by his anxious and affectionate mother. Finally, in 1863, he actually entered the ranks of Company E, Eleventh Michigan Cavalry ; remained with his regiment through its campaigns under Burbridge, Stoneman and others, and on the battlefield at Saltville, Virginia, was promoted to be sergeant-major. In addition ...to performing his military duties, he served as a war correspondent of the Detroit Daily Tribune, this being the beginning of a journalistic career which was continued for many years after the war. In August, 1865, he was formally mustered out of the service at Pulaski, Tennessee. At once entering the Monroe (Michigan) high school, the returned soldier prepared for the University of Michigan, which he entered in September, 1867. The four years of his collegiate course were made possible by work as principal of the Battle Creek (Michigan) high school for four months and editorial service on the Detroit Tribune. Before being graduated in June, 1871, he accepted the superintendency of the Charlotte (Michigan) schools, but was released from his engagement to assume a like position in the East Cleveland (Ohio) schools, offered him in July. In the following month he resigned his editorial chair to take up his school work at East Cleveland. In the following year the village of East Cleveland was annexed to the city of Cleveland, and Mr. Avery became principal of the East high school. In 1878 the East high school and the Central high school were consolidated and Mr. Avery became principal of the Cleveland Normal School. The next year he retired from the pedagogical but not from the educational field. For two seasons thereafter he delivered popular experimental lectures on the new electric light. In 1881 he began the organization of Brush electric light sand power companies in the larger cities of the country. His record of more than two score years with such companies has not been equaled by any other man in the country. In the meantime Dr. Avery had come into prominence as an author of high-school textbooks on physical science. In 1876 was published his "Elementary Physics," which was immediately adopted by the Cleveland high schools ; "Elements of Natural Philosophy" appeared in 1878; "Physical Technics" in 1879; "Teachers' Hand Book of Natural Philosophy," 1879 ; "Elements of Chemistry," 1881; "Teachers' Hand Book of Chemistry," 1882; "Complete Chemistry," 1883 ; "First Principles of Natural Philosophy," 1884 ; "School Physics," 1895 ; "Elementary Physics," 1897 ; "First Lessons in Physical Science," 1897 ; and "School Chemistry," 1904. He is also the author of the following works : "Words Correctly Spoken," 1887 ; "Columbus and the Columbia Brigade," 1892 ; "The Town Meeting," 1904. For a quarter of a century he has had in preparation a "History of the United States and Its People," to be complete in sixteen volumes—his great life work ; seven volumes had been published in 1909. In 1905 Dr. Avery was one of twelve commissioners appointed by the board of education to make a study of every department of the public schools of the city. He was a member of several of the committees of the commission and chairman of the committee on the HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1429 work and course of study in the common schools. The herculean task of the "Avery committee" was entered upon with enthusiasm, the search was radical and thoroughgoing, the findings were fearless, and the results far-reaching and important. Its report was approved by the commission and published in pamphlet form by the board of education. It was printed in full by the local daily press and in the leading educational periodicals of the country. One eastern publishing house printed 20,000 copies for gratuitous distribution, and many of the metropolitan newspapers gave it editorial comment and approval. Dr. Avery found abundant compensation for his six months' work in the minimizing of the "frills and feathers" features of courses of study in the common schools of Cleveland and of many other communities between the Atlantic and Pacific. Dr. Avery is a member of the American Historical Society ; a life member of the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society and of the American Economic Association ; a life member and trustee of the Western Reserve Historical Society; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ; a charter member of the Forest City Post, G. A. R. ; and the founder and first president of the Western Reserve Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is also a charter member of Woodward Lodge, F. and A. M., Knights Templar, and a thirty-second degree (Scottish Rite) Mason, and a member of the Zeta Psi (college) fraternity. Upon graduation in 1871 he received the degree of Ph. B., and subsequently the honorary degrees of Ph. M., Ph. D. and LL. D. Dr. Avery's public record, already noted, included service in the Cleveland city council in i891-2 and in the Ohio senate in 1893-7. In the former body he represented the East End (sixth) district, which returned him by the largest majority given any candidate in the city. In municipal legislation he was the leader in the gas reduction and reforms ; was chairman of the committees which investigated the street railroads and the city infirmary; was the author of the anti-smoke ordinance and was an earnest advocate for the founding of a city farm school for the benefit of vicious youth or abandoned and friendless children. His campaign for the state senate (for which he was an unwilling nominee) was magnificently conducted and, in point of majority, put him at the head of the legislative ticket. His senatorial record marked him as an able legislator, whose mind was chiefly fixed on the advancement of the higher interests of the commonwealth. As second president of the Ohio Conference of Charities and Corrections he first came into state prominence in this noble field of action, to which he has never ceased to give his best efforts. On the incorporation of the Children's Fresh Air Camp in 1895, he was chosen president, a position to which he was elected thirteen successive terms. Upon his refusal to serve another term he was chosen honorary president. Dr. Avery found the camp with property valued at about $300 ; he left it with property valued at about $150,000 and rich in the confidence and good will of the people of northern Ohio. On July 2, 1870, Dr. Avery wedded Miss Catherine Hitchcock Tilden, who had succeeded him in the principalship of the Battle Creek high school. She was his able assistant during his career as a teacher in Cleveland, and has been in every way a true companion and helpmate. A sketch of Mrs. Avery may be found on other pages of this volume. HUBERT J. WRIGHT.-A man of much enterprise and ability, Hubert J. Wright occupies an assured position among the intelligent and progressive agriculturists of Lake county, his farm in Perry township comparing favorably in point of improvements with any in the community. A native of this township, he was born, December 31, 1853, on the site of his present homestead, a son of Charles T. Wright, and grandson of Nathan Wright, an early settler of the place. Nathan Wright, born in New England, spent his early life in New York. He came from substantial colonial stock, and was of English descent, coming from a family of whom a part were loyal to the colonists, while a part remained faithful to the king. In 1829, in the very early part of the year, he migrated with his family to Ohio, making the trip with ox teams, and bringing all of his worldly possessions. Locating in Perry township, he bought the farm now owned and occupied by his grandson, Hubert J., and here lived until his death, in 1840, his death being the result of an injury received by the stroke of a falling tree. He married, in New York, Hannah Palmer, who was born in Connecticut and died on the home farm about thirty years later than he died, being then eighty-three years old. He was a man of deep religious convictions, 1430 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE active in assisting in the spread of the gospel, and donated the site of the South Prairie Methodist Episcopal church, likewise giving 'the land for the rural cemetery in which he and his wife were buried. He was influential in the community and one of the leading members of his church. To him and his wife five children were born, as follows : Joel, who migrated to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, when young, died there when past eighty years of age ; Minerva ; Elvira, wife of the late Wayne Orton, who died in 1907, a short time after her marriage, at her death leaving one child, Alcot Orton, of South Dakota ; Charles T. ; and Wesley, a farmer in early life, and later a successful business man of Sturgis, Michigan, died at the age of three score and ten years. Charles T. Wright, born in Friendship, Allegany county, New York, February 20, 182o, was a small child when he came with his parents to the farm where, with the exception of three or four years in Missouri, he spent his remaining years, passing away October 30, 1886. He was in Missouri prior to the breaking out of the Civil war, and being a stanch Republican, decidedly opposed to slavery, resigned his position there as a public school teacher and returned to Perry township, where he had previously taught several terms. He tried to enlist as a soldier, but was rejected on account of physical disability. While in Missouri he served as tutor to the sons of General Marmaduke, and with them visited New Orleans, where he became acquainted with slavery in its worst form. He was a horticulturist, and went west as an orchard grafter, but having obtained a good education at the old Kirtland Academy, was fitted for a teacher, and accepted the position of a tutor as more congenial than his other work. Returning to the parental homestead in Perry township, he cared for his mother until her death, in the meantime continuing the improvements begun on the farm by his father, in 1858 or 1859 building the present commodious residence. During the later years of his life he was retired from active labor, residing, however, in the house that he had erected on the old homestead. Charles T. Wright married, in 1847, Sophronia Herriman, who was born in Madison township, a daughter of Ira and Lois (Brown) Herriman, both natives of New England, the emigrant ancestor of the Brown family having settled in Blanford, Connecticut, on coming to this country from the north of Ireland. She died on the home farm in July, 189o, aged sixty-three years. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a faithful worker in the denomination. Into their home eight children were born, namely : Minerva, Ella, Hubert J., Charles H., Mary, Milford E., Mildred and Abbie. Minerva, who was graduated from Lake Erie College, taught school a number of years, at the time of her death, which occurred when she was thirty-three years of age, was teaching in Painesville. Ella, Who married D. Cognevich, died in Colorado in March, 1900. Mr. Cognevich was reared in the Austrian navy, and subsequently served both in the English and in the United States navies. He was well educated, and after going to Colorado was quite prominent in public service, being steward for a time in the state penitentiary, deputy sheriff of Boulder county and court interpreter in Denver. Charles H. Wright, the second son, is engaged in farming in Pillager, Minnesota. Mary is the wife of John C. Whitaker, who is employed in the Pullman car office in Chicago, Illinois. Milford E. Wright resides in Burnley, England, a suburb of Manchester, where he is carrying on an extensive business as a manufacturer of . stereopticons and stereopticon views, which lie sells to the trade. He married a Scottish lassie, born and bred in Alloway, Scotland. Mildred, a twin sister of Milford E., died at the age of nineteen years. Abbie is a teacher of music in Aitkin, Minnesota. In company with his brother Charles, Hubert J. Wright went to Grafton, North Dakota, in 1879, and took up a homestead claim and two tree claims. He remained in that country twelve years, proved up on the three claims, and won the distinction of making one of the finest tree claims in the state, in eight years having trees eight inches in diameter. After the death of his mother, Mr. Wright returned to the old homestead in Perry township, where he has since devoted his energies to general farming, making a specialty to some extent of dairying. He has made improvements of value on the estate, having set out three acres of catalpa trees,• and laid several carloads of tile through the low lands. Mr. Wright married, January 24, 1884, Ada Ewart, who was born in Springfield, Ohio, a daughter of John and Nancy Elizabeth (Harris) Ewart. At the age of two years, in 1811, John Ewart came with his parents from Butler county, Pennsylvania, to Summit county, Ohio, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1431 and on the farm which his father took up from the government passed the remainder of his life, dying August 24, 1900, aged ninety-one years. His father, John Ewart, Sr., was born in the north of Ireland, of pure Scotch ancestry, and there married a Miss Tulley. Elizabeth Harris, wife of John Ewart, died August 8, 19o9, being eighty-four years, of age. While a resident of Dakota, Mr. Wright assisted in organizing the Walsh county township in which he resided, and served as its first justice of the peace, and was likewise township trustee while there. Since returning to Ohio, he has been trustee of Lake county for seven years. DANIEL EASON.-A man of versatile talents, active and energetic, Daniel Eason has for more than a quarter of a century been intimately associated with many of the leading industries of Lorain county, and is now serving as trustee of Elyria township, being well known not only in that capacity, but as one of the best and most popular auctioneers of the city of Elyria, where he resides. A son of John Eason, he was born, August 5, 1854, in Northamptonshire, England. John Eason left England, his native country, in 1869, coming directly to Elyria, Ohio, where he was joined the following year by his son Daniel, and in 1872 by his daughter Elizabeth. In 1879 his wife, whose maiden name was Ann Wright, crossed the ocean, and subsequently resided in Lorain county until her death, June 8, 1889, at the age of sixty-nine years. John Eason followed the trade of a tanner as well as the occupation of a farmer, and resided in Elyria until his death, October 11, 1909, aged eighty-four years, his birth having occurred June 9, 1825. Fifteen years old when he came to Ohio, Daniel Eason completed his education in Lorain county, attending school in both Ridgeville and Elyria. As a young man he worked on the farm, and, developing a love for horticulture, and his natural artistic tastes and talents, he has since been more or less employed in landscape gardening. In 1877 he began crying public sales in Lorain county, and in that line has acquired great proficiency, being widely known throughout the county as a most successful auctioneer. In 1883 Mr. Eason was elected street commissioner of Elyria, and was re-elected in 1885 and in 1887, serving six years' at that time. Then, after an interim of one term, he was again the people's choice for that position, and was the last commissioner to be elected by the direct vote of the citizens. Since 1883 he has also served as special policeman. He is a Republican in politics. In March, 1907, Mr. Eason was appointed township trustee, to fill an unexpired term, and in 1909 received the nomination for that office and was elected. As a contractor he has paved many streets in Elyria, including Lodi street, West avenue, Mill, Court and Third streets, East Broadway and East Bridge, Clark and West Second streets, using asphalt blocks on the latter thoroughfare. He has also paved two streets in Oberlin, East College and North Main streets, in filling his contract putting in the first brick paving laid in that city. On January 13, 1875, Mr. Eason married Clara Ann Grant, who was born April 26. 1855, in Ratley, Warwickshire, England, a daughter of George and Catherine (Facer) Grant, who came with their family to Ohio in 1872, settling first in Elyria, but afterwards removing to Grafton, Ohio, where they resided for a number of years. Later moving to Elyria, they made their home with Mr. and Mrs. Eason and where both spent the remainder of their lives, Mr. Grant dying in April, 1892, aged seventy-seven years, and Mrs. Grant in November, 1897, aged seventy-three years. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Eason, namely : William Henry, born November 12, 1875, married Mildred Sump, and resides in Elyria ; Frank, residing in Elyria township, was born September 7, 1877, and married Mary Babcock ; Mahlon Ar- thur, born February 22, 1881, lives in Sebring, Ohio ; George Oliver,- born October 3, 1884, died June 3, 1908 ; and Harrison Grant, born January 27, 1889.   Mr. Eason is active and prominent in fraternal circles, belonging to the Royal Arcanum, to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to the Daughters of Rebekah, to the Knights of Pythias, to the Pythian Sisters, to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, to the Knights of the Maccabees, to the Modern Woodmen of America, and to the Woodmen of the World. ARTHUR BRADLEY, a farmer near Sharon township, Medina county, was born in Chittenden county, Vermont, February 12, 1841, a son of Russell and Perillice (Brown) Bradley. both of pure New England stock, and the father was a skilled mechanic and millwright. Arthur Vol. III - 11 1432 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Bradley was five years of age when he came with his parents to Ohio, journeying from Burlington, Vermont, to Buffalo, New York, where a change of boats was made for Cleveland, and from there they came to Medina county, where the father engaged in the milling business, constructing and operating a milling plant. .The son received his education in the common schools of the vicinity of his home in Medina county, and learning the trades of a carpenter and joiner he followed those lines of work for twenty-five years or until the inauguration of the Civil war. Joining on August 11, 1862, the ranks of the Federal army he became a member of the One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and during his three years of military life saw much active service. Returning home at the close of the war he resumed work at his trade, but about the year of 1870 he bought land in Sharon township and has since been engaged in agricultural pursuits. He married Miss Mary C. Calvert, a daughter of Thomas Calvert, of this locality, and their three children are : Bertha Elena, the wife of J. W. Holliwill, of Sharon township ; Mabel C., the wife of William V. Davis, a business man in Cleveland ; and Maude Elda, now Mrs. O. A. Nichols and a resident of Medina county. Mr. Bradley. is identified with the Grand Army of the Republic at Remson, Richard Keys Post No. 574, and he is a patron and supporter of the Grange. A Republican in politics., he has been county commissioner, having served two terms, the last of which expired in 1901 ; he was twice elected justice of the peace of Sharon township. Mrs. Bradley is a member of the W. C. T. U. of Medina county. DAVID C. COLLINS, the only one of his family living except a half-brother, ninety-three years of age, and a ,half-sister eighty-eight years old, was born May 16, 1834. The father, William Collins, came at an early day from Connecticut with his wife and family, making the journey with an ox team. He took up a tract of land in what was afterward called Charlestown township, built a log cabin and began the arduous task of clearing his land. In a few years his wife died, leaving him with a family. In 1798 he married Polly (Allen) Kennedy, who was a widow with three children. To them were born four children, of whom David C. is one. The first house the Collins family lived in was made of logs hewed down for the purpose. David Collins lived with his parents until the death of his father, and afterward cared for his mother until her death. He was married when thirty-two years of age, and afterward began to work on his father's farm ; subsequently he bought eighty acres in the northwestern part of Charlestown township, where he has been a resident thirty-nine years. His education was acquired in public schools, and as a boy he was acquainted with James A. Garfield ; as a cousin of Mr. Collins, R. D. Hughes, is the man who took Garfield from his work on the tow-path, sent him to Hiram for an education, for which he paid, with no thought of return. Here Garfield graduated and got his start in the life he was to lead from that time on. Mr. Collins has served as township supervisor, and also other similar offices; and in political views is a Democrat. He married Clarissa, daughter of Marvin and Mary Ann (Bishop) Sears, who was born July 15, 1837. Her parents were both natives of the Western Reserve, and her grandfather, Elias Sears, emigrated from Connecticut to Ohio in early days. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have two sons and one daughter, namely : Ernest L. and Harry A., both employed in a machine shop in New Milford, and Genevra, who lives in Ravenna. WALTER ORLANDO PIERCE, a retired and honored citizen of Nelson township, now residing at what is known as Pierce's Corners, Portage county, has enjoyed a career of substantial advancement ; more than that—he has devoted a large portion of his life and substance to the support and development of helpless children, who, without the care of himself and faithful wife, might have been cast adrift and never reached the harbor of a virtuous and useful life. If this was the only Christian act of his life, Mr. Pierce would still be stamped as a pattern toward which men of the world might well aspire ; if more would adopt such a life policy, the rising generation of unprotected children would develop a more abundant harvest of good and dependable men and women. Mr. Pierce is a native of Shalersville, Ohio, born January 4, 1838, and is a son of Walter and Jane (Thompson) Pierce, both of whom are deceased. The father died in Nelson and the mother in Mantua, this county. When he was a youth of nineteen, Walter Pierce came with his parents to the Western Reserve and settled half a mile west of Nelson Center. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1433 The grandparents, John and Mary (Knapp) Pierce, were from Pennsylvania, of which the former was a native, and in 1824 moved with their family to the Reserve. At still earlier periods in the genealogical record, the Pierce family was established in Scotland and was thence transplanted to Connecticut. Through three generations has descended the distinct picture of Grandfather Pierce riding his old farm horse through the forests of western Pennsylvania and northern Ohio, going ahead of the family team as a scout, both to take the brunt of possible attacks of savages or wild beasts and to spy out a choice spot for the future homestead. The grandson of this pioneer of 1824, Walter O. Pierce, obtained his education at the Beechwood district school, three miles east of Ravenna, Ohio, and at the age of eighteen left his studies and devoted himself entirely to agriculture. He has since given his time to the furtherance of the duties and interests which have fallen to him, and to the general progress of his vocation through the medium of the local grange. In politics he is a Democrat ; but he believes that his duty as a good citizen forbids him to assume politics as a business, and he has therefore refused to seek office of any kind. On January 23, 1867, Mr. Pierce married Miss Carrie S. Loomis, daughter of Charles -and Arimenta (Harmon). Loomis, the wife dying without issue on April 21, 1907. The good wife and kind foster mother lies buried in Windham cemetery. Lizzie M. Johnson, the first of the three children who have such just cause to call down blessings upon the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Walter O. Pierce, is a native of Youngstown, Ohio, and was happily married July 24, 1908, to Fred Keye. Arthur R. Gardener, the foster son, was born in Troy, Ohio, October 18, 1887, and when he became of age in 1908 he rented the home farm and conducted it for about a year at the solicitation of Mr. Pierce. He then became a resident of California. Ella Green, the third child taken into the household, is also a native of Youngstown, Ohio, and is now employed in Cleveland, although, whenever possible, she returns to Mr. Pierce, who is the Only father she has ever known. Aside from these three children, several others were received into the family, being cared for until they, too, became self-supporting or could be safeguarded in other homes. CHARLES A. Cox.—The substantial and high standing of Charles A. Cox, engaged in the real estate and insurance business at Elyria, Lorain county, is a logical sequence of his thorough and varied business training and his special adaptability to all lines whose development depends upon direct personal influence. A successful real estate and insurance man cannot be the power behind the throne ; he must sit on the throne itself and meet those whom he desires to become attached to his business realm face to face, exerting all his powers of persuasion and magnetism upon those who come before him. When to these qualities one adds real character, he has the measure of Mr. Cox and an explanation of his steady advancement. Born on a farm in Elyria township, Lorain county, in 1852, Charles A. Cox is a son of John and Charlotte (Cox) Cox, his parents being natives of Northamptonshire, England, who emigrated to the United States while quite young. They were married at Wilkensburg, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, in 1840, and in December, 1851, settled on the farm on the Abbey road, Elyria township, on which Charles A. was born. The mother died in 1868 and the father in January, 1893. The son mentioned attended the district school of his home neighborhood and the Elyria high school, and in 1872, when twenty years of age, became a salesman with the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company. After fourteen years of continuous and creditable service, Mr. Cox resigned a responsible position with them to accept a traveling salesmanship with the Davis Sewing Machine Company, which he successfully filled for seven years. This, in turn, he resigned to become traveling auditor for the Singer Manufacturing Company, his territory extending from Pittsburg to Toledo. In 1903, feeling that the time had come when he should derive the full benefit of his long and valuable business training, he opened a real estate and insurance office in Elyria, which he has conducted with a constant increase of business and reputation since that time. On December 24, 1873, Mr. Cox married Miss Allyan C. Myers, who died in 1899, leaving four children, as follows : Lotta, who married A. N. Gray, of Elyria ; Marietta, now Mrs. M. Lord, of that place ; Sumner C. and George P. Cox, also of Elyria. On June 9, 1906, Mr. Cox married Miss Frances Loomis 1433 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Gray, born at Olmstead Falls, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, June 8, 1866, daughter of Arthur and Emma (Loomis) Gray. Mrs., Cox's maternal grandfather was a native of Connecticut, and migrated to Cuyahoga county at such an early day as places him in the ranks of its early pioneers. DARIUS M. ALFORD.—Three generations of the Alford family have passed lives of usefulness and honor within the limits of Windham township, Portage county, and their records cover nearly a century of beneficial work for their home communities. The last to completely identify himself with the progress of this part of the Western Reserve was the late Darius M. Alford, who died November 26, 1907, upon the old family homestead, which is still occupied by his good and faithful widow. Mrs. Alford, however, does not attempt to operate the farm, but rents it to competent parties, so as to maintain it in its old-time state of thorough cultivation and productiveness. The grandparents of Darius M. Alford, Elijah and Betsey (Higley) Alford, were born and bred in Becket, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and in 1811 started their ox teams for the weary six weeks' journey to the Western Reserve. A member of the migrating family was the youth, Levi Alford. who not only ,manfully assisted his father in forcing a way through the dense forests and in fording strange rivers and streams, but when Windham township was reached commenced promptly to play the rugged part of a western pioneer. Elijah Alford purchased a tract of wild land from the Connecticut Company, and established himself as one of the first three householders in the township. A small log house was built on the bank of a creek and, having cleared a small tract near by, the householder harrowed the ground, made a sowing of wheat and went on record as the first cultivator of the soil in Windham township. At this time, although the Indians had practically disappeared, deer, bears and other wild animals still held the forests, being considered in the double light of pests and convenient sources of meat supply. After coming here, Elijah Alford was a deacon of the church during the remainder of his life. In the migration of 1811 from Becket, Massachusetts, was also the Conant family, embracing Thatcher and Elizabeth (Manley) Conant and their daughter Edna E. They settled about a mile east of the Alford farm and the girl was naturally thrown into the company of Levi Alford. Miss Conant finally became a teacher in Warren, and upon one occasion, while coming home on horseback with a basket filled with china dishes, she came face to face with a bear, who was just emerging from some thick woods. Fortunately the terror and rearing of the horse threw Bruin into such a panic that he rapidly crossed the road in front of the shaking school teacher and disappeared in the forest. Before her, marriage to Levi Alford she taught several terms of school. Eight children were born of their union, of whom Elijah, the sole survivor, resides on a part of his father's farm. Darius M. Alford was born on the old homestead August 3, 1832, and received his education in the district school. nearest his. home, also attending the Windham Academy for a short time in his youth. Being the youngest son, he remained at home assisting in the farm work and caring tenderly for his parents as long as they lived, inheriting at their decease 115 acres of the family homestead. In 1864 he enlisted for the one hundred days' service, and during his .lifetime was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic. In politics he was always a Republican. On December 13, 1855, Mr. Alford married Miss Cathaline Brewster, born in Schoharie county, New York, April 22, 1835, daughter of Ezra and Elizabeth (Matice) Brewster, both natives of the Empire state. Her father, who was born May 6, 1807, settled in Independence, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, in 1836, and died in that place in July, 1876. Ezra Brewster served for a number of years as justice of the peace ; held other offices ; and was a man of unimpeachable integrity, absolute truthfulness and strong moral influence. Mrs. Alford's grandfather, Silas Brewster, married Silence Gallop, while her maternal grandfather, William Matice, wedded Catherine Rhinehart, who was of German ancestry. It may be added that Mrs. Alford is a direct descendant, in the ninth generation, of Elder William Brewster, who was a passenger of the "Mayflower" in 1620 ; the line of descent is traced through Elder William, Love, Wrestling, Jonathan, Peleg, Jedediah, Silas, Ezra and Cathaline. The only child born to Mr. and Mrs. Darius M. Alford is a son, William V., at Windham, Ohio, on October 7, 1858. A noted civil engineer, he has made many important surveys in HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1435 Central and South America, including those connected with the Nicaraguan canal route, and upon one of his expeditions across the Isthmus of Darien stood upon the very spot where Balboa first caught sight of the Pacific Ocean. In his arduous professional work he has endured many hardships and had many narrow escapes. At present (autumn of 1909) he is engaged on a railroad survey in Peru. William V. Alford married Miss Libbie Barnes, who was born in Dixonburg, Pennsylvania, and they have become the parents of the following : Carrie Cathaline, now the wife of Rev. J. C. Acher, a missionary stationed at Jubbulpore, India ; Marguerite B., who is living with her mother, and W. Brewster Alford, a student ,at Hiram College, Ohio. JOHN ALBERT FLAGG, son of James and Caroline (Cox) Flagg, was born July 14, 1858, in North Bloomfield, Ohio. James Flagg was born in Deyonshire, England, and although he lived many years in the United States, never became naturalized. After spending six years in the state of New York, he settled in North Bloomfield township, Trumbull county, and there carried on dairy farming. He "married, in 1859, Caroline Cox, of Glastonbury, England, born in 1827, and their children were : Caroline, John A., Jane E., Edward, Ellen E., Mary and James. James Flagg lived in North Bloomfield, where he died, and his wife still resides there. John A. Flagg went into partnership with Fred Beckwith, about eight years after his marriage, in a saw mill, and was interested in this enterprise fourteen years. He then went into mercantile business, in Windsor, in company with George Rawdon, and remained there five years. In 1908 he went into partnership with Herbert Hannum, which partnership still continues, in Windsor. He is an expert buttermaker, and before going into partnership with Mr. Beckwith had spent ten years .as manager of the Windsor Cheese and Butter Factory. He and his partner now do a thriving business, and both are men of unquestioned probity and integrity, having many years of business experience. Mr. Flagg is a Republican, and has been township treasurer for the past ten years. His wife is a member of the Grange, and he has taken every degree of Odd Fellowship. Mr. Flagg married, March 14, 1883, Mary Strang, of Windsor, born September 16, 1858, daughter of George and Luna (Eaton) Strang. Mr. and Mrs. Flagg had two children, Mabel, born March, 1884, died at the end of nine months, and one child who died before being named. DANIEL A. COOK, an active member of the Lorain county bar, with an office in the City Bank building, Lorain, has made an enviable record for professional ability and skill for so young a man, having already a well-established and remunerative practice. He was born, May 3, 1833, in Galion, Crawford county, Ohio, where his parents, Lewis and Dora I. (Wrenn) Cook, are still living, his father being prosperously engaged in carpentering and contracting. His paternal grandfather, Henry Cook, was born and reared in Germany, and on emigrating to the United States, lived in Pennsylvania until his marriage, when he located in Ohio, where his children were born and bred. A conscientious, diligent and persistent student from boyhood, Daniel A. Cook was graduated from the Galion high school with the class of 1900, and in the following winter taught school near his home town. Entering the law department of the University of Michigan in the fall of 1901. he was there graduated with the class of 1904, and on June 24, 1904, was admitted to the Ohio bar. In the following February Mr. Cook opened a law office in Lorain, where he has since been successfully employed in the general practice of his profession, having built up a fine clientage. He is especially noted for his ability as a corporation lawyer, and is one of the attorneys for the Sheffield Land and Improvement Company, for the Johnson Company and for the Brown-Cochran Company, of Lorain. He belongs to the Board of Commerce and to the Lorain County Bar Association. Mr. Cook married Miss Grace B. Kates, of Galion, Ohio, and their pleasant home is a center of social activity. WALLACE HUGH CATHCART.—One of the leading booksellers and stationers of Cleveland, a member of the firm of Burrows Brothers Company, Wallace H. Cathcart is also president of the Western Reserve Historical Society and welcomed as a worthy associate by the leading students of bibliography in the West. He is one of those most fortunate of individuals, whose business and practical activities run parallel with his education and intellectual tastes. Born in Elyria, Ohio, on April 2, 1865, Mr. 1436 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Cathcart received a thorough mental training, graduating from Denison University in 1890. In 1897 he entered the bookselling and stationery firm of Burrows Brothers, and became its secretary. Ever since his college days he has been a deep student of history and bibliography, as well as a wide explorer in the field of general literature, his bibliography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1905, being one of the noteworthy manifestations of his scholarly traits in both these provinces. Besides holding the positions of secretary for some twelve years and later that of president of the Western Reserve Historical Society, he is a member of the board of trustees of Denison University, of the American Historical Association, American Library Association and of the Bibliographical and Ex-Libris societies of London, England. His wife, whom he married August 8, 1893, was formerly Miss Florence L. Holmes, of Cleveland, and his home is at 2190 East Eighty-fifth street. WILLIAM A. PITZELE, M. D.—Conspicuous among the active, skilful and successful physicians and surgeons of Lorain county is Dr. William A. Pitzele, a man of keen intelligence and superior mental attainments, who is meeting with signal success as a practitioner in the city of Lorain, where he has resided since 1903. He was born, June 14, 1877, in Avva, Austria, and in 1881, a child of four years, came to the United States with his parents, who located in Chicago, Illinois. Brought up in Chicago, William A. Pitzele received his elementary education in the public and parochial schools, in 1896 being graduated from the Chicago high school. He subsequently attended the Chicago Academy, after which he spent two years at the University of Michigan. Returning to Chicago, he continued his studies at Rush Medical College for another two years, and in 1903 was graduated from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, receiving the degree of M. D. Wishing to further perfect himself in his chosen profession, Dr. Pitzele went abroad, and in Vienna took a special course in obstetrics. In July, 1903, Dr. Pitzele began the practice of his profession at South Lorain, and in his labors has achieved marked success. The doctor is active and influential in medical circles. He is a member and vice-president of the staff of Saint Joseph's Hospital ; is vice-president of the Lorain County Medical Society, and a member of the Ohio State Medical Society and of the American Medical Society. Fraternally the doctor is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows ; of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks ; of the Foresters ; of the Knights of Pythias, and of the Knights of the Maccabees. He also belongs to the Business Men's Club, of Lorain. Dr. Pitzele married Fanny Linx, who was born in Sandusky, Ohio, and they are the parents of two children, Malvina Ray and Nelson. CHARLES TUTTLE, a substantial farmer and worthy citizen of Saybrook township, Ashtabula county, is of that good old Connecticut stock which makes thrifty farmers and useful men and women, and whose representatives were always welcomed by any community struggling into life between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. He is a son of Charles and Celina (Bishop) Tuttle, his father being born in the Green Mountain state in 1797 ; until the death of the elder Mr. Tuttle in 1876, Charles Tuttle, of this sketch, subscribed himself Jr. The latter was the third child, the other members of the family being Harriet, Almina, Louisa, Lorinda, Levi, William, Nathan and Celina. Mr. Tuttle was born on his present farm April 8, 1833, his parents being married in Ashtabula county. He was in delicate health until he was fifteen years of age, and worked on his father's farm until he was twenty-one. He then was variously employed until he took charge of the home place, working in the coal mines of Southern Ohio for a year and laboring for some time in the Wisconsin pineries. The burning of his father's barn and the occurrence of other circumstances which brought the family finances to rather low ebb made it necessary for the young man to return home and take active management of the farm.   As manager and proprietor of the home farm, Mr. Tuttle has successfully conducted various enterprises upon it. He has raised Durham. cattle with profit and at one time dealt quite extensively in horses, raising some fine specimens of the Hambletonian breed. For about four years he devoted himself to the raising of sheep, and poultry, especially the Brown Leghorn variety, occupied him for a time. He also operated quite an extensive dairy, one summer's output of cheese being valued at $1,300. In the midst of all these activities, which called for thorough farming and business management, he was also influ- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1437 ential in township and church affairs. He was long an active member and a director of the Saybrook Methodist church, in which his wife was president of the Ladies' Aid Society and otherwise a leader. Mr. Tuttle is an old Republican; has served as road supervisor for several years and was formerly identified with the Masonic order. The year 1908 was the golden anniversary of his marriage to Miss Ursula Conner, to whom he was wedded December 3o, 1858. Mrs. Tuttle is a daughter of Ward and Lura Conner and the mother of Eddie, Ida, Dora, Addie, Earl, Herbert, Susie and Charles. HERMAN A. REED.-A substantial and well-to-do agriculturist, endowed by nature with a good stock of push and energy, Herman A. Reed is a fine representative of those native-born sons of Perry township that have met with success in their undertakings, and is eminently deserving of the esteem and confidence of his neighbors and friends. He was born, August 15, 1858, on the old Reed homestead, being the oldest child in a family of three sons born to William W. and Alvina (Proctor) Reed, of whom a brief sketch may be found on another page of this volume. Herman A. Reed lived at home until after the death of his father, when he was about twenty years of age. On attaining his majority he entered into partnership with his two brothers, Walter and Charles, and the following year had charge of fifty acres of land on the South Ridge road. Since that time Mr. Reed has been engaged in farming on his own account, having acquired title to the fifty acres of the old home farm, and in addition having bought an adjoining tract of fifty-three acres. He has met with much success in his operations, adding excellent improvements to his property by the erection of good buildings and the putting in of considerable tile, rendering his estate valuable and highly attractive. Mr. Reed is a general farmer, and for eighteen years has kept a dairy of about twenty cows. He has a fine location on the South Ridge road, four miles east of Painesville, and is one of the leading men in his community. In 1880 Mr. Reed married Addie Keener, a daughter of Martin and Charlotte (Ernst) Keener, and into their household two children have been born, namely : Ethel, now eighteen years of age and in school at Delaware, and Clifford, a boy of twelve years. Politically, Mr. Reed supports the principles of the Re publican party by voice and vote. Fraternally, he belongs to Perry Lodge, No. 792, I. O. O. F. Religiously Mr. and Mrs. Reed are conscientious members of the Methodist Episcopal church. ELGIE SHILLIDAY, for many years a teacher of Portage county, was born July 5, 1872, and is a son of Alexander and Jane (Crory) Shilliday, both natives of Ireland, who came to the United States in 1848. Mr. Shilliday received his education at Edinburg high school and at Mount Union, and taught school five years, one year at Atwater and four years at Charlestown, before deciding to take a course at the Northeastern Normal School at Canfield, after which he returned to the occupation of teacher, which he has since followed with good success. He taught one year at Edinburg, two years at Atwater, and one year in his home district, since which time he has taught in the grammar department of the Edinburg high school, and will continue there another year. He also teaches music, both vocal and instrumental, making a specialty of harmony. Mr. Shilliday's second year of teaching at Atwater was interrupted by the sickness of a brother, whom he nursed. At another time his teaching was likewise interrupted to attend his mother, who was very ill. During the summer of 1908 he attended the Oberlin Conservatory. Mr. Shilliday married, August 12, 1908, Melvina Jentes, and they first kept house in the old historic building known as the Hugh Eldridge house, and later removed to the Methodist Episcopal parsonage, which is still their home. They are both well liked and esteemed by all who know them, and are interested in all public movements. GEORGE CLARK HOPKINS, the intelligent and prosperous farmer, of Nelson township, Portage county, is of that stalwart and enterprising Connecticut stock which virtually laid the enduring foundation of the high civilization and continuous progress of the Western Reserve. He is a son of Luman Clark and Eliza (Stilson) Hopkins, by his father's second marriage. Luman C.. Hopkins was born at Cornwall, Connecticut, on May 8, 1820, and first married Jennette Sackett, who was born August 22, 1825, and died July 6, 1847, without issue. The second wife (Eliza Stilson), to whom he was married in Portage county April 25, 1848, was born on June 16, 1828, and became the mother of six children, of whom 1438 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE George C. was the second. The father accompanied his parents to the Western Reserve when he was about four years of age, the family settling in Nelson township in the vicinity of the place which is owned and occupied by George C. The grandfather, Luman Hopkins, was also a native of Connecticut, born September 3o, 1791 ; he married Anna Clark (born May 25, 1793) on September 1, 1813, and in 1824 they came to the Western Reserve and settled in Nelson township. The father of George C. Hopkins died June 25, 1904, and the mother, November 14, 1908 ; the grandfather passed away February 12, 1876, and the grandmother May 5, 1850-the bodies of parents and grandparents all reposing in the Harrington cemetery. George C. Hopkins was born September 18, 1855, on the old homestead opposite his present residence and farm. He attended the district and high schools in Nelson and also had the advantage of a two years' course at Mount Union College. With the completion of his college days, he returned home to assume agriculture as the occupation of his life. After spending some time on the family homestead he went to Kansas, where he was engaged in farming and teaching for two years, but with the exception of that short period and four years that he lived in West Farmington Mr. Hopkins has been a constant resident of his native township and always true to its interests. It was in 1881 that he moved to West Farmington, Ohio, and there his son, Earl, was born. On April 5, 1880, Mr. Hopkins was married in Chardon, Ohio, to Miss Jennie Eliza Bancroft, daughter of Warren and Eliza Jane (Atwater) Bancroft, and they have two sons, Lloyd Clark Hopkins, born in Nelson Center January 25, 1881, and Earl Osborn Hopkins, who was born in West Farmington, Ohio, July 24, 1883. Mrs. George C. Hopkins was born in Nelson township April 5, 186o, and lived there until she was nine years of age, when she moved to Chardon, Geauga county, Ohio, residing there with her aunt (Mrs. E. N. Osborn) until her marriage. Her father, Warren Mills Bancroft, was born north of Nelson Center, on November 1, 1819, and his wife (nee Eliza Jane Atwater) was a native of Freedom, Ohio, where she was born March 19, 1-822, to Leverett and Abigail (Hawley) Atwater. Leverett Atwater was born April 2, 1780, and died in 1854, while his wife was born December 24, 1794, and died in 1835. They were married in Massachusetts and both are buried in Windham cemetery. The marriage of Warren M. Bancroft and' Eliza Jane Atwater occurred April 15, 1841, and nine children were born to them, of whom Mrs. Hopkins was the youngest. Her father died in 1879 and her mother in 1869, both being buried in the Harrington cemetery, Nelson. David Bancroft, her paternal grandfather, was born at Granville, Massachusetts, October 19, 1796, and on April 24, 1815, was united in marriage at Nelson Center with Marilla Mills, daughter of Asel and Cynthia (Wright) Mills. The Bancroft family was originally English and when the Massachusetts members started for the Western Reserve on September 26, 18o9, Mrs. Hopkins' grandfather (to be) had not yet reached his thirteenth birthday. He celebrated it, however, during the toilsome journey to the northwestern country, as the party did not arrive at Nelson until the loth of the following November. Lloyd Clark Hopkins attended. the Nelson district school and Nelson high school two years. In the fall of 1896 he entered Garrettsville high school in the junior year and graduated from there June 2, 1898. He taught in the Nelson schools for two years and then entered the state university at Columbus, Ohio, in 1900, remaining two years. For lack of money to finish his course he quit school for one year, working at whatever he could get to do. In January, 1903, he hired out to the Brown Hoist Company, of Cleveland, as layer out and remained there until school commenced in the fall, when he returned to Ohio State University and graduated June 21, 1905, taking the M. E. degree. Mr. Hopkins Was assistant to Professor Magruder in the M. E. department during the next school year. In May, 1906, he went to the Smith Gas Producer Company, Lexington, Ohio. June 2, 1906, he married Laura Bell Faust, daughter of Lewis William Faust. She was born in Washington township, Richland county, and they were married at Mansfield, Ohio. In December, 1906, Mr. Hopkins went to St. Louis in the Fuel Testing department, U. S. Geological Survey, when they removed the plant to Norfolk, Virginia, for the exposition there. He went to Virginia with them, staying at Norfolk until September, when he resigned his position and returned to the Smith Gas Producer Company, where he is at present em- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1439 ployed as draftsman. He resides at Lexington, where his son Lloyd Clark Hopkins, Jr., was born September 11, 1908. Earl Osborn Hopkins returned to Nelson ,with .his parents and went to Nelson district school and one year to Nelson high school. He entered Garrettsville high school in 1898 and graduated in 1901. He taught school one year in Rootstown, Portage county. Then he went to Cleveland to work. After working at Nottingham a few months for the Lake Shore Railroad Company, he hired out to the Brown Hoist Company and continued to work for them until the fall of 1904, when he entered the Ohio State University, graduating in June, 1908, with C. E. degree. After graduating he remained in Columbus, employed by the county surveyor for one year. He is at the present time employed in Cleveland. The summer vacation of 1906 he spent in Springfield, Ohio, with the county surveyor of Springfield. CLARK LEWIS BRYANT, SR.—Ranking high among the more progressive and prosperous agriculturists of Portage county is Clark Lewis Bryant, of Windham township, who has a well cultivated and finely improved estate, which, with its substantial buildings, presents to the observing eye an air of neatness and prosperity that is especially attractive. A son of Almond Bryant, he was born, August II, 1844, in Lorain county, of English ancestry. His grandfather, Jonathan Bryant, was born and reared in Vermont, from his sturdy New England ancestors inheriting the vim, energy and enterprise characteristic of our forefathers, many of whom hesitated not to dare the dangers and perils of life on the extreme western frontier in their desire to establish comfortable homes for their families. Beginning life for himself when very young, with no capital save a stout heart and willing hands, he walked from Vermont to Ohio early in the nineteenth century, locating in Erie county, where he followed his trade of a stone mason. Subsequently marrying Fanny . Doolittle, he continued his residence in that county until his death, in 1863. Almond Bryant was born, in 1815, in Erie county, Ohio, and was there brought up and educated. After his marriage he kept a hotel in Vermilion for a long time. Going then to Brownhelm, Lorain county, he bought a tract of timbered land, and immediately began the pioneer labor of improving a farm from the forest, at the same time working as he found opportunity at the carpenter and joiners' trade. About 1855 he traded that property for a farm in Henrietta, Lorain county and was there actively engaged in tilling the soil the remainder of his active life, dying there in 19o4. He married, in Vermilion, Ohio, in 1838, Matilda Higgins, who was born in Lorain county, Ohio, and died on the home farm, in Henrietta, in 1886. Six children were born to them, as follows : Ira, of Lorain county ; Clark Lewis, of this sketch ; Charles, who died in New Mexico in 1895 ; Orilla, wife of John Patchet, of Vermilion, Ohio ; Elbert, of St. Louis, Missouri, and Stowell, of Russell, Lorain county. Beginning to earn wages when a lad of thirteen years, Clark Lewis Bryant, Sr., worked hard during the summer seasons, but attended the winter terms of school in Oberlin. Going to California in the fall of 1861, he worked in a hotel in Calaveras county for eighteen months. In April, 1863, he enlisted in Company L, First California Cavalry, which was sent to the Arizona frontier to carry and escort the United States mail. There Mr. Bryant remained until receiving his honorable discharge from the service, being mustered out May 10, 1866, in San Francisco. Returning then to Lorain county, Ohio, he spent the following winter in the pine woods of Michigan, being employed in lumbering. After his marriage, he lived for seven years with his wife's parents. Buying, then, his present property in Windham township, Mr. Bryant has made wonderful improvements, having placed almost the entire tract of land under cultivation, and erected modernly equipped buildings in place of the original ones, which he tore down, his estate, with its appointments, being one of the best in the neighborhood, a credit to his energy and sagacity. Here he is carrying on general farming and stock raising with fine results, from his well-tilled fields reaping abundant harvests. Mr. Bryant married, July 2, 1867, in Windham township, Clarissa Lyman, who was born in this township, which was likewise the birthplace of her father, Jesse Lyman. Her paternal grandfather, Jeremiah Lyman, was one of the three original owners of Windham township, the three friends coming here from Massachusetts in 1811, and purchasing the entire tract of land from Governor Strong, of Connecticut, head of the Connecticut Land Company, his land lying in the northwest quarter of the township. Jeremiah Lyman was born 1440 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE in Connecticut, and reared in Massachusetts, where he married Huldah Fuller, who died on the way to Ohio, leaving him with four children to care for. Later he married Hannah Sperry, a native of Connecticut. Jesse Lyman was born on the parental homestead in Windham township, and married Dorcas Finch, who was born in Otis, Massachusetts, a daughter of Joshua and Clarissa (Clark) Finch. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant had the following children, namely : Stowell L., living at home, is a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church, belonging to the Rock River Conference ; Vernie died March 8, 1885, aged thirteen years ; Belle, born in 1879, died March 7, 1885 ; Ruth, born in 1886, died August 9, 1888 ; and Clark Lewis, living at home. A member of the Methodist Episcopal church, Mr. Bryant has been one 3f its trustees since 1874. He is a straightforward Republican in politics and rendered good service for a year as township trustee. LEVI J. MASON.—A lifelong resident of Lake county, Levi J. Mason, of Painesville, has ever )ursued the even tenor of his way as an honest, aw-abiding citizen, and is held in high respect :hroughout the community. He was born May [8, 1837, in Perry, Lake county, a son of Lewis A. Mason. Coming from French ancestry, Lewis A. Mason was born in Montreal, Canada, December 10, 1810. He subsequently sought employment across the border, in New England, For a number of years working in Vermont. While there, on July 18, 1831, he married Lucy !inn Boutwell, who was born, of English parentage, in Barre, Vermont, January 22, [813. In May, 1832, he started with his young vife for the western frontier, driving across he country with a team of horses, following :rude roads, oftentimes nothing more than bear or deer paths, or trails marked by blazed trees. Arriving at Perry, Lake county, Ohio, on June 20, 1832, he located on what was called he South Ridge road, or the stage route, and :here lived a number of years. During the Mexican war, he enlisted as a soldier, went to :he front, and was without doubt killed in )attle, as he never returned to his family. His wife survived him many long, weary years, lying at the advanced age of ninety-four years two months and nineteen days. While living in Perry, four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis A. Mason, one laughter and three sons, namely : Lewis A ; Mary Jane, who died November, 1905, was the wife of John Caley and they had one child, Lucy J. Caley ; Frank Mason and Levi J. All were born in Perry, Lake county. Frank married Marion Hulett, of Painesville. Levi J. Mason first learned the machinist trade, then became chief engineer on a boat on the lakes and was chief engineer for twenty-three years. He returned home, since which time he has lived a retired life. While he was chief engineer he received a good salary and saved it. He has been a member of the school board of Painesville township for twenty years and has been president of the board for sixteen years, being still president of the board at this writing, 1910. The school system has been much improved since he became a member of the board. In politics he adheres to the principles of the Republican party. WILLIAM SEHER.—Possessing much executive and financial ability and judgment, William Seher is actively and prominently identified with many of the more important business organizations of Lorain, and as manager of the Lorain Brewing Company has built up an extensive manufacturing industry. A son of 'Frederick W. and Marie Caroline (Brechen) Seher, he was born, January 24, 1868, in what is known as the "Dutch Settlement," three or four miles south of Sandusky. His parents were both born in Germany, but were married in this country. They first lived in Oxford township, Erie county, after coming to Ohio, but later moved to the German settlement, and are now residents of the city of Sandusky, the father being retired from active pursuits. Completing the course of study in the Sandusky schools, William Seher further advanced his education by attending the old Buckeye College. Beginning his active career in Sandusky, he was for some time in the employ of the Sandusky Ice Company, after which he was for six years with the Sandusky, Milan and Norwalk Electric Railway Company, at that time the longest electric railway in the world. In 1895 he came to Lorain to represent the Kuebeler Brewing and Malting Company, of Sandusky, Ohio, and .during the three years that he continued with that company built up a good business. From 1898 until 1900 he represented, in Lorain, the Christian Morlein Brewing Company, of Cincinnati. The Cleveland and Sandusky Brewing Company then absorbing the Kuebeler Brewing Company and other brewing plants in both Sandusky and Cleveland, Mr. Seher HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1441 was here its representative until 1904, when his employers erected the Lorain brewing plant and made Mr. Seher its manager. This plant, under his superior management, is carrying on a large business, its capacity being about sixty thousand barrels annually. Among the many prominent business organizations with which Mr. Seher is officially connected mention may be made of the National Bank of Commerce, of which he is a director and a member of the finance committee ; the Lorain Crystal Ice Company, which he assisted in organizing, and of which he is president and a director ; and the Home Building Company, of which he is vice-president and a director. Mr. Seher was one of five enterprising men who established The Daily News, a popular newspaper, and he is a valued member of the Board of Commerce. Mr. Seher married Emma Motry, who was born in Sandusky, a daughter of Henry Motry, and to them two children have been born, Norma and William F. CAPTAIN H. B. YORK, pension agent of Chagrin Falls and attorney for the Treasury Department of the government, at Washington, was born in Burlington, Vermont, December 5, 1833. He is a son of Darius H. and Laura (Barns) York, the former a native of Connecticut and the latter of Vermont. In 1834 they came to the Western Reserve and located at Bedford, Cuyahoga county. He was a farmer and subsequently became a bricklayer. They had four sons and one daughter, all of whom grew to maturity, and Captain York is the oldest of them. Captain H. B. York was six months old at the time his parents removed to the Western Reserve, and was ten years old when his father removed from Bedford to Geauga county. He well remembers, when about eight years of age, that Hiram Spafford brought in deer he had killed near Bedford. He attended school at Chester Academy, and at the age of eighteen years began teaching in Southern Ohio. After his marriage he located in Bedford, and spent about eight years in that town. He enlisted, October 11, 1861, in the Ninth Independent Battery Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery, as a private and was first promoted to quartermaster sergeant, and then to first sergeant and then to captain, December 2, 1862. During 1863-4 he was chief of artillery under General A. S. Williams, of the Fourth Division, Twen tieth Army Corps, and inspector of troops under appointment of General Thomas, of the Army of the Cumberland. In the summer of 1864 Captain York passed an examination under the military board at Nashville, Tennessee. He was honorably discharged as captain of the Ninth Indiana Battery July 25, 1865, having been previously mustered out as a retired captain by order of the War Department. After his discharge, Captain York returned to Geauga county, Ohio ; later he spent four years in the lumber business in Michigan. Returning to Ohio in 1872, he located at Chagrin Falls, which has since been his place of residence. Captain York is a prominent member of N. L. Norris Post, No. 4o, of Chagrin Falls, of which he is past commander. He also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is past noble grand. He also belongs to. Harmony Encampment, of Cleveland, and is past patriarch of same. He served six years as justice of the peace of Chagrin Falls and five years as police justice ; he also was for eighteen years a notary public. Captain York is a life long Republican and vigorously upholds the cause of the party. He takes an active interest in all movements for the progress and improvement of his town and state, and has the confidence and esteem of all who know him. Captain York married (first) in 1853, Ann E. Sherman, who died in 1862. They had four sons, namely : Edward E., Rupert R., Ralph S. and Clarence H. After his return from the war, Captain York married again, his second wife being Huldah M. Sherman, who died in 1883, and they had one son and one daughter, namely : Phineas William and Mary Eliza. Captain York married the third time, in 1884, Jane Holcomb. He died November 14, 1909. WARREN CORNING.—The brave men and women who boldly faced the dangers of frontier life in the early part of the last century in their efforts to colonize the Western Reserve, were people of immense force of character, high abilities and unswerving determination, wise in their resolution to plant the institutions and opinions of old New England in their new wilderness homes. Prominent among the number that arrived in Lake county about that time was Warren Corning, who became conspicuous in the development and improvement of this part of the Reserve. The descendant of a New England family of 1442 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE prominence, tracing his lineage back on the paternal side to 1640, he was born, in 1771, in Beverly, Massachusetts,, now, in 1909, noted as the summer home of President Taft. Mr. Corning lived for a few years in Acworth, New Hampshire, but was scarce content to spend his life among its rock-ribbed hills, coming in 1810 to Mentor, Ohio, being manager of a train of wagons consisting of families emigrating from New England, and being styled "Colonel" of the caravan. In a six-horse wagon of his own, he brought his wife and six children, and all of their household goods, locating in Mentor, where he at one time owned the Bacon tract of land. In 1811, the spring following his arrival, Warren Corning hacked in his corn and wheat on a space which he had cleared. In 1812 he was drafted as a soldier, but sent a substitute. In 1814 he raised a thousand bushels of corn, for which he received the snug sum of $2,000, at the same time selling wheat for $3 a bushel. In 1814 Warren Corning built on his farm a two-story frame house, a part of which is still in a good state of preservation. It was used as a tavern, or resting place, for travelers passing through the country. Colonel Corning kept a bar in this tavern, and on one military training day, when there was but one pound of loaf sugar obtainable, he paid one dollar for that pound, being the highest bidder for it. He was a man of great enterprise, at one time owning the Kirtland Flour Mill, and was exceedingly prosperous in all of his ventures. He was public-spirited and energetic, and lent his aid and influence in forwarding local improvements, more especially in the building of good roads. He was very religious and was one of the foremost in the building of the first brick church in Mentor, furnishing one-half of the money used in its construction. Colonel Warren Corning married, in New England, Elizabeth Pettingill, a woman of sterling qualities and fine appearance, and they became the parents of nine children, all of whom grew to years of maturity, namely : Warren Jr., Nathan, Mindwell, Nathaniel, Lima, Ariel, Solon, Rachel and Harriet. Rachel and Harriet were born in Mentor, and spent their entire lives in that place, Rachel marrying George. Dickey, and Harriet becoming the wife of James Dickey, a brother of George Dickey. These brothers came from Walpole, New Hampshire, to Ohio in 1831, coming to the Western Reserve to locate parcels of land bought of the Connecticut Land Company, and being attracted by the fertility of the soil in Mentor settled there as farmers. James Dickey, the youngest brother, was never physically robust, and as a youth enjoyed the rather unusual privilege of studying for a year at a village academy in New Hampshire. After coming to Mentor he taught several terms in the Mentor Center district, at that early day supporting the "Free School System," his motto being, "Bring the school to the child." For a number of years he was a member of the school board, and it was largely through his efforts that Mentor village was incorporated, the object being to preserve its school district, which the township board wished to divide, selecting as his advisers in the matter Harvey Rice, Dr. Saint John, and others. He served many terms as justice of the peace, trying at all times to bring about a settlement of the cases brought to him without resort to law, and his decisions were rarely appealed from and never reversed. The farm which he purchased in the new country was highly improved through his toil, and in 1876 was sold to James A. Garfield. A singular coincidence is that both owners of this farm were named James and that both died on the same day of the month, September 19, The death of Mr. Dickey occurred in New Hampshire, where he was visiting his parents. His body was brought back to Mentor, and laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery which he had a short time before assisted in buying and platting. He died at the early age of forty-seven years, on September 19, 1855, beloved and honored by a host of friends. He was a man of liberal faith, a firm believer in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. The children of James and Harriet (Corning) Dickey were as follows : Helen S., Wallace C. and Edward James. Helen S. Dickey, born November 14, 1836, married, August 10, 1857, William E. Pardee, of Medina county, Ohio, and spent the first four years of married life in Nebraska City, Nebraska. An attorney-at-law, Mr. Pardee was probate judge in Nebraska City for several terms, afterwards serving as mayor of the city, and practising in the Land Courts of the new territory. His health failing, he returned to Ohio, and was a resident of Cleveland until his death, at the age of thirty-six years, on April 9, 1865. He was a man of great intelligence and ability, commanding the respect of all who knew him. After the death of her husband Mrs. Pardee returned to the old family home in Mentor, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1443 remaining in it until it was sold, in 1876, to General James A. Garfield, when she moved to Akron, Ohio, in order that her children might have the privilege of attending Buchtel College. On October 19, 1885, Mrs. Pardee married for her second husband George Blish, of Painesville, Ohio, a son of Benjamin Blish, a pioneer settler of the Western Reserve, George Blish was born, February 1, 1834, on his father's farm, which subsequently came into his possession, and there lived until it was sold to F. W. Hart. Locating then in Mentor, he became prominent in public affairs, holding many offices of trust and honor, for four years being mayor of Mentor village. He was active in Masonic circles, for more than twenty years being a Knight Templar. He was a man of upright principles, respected for his integrity and honesty, and his death, which occurred at his home in Mentor, March 20, 1906, was a loss to the community, as well as to his family and friends. Wallace C. Dickey, elder son of James and Harriet Dickey, was born in Mentor, Ohio, October 7, 1841, and is now a resident of Chicago, Illinois, being a member of the firm of the Ward-Dickey Steel Company, manufacturers of sheet steel, using in the manufacture a process invented by Mr. Dickey. The sheet steel is a very valuable product and much in demand. Edward James Dickey, the younger son of James and Harriet Dickey, born in Mentor, November 14, 1850, lived on the home farm as long as it remained in the family. He is now engaged in mercantile pursuits in Willoughby, and is also dealing in real estate. He is now mayor of Willoughby, and in this capacity is one of the trustees of the new Industrial School for Girls soon to be established in Willoughby through the generosity of Wallace Andrews and his wife, who willed a certain amount of money for that purpose. Mr. Dickey is a man of exemplary character, respected by all, and heartily liked for his frank, open-hearted hospitality and genial manners. WILLIAM H. SPIEGELBERG.-A prosperous and well-to-do argriculturist of Lorain county, William H. Spiegelberg is carrying on general farming and dairying in Elyria township with• highly satisfactory results, year by year adding to his wealth and his improvements. A son of George Washington Spiegelberg, he was born on January 23, 1863, in Amherst township, this county, of thrifty German ancestry. John Spiegelberg, grandfather of William H., was born, reared and married in Germany. Coming with his wife to the United States in 1833, he spent the first winter of his sojourn in this country in Norwich, Connecticut, and there two children (twins), George W. and a daughter, Olive, Mrs. Adam Stang, of Elyria township, were born. The following spring he started westward with his family, his original point of destination having been Fort Wayne, Indiana. While on Lake Erie a storm drove their vessel into Lorain harbor, and all the passengers disembarked. He hunted up a friend from the old country, and from him secured help and employment. Working with persistent energy, he accumulated money and subsequently bought, in Amherst township, the farm on which he spent the closing years of his life. He married, in the Fatherland, Barbara Heisner, who died on the home farm in Lorain. county. Although horn in Connecticut, George W. Spiegelberg was brought up and educated in Lorain county, Ohio. Beginning his married life on the parental homestead in Amherst township, he succeeded to its ownership after the death of his parents, and managed it successfully until his own death, April 14, 1902, becoming one of the most highly respected agriculturists of his community. He married Elizabeth Kolbe, who was born in Germany in 1840, a daughter of N. W. and Elizabeth (Heisner) Kolbe. Her parents emigrated to Ohio in 1856, and after living for a while in the village of Lorain bought a farm near by, at Oak Point, where the present park is located. Mrs. Spiegelberg continues to reside on the home farm in Amherst township. To her and her husband ten children were born, namely : Barbara Elizabeth, who married Jacob Eschtruth, and has two children, Clara E. and Harvey G.; William H.; Mary, wife of Moses Eppley, has two children, Milton and Frances ; Olive, wife of John Bechtell, has one child, Amelia ; Louisa, wife of William Beal, has two children, Clarissa and William ; Carrie is unmarried ; Elizabeth married J. F. Fowle, and they have two children, Ruby E. and Bertha C. ; George, a twin brother of Elizabeth, lived but one year and fifteen days ; Amelia is the wife of Frank Rahl, and Louis, who married Odelia Smith. Growing to manhood on the home farm, 1444 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE William H. Spiegelberg assisted in its care, remaining beneath the parental roof-tree until his marriage. The following ten years he farmed on rented land in Amherst township, and then settled in Elyria township. Locating on the John M. Vincent farm of one hundred and twenty-eight and one-half acres, he rented it eight years, and then purchased the estate. Mr. Spiegelberg has made improvements of great value on the place, his beautiful house of thirteen rooms, built in 1908, is equipped with all modern conveniences, including up-to-date lighting and heating systems, being one of the most attractive rural homes in the county. In 1909 he completed his large barn, seventy-two feet by twenty-six feet. Mr. Spiegelberg carries on general farming, paying much attention to dairying, and deals largely in hay, of which he raises abundant crops, and on his farm has a .valuable sand pit, which brings him in quite an income each season. He is especially energetic, and in addition to managing his own farm carries on the adjoining farm, belonging to Mrs. Andrew Johnson. On March 28, 1889, Mr. Spiegelberg married Lydia A. Eppley, and of their union six children have been born, namely : Elmer William, who died at the age of ten weeks ; Edna Catherine, Earl William, Lydia Alberta Elizabeth, Ruth Marian, and Marian Elizabeth. ORLO ROBERTS owns a good farming estate in Lenox township and devotes his time to general farming. He is a son of Nelson Roberts, one of the- early pioneers of Ashtabula county. The senior Mr. Roberts, born in 1828, came to this community from Waterford, Pennsylvania, and was a carpenter and builder here until failing health caused his retirement and he died in August of 1881. He had married in his early life Emily Tinkham, who was born June 3o, 1831, and she died on January 14, 1906, thus surviving her husband for a number of years. A son and a daughter were born of their marriage union, and the latter, Ella, born on May 23, 1862, married Martin Fowler and lives in Lenox township, and has four boys, Floyd, Ivan, Howard and Robert. Orlo D. Roberts was born February 26, 186o, and after completing his education in the Lenox township schools he took up the occupation of his father, carpentering, and also for a time operated an engine in a mill. He now owns a good estate of eighty-eight acres in Lenox township and follows a general line of farming. He married on December 4, 1884, Ida A. Fowler, a daughter of Jason and Eletha ( Jerome) Fowler, and a son, Nelson G., was born to them on August 22, 1885, who is yet with his parents and helps with the farm work. Orlo D. Roberts is a 'member of the Odd Fellows fraternity at Jefferson, Ensign Lodge No. 4o0, and Mrs. Roberts is a member of its auxiliary, the Rebekahs. Mr. Roberts also belongs to the Grange in Jefferson. He was formerly connected with the State Police, and he gives his political allegiance to the Republican party. CHRISTOPHER WILSON SHELDON is fully entitled to a record in any history of the Western Reserve, for he has not only assisted in its agricultural progress, but is the substantial member of a family which was planted in northern Ohio with the pioneers of 1817-18. The grandfather, Simeon Sheldon, was a native of Sheffield, Connecticut, born in 1797, and he emigrated to Ohio in 1819 and married Eunice Harmon, daughter of Judge Elias and Sabrina (Gillette) Harmon, in 1820. The grandmother of Christopher W. was born July 16, 1800, the first native white child of Mantua township. Her marriage occurred in that township when she was about twenty years of age, and resulted in the birth of five sons and three daughters. All of which adds another forcible proof of the historic importance of the Sheldon family. The father of Christopher W., Henry Clay Sheldon, was born at Mantua, Ohio, in September, 1822, and married Miss Julia A. Bartholomew, born in Auburn township, Geauga county, that state, in September, 1827, daughter of Palmer and Mary (Wilson) Bartholomew, natives of New York state. Four children were born to this couple. The father died in 1858 and the mother in 1895, both dying at Mantua. Christopher W. Sheldon was born on the old Sheldon farm (which is now owned and occupied by Mr. Sheldon's brother) in Mantua township, April 18, 1847. At the age of fifteen, after having received a district school education, he entered the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, of which James A. Garfield was principal, and remained there for about two years. He then taught three terms of district school in his native township and three terms at Berton, Geauga county, but has since been continuously engaged in farming. On March 4, 1874, he married, at Saginaw, Michigan, Miss Ida L. Tinker, daughter of William and Sarah (Green) Tinker. Her father was a HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1445 native of Kingsville, Ashtabula county, Ohio, born in 1814. Both parents are deceased.   kl CYRUS L. JOHNSON.—Respected for his integrity, honesty and good citizenship, Cyrus L. Johnson, late of Windham, Portage County, was for many years actively identified with the agricultural interests of the Western Reserve, and as one of the older of its native born residents is especially worthy of mention in a volume of this kind. He was born, September 5, 1820, in Braceville township, Trumbull county, and there spent his earlier years. 'His parents, Benoni and Amanda (Lane) Johnson, came from Connecticut to Ohio when young, traveling across the country with the same little band of emigrants. They subsequently married, and settled in Braceville township, near Newton Falls, Trumbull county, where they cleared and improved a farm, laboring with all the courage and energy characteristic of the brave pioneers. The third child in a family consisting of six sons and one daughter, Cyrus L. Johnson was educated in the district schools, obtaining a practical knowledge of the three "R's," and after his marriage took up his residence on the parental homestead. Subsequently buying the interest of the other heirs in the place, he worked with ceaseless toil in adding to the improvements already begun, residing there until 1867. Having by persistent energy and prudent thrift accumulated a fair share of this world's goods, he then sold that farm and purchased a house and four acres of land in Windham Center, where he resided, free from active business cares until his death, August 5, 1895. Mr. Johnson married, April 17, 1856, Juliette S. Smith, who was born in Middlefield, Massachusetts, January 3, 1832, a daughter of John Smith, whose birth occurred in the same place, February 21, 1796. Her grandfather, John Smith, Sr., a soldier in the Revolutionary war, married a Miss Lucy Blush. John Smith, Jr., emigrated with his family from Massachusetts to Ohio when his daughter Juliette was eight months old, and having purchased a tract of heavily timbered land lying just east of the village of Windham, Portage county, he redeemed a farm from the wilderness and there spent the remainder of his years. To him and his wife, whose maiden name was Wealthy Church, and who was born on the same day that he was, three daughters and one son were born. Mrs. Johnson, the youngest child, is the only surviving member of the family. She received exceptionally good educational advantages when young, attending first the district schools, afterwards completing her early studies at a private school in Newton Falls and in an academy at Windham Center. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Johnson has continued her residence in Windham, living with her sister, Mrs. Henry Noble, in the old home, Mrs. Noble having spent the greater part of her life in this vicinity. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had no children. In his political relations Mr. Johnson was a stanch Republican and served as trustee of Braceville township. His wife is a member of the Congregational church, uniting with it when young. PAUL A. RISSMANN. — Possessing great artistic talent and ability, Paul A. Rissmann, of Lorain, has been a resident of this part of Ohio but four years, but during that time he has easily won a commanding position among the leading architects of Lorain county, and is kept busily employed at his profession, his offices being located in the Majestic building, Lorain, and at Elyria. A native of Germany, he was born, April 14, 1874, in Rothenburg, A. O. Ambitious from boyhood to obtain a good education, special attention was paid to the development of the natural talents of Paul A. Rissmann, who became a pupil in the Polytechnic High School at Charlottenburg, where he was graduated in 1892, with a good record for proficiency in his studies. The ensuing two years he was engaged in his chosen work in the Fatherland, being employed in Hanover, Berlin and Cologne. Emigrating to the United States in 1894, Mr. Rissmann followed his profession for atime in Newark, New Jersey, from there going to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, thence to Oil City. While the buildings for the St. Louis Exposition were in process of construction he went there to assist in planning and building some of the most imposing structures. Leaving St. Louis in 1905, Mr. Rissmann came to Lorain to engage in his profession, and has here built up a lucrative patronage. Among some of the more important buildings that have arisen under his supervision are the new Elyria Block, the German-American Club House, and various handsome residences in both Elyria and Lorain. In making plans for the Memorial Hospital in Elyria Mr. Rissmann was associated with H. E. Ford. Mr. Rissmann married, in Oil City, Pennsyl- 1446 - HISTORY OF THE WETERN RESERVE vania, Henrietta Miller, who was born in New York city, and they have two children, Carl and Richard. Mr. Rissmann is a member of the American Society of Architects. JOHN S. BULLARD, a retired manufacturer of Chagrin Falls, was born April 11, 1823, in Medina county, Ohio, and is a son of Curtis and Sarah (Easton) Bullard. Curtis Bullard was a native of New York state and came to :he Western Reserve in 1821, locating in what s now Medina county. He conducted a saw Hill, and was also a farmer ; he kept the mill intil 1841, when he removed to Chagrin Falls, Ind engaged in manufacturing, which he con:inued until his death, in 1867, at the age of seventy-six years. He was a prominent man and well known, he being the first mayor of Chagrin Falls village. He served as county commissioner, was Colonel of the State Militia Ind held many other offices, taking great interest in the progress and development of the Reserve. His wife, Sarah Easton, was born Ind reared in Lee, Massachusetts ; her father lied in the War of 1812. Mr. and Mrs. Bullard iad seven children, and all grew to maturity ; John S. is the second child, and the only one low surviving. At the age of nineteen he removed with his parents to Chagrin Falls. Upon attaining his majority, John S. Bullard began work in business with his father, and at his father's death succeeded to the business, vhich he continued successfully until his reirement about 1899. Mr. Bullard was an ardent Whig until the inception of the Repubican party, since which he has espoused its :ause. His first vote was cast for Henry Clay or President. He has held various public offices. He is a member of the Congregational church, and has been for forty years. Mr. Bullard married, in 1853, Lucy A., daughter of Luther Chapman, a native of Troy, Geauga county, Ohio. Her father was a native of Massachusetts, and was one of the early settlers of Geauga county ; he was prominent among he early settlers of the Western Reserve. Mr. and Mrs. Bullard have lived on the same lot, n the same street, for fifty-six years. FRANK C. LA MARCHE is the superintendent of the American Ship Building Company and me of the prominent and progressive residents of Lorain. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, September 12, 1861, a son of Frank C. and Philipine (Deubell) La Marche, the father a native of Germany, but at that time French territory, and the mother was born at Kirchheim, Germany. They both came to the United States in the year of 1851, and they were married in Buffalo, New York. Locating in Cleveland in 1852, Frank C. La Marche was a furniture dealer in the west side of the city for many years, but he died while .on a visit to his old home in Germany in 1907. Mrs. La Marche had passed away in 1890. Frank C. La Marche, their son, was educated in the public schools of Cleveland, and he learned the upholstering trade with his father. In 1884 he entered the railroad mail service, appointed during President Cleveland's first administration, and in 1894 he came to Lorain as clerk in the office of the American Ship Building Company when that company broke ground for the Lorain plant. In 1898 he was appointed paymaster's clerk for the plant, serving in that position until 1903, and in that year was promoted to the superintendency. He is a member of the board of the Sinking Fund Commission of Lorain City, and is a member of the Board of Commerce and the Business Men's Club. He married Mary Etta Fix, of Lorain, and two sons were born to them, Frank C., who died at the age of seven months, and John Frederick. FRANK A. DERTHICK.—One Of the most prominent representatives of the life and interests of Portage county is Frank A. Derthick, a public-spirited citizen, a business man of ability and a public official. He was born on January 3, 1844, at Copley, in Summit county, Ohio, near the city of Akron, but as his family moved to Bedford, near Cleveland, when he was but a few months old, his early life was passed there, and he received the beginning of his educational training in the Bedford high school. He then matriculated at the Hiram Electric College, with which the renowned President Garfield and Harvey Everest were then connected, and from that institution of learning joined the army during the last year of the Civil war, enlisting at Hiram, and he was discharged from the ranks early in 1865. Returning then to the school room he entered and in 1866 was graduated from the Oberlin Business College, and he then married and entered upon his life's work as an agriculturist. During Governor Foraker's administration Mr. Derthick served as state dairy and food commissioner, and until recently was master of the Ohio State Grange. He is a trustee. of Hiram HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1447 College and was for many years a trustee of the Ohio State University, and a member of the board of control at the Ohio State Experiment Station and of the State Board of Agriculture and is a director of the First National Bank of Mantua. His name is known throughout the state, and he has visited every county in the state and also throughout the New England states making speeches in the interest of the Grange. He holds membership relations with both the Grand Army of the Republic anti with the Grange. Ananias Derthick, the father of Frank A., was born in Coventry, Connecticut, in 1812, but spent the most of his life in the Western Reserve of Ohio, whither he moved with his parents in his early boyhood. His father, James Derthick, was also from Connecticut. Ananias Derthick married Samantha Squire, and their union was blessed by the birth of five children. On March 8, 1866, in Cleveland, Frank A. Derthick was married to Perlea M. Moore, a member of another of the prominent early families of Portage county, her father, Benjamin Moore, having come from the New England states, where he was born, to their farm in Portage county over a hundred years ago, when he was a small boy. He married Fanny M. Sargent, from Barton, Vermont, and he was a millwright, while she taught school before her marriage. The union of Frank A. Derthick and Perlea M. Moore has been blessed by the birth of five children. Fanny Moore, the eldest, was born February 6, 1867, and on June 19, 1884, she was married to Eugene S. Hannum. They have one child, Mary Etta, born February 5, 1897. Mary Wilmot was born September 7, 1869. Benjamin Moore, born June 27, 1872, married September 19, 1894, at Mantua Center, Mary Lewis Plum, and they have two children : Everest, born December 30, 1897, and Louise, born June 24, 1901. Frank Adelbert, born September 29, 1874, married November 8, 1902, at Berea College, Kentucky, Laura Ann Washburn, and they have three children : Helen Matilda, born July. 18, 1904 ; Perlea, February 25, 1906 ; and Virgil Adelbert, December 13, 1907. Perlea Samantha, born March 1, 1879, married on November 17, 1897, Henry J. Derthick, her cousin, and their three children are : Francis Lee, born February 23, 1900 ; Sargent Fee, who died September 9, 1904 ; and Lawrence, born in 1906. Mrs. Derthick, the mother of this family, died on August 8, 1905. Mr. Derthick Vol. III-12 is an elder in the Disciple church and a member of the Masonic fraternity. JOHN J. ORTON, M. D.-Prominent among the esteemed and respected citizens of Perry township is John J. Orton, M. D., the descendant of one of the earlier settlers of this part of Lake county, who is now actively engaged in the practice of medicine, and at the same time is carrying on general farming, his estate being pleasantly located on the River road. Doctor Orton comes of distinguished New England ancestry, being a son of Wayne Orton, a grandson of John Jamison Orton, and belonging to the family from which sprung many men of eminence, including, among others, Professor Edward Orton, LL. D., late State Geologist, who compiled a genealogy of the Orton Family, and William Orton, once president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, whose death occurred in New York City in 1878. John Jamison Orton, grandfather of Dr. John J. Orton, was born in Kent, Litchfield county, Connecticut, March 14, 1787, came with his family to Lake county, Ohio, in 1827, driving with teams across the country, and settling in what is now Painesville, at the corner of Washington and Saint Clair streets. He took up a tract of timbered land, cleared and improved a homestead, and here spent his remaining days. He married Beulah Caldwell, of Canaan, Connecticut, and they reared five children. When ready to establish himself in life, Wayne Orton bought fifty acres of land on the River road and later bought additional land until he owned over one hundred acres, and by .dint of hard labor improved the property now owned and occupied by his youngest son, Dr. John J. Orton. Having no ready money, he paid in part for his farm by day labor, boarding with Mr. Ed. Wright, in payment of his board splitting two hundred rails a day two days in each week. After the death of his first wife, which occurred in early womanhood, he split four hundred rails a day, and Mr. Wright thought that even then he got his board altogether too cheap. WILLIAM F. SPROTBERY, who has cultivated and improved the farm which he now occupies for the past quarter of a century, is of English parentage, and possessed of all the persevering and commonsense traits of his race. He 1448 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE is a son of Henry Sprotbery, a native of Lincolnshire, where he married, the young couple emigrating to the United States in 1849 and locating in Cleveland, Ohio. They became the parents of eight children, the father dying December 29, 1881, and the mother more than twenty years previously, on July 1, 1861. They are both buried in Lake View cemetery, Cleveland. Their son, William F., of this sketch, was born on Shaker Hill, Cleveland, on the loth of December, 1853 ; attended whit was then a district school in East Cleveland, and in 1867 moved to Michigan with his parents and there continued his education. In 1875, when twenty-two years of age, he returned to the Western Reserve, engaged in farming and located on his present homestead in 1884. On Christmas, I879, Mr. Sprotbery married Miss Rena Arminta Kilbourn, and two children have been born to them, viz. : One who died at birth and Amy Mehitable, who was born in Hiram township January 12, 1884. Mrs. Sprotbery was born in Freedom, this county, on May 27, 1859, and is a daughter of John and Amy Mehitable (Loomis) Kilbourn. The father was a native of Connecticut, born near Hartford August 13, 1828, and the mother was a daughter of Ohio, native to Hiram, born March 12, 1836. Her parents were Charles and Lucy Arminta (Harmony Loomis. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Kilbourn occurred July 5, 1857, and of it were born two daughters and one son. The father died December 5, 190I, and the mother April 17 1880. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Sprotbery was Hiram Kilbourn, a native of Connecticut, born August 5, 1798, who married Miss Mary Crocker, a native of the same state, whose birthday was February 3 of the year named. They were married November 25, 1824, and migrated to the Western Reservation in 1829, when John, their son, was only six weeks old. An ox team conveyed the family from Connecticut to the Erie canal, and canal and lake enabled them to finish the journey to the Reserve. Grandfather Kilbourn passed away at Freedom September 6, 1866, and his wife died November 13, 1879, the cemetery at that place being their last resting place. GEORGE W. COTTON.-Industrious, practical and enterprising, George W. Cotton is prosperously engaged in agricultural pursuits on the farm which his father, the late Charles W. Cotton, lived and labored successfully for many years. A native of Lorain county, he was born, April 6, 1873, in Amherst township, of honored pioneer stock, his grandfather, also named George W. Cotton, and his great-grandfather, Benjamin Noyes Cotton, having been early settlers of this part of the Western Reserve. Born in New Hampshire May 1, I758, Benjamin N. Cotton spent the early years of his life in the East. On October 12, 1785, he married Dolly Smith, who was born in New Hampshire April 3, 1766, and in 1834 he came with his wife to the Western Reserve, and after living for a while in Lorain county removed to Wayne county, where both lived to a ripe old age. The birth of George W. Cotton, the first, occurred in New Hampshire, September 24, 1802. Adventurous and ambitious, he came as a young man to Ohio, and was an able assistant for many years in aiding the agricultural development and growth of Sheffield township, Lorain county, where he first settled. He subsequently removed with his family to Elyria township, where he continued a tiller of the soil until his death, in April, 1865. His wife, whose maiden name was Rachel Smith, was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and as a child came to Sheffield township with her parents, Joshua and Martha (Hall) Smith, who settled here at a very early date, her father's death, in 1816, being that of the first white man in the locality. Five children were born to George W. and .Rachel Cotton, namely : Jerome, who died in 1852; Charles W., deceased ; Martha, who married Frank Young-love ; Newton L., deceased, and George J., deceased. Charles W. Cotton was born May 7, 1826, and after leaving school learned the trade of a carpenter and joiner, which he followed a number of years. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Battery E. First Ohio Light Artillery, for three years, and, with the Army of the Tennessee, took part in the battles at Cumberland Gap, Murfreesboro, Perryville and many engagements of minor importance. He was honorably discharged from the service at Camp Denison, Ohio, in 1865. Purchasing a farm in Elyria township in 1887, he removed with his family from Amherst township, and was here a resident the remainder of his life, passing away on his homestead November 14, 1894. He married, in 1872, Catherine Arman, who was born in Lorain county, Ohio, the daughter of Jacob Arman, a native of Germany, and into their household, five children made their HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1449 advent, as follows : George W., the subject of this sketch ; Edwin C., of Knoxville, Tennessee ; Erman, living on the home farm with his brother George ; Dora L., wife of Burton Hales, of Redlands, California, and Lillian B. The mother passed to the higher life in 1881. Since the death of his parents George W. Cotton has had charge of the home estate, which, with its valued improvements, constitutes one of the best and most desirable pieces of property in the neighborhood. Here he is engaged in general farming and fruit growing and is meeting with good success in his occupation. He is a member of the local grange, P. of H., and takes much interest in the organization. ENSIGN N. JONES, a leading citizen of Palmyra township, Portage county, is widely known in the agricultural community as a raiser of fine cattle and horses. He is a native of that section of the Western Reserve ; was born March 9, 1877, and is a son of Evan E. and Irene (Westover) Jones. His parents are also both natives of Palmyra township, but his grandparents, Daniel E. and Margaret (Jones) Jones, were born in Wales. The grandparents on the maternal side, Frederick and Ellen (Woodard) Westover were natives respectively of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, being early settlers of Palmyra township, where they married and spent the most of their lives. The paternal grandparents were also pioneer farmers of the township, and the parents of Ensign N. married therein and settled on a farm of one hundred acres, which they improved into a fine homestead. Evan E. Jones was a thrifty man and a citizen of stanch character and strong influence, his death occurring March 9, 1879. His respected widow still lives on the old place. Mr. Jones, of this sketch is therefore bound to Palmyra township by the strong ties, both of ancestry and lifelong residence. At the age of sixteen he had become so proficient in farming that he took charge of the home place, and is now one of the most extensive agriculturists in Portage county: His operations in general farming cover six hundred and sixteen acres in Palmyra and Deerfield townships, and he is a leading breeder of registered Short Horn cattle and graded Percheron horses. In politics he is an active Republican, and was elected trustee of Palmyra township in the fall of 1907. On October 3, 1901, Mr. Jones married Miss Ola Keeler, a native of Berlin town ship, Mahoning county; Ohio, and a daughter of James and Vesta (Floor) Keeler. Their son, Raymond L., was born July 26, 1903. HENRY W. WURST.—Possessing unlimited energy and unusual business ability, Henry W. Wurst has devoted a large part of his active life to the development and promotion of extensive enterprises in Lorain county, and as one of the heaviest real estate dealers of Elyria has been one of the leading spirits in its up-building, having without doubt improved more of the city property than any other one individual. His work in this direction shows something of the intelligence and perseverance of this self-made man, and indicates in a marked manner his resolute purpose and practical judgment. A son of Eckert Wurst, he was born, November 7, 1849, in Hessen-Cassel, Germany. Eckert Wurst was born and reared in Germany, where he learned the trade of a stonecutter, becoming an expert workman. He there married Elizabeth May, and in 1851 emigrated with his family to the United States, locating first in Amherst, Lorain county, Ohio. A year later he removed to Elyria, and there died in 1855, aged about thirty-three years. His widow later married John Brell and resided at Elyria until her death, December 11, 1908, at the age of eighty-three years. Three children were born to Eckert Wurst and his wife, as follows : Henry W. ; Samuel E., who is engaged as a breeder of fancy poultry and resides in Elyria ; Mary, who is the wife of John Dana, of Elyria. Henry W. Wurst was but six years old when his father died, and he resided at home with his mother until after her second marriage. He left home at the age of eleven years to make his own way. His educational advantages up to this time consisted of only a few months each winter in the district school. Thus thrown upon his own resources, he went to work, in 1861, as a grocery clerk for Charles A. Parks in Elyria, receiving his board and clothes for his labors, and in addition was to have five dollars in cash at the end of four years. This sum he never received, but instead took a swarm of bees. He then, after the close of the war, was employed at farm work in Ridgeville township and was able to attend school a short time in the winter season ; subsequently he was in the employ of Mrs. Charles Arthur Ely for a short time. When seventeen years old he began to realize his need of more school-