1100 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE early and honored pioneers of Portage county, while on October 10, 1830, his wife Eunice followed him to the grave. Jason Moore, one of the seven children mentioned above, was a boy of eight at the time of the westward emigration of his parents in 1806, and he was prominently identified with much of the early history of Portage county and the Western .Reserve. He helped to bury the first white person who died in this section. Studying medicine in the office of Dr. Deo Wolf, of Ravenna, he became a competent and successful physician and practiced in his own town and surrounding country for fifty years and more. He married on November 20, 1833, Christiana Ingell, who was born in Chester, Massachusetts, March 27, 1808, and both are -now deceased, the husband dying on March 23, 1887, and the wife on February 18, 1901. Cheney J. Moore married on November 20, 1862, in Mantua, Adelucia B. Fergus0n. Her father, Alva Ferguson, was born in Blanford, Massachusetts, and married for his first wife Amanda Doolittle, and for his second, Betsy Hawkins, she being the mother of Mrs. Moore. Her paternal grandfather, John Ferguson, died in 1814 from wounds received in the war of 1812. Her maternal grandfather, John Hawkins, born in Connecticut, April 20, 1775, married Acenath Pease, and they came from Enfield, Connecticut, to Mantua, Ohio, many years before the birth of Mrs. Moore. Three children have been born to Cheney J. and Adelucia Moore. Henry L., the eldest, was born October 9, 1863, on the old Moore farm in Portage county, and on July 5, 1905, he married Addie Gardener. Frank C. Moore, born October 27, 1866, married on June 1, 1898, at Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Carrie L. Dean, and their two children are Bernard L., born May 9, 1899, and Treva E., born July 20, 1903. Amaret A. Moore, born January 19, 1875, married William N. Herbert on February 14, 1900, and their three children are : John Cheney, born December 5, 1900; Maud Amaret, April 18, 1904; and Roger William, March 6, 1907. Mr. Moore politically was rearedreared inaith of the Republican party, but he has since taken up the cause of Prohibition. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist church. CHARLES LAMSON.-Among the industrious, enterprising and persevering men of Ashtabula county that have chosen agriculture as their life occupation, and in the prosecution of their independent calling have met with a substantial reward, is Charles Lamson, of Pierpont township. He was born December 10, 1849, in Fowler, Trumbull county, Ohio, a son of Willis Lamson. He comes of pioneer ancestry, being a grandson of Benjamin and Theda Lamson, who migrated to the Western Reserve from New York state to Ohio in 1822, locating in Trumbull county when the country round bout was in its virgin wildness. Benjamin Lamson made an overland journey from New York to his new home on the frontier, coming from Buffalo up the Lake beach with an ox team, a horse being hitched ahead of his oxen. He bought an extensive tract of wild land from the Connecticut Land Company, and from the dense forest improved a large farm. He was noted as a hunter and a fisher, being expert with both the gun and the rod. He died at the age of fifty-seven year, in Fowler, Ohio, having lived a widower about three years. He and his wife reared two children, namely : Willis, father of Charles: Milo, a farmer in Trumbull county, married Martha Cook, of Fowler ; and Milton, also a farmer in the same county, married, and reared two children. Willis Lamson was born March 15, 1813, in Onondaga county, New York, and as a boy of nine years came with his parents to Ohio, and received his education in the district schools of Trumbull county.. He began preaching in the circuit of Trumbull county, for the denomination of the United Brethren, and continued his religious labors until eighty years of age, laboring with zeal and fervor. In 1850 he settled in Pennsylvania and remained there until 1890, when he returned to Ohio, settling, on a farm of eighty acres in Pierpont township, where lie lived until his death, in August, 1906. He was a very strong Republican in his political views, and heartily opposed to secret societies of all kinds. He married Nancy F. Greenwood, of Trumbull county, and she died in Pennsylvania, about 1866. Ten children were born of their union, as follows : Sarah, wife of Daniel Dain, of Beaver, Pennsylvania, has eight children ; Wade, who died in 1898, married first Achsa Allen, and married second Delia Ross, having by each marriage two children ; Penelapa, who married Francis Hew died, in 1904, in Pennsylvania, leaving children ; Mary, who died in October, 1908, married first Jerome Brooks, by whom she had four children, and married second Robert Martin, by whom she had one child ; Theoda HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1101 wife of Edson Norton, of Pierpont, Ohio, became the mother of one child, who died at the age of sixteen years ; Harriet, wife of Luther Norton, of Trumbull county, a brother of Edson Norton; has three children ; Jerome, living in Trumbull county, married Phebe Stilson, and they have five children ; Viola, wife of Daniel Hazeltine, of Conneaut, has four children Eveline, residing in Oklahoma, married first Charles Little, by whom she had five children, and married second B. F. Allen ; and Charles, the special subject of this sketch, who is the fifth child in succession of birth. Charles Lamson received his early education in the district school, and began his active career as teamster for the proprietor of a saw mill. .after his marriage he lived for three years in Vienna, Trumbull county, then located on his present farm in Pierpont township, Ashtabula county, buying at first but fifty-six acres of his present estate. He has since added to it by purchase, owning now one hundred and eighteen acres of as good land as can be found in this section of the Reserve, and on it has made the greater part of the valuable improvements, having been very fortunate in his operations. Mr. Lamson married, December 30, 1871, Rosaline Norton, of Vienna, who was born December 25, 1853, a daughter of Merritt and Diadama (Cratchly) Norton. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lamson, namely : Cora, born January 13, 1873, living in Wayne county, Ohio, married George Hill, of Richmond, Ohio ; Lettie lived but fifteen years ; Archie, born March 24, 1877, owning the greater share of a large mill in Pierpont, married Jennie Turner, and they have three children, Lloyd, Lois, and Clara ; Merritt, born August 7, 1880, an employe in his brother's mill, married Maud Byrnes of Pierpont, and they have one child, Willis ; Ruby, born March 15. 1884, married first Charley Smith, of Pierpont, by whom she had two children, and married second Virgil Case, and they have one child ; and Elta, born September 21, 1887, is the wife of Edna Turner, a Pierpont farmer, and has one child. Politically Mr. Lamson is a, stanch adherent of the Republican party, and religiously both he and his wife are active members y of the Congregational church, and belong to the local Grange. JAMES FULTON SCOVILLE was born in Derby, Connecticut, November 13, 1843. He obtained his educational training in the grammar school at Springfield, Massachusetts, and shortly after his graduation therefrom in the spring of 1862 he enlisted for the Civil war with the Forty-sixth Massachusetts volunteers and later with the Eighth Massachusetts volunteers. During his military career of two years he took part in the hard fought battles of Gettysburg, Walnut Creek and others, and on leaving the army came directly to the Western Reserve of Ohio in 1865 and secured work on the farm of G. H. Kent. But during the past thirty years, or covering the period of his residence in 'Mantua, he has worked as a brick and stone mason. Mr. Scoville is a son of Leveritt and Betsy (Durand) Scoville, and was one of their five children. Their home was at Derby in New Haven county, Connecticut. He married on December 22; 1870, in Mantua, Lucy Eliza Root, who was born August 21, 1848, on the old Root farm in Mantua, and she attended the district schools and the Hiram Institute, having been a pupil of that institution the first year after it became a college, a Mr. Thompson being president of the institute and Garfield the president of the college. Her father, Henry Root, was born in Aurora, Ohio, July 7, 1825, and on September 29, 1847, in Bainbridge, Geauga county, this state, he married Ann Eliza Kent, a daughter of Gamaliel and Eliza (Granger) Kent, from Suffield, Connecticut. Jeremiah Root, Jr., the paternal grandfather of Mrs. Scoville, was born November I, 1795, in Massachusetts, and coming to the Western Reserve in Ohio, he married on January 28, 1825, Huldah, a daughter of Ebenezer and Mary Horner. They began their married life in a little log cabin in the southwestern part of Mantua township, located on land which Ebenezer Horner drew from the Connecticut Land Company and sold to Jeremiah Root in 1807, and which afterward became known as the old Root farm. This Jeremiah Root, the grandfather of Mrs. Scoville, was a son of another Jeremiah, who was born July 7, 1765, and came with his family to Ohio in 1806 and located near Aurora in the southern part of the township. His father also bore the name of Jeremiah Root, and was a descendant of Gideon Jeremiah, who married Lucretia Page, a daughter of Isaac and Abigail (Barnes) Page. This last Jeremiah Root was a son of Gideon Root and his wife Huldah, a daughter of Philip and Sarah (Lamphear) Nelson, and Gideon was a son of John Root, Jr., who married Anna, a daughter of William and Martha 1102 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE (Morley) Loomis. John, Jr., was a son of John and Mary Page, the latter a daughter of Josiah and Sarah (Dumbleton) Leonard, while John, Sr., was a son of Thomas Root. Two sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Scoville, Neal Nelson, on September 29, 1872, and Clarence Joy, on December 23, 1874. Both attended the schools of Mantua and Hiram, and the elder son is connected with the Erie Railroad. He married in Cleveland, Myra King. Clarence has taken up farming, and on September 8, 1901, in Mantua, he married Retta Jean Bissell, and they have a daughter aged four years. GEORGE A. BATES.—As one of the able and popular officials of Lake county, Mr. Bates, the efficient county recorder of deeds, is well entitled to consideration in this publication, which takes cognizance of the generic and biographical history of the various counties constituting the original Western Reserve. George A. Bates was born in Dryden township, Tompkins county, New York, on November 29, 1860, and is a son of Nelson L. and Mary (Murphy) Bates, the former of whom was a carpenter by trade and vocation and one who went forth in defense of the Union in the Civil war, in which he was a member of a regiment of New York volunteer infantry. He died in 11906. In 1865 George A. Bates came with his mother to Ohio, and located in Geauga county, whence they removed to Painesville in 1873. His mother later became the wife of Judson W. Haley, and they now reside in Burton, Geauga county, Ohio. The early educational training of George A. Bates was secured in the public schools of Geauga county. Upon the day which marked his twentieth birthday anniversary, Mr. Bates engaged in teaching in the district schools of Geauga county, and he followed the pedagogic profession for three years, with marked success. He then returned to Painesville, where he began reading law in the office of the well known firm of Burrows & Bosworth. He came soon to a full realization of how slow and uncertain could be advancement in the legal profession, and under these conditions he took up the study of shorthand or stenography, in which he became proficient without having recourse to other instruction than that afforded by text books. In 1886 he was appointed the first official court stenographer for Lake county, and he continued incumbent of this office about five years. In the meanwhile his health had become much impaired, and he found it expedient to turn his attention to some other vocation. He accordingly engaged rn the real estate and insurance business, in which he continued until 1904, when he sustarned. a severe injury of the spine, the result being the almost total loss of the use of his legs. After nearly two years of treatment he recovered sufficiently to resume his operations as a dealer in real estate, though it was necessary for him to utilize his wheel chair in showing property, even when utilizing a horse vehicle for portions of the various trips made. His experience in the real estate business with the incidental and very frequent investigation of the records of titles, made him familiar with the records of this order in Lake county, and thus when the county recorder was suddenly removed by death he was recognized as a most eligible successor in this office. His choice was that of the voters of the county. Under these conditions an appeal to the citizens of the county gave him a gratifying majority over four other candidates in the primary election and in the regular election which followed he has reason to feel proud of the fact that of about fifty candidates voted for he led the entire ticket in the supporting popular vote. He has given a most satisfactory administration of the affairs of the office, of which he has been in tenure since November, 1908, and has made many improvements in the matter of sys tematizing the work and making the record; more readily accessible. His son is his deputy, and he also has one other assistant in his office. In politics Mr. Bates is aligned as a stanch advocate of the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor and he has taken a lively interest in public affairs of a local order, especially in all that has touched the general welfare of his home city. He served two terms as a member of the city council, and in 1903-4 was mayor of Painesville, having received more votes when elected to this office than have ever before or since been received by any candidate for the mayoralty of this city. As chief executive of the municipal government his policy was one of progressiveness and liberality, but marked by due conservatism in the matter of public expenditures. While a member of the city council he was chairman of the city commission on water supply, in which connection he was chosen to go to New York and close contracts for the purchase of the water works system in Painesville. Though this involved an expenditure of one hundred and fifty thou- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1103 sand dollars he was given full authority and satisfactorily closed about twenty-five different contracts incidental to this noteworthy public improvement. For a period of about six years Mr. Bates was secretary of the Lake County Agricultural Society. In the year 1886 was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Bates to Miss Nellie E. Sawyer, of Chardon, Geauga county, and they have two children,—Morton O., who is his father's deputy in the office of the county recorder, and Zola E., who remains at the parental home, one of the popular young ladies in the social life of the community. JEREMIAH C. BENSON, residing in Monroe township, is a grandson on the paternal side of Eri Benson, the founder of the family in Ashtabula county. He came to Ohio from New York about 1834, and by his wife, nee Eliza Cory, who was born about the year of 1810 and died in 1884, he had the following children : Julius, mentioned below ; Albert, who went to California in the "gold days," where he died and is buried ; Ursula, who was born in 1836, married George Martin and lives in Conneaut ; and Charles, who was born in 1845, died in the fall of 1903. Julius Benson, born on the 27th of August, 1830, made the overland journey west from St. Louis in 1850 to mine gold, and he also worked as a carpenter and joiner while in the west. He then spent two years, 1858-9, in Pike's Peak, and, returning to Ohio, farmed for several years, but the last twenty years of his life was spent in the wholesale lumber trade. He died in May of 1889 and was buried at Kelloggsville. He had married Delia Davis in 1856. She was born on June 26, 1835, and is now living in Monroe Center, Ashtabula county. She is a daughter of Clark and Elizabeth Davis, who came to Ohio from Rochester, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Benson had three children : Albert, born September 12, 1861, lives in Denmark, Ashtabula county ; Jeremiah C. is mentioned below ; and Edwin K., born September 20, 1873, lives in Monroe Center, a contractor and builder of macadam roads. Jeremiah C. Benson, born August 28, 1865, spent his boyhood days on a farm in Monroe Center, and attended the Pierpont high school, the Conneaut high school and the New Lyme Institute. Before his marriage he was engaged in the wholesale lumber business, and was also a successful baseball player. Following his marriage he owned a lumber yard and planing mill in Ashtabula for two years, was then in the same business in Pennsylvania, and later in Virginia until 1906, and then returning to Ohio he located on his farm of one hundred and twenty-seven acres, where he is engaged in general agricultural pursuits. He is both a Mason and an Odd Fellow, a member of the Grange and of the Anti-Horse Thief Association. At the present time he is serving as the trustee of Monroe township. Mr. Benson married on March 28, 1891, Stella Struble, who was born June 27, 1867, a daughter of William P. and Lovisa (Smith) Struble, who are now living in Pierpont township. The two sons and a daughter born to Mr. and Mrs. Benson are : Rockford L., born March 9, 1892 ; Jeremiah S., born December 22, 1895 ; and Virginia, born January 10, 1900. FRANCIS BUCHANAN BLOOD holds a place among the representative citizens of Conneaut township, which has been his home for many years, and which he has served in many public ways and as a tiller of its soil. He was born, however, in Venango county, Pennsylvania, August 31, 1837, and after a limited educational training in the district schools of his home community he settled on his father's farm in the valley of Oil creek, Pennsylvania. His parents were John and Caroline (August) Blood, the father born January 4, 1808, and their children who came to the Western Reserve were : Hiram, who located in Conneaut, where he followed carpentering, and by his marriage to Belle Reed he had five children, but only two are now living; William, a carpenter in Conneaut, married Lucy Root, who died in 1904, leaving two children ; and Benjamin, of Kingsville. where he has been an infirmary director during the past six years. He married Alice Hashly, and they have two children. In 1863 John Blood, the father, came with his family from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and, locating in Ashtabula county, he bought the little farm of eighty acres near Kingsville where his son Benjamin now re sides. This land was improved at the time of purchase. After coming to this state John Blood lived a quiet life, never resuming the public capacities in which he had served in Pennsylvania, and he was both a Whig and Republican in his political affiliations. Both he and his wife were members of the Methodist church, and he continued as a leader in its affairs until his life's labors were ended, dying 1104 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE at Kingsville or December 31, 1896, when he had reached the eighty-sixth milestone on life's journey. His wife Caroline survived him until 1905, dying in Richmond, Ohio, in January of that year, but she was buried by the side of her husband in Kingsville. Francis B. Blood during his residence in Pennsylvania cleared fifty acres of land on Oil creek, on which he erected a house and barn, and his home was there for five years. Selling the land at that time he came to Conneaut on March 28, 1865, and located on his present farm of 100 acres. He has served his township as a trustee for six years, and for eighteen years was a school director. He is a stockholder and director in the Conneaut Telephone Company. On February 18, 1862, he was married to Angeline Steward, who was born in Cherry Tree township, Venango county, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1837, and their children are : Charles, a farmer at Springfield, Pennsylvania, married Nellie Lampfier, of Conneaut, and they have one child ; Bert F., who lives just south of his father's home, married Gertrude May Pollock, from Crawford county, Pennsylvania ; John C., who is employed by a construction company in Mercer, Pennsylvania ; Otis Kirk, who during the past nine years has been the superintendent of the MacMarland Construction Company at Cleveland ; and Ralph A., who married Lizzie Gifford, by whom he has two children, Gordon and Stewart, and he lives with his father on the farm. Mrs. Blood, the mother of this family, belongs to the Christian church. Mr. Blood has membership relations with the orders of Elks and Masons, and he suffered the loss of an arm on June 26, .1908, while boarding a moving train at Cleveland, Ohio, where he had been attending a Shrine meeting of Masons. In political matters he affiliates with the Democratic party. WILLIAM HAMILTON JOHNSON. - Distinguished as one of the oldest of the native born citizens of La Grange township, Lorain county, William H. Johnson is a fine representative of the industrious, skillful and intelligent farmers that have been influential in advancing the agricultural progress and prosperity of this section of Lorain county. He was born May 30, 1834, on the farm which his father, Nathan Porter Johnson, had purchased the previous year. A son of Stephen and Phebe (Burr) Johnson, Nathan P. Johnson was born January 30, 1801, in Hartford, Washington county, New York, and there spent his early life. In December, 1833, accompanied by his family, he joined a small company of his neighbors and friends that had decided to establish a colony in the Western Reserve, and journeyed overland to La Grange, Lorain county, Ohio, much of the way following a path marked by blazed trees: He bought at first a small tract of timbered land, and as his means increased made other wise investments, becoming owner of three valuable pieces of land. He was very popular and prominent as a man and a citizen, and filled many offices of importance, having represented his district. in the state legislature and serving one term as state senator. He died in La Grange Center, where for many years he was postmaster, in 1874, aged seventy-three years. He married Laura Waite, who was born February 16, 1804, in Champion, Jeffer. son county, New York, a daughter of Dorastus Waite, and they became the parents of nine children, the older ones having been born in New York. A younger brother of William H. Johnson is the Hon. E. G. Johnson, of Elyria. The fifth child of the parental household, William H. Johnson, attended the pioneer schools of La Grange, and, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, early turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. He labored for many years on the old homestead, and at the death of his father bought out the interest of the remaining heirs, becoming its sole owner. He made excellent improvements on the place, by his judicious labors placing the land in a high state of cultivation, each year increasing its value, meeting with noteworthy success in all of his undertakings. For a number of years Mr. Johnson has been a resident of La Grange Center, and takes an active interest in the public welfare. He is well educated, after leaving the district schools, where he laid a substantial foundation for his future education, having continued his studies at Elyria and at Oberlin. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee, and has served as township trustee, having been elected to the position on the Republican ticket. Mr. Johnson was first married September 15, 1856, to Mary A. Parsons, who was born in Windham, Ohio. She died March 12, 1860, leaving two children, namely : Laura Virginia and Mary A., born February 23, 1860, wife of George Schlindler, of Rochester township Laura V., born July 22, 1857, married Decem- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1105 ber 22, 1875, Miles W. Ingalls and is a widow residing with her father. She had three children, Flora A., born December 15, 1876, graduated from Baldwin University and is a teacher in La Grange high school ; Sylvia A., born September 30, 1878, graduated from Baldwin University in music and is a school teacher at La Grange ; Norman W., born August 10, 1880, graduated from the medical department of the Western Reserve University and is a teacher of anatomy in that school. Mr. Johnson married second September 12, 1861, Lucy H. Bruce, and of the three children born of their union two sons died in infancy and one daughter is living, namely, Anita, born December 8, 1866, wife of Charles H. Curtis, who has charge of the home farm, and they have three children, Harvey, Norna, wife of Frank Forbes, and Lloyd. THOMAS RICHARDS is one of the best-known of the Charlestown township agrrculturists, and he was born on March 16, 1851, to Edmund and Elizabeth (Williams) Richards, who came from their native land of Wales to this country and located in Portage county, Ohio. Here they in time became owners of a farm of 100 acres of land, which they cleared and improved, and during the winter months Mr. Richards mined for coal in order to procure the money for the payment of his land. Thomas Richards purchased his present home of twenty-six acres in Charlestown township, which he has improved and cultivated. He has in the meantime filled some of the offices of his county and township, including those of recorder of Portage county for six years and trustee and assessor of Paris township. Further than all this he is perhaps one of the largest collectors of canes in the state, owning many rare specimens from all over the world, including one from Mexico engraved with the old time sport of that country, the bull fight, one taken in front of the breastworks at Atlanta, another from his mother's old home in Wales—this being one of the choicest of the large collection—one from the shrine at St. Anne, Canada ; one brought from Cuba by judge Rockwell, two brought by Mr. Richards' daughter from London, one being Wongo wood from China ; one from the scaffold used in the hanging of McKisson (in 1838) and Jack Cooper ; one from Ireland, and many others, his entire collection including about fifty rare and priceless canes. Mr. Richards married, for his first wife, on September 21, 1872, Julia Morgan, and they had three daughters, Alta, Elizabeth and Delia. The second daughter, Elizabeth, is the wife of John D. Thomas, and the other two are teaching school. The present Mrs. Richards was born February I, 1857, a (laughter of Thomas and Mary J. (Roberts) Thomas, and she was first married, on December 12, 1879, to Samuel Thomas, by whom she had two children, George B. and Alice M., but the daughter died when only two years of age. The son married and has one child, Katherine. He is living on Long Island, New York. The husband and father died in 1885, and in March of 1893 his widow was married to Thomas Richards. Mr. Richards is a Republican in his political affiliations. CARL ROSEO NILES.—Through the original inheritance of his mother, Carl R. Niles is now occupying one of the historical landmarks in the agricultural domain of Portage county. His maternal grandparents migrated from Connecticut to Hiram township in 1831, and in the following year located in Freedom township. In 1833 they purchased and occupied the pioneer farm of the township, which had been settled by Charles H. Payne in the early part of the century. As early as 1826 Mr. Payne set out a large orchard, which is still bearing, and there is even one pear tree planted in 1800 which is producing fruit today.. It was on this farm that the first cider mill in Portage county was also put in operation. Mr. Niles is a native of Freedom township, born on July 24, 1858, and is a son of Oscar F. and Elvira L. (Loveland) Niles, the former being born at Brighton, Lorain county, Ohio, and the latter at Clayton, St. Lawrence county, New York. The grandparents on the paternal side were Abner and Sophia (Loveland) Niles, born respectively at West Stockbridge, Connecticut, March 31, 1803, and at Otis, Massachusetts. Colby and. Laura (Larcom) Loveland, the maternal grandparents, were natives of Litchfield. county, Connecticut, and Otis, Massachusetts. The great-grandparents on the same side of the family were Isaac and Ruth (Holden) Loveland, of Glastonbury, Connecticut. As stated, the Loveland grandparents first established the family in Portage county in 1831, spending their last days in Freedom township. The parents of C. R. were married in Hiram township by father of Luericia "Rudolph" Garfield, March 21, 1844, living in Garretts- 1106 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE ville for twenty-five years. Oscar F. Niles, the father, was a carpenter, and followed that trade most of his life in Freedom township and vicinity. He died July 22, 1902, and his wife passed away September 26, 1904. Their children were Henry B. Niles, now a resident of Sidney, Ohio, and. Carl R., of this sketch. After the death of Mrs. Niles in 1904 the two sons came into possession of the old homestead, consisting of seventy-four acres, and since that time twenty-four acres have been added to it, the entire property having been improved in producing capacity and general attractiveness. Carl R. has active supervision of the farm and dairy, and as there is also a large maple sugar grove on the place, his time is fully and profitably occupied. He is unmarried, but since his mother's death has employed a competent housekeeper. Mr. Niles is one of the most intelligent citizens of the township, having received a good education in the common and high schools of Garrettsville and served several terms as school director. He has also been active in the co-operative work of the farmers, being identified with the Garrettsville Grange No. 1436, of which he was overseer for one year and secretary for five years. Mr. Niles brother, Henry B., who resides in Sidney, Ohio, is married to Miss Ellen G. Ferguson, and is the father of Grace Isbell Niles. Henry B. Niles was made a Mason by his father, who was master of Garrettsville Lodge for six years, and Henry B.. is also a Forester. HOMER GOODELL.—In a review of the line of ancestry of the house of Goodell it is found that they spring from the French or from one of the two great branches of the Celts, and a direct line is traceable down to Robert Goodell, who sailed from Ipswich, England, in the ship Elizabeth, April 30, 1684, and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, having left the mother country from the then one prevailing cause, that of the disregard of the freedom of thought in religious liberty. He was a tiller of the soil, and his landed possessions in New England amounted to eleven hundred and forty-four acres. The ancestry is an honored one and includes many distinguished people, the various professions being well represented among their number, while the profession of the ministry is graced with the names of thirty-six of Robert's descendants and there have been a number of foreign missionaries. Rev. William Goodell was for forty years a missionary to Turkey, and he translated the Bible into the Turkish language. Lucy Goodell married Rev. Asa Thurston, and they were the first missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, where they both died and they gave the first missionary name to Goodell. One of Shakespeare's professional companions was one Batist Goodell, who made his first appearance before Queen Elizabeth in the play. of Henry VI. It is supposed that he was uncle to Robert, the American ancestor. More than one hundred years ago a Daniel Goodell was a member of the Massachusetts Colonial Society, where his stern morality and inflexibility of purpose marked him as one of the last of the Puritans. Thus on down through two hundred and thirty-six years each generation of this noble family have each in turn performed their earthly mission and mingled their dust with and become a part of American soil, and those who now tread the globe are but a handful in comparison with its illustrious dead. Homer Goodell, a descendant in direct line from the Robert Goodell who landed upon American shores more than two hundred and sixty-three years ago, was born in Shalersville township, Portage county, Ohio, July 22, 1845, a son of Carlton and Charlotte (Sanford) Goodell. The mother was born in Connecticut July 7, 1812, and died on the 27th of February, 1905, -while her husband died October 16th, 1867. Mrs. Goodell was a real daughter of the Revolution, her father and grandfather having served in that war, the latter having been an officer. There were four children in Carlton Goodell's family : Perry, born February 22, 1837, lives near Rock Island, Texas; Martin, who was a prominent farmer of Shalersville township, of which he served several years as trustee, and also held other offices of trust, died unmarried April 20, 1908, at the age of sixty-nine ; Amelia, born August 22, 1841, unmarried and living on the old home place ; and Homer. Homer Goodell in his youth attended the district and high schools of Shalersville township, and later studied during four terms at Hiram College. Farming and stock-raising have been his life's occupation, and in 1905 he erected the finest home within Shalersville township. He married on the l0th of September, 1872, Emma Allen, who was born in Hiram township to Ozias and .Anna (Norton) Allen. The father was born in Litchfield county, Connecticut, September 13, 1814, a son of Peltiah and Amelia Allen, and he died on the 18th of May, 1883. The HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1107 mother was a daughter of Thuel and Harriet (Harrington) Norton, both born in New York, in North Hartford and in Utica, respectively. The children born to Homer and Emma Goodell are: Clyde H., who was born October 26, 1873, and died January 2, 1902 ; Fred A., born January 5, 1876, and now a resident of Charlestown township ; Merton S., who was born November 5, 1877, and died December 9, 1895; Jonn R., born August 5, 1882, and Harry, born June 4, 1885, are both at home with their parents. Homer Goodell has worth- ily upheld his honored family name, and he is a loyal and faithful member of the Christian church, and since 1893 he has been a member of its board of deacons. He has served Shalersville township six years as a trustee, also as a school director, and he upholds and supports the principles of the Democratic party. ARTHUR CURTIS STAMM.-A prosperous agriculturist of Freedom township, Portage county, where he devotes one hundred and twenty-seven fertile acres to general and dairy farming, Arthur C. Stamm is of a family which has been firmly and honorably established in Stark county, Ohio, for several generations. He himself was born in that section of the Buckeye state, on January 31, 1870, and is a son of William H. and Almina (Mase) Stamm, both natives 0f Bethlehem township, Stark county. The grandfathers, Samuel Stamm and Henry Mase, were born in Pennsylvania, and settled with their families in Stark county, about 1850. They finished their lives in that part of Ohio, and the parents of Arthur C. were married there and resided until 1878. In that year they located in Freedom township, where William H. Stamm purchased one of the first farms settled in that part of Portage county, known as Capt. Brown farm, noted for the finest house and buildings in this part 0f the country. The tract consisted at first of 127 acres, to which he eventually added eighty, improving the entire place by bringing the land under thorough cultivation and erecting a modern residence and farm buildings. He continued to operate the place as a general farmer and dairyman until his death in 1905, since which his widow has enjoyed a comfortable home with her two surviving children—Arthur C., of this sketch, and Sylvia O., now Mrs. William Jenks, of Fresno, California. Three of the nine children died in infancy, and Sarah, Allen, George and Mary all passed away in 1880. Arthur C. Stamm came with his parents to Freedom township, when he was eight years of age ; obtained his education in the district schools and at Hiram College, and has spent the best portion of his life on the home place in Portage county. At the death of his father he purchased from his sister a tract of 127 acres, his mother retaining eighty acres of the estate. As stated, he has added eighty acres to this purchase, giving him one of the most desirable farms in the township. In January, 1899, Mr. Stamm married Miss Rose Leet, a native of Freedom township and daughter 0f Charles and Emma (Thompson) Leet. Her father was also born in Freedom township, while her mother is a native of Shalersville township. Mr. and Mrs. Stamm have one son, Chester Arthur Stamm, born June 27, 1909. They have abundant occupation in the care and improvement of their comfortable homestead, in the discharge of their social duties and in advancing the religious and charitable activities of the Congregational church, of which they have long been active members. CHARLES W. CHALKER was born on the farm in Freedom township, Portage county, upon which his father settled as an unmarried young man in 1845 ; it has always been his home and, after the death of his father, by purchase from the other heirs to the property, he came into possession of the old homestead himself. He has since added to the original farm until his estate embraces ninety-three acres, well cultivated and thoroughly improved. Mr. Chalker's place is popularly known as Maple Wood Farm, the proprietor being a substantial farmer and a well-known citizen who is highly honored both for his family's sake and for the ability and probity which he has displayed in his own affairs and those connected with the public business. He has served as justice of the peace for four years ; is the organizer of Freedom Grange, No. 1576, and has been clerk and deacon in the local Congregational church since 1894. This church is one of the oldest in Portage county, being organized on Saturday, February 9, 1828, and both Mr. Chalker and his father have made contributions to its stability and progress. Charles W. Chalker, of this review, was born July 28, 1863, and is a son of Warren and Jerusha O. (Viets) Chalker—the former being a native of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, and the latter of Southington, Trumbull 1108 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE county, Ohio. The ancestral home of the American branch was Connecticut, where his grandfather, Daniel Chalker, was born. His paternal grandmother (nee Dolly Tingley) was a native of Harford, Pennsylvania, and his maternal .grandparents, Ira and Darmus (Hurd) Viets, were both born at Litchfield, Connecticut. The former drove from his native state through the wilds of what were afterward known as the "central states" to the still newer country bordering on Lake Erie. There, with his father, he settled on a tract of timber land, and the two spent many years in its improvement. Warren Chalker, the father, who was born in 1825, migrated from Susquehanna county in 1845, first settling on thirty acres of land in Freedom township, which had come into possession of his wife. His journey to these parts was accomplished by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, thence across the lake, the balance of the way probably on foot. Mr. Chalker retained the original place, but nearly doubled his homestead before his death, September 23, 1888. The deceased was married three times. By his first wife, who was formerly Hannah Brown, he had two children—Morgan H., who died in 1863, and William M., now a resident of Kiel, Oklahoma. His second marriage was to Betsey Brown, a sister of his first wife, who died without issue, and his third wife (nee Jerusha O. Viets) bore him three children. Anna J., the sister of Charles W., is now Mrs. H. D. Tingley and is living at the old home in Harford, Pennsylvania the brother, Truman D. Chalker, is a druggist of Kiel, Oklahoma. Charles W. Chalker received a thorough education in the district schools of Freedom township, supplemented by two terms at Hiram College, and has made practical use of his training both in the scroomrooni and the farm. His intelligent citizenship and public usefulness are products of his mental training and, as an agriculturist, he has earned a good living for his family, maintained and improved his homestead, increased his original estate in Freedom township and come into possession of a ranch of 160 acres in Perkins county, Nebraska. On July 28, 1896, Mr. Chalker married Miss Emma May Preston, a native of Auburn. New York, who died February 8, 1901, mother of two children, Linnie E. and Ira P. Chalker. His present wife, native of Bradford county, Pennsylvania, whom he married March 4, 1907, was the widow of Lenthiel A. Chalker and known in her single days as Carrie L. Corson. By her former marriage she is the mother of Arthur A., now a residentinghamtonamton, New York, and Cecil A. Chalker, of Cleveland, Ohio. ROBERT GEORGE.—One of the noteworthy institutions of Painesville is that of the Storrs & Harrison Company, which conducts the most extensive general nursery and seed production business in the field of floriculture to be found in the world. Prominently identified with the upbuilding of. this magnificent enterprise, of which he is now general manager, Robert George has given the best years of his life to the same and is recognized as an authority in this line of industry as well as one of the representative business men of Painesville, in and near which thriving city the enterprise has its headquarters. He is one of the stockholders of the company, which was incorporated in 1883, with a capital stoc$150,000, and whose facilities, equipment and management are unexcelled in every department. The annual business of the company now reaches an average aggregate of several thousand dollars, and the concern has had most potent influence in furthering the industrial prestige of Painesville. Mr. George was born in Yarmouth, county Norfolk, England, January 14, 1849, and is a son of Robert and Eliza George. Mr. George came to this country when seven years old and received his education in the schools of Geneva, New York. He secured employment in a nursery and greenhouse in Geneva, where he was identified with this line of enterprise for a period of five years, within which he gained most varied and intimate experience in the business. In December, 1868, he came to Painesville, Ohio, where he found employment in the greenhouses of the concern of which he is now general manager. One and one-half years after forming this association he had so thoroughly proved his ability and so entrenched himself in the confidence and esteem of his employers that he was given active charge of the greenhouses, of which he continued superintendent until the death of William G. Storrs, in 1901, when he succeeded him as general manager. of which office he has since continued incumbent. Upon the incorporation of the company, in 1883, he came one of its stockholders and was chosen its treasurer, in which office, upon becoming general manager of the company, he was succeeded by William C. Harrison, the present incumbent. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE- 1109 Mr. George has given his entire time and attention, his best thought and energy, to the development of the great enterprise with which he has been identified from the days of his youth, and in the perspective of all that has been accomplished and of the status of the enterprise at the present day, he has reason to feel the deepest satisfaction and to realize that his labors and devotion have not been in vain. Never desirous of publicity and finding ample demands upon his time in connection with his business interests, Mr. George has taken no active part in public or civic affairs, though he is loyal and public-spirited as a citizen. He and his wife hold membership in the Methodist church, and he has so ordered his course during the long years of his residence in Painesville as to retain the confidence and good will of all who know him. In the year 1873, Mr. George was united in marriage to Miss Hettie A. Barto, daughter of Carl Barto, of Painesville, and they have three children,—E. B., who is superintendent of the greenhouse department of the Storrs & Harrison Company ; Hettie, who is the wife f William A. Davis, of Painesville ; and Frances P., who remains with her father. Mrs. George died August 13, 1909. HENRY SEYMOUR CLAPP is a retired farmer living at 120 West Main street, Norwalk, Ohio. He was born in Peru, Huron county, Ohio, October 2, 1841.. His boyhood was spent on his father's farm in Peru. He received his education in the common school in Peru and the high school in. Norwalk. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company B, One Hundred and Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served two years in this regiment as private and corporal and was so fortunate as to escape sickness, wounds or capture. He was with his company and regiment in every march or battle up to the time of his discharge. His service included Milroy's battle at Winchester ; the famous Lynchburg raid, and Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. In October, 1864, Mr. Clapp was discharged to accept an appointment as second lieutenant in the Nineteenth United States colored troops. He served with this regiment until its discharge at Brownsville, Texas, January 15, 1867. He was promoted to first lieutenant and was breveted captain for meritorius service and bravery in action. Mr. Clapp married in 1869 Miss Sarah D., daughter of Alvin and Pamila C. (Douglass) Brightman. Her parents were early settlers of the Western Reserve and lived in Bronson, Huron county, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Clapp have two daughters, namely : Mary B., wife of Edwin D. Cline, of Norwalk, and Katharine B., wife of Edward H. Horton, of Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Clapp is the son of Dean and Betsy M. (Panforth) Clapp. Mr. Clapp's parents were natives of Barnard, Vermont. His grandfather on the father's side was Judge Benja- min Clapp, a native of Vermont, and on the mother's side, Dr. Samuel Danforth, also a native of Vermont. Dean and Betsey M. Danforth were married May 19, 1828. About one year later they came to the Western Reserve, purchasing a piece of wild land in Peru, Huron county. Not a tree had been cut and they had but a few articles brought with them from Vermont with which to begin house keeping, when they moved on their farm in the winter of 1830. By their united efforts they were enabled to build a home and leave to their children an inheritance accumulated by endeavors of which their descendants may justly be proud. Dean Clapp was a stanch Republican in politics and was honored by many offrces of trust in Huron county, among which was county commissioner, infirmary director, president of the agricultural society and appraiser of public school lands located on the Western Reserve. Mr. and Mrs. Dean Clapp had three children, whose names and brief domestic history are as follows : Aro D., born July 22, 1830, was married February 3, 1858, to Helen, daughter of Aruna and Mary Ann Eaton. of Peru. Mary Isabell, born January 18, 1834, married Dr. Alfred Terry, a dentist of Norwalk, Ohio, and Henry S., the subject of this sketch. Mr. Clapp has always been a Republican and a protectionist of the Mark Hanna "stand pat" order. In religion, Mr. Clapp and his family are Universalists as were his father's family before him. FREDERICK WALLACE HARRISON was born December 31, 1859, at Painesville, Ohio, and is a son of John and Hannah (Hull) Harrison, mentioned at greater length in another part of. this work. Frederick W. Harrison lived at home on the farm until he started his basket factory. As they' raised a great many strawberries, and needed so many baskets, they began making these for their own use, having a saw-mill, and from this has grown the present large industry carried on by Mr. Harrison and his son. The business, Which began in so small a way, has built itself up until it occupies 1110 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE the entire time of Mr. Harrison ; however, he also oversees the work on a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres. The firm is now F. W. Harrison & Son, Mr. Harrison being one of the original founders, and his son, Dan M., was taken into the firm in 1906. The son had not then reached his majority, being taken in as a partner at the age of eighteen years. He literally grew up in the factory and understands every phase of the business, being ready to take hold in any department at any time. The plant occupies a two-story building, and contains about ten thousand square feet. They have a branch factory in Cleveland, and have about twenty employes. Their annual output of baskets is from twenty-five to thirty thousand dozen. The equipment is modern and up-to-date in every respect, and they sell the output to both the jobber and retail dealer. The veneer machine which is used is driven by a thirty-horse power engine. On account of the present volume of their business and their constantly increasing trade, the firm has located a site in Painesville, and on this will build a new factory into which they expect to move in the spring of 1910. After the removal of the business, the family residence will also be in Painesville. The present home of the family was purchased by Mr. Harrison in 1880, and was then an unimproved farm. He built a good house, barns and outhouses and it is now one of the best improved farms in LeRoy township.' Frederick W. Harrison married January 14, 1886, Nevettie A. Manley, and they have four children, namely : Lila M., overseer of the Cleveland branch, who has spent much of her time in the factory ; Dan M., his father's partner ; Lizzie A., a basket braider ; and Frank M., a fireman. The family are all members of the Grange. Mr. Harrison is a Republican in politics, but always considers the man rather than the party. Mrs. Harrison is a member of the Baptist church in Painesville. CHARES SHIVELY, editor and proprietor of the Norwalk Experiment-News Company, was born in Spencer county, Indiana, where he received his education in the public schools. He learned the trade of printer when a boy, serving some time as apprentice, and was editor and manager of several papers before coming to Norwalk, in 1896. In 1906 he purchased the paper he now edits, which is a conservative Democratic paper. The Norwalk Experiment was established in 1835, and in 1906. was purchased by Mr. Shively, who at the same time purchased the Huron County News, and consolidated them. The paper has a circulation of over two thousand in the county. In the hands of its present able manager it has gained considerable note, and is looked upon as one of the leading journals of the county. Mr. Shively married, in 1884, Clara Thixton, a native of Owensboro, Kentucky, where her father, John Thixton, is a prominent banker and prominent in commercial affairs. Mr. and Mrs. Shively have one daughter, Ellen Thixton Shively. SHERMAN BOOTH NORTHWAY. — Distinguished not only as a veteran of the Civil war, but as one of the esteemed and valued citizens of Monroe township, Sherman B. Northway is a native of Ashtabula county, his birth having occurred September 5, 1843, in Orwell, on the homestead of his father, the late Rufus Northway. He belongs to a family noted for its patriotic ardor, three of his great-grandfathers and seven of his great-uncles having served bravely in the Revolutionary war. Rufus Northway was born, February 11, 1800, in New York state, where he spent the earlier years of his life. In 1830 he migrated with his family from Otsego county, New York, to Ashtabula county, Ohio. Locating in Orwell, he took up 100 acres of timber covered land, and from the dense wilderness cleared and improved a homestead. He also followed the blacksmith's trade in connection with his agricultural labors, having a smithy on his farm. He raised stock, kept a dairy, and acquired an excellent reputation for making fine cheese. He married Beulah Fuller, who was born May 30, 1802, and they reared four children, as follows : George R., born in November, 1827, died, in 1872, in Leavenworth, Kansas ; William Augustus, born in 1832, died, in 1857, in Orwell, Ohio; Adelia, born in 1833, deceased; and Sherman Booth. George R. Northway enlisted, in 1861, in Company A, Sixth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, and was promoted to sergeant for gallant conduct. At the battle of Enon Church, Virginia, May 28, 1864, he received five gunshot wounds, which crippled him for life and from the effects of which he died in 1872, at Leavenworth, Kansas. Growing to manhood on the home farm, Sherman B. Northway obtained his education HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1111 in the district schools. Inspired by the patriotic spirit of his ancestors, he enlisted, in August, 1862, in an Ohio regiment, for service in the Civil war, but on December 29, 1862, was honorably discharged on account of ill health. On June 24, 1863, Mr. Northway re-enlisted, and served until mustered out, June 16, 1865. .He was wounded in his first battle, receiving a buckshot which he still carries in his head. He was afterwards captured by the enemy, and was confined in the prisons at Andersonville, Libby, Savannah and Milan. He has since been engaged to some extent in agricultural pursuits, for a number of years carrying on truck gardening. Mr. Northway married, in 1866, Ellen Webb, who died leaving two children, namely : Almira E., born May 7, 1868, married G. H. Holmes, of Ashtabula, Ohio ; and Ralph Elmer, born May I, 1873, married Bessie Millencamp, and now resides in South Cincinnati. Mr. Northway married second, August 22, 1886, Mrs. Estella I. (Green) Wheeler, and they have one child, Alton, whose birth occurred January 26, 1890. Mr. Northway is 'a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and has served as adjutant of several posts, and is at present chaplain of his own post. He was formerly a member of the State Police. EDWIN K. BENSON.-Wide-awake, enterprising and highly progressive, Edwin K. Benson, of Monroe township, holds a prominent position among the substantial and esteemed residents of Ashtabula county. A son of Julius and Della (Davis) Benson, he was born September 20, 1874, in Kelloggville, Ashtabula county, Ohio. Further parental and ancestral history may be found elsewhere in this volume, in connection with the sketch of his brother, J. C. Benson. Completing his early education in the Jefferson high school, Mr. Benson began his, career as a contractor when a lad of seventeen years, first taking logging contracts. He has since extended his operations in that line, and for the past two years has been working for the Kellogg and Kellahan Company, putting in macadamized roads. He has now a contract in Monroe township, Ashtabula county, to build two miles /and two hundred feet of macadam road, the road to be twenty-two feet wide, with the stone inlaying fourteen feet in width, the total cost of the work being $16,000. In the filling of this. contract, Mr. Benson employs fifty men and thirty teams. Vol. II-26 Mr. Benson is an expert farmer, owning one hundred and fifty-seven acres of rich and fertile land, the management of which he personally superintends. He makes a specialty of raising and selling stock, and keeps a dairy of twenty or thirty cows, and for the last eight years has made a high grade of butter, for which he receives the best market price. He has good improvements on the place, and expects soon to build a barn, sixty by eighty feet dimensions. Mr. Benson married, in 1900, Tinnie Scribner, who was born in 1877, a daughter of Carlos and Josephine (Sweet) Scribner. Politically a Republican, Mr. Benson has several times been a delegate to county conventions. He was road supervisor one year, and is now a member of the State Police. LOREN HICKS.-A native, and to the manner born, Loren Hicks has been active in advancing the agricultural and industrial interests of Ashtabula county, and is now carrying on general farming successfully in Monroe township, on the farm where his birth occurred May 26, 1844. He is of pioneer ancestry, his grandfather, David Hicks, having located in Ashtabula county in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. David Hicks was born in Batavia, New York, in 1778. He subsequently lived for a while in Canada, from there coming to Ohio. He married, in 1810, Orange De Moranville, who was born August 30, 1786, their marriage being the first one recorded in Ashtabula county. He died in 1819, while in manhood's prime, on his home farm, in Conneaut township, near Amboy. His widow survived him, passing away September 1, 1879, at a venerable age. They became the parents of four children, as follows : Josiah, born about 1811, married Julia Badger, and died August 28, 1883 ; Electa, born in 1812, married Lorenzo Scribner and died in 1878 ; Stephen, who was the father of Loren Hicks, and Almira, who died December 17, 1865, married first Rensselaer, Bugbee, and married second Lewis Ward. Stephen Hicks was born in Batavia, New York, October 4, 1815, and spent most of his life in Ashtabula county, passing away on his farm, in Monroe township, December 17, 1865. He was an industrious, hard-working man, and by his energetic efforts cleared a farm from the wilderness, being actively employed in lumbering and farming throughout his career. To him and his wife, whose maiden name was 1112 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Polly Mitchell, five children were born, namely : Marcia, who married Wells Davis. was born in 1840 and died in 1890 ; Malinda, born in 1842, married Edwin Davis, and resides in Kansas ; Loren, the special subject of this brief biographical review ; Ellen, born in 1847, is the wife of Jerry Howard, of Kansas ; and Cornelia, who was born in 1851, married first Eugene Beardsley, and after his death became the wife of Amilo Waterman, of Pierpont, Ashtabula county. Brought up on the parental homestead, Loren Hicks assisted his father in a part of the pioneer work of preparing the land for cultivation, and likewise worked with him in the lumber camps and saw mill from the age of fifteen years. About twenty years ago Mr. Hicks gave up his operations in timber, whereby he and his father used to buy wood lots, cut down the giant progeny of the forest, convert the huge logs into lumber, and sell the lumber at the nearest markets. Buying then the interest of the remaining heirs in the old home farm, he has since been successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits, devoting his eighty acres of land to general farming and dairying. Mr. Hicks married, in October, 1870, Amy Chase. She died a few years later, leaving three children, namely ; William, born in 1872, married Lena Adams, and resides in Kelloggsville, Ashtabula county ; Herbert, born in 1874, married Lizzie Hoeg, and lives in Monroe township ; and Ernest L., born in 1877, married Lina Jary, and is a resident of Monroe township. Mr. Hicks married second, in 1881, Nellie Brewster, and to them four children have been born, namely.: Margaret, who was born in 1883, is the wife of Harold Anderson, of North Conneaut ; Flora, born in 1886, married William Van Schaik, of Monroe township ; Jay E., born in 1888, married Grace Rose, and lives on the home farm ; and Jesse, born in 1890, is chief cook in the County House. Politically, Mr. Hicks is a stanch Republican, and for twenty years served acceptably as township trustee. He is a member of the State Police, and also belongs to the local grange. JACOB TUCKERMAN.—The history of education in Ohio. presents no type of professional teacher finer than that which is represented by the high-minded, scholarly, unselfish Jacob Tuckerman, who devoted his long life with indefatigable energy and zeal to the intellectual and moral training of the young. His range of labor extended from the borders of Lake Erie to the shores of the Ohio river, though the field of his most effective and longest continued work was the Western Reserve and especially the county of Ashtabula, so celebrated for its men and women of liberal culture and independent character. In his own section and by hrs multitude of appreciative and enthusiastic friends and disciples Mr. Tuckerman was not inappropriately regarded as one of the worthiest, most accomplished and best loved of the many noble educators of his day and generation. When in February, 1897, he ceased from his mortal toils, falling in the very harness of school work, a local newspaper, the Orwell News Salter, published an obituary of the deceased veteran, beginning with the words: "Professor Tuckerman is dead. Ohio's greatest educator has heard his last class, has received his final report." Jacob Tuckerman was born July 31, 1824. in Sterling, Windham county, Connecticut, and was related to the Boston Tuckermans and the Putmans, whose ancestors were among the early colonists of New England. His father, Isaac Tuckerman, moved to Potsdam, New York, where Jacob attended public school, and in the year of 1836 the family came to Ohio and settled at Orwell, in which place Isaac Tuckerman established a tannery. The son in his teens worked in this tannery during the summers, but went to school, and later taught school, in the winter seasons. Opportunities for study took him in 1839 to Kingsville, where, becoming deeply interested in religion, he joined the Presbyterian church. The next year he taught in Saybrook, and in 1845-6 was a teacher in Rome Academy, interrupting his school work by intervals of labor in the tan yard. He entered Oberlin College as a senior in the teacher's course in 1847, but did not graduate, being obliged to return home in the spring, of 1848 on account of his father's illness. During the winter term of 1848-9 he taught in Monroe, Michigan. Mr. Tuckerman was married on April 23, 1849, to Miss Elizabeth Ellinwood, of Rock Creek, who like himself was of Revolutionary stock and Puritan lineage. Mrs. Tuckerman is a lady of education and refinement, a faithful worker in every good cause and a gracefu writer in prose and verse. She was the inspi ration and adviser of her husband in his pr fessional career. Soon after his marriage Professor Tucker man was elected the superintendent of schools HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE -1113 for Ashtabula county, this office having been created by a special act of the legislature. He held the offrce two years, and during his administration, as is learned from a memorial sketch by T. P. Treat, "the school enjoyed a nigh degree of prosperity, new efficacy was increased and the cause of popular education was greatly advanced. * * * Dr. Tuckerman enjoyed the distinction of having been the second county superintendent of schools Ohio has ever had." In 1852, when Orwell Academy was built, he was made the principal, and there he remained during the following five years. There were at that time seven prosperous academies in Ashtabula county. Professor Tuckerman left Orwell in the fall of 1857 to accept the chair of mathematics in Farmers' College, near Cincinnati, while three years later, in 1860, he was elected president of the college, a position lie retained until. 1867, when he resigned and soon afterward organized the State Sunday School Union, in the interest of which he traveled for two. years or more, partly as a means of checking the threatened appearance of a pulmonary disease. He was a delegate of the Ohio Sunday School Association to the world's convention of Sunday-school workers in London, England. He was called in 1868 to Austinburg to take charge of Grand River Institute, an academy over which he presided for about fourteen years, and which under his administration attained prosperity and a proud reputation. From Austinburg he transferred his valuable services to the town of New Lyme, succeeding Professor D. J. N. Ward as principal of the rnstitute in 1882, and this responsible post he continued to occupy until the date of his death, fifteen years afterward. From the record here given it appears that Dr. Tuckerman devoted more than fifty years of his active service to the cause of education, in the daily, real work of the recitation room. The editor of the Ashtabula Standard estimated that "Probably there is not a teacher in Ohio who has instructed so many students as have been taught by Mr. Tuckerman," and adds "In Ashtabula county he was almost a family man in every household, there being but few families of which some member has not at some time been under his fostering care." And Mr. Howells, brother of the novelist, wrote in his newspaper, the Sentinel, "It has been our good fortune to know Professor Tuckerman for thirty years. He always impressed us with his earnestness in all that he had to do. What he thought was the right thing for him to do he did with all his might. The hundreds, and indeed we are safe in saying the thousands, of men and women who are indebted to him for their start in life in the line of education treasure his memory as a blessed heritage." Mr. Tuckerman was a clear and impressive public speaker, a lucid and forcible writer, a most agreeable comrade. He treated with genial affability his fellow men of whatever rank or disposition. Though firmly adherent to his own convictions and line of conduct he was tolerant of dissenting opinions and of persons his opposite in habits. In politics he was a Republican, in creed a Presbyterian, in sympathy a cosmopolitan. He belonged to the Masonic order, and had taken the thirty-second degree, and was a charter member of the Scottish Rite lodge that lately received President Taft at Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Tuckerman was strongly anti-slavery and strictly a temperance advocate. The honorary degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by Oberlin College, and that of Ph. D. by some Southern college. With this tribute to his memory by one who knew and honored him we close, quoting a passage from the eulogy of W. G. Richardson, editor of the Andover (Ohio) Citizen, of February 12, 1897: "Wherever words might be written to attest the sterling worth and the strong character of Jacob Tuckerman they would be but feeble expressions of his great worth. He was a teacher in the truest sense of the term, vigorous, strong, kind but firm, never failing to impress his personality upon those who came under his instruction. He came in close touch and feeling with his pupils, and so great was his influence that he almost became a part of their daily thought and actions. Fathers who had given up all hope of inspiring their sons to greater efforts for higher endeavors have gone to Professor Tuckerman to enlist his aid and kindly guidance for their children, and seldom did they fail to find in him that source of strength and power which when brought to bear upon impetuous youth was an inspiration for good that never deserted them. Many men today, middle aged, will say that the turning point in their lives for usefulness was the day that they first became students of this beloved teacher." ARTHUR H. DEAN, a general and successful farmer, also operating a dairy, who resides on   1114 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE a comfortable homestead of 150 acres in Monroe township, Ashtabula county, is a progressive member of the County Agricultural Society, interested in the public advancement of his community and a citizen of enterprise and moral worth. He is of a well known New England family, early settled in Connecticut, his grandfather, Harvey Dean, having been born in that state August 16, 1778. This ancestor married Phebe Kellogg, transferred the interests of his branch of the family to Ashtabula county and died as a citizen of the Western Reserve in 1829. His son, Chauncey, was born in Monroe township, that county, July 13, 1822, and, like all enterprising and industrious men who were ambitious to make the most of their opportunities in the pioneer times, worked faithfully at whatever honorable occupation offered. The cultivation of the land was the basis of his support, but he also worked at his trade of wagon making and engaged in' lumbering. For over fifty years he was also an ardent and hard-working member of the Methodist church, assisted in the founding of several of the early churches in the township, was long .a trustee of his own society, and in numerous ways was public spirited and strongly influential. His death occurred July 8, 1907. The deceased was married, on August 23, 1849, to Miss Calista Miles, who was born in Lyndon, Caledthia county, Vermont, on the 6th of March, 1825, coming from her native state to Ashtabula county when only nine years of age and being one of the family conveyed hither in a slow but sure ox-cart. By her marriage to Chauncey Dean she became the mother of the following : Hamilton, who was born July 13, 1850, and died February 23, 1871; Cora, born December 5, 1851, who married Stephen M. Edwards and lives in West Springfield, Erie county, Pennsylvania ; Arthur, of this sketch, and Minnie, who is now the wife of Sidney Hill, whose biography appears elsewhere. Mr. Dean, who is also a native of Monroe township, born March 9, 1858, like his honored father; has made agriculture the chief study and occupation 0f his life, but not to the exclusion or, neglect of the affairs and movements which benefit his community. He is an active member of the Grange and County Agricultural Society, having been identified with the latter for the past eight years. He also belongsto the State Police and Home Guards of Ohio and Pennsylvania, organizations which have come into such favorable notice of late years as stanch advocates and supporters of law and order. Mr. Dean takes a deep interest in the welfare of the Republican party, and both he and his wife are firm believers in Methodism, both as a religious faith and an organization of good works. On March 9, 1882, he married Miss Elvira Randall, of West Springfield, Pennsylvania, who is a daughter of Elias and Caroline (Ferguson) Randall, and they are the parents of the following : Mabel Rea, born in 1885, who lives in New York, the wife of G. W. Westcott, and Carolyn, born in 1893, who resides with her parents. Mrs. Dean is a lady of forceful and refined character, for several years before her marriage being a school teacher in Pennsylvania. JACOB W. HUNTER.—In the work of practical criminology Jacob W. Hunter, who retired from the office of sheriff of Lake county, January 4, 1909, gained a high reputation in the apprehension of malefactors of various orders, and he has also done much efficient service as a detective. He is one of the popular citizens of Painesville, which has represented his home since 1896, and the citizens in general throughout Lake county will read with interest this brief resume of the career of their able ex-sheriff. Born in Clay county, Missouri, April 4, 1869, Jacob W. Hunter is a son of George and Betsey (Smith) Hunter, both of whom were likewise natives of that county, where the respective families settled in an early day. When the subject of this review was about four years of age his parents removed to Miami county, Kansas, where he received his rudimentary education in the public schools and where both of his parents died, when he was about twelve years of age. He was then taken into the home of relatives in his native county in Missouri, where he was reared to manhood and where he finished his studies in the public schools. After leaving school he was identified principally with agricultural pursuits in Missouri, until he had attained to his legal majority. He then, in. 1890, came to Lake county, Ohio, in company with Harry Avery, by whom he was employed for three seasons at the Pine Crest hotel, a summer resort on Little mountain, a few miles distant from Painesville. He was thereafter employed about three years as gripman on the street railways in the city of Cleveland, and in 1896 he became an employe of the Cleveland, Painesville & Eastern Railroad Company, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE- 1115 operating an electric interurban system. He operateda car for this company, as motorman, on the route between Cleveland and Painesville, until 1904, in which year he was elected to the office of sheriff of Lake county, on the Republican ticket. He assumed the duties of the shrievalty January 1, 1905, was elected as his own successor in 1906, and retired from office at the expiration of his second term, January 4, 1909. In 1906 he apprehended the greatest number of convicts ever sent to the state penitentiary from Lake county in a single year. He gave an admirable administration and gained strong popular endorsement at the polls, having led his ticket on the occasion of his second election. He has rendered yeoman service in the party cause and is known as one of the uncompromising advocates of the cause of the Republican party in this section of the state. He has been a delegate to several Republican state conventions in Ohio, and has also been a delegate to congressional and county conventions. He is a member of various fraternal and civic organizations, and in the Masonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, besides which he has crossed the burning sands of the desert and gained membership in the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. In the city of Painesville, on July 27, 1902, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hunter to Miss Rose Campbell, who was born and reared in Lake county and who is a daughter of Charles C. and Rose (Curtis) Campbell. Her father was born at Kirtland, this county, May 17, 1832, and was a son of Henry and Electa (Allen) Campbell, who were numbered among the sterling pioneers of the county, where they continued to reside until their death. Charles C. Campbell became one of the successful farmers and influential citizens of Kirtland township, where he continued to reside for many years. He then retired from active labors and removed to the city of Painesville, where he died in 1901, at the age of sixty-five years. His wife was born in Huron county, Ohio, and was a child of four years at the .time of her parents removal to Kirtland, Lake county, where she passed the greater portion of life. She died in Painesville, April 11, 1909, at the age of sixty-seven years. They became the parents of four children—Jennie, who is the wife of William Proctor, of Orion, Michigan ; Frederick, who owns the old homestead farm and maintains his residence in Painesville ; Delbert, who like wise resides in Painesville ; and Rose, who is the wife of the subject of this sketch. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter have two children, Doris and Carl. CORODYNE O. RUST.-A native of the Western Reserve and numbered among its representative farmers at the time of his death, Corodyne O. Rust was a member of one of the pioneer families of Lake county, and was a man whose life was guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity and honor. His widow now maintains her home in the city of Painesville, whither she removed from Geauga county after his demise. Corodyne O. Rust was born in Concord township, Lake county, Ohio, April 26, 1848, and died on his fine homestead farm in Chardon township, Geauga county, June 27, 1898. He was reared to maturity in his native county, where his educational advantages in his youth were those of the common schools of Concord township. After leaving the home farm he continued to devote his attention to farm work, in connection with which occupation he went to Geauga township and found employment on the farm of the mother of his future wife. In Chardon township, that county, on June 7, 1873, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Ann L. Baker, daughter of Luther and Eliza Ann (West) Baker, the latter of whom was born in Connecticut August 20, 1828, a daughter of Edgar and Margaret (Wilson) West, who came to Ohio and settled in Chardon township, Geauga county, in 1831. Edgar West was born January 8, 1799, and his wife April 3 of the same year. Luther Baker and Eliza Ann West were married December 10, 1846. He was a son of Hosea and Betsey Wintchell Baker, and was born October 8, 1821. His parents came from Connecticut to Ohio and settled two miles south of Painesville, on what has long been known as the Cloverdale farm. They soon removed to another farm in that vicinity, and the time of his death, which occurred December 15, 1867, Mr. Baker was the owner of a well improved farm, the major portion of which lay across the line from Concord township in Chardon township, Geauga county. His wife long survived him, and her death occurred February 22, 1897. They became the parents of two children, of whom the elder is the widow of the subject of this memoir; the other child, Edgar, died at the age eight of eight years. 1116 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Mrs. Rust was born on the old homestead farm in Chardon township, January 5, 1850, and was eighteen years of age at the time of her father's death. She received good educational training in her girlhood and remained on the home farm with her widowed mother until and after her marriage. Her mother had employed Mr. Rust to supervise the practical work of the farm, and in the meanwhile the daughter had charge of the business affairs of the place. After continuing under these conditions for a period of about four years, the daughter married Mr. Rust, and thus the alliance previously maintained in a business way was now cemented by the closer ties of wedlock. The devoted mother continued to reside with them until her death, and Mrs. Rust remained on the farm for four years after the death of her husband. She then, in 1902, removed to Painesville, where she purchased an attractive residence property and where she has since continued to make her home. Before the death of her husband they had purchased adjoining tracts of land until their estate comprised nearly three hundred acres. The object in securing additional land was to make provision for each of their children. Mrs. Rust has, however, found it expedient to dispose 0f a considerable portion of the property, of which she retains about one hundred and seventy acres. Mr. Rust was a man 0f energy and _mature judgment, was successful in his business operations as a thorough agriculturist and stock-grower, and left to his children the heritage of a good name and of worthy deeds performed. He was a Republican in politics. Concerning the children 0f Mr. and Mrs. Rust, the following brief record is entered, in fitting conclusion of this sketch : Luther Baker Rust, who is employed in the Nickel Plate mill, at Painesville, married Miss Ruby J. Burr, and they have no children ; Bert H., who is associated in the ownership of the Nickel Plate mill, at Painesville, married Miss Alice June Emerson, and they have no children ; Gertrude Emeline is the wife of Bert E. Stanhope, employed by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and they have one child, Wilda Eliza ; Louis remains with his mother at their home in Painesville ; and Platt W., who is a mason contractor, having his home in a residence next to that of his mother, married Miss Laura E. Benedict, and they have no children. GEORGE W. JENNINGS.—One of the first families to select Portage county as their home was the Jennings. David Jennings, the grandfather of George W., drove through from the New England states in 1802, when this part of the country was inhabited almost solely by Indians and wild animals, and purchasing a farm of 115 acres, the purchase price being a dollar and a quarter an acre, he cleared and improved his land, erected his log cabin and also built both saw and grist mills, the latter in connection with a man named Robert Eaton. After many years of faithful and effrcient labor David Jennings passed to his final reward on January 10, 1856, and was laid to rest among others of the honored pioneer residents of Portage county: His wife, Hanna Wellman, had died in 1840. Among the children of David and Hanna Jennings was the son, Louis E., who was born in Ravenna township July 14, 1811, and in January, 1833, was married to Elizabeth Knowlton. She was born in Maine, January 14, 1812, being a daughter of Samuel Knowlton, also of that state, and she came to Ravenna, Ohio, in October of 1832. After their marriage Louis E. Jennings and wife located on the farm with Mr. Jennings' parents, and spent the remainder of their lives there, he dying October 11, 1894, and his wife October, 5, 1895. Seven of their children lived to years of maturity, namely : Hanna, the wife of Hugh Wain and a resident of Cleveland: Amelia, on the old home place ; George W. and Martha W. twins, and the latter is the widow of J. W. Gledhill and a resident of Coshocton county, Ohio ; Helen M., Arimenta L. and Albert B., all also on the old Jennings farm. George W. Jennings was born in Rave township, February 22, 1840, and he remain at home with his parents until he had reached the age of 36 years. In 1872 he bought sixty acres of farming land just north of his father's place, and March 16, 1882, he added there ninety-three acres, all in one body and lyi in Ravenna township. He married, June 1876, Jessie F. Bartlett, from Berlin, in honing county, Ohio, a daughter of Chaun L. and Martha (Musser) Bartlett, natives spectively of Delaware county, New York, an of Petersburg, Ohio. The father came to Ohio with his parents when a small boy. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jennings are: Louis B., born January 4, 1878, and proprietor of the Star Bakery at Ravenna, and George Ralph, born October 8, 1879, an agriculturist in Ravenna township. Mr. Jennings is a Dem- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1117 ocrat in his political affiliations, and he is a member of Ravenna Grange, No. 32. Mrs. Jennings is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. DAVID BAKER is so bright mentally and physically so well preserved that, although now in his eighty-first year, he is thoroughly enjoying life as a retired farmer of Lodi and a not inactive member of the community. He resides in a comfortable homestead embracing a good residence and five acres of land, devoted to pasture and the raising of fruits and vegetables, all within the corporate limits of the village ; so that, while still retaining his touch with mother earth he is in close contact with his old friends, especially with the local veterans of the Methodist church. Both he and his wife were among the oldest members of the local organization, Mr. Baker being one of the two surviving charter members and for many years one of its most active trustees. Thus honored for his many years of usefulness, morality and devoutness, David Baker has only one higher translation awaiting him, and his many friends sincerely trust that the day of its coming may be distant. Mr. Baker is a native of Milton township, Wayne county, Ohio, born November 5, 1829, son of John and Sarah (Trump) Baker, both natives of Pennsylvania. The father came to Wooster in 1824, married in Wayne county and lived on and cultivated his wife's farm of forty acres. He finally bought a homestead in Canaan township, acquired other property and became a prosperous agriculturist and citizen. He died in Wooster and his wife spent her last years on the farm mentioned. There was reared David Baker, the only survivor of the children of his father's first marriage. David attended district school and the Old Academy ; taught two terms of winter school and then turned his serious attention to farming. He first purchased one hundred and eight acres ; afterward sold fifteen acres to the railroad, and he still retains the ninety-three acres just outside the corporate limits of Lodi, which he has held, worked and improved continuously for a period of forty years ; this, in addition to his comely homestead within the village itself. In 1854 Mr. Baker married Miss Charlotte Chambers, daughter of William and Esther Chambers, of Guilford township, this county, and very old residents of that place. Three daughters were born of this union, as follows : Ida May ; Rosella, who married Professor W. R. Grannis, and resides with the other members of the family on the old Baker homestead.; and Dora M., who is the wife of Professor A. M. Madison. The mother of these children died in 1893, devoted to her husband and family and the Methodist church. Professor William R. Grannis, mentioned in the foregoing paragraph, was for many years a prominent teacher. He is a native of Holland, Michigan, born in May, 1848, son of Horace R. and Electa (Pease) Grannis. After passing through the high school he entered Oberlin College, where he pursued._ special courses for some time. He then commenced teaching, his labors embracing both Lodi, Berea and Leroy, but, on account of uncertain health, has been obliged to periodically resort to farming. Professor Grannis is highly respected both for his talents and his moral character. By his marriage to Miss Rosella Baker, in 1877, he has become the father of May, Charlotte, Howard, Ruth and Ralph Grannis. Both parents are honored members of the First Methodist church. JAMES WELLER HARTLE. —AMONG the native born sons of Portage county is numbered James W. Hartle, whose birth occurred in Rootstown township, September 16, 1848, a son of Alva Baldwin and Elvira (Likens) Hartle, the father born in Rootstown township, November 22, 1822, and the mother in Berlin, Mahoning county, October 18, 1822. He is a grandson of Samuel and Polly (Poe) Hartle, from New York, and of Thomas and Judy (Ripple) Likens, from the New England states, but all were among the early residents of Portage county, Ohio. The paternal grandfather took up his abode here when the land was covered with timber, and cutting away trees and brush on his farm he erected on the clearing the splendid home which is yet standing, though greatly remodeled, and the farm is yet in the family name. He was born about the year of 1795, and died at the age of fifty-five years, while his wife died some years later. The grandparents on the maternal side were among the early pioneers of Ravenna township, also settling in the dense timber, and there the grandfather died at the good old age of eighty-eight years, and his wife passed away in 1871 aged ninety-nine years. After their marriage Alva and Elvira Hartle settled on his father's old home place, in the log house, and some years afterward moved to 1118 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE another place in the same township, while finally and in connection with his brother he bought the home farm in Ravenna township on which he died in November, 1894, his widow yet surviving and residing in Kent, this state. There were seven children in their family, as follows : Mary, the wife of Harry Davis, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania ; Augusta, who died at the age of fourteen years ; Susan E., the wife of Elias Willyard, of Kent ; Emma, wife of Eugene Paulus, of Ravenna, Ohio ; John, who died when six months old ; and Cora, the wife of Adam Lindh, also of Pittsburg. James W. Hartle remained with his parents and assisted with the work of the home farm until he was forty-five years of age, and then after farming as a renter in Shalerville township two years, he bought his present home farm of one hundred and thirty acres, where he is extensively engaged in a general line of farming and stock raising. He married in July, 1894, Barbara K. Watson, born in Monroe county, Ohio, a daughter of William P. and Pleasant Ann (Burr) Watson, and on the paternal side a granddaughter of Yoho and Mary (Brown) Watson. Isaac C. Burr, her maternal grandfather, was born December 24, 1805, while his wife, nee Mary Gilham, was born May 19, 1831, and their children were as follows : William Rees, of Franklin county, Ohio ; Thomas Gilham and John Calvin, both in Indiana ; Maria Jane, the, wife of William Berry, of East Oakland, California ; David Thomas, also of Indiana ; Lee Palmer, of Ft. Smith, Arkansas ; Ruthana N., deceased ; Pleasant Ann, who became the mother of Mrs. Hartle ; and Leonora Frances, wife of George Albaugh, of Novelty, this state. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Hartle are : Oneda M., at home with her parents ; Anna Elvira and John, both of whom died in infancy ; Gladys May and Dorothy May. Mr. Hartle votes with the Democratic party. ARBA E. VROOMAN, of the firm of W. F. Vrooman & Son, was born at Sandusky, Ohio, June 21, 1864, and is the son of Warren F. and Sarah (Carter) Vrooman. Warren F. Vrooman, born in Perry, Ohio, has now retired from active business life, and \resides at Painesville. Arba E. Vrooman is a partner with his son Howard in the Painesville Celery Company, growers of celery and onion seed, at Painesville, a stock company, having a capital of ten, thousand dollars. They have about twenty acres of celery, and seven to twelve acres of onions, and besides this grow about one ton of onion seed annually. They sell the seed mainly to growers of onions, and ship the celery to all the larger towns of Ohio and Pennsylvania ; they also handle celery grown by other parties in the vicinity of Painesville. Soon after his marriage Mr. Vrooman spent thirteen years in Cass county, North Dakota, where he grew one thousand to fifteen hundred acres of grain annually, in the famous Red River Valley country. Upon his return to Ohio, he began developing the machine now manufactured for topping and sorting onions. Mr. Vrooman married Lida Fowler, of Ashtabula county, and they became the parents of two children, namely : Howard, who took a commercial course of study at Cleveland, and Gladys. W. F. Vrooman & Son, of Painesville, was established there in 1900, and they manufacture annually about eight thousand dollars' worth of onion topping and sorting machines, employing in their factory from one to five men. The machines operate in a manner similar to a corn husker, but the functions performed by the combination of parts are entirely different, inasmuch as the onion topper severs the tops from the onion and not the husks or shucks. They are of three sizes, the smallest having a capacity of five to seven hundred, the medium size one thousand, and the largest, two thousand bushels per day. The machine is covered by patents, and the first one was made by the Vroomans for their own use, they being extensive growers of onions, and they began the manufacture for sale direct to users. The work is done better than by hand, and the machines are guaranteed. At first they operated the few machines manufactured by them, but as the demand increased they confined their attention wholly to the manufacture. It took several years to develop and perfect the machine for sale, and since the first ones turned out several improvements have been made, each covered by a patent. The larger machines are so made that they can be operated by gasoline engines when desired. The demand for these wonderful machines is constantly increasing, and the outlook for the future business of the concern is very promising. GEORGE W. PRINDLE was born in Rootstown township, Portage county, February 23. 1832 and he is a member of one of the first families to seek a home within the borders of the county. G. H. R. Prindle, his father, was HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1119 born in Charlotte, Vermont, April 2, 1803, and in 1807 he was brought by Hyram Roundy to Rootstown township, and he remained in his home until the age of maturity, at which time Mr. Roundy gave him seventy acres of timber land. This the young man cleared, and when he was twenty-one years of age he walked back to Vermont to see his father, Gideon Prindle, who gave him a horse and wagon with which to return to his home. He married on the 16th of December, 1825, Mary Williams, who was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 28, 1798, .a daughter of George Williams. After his marriage, Mr. Prindle settled down to farm life on his little tract of seventy acres, but with advancing years he added to this small beginning until at the time of his death he owned an estate of 250 acres. He was called to the home beyond in 1862, and his wife survived until 1887. They became the parents of two children, but the elder, Robert, died at the age of twelve years. He was born on October 2, 1826, and died on September 23, 1838. George W. Prindle remained at home with his parents until his marriage, in the meantime receiving a district and select school education, and he began life for himself in the Roundy house, near his father's farm, while after the death of this parent he moved to the old Prindle homestead, which became his through inheritance, and he has ever since resided there, engaged in general farming and stock raising, although one of the special features of this place for many years has been the raising of peaches. He owns 250 acres of rich and fertile land, all in one tract, and 200 acres are under cultivation. Mr. Prindle married on January 2, 1860, Caroline Esty Gurley, who was born in Rootstown township October 15, 1837, a daughter of Asher and Permilla (Judson) Gurley. Asher Gurley also had his nativity in Rootstown township, and his father was one of its first settlers. Mrs. Prindle died on June 26, 1905, after becoming the mother of five children, namely : Hyram A., who was born September 28. 1860, and died June 7, 1905 ; Belle E., the wife of Robert Howdon, and a resident of Cleveland, Ohio ; William G., whose home is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama ; Blanche F., who died at the age of thirty-two years, and Robert G., on the old Prindle farm with his father. Mr. Prindle, Sr., served his township for one term as a trustee, and he was a Republican voter. During many years he had membership relations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He died June 13, 1909. ALMON S. DUNNING is perhaps one of the oldest living residents of Portage county, as well as one of its best known and most honored residents. He was born here in Rootstown township April 12, 1827, and twelve years of his life were devoted to the steel industry, and for a like number of years he has lived on the old homestead. His father died when he was but eleven years of age, and he was thereafter obliged to help his mother on the farm, securing in the meantime what education he could in the district schools. Going to Newburg in 1869, he secured the position of timekeeper with the Bessemer department of the steel mill, and in 1871 was given charge of the mill. In July of that year he was sent to Chicago, Illinois, to install a branch mill, and although the memorable fire occurred there in the following October, the mill was saved, and he continued there until December of 1872, when he left Chicago to install a mill at Joliet, that state. He continued there for seven years, and during the time made wonderful progress arong that line of work. He served as a superintendent of mills at several places, and during that time originated several patents, the principal one being the Bessemer converter, now in use in all the steel mills throughout the country. Since 1882 Mr. Dunning has resided on his farm in Rootstown township, where he owns 164 acres. For a man of his years he retains his physical ability to a wonderful degree, and his mind is yet clear and active. Almon S. Dunning is a son of Amsa and Polly (Squires) Dunning, both born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a grandson of Moreland Squires. Amsa and Polly Dunning were married in Connecticut, where three children were born to them, and from there they drove with team and wagon to Rootstown township, in Portage county, Ohio, and bought 03 acres of timber land, but the husband and father was not long permitted to enjoy his new home, for his death occurred October 15, 1838. He was born January 11, 1788. The widow, who was born February 5, 1792, survived until July 31, 1866. The four children of their union were : Samuel L., born June 17, 1808, died January 31, 1858 ; Eliza, born in 1815, died August 27, 1879, the wife of John S. Clark, of Kent. Ohio ; Almira J., born February 12, 1815, died October 13, 1900, the wife of Elbridge Moul- 1120 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE ton, of Brimfield township ; and Almon S., of this review. Almon S. Dunning married on December 29, 1847, Edith Ann Holcomb, who was born in Palmyra township April 19, 1829, a daughter 'of William A. and Lydia (Olmstead) Holcomb, from Massachusetts. Mrs. Dunning died December 26, 1904, after becoming the mother of two children : Anna D., born April 4, 1850, and Frank A., born April 15, 1857. The daughter is the widow of Neil N. Wallace, who died February 15, 1895, and she hires with her father. The son is an insurance adjuster in Chicago, Illinois. He married Mat-tie Alexander, of Joliet, Illinois, and their children are : Edith M., who married Frederick Massey, of Albany, New York, and they have a son, Frederick Jr.; Marshall A., born October 25, 1882, of Chicago, Illinois ; and Irene, at home with her parents. MRS. CELESTIA FRICK.-A granddaughter of Eli Prince, an early settler in the Western Reserve, and a daughter of the late David Scribner, Mrs. Frick comes from substantial New England stock, some of the best blood of Maine and Massachusetts families coursing through her veins. Eli Prince was born, in 1778, in Windsor, Massachusetts, and among the invigorating breezes of the Berkshire hills grew to a sturdy manhood. He married in his native county, Rhoda Rosson, who was born in Berkshire county, in 1785. After the birth of their third child, in 1816, he. and his wife came with their little family to Ohio, journeying by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, thence. by Lake Erie to the port at which they disembarked. Locating in Pierpont township, Eli Prince bought ninety acres of timbered land from the Connecticut and Company, it being the very farm now occupied by Sidney Prince. There he carried on general farming until his death, about 1850. His wife survived him, passing away in 1855. She was a natural-born nurse, and used her knowledge of herbs and simple remedies in doctoring her neighbors and friends, her services being often in demand in the rooms of the sick and afflicted. Both Eli Prince and his wife were consistent Christian people, and assisted in organizing the Pierpont Free Will Baptist church. They became the parents of seven children (four of whom were born in Pierpont), namely : Hannah, Almira, Julia, Sophia, Olive, Porter and Ansel. Hannah Prince, born in Windsor, Massachusetts, July 15, 1804, died February 27, 1889, in Pierpont township, Ashtabula county. A girl of twelve years when she came with her parents to Pierpont township, she here completed her early education, and subsequently taught school in her district,. the school being kept in a private home. In 1827 Hannah Prince married for her first husband Leonard Curtis, who was born in Parkman, Ohio. Their married life was comparatively brief, Mr. Curtis having been accidentally drowned, in March; 1832, while crossing a stream on a log. Their only child, Leonard Curtis, Jr., born in 1832, died in 1856. Mrs. Hannah (Prince) Curtis married second, in 1837, David Scribner, who was born, June 19, 1775, in Portland, Maine. He serve as a drummer in the army during the War of 1812, and afterwards came as a pioneer to Ohio, settling in Monroe township. He was a farmer and shoemaker, carrying on a extensiv business, and was also something of an astronomer, having a good knowledge for those days of the heavenly bodies. He died in Pierpont township, January 16, 1863. Mr. Scribner was twice married. He married first, in New York state, Betsey Hibbard, by whom he had eleven children, one of whom died in childhood, the others being as follows: Thomas, who married Hettie Bushnell, lived a a farmer in Monroe township ; John, who moved to Kansas, married first Betsey Hogel, by whom he had seven children, and married second Maria Nobles ; Samuel, who went to Michigan ; David Jr., settled in New York; Welcome, located in Michigan ; Lorenzo, who engaged in farming in Monroe township, married Electa Shaw, and they became the parents of three children ; Noah, a farmer in Monroe township, married Julia Prince, and they became the parents of three children; Simeon, a farmer in Monroe township, married Eliza Sargent, and to them five children were born; Jacob, settled in Michigan ; Betsey married John Hutchins, a farmer, and they had two children. Mr. Scribner married second, July 11, 1837 Mrs. Hannah (Prince) Curtis, a well educated and accomplished woman, having a superior knowledge of the domestic arts. being especially noted for her skill in weaving. By this union four children were born, namely: Rhoda, born June 14, 1838 ; Celestia, born March 27, 1843 ; Eli, born January, 21, 1840, lived but four years ; and Eli the 2nd, born November 23, 1845, lives in Wisconsin. Rhoda Scribner HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1121 married first, September 10, 1854, Elias Durfee, who died in 1864, leaving three children. She married second, in 1865, William Roath, of Monroe township. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Roath, namely : Hannah, who died at the age of seven years ; and Eli. Eli Scribner, now a resident of Wisconsin, married first, in Ashtabula, Ohio, Eliza Parmlee, who died leaving two children. He married second, in Wisconsin, Belle Russell. Mr. Scribner was a Whig in politics, and served many years as school director. Both he and his wife were active members of the Free Will Baptist church. Completing her early studies in the Pierpont High School, Celestia Scribner was for two years employed as cigar maker. On September 28, 1865, in Conneaut, Ohio, she married Michael Frick, the marriage ceremony being performed by Rev. Kyes, and at once settled on her father's home farm. Born May 19, 1835, in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, and reared there, Michael Frick was engaged as a Young man in boating on the Allegheny river. On March 31, 1864, he enlisted in the Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and served in companies M and F. On November 12, 1864, in the engagement at Nineveh, Virginia, he was severely wounded. On August 24, 1865, he was honorably discharged from the service, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was a Republican in politics, and after taking up his residence in Ashtabula county served as a school director. He died, June 27, 1908, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lee Platt, aged seventy-three years. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Frick, namely : Joseph E., born December 13, 1866; Myrtie, born February 22, 1868; Nellie G., born July 15, 1876, and David H., born April 27, 1879. Joseph E., a substantial farmer of Pierpont township, living on the old home farm, married Nancy G. Terrill, Of Nashville, Tennessee., She died January 20, 1906, leaving two children, Wilson A. and Walter L. Main. Mvrtie Frick, who died July 7, 1900, was the wife of the late Stuteley Parmerter, a brakeman on the Nickle Plate Railroad. Nellie G. Frick, who was educated in the Hardy school. married, November 23, 1902, Lee Platt, and lives on a farm in Pierpont township. Mr. and Mrs. Platt have three children, namely : Celestia H., born March Do, 1904 Addie M., born September 3, 1905, and Otto F., born June 11, 1907. David H. Frick, the youngest child of his parents, married Rillabelle Palmer, of Monroe township, and they have two children, Mildred M. and Margaret E. Mrs. Frick now makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. Platt. She takes an active and intelligent interest in the promotion of the educational affairs of Ashtabula county, and has been especially prominent as a school official, having served her district most efficiently as school director, clerk of the school board, and as truant officer. She has also the distinction of having been the first woman to solicit aid of the people in centralizing the schools of her district. She is a valued member of the Free Will Baptist church of Pierpont, and is president of its Ladies' Aid Society. CHARLES BRIDGEMAN.-Although . a typical American citizen, thor0ughly in harmony with the spirit of the Republic, Charles Bridgeman is a native son of the mother country, England, where he was born at Bristol on May 10, 1833, to Thomas and Ann (Collins) Bridge-man. He was a young man of twenty-one when he left his native shores for America, and, locating near Lyons, in Wayne county, New York, he farmed there until returning to his native land. He married, October 10, 1861, Esther Epps, who was born in Kent, England, April 20, 1834, a daughter of George and Mary (Male) Epps. George Epps died in England, but his widow came to the United States and located in Ravenna township, Portage county, Ohio, in 1870, and she died here in November of 1885. Mrs. Bridgeman came t0 Lyons, New York, in 1857, but after some years returned to England with her husband. They came again to the United States, and a few years afterward located in Cleveland, where Mr. Bridgeman worked in an oil refinery. In 1868 they came to Ravenna township and bought a farm of thirty-six acres, a mile and a half southeast of the city of Ravenna. A log cabin had previously been erected on the land, and in 1897 Mr. Bridgeman replaced it with his present splendid frame residence. He followed a general line of agriculture, but since 1907, owing to ill health, he has laid aside much of the labor of the farm. Two, children blessed the marriage union of Mr. and Mrs. Bridgeman, Henry Augustus and Margaret E., born respectively July 6, 1862, and October 17, 1866, and both 1122 -HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE are at home with their parents. Mr. Bridgeman's political views are in harmony with the principles of the Democratic party. Henry A. Bridgeman as a lad of eighteen accepted a position with the Riddle Hearse Company at Ravenna as a carriage blacksmith, and three years later became the gardener for W. J. Hayes' residence and farm for ten years and superintendent for two years. From that time until October, 1907, he was a motorman for the N. O. T. Company between Akron and Ravenna, and since the latter date has had charge of his father's farm. He is a Mason, and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he has served as a noble grand and as chief patriarch of the encampment, and he is also identified with the Foresters of America at Ravenna. Margaret E. Bridgeman was with the Colonial Electric Works of Ravenna for five years, and the remainder of her life was spent at home. THOMAS THOMPSON.—Ranking high among the native born citizens, a record of whose lives fills an important place in this volume, is Thomas Thompson, a, prominent and prosperous farmer and stock-raiser, who during the half century that he has resided on his present farm, in Perry township, has been one of the foremost in advancing the agricultural and industrial interests of this part of Lake county. A son of Moses Thompson, he was borh, October 8; 1831, in Painesville, of Revolutionary stock, his grandfather, also named Thomas Thompson, having served in the Revolutionary war. Thomas Thompson, born in Halifax, Massachusetts, enlisted when but fourteen years old in the Revolutionary army, but being a boy he was not allowed to enlist for any specified time. His patriotic ardor was in nowise diminished, however, by the refusal, and he re-enlisted twice, serving three short periods, during the memorable struggle for independence. After his marriage to Ruhamah Barrows, he removed to New Hampshire, living there until 1814, when he settled in Stowe, Vermont, where he spent his remaining years. His wife died at Perry, Ohio. Moses Thompson was born in New Hampshire, March 15, 1800, and after the removal of the family to Vermont learned the trade of a brickmaker. In 1831 he started with his family for the extreme western frontier, intending to settle there permanently. While en route he stopped in Lake county, Ohio, to visit a cousin, Mrs. Norman Griswold, and was so favorably impressed with the country roundabout that he was easily persuaded to locate here. Accordingly he bought, in December, 1831, a farm in Perry township, on the Narrows road, and at once took possession of the log house standing in the small opening that had been previously made in the woods. Working with courage and perseverance, he cleared a large part of the land, and in the brick kilns that he erected near Richmond manufactured much of the brick used in this locality during that period, including that used in building the old court house. Here he spent the remainder of his life, dying November 2, 1891. He married Rachael Dutton, who was born in Stowe, Vermont, October 13, 18OO, and died on the homestead, in Perry township, July 21, 1861. They were the parents of nine children, as follows : Norman died in childhood ; Mathew D., died at the age of twenty years ; Charles N., born April 19, 1826, died July 8, 1889; Louisa, who became the second wife of the late Newton Watts, was born October 5, 1827, and died September 14, 1891 ; Lois, born March 23, 1829, married Newton Watts, being his first wife, and died June 15, 1865 ; Thomas. the special subject of this brief biographical sketch ; Elizabeth, who was born June 15, 1833, and died June 4, 1883, was the wife of Alonzo Wheeler, who died in April, 1901; John, living on the old homestead, on the Narrows road; and Mary Anna, born February 26, 1842, died August 4, 1847. Growing to manhood on the farm which he assisted his father in redeeming from the wilderness, Thomas Thompson early learned the lessons of industry, economy and integrity. In 1852, fired by the enthusiasm that characterized the emigrants of 1849, he went by way of the Isthmus of Panama to California, where he was engaged in mining with fair success for about three years, when about 1855, he returned east, coming back the Nicaraguan route. Locating then rn Bremer county, Iowa, he bought land and remained there eighteen months, then returned to Perry and engaged in grafting and selling trees for two years. Trading then his Iowa land for his present farm, Mr. Thompson carried on this land, and also the parental homestead, for several years being in partnership with his brother John. In 1864 Mr. Thompson enlisted in Company E, One Hundred Seventy- sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, for a term of one hundred days. but during the time saw very little field service. In HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1123 1866 the partnership between himself and his brother was dissolved, and he has since managed his affairs alone. He has one hundred and fifty-seven acres of choice land, well tilled and mostly under cultivation, and as a general farmer is exceedingly prosperous. He takes great interest in the raising of fine stock, making a specialty of horses, sheep and cattle, and as a breeder meeting with excellent pecuniary results. On November 1, 1859, Mr. Thompson married Carlista A. Call, who was born, November 4, 1836, in Perry township, a daughter of Amherst Call, an early settler of Lake county. Her grandparents, Rufus and Lydia .(Ellis) Call, migrated from Vermont to Ohio in 1815, locating in Perry towns ip when the country roundabout was in its primitive wildness, with only here and there an opening, in which stood the cabin of the pioneer.. Here they both spent their remaining days, laboring earnestly in their successful efforts to reclaim a homestead. Both rounded out a long life, the grandfather dying March 6, 1869, but a few weeks before the day that would have been the hundredth anniversary of his birth, which occurred in July, 1769, while the grandmother lived ninety-one years, passing away in 1856. Amherst Call was born in Vermont, February 24, 1804, and as a boy of eleven years came with his parents t0 Perry township, and here resided until his death, in 1869. He married, in 1832, Olive Sinclair, who was also born in Vermont, her birth occurring January 5, 1804. She died at the' age of seventy-seven years, on July 2, 1881, the day that President Garfield was shot. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Call, namely : Statira, born in 1834, was the first wife of Mr. Thompson, and died soon after her marriage, her death occurring in March, 1857 ; Carlista, now Mrs. Thompson; Arit died in Perry township, in 1886, aged forty-eight years ; Addison died in North Dakota in 1891, aged fifty years ; Amherst, living in Cleveland ; and Solon, residing in Perry township. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are the parents of three children, namely : Statira A., born September 16, 1860, married Rev. George, Orcutt, pastor of the Wade Park Methodist Episcopal church in Cleveland, has three children, Hazel, Wilbur, and Margaret ; Natalie, born November 29, 1864, married Henry A. Tuttle, of Painesville, Ohio, a commercial salesman, and has one child, Crawford Tuttle ; and Amherst M., born April 5, 1867, married Ada Champion, and now has charge of the home farm. ANDREW JACKSON NEW MAN.—The substantial and respected citizens of Jefferson have no more worthy representative than Andrew J. Newman, who has accomplished a satisfactory work as an agriculturist, and is now living retired from active business, enjoying the fruit of his many years of toil. Born in Steuben county, New York, August 17, 1829, a son of Abraham and Charity (Sebring) Newman. His parents were born and reared in Seneca county, New York, and spent the first few years of their married life in Steuben county. They subsequently removed to Pennsylvania, living first in Girard, and then in Waterford, from there. coming to Austinburg, Ohio, where both spent their remaining days, his death occurring when he was seventy-three years old, and hers at the age of four score and four years. His parents removing to Girard, Pennsylvania, when he was seven years old, Andrew J. Newman was there educated in the district schools. About 1846 he accompanied the family to Waterford, Pennsylvania, and later came with them to Ashtabula county, locating in Austinburg. In 1867 he settled on a farm west of Jefferson village, and was there engaged in mixed husbandry until 1893, when his stock and all of his buildings, with the exception of his dwelling house, were burned, the loss being estimated at $5,000. Mr. Newman immediately removed to Jefferson and has since rented his land, having rebuilt the buildings. His farm comprises two hundred acres of rich and productive land, one hundred and five acres 0f which being a part of the old farm in Austinburg. Mr. Newman made a specialty of raising and feeding stock and of dairying, being especially skillful in each line of industry. He also owns a fine fruit farm of twelve acres, which is located in Conneaut township, on the shores of Lake Erie. Politically Mr. Newman is a sound Republican. On September 10, 1856, Mr. Newman married Mary Preston, who was born in Granger, Allegany county, New York, and to them seven children have been born, namely : Ida Adella, wife of E. L. Mullen, of Jefferson ; E. M., wife of Dr. Mead, of Seattle, Washington ; W. S., who owns and occupies a farm of one hundred and seventy acres, lying two 1124 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE miles south of Jefferson, married Mabel Jerome, and they have one child, Glen ; Mrs. Emma Adams, of Yakima, Washington ; A. C., a druggist of Pennsylvania ; E. J., of Conneaut, married Minnie Herrington ; and B. L., of Jefferson, married Wilhelmina Walling. MRS. ADDLE WEAN.—Well known throughout Jefferson as a most capable and estimable woman, Mrs. Addie Wean, widow of the late Peter Wean, is eminently worthy of representation in a work of this character. She was born in 1854, in Westfield, New York, which was her home for nine years. In 1863 she came to Jefferson to live with her uncle, J. C. Thompson, proprietor of the American House, and was- afterwards practically reared in the dining-room of that hotel. In 1866 she married Peter Wean, who was born in Turnersville, Crawford county, Pennsylvania. Coming to Jefferson when young, he worked for Stephen Haskins, a carpenter and builder, until familiar with the trade. He subsequently erected many residences and public buildings in this part of Ashtabula county, continuing at his trade until ready to retire from actrve labor. He died in Jefferson, in 1906, aged seventy-five years. Mrs. Wean, who now resides at the home of W. S. Newman, just east of the village of Jefferson, has many interesting relics of olden days, in her collection being a bill, published in 1836, advertising the Adkins House, and a photograph taken more than fifty years ago of the Andover band, in the group being the faces of many men now well known in this locality. Her uncle, Mr. Thompson, was one of the most widely known and most popular hotel men of his day, his genial, sunny disposition and old-time, courteous manners making him an ideal "mine host," and rendering his house a favorite resort for the traveling public. EDWIN WEDGE.—A life-long resident of the Western Reserve, Edwin Wedge was born in Leroy, May 2, 1836, a son of Reuben and Martha (Wright) Wedge. The mother was born in Concord, Ohio, and the father was a native of Canada, his parents having gone to Canada from Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Wedge had three sons, .Edwin, Francis and Tames, the last named being a resident of Hampden, Geauga township. Francis and James Wedge both served in the Civil war, but Edwin was rejected when he went to enlist. In 1881 Edwin Wedge moved to the farm now occupied by his wife and daughter. It was the old Wheeler homestead, having been settled by the father of J. H. Wheeler, and the house on it was erected over fifty years ago by Harvey Wheeler. Mr. Wedge owned one hundred and thirteen acres of land and was known all over Lake county as a first class thresher. He had the confidence and esteem of his neighbors and served as treasurer and trustee of his township. In politics he was a Republican. He died April 16, 1896. March 19, 1865, Mr. Wedge married Louisa Callow, who Was born February 26, 1847, in Leroy township, being a daughter of Edmund and Jane (Quine) Callow. Edmund Callow was born on the Isle of Man, June 6, 1812, and came to Ohio about 1835, having but a shilling, in his pocket. He married in Leroy township, in 1838, Jane Quine, daughter of James and Jane Quine, her parents having come to this township some time before Mr. Callow. Edmund Callow spent nine years in Indiana, where he worked at his trade as a tailor and farmer, and in 1847 moved to a farm north of Leroy Center, where he lived the remainder of his life: This farm is still in the family, being now owned by his daughter, Mrs. Crellin. Edmund Callow died January 12, 1892, just ten days after his wife, they having been married over fifty years. Mrs. Callow was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which faith she had been strictly reared. They had six children, three sons and three daughters, namely : James, who died in 1900 at Leroy Center, aged sixty-one, and his widow and son still live on the old home; Mary J., married Barton F. Wright, a soldier, who died in 1886, and she died in 1891 ; Louisa, Mrs. Edwin Wedge ; Arminia, married George Crellin and owns the old Callow homestead, but they reside in Hampden, Geauga county ; Edwin lives east of Brakeman church ; and Henry, a farmer of Leroy township, whose sketch is given elsewhere in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Wedge had one daughter, Mattie, who married John Rogers, who now operates the farm. Mrs. Wedge and her daughter carried on the farm alone for some time after the death of Mr. Wedge. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers have one daughter, Evelyn, who is a year and a half old. Both Mr. Rogers an his wife are members of the Grange. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1125 HERMAN O. HAMMOND.-As a general farmer Herman O. Hammond is meeting with good results, and is actively identified with the development and advancement of the agricultural prosperity. of Monroe township, Ashtabula county. He was born November 28, 1869, in Mecosta county, Michigan, a son of Joseph C. Hammond. His grandfather, Lorenzo Hammond, born in Vermont, March 9, 1804, lived for a few years in York state, from there coming, in 1843, to Ashtabula county, Ohio. He took up land in Monroe township, cleared and improved a farm, and here resided until his death, in 1883. Hammond Corners was named in his honor. Lorenzo Hammond married Julia Stark, and they became the parents of six children, namely : Newton, born in 1834, died in 1865 ; Henry, born March I, 1836, died March, 1906; Martin, born March 26, 1838 ; Francis, born in 1840, died in 1864; Joseph C., father of Herman O. ; and James Newton and Joseph enlisted during the Civil war in the Twenty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Henry served three years during the Civil war in the Second Ohio battery, and afterwards settled in Mecosta county, Michigan, where he resided until his death. Martin, also a soldier during the Rebellion, enlisted in the Twenty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but was honorably discharged after a short service, on account of ill health. He married Edna Rome, and now lives in East Conneaut, Ohio. Francis, who likewise served in the Second Ohio Battery, died in Helena, Arkansas, during the war. James, living in Monroe township, Ashtabula county, married Millie Rowe. Joseph C. Hammond was born March 10, 1844, at Hammond's Corners, Monroe township; and was here reared and educated. Actuated by the same spirit that inspired his brothers, he enlisted, September 3, 1861, in the Twenty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and at the expiration of his term of enlistment was honorably discharged. He re-enlisted, in 1864, in the same regiment, and continued a soldier until the close of the war. He took part in many important engagements, and while in the army had his left hand seriously crippled. Thirty-six years ago, while working in a saw mill, he had the misfortune to lose his right hand. He was then living in Michigan, where he was subsequently engaged in mercantile pursuits for fifteen years, and was postmaster for the same length of time. He has been justice of the peace the past seven years, and for three years served as a school director. He was formerly a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and is now a member of the Christian church, with which he united many years ago. Joseph C. Hammond married, in 1867, Louisa Williams, who was born in October, 1844, and to them six children were born, as follows : Herman O., the subject of this sketch ; Mary, born October 28, 1867, married A. Van Alstine, of Mecosta county, Michigan ; Hugh, born August 16, 1871, married a Miss Hollenback, and lives in Mecosta county ; Lewis, born October 21, 1874, resides in Michigan ; Lucius, twin brother of Lewis, lives in Illinois ; and Lillie May, who died in childhood. Mrs. Louisa Hammond died in 1878. Mr. Hammond married for his second wife Hattie McCloud, who was born March 6, 1862, and they have four children, namely : Lillie May, born May 19, 1885, is the wife of Glenn Scribner, of Monroe township ; Pearl, born November 8, 1886, married Ward Tanner, of Crawford county, Pennsylvania ; Carl, born December 28, 1890, is now in the regular army ; and Mildred, born October 9, 1900. Spending his boyhood days in Michigan, Herman O. Hammond lived much of the time with strangers, attending the district school when it was in session, while during the long vacations he worked on a farm, or in a shingle mill. In 1885 he came to Ashtabula county, where he has since resided. He has been engaged in agricultural pursuits for a number of years, and now owns a well-improved farm of fifty-five acres in Monroe township, where he occupies a noteworthy position among the leading citizens. Mr. Hammond married, November 30, 1889, Linnie Thompson, who was born December 2, 1869, a daughter of William and Mary (Belknap) Thompson, who own and occupy a farm in Conneaut township, Ashtabula county. Three children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, namely : Maud E., born April 30, 1897; Fred W., born February 20, 1899 ; and Paul Henry, born August 22, 1905. Mr. Hammond is a member of the State Police. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hammond are active in religious circles, being valued members of the Christian church, at Hammonds Corners. Mr. Hammond has been secretary of the church for a year, and for two years served as superintendent of its Sun- 1126 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE day School, and Mrs. Hammond is a member of the Ladies' Aid Society. ISAAC H. RICKARD, president of the Medina Farmers' Exchange Company, was an infant of only one year when his parents brought him from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, to Wadsworth township, in Medina county. His training since, in the district school, on the farm, in the general store and in the field of manufactures, has given him a broad and a varied experience admirably fitting him f0r the management of the large commercial interests controlled by. the Medina Farmers' Exchange Company. Its business consists of buying, selling and shipping grain and agricultural implements, which are largely sold to farmers, and from Medina as a center has extended into a large area of adjoining country. The head of this important enterprise has not only secured the confidence of the agricultural and business community by reason of the ability and integrity he has always displayed in the conduct of his own affairs, but because of his fine service as treasurer of Medina county, his public career in that capacity extending over four years. Mr. Rickard, of this sketch, was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, on the 16th of October, 1848, and is a son of Daniel and Christina (Hunker) Rickard. In 1849, as stated, the family removed to Wadsworth township, and there settled on a farm upon which the father died in 1904. Daniel Rickard was a prosperous farmer and a man of progress (both in ideas and practical matters), serving for some time as treasurer of Montville township, justice of the peace, holding several other local offrces and being influential in the politics of his county generally. His wife died in 1888, mother of the foll0wing nine children : John H. ; Isaac H., of this sketch ; David ; Catherine, who is the wife of P. A. Pelton and resides in Montville township ; Sarah; who married Henry S: Koppes, a merchant of Chippewa Lake ; Emanuel, who lives at Dixon, Illinois ; Daniel W., who resides at Wadsworth ; Emma, wife of E. G. Tinstman ; and Abraham H., who resides at Wadsworth. Isaac H. Rickard received his primary education in the district school of Montville township, remained on the home farm until he reached his sixteenth year and made his home with his parents until he was twenty-one years of age. He then spent a year in the pineries of the northwest and upon his return to Medina associated himself with H. S. Koppes in the operation of a general store at Chippewa Lake, the business being continued, under the name of Koppes and Rickard, for eight years. After a short period of farming, he next engaged in the manufacture of drain tile and building brick in the vicinity of Chippewa Lake, where he carried on an extensive industry for nineteen years. In the meantime Mr. Rickard had advanced to a position of influence in the politics of the locality, and in the fall of 1902 was nominated by the Republicans for county treasurer. He was elected by a large majority and in January, 1903, assumed the duties of his office for a term of two years, the clean and bright nature of his record assuring him a re-election in 1904. At the expiration of Mr. Rickard's four years' service as the executive head of the county's finances, he was chosen president of the Medina Farmers' Exchange Company, having become identified with the enterprise while still in office. In January, 1907, the business was incorporated under its present name, with a capital stock of $25,000, and the following officers : Isaac H. Rickard, president ; A. F. Spitzer, vice president ; and C. E. Hoover, secretary and treasurer. The large building of the company, in which are handled the grain and farming implements, comprisin its stock in trade, is located near the track of the Northern Ohio Railroad and affords the best of shipping facilities. Mr. Rickard is also the owner of a rented farm of sixty-two acres in Lafayette township. Married in 1875 to Miss Caroline. J. Kennedy, of Mountville township, daughter of George and Sarah Jane ( Jennings) Kinney, he is the father of seven children—Inza, Charles E., Delbert H., Edith, Howard I., Clarence D. and Stanley B. Rickard. Mr. Rickard's family is identified with the Congregational church. HARRY W. ADAMS.—The granite and marble business is.one of the leading industries of Medina, and Harry W. Adams, the active promoter of the large plant conducted under the style of H. W. Adams & Son, is one of the strongest factors in maintaining its high standard and increasing its volume. Being a practical marble cutter, he is an expert judge of both material and workmanship, and as he has entire charge of buying the product of the quarries and selling the finished work the business has grown not only rapidly but has been ' developed safely and substantially. As a prin- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1127 cipal, he has been engaged in the stone business at Medina for the past fifteen years. Mr. Adams is a native of Columbiana county, Ohio, born near Salem in August, 1858, a son of Joseph and Mary G. (Michem) Adams. His parents were natives of New York, went to Illinois in their early lives, married in that state, and successively resided at Salem, Ohio, Janesville, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Minnesota, and there the mother died in 1867. After the death of his wife, Mr. Adams went to Washington, where (having served in the Civil war) he was employed as a clerk in the pension department. Now in his seventy-fifth year, he is still a resident of the capital city. Harry W. Adams obtained a district school education in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and learned the trade of a marble and granite cutter in Washington. Afterward he worked as a journeyman at different places, and in 1894 he located at Medina, forming a partnership with George F. High in the marble business, under the style of Adams & High. In 1897 he sold his interest therein, and was variously engaged from that year until 1903, when he established himself independently in his old field. In 1906 the business was incorporated, with a capital stock of $20,000, and the following officers : W. E. Griesinger, president ; N. P. Nichols, vice president, and M. H. Ferriman, secretary-treasurer. -Mr. Adams, however, had immediate charge of the buying and selling, and, from the first, has been the active man of the business. The plant is well stocked with modern machinery, which is driven by a producer gas engine, and the stones, monuments and other marble and granite work turned out by the establishment are of tasteful design and fine finish. With Mr. Adams to superintend the work and push the business, the trade of H. W. Adams & Son has spread from Medina over the county and into adjoining territory and neighboring. cities. He has little time to give to outside matters, although he is a loyal and earnest member of the Royal Arcanum. In 1887 he married Miss Arvilla Parmeter, of Medina, daughter of Charles O. Parmeter, an old resident of Medina county, and the following children have been born to them : Joseph H., a member of the firm of H. W. Adams & Soh ; Charles W., Ernest H., Fred Thorn and Arvilla D. Adams. JAMES E. OLIN, of Ravenna .township, was born October 14, 1844, in Streetsboro town- Vol. II-27 ship, Portage county, a son of Alonzo and Elmyra (Squires) Olin, both of whom were born at Perry, in Wyoming county, New York, the father on the 18th of May, 1820, and the mother on the 17th of July, 1824. Alonzo Olin came with his parents, Samuel and Mercy (Seymour) Olin, natives of Shaftsbury, Vermont, the former born on the 17th of July, 1793, to Streetsboro, Ohio, in February, 1839, the family locating on Cherry Flats, where the senior Mr. Olin bought 400 acres of land. Samuel Olin was a son 0f Ezra Olin, who was born in Rhode Island March 23, 1772, and he was a son of John Olin, while the latter was in turn a son of another John Olin. Alonzo Olin married, in Perry, New York, October 12, 1842, Elmyra Squires, who up to that time had spent her life in that city, and from the age of fourteen years had supported herself, receiving a dollar per week. After his marriage Mr. Olin returned with his bride to Ohio, and his first purchase of land here was forty-five acres, for which he paid $600, while in 1851 he bought in Franklin township 100 acres for $1,300, but he only had twenty dollars to pay on the property, and his last payment was made nine years afterward. At his death, on the 14th of November, 1885, he owned an estate of 224 acres, and his widow held the old home until her death, on the 14th of November, 1908. There were six children in the family, but with the exception of two, the oldest and youngest, all are now deceased. They are : James E., mentioned below ; Arthur, who died October 14, 1905 ; John, who died April 1, 1901 ; Charles, who died September 28, 1850; Julia, who died May 6, 1863; and Frank D., an agriculturist of Franklin township. James E. Olin was twenty-one years of age when he left the parental home and started in life for himself, and working for others until his marriage, he then farmed as a renter in Streetsboro township until, with his brother Arthur, he in March of 1873 rented 100 acres of land in Franklin township, and in 1883 bought 119 acres of land, all lying in Ravenna township, with the exception of twenty-six acres in Rootstown township. He built on this property a splendid residence, has remodeled all the other buildings and is now the owner of one of the valuable estates of Portage county, 100 acres being tillable land and the remainder timber. He follows general farming and dairying. Mr. Olin married, on the 17th of March, 1128 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE 1869, Susan J. Bradley, born February 7, 1847, a daughter of George and Nancy Paulina (Peck) Bradley, born respectively in Lee, Massachusetts, and in Connecticut. She is a granddaughter of Stephen Bradley, from Massachusetts, and of Rufus and Sally Peck, from Connecticut. The children of this union are : Elmira P., born October 12, 1870, is the wife of Burton J. Williard, of Ravenna township ; Edwin A. and Erwin G., twins, born May 14, 1873, and the latter died January 31, 1902 ; Gertie B., born September 12, 1879, is the wife of L. V. Merrills, of Ravenna township ; Mertie E., born September 16, 1883, is at home with her parents ; and Charles E. was born December 24, 1889. As a representative of the Democratic party Mr. Olin served his township as an assessor, and he also served as a member of the school board of Ravenna. DAVID WINCH occupies a prominent place. among the agricultural residents of Richmond township, Ashtabula county, and he represents one of the pioneer families of the county. David W. Winch, his father, born in Vermont September 27, 1797, died in Ohio February 18, 1879. He came with team and wagon to Ohio about the year of 1822, locating first in Monroe township, Ashtabula county, from whence he later moved to Cherry Valley, and in 1839 came to Richmond township and to the present home of his son David. David Winch, the father, experienced the hardships of pioneer life many times. Ten different times he located on as many new farms in the wilderness, but he was an honorable, upright man, and was entrusted with many public offices, serving as township clerk, as a justice of the peace and as a township treasurer. He was a Christian man, a prominent church worker, and was honored for his true worth of character. He married Laura Shepherd, who was born on May 9, 1803, and died on August 8, 1894, and their large family numbered the following children : Emeline, who was born November 21, 1820, married Robert Henry and died August 29, 1900; Ethelbert, born May 8, 1822, married Hannah Sterges, and died April 13, 1857 ; Lucinda, born September 7, 1824, married John Waful, deceased, and she lives in New Lyme ; Eliza Ann, born November 2, 1825, died August 28, 1895 ; Lucy Ann, born December 2, 1826, married Lewis Leonard and lives in Richmond township, Ashtabula county ; Charlotte, born May 30, 1828, married George Burlingham and died March 14, 1868 ; Samuel, born July 27, 1829, married Eliza Wheeler and died June 14, 1887 ; Emma Jane, born March 27, 1831, married Wallace Henry, of Richmond township, and she died February 5, 1862; Philo, born May 28, 1833, married Jane Graham and died July 14, 1887 ; David, born August 4, 1835, is mentioned below ; Albert, born November 5, 1837, died May 14, 1839 ; Laurette, born July 3, 1840, lives in Richmond township ; Jeanett, born December 1, 1842, married Jacob Richards, and lives in Dorset township, and Elbert, born April 19, 1844, died July 23, 1850. David Winch, a son of the pioneer David, attended school at Padanaram and a select school at Richmond Center, and beginning life for himself he settled first on a village lot at Richmond Center, and later on the present farm. His estate now contains 147 acres of rich and fertile land. In October of 1864 he enlisted for the Civil war in Company D, One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Ohio Volunteers, and served until the close of the struggle, participating in all the battles of his regiment, and he spent two months of the time in the hospital on account of sickness. He is now a member of Hiram Kile Post, G. A. R., at Andover, and he at one time served as the senior commander of Lincolh Post at Pierpont. He is also a Master Mason, a member of Relief Lodge No. 284 at Pierpont, of the Royal Arch Chapter at Jefferson, No. 141, of Cache Commandery No. 27 at Conneaut and of Conneaut Council. In politics he is allied with the Republicans, and has served his township one term as a trustee, one term as an assessor, twelve years as notary, and for many years was president of the board of education. For forty years Mr. Winch has been a leading citizen of the county and was commissioner to the World's Fair in 1893 at Chicago, representing Ashtabula county. Mr. Winch married first Sarah Ann Graham, who was born December 20, 1835, and died in 1870, and their children are : William C., who was born November 18, 1862, married May Burt, and is a blacksmith in Richmond township ; Mary E., born December 6, 1864, married R. B. Weir, and is a farmer living in Richmond ; Harriet J., born March 19, 1867, married C. W. Evans, and is engaged in the grocery business in Conneaut ; and Flora born April 17, 1869, married F. A. Amsdell, and lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Winch married for his second wife Rachel L., August, born July 7,1841, and they have two HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1129 children : Elsie I., born July 18, 1873, and Garrie, born February 26, 1876. Elsie I. married George Smith, a farmer, and lives in Richmond. The other daughter married Clarence Green, an engineer on the Nickle Plate Railroad, living at Conneaut. Mr. Winch is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and he has served his religious home as the superintendent of its Sunday-school. For over thirty years he has been a regular reporter for the Agricultural Department at Washington and is still serving in that capacity. LOUIS E. JENNINGS was one of the earliest residents of Portage county. He was born in its township of Ravenna July 14, 1811, a son of David and Hanna (Wellman) Jennings, the father born in Bradford, Massachusetts, January 1, 1771, and the mother in Hillsboro county, New Hampshire, September 13, 1769. The maternal grandfather was Thomas Wellman. In 1802 David and Hanna Jennings drove from the east to Portage county, Ohio, where they bought a farm of 115 acres from the Connecticut Land Company. At the time of purchase that land was covered with a dense growth of timber, and their nearest neighbors were from .ten to twenty miles distant. Mr. Jennings cleared and improved his place, built thereon a log cabin, and with a Mr. Eaton built a saw and grist mill and continued its operation for many years. The children born of their union were : Solomon, who died in Franklin township ; David, who died on the 25th of January, 1862 ; Daniel W., who died September 17, 1874 ; Mrs. Hanna H. Cutler, who died June 10, 1835 ; Squire L., who died. in 1897 ; and Louis E., the youngest of the family. The mother died on the 3d of April, 184o, and the father on the l0th of January, 1856. He held many of the local public offices. Louis E. Jennings followed the coopering business for many years in connection with his farm work. He too held many of the local public offices, being a Democrat in his political affiliations, and he was for thirty years a member of the school board. He married on the 22d of January, 1833, Elizabeth Knowlton, who was born at New Sharon, Maine, a daughter of Samuel W. and Elizabeth (Butler) Knowlton. After the father's death in Maine, the mother married Ebenezer Wellman, and on the 11th of October, 1832, she arrived in Ravenna township, and it was here that her daughter met and married Mr. Jennings. Of heir children four are yet living on the home farm—Elizabeth A., who has been totally blind since seven years of age, Helen, Arminta L. and Albert Benton. The latter was born on this farm December 23, 1851, and is now carrying on its work, the estate consisting of about 190 acres, of which he owns about fifty-four acres, the remainder being in the possession of the three sisters, of which Elizabeth A. has twenty-five acres, Helen M., twenty-seven, and Arminta L., twenty-seven. The present residence was erected in 1860 by the father, who cut the timber from his own land, and with his son Albert he built another frame house in 1884, in which the son has ever since resided, but he farms the entire estate. He married on the 2d of November; 1880, Caroline Hadley, who was born in Brecksville, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, a daughter of Louis and Nancy ( Johnson) Hadley, natives respectively of Portage and Cuyahoga counties, and a granddaughter of Harry Hadley, of Portage county, and of William and Esther (Sims) Johnson. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jennings are : Charles Howard, a. carpenter in Ravenna, and who married Addie Dutter ; Donald H., at home with his parents ; and Albert B. Jr., attending the district schools. Mr. Jennings affiliates with the Democratic party, and he is a member of the Foresters of America, Ravenna Lodge, No. 43. SAGE HURLBURT, postmaster at Freedom Station, Portage county, is also one of the leading general merchants and produce dealers of the place and has long been prominent in the public affairs of the township. He is a native of Freedom township, born September 21, 1851 and a son of Samuel and Harriet ( Sage) Hurlburt. His father was born at Wethersfield, Connecticut, and his mother has passed all her life in Freedom township. Mr. Hurlburt's paternal grandparents were Sylvester and Nancy Hurlburt, of Connecticut, and his grandparents on the maternal side, Roswell and Minerva Sage, were from Massachusetts. Grandfather Hurlburt drove through the forests and over the mountains from Connecticut by ox team and located in the eastern part of Freedom township as its seventh permanent settler ; or, to be more exact, his was the seventh family to make Freedom township its home. During the first of their residence there, while their log house was being erected, they were made welcome and comfortable by Mr. Chamberlin, the first settler 1130 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE of the town. Grandfather Sage and his family were also very early settlers of the township. The parents married and located one mile south of Drakesburg, where the father died in 1872 and the mother in 1881. Their children were : Sage, of this sketch, and Jennie, who is now the widow of J. Hart and resides at Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Sage Hurlburt was educated in the common and high schools. of Ravenna and at Hiram College, and lived at home until his marriage in 1876. He then purchased a farm adjoin-. ing his father's place, upon which he resided until the death of the elder Mr. Hurlburt in 1872. He then moved to the family homestead, which he conducted until his wife's death, March 7, 1904. Soon afterward, Mr. Hurlburt located at Ravenna, where he remained for a year before becoming a resident of Freedom Station. His first business venture there was to purchase a feed, coal and agricultural implement business, which he conducted until February, 1908. Upon disposing of that, he bought a general merchandise store, and added a produce department to his business. He has also been active in the public affairs of his township, having served as trustee for a period of twelve years. He has been influential in Republican politics for many years, and in September, 1908, was honored by appointment to the postmastership of Freedom Station. Mr. Hurlburt's first marriage, March 9, 1876, was to Miss Josephine Hawley, a native of Berrien Springs, Michigan, and a daughter of Harvey and Lucretia Hawley, both born in Massachusetts. The three children of this union were as follows : G. W., who now conducts a feed and coal business Rev. Joseph Hurlburt,, a clergyman of the Methodist church, and, Lee, of Columbus, Ohio, who is taking a course in electrical engineering. On July 16, 1906, Mr. Hurlburt married as his second wife, Emma Brown, widow of George Potter, a native of Newton Falls, Ohio. Her parents are Walstein and Nancy (Wiley) Brown. Walstein Brown was born in Norton township, Medina county, Ohio, and Nancy Wiley Brown was born in West Chazy, New York. SIMEON. S. OATMAN.—The Oatman family, father and three sons, have been idenfified with the business interests of Medina county for nearly seventy years, and during most of that period with the development of the' village of Medina. Lyman Oatman and his sons, Simeon S. and Orlin, have been pioneers and large promoters of the meat business, while Lyman, Jr., is well known as a hardware merchant of the place. They have also been identified, to some extent, with the agricultural progress of the county, and whatever the nature of their activities, have added to the reputation of the family for practical ability and honorable conduct. Simeon S. batman, the special subject of this biography, was born in the village of Medina, in December, 1841, son of Lyman and Sarah (Bean) Oatman. His father was born near Utica, New York, in 1813, and spent his boyhood in that locality, while his mother passed her girlhood and was educated in her native county of Rutland, Vermont. In his eighteenth year Lyman Oatman migrated to Ohi0 and settled on a farm in Lafayette township, Medina county, where he remained until he had attained his majority. Shortly afterward his ambition took a mercantile turn and he started a general store at what was known as the Four Corners Road, that township. He conducted this venture, farmed, bought wool and wood, and was an all around business man and citizen until he disposed of his various interests in 1863 and located in the village of Medina. He then concentrated his ener gies to the establishment and advancement o a meat business, and by the spring of 1881 had founded one of the most prosperous houses of the kind in the county. In that year he partially retired from active work, and die in February, 1881, after a life of practical an honorable successes. His widow, who was th daughter of James and Betsy Bean, early settlers of Medina county, died not long after the decease of her husband. Nine children had been born to them, of whom the followin reached maturity : Orlin and Simeon S., Ion associated in the meat business ; Aurelia, wh is the widow of Frank Bowman ; Adelia, wh married Frank Burdoin ; Alfred, who enlist in the One Hundred and Eighty-sixth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and died Medina in 1902 Lyman, a hardware mer chant of Medina ; and Nora B., who became the wife of Frank Heath, a leading lawyer of Medina. After completing his public-school education, Simeon S. entered his father's meat market and at his death formed a partnership i the same line with his brother Orlin. Under the style of Oatman Brothers, they had devel oped an important business at the outbreak of HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1131 the Civil war, when Simeon S. enlisted in Company K, Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel James A. Garfield. With his regiment, he participated in a number of engagements and for some time was stationed near Vicksburg. At his honorable discharge, November 28, 1864, he returned to his home in Medina ; afterward spent three years in Iowa, but returned to his home town and resumed business relations with his brother Orlin for many years. He then spent some time at Cleveland, in the meat business, but again returned to Medina and formed a partnership under the firm name of Oatman & Hedges, the present style. Mr. Oatman's business is large and growing ; he owns pasture grounds of twenty acres within the city limits ; has a comfortable and tasteful residence at 316 North court, and is a leading citizen who has "made good" both in attaining a permanent competency and a stable and estimable character. As a Mason, he is a member of Medina Lodge and, as an old soldier of the Civil was, belongs to H. G. Blake Post, No. 168. In politcs he is a Republican, and, from his substantial standing in the community, takes a lively interest in public matters relating to city and county. In 1867 Mr. Oatman married Miss Mary F. Lemon, a daughter of Henry Lemon, and their son, Albert, is a commercial traveler out of Cleveland, with good prospects.. HORACE ALBERT DOOLITTLE.—The descendant of a pioneer family of prominence and influence, Horace Albert Doolittle has spent his entire life in Streetsboro township, Portage county, where his birth occurred, April 21, 1842. A part of the homestead property of his father, the late Albert Doolittle, has come into his possession, and here he is carrying 0n mixed husbandry, including dairying, on an extensive scale, as a general farmer meeting with satisfactory success. He comes 0f New England ancestry, his grandfather, Benjamin Doolittle, having been a native of Connecticut, his birth occurring February 10, 1.771. Accepting, prior to 1800, the agency of the Connecticut Land Company, Benjamin Doolittle came to Portage county as a surveyor, and in that capacity surveyed Streetsboro township, which was one of the last townships in the county to be settled. Here he subsequently took up one hundred and sixty acres of land, to which he brought his family in 1825. Clearing a space, he built a log cabin, and in the years that followed made substantial improvements on the place, living on it until within one year of his death, in September, 1849. He married Fannie Ward, who was born in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, April I, 1782, and died on the home farm, in Streetsboro township, Portage county, Ohio, April 27, 1847. They had a family of nine children, namely : Nelson, Albert, George, Henry, Lydia A., William, Polly Jane, Theodore B. and Eloisa. All of these, with the exception of Nelson, who was a Universalist minister, having charge of a church in Pennsylvania, came to Streetsboro. Albert Doolittle was born October 7, 1806, in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, and came with the family to Streetsboro township in 1825. His first purchase of land, consisting of seventy-three acres, lying in Streetsboro township, formed the nucleus of a valuable homestead of two hundred and thirty acres, on which he spent the larger part of his active life, passing away January 15, 1886, at a ripe old age. He was a man of more than average ability, having established the first general store in the township, and having, after his boys got old enough to care for the home farm, spent a number of years as a contractor in the construction of railroads. He married, in 1835, Alamanda Burroughs, who was born, June 23, 1819, in Shalersville township, Portage county, Ohio, a daughter of Simon and Lucy (Green) Burroughs, and died in Streetsboro township, October 1, 1900. Four children were born of their union, as follows : Charles R., of whom a brief sketch may be found on another page of this volume ; Augusta D., deceased, who married N. S. Olin ; Horace Albert, the subject of this sketch ; and Lucy, deceased, who married Charles Harmon, of Aurora township. After obtaining a common and high school education in his native town, Horace Albert Doolittle attended a commercial college in Akron, Ohio. He subsequently assisted in the management of the parental homestead until going to Coshocton county, Ohio, where he had an interest in a coal bank. Remaining there a year, he sold out his share of the coal bed, and returned to the old home, where he resided until his marriage. On the death of his father, Mr. Doolittle purchased one hundred and twenty-two acres of the homestead property, the whole of which he had previously managed for a number of years on shares, and in addition to working the land that he had purchased he also carried on his mother's portion, one hundred and nine acres, until her 1132 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE death, in 1900. That portion, too, then came into the possession of Mr. Doolittle, who now owns two hundred and thirty-one acres of land in Streetsboro township, all of the original homestead with the exception of four acres in Shalersville township. Mr. Doolittle has been twice married. He married first, May 12, 1870, Mary E. Seymour, who was born in Perry township, Wyoming county, New York, which was also the birthplace of her parents, Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Calkins) Seymour. She died in February, 1879, leaving two children, namely : Nathaniel S., born September 17, 1871, lives in Kent, Ohio ; and Horace A., Jr., born November 29, 1873, a resident of Ravenna, Ohio. Mr. Doolittle married, second, December 21, 1882, Effie E. Peck, who was born in Streetsboro township, April 6, 1855, a daughter of Henry Peck, and granddaughter of Rufus and Sallie (Hall) Peck, of Newtown, Connecticut. Henry Peck, born in Newtown, married Julia E. Jenkins, who was born in Watertown, New York, a daughter of Samuel and Ursula (Brewster) Jenkins, of New York state. Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle have one daughter, Cora Lucile Doolittle, born November 3, 1886. Mr. Doolittle is a talented musician, fond of music from his childhood. When but fourteen years old he learned to play the cornet, and for many years belonged to the Streetsboro band, of which he was the leader from 1890 until its disbandment in 1900, since which time there has been no band in the place. He is an earnest supporter of the Republican party, active in local matters, never shirking the responsibilities of office, and for thirteen terms served as township trustee. ROBERT. STUART, a prominent farmer in Pierpont township, Ashtabula county, was born July 13, 1833, and is a son of James and Mary (Morrow) Stuart. His grandfather, Sanford Stuart, came from Tolland, Massachusetts, to Ohio with an ox-team, after the war of 1812. He married Miss Two, and their children were : Melissa, Melinda, Caroline, James, and Loren L. James Stuart died at about the age of twenty-five. His wife died about the age of thirty. They had one child, Robert. Like his father, Robert Stuart was a farmer. He lived in Trumbull county until he was twenty-three years old and spent the rest of his life on his farm, clearing and improving the land. He worked for a time also in a store. He enlisted, August 19, 1861, in Company B, Twenty- ninth Ohio, and received honorable discharge October 15, 1864. Though he was sick much of the time, he served three years. He belongs to Lincoln Post No. 18, Grand Army of the Republic, at Pierpont, and was for twenty years commander of the post ; he also served one year as chaplain. He is a Master Mason of Relief Lodge No. 284, at Pierpont, and has been tyler for fifteen years and treasurer; he was junior warden one year and deacon one year. He was formerly a Granger. He pays close attention to his farm, which he has brought to a fine condition. Politically Mr. Stuart is a Republican and he served three years as township trustee and four years as supervisor. Mr. Stuart married (first) Lydia Baker, born December 15, 1840, and died June 3, 1874. Their children were : Mary, deceased, born April 18, 1858 ; Orpha, born May 30, 1859, died December 29, 1874 ; Lilly, born February 5, 1861, died March 7, 1880 ; Addie, born December 22, 1867, married Fred F. Smith and lives in Conneaut. Mr. Stuart married (second) Maria Latin, of Trumbull county, Ohio, born December, 1830. He married (third) Helen, daughter of Warren and Car0line (Hall) Dart, born September in, 1841. He had no children by his last two marriages. JOHN S. TIBBALS.-Among the agriculturists of Charlestown township is numbered John S. Tibbals, who was born in Deerfield township on the 3d of April, 1869. He is of the fourth generation of his family in Portage county, for his great-grandfather, Moses Tibbals, located in its township of Deerfield during the earliest period of its settlement, and the brick house which he built in 1816 is yet standing in a good state of preservation, and there four generations of the Tibbals family have lived. Alfred M. Tibbals, his son, was a native of Massachusetts, while his wife, Martha H. Swem, was from New Jersey, born in 1800, and she came to Ohio in 1814, making the journey to Salem in a one-horse wagon. Among their children was John L. Tibbals, a native of Deerfield township, Portage county, and he married Mary C. Dewey, who was born in 1832, in Franklin township, a (laughter of Fred and Fannie (Williams) Dewey, who located in Franklin township during an early period in its history, and they cleared and im, proved a farm from its native wildness there. John S. Tibbals, one of the children of John L. and Mary Tibbals, received a good educa- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1133 tion in the Kent public schools, and he remained with his parents during their lives. After their death he went to California to regain the health which he had lost in caring for them during the latter years of their lives. Returning to Portage county, he bought forty acres of land in Charlestown township and has since been engaged in its cultivation and improvement. He has fraternal relations with the Knights of Pythias order and is a member of the Universalist church. BETSEY AVERY BABCOCK. - The name of Mrs. Betsey Babcock is a familiar one in Ravenna township and its vicinity, for here she has resided for many years, from the period of its earliest settlement, and she has won in all these years many stanch and true friends. She was born on the 30th of May 1831, to Reuen and Corrinna (Lewis) Avery, the father from New York and the mother from Connecticut. Her grandparents located in western Lorain county, Ohio, as early as 1800. Reuben Avery, a shoemaker, located in Aurora, Ohio, and was there married to his second wife, and as she owned a farm, he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits and also cleared and improved the land. He lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and one years, and died in the year 1873. Their daughter Betsey remained at home with her parents until her marriage, and she was the youngest of her father's eighteen children. Her marriage to Albert Babcock was celebrated on the 26th of April, 1854, and they then bought the farm on which the widow resided for fifty-one years, they having in the meantime cleared it from its virgin wildness. It is a one hundred and eighty acre tract, and there the husband passed away in death on April 26, 1905. He was one of the prominent and successful agriculturists of Ravenna township, and his name was honored wherever known. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Babcock was blessed by the birth of six children, namely : John T., Adelaide M., Mary Corrinna, Martha M., Jeanette M. and Josephine B. RILEY J. BRAKEMAN.-This brief review is dedicated to one who stands representative of one of the honored pioneer families of Lake county, where he has ably upheld the prestige of the name which he bears, and he is now known as one of the leading contractors and builders of his native county and as one of the progressive business men and loyal citizens of. Painesville. Riley J. Brakeman was born in Leroy township, Lake county, Ohio, on the 6th of March, 1857, and is a son of Gerry and Mary Ann (Williams) Brakeman, whose marriage was solemnized in this county on the 15th of May, 1847. Gerry Brakeman was a son of Henry and Clarissa (Race) Brakeman, the former of whom was born July 27, 1785, and the latter April 3, 1795 ; they were married April 17, 1813. After the death of his first wife, Henry Brakeman married, in 1842, Betsey Bedell,. who died several years later. In 1858 he wedded Ann Parker, who11840,ved him. His first wife died in 184o, and he passed away February 20, 1869, in Leroy township, Lake county, at the venerable age of eighty-four years. His mother, Mrs. Eve Brakeman, died April 23, 1839, and her remains rest in the Brakeman meeting-house cemetery in Leroy township ; she was over one hundred years of age at the time of her demise. It is but consistent that in this publication be perpetuated a brief record concerning the children of Henry Brakeman, who came from Schoharie county, New York, to Ohio about 1817, and numbered himself among the early settlers of Leroy township, Lake county, where he became the owner of a large tract of land, and where he reclaimed a farm from the virin forest. Louis .L., born February 11, 1815, married Mary Tew ; Elizabeth, born February 29, 1816, married John Tear, and they removed to Illinois ; Jacob, born August 20, 1817, died at the age of thirteen years ; Peter, born December 14, 1818, married Clarissa Heminway ; Henry H. born Marcch 20, 1821, married Samantha Heminway ; Polly, born December 7, 1822, became the wife of Allen C. Bebee and died in Geneva, Ashtabula county, in 1906 ; Gerry, born March 15, 1824, was the father of the subject of this sketch, and is more specifically mentioned in paragraphs following ; Catherine, born January 5, 1826, is the wife of Benjamin Bedell, of Leroy township ; John C., born July 2, 1829, died at the age of twenty years ; and Harmony, born September 13, 1838, married James. Carn and removed to Iowa. All of the sons except Gerry left Lake county and established homes for themselves elsewhere. Upon coming to Lake county, Henry Brakeman set to himself the task of reclaiming a farm from the wilderness and he lived up to the ull tension of the pioneer epoch. He 1134 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE was favored in having sturdy sons to aid him in his work, and the large family was one in which a spirit of harmony and mutual affection obtained to an exceptional degree. On the farm of this honored pioneer was located what was known as the Brakeman meetinghouse, a Methodist Episcopal church, and of the same he was one of the most liberal and influential members. He gave to each of his children fifty acres of land, thus showing his abiding solicitude as well as his paternal generosity. Mrs. Mary Ann (Williams) Brakeman, the loved and devoted mother of Riley J. Brakeman, was a daughter of Heman and Anna (Reynolds) Williams, pioneers of Concord township, Lake county, where she was born on the 26th of August, 1826, and where her father was a representative farmer and influential citizen in the early days. Heman Williams was born in Lanesboro, Massachusetts, November. 3, 1796. Her mother was born at Lanesboro, Massachusetts, August 10, 1801, and in 1821 came with her husband to Lake county, Ohio. They were married February 13 of that year, and this constituted their stately wedding tour, which was made with an ox team. They located on Big creek, Concord township, where Mr. Williams erected a saw mill and grist mill, which he operated for many years, in connection with the cultivation and improvement of his farm. Gerry Brakeman was reared to maturity in Lake county, and his educational advantages were those of the primitive pioneer schools. In initiating his independent career he located on the farm given to him by his father, and to its improvement and cultivation he thereafter continued to give his attention until 1859, when he removed with his family to "Log Tavern Corners," Concord township, where he engaged in carpenter work. He was among the first to respond to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers after the Civil war was precipitated upon a divided nation. In 1861 he enlisted in Company D, Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until his death, as a martyr to his country's cause. He was instantaneously killed by a sharpshooter, on the 16th of June, 1864, while he was at work on a bridge at Marietta, Georgia, having 'been previously transferred to, a pioneer corps. His diary and penholder, the latter of which was cut off by the bullet which killed him, are now in the possession of his son Riley. About one year prior to his death, Gerry Brakeman was wounded in the thigh by a musket ball, and was sent home on furlough. As soon as he had sufficiently recuperated, he rejoined his command, and he had taken part in many important battles, as well as skirmishes and minor engagements. His widow was left with four children, the eldest a daughter of sixteen years at the time of his death. Concerning the children the following data are entered : Eleanor P. is the widow of Harmon Manley and resides in the city of Painesville ; George A. is a successful contractor and builder at Anderson, Indiana ; Ann J. died in young womanhood ; and Riley J., of this sketch, is the youngest of the children. The devoted mother - managed to keep her little family together, though her financial resources were very limited, and as soon as they were able to render aid the children did this, by securing employment in the neighborhood. Mrs. Brakeman remained true, to the memory of her soldier husband, whom she survived by more than thirty years. About 1881 she removed to Painesville, and thereafter she was a loved inmate of the home of her youngest son, Riley J., until her death, which occurred on the 20th of December, 1895. She was an earnest and devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was a woman whose gentle and gracious personality gained to her the affectionate regard of all who knew her. Her husband likewise was a member of the Methodist church and his political support was accorded to the Republican party from the time of its organization until his death. Riley J. Brakeman passed his boyhood days in Concord township, whither the family removed from Leroy township when he was about two years of age, and his early educational training was received in the district school. At the age of fifteen years he entered upon an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade, at Mentor, and, with natural mechanical ability, he soon became a skilled artisan at his trade, with which work he has been continuously identified during his entire business career. He took up his residence in Painesville in 1881, at which time he was twenty-four years of age, and after following the work of his trade as x journeyman for several years he engaged in contracting and building on his own responsibility. In this field of enterprise he has gained unmistakable priority and definite success. He has erected a large number of buildings in Painesville and vicinity and has had many important contracts within the long years of his residence in Painesville. In the summer of 1897 he was superintendent for the HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1135 state of the erection of the girl's industrial home at Delaware, Ohio, and as representative appointed by the Painesville board of education he had the superintendency of the erection of the fine high school building in this city. He has done contracting for all kinds of building and has gained a high reputation for ability, careful observance of the terms of contract, and correct business methods. He is one of the leading representatives of his vocation in Painesville, and as a man and a citizen commands unqualified confidence and esteem in the community. In politics Mr. Brakeman accords allegiance to the Republican party, and while he has never had aught of ambition for political preferment, he has shown a commendable interest in public affairs and especially in those touching the welfare of his home city. He served one term as a member of the city council and has ever given his aid and influence in support of measures projected for the general good of the community. He and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, and he is identified with the Masonic fraternity, in which his affiliations are with Temple Lodge, No. 28, Free & Accepted Masons, of which he is past master ; Painesville Chapter, No. 46, Royal Arch Masons, in which also he has passed all of the official chairs ; and Eagle Commandery, No. 29, Knights Templar, of which he is past eminent commander. On the 17th of June, 1894, Mr. Brakeman was united in marriage to Miss Iowa Ross, who was born at Austinburg, Ohio, a daughter of William and Emily (Kimball) Ross. Both her paternal and maternai grandparents came to Ohio from northeastern Pennsylvania, and from this state her parents removed to Iowa, where her father died in 1864. The widowed mother then returned with her five children to Ashtabula county, Ohio; and later, when Mrs. Brakeman was a girl of fourteen years, the family removed to Painesville, where she was reared to maturity and where her marriage was solemnized. Her mother finally contracted a second marriage, becoming the wife of Oswin Guild. The only child of this second marriage is Albert, and concerning the five children of the first marriage the following brief record is given : Viola is the wife of William Bates, of Lakewood, Ohio ; rss Belle resides in the city of Cleveland ; William is a resident of Ashtabula county ; and Edwin resides in the city of Cleveland ; Iowa, the youngest, is the wife of the subject of this sketch. Mr. and Mrs. Brakeman have one son, Philip Ross, wh0 was born in 1897. TICE L. WEBBER.-A man of push and energy, endowed with natural business tact and enterprise, Tice L. Webber is carrying on an extensive dairy business, his well improved and finely managed farm lying one and one-half miles southeast of Jefferson, and his milk route being one of the best paying ones in this part of Ashtabula county. A s0n of William Webber, he was born, June 16, 1864, in Goodrich, Ontario. His grandparents, George and Mary Webber, lived in Ashtabula county, Ohio, for a few years, but returned to New York, and spent their last days in Sennett, Cayuga county. Born and educated in Syracuse, New York, William Webber came from there to Ohio when seventeen years old. He lived for awhile in Austinburg, then migrated to Pontiac, Michigan, where he followed the trade of a butcher. Returning to Ohio, he spent a short time in Jefferson, after which he lived for fifteen years in New York state. For the past fifteen years, however, he has resided in Jefferson township, Ashtabula county, being now seventy-five years of age. He married, in Austinburg, this county, Alice Mills, a daughter of Deacon Joseph Mills, a pioneer of that place. She died in Binghamton, New York. Of the children born of their union the following are living: Mills O., manager of a shoe store in Syracuse, New York and Tice L., who is the oldest. Tice L. Webber was brought up in Ontario, where his father had at one time a market and was constantly trading, buying cheese and other commodities in Ohio and selling them in Ontario or Michigan. Leaving home at the age of eleven years, Tice lived in Jefferson, Ohio, for awhile, attending school and doing chores for Loren French, working for his board. Going then to Austinburg, he worked for his uncle, John Mills, for two or three years, after which he spent an equal length of time in Cayuga county, New York. After attaining his majority Mr. Webber returned to Ohio and entered the employ of Ed Strong, who lived a mile and a half north of Jefferson, driving a milk wagon for him. After his marriage Mr. Webber ran the milk wagon for Mr. Strong for a short time and then purchased a route for his own. In 1887, having accumulated a sufficient sum of money to warrant him 1136 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE in so doing, he bought his present farm, the old Square's estate, situated on the old plank road, one and one-half miles southeast of the village of Jefferson. It contains one hundred and forty acres of good land, which he is cultivating with success, in the meantime making a specialty of dairying, which he has carried on the past twenty-four years, the first five years driving the milk wagon himself and never losing one day. Here Mr. Webber has added improvements of an excellent character, having made additions to the barn, built two silos, and introduced all of the most modern and approved appliances for successfully carrying on dairying scientifically, using ice in cooling his milk, which he puts up in bottles, everything being conducted in as sanitary a manner as possible. Mr. Webber married, February 16, 1886, Allie D. Hill, who was born at Geneva, Ashtabula county, in 1865, a daughter of George and Drusilla (Massingham) Hill, who are now living in Lenox township, Ashtabula county. Blanche E. Webber, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Webber, was born November 10, 1888, and was graduated from the Jefferson Educational Institute when seventeen years 0f age, and is now a student at Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio, belonging to the class of 1910. Politically Mr. Webber is a steadfast Republican, and fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. FREDERICK BECK —A German youth, with only a common school education, came to Ohio more than half a century ago and for forty-two years of that period was a sturdy blacksmith and farmer in Medina county. But he was intelligent and ambitious, as well as industrious and honest, and his associates honored him as a worthy type of the German-American by entrusting their public affairs to him in the capacity of county recorder. This citizen of rugged honor and ability is Frederick Beck, of Medina, now in his seventy-fourth year and in the enjoyment of wide popularity and complete confidence. Born in Germany, in the year 1836, Mr. Beck received his education in the common schools of his native country and emigrated to the United States in 1853, landing at New York City. From the metropolis he went to Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, where he worked at the blacksmith trade, and in 1856 became a resident of Ohio. Stopping for a short time in Cleveland, he went on to Summit county, and after following his trade there for a time located in Guilford township, Medina county, where he built a blacksmith shop and conducted a general repair business for twenty-five years. He then bought eighty-five acres of land in the township, placed it uncle good cultivation and engaged in farming for seventeen years. His industry, thrift and unassuming ability, exercised through these many years of his residence in Medina county, had been well noted by his numerous friends, and as he had always been a Republican since acquiring his papers of citizenship, they rallied to his support in 1899 and elected him recorder of Medina county for a term of six years. At its expiration he retained a clerkship in the office. This he still holds and, in view of his age, he writes a very legible and finished English text. Mr. Beck's father came to the United States late in life and died in Guilford township in 1894. His wife, who was formerly Miss Elizabeth Freed, is a native of Pennsylvania, and has borne him the following children : Joseph, Jacob, Henry, Reuben, Alvin, William ; Minnie, who is the wife of Alfred Houseworth and resides at Wadsworth ; and Losina, who married Oscar Rothacher and lives in that town also. Mr. Beck is a Knights of Pythias and a member of the German Lutheran church. EDMUND CALLOW.—Born on the Isle of Man, June 6, 1812, Edmund Callow had almost reached the venerable age of eighty years when he died in Leroy township, Lake county, Ohio, January 12, 1892. He was the seventh of ten children born to his parents. Two of his brothers were captains of ocean vessels, and some of them went to Australia. One of Mr. Callow's nephews was pilot on the boat "Lady Elgin" that burned on Lake Michigan in 1860. A tailor by trade, Edmund Callow came to Fairport, Ohio, in 1834, having served the old style term of apprenticeship at his trade. His brother John, who was twenty years older than he, had come to Ohio about ten years previously, settling in Concord about 1824. Charles Callow, another brother, settled in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1830. Edmund Callow first worked for John Oakley, a merchant of Richmond, which was then in its prime. Later becoming an ironmolder, he worked about HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE- 1137 three years in Geauga furnace. He married in 1838, and then removed with his wife to Laporte, Porter county, Indiana, as he wished to get further into the West. Here he purchased wild land and set out to clear it. He worked for some time in Mishawaka, and in that part of the country dug the first cellar, this work being some miles from his farm. He remained for nine years in Indiana, working also at his trade of tailor. Mr. Callow removed from Indiana to Ohio in 1846, purchasing a farm half a mile north of Leroy Center, near the home of his wife's parents, who lived near Brakeman, in Lake county. From this time to the end of his life he never spent a night away from, this farm, except when he spent a Week with his brother in Michigan. Edmund Callow kept adding to his land by purchase until he was the owner of three hundred acres, and kept clearing and improving until he became one of the large landholders of Leroy, also gaining considerable wealth. It was his theory, often expressed, that a. man "could become well off by minding his own business," and this saying was exemplified in his own life. He dealt largely in stock, and was a very busy man always, finding no time or occasion to mix in any controversy with his neighbors, with whom he always kept on good terms. He took an active interest in public affairs and kept himself well informed on current events. February 27, 1838, Mr. Callow married Jane, daughter of James and Jane Quine. To this union were born six children, three boys and three girls. Mrs. Callow was born on the Isle of Man and came to Ohio when about six years old, the ocean voyage taking about six weeks. She was about nineteen years of age when she married. Mrs. Callow was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, but her husband, though strictly reared and strict in his own family, was not a church member. For the last four years. of his life he was an invalid, but he still kept charge of all his affairs and ably managed them. Before his death he called his six children together and told each what he thought and intended doing, asking each one if he were satisfied, and upon their agreeing Mr. Callow asked them to sign their names to an agreement, which they all did, and he then signed his own name. He made it a condition that if anyone contested the provisions of the will that one should be cut out of the estate, but no question arose after the father's death. He requested that he be buried in Evergreen cemetery, in Painesville, in the lot chosen by him, and also arranged for a monument after his own design. He was mourned by all the people of the surrounding district. Henry F. Callow, one of the sons of Edmund Callow, was born September 10, 1859, in a log house on the old homestead at Leroy Center, Leroy township, and remained at home, attending the district school. He worked for his father until the parent's death, and being appointed executor, settled the estate. He received as his share two tracts of land, 104 acres, one being opposite the father's farm, and on this he remained until May, 1892. He now lives on a farm of 126 acres and besides this place owns another of sixty-two acres. At one time he owned about 300 acres, but he has sold some of it. He breeds Shorthorn cattle and 'Chester White hogs, keeping registered stock. His hay barn is 40 by 46 feet and another for stock is 30 by 96. He has recently refused a good offer for his land. Henry Callow married, November 23, 1881, Alice, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth (Upson) French, original settlers of this county, the Upsons coming from England. Mrs. Henry Callow was twenty years old at the time of her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Callow have two children, Edward Glenn, a farmer in Portland, Oregon, and Henry Stanley, who helps on the home farm. The family belong to the Grange. Charles Callow, brother of Edmund Callow, was born May 31, 1810, on the Isle of Man. He came to America about 1830 and settled at Pontiac, Michigan. Here he spent the remainder of his life, dying February 3, 1895. He was prominent in the Masonic order, having been initiated, passed and raised in old Pontiac Lodge No. 21, F. & A. M., in 1834, and he held continuous membership in this lodge during life. The following, taken from the resolutions passed at the time of his death by the lodge, shows 'the esteem in which he was held : "The dread enemy has taken from our fraternal ranks a prize of rare merit, one of the oldest and the best, one who has worn the lamb skin of innocence in a manner not to soil the fraternal emblem of purity. "Resolved, That in the demise of our venerable brother, Charles Callow, Sunday, February 3, 1895, we mourn the going out of one 1138 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE who above all else prized the tenets of Masonry, living in all things up to his obligations." WALTER H. LOOMis, a Charlestown agriculturist, was born here on the 31st of May, 1869, a son of Uriah B. and Mary (Hart) Loomis, also from Portage county, and a grandson on the paternal side 0f Asa and Sarah Loomis, from Connecticut. In 1828 they drove from there to Portage county, Ohio, with an ox team, and they took up the land which afterward became known as the old Loomis homestead. Asa Loomis was a Revolutionary war soldier, and his father came to this country on the Mayflower. Uriah B. Loomis remained with his parents on the farm until his marriage, and he then secured the farm on which his son Walter was born, and the place now includes ninety-five acres. Uriah B. and Mary Loomis had five children—Willney, Rufus, Charles, Walter and Addison. Walter H. Loomis has since his marriage been numbered among the successful agriculturists of Charlestown township, and on his farm he has a large maple sugar orchard, from which he averages 500 gallons of syrup each year, while during the past twelve years he has also been quite extensively engaged in the shipping of syrup during the spring months. He has served in many of the local offices of his community, including those of school director, c0nstable for eight years, supervisor for several terms, and at this writing is the candidate for that office. Mr. Loomis married Mary Copeland, and they have a daughter, Bessie. He is a member of the fraternal order of Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of, America and of the Foresters of America, and he and his wife have membership relations with the Congregational church. WILBUR C. COE.—Among those who came to Portage county when wilderness reigned over it was David Coe (born in 1761, at Granville, Massachusetts), great-grandfather of Wilbur C., a substantial farmer and stock raiser residing on a well-conducted place not far from the ancestral homestead in Charlestown township. This pioneer who prepared the way for future generations of the Coe family, drove overland with his ox. team from Massachusetts, located upon his selection of 200 acres, and in the years which remained to him chopped and plowed 0ut a homestead for his family. The children of the household were Claudius, Lyman, Adna, Sallie, Ransom and Sophia, and it was the last named who taught the first school in Charlestown township. Claudius L. was but a young boy when the family located in Portage county, but he was of the restless kind, sailing the Atlantic ocean, following the trade of file-making and having other experiences before he located in the northwestern part of Charlestown township and settled to a farmer's life. With the other pioneers he had the excitement of fighting wild animals, one of the most stirring episodes of that nature being his pursuit of a bear which had carried away one of his hogs. Several o f his neighbors accompanied him and, although the party then had only the mortification of finding the remains of the porker buried under some leaves in a cave, they afterward had the satisfaction of seeing the thief caught fast in the trap set at the time of their excursion. Mr. Coe was a leader in the establishment of some of the early industries of the township, building a saw mill on the land now owned by D. R. Hanna, and a factory on his own farm, in which he manufactured all kinds of flax ropes. Jacob L., a son of Claudius L., who became the father of Wilbur C., was born in Philadelphia, but was put 'to work at such an early age that he was obliged to obtain his education as best he could. At night he studied by the light of the old fire place, started forth early in the morning to run an old upright sawmill, or other miscellaneous work, and by dint of much planning and perseverance managed to obtain quite a thorough education for his days. One of the enterprises by which he secured funds for attending a select school was the cultivation of a melon patch, in partnership with an equally ambitious comrade. Mr. Coe taught school for five years in Pennsylvania, and was then similarly employed in Deerfield township, Portage county. Five busy years also passed in that locality and among the ninety-nine pupils enrolled in his school were some of the now prominent citizens of the county, including Judge Tibbals and oth members of the family. While a teacher Pennsylvania he married Miss Lydia Brown, by whom he had tw0 children, Alwilda an Wilbur. Wilbur C. Coe was born on the 26th of Au gust, 1843, and was reared on the farm o 225 acres which his father had purchased a sheriff's sale and which is now the prope HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1139 of D. R. Hanna. On the land is a fam0us spring, whose pure and abundant waters have been enjoyed by man and beast for many years. Around it were held many camp meetings of the early days, and old settlers still recall the enormous wolf which David Coe tracked thence in the long-ago. The beast had been there to drink and was caught in a trap specially arranged for him. After dragging his burden five miles he was overtaken by a posse of citizens, four of whom were required to carry away both wolf and trap. In later days this historic spring has been well walled with masonry, and a hydraulic pump now forces its waters to the barns and other buildings on. the Hanna farm in Charlestown. Mr. Coe inherited his present pleasant homestead of 142 acres and has been engaged in general farming and stock raising for many years. He is a thorough agriculturist and a highly honored citizen. Mr. Coe was first married to Miss Emma N. Catlin, who was born October 25, 1850, daughter of James B. and Cynthia C. Catlin, and died September 10, 1888, leaving a daughter, Alice. On the 2d of October, 1889, he wedded Mrs. Jessie E. Hudson, born March 20, 1862, d daughter of Hiram F. and Lydia Woods, natives of New Baltimore, Ohio. Charles L., the son of this union, died in his fourteenth year, to the unspeakable sorrow of his parents and the deep grief of numerous friends. He was a manly, talented youth, having already shown much ability as a cornetist, and those who so sincerely mourn his death have the comfort of knowing that all his acts had been a credit to the community and to the parents who had guarded and fostered him with such faithful love. Both Mr. and Mrs. Coe are faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church, as also was Charles Lyman, and they find in their religion a never-failing source of comfort and strength under the stress of the heaviest of the afflictions of life—the death of one who was wound close around their hearts. HARRY T. NOLAN.—The city of Painesville has shown signal appreciation of the abilities and popularity of one of her native sons of the younger generation of professional men by calling him to the office of chief executive of the municipal government, and as mayor of the city Harry T. Nolan has fully justified the wisdom of the choice which brought to him this preferment. Harry T. Nolan was born in Painesville, the attractive county seat of Lake county, on the l0th of May, 1880, and is a son of Owen E. and Mary (_____) Nolan, both of whom were born in Ireland. The father was reared and educated in his native land, whence he came to America when seventeen years of age, settling in Ohio, where his marriage was solemnized and where he was identified with the greenhouse business for a number of years, in the employ of others. After coming to Painesville he established himself in the nursery business, in which he built up a successful enterprise, becoming one of the representative business men of the city. He is now living virtually retired in this city, where he is held in high regard by all who know him. Both he and his wife are communicants of the Catholic church and in politics he gives his allegiance to the Democratic party. The present mayor of Painesville secured his early educational training in the parochial schools of St. Mary's church in Painesville and in the public schools of this city. He was graduated in the high school as a member of the Class of 1899, and then was matriculated in the law department of historic old Western Reserve University, in the city of Cleveland, in which he was graduated in 1902 and from which he received his well earned degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was admitted to the bar of his native state in June, immediately following his graduation, and since that time has been engaged in the active practice of his profession in Painesville, where he soon proved his powers as an able trial lawyer and well fortified counselor. He now has a substantial clientage of representative order and is distinctively popular among his professional confreres. In politics, where national and state issues are involved, Mr. Nolan is arrayed as a stanch supporter of the principles and policies for which the Democratic party stands sponsor, but in local affairs he maintains an independent attitude. He has been a delegate to the state conventions of his party in Ohio, and was for three years clerk of the board of elections for Lake county. He also served about three years in the office of justice of the peace, and in 1905 he was elected mayor of Painesville, giving so acceptable an administration of the municipal government that he was chosen as his own successor at the expiration of his first term, without opposition. He is essentially progressive in his policy as mayor and has done much to further the civic and ma- 1140 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE terial advancement of his home city, to whose every interest he is loyal. He is a communicant of St. Mary's Catholic church and is a valued member of the local organization of the Knights of Columbus, in which he is now .serving as grand knight (1909), besides which he is also district deputy in the order. The mayor was married June I, 1909, to Miss Lillian E. Proctor, of Painesville, Ohio. HENRY ANSON WHITE.—A prominent member of the farming community of Pierpont township, Henry A. White is widely and favorably known throughout this section of the county as an upright, honest man and a worthy representative of those courageous pioneers who settled here when the country was in its primitive wildness, ere the wild beasts of the forest had fled before the advancing steps of civilization. He was born in Pierpont township, on the farm where he now resides, July 2, 1869, a son of the late Stephen White. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, March 17, 1826, Stephen White received excellent educational advantages, being graduated from the Elmira Seminary. He subsequently taught school a number of terms, working during vacations on a farm, and subsequently serving an apprenticeship at the farming trade with a Mr. Maxim. Coming as a young man to Ashtabula county, he bought fifty acres of timbered land from the Connecticut Land Company, in Pierpont township, and cleared the farm on which his son, Henry Anson, is now living. The land, located on the old turnpike, was covered with a heavy growth of timber, which he subsequently cut off, clearing up the place and placing the land in a productive condition. He was a man of strict integrity, fair and square in all of his dealings, and exerted a wide influence in his community. He was identified with the Democratic party in his earlier years, but afterwards espoused the cause of the Republicans, eventually becoming an ardent Prohibitionist. He served as township trustee, as supervisor, and as school director. Both he and his wife were active members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Stephen White married, October 26, 1854, at Ravenna, Ohio, Olive Chapman, who was born June 27, 1829, a daughter of Hiram and _____ (Morton) Chapman, of Paris township. Six children were born of their union, namely : Mary, who died at the age of eighteen years ; Ida M., who married William Potter, of Pennsylvania, died July, 1905, leaving two children ; Hiram Bentley, a minister, teacher and musician, blind from his birth, died in Conneaut, Ohio, in 1898, aged forty-two years; he was a graduate from Ohio State Blind Institute, both in •books and piano tuning, 1896; Ernest died at the age of seventeen years; Helen, wife of Theron Palmer, a farmer in Richmond, Ohio, has two children ; and Henry A., the subject of this sketch. Henry A. White was brought up on the parental homestead, acquiring his early education in the district school. He subsequently worked for four years in the shops connected with the Nickel Plate Railroad. Two years after his marriage he settled on the home farm, where, with the exception of five years that he spent in Conneaut, he has since resided, being successfully employed in agricultural pursuits. He has added extensive improvements to those previously inaugurated on the place, his estate being now one of the most attractive in the neighborhood. A Republican in politics, he has rendered efficient service as school director and as supervisor, being ever active in public affairs. Mr. White married, July 2, 1891, Mrs. Co M. (Barnes) Stentz, who was born April 1, 1871, at Cranesville, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Rev. George N. and Lucy A. (Kidder) Barnes, with whom she came when young to Ohio. After her graduation from the Burbank high. school, she studied music at the University of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, and subsequently taught music for a while. Mr. and Mrs. White have five children, namely : Paul P., born June 26, 1892, atten the Pierpont high school ; Olive F., born Se tember 12, 1892 ; George W., born February 13, 1903 ; and Marion A. and Miriam E., twins, born January 9, 1906. Mr. and Mrs. White have been identified by membership with the United Brethren church, and are now members of the Grange. Formerly Mr. White belonged to the Foresters. GEORGE FEICK.—Forty years and more ago George Feick, then a young man, first came to Sandusky, and since then as a contractor and builder, as a director of the Citizens' Banking Company, as president of the Sandusky Telephone Company and as a councilman for t city he has been an important factor in th development of the city, and no man who has ever lived here has been or is more highly esteemed or sincerely respected. He traces his ancestry to the old Teutonic race, and was born HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1141 at Steinau, Kreis Dieburg, Hessen Darmstadt, January 23, 1849, receiving there a common-school training and instructions in the tenets of the Lutheran church, into which he was confirmed in 1863, and during three years in his native land he served an apprenticeship al0the cabinet maker's trade. On the l0th of July, 1866, George Feick came to the United States, and joined his brothers, Philip and Adam, in Sandusky, Ohio, and after working several years for the latter he formed a co-partnership with him in 1872, and this association lasted until the death of the brother Adam in 1893. These were years of well directed purposes and of splendid achievements, for in this time they erected many of the finest buildings of both Sandusky and Erie county, as well as those of other places, including the Tenth Ward school building, the Erie county jail, a part of the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home building, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad stations in Sandusky and in Painesville, Talcott Hall for Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio, and the State Capitol building at Cheyenne, Wyoming. Since the death of the senior member of this firm George Feick has carried on its work in the same successful manner, and has erected several noted buildings, among which are the Law building of the Ohio State University at Columbus, Ohio, the Edwards gymnasium for the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, and various building's in this city. He has also erected many buildings for Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio, including the Severance chemical laboratory, the Warner gymnasium, the Carnegie College library and the Phinney Memorial Chapel, and he has now under course of construction for the same college Rice hall and the Men's building. Mr. Feick was first married to Miss Augusta Ernestine Klotz, who was born at Dresden, Saxony, January 31, 1852, and she died on the 24th of December, 1888, the mother of five children : Emil Augustus, born March 20, 1874; Clara Sofia, May 30, 1877 ; George Jr., January 28, 1881 ; Olga Scholott, June 20, 1885, and Ernestine, December 7, 1888. Mr. Feick married, secondly, June 22, 1892, Minnie A. Klotz, and the only child of this union is Augustus H., born June 22, 1893. Mr. Feick is fond of art in all its departments, and possesses a fine artistic taste. Strong in his individuality, patriotic in his citizenship, conscientious in his life's work and always ready to lend a helping hand to the deserving and to do all in his power for the upbuilding of his home city and the perpetuation of American institutions, all this taken in connection with the sterling integrity and honor of his character have naturally gained for him the respect and confidence of men. He is what the world calls a "self-made" man, and his example is well worthy of emulation. He is a Lutheran, a thirty-second degree Mason and a liberal Republican. Emil Augustus Feick, the eldest son of George Feick, was born March 20, 1874. He received his education in the public schools of Sandusky and in the Ohio State University, and following in the footsteps of his honored father has become a contractor and builder and is engaged with him in business. He married Miss Louise DeLor, of this city, in 1900, and their children are E. Richard, born August 25, 1903, and Elizabeth Antoinette, born November 20, 1904. JAMES A. DAVEY.-Wide-awake, intelligent and progressive, James A. Davey, of Sandusky, holds an assured position among the active business men of the city, and is widely and favorably known throughout the length and breadth of Erie county as the representative of the Ohio Farmers' Insurance Company. A native born citizen of Erie county, his birth occurred August 25, 1846, in Groton township. On the paternal side he comes of English ancestry, his father, John Davey, having been born October 4, 1823, at Lands End, England. In 1837, when fourteen years of age, John Davey emigrated to America, and first lived near Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Securing employment in the coal mines, he labored as a miner until receiving injuries that made him a cripple for life. Coming from there to Sandusky in 1839, he learned the shoemaker's trade, which he subsequently followed during his residence in that city. Preferring country life and occupation, he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, settling on a farm in Groton township. He married, in November, 1843, Elizabeth Palmer, who was born in Erie county, Ohio, and they became the parents of four children, namely : James A., with whom this sketch is chiefly concerned ; Mary E., wife of James Anderson, of Huron, Ohio ; A. Eulalia, deceased, married William Johnston, of Berlin Heights ; and John V., of Port Clinton, Ohio. Neither of the parents are now living, the death of the father having occurred May 1, 1887, and that of the mother June 2, 1905. 1142 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Obtaining the rudiments of his education in the district schools, James A. Davey afterwards continued his studies in the Normal Schools of Lebanon, Ohio, and Valparaiso, Indiana. Well prepared for a professional career, he taught school three years and then embarked in the insurance business, becoming one of the first agents in Indiana for the Ohio Farmers' Insurance Company, with which he has since been associated. Leaving Indiana in 1885, Mr. Davey accepted his present position as the company's representative in Erie county, and has since been an esteemed and valued resident of Sandusky. Mr. Davey has been twice married. He Married first, October 19, 1870, Sarah P. Glass, of Fremont, Ohio. She died July 2, 1880, leaving one child, Tessie E. who passed to the higher life May 3, 1885. Mr. Davey married second, December 18, 1882, Eugenia C. Dutcher, who was born in Oswego, New York. His time being fully occupied with, his private affairs, Mr. Davey mingles not in politics, and has never sought public office. He is prominent and influential in Masonic circles, having been identified with the Masonic order since February, 1870, in the meantime having passed through the chairs of the different bodies. He is a member of Science Lodge, No. 50, F. & A. M. ; of Sandusky City Chapter, No. 72, R. A. M. ; of Sandusky City Council, No. 26, R. & S. M. ; of Erie Commandery, No. 23, K. T. ; and of Toledo Consistory. WILLIAM HARVEY PIERCE.—One of the oldest and most highly respected citizens of Mantua and a veteran agriculturist, William Harvey Pierce is a worthy representative of one of the earlier families to locate in this part of Portage county, and as a life long farmer has actively assisted in the development of this fertile and productive agricultural region. The descendant of a New England family of note, he was born, January 23, 1821, in Norfolk, St. Lawrence county, New York, a son of William Pierce. The emigrant ancestor from which he is descended came from England to the United States at a very early period, soon after the arrival of the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers, locating in New England, and from him many men of prominence and distinction have sprung, among others having been Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president of the United States. William Pierce was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, and there spent the days of his childhood and youth. Subsequently moving to New York, he lived for a number of years in St. Lawrence county. In the spring of 1835 he started westward with his family, traveling with wagons to Ogdensburg, thence up the St. Lawrence and Genesee rivers to Rochester, New York, where they took passage on a canal boat for Buffalo. Buffalo Bay was then full of ice, and one of the steamers conveying passengers came near being caught between the ice floes and carried over the Falls. At Buffalo he and his family embarked on board the "North America" and sailed up Lake Erie to Cleveland, where William Harvey, then a lively boy of about fourteen years, was for two weeks sick with the measles. Again packing his family and goods into wagons, William Harvey continued his journey to Brecksville, Cuyahoga county, where he lived for a year. The following three years he resided in Bainbridge, Geauga county, from there coming, in 1839, to Portage county. Locating in Mantua, he resided here the remainder of his life. He married Rebecca Richardson, who was born in New Hampshire, and to them were born ten children, all of whom, with the exception of one daughter, Sophia, settled in this place, and here married and brought up their families. Sophia Pierce, who married Almon Lamb, moved just across the Mantua line, but still continued to attend the church at Mantua Center, and at her death was buried in the Mantua cemetery. Joseph Richardson, father of Rebecca Richardson, and the maternal grandfather of William H. Pierce, was a soldier in the Revolutionary Army, and took an active part in the Battle -of Bunker Hill, on June 17, 1775, but, on account of the burning of the records of his regiment during the War of 1812, he never received either bounty or a pension for his services. He lived to the venerable age of ninety-seven years, while his wife, whose name was Drury, attained the age of ninety-five years. William Harvey Pierce received the rudiments of his education in the district schools of Norfolk, New York, and after coming to Ohio with the family attended the winter terms of school in Bainbridge, and spent one term in a select school at Shalersville. Choosing for his life occupation the work with which he was most familiar, he settled on a farm which his father had rented in Mantua in 1839, continuing on it for more than ten years. In 1850 he purchased one, hundred acres of HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1143 wild land, lying about a mile north of Mantua Center, it being what is now known as the Spencer Heirs' tract, and there carried on general farming successfully for fifteen years. In 1865 Mr. Pierce bought his present estate, and in its management has been exceedingly prosperous, his property being one of the finest in its improvements and appointments of any in the neighborhood. Mr. Pierce married, in Newburg, Ohio, December 4, 1876, Mary L. Root, and their only child, Gilman Richardson Pierce, born January 6, 1879, married, May 7, 1904, Lucy Tinker. MARVIN C. HALL was born May 24, 1867, in the home in Portage county, in which four generations of his family had first seen the light of day, and there he was reared to a useful and successful manhood. His first step in the business world was as a farmer, the occupation to which he had been reared, and later he became a general merchant and a local newspaper correspondent. He is a writer of ability, clear and concise in his statements, and he has followed this line of work for twenty years and more. During eight years he served as the secretary of the Charlestown Farmers' Association, and he has also served in a like capacity and for a like period for the Charlestown Chrysanthemum Association, and has served several years as assistant superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday school, Charlestown, and for five years has been superintendent. Marvin C. Hall is of the fourth generation of the Hall family in Portage county, its founder being his great-grandfather, Timothy Hall, a native of Massachusetts. His son Sheldon came with him to this county in about the year of 1800, and by his wife, Eleanor C. King, also from Massachusetts, he had two sons and a daughter, Elenor, Curtis and Carlton. Carlton G. Hall became the father of Marvin C., and he inherited the old Hall homestead in Charlestown township. He was a leader in the Methodist Episcopal choir here for twenty-five or thirty years, and about twenty years ago he built the pulpit in the church. He was a blacksmith and woodworker, and he was also a member of the Hall Martial and Cornet Bands for many year. He died May 24, 1901. He is well remembered by the older residents of this community for his many beneficent public works. His wife bore the maiden name of Ellen Armstrong. On the 28th of December, 1904, Marvin C. Hall was married to Nellie Somerwill, who is a native of the mother country of England. One child has been born to this union, Carlton Marvin Hall, born May 24, 1909, and is the fifth generation of Halls to be born on the old homestead. Mr. Hall's sister, Hattie A., married L. D. Baldwin and they reside at Denaud, Florida. CHARLES T. MORLEY.—There is special consistency in incorporating in this work, which has to do with the Western Reserve and its people, a specific outline of the history of the Morley family, with particular reference to the career of Charles T. Morley, whose name heads this paragraph and who is one of the venerable and honored citizens of Painesville, where he is still actively identified with business interests, who is a native son of Lake county, a member of one of its earliest pioneer families, a veteran of the Civil war, and a man whose course has been such as to retain to him a secure place in the confidence and regard of all with whom he has come in contact in the various relations of life. Thomas Morley, who had served with distinction as a soldier in the Continental line in the war of the Revolution, came from South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts, to Ohio in the year 1815, and made Lake county his destination. He made the trip from the old Bay state with two ox teams, each of which had a single horse as leader. This sturdy veteran of the Revolution, who had been present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, brought his little family into the wilds of the Western Reserve and settled on. the Chagrin river, one half mile east of Kirtland Mills. His wife, like himself, was a native of Massachusetts, where the respective families were founded in the early colonial days, and her maiden name was Editha Marsh. He secured a tract of heavily timbered land, and forthwith grappled with the wilderness in his effort to develop a farm. The primitive log house of the pioneer epoch constituted the family domicile, and the vicissitudes endured were those that fell to the lot of the average settler in this section. during its formative period. He succeeded in reclaiming a considerable portion of his land and did his share in furthering the civic and material development of this now favored section of Vol II-28 1144 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE the historic old Western Reserve. He remained on the homestead until his death, in 1845, at the venerable age of eighty-eight years. Concerning his three sons brief data are here given : Isaac, who served as captain of a company in the war of 1812, finally joined the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, whom he accompanied on their exodus to Utah, where he became an elder in the church and where he passed the remainder of his life ; Thomas, who became a successful farmer of Lake county, died one mile south of West Mentor, at the patriarchal age of ninety-two years ; and of Alfred, the youngest, more detailed information is given in a following paragraph. Alfred Morley was born in Massachusetts in the year 1805, and thus was ten years of age at the time of the family immigration to the Western Reserve. He was reared to manhood on the old homestead, receiving such educational advantages as were afforded in the primitive pioneer schools, and he continued to reside on this ancestral farm until his death, at the age of seventy-nine years. He learned the wagonmaker's trade and for many years had a shop on his farm. He was one of the founders of the Congregational church at Kirtland, in which he was a deacon, and he was familiarly known in the community as Deacon Morley. He was a man of sterling character, strong individuality and marked mentality, so that he was naturally a leader in local affairs. He married Miss Urania Conant, who was a daughter of Esquire Conant, of Becket, Massachusetts, and who had come to Lake county, Ohio, to visit her married sister. Here she was won by Mr. Morley, and here she passed the residue of her life. She died in 1852, at the age of forty-four years. Deacon and Mrs. Morley became the parents of five sons and two daughters : Alfred W., who served in the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war, is now in the Soldiers' Home in Dayton, Ohio ; George H., who served under General Hayes in the. Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, passed the closing years of his life in Grand Rapids, Michigan ; Charles T., the immediate subject 0f this sketch, was .the third in order of birth; Emily, whose first husband, Charles Brown, was killed in a fight with the bank robbers at Coffeyville, Kansas, in the pioneer days in that state, later married a Mr. Hysong, and they still live in Coffeyville ; Lewis A., who served in the Twenty-fourth Ohio Battery, is now a resident of Onawa, Iowa ; Howard C., who was a member of an Illinois regiment in the Civil war, died in 1907, at Youngstown, Ohio, where his family still reside ; Elizabeth became the wife of William Whiting, and died at Whiting, Iowa, leaving a family. All of the sons were soldiers in the Civil war and well upheld the military prestige of their Revolutionary ancestor. Charles T. Morley, to whom this sketch is dedicated, was born on the old homestead in Kirtland township, Lake county, Ohio, on the 15th of December, 1833, and after availing himself of the privileges of the common schools of the locality he was enabled to continue his studies in the old Western Reserve Seminary, at Kirtland, of which his father was a trustee. The founder and manager of this institution was Asa D. Lord, an enthusiastic and successful worker in the educational field, who was head of the state asylum for the blind at Batavia, New York, at the time of his death. In his youth Charles T, Morley learned the wagonmaker's trade under the direction of his father, and he devoted his attention to the same the major part of his time until he was nineteen years of age. Thereafter he was employed as collector in the south for a mercantile concern in West Virginia, and later identified with a Cleveland concern engaged in the manufacturing of monuments and grave stones. He early became known as a successful salesman, and he continued with the firm last mentioned for a period of twelve years. August 22, 1861, Mr. Morley tendered his services in defense of the Union by enlisting as a private in Company G, Second Ohio Cavalry, with which he saw long and arduous service. In the early period of his enlistment he was with his command in the west, principally at Fort Scott, Kansas, and later he participated in Burnsides' advance on Knoxville, Tennessee. He was twice captured by the enemy. On the first occasion he was taken prisoner by seven Confederate men while he was engaged in a solitary foraging trip. With admirable courage and patriotism he gave captors such an eloquent description of conditions in the Union lines as to cause all of them to proceed to the headquarters of the command and renounce their allegiance to the Confederate cause, to whose support they had been drawn by conscription. For this service he received special praise from the colonel of his regiment. On the occasion of his second capture Mr. Morley and a companion made their escape from their captors, all being HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1145 mounted. The captors fell asleep on their horses and by careful maneuvering Mr. Morley and his comrade gradually worked their way through the lines to freedom. This hazardous feat was accomplished at immeasurable risk of death. At the expiration of his term of service Mr. Morley received his honorable discharge. He vitalizes the more gracious associations of his army career by retaining membership in the Grand Army of the Republic. After his return from the war Mr. Morley gain identified himself with the Cleveland monument firm, by which he had previously been employed, and he continued with the same until 1869, after which he was representative of a Massachusetts manufactory of lightning rods until 1874, when he took up his residence in Painesville, where he engaged in the marble and monument business, in partnership with Peter Kleeberger. In the fall of 1876 he was elected sheriff of Lake county, on the ticket of the Republican party, of whose cause he has ever been a stanch advocate, and he remained incumbent of this office for two terms of two years each, in the meanwhile continuing his interest in the marble works. Upon retiring from office he purchased his partner's interest, and thereafter Ensign D. Rich was his partner for a period of three years, at the expiration of which he assumed sole control of the business. He thus continued operations until 1899, when John S. Warren was admitted to partnership, under the firm name of Morley & Warren, and this association still continues. Mr. Morley still gives a personal supervision to the business, which has been built up to substantial proportions, representing the leading enterprise of its kind in Painesville. He served one year as a member of the board of county commissioners, and he has served seventeen years as a member of the board of supervisors of elections, having first been called to this position when the board was organized. He held the office of trustee of Painesville township for several years, and then refused to again become a candidate. Mr. Morley is a charter member of the Humane Society, of Lake, of which he has been president for twenty-one years. This society has done effective service in its field. He has been identified with the Masonic fraternity for half a century,. having become a member on the 22d of .March, 1859. Worthy of reproduction, with slight paraphrase in this connection, are the following statements from the pages of a Painesville newspaper : "Temple Lodge, No. 28, Free and Accepted Masons, had a field day at its regular meeting Wednesday evening. In addition to its being the occasion of the annual inspection by the representative of the grand master, an event occurred which seldom happens. A few weeks ago the friends of Charles T. Morley discovered that March 22 would be the fiftieth anniversary of his being made a Mason, and accordingly they made plans for a fitting remembrance of the same. These were carried out on Wednesday evening. A series of resolutions was prepared and the signatures of more than one hundred and thirty of Mr. Morley's friends and acquaintances in Lake county appeared on the same in autograph. Besides this, the autograph signatures of Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft were secured, as were also those of many of the officials of the grand lodge and other prominent Masons of northern Ohio. These resolutions were prepared in fine form and were presented to Brother Morley, with appropriate remarks, by Everett J. House. In addition to this, Mr. Morley's friends had also purchased for him a beautiful past master's jewel, which was likewise presented to him on this 0ccasion. The minutes of fifty years ago, when Mr. Morley was made a Mason, were then read by the secretary pro tern. of Willoughby Lodge, in which Mr. Morley was raised. He was taken completely by surprise and was deeply touched by these manifestations of regard, but, as usual, rose grandly to the occasion and expressed his deep appreciation and profound gratitude for these honors. During the recess Mr. Morley held a reception and received congratulations, a large number being present from all over the county, having been called together by these special ceremonies." Mr. Morley holds membership in Dyer Post, No. 17, Grand Army of the Republic, in which he is a past commander. On the 24th of December, 1856, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Morley to Miss Imogene Randall, who was born in the state of New York, and whose home at the time of her marriage was in Chester township, Geauga county, Ohio, where her parents were early settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Morley had appropriate observance of their golden anniversary in 1906. They have three children, concerning whom the following brief record is given : 1146 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Frances E. is first assistant to the superintendent of nurses in the city hospital of Boston, Massachusetts ; Charles W., who is engaged in business at Geneva, Ohio, married and has three children ; and Flora is the wife of Andrew P. Pctah, a representative farmer of Hiram township, Portage county, Ohio, and they have four children. THEODORE L. FRENCH.—The late Theodore L. French, who was for many years a prominent business man in Ashtabula county, represented a family long established in Connecticut, the mother state of the Western Reserve. Joseph and Lucinda (Tod) French, his parents, were both natives of that commonwealth, his mother having been born in North Haven. The son received his education at the Grand River Institute and in 1854, while still a youth, joined the migrating gold seekers and spent four years in the mines of California and the Pacific C0ast. Upon his return he engaged in business in Ashtabula county, largely devoting himself to stock brokerage, and in 1874 located on a farm in Austinburg township, where his son and daughter were reared and where his widow, with the former, still resides. Mr. French died on this homestead, endeared to the family by so many associations, on the 1st of March, 1906. In his religious belief he was a Unitarian, an honorable business man and agriculturist, a citizen of high character and a husband and father of sincere affection and constant thoughtfulness. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore L. French (nee Helen M. Ryder) occurred at Austinburg, on the 24th of October, 1866, and resulted in the birth of a son and a daughter. Alfred Schuyler French, the elder, was born on the 31st of March, 1868, is unmarried and operates the home farm. Florence G., the daughter, was born December. 4, 1869, and has held the position of assistant secretary at both the Cleveland Normal School and Lake Erie College. For six years she was an incumbent of the former and is still serving the Lake Erie institution. Mrs. Helen (Ryder) French was born in Austinburg on the 9th of May, 1844, receiving a district school education and a training at the Grand River Institute. For seven years prior to her marriage she was a successful teacher, and has always been recognized as a lady of rare intelligence, sound judgment and refined feminine character. Mrs. French is a grand-daughter of Samuel Ryder, a native of New Hartford, Connecticut, who had been a farmer for some years when, in 18o9, he bought a large tract of land and settled in the wilderness of Austinburg township, about half a mile south of the present village. There he farmed, kept the old toll gate near his home, and the house which he first built is still standing in all the picturesqueness of its hundred years. Samuel Ryder was also a faithful member of the Presbyterian church, the first to be organized in the Western Reserve, and his every-day life was as Puritan-like as his religion. He married Miss Naomi Hulbert, who bore him the following thirteen children: Samuel Jr., who Married Hannah Ryder ; Naomi, who became the wife of Eben Hickok of Jefferson, Ohio, and had three children, their son Edward now living in that place ; Mary, who died unmarried in Wisconsin ; Horace, who married Nancy Webb and lived in Austinburg; Lydia, who became the wife of Durlin Hickok and the mother of three children ; Louise, who married Dr. Raymond ; Clarissa, who died in Michigan as the wife of Dr. Day and the mother of three children ; Frederick, who married Mary Payne, who bore him four children; Henry G., who became the father of nine children ; Winthrop, who died young; Emmeline, who married Frederick Pierce and had three children ; Betsy, who was the wife of John Walker and bore him. three daughters; and Eunice, who married John B. Pierce, brother of Frederick mentioned above, and became the mother of three children. Henry Grant Ryder, of this family, was born at New Hartford, Connecticut, in June of 1896 and died February 22, 1885. He obtained a district school education, engaged in various lines of work, and finally purchased ninety acres of land a mile and a half northeast of the village of Austinburg, which he fashioned into a good farm and homestead first erecting a small frame house for the family residence and later providing a more comfortable and commodious home. In connection with general farming he conducted a well managed dairy and was altogether a thrity- and honorable citizen. He Married Miss Ann French, a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, and a daughter of Nathan French, also of that state, who removed with his family to Leroy, Lake county, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Ryder became the parents of nine children, and all were born in Austinburg, as follows: Henry Martin, January 14, 1836, who was killed in the Civil war at the age of twenty-seven; An- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1147 nette, born in March, 1837, who married C. C. Lukens and now resides in Tennessee ; Cecil S., August 14, 1838, who married Miss Almeda Sherman, of Jefferson, Ohio, to them was born one daughter, Annette ; Brainard F., born in November, 1839, who married Laura Dean Ryder and had one son, Ralph H., who died at Natick, Massachusetts ; Mary L., who was born in March, 1841, married J. R. King, of Lenox, and died in March, 1908 ; Alfred B., born in August, 1842, who was killed during the Civil war in August, 1864; Helen M., Mrs. Theodore L. French ; Emily C., born in November, 1845, who married Cyrus A. Green, of Austinburg, and bore him three children, Fred E., Idella and Henry R. Green ; and Charlotte E., who was born in April, 1847, married Henry Chaffee, of Jefferson, and died as a resident of Kansas, mother of Ernest H. and Gaius W. Chaffee. Mrs. Henry G. Ryder, the mother of this family, died at Lenox Center in November, 1888, and her Christian patience and faithfulness are perpetuated in the generations of worthy men and women who have followed her. RICHARD VAN BUREN TAYLOR, of Leroy township, was born December 23, 1836, on a farm adjoining the one he now occupies, and is a son of Jonathan and Mary (Martin) Taylor. His mother was a daughter of Richard Martin, who built a mill on Big Creek and operated it for many years. Jonathan Taylor was born in Pennsylvania, and when eight years of age came to 01E̊ with his parents. He died at Pine Hollow, in 1873, seventy-three years old. His widow, who was born in 1798, died in 1881, aged eighty-three years. They lived in Concord township 'some years, and about 1832 came to the, farm. in the woods, where Richard was born. They cleared the farm, which Richard purchased about 1870. Jonathan Taylor had six sons and five daughters, who reached maturity. Of these, three sons and one daughter were living in 1909. Lucinda was the oldest child. Alonzo is a farmer, living at Lafayette, Wisconsin. Jonathan also lives in Wisconsin. William remained in Leroy township and died at the age of seventy years. Richard, William, Jonathan and John served in the Civil war, William and Jonathan served through the war, and John, who was in a regiment on the frontier, was wounded. William and Richard served in the Fourteenth Ohio Battery, under Captain J. B. Burrows, late a circuit judge. Richard V. Taylor was with the battery until the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and was then wounded in both arms, one being hit with a piece of shell and the other with a musket ball in the forearm. After a furlough of sixty days he was discharged. He was also injured somewhat by the bursting of a cannon while in practice. After the war closed he moved to his present farm, assuming a debt of $2,000. He now owns about 152 acres, of which about seventy are in cultivation. He carries on the farm himself, and he is industrious and thrifty, and a .good farmer. Mr. Taylor belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic. He voted for Lincoln and has since voted the Republican ticket. Mr. Taylor married, in 1863, Eliza. daughter of William and Margaret Crane, the former a Manxman. She was born in Leroy township. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had one son and two daughters ; they lost one daughter, Mary, at the age of eighteen years, she having been a teacher three years. One son, Adolphus, late of Cohoes, England, was a manufacturer and lived at Painesville ; he died of pneumonia, February 13, 1909, at the age of forty-three. By his wife Martha he had two children, Elma and Mary, who with their mother, live with Richard V. Taylor. The third child, Gertie E., is the wife of David M. Davis, a farmer of Leroy, having a fine farm. HORACE C. BABCOCK, a Ravenna township agriculturist, was born in Shalersville township, Portage county, September 2, 1841, a son of Edwin B. and Alma (Hoskins) Babcock. The father, a son of Simon Babcock from Connecticut, was the first white child born in Hiram, Ohio, his parents having located there as early as 1800. After his marriage he located on. a tract of wild timber land in Shalersville township, to which he had to cut a road through the dense forest, but with the passing. years he cleared his land and converted it into a valuable farm, owning 400 acres at the time of his death. He died on the l0th of November, 1897, and his wife died on the 14th of February, 1846. Their union was blessed by the birth of six children, and by the father's second marriage to Amelia B. Crane he had two children. Horace C. Babcock, the fourth born of the first family, resided with his parents and assisted them on the farm until his marriage, on the 2d of March, 1871, to Luthera Welt0n, who was born in Ravenna township May 16, 1148 -HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE 1845, a daughter of Isaac and Unice P. (Oviatt) Welton, the father b0rn in Wolcottville, Connecticut, and the mother in Hudson, Ohio, and he was a son of Erastus and Nabbie (Church) Welton, from Connecticut, and she a daughter of John and Hannah (Sherman) Oviatt. Isaac Welton came to Stowe, in Summit county, Ohio, in 1838, where he became a farmer, although in Connecticut he followed watch-making, and he was the first milk peddler in Ravenna. He bought a tract of land just northwest of Ravenna, on which in 1832 had been built a fine brick residence, and there he died on the 16th of February, 1888. He was born on the 25th of August, 1806. His wife died there on the 16th of August, 1886. There were three children in their family : Emily, the widow of James T. Riddle, and a resident of Kittanning, Pennsylvania ; Lucretia, who became the wife of George Strickland and died on the 30th of December, 1907 ; and Luthera, a twin of Lucretia, who became the wife of Mr. Babcock. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Babcock resided with her parents until they moved to his farm of eighty-three acres in Shalersville township, on the 23d of November, 1872. But on the 22d of March, 1904, they left that place and returned to her parents' old homestead, of which her share consisted of twenty acres. This fine old home is filled with many interesting relics of former years, including the old flax and spinning wheels used by her mother in the pioneer days, and a woolen carpet that the mother made back in the days of 1855 is still in use. Mr. Babcock rents his farm in Shalersville. The one son of this union is Frank W. Babcock, a stationary engineer in Ravenna. The family are identified with the' Disciple church, and Mr. Babcock, in politics a Republican, has served his township as a road supervisor and as a school director. FRED PORTMAN, a prominent farmer of Henrietta township, Lorain county, Ohio, was born April 25, 1855. He is a son of John and Anna Rubi Portman, and the youngest of their family of six children. John Portman was born in Switzerland, in 1837, and his wife was born in 1838 ; they came to Lorain county and purchased, in 1869, the farm which is still in the family, and there spent the remainder of their lives. After the death of his father, in 1889, Fred Portman took charge of the farm, which he has since successfully carried 0n. He is a Re publican in politics and a member of the Ger man Methodist church. He is actively inter ested in public affairs, and an enterprising useful citizen. Mr. Portman married, October 5. 1880 Mary, daughter of Michael and Margaret (Stahl) Geissendoerfer, both born in Beiren Germany, the former June 17, 1827, and th latter August 17, 1831. Mr. Geissendoerf and his wife came to America in 1855, an settled first in Rockport, Cuyahoga county Ohio, where they took up land and reside there until 1871, when they located in Henri- etta, and there Mr. Portman and his wife b came parents of seven children, all of who have received common school educations; the are : Lydia Anna, John Walters, Esther Len (wife of Edward B. Haueisen), Ernest Victor Elmer S., Paul Erhart, and Jesse Herold. H. R. LOOMIS.—As one of the representa tive younger members of the bar of his native county and as the able and popular incumbent of the office of mayor of the city of Ravenna, there is all of consistency in according recognition to Mr. Loomis in this publication but, farther than this, such consideration due also on the score that he is a scion of on of the honored pioneer families of the Western Reserve, and in both the paternal and maternal lines is a representative of families founded in America in the early colonial epoch of our national history. He has gained no insignificant precedence in the practice of his exacting profession, and as the chief executive of the municipal government of Ravenna has well justified the wisdom of the electors of the city whose franchise brought to him this gratifying official preferment. H. R. Loomis was born on the homestead farm in Randolph township, Portage county, Ohio, on the 24th of September, 1880, and is a son of Harris J. and Susan (France) Loomis, both of whom were likewise born in Portage county. Harris J. Loomis was reared: and educated in this county and during hi entire active career was successfully identifi with agricultural pursuits. He became the owner of a well improved and valuable land estate in Randolph township and was a citizen ever honored in his native county, where wielded no slight influence in connection wi public affairs in his community. He served township assessor and land appraiser, and w a stanch supporter of the cause of the Republican party. He died in the very prime of his HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 1149 strong and useful manhood, having been forty-five years of age at the time of his demise. He was a son of Harlow Loomis, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and who was a scion of stanch old English stock. The family was founded in America in 1639, and the name has been prominently identified with the annals of New England, where was cradled so much of our national history, while in later generations representatives have been found in the most diverse sections of the Union. Harlow Loomis came to the Western Reserve of his native state in 1818, and became one of the sterling pioneers of Portage county, where he took up his abode in that year. He secured a tract of government land in Randolph township and there reclaimed a farm from the primeval forest. Here both he and his wife passed the residue of their lives, and their names merit an enduring place 0n the roll of the worthy pioneers who laid the foundations upon which has been reared the magnificent superstructure of opulent prosperity in the beautiful old Western, Reserve. Mrs. Susan (France) Loomis, has passed her entire life in Portage county and still resides on the fine old homestead farm in Randolph township. She is a daughter of Henry France, who was a native of Stark county, Ohio, and who became one of the early settlers of Portage county, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits until the close 0f his long and useful life. His lineage was of English origin, and the family was' early founded in Pennsylvania, whence came the original representatives of the name of. Ohio. Harris J. and Susan (France) Loomis became the parents of four children, all of whom are living, as follows : Zoa is the wife of Edward R. Harris. of Cleveland ; Maud and Clyde remain with their widowed mother on the old homestead ; and H. R., of this review, is the youngest of the number. The present mayor of the city of Ravenna passed his boyhood days on the home farm and his early educational discipline was secured in the public schools of his native town-Ship. In 1897 he was matriculated in the Ohio Northern University, at Ada, where he completed a course in the literary and scientific department and was graduated as a member of the class of 1900, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. In the autumn of 1901 he entered L the law department of the Western Reserve University, in the city 0f Cleveland, and was duly admitted to the bar in December, 1903. Mr. Loomis' novitiate in the active work of his profession was of comparatively brief duration, for he soon gained recognition as an able advocate and well fortified counselor. Soon after his graduation in the law school he opened an office in Ravenna, and in this city he has since been engaged in practice. He has been successful in his profession and his clientage is of a representative order. The able lawyer and popular native son was soon brought forward for office of public trust, since he was first elected mayor of Ravenna in the autumn of 1905, only two years after establishing his home in the city to whose chief executive office he was thus called. The distinction is in itself one of no slight significance, and also offers unmistakable evidence of the personal popularity of Mr. Loomis in the community. His administration was thorough, progressive and businesslike during his first term, and the popular verdict placed upon his efforts was shown in his election as his own successor in the fall of 1907. His second term will expire January 1, 1910. Mayor Loomis is a stalwart in the camp of the Republican party, and is one of the vital and enthusiastic workers in its cause. He was chairman of the Republican central committee of Portage county during the campaign of 1908, and marshaled the forces at his command with much discrimination and finesse. He is affiliated with the local lodge and chapter of the Masonic fraternity, and also the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Foresters, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. ALFRED E. BUTLER, a well-known business man of LaGrange townsip, and prominent in the official life of Lorain county, comes of a leading New England family of stanch old English descent. The first American ancestor was Richard Butler, who came from Braintree, England, and in 1632 settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The town records show that he was made a freeman two years after, and that in 1635 he formed a company for the settlement of Hartford, Connecticut. A deacon of the first church of that place, grand juror and selectman for several years, repeatedly a member of the general assembly of the colony, all the facts go to show that he was a man of high moral standing and citizenship. By his marriage to Elizabeth Bigelow he became the father of three children, himself passing away on the 6th of August, 1684.