750 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE "At the close of these remarks Mr. Tyler accepted the sledge and with four sturdy whacks he sent home his spike. President Kent, with nervy grasp, then struck straight —one, two and three—and the welkin rang with applause. The work was well done, and the last rail of the Atlantic and Great Western was laid and the last spike driven to tie head. The construction of this road encountered, perhaps, more obstacles and greater opposition than any other in the country. Yet Mr. Kent showed himself equal to every emergency and, with heroic faith and singleness of. purpose, he made success possible and victory a verity. The Portage County Democrat (now the Ravenna Republican) of June 3, 1863, contained this faithful tribute : " 'The location of the shops at Franklin Mills is doubtless due to the position and influence of Marvin Kent, Esq., the president of the road, who resides at that point. If any man ought to be gratified and benefited by the location of the shops it is President Kent. He was not only the friend of the road, but, if we are correctly informed, he also originated the idea of its construction. In carrying forward this great improvement to its completion he has toiled and struggled for over twelve years, amid doubt and discouragement, amid jeers and sneers and obloquy. While others hesitated he stood fast ; when the faint-hearted turned aside he persevered with unfaltering nerve and courage ; when timid friends forsook he succeeded in raising up other friends and in attracting capital to this great work ; and thus, with a patience, courage and assiduity and with an unswerving fidelity to .a single aim that reaches the point of real heroism, he has held on his way through twelve laborious years of fluctuations, vicissitudes and uncertainties, neglecting or abandoning his private business, pledging or imperiling, or at least casting into the hazard of success, his large private fortune for the benefit of his cherished enterprise. And yet he has labored all this time without general appreciation, the select few more intimately associated with him in official relations being the only ones to know and appreciate his trials and toils. But it is time the man to whom more than to any other the country is indebted for this great and leading road should be understood and appreciated, for every man and every community benefited by the construction of this road owes to Marvin Kent a debt of gratitude. He is to be congratulated on the success which the intelligence, the ability and the fixed and resolute purpose which he has brought to bear on the enterprise have accomplished.' " Marvin Kent was a man who kept the needle of life true to the pole-star of hope, and he guided his course with a full sense of his responsibilities and with the strength of conscious rectitude. His name merits a large place -in the history of the state of which he was a native son and to which he gave so great and so productive service. Upon the successful completion of the railroad line of which mention has just been made Mr. Kent practically retired from active business, and he passed the residue of his life in the enjoyment of his beautiful home and the society of his circle of loyal Friends, of whom he was ever deeply appreciative. In 1865, at the time of the death of his honored father, he succeeded the latter in the presidency of the Kent National Bank, and this incumbency he retained forty-three years, until he too was summoned to the life eternal. His political allegiance was given to the Republican party, and in October, 1875, he was elected to represent the Twenty-sixth district of Ohio in the state senate, in which body he made an admirable record during his term of two years. He was a man of tolerant spirit, liberal views, and intrinsically of generous impulses, and of him one familiar with the various stages of his career has written substantially as follows : "He aided, in a great variety of ways, in advancing the material welfare of those among whom he lived. He was a generous promoter of every business enterprise of Kent, which village bears his name. There are enduring monuments of his public spirit on every hand, such as public and private edifices, business blocks, mills and factories, and about them all there is an evidence of permanency and durability, of exactness in details and adaptability to the uses designed." His life record suggests that he fully observed the fine old rule of living designated in the following words of the bard of Avon : "This above all : to thine own self be true, and it must follow; as the night the clay, thou canst not then be false to any man." On December 24, 1840, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Kent to Miss Maria Stewart, daughter of Colonel William Stewart, of Franklin, Portage county. She was born at Franklin on August 25, 1821, and her death occurred on May 22, 1900. She was a woman of gentle refinement and gracious presence, and her memory is revered by all who came within the sphere of her influence. She was long HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 751 prominent in the social life of the community which represented her home for so long a term of years. Mr. and 1 rs. Kent became the parents of two children,—Henry L., who died in 1873, leaving a widow and two children, and William S., who is president of the Kent National }Bank of Kent, in which offseventy-seventhded his father. DR. CHARLES F. HOUSE, who has earned so honorable a success by his practice of thirty-five years in Painesville, Lake county, is one of the most thoroughly educated and broadly experie0ver members of his profession in this section of the Western Reserve. He was born in that place, December 12, 1849; received his early education there, and completed his literary and classical studies at Oberlin and the Western Reserve colleges. At the latter he finished the full classical course, graduated in 1871 with the degree of M. A., and in the spring of that year commenced the study of medicine. He spent two and a half years as a student in the Cleveland Medical College, but in 1874 completed his professional course in the Long Island Hospital College of New York.11860House at once returned to the home of his boyhood for practice, and the bright promise of his first years there as a young and ambitious physician has been realized in the honorable successes of the intervening years and in his present high standing. He is an active member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Medicine, and from 1879 to 1888 was secretary of the hoard of pension examiners of Painesville. In politics he is a Republican, and in his fraternal relation is a Mason in high standing. In regard to the doctor's more personal relations, it should he added th11861. House married Miss Mary I. Radcliff on the 4th of October, 188S. He himself comes of an old Massachusetts family, John House, his grandfather, having been both in North Adams, of English ancestors who located in the United States during the colonial period. The grandfather mentioned was a blacksmith and a wagon maker by trade, as well as a country merchant, and eventually became a large land owner being proprietor at one time of fully one thousand acres in Geauga county. The father, also John House, was born in Westfield. Massachusetts ; was farmer and blacksmith for many years postmaster at Leroy and afterward a drygoods merchant in partnership with his father. He was a most active member of the First Congregational church, and at different periods in his voting life was Whig, Repubchildren,—Probitionist. Mr. House died at the age of eighty-seven years, and his wife (nee Jane E. Mosely), in her seventy-seventh year. Mrs. John House, the mother of the doctor, was a native of Massachusetts and came to Ohio when quite young, her father being a pioneer and a large land owner of Geauga county, who lived to be over ninety years of age. JOHN H. OAKLEY, postmaster of Ravenna, Ohio, was born in Charlestown, Portage county, Ohio, December 9, 1842. His father, Abram Oakley, was born in Detford, England, but left that country while yet a mere boy and located for a number of years in Canada, going thence to the state of New York, where he married Minerva Caroline Beach. Soon after he removed to Portage county, being amongst the early settlers of Charlestown township. In 1844 he removed to Ravenna, where he continuedto reside until some time after the death of his wife, which occurred in 1860. In 1865 he removed to Indiana, having a daughter residing at Elkhart, at whose house he died, in 1867. The family consisted of four children, as follows: Maria J. Post, deceased ; Julia A., widow of Rev. E. E. Lamb, residing at Boise, Idaho; John H. and Mary C., wife of A. M. Rowe, adjutant general of Idaho. At the breaking out of the Rebellion John H. Oakley was one of the first to respond to the call for volunteers, and enlisted April 25, 1861, for the three months' service in Company G, Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving in that organization until August of that year. On October 15, 186i, he re-enlisted for three years in Battery I, First Ohio Voluntary Light Artillery, better known as "Leather Breeches Battery," and served therein until December 10, 1864, when he was honorably discharged by reason of expiration of term of service. About two years of this service was with the Army of the Potomac, the balance with the Army of the Cumberland in Tennessee and Georgia. During his three and one-half years' service he never received a wound, although he participated in many of the bloodiest and most decisive engagements of the war, among them being the following: Dinwiddie Gap, Virginia, April 25, 1862; McDowell, Virginia, May 8, 1862 752 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Cross Keyes, Virginia, June 8, 1862 ; Slaughter Mountain, Virginia, August 9, 1862; Freeman's Ford, Virginia, August 22, 1862 ; Sulphur Springs, Virginia, August 24, 1862 ; Bull Run, Virginia, August 30, 1862 ; Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 13, 1862 ; Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 1-4, 1863 ; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1-3, 1863 ; Lookout Valley, Tennessee, October 29, 1863 ; Mission Ridge, Tennessee, November 25, 1863 ; Resaca, Georgia, May 13-16, 1864; Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, June 9-10, 1864; Vining Station, Georgia, July 2-5, 1864; Peach Tree Creek, Georgia, July 20, 1864 ; Atlanta, Georgia, July 28 to September 2, 1864. After his discharge Mr. Oakley returned to Ravenna, where he opened a photograph gallery, continuing in this business until May, 1898. At that time he was honored by receiving from President McKinley an appointment as post-' master of Ravenna. He was reappointed to this position by President Roosevelt in 1902 and again in 1906. Mr. Oakley. married, June 19, 1872, Isodene E. Horr, daughter of A,. V, and Rosella (Beecher) Horr, who was born in Shalersville, Portage county, her family being among the early settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Oakley attend the Congregational church, of which she is a member. They have two children : Harry B., of Chicago, is in the employ of the Quaker Oats Company, and Warren B., of Detroit, Michigan, representing the lace importing house of P. K. Wilson and Son, of New York. Mr. Oakley is quite an enthusiastic secret society man, and has been highly honored by his brethren by having conferred on him the following titles : Past grand of Ravenna Lodge, No. 65, I. O. O. F. ; past chief patriarch of Ravenna Encampment, No., 129, I. O. O. F. ; past senior vice-commander, David McIntosh Post, No. 327, G. A. R. ; master of finance, Cresset Lodge, No. 225, K. of P. ; past captain, Buckeye Company, No. 97, Uniform Rank, K. of P. ; past regent, Ravenna Council, No. 376, Royal Arcanum ; past president, Ravenna Council, No. 188, National Union, and at this time holds a commission as lieutenant-colonel of the Twelfth Ohio Regiment, Uniform Rank, K. of P. WILLIAM H. CRAFTS.—Graven deeply and with marked distinction on the history of Portage county are the name and works of Hon. William H. Crafts, who is now living virtually retired in the village of Mantua. He was long prominent as one of the most progressive business men in this section of the state, and his operations were of wide scope and importance, as the text of this sketch will presently indicate. He has served with distinction as a member of the Ohio legislature, has been one of the chief promoters of the. civic and material upbuilding of his home town, and through his public-spirited activities and sterling personal character he has won and retained a secure and enviable place in the confidence and esteem of the people of Portage county. Further than all this he merits consideration in this volume from the fact that he is- a scion in the third generation, paternal and maternal, of honored pioneer families of the Western Reserve, of which he is a native son and one who takes just pride in this fact. He was born on the homestead farm of his father in Auburn township, Geauga county, Ohio, on the 9th of December, 1849, and is a son of Elisha and Betsey (Waterman) Crafts. Elisha Crafts was born in Auburn township, Geauga county, April 9, 1819, and was a son .of Elliott and Cynthia (Rice) Crafts, who came to the Western Reserve when he was a lad of twelve years. His parents settled at Auburn, Geauga county, where the father became a successful farmer and where he also followed the work of his trade, that of blacksmith. Elliott Crafts was a man of sterling character and marked individuality, and he wielded no little influence in the public affairs of the pioneer community. He and his wife continued to reside in Geauga county until their death, and their names merit place on the roll of the honored pioneers of the Western Reserve. The genealogy of the Crafts family is traced back through a long line of English ancestors, and the founder of the family in America was Major Edward Crafts, who was a valiant soldier in the Continental line during the war of the Revolution, in which he was a gallant officer. Elisha Crafts was reared to manhood in Geauga county, in whose pioneer schools he gained his educational training. There he became a successful farmer, and there also he identified himself with other lines of business enterprise. He was called upon to serve in various offices of public trust, and his attitude was ever that of a loyal and public-spirited citizen. He built the first cheese factory in his section of the county, and otherwise contributed to the industrial advancement of the HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 753 community. At the time of the Civil war he was specially active in connection with the recruiting, equipping and drilling of troops for the Union service, and he did all in his power to aid in the cause through which the integrity of the nation was perpetuated. In politics he was originally a Whig, but he espoused the cause of the Republican party at the time of its organization and ever afterward gave to the "grand old party" his unswerving allegiance. In a fraternal way he was identified with the Knights of Pythias. He attained to the patriarchal age of eighty-seven years, and ever commanded the unequivocal confidence and esteem of his fellow men, as his life was marked by the most impregnable integrity and counted for good in all its relations. Mrs. Betsey (Waterman) Crafts, mother of William H., was born in Auburn township, Geauga county, Ohio, and her parents, who came to Ohio from the state of New York, were numbered among the very early settlers of the Western Reserve. She was a daughter of Curtis and Betsey (Thayer) Waterman, who continued to make their home in Geauga county until they were summoned to the life eternal. She herself was eighty-five years of age at the time of her demise, and her memory is revered by all who came within the sphere of her gentle and gracious influence. She was a zealous member of the Methodist church. The only child was William H., whose name initiates this review. In 1853 Elisha Crafts removed with his family from Geauga county to Portage county, where he and his wife passed the residue of their long and signally useful lives. At the time of this removal William H. was a child of four years, and he was reared to maturity on the old homestead farm, in Mantua township, in whose work he early began to lend his quota of assistance, the while he duly availed himself of the advantages of the district school in the neighborhood of his home. Thereafter he continued his studies for a time in Hillsdale College, at Hillsdale, Michigan, after which he was matriculated in Hiram College, one of the historic old institutions of the Western Reserve, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1869. He early manifested a distinctive predilection for practical business, as is evident when we revert to the fact that when but thirteen years of age he began buying calfskins for a firm in the eastern states. He thus employed his time during a portion of his school vacation, and he gave evidence of that acumen which later conserved his success as one of the representative business men of the fine old Western Reserve. He continued to represent the east,- ern concern in the buying of calfskins and built up a satisfactory business while still a youth. In 1876, when but twenty-seven years of age, he made a trip to Boston in company with his employer, whom he succeeded as buyer for the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. It is worthy of record that in a single year he purchased four hundred thousand calfskins in the territory assigned to his control. In 1878 he began buying beef hides for the firm of Webster & Company, of Boston, with which concern he continued to be thus identified until 1880, when he instituted the buying and shipping of hides On his own responsibility. Under these conditions he gained precedence as the most extensive buyer in the state of Ohio, and it may well be understood that his operations were of wide scope. His careful management and thorough knowledge of the business made his venture one of distinctive success, and he also built up a large and prosperous enterprise as a buyer and shipper of wool. He maintains an active supervision of his various capitalistic interests, which are large and of important order. He was one of the founders of the private banking house of Crafts, Hine & Company, of Mantua, in 1885, and he continued as senior member of this firm until 1894, when the bank was consolidated with the First National Bank, in which he is a large stockholder and of whose directorate he is a member. Liberal and public-spirited as a citizen, Mr. Crafts has long been a dominating factor in local affairs of a public nature, and he has been a leader in the ranks of the Republican party in Portage county. He was a member of the board of education of Mantua for eighteen years, and did much to further the work and make proper provision for the same in this village; where the. present fine school building was erected during his incumbency of the position noted. He bought the first lot for and assisted in the erection of the first church edifice in Mantua, that of the Methodist church, and after this building was destroyed by fire he had charge of the -building of the new edifice. He is a member of this church and active in its work and support, as is also Mrs. Crafts. 754 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Mr. Crafts served three terms as a member of the state legislature, in which he represented Portage county with marked discrimination and effectiveness. He was first elected hi 1899, and his subsequent elections were in 1901 and 1903. He has the distinction of being the first and only man to have thus represented Portage county for three terms in the legislature. During his first term he served as a member of the finance committee of the house, and during his last two terms he had the chairmanship of this important committee. He also served as a valued member of the emergency board of the state, of which he was secretary and of which the governor was chairman. As a member of the legislature he was an earnest worker and did much to promote wise legislation. A number of important, bills were presented by him and under his able championship came to enactment. He was the candidate of his party f0r the office of state treasurer in 1908, but was defeated. In 1904 he was nominee for representative of his district in congress. On December 28, 1869, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Crafts to Miss Augusta M. Merriman, whose death occurred June 26, 1903, and who is survived by five children—Ethel M., Belle M., Harry W., James G. and Lucius M. March 22, 1905, Mr. Crafts was united in marriage to Miss Katherine Oren, and they have one son, Oren W. Mr. Crafts is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and its adjunct, the Order of the Eastern Star, and also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Royal Arcanum. He has been one of the most prominent upbuilders of his home village, and has in manifold ways contributed to its material and civic progress. He has so ordered his course as to retain the confidence and good will of those with whom he has come in contact, and he stands as one of the representative citizens of the county in which he has so long maintained his home and in which he has gained definite success through his well directed efforts. THOMAS M. PARKER, JR.—Well entitled to consideration in a publication of this province is Thomas M. Parker Jr., who is one of the representative business men of the younger generation in the city of Akron, where he is president of the Summit Lumber Company & Building Company. Mr. Parker was born in Akron in 1869, and is the only son of Thomas M. and May E. (Wellington) Parker. His father, who is vice-president and general manager of the Summit Lumber Company & Building Company, was born in Kent county, Delaware, in 1837, and was there reared to manhood.. In 1867 he came to Ohio and took up his residence in Akron, where he engaged in the work of his trade, that of carpenter, and where he eventually became one of the leading contractors and builders of this section. In 1897 he organized the company of which he is now vice-president and general manager, and the enterprise, under his able and practical supervision, has grown to be one of important order. The planing mill which is operated in connection with the general lumber business is thoroughly modern in all its equipments and accessories, and here are turned out all kinds of building materials, including interior finishings of the highest type. For a number of years Thomas M. Parker, Sr., was associated in business with his brother, John Parker, and after the death of the latter, in 1907, the business was reorganized and the present corporate title was adopted. At the time of this reorganization Thomas M. Parker, Jr.; became president of the company, which is incorporated for fifteen thousand dollars; Thomas M. Parker, Sr., became vice-president and general manager; and William H. Mantz, secretary. The concern carries at all times a large and select stock of hard and soft wood lumber and general building supplies, and the extensive yards of the company are located on the canal, so that the best of shipping facilities are available. The marriage of Thomas M. Parker, Sr., to Miss May E. Wellington was solemnized in 1863. She was born in the state of Maryland, a daughter of James B. Wellington, and her death occurred in 1892. Mr. Parker, Sr., has been identified with active business affairs in Akron for more than forty years, and here has ever retained a strong hold upon popular confidence and esteem. He still gives his active supervision to the concern of which he is vice-president, and his long and practical experience make him a most valuable factor in its large and varied operations. Thomas M. Parker, Jr., gained his early educational training. in the public schools of Akron, and he then became associated with his father in his operations as a contractor and builder. Of his connection with the present company sufficient mention has been made in foregoing paragraphs. He is a young man   HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 755 of progressive ideas and excellent executive ability, and he gives his undivided attention to the business of the company of which he is president. He is an appreciative member of Akron Lodge, No. 363, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In 1897 Thomas M. Parker, Jr., was united in marriage to Miss Lydia Clark, daughter of Isaac Clark, a prominent business man of Portsmouth, Ohio, and they enjoy marked popularity in connection with the social activities of their home city. They have no children. ROBERT MCCURDY.—In the death of Robert McCurdy, at his home in Youngstown, March 25, 1904, that community lost one of its ablest citizens and most successful financiers. He was a fine type of that class of men who may almost be considered characteristic products of the last century—men who spent the early years of their career in Youngstown and, by the force of their industry and integrity, pushed themselves into such leadership that the largest resources of business; were entrusted to them. As president of the First National Bank of Youngstown for more than a quarter of a century, Mr. McCurdy directed one of the most important institutions of northern Ohio, and was able to influence and promote the welfare of his city and county in many and varied activities. Born at Castle Finn, County Donegal, Ireland, June 24, 1842; and brought to the United States when eleven months of age, the boy was reared on a farm in Mahoning county. While his tender years were accompanied by some advantages in the Youngstown public schools, he was obliged to become self-supporting at a very early age, thereby forming those habits of industry and economy which were characteristic of the. boyhood of those who became successful business men in the nineteenth century. In August, 1861, he became an employe of the old Mahoning County Bank. He eagerly and intelligently performed many duties which would be contemptuously stamped by the modern youth as "beneath him." But his faithfulness and solid business traits did not escape the notice of many citizens of Youngstown who were in a position to push his fortunes, and when the First National Bank was organized, on June 2, 1863, he received a regular clerkship in that institution. On June 20, 1865, he was promoted to be cashier, and thus, for a number of years, was an active and important factor in the management of the bank. As the result of a re-organization, effected in 1877, he was elected president, and from that year until his death guided and strengthened its affairs. The most solid resources and policies of the bank were largely formed under his administration, and continue today as the firm basis of one of Ohio's oldest national banks. Aside from the institution to which he gave the best years and efforts of his career, Mr. McCurdy was interested in various industries and business matters which have made Youngstown an important commercial and manufacturing center. Almost the only interruption to his banking career from its commencement in August, 1861, to the time of his' death in 1904, was caused by his short military experience of the Civil war. As a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Ohio Infantry, he enlisted for service in the Union army, but after campaigning in Virginia for three months he was stricken with typhoid fever and discharged for disability. From early manhood Mr. McCurdy was a member of the First Presbyterian church of Youngstown, and served it well in such capacities as Sunday school, teacher, clerk of the session and elder, holding the latter office for twenty-six years before his death. In the efforts by which a community raises itself in moral and intellectual life, his memory will always be most signally identified with the Young Men's Association, the Reuben McMillan Public Library Association and, the Rayen School. In 1869 he became a member of the first committee that met to organize a branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, and throughout the remainder of his life he maintained an enthusiastic interest in its advancement, serving as its president for five consecutive years. At the time of his decease he was one of the trustees of the Reuben McMillan Public Library Association, and it was chiefly through his efforts that Youngstown acquired its fine library. From 1877 until his death he was also one of the trustees of the Rayen School, and to him is largely due the high educational standard for which this institution is noted throughout eastern Ohio. Of his contributions in time and means to the, cause of charity and other worthy objects, no record can be given, for, although the community recognized him as a generous man it also honored him as an unostentatious one. In politics he was an active Republican, working both as a campaigner and a delegate to party 756 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE conventions. As to his general personality, it was strong both in mentality and manly virtues, caused men to respect and admire him, and brought them around him as a leader. A few facts about the family life of Robert McCurdy will complete this sketch of good intentions but imperfect execution. His father was Dr. Robert McCurdy, who came to America in 1843 and settled on a farm near Crab creek, Mahoning county. There he practiced his profession and cultivated his land, in order to provide his wife and eight children with the necessities and many of the comforts of life. The two of these children who still survive are Dr. John and Samuel H. McCurdy. On the 19th of September, 1878, Robert McCurdy married Miss Isabella Porter, a daughter of the late William Porter. The three children of, this union are as foll0ws : Florence, now Mrs. Charles Hart, of Chester, Pennsylvania ; Robert H., secretary of the Delaware River Steel Company, at Chester, Pennsylvania ; and Isabel, who is the wife of J. L. Gran-din, of Boston, Massachusetts. Mrs. Isabella McCurdy, the widow, occupies the family residence at 726 Wick avenue, Youngstown, and is a lady of cultured and charitable character, who has always been in heartfelt sympathy with moral and religious movements and, like her deceased husband, a practical worker for the real betterment of the community by which she is so deeply respected. ALVIN SCHRAMLING.-A retired farmer, pleasantly passing the sunset years of his life in the village of Jefferson, is a fine representative of the, agricultural community of Ashtabula county, and holds a noteworthy position among its most respected citizens. He was born May 9, 1828, in Rutledge, Cattaraugus county, New York, a son of David D. and Catherine (Schramling) Schramling, who were second cousins. His parents removed from New York, their native state, to Warren county, Pennsylvania, in 1835, and thereafter resided in that state. Their ancestors were among the earlier settlers of the Mohawk Valley, and at a later date were pioneers of Otsego county. During the French and Indian war a family named Schnouts, living on the Mohawk river, were all massacred with the exception of one young lad, who was taken to Canada by his captors. Returning to his old home after an absence of two years, he found many articles that had been buried, among them being a wooden bowl, which is now in the possession of Mr. Alvin Schramling. This boy settled in Otsego county, New York, and was the father of Ann Schnouts, who married Daniel Schramling, a brother of David D. Schramling, and uncle of Alvin. Going with the family to Pennsylvania in 1835, Alvin Schramling remained there until 1853, when he came to Ohio to live. He was a carpenter, joiner and millwright and operator, being skilled in all of these trades. Settling on land in Pierpont township, he began the improvement of a farm, and at the same time, taking advantage of the water power on his property, lie built a small factory and began the manufacture of revolving hay rakes, to be drawn by horse power. In this line of industry he built up quite a business, making about five hundred rakes a year, and in addition to selling these at wholesale put agents on the road. Leaving the farm in 1861, Mr. Schramling built a saw mill in Pierpont Center, and at the beginning of the great oil excitement in Mecca, Trumbull county, went there as a prospector, and sank a well, but was not successful in his venture. He then went back to his farm, bought additional land, and resumed his agricultural labors. He was quite prominent in .military circles, serving for some time as captain of the Pierpont Battalion of Militia. In 1864 he enlisted in company K, One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was elected second lieutenant of his company, which he had helped organize. As lieutenant he was often on detached service, having charge of a squad of men, once being sent to guard cattle in Chattanooga ; once being detailed to cut the railroad ; and once being sent to guard the first boat sent up the Cape Fear river with supplies for the refugees. Subsequently Mr. Schramling was with his regiment in Greensboro, North Carolina, until receiving his discharge from the service, the 26th of June, 1865. Returning to Pierpont township, Mr. Schramling continued his agricultural labors, from time to time buying more land, until he had a valuable farm of three hundred acres, one of the finest in point of improvements and equipments of any in the neighborhood. In 1897, having, by means of skilful and judicious labor, wise foresight and good investments, acquired a handsome competency, Mr. Schramling moved to Jefferson, where he is living retired from active business. Mr. Schramling married, in Warren county, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 757 Pennsylvania, January 1, 1850, Delilah Robbins, a native of that county, and to them three children were born, namely : Cassius Lee, who died in 1878; May, who married Alvah Kinney, died in 1878, and Catherine, wife of Edgar Williams. Mrs. Williams, who lives with her father, has three children, namely : Alvin William, Edgar L., and Edna. The sons live on the home farm, managing it with characteristic success, and Edna, a graduate of the Pierpont High School, teaches in the Pierpont Central High School. Mrs. Delilah Schramling died in 1878, about the same time that her son and daughter passed away. Mr. Schramling married second Mrs. M. C. (Latimer) Moore. She was born in Canada, and died, April 8, 1907, at their cottage in St. Petersburg, Florida, where they had spent a number of winters. Mr. Schramling served as township trustee several years, rendering appreciated service. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, in which he takes great interest. ELIJAH ALLEN WARD merits consideration in this publication by reason of the fact that he was one of the sterling and honored pioneers of the Western Reserve and one who did much to conserve the industrial and civic progress and development of Lake county. He was a resident of the village of Willoughby, this county, at the time of his death. He was summoned to the life eternal at the age of seventy-eight years, and his devoted wife, who survived him by about two years, was likewise seventy-eight years old when she passed forward to that "undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." Elijah Allen Ward was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and in the old Bay state he was reared to maturity, receiving a common-school education. At the age of twenty-one years, about the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, he came to the wilds of the Western Reserve, in company with the Comings and Vialls, who were numbered among the first settlers of Mentor, Lake county. Mr. Ward purchased a tract of heavily timbered land in Willoughby township and there instituted the reclamation of a farm. His old homestead was widely known in the early days as the "Stage House," being a stopping place on one of the pioneer stage routes, but not a tavern or inn. This house was located in the little hamlet of Willoughby, which vile had been founded a few years before his arrival in the county. After establishing his home in Ohio Mr. Ward sent for his venerable parents, and thereafter he provided for them as well as his sisters. His affection for his mother was one of the most dominant traits in his character, and he was determined to provide for this loved and venerated woman the best possible home and comforts. His father was a man of no little austerity and of deep religious zeal, and it may well be understood that while he had the respect and high regard of his children he did not hold their heart-love, as did the gentle and devoted mother. At the age of forty years Elijah A. Ward was united in marriage to Miss Lucy Ann Carroll, daughter of John Carroll, the maiden name of whose wife was Wirt. John Carroll was a pioneer farmer of Concord township, Lake county, and his wife's father, Jacob Wirt, was practically the first settler of the present village of Willoughby, where he erected a mill. He secured a thousand acres of land in Lake county, having been a man of means at the time of taking up his residence in Ohio and having been the owner of a number of slaves, whom he brought with him to the new home. After his marriage Elijah A. Ward located on the farm now owned and occupied by his son Joseph A., one-half mile east of the village of Willoughby. The house originally occupied was finally removed from its first location, in order to permit the construction of the line of Nickel Plate Railroad through the farm, and the house is now owned by Mrs. Ellen Hill, daughter of the subject of this memoir. Mr. Ward here 0wned about 400 acres of land and he developed a valuable farm from the forest. The farm was eventually much cut up by the lines of .the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the Nickel Plate railroads and he sold a considerable portion of his landed estate a number of years prior to his death. He was a man of energy, keen mentality and sterling integrity of purpose. He was liberal and public-spirited as a citizen and did much to aid in the upbuilding of the village of Willoughby. He became one of the founders and trustees of Willoughby Institute, to which he contributed $1,000, and later lie gave an equally liberal support and encouragement to Lake Erie College, which was finally removed from Willoughby to Painesville, the county-seat. The Willoughby Institute was conducted successfully until the 758 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE time of the Civil war, when the greater number of its students withdrew to go forth in defense of the Union. The building erected in Willoughby for Lake Erie College is now utilized as the public high school of the village. Mr. Ward continued to reside on his fine old homestead farm until within a few years prior to his demise. He passed the closing years of his life in the village of Willoughby, where he occupied the substantial old brick residence erected by Dr. Allen, who was one of the early members of the faculty of the Western Reserve Medical College, then located in Willoughby. This residence continued to be the abode of Elijah A. Ward until his death, and here also his wife died. Both were devout members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and their lives were replete with kindly deeds and gracious consideration for their fellow men. No resident of the community commanded more implicit confidence and esteem, and now that he "rests from his labors" it is fitting that in this publication be given recognition of his worthy life and worthy deeds. Of, his children the following brief record is given : Victoria died when a young woman, as did also Melinda ; Ellen is the wife of Charles Hill, of Willoughby, and they have one son, Raymond, who was graduated in the University of Ohio as a member of the class of 1909 and who is an architect by profession ; Anna is the wife of Nathan C. Smith, station agent for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad at Willoughby ; Joseph A., who remains on the old homestead farm, is individually mentioned on other pages of this work ; and John C., who is county engineer of Lake county, maintains his home in Painesville. Rev. Elijah Ward, father of Elijah A. Ward, was one of the pioneer clergymen of the Methodist Episcopal church in the Western Reserve and was widely known as "Old Father Ward." From a history of the Lake Erie Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church it is learned that Father Ward was admitted to the New England Conference in 1801, and that he became a deacon in 1803. He was finally ordained an elder by Bishop Asbury, one of the honored figures in the history of Methodism in America. This ordination took place in 1827. This sterling pioneer preacher came to the Western Reserve in 1822, and his home was established in Lake county, as has been indicated in preceding paragraphs. He gained wide repute as a preacher of the old-school type and was a valued worker in the early camp-meetings held for revival purposes. It is related of him that at a meeting of this character held in 1824 he preached with such fervor and force, using as his subject the "Holy City," that at the close of his appeal it seemed that practically the whole assembly ground was covered with prostrate mourners or penitents. He continued to live near Willoughby until the time of his death, which occurred in 1858. He was born in Massachusetts, as was also his wife, who likewise died on the old homestead in Lake county. Rev. Elijah Ward preached with all of zeal and courage among the Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, at the time when they had established themselves in the Western Reserve, and it was in large measure due to his denunciation and repeated attacks that they were finally compelled to leave this section, a number of years prior to the hegira to Utah. Mr. Ward was not a man of academic education or literary talent, but he had an alert and logical mind, was well informed and was a close and appreciative student of the scriptures. His style of preaching was severe and somewhat wrought and austere, as he was trained in a stern religious atmosphere, but none could doubt his sincerity nor his desire to win to his fellows the' boon of eternal salvation. He was original in expression and thought, powerful in invective and well versed in the use of sarcasm. He continued to be a strong speaker even in his old age, and he continued to preach until the infirmities of age rendered this impossible. Though stern and perhaps intolerant, he was at heart sympathetic and kindly, and when this side of his nature was revealed he drew others to him by closer ties than he did when exercising his ecclesiastical functions. Concerning the children of Rev. Elijah Ward the following data are entered as appropriate to the record here perpetuated concerning this honored pioneer family. Due information concerning the eldest son, Elijah Allen Ward, has already been given. Elliott Ward came to Lake c0unty after the other members of the family had here located, and he continued to reside on his farm near Willoughby until his death, when an octogenarian. His sons Jonathan and Elijah became representative farmers of Lake county and the former still resides in Willoughby township. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 759 Elijah died in 1908, when over eighty years. Hiram, youngest son of Elliott Ward, enlisted in the Union service at the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion and died in Libby prison. Gridley Ward, the next son of Rev. Elijah Ward, finally removed to the west, where he passed the remainder of his life. Wealthy, the eldest daughter, became the wife of Hiram Brown, and both died in Lake county. Their son, Watson Hiram Brown, now resides in Willoughby. Hannah became the wife of Cyrus Ingersoll and lived in Willoughby until her death, when past the age of eighty years. She was well known in this section of the county, where she was long engaged in the millinery business. She was a woman whose weight of body as well as of mind made her especially impressive in personality. Sally Ward became the wife of Arial Hanson and both were residents of Willoughby at the time of their death. Arial Hanson, son of William and Persis Hanson, was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1800, and when twenty-one years of age he came to Ohio and located in Kirtland, Lake county, where he was for many years a prominent and influential citizen. He was justice of the peace and also postmaster in that place at the time when the Mormons there organized their church and built their first temple, which is still standing and which is one of the historic landmarks of this part of the Western Reserve. Arial Hanson finally removed to Willoughby, to whose upbuilding he contributed in liberal measure, and there he was held in high honor as a man of ability and spotless integrity of character. In the village of Willoughby he purchased land upon which to establish the Willoughby Collegiate Institute, and this land he donated to the Eric conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, under whose auspices the institution was founded and maintained. Mr. Hanson was president of the board of trustees of this institute from its inception until the time of his death, in 1862. JOSEPH A. WARD.—A native son of Lake county and a representative of the third generation of the family in this favored section of the Western Reserve, Mr. Ward is numbered among the successful agriculturists and dairy farmers of the county and has well maintained the prestige of the name which he bears and which has been identified with the annals of Lake county from the early pioneer epoch to the present time. On other pages of Vol. II-4 this work appears a memoir to his father, the late Elijah Allen Ward, with incidental record concerning his grandfather, Rev. Elijah Ward, and to the article in question reference should be made for details concerning the family history. Joseph Allen Ward was born in the homestead, one-half mile east of the village of Willoughby, and the date of his nativity was January 20, 1849. The house was built by his father in the early fifties,. and in late years he has extensively remodeled the building, which has its facade facing a new road constructed after the Nickel Plate road was built. The electric interurban line passes the house and affords to the family the best of transportation privileges. Thus the house now faces the south, while its original front elevation was to the north. The residence has been thoroughly modernized, is commodious and conveniently arranged, attractive in its appointments and constitutes one of the fine rural homes of the county. Mr. Ward was reared to manhood on the home farm, which has been his place of abode from the time of his birth.. After duly availing himself of the advantages of the common schools of the locality and period he entered Willoughby College, in which institution he continued his studies until he had entered the junior year. He was twenty years of age at the time of the death of his honored father, and he then left college to assume charge of the home farm. Of his father's original landed estate of about 400 acres, extending from the Chagrin river to the line of Mentor township, he retains in his possession a well improved farm of 118 acres, and he now devotes the place principally to dairy farming, keeping an average herd of twenty registered Holstein cows, and having been a successful breeder of this splendid type of cattle. He has shown much energy and thrift in the various details of his farm management and has long been recognized as one of the representative farmers and stock growers of his native county. As a citizen he has taken a loyal interest in all that has tended to conserve the welfare of the community, and to him is accorded the unqualified confidence and regard of the people among whom he has lived from the time of his nativity and who have been familiar with every phase of his career. Though never ambitious for public office, Mr. Ward is found aligned as a stanch supporter of the cause of the Republican party, and he and his family hold mem- 760 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE bership in the Methodist Episcopal church, in whose faith he was reared and in which his paternal grandfather was one of the sterling pioneer ministers of the Western Reserve. On the 8th of January, 1873, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Ward td Miss Mary Cornelia Ferguson, who was born and reared in Willoughby. township, Lake county, where her parents, Gabriel Leggett Ferguson (commonly known as Leggett Ferguson) and Orinda C. (Sharp) Ferguson, were early settlers. Her father was born at Little Britain, Orange county, New York, on the 18th of June, 1804, and died at Willoughby, Ohio, February 19, 1881. On the 16th of December, 1847, he was united in marriage to Orinda C. Sharp, of Willoughby, who was born at Newport, Herkimer county, New York, August 21, 1815, and whose death occurred on the 3d of Janu ary, 1878. Gabriel Leggett Ferguson was a son of John Ferguson, who was born at West Farms, Westchester county, New York, a grandson of Hezekiah Ferguson, a native of Scotland and an officer in the English army, in connection with which he came to America to take part in the French and Indian war in the early part of the eighteenth century. This founder of the family in America finally sold his military commission and settled at Hackensack, New Jersey, where was born his son Hezekiah, father of John. John Ferguson was born on the 4th of April, 1758, and was a valiant soldier in the war of the Rebellion, for which service he later received a government pension, as did also his wife after his death, which occured in 1841, on the same day as that of President William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe. The wife, whose }maiden name was Mary Campbell, was born in Scotland, in September, 1769, a representative of the historic clan of that name, and she died in 1854. Leggett Ferguson continued to reside on the old homestead farm at Willoughby Center until his death, and he was one of the honored citizens of that section. He was one of the founders of the first Methodist Episcopal church established in Willoughby township, and the first church edifice, a most modest little structure, was located in one corner of the yard surrounding his house. Of the nineteen members of the first class in this church organization nine were members of his immediate family. Of his six children four are now living. In conclusion is entered brief record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Ward. Philip E. was graduated in the University of Ohio as a member of the class of 1899, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. For six years he was principal of the high school at Kirtland, Lake county, and at the same time was superintendent of the public schools of Kirtland township. Later he was for three years superintendent of the public schools of Mentor, in the same county, and -he and his wife now reside in Wenatchee, Washington. He married Miss Grace Coles, of Chardon, Geauga county, and they have one child, Martha C. Anna C. Ward, who was educated in Oberlin College' and was a young woman of gracious personality, died on the 8th of May, 1905, at the age of twenty-nine years. Ethel G. was graduated in the Women's College of Western Reserve University, in the city of Cleveland, as a member of the class of 1905, and she is now a successful and popular teacher in the high school at Nottingham, Cuyahoga county, Ohio. Lucy F., the youngest of .the children, was, afforded the advantages of. the Ohio Wesleyan University, in the city of Delaware, and is now taking a course in the New York School of Applied Design for Women. IRA L. HERRIFF.-A prominent and progressive citizen of Kent, Portage county, Ira L. Herriff is a substantial representative of its mercantile interests, and in addition to carrying on a prosperous business as a general merchant, and as an undertaker. A son of Samuel Herriff, he was born, November 19, 1846, in Rootstown, of pioneer descent. His grandparents, John and Susan (Coosard) Herriff, were born in Pennsylvania, of German ancestry, and were there brought up and married. Migrating to Ohio in 1818, they took up land in Rootstown, and in the midst of the dense forest built the small log cabin which was their first dwelling house. The country round about was then but thinly populated, and he and his neighbors labored hard to clear and improve the homestead, on which he and his wife spent their remaining days. Samuel Herriff was born on the parental homestead in Rootstown, and was brought up among pioneer scenes, as a boy and youth becoming familiar with pioneer work. When ready to establish' himself as the head of a household he bought land in his native town, and was there employed as a tiller of the soil during his active career, his death occurring March 6, 1888. His wife, whose maiden name was Lydia Hartlerode, was born in Lancaster HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 761 county, Pennsylvania, and died on the home farm, in Rootstown, Ohio, January 19, 1906. Six children were born to them, namely : Ira L., of this brief sketch ; Ezra, who was accidentally killed, December 8, 1906; Celia, who married A. D. Atchison, was killed by lightning June 23, 1882 ; Everett, killed by an accident December 8, 1906; John, died December 12; 1872 ; and Emma, who died May 1, 1863, age four years. Ira L. Herriff, the sole survivor of the parental household, was educated in the public schools of Rootstown, attending the winter terms only after fourteen years old, his summers after that time being spent either on the farm or in the neighboring brick yards, where he learned the making of bricks. Enlisting in February, 1865, in the One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Mr. Herriff spent the next few months in Tennessee, being sent first to Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, and afterwards to Nashville. In September, 1865, he was honorably discharged from the service, being mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee, and from there sent to Columbus, where he received his discharge. Returning home, he subsequently worked for a while as a brakeman on a railway train, after which he spent six years in Kent as a manufacturer of brick. Retiring from that industry, Mr. Herriff, in company with L. C. Reed, embarked in the furniture and undertaking business, continuing until 1886. Buying his partner's interest in the firm that year (1886), Mr. Herriff has since conducted the business alone, in its management meeting with characteristic success. His establishment, one of the finest in Kent, is well supplied with furniture of the most approved modern styles, and in addition to this he has put in a good line of crockery. A man of tried and trusted integrity, he has won the confidence of his fellow men, and by applied industry and fair dealings has built a flourishing trade, being the leading general merchant and undertaker of this part of the county. A stanch advocate of the principles of the Democratic party, Mr. Herriff has served two terms on the Kent school board ; one term in the city council ; and served one term as street commissioner, after which he was re-elected to the same office, but resigned before the expiration of his second term. Fraternally Mr. Herriff is a member of the Summit Lodge, I. O. O. F. ; of the Encampment and Canton of Akron, Ohio ; of the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons ; and of the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Herriff married, December I, 1869, Belle E. Caris, a daughter of Samuel and Rachel (Ward) Caris. She is of pioneer descent, her paternal grandparents, John Caris and Betsey (Hartle) Caris, having settled in Rootstown in 1802, and the maternal grandparents, William Ward and Betsey (Eatinger) Ward, settled in Ravenna, Ohio, in 1802. Mr. and Mrs. Herriff have two children, namely : Amy I., superintendent of schools in Streetsboro, Ohio ; and Dene, who is teaching in Streetsboro township. Mr. Herriff is of Revolutionary ancestory, his great-grandfather, Valentine Coosard, serving in the war for independence. Mr. Coosard was of Huguenot ancestry and was born in Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1745. GENERAL JAMES LAWRENCE BOTSFORD, who died at his home in the city of Youngstown, Mahoning county, on the 6th of October, 1898, illustrated in a very marked degree the power of concentrating the resources of the entire man and lifting them into the plane of high achievement ; of supplementing brilliant natural endowments with close application, distinct tenacity of purpose and impregnable integrity. Along the lines in which he directed his splendid energies and abilities—as a business man, as a citizen and as a gallant and distinguished soldier of the republic—he made of success not an accident but a logical result. Not yet have sufficient years elapsed since he was called from the scene of his fruitful labors to enable us to gain a clear definition of the perspective of his life and thereby to determine the full benefits of his services to the world. He was much to his native state of Ohio and this commonwealth was much to him. No work touching the history of the Western Reserve can be consistent with itself without rendering a large measure of recognition to the distinguished and honored citizen whose name initiates this memoir. James Lawrence Botsford was born in the village of Poland, Mahoning county, Ohio, on the 16th of April, 1834, and was the third in order of nativity of the six children born to Archibald G. and Eliza (Lynn) Botsford, both of whom continued to reside in this county until their death. Of the six children the only one now living is Mary Julia, who is the widow of Henry 0. Bonnell, and who resides in 762 HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE. Youngstown. Archibald Grant Botsford was one of the prominent pioneer business men of this county and for a term of many years was engaged in the manufacture of combs at Poland. He was a citizen of exalted character and wielded much influence in local affairs of a public nature. The subject of this memoir passed his boyhood and youth in his native village, to whose common schools he was indebted for the early educational training which was later to be splendidly broadened and embellished through his active association with men and affairs and through his appreciative and well directed reading and study in maturer years. His initial business experience was gained in connection with the manufacturing enterprise conducted by his honored father, and at the age of twenty-four years, in 1858, he made his way across the plains to the state of California, thus becoming a member of the historic band of gold-seekers commonly referred to as "Forty-niners." He continued to be identified with gold mining in California until 1861, and met with a fair measure of success in his operations. Upon his return to his native county he arrived in his home village of Poland just as a company was being organized for service in the Civil war. His intrinsic loyalty and patriotism forthwith came into definite evidence, for he became a member of this gallant company, and in May, 1861, he was mustered into the United States service as second lieutenant of Company E, Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which regiment is distinguished in history not only for its marked gallantry and hard service but also as haying been. the first to enter the service from Ohio under the three years' term of enlistment. Concerning the military career of General Botsford the following appreciative estimate has been given and, is well worthy of perpetuation in this history of the Western Reserve "Inured to hardships, as a consequence of his western mining experience, General Botsford was able to endure the vicissitudes of army life somewhat better than many of his comrades. Throughout the entire period of the war he was ever found at his post, and as a reward for able and valiant service he was advanced rapidly through the various grades of promotion.. His first service was in. West Virginia, where he was made aide-de-camp to General Scammon, who was in command of the First Brigade of the Kanawha Division, and in all the battles, victories and defeats of the Army of the Potomac during its subsequent years in West Virginia, General Botsford participated. He was next assigned to service under Major General Crook, and took part in the battles of Cloyd Mountain, New River Bridge, Blakesburg, Panther's Gap, Buffalo Gap and Lynchburg, as well as in the series of engagements in the Shenandoah valley, among which were the battles of Sinker's Ferry, Cabletown, Stevenson's Depot, Winchester and Martinsburg. He reached Cumberland in November, 1864, and here he was detailed as assistant inspector general of the department of West Virginia.. This long and faithful service did not pass unrecognized. His commission, for meritorious and distinguished conduct, as brevet major general dated from March 13, 1865." It may further be said that during the remaining years of his long and useful life General Botsford maintained a deep interest in his old comrades in the great conflict throughout whose entire course he served with utmost fidelity and valor, and this interest was signalized by his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic in _his home city of Youngstown. After the close of the war General Botsford set himself valiantly to the winning of the victories which peace ever has in store, "no less renowned than war." He established his home in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, where he was engaged in a general produce commission business until 1872, when he returned to his native county and located in Youngstown, where he became a prominent and influential factor in connection with the great iron industry, which has long been one of the most important in this section 0f Ohio. In 1879 he became treasurer of the Mahoning Valley Iron Company, with which important corporation he continued to serve in this responsible' executive capacity until the close of his life. He also had 0ther large and important capitalistic interests, principally of local order, and he held prestige as one of the able and thoroughly representative business men of the Western Reserve, and he was known and honored as a citizen of great civic loyalty and public spirit and as a man who towered "four square to every wind that blows." He well exemplified in his social relations and in the associations of his ideal home the truth and pertinence of the statement that "The bravest are the tenderest ; the loving are the daring." He was kindly and courteous in his relations with his fellow men and ,was a type of the sterling gen- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN. RESERVE - 763 tleman of the old school—courtly, dignified and affable. No citizen of Mahoning county held to a great and more significant degree the confidence and esteem of its people. In politics General Botsford was unswerving in his allegiance to the Republican party, and it was a matter of special pleasure and gratification to him that he was permitted to support for the presidency of the United States Rutherford B. Hayes and Major William McKinley, who had been members of his regiment in the Civil war and who ever continued his warm personal friends. On the 14th of January, 1892, Major McKinley, who was then governor of the state, appointed General Botsford quartermaster general of the Ohio National Guard, of which office he continued the valued and popular incumbent throughout the gubernatorial term of his old-time friend and comrade. Though he took a lively interest in the promotion of the party cause in a generic way, General Botsford was not specially active in local politics, and the only office in which he consented to serve was that of member of the city council, of which position he was incumbent for only a brief interval. Long and devoted was the identification of General Botsford with the Protestant Episcopal church, of which he was an earnest communicant, being most zealous in the affairs of the parish of St. John church, in Youngstown, of whose vestry he was long a member and of which he was treasurer for twenty-one years prior to his death. He may well be referred to as a consistent and noble churchman—one ever ready to lend his influence and tangible aid in the promotion of all departments of church work, and in its benevolences as well as in charitable objects aside from the church he was ever mindful of "all those who are any ways afflicted or distressed in mind, body or estate." He was generous and kindly in his attitude to all men, tolerant in his judgment and full of generous sympathy for those in affliction. On the 27th of January, 1864, while at home on furlough, General Botsford was united in marriage to Miss Ellen E. Blaine, who was born and reared in Kentucky, being a daughter of Samuel L. and Anna (Coons) Blaine, of Maysville. that state, and being a first cousin of the Hon. James G. Blaine. Mrs. Botsford's father was an influential citizen and business man, and both he and his wife continued their residence in Kentucky until their death. Mrs. Botsford has long been prominent in the social life of her home city and is well known through her prominent association with the Daughters of the American Revolution, of whose Ohio chapter she served as state regent from 1906 to 1908. She is a woman of gracious personality and the beautiful family home, 664 Wick avenue, in the city of Youngstown, is recognized as a center of refined and generous hospitality. Like her husband she has long been a devoted communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church, and she is still active in the work of the local parish. General and Mrs. Botsford became the parents of two children—Ella Kirtland, who is the wife of Frederick H. Wick, a member of one of the old and honored families of Youngstown and incumbent of the offices of treasurer of the Ohio Iron & Steel Company and secretary and treasurer of the Paul Wick Real Estate Company, of Youngstown ; and James L., who bears the full patronymic of his honored father and who is now a resident of Youngstown, Ohio. FRANK E. MANTLE.-A man of undoubted literary talent and ability, Rev. Frank E. Mantle was for many years a successful preacher of the gospel, serving as pastor of various churches, and in each settlement, by his earnest enthusiasm and quiet persuasion, improving the material as well as the spiritual condition of those who looked to him for help, comfort and advice. Being forced by reason of ill health to give up his religious work, Mr. Mantle turned his attention to mercantile pursuits, and for the past four years has conducted a general store in Hiram, Portage county. A son of John Mantle, he was born, September 2, 1868, in Suffield township, Portage county. His grandfather, .William Mantle, vas a pioneer settler of the Western Reserve, coming from Pennsylvania to Ohio, locating first in Stark county, but later removing to Portage county, where he spent his remaining days. But five years old when he came with his parents to Ohio, John Mantle was reared and educated in the Western Reserve. Soon after beginning the battle of life on his own account, he bought land in Mogadore, Summit county, where in addition to tilling the soil he owned and operated a kiln for many years, living in that vicinity until his death, in the sixty-second year of his age. He married Adaline Falor, a native of Akron, Ohio, where her birth occurred sixty-seven year ago. Four sons and two daughters were born of their union, Frank 764 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE E., of this brief biographical sketch, being the fourth child. Receiving his elementary education in the public schools of Summit county, Frank E. Mantle was graduated from the Mogadore high school with the class of 1886, after which he attended Hiram College for two years. From the age of thirteen years he was, to all intents and purposes, self-supporting, paying his way through college by teaching in the district schools of his native county. Entering the ministry, Mr. Mantle's first charge was at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, from there going to Glouster, Athens county, where he remained some time. He subsequently had charge of the Christian church in Richmond, Indiana, for a year, but, his health failing, he sought rest and recreation in the country. Recovering to some extent his former physical vigor, Mr. Mantle accepted the pastorate of the Christian church in Hartford, Trumbull county, Ohio, where he filled the pulpit most satisfactorily for four years. Again feeling the need of a life in the open, he took up farming,, and continued his agricultural labors for six years. Locating in Hiram in 1905, he has since built up a fine trade as a general merchant, and has identified himself with the leading interests of the place. Mr. Mantle married, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Edith A. Sill, who was born at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and they have one son, Harold Sill, born in 1898. FRANCIS M. COOKE.—One of the important enterprises of its kind in the Western Reserve is that conducted by the Bruner-Goodhue-Cooke Company, of Akron, of which the subject of this sketch is secretary, as is he also of the Akron Savings & Loan Company, another concern whose operations are of wide scope and importance. The company first mentioned is engaged in the real estate, loan and insurance business, and its operations are based on a capital of $50,000. Mr. Cooke is essentially one of the representative business men of the younger generation in Akron and is an effective exponent of that. progressive spirit and well directed energy which have caused Akron to forge so rapidly to the front as an industrial and commercial center. Mr. Cooke finds satisfaction in reverting to the old Buckeye state as the place of his nativity and the scene of his endeavors in the field of productive business activity. He was born at Middlepoint, Van Wert county, Ohio, on the 29th of August, 1869, and is a son of D. F. and Catherine (Cochran) Cooke, both natives of Ohio. The father devoted the major portion of his active career to mercantile business and died in April, 1883, and the mother died in 1884. The subject of this re-. view secured his rudimentary education in the public schools of his native village and when he was fourteen years of age he removed to Bluffton, Allen county, Ohi0, where he continued his studies in the public schools until he had completed the curriculum of the high school, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1886. In the fall of 1886 he was matriculated in Buchtel College, in Akron, in which well ordered institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1891, duly receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Immediately after leaving college Mr. Cooke accepted a position with the Crescent Fire Insurance Company, of Cleveland, where he remained one year. In June, 1892, he became identified with the operations of the real estate and insurance firm of Wilcox & Noah, of Akron, and when the enterprise was amplified by the organization of a stock company, in 1897, he became one of the interested principals in the corporation, of which he was made secretary. In 1899 a reorganization took place, under the title of the Bruner-Goodhue-Cooke Company, and he has since continued in the responsible office of secretary. To his discrimination and able administrative policy has been in large degree due the wonderful expansion of the business of the company, and he is known as an aggressive young business man of distinctive initiative power and of sterling integrity of purpose. Since January, 1904, he has also held the office of secretary of the Akron Savings & Loan Company, of which he had previously been assistant secretary. He is a stockholder in several other substantial business concerns of Akron and as a citizen is essentially loyal and public-spirited. He is president of the Sectigraph Abstract & Title Company, the Akron Board of Underwriters and a former president of the Ohio Association of Fire Insurance Agents. He is a member of the board of trustees of his Alma Mater, Buchtel College, and also a member of the executive committee of that body. In politics Mr. Cooke is aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Republican party. He has attained to the thirty-second degree in Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 765 Masonry, in which he is identified with the consistory in Cleveland ; also with Akron Com- mandery, No. 25, K. T., Washington Chapter, No. 25, and Adoniram Lodge, No. 517, F. & A. M., of which he served as worshipful master in 1903. He is a past president of the Akron Masonic Club and a member of the Portage Country Club. In 1897 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Cooke to Miss Mabel K. Page, daughter of Flora K. Page, and they are prominent in the social life of their home city. WALTER M. KELLOGG.—Occupying a position of prominence among the alert, progressive and respected men who are so ably conducting the mercantile interests of Ashtabula county is Walter M. Kellogg, an extensive and prosperous hardware dealer of Jefferson. He comes from a family well known throughout New England, where his ancestors lived for many generations, being active in town, county and state affairs. His father, Abner Kellogg, was born in Alford, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, January 8, 1812, being the fourth child in a family consisting of five sons and four daughters. Coming as a child with his parents to Ashtabula county, Ohio, Abner Kellogg received his elementary education in the district schools, where he had for a teacher B. F. Wade, and completing his studies in the Jefferson Academy. A man of industry and activity, ever ready to take advantage of every offered opportunity for increasing his financial condition, Abner Kellogg was for a while variously employed, among other things keeping a village tavern, and dealing in cattle, buying large numbers, and driving them to the eastern markets. An influential member of his community, possessing marked ability and intelligence, he became active in public affairs, and in 1834 was elected justice of the peace in Monroe township, and served six years, when he resigned. In 1839 he was nominated for representative to the state legislature on the same ticket which had the name of B. F. Wade for state senator, and Platt R. Spencer for county treasurer, all three of these stalwart men being strongly anti-slavery. All were defeated by a union ticket, the pro-slavery feeling then running high in this county. In 1843 Abner Kellogg was elected to the legislature, in which he rendered good service to his constituents. Removing to a farm in Sheffield township in 1845, he operated a saw mill for some time, and for four years was county land appraiser. In 1847 he was made justice of the peace, and in 1849 was elected clerk of the court of common pleas. - Removing to Jefferson in 1849, he was elected, in 1852, under the new constitution, clerk, and re-elected to the same position in 1857. Being admitted to the bar in 1857, he was in partnership with Colonel A. S. Hall and Judge D. S. Wade until 1860, when Mr. Hall retired and Mr. Wade was made judge of the probate court. From that time until 1875 Mr. Kellogg was in partnership with E. Lee, who was in that year made common pleas judge, and E. Jay Pinney became Mr. Kellogg's Partner. In 1863 Abner Kellogg was elected to represent his district in the state legislature, and afterwards being elected to the state senate, was a leader in so amending the state constitution as to allow the colored men franchise. Retiring from public office in -1867 with a clean -and honorable record,' he was made president of the Second :National Bank, of Jefferson; of which he was also a director, and was officially connected with this institution until his death, April 27, 1878. In his early days he was a Whig in his political affiliations, subsequently being prominent in the Free Soil party, and after the formation of the Republican party being one of its most loyal adherents. He contributed liberally towards the support of the Congregational church, although he was never a communicant. Abner Kellogg married, October 2, 1834, Matilda Spencer, who was born in 1815, a daughter of Allen and Maria Spencer, and granddaughter of General Martin Smith, who emigrated from Hartford, Connecticut, to Ohio in 1799, and was a resident of Ashtabula county until his death, at the venerable age of ninety-five years. Her father died in 1830, and she subsequently lived with an aunt until her marriage. She died March 23, 1884, leaving three sons and three daughters. Walter M. Kellogg, born in Sheffield township, Ashtabula county, December 26, 1848, was but an infant when brought by his parents to Jefferson, where he was brought up and educated. Beginning his active' career as clerk in a hardware store, he was in the employ of Henry Talcott for a number of years, becoming familiar with every department of the business. In 1873 Mr. Kellogg embarked in business for himself, in 1877 moving to his present location. Here he has made improve- 766 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE ments of value, enlarging, and remodeling the building, and has built up a thriving trade. He began business on a very modest scale, having a limited stock of goods, and in connection with his store operated a tin shop. He now confines himself entirely to the mercantile part of his business, carrying a complete line of all goods to be found in a first-class hardware establishment, his business amounting to nearly $20,000 a year, in its management employing three men, and keeping busy himself in attending to its details. Mr. Kellogg married, in 1873, Ella Watkins, of Rotk Creek, Ashtabula county. She died in 1901, at the age of forty-nine years, leaving/ two children, namely : Robert, who is taking lessons in voice culture in Boston; and Augusta, wife of Carl C. Cook, a lumber dealer in Ashtabula. GEORGE S. EDDY.-—A native son of the historic old Western Reserve, which he represented as a valiant soldier of the republic in the Civil war, George S. Eddy is one of the well. known and highly esteemed citizens of Lake county, maintaining hi& home in the village of Willoughby and being incumbent of the office of trustee of his township, as well as that of notary public. He formerly held the position postmaster at this place, where his circle of friends is coincident with that of his acquaintanceship. George Smith Eddy was 'born in Euclid Rockship, .Cuyahoga county, Ohio, on the 29th of November, 1842, and is a son of Halsey and Elizabeth (Eddy) Eddy, the former of whom was born in the state of Rhode Island and the latter in New York state. Halsey Eddy came to Ohio about 1832 and settled in Euclid township, Cuyahoga county, where he secured land and instituted the reclamation of a farm, in connection with which work he also followed his trade, that of shoemaker. In 1858 he sold his property, in Ohio and removed to Pike county, Illinois, where he died in 1878, at the age of seventy-four years. His widow soon afterward returned to Ohio and she passed the closing years of her life in Collingwood, in the home of her son Otis, where she died in 1889, at the venerable, age of eighty-three years. She was born on the 27th of January, 1806. Halsey and Elizabeth Eddy became the parents of five sons and two daughters. Luke D., the eldest son served during the Civil war as a member of Battery G, First Ohio Artillery, and in 1869 he removed to Illinois, where he passed the residue of his life. He died in 1906, at the age of seventy-two years. Otis, who served as a member of the One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war, returned to Ohio after the close of the great internecine conflict and here he was identified with agricultural pursuits until his death. Ira, who was a sailor on the Great Lakes for a number of years, later became identified with railroad work, and he died in the city of Cleveland, at the age of fifty-nine years. George S., of this review, was the fourth son, and James M., the youngest son, died in the city of New Orleans while serving as a soldier in the Ninety-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. George S. Eddy passed his boyhood days on the home farm and is indebted to the common schools of his native county for his early educational training. As a youth he became a sailor on the lakes, and in this sphere of activity he finally served as second mate of the schooner "Challenge." This position he resigned to respond to the call of higher duty, when the integrity of the Union was thrown into jeopardy through armed rebellion. On the 22d of May, 1861, he enlisted in Company I, Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which command he was in active service until the battle of Antietam. At this time he received a compound fracture of the left thigh, as the result of a gunshot wound, and the. injury totally disabled him, as he was unable to make any use of his left leg. He lay in the hospital at Frederick, Maryland, from September 17, 1862, until May 13, 1864, and was able to leave the hospital only nine days prior to the expiration of his term of enlistment. In all that period he was unable to walk save by the use of crutches, and fourteen years elapsed ere his wound was fully healed. He received his honorable discharge at the expiration of his term. After leaving the hospital Mr. Eddy returned to his home, and he took up his residence in Willoughby, Lake county, where he was engaged in business until 1877, when he received the appointment of postmaster of the village, of which office he continued incumbent for ten years, during the administrations of Presidents Hayes and Arthur. During the last four year& of his service, which terminated in 1887, the Willoughby office was in the third class, implying that the postmaster received his appointment from the president of the United States. Mr. Eddy served several years as constable and for three years as justice of HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 767 the peace, and was township assessor about fifteen years. He has been incumbent of the office of trustee of Willoughby township since 1904, and has done most effective service as a member of the county board, in which connection he was specially zealous in working to secure to Willoughby the Carnegie public library building. He has given an uncompromising allegiance to the Republican party, and has been an active worker in its cause. He was a member of the Republican central committee of Lake county and has been a delegate to various conventions of the party in his county and district. He was a charter member of the post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Willoughby, and is now affiliated with Dyer Post, in the city of Painesville, of which he is past commander. He maintains a deep interest in his old comrades in arms and is active in the affairs of the Grand Army of the Republic. He is a member of the Royal Arcanum, but has no active affiliation in the order at the present time. He is a spiritualist in his religious belief and his wife holds membership in the Christian, or Disciples, church. On the 7th of July, 1864, Mr. Eddy was united in marriage to Miss Sophia Lamoreaux, of Willoughby, and she died at her home in Willoughby on the 30th of August, 1907, at the age of sixty-eight years. They became the parents of six children, concerning whom the following brief record is given : Mary Elizabeth is the wife of Thomas F. Melody, of Humboldt county, Nevada ; Pierre L., who married Miss Ella Rich, was killed on the 15th of July, 1908, having been electrocuted by a live wire while making repairs for the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, in the city of Cleveland, being forty years of age at the time of his death ; Norman S., who married Miss Rose Sutch, is a patternmaker in the employ of the American Clay Machinery Company, of Willoughby ; Sarah A. is the wife of A. B. Palmetier, of Ironton, Ohio; Laura A. is the wife of George W. Johnson, of Nottingham, Ohio ; and George S., Jr., is em-' ployed as patternmaker in the city of, Cleveland. On the 21st of May, 1908, Mr. Eddy contracted a second marriage, being then united to Mrs. Martha A. Grover, nee Hubbard, of Willoughby, Ohio. JUDGE HENRY KENTON SMITH, of Chardon, Geauga county, who on February 9, 1909, retired from the probate bench after a service of more than forty-two years, had participated in official life for nearly half a century, had been an honorable and able representative of the legal profession for fifty-three years, and had spent an active and interested life within the limits of the county. Probably no Other man in the United States was ever probate judge for such a long term of years. His usefulness, friendliness, charity and benevolence has embraced, inspired and warmed so many people and so many movements and institutions that he .occupies a high place in the hearts and esteem of the community. Judge Smith is one of those rare characters in American life whose many years have been devoted to showering benefits upon those around him without regard to individual harvests. He was born in Parkman township, Geauga county, on the l0th of August, 1832, and is the eldest son and third born of Marsh and Eliza (Colton) Smith. The Colton family settled in Portage county in the pioneer period, and George Colton, a cousin of Judge Smith, has been a professor at Hiram College ever since the period of the Garfield administration in its affairs. The Smith grandparents, Seth and Polly (Marsh), migrated from New York and settled in Parkman township about 1818, where they both died at an advanced age. Marsh Smith, the father, was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1799 ; came as a youth to this county and spent his early years as an energetic farmer of the township. He was a great admirer of Horace Greeley, the New York Tribune being his political gospel as long as he lived. Mr. Smith was implacable in his anti-slavery views, a prominent agent of the Underground Railroad, and his great Whig and Republican friend of the Tribune paid him not a few visits at his home in Parkman. In 1850 he was elected county auditor and moved to Chardon when he assumed office, continuing to serve with credit for three terms. For many years he also was justice of the peace and held other positions which forcibly bespoke the high estimation in which he was held. He died when he was eighty-eight, in 1887 ; his wife lived to be nearly eighty. Mr. and Mrs. Marsh Smith were the parents of a large family, the following seven reaching maturity : Hannah, who married Dr. Peter R. Bates and died in Iowa ; Elizabeth, who married Gordon Durfee and both herself and husband are now deceased ; Henry K., of this sketch ; Theron C. Smith, who was a farmer, cheese manufacturer and banker of Chardon, and died at that place in 1908, leaving a 768 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE widow ; Newell R. Smith, a farmer and cheese manufacturer of Troy township, this county ; Marsh H. Smith, who served in the Civil war and afterward resumed farming in Iowa; and Eliza, who is Mrs. John Brooks and is a resident of Chardon. The future judge was educated mainly in the common schools and at Farmington and Parkman Academy before he came to Chardon with his father in 1850. At that time he was nineteen. He was first employed as deputy auditor and in connection with the county treasurer's office. He also read law in the office of A. G. Riddle and A. H. Thrasher, and in 1856 was admitted to the bar. Soon afterward he was appointed deputy sheriff, and these responsibilities were followed by the greater ones attaching to the county treasurership. At the death of A. H. Gotham, in the spring of 1857, he became county clerk, and in the following autumn was elected prosecuting attorney, in which office he served two terms. In 1857 he had formed a law partnership with W. 0. Forrist, and in 1861 associated himself with D. W. Canfield, the latter connection continuing until his election to the probate bench in the fall of 1866. While in company with Mr. Canfield Judge Smith was also elected justice of the peace for two terms. At the expiration of his first term as probate judge he was re-nominated by acclamation, and that honor was accorded him during the many remaining years of his service on the bench. It will be seen that most of his life he was a public servant. A short time before his retirement from the bench a company of friends, attorneys, county officials and attaches of his court, led by Circuit Judge Metcalfe, surprised him alone in his office and presented him with a gold watch as a testimonial of the general esteem in which its recipient was held. It is impossible to more than briefly note the work which Judge Smith accomplished off the bench and outside his official life in the county's service. He was president of the school board for more than fifteen years. He was park commissioner of Chardon for a long time, and in the early period of his term it was very difficult to secure the necessary appropriations to keep the public grounds in good order and make the extensions desired by enterprising citizens. When no funds were available for these purposes Judge Smith went down into his own pockets for them.; and the same is true when he was president of the board of cemetery trustees. He loves beautiful things, he cherishes the memory of his departed friends and kindred, and no one has done more to beautify Chardon than he. The judge has also ever been in the foreground when anything was to be done to encourage the city either in securing public utilities or under stress of calamity. After the fire of 1868 he was among the most active in rebuilding the place, and put heart into many of his despondent associates by personally investing in real estate and improvements. The Opera House block is mainly due to his efforts at this period. When the old Chardon House was burned in 1878 he headed and circulated the subscription paper which resulted in the erection of a brick structure on 'the site of the former landmark, and the $10,000 bonus required for the building of the Cleveland and Eastern electric line to Chardon was raised largely by his efforts. As long as the present generation can remember, when public enterprises have been suggested Judge Smith's counsel was always first sought, and if the proposition seemed to him feasible and desirable he not only gave good advice but something more to the practical purpose. In addition to his manifold judicial, official and civic responsibilities, Judge Smith has also engaged to some extent in the breeding of horses, the raising of sheep and the operation of a dairy, the last two specialties having been conducted in association with his brother. On February 22, 1855, Judge Smith married Miss Marmony G. Stocking, daughter of Dennis W. Stocking. Mr. Stocking was one of the most popular hotel men of Chardon and built the first public house of the town. This hostelry was famous in the early times, for its dancing parties. Later Mr. Stocking erected the largest summer hotel on Little Mountain. He lived a long life, having nearly attained his hundredth year. He was one of the best known and most interesting characters in the Western Reserve. Judge and Mrs. Smith lived fifty-four years of happy married life, when Mrs. Smith passed away, April 11, 1909. Her popularity as a woman was based upon her sweetness as a friend and neighbor, her virtues as a wife and mother and the general nobility of her character. The two sons of this union are Stuart S. Smith, who has been, cashier of the First National Bank of Chardon since he was seventeen years of age, and Halbert D. Smith, a member of the Cleveland law firm of Hamilton & Smith and owner of the old homestead at Chardon. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 769 EDWARD A. PARSONS, of Kent, Portage county, who has retired from active business at a comparatively recent date, is now in his eighty-first year, and is honored as not only one of the founders of the prosperous place in which he has resided for over forty-six years, but as one of its most persistent and successful promoters. This is true of him, whether the business and industrial interests of the community are considered or its progress in public improvements and civic affairs. Mr. Parsons is a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, born on the 25th of January, 1829, and is a son of Edward and Clementine ( Janes) Parsons, and grandson of Moses and Esther (Kingsley) Parsons, of that state. His father was also a native of Northampton, where he was born March 14, 1797, and spent his youth and early manhood as a carpenter and joiner. In 1830, after his marriage, he removed to Cuyahoga county, Ohio, his family joining him some months later, but in the following year he located at Brimfield, Portage county. There he purchased a tract of.. timber land, whose building improvements consisted of a log cabin, cleared it, cultivated it and erected suitable buildings for a residence and farming operations. In the summer of 1838, however, ill health forced him to sell his property and move to the town of Brimfield, and later he settled at Kent, where he died in 1874. He married Clementine, daughter of Peleg C. and Sally (Coy) Janes, who was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, July 24, 1802, and died April 14, 1892, mother of the following: Edward A., of this sketch ; Timothy G., a resident of Kent ; Harriet J., who married S. NI. Blake and died October 2, 1876; Martha K., who became Mrs. G. W. Crouse and passed away February 20, 1905 ; William C., who lives in New Hartford, Connecticut and Clementine, widow of C. H. Barber, of Kent. Edward A. Parsons received a public school education, and, although offered the opportunity of pursuing a college course, preferred to engage in farming. After reaching his majority he spent a number of years in working land owned by his father, later purchasing 105 acres of this tract and, at the time of his marriage, adding to it twenty-five acres, which embraced a residence. Mr. Parsons lived on this farm in Brimfield township for nine years, and in 1863 located at Franklin Mills (now Kent), where he became a pioneer in the lumber business. After a short time he associated himself with Porter B. Hall and they built the first planing mill in the place. In the fall of 1865 Mr. Hall sold his interest to Mr. Parsons' brother Timothy, and the brothers continued in partnership until 1870, when Edward A. withdrew to engage in the produce business. He was thus engaged for about five years alone, and for the succeeding five years was in the same line in partnership with George O. Rice and Frederick Foote. He then conducted the business as sole proprietor, for two years and soon after disposing of it was elected secretary and treasurer of the Railway Speed Recorder Company. As the Kent Manufacturing Company the business was removed to Franklin, Pennsylvania, in 1907, the style of the corporation then being changed to the Venango Manufacturing Company. In 1887, on account of ill health, Mr. Parsons resigned the office of secretary and treasurer of this concern, but three years later resumed his duties as treasurer, which he retained until his retirement from active busi-. ness in 1905. He is still a director in the concern, in whose management his sound judgment is often referred to as conservative and wise. In line with the energy and ability which Mr. Parsons has displayed for so many years in business and industrial matters, his public services have been almost continuously rendered and are highly appreciated. He has served two years as clerk of Brimfield township, two years as assessor, some time as justice of the peace, four years as treasurer of Franklin township during the Civil war, seventeen years as a member of the school board, two terms as county commissioner and many years as city councilman of Kent. He was one of the petitioners for the incorporation of the village; was a member of the first council as well as of several subsequent ones, and while in that body was largely instrumental in procuring the present water works system, installing the electric lights, laying stone sidewalks and in advancing other improvements for the benefit of the village generally. His service on the board of county commissioners commenced in 1874 and during his second term was one of the most active promoters in the building of the stone-arch bridge at Kent. He is an old Mason, still in good standing, being a member of Lodge No. 316, and his upright, charitable and helpful character makes him a natural, as well as an actual worker in the fraternity. On September 25, 1853, Mr. Parsons 770 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE married Miss Mary J. Underwood, daughter of Freeman and Mercy Amelia (Lincoln) Underwood, born in Brimfield township, Ohio, December 18, 1832. Her father is the son of Alpheus Underwood and her mother was the daughter of Doctor and Mary (Thorndike) Lincoln, of Massachusetts. Mrs. Parsons died September I, 1905, and although she left no children of her own, her adopted daughter, Effie, had given both 0f her foster parents her deepest affection. The latter is now the wife. of J. B. Miller, a resident of Kent, with whom. Mr. Parsons has made his home since the death of his wife. CLINTON YOUNG.—The reminiscences of the pioneer are ever instructive and diverting, for the past bears its lesson and incentive, whether considered in relation to the remote cycles of time or from the standpoint of those of the present day who are venerable in years. In a relative way the Western Reserve is an old section of the middle west,, and few localities excel it in historic interest and picturesque charm of annals. Precious and hallowed are the memories and associations which cluster about the fine old homestead in which Clinton Young maintained his abode,. in the village of Hiram, Portage county, for in this house he was born and here he maintained his home during all the changes which, marked the more than four score years of his life—a life consecrated to good works and kindly deeds and one prolific in usefulness, since he was one of the world's noble army of workers. No name was more prominent in the history of Portage county than that which he bore, save that of his maternal grandfather, who was one of the original Connecticut Land Company and who became the owner of great tracts of land in the wilderness of Portage county in the formative period of its history. Clinton Young was ushered into the world on the 19th of February, 1826. He was a son of Thomas F. Young, who was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, where he was reared and educated and whence he came to the' Western Reserve in 1812. He secured land in Hiram township, Portage county, and on this land is now located the old homestead. Thomas F. Young provided for this original domicile. a log cabin of the type common to the pioneer days, and then set himself valiantly to the task of reclaiming a farm in the midst of the forest primeval. He was one of the first settlers of Portage county, and when he took up his residence in Hiram township there were not more than twelve other families established within its borders. He in time reclaimed much of his land to cultivation and became independent and prosperous as an agriculturist, to which great basic vocation he gave his attention until the close of his long and useful life. In 1816 he was appointed postmaster at Hiram, and he continued incumbent of this office until his death, which occurred in November, 1852. He was a Whig in politics. In Connecticut was solemnized the marriage of Thomas F. Young to Miss Lydia Tilden, who was born in Lebanon, that state, in 1787. She accompanied him on the long and weary journey to the Western Reserve and they made the trip with a two-horse wagon, in which was transported their little stock of household necessities. The journey consumed six weeks, and they lived up to the full tension of the pioneer life, sustained and comforted by mutual devotion and helpfulness. The loved wife and mother passed to the life eternal in 1859. Of the three children the eldest was Cornelia ; Thomas passed the closing years of his life in Hiram, where he died; and Clinton, subject of this review, was the youngest of the children. Lydia (Tilden) Young was a daughter of Daniel Tilden,. who served with distinction as a Continental soldier during the war of the Revolution, in which he was an officer, being commonly known as Colonel Tilden throughout his subsequent life. He was one of the original Connecticut land owners in the Western Reserve 1of his native state, and at one time he held in his possession 2,000 acres of land in Hiram township, Portage county. He came to the Reserve about 1818 and was a prominent figure in its early history, having been influential in public affairs and in forwarding the development of this favored section of Ohio. Clinton Young resided in Hiram from the time of his birth and was identified with business and civic activities as a broad-minded and progressive citizen, the while he did all in his power to further the upbuilding of the section which he recalled in memory as having been but little more than an untrammeled wilderness in his boyhood days. He assisted in clearing the home farm and his early scholastic discipline was received in the pioneer log .school house, equipped with puncheon floor, slab benches, yawning fireplace, etc., HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 771 and he was thereafter enabled to attend a local academy for one term. With the fine public schools and the many institutions for higher education in this section at the present time it seems almost impossible that these great changes have been wrought within the lifetime of one man. Mr. Young served as justice of the peace for nine years, and in 1852 he succeeded his father in the office of postmaster, in which he continued until 1861. Many years later, during the second administration of President Cleveland, he was again made incumbent of the position of postmaster at Hiram, where he thus served from 1894 to It inclusive. He was for a number of years a successful and popular teacher in the schools of his native county, and for thirty years held the office of notary public. He devoted considerable time and attention to the study of law, and for a number of years handled not a little law practice of a minor order. For the past several years he lived retired, enjoying the dignified repose which should ever accompany old age. He was at the time of his death, March 23, 1909, one of the oldest native sons of the Western Reserve to be found within its borders, and his reminiscences of the pioneer days were specially graphic and interesting. He contributed not a little to the archives of local history. He was a stanch Democrat in politics. His wife is a member of the Congregational' church. In 1875 Mr. Young was united in marriage to Miss Seraph A. Mason, who was born in Canal Winchester, Ohio, and they have one son, Clinton M., who is now professor of milling engineering in the State University of Kansas. He is a graduate of Hiram College and also of the Case School of Applied Sciences, in Cleveland, and has been very successful in the field of educational work. JAMES B. MANTON was a man of sterling integrity and resolute purpose, and it was given him to attain through his own efforts a large measure of success in connection with the productive activities of life, as well as to leave a record unsullied by any act of wrong or injustice. He played a large part in the business life of the city of Akron for many years, and was one of those valiant spirits who contributed to the development of her manufacturing interests and thus to the substantial progress of the community. He held the esteem of all who knew him and he continued to be actively identified with the business interests of Akron until his death, which occurred on the 7th of June, 1884. Mr. Manton was born at St. James, Lincolnshire, England, April 24, 1834, and in the schools of his native place he gained his early educational training. After leaving school he there followed various lines of occupation until he had attained to the age of eighteen years, when, in 1852, he severed the ties which bound him to home and native land and set forth to make for himself a home and a secure position in the United States. He came to America without the fortuitous influence of financial reinforcement and as a .stranger to the customs and institutions of the country, but he was not lacking in ambition and courage nor in the power of assimilation and absorption; so that he pushed steadily forward until he attained to a success of no insignificant order. After disembarking in the port of the national metropolis of the United States Mr. Manton made his way to Albion, New York, where he found employment by the month at farm work and where he remained about one year. He then came to the Western Reserve and located in Akron, which was then a small village. Here he was employed at farming for four years. At the expiration of this period he removed to Middlebury, where he conducted a meat market for the ensuing three years. Returning to Akron, Mr. Manton then bought an interest in the business of the firm of Whitmore & Robinson, manufacturers of a crockery product kn0wn as rock and yellow ware. He assumed the active management of the office details of the enterprise, and through his able administration as an executive the business was rapidly expanded in scope and importance. Its functions were finally made to include also the manufacturing of stoneware, and when the enterprise was reorganized under the title of the Robinson Clay Product Company he became one of the interested principals in the new corporation, in which he was associated with Thomas, William and Henry Robinson, brothers of his wife. With this concern, now one of the most important of its kind in the Union, he continued to be actively identified until his death, and he gave of the best of his powers and talents to the upbuilding of the successful industry, which has had important influence in furthering the commercial prestige of Akron. The company now operates about ten factories in Ohio and other states, and its 772 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE business is more extensive than that of any similar concern in the Union. Mr. Manton 'was a man of alert mentality and marked business acumen ; he was progressive and public spirited as a citizen, and as a business man he ever commanded unqualified confidence and esteem. His political allegiance was given to the Republican party, but he had naught of ambition for the honors of public office, though he consented, from a sense of civic duty, to serve as a member of the city council, in which body his conservative busi- ness policy and broad views tended to bring about a wise and effective municipal administration. He was identified with no fraternal orders or social organizations, but was a man of deep religious convictions and was a zealous member of the First Presbyterian church of Akron, with which Mrs. Manton and the other members of the family are likewise identified. Mr. Manton guided his life according to the dictates of a singular acute conscience, and his entire career was marked by impregnable integrity of purpose. He was tolerant in his judgment and was kindly and generous in his association with his fellow men. Mrs. Manton still resides in the old residence which has long been the family home. On the 13th of April, 1859, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Manton to Miss Harriet R. Robinson, who was born in Staffordshire, England, on the 12th of September, 1839, and who was a child at the time when her parents immigrated to the United States. She is a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Fairbanks) Robinson, who came to America in 1848 and settled in East Liverpool, Ohio, whence they removed to Akron in 1858. Here the father became one of the prominent and influential business men of his day and here he and his wife continued to reside until their death, secure in the esteem of all who knew them. Mr. and Mrs. Manton became the parents of three children,—Henry B., who is now president of the Robinson Clay Product Company; Irvin R., who is superintendent of the company factory No. 3, in Akron ; and Deborah, who died in infancy. ROBERT EUGENE HARPER.—Ranking high among the foremost citizens of Jefferson. Ashtabula county, is Robert Eugene Harper, who has filled various offices of trust and responsibility, in each position showing himself eminently worthy of the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. He was born, November 3, 1856, in Orwell township, Ashtabula county, but spent a few years of his boy. hood in Portage county, living there during the Civil war. Leaving home at the age of fifteen he lived in Windsor, this county, until. attaining his majority. While living in Orwell, Mr. Harper had attended the academy, and afterwards completed his studies at the Grand River Institute, under the instruction of Professor Tuckerman. His first employment in Windsor was as a teamster for Edwin Rawdon, a cheese-box manufacturer, who supplied twenty-two cheese factories with boxes. At the age of seventeen Mr. Harper began teaching school, and taught three winter terms, meeting with success in his pedagogical career. For three years after becoming of age he clerked in a Windsor store, and then located at Hartsgrove, Ashtabula county, where for seven years he was a wholesale dealer of pumps, representing two Cleveland firms, F. E. Myers & Brother, Ash-. land, Ohio, and Dakin Brothers, his territory covering the eastern section of eastern Ohio, where he built up an extensive trade, meeting with unbounded success as an agent. Subsequently being appointed jailer, Mr. Harper served four years in Jefferson, under Sheriff J. E. Allen, and was afterwards deputy treasurer eight years, serving four. years under E. J. Graves and four years under A. O. Hoskins. Being elected county treasurer in the fall of 1901, he served from 1902 until 1904, when he was re-elected to the same office, which he filled acceptably until 1906, giving his personal attention to the duties devolving. upon him in this capacity. Since that time, Mr. Harper has continued his residence in Jefferson, but he considers himself a farmer,. his estate of seventy acres, lying one mile north of the village, being one of the best and most desirable pieces of property in the vicinity. Mr. Harper married, at the age of twenty-four years, Julia Griswold, of Hartsgrove, and they are the parents of two children, namely : Calla, a teacher in the state of Washington ; and Bradford, living at home. Mr. Harper is identified with many fraternal organizations, having been a member of the Odd Fellows since twenty-one years old. He belongs to Lodge No. 222, F. & A. M., of Jefferson ; to Jefferson Chapter, No. 141, R. A. M., of Jefferson ; to Cache Commandery, No. 27, K. T., of Conneaut ; to the Consistory at Cleveland, Ohio, and to the A HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 773 Koran Shrine, as a Mason having taken the thirty-second degree. He is also a member of Ashtabula Lodge, No. 208, B. P. 0. E., of Ashtabula. HON. ALVAN D. LICEY.—A man of acknowledged legal ability and skill, Hon. Alvan D. Licey, of Guilford township, is numbered among the foremost attorneys of Medina county and as an important factor in the administration of public affairs. A son of the late John Licey, he was born September 13, 1832, in Hilltown township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, being a descendant several generations removed from one Mr. Licey who emigrated from Alsace, Germany, to this country and settled in Pennsylvania on land that he bought direct from William Penn. John Licey was born, likewise, in Hilltown township, Pennsylvania, his birth occurring September 20, 1798. In 1849, when past the prime of life, he came with his family to Ohio, locating in Medina county, where he spent his remaining years, dying November 3, 1880. His wife, whose maiden name was Catherine Dirstine, was born February 28, 1810, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and died December 12, 1874, in Medina county, Ohio. They were the parents of eight children, namely : Alvan D., the subject of this brief sketch ; Levi, deceased ; Elizabeth, wife of Jasuay Waltz ; Catherine, married Noah H. Kindig, now deceased ; Margaret, wife of Joseph Kreible, of Union City, Michigan ; Mrs. Maria Stevens, of Scranton, Pennsylvania ; Amanda, wife of F. H. Lyons, of Montville township, Medina county ; and Sophia J., wife of Frank Walling, of Toledo, Ohio. Receiving but limited educational advantages as a boy, Alvan D. Licey left school when but twelve years old, and for a number of years thereafter was employed as a clerk in a general store, while thus engaged becoming familiar with the details of business. When ready to begin the battle of life on his own account, he opened a store at River Styx, Medina county (previously spending four years at Akron, Ohio, in mercantile trade), and as a merchant met with eminent success. In April, 1857, Mr. Licey was elected to the office of justice of the peace for Guilford township, and, recognizing his need of a more extended legal knowledge, he devoted his leisure time to the study of law, and on retiring from mercantile pursuits, Mr. Licey, whose ability as an attorney had been previously recognized, began the practice of the profession in which he became a leader. For eighteen consecutive years he served as justice of the peace, his decisions being uniformly just, and in 1870 was one of the thirty-seven men chosen as the State Board of Equalization. He became. prominent in town and county affairs, and in 1879 received the Republican nomination for representative to the Ohio legislature and was elected by the strongest majority ever given a candidate in the county up to that time. On October 19, 1858, Mr. Licey married Martha Wilson, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Sweet) Wilson. Her father, an early settler of Medina county, was for eighteen years justice of the peace in Guilford township. He died November 30, 1861, an honored and respected citizen. He was the first man to make matches in Ohio. Mrs. Licey was born in Medina county, Ohio, February 17, 1829, and, has here spent her entire life. She was a woman of much worth, highly esteemed, and a valued member of the Disciples' church. She died September 10, 1887. Mr. and Mrs. Licey have five children, namely : Caroline, the of H. L. Walding ; Desdemona L., wife of W. S. Rowley, M. D., of Cleveland ; Ilzaide D., wife of Morton Shantz, of Akron ; John O., engaged in the practice of law at Wadsworth ; and Kathryn L., now Mrs. Lester Beeman, her husband being the youngest son of the great gum manufacturer. Fraternally, Mr. Licey is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. S. D. SHANKLAND.—A man of strong personality, talented and cultured, S. D. Shankland holds a conspicuous and influential position in the educational circles of Lake county, and, as superintendent since 1896 of the Willoughby schools, has distinctively placed his mark on the educational progress of this part of the Western Reserve. Putting himself, in this capacity, in close touch with both teacher and pupil, great improvements in the system of teaching have been made, his keen mind grasping the best of all new methods offered by educators throughout the country, and, whenever practicable, put into effect in his own schools. A native-born citizen, his birth occurred April 6, 1874. Here he grew to manhood and received his elementary education, in 1890 being graduated from the Willoughby high school. In 1894 Mr. Shankland received his diploma from Adelbert College of the West- 774 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE ern Reserve University, and the same year was elected teacher of science in the Willoughby high school, in 1895 becoming its principal. Serving so efficiently as head of the institution; his administrative talents became recognized, and in 1896 Mr. Shankland was elected superintendent of the Willoughby schools, and to their betterment has devoted his best efforts. For nine years Mr. Shankland was a member of the Lake county board of school exam iners, and in November, 1905, had the distinction of being elected, on the Republican ticket, to represent Lake county in the state legislature, and was re-elected to the same position in 1908. Fraternally, Mr. Shank-land is a member and past master of Willoughby Lodge, No. 302, F. & A. M. ; a member and past high priest of Painesville Chapter, No. 46, R. A. M. ; and a member and past commander of Eagle Commandery, No. 29, K. T. Mr. Shankland married, July 12, 1904, Ethel A. Haskell, and they have one daughter, Frances Josephine Shankland. In October of 1909 Mr. Shankland resigned his position in the Willoughby public schools, to become director of the Andrews Institute for Girls, which was founded by the will of the late W. C. Andrews. NAPOLEON JEROME ALEXANDER MINICH, a business man of Kent, was born in Columbia, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, October 2, 1849, and is the son of Henry G. and Ann Catherine (Albright) Minich, a grandson of Jacob and Elizabeth (Gamber) Minich, and a great-grandson of John Minich, who came from Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, in 1754. Henry G. Minich was born May 25, 1817, at Landisville, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and was a leather dresser by occupation ; in later years he engaged in the meat business, at Columbia, Pennsylvania, which he carried on until his retirement from business in 1873, and he died on May 19, 1895. He married Ann Catherine, daughter of Anthony and Susan (Scheibe) Albright, born November 3o, 1818, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her grandfather, John Mathias Scheibe, was a native of Prussia, Germany, and after his arrival in this country served in the Revolutionary war. Anthony Albright was born in 1781, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his wife was born in 1782, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Anthony Albright's father, John Albright, was ,born in Philadelphia, was the originator of "Bear's Almanac," went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he started the first paper, The American Messenger, published in that city, and at his death was succeeded by his son Anthony, who continued the business for fifteen years. Ann Catherine, the wife of Henry G. Minich, is the only living member of a class of children who sang for Lafayette at' his first visit to Lancaster when he last visited America, in 1824. He took the hand of each child and gave some word of praise ; the school which they attended is still standing, corner of Prince and Chestnut streets. Henry G. Minich and his wife had the following children : Jacob A., of Columbia, Pennsylvania ; T. J., of Chicago, Illinois ; Charles W., who died in 1905 ; N. J. A. ; Hester Ellen, who died on October 22, 1873, aged twenty-one ; George W., who died in 1854, at the age of three ; Benjamin F., of Columbia, Pennsylvania ; and Harry J., of Philadelphia. N. J. A: Minich received his early education in the public schools of Columbia, and spent the, years from 1863-68 in the Columbia Clas sical Institute. He then entered the office of the Columbia Spy in order to learn the trade of printer, and was employed there until September, 1871, when he went to Chicago, but a short time later, at the time of the Chicago fire, he returned to Columbia and spent the next year in Lancaster and New York City. On September a9, 1872, he located in Akron, Ohio, and became connected with the Akron Daily Beacon; about a year later H. G. Garfield and Mr. Minich established the Akron Daily Argus, which he sold in 1875, and Mr. Minich then became one of the editorial staff of the Beacon. On May 1, 1876, he removed to Kent, where he purchased the Kent Bulletin, which he owned and operated until March 15, 1902, at which time he sold the paper and became representative of the Continental Casualty Company of Chicago, and has since' remained in this accident and health insurance line. He is an energetic business man and a public-spirited citizen, and has since coming to Kent, in 1876, been much interested in all progress and improvements of the city. He is a Republican ; has served on the board of health ; and since 190o has been a member of the board of control of the Kent Free Public Library. November 2, 1909, he was elected mayor of Kent ; he is a member of Rockton Lodge, F. & A. M., and socially is affiliated HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 775 with the Protected Home Circle. Mr. Minich married, on August 3, 1873, Lottie E., daughter of Henry and Emily Jane (Hodges) McMasters, born in Akron, Ohio. Henry McMasters was born, in 1810, in Burlington, Vermont, and died April 6, 1872. He came to Akron in 184o and established a bakery, which he carried on until his death. His wife was born in 1812, in Plattsburg, New York, and died December 5, 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Minich became the parents of one son, Henry Scott, born October 11, 1877, general inspector of Jamestown Traction Company, Jamestown, New York, and the Chautauqua Traction Company. PROFESSOR GEORGE A. PECKHAM has been a valued member of the faculty of Hiram College for more than a quarter of a century, and in this historic institution of the Western Reserve he is now incumbent of the chair of Old Testament history. His popularity with the student body has ever been of the most unequivocal order and on a parity with his enthusiasm and distinguished ability in his chosen vocation. He is a native son of the Western Reserve, where the major portion of his life thus far has been passed, and he has attained to high standing and prestige in the field of education in his native commonwealth. Professor Peckham was born in Middlebury, now known as East Akron, Summit county, Ohio, on the 17th of July, 1851, and is a son of I tarry and Cornelia (Barney) Peckham. His fattier was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a son of George A. and Rhoda (Hunter) Peckham, both natives of New England, where the respective families were founded in the colonial epoch of our national history, and both of staunch English lineage. When Harry Peckham was a child of four years his parents removed from Connecticut to the Western Reserve and located in Tallmadge township, Summit county—a section then included in Portage county—where the father secured a tract of land and in due time reclaimed a productive farm, upon which he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. There Harry Peckham was reared to maturity and there he received such advantages as were afforded in the common schools of the period. During his youth he continued to be actively identified with agricultural pursuits, but in later years he was long identified with the manufacturing of sewer pipe, at Akron. He passed the closing years of his Vol. II-5 life in the city of Chicago, and was in his eighty-second year at the time of his death. He was a man of sterling attributes of character and his life was one of signal usefulness and honor, though marked by no sensational phases or public prominence. He was essentially one of the world's workers, and he made his life count for good in all its relations. His political support was given to the Republican party, and he was a devout member of the Christian church, as is also his widow, who now maintains her home in LaGrange, Illinois, one of the beautiful suburbs of the city of Chicago, and who is eighty-three years of age at the time of this writing, in 1909. She was born in the state of New York, whence her parents removed to Pennsylvania when she was a child, and later the family came to the Western Reserve, where her marriage to Harry Peckham was solemnized. They became the parents of two sons and two daughters, all of whom are living and of whom Professor Peckham, of this review, is the eldest. Professor Peckham was reared in his native place and was afforded the advantages of the public schools of Akron, after which he was matriculated in Hiram College, where he remained as a student during the winter of 1869-70. During the following winter he was enrolled as a student in Bethany College, at Bethany, West Virginia, and he then entered Buchtel College, in Akron, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1875, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was for two years thereafter a tutor in his alma mater, and this institution conferred upon him, in 1877, the degree of Master of Arts. In 1877 he was ordained as a clergyman of the Christian church, and for one year he held the pastorate of the church of this denomination in Granger, Medina county. He was then called to the professorship of ancient languages in Buchtel College, of which chair he continued incumbent for two years, at the expiration of which period he accepted a similar chair in Hiram College, of whose faculty he has since been an honored and popular member. He has been identified with the work of this fine old institution for nearly thirty consecutive years, and since 1900 has held the chair of Old Testament history. He is a man of broad scholarship and continues a close and appreciative student, keeping also in close touch with the best thought of the day, so that his usefulness as an edu- 776 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE cator has shown a constantly cumulative tendency during the long years of his earnest and devoted labor. In politics Professor Peckham is independent, and he and his wife are zealous and devoted members of the Christian church, in the various departments of whose work they maintain an active part. On New Year's day of the year 1879 was solemnized the marriage of Professor Peckham to Miss Anna C. Sisler, who was born in Manchester township, Summit county, Ohio, and who is a daughter of Houston and Glorvinea Elizabeth (Hamm) Sisler, honored pioneers of the Western Reserve, throughout which section the grandfather, John W. Hamm, was long in active service as a clergyman of the Reformed church ; both he and his wife are now deceased. Professor and Mrs. Peckham have two sons and two daugh ters : Bertha is a stenographer and as such is employed in Hiram College ; Mark S. is a clergyman of the Christian church, and is at present holding a; pastoral charge at Sumter, South Carolina ; Harry H. is doing post-graduate work in the literary department of the University of Chicago ; and Anna Laura remains at the parental home, and is a student in Hiram College. SIDNEY V. WILSON was born, October 15, 1823, in Norway, Herkimer county, New York, being the third child in succession of birth of a family of thirteen children born to his parents. He was brought up on his father's farm, which is now included within the limits of the Chautauqua Assembly Grounds. In the days of his youth, following the tide of emigration westward, he went to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he learned the wheelwright's trade. Not content, however, to settle permanently in that locality, he decided to return as far east as Willoughby, Ohio, a place toward which he had been especially attracted on his way out by the -knowledge that it was named in honor of Dr. Willoughby, the family physician who assisted in bringing him into the world ; and by the sign of "S. Smart," which hung over a little red grocery ; and the striking appearance of a hotel painted in alternate colors of red, blue and green, known to the traveling public as the "Zebra Inn." Soon after his arrival Mr. Wilson assumed the management of Zebra Inn, first, however, having for a short time been engaged in the manufacture of wagons, his shop standing on what is now the corner of Erie and Spaulding streets. He made the wagons entirely by hand, and one of them was in use on the plains as late as 1890. While managing the inn, he had the distinction of entertaining the officials of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad Company, who met here when the last spike connecting the Chicago and Buffalo divisions was driven. In 1854, in company with K. S. Baker, Mr. Wilson embarked in mercantile pursuits, and for six years carried on a substantial business as a general merchant in Findlay, Ohio. Returning then to Willoughby, he was in partnership with his father-in-law, S. Smart, the well-known merchant, from 1860 until 187o. Starting then in business alone, Mr. Wilson erected the store building now standing on Erie street, opposite Vine street, where he remained until 1889. Removing then to Carrel block, he enlarged his operations, admitting into copartnership his son, Sidney S. Wilson, and as head of the firm of S. V. Wilson & Son built up a large and prosperous trade. In 1892 he admitted his younger son, Ray Wilson, into the firm, at the same time buying one of the Bond stores. In 1898 the son Ray was called to the higher life, his sudden death being a great shock to his parents and a sorrow to the entire community. In 1899 Mr. Wilson materially added to his business interests by purchasing the two stores and the entire stock of Dickey & Col-lister, from that time until his death being the leading merchant of Lake county, and one of its most progressive and influential business men. He died February 14, 1903, after a brief illness of one week, of pneumonia, aged seventy-nine years. Mr. Wilson was a man of strong individuality, among his most notable traits being his undoubted integrity, rigid scruples of honor, his genial courtesy, and his unbounded hospitality. Sympathetic and charitable, he had also a keen sense of humor, making him a most delightful companion, and was especially loved by the young people. No man, it is safe to say, ever had a better sense of the true value of wealth than he, and no man exacted from it and imparted from it a greater amount of happiness. Sidney V. Wilson married, February 3, 1856, Hepzibah B. Smart, who was born at Orange, Cuyahoga county, New York, July 4, 1833, a daughter of the late Samuel Smart, who came with his family to Willoughby, HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 777 Ohio, in 1836, and for many years was proprietor of the little red grocery store, over which he displayed the sign "S. Smart." She was a woman of culture and refinement, having been educated in the old Willoughby Seminary, now Lake Erie College, and until her death, which occurred March 10, 1903, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. E. E. Flickinger, in Indianapolis, Indiana, she held her membership and her interest in the Alumna Association. Six children were born of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, of whom two sons and a daughter died in infancy, and Ray, as mentioned above, died in July, 1898. The two children living arc Florence, wife of E. E. Flickinger, of Indianapolis, Indiana, and Sidney S., of Willoughby, Ohio. HON. GEORGE HENRY CHAMBERLAIN.-A leading attorney and public citizen of Elyria, Hon. George H. Chamberlain is also a Republican and a legislator who has exerted a strong influence throughout the state of Ohio and whose reputation is of the progressive and expansive kind. This is the more gratifying to the historian of the Western Reserve since he is a native of Lorain county, born on the old farm in Grafton township, June 21, 1862, and is a son of the late. George B. Chamberlain, himself one of the pioneers of that township, to which he was brought as a boy by his own parents. The grandfather of George H. was John Chamberlain, a native of New York state, who married Amy Perkins, granddaughter of John Perkins, a Revolutionary soldier, also from the Empire state. Both grandfathers were early settlers of Lorain county, the Chamberlains coming in 1848 and settling in Grafton township, where John Chamberlain died in 185o, aged fifty-four years, and his wife in 1873, seventy-five years old. George B. Chamberlain, the father, was born at Brookfield, Portland county, New York, in the year 1834, and was therefore fourteen years of age when his parents located in Grafton township. There he followed farming until about 188o; then retired, but was engaged in the hardware business at LaGrange for a short time before his death in 1884. Elizabeth Cragin, his wife, is still living in her seventy-second year, making her home with her son, of this biography. Mrs. George B. Chamberlain is a native of LaGrange township, Lorain county, daughter of Benjamin and Mahala (Boyington) Cragin. Her father was born in Weston, Windsor county, Vermont ; married in that state, and became the parents of Lorena, Benjamin, Charles C., Adna A., Esther, Horace, Harrison and Elizabeth—Mrs. Chamberlain being the only one of the eight who was born in Ohio. In September, 1835, the Cragin family set out from Vermont in a wagon bound for Buffalo, New York, whence they proceeded to Cleveland and to Lorain county. Mr. Cragin's purchase in Grafton township consisted of 155 acres of woodland, at four dollars per acre. This tract he cleared to some extent, erected a log cabin, and there spent the balance of his hard-working and simple life, until July 31, 1865, his wife having preceded him to rest some ten years before. They were earnest members of the Methodist church to the last, Mr. Cragin having served for many years as a trustee, class leader and steward. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. George B. Chamberlain, as follows : William P., now a resident of Grafton, Ohio ; George H.; Charles C., who died at the age of twelve years, and Emma Jane Chamberlain, who did not survive her infancy. George H. Chamberlain remained on the farm in Grafton township until he was seventeen years old, and was educated in its district schools and at Oberlin College. He then taught school for a time, read law in the office of E. G. Johnson, of Elyria, and was admitted to the bar in 1887. For two years thereafter he practiced at that place, and subsequently located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he engaged in the insurance business in connection with his professional work: Returning to Elyria in 1895, he re-entered practice, and has since progressed steadily in his chosen field as well as in the public affairs of his city and state. Since 1896 Mr. Chamberlain has been particularly prominent in Republican politics and state legislation. In that year he stumped Lorain county for McKinley, and also spoke for the presidential candidate in other parts of the state, since that time having participated in every campaign in his section of Ohio. In 1900 he presented the name of E. G. Johnson to the congressional convention. In 1906 Mr, Chamberlain was a candidate for the nomination for Congress from the Fourteenth district, and during the long deadlock in the convention held the united support of Lorain county, receiving within four votes of the necessary number for the nomination. He finally withdrew, and his support was given to the nominee that was subsequently elected. In 1901 he 778 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE was nominated by the Republicans for the upper house of the legislature, serving as state senator in the seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth assemblies. In the latter session he was honored by being chosen president pro tern by acclamation, and had the united support of. both parties. In the seventy-fifth session he served on the committees of federal relations (chairman), labor, taxation, benevolent institutions, judiciary, insurance, universities and colleges and municipal corporations, and in the seventy-sixth assembly was a member of the committees on public works, judiciary, common schools, county affairs, taxation and Soldiers and Sailors' Orphan Home. He left the house of representatives with the remarkable record of never having introduced and supported a bill which failed of passing the senate. In May, 1910, he received the nomination on the Republican ticket for representative in Congress from the Fourteenth district. In 1899 Mr. Chamberlain was elected a member of the Elyria board of education, with which he has since been identified—as its president for the past five years. He has also served as president of the board of elections ; is an active member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, and a citizen of the highest social and moral standing. In June, 1883, Mr. Chamberlain married Miss Etta K. Mynderse, a native of LaGrange, Ohio, daughter of Andrew C. and Louise (Hart) Mynderse, both of whom are deceased. To this union have been born the following children : Charles B.; Geneva E., who gradu- ated from the Elyria High School, finished her education at Rochester, New York, and is now the instructor in domestic science in the Elyria public schools ; 'Vera, who died at the age of fourteen ; George, Jr., a graduate of the Elyria High School and now connected with the National Tube Company, at Lorain, Ohio ; Gertrude A. who also completed her course in the Elyria A., School in 1909 with the highest general average in the history of the Elyria High School ; and Ruth, William, Robert and John, living at home. ORION P. SPERRA is a well-known figure in the professional circles of central and northeastern Ohio. At the age of maturity he began teaching school in Paris township of Portage county, and during his four years' connection with that profession he began the study of law and also worked as a book solicitor. Admitted to the bar in the spring of 1878, he began the practice of his profession at Ravenna, and from that time forward he has been active in the public life of his state. Elected in 1878, he served six years as a justice of the peace, and in 1893 he was elected the probate judge of Portage county, and was the incumbent of that office for three terms. On the 1st of May, 1903, he went to Columbus as the deputy state inspector for building and loan associations and as supervisor of bond investment companies, and although his headquarters are in that city; he still maintains his residence at Ravenna. He has supervision over a force of nine men to examine six hundred and sixty-five building and loan associations in the state of Ohio. He has served many times on township, county and state committees and has served as chairman of the county executive committee. Mr. Sperra was born in Ravenna on the 24th of July, 1853, a son of John R. and Mary A. (Gilmore) Sperra, who were born respectively near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and in Portage county, Ohio. The paternal family came originally from Germany, while on the maternal side they are from the north of Ireland. From Lancaster county in Pennsylvania the Sperras came to Rootstown township, Portage county, Ohio, and were large land owners and prominent farmers, there. There also John R. Sperra and Mary A. Gilmore were married; and from there, in about the year 1850, they came to Ravenna and for many years the husband was the proprietor of a blacksmith shop .here. He had also followed that occupation in Rootstown township, but since 1897 he has lived retired from an active business life. He was born in 1825, and he has long survived his wife, who died in February of 1877, at the age of forty-seven years. Their children were as follows : Flor ence, who died in 1865 ; Orion P., mentioned above ; Henry, who died in 1884 ; and Flora, who died in 1879, when but nine years of age. Orion P. Sperra received a good education in the public schools of Ravenna, and this was supplemented by attendance at the preparatory department of Michigan University at Ann Arbor and at Buchtel College in Akron. He married, on the 14th of February, 1883, Carrie M. Wagoner, from Akron, Ohio, a daughter of John J. and Catherine (Weaver) Wagoner, from Summit county of that state. The children of this union are : Cora Amy, who is teaching in the. public schools of Ravenna ; Katherine W., the wife of Albert HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 779 Kertschcr, a salesman in Ravenna; and Helen J., at home with her parents. In politics Mr. Sperra is a Republican, and in fraternal circles he has attained high rank in the Masonic order. He is a thirty-third-degree Mason, a Member of Tyrian Chapter, No. 91, of Ravenna; of the K. T. Commandery, No. 25, at Akron ; of Lake Erie Consistory at Cleveland, and of Al Koran Mystic Shrine of Cleveland, and he served as grand high priest of Ohio from 1899 to Iwo and as grand master of the grand lodge from 1903 to 1904. He is also a charter member of the fraternal order of Elks in Ravenna, and has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since 1876, in which he has filled all the offices and was its secretary for many years, and he has also filled the offices in the Encampment of Odd Fellows, No. 129. He is a member of the college fraternity Delta Tau Delta, of Buchtel College. DUNCAN B. WOLCOTT.—The name of Duncan B. Wolcott is enduringly inscribed on the pages of the later history of Portage county in connection with the profession of the law. Graduating from Adelbert College in 1896, and from the law department of Western Reserve University in 1899, he was admitted to the bar in the same year and began practicing in the office of J. G. W. Cowles, in Cleveland. He remained in that city but a sort time, however, coming in the spring of 1901 to Kent, and he has since been prominently identified with the professional life of this community. In November of 1904, and again at the election of 1908, be was elected a prosecutor, and as an advocate of Republican principles he is an active worker in local political councils. Mr. Wolcott was born in this city on the 9th of May. 1873, and was educated in its public schools in the Western Reserve Academy at Ohio, of which he is a member of the alumni of 1892, and in Adelbert College. Western Reserve University. His parents Simon Perkins and Mary H. (Brewster) Wolcott, were horn respectively in Hudson and Northfield, Ohio. His maternal grandparents were Anson A. and Sally (White) Brewster, from Hartford, Connecticut, and Whitehall, New York, respectively, and Anson A. Brewster was a pioneer and for many years a general merchant of Hudson. Mr. Wolcott married, on the 9th of May, 1900, Eveline Daisy Lodge, born at Silver Lake, Summit county, Ohio, a daughter of Ralph H. and Julia (Plum) Lodge, the father from New Jersey and the mother from Summit county, Ohio. The children of this union are two sons: John L. Wolcott, born April 23, 1907, and Duncan B., Jr., born June 26, 1909. Duncan B. Wolcott is a Mason of high standing in Kent, belonging to Lodge No. 316, and to Tyrian Chapter of Ravenna. He is a member of the Episcopal church in this city. SIMON PERKINS WOLCOTT belonged to the ancient Wolcott family whose history has been compiled and published in a fine quarto volume entitled "The Wolcott Memorial," a copy of which may be seen in the state library at Columbus. This work, a masterpiece of its kind, contains portraits of many members of the famliy, also a cut of the Wolcott coat of arms and photographic copies of many relics of their old homesteads in England, including the license of alienation of the Golden Manor at Tolland, Somersetshire, England, made to one of the Wolcotts in the early part of the sixteenth century, in the reign of James nd the chancellorship of Lord Bacon, whose signature it bears. This was the ancestral seat of the family as far back as is definitely known, and is traced on doubtful authenticity to the eleventh century in Wales. It was the home of John Wolcott, the father of Henry, who emigrated to America in 1730 and settled at Windsor, Connecticut. The family is conspicuous for its honorable and influential career, belonging to the class of free holders in England and well known in the history of the New England states as holders of many important positions of public trust during the colonial and revolutionary periods. Besides many officers of rank, both civil and military, it includes three governors of Connecticut—Roger Wolcott and the two Oliver Wolcotts—while the second Oliver also served as secretary of the treasury under President Washington. The family history runs on down through several generations, as they resided in Connecticut, to a branch of the family which finally moved to New York, and from there to another which came to Ohio. Simon P. Wolcott belongs to the sixth generation of the family in America. He was born at Northfield, in Summit county, Ohio, January 30, 1837, and was a son of Alfred and Mary Ann Wolcott, who were also reared in this state. Born and reared on a farm, the 780 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE son Simon received but meager advantages in the way of an early education, such only as the early day winter school in the country afforded, but finally he entered Hiram College and was a fellow student there of James A. Garfield. There he prepared for the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, and graduated from the latter institution with the class of 1862; receiving the degree of A. B. and later that of A. M. His early inclination toward the legal profession led him to adopt that calling as a life pursuit, and soon after graduation he entered the law office of H. B. Foster, of Hudson, as a student, and he completed his course with Judge N. B. Tibbals, of Akron, and was admitted to the bar of Summit county in 1864. Coming at once to Portage county, he began the practice of law at Kent, where he remained continuously until death, and his high prestige at the bar of Portage county stands in evidence of his ability and likewise served as a voucher for his intrinsic worth of character. He was long and earnestly identified with public enterprises, a Public character in his own community during the most of his life, and his public services included four years as the mayor of Kent and ten years as a member of its school board. From 1884 he served as an attorney for the food and dairy commissioners for four years, and in 1894 he was appointed one of the board of managers of the Ohio State Reformatory at Mansfield, by Governor McKinley, and by reappointment, in 1900, by Governor Nash, he held that position during the remainder of his life. But perhaps the highest public achievement in the life and work of the Hon. Simon B. Wolcott was his election to the state senate of Ohio in 1881 and his re-election in 1883, for the counties of Portage, Summit, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula. He made for himself a place of prominence as an active participant in discussions of many leading questions of the day, and notable among his efforts may be mentioned the "Brigham bill" for the regulation of transportation rates by railways. What influence his speech bore toward the defeat of the bill cannot, of course, be conjectured, but it is sufficient to say that although the question was thoroughly and warmly discussed on both sides as one of great moment, the bill was lost. He was a member of the senate committee which drafted the law constituting the present circuit court, was chairman of the committee for investigating insurance companies in the state of Ohio, and was 0ne of the leading men of the Ohio senate during his membership. He was very successful at the bar and bore an honorable reputation. lie displayed a brilliant native talent, and, his speeches, both professionally and politically, were logical and showed a wide learning and not infrequently sparkled with genuine wit. He was an earnest supporter of Republican principles and took an active part in the campaigns of his party. He married, on July 17, 1866, Mary Helen Brewster, a lineal descendant of Elder Brewster, of Puritan renown. Their children are: Nellie B., the wife) of F. L. Allen, engaged in the real estate business in Kent, and former treasurer. of Portage county ; Jennie, the wife of 'Ed S. Parsons, a lumber merchant in Kent; and Duncan B. Wolcott, well known in this city as a prosecuting attorney. REV. BAILEY SUTTON DEAN.—A prominent member of the clergy of the Christian church and influential in the educational field, Professor Bailey S. Dean is incumbent of the chair of history in Hiram College, at Hiram, Portage county, which well-known institution is his alma mater. He is a scion of one 'of the old and honored families of the Western Reserve, where the same was founded in the early pioneer epoch, and the name which he bears has been identified with the annals of American history from the colonial epoch. Professor Bailey Sutton Dean was born in Canfield township, Mahoning county, Ohio, on the 5th of January, 1845, and is a son of Orsemus and Rhoda (Hayden) Dean. In 1903 Professor Dean, with the assistance of his son, J. Ernest Dean, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, completed a most interesting history of the William Dean family, of Cornwall, Connecticut, and Canfield, Ohio, and the data there given were gleaned from varied sources, being essentially complete and offering an authentic, detailed record concerning the history of the family in Ohio, with due tracing of the genealogy from the parent stock in New England. In a publication of the circumscribed province of the one at hand it is, as a matter of course, impossible to enter into the intimate details covered in the publication to which reference has just been made, nor is it necessary so to do, inasmuch as such repetition could have no definite value, as ready recourse may be had to the admirable record compiled by Professor Dean and his son. HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 781 So far as authentic data reveal, it is altogether an assured fact that the founder of the family in America was Thomas Dane (or Dean, as his descendants spell the name), who was born in Kent, England, about 1603, and who came to the new world in 1635, in the ship "Elizabeth and Ann." He settled at Concord, Massachusetts, as early as 1640, and there he died about 1676. From Massachusetts representatives of the family finally removed to Connecticut, and the direct line to Professor Dean is traced from Reuben Dean, of Cornwall, Litchfield county, that state. William Dean came from Cornwall to Ohio in the year 1810, and was accompanied by his venerable parents, Benjamin and Ruth (Tanner) Dean, as well as by his devoted wife, Parthena, whose maiden name was Bailey. Concerning this migration it is deemed consistent to perpetuate in this sketch the following extract from the previously mentioned history of the family, and the record is one written by Professor Dean : "We now have no means of knowing the immediate causes which led to the migration to Ohio. In general, we know the economic conditions prevailing prior to the war of 1812. Thomas Jefferson's pet measures, the Embargo act and the Non-Intercourse act, bore with special severity on New England. Trade was prostrate and all business at a standstill. Men with growing families were casting about for means to better their condition. A great tide of migration was setting toward New Connecticut, in Ohio. What fireside discussions were held in the old house on the hill (referring to the old Dean homestead in Connecticut) we can only imagine. A journey of five hundred miles in lumber wagons, 'largely through an unbroken forest. was no holiday excursion. To people in their prime, like William and Parthena, it might not seem so formidable. But Benjamin and Ruth were three score and ten ; and, besides, their roots had struck deep in the soil of Cornwall, and it is hard to transplant an old tree. But the die .was cast. Legal documents, still extant, show that for some months prior to the autumn of 18m Benjamin and William Dean were severing the property ties that bound them to Cornwall. Early in September they turned their faces toward the promised land of Ohio. The company numbered fifteen persons. First, as prime movers in the enterprise, were William and Parthena Dean. With them went the aged Benjamin and Ruth. Five children of William, ranging in age from a few months to thirteen years, were in the company—Orpha, Hiram, Orsemus, Benjamin and Bailey. The Dean caravan came with horses and they were four weeks on the road, arriving in Canfield on the l0th of October. * * * "Under date of August 1,8, 1810, James Johnston, of Litchfield county, Connecticut, deeds to Benjamin and William Dean lots 5 and 25 in Canfield, Ohio,. containing five hundred and eighty-eight acres together with sixty-seven acres of lot 8,. .The price was $2,673.80. Under the same date, by separate deed, he conveyed to William .Dean one hundred acres of lot 8, for $50o. * * * The aged Benjamin and Ruth did not long survive the transplantation. Ruth died May II, 1812., On August 13, ,18.1.5, :old Benjamin followed his beloved Ruth, and lies beside her in the Center .cemetery. * * * There are few more sightly and beautiful locations in the Western Reserve than the crest of Dean Hill. There about the year 1818, William Dean built a commodious brick farm house. That old brick house: became the center of a noble family life, whose details, now lost, would fill a volume." William Dean was a miller and farmer at Cornwall, but followed farming exclusively at Canfield, where he continued to reside until his death, on the 17th of March, 1847. He was born in Cornwall, Litchfield county, Connecticut, May I0 , 1774. On the 25th of August, 1796, he was married to Parthena Bailey, who was born in Sharon, Connecticut, in 1773, and died in Canfield, Ohio, September 13, 1836. On the 26th of March, 1837, William Dean contracted a second marriage, being then united to Mrs. Rebecca (Rumsey) Mulner, who was born in 1808, and who died at Canfield, Ohio, January 3, 1842. For his third wife William Dean chose Mrs. Ada Pearce, who died in Lordstown, Ohio, about 1881. Nine children were born of the first marriage and two of the second. Orsemus Dean, father of him whose name initiates this sketch, was born in Cornwall, Connecticut, August 11, Om, and died in Center, Rock county, Wisconsin, November 17, 1884. On the l0th of .April, 1825, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Rhoda Hayden, who was born in Youngstown, Ohio, May 25, 1808, and who died at Center, Rock county, Wisconsin, January 22, 1878. This worthy couple became the parents of. thirteen children, of whom four are, now living. In the family 782 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE history previously mentioned Professor Dean has written as follows concerning his parents : "Among those occasionally attending the little church on the hill (Dean Hill) were members of the Hayden family, of Youngstown. There were seven sons of Samuel Hayden, of whom the eldest and youngest, William and Sutton, were well-known ministers, the latter being the first princpal of the Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College. In 1825 Orsemus Dean wedded Rhoda, the only, sister in the Hayden family, famed, in later years, far and near, as were her brothers, for power of song. The day following the wedding, twenty-four couples, on twelve horses, escorted them to Dean Hill for the `infair.' Orsemus built a small brick house, where Uncle Hiram afterward lived. In 1829 he sold out and bought a larger farm, in the extreme northwest part of Canfield, and over the town line in Ellsworth. There for thirty-six years they lived and there reared the largest family with the most descendants in the Dean connection. Of their thirteen children, nine lived to marry, six are still living, and seven have living descendants. In the '5os the older children began to go westward, and the year 1865 found all the family in or near Center, Rock county, Wisconsin. There, in 1878, Rhoda ended her pilgrimage, and in 1884 Orsemus followed his beloved wife. "About the year 1829 Orsemus received a fall, which disabled him for three years and weakened him for life. Yet, throughout a long life, few men worked more hours or accomplished larger results ; and to his children it has always been a marvel how he reared so large a family, on so poor a farm in so large a measure of comfort. Both he and his wife were enterprising and excellent managers. Both knew how to economize in matters of mere display, that they might have to expend on the really vital things—the intellectual and spiritual culture of their family. All of their children had the advantages of some education beyond the country schools, and seven of them became teachers. Orsemus was one of the original subscribers to the.- Eclectic Institute, and always, for a man of his means, a liberal supporter of church and missionary work. That was a humble but hospitable home. At the great 'Yearly Meeting' of 1849 it gave shelter and free entertainment to more than one hundred guests. It was a religious home. Few people, even of larger leisure and culture, knew their Bibles as did Orsemus and Rhoda Dean. No stranger could pass a week in that cricle without feeling its spiritual :uplift. Among the cherished memories of that home life is the one of the morning hour when each' child read his verse and mother led in song and father poured out his soul in simple, heartfelt prayer. Over the unutterable desolation that has fallen on that old home there seems to brood the spirit of a devotion. that softens the heart and calms the soul in the strenuous- struggle of life." Of the thirteen children of .Orsemus and Rhoda Dean, Professor Bailey Sutton Dean, the immediate subject of this review, was the twelfth in order of birth. His boyhood days were passed on the old homestead, to which he has himself made so appreciative reference in the words of the preceding paragraph, and his preliminary educational training was secured in the common schools of the locality and period. He later continued his studies in Mahoning Academy, at Canfield, and then entered the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now known as Hiram College, where the major portion of his higher academic training in his youth was secured. In 1869 he was graduated in Bethany College, at Bethany, West Virginia, from which institution he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and, later, the degree of Master of Arts. During 1869-70 he was principal of the high school at Burton, Geauga county, Ohio, and in 1870 he was ordained to the ministry of the Christian, or Disciples, church, in whose faith he had been reared, and of which he has been a member from his boyhood. In July, 1870, Professor Dean assumed the pastorate of the First Christian church at East Smithfield, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, retaining this charge until 1878, when he accepted the call to the pastorate of the First Christian church at Bellaire, Ohio, where he continued in effective service until 1882. Thereafter he was pastor of the Christian church at Hiram, Ohio, for six years, 'where he also became a member of the faculty of Hiram College, in 1882. His pastorate here was terminated in 1888, owing to the exactions of his work in the college, but it should be stated that in the pastoral office, in his various charges, he did much for the spiritual and temporal advancement of. his church, in whose councils he has long been prominent and influential. In 1882 Professor Dean became vice-president of Hiram College, holding this office until the election of President Laughlin the' following year. Since 1883 he has held HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 783 the chair of history in Hiram College, and his work has been most effective, while he has at all times held the confidence and high regard of the student body, in whom he maintains the deepest interest, having a full appreciation of his stewardship as an instructor and guide. He is the author of an elementary Bible History, published in 1895, and the same is now widely used as a text-book. He is a man of high intellectual attainments, but has naught of intellectual bigotry or intolerance. His work in the ministry was one of utmost zeal and consecration, and he is an able and eloquent public speaker, facile in diction and ever thoroughly fortified in his convictions. He passed the summer of 1906 in making a tour of England and the European continent, and he has also traveled widely in the United States. Professor Dean is aligned as a stanch supporter of the principles of the Republican party, but has had no ambition to enter the arena of "practical politics." He is a member of the American Historical Association. On the 14th of June, 1869, was solemnized the marriage of Professor Dean to Miss Emma Johnson, who was born in Middlefield township, Geauga county, Ohio, and who is a daughter of James E. and Emily (Burke) Johnson, honored pioneers of that section of the historic old Western Reserve. Mrs. Dean studied at Hiram College under Garfield, and was for some years the able and popular head of the art department of this institution. She retired from this position at the time of her marriage, but resumed it for many years after Professor Dean was called to Hiram. She has much talent as an artist, and many of her productions are notable for fine technique and originality of composition. Professor and Mrs. Dean have two children : James Ernest and Allie Mabelle. James E. Dean was born at East Smithfield, Pennsylvania, on the 23d of February, 1871, and was graduated in Hiram Coilege as a member of the class of 1892, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He did effective post-graduate work in art schools in Philadelphia and New York City, and is now a member of the art staff of the Cleveland Plaindealer, one of the oldest and best known newspapers of the Western Reserve. Allie *belle was graduated in Hiram College as a member of the class of 1895, having here taken a course in the art department, and having later continued her art studies in Cleveland. New York City and in Europe. In 1902 she became head of the art department of her alma mater, Hiram College, retaining this incumbency until 1907, when she became the wife of William E. Waldo, of Bradford, Pennsylvania, where they now maintain their home. Both of the children inherited in marked degree the artistic talent of their mother, and both have made definite accomplishment in this field. HON. ARLINGTON G. REYNOLDS, member of the firm of Reynolds and Alvord, Painesville, is one of the ablest members of the .Ohio bar and a strong leader in the Republican party. In all his legal, judicial and civic relations he has evinced a high order of ability and a manly conscience, and he enjoys as his supporters the best and most substantial classes in the community. A native of the town of Mentor, Lake county, Ohio, he was born on the 24th of November, 1849, the son of George Washington and Honor S. (Nowlen) Reynolds. His parents were both pioneers of that place—in fact, his mother was a native of it—his father being born in Broome, Schoharie county, New York. The maternal grandfather, Dudley Nowlen, migrated from New York to Mentor at an early day, while the paternal grandfather was a Connecticut pioneer, whose ancestors came from England in 1600. The family has always been patriotic and public-spirited, John Reynolds, the grandfather mentioned, being a Revolutionary soldier who commenced the fight for independence at Bunker Hill and continued it while there were any foes in the field ; while the father, George W. Reynolds, served three years on the bloody battlefield and in the wearing campaigns of the Civil war. Arlington G. was reared on his father's farm in Mentor township, and obtained his education at the district schools near his home, as well as at the Collegiate Institute in Willoughby and, finally, at Oberlin College. He then commenced to read law with Judge G. N. Tuttle, of Painesville, and in 1882 was admitted to the bar before the supreme court at Columbus. In September of that year he located at Des Moines, Iowa, where for two years he was identified with a large implement house, and upon his return to Painesville in 1884 he began the practice of his profession. He continued alone until 1889, when he formed a partnership with Judge Perry Bosworth, which was broken by the death of the latter in 1890. In 1897 Mr. Reynolds associated himself with Hon. C. W. 784 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Osborne, and in April, 1905, formed the partnership with George W. Alvord which existed until January, 1909. All of these firms obtained a large share of the legal business of the county and stood among the foremost in ability. In the meantime, distinguished honors of a judicial and political nature had been conferred upon Mr. Reynolds. From 1891 to 1896, inclusive, he had served as probate judge of Lake county by two elections, and in 1896 and 1898 he was chosen mayor of Painesville for two-year terms. On June 7, 1897, at a convention held in Painesville, composed of representatives from Lake and Geauga counties, the Republicans nominated him as a legislative representative, and he was elected by a rousing majority both in that year and in 1899. As a mark of the complete confidence which his associates reposed in him, his nominations' for judge, mayor and assemblyman were all made by acclamation. Mr. Reynolds served as speaker of the House in the Seventy-fourth general assembly, the nominating caucus of his party being unanimous in the choice of its candidate. Mr. Reynolds is a fluent and effective public speaker, but it is as a faithful and tireless worker for the practical and commendable interests of his constituents that he is best known and has been most warmly commended. In the legislature he made a model committeeman, was faithful in his attendance at the regular sessions, and as a speaker his rulings were prompt, forcibly supported and generally considered impartial, the main exceptions to the rule being rank and prejudiced partisans. 'In January, 1909, Judge Reynolds was appointed by the governor to fill a vacancy on the common pleas bench, which position he still retains. Mr. Reynolds has always been an unwavering friend of both popular and higher education, and since 1898 has served as trustee of the Lake Erie College. The patriotic record of his colonial forefathers has also inspired him with a deep interest in the American struggle for independence, and has brought him into prominent connection with the Sons of the American Revolution. He was vice president of the Ohio division of that fraternity and is n0w vice president of its Western Reserve Society. In October, 1882, he was united in marriage with Miss Helen E. Whitney, daughter of Samuel F. Whitney, of Mentor, and they have become the parents of one child, Luella W. THE FAXON FAMILY, which has had distinguished representation in the annals of the Western Reserve since the opening years of the nineteenth century, is one of sterling lineage, both direct and collateral, and the name has been identified with American history from the early colonial epoch. In the Western Reserve this family is one of the oldest and most honored, and in the several generations have been strong men and true and gracious and noble women. Its representatives have played well their parts in connection with the multifarious relations and activities of life, and especially has this been true of the Faxons of Lorain county, with whom' this article has more specifically to do. Of stanch and patrician English lineage, the Faxon family was founded in America in 164o, when the original progenitor in the new world took up his residence in Massachusetts colony. From New England representatives of the name have gone forth into the most diverse sections of the Union and have exerted in their day beneficent influence in the varied vocations to which they have directed their attention and energies. Isaac Davis Faxon, to whom must be accredited the distinction of having been the founder of the family line in. the Western Reserve, came hither in the early years of the last century, probably prior to the admission of Ohio to the Union, and here the name has stood representative of prominence and influence for at least a full century. Isaac Davis Faxon settled in Portage county, where he secured a tract of land in the midst of the primeval forest and instituted the .reclamation of a farm. He was a native of Massachusetts, having been born at Conway, that state, and was a son of Thomas Faxon, whose father, Thomas Faxon, Sr., was a patriot soldier in the Continental line in the war of the Revolution. Isaac D. Faxon and his wife continued to reside in Portage county until they 'were summoned to the life eternal, and their names merit an enduring place on the roll of the pi0neers who laid broad and deep the foundations upon which has been reared the magnificent superstructure of one of the greatest of the American commonwealths. John Hall Faxon, son of Isaac Davis Fax0n, was born in Aurora, Portage county, Ohio, 0n the 6th of June, 1815, and at the death of his father, in 1821, he was taken into the home 0f his uncle, Oliver H. Lewis, with whom he removed to Lorain county, when a boy. He was HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 785 afforded the advantages of the common schools and pursued higher branches of study, as is evident when we revert to the fact that he became a skilled civil engineer. In the work of this profession he was identified with many important public and semi-public enterprises in the early days. He thus assisted in the construction of the historic old Erie canal, and also the Auburn & Syracuse Railroad, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and the Atlantic & Great Western Railway. In 1840 he was appointed deputy sheriff of Lorain county, and in 1844 was elected sheriff, in which office he served two terms, through his re-election in 1846. In 1857 he received from Governor Salmon P. Chase appointment to the office of canal collector in the city of Cleveland, where he continued in this service for a number of years, after which he returned to Lorain county. In 1873 he was elected to represent Lorain county in the state legislature, and in 1875 he was chosen his own successor in this position, in which he made an admirable record of loyal and effective service. In the meanwhile he had given careful attention to the study of law, and in 1875 he was admitted to the bar of the state, upon examination before the supreme court in Columbus. He was a man of great energy and ambition, and he made his life count for good in all its relations. He was called upon to serve as surveyor of Lorain county, was for a number of years incumbent of the office of justice of the peace, and was twice elected mayor of Elyria, where he long maintained his home. All of these preferments indicate beyond peradventure the unequivocal confidence and esteem in which he was held by the people of his county. During the last few years of his earnest and prolific life he was president of the Flushing Coal Company, which was organized by him and his sons and which controls excellent coal mines in Belmont county, Ohio. In politics he gave his allegiance to the Republican party, and as a citizen he was ever loyal and public-spirited. On the 2d of June, 1838, was solemnized the marriage of John Hall Faxon to Miss Esther Terrell, who was born in Ridgeville, Lorain county, Ohio, on the 5th of September, 1816, a daughter of Tillotson and Electa (Wilmot) Terrell. The Terrell family was early founded in Lorain county, whither its representatives came from the state of Connecticut. John H. Faxon died on the 4th of July, 1891, and his cherished and devoted wife was summoned to the life eternal on the 22d of March, 1900. They became the parents of six children, of whom four are living at the time of the preparation of this article, in 1910, as follows : Isaac D., Theodore S., Harriet A., and John H., all of Elyria. Isaac Davis Faxon, of Elyria, Lorain county, son of John H. and Esther (Terrell) Faxon, was born at Ridgeville, Lorain county, Ohio, on the 16th of September, 1840. His educational advantages were those afforded in the common schools of his native county. For thirteen years he maintained his residence in the city of Cleveland, and during this period he held the position of bookkeeper in the counting-room of the Cleveland Herald, then one of the leading daily newspapers of the Ohio metropolis. In 1878 he returned to Lorain county and took up his residence in Elyria, where for a number of years thereafter he was engaged in the mercantile business. He was one Of the organizers and incorporators of the Lorain Banking Company, in 1895, and has been from the beginning a member of its board of directors and its finance committee, besides which he is now incumbent of the of fice of vice-president of this important financial institution. For many years he has been identified with the Flushing Coal Company, in the organization of which he was associated with his father and his younger brother, Theodore S. Upon the death of his honored father he was appointed executor of the family estate, and to facilitate the handling of the same he organized the Faxon Realty Company, which is duly incorporated under the laws of the state, and of which he is president. The company controls large and important capitalistic and real estate interests in Lorain county and elsewhere and its affairs have been admirably guided and governed under the administration of its president. Isaac D. Faxon has ever manifested the same commendable public spirit that animated his father, and his influence and co-operation have been freely given in the promotion of measures and enterprises tending to advance the civic and material welfare of the community. He has served seven years as a member of the city council of Elyria, and also has been a valued member of the municipal board of tax revision. He is identified with the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, being in perfect sympathy with its high civic ideals and giving support to its various undertakings. He is also a member of the Memorial Hospital Association, 786 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE and he is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church, in which he holds membership in the parish of St. Andrew's church in Elyria. In the Masonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and his political proclivities are indicated in the loyal support which he accords to the cause of the Republican party. On the 2d of September, 1869, Isaac D. Faxon was united in marriage to Miss Laura M. Briggs, who was born in Painesville, Lake county, Ohio, on the 31st of December, 1845, and who died on the 31st of January, 1898, leaving no children. She was a daughter of Joseph W. and Harmony (Gilmore) Briggs. Her father was a nephew of Hon. George N. Briggs, who served as governor of Massachusetts and also as member of Congress from that state. Joseph W. Briggs was reared in the home of this distinguished uncle and he eventually received appointment as special agent of the United States postoffice department, in which connection he organized the letter-carriers' system, and he continued in the government service until his death. On the 17th of April, 1900, Mr. Faxon contracted a second marriage, being then united to Mrs. Ellen E. (Stearns) Brownell, of Elyria. Theodore S. Faxon, second son of John H. and Esther (Terrell) Faxon, was born in Elyria, Lorain county, Ohio, on the 13th of January, 1846, and in the schools of this place he secured his early educational discipline. As a youth he learned the drug business, but he did not long devote his attention to the same. He was for four years bookkeeper for a leading wholesale dry-goods house in the city of Cleveland, being incumbent of this position at the outbreak of the Civil war. In 1864 he enlisted as a member of Company K, One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served four months, when his regiment was honorably mustered out of service. In 1870 Mr. Faxon engaged in the manufacturing of furniture in Elyria, and with this line of enterprise he continued to be identified for a period of three years, after which he operated a planing mill and did a general business as a building contractor until 1881, in which year he became interested in the mining of coal in Ohio fields. In this connection he assumed the dual office of secretary and treasurer of each of the following corporations : Tuscarawas Valley Coal Company, Brock Hill Coal Company, Camp Creek Coal Company, Pigeon Run Coal Company, the O. Young Coal Company, and the Flushing Coal Company. In 1884 he disposed of his interests in the companies mentioned, with the exception of the Flushing Coal Company, in which he secured the controlling stock and of which he has since been president and treasurer. He is also treasurer of the Faxon Realty Company, of which mention has already been made in preceding paragraphs. Mr. Faxon is a' stanch Republican in his political proclivities, is a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the chival-. ric degrees, being identified with Elyria Commandery, No. 60, Knights Templars. He is recognized as one of the representative citizens of his native county and, like his brother, has a secure place in the confidence and regard of its people. On the 20th of June, 1871, Theodore S. Faxon was united in marriage to Miss Martha E. Bullock, who was born at Bristol, New York, and who was three years of age at the time of the family removal to Elyria, Ohio, where she was reared and educated. Her father, Aaron H. Bullock, has maintained his home in Elyria for nearly half a century and is now one of the venerable and highly honored citizens of Lorain county. To Mr. and Mrs. Faxon have been born five children, namely : Theodore E., Mary Belle, Katherine Louise, Isaac Davis (2d), and Robert B. All of the children are living except Mary Belle, who became the wife of Arthur J. Boynton, of Elyria, and who died March 10, 1907. Katherine Louise is the wife of J. B. Gilbert, of Beverly, Massachusetts, and the two younger sons remain at the parental home. Theodore Edmund Faxon, eldest son of Theodore S. and Martha E. (Bullock) Faxon, is one of the popular young men of his native county and is now the able incumbent of the office of county clerk. He was born in Elyria, Lorain county, Ohio, on the 8th of February, 1880. He completed the curriculum of the public schools of Elyria, and was graduated in the high school as a member of the Class of 1897. Thereafter he was for one year a student in Oberlin College, after leaving which institution he was matriculated in Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, in which he was graduated in 1903, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the law department of the same university he was graduated as a member of the Class of 1905, duly receiving the degree of HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 787 Bachelor of Laws. Upon his return to Elyria he was admitted to the bar of his native state, and here he was engaged in the practice of his profession until October 1o, 1906, when he was appointed county clerk, to fill a vacancy. He was duly elected to this office by the voters of the county in 1908, for a term of two years, and he has given a most effective and acceptable administration of the affairs of the important office. He is a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, is identified with the Masonic fraternity, and holds. membership in the Country Club and other representative social organizations. His political faith is that of the Republican party and he takes a lively interest in the promotion of its cause. On the 25th of October, 1907, Mr. Faxon was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Brooks, daughter of Walter E. Brooks, of Elyria. She graduated in Vassar College as a member of the Class of 1906. and she occupies a prominent place in connection with the social activities of her home city. Mr. and Mrs. Faxon have a fine little son, Theodore Brooks Faxon, who was born on the loth of September, 1908. JOHN HALL FAXON, secretary of the Flushing Coal Company and of the Faxon Realty Company; of Elyria, has always been one of the leading and most versatile business men of the Western Reserve, and is a sterling representative of the family which was so early established in Lorain county and has never failed in the best promotion of its interests. He was born in Elyria, January 30, 1851, and is a son of the late John Hall Faxon, mentioned at length in the sketch of the Faxon family. His education was obtained in the public schools of his native city, and he began his business career as deputy under E. G. Johnson, then auditor of Lorain county. In 1871 Mr. Faxon became a bookkeeper in the National Bank of Elyria, and after holding that position until 188o resigned to become identified with mining interests in Boston, Massachusetts. Working along this line for two years, he then became identified with the Akron (Ohio) Water Works for about the same length of time, after which he engaged in railroad construction in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Operations in the iron and steel pipe industry at Warren, Ohio, occupied him for the succeeding few years, and he then assumed his present duties as secretary of the Flushing Coal Company and the Faxon Realty Company, both of which are family enterprises. Mr. Faxon is also an active member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, is a Royal Arch Mason and stands high in social and fraternal as well as business circles. Mr. Faxon's wife was formerly Miss Lizzie Browning Starr, a native of Elyria, where she was born December 22, 1852, daughter of the late Horace Clapp Starr, so widely known in that place as a leading pioneer merchant, and in Akron as treasurer of the water works. Her mother (nee Sarah P. Wheeler) is also deceased. Mr. Starr was born in Harpersfield, New York, February 15, 1820, son of Raymond and Betsey (Penfield) Starr, paternal and maternal ancestors, having settled there during the early portion of the century as emigrants from Danbury, Connecticut. In 1828 representatives of both families settled at Penfield, Lorain county, and in 1831 Raymond Starr moved to Elyria, where he resided until his death in 1870.. When Mr. Starr and his family arrived the little village was only fifteen years old, and there the fourth son, Horace, received his early education and his first business experience. In 1841 he became associated with S. W. Baldwin and George Starr in the formation of the firm of Baldwin and Company ; in 1852, Starr Brothers. and Com- pany was established, and in 1863 Horace Starr went to California, where, for three years, he was engaged in various mining enterprises with his brother-in-law, C. T. Wheeler. In 1866 he resumed his mercantile business at Elyria, hid store in the Ely block was wiped out in the 1873 fire, but the business. was resumed and continued until the dissolution of the firm in 1878. From 1881 until his resignation, February I, 1909, Mr. Starr served as treasurer of the Akron Water Works, his death occurring on the 26th of the following month. The deceased married Miss Sarah Phelps Wheeler on the 5th of July, 1848, who died in August, 1870, mother of the following: Mrs. John H. Faxon ; Mrs. Marian Harrington, a resident of Boston, and Horace T. Starr, who lives in Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. Faxon have become the parents of five children : Truman Starr, who was born September 28, 1875, and is now connected with the Grafton Stone Company ; Cyrus Wheeler, born December 13, 1879, who is a Harvard graduate ('02) and identified with the Hayden-Miller Company, bond brokers of Cleveland ; Richard, who was born July 10, 1883, and is now a student at the Ohio State University ; John Hall, Jr., born December 6, 1885, who is 788 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE associated with the Stearns Automobile Company of Cleveland ; Dorothy Browning Faxon, born July 22, 1892, who is a student at the MacDuffie School for Girls at Springfield, Massachusetts ; and Forest Starr, born October 1, 1894: HARVEY M. HOLLINGER.-It was given to the late Harvey M. Hollinger, of Akron, to attain to a liberal measure of success in connection with the practical activities of business, and he was distinctively the architect of his own fortunes, having built the ladder by which he rose to independence and prosperity in temporal affairs. While he was thus numbered among the representative business men of Akron, he had the higher patent of nobility which is gained only through the possession of personal integrity and honor, and he left the heritage of a good name and of a life lived worthily in all its relations. He died at his home in Akron, on the 1st of April, 1908, and Akron gave full manifestation of its sense of loss and bereavement when one of its honored citizens was thus summoned to the life eternal. At the time of his demise he was junior member of the firm of Brouse & Hollinger. He was vice-president and treasurer of the Permanent Savings & Loan Company, and secretary and treasurer of the Abstract Title and Guarantee Company, besides which he had other local interest of important order. Harvey M. Hollinger passed practically his entire life in Summit county. He was born on the 28th of August, 1860, and was a son of Rev. Joseph Hollinger, who was an early settler of Ohio, whither he came from Pennsylvania, and who was a minister of the Evangelical church, in whose work he served with much ability and self-abnegation for many years. The subject of this memoir was afforded the advantages of the common schools of Summit county, and he became dependent upon his own resources when still a mere youth. From an appreciative article published in a local paper at the time of his death the following pertinent extracts are made "Mr. Hollinger's business career has been marked by the most painstaking industry and integrity. His judgment and skill in handling affairs commanded the admiration of his associates, and, though he began his career a poor man, he accumulated a comfortable home. He had lived in Akron since a young man. Fourteen years ago, on the organization of the Permanent Savings & Loan Company, he was connected with the concern, and shortly afterward became a director. During the last eight. years he had been its vice-president and treasurer, as well as the secretary and treasurer of the Abstract Title & Guarantee Company. He was interested also in the Akron Roofing Tile Company, a director in the Central Savings & Trust Company, and owned considerable real estate on West 'Hill and in other localities." Though never an aspirant for public office, Mr. Hollinger was never neglectful of his civic duties and his co-operation could be counted upon in connection with measures and enterprises tending to advance the material and social welfare, of his home city, in whose progress he ever manifested a deep interest. His political support was given to the Prohibition party. He was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was a zealous member of the Woodland Avenue, Methodist Episcopal church, with whose work Mrs. Hollinger also has been closely identified. He died in the very prime of his useful manhood, but his career was one symmetrical in its accomplishment and its worthiness, even though he was not permitted to attain to advanced age and to see the perspective of his labors or know their ultimate fruition. The family home is located on South Portage path and Grand avenue. On the 6th of August, 1885, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hollinger to Miss Jennie M. Wall, who was born and reared in Medina county, where her father, the late Christian Wall, was an early settler and an honored citizen. Mrs. Hollinger continues to maintain her home in Akron, and gives her personal supervision to the affairs of her husband's estate. He is also survived by four children—Ralph W., Howard, Clara and Ruth. The elder son, a young man of fine attributes of character, was graduated in Adelbert College, at Cleveland, Ohio, in June, 1909, and received from this institution his well earned degree of Bachelor of Arts. Concerning this ambiti0us and earnest young man one of his, fellow students spoke as follows in an article published a few months prior to his graduation : "Aspiring to a Young Men's Christian Association secretaryship when he shall have graduated from Adelbert College this year, R. W. Hollinger is one of the busiest men at Reserve. When he is not engaged in pulling 0ff perfect grades, organizing a university club, playing basket ball, or working to support him- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 789 self, he is meditating upon the vast opportunities of Young Men's Christian Association work. 'Holly,' as the fellows call him, does not know what a grade less than 'E' (standing for excellent) looks like. Only once or twice has a lower grade been sprung upon him, and so how should he know ? Little prizes, ranging from twenty-five to $loo, simply come his way. Recently he received the Harriet-Pelton-Perkins prize—a trifle of $100. The conditions were somewhat stiff, the boys thought, inasmuch as an interminable string of E's (not ease) was required, but it was like rolling off a log for Holly. Yet he is closely connected with the school athletics, being president of the tennis association and the first secretary of the basketball team. Among other little things he is also athletic editor of the Reserve Weekly, and is president of the Civic Club and the Young Men's Christian Association at Eldred Hall."    JOHN F. SMITH.—Now one of the most extensive dealers in lumber at Painesville, Ohio, and in the Western Reserve, John F. Smith is of an old North Carolina family and was born in that state October 12, 1849. His father, John Wesley Smith, and his mother, Purdon Smith, were both natives of North Carolina. The early ancestors came from England and France, but although all the traditions of the family are southern, yet they have always been stanch supporters of Union and Republican principles. J. F. Smith's political views have largely democratic in the last few years, yet he always supports the man that he thinks most competent, regardless of party. In its ancestral state the Smith family was always noteworthy for its energy and enterprise, in ante-war times not especially characteristic of southern families in comfortable circumstance. Mr. Smith has inherited these family traits, reproduced in an intensified degree. His brother, the late S. Morgan Smith, was also recognized in Pennsylvania as a promoter of its great industrial interests, being the founder of the York firm of S. Morgan Smith Company, and the inventor and manufacturer of a turbine water wheel which is largely introduced in America and Europe. John F., although active and successful in the promotion of his lumber interests in northern Ohio, has ably discharged various public responsibilities, and is a man who always can be depended upon to do more than his exact quota of work, which would justly fall to the lot of every good citizen. J. F. Smith was united in marriage to Amanda M. Havnar, of New Philadelphia, Ohio, in the year of 1874. Four sons were born to them, three of whom survive. JOEL RUMSEY REEVE.—Early American life was enriched in many ways. At present the tide of immigration brings in the undesirables, the skimmed milk of the old world. Its cream, rich in men and women of strong frames, sturdy in nature, reliant, resourceful, full of high purposes and often seeking this land for the freedom denied them in their own, came in struggling, formative days of the country. They assisted materially in this development and gave it qualities that still exist. Of this stalwart nature was the Reeve family, whose descendants have left their mark by lives of honesty, industry, intelligence and thrift, and have often sat in "the seats of the mighty." The first Reeves came from Dijon, France. They were Huguenots, and, seeking religious freedom, the most fled to England, though a few settled in Ireland and Holland. The spirit of colonization was strong in those of England. They came to this country in its early days and they quickly made its cause their own, fighting bravely and with distinction in all the wars of their adopted land. Many of them settled in Eastern New York, and there Joel Rumsey Reeve, the subject of this sketch, was born in Rensselaerville, April 25, 1823. The region around there was not only rich in a farming sense but unusually picturesque, and to the day of his death, Mr. Reeve, who had a, great love for the beautiful, never tired of celebrating the glories of the Catskills. His father, Rumsey Reeve, was an Episcopalian. This was a serious handicap when he sought a wife, especially as the girl upon whom he had set his heart was a Methodist Episcopalians were then looked upon with almost as much disfavor as Catholics, and Rumsey's love-making was more of a campaign than a courting. Girls in those days were dutiful, still they were children of pioneer men who had succeeded because they were strong and persistent. The girls inherited these qualities and they loved and persisted in their love despite the frown of their fathers. The one sought by Rumsey was of this heroic type. She and Rumsey met in secret when they could not meet openly and they made a love-letter box of an old tree. Finally the father, too, realized that the world held nothing that could separate them. Their 790 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE wedded life was an ideal one. She worshiped him for his strength of character and the tender, affection that went out to 'her, and he found in her the softer qualities which rounded out his own. The family pioneering spirit was strong in them, too, so about the year 1828 they started for Ohio by the Erie canal, then the sole means of travel, save the narrow, muddy, winding roads. This brought them to Buffalo, where they purchased an outfit and traveled the rest of the way. by the road which ran by the shore of Lake Erie. Mrs. Reeve's father, the Rev. Henry Woolsey, had already settled in Lake county, and there his only daughter and her husband joined them. This Rev. Henry Woolsey was a man of firm. and impressive nature, even in those days when strong characters came to the front. He was a preacher of power and eloquence, earnest and persuasive, and of such compelling enthusiasm that he would carry his congregation into such intensity of emotions that many would fall to the floor in the excess of their religious frenzy. His son Benjamin gave more than $7,000 to the Methodist church, and the land on which the Willoughby high school building now stands ; the land to be in use for school purposes only, otherwise to revert to his heirs. This is the Woolsey family which has given so many brilliant men to the country and which has exercised so great and wholesome an effect upon its growth as ministers, lawyers, statesmen, diplomats and educators. To have its blood in their veins and to be born a Woolsey was to have a long start in the race where brains and the truest religious convictions counted. Rev. Theodore Woolsey, of Yale College, the founder of Cornell, etc., were illustrations. Though perhaps not as strong, this alert, questioning, intellectual nature was in the Reeve family and found large expression in Rumsey. He was a student as well as farmer. Immediately on his arrival, he purchased 300 acres of land. He stocked it liberally with the best of cattle and never shirked his farming duties. But in spite of the long hours he had to give to plowing, sowing, reaping, the feeding and the care of his live_ stock, he found time to continue his studies in law and in medicine, for which he had especial fondness and aptitude. He was so well grounded in medicine that he served as a volunteer doctor for piles around, and his legal knowledge was so large and so secure that his advice was often sought by lawyers in Cleveland. In those days, when Episcopalians are often criticised by those of sterner faiths for the laxity of their church discipline, it is amusing to read of the severity of the views of the early members of that faith. 'Rumsey and. Abigal, his wife, lived up to the ordinances of their religion with especial strictness. The children were not allowed to even whistle on the Sabbath. There was no Episcopal church nearer than old Trinity in Cleveland, but they would not make any compromises and attend another denomination nearer. Sunday they started out at five o'clock in the morning to reach the church in due season, and there too their son Joel was a choir boy. Six children were born to Rumsey and Abigal Reeve. Of these Henry married, in 1836, Charlotte Shaw, a daughter of John and a granddaughter of Isaiah Shaw, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Charlotte was a strict Methodist, and when her pastor ,found that Henry courted her Sundays he sent word to him that it was against the rules and he must confine his courtship to other days in the week. Sarah, the second born, married November 20, 1834, Jeremiah Campbell, Esq. a man who was justice of the peace on Willoughby Plains for several years and also held other offices of honor and trust. Hannah was married February 21, 1834, to Alonzo Goodman, who became one 0f the wealthiest men in Kansas City, Missouri, and also a representative from that state. The other children were Polly, who was a teacher ; Enoch, who went to Illinois and amassed a large fortune, and Joel, the subject of this sketch. Joel's wife was Mary Amelia Griswold, whom he married January 31, 1850. She was the daughter of Isaac Darrow Griswold, for a score of years a beloved teacher in northern Ohio. He was the original owner of Kirtland Mills, and of Little Mountain, part of which is still in the possession of his heirs. These Griswolds were English and of the family which gave Connecticut one of its governors in the person of Matthew Grisw0ld. Her mother, Olive Foster Griswold, was a descendant of Christopher Foster, who came from England in 1635. Among the descendants of Rumsey and Abigal Reeve are many lawyers, teachers, doctors, dentists, ministers, prominent farmers and business men. Pioneer farming was attended with danger from which that of the present is happily spared. One day while clearing a piece of land Rumsey was crushed beneath the trunk of a tree he had just felled. His son Henry, in the suspense and agony of that hour, was compelled to cut HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 791 the log twice through before he could extricate the body of his father. The work the husband and father had laid down was taken up by Abigal in the brave, uncomplaining spirit of the women of those days. For thirteen years she carried on and oversaw all the varied and exacting duties of the farm. She was successful from the start, made money and thriftily held on to it.. She improved the land in many ways, built a new house that was a source of admiration in those times, and so administered the duties of her new position that when her son Henry was married she gave him the rich portion of the eldest son, which started him well in life. She was progressive, and it is noted that she bought the first spring buggy in Willoughby. Naturally of much dignity, responsibility added to this impressiveness, and though a woman of great kindness of heart, yet her manner was so grave and her appearance so inspiring that even those who knew her best and loved her most were in awe of her. Joel Reeve was educated at the famous old academy where Dr. Asa D. Lord, an educator of the old school, was principal so many years. Then he entered the store of his uncle, Elijah Woolsey, where he remained sonic time as a clerk. He took part with zest in the social life around him, was a careful observer of it as well, and in later days lie often delighted in contrasting the formality and dignity of the cotillion parties he then attended with the romping ragtime of the present. No young girl then went unchaperoned, a relative or trusted servant accompanied her to the dances, sat through them all and then escorted her home with equal watchfulness. At all parties of any kind a bounteous meal was always served, of which wild turkey, pumpkin pie, preserves, luscious and many hued, wonderful cakes, plums, seed, etc., of uncounted brands, were the main features. Long tables were spread and such was the spirit of chivalry that the girls first and afterwards the boys were served. Joel was early taught the value of money. He earned his first money by hard work, and that impressed its value firmly upon him. He was given a patch of land by his mother, which he cleared. He hired a man and team, and on this small piece raised To0 bushels of corn, which sold for $to0, half of which he paid to the hired man. Mr. Reeve was in the barrel and stave business for several years. F0r a year after his marriage he lived in Toledo, Ohio, but he re- Vol. II-6 turned to his old home, and all. the rest of his life he spent in Willoughby, with the exception of the years 1890-91, when he and his wife visited his brother Henry, and also their son Oscar in California. With his long line of cultured ancestry he naturally had high appreciation of the value of a thorough education. Most of his descendants are college bred—from Adelbert, Women's College, Lake Erie, Oberlin, Mt. Union, Syracuse and Berkeley (California) Universities; Howes' Military, old Willoughby College, San Jose, California, Normal, etc. He was always greatly interested in the education of the young and for forty years was a diligent and valuable member of the school board of: Willoughby. He was also intensely interested in politics, which he studied with a strong, unprejudiced mind, and as a result of his reading and his observation he voted the straight Republican ticket all his life. Much of the sternness of his Huguenot forefathers was shown in Mr. Reeve's attitude toward life. He did not believe in the use of tobacco or liquors of. any kind, and he attributed his own long life. and his unusual strength, which lasted. till its close, to the fact that he had never used tobacco or spirits. All his sons are abstainers, too, as well as his father and brothers before. If one of the farm hands wished to smoke, he had to do it in secret, far from the house and barns, and Mr. Reeve promptly burned every pack of cards he discovered. In spite of his sternness, Mr. Reeve was a man of lovable nature, affectionate to his family, helpful to his friends. His life was clean and upright,: progressive and uplifting, and it served unconsciously as a model. He was often in advance of his times in his views, but he lived to see the world grow up to them. His main purpose in life, though, was the loving, developing, training of his children. To this he devoted himself unselfishly, and all the rich resources of his mind and character, all the acquirements of his life, were given freely and constantly to them. He died February 16, 1909, at his old home in Willoughby. Mrs. Mary Reeve was a worthy companion and helpmeet for a man the nature of Joel Reeve. She had the qualities of mind and soul to be the mother of his children. She was educated in the Willoughby Female Seminary, where her gifts for writing and oratory were early recognized, and all through a long and busy and capable life she continued to exercise them. Had opportunity allowed, she 792 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE would have made her mark in a noted way as a writer and speaker. As it was she had a high local fame in these respects. It was while she was a teacher in Willoughby that Mr. Reeve first met her. She was an earnest church woman, too, and though bearing her share of the burdens of a large farm—much heavier than now in the days of machinery and enlightenment—and a mother's part in the bearing and bringing to manhood and womanhood of four sons and four daughters, she never failed in her loving service to the church and Sunday school—often going out in the highways and byways to gather in the poor. And with all her cares and troubles she always found time to look after the needy and sorrowing. Universal brotherhood was not only a beautiful theory with her, but a problem to be worked out in our daily liveg in terms of flesh and blood. Temperance workers found a strong ally in her and she held the office of president of the W. C. T. U. until failing health compelled her resignation. At the time of her death she was county superintendent of the Social Purity League. As a wife she was dutiful and devoted ; as a mother loyal and loving ; as a friend generous and faithful. Her life was pure, spotless, uplifting. Her memory will always be a priceless legacy and an inspiration. She died August 23, 1900. "The actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." To Joel and Mary Griswold Reeve were born : Henry and Arthur, who died in childhood ; Oscar, who married Cora Talbot, a granddaughter of the Rev. S. F. Whitney ; Emma, who married Walter Tyler, who came from the same ancestry as President Tyler ; Alvin married Nelly, a daughter of Harvey and Minerva Granger Hall ; Eugene, Omar, Olive, Etta and Lillian, who married Leon Beckwith Hoose and has two children, Norman Reeve and Warren Joel. In January, Two, Mr. and Mrs. Reeve celebrated their golden wedding. ALBERT B. FAIRCHILD. — Among the first business houses of Ravenna, none are more worthy of patronage and public confidence than that of which Albert B. Fairchild is the senior member. It is also one of the oldest business houses of the city, for it was founded by his father at the time of the arrival of the family here in 1879. John Fairchild was after a short time succeeded in his furniture business by his eldest son, George E. Fairchild, who conducted the business for some years and then moved to the Pacific coast. He is now extensively engaged in the shoe trade in San Francisco, but he is also the proprietor of eight other stores in different cities in California. During, his proprietorship of the business here, Albert B. Fairchild was his partner, and after the brother's removal to the west, W. A. Jenkins became associated with the firm, but it is now known as Fairchild & Son, dealers exclusively in chinaware, crockery and furniture, and also undertaking in all its departments. Since 1878 the business has been conducted at its present location, where; by their courteous treatment, the careful selection of their goods and their extensive business experience, the members of the firm have been very successful. Albert B. Fairchild, the senior member, was born at Jericho, Vermont, on August 3, 1849, a son of John and Sophronia P. (Sears) Fairchild, the father from Ohio and the mother from Quebec, Canada, and the former was a son of Levi Fairchild, whose wife, after his death, married a Mr. .Farrend, the builder of the first flouring mill at St. Anthony, now Minneapolis, Minnesota. Both John and Sophronia Fairchild died in Ravenna. Albert B. Fairchild, the younger of their two sons, received an academic education at Highgate, Vermont, and in 1879 he came with his parents to Ravenna. On the 4th of July, 1871, at Ogdensburg, New York, he was married to Martha A. Jones, from Kempville, Ontario, Canada, a daughter of Edward and Jane (Harris) Jones, natives of Wales. The children born of this union are : Sophronia, a teacher in the public schools of Ravenna; Eunice, born in East Hillgate, Vermont, on the 5th of November, 1873, and died on the 17th of February, 1904, having served some years as a deputy in the office of the probate judge of Portage county; John, who is in business with his father ; and Albert, whose home is in Salt Lake City, Utah. An uncle of Mrs. Fairchild served sixteen years in the Canadian parliament. Mr. Fairchild is prominent in the local council of the Republican party, and has served several terms as a member of the board of city aldermen. He is a member of the order of Masons, Unity Lodge of Ravenna, No. 12, and in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows he has filled the princi- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 793 pal offices. The family are members of the Episcopal church, and during many years Mr. Fairchild has served as one of its wardens. SELWYN R. CONKLING.—One of the progressive business men and popular citizens of Portage county is Selwyn R. Conkling, who is now engaged in the coal business in Garrettsville, where for many years he held the position of station agent of the Erie Railroad. He is a native of the fine old Western Reserve, where his entire life thus far has been long been and in the thriving village which has been his home he has a secure hold upon the confidence and esteem of the entire community . As a loyal and public-spirited citizen he has aided materially in the development and progress of Garrettsville, where his services have been in requisition as a member of the village council and the board of education, of which latter he is president at the present time. Mr. Conkling was born in Montrose, Summit county, Ohio, on the 25th of February, 1855, and is a son of Rial M. and Hannah (Sweet) Conkling, the former of whom was born near Palmyra, New York, and the hitter in Summit county, Ohio, a daughter of Alfred Sweet, a sterling pioneer of that sec-don of the Western Reserve. George Conklin, grandfather of the subject of this review, passed his entire life in the state of New York and was a representative of the same family as was the late and distinguished Roscoe Conklin, who was long a prominent figure in national affairs. Rial M. Conkling was reared and educated in the old Empire state, where he learned the trade of carpenter, and whence he came to the Western Reserve about 1840, locating in Summit county, where he engaged in contracting and building. He died in 1884, when about seventy-one years of age. He was a man of stanch principles and generous impulses, a liberal and loyal citizen, and one who ever commanded unqualified popular esteem. His political support was given to the Republican party. The mother passed to the life eternal in 1870, at the age of forty-nine years. They became the parents of five sons and one daughter, and of the number all are living except three. Selwyn R. Conkling passed his boyhood and youth in Summit county, where his early educational advantages were those afforded in the district schools. Later he continued his studies in the high school at Garrettsville, and in this village he initiated his business career in 1874, when nineteen years of age. He secured employment in the local station of the Erie Railroad, then known as the Atlantic & Great Western, and here he familiarized himself with the various duties of station and baggage agent. His faithful and able service in time brought due promotion, for in 1889 he was appointed station agent at Garrettsville, which had now grown to be a station of far more importance than it was when he first began his labors here. He filled this position with all of acceptability until July, 1907, when he resigned the same, after having been in the employ of the one railroad company for the long period of thirty-four years—a fact indicating most significantly the estimate placed upon his services in handling the multifarious business entrusted to his care. Upon resigning his position he engaged in the coal business in Garrettsville, where he has built up a most flourishing enterprise and receives a representative patronage, based alike on his fair and honorable dealings and his marked personal popularity. In politics Mr. Conkling is an uncompromising advocate of the principles of the Republican party, in whose cause he has done efficient service in the local field. He has been a member of the Republican township committee of Garrettsville township since 1888 and has taken an active interest in the work of the various campaigns. In 1886 he was elected a member of the village council, in which he served for sixteen consecutive years, within which he did much to promote the excellent public improvements which have added so materially to the progress and prosperity of the village. He has been a member of the board of education for eighteen years, and has held his present office of president of the body about sixteen years. He is also president of the Garrettsville Business (Men's) Association, which is doing much to promote the interests of the village. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and with its adjunct organization the Order of the Eastern Star, with which latter Mrs. Conkling also is identified. In 1878 Mr. Conkling was united in marriage to Miss Cora Alice Udall, daughter of the late George P. Udall, of Garrettsville. Of this union two sons were born : Glenn R., who is now employed in the electrical department of the extensive establishment of the Brown Engineering Company, of Cleveland ; and 794 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE Louis, who died at the age of twenty-five years. EDWARD PAUL WERNER.- On other pages of this work appears a review of the career of Paul E. Werner, founder and president of the Werner Company, of Akron, one of the largest and best equipped printing and book manufacturing concerns in the United States, and as the article mentioned gives also adequate data concerning the company, it is consistent to eliminate the same, as well as those concerning the family history, in the present connection, as ready reference may be made to the sketch of the life of the honored father of him whose name initiates this paragraph. Edward Paul Werner, who is now incumbent of the responsible and exacting office of general superintendent of the Werner Company, was born in the city of Akron, on the 2d of April, 1875, and is the eldest of the three sons of Paul E. and Lucy A. (Denaple) Werner. After completing the curriculum of the public schools of his native city, he entered the Kenyon Military Academy, at Gambier, Ohio, where he remained a student for three years. He then went to Germany, where his. father was born, and in the city of Stuttgart he continued his studies for two years in the high school. He returned to the United States in 1894, and forthwith became identified with the printing establishment of his father, where he familiarized himself with the multifarious details of the various departments and was finally made assistant superintendent of the great establishment. He remained incumbent of this position until 1906, since which year he has held the office of general superintendent, in which he has proved him, self a careful and able executive, keeping in close touch with every department of the business and maintaining the most perfect system in each, 'so that the service throughout is maintained at the point of highest efficiency. He is recognized as one of the representative business men of the younger generation in his native city, and here he is held in the most unequivocal popular esteem.. His beautiful home, at 258 West Market street, is one in which is dispensed a most gracious hospitality to his friends. He is a Republican in his political proclivities, and he is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church. In 1899 Mr. Werner was united in marriage to Miss Harriet M. Poehlman, who was born and reared in Akron, a daughter, of Louis Poehlman, and they have three children: Lucy M., Paul E., and Albert R. DUANE W. ROUSE.—Bearing with ease and dignity his burden of four score and four years, Duane W. Rouse holds a place of prominence among the respected and public-spirited citizens of Geneva, Ashtabula county, where he is a large property holder, and one of the foremost in contributing towards the growth of town and county. He comes of substantial patriotic ancestry, his maternal grandfather, Jeremiah Crandall, having served in a New York regiment in the Revolutionary war, and was himself a soldier in two wars—the Mexican war and the Civil war. A son of William Rouse, he was born, June 12, 1825, in New York state, twenty miles south of Buffalo. When seven years of age, Duane W. Rouse was taken to the home of an uncle, who lived south of Syracuse, in Onondaga county, New York, and was there brought up and educated. At the age of sixteen years, he came to Ohi0, joining his father, who had for a number 0f years lived about twelve miles north of Mansfield; in Richland county. A year later he began learning the harnessmaker's trade in Ashland, Ohio, receiving his board and two dollars a month wages, but clothing himself. He spent two years as an apprentice, afterwards working at his trade, then going to Orange, Ohio, where he remained a few months. Subsequently, wishing to establish himself in business on his own account, Mr. Rouse located in Leroy, Medina county. Very shortly 'after that time, the Mexican war broke out, and he hurried to offer his services to his country, being the first man in Medina county to do so. Enlisting May 20, 1846, in Company E, Wayne County Volunteers, Third Ohio Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel R. Curtis, he went with his comrades to Matamoras to join Taylor's army. Before reaching the place, however, General Taylor had twice defeated the Mexicans, at Palo Alto and at Resaca de la Palma. After staying six months at Matamoras, Mr. Rouse's regiment was sent. to Monterey, where, on. seeing the new recruits, the Mexicans retreated, and the regiment followed their brave commander on a forced march to Buena Vista. Mr. R0use took part in several engagements of this war, which was virtually closed when General HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 795 Scott captured the city of Mexico, and had many experiences of a varied nature, some being humorous, and others pathetic and thrilling. While in Buena Vista this Ohio company burned in effigy Tom Corwin, then United States senator from Ohio, who, in a speech that killed him politically, insulted the soldiers taking part in the Mexican war. Nailing the cross on which the effigy was placed to a tree, they inscribed upon it the following stanza : "Old Tom Corwin is dead, and here he lies; Nobody sorry how he fares ; Nobody is sorry, and nobody cares." Returning to Leroy after serving fourteen months in the army, Mr. Rouse continued in business there until his marriage, when he bought land near Leroy, and began farming. During the Civil war he helped raise a company of volunteers, drilled it as its captain until September, 1861, when it was sworn in with the National Guards, and he was commissioned as first lieutenant of his company. This was subsequently consolidated with another company, whose first lieutenant was given the lieutenancy in the new company, and Mr. Rouse retired from the service. Returning then to his farm, Mr. Rouse carried it on until 1872. In 1873 he purchased land one mile east of Geneva, and was there prosperously employed in tilling the soil until i880, making improvements of an excellent character, including the erection of substantial farm buildings. Since 1880 Mr. Rouse has lived in Geneva, where he has extensive financial interests, and has been actively identified with the estabishment of many of its leading enterprises. He has erected and sold many of tbe village residences, selling some of them on the installment plan, and now owns four fine residences and a large two-story brick block, which he huilt, on one of the leading business corners, in 1890. Although ranking with the prominent Democrats of Geneva, be is really independent in politics, voting with the courage of his convictions the best men and measures. He carries a Mexican war badge given him by the government, and is distinguished as being one of the twenty Mexican war veterans living in Ohio, being probably the only one in Ashtahula county. Mr. Rouse married, October 3, 1848, Mary E. Reynolds, and on October 3, 1908, this happy couple celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding day in the North Star Grange Hall, a host of friends, relatives and well-wishers gathering there to offer congratulations. Mrs. Rouse was born near Leroy, where they were married, and was there brought up. Five children were born of their union, namely : Florence, widow of Dr. Horace Judson, of Cleveland; Angeline, wife of L. M. Cole, of Geneva ; Eulalie E., wife of Fred Chester, of Geneva; Walter E., of Cleveland, a commercial salesman; and Dora B., wife of Owen S. Spring, of Daytonia, Florida. Mr. and Mrs. Rouse have twelve grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren. Fraternally, Mr. Rouse was made a Mason in 1870, and belongs to both the lodge and the chapter, being quite interested in the order. Mrs. Rouse is a member of the Baptist church, and Mr. Rouse was a member of the building committee. GEORGE H. MERRILLS.—One of the representative farmers of Lake county is George H. Merrills, whose homestead farm lies contiguous to the village of Wickliffe, Lake county, and who is also the owner of land in Willoughby township, this county. The three tracts are, however, not far distant from each other, so that he gives his supervision to all of them. He is a native of the Western Reserve and a member of a family that was founded within its borders nearly three-fourths of a century ago. George Henry Merrills was born in Nottingham, Cuyahoga county, Ohio; on the 15th of October, 1845, and is a son of Nathaniel and Lucy M. (Taft) Merrills, both natives of the state of New York. Nathaniel Merrills was born in the city of Rochester, and there he learned the cooper's trade. In 1836 he came to Ohio and for many years he conducted a cooper shop in the village of Nottingham, Cuyahoga county, where he maintained his home about twenty years. He then removed to Geauga county, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits for a time, after which he located in Painesville, the county seat of Lake county, where he was associated in the operation of a cooper shop for three years. Thereafter he was engaged in farming in Euclid township, Cuyahoga county, for several years, and he met his death by falling down an elevator shaft, in the city of Cleveland, where he died in a hospital, in 1888, when about seventy-eight years of age. His wife preceded him to eternal rest and her death occurred in Geauga county. They were folk of sterling attributes of character and 796 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE ever held the esteem of those with whom they came in contact in the various relations of life. George Henry Merrills, the immediate subject of this sketch, received a common school education and remained at the parental home. assisting his father in his various business operations, until his marriage, on November 14, 1868, when was celebrated his union to Miss Adelaide White, daughter of Cyphron S. and Rosanna (Wirt) White, of Euclid, Cuyahoga county. Six years after his marriage Mr. Merrills located on his present homestead farm, and the place comprises twenty-three acres, adjoining and within the village of Wickliffe, Lake county, besides which he owns twenty-eight and one-half acres in Willoughby township, Lake county, and thirty-one acres in another part of Lake county, and 104 acres at Willoughby Center.. He is one of the popular and honored citizens of Wickliffe township, and this fact is indicated in his having held for eleven consecutive years the office of township trustee. He is a stanch supporter of the principles and policies of the Republican party and he holds membership in the Disciples church. He has six children,—Cyphron G., Leo, Rose, Budd N., Ruth Ida and Charles. Leo Merrills, the second in order of birth of the children of George H. and Adelaide (White) Merrills, was born in Willoughby township, Lake county, Ohio, on October 15, 1872, and he was reared to the age of thirteen years on the home farm now occupied by his parents, in the meanwhile duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools of the locality. Thereafter he became a clerk in a general store, after leaving which he returned to the parental home and assisted his father in farming operations until his marriage, at the age of twenty-three years. He then settled on his present attractive little homestead of twelve acres, in Wickliffe, Lake county, and in addition to the cultivation of the same he also has charge of the operation of an adjoining tract of twenty-eight and one-half acres. On his home place Mr. Merrills has erected a substantial residence and also a good barn, and the home is one of the attractive places of this part of the county. Leo Merrills is a stanch supporter of the cause of the Republican party and is incumbent of the office of road supervisor, in which connection the district under his supervision 1extends from the shores of Lake Erie to the Ridge road. On February 5, 1896, Leo Merrills was united in marriage to Miss Flora Daus, wh0 was born in the city of Cleveland and reared in Willoughby township, Lake county. She is a daughter of August and Minnie Daus, the former of whom died in 1900 and the latter of whom still resides on the home farm in Willoughby township. Mr. and Mrs. Merrills have two winsome little daughters,--Elsie and Ethel. THOMAS M. GRIFFITH.—The name of Thomas M. Griffith is recorded on both the pages of the business and official history 0f Ravenna and Portage county, but he is a native, son of Wales, born there February 16, 1855, to Griffith and Ann (Thomas) Griffith, also from Wales. He is a grandson of Moses Griffith and Louis Thomas. Coming from his native land to the United States, Griffith Griffith located in Hubbard, of Trumbull county, Ohio, in May, 1870, and his family of wife and four children, two sons and two daughters, joined him there in the following September. He was a Baptist minister, a good and pious man, and his death occurred on the 31 st of October, 1872. In 1880 his widow removed to Palmyra, Ohio, where she passed away in August of 1892, after becoming the mother of five children : Catherine, who became the wife of John Perry, and both are now deceased ; Mary, who "married William Pr0sser, and they are also deceased ; Thomas M., who is mentioned below ; Martha, the wid0w of Reese M. Reese and a resident of Monongahela, Pennsylvania ; and Daniel M., deceased. Thomas M. Griffith obtained his educational training under the able instructions of his revered mother, and as a boy of eight he began working in the coal mines of Wales. After the establishment of the family home in Hubbard, Ohio, he worked at the same occupation there for nine years. and then going to Palmyra, this state, he was a miner there until coming to' Ravenna in 1889. During the first eight years of his residence in this city he was employed in a planing mill, after which for several years he was an employe in a chair factory, and he then entered upon his present connection with the H. W. Riddle Hearse Company. As a representative of the Republican party he served two years as the assessor HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 797 of Ravenna township, and since his election in 1904 he has served as the city and township treasurer. His fraternal relations connect him with Unity Lodge, No. 12, F. & A. M., of Ravenna, and with Diamond Lodge, No. 136, K. of P., of Palmyra, Ohio. On the 2d of March, 1882, Mr. Griffith was united in marriage to Ellen Williams, from Palmyra, but her parents, Thomas and Mary (Davis) Williams, were from Wales. They were married, however, in Palmyra, the father having located in that city when sixteen years of age, and he was a wagon-maker there. One daughter has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Griffith, Clara Ellen, who is the wife of Louis Hinman and a resident of Palmyra. GEORGE JOHN RECORD.—In prefacing the personal and family history of this citizen of Conneaut, it is well to state the important achievements of his career and their results and influence in the material progress and the social welfare of tbis section of the Western Reserve. As Mr. Record himself says, his life has been One of intense activity, first as a merchant and then as manufacturer. As both an originator and organizer he belongs well to the front in the history of American industry. He was the first manufacturer of bright tin plate under the McKinley tariff in the United States, but this was only a department and incidental to the main activities of his plant for the manufacture of butter packages, cans and a large line of this class of goods, and when he sold his manufacturing plant in 1901 to the chief corporation controlling that industry. he had gained the success that consists in practical achievement in a large sphere and in the financial rewards which go with such achievement. His subsequent career has as its chief feature the devoted love of a father for a child whom death has taken, and the means he has taken to memorialize and perpetuate the beauty and worth of her character for the lasting benefit of the people among whom her life was passed. In the May Record Findley Memorial Chapel, which was dedicated at Conneaut, June 20, 1909, are combined in beautiful form a tribute to human cbaracter and faith in its immortality, together with the practical spirit of the modern age wbich makes usefulness the test of its monuments. The chapel, with its dignified English Gothic lines, its tower with bell chimes, is constructed of New Bedford stone, the interior lined with marble and with bronze doors, and contains an auditorium seating 700, with an elegant organ, besides reading rooms and gymnasium. With the First Congregational church of Conneaut as custodian, the chapel is to "be used for religious and educational purposes and the enjoyment of social privileges and physical culture." From the foundation to the belfry, from the furnishings of the chapel to the equipment of the ladies' reception rooms and reading rooms, including the books, periodicals and all other supplies, Mr. Record received not a dollar from the church or congregation or people that are now custodians of the memorial. The history of this branch of the Record family in America begins with John Record, who, with his brother Daniel, emigrated from England about 1740 and settled in the Rhode Island colony. His wife's name was Deborah, and their children were Whitman, Daniel, Nancy and John, Jr. John Record, Jr., who was born in Rhode Island about 1750, afterward settled in Stanfordville, near Poughkeepsie, New York. He married, at Kingstown, Rhode Island, October 14, 1773, Mary Donwell, of German parentage. They had thirteen children : John (3d), James, William, Whitman, Daniel, Thomas, Shepard, Augustus, Deborah, Valentine, Mary, Israel and Seth. This verse written on the first page of his family bible gives the key to his history and character : John Record Junior is my name, And English is my nation, Poughkeepsie is my dwelling place, And Christ is my salvation. Seth Record was born in Stanfordville, May 18, 1801, moved to Chautauqua County, New York, and married, in the town of Sherman, October 27, 1831, Ellidia Yale. She was born, of Welsh and Irish parentage, in Unadilla, New York, May 22, 1812, a daughter of Nehemiah and Ruth Spencer Yale. Seth and Ellidia Record had the following children : Otis Skinner, born June 30, 1833 ; Frances Jennett, October 7, 1835; Phebe, November 1, 1837 ; George John, August 22, 1839 ; Jane Ann, July. 11, 1845; Elm., January 13, 1849. The first two were born in the town of Sherman, and the others at Hanover, whither the parents had moved. George John Record was reared on the farm of his father, who was also engaged in the 798 - HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE woolen and sawmill. industries. After an education in the common schools and Fredonia College, he began to read medicine, but fortunately gave up his intention of entering that profession. He took a position in a drug store as clerk at six dollars a month, and for six months worked at this wage and boarded himself, but for the .following six months received twelve dollars a month and board. Afterward, as road salesman for a Buffalo company, he sold marble a year and a half. Then a patent stove-pipe elbow manufactured by D. Pierce, of North East, Pennsylvania, was sold by him in the west, and he was so successful during the years 1860 and 1861 that Mr. Pierce took him into partnership, and engaged in the hardware business . in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was in the general hardware business at Erie three years, and in 1867 moved to Conneaut. Mr. Record was a hardware merchant at Conneaut until 1882. During this time he had made some beginnings in manufacturing, and finally turned all his attention in this direction. In his hardware shop he began in a small way the making of an improved tin-lined butter package, employing one man for the work. He later took in Hiram Judson and son, and they started manufacturing under the name of Rec0rd, Judson & Company. After a year and a half the business showed a loss of about $1,200, but he retained his 'faith in what they were making, and agreed to buy his partners' interest. He continued the manufacturing business alone under the name of Record Manufacturing Company, and in 1882 he built a factory. Among the articles on which he had patents and which were made in the factory were tin-lined butter packages, shipping cans, and cans of different kinds, sap spouts, pails and sugar-makers' supplies. His business was developed to large proportions, and the character of his products possessed a reputation which was associated with the name of the manufacturer throughout the United States. His force of employes, when he opened the factory in 1882, was twelve, and had increased to 200 in 1901, when he sold the plant to the American Can Company. He also sold to this company twenty-eight patent rights on his own inventions. Mr. Record became a manufacturer of bright tin plate because he required such a large amount of this material of superior quality in his own factory. He was using about 2,000 boxes of -tin plate a month. When the McKinley tariff $1. 20 a box was placed on this material, it not only encouraged h0me manufacture, but made such manufacture almost a necessity for the continuance of the business. As .a result he was the first American manufacturer of the bright tin plate, his factory for this product being put up in 1891 as an addition to his large manufactory. The plate was rolled at Irondale, Ohio, and tinned in the Record plant, Welshmen and Welsh machinery having been imported to do this work. A cyclone taking off the roof of the factory delayed the manufacture, so that the first plates were not made until the last day of February, 1892. The home consumpti0n was between one and two thousand boxes a month, and the rest of the output was. easily disposed of among northern manufacturers. Mr. Record continued the tin plate works until 1901, when he sold the entire plant to the American Can Company, and remained a year and a half as manager of his branch of the industry. Mr. Record and his family have for many years been members of the Congregational church, and for the past five years he has been superintendent of the Sunday school of the First Congregational church of Conneaut. Mr. Record was married November 29, 1865, in Geneva, Ashtabula county, to Mary Josephen Chapel. Her father was Joseph Chapel and her mother Calista (Morse) Chapel, of the family of that name in Syracuse, New York. Mrs. Record was born Oct0ber 7., 1846, at Beloit, Wisconsin. Of Mrs. George J. Record little is known as to the geneal0gy of her family. She has always co-operated with her husband in his devotion to the cause of Christ and the character of their daughter was molded under constant influence of Christian faith. In her sparkling vivacity and penetration of mind, and in many other ways easily perceived by intimate acquaintances, the mother's share in her natural endowment was manifest. May Ellidia Record, the only child of George J. and Mary J. Record, was born in Conneaut, November 2, 1868, and died January 18, 1905. She was married, November 2, 1890, to Walter T. Findley. Mrs. Findley was a woman of more than usual capacities and character. In her girlhood she had attended the Conneaut public schools and completed her education in the Spencerian Business College at Cleveland and the Lake Erie Female Seminary at Painesville. The interest which she displayed in routine scholarship she also carried into every- HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE - 799 day life, and was always in sympathetic touch with the esthetic and moral influences of modern life. Her appreciation of literature, music and all that is beautiful and good was an essential part of her character, and, while she kept her health, drew her into many circles of study and activity in these matters. However, her life's highest development was reached in her religion. She belonged to the active membership of the church from the age of twenty, and was associated with all its charitable and social affairs. She taught in the Sunday school, she gave her time and energy to the promotion of the other church organizations. Religion was no superficial or incidental part of her life, but as health departed became her highest resource, from which she drew courage and cheerfulness to meet the extreme passion. Through these elements of character Mrs. Findley was made the possessor of hosts of friends. There were many whose affection had been won in childhood, and in later years, where she traveled and where she lived, friends came whose loyalty never ceased. For the continuation of the influences of such a life, so far as that is possible, her father and mother planned the May Record Findley Memorial, and Mr. Record has given a large part of four years to the details of construction of edifice. The cornerstone was laid June 9, 1907, in the presence of the Congregational members and Sunday school, and the chapel was dedicated June 20, 1909. MAY RECORD FINDLEY MEMORIAL CHAPEL.--Size of building, ninety feet by fifty-four feet. Height of tower, seventy-six feet. Built of New Bedford Oolitic stone, exterior, and interior lined throughout with marble. Bronze front doors. The walls are set with mortar of unusual strength, used freely to create a solid bed for even brick and stone. The interior, of choicest Vermont marble, of rare beauty, serves to displace a large amount of inflammable woodwork. Tbe plaster of walls and ceilings is laid upon hollow brick or iron lath, and the main floors are protected by a heavy layer of mineral wool, making the spread office most unlikely. The floor surface is of compressed cork, half an inch thick, non-combustible, sanitary, enduring, soft and grateful to eye and ear. The roof is of nine-fold asphalt paper, covered with slate embedded in asphalt. The windows are of soft and rich opalescent glass. Two figure windows represent the "Annunciation" and the "Three women and the Angel at the Vacant Tomb," after a painting by Plockhorst. The impressive and finely proportioned tower has a set of tubular chimes, of twenty bells, the largest set of this type which has been installed in the United States. There is a pipe organ, of large range, rich mahogany woodwork, plain gold-leaf decoration, and the best quality of material and workmanship. The auditorium differs from most similar structures in having the gallery constructed with rising tiers, so as to give a full view of the platform from every point. The chair seats are upholstered and unusually comfortable. Rolling partitions are arranged to provide for Sunday school class rooms, without in any degree obstructing the auditorium. The Sunday school is not removed to inferior quarters, but has the same beautiful appointments as the church, and at the same time has its special needs provided for. A pastor's study and a ladies' parlor are two of the most attractive rooms in the building. The most approved system of steam heating, automatic gas water heater for the baths, and a double system of lighting by gas and electricity, are practical parts of the equipment to which the most careful attention has been given. In the lower story is a commodious gymnasium, with marble-finished shower baths for men and women. There is also a large reading room, marble wainscoating, art marble floor and mahogany furniture, furnished with current literature and an ample and well selected library. In this reading room is set a marble case with bronze frame glass doors, in which is enclosed the old family Bible of John Record, Jr., printed in 1806, thirteen by seventeen inches in size, over which case hangs the portrait of Mrs. May Ellidia Record Findley, in memory of whom the Memorial is erected. WALTER THORNTON FINDLEY was born in Mercer, Mercer county, Pennsylvania, in 1865. He belongs to a pioneer family of western Pennsylvania, the name being prominent in local history from the beginning of the last century. His grandfather, Samuel, was a pioneer minister who for many years rode circuit in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Rev. John R. Findley, father of Walter T., was born in Antrim, Ohio, in 1827, and was one of the prominent ministers of the Presbyterian church. He was for twelve years minister at Conneaut, and identified himself with