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PICTURE OF EDWARD A. LANGENBACH HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 533 CHAPTER XXV PERSONAL HISTORY EDWARD A. LANGENBACH. No one man in Stark County has a more direct and vital relationship with the industrial life of the county than Edward A. Langenbach, whose name and general position and influence are probably known to every resident of the county. Mr. Langenbach, like many successful American manufacturers, was at one time a joint partner in an insignificant little shop in Canton, engaged in the manufacture of an article for which there was no established demand, with hardly enough capital to keep the business afloat, and in a situation familiar to most manufacturers where courage and determination were the saving qualities that kept him from disaster. Mr. Langenbach with the death or retirement of his former associates is now recognized as the controlling factor in the direction of what is known 'as the East End group of factories at Canton, including half a dozen concerns, with an aggregate capitalization of many millions, and furnishing employment to thousands of workers. Edward A. Langenbach is a native of Canton, born in that city, February 6, 1864. His father, the late Albin Langenbach, was horn in Germany, came to America and to Canton during the early '50s, and for a quarter of a century was a well known resident of Canton. He died in 1876. Edward A. Langenbach grew up in Canton, gaining his education in the public schools, supplemented by a course in a local business college. The history of his business career begins at the age of fifteen. At that time he was an employe of a Canton bank at a salary of $50 per year. Six months of banking work showed him that he was not fitted for the monotonous routine of such an institution. He left the bank to become a collector for John Werner and Brother, with which firm he continued for six months, and then in the same capacity with J. D. McCrae, a furniture dealer, with whom he remained about a year. Notwithstanding his meager pay during this time he was able to save some money, and eventually sufficient to finance himself as a traveling furniture salesman on commission. He was aggressive, tactful and energetic, did a successful business on the road, and that in spite of the fact that he was still a boy in years. At the end of three years he possessed a capital of about $300. He had in the meantime formed an acquaintance with John J. Berger, who was at that time in the employ of Mr. McCrae. These two young men frequently talked over and examined the feasibility of the manufacture of a malleable eave-trough hanger, a patented invention belonging to the late Wilson Berger. The young men Langenbach and Vol. II—1O 534 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Berger eventually ventured their capital in the manufacturing of this appliance. Their first factory was in a barn on Rex Avenue between Second and Third streets, S. E. They had barely enough money to equip their small plant and had practically nothing to promote the sale of their product. Thus the enterprise was in a fair way to failure, and in these discouraging times Mr. Langenbach tried to sell his interest. He was unable to do so except at a loss, and soon afterward he and Mr. Berger took into partnership Stephen Zuger, who afterwards sold his interest to Herman Klorer. Mr. Klorer put into the enterprise the sum of $15,000. That was the real beginning of the Berger Manufacturing Company of the present time. In 1890 Joseph Biechele also became interested in the concern, and about that time they incorporated as the Berger Manufacturing Company, with a capital stock of $25,000, and with Mr. Biechele as president. Subsequently the capital was increased to $50,000, then to $100,000, from that to $200,000, and finally to half a million. In the meantime the plant had a corresponding growth and development, and a large factory was erected at the east end of Canton. Wilson Berger and Mr. Klorer both died, John Berger and Mr. Biechele finally retired, so that by 1900 Mr. Langenbach was the only one left of the original owners. In that year a charter was taken out for the capitalization of $1,000,000, and of the new corporation Mr. Langenbach became president and general manager. During the last twelve years he has organized and assisted in the organization of the United Steel Company, of which he is vice president ; the United Electric Company, of which he is president ; the General Stamping Company, in which he is also president ; the Carnahan Tin Plate and Sheet Company, in which his position is vice president ; the United Security Company, of which he is president. He also organized the Canton Culvert & Silo Company and the Stark Rolling Mills, and took a prominent part in organizing the Canton Stamping & Enameling Company. Mr. Langenbach is vice president of the McCaskey Register Company. He promoted or assisted in promoting all the plants known as the East End groups, and is the leading spirit in these plants. These industries have a combined capital of between $12,000,000 and $14,000,000, and employ 6,000 operatives. Mr. Langenbach is a member of the Canton Club, the Country Club, the Congress Lake Club, and the Canton Chamber of Commerce. His wife, before her marriage was Miss Rose Janson of Canton. ROSCOE C. McCULLOCH, republican, of Canton, was born on a farm in Holmes County, Ohio, November 27, 1880. Educated in Millersburg, Ohio, public schools ; Canton High School ; University of Wooster ; Ohio State University Law College and Western Reserve University Law College. While in college he was president of the Ohio Republican College League. Admitted to the bar of Ohio on the 5th day of December, 1903 ; began the practice of law at Canton, Ohio, January, 1904. After serving nearly three years as assistant prosecuting attorney of Stark County, he resigned and entered upon the general practice of law. Received the republican nomination for Congress in May, 1912, in the Eighteenth Congressional District of Ohio, composed of Columbiana, Mahoning and Stark counties ; was defeated at the following national HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 535 election in November, 1912, by a majority of 556 votes in the district. Was nominated for Congress in the Sixteenth Congressional District of Ohio, composed of Stark, Tuscarawas, Wayne and Holmes counties, without opposition, in May, 1914; elected at the succeeding November election by a majority of 7,951 votes in the district. He is married and has two children. LEON WARD. Of the forceful men who have fashioned their careers within the limits of Ohio, one of the best known in manufacturing circles is Leon Ward, expert maker of aluminum ware and organizer, general manager and a director of the Massillon Aluminum Manufacturing Company. A skilled mechanic from the time of his youth, Mr. Ward has also developed a capacity for executive service that has steadily brought him forward among men of affairs until he is now the directing head of what is known as one of the most successful concerns in Stark County. Like others of Stark County 's prominent citizens, Mr. Ward is a New Englander by nativity, having been born at Windsor, Hartford County, Connecticut, August. 25, 1855, a son of Elijah and Jane (McFall) Ward, natives of Connecticut, of English and Scotch descent. Elijah Ward learned the trade of carriage making in his youth and that vocation occupied his energies until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he enlisted in Company G, Twenty-fifth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He fought valiantly with that organization through a long period of enlistment and became sergeant of his company, but did not live to enjoy the honors which would have been his, falling ill at New Orleans, Louisiana. and dying but several days before the regiment left for home. Not long after that event his widow, a woman of many accomplishments and great self-reliance, moved to Meriden, New Haven County, Connecticut, where she opened a large dressmaking establishment and thus became self-supporting. In that city she continued to make her home until she joined her son, Lean, at Doylestown, Ohio, and there her death occurred in November, 1909, when she had reached the advanced age of eighty-two years. Leon Ward was educated in the public schools of Windsor, Connecticut. as well as a select school, and at Meriden began to learn the trade of lathe burnisher. At that occupation he worked for some time at Meriden, but subsequently went to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to take charge of the Bridgeport Silver Plate Manufacturing Company, as manager. Three years later he became manager of the Morgan Silver Plate Manufacturing Company, at Boston, Massachusetts, and in that city eventually entered the same line of business on his own account. In 1890 Mr. Ward organized the Bay State Aluminum Manufacturing Company, at Quincy, Massachusetts, and in 1899 removed to Doylestown, Ohio, and organized a company in that city, where the plant was moved. He continued as head of the company there, known as the Buckeye Aluminum Manufacturing Company, until 1908, when the plant was removed to Wooster, where it was operated under the same name. Mr. Ward was general manager of this concern until 1914, when he disposed of his interests to his associates and in December, 1914, came to Massillon, where he organized the Massillon Aluminum Manufactur- 526 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY ing Company, with Massillon and Canton capital. A fine plant was erected and the concern began operations in February, 1915, with Mr. Ward as general manager and a member of the board of directors. This company is one of the most successful in Stark County, and this must be accredited in large degree to the energetic, capable and progressive manager. Mr. Ward is a member of the Massillon Chamber of Commerce, of the Massillon and Wooster Automobile clubs and of the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mrs. Ward, who was born at South Norwalk, Connecticut, bore the name of Irene Byxbee before her marriage and is a daughter of Theodore Byxbee, a New England Yankee. FRANK EDWARD HART, M. D. A physician and surgeon whose work and attainments have brought him a widely acknowledged distinction in Stark County, Dr. Frank E. Hart has been in practice over twenty years, and his home has been in Canton since 1897. Frank Edward Hart was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, January 7, 1873, a son of Frank Eugene and Harriet A. (Spencer) Hart. His father was a native of the State of Maine and his mother of New Hampshire. Both the Hart and Spencer families originated in England, and the first ancestors of the name crossed over and settled in the American colonies before the war of the Revolution. Doctor Hart's father located in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1876, and for many years was a successful merchant in the dry goods trade. His wife died in that city in 1894, and he passed away at Montreal, Canada, in 1904. Doctor Hart grew up in Cincinnati from the age of three years, and as a boy attended the public schools, completing the course through the high school. In 1889 he entered the Ohio Medical College, and with the class of 1893 was given his degree Doctor of Medicine. From that time forward he has devoted himself with all his energy and ability to practice, and before coming to Canton enjoyed several years of metropolitan experience in Cincinnati. In 1897 he located in the south part of Canton on Market Street and has had his home and office in that locality ever since. Doctor Hart resides at 1200 S. Market Street. Besides his private practice he is a member of the surgical staff of the Aultman Hospital. Doctor Hart takes much interest in the organized activities of his profession and of the various civic bodies of Canton. He is a member of the Canton, Stark County and Ohio State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, in which he is especially active, and is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias. Doctor Hart married Charlotte Mae Wakefield of Cincinnati, daughter of Fred F. Wakefield, formerly of Cincinnati and later of Canton. Mrs. Hart met her death in a well remembered railway accident on the Burlington Line at Western Springs, twenty-five miles west of Chicago, in 1912. At that time she was returning from a trip to the Pacific Coast. RICHARD E. BEBB. Mr. Bebb is one of the group of Canton industrial executives whose capital, personal ability, and business enterprise are HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 537 collectively a primary source of this city's industrial prosperity. Mr. Bebb has had a long experience in industrial and manufacturing lines, and at the present time is president and general manager of the Canton Stamping & Enameling Company, one of the large and important industries of the city, and has frnancial or official relations with a number of other local concerns. Mr. Bebb is a native of Missouri. He was born at Chillicothe in that state, June 24, 1873. His father, William Bebb, who for many years has been a prominent contractor at Columbus, Ohio, was born in Wales, came to the United States about the close of the Civil war, and after a brief residence in Columbus, Ohio, in which city he was married, moved out to Chillicothe, Missouri, and engaged in contracting there four or five years. He then returned to Columbus, where he is still living. Richard E. Bebb grew up in Columbus, attended both the grade and high schools, and afterward had a commercial college course. His first employment was in a coal office at Columbus, but several months later he left that employment and accepted a position as sales manager with the Columbus Bolt Works. During the next five years he gained a thorough knowledge not only of that industry but of general industrial organization and commercial conditions. With this experience and such capital as he could command he organized the Columbus Vehicle Company at Columbus, of which he was president. Six years later he sold his interest in that concern to the Apex Manufacturing Company of Bloomington, Illinois, and of the latter company was secretary for two years, with headquarters both at Bloomington and Chicago. Mr. Bebb transferred his business interests and official headquarters to Canton in June, 1906. He came here to accept the position of manager of the Canton Stamping & Enameling Company. His own ability has been a large factor in that concern's advancement in the past ten years, and his own promotion has been in proportion to the growth of the company. He was made manager and treasurer, still later general manager and treasurer, and in 1912 became president and general manager. He has large financial holdings and official position in other important industrial and financial enterprises. He is a member of the board of directors of the City National Bank of Canton, member of the board of directors of the Geiger-Jones Company of Canton ; chairman of the executive board of the American Stamping & Enameling Company at Bellaire, Ohio ; chairman of the executive board of the Central Steel Company of Massillon; president of the Massillon Rolling Mill Company ; president of the Enterprise Aluminum Company of Massillon. Mr. Bebb is familiar in the best social organizations of Canton, belongs to the Canton Chamber of Commerce, the Canton Club, the Country Club and the Congress Lake Club. In Masonry he has taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite and belongs to the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Bebb married Elizabeth L. Lucas of Columbus, and their one daughter is named Katheryne Mignon. ISAAC MILTON TAGGART. A career that is unique in the banking history of Ohio is that of Isaac Milton Taggart, cashier of the Merchants National Bank of Massillon. It is not a common occurrence for one 538 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY who has passed seventeen years in the schoolroom to suddenly enter the exacting and difficult field of finance, and not only to gain local position as the head of an important institution, but to build up a state-wide reputation in banking circles, but such has been Mr. Taggartls record, for aside from the influence which he wields as cashier of the Merchants National at Massillon, he occupies a place high in the councils of the Ohio Bankers Association and in the supreme financial organization of the country—the American Bankers Association. Mr. Taggart was born on the Taggart farm, near Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, May 3, 1850, and is a son of William and Lydia (Reiter) Taggart. His father was born near St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio, a son of James Taggart, a native of Ireland, who came to America in Colonial times with his father, who subsequently became a soldier in the American forces during the War of the Revolution. James Taggart removed from Pennsylvania, the original family settlement, to Belmont County, Ohio, in pioneer days, and there passed the rest of his life in farming operations. William Taggart grew up in Belmont County, from whence, as a young man, he removed to Wayne County, making the journey on foot in company with his cousin, Dr. William Taggart. In his native county, William Taggart had learned the trade of making saddle trees and wooden hames for harness, and as soon as he found a suitable location in Wayne County began working at his vocation, as the pioneer tradesman in that line in his part of Ohio—now nearly a century ago. He manufactured and sold his product direct to his customers, traveling about with a horse and wagon, but, when hand work was supplanted by machinery, disposed of his interests and retired to his farm east of Wooster, where he continued as a tiller of the soil until his death in 1862, at the age of fifty-one years. His wife was Lydia, the daughter of William Reiter, a Wayne County pioneer who came from Berks County, Pennsylvania, a few years after Ohio was admitted to the Union. She died in 1882, at the age of seventy-two years. Isaac Milton Taggart was reared on the home farm in Wayne County, and was given good educational advantages in his youth, attending the district schools, the public schools at Wooster, the Smithville (Ohio) Academy, and Mount Union College. He was graduated from the last named with the class of 1870 and the degree of Bachelor of Sciences and in 1879 this institution conferred upon him the master's degree. For twenty years Mr. Taggart was engaged in teaching school and during fifteen years of this period was superintendent of schools at Canal Fulton. In 1890 Mr. Taggart gave up school teaching to enter banking, a field entirely new to him and for which he had had no training whatsoever. It was in that year that he, William F. Ricks and J. W. McClymonds promoted and organized what is now the Merchants National Bank of Massillon, now one of the strong financial institutions of Ohio. When the bank opened its doors for business, J. W. McClyinonds held the office of president, Mr. Ricks was cashier and Mr. Taggart was assistant cashier, but following Mr. McClymonds' death, Mr. Ricks ascended to the presidency and Mr. Taggart became cashier. The success of the Merchants National emphasizes the remarkable and singular PICTURE OF SAMUEL J. SPALDING, M. D. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 539 attainments of Mr. Taggart in the field of finance His achievements have been such as to gain the unqualified confidence of his fellow-bankers in the state, as evidenced by his membership in the Ohio State Bankers Association's Council of Administration and his chairmanship of "Group Eight," for three years. In 1914 he was elected by this association as vice president for Ohio in the American Bankers Association. Mr. Taggart is equally prominent in industrial and manufacturing circles, holding important positions in numerous corporations, among which may be mentioned the following: President of the Spruce River Coal Company, operating in West Virginia, with executive offices at Massillon; treasurer and director in the Massillon Rolling Mill Company; vice president and director in the Brown Lumber Company, Massillon; director in the National Sanitary Company, Salem; director in the Canton Stamping and Enameling Company; director in the Massillon Iron and Steel Company; director in the Peerless Drawn Steel Company, Massillon; director in the Massillon City Ice and Coal Company; vice president and director in the Massillon Foundry and Machine Company; director in the Agricultural and Commercial Line Company, with plant at North Industry, Ohio, and executive offices at Canton; and various interests in other corporations of prominence. He is past eminent commander of Massillon Commandery No. 4, K. T., and belongs to the Massillon Club and the Lakeside Country Club. Mr. Taggart has been twice married. His first wife was Luria E. Fulton, who was born west of Massillon. the daughter of Benjamin Fulton, a native of Stark County and a representative of the old and prominent pioneer family for which Canal Fulton was named. Mrs. Taggart died in February, 1906, leaving six children : Minnie, who is the wife of George A. Chapman, an official of the Quaker Oats Company, of Chicago; Frank F., manager, secretary and treasurer of the Spruce River Coal Company; Dorothy, who is single and lives at home; Cora and Carrie, twins, the former married Dr. Charles H. Clark, formerly superintendent of The Cleveland State Hospital at Cleveland, and now superintendent of the new Lima State Hospital for Criminal Insane, at Lima, Ohio, and the latter of whom married C. P. L. McLain, of the C. L. McLain Company, wholesale grocers at Massillon; and Harold I., secretary, treasurer and general manager of the Agricultural and Commercial Lime Company, of Canton. Mr. Taggart's second wife was formerly Miss Mary E. Lyon, daughter of the Rev. Frank Lyon, a Baptist minister with a charge at Zanesville. Mrs. Taggart was educated in music at the Detroit Conservatory of Music, and for fifteen years prior to her marriage was supervisor of music in various public schools, being for five years at Massillon, and for the year preceding her marriage was at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. SAMUEL J. SPALDING, M. D. As an inventor and manufacturer of appliances designed to protect and preserve the physical well being of humanity Doctor Spalding has become well known. as has he also for his scientific research and study in connection with the development and application of electrical force as a remedial agent. His reputation in his chosen field of endeavor far transcends local limitation and as one 540 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY of the sterling citizens of marked constructive genius who claim the City of Canton as their place of residence he is eminently entitled to recognition in this History of Stark County, within whose gracious borders he has maintained his home for nearly thirty years. Dr. Samuel Jenne Spalding was born at Dundee, Monroe County, Michigan, on the 26th of June, 1843, and is a representative of one of the honored pioneer families of that historic old county of Southern Michigan. He is a son of Daniel Witter Spalding and Julia (Jenne) Spalding. Doctor Spalding is a scion of a family that was founded in America by two brothers, Edward and Edmund Spalding, who came with Lord Baltimore from England in 1619. Edward was delegated by Lord Baltimore to form the New England colony, which he located where Holyoke, Massachusetts, now stands. Edmund was commissioned to re-form the Virginia colony. The family name has been from that time to the present one of no little eminence and influence in connection with the history of this country, where each successive generation has played well its part on the stage of life's activities, has stood exponent of utmost patriotism and sterling character and has aided in the consecutive march of progress. Representatives of the name have been prominent in the affairs of government and religious activities, in the domain of science, in the professions, in manufacturing and commerce, and in the field of philanthropy, each generation having produced its men of mark. Doctor Spalding of this review is a lineal descendant of Edward Spalding, one of the two brothers previously mentioned, and the genealogical line from that worthy ancestry is traced down to him through the following named heads of each successive generation: Joh, Samuel, Samuel (II), Uriah, Uriah (II), Heman, Samuel Witter, and Samuel Jenne Spalding, the last named, subject of this review, being thus a scion of the ninth generation of this family in America. Heman Spalding, grandfather of the Doctor, was born near Marlboro, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on the 15th of February, 1784, and thus it appears that the Cavalier stock in Virginia became allied to the Pilgrim element in New England before the close of the colonial era. Heman Spalding was numbered among the pioneers of Southern Michigan and there his death occurred, at Dundee, Monroe County, on the 13th of January, 1852. On the 28th of July, 1808, he married Mary Meyer, who was born in Greenbush, Albany County, New York, on the 1st of August, 1791, and who was a representative of one of the fine old Holland Dutch families early founded in New York, her brother having been a prominent figure in the construction of early canal systems in the Empire State. Mrs. Spalding survived her husband by a score of years and was a resident of Deerfield, Lenawee County, Michigan, at the time of her demise, on the 21st of August, 1873. In the spring of 1833 Heman Spalding removed with his family to Michigan Territory and established his residence at Dundee in Monroe County, his son, Daniel W., having made a trip of investigation through Southern Michigan the preceding autumn. Heman Spalding located and assumed his residence upon a tract of Government land about twelve miles west of the present City of Monroe, judicial center of the county of the same name, his old homestead being on the banks of the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 541 River Raisin and there having been few white settlers in that district at the time when he became one of the pioneers of Monroe County and four years having passed before Michigan was admitted to statehood. In the State of New York Heman Spalding had been a successful school-teacher and had also served as justice of the peace, and soon after his removal to Monroe County, Michigan, he was there elected justice of the peace, of which office he continued the valued incumbent for nearly fifteen years, besides being otherwise prominent and influential in the public affairs of the pioneer community. Daniel W. Spalding, son of Heman and Mary (Meyer) Spalding and father of him whose name initiates this review, was born in Oneida County, New York, on the 3d of June, 1814, and was a young man at the time when the family home was established in Monroe County, Michigan, and there he continued to reside for virtually three-fourths of a century. He was one of the most venerable pioneer citizens of the Wolverine State at the time of his death, which occurred at Dundee, Monroe County, on the 3d of January, 1908, about six months prior to his ninety-fourth birthday anniversary. On the 22d of October, 1840, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Julia Jenne, who was born October 5, 1818, and who passed to the life eternal November 16, 1890. She was a daughter of Captain Samuel and Elizabeth (Squires) Jenne, who likewise were territorial pioneers of Michigan. Captain Jenne served as an officer in the War of 1812 and as captain of his company took part in a number of the important engagements of that conflict. At the time of his death he had the distinction of being the oldest member of the Masonic fraternity in Michigan. The Captain became a successful contractor and builder in the State of New York and after his removal to Michigan he gained prestige as one of the leading representatives of this important line of enterprise in the Middle West, his operations having been extended far outside the present limits of the State of Michigan. He erected some of the largest of the early flour mills in Rochester and Lockport, New York ; at Tecumseh and others towns in Southern Michigan ; and even in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Under his direction his son-in-law, Daniel W. Spalding, likewise became an expert carpenter and builder, and for more than thirty years they were closely associated as contractors, especially in the erection of mills. Daniel W. Spalding was originally affiliated with the freesoil party, but he was one of those who assisted in the memorable assemblage "under the oaks" at Jackson, Michigan, when the republican party had its initial organization, it being now conceded in an historical way that this meeting was the one that resulted in the birth of that party, to which Mr. Spalding continued to give his allegiance during the remainder of his life. He and his wife were most zealous workers in the Congregational Church of Dundee, Michigan, of which he was a charter member and in which he served as leader of the choir, besides having been a successful teacher of music in his earlier manhood. Samuel J. Spalding was reared to maturity in his native village and in addition to receiving the advantages of the common schools of the locality and period he also had the privilege of attending the excellent boarding school conducted by "Aunt Laura Haviland," whose institu- 542 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY tion was a prominent seat of learning in that section of Michigan in the early days. The Civil war was precipitated shortly before Doctor Spalding celebrated his eighteenth birthday anniversary and his youthful patriotism was so fully aroused that he promptly responded to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers. He enlisted, in April, 1861, in Company D, Seventh Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and continued in active service for about six weeks. When the regiment was finally given orders to disband and to reorganize and all of its members were accorded their honorable discharge, Doctor Spalding availed himself of alternative given him and, at the earnest desire of his loved mother, returned home, but on the 4th of August of the same year he enlisted as drummer for Company C, Eleventh Michigan Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until illness incapacitated and resulted in his being mustered out, on account of disability, at Nashville, Tennessee, on the 21st of December, 1862. In later years he has perpetuated the more pleasing memories and association of his youthful military career by retaining affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic. After receiving his honorable discharge as a youthful veteran of the Union service in the Civil war, Dr. Spalding remained at the parental home until he had recuperated his health, and for several years thereafter he followed various lines of occupation. He finally turned his attention to the study of medicine, and in pursuance of effective discipline he ultimately entered the celebrated Bellevue Medical College, in New York City, from which he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the year 1867. Before entering. upon the practice of his profession, however, the doctor engaged in the manufacturing of proprietary medicines—first in Michigan and later in New York City. He finally sold his business in the national metropolis and became traveling salesman for the Toledo Chemical Works, of Toledo, Ohio. In 1875 he organized, in the City of Chicago, the Spalding Proprietary Medicine Company, which manufactured and placed on the market in elaborate and effective way his various remedies, all of which were the result of careful study and experimentation on his part. After withdrawing from this company the doctor returned to Michigan and established his residence in the City of Detroit, where he continued to manufacture his proprietary medicines and also engaged successfully in private practice as a physician and surgeon. During these years Doctor Spalding accumulated and lost several appreciable fortunes. He made money in the sale of his medicines and proceeded to deprive himself of much of his financial accumulations through unfortunate mining investments. In 1887 Doctor Spalding came to Ohio and established his residence and business headquarters in Canton, where he has since maintained his home. Until 1892 he traveled extensively in a professional way throughout the Middle States. For more than forty years the doctor has been greatly interested in the application of electricity as Nature's potent remedy in the treatment of a wide range of physical ailments, and during all these years he has been engaged in scientific research and experimentation, incidentally having expended thousands of dollars in HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 543 investigations, construction of devices and securing of patents. For somewhat more than twenty years he has given virtually his exclusive attention to the scientific construction of electrogalvanic medical belts and other appliances, and while his success has been noteworthy he feels that the work of beneficent development along this line is still in its infancy. He has unfailing confidence that further developments will prove of inestimable benefit to humanity, and that there is not setting of metes or bounds in the value of electrical application in the treatment of disease. The tangible results of Doctor Spalding's exhaustive study and work along these lines is shown in his "New Century Electrogalvanic Medical Belt and Appliances," of which he is inventor, patentee and manufacturer. This belt has been pronounced by high authorities to be the only real and efficient electrogalvanic belt ever produced and patented on practical lines. The doctor has received on the belt and appliances letters patent not only in the United States but in different countries of Europe. Doctor Spalding gives his personal supervision to the manufacturing and thorough testing of all of these belts, with machinery, dies and moulds made especially for the purpose. He is fully aware of the general prejudice that has been created against electric medical belts by the introduction and sale of spurious articles of the name, and now, at the age of three score years and ten, he is earnestly laboring as the apostle of electricity thus applied, with an earnest desire to convince and benefit his fellow men and to prove that a real electrogalvanic medical belt has a wonderful sphere of usefulness. He is moved more by philanthropic motives than by a desire to sell his own products, as mere self-aggrandizement loses its attractions after the earnest worker has attained to the psalmist's allotted span, as has the doctor. The "New Century" belt can be adjusted to the body in a simple and practical manner and its results are direct and efficient in the treatment and cure of functional disorders commonly known as chronic diseases. Doctor Spalding issues adequate descriptive and testimonial literature that may be had upon application to him through correspondence or by direct application at his headquarters in the City of Canton. Another of his inventions, on which patents are now pending, is the "Dr. Spalding Electro-Medical Battery," which is designed to meet the demands of general medical practitioners and also of specialists who are prejudiced against the use of electrical belts, without having investigated and realized the authentic values of the belts manufactured by Doctor Spalding. The doctor has successfully placed his devices upon the market, has the strongest of assurance of their great value, and has the satisfaction of knowing that they will continue to be of benefit to suffering or distressed humanity long after he himself has passed forward to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." Doctor Spalding has been unfaltering in his allegiance to the republican party from the time of attaining to his legal majority, and though Ile has no semblance of ambition for public office he takes a lively interest in political affairs and for the past five years has had the distinction of serving as president of the McKinley Club, the foremost republican organization of Stark County. 544 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY NAHUM S. RUSSELL. In the death of Nahum S. Russell on the 18th of November, 1891, Massillon lost one of its most distinguished and valued citizens. A man of wealth and one of the creators of a great industrial enterprise, his life emphasized the truth that enterprise and wealth are not inconsistent with the highest standards of character and conduct. He was a manager of men, an executive in affairs, a wielder of great financial and industrial resources. He built, and what he built still stands, a permanent factor in the industrialism in his home city of Massillon. The late Mr. Russell was without doubt one of the strongest characters who came to Stark County in its early days. It is only proper that these pages should contain a tribute to his career, avoiding undue eulogy, but affording a true estimate of the man and his accomplishment. His home was in Stark County more than half a century, and during that time he became president of the extensive corporation of Russell & Company, manufacturers of threshing machines, horse powers, portable traction ehgines and sawmills, and held that office until his retirement from active business in 1888. Nahum S. Russell was a New Englander, possessed of the ingenuity and the energy and shrewd judgment so often associated with the New England character. He was born in Weston, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, February 17, 1813, being the fourth among eleven children of Cyrus and Louisa (Stratton) Russell. The Russell family originated in Scotland, where Mr. Russell's great-grandfather was born. Early in the eighteenth century this young Scotchman left his native country and emigrated to America, locating in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. His son Joseph was born in Weston, Massachusetts, July 5, 1745, and on May 20, 1773, married Susanna Upham, who was born August 20, 1751. Cyrus Russell, son of Joseph and Susanna, was born in Weston December 17, 1784, and in 1820 removed to New Hampshire, purchasing a farm at Alstead, Cheshire County. He improved the land and conducted its operations until 1829, when he removed to Sutton, Caledonia County, Vermont, and there continued agricultural pursuits until his retirement from labor. He died at the home of a daughter in Thompson, Connecticut, at the age of eighty-eight years. While a resident of Massachusetts he served with credit as an officer in the War of 1812. His wife, Louisa, was a daughter of Isaac Stratton, a farmer of Lincoln. Massachusetts, where she was born November 8, 1786. She lived to the age of eighty-four. Cyrus and Louisa Russell had eight sons and three daughters. The fourth child and second son, Nahum S. Russell, grew up on a New England farm, had only limited educational advantages by attendance in the district schools during the winter months, the rest of the year being spent in the heavy work of winning a livelihood from a New England homestead. The winter of 1831 he went to Walpole, New Hampshire, to learn the trade of carpenter and joiner. His apprenticeship continued for three years. It was a period of training not only for a mechanical vocation but also of his mental faculties. He was the kind of young man who would improve every advantage, and having realized the need of an education at such intervals as could be spared from his work he attended the academy in Walpole. For one year beginning in HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 545 the spring of 1853 Mr. Russell worked at his trade in Keene, New Hampshire, and as a journeyman continued to work at Virgennes, Vermont, and Buffalo, New York. But it was in the West that he found the proper field for his enterprise. Locating at Cleveland, Ohio, he assisted in building the American Hotel on Superior Street, and remained in Cleveland until 1838. In that year, with his two brothers, Charles M. and Clement, he came to Massillon. There the three brothers became associated in the building and contracting business, and on January 1, 1842, they formed a copartnership under the title C. NI. Russell & Company for the manufacture of threshing machines and horse powers, which was at that time only a branch enterprise in connection with their principal business as contractors and builders. Power machinery for threshing was only then getting itself introduced to the American public, and after the difficulties of manufacturing a workable machine had been overcome, it was no small task to persuade those directly concerned to buy and use such machinery in place of old fashioned methods. It would be a long story to recite all the experiences that were connected with the foundation of this great industry at Massillon. It should be mentioned, however, that the combined capital of the three brothers was only $1,500, and measured by later day standards their shop was an exceedingly modest one. By hard work, tireless energy, and a persistence which would never acknowledge defeat, they continued until they had built up one of the largest and most prosperous industrial enterprises in Stark County, giving employment to hundreds of men. Of the late Nahum S. Russell it may consistently be said that such were his acumen, business foresight and progressive policy that he contributed in a large measure to the upbuilding of this splendid industry, which continued to feel the impress of his strong individuality until he was summoned from the field of life's endeavors. In the light of his material accomplishment he was in every sense a successful man ; while his noble and sincere character was prolific in good in all directions, and for many years the advancement of his home City of Massillon was an important object of his endeavors and aims. He had the utmost confidence and esteem of the people in his home city and county, and although one of the most valuable workers in the community always retained a thorough modesty and a lack of ostentation which often hid the true value of his influence from the public understanding. In politics he was always closely loyal to the republican party, while in religious matters he belonged to the Presbyterian Church. On April 27, 1841, Nahum S. Russell married Miss Esther K. Millard. She was born in New York February 27, 1819, a daughter of William J. and Betsey Jerome (Ball) Millard. Mr. and Mrs. Russell were the parents of three daughters: Flora R., who died December 8, 1912, became the wife of J. Walter McClymonds of Massillon ; Anna, who now resides at Morris Plains, New Jersey, is the widow of the late Louis K. McClymonds, a former wealthy manufacturer in Ohio and later in New York ; Mary Louise, who died March 10, 1861, at the age of nineteen years. 546 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY JAMES D. BARRY. Born and reared near Canton, James D. Barry has throughout his active career of more than thirty years been progressively identified with local business and public affairs. He now maintains an office and directs a large business in real estate and fire insurance, and is credited with having promoted and developed a number of manufacturing and residence districts in various towns and suburbs of Canton. James D. Barry was born near North Industry, a Canton suburb, April 26, 1863. His parents, John and Ann (Barry) Barry, were both born in County Down, Ireland, but though of the same name were not related and were not acquainted until they met for the first time in Buffalo, New York, where they were married. John Barry came to the United States in 1852, and after living several years in Buffalo moved to North Industry, Stark County. The following twelve years he was engaged in the operation of a sawmill in that locality, and then came into Canton and set up a contracting business, and finally as a grocery merchant. His death occurred in Canton in 1906 at the age of seventy- nine, while his wife passed away in 1898 at the age of sixty-three. Their children were : Mary, wife of J. J. Streb of Canton ; John E. of Canton ; James D.; and George, late of Columbus, Ohio, deceased. The family were all members of St. John's Catholic parish. James D. Barry received his early education in the public and St. John's Parochial schools, and got some special training for business in a commercial college. His first regular employment was as an office boy in a newspaper office under the employment of Hugo Preyer, and later under the late Archibald McGregor. What knowledge he acquired of the printing and newspaper business he never made the basis of any career in that line, and soon afterwards took up an apprenticeship at the painter's trade under Joseph Franz. He worked at the trade as journeyman and contractor for a number of years, and really got his business start in that way. In 1899 Mr. Barry was appointed secretary of the Canton City Water Works boards, a position he held for a little more than four years. After retiring from that office in 1903 he engaged in the real estate and insurance business in Canton and subsequently became associated with the late Jackson W. Pontius under the firm name of The Barry-Pontius Company. After the death of Mr. Pontius in 1909 Mr. Barry took over the entire concern and has since conducted it under the old name, which in Canton and Stark County represents some of the best enterprise and reliable methods connected with real estate. Before becoming a partner of Mr. Pontius, Mr. Barry had opened an addition in Canton. The firm of The Barry-Pontius Company founded the railroad town of Brewster, Ohio, where are located the shops and yards of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. They also platted additions to New Berlin, Louisville, and Canton, while Mr. Barry is now developing a fine residence addition known as Mount Marie, between Canton and Massillon. Mr. Barry is a member of the Canton Real Estate Board. He is a director in two manufacturing plants and a stockholder in two others. He affiliates with the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association and Fraternal Order of Eagles, and attends St. Joseph 's HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 547 Catholic Church. From 1887 to 1900 he served as treasurer of Canton Township. Mr. Barry married Rose T. Stoeckley, of Monroeville, Huron County, Ohio. To their marriage were born two children, John T., who died at the age of four years, and Ellen M., now the wife of Lewis E. Botzum, of Akron, Ohio. THE AKE FAMILY. Of the various families most prominently and worthily concerned in the civic and industrial development and upbuilding of Stark County the name of none has been more honored than that of the Ake family, which was founded here more than a century ago. Four generations of the Ake family have had to do with the civic and material interests of Stark County, and this fact implies that the name has been associated with the annals of the county from the pioneer days to the present time. Authoritative records indicate conclusively that the genealogy of the Ake family traces back to sturdy Swiss-German origin, the founder of the American branch having been Peter Ake, great-great-grandfather of the contemporary adult generation in Stark County. Peter Ake was born and reared in Switzerland. His wife was a native of Germany. After his marriage he immigrated to America, prior to the War of the Revolution, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland. His five children were John, Jacob, Francis, Martin and Betsy. Of these children of the second generation, John and Jacob finally removed from Maryland into Pennsylvania, where they became prosperous and influential citizens and where the Town of Aketown, now known as Williamsburg, in Blair County, was named in their honor. John erected a mill at Aketown, and the water power was derived from a mammoth spring. John Ake gained wide acquaintanceship and popularity as an old-time public auctioneer. Martin, Francis and Betsy Ake removed to Ohio in 1811, and Martin and Betsy settled near Steubenville. Martin later came to Stark County, where in crossing Sugar Creek he met accidental death by drowning. Betsy married a man named Stansburg. They settled near Massillon, this county, where she died in 1870, at the venerable age of ninety-four years. Francis Ake, son of Peter, the great-grandfather of the present generation of the family in Stark County, was born in Maryland in 1777 and came to Stark County, Ohio, in 1811. He settled in Osnaburg Township, as one of the first of the pioneers of Stark County. He reclaimed a farm from the forest wilderness, and continued to reside on his old homestead farm until 1840, when he purchased a grist and carding mill in the Village of Waynesburg, where he established his residence in 1845 and where his death occurred in 1847. In 1804, in Maryland, he married Miss Susan Mobley, who was born in England and who survived him. Her death occurred November 27, 1858. These sterling pioneers became the parents of eight children : Joseph, Elizabeth, Elijah, Jonathan, Susan, Julian, Samuel and Frank. Samuel Ake, son of Francis and Susan (Mobley) Ake, was born in Stark County, where he was reared to manhood under the conditions and influences of the pioneer days. He married Miss Sarah Engle. 548 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY They became the parents of eight children : Zedekiah, Francis, Marion, Amanda, Sarah, Elizabeth, John and Samuel. Zedekiah is deceased ; Amanda became the wife of Hubbard Shearer and now resides in the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana ; Sarah became the wife of William Criswell and both are now deceased ; Elizabeth, the youngest of the daughters, died unmarried. Francis Ake, son of Samuel and Sarah (Engle) Ake, was born in a log cabin on the old homestead farm of his parents, in Osnaburg Township, this county. The date of his birth is December 25, 1839. He married Miss Catherine Rusher, who likewise was born in Osnaburg Township, a daughter of John and Marie Rusher, who was born in Alsace- Lorraine, France. Mrs. Catherine Ake died in 1911. She was the mother of four children, John, William, and Harvey F. and Flora (twins), the latter being the wife of Dr. Irving A. Elson, of Canton. Francis Ake has retired from active life as a farmer, and resides at Waco, this county. He married, as second wife, Mrs. Mary Judd Deckard. Harvey F. Ake was born on the 1st of February, 1872, in Osnaburg Township. He was graduated from Mount Union College as a member of the class of 1895. In preparation for his chosen profession he entered the law department of the University of Michigan, from which institution he was graduated in 1898. He was forthwith admitted to the bar of his native state,' and instituted the practice of his profession in the City of Canton, where he was for some time associated in practice with Judge Charles C. Bow ; and later with Luther Day. In November, 1912, he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Stark County for a term of six years. He assumed the duties of this office on the 9th of February, 1913. Judge Ake is a member of the board of trustees of his alma mater, Mount Union College, and also of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Canton. He is a past master of William McKinley Lodge, No. 431, Free and Accepted Masons; a member of Canton Commandery, Knights Templars, and of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland. He is also a member of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. He accords allegiance to the republican party, and is influential in public affairs in his home city and county. In 1899 Harvey F. Ake married Miss Anna Brush, who was born in the City of Alliance, this county, and who is a daughter of Prof. James A. and Amelia (McCall) Brush, the father being professor of mathematics in Mount Union College and his wife having held the chair of English in the same institution. Mrs. Ake traces her lineage in a direct way to Governor Wm. Bradford of the Plymouth colony. One or more of her ancestors were Pilgrims who came to America on the historic "Mayflower." Judge and Mrs. Ake have two sons, Theodore and Sherwood. John Ake, son of Samuel Ake, Sr., was born on the old family homestead farm, in Osnaburg Township, Stark County, and the date of his nativity was February 17, 1855. There he was reared to manhood and as a young man he wedded Miss Cora Shearer, who was born in the same township, on the 9th of May, 1854, a daughter of Jonathan and Eliza (Lotzenheiser) Shearer, who came from Pennsylvania to Stark County HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 549 in an early day and who here passed the residue of their lives. During his entire mature life John Ake has been an able and influential representative of the agricultural industry in his native township, and he is now one of the substantial farmers and highly honored citizens of Stark County. Like all other of the contemporary male members of the Ake family, he is a stalwart republican in politics, and both he and his wife are earnest members of the Evangelical Church. Concerning their children brief record is here entered : Francis Marion died in infancy; H. Ross is more definitely mentioned in a later paragraph of this article ; and James Samuel is a prosperous farmer of Osnaburg Township. H. Ross Ake, elder of the two surviving sons of John and Cora (Shearer) Ake, was born on the ancestral homestead in Osnaburg Township, this property, which was owned by their great-grandfather and grandfather, Samuel Ake, being now owned by H. Ross Ake and his brother James S. He was born September 22, 1878, and after attending the public schools and Mount Union College he completed a course in the Eastman National Business College, at Poughkeepsie, New York, in which institution he was graduated in 1899. For about two years thereafter he devoted his attention to the study of law under effective private preceptorship, in Canton, and he then assumed the position of general business manager for the Charmois Plumbing Company, of this city, an incumbency which he retained three years. In 1906 Mr. Ake was appointed deputy county treasurer, and in this capacity he continued to serve five years. He was then, in 1911, elected, on the republican ticket, to the office of county treasurer, and the best voucher for the efficiency of his administration and the estimate placed upon him in his native county is that afforded by his re-election in 1913, his present term expiring in September, 1915. By the provisions of the laws of Ohio he will be ineligible for election for a third consecutive term. The popular treasurer of Stark County is a stalwart in the local camp of the republican party, and he is affiliated with Lilly Lodge, No. 362, Knights of Pythias; the Loyal Order of Moose ; the Junior Order of United American Mechanics; and the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity of Mount Union College. In 1904 was solemnized the marriage of H. Ross Ake to Miss Hanna Romaine Rager, who was born in Osnaburg Township and who is a daughter of Isaac and Rachel (Gibler) Dager, the former of whom was born in Carroll County and the latter in Stark County, this state, their home being now at Robertsville, in Paris Township, Stark County. Mr. and Mrs. Ake have three children, John Stewart, Russell Everett, and Arthur Hubert. ARTHUR E. MILLER, D. V. S. In the difficult field of veterinary surgery, Dr: Arthur E. Miller, of Uniontown, Stark County, has won marked success. Coming here in 1895, with a thorough collegiate training for his work in his chosen field of endeavor, he has continued to carry on business here, a close student of the various advancements being made in veterinary science, and now enjoys the leading practice of Northern Stark County in the line of his profession. Doctor Miller was born June 28, 1868, in Summit County, Ohio, Vol. II-11 550 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY and is a son of Nathan and Caroline (Grable) Miller. His grandfather, Peter Miller, a native of Pennsylvania, migrated from that state to Summit County, Ohio, with his wife and small children, and took up a tract of land from the Government. The old homestead has continued to remain in the Miller family possession to the present day, and at this time the owner has the original deed, signed by President Monroe. Peter Miller was an industrious and hardworking man, and throughout his career devoted himself to the vocations of farming and stockraising, in which he won well-earned success. He died on his farm, respected and esteemed by the community in which he had spent so many years of usefulness and activity. Nathan Miller, father of Doctor Miller, was born on the old homestead place, in Summit County, Ohio, and there also was born Mrs. Miller. They were reared in agricultural surroundings, educated in the district schools, and after their marriage settled down to housekeepiing on the old home farm, where the father rounded out a life of probity and integrity in 1895, when he passed away at the age of sixty-four years. Like his father, he was energetic and industrious, and accumulated a satisfying competence, leaving his family in very comfortable circumstances. Mrs. Miller, who survives her husband, lives at her beautiful home at Meyersville Station, Ohio, being seventy years of age. Four children were born to Nathan and Caroline Miller, namely : Mary, who is the wife of Edwin Roser and lives on a farm in Springfield, Summit County ; Melvin, who is now a resident of Akron; Herbert, whose home is at Alliance ; and Dr. Arthur E. The early education of Dr. Arthur E. Miller was secured in the public schools of Summit County, Ohio, after leaving which he entered one of the leading institutions of its kind in America, the Ontario Veterinary College, at Toronto, Canada. He was duly graduated from that college in 1895 and at once came to Uniontown, where he entered practice. His skill and talents were soon recognized by the people of this community, and at the present time his practice extends all over Stark and the adjoining counties, being probably the largest in the line of veterinary surgery in the northern part of the county. He continues as a close and faithful student of his calling, and spends much of his time in research. In 1904 Doctor Miller purchased a tract of twelve acres of land, located three blocks north of the square, where he erected an office and home, which are modern in every respect and equipped with all up- to-date appliances and appurtenances. Doctor Miller is a democrat, but has not aspired to public position. However, he takes a keen interest in all that affects his community, and as a friend of education is serving as a member of the board of education of Uniontown Special District. His only fraternal connection is with the Owls, in the local lodge of which he has many friends. With the members of his family, he belongs to the German Reformed Church. In 1898, Doctor Miller was united in marriage with Miss Virna Smith, of Uniontown, daughter of Samuel Smith, one of Stark County's pioneers. Three children have been born to this union, as follows: Carrie, who is now sixteen years of age and a student of Uniontown High School ; Harry, born September 26, 1900, who is also a student in the Uniontown High School; and Nellie, eleven years of age, who is attending the graded school. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 551 WILLLIAM SUMNER SPIDLE In the relationship of this well known lawyer and citizen of Massillon, whose offices are in the McClymonds Block, are included some of the oldest families of Stark County. His forefathers made clearings in this wilderness shortly after the close of the second war with Great Britain. The blood and character in his heritage have fertilized Stark County for almost a century. For his birthplace William S. Spidle refers to the old farm near Wilmot, in Sugar Creek Township, where most of his ancestors located on coming to this section of Ohio. He was born there September 24, 1858, a son of John and Annetta (Wyandt) Spidle, and his father was born in the same locality on January 5, 1838. The paternal grandparents were Abraham and Elizabeth (Putnam) Spidle, who were married in Sugar Creek Township after they had come with their respective families from Pennsylvania. Both the Putnams and Spidles were well known among the early settlers of Sugar Creek. The great-grandfather, John Putnam, who was a native of Pennsylvania, took up a quarter section of land in Sugar Creek, lived and died there, and the land was in the hands of his descendants of the Putnam name up to 1915. Henry Wyandt, the maternal grandfather of the Massillon attorney, was also born in Pennsylvania, where he married Elizabeth Warner, and they arrived in Stark County in 1815 or 1816, just after the close of the war with England. He was also a settler in Sugar Creek, and secured government land. With his brother Christian he laid out the Village of Wilmot, and one of its first lots was sold to Grandfather Spidle. John Spidle, father of William S., enlisted during the spring of 1864 in Company K of the Hundred and Sixty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served until honorably discharged the following year. In 1866 he moved to Van Wert County, Ohio, but remained only a year, 'returning to Wilmot in Stark County, in which neighborhood he has had his home ever since. Having come out of the army a cripple, he was for many years engaged in merchandising at Wilmot, served as postmaster eight or nine years, as land appraiser two terms, and as assessor six or seven years. His wife, who was born in 1840, died in 1879. Both were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. William Sumner Spidle was born and spent his youth on the old Wyandt farm, which became a part of the Village of Wilmot. After the resources of the common schools had been exhausted he put in two years at Mount Union College, and then attended the law department of the Ohio University. He was also a teacher, reading law as opportunity presented, and in 1886 was admitted to the bar. Prior to his admission he was elected justice of the peace in Sugar Creek Township, and at the time was the youngest man holding such an office in the entire state. His first practice as a lawyer was done at Wilmot, but since 1896 his home and office have been in Massillon, where his practice has been very gratifying. After coming to Massillon he also filled the office of justice of the peace four years and taught school in the city three years. At three successive decennial periods he has been a census enumerator, in 1890, 1900 and 1910. He served as clerk of the board of review two terms. Mr. Spidle is now president of the Massillon Realty Company and attorney 552 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY for the State Bank of that city. His fraternities are the Knights of Pythias and the Junior Order of American Mechanics. He is a trustee of the First Methodist Church, and has been identified with Sunday school work practically all his life, and in 1915 was president of the Stark County Sunday School Association. He is a member of the Massillon Chamber of Commerce and of the Protected Home Circle. Mrs. Spidle, whose maiden name was Ada Foreman, is also of the pioneer stock of northeastern Ohio. She was born at Navarre, a daughter of Daniel and Mary A. (Welty) Foreman. Her father was a native of Pennsylvania and came early to Navarre. Mrs. Spidle's mother was born in Sugar Creek Township, Stark County, in 1837, and is now the oldest living native of that township. Her father, Philip Welty, a native of Pennsylvania, fought in the War of 1812, received a grant of land for his services, and located it in Sugar Creek. That land, it is interesting to note, has never passed from the Welty ownership. JOHN MCCONNELL. The importance of the iron and steel industry as represented in the City of Canton is indicated by the interposition of Mr. McConnell in the furtherance and control of large and noteworthy operations in this line, for as an expert steel worker of broad experience and authoritative technical and practical knowledge he has achieved a national reputation. At Canton this able and popular citizen holds the responsible position of general superintendent of the first plant of the United Steel Company, and his fealty to the beautiful metropolis and judicial center of Stark County is indicated by his lively interest in all that touches the welfare of the same and by his civic loyalty and progressiveness. A scion of the stanchest of Irish lineage and claiming the fair Emerald Isle as the place of his nativity, Mr. McConnell was born in County Down, Ireland, on the 28th of September, 1861, he and his brother Nevin having been the only children of the family, and their parents never having come to America. When the two sons were young the family removed from Ireland to Scotland, and there both were reared and educated. There, in 1875, both brothers entered upon a practical apprenticeship in the manufacturing of iron, the plant in which they thus gained their initial experience being situated in the vicinity of the City of Glasgow. They became skilled workmen in this great branch of industrial enterprise and continued to be actively identified with the same in Scotland until 1881, when they were enabled there to further their experience by practical service in the manufacturing of steel, in which connection they were employed in the excellent plant of the Steel Company of Scotland, likewise in the immediate environs of Glasgow. They perfected themselves in the various details of steel manufacturing and continued their labors in Scotland until 1886, when both of the ambitious young men came to the United States and established a small steel plant in the City of Columbus, Ohio. The financial panic of the following year militated seriously against the success of the new enterprise, as business depression was of general order, and under these conditions the brothers abandoned their independent business undertaking in Ohio's capital city and went to Homestead, Pennsylvania, PICTURE OF JOHN MCCONNELL HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 553 where both obtained employment as experts in the large steel plant of the Homestead Steel Company. In this connection they had the distinction of initiating in the United States the basic open-hearth process of steel manufacturing, only one furnace of this type having been in operation previous to their supervision, and the great superiority of the process led to its rapid adoption in leading steel plants throughout the Union, a few years having brought about the development, from this beginning of thousands of open-hearth furnaces throughout the country. In 1896 John McConnell was tendered and accepted the office of superintendent of the open-hearth department of the Illinois Steel Company, and in the following year he assumed a similar position with the Jones & Laughlin Company, in the City of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1900 he took a like executive position with the Lukens Iron & Steel Company of Coatesville, that state; in 1902 he became general superintendent of the Tennessee Iron & Coal Company, at Birmingham, Alabama; in 1904-05 he was again found in the employ of the Jones & Laughlin Company, in Pittsburg, and while the incumbent of this position he there instituted the Tolbert process of making steel, incidentally having been the first man to develop successfully this process in America. In 1907 another important technical position came to Mr. McConnell, when he became superintendent of the open-hearth department of the great Bethlehem Steel Company, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he remained until January, 1909, when he came to Canton to assume the office of which he has continued the efficient and valued incumbent to the present time, that of general superintendent of the United Steel Company. At the time of his assumption of this position the Canton plant employed only 300 men, and under his superintendency the business has been so expanded that at the present time the corps of employes numbers fully 1,300. Within the period of his residence in Canton Mr. McConnell has found that his official position has placed the most exacting demands upon his time and attention, but he has become well known in local business circles, has the confidence and good will of all with whom he has come in contact and has proved a valuable acquisition to the directing of the important industrial enterprise of which he has the supervision and which is one of the most prominent and successful in Canton. He is an active and appreciative member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, and holds membership in the Canton Club and the Congress Lake Club, both of which are representative civic organizations of Stark County. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity Mr. McConnell has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and is affiliated also with the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is zealous in the support of religious work, as is shown by his active identification with the Canton Young Men's Christian Association, of which he is a trustee, and by his earnest activities as a member of the First Baptist Church, in which he is president of the Bible class of the Sunday school, Mrs. McConnell likewise being a zealous worker in and member of this church. In the City of Columbus, this state, was solemnized the marriage of 554 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Mr. McConnell to Miss Jane B. Cameron, who was born in the City of Glasgow, Scotland, and the four children of this union are Margaret, Agnes, William and Lavinia, the only son being now a student in the medical department of the great University of Michigan. WALES FAMILY. Among the families whose activities and lives have been distinctive contributions to the progress of Stark County, none deserves more recognition than that of Wales, which for over a century has been especially identified with Perry Township, and foremost in all measures for the public good. Having come here as pioneers, they did their share of the hard work involved in clearing the forests and laying the substantial foundation of civilization. To an unusual degree material success has been their lot, and the bearers of the name have also stood in important relations with the civic, industrial and social life of Stark County. The American ancestry goes hack to Nathaniel Wales, who came to America from England in 1635, locating first at Dorchester, Massachusetts, and later in the City of Boston. A later generation is found in Connecticut, from which colony two of the direct ancestors of the Massillon branch of the family, Solomon and Eleazer Wales, father and son, volunteered their services during the Revolutionary war. Eleazer Wales, one of these patriot soldiers, was the father of Arvine Wales, who was the first of the name to settle in Stark County. Arvine was born at New Stanford, Bennington County, Vermont, June 10, 1785, and at the age of two years lost his mother. His father soon afterwards removed to Union, Connecticut, where he married Mary (or Polly) Whiting, who brought seven other children into the household. In 1810 Eleazer Wales moved with his wife and seven children to Smithfield, Madison County, New York, and later to Naples, Ontario County, in the same state. Arvine Wales came from Connecticut to Stark County, Ohio, in the fall of 1811, with Thomas Rotch, who laid out the Village of Kendal, now the fourth ward of the City of Massillon, in the spring of 18.12. Arvine Wales in 1814 settled at Spring Hill, which place has since been the seat of the family. In the century which has elapsed the family homestead has not only been kept intact but has been increased from time to time, and now comprises more than five hundred acres. The old pioneer Arvine Wales followed agricultural pursuits all his life, and was a man of worth and prominence in this part of Ohio. He was one of the executors of the estate of Charity Rotch, and in accordance with the terms of her will established the Charity Rotch School for the education of the poor and needy. To quote one paragraph from an estimation of the pioneer Arvine Wales: "The name and memory of Arvine Wales will ever be kindly and affectionately remembered in connection with the cause of education, not only for his guarding the fund upon which the Charity school is based, but for his devotion to the cause of popular education during his long and useful life. The Charity school of Kendal and the Union school of Massillon are the monuments which bear the impress of his care and watchfulness." He was one of the organizers of the Union School in 1847, and served as a member of its board until his death January 1, 1854. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 555 On December 31, 1822, Arvine Wales married Mary Kimberly at Kendal. She died September 14, 1823, at the age of twenty-eight. January 18, 1825, he married Mrs. Ann (Foote) Baldwin, who was born February 28, 1791, at Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut, daughter of Luther Foote, and at the time of her marriage was widow of Pomeroy Baldwin of Hudson, Ohio. Of this union one child was born, Arvine Chaffee Wales. His mother died September 21, 1828. On May 29, 1833, Arvine Wales married for his third wife Mrs. Nancy Shepherdson, widow of Ezra Shepherdson of Palmyra, New York. Hon. Arvine Chaffee Wales, only child of his parents, and representing the second generation in Stark County, was born at Spring Hill, Massillon, May 2, 1827. He was a graduate of the Woodward School of Cincinnati and of the law department of Harvard University with the class of 1848. Owing to poor health he abandoned a career as a lawyer in favor of farming, and lived on and operated the Spring Hill estate until his death July 26, 1882. For thirty years he was one of the useful factors in the life of the community, and in addition to safeguarding and increasing his private fortune also gave time and energy to the public welfare. In 1870 he was elected a member of the Ohio State Senate, serving two terms. In 1879 he was chosen to a place on the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. In his home city he served as treasurer of the Charity notch School, and for about thirteen years until his death was a member of the board of education for the Union School. On December 28, 1864, Arvine C. Wales married Mrs. Eliza Ann Weimer Robinson at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was born at Marshallville, Wayne County, Ohio, December 28, 1839, a daughter of Martin and Susanna (Holtzer) Weiner, and her first husband was William Robinson. Mrs. Wales died at Hamburg, Germany, April 24, 1914, in her seventy-fifth year. By her marriage to Mr. Wales she was the mother of three children : Helen, born in 1866 and married June 17, 1897, to Robert P. Skinner of Massillon, but now consul general at London, England. Arvine, the oldest son, is mentioned in the succeeding paragraph. Horatio Watson, the second son, was born July 15, 1880, married Irene McClain, daughter of Clarence M. McClain of Massillon, and they reside at Spring Hill. Arvine Wales, of the third generation in Stark County, was born at Spring Hill, Massillon, October 21, 1869, was educated at home, was prepared for college at Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University with the class of 1891. For nearly twenty-five years he has been actively identified with the financial and business affairs of Massillon. At different times he has held the position of cashier of the Massillon Savings and Banking Company, treasurer of the Russell Engine Company, vice president of the Griscom-Russell Engine Company, vice president of Russell & Company, and vice president of the Merchants National Bank of Massillon. He is also a member of the original board of trustees of the Massillon City Hospital. October 25, 1900, Mr. Wales married Edna Elizabeth McClymonds, who was born August 5, 1879, daughter of J. Walter and Flora (Russell) McClymonds, a prominent family concerning whom information will be 556 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY found on other pages. Mr. and Mrs. Wales are the parents of six children : Elizabeth Russell, born November 23, 1901; Martha, born November 22, 1906 ; Ruth McClymonds, born July 24, 1908 ; Helen, born July 19, 1911; Arvine Chaffee, born September 25, 1912 ; and Walter McClymonds, born May 2, 1914. HENRY D. POWNALL. One of the aggressive factors in Canton manufacturing affairs for the past five years has been H. D. Pownall, president and general manager of the Arctic Ice Machine Company. In the best sense of the term Mr. Pownall is a practical man. His knowledge of machinery and general engineering is the result of an individual experience that began when he was a boy in Cincinnati, and his rare combination of technical ability with the faculties of the general executive have proved a great good fortune to the business at which he is now the head. Henry D. Pownall was born at Huntington, West Virginia, September 12, 1876, a son of Capt. Bland and Margaret (Boatman) Pownall. The Pownalls have been identified with the Upper Ohio River as steamboat men for several generations, while the Boatmans are of an old Ohio family. The early life of Henry D. Pownall was spent chiefly in Cincinnati, where he attended public schools, and also received instructions in night classes of the Y. M. C. A. and in the Ohio Mechanics Institute. His active career began as an oiler in the engine room of one of the plants of the Stone Lake Ice Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, and thus this early direction of his activities proved the bent to his permanent career. In the following year he was promoted to night engineer, one year later was made chief engineer of one of the plants, and subsequently was entrusted with the responsibilities of chief engineer for all the plants of the company. Having resigned that work, he next spent a year as consulting engineer of refrigeration, and then accepted a post as chief engineer with the Cincinnati Ice and Cold Storage Company. Since then his progress has been steadily upward toward important executive responsibility. He remained with the ice and cold storage company three years, and then became chief engineer in charge of the ice machine plant of the Triumph Ice Machine Company of Cincinnati, and remained with that concern four years. On November 14, 1910, Mr. Pownall came to Canton as general manager of the Arctic Ice Machine Company, and at the next meeting of the board of directors was made president and general manager. The Arctic Ice Machine Company was organized in 1907 by H. A. Timken, W. R. Timken, A. B. Clark, W. C. Laiblen, Gordon Mather, A. H. Hoar and Frederick Goff. In 1910 Messrs. Hoar, Goff and Mather dropped out of the organization, and at the present time the officials of the company are as follows : Mr. Pownall, president and general manager ; Mr. Laiblen, vice president ; B. G. Schwartz, secretary. Practically all the products of the company are manufactured under Mr. Pownall's patents. He has long made a study of refrigeration engineering, and his practical experience and experimentation have added a great many improvements to the business. Mr. Pownall stands high in engineering circles, particularly in the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 557 department devoted to his special technic. He is a member of the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers, the National Association of Stationary Engineers, the Ohio Electrical Engineers Society, the Ohio Steam Engineers Society. He also belongs to the Refrigerating Builders Club, the Canton Club, the Lakeside Country Club, and the Canton Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Pownall married Miss Lulu Oleon Weaver of Cincinnati. Their one son is Henry D., Jr. AARON HOUSER. In realty circles of Canton, one of the well-known names is that of Aaron Houser, who has contributed materially to the upbuilding of the city in various ways, but principally through the erection of one of the new business structures of the city, the Houser Block, on East Tuscarawas Street. A resident of Canton since 1880, he has been engaged in various business ventures, and is known as one of the municipality's live and progressive citizens. Mr. Houser belongs to one of the old and prominent pioneer families of Nimishillen Township, Stark County, and was born on the old Houser homestead, near Harrisburg, Ohio, March 31, 1853, a son of the late -Martin and Mary Ann (Auer) Houser. His father was born on the Houser homestead in Nimishillen Township, October 1, 1826, and died May 12, 1888. He was a son of Daniel Houser, a native of Pennsylvania, and a pioneer of Stark County. The Houser family is identified with the Indian history of Stark County, for one day while Martin Houser was chopping wood in company with his father and two brothers, the little party was surprised by Indians, who captured young Martin and held him for four years before he was able to make his escape and return to Pennsylvania. Daniel Houser, the grandfather of our subject, came to Nimishillen Township, where he bought the farm later owned by A. P. Wilson, and now owned by the Widow Yoder, and which is one of the finest farms in Stark County. In 1852 Martin Houser married Mary Ann Auer, of Lexington Township, Stark County, who was born June 17, 1827, and died March 13, 1895. They became the parents of six children, namely : Aaron, of this review ; Phoebe Ann, born December 10, 1855, who died October 27. 1859 ; Marietta, born October 28, 1857 ; Benton, born February 13, 1860, who died August 20, 1909; Frances, who married Charles Frederick, of Canton ; and Charles, the sixth child, is deceased. Aaron Houser was reared on the home farm, and was given a good education in the public schools of Harrisburg, Marlboro and Ada. In 1880 he came to Canton, where for twelve years he was successfully engaged in the meat business, as the proprietor of an establishment, and at the same time continued to be interested in agricultural pursuits as the operator of a farm near Harrisburg. Early becoming interested in the real estate business in a small way, his interests in this direction grew to such proportions that he soon decided to give his entire attention to this line of endeavor, and is now known as one of the dealers of Canton, and the medium through which some of the important deals have been transacted. He bears an excellent reputation in commercial circles, and while he has never been a candidate for public honors, has always taken a keen interest in the welfare of his adopted city and has been connected 558 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY with a number of movements which have made for civic advancement and betterment. JOSEPH LINDER. The fact that Joseph Linder, formerly a farmer of Nimishillen Township, was able to retire from active pursuits in 1907, when still in the prime and vigor of life, argues in itself his possession of the characterizing qualities of industry, capability and sound business acumen. Many men at this time of life are but entering upon their careers, with a long period of struggle before them, but Mr. Linder, possessed of the means with which to surround himself with the comforts of life, is now living in his home at Harrisburg, where his energies find an outlet in the support of beneficial movements for the community welfare. Mr. Linder has spent practically all of his life in the locality in which he now resides, having been born on a farm one-half mile from the Village of Harrisburg, October 11, 1865, a son of Peter and Barbara (Crabill) Linder. The father was born in Germany, and came to the United States with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Linder. when he was a lad of eight years. Joseph Linder first settled in Nimishillen Township, during pioneer days, and there established a home for his family, cleared a tract of land, after years of hard labor became the owner of a good farm, and continued to spend the remaining years of his life in agricultural work. Peter Linder grew up in a pioneer locality, being granted such educational advantages as were to be secured in the early public schools. When ready to enter upon a career of his own, he chose agriculture as his life work, and continued to carry on operations on the home farm in Nimishillen Township until his death, in 1910, at the age of seventy-one years. He was an industrious man, of the strictest integrity and probity, and won and maintained a position of confidence among his fellow-citizens. Mrs. Linder was the daughter of John Crabill, and passed away in 1906, being at that time sixty-seven years of age. She and her husband were faithful members of the Mennonite Church. After completing his education in the public schools of Nimishillen Township, Joseph Linder secured employment on a neighboring farm, on which he worked for three years. At the end of that period, he was married to Miss Mary Schmucker, who was born in Nimishillen Township, daughter of Peter Schmucker, of this locality. At the time of his marriage, Mr. Linder invested his capital in a farm of over seventy- three acres, located one mile from Harrisburg, which he brought to a high state of cultivation and operated until his retirement in 1907. During the time he lived on that property, Mr. Linder made numerous improvements, which not only added to the farm's appearance, but also increased its value. He now has this land rented, while he lives in retirement at Harrisburg, where he looks after several business investments. Here he has a comfortable, commodious and well-furnished home, where he and his wife are hospitable hosts to their numerous friends. They are faithful members of the Mennonite Church, of which they have been adherents throughout their lives. Mr. Linder is a democrat in his political views, although he has not been an office seeker, but HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 559 served the community as school director for a number of years. He has always been ready to do his share in assisting movements for the public welfare, and his abilities have been frequently enlisted in enterprises which have had as their issue the gaining of improved legislation for Stark County. Mrs. Linder 's father, Peter Schmucker, was born in France, and on coming to the United States settled in Stark County, Ohio, about one mile from Harrisburg, on the farm next to the one occupied by his son- in-law. Here he passed the remaining years of his life, dying about the year 1878, when sixty-five years old, while Mrs. Schmucker, whose maiden name was Fanny Yoder, was a native of Elsas, Germany, died in 1876, at the age of forty-nine years. CURTIS ADAM DARR. Three generations of the Darr family have been usefully identified with the citizenship of Stark County, as farmers, mechanics and business men. Curtis A. Darr represents the younger generation, and now has a successful business as a merchant at Canton and is one of the most energetic members of the present city government. Curtis Adam Darr was born in Pike Township, Stark County, September 10, 1875. His father is James C. Darr, who was born in Magnolia, Sandy Township, of this county, in 1852. One of the pioneer settlers of Sandy Township was Grandfather John Darr, a native of Pennsylvania and a blacksmith by trade, who for a number of years kept a shop at Magnolia and furnished capable and skilful service to the settlers in that locality. James C. Darr, who moved to Canton about 1881, has spent his active career as a carpenter, and is still at work, at the present time under the contractor Charles Bowen. In the past thirty years or more his skill has been worked into most of the larger buildings of Canton. He married Sarah C. Stuck, who was born in Pike Township, daughter of Adam Stuck. Adam Stuck, who was a native of Pennsylvania, was another interesting early settler at Stark County. For some years, before the railroad era, he did teaming, and hauled many loads of goods between Canton and Pittsburgh. At one time he owned what is known as the Shorb farm. His death occurred at the age of seventy-five. Mrs. Sarah Darr is still living, the same age as her husband, and they are members of the Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church. The father is a republican. Curtis A. Darr spent most of his boyhood in Canton, getting his education in the city schools, and afterwards attending district school in the neighborhood of his grandmother's farm, where he lived a time. His first regular employment was two and a half years in the Canton Hardware Company, and then with a brother in a drug store at Girard, Ohio. His drug merchandising experience was continued at Youngstown, and in 1903 he graduated in pharmacy from the Northern Ohio University. Following college came two years in a drug store at East Liverpool, after which he bought and conducted a store three years at Urichsville. Selling out, he returned to Canton and opened a store at his present location, at 1201 Market Avenue, S. W. His store in its equipment and management is hardly second to any in the city. Mr. Darr is secretary of the Retail Druggists Association of Canton. 560 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY In 1913 he was elected on the republican ticket a councilman from the Fifth Ward, and has already done some excellent service. As chairman of the sewer committee, his place is one of particular value, since a large amount of money has recently been expended in extending the general sewerage system. He is also a member of the street cleaning and crossing and of the law and claims committees. Fraternally Mr. Darr is affiliated with the Loyal Order of Moose. Mrs. Darr before her marriage was Mary Alberta Gerber, who was born in Canton Township south of the city, a daughter of Christian Gerber, who died April 15, 1914. There is one child, named James Christian Darr. JOHN B. FIERSTOS. As the field of education grows ever broader and more comprehensive, far beyond the original limits of the "literary arts," the scope of usefulness of the educator is likewise increasing. It is therefore no matter of surprise to find one of Stark County's best known school men successfully filling the office of superintendent of the county infirmary. Mr. Fierstos has brought to his present duties a long experience as a teacher and manager of schools, and has already done much to improve conditions in the infirmary. A native son of Stark County, born on a farm near the City of Massillon in Perry Township, September 27, 1867, he is a son of the late John Fierstos. Three generations of the family, for more than threescore years, have been identified with this county. John Fierstos was born in Germany in 1841, and his father, George Fierstos, emigrated to the United States with his family in 1849, and came direct to Stark County, first locating in New Berlin. Seven years later lie bought a farm in Jackson Township, near Masillon, and spent there the balance of his life, the farm being still owned by his heirs. John Fierstos received most of his education in Stark County and spent all his active years as a farmer. He died on the old farm April 19, 1914. He married Mary Hammersmith, who was born near Massillon in 1845 and died in 1906. Her father, Adam Hammersmith, was a native of Germany and an early settler of this county. John and Mary Fierstos were both active members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Massillon. With his boyhood spent on the home farm, John B. Fierstos learned his early lessons in district schools and finished his education in Mount Union College where he attended a short time. For twenty-one years his regular vocation was teaching, and there are hundreds of boys and girls, many of whom have since turned into manhood and womanhood, who have strong affection for their instructor and counselor. His first school was the Blue Clay School, with which his own earliest associations as a pupil are identified. Then for two years he taught the Freeman School, east of the Blue Clay District. The Robinson School, which he attended after Blue Clay, was his charge for five years, and for eleven successive years he kept the Sehairo School. His last experience was three years in the Robinson District, and that concluded his career as a school man. Mr. Fierstos was appointed by the board of county commissioners to his present office in 1913, and took charge of the infirmary on October 1, 1913. Politically he is a democrat and his church is St. John's Cath- PICTURE OF JOHN B. FIERSTOS HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 561 olic at Canton. Mrs. Fierstos, whose maiden name was Olivia Halter, was born at Sparta, Pike Township, Stark County. Her parents, who are still living, are Martin and Angeline (Fischer) Halter, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Stark County. Mr. and Mrs. Fierstos have two children : Angeline and John Martin, the latter dying when three days old. CHARLES COOPER DAVIDSON. Few men in the course of a long career succeed in accomplishing so much sound and valuable service to the public as Charles Cooper Davidson, educator, banker, business executive and in many ways identified with the life and affairs of Stark County. Mr. Davidson is secretary and manager of the Alliance Building and Savings Company and is a man who for a number of years has carried heavy responsibilities both in connection with business and also with public institutions. Charles Cooper Davidson was born at Mount Ephraim, Noble County, Ohio, February 24, 1843, a son of Joseph and Jane (Cooper) Davidson. His father was of Scotch family, but a native of West Virginia, while the mother was born in Ireland. They were married in Noble County. Joseph Davidson came from West Virginia to Noble County about 1833, at the age of twenty-one. His parents both spent the rest of their lives in that county. Joseph Davidson was for a number of years engaged in steamboating down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers as far as New Orleans. Later he learned and followed the trade of blacksmith, finally retiring to a farm in Noble County, where the rest of his days were spent in quiet. He died at the age of eighty-three and his wife passed away at seventy-four. Three children died in infancy, but nine—five sons and four daughters—are still living. Mr. Davidson spent his early life in Noble County, attending the public schools until twenty years of age. He has for many years been identified with that pioneer institution of higher education, the Ohio University at Athens, first as a student and now for many years as one of the official board of trustees. He there took the scientific course, and at the age of twenty had begun teaching. He served as county examiner of Noble County, and also conducted summer normal schools. It was by alternating his work as teacher with attendance at college that he finally completed his course in Athens. Thus when he received his degree he was equipped by broad experience as well as by sound learning for his chosen vocation, the educational field. From 1876 to 1885 Mr. Davidson was superintendent of the public schools of Lisbon, during which time the staff of teachers increased from eight to fourteen, the schools enjoying a solid advancement. For four years during this period he served as a member of the State Board of School Examiners. Associated with him in this work were a number of other prominent educators, such as Dr. E. E. White, Dr. John Hancock and Dr. E. T. Tappan. Mr. Davidson came to Alliance in 1885 to take charge of its public schools. Members of the school hoard of 1885 were Frank Transee, John H. Sharer, Hon. Silas J. Williams, Wallace Phelps, Josiah Stanley and A. C. Silver. Of these Silas J. Williams especially was a man of special 362 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY power in educational matters and greatly assisted Mr. Davidson in his early work. The seven years spent by Mr. Davidson in the Alliance schools is marked in its educational history as a period of more than normal growth. The schools were entirely reorganized, the teaching force increased from nineteen to thirty-eight and the enrollment of pupils nearly doubled. The work of specialization and department instruction and also correlation of studies became well developed. In 1885 the high school had but forty-two pupils, the end of his seven years' service showing an enrollment of 185. There was a territorial increase also, the Mount Union district having been incorporated in the Alliance city schools. Two modern eight-room buildings were erected, and in 1886 the board purchased at a price of $13,000 the old college building. After being remodeled, this was used for the high school until 1912, when the present commodious building was erected. Out of the nineteen teachers who were associated with him in 1885 three are still connected with the local schools—Elizabeth Fetters, Martha Hazen and Florence Tritt. While it would be impossible to review all the important aspects of his work as school superintendent, mention should be made that the present fine Carnegie library is an outgrowth of a movement started during his administration, in 1887. The actual origin of the library can be traced to a committee of high school girls in the senior class who planned and carried out successfully a social entertainment, from the proceeds of which, and from donation of books, a library nucleus was established. This committee of seniors are recalled as Iola Williams, now principal at Akron ; Fanny Fetters, now the wife of Rev. Mr. Burt of Oklahoma ; Anna Thomas, now deceased ; and Carrie Rhodes, also deceased. The little collection of books was kept in the high school until the present Carnegie Building was completed ; but, throughout, the library was conducted as a public institution, the same privileges being accorded to the general public as to the pupils. One who took a special interest and contributed both money and books to the library in its formative period was Thomas R. Morgan, Sr., who at one time contributed a selected list that cost between $300 and $400. Others followed his example, and thus gave continued support and permanence to the library. The seven years thus spent by Mr. Davidson were notable in both his own life and that of the community. He finally retired from school work in 1892, after nearly thirty years of active and efficient labor. In 1891 Mr. Davidson was made a trustee of the Ohio University at Athens, his alma mater. This appointment was conferred upon him by Gov. William McKinley. It is an appointment for life, and Mr. Davidson has since continued for nearly a quarter of a century to give his best services to this splendid old college whose origin really dates back to the old Northwest Territory. Of the nineteen trustees only one has served longer, he being R. E. Hamblin of Toledo. Mr. Davidson has served on the committee for teachers ever since his appointment, and also as chairman of the auditing committee, so that he has kept his eye on every dollar expended by the institution in the past twenty-four years. The college has during this time erected a new normal school building, music hall, two ladies' dormitories, an agricultural building, a college hospital, Car- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 563 negie library and administration building. The attendance of students is now about four times what it was twenty-five years ago, the staff of instructors increasing in proportion. Many new departments have been added, and the old Ohio college now has a regular enrollment of more than 2,000 students. While this brief outline covers in a measure Mr. Davidson's educational activities, it must not be forgotten that for many years he has been a real factor in financial and business circles at Alliance. He was one of those who organized the Board of Trade, and was for a number of years its treasurer. He was the first secretary of the Alliance Building and Savings Company. About 1889 the First National Bank was organized, and he was a director and its vice president for a number of years. About 1891, with Thomas Morgan, Sr., he organized the City Savings Bank, being its first president and manager. He still holds stock in the First National Bank, but has since sold his interest in the savings company. In 1898 he took the lead in organizing the Alliance Building and Savings Company as a building and loan association, and has since handled most of its business as secretary. When it began business there were two other similar organizations, one of which has since been merged with the above company. This company now has some 600 stockholders, with $500,000 of authorized capital. Another institution with which he has been identified is the Peoples Bank, which was organized in June, 1907, Mr. Davidson since being a member of its board of directors. Though a democrat, Mr. Davidson has seldom gone out into active campaign work. He served one term on the city council at a time when the city was just initiating paving improvements, and he was chairman of the street committee. In November, 1913, he was elected a member of the board of education. He has been a Mason since 1872, served as secretary of the first lodge in his home town, was later secretary in the Royal Arch chapter, and has attained to the degree of Knight Templar. On October 13, 1875, at Glenwood, Noble County, Mr. Davidson married Mary M. Patterson of that county. She was a graduate of Dana's Musical Institute at Warren, and was both a teacher in public schools and an instructor of music. She is well known in club circles, has been a factor in the College Woman's Club and active in both social and literary affairs. They have one son, Carl, who was graduated from high school and from Mount Union College, was for several years in the Government service in the West, and is now connected with the exporting department of the Goodyear Rubber Company in New York City. MARCUS M. CATLIN, M. D. For more than a generation Doctor Catlin has gone about his duties as a physician and surgeon in Stark County, where he located a few years after the Civil war, in which he was one of the boy soldiers. With many families his professional services have been regarded as indispensable through parts of three generations, and he is now one of the oldest and best known among Canton's medical fraternity. Of good American stock, Doctor Catlin endured the touch of poverty when a boy, and most of what he has made has been the creation of his 564 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY own character and industry. He was born at Winfield, Herkimer County, New York, August 15, 1846, son of Roger and Elizabeth (Noble) Catlin, the Catlins having located in Western New York many years before. When he was nine years old his father died, and this and other circumstances combined to make him a breadwinner to support his mother and the other six children. Work on farms was his chief experience in boyhood, with attendance at school only in the winters, and he continued to contribute the greater part of his earnings to his mother for several years. In the meantime he had also contrived to enjoy a term at the -Winfield Academy. In 1863, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in Company D of the Forty-sixth New York Volunteer Infantry, and was with his command until the close of the war. His regiment reached the front in time to participate in the siege of Vicksburg, he was also at the battle of Knoxville, and afterwards joined Grant's command in the winter of 1864 and was with Grant's army and participated in numerous engagements, including the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, North Anna, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Richmond and Appomattox. The return home after the war found him broken in health, and during his recuperation he took up the study of medicine, for three years being under the preceptorship of Dr. Nathan Spencer at Winfield. He then entered the Cleveland Homeopathic College at Cleveland, and was graduated with the degree M. D. in the class of 1868. Beginning practice in the same year at Brookfield, New York, Doctor Catlin came to Stark County in 1871, locating at Massillon, but in February, 1875, moved his home and office to Canton, so that for practically forty years he has been identified with this city, now one of the oldest and ablest practitioners. Doctor Catlin has membership in the various homeopathic medical societies, and belongs to McKinley Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Both professional and business success has come to him, and his part in the upbuilding of the city has been considerable. The Catlin Block on South Market was built and is still owned by him, and in 1914 he finished the Catlin Annex, probably the finest apartment block in Canton. In 1869 at Brookfield, New York, Doctor Catlin married Rozella Clark, daughter of Anson and Elmira (Crandall) Clark. Mrs. Catlin died in 1896. Their three children are : Grace Elizabeth, wife of John Miller, with home at Bellefontaine, Ohio ; Homer Clark, who had become successful as a civil engineer, but died at Pittsburgh, March 10, 1902 ; Mary Alice, who married Frederick Green, of Canton, has four children—Marcus, Alice Louise, Walter Frederick and Rozelle D. FRANK K. NORWOOD. While Stark County has had many popular men in the office of sheriff, it is doubtful if any successful candidate ever entered upon his duties with a greater strength of popular confidence and good will behind him than Frank K. Norwood, who was elected in November, 1914, and began the administration of his office in January, 1915. Mr. Norwood has spent his life in Stark County, has been successful in business, has had much experience in official work, and combines with HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 565 popular personality the efficient character of the man of action. Of sturdy Irish and Scotch descent, he was born in the City of Massillon, June 17, 1873. His parents were James and Sarah (Willis) Norwood. His father, who was born in Ireland in 1830, and died January 1, 1904, came to America at the age of twenty-two, a thrifty, industrious and ambitious young immigrant. Very soon after reaching the land of promise, he located in Massillon, with which city his activities were identified for half a century. Entering the employ of the Russell Manufacturing Company of that city, he remained one of their most valued workers almost fifty years, until honorably retired. His was a service exceptional in length and also in faithfulness. Sarah (Willis) Norwood, his wife, was born in Scotland in 1837, and when a young girl came to the United States with her parents, who settled in Massillon, where she was married. She is still living, aged seventy-seven. Frank K. Norwood grew up in Massillon, and his early associations all center about that city, where he made his first friends among the boys who were his schoolmates in the grammar and high schools. After some preliminary experience, he was for ten years in the retail grocery trade at Massillon, seven years as member of the firm of Voigt & Norwood, and three years as sole proprietor, though the business was still conducted under the old name. His activity in public affairs began almost with manhood, and he has throughout this time been identified with the republican party. While living in Massillon he was three times elected clerk of Perry Township, the last two times without opposition. He became deputy sheriff of the county December 1, 1910, under Sheriff Adam Oberlin, and at the beginning of the latter 's second term was made chief deputy. In the republican primaries of 1914 Mr. Norwood was successful in winning the nomination for sheriff, and on November 3d of that year was elected by the largest majority accorded to any name on the party ticket. This in itself indicates his strong hold on the people of Stark County and the general recognition of his fitness for the office to which he aspired. Mr. Norwood is affiliated with Clinton Lodge, A. F. & A. M., with the Royal Arch chapter and council, and Knight Templar Commandery No. 4, all at Massillon, and with Lake Erie Consistory of Cleveland, thirty-second degree. Mrs. Norwood before her marriage was Miss Vinnie Kurtz. CHRISTOPHER C. BARRICK. Much dynamic force has been brought to bear by the progressive men who have compassed the development of the City of Canton as one of the important industrial centers of the Buckeye State, and among the prominent citizens who have contributed to this advancement and aided materially in promoting the commercial precedence of the Stark County metropolis is Mr. Barrick, who is president of the Union Metal Manufacturing Company, of which he was one of the organizers and incorporators. Mr. Barrick was born at Sherodsville, Carroll County, Ohio, on the 2d of November, 1862, and is a son of Luther M. and Polly (Barrick). Barrick, who though bearing the same surname were not of even remote Vol. II-12 566 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY kinship. Luther M. Barrick was born in the immediate vicinity of Sherodsville, on the 2d of January, 1841, and was a resident of the City of Canton at the time of his death, in April, 1911. He was a son of George Barrick, who was a native of Frederick County, Virginia, a scion of a sterling colonial family of the historic Old Dominion, and who became one of the pioneer settlers in Carroll County, Ohio, where he reclaimed a farm from the virtual wilderness and where he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. Luther M. Barrick was reared and educated in Carroll County, where he became a successful merchant and where he was a citizen of prominence and influence in local affairs. After having served as county auditor he developed in Carroll County a successful business as a public accountant, and many years ago he came with his family to Stark County and established his residence at Canton, where he continued his business activities for a long period and where he served for a number of years in the office of justice of the peace, a position of which he was the incumbent at the time of his death. His wife likewise is a native of Carroll County, where her father, Abraham Barrick, was an early settler, he having been born in Pennsylvania and having been of staunch German lineage. Mrs. Barrick still resides in Canton. He whose name initiates this article acquired his early education in the public schools and supplemented this discipline by an effective course of study in the excellent academy at New Hagerstown, Carroll County. As a youth he became associated in business with his father and became an expert accountant, his services as such having been given for a number of years in one of the departments of the Ohio state government and his official headquarters having been during this time in the City of Columbus, the capital city. As a state employe he came to Canton prior to the removal of his parents to this city, and later he here engaged in the real estate business, in which he gave his attention almost exclusively to the handling of properties owned by himself. He platted and successfully placed on the market the Kensington and Barrick additions, on the west side of the City of Canton, and Kensington is one of the largest and most important additions to the Stark County metropolis, great sagacity, initiative and circumspection having been manifested by Mr. Barrick in the development and upbuilding of this attractive residence section. His civic enterprise and progressiveness found further and effective exemplification through his active co-operation in the organization of several companies that engaged in the manufacturing business, and among the most important of these is the Union Metal Manufacturing Company, which was incorporated October 8, 1906, and which may consistently be termed a Barrick family corporation, as those associated with Christopher C. Barrick in the founding of the now thriving industry were his father and his elder son, Donald C., who is secretary of the company at the present time, Mr. Barrick's younger son, Luther M., being treasurer. The enterprise had a modest inception, and the original plant, on the site of the present well equipped manufacturing establishment of the company, was a small one. The plant has specially valuable and modern mechanical equipment, and a number of the most valuable machines utilized are inventions devised and controlled by the company. The out- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 567 put of the establishment includes ornamental architectural columns of metal, ornamental fixtures for street lights and divers other ornamental metal products of the most approved modern type. The personnel of the executive corps of this important corporation at the present time is as here noted, the treasurer being a son of the subject of this review : Christopher C. Barrick, president; C. L. Eshelman, vice president ; L. M. Barrick, Jr., treasurer ; and Donald C. Barrick, secretary. In addition to the above named officials the directorate of the company includes also Harry E. Duff, of Cleveland, who is one of the stockholders and executives of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company. The products of the Union Metal Manufacturing Company are shipped into all sections of the United States and Canada, a large export trade also is controlled and a well appointed branch plant is maintained in the City of Gault, Province of Ontario, Canada. As a young man Mr. Barrick wedded Miss Laura Hixon, daughter of Abner Hixon, a well-known citizen of Leesville, Carroll County, and the three children of this union are Donald C., Pearl May, and Luther M., both sons being associated with the Union Metal Manufacturing Company, as previously noted in this context, and the only daughter being the wife of Herbert C. Drumm, who is the superintendent of the plant of this same company. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WEYBRECHT. The interesting commercial distinction of having established the first lumber yard in Alliance belongs to the late John T. Weybrecht, who was for more than forty years a prominent carpenter, lumber dealer and contractor in that city, and the business to which he gave so many years in the upbuilding is now carried on as J. T. Weybrecht's Sons. This is a firm that is justly proud of its high standing, the quality of the finished lumber products which it turns out from its mills, and the reliability with which all its contracts are performed. The late John T. Weybrecht was born in Alsace, France, January 27, 1829. and died at Alliance January 31, 1895. In early manhood, in 1852, he emigrated to America, and in the following year located in Alliance. He was a carpenter by trade, and had gone through a thorough apprenticeship in the old country. It was in 1856 that he established the first lumber yard in Alliance, and after that for many years followed contracting. He erected every schoolhouse in Alliance during his active lifetime, and many prominent buildings besides. John T. Weybrecht married Margaret Honaker, who was born June 1, 1833, and died in 1911. Her father, Christopher Honaker, was one of the early pioneers of Stark County, having immigrated from Wurtemberg, Germany, and settled in Lexington Township as early as 1830. He was a farmer by occupation. Brief mention of the children of John T. Weybrecht and wife is as follows : Mary C., the oldest, married Lee Roy Lamborn, son of Dr. L. L. Lamborn and a direct descendant of John Grant, who was the first settler in the township and located on the present site of Alliance in the year 1805. Anne M. Weybrecht is the wife of Freemont Livingstone and lives at Denver, Colorado. Jennie N. is the wife of John M. Vitzhum 568 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY and lives in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Charles C. Weybrecht, now associated with his brother Benjamin F., as one of the firm of J. T. Weybrecht 's Sons, takes much interest in military affairs, was lieutenant-colonel of the Eighth Ohio Regiment, National Guard, and with that command participated in the Santiago campaign during the Spanish-American war. He afterwards, during 1908 to 1912 served as adjutant-general of Ohio under Governor Harmon. He is president of the Alliance Board of Trade. He married Emily Brosious, daughter of an old resident of Alliance. Andrew T. Weybrecht, another son, has his home in Alliance and is yard foreman for J. T. Weybrecht's Sons. Benjamin Franklin Weybrecht was born at Alliance, March 17, 1861. This family has always put much stress on education and practically all its members are cultured and liberally educated men and women. Benjamin F. Weybrecht after attending the Alliance public schools entered Mount Union College and remained there until 1878. He then went to work under his father in the lumber business, and had a thorough discipline and training in all branches of the lumber trade and lumber milling. In 1890 he became one of the partnership of J. T. Weybrecht & Sons, and this firm continued until the death of the senior member in 1895, since which time the name has been J. T. Weybrecht's Sons, the two brothers still being active heads of the business. It has splendid resources, as was well shown in 1913 when a disastrous fire destroyed the entire plant, and it was immediately rebuilt on a much larger scale. From 1902 to 1906 Mr. Weybrecht was president of the Ohio Association of Retail Lumber Dealers, and at the present time he is president of the Alliance Clay Products Company and the Lexington Hotel Company, is a director in City Savings Bank & Trust Company of Alliance and in the Lumberman's Insurance Company of Mansfield, Ohio, and is a member of the building commission for the erection of the city hall in Alliance, a splendid municipal structure now in course of erection. While his career has been one essentially devoted to business affairs, Mr. Weybrecht is known pretty well over the state through his participation in politics. As a democrat he was elected to the city council in 1887, and in 1890 to the Seventieth General Assembly. A responsibility of even greater moment was entrusted to him when he was elected a delegate from Stark County to the Fourth Constitutional Convention of Ohio in 1912. While in that body he instituted several measures that were ratified by the voters of the state in the election following and are now part of the organic laws. For several years he served as a trustee of the Alliance Hospital Association, and took an active interest in securing the new hospital which is now being built by the city. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and several of the Masonic bodies. On December 25, 1885, Christmas Day, at Alliance, Mr. Weybrecht married Miss Elizabeth A. Peterson, daughter of John Peterson and Millicent G. (Carline) Peterson. Her father was of Swedish ancestry and her mother came from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. There are four children : John W. Weybrecht, born in 1887 in Alliance, was educated in the public schools of that city and at Mount Union College and also the Ohio State University, is now an employee with J. T. Weybrecht's HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 569 Sons. Edgar C. Weybrecht, born in 1889, attended the local public schools and the Mount Union College, and is now bookkeeper for the firm. Millicent Weybrecht, who was horn in 1892, and Mary Weybrecht, born in 1897, are both graduates of the Alliance High School, and are now attending Mount Union College. GEORGE F. KNIGHT. One of Canton's genuine captains of industry is George F. Knight, whose prominence is limited by neither the city nor the state. The "Knight Tire," of which he is the manufacturer, is used all over the world; and the sawmill appliance known as "Knight's Dog," of which he is the inventor, has become an indispensable appliance for mill machinery many years since. Deserved material success is his and by Canton citizens he is counted a man to be admired without envy ; is pointed out with pride as a fellow-townsman and his friendship claimed with sincere affection. Mr. Knight is president of the Knight Tire and Rubber Company and also founder and joint proprietor of the Knight Manufacturing Company. The facts of his life will be reviewed and the successive steps of his career noted in sequence. It is interesting to note that Mr. Knight is a descendant of Ohio pioneers of several preceding generations. Wayne County was the early home of both ancestral lines of his parentage. His father was Benoni Knight, of that locality ; and his mother, nee Eleanor Firestone, a native of the same vicinity. Benoni Knight died on his Wayne County farm in 1852, his widow surviving him until 1899. On the national birthday—July Fourth—of the year 1848, George Knight began his earthly existence. The farm, his birthplace, remained his home until he reached the age of fifteen. Adventurous and ambitious to carve his own fortune, he left the familiar Wayne County haunts and fared forth into the larger world. His first employment was in the coal mines located at Newman's Creek, where he turned his boyish energy to the task of hauling coal to and from the mines to the point of the old canal from which it was to be shipped. These and other duties about the mines held his interest until 1864, when he went to Defiance, Ohio, where he eventually engaged in the sawmill business, owning his own mill. In 1899 he closed his affairs in Defiance and came to Canton, which has ever since been his home and the center of his commercial and manufacturing operations. Mr. Knight's first business enterprises in Canton were concerned with the Canton Saw Company, of which he became a stockholder. It was three years later—in 1892—that he organized the Knight Manufacturing Company for the producing of machinery to be used in sawmills and planing mills. The particular feature of his manufacturing which laid the foundation for his exceptional success was the device above mentioned ; this "dog," as it was called, is one of Mr. Knight's patented inventions, and is of great importance for holding logs in the carriage of the sawmill. A large demand has been created for this piece of machinery, which has gone far toward making Mr. Knight's name an important one among manufacturers. The Republic Stamping and Enameling Company was organized by Mr. Knight, with Mrs. Knight and Charles H. Knight as the original 570 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY stockholders. The latter, a son of the man whose career is the subject of this sketch, was made the treasurer of the company and so continued until April, 1913. This stock is held by members of the Knight family. The Knight Tire and Rubber Company of Canton was organized by Mr. Knight in 1911. During the following year the large manufacturing plant of this company was completed and put into operation. Two hundred men are employed here, engaged steadily in the production of the Knight Tire and Inner Tubes. All the large cities of the United States contain branch houses for the distribution of these popular manufactures, which are used in every locality on earth where motor cars are known. This manufactory is one of the largest ever established in Canton, and additions are now being contemplated. The company have found it necessary to rent other space, having used the National Products Company's plant for their expanding needs of warehouses, stockrooms and shipping offices. With all these important interests, Mr. Knight is one of Canton 's busiest and most responsible men. His interests in Canton's broader commercial welfare is indicated by his membership in the local Chamber of Commerce. He has moreover earned the modicum of leisure to which busy and successful men have the right and devoted some time to the Lakeside Country Club, in which he and his family hold membership. Mr. Knight's family is one worthy of his financial achievements and social position. Mrs. Knight, who was formerly Miss Margaret Price, of Defiance, Ohio, is one of the most highly esteemed matrons in Canton society. She was a daughter of John Price of Defiance and was born June 1, 1851. The Price-Knight marriage took place on December 3, 1868. Two children came to share their home-life. Charles F. Knight has from boyhood had an active interest in his father's business affairs, and is now in the forefront of Canton's prominent men of the younger generation. He is manager of the Knight Tire and Rubber Company, and is a figure to be reckoned with in Canton's commercial activities. Cora B. Knight has been well known as a distinct social favorite among Canton's young ladies. She is now Mrs. George W. Piner and a resident of Kelseyville, California. ISAAC BRUMBAUGH. A venerable and honored citizen who is now living retired in the attractive Village of Hartville, in Lake Township, is he whose name initiates this paragraph. His active career was one of long and specially successful association with the basic industry of agriculture and prior to establishing his home in Hartville he had been the owner of an extensive and valuable landed estate in Portage County. Mr. Brumbaugh is a representative of honored pioneer families of Ohio and is a scion of sterling Pennsylvania German stock on both the paternal and maternal sides. Isaac Brumbaugh was horn in Randolph Township, Portage County, Ohio, on the 29th of October, 1838, and is a son of Henry and Catherine (Stiffler) Brumbaugh, both natives of the old Keystone State, where the former was horn on the 4th of November, 1805, and the latter on the 25th of March, 1812. Henry Brumbaugh was a son of Conrad, who was a son of Jacob, and the last mentioned was a son of Johannes HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 571 Brumbaugh, a member of the fine old German family of that name that was founded in Pennsylvania in the Colonial era of our national history. Catherine (Stuffier) Brumbaugh was a daughter of Henry and Nancy Stiffler, who passed their entire lives in Pennsylvania. After their marriage Henry Brumbaugh and his wife continued their residence in Pennsylvania until 1831, when they came from Blair County, that state, to Ohio, and settled in Stark County. In the following year, however, they established their permanent home on a pioneer farm in Randolph Township, Portage County, Mr. Brumbaugh having there reclaimed his land from the virgin forest and having eventually developed an excellent farm. His original domicile was a primitive loghouse of the type common to the pioneer era, and he endured the full tension of arduous labor and manifold vicissitudes that fell to the lot of other pioneers in a new and heavily timbered section. On this old homestead Henry Brumbaugh and his devoted wife passed the remainder of their lives, and in view of the migratory proclivities of Americans of the younger generation of the present day it is interesting to record that this ancestral homestead still remains in the possession of representatives of the Brumbaugh family. Isaac Brumbaugh was reared to adult age on the old homestead just mentioned and continued to be associated in its work and management until he had attained to his legal majority, in the meanwhile having profited duly from the advantages afforded in the pioneer schools of the locality. At the age of twenty-one years he came to Stark County and entered the employ of his uncle, Louis Brumbaugh, but within a comparatively short time he returned to the home farm of his parents. In 1864 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Brumbaugh to Miss Mary Fulmer, who was born in Stark County but reared and educated in Randolph Township, Portage County, her parents, Jacob and Catherine (Blinn) Fulmer, having been natives of Germany. After their marriage Isaac Brumbaugh and his young wife established their home on a farm in Suffield Township, Portage County, the same being in the vicinity of the beautiful Congress Lake, but eighteen months later they removed to another farm, in the same township, which continued to be their place of residence for a period of equal duration. The next removal of Mr. Brumbaugh was to Cairo, Stark County, where he was associated in the operation of a saw mill for somewhat more than a year. He then returned to the farm in Suffield Township, Portage County, and after purchasing this property he there continued to maintain his home for twenty-two years. Within this period he added materially to his landed estate, by purchasing another farm in the same township and still another in his native Township of Randolph. The aggregate area of his landed estate was 230 acres, and all of his farms were brought up to model standard under his industrious and well ordered management and progressive policies. He finally removed to one of his farms in Randolph Township and after remaining there two years he sold all of his Portage County farms most advantageously, in 1891. In 1893 he and his wife established their home at Hartville, where they have since resided in peace, comfort and generous prosperity and where he 572 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY is living virtually retired, in the enjoyment of the gracious rewards of former years of earnest application and also secure in the high regard of all who know him. Mr. and Mrs. Brumbaugh became the parents of two sons, the elder of whom, Oliver, was drowned in Congress Lake, in 1887, when twenty-two years of age; the younger son, Justin C., is a prosperous business man and influential citizen of Hartville. FRANK LEROY NAPE, M. D. A Canton physician of most creditable attainments and successful general practice is Dr. Frank Leroy Nape, who has his offices and residence at 1633 Navarre Road, S. W. He was carefully trained for his profession and the test of real service has found him equal to all its exigencies. Doctor Nape represents one of the old established families of Eastern Ohio. He was born on a farm about a mile west of Carrollton, Carroll County, Ohio, January 8, 1878, son of John H. and Isabelle (Long) Nape. The Nape and Long families were among the early settlers of Carroll County. Frederick Nape, Doctor Nape's grandfather, was a native of England, and Came to this country early in the nineteenth century and almost immediately after landing proceeded directly to Ohio. He rode horseback into Carroll County at a time when the present county seat of Carrollton consisted of one residence, a mill and a blacksmith shop at the crossroads, and was known as Centerville. He took up government land about two miles west of the village, built a house of hewed logs, and set himself with vigor and determination to clear up and improve the farm, a task in which he succeeded, and he lived in that locality in comfort and influence until his death in 1888, at the advanced age of almost ninety years. On the maternal side the grandfather Samuel Long, a native of Germany, on coming to this country first located in Pennsylvania, where his first wife died. He then removed to Carroll County and was in that locality in time to secure a tract of government land near what is now Kilgore, where he lived out his remaining years. John H. Nape, father of Doctor Nape, was born in the old log house above described in Carroll County in 1847. Farming has been his regular vocation, and for many years he has been in prosperous circumstances, and still occupies the comfortable old homestead near Carrollton. His wife was born to the second marriage of her father in Carroll County in 1856. She is also still living. The members of the Nape and Long families have proved long lived, and all the grandparents attained an age beyond that of three score and ten. Doctor Nape had the simple but substantial comforts of an Ohio rural community as his early environment. He was encouraged by his own nature and by the precepts and example of his parents to make the best of his opportunities, and after completing the course in the district schools he attended the Carrollton High School, until graduating in 1897. Either from a lack of means or from a desire to make his own way independently, he secured at least part of the money necessary for his professional education by his individual efforts as a teacher. He taught two terms, and in 1905 entered the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was graduated M. D. with the class of 1907. While in college he served two years as an interne in the Cleveland City Hospital. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 573 After securing his license to practice in the summer of 1907, Doctor Nape in August of that year located at Mineral Springs in Tuscarawas County, but on September 1, 1910, moved to a larger city field and opened his office in Canton in the same neighborhood where he is now located. Doctor Nape is a member of the Canton, Stark County and Ohio State Medical societies. He and his family belong to the Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church. Doctor Nape married Miss Maude Morgan, daughter of the late William Morgan of Carrollton, Ohio. They are the parents of two children : Naomi Isabelle and Beulah May. WILLIAM H. CLARK. Mr. Clark has for upwards of twenty years been identified with banking, and his varied business relations indicate his connection with the upbuilding of the city and its financial institutions. William H. Clark comes of an old family of southwestern Pennsylvania and was born in Brownsville, Fayette County of that state, February 19, 1858, son of the late John F. and Parmelia M. (Alexander) Clark. He was six years of age when his father located in Canton, grew up in that city, graduating from the Canton High School in 1878. His first important position in business was as secretary and treasurer of the Ohio Millers Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which he assisted to organize, and of which he has been secretary and treasurer since its founding in 1886. This company is one of the largest mutual fire insurance companies having a home in the state of Ohio. Mr. Clark also has been a member of the board of directors of the City National Bank for the past eighteen years, and its president for ten years. He is also president of the Savings & Loan Company of Canton, an institution that has likewise had a place of important service in the city. For five years Mr. Clark served as vice president of the First National Bank of Canton, resigning that position in 1907. Mr. Clark belongs to the Canton Club, the Country Club, the Congress Lake Club and the Elks Club. The late John F. Clark, his father, was born near Amity in Washington County, Pennsylvania, November 6, 1831, and died at Canton, February 17, 1896. His parents were Levi and Margaret (Fulton) Clark, both natives of Pennsylvania. Levi Clark was the son of Isaac Clark, a native of New Jersey, who married Deborah French, and then came out to Southwestern Pennsylvania and joined the pioneers in that very interesting and historic section. John F. Clark on leaving Pennsylvania during the late '50s removed to Henry County, Iowa, but in 1864 located permanently in Canton. In that city he became identified with fire insurance, and that was his business until his death. For more than thirty years he was very active in church and Sunday school work, served as an elder and superintendent of the Sunday School of the First Presbyterian Church. . On September 2, 1856, John F. Clark married Parmelia M. Alexander. She was born near Fredericktown in Washington County, Pennsylvania, June 22, 1837, daughter of Andrew and Harriet (Lawrence) Alexander. Andrew Alexander moved out to Ohio and bought a farm in Delaware County, then returned to Pennsylvania for his family, but while at the 574 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY old home was taken ill and died in 1853. The Alexanders have been identified with the American nation and colonies for a number of generations. The emigrant ancestor was Elias Alexander, who was born in Scotland, lived in England several years before emigrating to America, and first settled in Maryland. He was married in this country to a Miss Bradley, and then crossed the Alleghenies into Washington County, Pennsylvania. Isaac had a son Henry, who in turn had a son Joseph, and the latter was father of Andrew Alexander. Andrew Alexander was a successful merchant and for many years a man of prominence in Washington County. He married Harriet Lawrence, whose ancestry is likewise of old American residence. The family originated in the country bordering the Rhine River in Germany, where the name was spelled Lorenz. The first American settler was William Lawrence or Lorenz, who settled in Maryland, and became the father of Jonathan Lawrence, who was in turn the father of Harriet. MERVIN M. RUBRIGHT, D. D. S. Doctor Rubright, who has spent almost fifteen years in the practice of dentistry in Stark County, and has his home and office at New Berlin, is a member of an old and prominent family of this section of Ohio, including not only early settlers, but people who have lived sturdy and useful lives in their respective communities. Born on his father's farm, near Hartville, in Lake Township of Stark County, March 30, 1880, Doctor Rubright is a son of William L. and Caroline (Motz) Rubright, who are now living retired at Hartville. His father was born on the old Rubright homestead, near Congress Lake in Lake Township, April 8, 1844, a son of William and Abbie Rubright, who were natives of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, and after their marriage came to Stark County and were among the first settlers on the shores of Congress Lake in Lake Township. They had a family of eleven children, and several of them are still living. Doctor Rubright 's mother was born near Cairo in Lake Township, in 1845, daughter of Peter Motz. The latter was a native of Germany, where he learned the trade of tailor. For seven years he served in the German armies during the Napoleonic wars, and after the close of his last campaign came to America and became a pioneer settler in Stark County. His passage money was paid by John Bnetler, in whose employ he remained for six months in order to discharge the debt. Then for a number of years he followed his trade largely in the country districts, and was truly a journeyman tailor, going from one town to the next and making up the homespun cloth into clothing for the various members of the family. During that time his savings were invested in a farm, and he eventually occupied it permanently. The death of this old pioneer, whose name deserves special mention in Stark County history, occurred at the Village of Hartville, when he was ninety-one years of age. William Rubright, father of Doctor Rubright, became the pioneer hotel man at Hartville, and for twenty-one years conducted the only place of public entertainment in that village. He was also engaged in the coal business. He and his wife had five children : Aaron A., who is now in the insurance business at Akron ; Peter ; Dorothy, wife of Clement Harple, a HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 575 farmer of Lake Township ; Clara, wife of Adam Moledor, a farmer of Lake Township ; and Mervin M. Doctor Rubright was reared practically in the Village of Hartville, and spent a number of years in his father's hotel and in assisting in his other business. As a boy he received instruction which prepared him for a first-class high school entrance, and he was graduated from the high school at Hartville in 1898. He soon afterward entered the dental department of the Ohio Medical College at Columbus and was graduated D. D. S. in 1901. During his second vacation from college he spent the time as an apprentice in dentistry in the office of Dr. C. 0. Carr at Massillon, and during that time did the dental work for the Ohio State Hospital for the Insane at Massillon. Beginning his individual practice in 1901, he had his office at Hartville, and remained there nine years, but in the meantime extended his work through branch offices to New Berlin, Mogadore, over in Summit County, Uniontown and Randolph. In 1910, in order to handle his practice more conveniently, he removed to New Berlin, but still continues a branch office at Hartville. Doctor Rubright is a member of the Stark County Dental Society, the Ohio State Dental Society, and belongs to the national organization of his profession. Doctor Rubright married Miss Mattie M. Bidleman. She was born in Uniontown, Ohio, daughter of well known residents of the county, Norman B. and Lovina (Wise) Bidleman. FRANK E. CASE. There is an interesting story and personality behind one of Canton's most substantial manufacturing industries. While modern business organization tends somewhat to eliminate the personal factor, and team work is more important than individual performance, there are few industries which do not bear somewhere the impress of an original mind A little more than twenty-five years ago Frank E. Case was a practicing lawyer in Canton. He had sufficient business to keep him occupied, though a strong inclination of his mind for practical mechanics and the constant fascination exerted by machinery made him somewhat restless in the humdrum duties of the law. One day he was called into a neighboring dentist's office to witness the administration of an anesthetic. The law required the presence of at least a third party on such occasion. His formal presence did not prevent him from the usual free play of his mind when near any mechanical contrivance. The dentist had his patient in one of the old fashioned chairs that did not allow the patient a reclining position and that older people may recall as the usual equipment of such an office. In order to restore consciousness in case of collapse, the patient had to be removed from the chair and laid on a couch with head lowered, a troublesome and annoying part of the operation. While watching the proceeding Mr. Case perceived the need of some kind of chair which could be straightened out and inclined at any angle. The need of such a chair was, to the keen mind of Mr. Case, the mother of the practical idea of construction, and he soon had a pattern-maker working out his idea, resulting in a model of a surgeon's and dentist 's chair, for which he secured a patent. 576 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY It was in 1887 that Mr. Case began making the first chairs, with a shop in the basement of his residence. Strange as it may seem now, when such conveniences are in universal use, his was the first practical chair of its kind, and it soon attracted wide attention among the members of both professions for whose benefit it was designed. In a few years the use or non-use of such a chair was a ready distinction between the progressive and the backward member of such profession. Later Mr. Case patented various improvements, chief among which were devices allowing the chair to be telescoped, or to be elevated or lowered as required. How important this invention was regarded in the scientific world is indicated in the fact that Mr. Case was elected an honorary member of a Paris scientific society on the strength of his inventions. The original patents on the chair have long since expired, and it is now manufactured in varying forms by companies all over the world. From the basement of his home Mr. Case moved his shop to the second floor of the J. H. McLean factory. That was the home of the business until 1896 when Mr. Case erected the present fine factory building on East Lake Street. In naming his chair he was guided perhaps by a passing whim and called it the "Harvard chair," after Harvard College or the founder of that institution, though he had no relations as a student or otherwise with that school. His company, of which he is president, is incorporated as the Harvard Company, and for a number of years it has been one of Canton's notable industries. Besides the original chair, they manufacture cabinets, tables, brackets, fountain cuspidors, engines, laboratory furniture, electro-dental appliances, and in fact almost everything used in dental establishments, all of which now have a world-wide market. Frank E. Case is a native Ohio man, born on the Case farm in Ashtabula County, a son of the late Hiram and Mary (Amidon) Case. The Case family is of Irish stock, and was founded in America by John and Aaron Case, who came over from Ireland in colonial times, one of the brothers settling in Connecticut and the other in New York state. John, the director ancestor of Frank E., settled at Bloomfield, Connecticut. descendant, Aaron Case, in 1835 moved from Connecticut to Northeastern Ohio, in Ashtabula County, settling at the town of Windsor, and subsequently went to Michigan, where he died in 1884. Hiram Case, the father, was born at Bloomfield, Connecticut, in 1822. When a boy of twelve, his mother having died and his father gone on to Ohio, he and three brothers walked the entire distanct from Connecticut to the latter state. In later years he became one of the citizens of prominence and influence in his town in Ashtabula County. In that county he married Mary Amidon, who was descended from John Smith, a captain in the Continental army who distinguished himself at Bunker Hill. Her father was George Amidon. Both Hiram Case and his wife died in 1901, when in advanced years. Frank E. Case was reared on a farm, attended common schools and the Orwell Academy, and for a number of years was a teacher. Having pursued a course of reading in law, he was admitted to the bar in 1871, and in the same year began practice at Canal Fulton, but in 1873 located at Canton. In 1890 Mr. Case gave up his practice to give all his time and PICTURE OF VALLEY VIEW FARM, M. O. SURBEY, OWNER AND PROPRIETOR HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 577 attention to the manufacturing interests which had been developed as above described. Mr. Case is also prominent in banking circles at Canton. Since 1899 he has been president of the Dime Savings Bank, and has been a member of the board of directors of the First National Bank since its reorganization in 1900. He was for some years president of the Canton Library Association, and is president of the board of trustees of Aultman Hospital. He is a charter member of the Congress Lake Club. His interests also extend to farming, with a fine farm in Plain Township of this county, and an orange grove and winter home on Bay Biscayne in southern Florida, his place having an outlook on the sea and the Cape Florida light-house. July 7, 1879, Mr. Case married Theano Wattles, daughter of the late John and Esther Wattles, of Oberlin, Ohio. John Wattles was a pioneer in Kansas, where he died in 1859. His widow gave devoted service as a nurse during the civil strife which brought to that state the name "bleeding Kansas." She later returned to live at Oberlin, Ohio, where she died. M. O. SURBEY. Of all the splendid landed estates of Stark County few if any can claim precedence of that of Mr. Surbey, whose Valley View Farm, in Plain Township, is a model in every respect, its buildings and other permanent improvements being of the best type, its facilities and general appurtenances being of the most approved modern order and everything about the domain giving evidence of system, thrift and prosperity. Mr. Surbey is recognized as one of the most successful and prominent exponents of the dairy and live-stock industries in this section of the state, and this prestige is certified by the many premiums he has received on his high-grade cattle and the products of his splendidly equipped dairy. Further interest attaches to his career and his success by reason of the fact that he is a native son of Stark County, a scion of honored pioneer families of the county and a citizen who exemplified the best in civic pride, liberality and progressiveness. Such are the men of the present generation who specially merit definite recognition in this history of one of the fairest of the many opulent counties of the Buckeye State. In Plain Township, Stark County, the birth of M. 0. Surbey occurred on the 10th of February, 1868, and he is a son of John and Mary (Mohler) Surhey, both likewise natives of this county, the former having been born in Jackson township, on the 15th of August, 1837, and the latter in Plain Township, on the 31st of July, 1842, dates that fully indicate that the respective families were founded in this county in the early pioneer days. The paternal grandparents of Mr. Surbey were natives of Alsace, France, a province now owned by Germany and the present stage of the bitterest of polemic conflicts. The grandparents established their home in Stark County in the early pioneer epoch and the grandfather developed one of the excellent farms of Jackson Township, where he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives. The maternal grandparents of Mr. Surbey came to this county from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which state gave a most valuable and influential quota to the pioneer settlement of Stark County, and they 578 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY likewise stood representative in connection with agricultural industry here until the close of their long and useful lives. John Surbey was reared and educated under the conditions that existed in the pioneer days of Stark County and he likewise came to figure as one of the prominent exponents of agricultural and live-stock industry in the county, where he accumulated a valuable property and where he died at the venerable age of seventy-eight years, a good man and a useful citizen who commanded unequivocal confidence and esteem. He served several years as assessor of Plain Township and was otherwise prominent in the ordering of local affairs of a public order. He whose name introduces this article acquired his early education in the public schools of Plain Township, and after a course in the high school at New Berlin, and that he is a man of broad intellectual ken needs no further voucher than the statement that he attended the State Normal School at Ada and also of the University of Ohio, in the City of Columbus. It is a matter of interest to record that for thirty-one years, during the period of his educational work. both in the accumulation of his own training and in his service as a teacher, he utilized a single dinner pail in which to carry his nonetide provender, and that this now ancient receptacle is retained in his beautiful home as a souvenir and relic. Mr. Surbey devoted sixteen years to most effective service as a teacher, his pedagogic labors having been in the rural schools of Jackson, Lake, Plain and Pike townships, this county, and his success having been on a parity with his distinctive popularity, both personal and professional. After retiring from his work as a teacher Mr. Surbey, in company with friends, made a trip to Mexico, and upon his return to Stark County he established his residence once more on the old homestead farm that was the place of his birth. Here he has remained during the intervening years, which have been marked with large and worthy achievement on his part and which have brought to him specially wide reputation as a dairy farmer, his high-grade butter having received several premiums at the annual meetings of the Ohio State Dairymen's Association, in the City of Columbus. In his dairy business Mr. Surbey has manifested the greatest circumspection in defining and systematizing every detail of the enterprise, has kept a careful record concerning the production of every cow in butter fat, this record being made daily, so that he keeps a constant survey of his stock and is able to maintain only milch cows of the maximum productiveness. His splendid herd of cows averages about twenty in number; the average yield of butter is more than 100 pounds a week, and the superiority of the product has created a large demand for the same, as shown by the fact that it is sold during the entire year at the rate of 40 cents a pound. Scientific methods, the best of sanitary provisions and the most progressive policies have been brought to bear in the managing and control of this model dairy farm and the same is annually visited by many who wish to investigate and profit by its admirable system. The main dairy barn is a substantial and thoroughly modern structure, 100x44 feet in dimensions. and has been pronounced by the highest authorities to be one of the finest in the entire Union. Forage crops are effectively treated in two silos HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 579 of the best type and of large capacity, and the building equipment of Valley View Farm represents an investment of approximately $15,000. The house is a modern brick structure of eighteen rooms, supplied with natural running water throughout, as are also the barns, and the facilities of the beautiful home include modern bathrooms, heat, electric light, etc., the farm lying contiguous to the western corporate limits of the Village of New Berlin and comprising 140 acres of most excellent land. Well may the owner of such a fine landed estate feel no envy of the attractions of urban life and look with pride and satisfaction upon the manifold advantages and attractions that surround him and make him the most independent of men. Mr. Surbey has not permitted himself to become self-centered or to look only to personal aggrandizement, for he is essentially progressive and public-spirited and ever ready to lend his influence and co-operation in the furtherance of those things that conserve the general good of the community. His political allegiance is given to the democratic party and while he has in no sense been ambitious for public office his civic loyalty has prompted him to effective service as treasurer of Plain Township, a position of which he continued the incumbent five terms, and to eight years of service as treasurer of the school board of his district. He held for six years also the office of treasurer of the Plain & Jackson Township Mutual Fire Insurance Company. July 22, 1891, gave specific record of the marriage of Mr. Surbey to Miss Anna Ho11, the ceremony having been performed at Camden, New Jersey. Mrs. Surbey was born and reared in Plain Township and after her graduation in the high school at New Berlin she was for five years the popular incumbent of a position in a leading department store of New Berlin, this county, where she remained until virtually the time of her marriage. She is a woman of gracious personality and proves a most popular chatelaine of her beautiful home, which is known for its generous hospitality and as a center of representative social activities in the community. Mr. and Mrs. Surbey have five children, whose names and respective dates of birth are here noted : Percival H., January 10, 1892 ; John P., February 26, 1894; Starr Jordan, November 1, 1895 ; Kateura, July 27, 1899 ; and Mary Cleora, October 19, 1903, the two daughters being students in the New Berlin schools at the time of this writing, in 1915. Percival H. was graduated in the high schools of both New Berlin and Canton and in the agricultural department of the University of Ohio at Columbus. He married Minnie Keiffer, of New Berlin, and they spent their honeymoon week at Niagara Falls. John P. was graduated in the Canton Actual. Business College and the Patterson Law. On the 27th of March, 1915, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Schwartz, at East Liverpool, this state. Starr Jordan attended the New Berlin High School and the Canton Actual Business College and is still associated with his father in the activities of the home farm. JOHN ELMER FIGLEY. The successful wholesale establishment of the Canton Grocery Company has behind it and diffused throughout its past and its present organization the keen enterprise, ability, and intelligent 580 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY application of its president and general manager John Elmer Figley. While a young man hard working as mercantile clerk at wages which went mostly for the bare necessities of self-support, he created an opportunity and has been pursuing his fortune with unremitting vigor ever since, and now is at the head of one of Canton's largest and best houses of trade. He was born on a farm, the point of origin for so many successful men, in Washington Township, Carroll County, Ohio, April 26, 1867, a son of William W. and Louisa M. (Roudebush) Figley. The same farm was also the place where the father first saw the light of day on February 8, 1837. His father, Joseph Figley, was born in Pennsylvania, and married a Miss Dennison, a native of Ireland. Joseph Figley became one of the very early settlers in Carroll County, and gave that section one of its most useful families. The Canton merchant's maternal grandparents were Abraham and Sarah (Easterday) Roudebush, both natives of Pennsylvania and pioneers in Carroll County. -William W. Figley was a substantial farmer in Carroll County until 1885, at which time he retired from the farm to Mechanicstown in Carroll County. He and wife are members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. A boyhood spent on a farm, with the wholesome environment of the country and attendance at country schools were the primary features in the career of John E. Figley. His place was on the home farm until the age of eighteen, and in the meantime he had also attended the Harlem Springs College in his native county. His commercial experience began as clerk in a general store at Carrolton, at the salary of $14 per month. All but 50 cents of this wage he paid for room and board. During the second half of the year spent in the store his wages were $25 a month. In the meantime he had given promise of a good future in commercial lines, and this led his father to advance him the money with which he bought a small bankrupt stock of goods at Mechanicstown. There he operated a general store with profit for three years. In 1890 Mr. Figley came to Canton. On Tuscarawas Street West, next door to the Y. M. C. A. building, he opened what was known as the "Racket" store, dealing in groceries and notions, and continued there for eight months. The next seven years were spent on the road, traveling out of Canton and placing the goods of B. Dannemiller & Sons. For a time he was on the road for the Ross-Sprague Company of Cleveland, and later they put him in charge of a branch store at. Canton. When the Dannemiller Grocery Company was reorganized and incorporated in 1902, Mr. Figley was invited to return to that company as vice president, a post he accepted as another step in his upward climb to success. Later as treasurer he continued with the company until 1909. On January 27, 1909, Mr. Figley organized the Canton Grocery Company, which was incorporated March 22, 1909, with Mr. Figley as president and general manager ; W. J. Cutchall, secretary ; Edward F. Figley, vice president ; and Oliver W. Penn, treasurer. At the present time the officers of the company are : Mr. Figley, president and general manager ; W. H. Smith, vice president ; Edward F. Figley, secretary and treasurer. Shortly after the incorporation and before the completion of the business headquarters, the company bought on May 15, 1909, the Bair-Johnson HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 581 Grocery Company, and operated it under the old name until June 11, 1909, at which time its charter was surrendered and its business merged in the new organization. The company quarters are in a five-story modern brick building, 200 by 66 feet, and in equipment and extent of trade relations this is one of the leading concerns in the wholesale district of Canton. Mr. Figley is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, serving on several of the important committees of that body, and is a member of the board of directors of the Dime Savings Bank. He is president of the board of trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and a member of the Congress Lake Club. Mr. Figley married Belle M. Kane, of Jefferson County, Ohio, daughter of William Kane, a well known citizen of that county. They are the parents of four children: Bessie, who graduated from Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, with the class of 1914; Marie, in the junior year at Western Reserve University in Cleveland; William K., a junior in the Central High School of Canton; and Evelyn, in the eighth grade of Woodland Avenue School. AUGUSTUS DANNEMILLER. Considerable space is devoted in this publication to an account of the business activities of the Dannemiller family in Canton. In strength of organization and extent of trade relations one of the most notable concerns in the city's commercial affairs is the Dannemiller Grocery Company, of which Augustus Dannemiller is president. Mr. Dannemiller was born in Canton, April 27, 1846, a son of the late Benedict Dannemiller, whose place in Canton's history both as an early business man and active citizen has a secure reputation. The career of this honored old resident and an account of the general activities associated with his name are sketched on other pages. While a pupil in the public schools Augustus Dannemiller at the early age of twelve began to prove himself useful and possessed of the same enterprise which is characteristic of the family. He combined study at books with work in his father's grain elevator, and in 1869 embarked in the wholesale grocery business with his father and brother William, in Canton. Ohio. As told elsewhere, this business has long been a feature of Canton's larger commercial activities, and with its reorganization and incorporation in 1902 Augustus was made president of the company. Since he assumed the executive direction of its affairs, the Dannemiller Company has become one of the largest wholesale grocery houses and coffee-roasting concerns in Ohio. Mr. Dannemiller is a member of St. John's Catholic Church. of the Canton Chamber of Commerce. the Canton Club, the Country Club, the Congress Lake Club and the club of Elks. His wife before her marriage was Julia Thierry, a native of Stark County and daughter of the late Francis Thierry, an early citizen of Canton and of French stock. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Dannemiller comprise six children. Catherine is the wife of William Y. Cartright, vice president and general manager of the Union Gas & Electric Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the United Gas Fuel Company of Charleston, West Virginia, also president of the National Natural Gas Association of America. Augustus F. chose a military career and is now a first lieutenant in the regular army. He saw Vor. II-13 582 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY active service twice in the Philippines, during 1906-12 was on detail as inspector of militia, with the rank of first lieutenant of the Sixth Regiment of United States Infantry with headquarters at Boise City, Idaho, and is now first lieutenant with the Twelfth Infantry, and is now on the border at Nogales, Arizona. He married the daughter of the late Captain McCleave of the regular army, an old Indian fighter. Mary and Julienne, the third and fourth children, live at home. Robert J., who is secretary of the Dannemiller Grocery Company, married Miss Birchfield, daughter of a former Canton man but now a banker at Kittaning, Pennsylvania. Frank T. married Miss McCarty of Lynn, Massachusetts. JAMES HARVEY ROBERTSON. The family represented by James H. Robertson, who has himself lent distinction to the name as an attorney and man of affairs at Canton, is one of the very oldest in the annals of Stark County. Almost a century has passed since the first pioneers of that name blazed their way through the wilderness and founded homes in this section of Ohio. It has been a characteristic of the family to perform the duties that lay nearest, and thus the early pioneers were home makers in the wilderness and substantial farmers, while the representative of the present generation above named has found the principal outlet for his abilities as a successful member of the bar. Born in Sandy Township of Stark County January 23, 1862, James Harvey Robertson is a grandson of the founder of the family in the United States. This was Denny Robertson, who was born January 12, 1784, at Tivany, Parish of Ardstraw, County Tyrone, Ireland. Denny 's parents were William and Margaret (Denny) Robertson. The grandfather of Denny Robertson was John Robertson, a native of Scotland, who settled in County Tyrone, Ireland. Denny Robertson was one of seven brothers, all of whom emigrated to America. The names of the others were : Mathew, who while emigrating with his family to the United States was made a prisoner of war by the British Navy and who died in 1815 while confined at Halifax, Nova Scotia ; John and James, both of whom settled in Stark County, where they were pioneers, and where their remains still rest ; Robert, who settled in Pennsylvania ; Alexander, who died in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1811; and David, who settled in Gloucester County, Virginia, where he died about 1823. It was in 1816 that Denny Robertson emigrated to America, sailing from the port of Londonderry in the ship Enterprise. After living in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, for five years he moved to Sandy Township in Stark County, and died there in February, 1829. At that time he owned about 600 acres of land. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church at Waynesburg, Stark County. Denny Robertson married Eleanor McConkey, who was born at Rylands, County Tyrone, Ireland, daughter of John and Eleanor (Denny) McConkey. She had two sisters, Mrs. Mary McFarland and Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor, while her brothers were : John ; Robert ; James, a surgeon in the British Navy ; and William, a physician and surgeon. Eleanor Robertson died the same year as her husband, 1829, in that portion of Sandy Township now a part of Brown Township, Carroll County. She left a family of eight small children. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 583 Both she and her husband were members of the Presbyterian Church, and they were buried at Waynesburg. The children were: John ; William Alexander ; Margaret, who married Blythe ; James and Robert, twins; Eliza J., David, and Eleanor. James Robertson, father of the Canton lawyer, and the son of Denny and Eleanor Robertson, was born September 22, 1821, in Sandy Township of Stark County. He was eight years of age when his parents died and thereafter until his sixteenth year lived in the home of his uncles. Beginning work for himself on a farm, he kept at farming all his active life. He died in June, 1900, in Sandy Township, having accumulated an estate of 438 acres of land. Circumstances and the standards of the time were such that he received only a scanty education in the pioneer schools of the township. In his infancy he was baptised in the Presbyterian Church, but was not affiliated with any congregation or particular faith during his lifetime. Always liberal in his belief and recognizing the common object and good of all denominations, he made frequent donations to church upbuilding and maintenance. However, a short time before his death he united with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Magnolia, Ohio. While as a farmer his life was one of somewhat commonplace routine, he also made a record as a soldier. He enlisted in Company I of the One Hundred and Sixty-second Regiment of Ohio Volunteers and served with that regiment as a wagoner. In politics he was first a whig, his first presidential vote being cast for Henry Clay. On the organization of the republican party he became a strong supporter of its principles. In local affairs he was sufficiently liberal to vote for a candidate of his opposite political belief if he believed that candidate possessed superior qualifications. For himself he sought no political preferment, though twice elected trustee of his township. In 1847 James Robertson married Margaret Sickafoose of Sandy Township, youngest child of George and Margaret (Wagoner) Sickafoose, who were early settlers in the township and reared a very large family, many of whom subsequently made early settlement in Whitley County, Indiana. The ancestor of George Sickafoose was Johann Jacob Zigenfus, who was of West German ancestry. He emigrated to Pennsylvania, sailing September 16, 1751, from the port of Rotterdam in the ship Brothers, Capt. William Muir. His son, Jacob Ziegenfuss, father of George, served in the War of the Revolution as a private in Capt. Daniel Good's Third Company, First Battalion Northumberland County Militia, in 1781. During the American residence of this family the original German spelling of the name was somewhat Anglicized as Sickafoose. George Sickafoose, father of Mrs. James Robertson, served as a private in the War of 1812, in an organization known as the Greensburg Riflemen, which was a part of Capt. John B. Alexander's Company (also known as Lieut. Peter Drum's Company), Alexander's Independent Battalion, Pennsylvania Volunteers. His term of service was from September 11, 1812, to September 15, 1813. He took part in the engagement in the siege of Fort Meigs, Ohio, where the army was commanded by Gen. William H. Harrison. Margaret (Sickafoose) Robertson died in 1898 in her sixty-ninth year, two years before the death of her husband. In infancy she was 584 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY baptised in the Lutheran faith, but quite early in life she united with the Methodist Church, in which faith she died. James and Margaret (Sickafoose) Robertson were the parents of a large family of children. Seven of these reached adult life: Mrs. Laura V. Buchman; Mrs. Margaret Eleanor MacBeth ; Denny S.; George and William A., who died in infancy ; James H.; Andrew ; Mary Olive ; twin sons that died in infancy ; and Carrie Belle. From these ancestors James Harvey Robertson has a heritage of which any man might well be proud. He has done much in his own career to justify this heritage. He gained his education from the common and normal schools, and for eight years was a teacher. He began the study of law in the office of Harter & Krichbaum, attorneys at Canton, and then entered the senior year of the Law School of the Cincinnati College, from which he was graduated with the degree LL. B. in the class of 1892. In August of the same year he took up the practice of law at Canton, and now for twenty-three years has been one of the most active members of the local bar. His offices are in the Folwell Building at Canton. Outside of his profession he has been much concerned with public affairs. In politics he is a republican and has delivered many political addresses throughout the county. In 1896 he was elected a justice of the peace, and in 1899 became mayor of the City of Canton, and was re-elected in 1901, so that he held the office continuously for four years. As mayor of the city he was by order of the secretary of war made chairman of the executive committee having in charge the arrangements for the funeral of President McKinley. Subsequently he became one of the incorporators of the National McKinley Memorial Association. Mr. Robertson is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Canton, and fraternally is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. In 1899 at Canton he married Miss Gertrude Shaffer, a daughter of Jacob and Mary (Reese) Shaffer. Her parents were descended from two old families of Washington Township in Stark County. Mrs. Robertson was educated in the public schools of Canton, and spent three years in the study of music at the City of Leipsic, Germany. CHARLES L. WHITMAN. The initiative and administrative ability that make for large and worthy success have been significantly shown in the business career of this well-known and highly esteemed citizen of the Village of Marchand, and though outside a metropolitan center he has proved the master of expedients. has had the judgment fully to avail himself of opportunities presented and has gained prestige as one of the substantial and progressive business men of Stark County, with equally high standing as a public-spirited citizen. The little village in which he has his home claims him as its postmaster and most influential business man. Here he conducts a well-equipped general store, is the owner and operator of the excellent grain elevator which makes Marchand an effective shipping point, and he has amplified his HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 585 operations by dealing farm implements and machinery and also in automobiles, of which lasthe is a local distributer for standard machines. Mr. Whitman is a native of Ohio and a scion of a sterling pioneer family of this state, his paternal grandparents having early immigrated from Maryland to Ohio and his paternal great-grandparents having come to America from Switzerland. The grandfather devoted the major part of his active life to agricultural pursuits and was one of the prosperous farmers of Summit County, Ohio, at the time of his death. He whose name initiates this review was born at Johnson, Summit County, this state, on the 25th of February, 1879, and is a son of Henry and Catharine (Gardner) Whitman, the former of whom was born at Doylestown, Wayne County, in 1838, and the latter at Danville, Knox County, in 1844. Henry Whitman was reared and educated under the conditions and influences of what may be termed the middle pioneer era in the history of Ohio and his early discipline was that of the farm. As a youth he became identified with the manufacturing of machinery, and when twenty-five years of age he settled on a farm and also became a successful buyer and shipper of cattle in Summit County. He finally removed with his family to Stark County and settled on a farm a short distance north of New Berlin, where he improved and developed one of the excellent farmsteads of this section of the state. About the year 1908 he removed to the City of Canton, where he and his wife have since maintained their home and are enjoying the rewards of former years of earnest endeavor. He was a staunch democrat having cast his first presidential vote for James Buchanan. He served as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war. his enlistment having occurred at his native town in Wayne County. He and his wife are earnest communicants of the Catholic Church, and in Canton maintain membership in the parish of St. John's Church. Charles L. Whitman was a boy at the time of the family removal to Stark County, and was reared to adult age on the old homestead farm near New Berlin, in the meanwhile duly availing himself of the advantages of the local schools. At the age of seventeen years he entered the high school at New Berlin, and in the same he was graduated as a member of the class of 1899. For the ensuing six years he was a successful and popular teacher in the district and village schools, his services in this pedagogic capacity having been mainly rendered in Jackson and Lake counties. He then completed an effective course in the Canton Business College, and after his graduation in the same, he initiated in 1905 his specially successful career as a business man. He succeeded to the ownership of the general store and grain elevator of the W. G. Frank Company at Marchand, in Plain Township, and through his aggressive policies and fair and honorable dealings he has developed a large and substantial business that gives him secure vantage-place as one of the resourceful and representative business men of this part of the county. In addition to the general grain business controlled in connection with the elevator he also handles feed, seed and coal, and his general store has a trade that would do credit in scope and importance to a village center of far greater population than I hat of Marchand. In this store is conducted the postoffice and Mr. 586 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Whitman has served as postmaster of Marchand during virtually the entire period of his residence here. Mr. Whitman and his wife are communicants of the Catholic Church, he is affiliated with the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association and his political allegiance is given to the democratic party. As a liberal and progressive citizen he takes lively interest in all that touches the communal welfare, and his success and sterling character have gained to him the confidence and good will of all who know him. In the year 1909 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Whitman to Miss Rose Minkel, who was born at Aultman. this county, on the 15th of April, 1891, a daughter of William C. and Flora (Marchand) Hinkel, her father having long been one of the prominent farmers and influential citizens of that section of Stark County. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman have three children, whose names and respective dates of birth are here noted : Joseph, January 24, 1910; Pauline, July 18, 1912; and Bernard, November 20, 1913. GEORGE WASHINGTON WEEKS. The manufacturing interests of Canton are exceedingly important and their healthy growth an indication of public prosperity. Directly connected with their development are the men whose knowledge, judgment, foresight and energy are necessary in the organization and maintenance of these enterprises. Capital with no wise directing hand would useless, and the results of unregulated effort would be unsubstantial. George Washington Weeks, secretary, treasurer and manager of the Canton Rubber Company, is one of the manufacturers of Canton who are relied upon by their associates to maintain the city's prestige in the industry. Through energy, natural aptitude and persevering effort he has won his way to a leading position in business circles, and at the same time has maintained an excellent reputation as a stirring and public-spirited citizen of Canton, of which city he has been a resident since 1890. Mr. Weeks was born in Copley Township, Summit County, Ohio, on the old Weeks home farm, February 22, 1859, and is a son of George W. and Mary A. (Coon) Weeks. His father was also born on that homestead, being a son of Leavitt Weeks, a native of New Hampshire and a pioneer of the Western Reserve, who married a Miss Humphrey, also a New Hampshire Yankee, both the Weeks and Humphrey families being of Scotch-English stock. Martha (Coon) Weeks was born seven miles west of Akron, in Copley Township, Summit County, Ohio, the daughter of Alonzo Coon, who came to Ohio from Utica, New York, after his marriage to Elvira Baker, of that city. George W. Weeks, the father of George W., of this review, was reared on the home farm in Summit County, where he early became interested in politics and a leader in public, affairs. He successively held the offices of justice of the peace, clerk of the township, and clerk of the school board, and in 1875 was elected clerk of the courts of Summit County and removed to the City of Akron. He was re-elected and served in that capacity for six years. and on leaving that office, with an excellent record for faithful and efficient performance of duty, became a member PICTURE OF HARRY M. GEIGER HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 587 of the firm of Baldwin & Weeks, furniture dealers of Akron. There he died in 1901, Mrs. Weeks following him to the grave three years later. George Washington Weeks spent his boyhood and early youth on the farm in Copley Township, but when he was sixteen years old accompanied the family to Akron. He received his education in the public school at Copley Centre, the Akron High School and Buchtel College, Akron, and on leaving the latter institution served as deputy clerk of the courts of Summit County under his father for two years. He was then made deputy county auditor of Summit County, and after six years in that office went to Chicago, where for seven years he was cashier of the retail house of the Whitman-Barnes Manufacturing Company of Akron. Mr. Weeks came to Canton in 1890, and during the next eighteen years was connected with the Diebold Safe & Lock Company, first in charge of collections, and later in the capacity of bookkeeper. Later he embarked in business on his own account as a dealer in builders' supplies, which occupied his attention for some three years. In the meantime he had put his capital into various investments, and in 1890 acquired a controlling interest in the Canton Rubber Company, at that time becoming secretary, treasurer and manager, positions which he has since retained. This has become one of the leading concerns of its line at Canton and its products find a ready market all over the country. Mr. Weeks is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He belongs also to the Masonic Club and McKinley Lodge, F. & A. M. Mr. Weeks was married to Miss Minnie Sweitzer, who was born in New York City, daughter of Conrad Sweitzer, an early and prominent business man of Canton, who later removed to New York City, where he died. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Weeks: George Waldo. born in Chicago, graduated from Canton High School and from the law department of the University of California. and now a. practicing attorney of San Francisco; Conrad S., born at Canton, attended the Canton public schools, a graduate of Washington and Jefferson Academy (Penrisylvania), and now a student in the junior year at Akron University, which was formerly Buchtel College. attended by his father ; and Clara Viola. who is attending the Central High School at Canton. HARRY M. GEIGER. President of The Geiger-Jones Company, investment bankers and underwriters of industrial securities, Harry M. Geiger has for a number of years been one of the leading men in financial and industrial affairs at Canton, and individually or through his company is a stockholder and associated with the management of a number of leading concerns in different parts of Ohio and also in Western New York. Harry M. Geiger was born in Springfield, Ohio, March 4, 1862. His father, Prof. Hezekia h R. Geiger, was born in York, Pennsylvania, was educated at Gettysburg, and for many years was professor of mathematics and natural science at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and later in charge of a geological survey of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His death occurred in 1900. Professor Geiger married Nancy Hartford, who was born in Virginia, was educated in the Presbyterian Seminary at Steubenville, Ohio, and also in the Rogers Seminary at Springfield, Ohio. She died in 1901. 588 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Harry M. Geiger was educated in the public schools of Springfield and in Wittenberg College. All his inclinations were for business and he has had varied and thorough experience in general industrial and commercial affairs. From Ohio he went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and for about six years was connected with a manufacturing concern in that city. He was next in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the General Electric Company, for a time, after which he engaged in construction and engineering work, installing water, light and power plants. In April, 1904, Mr. Geiger came to Canton, and began handling industrial securities, which have since been the basis of his general business activities. For the first few months after coming to Canton he gave all of his attention to the handling of securities of a local manufacturing company, having associated with him Mr. Harry Ross Jones. In 1907 he purchased the interests of Mr. Jones in the partnership and organized The Geiger-Jones Company, which has been operating with unusual success during the last nine years. The company handles preferred stocks and other industrial securities. They are the originators of the modern plan of safeguarding and marketing such securities. The company have financed and are interested in The Massillon Rolling Mill Company and The Central Steel Company, of Massillon, Ohio ; The American Stamping & Enameling Company, of Massillon and Bellaire, Ohio ; The Ralston Steel Car Company, Columbus, Ohio ; The Canton Stamping & Enameling Company, The Berger Manufacturing Company, The United Steel Company, The United Electric Company, of Canton, Ohio ; The Troy Wagon Works Company, Troy, Ohio; and they own practically all of the stock of The Gramm Motor Truck Company of Lima, Ohio, manufacturers of the Garford line of motor trucks. They have interests in other manufacturing concerns in Ohio and Western New York. They control Today's Magazine for Women, having a circulation of 850,000 copies, with a large printing plant at Canton, Ohio, and its business and editorial offices in New York City. They also publish Investment and Industry at Canton, Ohio. This is a financial periodical with a circulation of 100,- 000 copies. The uniform success of the various manufacturing institutions which have been financed through Mr. Geiger's activities mark him as a man of keen discernment, fine judgment, great capacity for clear analysis and unusual ability for organization. No one man in Canton has done more for the upbuilding of the manufacturing interests of the city and state than he. Mr. Geiger is a member of the Canton Club, The Lakeside Country Club and the Canton Chamber of Commerce. He is one of the first vice presidents of the latter organization. Mr. Geiger is married and his three children, all of whom are married, are Paul N. Geiger, of Massillon, Ohio; Robert G. Geiger, of Canton, Ohio, and Mrs. Nellie G. McGavran, of Troy, Ohio. JOSEPH I. BISHOP. An expert mechanic, Mr. Bishop in the course of many years of persevering industry has acquired a substantial business at Hartville, and now enjoys a substantial property interest in the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 589 village. He has a large and well-equipped shop for the building and repair of carriages, wagons and other vehicles, does general blacksmithing, and is local agent for the Firestone tires. A member of the well-known Bishop family of Stark County, he was born September 30, 1868, one of the twelve children of Adam and Lydia (Bair) Bishop. His paternal grandfather, Joseph Bishop, was a native of Pennsylvania and an early settler in Lake Township of Stark County. The maternal grandfather was George Bair, a native of Stark County and a son of Jacob Bair, who also came from Pennsylvania and located in Plain Township. Adam Bishop was born in Lake Township in 1832, and died in 1904, and his wife was born in Plain Township in 1838, and died in 1910. Adam Bishop was first a carpenter and later a farmer. His family are still numerously represented in Stark County. Joseph I. Bishop went to school at Cairo in Stark County and found plenty to employ his energies on the farm until the age of twenty. Having a natural inclination to mechanics, he took up the trade of blacksmith, and was employed in the shop at Hartville which be now owns, and the proprietor of which then was N. B. Schanafelt. He was with Mr. Schanafelt for about nine years. and then bought out the entire business and has continued to operate it with increasing facilities to supply the demands upon such an industry in modern times. In 1914 Mr. Bishop erected his comfortable residence next to his factory, and he also owns the residence adjoining his home on the west, has a valuable and well cultivated farm of 140 acres northeast of Hartville, which he operates through a renter, and also has somc other town property. All this represents the gradual accumulation of a number of years, and his prosperity is the result of his well-directed effort. Mr. Bishop married Christina Hann, who was, born in Randolph Township of Stark County, at the home of her father, Peter Hann, who was born in Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop have one daughter, Catherine, who was born January 21, 1899, and is a member of the graduating class of the Hartville High School in 1916. The family are members of the Lutheran Church, and Mr. Bishop is independent in politics, though favoring the principles and candidates of the republican party as a rule. WILLIAM WAGNER. One of the best known and most highly honored men of Stark County is William Wagner, of Canton, who, as a soldier, teacher, public official, banker and financier, has been identified with the history of the county for more than half a century. During this long period his record as a man and as a progressive and public-spirited citizen has been such as to place him in the front rank of the really representative men of Stark County and its fine metropolis and judicial center. On the old Wagner homestead, in Lake Township, this county, Mr. Wagner was born on the 25th of May, 1845, and this statement in itself gives assurance that he is a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of this favored section of the Buckeye State. He is a son of Jacob and Magdalena (Emerich) Wagner, both of whom were born and reared in Germany and both of whom were young folk when they severed the ties 590 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY that bound them to their fatherland and came to the United States, where their marriage was solemnized. Soon after his arrival in America, Jacob Wagner settled in Pennsylvania, but a few years later he left the Keystone State and numbered himself as one of the sturdy German pioneers of Stark County, Ohio, which has had much to gain and nothing to lose through the accumulation this large and valued element of citizenship—that of German birth or extraction. Duly impressed with the attractions of this now opulent and beautiful Ohio county, Jacob Wagner purchased a tract of land in Lake Township, and from a primitive condition he developed this into one of the fine farms of the county, his energy and good judgment having been on a parity with his impregnable integrity and civic loyalty. He continued his residence on his old homestead until advancing age and well earned prosperity made it consonant for him to retire from the active labors and responsibilities that had long been his portion, and he passed the closing period of his life in the Village of Hartville, this county, where he died in 1900, at the venerable age of eighty-six years, his wife having survived him and having been eighty-seven years of age when she was summoned to the life eternal. William Wagner acquired his early education in the district schools of what may be termed the middle-pioneer era in the history of Stark County, and this discipline was supplemented by effective courses of higher study in Greensburg Seminary and Mount Union College. His ambition as thus exemplified along academic lines indicates that it was not constrained, but overleaped the bounds of the great fundamental industry under the influences of which he had been reared. In 1864, at the age of nineteen years, Mr. Wagner established his residence in Canton, where he entered the employ of the late Colonel Ephraim Ball, but pn the 4th of October of the same year he resigned his position to tender his aid in defense of the nation's integrity.. He enlisted in Company K, Twenty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and with this gallant command he continued in active service until the great conflict between the North and the South had come to its close and peace had been re-established, his service having, in fact, continued for several months after the final surrender of the armies of Generals Lee and Johnston, and he having been mustered out in November, 1865, at Columbia, South Carolina. After receiving his honorable discharge, Mr. Wagner utilized the money which he had saved from his salary as a soldier in defraying the incidental expenses of his higher education, and he then engaged in teaching in the public schools of Stark County, his identification with the pedagogic profession continuing for fourteen terms and his success having been unequivocal in this field of endeavor. He then engaged in the mercantile business at Uniontown, this county, but later removed to Hartville, where he continued to be successfully engaged in the general merchandise business until 1890, in the meanwhile having served as postmaster of the village and having been called upon also to serve as township clerk, township treasurer and justice of the peace—preferments clearly indicating his high standing in popular confidence and good will. Within the period of his residence at Hartville Mr. Wagner HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 591 was twice made the democratic candidate for treasurer of Stark County: In 1890 he was appointed deputy sheriff, under the administration of Sheriff Charles A. Krider, and he not only held this position four years under Mr. Krider but continued his service for two years under the latter's successor, Hiram Doll. Upon assuming the office of deputy sheriff of his native county, Mr. Wagner removed to its judicial center, the City of Canton. In 1891 he became one of the organizers of the People's Savings Bank, and for several years he served as vice president of this substantial Canton institution. He was concerned also in the organization and incorporation of the Canton State Bank. In 1899 Mr. Wagner was one of the promoters and organizers of the Citizens' Building and Loan Company, of which he became secretary at the time of its incorporation. He has from the beginning been the active executive head of this company, which has exercised large and beneficent functions and contributed materially to the upbuilding of Canton. A man of broad experience and mature judgment in connection with business affairs of important order, Mr. Wagner's activities have been fruitful also through his association with the Quality Tire & Rubber Company, of Hartville, and he assisted in the reorganization of this corporation. He is associated with his brother John, of Hartville, as a trustee of the Joseph Meyers estate, this being an entailed estate whose valuation is placed at $80,000 and the management of which has been in the effective control of the two brothers for more than thirty years. Mr. Wagner has perpetuated the more gracious memories and associations of his military career through his affiliation with McKinley Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he has served as quartermaster, adjutant and commander. He is a member of the Congress Lake Club, and his political allegiance has always been given to the democratic party, in the local councils of which he has been influential. In the year 1868 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wagner to Miss Urena. Baum, who was horn and reared in Lake Township, this county, and whose parents, Daniel and Sarah (Bomberger) Baum, were pioneer settlers in that township. Mrs. Wagner passed to the life eternal on the 19th of December, 1903, and is survived by four children—Jennie, Effie, and Kittie, the last mentioned being the wife of Homer L. Rose. cashier of the Commercial & Savings Bank of Canton: and William Paul. Mr. Wagner gives much of his time and attention to the affairs of the Citizens Building & Loan Company, of which his son, William Paul Wagner, is the assistant. secretary. The son is one of the representative young business men of Canton and the maiden name of his wife was Florence E. Pinkerton. REV. DANIEL WORLEY. The late Daniel Worley, of Canton, clergyman. educator and legislator, was one of this city's most prominent and highly honored citizens and his career for many years formed a part of the municipality 's history. He was born at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 28, 1829, a son of Thomas Worley, who was a descendant of the early Moravian settlers of York. Pennsylvania. Daniel Worley attended the public schools and the Harrisburg 592 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Academy, and was graduated from Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, with the class of 1850, after taking a full classical course. He then began his preparation for the ministry by entering Capitol University, Columbus, Ohio, and taking up the study of theology. While a theological student, he accepted the position of tutor at the university, a capacity in which he continued for two years, and was then prevailed upon to accept the chair of mathematics and natural science at the same institution and continued in that professorship for eleven years. In 1852, having completed his theological studies, he was licensed to preach, and in 1855 was ordained a minister in the Lutheran denomination. In 1863 Reverend Mr. Worley resigned his professorship and took charge of an academy at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for one year. In 1866 he accepted the position of superintendent of the Canton public schools, a capacity in which he acted for eleven years, taking charge of the school system when it was in a very unsatisfactory condition and building it up to a high state of efficiency. At the close of his labors as superintendent of the city schools, Reverend Mr. Worley established a private school at Canton. which he conducted with success for several years, and in the fall of 1877 was elected on the democratic ticket a member of the Ohio Legislature from Stark County, by a majority of about 1,000 votes. In that body he served on the Committee on Public Schools and on the Committee on Codification of School Laws, and was generally recognized as a strong advocate of all measures for the education of the masses, for the development of the state resources and for the protection of the liberties and rights of the people. While a professor at Capitol University he had been nominated by the Whig party for the Legislature, as well as for the office of congressman, but the Whig party at that time was on the wane in Ohio and he met with defeat at the polls. He served at different times as a member of the Canton city council and and the board of trustees of the waterworks, and in various other honorary positions. From the time he was ordained a minister, in 1855, until in his declining years he was active in the ministry and always officiated as pastor of some flock, devoting himself to the building up of weak congregations and to restoring shattered and abandoned organizations—everywhere preaching the gospel and performing missionary work of the most valuable kind. During the time he lived in Columbus he served one year as principal of the Columbus High School, and was also not unknown in journalism, being editor of the Lutheran Standard, a religious publication, for nine years. On November 2, 1852, Reverend Mr. Worley was married to Henrietta Smith, daughter of Prof. William Smith, president of Capitol University and a clergyman of the Lutheran Church. William Richard Worley, son of the late Daniel and Henrietta (Smith) Worley, and president of the Steiner Coal Company, mine operators and wholesale and retail coal dealers and dealers in all kinds of builders' supplies, was born at Canton, Ohio, November 14, 1873. He received his education in the graded schools and the Canton High School, and began his business career in the transportation department of the C., C. & S. Railway, at Canton, in 1890. He remained in the railroad business until 1897, when he became assistant to the manager of the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 593 Imperial Shale Brick Company, now a part of the Metropolitan Paving Brick Company, of Canton ; was later made secretary of the Imperial company, and upon the organization of the Metropolitan Paving Brick Company became manager of the branch of that company at Cleveland, where he spent six years. Returning to Canton, he became one of the organizers of the Metropolitan Construction Company, of which he was made secretary and treasurer, positions which he retained until 1909. On February 8th of that year he became secretary and manager of the building material department of the Steiner Coal Company, of Canton, which department was inaugurated at that time, and in January, 1912, was made president and treasurer of the company. Under his direction this industry has grown and developed until it is now the most important in its line at Canton. Mr. Worley is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce and of the Builders' Exchange. He also holds membership in the local lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and in the Congress Lake Club. With his family he belongs to Trinity Lutheran Church. On September 15, 1897, Mr. Worley married Miss Nelle Altekruse, who was born at Massillon, Ohio, daughter of Henry Altekruse. Mr. and Mrs. Worley have one son, Robert William, who was born June 21, 1903. JOHN WAGNER. In the pioneer days in the history of Stark County the parents of this well-known and honored citizen of Hartville established their residence on an embryonic farm in Lake Township, and on this old homestead John. Wagner was born on the 27th of May, 1855. He is a son of Jacob and Magdalena (Emerich) Wagner, both of whom were born and reared in Germany, though their marriage was not solemnized until both had come to the United States. After residing a few years in Pennsylvania, Jacob Wagner became one of the pioneer settlers in Stark County, Ohio, where he purchased land in Lake Township and developed one of the valuable farms of this section of the state. He continued his residence in Stark County during the remainder of his lone and useful life and was a resident of Hartville at the time of his death. in 1900. at the venerable age of eighty-eight years. his widow having been eighty-seven years old when she too was called to the "land of the leal." John Wagner acquired his early education in the district schools of Lake Township and early began to assist in the work of the home farm. After reaching adult age he continued to be employed as a sturdy worker on various farms in his native county until his marriage, in 1879, in which year he initiated his independent career as a farmer, by assuming control of the last homestead, the same being situated one-half mile west of Hartville. There he remained nearly a quarter of a century, giving himself vigorously to the management of the farm and achieving definite success through his well-directed labors. In the meanwhile he purchased the old homestead, which he sold in 1901. In 1902 Mr. Wagner removed from his farm to Hartville, where he has since lived virtually retired, in the enjoyment of the rewards of former years of earnest toil and endeavor. He and his older brother, William, individually mentioned on other pages of this volume, are 594 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY trustees of the Jacob Meyer and the George Saxton estates, both of Canton, and these fiduciary trusts show the confidence in which they are held in their native county. Mr. Wagner is a stockholder of the Citizens Building & Loan Company, of Canton, of which his brother. William, is secretary. Mr. Wagner has for many years been prominent and influential in public affairs of a local order and has served as trustee, treasurer and assessor of Lake Township. Both he and his wife are zealous communicants of the Reformed Church, in the faith of which they were reared. In the year 1879 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wagner to Miss Mandilla Werstler, who likewise was born and reared in Lake Township and who is a daughter of Solomon Werstler, a member of the old and prominent Stark County family of that name. Mr. and Mrs. Wagner have no children, but their pleasant home at Hartville extends its generous hospitality to the young folk as well as to the many friends of the older generation. EVERETT L. MILLS. The bar of Stark County claims as one of its representative younger members Everett Leroy Mills, who is engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the City of Canton, as junior member of the firm of Amerman & Mills, which controls a substantial and important law business. On the homestead farm of his parents in Belmont County. Ohio, Mr. Mills was born on the 1st of April, 1878, and he is a son of Theodore Clark Mills and Carrie (Gilmer) Mills. Theodore C. Mills was born at Moorefield, Harrison County, Ohio, in 1844, a son of Elias Mills, who came from his native State of Pennsylvania and became a pioneer settler in Ohio. He assisted in the construction of the old Ohio Canal and later in life conducted a hotel at Moorefield, besides being identified with agricultural pursuits in Harrison County, though the closing years of his life were passed at Millersburg, the judicial center of Holmes County. Theodore C. Mills devoted the greater part of his active career to the great basic industries of agriculture and stock growing, his operations along this line having been in Harrison and Tuscarawas counties. in the latter of which he is now living virtually retired, after having attained to the psalmist's span of three score years and ten. His wife. who celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday anniversary in 1915, was born near Antrim, Guernsey County, her parents having been sterling pioneers of that section of the Buckeye State. Everett L. Mills was a child at the time of the family removal from Harrison to Tuscarawas County, and in the latter county he was reared under the sturdy discipline of the home farm, the while he duly availed himself of the advantages of the public schools until his graduation in the high school, in 1895. Thereafter he taught school during the winter terms and assisted in the work of the home farm during the summer seasons for several years. For one term he was student in Wooster University, and in 1902 he entered the law department of the Ohio Northern University, in which institution he was graduated in 1904, and from which he received his well earned degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was admitted to the bar of his native state in June of that year, and PICTURE OF ALBERT F. WENDLING HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 595 since 1905 he has been engaged in the practice of his profession at Canton. Here he was associated in practice with William J. Piero about three years, and thereafter he was associated with the firm of Lynch & Day about eighteen months. He then became a member of the law firm of Bow, Amerman & Mills, and this alliance continued until the death of Judge Bow, in May, 1915, since which time the law business has been continued under the firm name of Amerman & Mills. Mr. Mills is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association and the Stark County Bar Association, and his civic loyalty is indicated by his active membership in the Canton Chamber of Commerce. His political allegiance is given to the republican party, but he has deemed his profession worthy of his utmcst fealty and has thus far manifested no desire to enter the turbulence of practical politics. Mr. Mills married Miss Nannie Kail, who was born at Port Washington, Tuscarawas County, a daughter of Gabriel Kail, and they have three children-Hilda May, Virgil Foster, and Bernice Mildred. ALBERT F. WENDLING. Athough death removed him from the scene of his vigorous activities long before his time, the late Albert F. Wendling accomplished a great deal in his brief lifetime, and was one of Stark County's most prominent and successful builders and contractors. Owing to the ability and energy of Mrs. Wendling, his business is still prosperously conducted under the name A. F. Wendling Company. In Massillon, the city where most of his work was accomplished, Albert F. Wendling was born February 14, 1876, son of Frederick and Mary (Schrock) Wendling. Both parents were natives of Massillon, and the two families were among the oldest to settle in that locality of Stark County. Albert F. Wendling attended the Massillon public schools, but learned the bricklayer's trade at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, and before he was twenty years of age was taking contracts for various classes of brick masonry in Newcastle. On his return to Massillon he took up contracting, and that was his regular business until his death. His untimely demise occurred May 1, 1914. The late Mr. Wendling erected buildings in Akron, Warren, Massillon, Jewett, Navarre and other Ohio towns. Among the most conspicuous at Massillon were those for the Buckeye Cereal Mill Company, the High School Building, the King Lucas and Oatman buildings, and his estate is now completing the new Lincoln Theater, probably the finest theater building in Stark County. He also built the Harvey School of Massillon, and did a great deal of street paving for the city. Upon his death Mrs. Wendling continued the business under the name of A. F. Wendling Company. Mr. Wendling was married at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, May 24, 1900, to Miss Louisa Garwig. She was born at Whitestown, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Henry and Margaret (Wice) Garwig. The father was a native of Pennsylvania and the mother was born in Germany. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Wendling were born two sons : Maurice Wilbur and Raymond Albert. The late Mr. Wendling was a popular citizen of Massillon and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd 596 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Fellows and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he and his family worshiped in the Reformed Church. PAUL GSCHWEND. Canton is the center for so great a variety of manufactured products that even the local citizens find it difficult to enumerate all the more important enterprises that in the last twenty-five or thirty years have located there. One of the largest firms for the manufacture of special wares is the Elbel Company, whose output of saddlery hardware has a distribution almost world-wide. This is a business with many years of consecutive growth and development, and was brought to Canton from Pennsylvania. Mr. Paul Gschwend is treasurer and general manager of the company, and has been identified with the business for a great many years. He was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, August 27, 1848, son of Peter and Rosa (Hess) Gschwend, who were natives of Germany, where they were married, and in 1840 emigrated to the United States and located in Pennsylvania, where both spent the rest of their lives. Paul Gschwend as a boy attended the public schools in Allegheny City, now part. of greater Pittsburg, and began his business career when still young. His is the case of a man who starts in at one industry and continues with it for a life career. His first employers were Olnhauser, Crawford & Company, which subsequently became the firm of John Crawford & Company, manufacturers of saddlery hardware. Mr. Crawford was killed September 30. 1874, and on January 1, 1875, the Crawford Company was incorporated and the business continued under that title a number of years. For practically forty years Mr. Gschwend has been a member of the corporation. During the winter of 1880-81 the business was removed to Canton, and a. reorganization occurred at that time and the title changed to Elbel, Gilliam & Company. On the death of Mr. Gilliam in 1888 the title of the business was changed to that of Elbel & Company, and in 1898 the Ethel Company was incorporated, with Mr. Gschwend as manager. Mr. Ethel died January 4, 1911, and at that time Mr. Gschwend was promoted to treasurer as well as general manager. At Pittsburg. Pennsylvania, October 29, 1872, Mr. Gschwend married Miss Cecilia Zirhut, who was born in that city. While his business career has been one of constant progress and importance, its achievements are probably not more noteworthy than the fine family of children who have grown up in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gschwend. Their first son, Edward G., died at the age of eleven years. William B., the second, is now secretary of the Ethel Company, and married Beatrice Pearl Carnahan, daughter of John E. Carnahan, the well known manufacturer and financier of Canton. Cecelia, the oldest daughter, is the wife of G. W. Cartzdafner, of Columbus. Lawrence J. is a traveling salesman for the Elbel Company. II. Norbert is assistant bookkeeper for the company. Helen G. is the wife of W. L. Stolzenbach, of Canton. Grover E. died at the age of twelve years. Leo J. was married in October, 1914. to Kate J. Hinchliff, of Brooklyn, New York. and he is associated with the Wurlitzer Piano Company, of Columbus. Ohio. Mary B., the youngest. of the family. was married April 28, 1915, to HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 597 William H. McCarty, of Lynn, Massachusetts. Mr. Gschwend and • family are members of St. Peter's Parish of the Catholic Church, is also affiliated with the Catholic Mutual Benevolent Association, the Canton Chamber of Commerce and the Congress Lake Club. HON. WILLIAM J. PIERO is one of the able lawyers of Canton, and also one of its versatile, broad and strong citizens. Commencing his professional career in this city more than forty years ago, both as a legist and in public life he has earned a substantial and honorable reputation. Ex-Mayor Piero was born on his father's farm at Buck-Hill, near Canton, Stark County, Ohio, September 8, 1852, and is descended from one of the county's pioneer families. The founder of this branch of the Piero family was Anthony Piero, a Frenchman who served as an officer in the army of the great Napoleon. He came to the United States and to Stark County, Ohio, in the year 1833, settling in Canton, where he took up carpentering as a vocation and so continued to be engaged during the remaining years of his life. Francis I. Piero, son of Anthony, was born at Neiderbrun, near Strassburg, capital of the Territory of Alsace-Lorraine, France (since. 1871, Germany), November 3, 1820, and was a lad of thirteen years when the family came to Canton. He grew up in Canton, was educated in the public schools, and subsequently turned his attention to the boot and shoe business, being for a time the proprietor of a shop on the present site of the Auditorium at Canton. Later he sold out and moved on a farm two miles west of Canton, but in 1859 returned to Canton and established a bakery and confectionery on the east side of the Public Square which he conducted successfully for many years. His residence for many years stood on the present site of the Renkert Building. Mr. Piero was one of the well known citizens among the early settlers of Canton, and when he died in 1903, at the age of eighty-three years, the city lost one who had done much to promote its growth and development. Francis I. Piero was married at St. John's Roman Catholic Church, in 1842, to Julia A. Krantz, who was born in Hesse, Germany, the daughter of Joseph Krantz, a pioneer of Canton. She died May 27, 1895, the mother of the following children: Henry J., Anthony I., Louis A., Frank A., Julia M., Frances M., who is now Mrs. John F. Peter ; Minnie R., who is the widow of the late Louis A. Loichot, who at the time of his death was president of the First National Bank of Canton ; and William J., of this notice. William J. Piero was seven years of age when he came to Canton with his parents from the farm in Perry Township. He received his education in the parochial and public schools. being graduated from the Canton High School in 1869, and while still a student displayed his industry and ambition by working as an office boy in the office of Judge Seraphim Meyer, of Canton, where he first showed an inclination to follow the law. A few years later he took up the study of that profession under the. guidance of Judge Meyer, and on September 17. 1874, was admitted to the bar, beginning the practice of his chosen calling in the office with his former preceptor. In April, 1875, he was elected justice of the peace, an office in which he served for a full term of three vol. II-14 598 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY years, then resuming his practice in partnership with C. T. Meyer, son of the judge, under the firm name of Meyer & Piero. In April, 1881, Mr. Piero was elected mayor of Canton and served two terms, until April, 1885. Since that time Mr. Piero has practiced alone. He has always transacted a large general business, and has appeared in many of the most important cases passed upon by the State and Federal courts of Ohio, with marked results as to honorable success. He holds membership in the Stark County Bar Association, and is one of its most honored and valued members. He also belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, and to St. John's Roman Catholic Church of Canton. Mr. Piero was first elected mayor of Canton in 1881, and so ably administered the affairs of the city that in 1883 he was reelected, and his terms of office have since served as examples to be followed by succeeding incumbents. On December 20. 1883, Mr. Piero was united in marriage with Miss Minnie T. Tyler, who was born at Newport, Kentucky, daughter of Dominic and Catherine Tyler, who came to Canton when Mrs. Piero was a child. R. VERNE MITCHELL. A member of that class of workers whose practical education, quick perceptions and great capacity for painstaking industry have advanced them to positions of business prominence formerly occupied only by men many years their seniors, R. Verne Mitchell, while representing the progressive and vigorous present of the Central West, gives promise also of participating in its still more enlightened future. Still a young man, his career has embraced a wide variety of experiences, as well as activities in business and professional life, and the present writing finds him firmly entrenched as one of the substantial business men of Canton, where he is secretary and manager of the United Security Company. Mr. Mitchell was born at Rapids, on Tonawanda Creek, near Lockport, Niagara County, New York, July 12, 1885, and is a son of Almer W. and Alma (Utley) Mitchell, natives of the same place. About the year 1895 the family removed to Buffalo, New York, where the father was engaged in the commission business for a number of years, and where he is now living a retired life. The early education of R. Verne Mitchell came from the public schools of Rapids and Buffalo, New York, and in 1904 he was graduated from the Buffalo High School. Following this, he entered Cornell University, an institution from which he was graduated in law with the class of 1907 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. During the same year in which he graduated, Mr. Mitchell journeyed to Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, where he was employed in the offices of the attorneys for large sugar corporations. After one year spent in Honolulu, Mr. Mitchell returned to the United States and settled at Buffalo, New York, where for 11/2 years he was associated with his father in the commission business. Mr. Mitchell began his connection with the insurance business in 1910, when he went to Hartford, Connecticut, and began to learn the business at the home office of the Travelers Insurance Company. He was identified with that concern until 1911, when he came to Canton and became identified with HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 599 the Leonard Agency Company, brokers of all kinds of insurance, and continued to be associated therewith until May, 1914, when he accepted his present position, that of secretary and manager of the United Security Company. A capable, clear-headed man of business, Mr. Mitchell has a wide fund of information in his present business and other lines, which he applies in a well-directed and efficient manner. He is possessed of excellent executive ability and organizing power, and has the happy faculty of attracting the confidence of others to him. As secretary of the Canton Ad Craft Club during the first year of its existence, he carried it safely through its crisis and placed it upon a firm foundation, and still holds membership in that organization, as he does also in the Lakeside Country Club and the Congress Lake Club. He belongs to the Canton Chamber of Commerce and has been foremost in all enterprises which he has believed would help Canton in either a civic or business way. A member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Canton, he is a member and secretary of the vestry. Mr. Mitchell married Miss Helen Morris Weber, daughter of Henry Weber, president of the Weber Manufacturing Company, of Canton. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell have one son, Henry Weber Mitchell, born August 27, 1915. DAVID TODD BISHOP. An institution that has proved a valuable adjunct to the growing industrial prosperity of Hartville is the Hartville Banking Company, which was organized November 4, 1907, and incorporated in the same year with a capital of $25,000, for the purposes of doing a general banking business. On March 1, 1910, a reorganization occurred and the bank was reopened on the same day with Clayton C. Schoner as president, Benton Bixler as vice president, David Todd Bishop as cashier, and with the following as additional directors : Isaac Brumbaugh, Edward L. Smith, Ivan Taylor and Frank E. Schumacher. A two story and basement concrete block bank building was completed in 1910. The cashier of the Hartville Banking Company, David Todd Bishop was a successful educator before he became a banker. Representing an old and honored Stark County family, he was born on the farm at Cairo, in Lake Township of Stark County, April 18, 1873, a son of Adam and Lydia (Bair) Bishop. His paternal grandfather was Joseph Bishop, a native of Pennsylvania, from which state he moved to Lake Township in Stark County during the early days. The maternal grandfather was George Bair, a native of Stark County, and a son of Abraham Bair, who came from Pennsylvania and was one of the pioneer settlers in Plain Township. Adam Bishop, father of the Hartville banker, was born in Lake Township, in 1832, and died in 1904, while his wife was born in Plain Township, in 1838, and died in 1910. Adam Bishop, during his early life, was a carpenter, and later a farmer. He was a member of the Lutheran Church. The children born to him and his wife were Harvey C.; Lucy. who married Solomon Gottshall; Sarah, who married Jacob Kimmel; Elmima: Laura, who married Frank Fouse; Margaret, who married Samuel Wolf ; Joseph; Abner ; David T.; Martin; James; and Blaine, now deceased.