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850 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY possibly never been a time when he has not had some building under way for the company. For the past fifteen years Mr. Joliat has been actively identified with public affairs, particularly those connected with municipal government. In 1899 he was elected as a democrat from the second ward to the Canton City council and was re-elected in 1901, serving two full terms. In 1913 he was the successful candidate for election as councilman at large. In 1914 he was given a place on the democratic ticket as candidate for county commissioner. Mr. Joliat is a member of St. John's Catholic Church, and affiliates with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the German Alliance, and for the past fourteen years has been president of the French Society. On May 14, 1867, Mr. Joliat married at Louisville Sophia LaMielle, who was born in Stark County, daughter of Nicholas and Eclicia (Monot) LaMielle. Both her parents were natives of France, but settled many years ago in the Louisville district of Stark County. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Joliat have been born the following children : Charles Nicholas, who is connected with the Stark Rolling Mills at Canton and married Anna Millhoof ; Rose, who married Philip Baldoff of Massillon, has three boys, Paul, Robert and Charles; Edith, who married Joseph P. Gresser of Canton, and has a. daughter Mildred; Dorothy, who lives at home with her parents. CHARLES W. BONSTEDT. Among the men well known in connection with the grain business of Ohio, one of those whose long connection with this industry has given him prominence is Charles W. Bonstedt, now a resident of Aultman, Stark County. For a period of thirty-seven years he has devoted his energies to this line of business activity, and during this time has endeavored on all occasions to contribute to the maintenance of its reputation and the elevating of its standards. Charles W. Bonstedt was born in the City of Akron, Ohio, November 11, 1857, and is a son of the late Charles W. Bonstedt. His father, a native of Clausthal, Germany, was born in 1825, and was a young man when he emigrated to the United States, having realized that opportunities for advancement here were more favorable than in the Fatherland. For a number of years he was in charge of a large tobacco business at Baltimore, Maryland, but in 1855 disposed of his interests there and came to Ohio, taking up his residence at Akron where he first went to work as clerk in Ferdinand Schumacher's grocery store and through steady application and faithful performance of duty earned his employer's esteem and confidence and was soon advanced to bookkeeper. Mr. Bonstedt applied himself assiduously to mastering all the details of the business, and also carefully saved his earnings, and in 1863 became his employer's successor in the ownership of the business by purchase. He continued to conduct this store with success until 1875, when he sold the business to John Terrass. In the same year Mr. Bonstedt engaged in the limestone business at Marblehead, near Sandusky, Ohio, although he continued to maintain his residence at Akron, but this enterprise was disposed of in 1876, when he again engaged in the grocery business at Akron as senior member of the firm of Bonstedt & Kreuder, an association which con- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 851 tinned until 1882. In that year Mr. Bonstedt purchased the entire business and of this he was the directing head until his death, November 19, 1890. Mr. Bonstedt was active and prominent in business circles of Akron for many years. He was one of the organizers of the Retail Grocers' Association, of which organization he was the first president, and also served in the capacity of vice president for a number of years. He was a prominent member of the Akron Merchants' Association, and took an active part in the organization of the Akron Board of Trade. He was one of the oldest members of the Akron Liedertafel, and was, in fact, in every way one of Akron's best known and most popular German citizens for many years. On the day of his funeral, in honor and respect for Mr. Bonstedt, all the Akron retail groceries were closed, in order that all could attend the burial services. Mr, Bonstedt and Ferdinand Schumacher had been acquainted in the old country, and it was while he was a clerk for Mr. Schumacher that the latter gentleman embarked in the oatmeal business at Akron, he subsequently becoming the original oatmeal manufacturer of the West. Mr. Bonstedt was on the road for Mr. Schumacher for a time, and was also interested otherwise in that industry. In 1856 Mr. Bonstedt was united in marriage with Miss Augusta F. Boyer, who was born in Germany, and came to America when she was seventeen years of age and to them there were born the following children : Charles W.; Ferdinand, a civil engineer engaged in irrigation work in the employ of the United States Government. now stationed at Okanogan, Washington State; Adolph, connected with the Firestone Rubber Company at Akron ; Victor, also with that concern; Herman, who is chief clerk in the main offices of the Quaker Oats Company, at Akron; William H., who died in 1910; Frank, a civil engineer; Louis, who was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, and died in 1913 ; and Augusta F., who is the wife of Frank Apt, a prominent official of the Quaker Oats Company at Chicago. Charles W. Bonstedt was reared at Akron, where he attended the public schools, and as a boy displayed his industry and ambition by working in his father's grocery. He furthered his education in the meantime by two terms of study at Buchtel College and a course at a commercial school, and in 1878 left his father's employ to enter the Quaker Oats mill, conducted by Mr. Schumacher. In 1880 he moved to Greentown to take charge of Greentown Elevator B, of the Quaker Oats Company, and from that time to the present has continued to be connected with the same industry. Among his business associates he is accounted a man of executive ability. keen judgment and foresight, a man of the highest commercial integrity and personal probity. He is a member of the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Eagles, and for years has held membership in the Akron Liedertafel, one of the oldest German singing societies in Ohio. Mr. Bonstedt was married to Miss Jennie M. Howes, who was born at Akron, Ohio, July 28, 1858, a daughter of William Howes, a pioneer resident of that city. Four children were born to this union: Claude and Maude, twins, born in 1880, the former of whom died in June, 1913, 852 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY while the latter is the wife of Louis Mueller, of Akron, superintendent of the Buckeye Rubber Company ; Adolph, who died at the age of eleven years; and Arno, who was ten years old at the time of his death. J. CREIGHTON NEELY. The president. of the J. C. Neely & Company, manufacturers and dealers in flour, feed, grain, seed, building material, etc., at Canton, though a very young man, not yet thirty, has had a long and varied, and on the whole, successful business experience, out of which have been evolved his present high standing in business affairs at Canton and a large acquaintance with business men and business conditios throughout the State of Ohio. He belongs to two well known old Carroll County families. Mr. Neely himself was born at Carrollton, Ohio, August 24, 1886. His father, James R. Neely, was born in Carroll County in 1857. He completed his education at the Ohio Northern University at Ada, and in Mount Union College, and for several years was a teacher. On leaving school work he was elected clerk of Carroll County and was twice re-elected to the same office. During the Spanish-American war he served on Governor Bushnell's staff as assistant adjutant general of Ohio. His work while in that office made him well and favorably known at Columbus and over the state at large, but on retiring from the position he moved to his farm at Malvern, in Carroll County, and subsequently went to Akron, where he died February 10, 1910. James R. Neely married Laura Creighton. She was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, daughter of Thomas M. Creighton. The latter received seven elections to the office of county commissioner of Carroll County. J. Creighton Neely, while he left school when still young, gained a really liberal education. He was in schools at Carrollton, Columbus, Malvern, and also attended the Carnegie Technical Institute at Pittsburg. When only fourteen years of age he became self supporting by hard labor in a brick yard at Malvern. For several years Mr. Neely's experience was with the great industries in the Pittsburg district, first as an employee for the Westinghouse Company at Pittsburg, and later with the Carnegie Company. Then he went on the road as sales agent over Ohio for the Portland Cement Company. With this general experience in business affairs and after two years as a salesman for the cement company, he bought out the firm of William Barber & Son at Canton, dealers in grain, feed, builders materials, etc. The partner in that transaction was George Weeks. They continued the business together under the old firm name for six months, and Mr. Weeks then sold his share in the enterprise to Edwin Ferrell, after which the firm became Neely & Ferrell. August 1, 1913, Mr. Neely acquired his partner's interest and then incorporated the J. C. Neely & Company, of which he became president. He has directed the business very successfully, and has made it one of the largest concerns of its kind very the handling of the supplies already mentioned. Fraternally Mr. Neely is affiliated with the Masonic Order, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and with the United Commercial Travelers and the Commercial Travelers of America. His wife before her marriage was Lillian F. Curry of Minerva, Ohio. PICTURE OF J. CREIGHTON NEELY HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 853 Her father, A. L. Curry, was one of the original owners of the Minerva Paving Brick Company, and is now associated with the Metropolitan Brick Company of Canton. Mr. and Mrs. Neely have a family of three children : Virginia Athens, Jack Curry and Harriet Jayne. HENRY W. FOSTER. There is a great deal of consistency in Mr. Foster's position as head of the municipal government of Navarre. He is one of the oldest merchants of the village, has been identified with its business affairs for fully thirty-five years, and his success in a business way, his influence as a broad minded and public spirited citizen and the varied relations he has sustained to the community furnish exceptional qualifications for such an honorable and responsible post as mayor. He is a native of Ohio, and was born at Mount Eaton in Wayne County, March 21, 1857, a son of John and Verina (Rudy) Foster. Both his parents were born in Switzerland, and on emigrating to America they crossed on the same vessel, and were married shortly after they located at Mount Eaton, Ohio. John Foster in the old country had learned the trade of potter, and he was a sturdy workman and substantial citizen in Mount Eaton, where both he and his wife spent the rest of their days. The mother died there in 1865 and the father in 1877. Henry W. Foster's business career has likewise been built up on the foundation of a thorough apprenticeship. After getting his education in the local schools, he became an apprentice at the wagon and carriage maker's trade and was employed at Dalton, Ohio, from 1870 to 1876 by the Shultz Carriage and Wagon Company. After that he was a hardware salesman at Navarre and Wooster until 1880, and in the latter year he located permanently at Navarre and opened a business for the dealing in wagons and carriages, and kindred lines of supplies. When the automobile came into fashion he added that vehicle to his stock and the business is now conducted as the H. W. Foster & Son, dealers in carriages, wagons, automobiles, harness and with a shop for general repairing and painting. They handle the agency for several of the best known cars, including the Maxwell, Haines and Velie. Besides building up this highly successful business Mr. Foster has found time to lend his aid effectively to the promotion of the local welfare. For twelve years' he served on the Navarre Board of Education, ten years as a member of the village council and four years as mayor. He was re-elected mayor on November 2, 1915, for a third successive term. He is a charter member of Navarre Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, a member of the Evangelical Church, and for twenty odd years was a member of the Navarre Band and is now leader of the Evangelical Sunday School Orchestra. In 1880 at Navarre Mr. Foster married Miss Alice Stamm. They have three sons who do them credit. Ralph, the older, is now a member of the firm of H. W. Foster & Son at Navarre. LeRoy B., who graduated from the Ohio State University, where he specialized in chemistry, is now connected with the Municipal Health Department at Washington, D. C., under civil service rules, and has been engaged in that work 854 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY since 1910. George, the youngest son, graduated from the Ohio State University in 1914, and is still living at home with his parents. H. HOWARD BOWMAN, M. D. The H. H. Bowman family, which in the person of H. Howard Bowman has given to Canton one of the successful physicians and surgeons of that city, is one of the oldest family stocks continuously identified with Stark County from the earliest pioneer days. More than a century ago, in 1813, three brothers, Jacob, Samuel and John Bowman, came out from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and mingled with the scattered settlements of Stark County. Jacob took up 120 acres of Government land in Pike Township, while his brother Samuel acquired sixty acres from the same source in Osnaburg Township, while the other brother, John, spent only about one year in Stark County and then returned to Pennsylvania. Jacob Bowman, who was the ancestor of Doctor Bowman. was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1777, and his father was probably also Jacob Bowman, since that Christian name seems to have been handed down with faithful regularity through many generations. He married in Pennsylvania Hannah Klinger, a native of the same state, where she was born March 24, 1784. After they removed to Stark County in 1813, Jacob Bowman set to work industriously to clear up his land, and eventually became both a prosperous farmer and an influential citizen. Some years later he bought a farm of 240 acres in Crawford County, but did not leave his home in Stark County, and died on the old farm in Pike Township in July, 1859. His widow survived him until December 7, 1871. Both were members of the old Lutheran Church. Among the children of Jacob and Hannah Bowman was their son Jacob, who was born in Pike Township of Stark County in 1823 and was the grandfather of Dr. H. H. Bowman of Canton. He married Louisa Runyan, who was born in Ohio. Subsequently they removed to Crawford County, where Jacob farmed a part of the land previously acquired by his father until 1865, and they then returned to Stark County and bought a place east of North Industry in Canton Township. That was their home until the close of their lives. Jacob Bowman died there in 1898 as the result of injuries received from a horse, and his widow passed away in 1903. Among the children of Jacob and Louisa Bowman is Jacob Runyan Bowman, father of Doctor Bowman. He was born in Crawford County, Ohio, in 1851, and was about fourteen years of age when his parents returned to Stark County. Since that year. for half a century. his home has been in Canton Township. His record is that of a successful farmer, and he is now retired and has given over the operation of his farm to younger hands. He married Mary Stimmel, who was born in Canton Township in 1853. daughter of Henry Stimmel, one of the early settlers. She is also still living. Of these parents Dr. H. Howard Bowman was born on the Bowman homestead east of North Industry in October, 1881. His youth was spent on a farm, with attendance at the district schools, and finishing his literary training in the high school at Canton and Mount Union College HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 855 at Alliance. In 1903 Doctor Bowman entered the Ohio Medical University at Columbus and continued his studies there until graduating M. D. in the class of 1907. He soon afterward began his practice in Canton and has succeeded in building up an excellent general practice in both medicine and surgery. He is a member of the staff of the Aultman Hospital, and has professional affiliations with the Canton, Stark County and Ohio Medical societies and the American Medical Association, also with the Clinical Congress of American Surgeons. Doctor Bowman is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, and of Canton Lodge No. 60, A. F. & A. M. Mrs. Bowman's maiden name was Emma Mumaw, who was born near Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, daughter of Aaron Mumaw, now retired. To their marriage have been born three children: Harold, Alice Elizabeth and Virginia. HARRY EDWARD CONRAD. Of the city officials of Canton, one who has brought to his public labors an enthusiastic desire to promote the city's welfare is Harry Edward Conrad, who was appointed to the office of city sealer, February 1, 1915. Mr. Conrad was born at Loudonville, Ashland County, Ohio, May 2, 1877, and is a son of Jacob J. and Elizabeth (Kratz) Conrad, and a great-grandson of a soldier who fought in the army of Napoleon I. Jacob J. Conrad was born in the valley of the River Rhine, Germany, in 1846, and was sixteen years of age when he came to the United States. He located at once in Ohio, having a brother and sister living in Wayne County, and there for a time followed the trade of moulder which he had learned in his youth. He was married at Wooster, Wayne County, and later removed to Ashland County, where he spent about two years, but subsequently returned to Wayne County, which was his home until 1890. In that year he came to Canton, and this city continued to be his home until his death in August, 1912. Mrs. Conrad, who survives her husband and makes her home at Canton, was born in 1852, at Wooster, Ohio, the daughter of John Kratz, a native of Germany. Of the six children born to Jacob J. and Elizabeth Conrad, three are living. Harry Edward Conrad received his education in the public schools of Wooster and Canton, and when his studies were completed commenced an apprenticeship at the printer's trade in the office of the Canton News- Democrat, now the Canton Daily News. He had just finished his apprenticeship when the typesetting machines were installed in that office and he and thirteen others found themselves without employment. Disgusted with his experience in that line, he turned his attention to the trade of painter, a vocation which he followed until 1912, a part of this time as a contractor. He was compelled to give up this business because of loss of health, and accepted a position with the Timken Roll Bearing Works, where he remained until being appointed city sealer February 1, 1915. He now has the affairs of his department well in hand, and has already instituted some reforms which promise to better the service of his office. For a number of years Mr. Conrad was president and secretary of the Painters' Union, and for a long time was financial secretary of the Central Labor Union, of which organization he is now treasurer. At the convention held in January, 1915, this labor Vol. III-7 856 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY body elected him an honorary life member. Mr. Conrad also holds membership in the L. 0. 0. M. and U. S. W. V. During the Spanish- American war, he enlisted in Company L, Eighth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and saw active service in Cuba, and is now a member ' of the United Spanish-American War Veterans. Mr. Conrad was married to Miss Maude V. Morckel, of Minerva, Stark County, Ohio, daughter of John L. and Sabina (Harsh) Morckel. To this union there have been born four children: Harold A., Lottie B., Arthur L. and Kathryn E. Mr. and Mrs. Conrad are members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and have a wide circle of friends at Canton. CHARLES A. BROBST. A successful business man and public spirited citizen, Charles A. Brobst has been identified with Canton through the greater part of his active career. In early life he was largely dependent upon his own resources, and by industry and ability became master of his own circumstances and now enjoys a high position among the business men of Canton. - Charles A. Brobst represents an old and distinguished Pennsylvania family and was born at Rehrersburg in Berks County March 11, 1855. His parents were Henry and Catherine (Albright) Brobst. The Brobst family is one of the oldest in Pennsylvania, and Charles A., his father, and also his grandfather, Christian, were all born in the same house in Berks County. The great-grandfather was Valentine Brobst, a Pennsylvanian of large wealth and influence who turned his means to good advantage in behalf of the patriot cause during the Revolutionary war. It was largely through his endeavors that it became possible for the colonial government to get a loan of $2,000,000 to continue the war. Valentine Brobst was also a native of Berks County, but beyond him the family record is not definite, and it is a question whether the first ancestor came from Holland or from Switzerland, though the weight of evidence inclines to the latter country. The Albright family, on the mother's side, was also early established in Berks County, and Jacob Albright, the maternal grandfather, was a prominent citizen there. One of his sons was Gen. Charles A. Albright, who gained a title in the ranks of the Union army during the Civil war and subsequently served as state's attorney in the prosecution of a number of the "Mollie Maguires" in Carbon County during the great labor and industrial riots along in the '70s. Doctor Stapp, a brother-in-law to Charles A. Brobst, was coroner of that county at the time seven of the Mollie Maguires were hanged, while a brother of Mr. Brobst was deputy sheriff and assisted in the execution. Henry Brobst died in Berks County in 1896 at the age of seventy-seven, while his wife passed away in 1881 at the age of fifty- eight. Charles A. Brobst grew up in his native county, and after attending the common schools learned the trade of painter. He also worked as an assistant civil engineer in connection with a railroad company in Pennsylvania, from 1869 to 1872. His ambition was for a professional career in medicine, and while working on an engineering staff he was reading medicine, but the death of his uncle, under whom he had been studying, HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 857 prevented the fulfillment of his plans and eventually his activities took another direction. In 1873 Mr. Brobst took up the study of veterinary medicine, and practiced as a veterinary surgeon in Berks County until September 11, 1883. The latter date was the time Mr. Brobst became identified with the City of Canton. As a veterinary surgeon he practiced there for twenty years, and had a large practice in the city and surrounding country. In 1902 he became general representative and superintendent of buildings for the Canton Brewing Company, and in 1907 engaged in the livery business. Since 1910 Mr. Brobst has been one of Canton's wholesale merchants, under the firm name of Brobst & Markling Company. Mr. Brobst in 1914 was the choice of the democratic primaries for candidate for the office of sheriff of Stark County. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Loyal Order of Moose, the Order of Orioles, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the American Alliance, the Anion Singing Society, the Kennel Club, the Gun Club, the Stark County Agricultural Society and the Canton Chamber of Commerce. These relations indicate his high standing as a business man and as a citizen and he is always found on the side of upbuilding and progress in the community. HENRY W. ELSASS. In the important office of director of public service in the City of Massillon Mr. Elsass has shown much zeal and circumspection, with the result that under his administration the office has been made a most valuable adjunct of the municipal government. He is a representative of the third generation of the Elsass family in Stark County, with whose history the name has been most worthily identified since the pioneer days. Henry Winfield Elsass was horn on the homestead farm of his maternal grandfather, Henry W. Rhoades, near Waynesburg, this county, on the 14th of April, 1861, and is a son of Michael and Barbara A. (Rhoades) Elsass, the former of whom was born in the Province of Alsace-Lorraine, France, on the 8th of February, 1831, and the latter of whom was born at Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio, in July, 1837, their marriage having been solemnized at Waynesburg, Stark County, and both being still residents of this county, where they are known and honored as worthy representatives of sterling pioneer families. Of the children the eldest is Rachel, who is the wife of Charles Mong, of Seattle, Washington ; Henry W., of this review, was the next in order of birth ; Olive M. is the wife of Reuben F. Maier, a prosperous merchant in Massillon ; and Joseph is a resident of Clarksburg, West Virginia. Michael Elsass was about three years old when his parents immigrated to America, in 1834, and his father, Christian Elsass, became one of the pioneer settlers of Stark County. This sturdy progenitor purchased a tract of land about two miles distant from the present Village of Waynesburg and there developed a productive farm, the while he contributed, through his energy, industry and civic loyalty, to the general development and progress of this favored section of the Buckeye State, both he and his wife having been earnest communicants of the Lutheran Church and both having continued to reside on their old homestead farm until their death. 858 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Michael Elsass was reared to adult age on the pioneer farm of his father and in his youth he served an apprenticeship to the tanner's trade, to which he devoted his attention for several years. In 1874 he established his residence in Massillon, and here he has held for a number of years past the office of sanitary policeman. Both he and his wife are communicants of the Methodist Church, in the faith of which they reared their children, and though he is now more than eighty years of age his correct life has caused him to retain exceptional mental and physical vigor and he is one of the active and sturdy pioneer citizens of Stark County, where he has inviolable place in the confidence and esteem of all who know him. His political proclivities are indicated by the stalwart support he has ever given to the cause of the republican party. Henry W. Elsass was fourteen years of age at the time of the family removal to Massillon, and here he continued to attend the public schools until he had attained to the age of sixteen years. As a young man he became engineer at the old Doxsee flour mill, and after retaining this position about five years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the machinist's trade, in the establishment of Russell & Company, now known as The Russell & Company. With this important industrial concern of Massillon he remained until 1880 and thereafter he was a valued employe of the Russell Engine Company until the 1st of January, 1912, when he was appointed to his present municipal office, that of director of public service, the best voucher for the efficiency of his administration having been that afforded in his reappointment in 1914, for a second term of two years. Like other representatives of the family Mr. Elsass is found aligned as a staunch advocate of the principles of the republican party, and he is prominently identified with the Masonic fraternity, in which he holds membership in the following named organizations in his home city : Clinton Lodge, No. 47, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons ; Hiram Chapter, No. 18, Royal Arch Masons ; and Massillon Commandery, No. 4, Knights Templar. In the City of Cleveland he maintains affiliation with the adjunct organization, Al Koran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. At Massillon he is a charter member of Lincoln Council, No. 16, Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and since 1901 has served as clerk of Massillon Camp, No. 4193, Modern Woodmen of America. The 10th of May, 1883, gave record of the marriage of Mr. Elsass to Miss Nettie B. McGrew, who was born in Lawrence Township, this county, and who is a daughter of Finley and Anna McGrew, her father having been one of the substantial farmers and honored citizens of that township. Mr. and Mrs. Elsass have four children—Roy 'Winfield, Susan, Radie M. and Helen. ALONZO BYRON WALKER, M. D., F. A. C. S. Again and again in course of his many years of practice in Stark County have the more unusual and distinctive honors of his profession been awarded Doctor Walker. Doctor Walker has spent most of his life in Stark County, is PICTURE OF ALONZO BYRON WALKER, M. D., F. A. C. S. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 859 a product of its literary schools and institutions and has dignified his citizenship by many important services. He was born in 1851 at New Somerset, Ohio, a son of Dr. Columbus Thomas and Mary Jane (Runyon) Walker. His literary education came from the district schools and the Waynesburg High School and Mount Union College, all in Stark County. During 1879-80 he attended lectures at the Rush Medical College of Chicago, and was a student in Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia in 1880-81, receiving his degree Doctor of Medicine from Jefferson College in the latter year. On account of his distinctive attainments as a surgeon he was made a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, June 22, 1914, and is one of the few medical men in Stark County who can write the letters F. A. C. S. after his name. Dr. Walker has been a constant student, and has contributed much to the knowledge of his fellow practitioners through his own investigations and observations. He attended clinics in Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin in 1900, and was again abroad in 1913 and attended clinics in London and Paris. For practically all his life he has been engaged in his work as a physician and surgeon in Stark County, with residence at Canton. He is now surgeon for the Stark Electric Railroad Company; consulting surgeon for Aultman Hospital; and president of the staff of Ingleside Hospital. In 1886 and again in 1905 he was honored with the position of president of the Stark County Medical Society. He was president of the Union Medical Association of Northeastern Ohio in 1893 and again in 1906. He was president of the Aultman Hospital Medical Staff in 1900, and of the Physicians Outing Club in 1890. In 1908 he was vice president of the Ohio Medical Association, was vice president of the Jefferson Alumni for Ohio in 1905, was a delegate to the Ohio State Medical Association in 1904, • and a delegate to the American Medical Association in 1906 and 1907 and again in 1915-16. His membership in professional bodies is in Canton and Stark County Medical societies, and the Ohio and American Medical Associations. He was a member of the ninth, the thirteenth and the seventeenth International Congresses of Medicine. Only a brief list can be given of the various important papers he has read before different societies. Before the Stark County Medical Society the titles of his more important addresses have been : Poisonous Wounds; Lateral Lithotomy for Stone in the Bladder; Cases of Dilation and Curettage of Uterus for Sterility ; Diseases for Which We Have an Exact Surgical Treatment ; Fractures of the Skull ; Herniotomy ; Colles' Fracture ; The Effect of Long Continued Anaesthesia upon the Cells of the Liver, Kidneys, etc. ; Fracture of Neck of Femur. Before the Union Medical Association of Northeastern Ohio, now the Sixth Councilor District, he read the following: Ovariotomy ; Tubal Pregnancy; The Physician from a Financial Standpoint ; Some Means of Preventing Post-Operative Shocks; A Plea for an Early Diagnosis and Immediate Operation in Acute Appendicitis. Before the Canton Medical Society he read : Progress in Surgery ; History and Technique of Aseptic Surgery, etc. The Sorosis Club of Canton requested Dr. Walker to read an address on "Bacterial Purification of Sewage by Use of Sand and Gravel Filters Over a Gravel Base." Before the Mississippi Valley Medical 860 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Society he delivered an address on The Importance of an Urinalysis in Making a Diagnosis. Two of his important addresses before the Ohio State Medical Association have been on the subject of Ovariotomy and Tonsillectomy. In 1891 Doctor Walker appeared before the American Medical Association on the subject "Papillomatous Cystoma of the Ovary." As to politics, Doctor Walker has always cast his vote with the democratic party except the two times when William McKinley was nominated for president. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, is a member of the Canton Club, the Country Club, the Canton Chamber of Commerce, and of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1876 at Waynesburg, Ohio, Doctor Walker married Miranda M. Stull, daughter of David Stull. They have two daughters, Helen and Hazel. Helen is the wife of A. D. McCarty and they reside at San Francisco. Hazel married George W. McKay of Canton. Doctor Walker is actively engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery at 319 Tuscarawas Street, West Canton, Ohio. LOUIS B. OHLIGER. A native of Canton, the fair metropolis and judicial center of Stark County, Mr. Ohliger is a citizen who is specially well known in this city, where for nearly thirty years he has held the position of superintendent of the Canton waterworks, the system having been developed within his regime from a primitive condition up to its present metropolitan and highly effective standard. He takes a vital interest in all that touches the welfare of his native city and his character and worthy achievement have given him secure place in popular confidence and esteem. Louis B. Ohliger was born at Canton on the 9th of April, 1855, and is a son of the late Louis Ohliger, who was born in the Rhine Province of Germany, where he was reared and educated and whence he immi grated to the United States when a young man, his purpose in leaving his native land having been primarily to join at Canton, Ohio, the well known pioneer family of Kraemers, the original representatives of which came from the same part of the German Empire as did he himself and the two families having been intimate friends in the Fatherland. Mr. Kraemer and his wife were of somewhat venerable age and were at the time still conducting the old-time Kraemer Hotel, on North Market Street. Young Ohliger assumed practical charge of this hotel and after the death of Mr. and Mrs. Kraemer he conducted the hotel in an individual way until within a few years of his death, which occurred in 1884. He whose name initiates this review was afforded the advantages of the public schools of Canton and as a youth he served a practical apprenticeship to the plumbing and gas-fitting trade, to which he continued to devote his attention for a number of years, during a portion of the time being a foreman in the employ of the Thebold Plumbing Company. In 1887 he was appointed superintendent of the city waterworks of Canton, and of this position he has continued the valued incumbent during the long intervening period, save for an interval of three years, 1896-8, within which he had charge of the building of the waterworks HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 861 plants and systems at Logan, Canal Dover, and Carlton, this state, besides which he owned and conducted during these years a well equipped plumbing shop in the Grand Opera House Building in Canton. His exceptional technical ability and careful executive policies soon brought his services again into requisition in the capacity of superintendent of the Canton waterworks, and to the same he has since continued to give his close and effective attention. When he first assumed the position of superintendent the daily capacity of the waterworks was 2,000,000, and under his direction this had been increased to the noteworthy capacity of 30,000,000, the plant and service being maintained at the highest standard of modern efficiency. Mr. Ohliger has otherwise given excellent service to his native city, as he served three years as chief of the Canton fire department. He is affiliated with the local organizations of the Knights of Pythias and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. As a young man Mr. Ohliger wedded Miss Salome Oberlin, who was born in Summit County, this state, and who is a representative of the old and well known family of that name in Stark County. Mr. and Mrs. Ohliger became the parents of one son, Conn R. Ohliger, who was born in October, 1881, and who was in the very zenith of his sterling young manhood at the time of his death. After completing the curriculum of the Canton High School he attended Wooster University, after leaving which he completed a course in the College of Physicians & Surgeons in the City of Cleveland, in which he was graduated. He entered the United States regular army in the capacity of surgeon and while on duty lost his life by drowning, in September, 1901, having been at the time with his command on the Island of Samoa, in the South Pacific Ocean. HOWARD M. YOST. In his chosen profession the present city engineer of Massillon has gained distinctive success and been identified with important engineering and general surveying work in various sections of the Union, and his native city has shown consistent appreciation of his ability and sterling character by according to him his present official preferment. Howard McClymonds Yost was born at Massillon on the 9th of August, 1885, and is a son of George W. and Laura B. (McClymonds) Yost, the former of whom likewise claimed Massillon as the place of his nativity, his birth having here occurred on the 22d of May, 1857, and the latter of whom was born at Newcastle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of February, 1859. The father passed to the life eternal on the 5th of January. 1911, and the mother still maintains her home in Massillon, their marriage having here been solemnized in 1883 and the city engineer of Massillon being the eldest of their three children, the other two, Elizabeth J. and Edith M., remaining with their widowed mother. George W. Yost was a representative of one of the well known pioneer families of Stark County, was reared and educated at Massillon and for the long period of thirty-three years prior to his death he was one of the valued and popular traveling salesmen for the wholesale hardware house of The W. Bingham & Company, of this city. He was a republi- 862 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY can in his political allegiance, was affiliated with Perry Lodge, No. 87, Knights of Pythias, and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Howard M. Yost was graduated in the Massillon High School in 1902 and as a member of the class of 1906 was graduated in the Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington, Virginia, an institution in which he completed a thorough and effective course in civil engineering. In the year of his graduation he entered the employ of the Toledo-Massillon Bridge Company, and with this corporation he served as draftsman and detail man until 1908, when he engaged in the work of his profession in an independent way, with headquarters in his native city. Under these conditions he was engaged in general surveying and civil engineering work until 1910, and thereafter, until the spring of 1911, he was identified with important location work for the Pacific & Idaho Northern Railroad, with headquarters at Meadows, Idaho. In April, 1911, Mr. Yost was appointed city engineer of Massillon and his services have fully justified the appointment, for he has shown marked discrimination and technical ability as well as deep interest in his work and in all that pertains to the civic and material welfare of his native city. He has been an active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers since June, 1911, is a loyal supporter of the principles and policies of the republican party, and his Masonic affiliations are as here noted : Clinton Lodge, No. 47, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; Hiram Chapter, No. 47, Royal Arch Masons; Massillon Commandery, No. 4, Knights Templar ; and Al Koran Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the City of Cleveland. CHARLES A. LAMONT, M. D. Representing the first class ability and skill of his profession and enjoying a large general practice, Doctor LaMont is one of the young physicians and surgeons of Canton who have quickly taken front rank in their profession. He began practice with an excellent equipment and the test of real practice found him qualified for important service among the social profession. Doctor LaMont is now health officer of Canton. A native of New York State, Doctor LaMont was born on a farm near Albion October 5, 1880, the son of Platt and Ada (Jewell) LaMont. His grandfather, Maj. T. LaMont, was a native of Dutchess County, New York, and in 1814 settled near Albion, and both Platt and Charles A. LaMont were born in the same home. The LaMont family is of French- Huguenot stock, its American ancestors having fled from France to Scotland and thence to Ireland. Mr. LaMont's mother belongs to the old Jewell family of New York State. Platt LaMont followed farming throughout an active career, and he and his wife now live retired in Albion. Dr. LaMont had the best advantages of the old schools and colleges of New England. He attended the Albion High School, and in 1901 graduated from Exeter Academy. At Yale he was a member of the Apollo Glee Club and in his junior and senior years rowed with his class in the Inter-Class Regatta. In 1901 entering Yale University, he was a member of that institution in its academic department until graduating HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 863 A. B. with the class of 1905. Doctor LaMont took his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins Medical College at Baltimore, finishing with the class of 1908. His training was continued in New York City where he was house surgeon for the New York Hospital a year and a half. Doctor LaMont came to Stark County and located in the City of Canton January 1, 1910, and has since been actively identified with general practice. He is on the staff of the Aultman Hospital as visiting surgeon. Besides his service as health officer of Canton, he has been secretary and treasurer for the last four years of the Stark County Medical Society, and is also a member of the Canton Medical Society, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. Doctor LaMont is a member of the Book and Bond Society of Yale University, and also the Nu .Sigma Nu medical fraternity. His other fraternal associations are with Canton Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and the Knights of the Maccabees, and also with the Canton Rotary Club. Doctor LaMont was married June 25, 1908, to Eva Bowman, daughter of George Bowman, of Baltimore, Maryland. WILLIAM F. BRAUCHLER. One of the best known electrical engineers of Stark County, William F. Brauchler, of Canton, has devoted his entire life to his profession, in which, although still a young man, he has attained marked distinction. In the field of business he is also well known, being proprietor of the Twentieth Century Electric Company, which, since its inception in 1909, has steadily grown under his able direction into a leading concern in a line in which Canton has no lack of prosperous enterprises. Mr. Brauchler is a native son of Canton, born on. West Tuscarawas Street, August 22, 1883, his parents being Frederick W. and Louisa (Cunion) Brauchler. Both parents are natives of Stark County, Ohio, the father born at Navarre and the mother at Harrisburg. The grandparents of Mr. Brauchler, Frederick Brauchler and his wife, were born in Germany and came to the United States in early days, settling at Navarre, from whence the grandfather enlisted for service in the Union army during the Civil war, through which he fought as a private in an Ohio infantry regiment. Frederick W. Brauchler, the father, came to Canton in young manhood. He early became an expert machinist, having an inherent talent for his chosen calling, and developed into an erecting engineer, a line of endeavor in which he has been engaged for many years. For a long period he was chief engineer for the old Canton Steel Works, and an erecting engineer for the Bonnett Company of Canton for many years, later entering independent engineering. In this connection he erected many large and important Portland cement plants, both in the United States and Canada, and at the present time is identified with the Canton Drop Forging and Manufacturing Company, as a member of the concern. William F. Brauchler received his education in the Canton common and parochial schools, following which he became a student at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana. After a course of two years he was duly graduated in electrical engineering, and as a young man began to work for his father, under whose direction he received an excellent training. He later succeeded the elder man in the completion of the 864 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Diamond Portland Cement plant, at Middlebranch, Stark County, and was also associated with his father in the erection of cement plants at Montreal, one of which was one of the largest ever constructed in Canada. For four years Mr. Brauchler was engineer for the Canton-Akron Railway Company, but in 1909 gave up this position in order to give his entire attention to the establishment of his present enterprise, the Twentieth Century Electric Company, of which he is still the owner. As before stated, in the few years in which it has been in existence, he has developed this into one of the leading enterprises of the kind in Canton. Mr. Brauchler is justly accounted one of his city's stirring, energetic and active citizens, who gives freely of his time and abilities in the furtherance of beneficial and public-spirited movements. He is a working member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce and belongs to the Adcraft Club and the Knights of Columbus. With his family, he is a member of St. John's Roman Catholic Church. SIMON ABEY CORL, D. D. One of the most interesting men in Stark County is living at Navarre. A soldier from the outbreak of the great Civil war until he was forced out of the army by a wound at Chickamauga, for more than thirty years an active minister of the United Brethren faith, an author whose words and writings have brought inspiration and encouragement to thousands of readers, a man of ripe scholarship in many departments of knowledge, Doctor Corl has made his three score and ten years of more than ordinary significance and benefit. He was born in the Village of Schoeneck. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1844, a son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Oberlin) Corl, both of whom were Pennsylvanians by birth, his father a native of Berks County and his mother of Lancaster County. In 1845 the family came to Navarre in Stark County. The father was a tailor by trade, and followed that occupation in Navarre for many years. His death occurred April 2, 1874, at the age of sixty-five years, eleven months and sixteen days. His wife passed away March 29, 1912, at the age of eighty-eight years, four months and three days. From early infancy Doctor Corl was reared in the Village of Navarre. On the first call of President Lincoln for troops he volunteered in April, 1861, and was mustered into Company E of the Thirteenth Ohio Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. With that company he served during the first three months' campaign, then returned home and enlisted in Company A of the Nineteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry for the period of three years or during the war. Even then his patriotism was not dimmed, and he veteranized and was fighting as a veteran at the Battle of Chickamauga when a gun shot wound in the right wrist totally disabled him for further service. He was then mustered out and given his honorable discharge after more than three years of continuous fighting for the integrity of the Union. He was less than seventeen years of age when he entered the army and he was not yet twenty-one when he returned home a veteran. Not long afterward he took up his education with a view to entering the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 865 ministry of the United Brethren Church, and attended the United Brethren Seminary at Dayton, where he spent three and a half years in preparing for the ministry. He then matriculated in Otterbein University entering the senior year. However, before completing the course his health broke down and he returned home. In 1881 he was formally enrolled in the ministry of his church, and for the next thirty years labored constantly as a pastor and in other fields of church activity, filling pulpits at various points in Ohio. For twenty-two years of that period he was on the Conference Reading Course, getting young men ready for the ministry. Impaired eyesight compelled him to give up his regular ministerial duties in 1913, and in that year he was elected Evangelist at Large by the East Ohio Conference of the United Brethren Church and has since had his home in the old family residence at Navarre. He was for one year department chaplain of the Grand Army of the Republic of Ohio. Aside from his practical service as a minister and his record as a soldier, Doctor Corl is most widely known for his literary endeavors. He has applied himself to many phases of human knowledge, and has been especially interested in phrenology as a science. He studied this subject for six years at home, and for six years served as president of the Ohio State Phrenological Society. He has been doing much literary work for many years, and his completed writings will make in the aggregate five volumes, all of which he contemplates publishing in the near future. He has written over 125 miscellaneous poems, over 300 aphorisms, a text on botany, now ready for the market, and over 100 essays on literary, scientific and sociological questions, besides more than 100 miscellaneous articles on different topics. Among the poems should be mentioned six tributes on "Mother"; "A Summer Day's Dreams"; "My Specter Guest"; "Hail May, Beautiful May"; "I Am Not Growing Old"; "Be Patient"; "My Life is Like the Autumn Rose"; "A Walk in the Woods"; "Rest Weary Heart"; "Disappointment"; "Over the Mystic River"; "Spring"; "Sights and Sounds in the November Woods"; "Sincerity"; "Soon that Perfect Day will be Mine." A poem which shows many of his graces of style and the depth of his sentiment is one entitled "Three Years Ago," and which is herewith quoted : What stars have faded from the sky! What hopes unfolded but to die ! What dreams so fondly pondered o'er— Forever lost the hue they wore; How like a death knell, sad and slow, Rolls through my soul : "three years ago!" Where's mother's face I loved to greet? Her form that graced the fire-side seat? Her gentle smile, her winning way ?— That blessed my pathway day by day ; Where fled those accents, soft and low, That thrilled my heart three years ago! 866 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Ah! vacant is the fireside chair; Dear mother's smile—no longer there; And from the back porch tree and lawn The echo of her voice is gone! And we who linger only know How much was lost three years ago. Beside her grave the stone, so bright, Keeps silent guard by day and night; Her body sleeps, nor heeds the tread Of footsteps near her lowly bed; From out her breast no sorrows flow, Nor pangs endured, three years ago. But why lament?? A few more years, A few more broken sighs and tears, And we shall mingle with the dead ;— Shall go where mother's feet have led ;— To that bright world, to which we know She sweetly passed three years ago. Doctor Cori has been especially felicitous as a writer of aphorisms, and has packed these brief phrases and sentences full of encouraging wisdom. A few examples of these are as follows: "A kind word to a friend makes a bluer sky, a brighter star, a balmier air and a world more fair." "Eliminate from the calendar of your life the unborn tomorrows and the dead yesterdays." "Thirty-six inches to the yard, a full pound of sugar without any sand, one hundred cents on the dollar, live and let live." "Keep the eye of the mind on the Star of Bethlehem. not losing sight of the Rose of Sharon nor the Lily of the Valley." "In the great contest of life strive to reach the front line of battle, having the musket of the mind well loaded with ammunition of intelligence, taking direct aim at ignorance, shoot them down and show no quarter." "Discouragement is the handmaiden of defeat." "Lost, strayed or stolen—a golden opportunity." "Despise not her who has wrongfully capitulated." CLARENCE GARFIELD HERBRUCK. While one of the youngest members of the Canton bar, Mr. Herbruck represents many of the most important commercial interests in Stark County and is officially identified with many representative business and manufacturing corporations. Positive leadership and success in the field of law and business seldom come earlier to any mall than to Clarence G. Herbruck. He was born in Canton August 18. 1880, a member of a prominent old family of that city. His parents are Charles W. and Elizabeth (Bentley) Herbruck. His father was born in Canton January 10, 1851, and has spent all his life in that city, a son of the late Rev. Peter Herbruck, an early minister. The mother was born at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, December 13, 1850. and is also still living. Clarence G. Herbruck received his early education in the Canton PICTURE OF CLARENCE G. HERBRUCK HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 867 public schools, and read law with Welty & Albaugh of Canton, being admitted to the bar in June, 1903. Beginning practice as an individual, in ten years Mr. Herbruck, relying on his own efforts and native ability, has reached a high place in his profession in Ohio. He has applied himself closely to his work and has always refused to be drawn into politics. While his practice has been along general lines for several years he has made a specialty of corporation law, and his particular ability as an organizer and manager and his shrewd judgment in business affairs have made him uniformly successful. He is now attorney for a number of the leading manufacturing, financial and commercial concerns of Canton, among which may be named : The George D. Harter Bank, the Union Metal Manufacturing Company, the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company, the Hercules Motor Manufacturing Company, the Tonsoline Company, the Canton Daily News, the American Mine Door Company, the Canton Stamping and Enameling Company, and the large individual interests of H. H. Timken, Elizabeth A. Harter, Alvin Hurford, A. Vignos, W. H. Hoover and Charles Kolp. Mr. Herbruck is vice president and treasurer of The Daily News Printing Company of Canton, a director of the American Mine Door Company, a director of the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company, director of the Leonard Agency Company, director of the Novelty Cutlery Company, and many other concerns, and altogether is an official of more Canton concerns than possibly any other one man. Mr. Herbruck is a member of the Stark County Bar Association, and an active member of the New Industries Committee of the Canton Chamber of Commerce. His clubs are the Canton Club, the Lakeside Country Club and the Congress Lake Club. His Masonic affiliations comprise all branches of York and Scottish Rites, including Canton Lodge No. 60, A. F. & A. M., the Lake Erie Consistory and the Alkoran Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland. Mr. Herbruck was married September, 19, 1911, to Frances A. Alexander, who was born in Canton, a member of the old Alexander family of that city. They have one son, Henry A. Herbruck, born June 3, 1914. FREDERICK C. NYDEGGER. An earnest, enthusiastic and efficient representative of the pedagogic profession in Stark County is Professor Nydegger who is giving an admirable administration in the position of superintendent of School District No. 5, embracing Bethlehem and Perry townships and including the villages of Navarre and West Brookfield, in the former of which he maintains his residence and official headquarters. It is a matter of distinct gratification to Professor Nydegger that he is able to claim the fine old Buckeye State as the place of his nativity and as the field of his endeavors in his chosen profession. He was born at Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio, on the 23d of February, 1876, and is a son of Theodore and Elizabeth (Olmstead) Nydegger. Theodore Nydegger was born in the fine little Republic of Switzerland, in 1836, and in the schools of his native land he acquired his early educational discipline. His father, Rudolph Nydegger, was a man of excellent scholarship and for more than forty years was a teacher in the schools of the fair little village in which the son was born. In 1850 the family 868 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY immigrated to America and established a home in Holmes County, Ohio. There Rudolph Nydegger, though of venerable age, devoted some- what more than a decade to teaching a German school at -Winesburg, and his son Theodore, father of the subject of this review, taught in English and German schools in the same county for several years, after which he engaged in agricultural pursuits, in Tuscarawas County. In that county he established his residence while still a young man and there he and his devoted wife still maintain their home,—persons of superior intellectuality and sterling character, and citizens who command unqualified popular esteem in the community that has long represented their home and in which Mr. Nydegger has stood exponent of energy, progressiveness and successful effort in connection with the great basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing. The foregoing statements indicate that Professor Nydegger of this sketch may consistently be said to have an inherent predilection for the profession in which he is making so admirable a record and in which he is adding new pedagogic honors to the family name. Mrs. Elizabeth (Olmstead) Nydegger was born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, in 1840, and is a daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth (Ruegsegger) Olmstead, her father having been one of the sterling pioneers of that county, where he established his residence between 1825 and 1830, both the Nydeggers and Olmsteads having been active as members of the Reformed Church. He whose name initiates this article was reared to adult age in Tuscarawas County, where the period of his childhood and early youth found him compassed by the benignant influences and conditions of the home farm, in the sturdy work of which he began to assist when he was a boy. He availed himself fully, and with marked .receptivity, of the advantages of the public schools of the locality, and through this medium made himself eligible for higher academic discipline. In 1900 he was matriculated in Wooster University, in which excellent Ohio institution he continued his studies about two years, after which he attended Mount Union two terms, his further study along higher lines having been completed in Wooster University. Professor Nydegger taught his first term of school in 1896, in Tuscarawas County, and with the exception of an interval of eighteen months, he has continuously been engaged in teaching during the entire period since that time, his distinctive success affording the most effective voucher for his ability as an instructor and as an executive. For fully a decade past his service has been in connection with village schools, and incidentally it may be noted that for three years he was principal of the third-grade high school at Tiro, Crawford County. In 1908 he assumed the position of principal of the high school at Navarre, Stark County, and in this capacity he continued his effective services until 1914, in which year he was appointed to his present responsible office, that of superintendent of School District No. 5 of Stark County, a position in which he is proving specially zealous and successful in systematizing the work and advancing the standard of the schools under his supervision, his administrative ability being fully on a parity with that which he has shown along specific pedagogic lines. He has the earnest co-operation HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 869 of the teachers throughout his district and the patrons of the school likewise accord to him that generous support and commendation that likewise have great influence in making all departments of the school work effective. Professor Nydegger spares no effort to keep in close touch with all advances made in connection with the general work of the public schools and continues to be a zealous and appreciative student, with a realization that in educational work, as in all other fields of human endeavor, there can be no stable equipoise, but rather that there must be either progression or retrogression. He is a member of the Ohio State Teachers' Association, the Northeast Ohio Teachers' Association, and the Ohio Teachers' Federation. Professor Nydegger was married to Miss Jennie Sheline, who was born and reared in Tuscarawas County, this state, and who is a daughter of Jesse Sheline, a well known citizen and prosperous farmer of that county. The one child of this union is a daughter, Elizabeth Jane. FRED S. GOEBEL. It has been in the field of cotton goods manufacture that Fred S. Goebel has worked out his career, and though still a young man he has helped to give Stark County at least one important industry of this kind. He is now director and general manager of the United Garment Company at Louisville, and his practical knowledge of the cotton goods industry united with his many other qualifications as a business man has served to bring his plant and its output speedily to a degree of prosperity which many older concerns might envy. Fred S. Goebel was born at Fremont, Ohio, September 29, 1882, a son of Louis and Anna (Malkmus) Goebel, both of whom were born at Fremont and are still living there. The two families were among the pioneer settlers in that city. Mr. Goebel spent his boyhood in Fremont, and while he has a good education acquired in the common and parochial schools, his training has been more of a practical nature than one that finds most of its sources in books. He was about fourteen years old when his business career began in the employ of the Jackson Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of muslin underwear and kindred goods. Three years were spent in the home plant of that company, after which he was given charge of a branch factory at Bellevue, Ohio, and managed it for a year. He then took charge of the King Manufacturing Company in Toledo, spending more than two years there, and for about eighteen months was manager of one departments of the LaCrosse Rubber Works at LaCrosse, Wisconsin. On returning to Ohio Mr. Goebel „took charge of a department of the Friedman-Blaufarber Knitting Mills, Cleveland, and the responsibilities of that position during the next four years gave him a greatly increased knowledge of the main industry which he has always followed. He resigned his Cleveland position to become manager of the Appalachian Mills at Knoxville, Tennessee, and then came another variety of experience as traveling salesman for the Lawrence M. Stern Company of Cleveland, manufacturers of sewing machines for factory purposes. He was on the road representing this machine company for two years. 870 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY In March, 1913, Mr. Goebel came to Stark County as superintendent of the Federal Garment Company of Canton. In March, 1914, he was one of the organizers of the United Garment Company of Louisville, and was the expert who largely directed the technical organization and establishment of the factory. The company was incorporated in April, 1914, with L. C. Bonnat as president ; G. A. Thurin as vice president; B. A. Thurin as secretary and treasurer, and besides these officers Amelia and Corinna Thurin as directors. Mr. Goebel is also one of the directors of the company, and is the superintendent who has active charge of the manufacturing details. The plant at Louisville now employs about fifty people, and its output consists of women's aprons and dresses. The goods already have a market throughout the United States. Mr. Goebel married Minnie Engel, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Gessner) Engel of Fremont, Ohio. Their two children are Dorman Arthur, aged seven, and Dolores Anna, aged four. WILLIAM H. MARTIN was born January 22, 1855, in Canton Township, outside of the corporate limits of the City of Canton, but in the Union School District of Canton, Stark County, Ohio, and is a son of Charles and Delilah (Smith) Martin. George Martin, the grandfather of William H. Martin, was born in Germany, and in 1745 was brought to America by his father, who settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, later served under Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, and was offered at one time the office of consul to Germany. The early members of the family all followed rope-making as a vocation, and the last members of the family to give up that trade were George Martin and his brother Charles, but they only left the old and honored family occupation in their advanced years. George Martin, the grandfather of our subject, was married in 1786 to Catherine Croft, and they became the parents of the following children : John, Catherine, George, Rebecca, Henry, Emanuel and Charles. Of this family John Martin married Mary Fortney, and soon thereafter became the head of the family, the father having died. With his wife and his younger brothers and sisters he moved to Greentown, and then to LaGrange County, Indiana, where he spent the balance of his life and died about the year 1892. Catherine Martin was born February 8, 1809, married Rodmond Lovette, and while acting as matron of the Stark County infirmary died, August 18, 1851. George Martin, the third child of the grandfather, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he passed his life in rope-making and died, being buried at Lancaster Cemetery, in the Martin family lot. He was of the Lutheran faith, a noted Sunday school leader, and talked with great feeling, producing a marked and lasting effect upon the minds of his hearers, none of whom doubted the sincerity of his expressions. Mr. Martin of this review recollects well hearing him on many occasions and remembers the profound respect with which his remarks were received. Rebecca Martin, next to George in age, married Daniel Gottshall, of Canton, where Mr. Gottshall and Emanuel Martin owned and edited the Stark County Democrat, the forerunner of the present Canton News. During the Civil war, with his two sons, Mr. Gottshall enlisted in the Union cavalry, and HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 871 in his term of service contracted a disease from which he subsequently died. Mrs. Gottshall remained his widow until her death and both are buried at Westlawn Cemetery, Canton, Ohio. Henry Martin, fifth child of George, the grandfather, married Susan Livelsperger, of Stark County. He followed rope-making for several years and then turned his attention to farming, settling one mile south of North Industry, where he remained until within a few years of his death. He and his wife are buried at Welsheimer Cemetery, south of Canton. Emanuel Martin, who followed Henry in order of birth, married Mary A. Smith, he and his younger brother Charles marrying sisters. For some years he was assistant editor of the Stark County Democrat, but his later years were devoted to farming in Indiana, where he died, being buried at LaGrange. Charles Martin, the youngest of his parents' children, and father of William H. Martin, was born July 24, 1825, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and when seven years of age was taken by his mother to Canton, where he was educated in the district schools. As a young man he devoted himself to rope-making, the family trade, but later turned his attention to farming. During his career as a rope-maker he carefully saved his earnings, and when he was about fifty years of age bought what was known then as the Colbeck farm, some seventy-eight acres, just north of Canton, on what is now the Market Street Extension, the Loutzenheiser School still standing on one corner of the farm. One-half of this tract is now owned by William H. Martin. Charles Martin continued to be engaged in farming up to within a few years of his death, and also from time to time engaged in rope-making. He died February 27, 1899. Mr. Martin married Miss Delilah Smith, who was born January 13, 1827, and died December 4, 1910, aged eighty-four years, a daughter of John and Mary (Hollinger) Smith. The Smiths were natives of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, who came to Stark County about the year 1808 and located on a large farm just south of the infirmary. Mr. Smith followed farming and stockraising up to the time of his death and was known as one of his community's successful men and public-spirited citizens. He was the father of seven children: Daniel, Elizabeth, Marguerite, Jacob, Mary, Delilah and John. To Charles and Delilah Martin there were born children as follows: Mary C., who became the wife of Jefferson A. Hauser, of Canton ; George R., who lived and died at Canton at the age of twenty-three years; Edward, who died in Plain Township when twenty-two years of age; William H., of this notice ; and an infant, deceased. The father f these children was a member of the Church of God, and throughout his life was esteemed and respected by all who knew him. He discharged in an able and conscientious manner all the duties and responsibilities of life, and on the record of his career there is no stain or blemish. The memory held in the hearts of those who knew Mrs. Martin is that of a zealous churchwoman, working faithfully in the German Reformed faith, a kind and gentle neighbor, always willing to give her capable assistance in time of trouble, and a friend whose many charities and excellencies of mind and heart endeared her to all who came within her presence. As a boy William H. Martin attended the schools of Canton, and Vol. III -8 872 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY when not engaged in his studies displayed his youthful industry and ambition by assisting his father in rope and net-making. He was a studious youth and was brought up in a. Christian household, and when he was still a lad he and his sister started attending the Methodist Episcopal Church and Sunday school, and throughout his life he has been a supporter of religious movements. After finishing his schooling he engaged in rope-making and farming, remaining under the parental roof until he reached the age of twenty-four years, at which time he was married, October 10, 1878, to Mary E. Pontius, daughter of John and Mary (Hoover) Pontius. After his marriage he bought and lived on the property located on the southwest one-quarter of section 27, Plain Township, where he was engaged in farming, and during his leisure hours took up the study of engineering and surveying. His first experience in the latter line was of a purely local nature, but so proficient did he show himself that he was elected county surveyor of Stark County and held that office for a period of three years, and the record he left in the office speaks for itself. The first three years of his married life he lived in his house on the corner near the Loutzenheiser Schoolhouse in Plain Township. He then moved to what was known as the Benjamin Spangler farm. He spent several years on that property, and finally located on the tract on which he is now carrying on operations, a farm of sixty-two acres, which he has brought under a high state of cultivation. By his first marriage Mr. Martin was the father of six children : William C., born October 3, 1879, who married Cora E. Smith, daughter of Benjamin Smith, has one daughter, Blanche, and is an erecting engineer for the Thew Automatic Shovel Company, of Lorain, Ohio; George E., born February 12, 1883, married U. Lelo Welch, daughter of George Welch, of Van Wert, Ohio, has two children—Edward and Wilbur—and is an expert well driller, living on the North Market Street Extension, Canton ; Edith Blanche, who died at the age of six years; Mary B., horn August 10, 1888, married Maitland Woodall. who is engaged in operating the Martin farm, and has three children—Harry, Mary Ellen and Eugenia; Thobern T., born May 12, 1893, who lives at home and conducts a bicycle and motorcycle store at Canton ; and Thomas T., Thobern's twin, who died at the age of three months. The mother of the foregoing children died September 17, 1893, aged thirty-four years. On March 7, 1895, Mr. Martin was again married, when united with Almina (Holtz) Pontius, the widow of Thomas J. Pontius. and daughter of Michael and Emily (Folsom) Holtz. The Holtz family are old and honored Plain Township farming people, and the Folsom family is originally of Essex County, Vermont, where grandfather David Folsom was born in 1784. Mrs. Michael Holtz was second cousin to Mrs. Grover Cleveland. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Martin : James H., who died at the age of four months; Charles C., born February 19, 1898, and living with his parents; and Eudora H., born August 6, 1903, also at home. Mr. Martin has for twelve consecutive years been a member of the Plain Township School Board and has always endeavored to raise the standard of education here. He is a democrat in politics, but has not been a politician or office-seeker. With his family he belongs to the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 873 Seventh Day Adventists. In addition to his handsome and valuable farm he is the owner of some good city realty at Canton. EDWARD CARTER MERWIN. The career of Edward Carter Merwin, manufacturer of Massillon, indicates the clear-cut and distinct character which is the expression of a strong nature, and his achievements in business afford an example and offer an inspiration. An office boy in the employ of Russell & Company at the age of fourteen years, general manager of that important company at the age of thirty, and vice president and secretary of the same concern at the age of thirty-eight—that is the epitomized story of Mr. Merwin's business career. Edward Carter Merwin was horn at Cloverdale, Indiana, November 1, 1864, and is a son of the late William Mason and Lucy Ann (Rockwell) Merwin. His father was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, May 23, 1831. the son of John Plank and Mary Ann (Freese) Merwin, pioneers of Massillon. In 1852, at Wilmot, Stark County, William M. Merwin married Lucy Ann Rockwell, daughter of Charles Rockwell and a member of the pioneer family of that name which came from New England to Indiana in early days. in the year that he was married Mr. Merwin came to Indiana in which state he became prominent both as a soldier and as a public official. He enlisted for the Civil war in Company D, Seventy-first Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Cavalry, was subsequently transferred to the Seventeenth Reserve Corps, and was on duty at army headquarters at Indianapolis until after the close of the war. He held several subordinate clerkships at different sessions of the Indiana Legislature, and in 1868 was elected chief clerk of the House of Representatives. In 1871 he entered the Internal Revenue Department service and so continued to be engaged until he was killed by unknown parties at Gosport, Indiana, on the night of January 4, 1873. Following his death his widow brought the family to Massillon, and here died October 29, 1884. her remains being returned to Cloverdale for burial. At the age of fourteen years Edward C. Merwin went to work for Russell & Company as office boy and telegraph operator and from that time forward he has been identified with the same house, a period covering thirty-seven years. He occupied different clerical positions at various times until 1882, in which year he was sent to Milwaukee by the company as assistant manager of their branch house in that city. Returning to Massillon, he was in 1887 made assistant sales manager, in 1890 was sent to Milwaukee as manager of the branch house, in 1891 was sent to Portland, Oregon, as manager of the branch house, which is the largest branch the company maintains, handling all the Pacific coast business, and in 1892 was made manager of the St. Paul, Minnesota, branch. He returned to Massillon to take the position of general manager in 1894, at which time he was given an interest in the business. In the reorganization of the company, in 1902, he was made second vice president and secretary and was given larger interests in the company. He is now vice president and secretary of this large house. Mr. Merwin is also vice president and managing director of the following subsidiary companies (Russell & Company) : the A. H. Averill Machinery Company, Portland, Oregon; the Clark Implement Com- 874 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY pally, Council Bluffs, Iowa ; the G. O. Richardson Machinery Company, St. Joseph, Missouri; the F. P. Harbaugh Company, St. Paul, Minnesota; and the Massillon Engine and Thresher Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is vice president of the Massillon Aluminum Company and is identified with a number of other industrial and financial concerns, among which are the Massillon Bridge and Structural Company, the Massillon Iron and Steel Company, the Massillon Savings and Banking Company, the Ohio Savings and Trust Company of Massillon and the City National Bank of Canton. He served for two terms as president of the Massillon Board of Trade and is a director in the Massillon Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Merwin is well known in club circles, being a member of the Massillon Social Club and a charter member of the Massillon Country Club. Mr. Merwin married Grace Dangler, who was born at Massillon in 1867, a daughter of the late John R. Dangler, who was twice elected treasurer of Stark County. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Merwin Fred Dangler, aged twenty-four years, in the employ of Russell & Company, married Marie McLain, the daughter of Clarence McLain, of Massillon, and has one son—Fred D., Jr.; Marian Rockwell, who is twenty years of age; Edward Carter, Jr., aged sixteen years, a student at Phillips Exeter College, New Hampshire; and Donald Knapp, aged twelve years, who is attending the public schools. Mr. Merwin is a vestryman at St. Timothy 's Episcopal Church. The Merwin family was founded in Ohio in 1839 and at Massillon in 1840 by John Plank Merwin, who was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1808. He was a son of Nicholas and Mary (Plank) Merwin, the father being born at Douglasville, Robeson Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, July 6, 1782. Nicholas was the son of William Merwin, who was also a. native of Pennsylvania. and the son f Philip Merlyn), who was born at Roxborough, Philadelphia County, now part of the City of Philadelphia, in 1.702, and was of the first generation of the family born in America. The Merwins are of French-Huguenot stock and the family name is "Mervin," the descendants of John Plank Merwin alone holding to the later spelling. From France the Merwins Lied to Germany to escape religious persecution, then coming to America, and becoming early settlers of Pennsylvania. Mary (Plank) Merwin, mother of John P., the Ohio settler, was born on the old Peter Plank farm in Caernarvon Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1783, the daughter of Peter Plank, who was born in Oley Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1745 and died in 1831. He was the son of Frederick de la Plank, who was the son of Dr. Jacques de La. Plank, the first physician of Berks County and the son of Jean de la Plank, a native-born French Huguenot, who landed at New York City in December, 1709, from whence he later removed to the Colony of Pennsylvania, subsequently making a permanent settlement in Falkner's Survey, near or at Skippack, now in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Peter Plank, the grandfather of John P. Merwin, was for upwards of fifty years one of the bishops of the Amish Church. John P. Merwin was married in August, 1830, to Mary A. Freese, who was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, October 28, 1809, the daughter of John HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 875 and Elizabeth Freese. In early life John P. Merwin learned the wheelwright trade at Morgantown, Pennsylvania. In 1839 he removed with his family to New Lisbon, Ohio, and in the following year settled at Massillon, working at carpentering and in a foundry at Massillon and for a time keeping a tavern at what was then known as West Massillon, a distinct village at that time. He died October 8, 1885, and the mother passed away November 7, 1881. JOHN A. YOUNG. Among the well known business men and citizens of Canton, a native son who has grown with the city where he has spent all his life, is John A. Young, president, treasurer and manager of the Young Heating and Plumbing Company, of No. 305 Cleveland Avenue, N. W. Mr. Young was born July 13, 1874, in the old Geiger home, then on the corner of Tuscarawas Street E., now Piedmont Avenue, and Third Street N. W., Canton, and is a son of William and Ann (Geiger) Young. William Young was born in New York Bay, on board the ship on which the family came from Ireland. The mother was born at Paris, Stark County, Ohio, a (laughter of Conrad Geiger, who came to the United States from Germany when he was eight years old, was an early settler of Paris Township, Stark. County, Ohio, and more than sixty years ago became a well known citizen of Canton. He married Lydia Adams, who was born in Massachusetts and was descended from the same family that gave to this country two of its presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. John A. Young attended the public schools of Canton from his sixth to his fourteenth year, and when he was fifteen years old began an apprenticeship to the plumber 's trade. When he finished his time he began working as a journeyman plumber, continuing to be so engaged in the city until 1909, in which year he became a master plumber and opened a shop on Cleveland Avenue N. W. His business grew from year to year until he found it expedient to enlarge, and, in April, 1914, organized and incorporated the Young Heating and Plumbing Company, of which he became president, treasurer and manager. This company is one of the strongest in its line at Canton, doing a general plumbing, tinning, roofing and steam, hot water and hot air heating business. Mr. Young is known as one of the progressive, practical and energetic business men of Canton, and as one who has gained his prominent position in the business world through his own efforts. Mr. Young was married at Canton to Miss Nettie Humburger, who was born at Massillon, Ohio, daughter of John and Nancy (Crooks) Humburger, early settlers and highly respected people of that city. Two children have been born to this union : Hazel Anna Elizabeth, who is eighteen years of age; and Thomas Robert, aged sixteen years. Mr. Young is widely and favorably known in trade circles, and holds membership in the Canton Chamber of Commerce and the Canton Builders' Exchange. He is also a member of the Canton Adcraft Club, and his fraternal connection is with the local lodge of the Modern Woodmen of America. 876 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY WILLIAM E. SARVER. Broad and exact technical knowledge and well directed effort have gained to Mr. Sarver definite success in his profession, that of civil engineer, and he is one of its well known representatives in northern Ohio, besides being the valued incumbent of the position of city engineer for Canton, the fine metropolis and judicial center of his native county. William Edward Sarver was born in Canton, Stark County, Ohio, on the twenty-first day of June, 1871, and is a son of Michael and Eliza Jane (Anderson) Sarver. The lineage of the Sarver family traces back to sterling German origin and its original representatives in America settled in Pennsylvania about the time of the War of the Revolution. In the old Keystone state was born John Sarver, grandfather of him whose name introduces this review, and he was for many years a prosperous farmer of Westmoreland County, that state. He married Miss Mary A. Kepple, whose death occurred in that county, and in 1860 John Sarver came with his children to Ohio and settled on a farm in Wood County, where he continued to maintain his home until his death, in 1870. Michael Sarver was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on the fourteenth of January, 1835, and in addition to being granted the advantages of the common schools he took a course of higher study in Mount Pleasant College, an excellent institution in his native state. As a young man he was a successful teacher in the public schools of Pennsylvania, and when the great oil fields of the state were opened he became identified with the development of the same. Later he read law, at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and finally he was admitted to the bar, but impaired health led him to abandon the practice of his profession, as the confinement and close application could not but prove a menace to his physical wellbeing. In 1865 he came to Stark County and purchased a farm in Canton Township, where he engaged in general agricultural pursuits and stock-growing, besides establishing on his farm a plant for the manufacturing of brick. Continued ill health finally prompted him to remove to California, where he purchased a farm, in Santa Barbara County, his death having there occurred on the eighteenth of March, 1877. His marriage to Miss Eliza Jane Anderson was solemnized September 27, 1859, she having been born at Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on the twenty-third of October, 1837, a daughter of Cunningham and Christina (Schall) Anderson, both likewise natives of Mount Pleasant, where the former was born in 1806 and the latter in 1809. Mrs. Sarver survived her husband by several years and was a resident of California at the time of her demise. The preliminary educational discipline of William E. Sarver was obtained in the public schools of Canton, where he was graduated in the high school as a member of the class of 1888. In 1891 he entered the University of Ohio, at Columbus, in which he completed the regular four years' course in civil engineering and was graduated in 1895. He initiated his active professional career in the position of draftsman in the office of the city engineer of Canton, in 1896, and he continued his effective services as draftsman and assistant city engineer until 1901, after which he was engaged until 1905 as assistant engineer to Loomis E. Chapin, a representative consulting engineer, in Canton. in 1906-07 PICTURE OF WILLIAM EDWARD SARVER HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 877 Mr. Sarver was city engineer of Canton, and after his retirement he was again associated with Mr. Chapin until May, 1913, when he once more assumed the position of city engineer, of which he has since continued the zealous and efficient incumbent, to his credit standing a large amount of important engineer work accomplished for the benefit of the Stark County metropolis. Mr. Sarver is a member of the Tri-County Engineering Society, is affiliated with the Canton Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Phi Gamma Delta college fraternity, is a staunch democrat in his political proclivities, and is a communicant of Trinity Lutheran Church in his home city, as is also his wife. In 1903 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sarver to Miss Margaret May White, who was born at Mogadore, Summit County, a daughter of Henry C. White, now a resident of Canton. Mr. and Mrs. Sarver have no children. WILLIAM G. MILLER. Among the men foremost in Stark County as identified with Ohio industrial enterprises, those who have become known far and wide by reason of the importance of their connections, none is there whose personality is of a more interesting character or whose career has been more impressive or beneficial as an object lesson than William G. Miller, of Navarre. His life was started as a miner, and when he first came to this country he had little to aid him save his native industry and ambition, but he has steadily and perseveringly worked his way up the ladder of success, and now stands as one of the most substantial among the industrial leaders of the county. Mr. Miller was born at Dunfermline, County Fife, Scotland, March 16, 1850, and is a son of John and Elizabeth (Henderson) Miller. His father, a miller by trade, passed his entire career in Scotland and died in 1891 at the age of seventy-three years, while the mother passed away there in 1872, when forty-nine years of age. William G. Miller was given his education in the public schools of his native land, and as a youth learned to operate a stationary engine, and was so engaged for several years, also working in the coal mines. In 1872 he decided to investigate the opportunities offered to young and ambitious men in the United States, and accordingly emigrated to this country, first taking up his residence at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where he found employment in running an engine at the Cambria Iron Works, which at that time was rebuilding its plant. After about nine months at Johnstown, Mr. Miller went to Illinois, and there worked in the coal mines for about six months, at the end of which time he came to Ohio, and locating at Massillon went to work in the coal mines. He was steadily advanced in position, gaining promotion through ability and faithful discharge of duty, and became mine boss and manager and continued as such until 1897, on May 1st of which year he came to Navarre, which village has since continued to be his home, with the exception of several years passed in travel. Upon his arrival at Navarre Mr. Miller became principal stockholder and general manager of the Navarre Stoneware Company, with which he continued to be identified until 1910, at which time he sold out, and 878 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY in company with Mrs. Miller went abroad, visiting Scotland and England, remaining three months, and returning by way of Canada. In the following year they traveled in the South. For the past few years Mr. Miller has been interested as a coal operator in the Jellico Coal Company of Eastern Tennessee. He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the Navarre Deposit Bank Company, of which he was the first president, and under his direction this grew to be one of the substantial monetary institutions of Stark County. He resigned from the presidency in 1914, but still retains his stock in the bank. He is financially interested in the United Steel Company, of Canton, Ohio, and the Sells Horse Goods Manufacturing Company of Canton, was a charter member of the Canton Roof and Tile Company, and was one of the organizers of the Canton Steel Foundry Company. This record of a career that has been so strong and forceful, so active and honorable, is necessarily brief. By his own energy and labor Mr. Miller has succeeded in achieving a high position, and what he has accomplished is due entirely to his ambitious nature, his patient endeavor and his unwearying application. Systematic methods, prompt and decisive action under all circumstances, good judgment and tact united with a high sense of honesty, and an absolute fidelity in every undertaking, have, when in such combination, placed him high on the roll of Stark County's business men and given him a substantial and lasting reputation as a helpful and useful citizen of his community. Public spirited and benevolent, he has at all times shown himself in sympathy with progressive movements and warranted charity. He is a republican, but public life has held out no inducements for him, he being content to confine his energies to the development of business affairs. While his leisure moments are few and far between, yet still he finds time to attend the meetings of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Robert Burns Society, of which latter he is a charter member and trustee. He attends the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Miller was married at Massillon, Ohio, October 22, 1874, to Miss Ann McLennan, who was born in Inverness, Scotland, April 12, 1854, daughter of Kenneth and Elizabeth (McGillivray) McLennan. She came to the United States in 1873 with her brother and settled at Massillon, Ohio, where she met and married Mr. Miller. To this union there were born the following children : John, who is engaged in farming operations in Wayne County, Ohio, is married and the father of six children ; Kenneth, who is a resident of Clarendon Avenue, Canton, is married and has one child; Elizabeth, who is the wife of Ralph Metzger, of New Philadelphia, Ohio, and has one son ; Agnes Ann, whose death occurred when she was a child of four years of age; William, who is unmarried and makes his home at Massillon ; Donald, a resident of New Philadelphia, who is married and has one son ; Walter, who is married and resides at Lima, Ohio; David, a resident of Canal Dover, who is married and has a son and a daughter ; Murdoch •McKinley, a resident of Massillon ; James W., who died at the age of one year and eight months; an infant son who died unnamed ; Anna Agnes, a graduate of the Massillon High School, class of 1915, who resides with her parents; and Monroe, who is a student at the Navarre High School. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 879 PERCY L. MCLAIN. Vice President, treasurer and general manager of J. H. McLain Company, manufacturers of heaters, P. L. McLain has been actively identified with industrial affairs at Canton since he was a boy, and is now a prominent factor in one of the institutions which give Canton its celebrity as a manufacturing center. Percy L. McLain was born at Massillon, Ohio, February 27, 1874, a son of the late James H. McLain. Three generations of the McLain family have been prominent in banking, manufacturing and other affairs in Stark County. His great-grandparents, James and Eleanor (Evans) McLain, came out of Pennsylvania and located in Columbiana County, Ohio, in 1820. In the next generation was John E. McLain, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1814, and in 1832 located at Massillon, where he became prominent as a banker and railroad builder. For a time he was a member of the firm of Knapp & McLain, manufacturers of threshing machines at Massillon. After this business was sold in 1840 he for three years operated a line of boats along the old Ohio Canal between Cleveland and Portsmouth, and subsequently erected several of the prominent manufacturing plants at Massillon. In the early '50s he built a portion of the old Ohio & Pennsylvania, now part of the Pennsylvania system, east of Massillon. He was one of the first lumber mill operators in the Puget Sound Region in what is now the State of Washington, and in 1855 established a private bank at Massillon. In 1875 he became president of the Union National Bank of 'Massillon. This is only a partial record of his varied activities and enterprises, and a more detailed account will be found on other pages. John E. McLain married Eliza Austin, and one of their children was the late James H. McLain, who was born at Massillon, November 16, 1842, and died March 10, 1894. In 1861 he began his career as clerk in his father's store, was for five years a member of the firm of Ricks & McLain, then for six years with McLain, Dougler & Company, and for three subsequent years was in the Exchange National Bank of Massillon. From 1876 until his death he was prominently identified with manufacturing interests. In 1886 he established Canton's first electric light plant, subsequently came into possession of the Canton power plant, and having organized the J. H. McLain Machine Company engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements. In 1894 the J. H. McLain Company was incorporated for the manufacture of heating apparatus, and he was its president until his death. James H. McLain married Ellen M. Tonner of Canton. The son, John E., succeeded his father as president of the J. H. McLain Company and still holds that office and is also prominent in other manufacturing and business affairs at the county seat. Percy L. McLain received his early education in the Massillon public schools, and from the age of fourteen has been identified with the J. H. McLain Company of Canton. In 1899 he was made its secretary and treasurer, and in February, 1915, was given the offices of vice president, treasurer and general manager. He is also secretary of the Trolly Supply Company of Canton, of which his brother, John E., is president. Mr. McLain is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, the Canton & Lakeside Country Club, and is a Scottish Rite Mason. He married Anna F. Fast, of Canton, daughter of the late M. Fast. Their two daughters are named Ruth and Louise. 880 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY HENRY S. PRESTON. Among the enterprises which contribute materially to the prestige of Stark County as an important center of the stock-raising industry in Ohio, one of the most prominent is the Ideal Stock Farm, located in Marlboro Township, the proprietor of which is Henry S. Preston. When Mr. Preston first came to Stark County, in 1888, he was possessed of small means. and started his career as a farm laborer. Gradually he worked his way up the ladder of success, and today is not only the owner of the above-mentioned property, which places him on the top rung among horse breeders and stock dealers of Stark County, but an extensive landholder and interested in various business enterprises here and elsewhere, including the Vigo-American Clay Company, of which he is president. Henry S. Preston was born in Carroll County, Ohio, May 26, 1865, and is a son of Amor and Diana (Smith) Preston. The Prestons were originally -Marylanders, and Amos Preston was a lad when he came with his father, Joseph Preston. and the family, to Carroll County, Ohio. Joseph Preston passed the remaining years of his life here, being engaged in agricultural pursuits, and accumulated a good property. Following the inclination of the family towards professional pursuits. Amor Preston equipped himself with a good education, and as a young man adopted the vocation of teaching, which he followed for smile years in Carroll County. Later, how-ever, he gave more attention to his farm, on which was discovered a coal mine, and this he operated until the time of his retirement, following which he made his home with his son, Henry S., in Stark County. Here he passed away. in June, 1908, well advanced in years and possessed of the esteem and regard of all those in the community with whom he had come into contact. The mother of Henry S. Preston was born in Carroll County, Ohio; daughter of Henry Smith, who was a Pennsylvania German and an early settler of Carroll County. Mrs. Preston, a woman of many lovable qualities, died at her son's home in Stark County, in August. 1911. The boyhood days of Henry S. Preston were passed on the home farm in Carroll County, where his education was secured in the public schools. He worked at , home until he reached years of majority, and in 1888 came to Stark County and went to work for Samuel S. Correll, who then lived on the farm at Centre Schoolhouse, in Plain Township, four miles from Canton. At the time of his arrival there, Mr. Preston was possessed of $150 in money, two horses and a buggy, but these did not represent his entire capital, for he had an unlimited stock of ambition, energy and determination, qualities which have characterized his every venture and which have won him unqualified success. He remained in the employ of Mr. Correll for three months, receiving a salary of $12 per month, and then went to work for Christian Worstler, who had a farm near Worstler Church, in Plain Township. One year later he engaged in sawmilling in Harrison and Carroll counties, and during all this period he carefully saved his earnings with the end in view of becoming the proprietor of a property of his own. In September, 1890. Mr. Preston was united in marriage with Miss Ida R.. Warstler, the daughter of John L. Worstler, who had a small farm and tile factory in Nimishillen Township. of which HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 881 Mr. Preston took charge for his father-in-law. He continued to conduct these enterprises until the year 1901, when he went to Terre Haute, Indiana, and there was successful in organizing the Vigo Clay Company, of which he became general manager, a position which he retained until March 1, 1915. In about the year 1907, Mr. Preston purchased for the company (which in the meantime had assumed prominent proportions) a plant at Cambridge, Ohio, known as the Guernsey Clay Company, which they improved and operated with success until the year 1914, when it was disposed of. Mr. Preston still retains his interest in this concern, which is one of the important industries of Terre Haute, and in which he is the largest stockholder, as well as holding the office of president. About 1911 the Vigo Clay Company bought a half interest in the American Clay Company. and in the early part of 1915 the two companies were consolidated, under the present style of the Vigo- American Clay Company, which has a capital of $375.000. In 1900, Mr. Preston purchased the Clair Farm. in Marlboro Township, eleven miles northeast, from. Canton, four miles from Louisville, three miles from Middlebranch and two miles from Harrisburg, and on which he has built their modern home. The farm at that time contained 102 acres. The old barn was struck and destroyed by lightning September 25, 1910, and Mr. Preston at once began to build his present barn which was completed in 1911, a structure 44 by 84 feet, with a straw shed 44 by 46 feet. When the barn was completed he began to remodel and rebuild his residence, which was completed the same year, a commodious and comfortable home, 34 by 42 feet, two stories in height and modern in every particular, with fourteen rooms. Its conveniences include running water, both hot and cold, bath room, and a Fairbanks electric light storage battery plant, which lights both residence and barn. Mr. Preston next purchased twenty acres of pasture land from Benjamin Geiselman, and later the Jacob Harmony Farm, which adjoined the twenty acres above, the latter farm containing eighty acres, with a good residence and substantial barn, which he improved, this latter being 36 by 60 feet, with a straw shed 34 by 36 feet. His next purchase was the John C. Harmony Farm of 130 acres, which adjoins his own farm on the east, and the Jacob Harmony Farm, on the north, on which there are a good residence and a barn 38 by 70 feet, with straw shed 34 by 36 feet. His land totals 330 acres of as fine land as is to be found in Stark County, while the improvements are of the most up-to-date character. Everything about this property testifies to the skill and good business management of its proprietor, who within the space of a few years has risen from modest position to be one of the foremost agriculturists of his part of the county. While still living at Terre Haute, Indiana, Mr. Preston began the breeding of stock on the Stark County farm and when he returned to the farm, in 1907, he began to breed and handle cattle and horses on a large scale. He is inclined to favor Percherons and Belgian Draft horses, principally the former, and in his stables .are to be found such valuable animals as "Cadix, No. 24670" Percheron stallion, imported, "Sultan Dezee, No. 3358." imported Belgian stallion, and "Joshua, No. 26755," American bred. He also has several stallions bred from the above sires, 882 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY and at the present time has more than fifty head of horses on his farm, together with many mulch cows and other stock, all of the very highest grade. In business circles Mr. Preston's name is an honored one, and as a citizen he is recognized as a man whose support in any movement for the benefit of the community practically spells the success of the enterprise. While he has not been desirous of a public career, he takes an interest in all matters that affect the community, and is one of his section's most enthusiastic "boosters." Mr. and Mrs. Preston are the parents of three children : Leora Odra, who was born in 1892; Verge Ethel, born in 1895; and Ralph Henry, born in 1910. Mr. Preston and the members of his family are consistent attendants of the United Brethren Church. HIRAM SELL. Among the agriculturists of Stark County who have contributed of their services to the community's welfare, while at the same time they have won personal success in their farming operations, one who is deserving of more than passing mention is Hiram Sell. Since 1881 he has been almost constantly before the people of his community as the incumbent of public office. and at the present time is serving his fourth term as trustee of Plain Township. His record, both as a citizen and an official, is an excellent one, entitling him to the esteem and confidence he is generally accorded. Mr. Sell was born on his father's farm, near Middlebranch, in Plain Township, Stark County, Ohio, October 11, 1849, and is a son of Andrew and Margaret (Spangler) Sell. His father was born in Union Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania, in 1825, and was killed at a barn raising in Pennsylvania, June 11, 1886. Margaret (Spangler) Sell was born in Plain Township, Stark County, Ohio, in 1825, and died September 21, 1850. The paternal grandfather of Hiram Sell was Abraham Sell, who never came to Stark County, and the maternal grandfather was Benjamin Spangler, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1793 and died in Stark County, February 18, 1876. Mr. Spangler married Margaret Priscilla Weyer, who was born in Stark County, the daughter of Rev. Anthony Weyer, a native of Pennsylvania, the pioneer Lutheran preacher of Plain Township, who preached here before there was a Lutheran Church in the township. He was laid to rest at McKinley Park, Canton, but fifty years later the remains were removed to Worstler Church graveyard, in Plain Township. Hiram Sell was about nine months old when his mother died and at that time he went to live with his maternal grandfather. Benjamin Spangler. When be was six years of age his father took him to Pennsylvania and he lived there until he was thirteen years of age, when he came back to his grandparents in Plain Township. There his youth was passed much the same as other lads of his day and locality, the summer months being spent in the hard and unrelenting work of the farm, while in the short winter terms he secured his education in the district schools. He continued to remain with his grandparents and to assist them in their activities until his marriage, December 19, 1872, to Miss Sarah Snider, who was born in Plain Township, Stark County, December 13, 1853, daughter of Henry Snider. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 883 Mr. and Mrs. Sell took a wedding trip to Pennsylvania, and upon their return settled on a rented farm in Plain Township, remaining thereon for several years. Subsequently, when through industry and strict economy he had saved enough capital, Mr. Sell purchased the nucleus for his present farm, which was then a part of the old Henry Snider farm. In 1882, in addition to his farming operations, Mr. Sell branched out into the threshing business, which he followed with a fair measure of success until 1895, when he sold his outfit and retired from such activities. In agricultural circles, Mr. Sell is known as a practical, progressive farmer, fully abreast of his vocation, and one who is thoroughly familiar with every department of farming and stockraising. His farm has been improved with substantial and handsome buildings, equipped with every appliance that has been invented for the agriculturist's convenience. Mr. Sell has always been one of the popular men of Plain Township, and his intelligence and abilities have been frequently recognized by his fellow-townsmen, who have chosen him to fill public office on numerous occasions. As early as 1881 he was made a member of the board of school directors of his township, a capacity in which he served until 1887, and in the meantime, in 1884, was made a member of the board of supervisors, continuing to act in that office until 1889. In 1888 he was elected assessor, and served as such two years, and in 1910 was again chosen as the incumbent of that office, the duties of which he ably discharged for a period of four years. In 1892 Mr. Sell was first elected township trustee of Plain Township and received re-elections in 1894 and 1896. He then remained out of this office until 1914, when he again became a candidate and was elected by a satisfying majority. He was re-elected in 1915 for two years. In official positions, Mr. Sell has shown an appreciation of the responsibilities of public service, and has labored conscientiously for the best interests of his community and its people. His record is one by which the younger generation may be safely guided. Mr. Sell has been the father of four children, as follows: Alverta E., born March 16, 1876, married Justice B. Reese, May 26, 1896: he died June 17, 1901, aged thirty years ; they had one child, Berdella Mabel, who died August 2, 1902, aged three years; Ervin L., born March 10, 1.884, who died March 17, 1901; Henry A., born December 20, 1885, married August 19, 1906, Cora Fosnaught, and has four children— Gladys Alma, born December 19, 1.908, Dorothy May, born August 2, 1910, Vera Hilda, July 15, 1911, and died at the age of fifteen months, and Esther Alberta, July 27, 1915; and Corrina Hiram, born March 30, 1890. Mr. Sell is a democrat in his political views. He and the members of his family belong to the Lutheran Church. Henry Snider, the father of Mrs. Sell, was born on the Snider farm in Plain Township, Stark County, Ohio, October 11, 1820, was baptized by the Rev. Anthony Weyer, and died .July 31., 1901, on the old farm, where he had passed his entire life. He married Maria. Ann Kunfahr, who was born in Marlboro Township, Stark County, Ohio, February 12, 1827, and she died November 21, 1891. Their children were as follows: John. who (lied when young; Adam. who is deceased: Sarah, who is now Mrs. Hiram Sell; Henry, who is a resident of Abilene, Kansas; 884 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY George, who is also a resident of Kansas; Mary Alice, who is deceased : and Jacob, who lives in Plain Township. HARRY WITHROW IRWIN has had much to do with making Canton a center of the iron and steel industry. He was identified with the organization and plant installation of several of the large factories here, and recently took up his duties as state inspector of workshops and public buildings. A native of Pennsylvania. where his grandparents on both sides as well as his parents spent all their lives, Harry W. Irwin was born on a farm in Westmoreland County, October 13, 1865, son of Marshall and Ellen B. (McConnell) Irwin, the former a native of Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and the latter of Westmoreland County. The paternal grandfather was Eliphalet Irwin and the maternal grandfather was Thomas McConnell, both natives of Pennsylvania. In 1872 the family removed from Westmoreland County to Leechburg, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Irwin's father was in the wholesale and livery business. Seven years of age when this removal occurred, Harry W. Irwin began his schooling in Leechburg, was reared to manhood there, and on leaving school at the age of eighteen started to work in the West Pennsylvania steel plant. He was almost immediately given charge of the hydraulic crane. He next went into the sheet mill and still later was employed by the Apollo Iron & Steel Company at Apollo, Pennsylvania. Returning to Leechburg, he was with the Sheet Steel Company, and then in the tin mill at New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and finally to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. It was in 1901 that Mr. Irwin came to Canton, and was one of the men who helped to start the Stark Rolling Mill. About a year and a half later he went to the American Sheet Steel Plant of Canton, and subsequently put in about eighteen months with the sheet mill at Mansfield, Ohio. Since then he has lived in Canton, and assisted in building the Canton Sheet Steel Company, and was with that organization for a year and a half. After that he was with the V. L. Ney Company of Canton for about three years. On October 1, 1915, he was appointed to his present position as state inspector of workshops and public buildings. He now gives all his time and attention to his official duties. His extensive experience gives him unusual qualifications for this work. Mr. Irwin is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and also a Knight Templar Mason, and has taken most of the degrees in both the York and Scottish Rite. He is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Irwin married Sadie Latimer, daughter of William Latimer of Pennsylvania. JOSEPH VINCENT MILLER. The secretary and treasurer of the Massillon Aluminum Company, Joseph Vincent Miller, is by inheritance and training well equipped for his responsible position. He comes of a family given to valuable and practical accomplishment, and is the son of a pioneer who set an example for useful living, a man whose life work PICTURE OF RUSSELL GEORGE CHASE HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 885 ran parallel with the history of Massillon for a long period of years. Mr. Miller was born at Massillon and here his entire life has been passed, his success in business circles having been achieved solely through the medium of his own efforts. Mr. Miller was born at Massillon, January 21, 1877, his parents being Theodore and Susanna (Hammersmith) Miller. His father was born in 1848, at Wooster, Ohio, a son of Nicholas Miller, a native of Bavaria, Germany, who on coming to the United States settled as a pioneer in Wayne County, Ohio. From Wooster Theodore Miller came to Massillon at an early day and for many years worked at the machinist's trade, being known as a skilled and industrious master of his vocation. He died in 1911. The mother of Joseph V. Miller was born at Massillon in 1849, a daughter of Adam Hammersmith, who was an early settler of Massillon from Bavaria. She died in 1904. Joseph V. Miller was reared at Massillon, where he was graduated from the high school in 1896, and later from the Massillon Actual Business College. He has made his own way since he was thirteen years old, working in a grocery store, before and after school, on Saturdays and during vacations. His first position of consequence was as private secretary to Dr. A. V. Richardson, who was the first superintendent of the Massillon State Hospital, and after this experience entered, in 1898, the office of Reed & Company, proprietors of the Massillon Glass Works. as bookkeeper and general office man. He continued in that line of work with the successors of Reed & Company, the Ohio Bottle Company, as well as with the latter's successors, American Bottle Company, being local superintendent of this concern until the time of his resignation in 1913 to become secretary and treasurer of the Massillon Aluminum Company, a local organization, backed by local capital, which positions he has continued to occupy. In addition to ably discharging the duties of these offices, Mr. Miller has other interests, and is a director of the Ohio Banking and Trust Company. He is a member of the chamber of commerce and bears an excellent reputation among business men of the city. In fraternal work he is well known also, having been one of the organizers of the Massillon lodge of the Knights of Columbus, of which he was the first financial secretary. His religious connection is with St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Mr. Miller was married to Miss Gertrude A. Sonnhatter, who was born at Massillon, January 21, 1882, daughter of the late Philip Sonnhatter, who opened more coal mines in the Massillon district than any other individual, and was considered an authority on coal subjects, and at the time of his death was the oldest coal operator in the district. Mr. and Mrs. Miller are the parents of three children, namely: Quentin J., Mary Catherine and Agnes Gertrude. RUSSELL GEORGE CHASE. Prominent among the well-known citizens and business men who through their abilities and activities are contributing to Canton's prestige as a manufacturing center is found Russell George Chase, president and general manager and treasurer of the Sun Vapor and Gas Street Lamp Company. Mr. Chase is not only widely and favorably known in business circles, but has taken an active and leading 886 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY part in civic affairs and is likewise a prominent figure in fraternal matters. Russell G. Chase was born in the City of Bristol, England, May 2, 1863, and is a son of Capt. Russell George and Adelaide (Moorcraft) Chase. His father has been in the merchant vessel service between the United States and Europe for many years and is still active, although at this writing (1915) the great European war has curtailed for the time his operations. He was born at Bristol, where his father was of the landed gentry, while thc mother of Russell G. Chase, who is also living, was born at Hollingbourne, Kent, England. Russell G. Chase received a good education in the schools of England, and in his seventeenth year accompanied his father on onc of his voyages to this country, where, in the port of Baltimore, he began his business career as an office boy at the Baltimore branch house of C. Aultman & Company, of Canton, Ohio. Later he became a stenographer in the employ of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad Company, at Wilmington, Delaware, and in 1884 came to Canton and was employed as stenographer under James C. McMath, in the legal department of C. Aultman & Company. This concern was a. heavy stockholder in the Sun Vapor Street Light Company, and later Mr. MeMath took Mr. Chase with him as a private secretary for the Sun Vapor Street Light Company. The present Sun Vapor and Gas Street Light Company has been in existence about thirty-five years, first as the Sun Vapor and Stove Company, next as the Sun Vapor Street Light Company, and since 1910 as the Sun Vapor and Gas Street Light Company. The following are the officers: Russell G. Chase, president and treasurer ; N. S. B. Domer, vice president and secretary. The capital is 00,000, fully paid up. This concern manufactures gasoline indoor lamps, gasoline systems. gasoline torches, gasoline blow pipes, gasoline plumbers' furnaces, gasoline burners, gasoline street lamps, and ornamental cluster standard lights, the same as are in use all over Canton in its principal downtown streets. The goods find a ready sale in the markets of the world and have a high reputation for quality and endurance. Mr. Chase entered the company as private secretary to Mr. McMath and continued as such to his successors until 1896, when Mr. Chase became William McKinley's stenographer, serving as such and being with that gentleman constantly from the time of his retirement. as governor of the State of Ohio until he was elected and inaugurated President of the United States. He also did reportorial work for both the Associated Press and the United Press, but during all this time maintained his interest in the Sun Vapor Company. In 1906 he was made secretary of the company, and later acted, also, as treasurer, in 1912 was made vice president, general manager and treasurer, and in 1915 was elected president. Mr. Chase, as before indicated, has been very active in civic affairs, especially as a member of the chamber of commerce. He was one of the ten men chosen at a banquet given by the Business Men's Association of Canton to formulate plans for the adoption of a "Canton Chamber of Commerce," and the organization was effected along the lines of the plans laid down by that committee. Since that time he has been a HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 887 member of the transportation committee. He has served two terms by election and one-half term by appointment as a member of the Board of Education of Canton since 1910, and has been prominent in various other civic bodies and organizations. Mr. Chase is also interested in the sponge industry, with several of his relatives, at Chase, Florida. This industry, which is a large and flourishing one, is located on a small group of islands or key, on the South Florida coast, through which runs the Florida East Coast or Flagler Railway. In 1914 over 100,000 sponges were harvested. Mr. Chase's interests and activities aside from those mentioned have been extensive and varied. He is an excellent French scholar, and for a time taught that language to classes at the Canton Young Men's Christian Association. He was the founder and organizer, in 1911, of the Robert Burns Society of America, of which he is supreme keeper of the archives, this being a representative Scottish-American fraternal and social society, incorporated. He also holds membership in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the National Union and the American Insurance Union. Mr. Chase was married to Miss Margaret Henrici, who was born in the City of London, England, of German parents, who went from Germany to London, thence to the United States, and finally to Canton. Her mother died in 1912. Mr. and Mrs. Chase are the parents of one daughter : Adelaide M., who was born November 16, 1903. ALTON A. PONTIUS. Of the quota of native sons of Stark County who are ably representing the same in the pedagogic profession and also as an exponent of the basic industry of agriculture is Mr. Pontius, who has been a successful and popular teacher in the schools of the county for more than a score of years and whose place of residence is a well improved farm just east of Greentown, in Lake Township. In the paternal line as well as on the distaff side also is Mr. Pontius to be designated as a scion of sterling and influential pioneer ancestry in Stark County, and at Canton, the metropolis and judicial center of this fine county, his birth occurred on the 14th of January, 1874. Alton Ambrose Pontius is a son of Elias P. and Catharine (Royer) Pontius, the father a native of Greentown, Lake Township, this county, where he was born February 14, 1840, and the latter was born March 4, 1833, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her death occurred on the 23d of January, 1907. Elias P. Pontius, who was long and prominently identified with agricultural pursuits in Lake Township, is now living virtually retired at Greentown, and is a citizen who has ever commanded the unqualified esteem of the community in which his life has been passed. He is a son of Samuel and Catharine (Wise) Pontius, the parents of the latter having been very early settlers in the Greentown district of this county, where her father, John Wise, wielded much influence in connection with civic and industrial affairs in the pioneer days, as did also the early founders of the Pontius family in the county. Reared under the sturdy and invigorating discipline of the farm, Alton A. Pontius acquired his early education in the district schools and waxed strong in both mental and physical powers. His ambition Vol. III-9 888 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY led him to make the best use of the higher educational advantages which were afforded him to a large extent through his own efforts. He was graduated in the high school at Greentown in 1892, in which same year he initiated his pedagogic career by assuming charge of a district school in Plain Township. For two terms he pursued higher academic studies in Valparaiso University, at Valparaiso, Indiana, and he completed his literary training at Wooster University, Wooster, Ohio, besides which he attended the Akron Business College, at Akron, this state. Except for one year devoted to clerical work in an office at Akron each year since 1892 has found Mr. Pontius engaged in specially successful work as a teacher. In 1914-15 he taught the Chapel Hill school in Lake Township, and his services have been retained for the same school during the winter of 1915-16. Though he gives his active supervision to his farm he is an enthusiast in the work of his profession, and is a valued member of the Stark County Teachers' Institute and the Lake Township Teachers' Institute, in the work of both of which he has been active and influential. Mr. Pontius is now serving as justice of the peace in and for the township in which he residcs, and this position he has filled for a number of years with credit to himself, his adjudications having been uniformly just and fair. He is affiliated with Hadassah Lodge, No. 450, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Greentown, and both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at that place. On December 26, 1907, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Pontius to Miss Dicie Kamp, who likewise was born and reared in Lake Township, where her father, Frank Kamp, is a substantial farmer and popular citizen. Mr. and Mrs. Pontius have four children : Margaret E., Ralph E., Wanna J., and Ward E. JOHN THOMAS. When he was nine years of age, John Thomas went to work in the mines at Youngstown Hill. This early taking up of life's responsibilities precluded the idea of any great educational or other advantages in his youth, but he was possessed of the ambition and determination to succeed, and his subsequent career has been one filled with public honor and crowned with material success. From 1891 until the present he has been almost constantly before the public as the incumbent of offices of responsiblity and his reputation as a man of solid worth and brilliant attainments has extended far beyond the borders of his native state. Mr. Thomas was born at the Hamlet of Syracuse, Meigs County, Ohio, December 27, 1857, and is a son of Jobas and Maria (Raymond) Thomas, natives of Wales, the father born at Flower De Luce, Monmouthshire, and the mother at Pontypridd. Jobas Thomas was a worker in the coal mines of Wales, and came to America about the year 1854, first locating at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then removing to New York. Later he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he married Maria Raymond, the daughter of a coal miner, who was brought by her parents to America in young womanhood, the family settling in Summit County, Ohio. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved to what was then Youngstown Hill, now Newman, in Stark County, Ohio, and in 1864 the father secured employment at what was then known HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 889 as the Schriver Mine, a miller's hamlet. In the spring of 1884 the family came to Navarre, where Mr. Thomas worked in the mines until he was about sixty-eight years of age, then retiring from active life. He is still living at Navarre at the age of eighty-five years, Mrs. Thomas having died in 1910, at the age of seventy-three years. As before stated, John Thomas had few opportunities for an educational training in his youth, but one cannot long be with him today without realizing that he is a man of sound practical knowledge, gained through study and observation and through association with men of stability and participation in events of importance. He worked in the mines at different points until 1891, and during this time became recognized as an energetic and forcible exponent of progressive legislation to better working conditions. In the year mentioned he was elected as a republican to the Ohio Legislature by a larger vote than that received by the candidate for governor, who was William McKinley, later to become President of the United States. Mr. Thomas was re-elected to the Ohio Legislature in 1893. In his first session in the House, he was chairman of the Committee on Labor, a position which he retained in his second session, and was also a member of the Finance Committee. In 1895 he was a candidate for state senator and was defeated in the convention by half a vote. That year the Stark County Republican Central Committee chose Mr. Thomas as its chairman by unanimous vote and he led the fight in the campaign of that year which was a most bitter one, and rolled up a larger majority for Gen. Asa Bushnell for governor than had ever been given a candidate for the gubernatorial office by Stark County voters. His excellent management was also shown in the fact that every republican candidate for state senator and representative won by overwhelming majorities, and that Legislature elected Mr. Foraker to the United States Senate. Mr. Thomas was also chairman of the committee during the memorable presidential campaign of 1896, when Mr. McKinley was elected President. Following the campaign of 1896, Mr. Thomas relinquished the chairmanship of the County Central Committee, became the head of the labor department of the campaign of 1897, and assisted in the election of the Legislature which elected Mark A. Hanna to the United States Senate. He was then, early in 1898, appointed special agent in the Special United States Customs Department, with headquarters at Detroit, Michigan, being subsequently transferred to the Special Emigration Department, with headquarters at Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York. Later he was promoted to the position of commissioner of emigration at Quebec, Province of Quebec, including Saint Johns, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was from 1901 to 1905. In the latter year he resigned from the Government service and returned to. Ohio, resuming his residence at Navarre, where he devotes his attention to looking after his extensive coal and other enterprises. Mr. Thomas is a charter member of the Navarre lodges of the Knights of Pythias and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. FRED WILLIAM WITTER. For the past twenty years Fred W. Witter has been identified with the City of Canton and Stark County in both 890 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY its business and civic affairs. At the present time he is manager of the Lyceum Vaudeville Theatre at Canton, and is a member of the Stark County Liquor Licensing Board, and has had numerous other distinctions and rendered important service to the public welfare. Fred William Witter was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, December 29, 1869, a son of Frederick William and Elizabeth (Holzapfel) Witter. The parents were born and married in Germany, and about the close of the Civil war came to America, locating in Cincinnati. In June, 1871, they removed to Canton. The father was connected with the Diebold Safe & Lock Company at Cincinnati, and accompanied the industry on its removal to Canton, and continued a faithful worker in its employ from 1867 until 1907, a period of about forty years. He died in December, 1914, and his wife passed away in 1904. Fred W. Witter was educated in the Canton public schools. In 1887 the late John C. Dueber, head of the Dueber Watch Company, established a school of engraving to develop skilled engravers for his large factory. Mr. Witter was the first boy to become a pupil in that technical school, and after his training was accounted one of the ablest watch case engravers in the factory, and for eighteen years remained in the engraving department. of the Dueber Watch Company. Mr. Witter finally resigned from the company and for the succeeding years has been actively identified with public affairs and the newspaper business. In 1907 Mr. Witter was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of commissioner of public service in Canton, his name being on the democratic ticket, and he lost the election by only thirty-five votes. In 1909 he was appointed a member of the Stark County Board of Deputy State Supervisors and Inspectors of Election, and held his position on the board until resigning on September 1, 1913, to accept his present place on the board of liquor licensers for the county. Govcrnor Cox appointed him to this place. In 1907 Mr. Witter became connected with the advertising department of the Canton News Democrat, now the Canton Daily News, and did much to develop the business side of this well known paper. He continued this work until January, 1915. For the past six years he has been a member of the Stark County Democratic Executive Committee. For four years he was on the Stark County Commission for the Blind, and for three years was president of the Canton Park and Playground Commission, having been the first president of the board, and is still one of the trustees of the commission. Mr. Witter is a musician and has been interested in musical affairs for many years. For twenty years he was a member of the noted " Grand Army Band of Canton and is a charter member of the Canton Symphony Orchestra. He belongs to the Musicians' Protective Association, to the Knights of Pythias, the Loyal Order of Moose and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Mr. Witter married Mary Alice Anderson, who was born in Stark County, daughter of the late Reuben Anderson, who was well known as -a writer. They have two children : Laura May and Anna Marie. JAMES EVERETT MILNER. An unusual knowledge and skill in the theory and practice of business, together with natural ability and hard work, have placed Mr. Milner at the age of thirty-five into one of the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 891 responsible business positions in Canton. He is secretary and treasurer of the Kanneberg Roofing & Ceiling Company, and well known in general business and social circles. Born on his father's farm in Washington County, Ohio, June 19, 1880, he is a son of Thomas and Frances (Roberts) Milner. His grandfather, George Milner, was a native of Scotland and one of the early settlers of Washington County, Ohio. Thomas Milner, who was born in Ohio in 1845, spent many years as a farmer and stock raiser in Washington County, where he owned one of the exceptionally fine farms, and died there in 1913. His wife, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1845, was the daughter of Amasa Roberts, also a native of Pennsylvania but of English parentage, and this family likewise was among the early settlers in Washington County. Though his important experiences and accomplishments have been in business lines, James E. Milner was reared on a farm, and learned his first lessons in a district school. Later he attended high school at Beverly, and the Marietta Business College, where he also taught bookkeeping and other branches. After a course in penmanship at the Zanarian Penmanship College of Columbus, he came to Canton in 1901, and for two years was employed as a teacher in the Actual Business College of that city. Then in 1904 he became bookkeeper for the Kanneberg Roofing & Ceiling Company, and ran the hooks for that concern until 1912 when he took a more active part in the business and has since been secretary and treasurer of the company. This is one of the older industries of Canton. It was established in 1888 by Alvin C. Kanneberg for the manufacture of roofing, and later ceiling was added to the product, and gradually the output included other material. Following the death of Mr. Kanneberg his widow conducted the business until 1907, when the reorganization took place under the present name of Kanneberg Roofing & Ceiling Company, with the following officers : H. S. Renkert, president ; John Brobst, first vice president ; Samuel Shanker, second vice president : and C. A. Weirich, secretary and treasurer. At present the officers are : B. Immler, president ; Marvin Moore, first vice president ; Edward Stevens, second vice president : and J. E. Milner, secretary and treasurer. The plant is built of brick, 50 by 600 feet. and with a second story over 200 feet of the main structure. The buildings and grounds embrace five acres. About thirty-five men are on the payroll, from which it is evident the business forms no small item in Canton's prosperity. The output comprises a complete line of metal ceilings. metal shingles, metal roofing and siding. skylights, lath, cornices. trough and pipe, moulding, etc. In fact, the plant is prepared for turning and molding from sheet metal almost any conceivable product. The market is all over this country, and in normal times there was a considerable export business to Europe. . Mr. Milner is a member of Canton Lodge, A. F. & A. M., Canton Lodge of Elks, the Rotary Club, the Canton Chamber of Commerce and Canton Builders Exchange. Mrs. Milner before her marriage was Miss Laura Weirich. She is a native of Stark County, a daughter of David Weirich. They have one daughter, Grace Eileen, born April 28, 1909. 892 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY CHARLES O. HEGGEM. One of the representative and influential figures in the industrial activities of the City of Massillon is Mr. Heggem, who has achieved in the land of his adoption distinctive success and prestige as a mechanical engineer and who now holds the responsible and exacting office of general superintendent of the extensive plant of the corporation known as Thc Russell & Company, this being one of the most important of the industrial concerns contributing to the commercial prestige of Massillon and Stark County, as is indicated by data appearing on other pages of this publication. Mr. Heggem was born in the fine old City of Bergen, Norway, on the 29th of November, 1851, and is a scion of one of the ancient and honored families of that nation of the fair Norseland. He is a son of O. A. and Joanna (Mucklebust) Heggem, both likewise natives of Bergen, where the former was born in 1830 and the latter in 1827. The parents were residents of Chicago for many years after coming to America, and in that city the father died in 1903, the mother surviving him by about seven years and having been summoned to the life eternal in 1910. Of the ten children the subject of this review was the first born, and of the others four are now living. In 1868 O. A. Heggem came with his family to the United States and established his residence in the City of Chicago. He was a patternmaker by trade and vocation and in that city he served at different times as superintendent in various shops. He espoused the cause of the republican party and entered fully into the spirit of American institutions and customs, both he and his wife having held to the simple and noble religious faith of the Society of Friends. Charles O. Heggem was reared to the age of sixteen years in his native city, where he received excellent educational advantages. In addition to attending the established schools he and the other children of the family received effective instruction under private tutors, as their father was in independent financial circumstances and earnestly made this provision for his offspring. Thus it came about that in his native land Charles O. received excellent training in English, besides which he studied mechanical engineering under most auspicious conditions. At the age of sixteen years he accompanied his parents on their immigration to America, and in the City of Chicago he obtained a clerical position in a machine shop. In 1870 he came to Ohio and established his residence at Salem, Columbiana County, where he assumed a position as machinist in the plant of the Buckeye Engine Company. He continued with this corporation for thirteen years and by his ability and integrity won advancement from one department to another until he became foreman of a department, his incidental and varied experience having proved of much value in fortifying him further in the technical and practical details of his chosen vocation. In 1883 Mr. Heggem came to Massillon and became foreman of the engineering department of the establishment of Russell & Company, the present title of The Russell & Company having been adopted later. In the following year he was made assistant superintendent, and later his skill and executive ability brought to him promotion to his present office, that of general superintendent of the great manufactory of the company. He has maintained the deepest interest in his profession and its work PICTURE OF EMMET C. BRUMBAUGH HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 893 and is an appreciative member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, with which he has been identified since 1889. Mr. Heggem is popular in the business and social circles of his home city, and is a stalwart republican in politics. In the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the time-honored Masonic fraternity Mr. Heggem has thus far advanced to the reception of the fourteenth degree, in the consistory at Cleveland, where he also holds membership in Al Koran Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. His York Rite affiliations are all maintained at Massillon, and are here designated: Clinton Lodge, No. 47, Free and Accepted Masons; Hiram Chapter, No. 18, Royal Arch Masons, of which he is past king and past scribe ; and Massillon Commandery, No. 4, Knights Templars. On the 10th of October, 1872, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Heggem to Miss Elise R. Boe, who was born at Stavanger, Norway, and they became the parents of four children, concerning whom brief record is here given : Oscar E. was assistant superintendent of The Russell & Company plant at the time of his death, in 1905, when thirty-two years of age ; Alfred G., who was graduated at Cornell University in 1897, with the degree of Mechanical Engineer, is at the present time an attache of the United States Bureau of Mines ; Chalmer M. died in infancy ; and Chalmer R., who is now in charge of the collection department of The Russell & Company, was graduated in the law department of Cornell University as a member of the class of 1905, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws and later being admitted to the Ohio bar. EMMET C. BRUMBAUGH. Stark County, with its manifold advantages and attractions, has been able to retain strong hold upon the appreciative loyalty and allegiance of its native sons, many of whom are found as representative citizens in various lines of endeavor and-who find unqualified satisfaction in remaining within the gracious borders of this admirable county of the old Buckeye commonwealth. Such a one is Emmet Clayton Brumbaugh, and that he is not like the prophet of old and "not without honor save in his own country," is signified by the fact that he is the incumbent of the office of city auditor of Canton, the fair capital and metropolis of his native county. Mr. Brumbaugh was born on the family homestead farm near Hartville, Lake Township, this county, on the 31st of August, 1876, and is a scion of one of the oldest and most honored pioneer families of Stark County. He is a son of Andrew and Charlotte (Firestone) Brumbaugh, both likewise natives of Stark County, where the former was born November 25, 1818, a date that indicates conclusively that his parents must have here established their residence within the first decade after the admission of Ohio as one of the sovereign states of the Union. Andrew Brumbaugh was reared and educated in this county, under the conditions and influences of the early pioneer days, and he contributed his quota to the civic and material development and progress of this favored section of the state. He became one of the substantial and representative farmers and stock-growers of the county, his old homestead farm being in Lake Township, near the outlet of Congress Lake, and the residence which he there erected many years ago being still in an excellent state 894 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY of preservation and still utilized as a dwelling. He continued to reside on his homestead, one of the unassuming, sturdy and honored pioneer citizens of the county, until his death, in 1886. His widow, who was born in Marlboro township, this county, where her parents were early settlers, survived him by more than a score of years and was of venerable age when she was summoned to the life eternal, in 1909. The founder of the Brumbaugh family in America was Johannes Heinrich Brumbaugh, who was a native of Germany but who sailed from Rotterdam, Holland, on the 30th of September, 1754, making the voyage to the land of his adoption on the sailing vessel "Neptune," which was in command of Captain Waire. He settled in southern Pennsylvania, at a point near Hagerstown, Maryland, and there passed his entire life. His son Jacob became the father of Conrad Brumbaugh. and the latter was the pioneer settler in Stark County, Ohio, having been the grandfather of him whose name initiates this review. Emmet C. Brumbaugh was reared to the sturdy discipline of the nome farm, having been about ten years of age at the time of his father's death, his widowed mother having soon afterward disposed of the old homestead and having purchased a small farm near Midway, this county. He attended the district schools of his native township and also the Lake Township High School, and that he made good use of his scholastic advantages is shown by the fact that for a period of five years he was a successful and popular teacher in the schools of Stark County. Thereafter he completed a course in the Canton Actual Business College, and as an expert bookkeeper he found employment in turn with the Canton Incandescent Light Company, the News-Democrat Publishing Company, which was succeeded by the present Canton Daily News Company, and with the L. B. Hartung Plumbing Company. For several years thereafter he was engaged in the plumbing business in an independent way, and after disposing of his stock and business he devoted several months to service as a commercial traveling salesman. Thereafter he was employed in a rolling mill at Canton until his election to his present office, that of city auditor of Canton, in 1909, as candidate on the democratic ticket. He was re-elected in 1911 and 1913 and is thus serving his third consecutive term in this office, the affairs of which he has administered with great circumspection and efficiency. He has been active in the local affairs of the democratic party, is essentially progressive and loyal in his civic attitude, and has a wide circle of friends in the county that has ever represented his home. In his fraternal relations he is affiliated with Canton Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; Canton Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; and Washington Council, Junior Order of United American Mechanics. In 1900 Mr. Brumbaugh wedded Miss Nettie M. Haak, who was born in Greentown, Lake Township, this county, a daughter of William Haak, and the one child of this union is Dorothy, who was born March 29, 1903. STEPHEN A. BIDDLE. In business and public circles of Bethlehem Township and Navarre there is found no more highly honored name than that of Stephen A. Biddle. Practically his entire life has been passed in these communities, where he has identified himself with the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 895 harness and horse goods business, while as a citizen he has contributed materially to the welfare of his locality as trustee of Bethlehem Township, a position which he holds at this time. Mr. Riddle's life in this township began November 18, 1846, when he was born in a log cabin on the old Biddle Farm, situated about two miles east of Navarre, and he is a son of the late Gregory and Mary (Eckrote) Biddle. Gregory Biddle was a native of Germany and was a young man when he came with his parents to the United States, the family settling in Bethlehem Township, where the grandparents of Stephen A. Biddle died on the homestead place. Gregory Biddle worked in the glass factories of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until his marriage, at Canton, Ohio, at which time he went to farming on a property adjoining hiS father's homestead, he and his brother and father all taking up Government land. He died about the year 1855. Mrs. Biddle was horn in Pennsylvania, the daughter of Daniel Eckrote, who was a pioneer farmer of Bethlehem Township, and she died in 1850, when aged only about thirty-five years. Stephen A. Biddle was still but a boy when he was left an orphan, and until he was about fourteen years of age he made his home with his uncle. Jacob Eckrote, in the meantime securing his education in the public schools. At the age of fourteen years he began working out during the summer seasons on neighboring farms, although he returned to his uncle's home during the winter months, and continued thus occupied until 1866, when he accompanied his uncle to Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois. It was while there that Mr. Biddle received his introduction to the business which he was to make his life work, serving an apprenticeship at the trade of harness making. After a full apprenticeship of three years he became a journeyman and for two years remained with the man who had taught him his trade, but in 1870 returned to Bethlehem Township, Stark County. Subsequently he went to Loudonville, Ashland County, Ohio, where he worked at his trade for about two months, following which he established himself in business as the proprietor of a harness shop at Navarre, this venture continuing for two years. Following this, Mr. Biddle returned to farm work for about two years, and, being married at the end of this time, started housekeeping on a rented farm, which he operated successfully for five years. Misfortune then overtook him in the form of a fire which destroyed his farm buildings and personal property and he returned to Navarre and secured employment with Daniel Ryder, a harnessmaker, with whom he remained for about one year. Mr. Ryder dying, Mr. Biddle purchased his stock, and since 1885 he has continued to operate this business in the same shop, one of the oldest stands at Navarre. He has built up an excellent trade in harness and all kinds of horse goods, and although he is nearly seventy years of age continues in the management of his affairs with the same alert energy and capacity that characterized his earlier efforts. Mr. Biddle was married in 1876 to Miss Catherine Westrich, who was horn in Holmes County, Ohio, and who died in 1882, leaving the following children : Mary Charlotte, who is the wife of Ernst Crawshaw, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has two children, LeRoy and 896 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Bernice; Perry, of Massillon, who married Clara Wilhelm and has one daughter, Mary ; Frances, who died in 1887 at the age of nine years; and Carrie, who is the wife of Louis Clauss, of Massillon, and has six children, Dorothy, Louis, Stephen, Elsworth, Aline and Leo. Always a public-spirited and energetic citizen, Mr. Biddle in 1902 was elected trustee of Bethlehem Township, and in 1906 was re-elected, serving two full terms. For one term he was out of office, and in 1912 was returned as a member of the board, but after one year resigned. He was not allowed to remain out of public life long, however, for in 1915 he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the board of trustees, and is still acting helpfully and efficiently in that capacity. He is a member of Saint Clement's Roman Catholic Church, and of the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association. JOHN F. BEDERMAN has long been a resident of Canton, having been a boy of but nine years of age when his parents came to Stark County from White Hall, Adams County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Joseph and Mary (Berkey) Bederman, both natives of the above-named locality. The year 1866 was the date of their location in Canton, where Joseph Bederman engaged in the trade of carpentering. His faithful helpmeet was called from this life very soon after coming to this city, but Mr. Bederman lived to the ripe age of eighty-five, being active in his vocation until the last ten years of his life. His earthly life closed in 1912. Both he and his wife were loyal members of the St. John's Roman Catholic Church. In the old Pennsylvania home at White Hall, John F. Bederman had been born on March 27, 1857. After the removal of the family to this city he attended the parochial schools of Canton, also later entering the high school of this place. Having from boyhood had an especial liking for and understanding of horses, it was natural that teaming should appeal to his boyish mind. In this capacity he was first engaged by John Newman, who formerly conducted the local transfer line; then by Henry Miller, in similar work. After this period of apprenticeship, as it might be called, Mr. Bederman established a transfer business for himself, running hacks to the railway stations, to the hotels and other points. After three years of this work, he sold out to Henry Miller and was for a time with the Palace Livery Company. He then became a member of the fire department, in which worthy line of activity it was his special responsibility to train the new teams acquired by the department. The first patrol wagon train was broken in by John Bederman as his next achievement. For seven and one-half years thereafter he acted as manager for Mrs. Elizabeth Harter, after which he was connected with the Palace Livery Stable. He next was engaged by Mrs. McKinley, and for one year had general charge of out-door affairs for that distinguished lady. It was at that time that he initiated the Canton delivery business, which he conducted for two and a half years, eventually selling out to Haymaker and Housel. The People's Express system owes its origin to the activity of Mr. Bederman, who sold it after three years of its management. He HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 897 then became a shareholder in the Canton Feed & Milling Company, and is now president of this company. He also established the elevator at Maximo, Ohio, where he has ever since been continuously engaged. On April 22, 1891 John Bederman married Miss Emma Stucker, a native of Canton Township, and the daughter of August and Marie (Stands) Stucker. Mr. Stucker, who is a native of Germany, came to America when he was but five years of age and has become a loyal citizen of this republic. He died in 1905, his widow still surviving him. Mr. and Mrs. Bederman are the parents of one son, Ray Arthur, now twenty-two years of age and a man of family. He married Miss Anna Miller, of Stark County. They have a little daughter, named Margaret. The family church affiliations are chiefly Lutheran, Mrs. John Bederman being a member of the Unity congregation of that denomination. Mr. and Mrs. Bederman reside at 611 Fifth Street Southwest. WILLIAM M. PILGRIM. As a young man this well known and representative citizen of Hartville, Stark County, learned the details of cheese manufacturing and became an expert in this line of enterprise. From association therewith he finally became identified with the modern creamery business, and he stands today as one of its prominent and influential exponents in the State of Ohio, as he is president of the Arnold Creamery Company, the headquarters of which are in the City of Cleveland, and also has charge of the entire field work of this progressive and important corporation, the operations of which extend over a wide field and the facilities of which in the equipment and work of its various plants are of the best modern type. Mr. Pilgrim has won advancement and prosperity through his own initiative and executive ability and as one of the highly esteemed citizens and substantial men of affairs in Stark County he is eminently entitled to recognition in this history. Mr. Pilgrim was born on a farm near the Village of Galesburg, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on the 16th of October, 1856, and is a son of John and Caroline (Everett) Pilgrim, both of whom were born and reared to adult age in England, whence, as young folk, they voyaged to the United States on the same vessel, Mrs. Pilgrim having accompanied her parents and her future husband having set forth for the United States in an independent way, for the purpose of seeking better opportunities for achieving success through his own efforts. The parents of Mrs. Pilgrim established their home in Portage County, Ohio, as did also Mr. Pilgrim, and in that county the marriage of the young couple was solemnized. Soon afterward Mr. and Mrs. Pilgrim removed to Michigan and there they finally made settlement on a farm in Kalamazoo County. He was a virtual pioneer in that fine county of the Wolverine State and the remainder of his active career was one of close identification with agricultural pursuits. Now venerable in years, he is living retired in the Village of Climax, Kalamazoo County, where he is honored as a sterling pioneer citizen, the long companionship that existed between him and his devoted wife having been broken by her death, on the 8th of April, 1914. William M. Pilgrim acquired his early education in the public schools 898 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY of his native county and there continued to be associated in the work of his father's farm until 1878, when he came to Ohio and entered the employ of a successful cheesemaker at Rootstown, Portage County. He continued this association for nearly sixteen years and in the meanwhile acquired a thorough knowledge of all details and processes pertaining to this line of industry. From Rootstown he went to Salem, Columbiana County, and assumed charge f a creamcry and farm. There he remained two years, and on the 1st of April, 1896, he came to Hartville, Stark County, to take the practical supervision of the cheese factory of H. L. Spelman. The business was developed into a creamcry under his direction and after continuing in charge of the enterprise for a period of eleven and one-half years he purchased the plant and business and converted the enterprise into a general creamery business. He later sold a half-interest to Charles L. Smith, and at the expiration of two years the business was sold to the Arnold Creamery Company, of Cleveland. which was reorganized at that time and in which Mr. Pilgrim became one of the leading stockholders. He was elected president of the company and also president of its board of directors, of which dual office he has since continued the progressive and valued incumbent, his assumption of the presidency of the corporation having occurred in 1912 and the business having been signally prospered under his administration. Mr. Pilgrim has the active supervision of all of the field work of the company, not only for its Hartville plant but also for those at Sherodsville, Carroll County, and in the City of Cleveland. His service in this capacity covers Summit, Portage, Mahoning, Columbiana, Stark, Tuscarawas, Carroll and Harrison counties, from each of which large supplies of cream are gathered, by fifty or more drivers of the creamery wagons, and this product is shipped by rail from different eligible points. All of the manufacturing is done in the Cleveland and Sherodsville plants and the Hartville and other minor plants are used for shipping and testing purposes. Mr. Pilgrim 's activities cover a wide field but he has not abated his allegiance to Hartville and has continuously maintained his home here, as a loyal and public-spirited citizen. He has served since 1912 as a member of the school board of Lake Township, his political allegiance is given to the republican party, and he is affiliated with the Knights of the Modern Maccabees, in the Hartville tent of which he has served as commander and also as record keeper. Mr. Pilgrim wedded Miss Georgiana Austin, of Portage County, and their only child, Robert, now has charge of the Sherodsville plant of the company of which his father is president. Robert Pilgrim married Miss Maude Snyder, of New Berlin, Stark County, and they have one daughter, Inez. MELVILLE GEORGE LIMBACH. With only thirty-one years of work behind him, Melville G. Limbach has achieved one of the important stations in Stark County business life. He is assistant secretary of the Griscomb-Russell Company of Massillon, and as the secretary of the company is a non-resident he is in responsible control of many of the affairs of that large industry. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 899 Born in Massillon August 21, 1884, he is a son of George and Catherine (Ehret) Limbach. His family have long been identified with Massillon, and his father, now deceased, was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1836, came to the United States in 1856, and died at Massillon in 1915. Catherine (Ehret) Limbach was born on a farm in Perry Township near Massillon, daughter of Ambrose Ehret, who was a native of Germany. She died in 1902. While the Limbachs were of the Evangelical Church faith, the Ehrets were Catholics. Melville George Limbach was educated in the Massillon public schools, graduating from the high school in 1901, and then while earning his way in day work he attended night school at Yocum's Business College, where he graduated in the commercial course in 1903. In 1901 his business career began with the Russell Engine Company in charge of the stock rooms. In 1903 he was made assistant to President Wales of that company, and so continued, gradually mastering many of the details of the company's management until 1912. In that year the Russell Engine Company became the Griscomb-Russell Company, and Mr. Limbach was then promoted to assistant secretary. While he is devoted to his business and home he is also known in social and civic circles of Massillon. He is a member of the Massillon Chamber of Commerce, and is affiliated with the Clinton Lodge No. 47, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Limbach married Edna M. Miller. She was born in Wooster, Ohio, daughter of Eli and Susan (Stephenson) Miller, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Ohio. The father is a contractor at Massillon. Mr. and Mrs. Limbach have one son, Lawrence, born July 8, 1910. CHARLES W. BENDER. An important figure in Canton's practical affairs is Charles W. Bender. who is the proprietor of extensive stone works located on Third Street where that busy thoroughfare is intersected by the Baltimore & Ohio Railway. For more than a quarter of a century Mr. Bender has been wcll known through his useful vocation and thus closely associated with the material development of Canton, to which thriving city his business now seems indispensable. For three generations the Bender family has been a part of Ohio's population. The founder of the family in America was Frederick Bender. who married Miss Weltha Stine and removed from his early industrious pioneers to whose character this state owes so much of its sterling worth. It was in Coshocton County that the family tree of the Bender race first took root. A son of this early settler was Augustus D. Bender, who married Miss Weltha Stine and removed from his early home to Fairview Township in Tuscarawas County. There they made their home and there Augustus Bender conducted thc activities of his vocation, which for many years was stone-cutting. For the last ten years of his life, however, he turned his attention to the oversight of his landed property, located a mile and a half from Mineral City, Ohio. Here Weltha Stine Bender passed from life and from her faithful ministrations to her family, in 1887. Her husband outlived her by eleven years, his death occurring in Mineral City at the age of fifty-nine years.