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His wife was also a native of Switzerland. Christian Creasy, Jr., father of Philip, was born in Canton Berne, Switzerland, and married Anna Weiss, a native of the same country and canton. The Weiss family came to the United States when she was a young girl, and Christian and Anna were married in Stark County. Christian Creasy learned the coopering and broom making trade in America, and followed both callings for a number of years. He was engaged in the business of making brooms at the time of his death. His home and factory were located on the edge of the Village of Beach City. His death occurred in 1906. His wife passed away August 3, 1881. They were reared in the faith of the Evangelical Church, but after the death of his wife Christian Creasy joined the United Brethren.
Philip Creasy was thirteen years old when his mother died. From that time forward he looked after himself and has been the architect of his own destiny. His education came from the rural schools and for a considerable part of his youth he worked in the employ of different farmers until he was twenty years of age. He then married and went into Tuscarawas County, where for two years he worked on what was known as the Beller ore hill in that county. He was then a practical farmer for five years and for one year was in the teaming industry. Returning to Beach City, he spent a year on a farm in this section, three years on a sawmill, and in 1898 he engaged in the retail grocery business. In 1910 Mr. Creasy sold out his grocery and for a couple of years was practically retired. In 1912 he bought Wilber Winfield's grocery store, and now has the leading grocery and notion stock in Beach City or in this section of the country.
Some of his time and energy have gone to public affairs and he has served as a member of the public school board, the village council, the board of health, and has refused election to the township treasuryship and clerkship and of mayor of the village. He is a member of Beach City Lodge No. 520, Knights of Pythias.
Mr. Creasy married Mary Wasem, who was born at Regersville, Tuscarawas County, daughter of Henry and Mary (Gribble) Wasem. Both her parents are now deceased. They have one son, Harry Louis, who was born at Regersville in Tuscarawas County May 12, 1891. He is a graduate of Beach City High School and took a course in the Canton Business College. He is now his father's chief assistant in the store at Beach City. The son is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.
JOSEPH F. MYERS. A large share of the business done at Beach City during the last fifteen or twenty years has been the product of the enterprise and energy of Joseph F. Myers. He has been a very effective factor in the life of the village and Sugar Creek Township, and is the type of citizen whose work is always of benefit to a larger circle than his own interests.
While not a native of Stark County, Mr. Myers was born On a farm in Franklin Township, Tusearawas County. His birth occurred September 23, 1873, and he is a son of George and Rosanna (Senf) Myers. His father was also born on a farm in Franklin Towrship in Tuscarawas County, and this family has been identified with Ohio since pioneer times.
PICTURE OF COLLINS M. HOOVER, M.D.
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The mother was born in Baden, Germany, and came across the ocean when a young girl, and she married Mr. Myers in New Bedford, Ohio. They went to housekeeping on the farm in Franklin Township of Tuscarawas County where Joseph F. Myers was born and where in 1873, a little more than a year later, the father passed away. The mother is now in her seventy-ninth year and lives at Strassburg, in Tuscarawas County.
It was in the environment of a farm that Joseph F. Myers grew to manhood. In his early life in Franklin Township of Tuscarawas County he had such advantages as could be supplied by the local schools, and was early inured to the discipline of farming. However, in 1898, at the age of twenty-five, he left the farm and moved to Beach City in Stark County. Here he,served a two years apprenticeship at the harness making trade under J. M. Ramsey. Having demonstrated his proficiency, Mr. Myers in 1900 bought a half interest in the business, which for the next two years was prosperously conducted under the firm name of Ramsey & Myers. In 1902 Mr. Myers made the next step of progress toward independence by buying the entire concern, and since then for a period of thirteen years this has been the chief harness shop in Sugar Creek Township, and has been conducted under his own name.
His enterprise branched out in a new direction in 1911, when he engaged in the automobile business, establishing a garage and service station under the name Beach City Motor Car Company. Mr. Myers himself owns the entire establishment, and is himself a master of automobile mechanism and maintains the highest standard of efficiency in the service. During the first year of the business he handled the Carter cars, but since then has had the exclusive agency of the Overland car, and has done a very satisfactory business in selling that well known standard automobile. He is also interested in the Mutual Motor Sales Company of Cleveland.
While Mr. Myers is a member of the democratic party and takes an interest in public affairs, he has never been a seeker for office. However, his work as a citizen has been so well recognized, that for two terms he served as treasurer of Sugar Creek Township, as the choice of his fellow citizens. Mr. Myers married Grace E. Bash, who was born in Franklin Township of Tuscarawas County, daughter of Joseph Bash. They are the parents of one son, Joseph Wayne, who was born September 13, 1905. Mr. and Mrs. Myers are members of the Lutheran Church.
COLLINS M. HOOVER, M. D. When a citizen of any community has lived to the age of nearly three-quarters of a century, maintaining through all vicissitudes an unblemished character, faithfully meeting the obligations incident to his lot, adhering strictly to the ethics of a learned and honored profession, patriotically defending the flag of his country in its time of need and displaying commendable public spirit in times of peace, and discharging with manly fidelity the duties incumbent upon him in all the relations of life, it is a pleasing task to place the story of his career in an enduring form. The foregoing lines apply with obvious pertinence to one of the most highly respected citizens and eminent physicians of Stark County, Dr. Collins M. Hoover, of Alliance.
Doctor Hoover was born at Limaville, Stark County, Ohio, January
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30, 1842, and is a son of Elias and Catherine (Reymer) Hoover, and a grandson of Judge John B. and Rebecca (Baughman) Hoover. John B. Hoover was born June 6, 1780, and with his brothers moved in 1833 to the old Harrisburg Road, two miles from Louisville and seven miles east of Canton. There he continued to be engaged in farming during the remainder of his life, and became one of the well-known and influential men of his community, serving for several years as judge of the Court of Common Pleas during the early days. He married Rebecca Baughman, who was born February 7, 1779, and they became the parents of the following children: Mary, born June 6, 1805; Rebecca, born December 13, 1806; Esther, born May 9, 1808; Elias, born October 28, 180.), the father of Doctor Hoover; Catherine, born May 19, 1811; Anna, born January 31, 1813; John B., born February 7, 1815, who was a carpenter at Canton but subsequently moved to the West, where he died ; .Jacob B., born March 25, 1817, who owned for some years the old Judge John B. Hoover farm near Louisville, but removed to Waterloo, Indiana, selling the old farm after it had been in the family for sixty years; Elizabeth, born April 2, 1819 ; Henry, born December 23, 1820, who died while on a trip overland to California during the gold excitement of 1849; and Lucy, born May 5, 1823. By a second marriage the grandfather of Doctor Hoover had three daughters: Lucinda, born August 4, 1828; Malinda, born September 22, 1830; and Lydia, horn September 26, 1832.
Elias Hoover was born October 28, 1809, on the old homestead of his father, near Louisville, and received his education in the public schools. When he was a youth his father presented him with $50, with which the young man learned the fuller's trade at Columbiana, Ohio, where he met and married Catherine Reymer, who was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1813. ' Her father, a tailor by trade, was also a teacher of the English and German languages, and during his early life in Pennsylvania had experienced the blockhouse period during the disturbances of the Indians. When he brought his family to Ohio he located in Columbiana County, but he and his wife both died at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, at Louisville, where Mr. Reymer died at the age of eighty-two years, and the grandmother when seventy-five years of age.
After his marriage, Elias Hoover established a fulling mill at Marlboro, Stark County, with old tramp power, making rolls, flannels, etc., but soon found that he must have additional power and accordingly moved to Limaville, where, on a tract of fifteen acres, he built a large dam on Deer Creek. His plant carded rolls and made flannels, satinets and cassimeres, running day and night and employing several men, and enjoying a large business until the eastern factories took away the trade with their better facilities and cheaper labor. Mr. Hoover sold his power to John H. Weare, who converted the mill into a furniture factory. the original dam also giving power to other plants in the vicinity. When he retired from the milling business Mr. Hoover purchased 160 acres of land in Smith Township, Mahoning County, about 1854. and this continued to be his home until the year 1863. when he moved to another property near North Benton. In 1868, in order to give his children better educational advantages, he moved to Mount Union, Stark County.
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Finally he moved to Canfield, and there he died May 17, 1881, aged seventy-one years, six months, three days, while Mrs. Hoover passed away September 24, 1888, aged seventy-five years and several months. Mr. Hoover was a class leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church for many years. In politics he was originally a democrat, but later allied himself with the republican party. The children born to Elias and Catherine Hoover were as follows: Susanna, born July 24, 1835, the wife of Daniel Millard, of Topeka, Kansas; Rebecca, horn August 4, 1837, who married John H. Ward, a merchant at Berlin Centre, Ohio, both being deceased ; Matilda, who died in childhood; Collins M., of this review ; Winfield, born December 29, 1845, who died in youth ; Sarah P., born April 5, 1851, the wife of W. H. Kyle, an electrician of Alliance; and Hosea H., born November 8, 1853, a miner of Nome, Alaska, who went from Cripple Creek to the Klondike and has been successful in his operations.
Collins M. Hoover received his early education in the public school at New Lisbon, and this was supplemented by attendance at Mount Union College, after graduating from which he taught school for several years. He next entered mercantile lines, as a clerk in a store at Massillon, Ohio, and was thus engaged at the time of his enlistment, in 1864, in Company A, One Hundred and Sixty-second Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a new regiment, for service during the Civil war. The regiment was recruited largely in Stark County, under Colonel Ball, and was detailed to patrol service at Todd's Barracks, subsequently being frequently sent to conduct prisoners and service of a similar nature. This service left lasting effects upon Mr. Hoover's health. On his return from the war he settled at North Benton, where he was married February 22, 1866, to Miss Sarah Miller, a member of a family of Revolutionary stock, whose father was a major in the old state militia and an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and two of whose brothers served in the Union army during the Civil war, one being shot at Perryville, Kentucky, and the other being in the service under Gen. Phil Sheridan.
Following his marriage, Collins M. Hoover opened a provision store at Columbiana, but after two years there moved back to the Miller farm, on which he resided while reading medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. W. K. Hughes, now deceased. He next entered Western Reserve University, from which he was graduated in the class of 1874, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, but he did not cease his studies at that time, for he has been a close observer of the advancement made in his profession, and in 1885 spent some time in post-graduate work in the hospitals of New York. He began the practice of his profession at North Benton, and continued there until 1890, when he came to Alliance, leaving a practice which had grown too heavy for him, although he had two partners there to assist him. At Alliance he is enjoying a large and representative practice, and is liberal in his views as a physician, freely consulting with graduates of any school. With the exception of two others, he is the oldest physician in point of service at Alliance, and is the oldest in age of any practitioner here. For nineteen years he has been physician at Fairmount Children's Home, near Alliance, where his ministrations have made him greatly beloved. He holds
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membership in the Stark County Medical Society, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He maintains an office at Alliance and has a broad and general medical practice, although in his younger years he devoted much of his attention to the practice of surgery. Politically, Doctor Hoover is a republican. He has long been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a member of the official board and has on various occasions been a delegate to general conferences. Formerly a member of Kirkbride Post of Berlin Centre, Grand Army of the Republic, he now holds membership in John C. Fremont Post, at Alliance. He also is a member of the Country Club and others, and in social, professional and business circles has numerous warm friends and admirers.
Four children were born to Dr. and Mrs. Hoover, the latter of whom died September 18, 1909, when but one day less than sixty-eight years of age. Elsie Addie is the wife of Dr. W. A. Hobbs, a medical practitioner of East Liverpool, Ohio; Dr. Delbert Elias, a graduate of the Western Reserve University, and of German and Austrian institutions, is engaged in a medical practice at Warren, Ohio ; Dr. Charles Steven, who studied medicine two years in Germany and is also a graduate of the Western Reserve University, has a large and representative practice at Alliance; and Nancy Catherine is the wife of Fred C. Valentine, a merchant at Alliance.
WILBER WINFIELD. To follow the career of Wilber Winfield since he became identified with Beach City twenty-five years ago, is to trace out the record of a progressive and successful citizen, one who has carried on several different lines of business and who is now performing a useful service to the community as postmaster.
While not a native of Stark County, Mr. Winfield was horn at Garretsville in Portage County, Ohio, January 14, 1869, a son of Butler and Mary (Houseman) Winfield. His parents were likewise natives of Ohio, having been born in Trumbull County, the Winfields being from New Jersey and the Housemans having come from Pennsylvania. Butler Winfield spent all his active career as a farmer in Portage County, where he died at the age of fifty-four in 1890. The mother died in Trumbull County in 1896, aged sixty-three. Both were members of the Congregational Church.
Growing up on a farm, Wilber Winfield had such discipline as is given to farmer boys, and also had opportunities to gain a fairly liberal education. From his eleventh to his twentieth year he went to school during the winter, and spent most of his time in the summer as a worker in stone quarries. He finished his education in the high school at Garretsville. He then secured a teacher's certificate and spent one year in managing a country school.
It was in 1890 that Mr. Winfield came to Beach City. He leased a stone quarry, and for the next sixteen years quarried large amounts of stone for the market. His next venture was the buying of a retail grocery store, and he put his stock in a substantial stone building he erected and for eight years sold groceries to a large and increasing trade. On May 23, 1914, he was appointed under Civil Service rules as postmaster of
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Beach City, and on July 1, 1914, he was appointed to the office by the President, the Beach City postoffice in the meantime having been raised from fourth to third class.
At the same time Mr. Winfield has played other parts in local affairs and served as a member of the village council and village school board. For eight years he was a member of the Democratic Central Committee. He is a charter member of Beach City Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, in which he has filled all the chairs and has sat as a delegate to the Grand Lodge.
The mother of his three children before her marriage was Carrie Kaldenbach, who was born in Stark County, daughter of William Kaldenbach. They are the parents of three sons!. Ralph, Herbert and Harold. Herbert was graduated from the Beach City High School in 1915 and is a member of the Massillon City High School class of 1916.
DAVID C. RICKARD. Anyone acquainted with those industrial activities which are especially conspicuous in Bethlehem Township knows the personality and the dealings of David C. Rickard, whose position has been one of assured influence and prosperity in that locality for a number of years. Fundamentally Mr. Rickard is a farmer, but has built up an extensive business as a stock dealer, and from time to time various honors have come from his fellow citizens in the way of public office. He is now trustee of the township.
His birth occurred June 29, 1870, on the farm where he still resides, a mile and a half west of the Village of Navarre. His parents were Almond and Catherine (Burkholder) Rickard. His father was born in Navarre of Irish parents while the mother was born south of the village and both the Rickard and Burkholder families were among the early settlers of Bethlehem Township. The father died in 1905 and the mother in 1912.
While growing up on the old homestead David C. Rickard secured a substantial education in the rural schools. Nearly all his life has been spent on the farm where he was born, and he early became acquainted with its management and has cultivated a great many crops in successive seasons. For a number of years he has been known as the largest buyer and shipper of live stock in this part of the county. He buys cattle, sheep, hogs, ships to Cleveland and Pittsburg markets and has developed an extensive acquaintance in a number of stock growing localities, where his name is a synonym of fair dealing and reliable performance.
For several years he has been prominent in Bethlehem Township affairs. In 1911 he was elected trustee of the township, was re-elected in 1913 and again in 1915, and in the last election his name led the party ticket. He is also a member of the Knights of the Maccabees and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics.
JOSIAH B. EBERLY. The election of Josiah B. Eberly in 1915 as president of the Stark County Agricultural Society brought into a pleasant position of prominence and honor one of the best known agriculturists of the county, and long an influential factor in the rural and
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civic development of the community around Beach City. His name has been closely associated with nearly every important movement in this section and in fact over the county at large for the improvement of rural conditions.
A native son of Stark County, Mr. Eberly was born on the old Eberly farm in Bethlehem Township September 11, 1856. He is descended from two of the very old families who located in that part of Stark County in pioneer times. His father, the late Joseph Eberly, was a native of Berks County, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1806 of German parents. He located in Bethlehem Township of Stark County in 1843, and thenceforward to the end of his days was a very successful farmer and a man of highest standing. He was a birthright member of the Society of Friends, and that religious belief prevailed with him throughout his life. Originally a whig in politics, he became a republican upon the birth of that party during the '50s and was a warm admirer and supporter of its principles. He could not be called a politician, though he held such a position of influence in his party and in the community that he had much to do with shaping affairs in Bethlehem Township. He lived to be more than fourscore years of age, and passed away in 1887, secure in the honor and affection of his fellow men.
Joseph Eberly was three times married. His first wife was Sarah Hoffman, and her two sons, John and George, both sacrificed themselves on the altar of their country during the Civil war. John, the older, volunteered in the Thirtieth Indiana Regiment of Volunteers and died of typhoid fever at Louisville, Kentucky, during the winter of 1861. George saw service in the Eighteenth Regiment of Ohio Infantry, was wounded at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1862, and after a lingering illness and suffering due to these wounds he died in 1864. The second wife of Joseph Eberly was Catherine Bretz. She was born in Tuscarawas Township of Stark County in 1818, and that date serves to establish the very early residence of the Bretz family in this locality. Her father, John Bretz, was not only one of the first to locate in the wilderness of Tuscarawas Township as it was at that time, but he was subsequently a man of influence in the county, and served for several years as a member of the hoard of county commissioners. He was a member of that body when the second courthouse was built at Canton. Mrs. Catherine (Bretz) Eberly died in 1858, leaving three sons and three daughters, namely: Philip, who was born on the Eberly farm and resides in Bethlehem Township Mary, who lives with her brother Philip, being unmarried ; Sarah, now de. ceased, who married Edward Young; Susan, who married Jacob Bona. way ; David, deceased, who was a farmer and whose widow lives in Navarre, and their son Arthur, who is now about thirty years of age, has done some work at an experimental farm two and a half miles southeast of Navarre; and Josiah B., who is the youngest of the family.
Josiah B. Eberly was reared on the old homestead where he first saw the light of clay, and acquired an education in the district schools, in the Smithville High School and finished at Mount Union College. After gaining all the advantages he could from home and school, he started in to render service on his own account, and he was first known
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as a successful teacher. For twelve years he taught in the townships of Bethlehem, Sugar Creek and Pike, and during that time spent each summer in assisting to carry on the home farm.
For the past thirty-five years Mr. Eberly's activities have been centered in Sugar Creek Township. In 1881 he bought the George May farm, one mile from Beach City, and has lived at that place ever since. There are a great many things to Mr. Eberly's credit besides his prosperity as an individual farmer. He was one of the men who were influential in having established the rural mail delivery in the county, upwards of twelve years ago now, and from 1904 to 1911 he himself conducted one of the rural mail routes.
His relations with the Stark County Agricultural Society cover a period of many years. In 1908 he was chosen a member of the board of directors, and then in 1915 was installed in his present office as president. He has also been identified with the Patrons of Husbandry or the Grange since 1892. He was the first master of Pomona Grange, the county organization, after it was reorganized in 1901, and is still identified with this movement. He has been secretary of the Stark County Patrons Mutual Insurance Company, a prosperous company whose clients are located in ten counties of Ohio. Mr. Eberly is now giving much attention to the movement for organizing a farm bureau and securing a county farm agent for Stark County, thus placing the broad experience and the many facilities of the Federal agricultural department directly to the benefit of the individual farmers in this locality. He has also been greatly interested in the affairs of the Stark County Horticultural Society and is a member and regularly attends its monthly meetings. Several local offices have also been filled by this worthy citizen. He was justice of the peace in Sugar Creek Township for seven years and assessor two years. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias and has passed all the chairs of the Beach City Lodge.
On September 23, 1880, Mr. Eberly married Miss Minerva Knepper. She was born on the farm adjoining her present home, being the daughter of Godfrey and Mary (Sprankle) Knepper, both of whom were born in Pennsylvania and were early settlers in Sugar Creek Township, where her father died in 1876 and her mother in 1897. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Eberly were born five children. Benjamin G., the oldest, did his part during the Spanish-American war, having served in Company E of the Forty-second Regiment of the United States Volunteers and spending two years in the Philip- pine Islands; he is now a rural mail carrier on Route No. 1 out of Beach City. Benjamin Eberly married Martha Mann, and their four children are Margaret, William, Harry and Hilda. The younger children of Mr. and Mrs. Eberly are: Elmer I., who died in infancy ; M. Grace, who married Guy Williamson and they reside on the old Knepper home farm; E. May, who died in February, 1911, at the age of twenty-two; and Charles D., who is still single and lives at home.
GEORGE L. SMITH. The chief lumber business, both manufacturing and distributing, at Beach City is that controlled and directed by
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George L. Smith. Mr. Smith has been more or less actively connected with the lumber industry as a practical sawmill man for more than thirty years. He has also been a farmer, and is a man of affairs, and conducts a very prosperous and flourishing business at Beach City.
His birth occurred April 2, 1849, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, near the Columbia County line. His parents were William and Catherine (Belles) Smith, both also natives of Luzerne County. The father was born in 1825 and died in 1900, and the mother was born in 1827 and died in 1903. William Smith was a farmer by occupation, and after living for a number of years in Luzerne County he moved into Columbia County four miles from the county line, and the home he established there was the residence of himself and wife until their death. Both were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
While growing up on the Pennsylvania farm, George L. Smith acquired an education in the public schools. Up to his twenty-second year he was his father's assistant farmer. At that time he and his uncle Thomas H. Smith rented a farm together and while conducting it they also operated a sawmill for two years. After that George L. Smith was an independent farmer in Pennsylvania until 1883.
In that year he came to Ohio and settled on a farm in Holmes County. Here too he conducts a sawmill. Mr. Smith is a very practical man in mechanical affairs and that combined with good business judgment has brought him his chief success. In 1890 from Holmes County he moved to Summit County, and becoming proprietor of a sawmill conducted it until 1897. The supply of native timber then being exhausted in the vicinity of the mill he moved the plant to Baltic in Tuscarawas County. Here he continued the mill's operations for three or four years.
For the last fifteen years Mr. Smith has been chiefly identified with the milling and lumber business in Tuscarawas and Stark County. For several years he was proprietor of a planing mill at Sugar Creek in Tuscarawas County. In 1905 he removed his sawmill to Sugar Creek Township in Stark County and subsequently established his planing mill at Beach City. The planing mill he afterwards sold, but in the meantime he had established a lumber yard and still later he added a planing plant and at the present time is manufacturing and selling lumber to a large trade territory surrounding Beach City.
Mr. Smith first married Mary Evaline Peterman. She was born in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Peterman. Her death occurred in October, 1894. On April 11, 1901, Mr. Smith married Margaret Catherine Everhart. She was born in Coshocton County, Ohio, February 27, 1864, daughter of Samuel and Clarinda (Hoobler) Everhart. Her father was a native of Coshocton County and died in 1913, while her mother was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, and died in 1908. Mrs. Smith was first married in 1885 to Wilberforce Vaughn. He was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, son of Joseph W. Vaughn. Joseph W. Vaughn was for many years a teacher and later for ten years was a successful lawyer at Canton, but now lives retired on his farm about three miles from Hartville, Stark County. Mrs. Smith by her first marriage had two daughters: Hilda Leola, the older, born June
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29, 1893, acquired an education in the Beach City High School and in Wooster University, and is now a successful teacher in the village schools of New Baltimore, Stark County. Helen Leona, the younger daughter, born January 11, 1895, married Dale Gilmore of Beach City, and they have a daughter Hilda Marcel, born January 23, 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Smith by their marriage have one son, Freas Lewellen, who was born in Sugar Creek, Tuscarawas County, August 1, 1903.
Mr. Smith's civic record has largely consisted in a public spirited attitude toward all improvements and betterment in the communities where he has had his home. Since coming to Beach City he has served six years as a member of the city council. Politically he is a liberal democrat. He was reared in the Methodist faith, but now with his wife belongs to the Lutheran Church.
ALLIANCE BRICK COMPANY. Founded and incorporated in 1909, the Alliance Brick Company, of Alliance, has proved one of the influential agencies in giving prestige to this community as an important manufacturing center. It began operations in May, 1910, with a capital of $125,000, and under the capable and progressive management of its founders, Ross Rue and F. A. Hoiles, has steadily developed to such proportions that its products are in demand from the Atlantic Coast to Omaha, including the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, and various important southern points. The plant occupies a tract of eighty-three acres, with sixteen thirty and thirty-six foot kilns, and its daily output is 70,000 brick. Both clay and shale are used in the manufacture of face brick. Sixty men are employed, and the most modern machinery and equipment are used, these being operated by steam power, the company owning its own steam plant.
Hon. F. A. Hoiles, president and manager of the Alliance Brick Company, has led a career which has included activities as teacher, author, editor, business man and public servant, in each of which fields he has won recognition and material success. He belongs to a family which has resided in Stark County from the earliest pioneer days, and was born in 1866 on a farm near the present site of the Fairmount Children's Home, five miles south of Alliance. His grandfather, a ' pioneer of 'Stark County, located on a property which is now partly owned by the Alliance Clay Product Company, just southeast of the city, while the remainder is still owned by F. A. Hoiles and his brothers, the property having been in the family name since 1848. There was born F. A. Hoiles' father, S. H. Hoiles, who married Miss A. P. Ladd and settled upon the farm adjoining the present site of the Children's Home, where he and the mother passed the remainder of their lives in the pursuits of the soil. Both are deceased.
After attending the district schools of Stark County, F. A. Hoiles entered Mount Union College, although he did not complete any definite course at that institution. At the age of nineteen years he began teaching school, and so continued for seven years, and the records of the county school superintendent show that when he was twenty-one years of age he was given a five-year state certificate, the only one ever granted to so young a teacher in Stark County. Having given special
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attention to the principles of arithmetic, and realizing that the text books in use were lacking in clarity and elaborateness of explanation, Mr. Hoiles began the arrangement of those principles, with complete illustrations, and so well and comprehensively was this work done, that he not only used it successfully in his own work, but yielded to a general call and published it as a teacher's help. This work became exceedingly popular, especially as a guide to young teachers, and such a demand was created that it has now run through five editions. Mr. Hoiles also became the author of a history based on similar ideas.
This authorship and publication led Mr. Hoiles to learn and become identified with the printing business, purchasing an interest in the Alliance Review December 1, 1894. He had previously learned every detail of the printer's art—this being but an illustration of the thoroughness with which he attacks every problem presented to him-and there is at present no position in the printing office that he cannot acceptably fill. For eight years he continued as the manager of the Review. and at the end of that period entered the editorial sanctum and continued there for a like period. He still retains his interest in that publication, its business activity being largely directed by him. In 1901 the present plant was erected, which is as perfect and complete in every detail as may be found in any city with less than 50.000 population. At the twentieth anniversary banquet of Mr. Hoiles' management, given by him to his employes, there were present several who had been with the paper fifteen years, and at least six who had been connected therewith for twenty years. In that time the value and business of the paper had quadrupled, although the population of the city had but doubled during the same length of time. Ever an advocate of better things, the expressions of the Review have consistently stood for advancement in public and private life.
In 1903 Mr. Hoiles was chosen to a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, and served in the sessions of 1904. 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908. He was a member of the finance committee during this entire period and for two sessions was chairman of the taxation committee, this being during a period of the greatest activity in the temperance agitation, the Akin $1,000 Tax Bill beirg referred to the tax committee. The majority therein was against the proposition to advance the saloon license from $350 to $1,000, but by Mr. Hoiles' efforts this bill was taken from the committee, and to the great surprise the bill was passed and stands as a law today. His was the deciding vote in reporting the bill hack to the House. By its working, saloons in Ohio have decreased 27 per cent, while the revenue therefrom to the state has increased in about the same proportion.
As a business man, Mr. Hoiles is held in the highest esteem by his associates and his methods have ever been straightforward, above board and notable for their integrity. He has lorg been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and at this time holds a position on its official board.
In 1887 Mr. Hoiles was married to Miss Mattie Guthrie, who died in January, 1904, without issue. In 1905 Mr. Hoiles was married to
PICTURE OF FRANK TRANSUE
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Miss Alice C. Jones, of Delaware, Ohio, and they have four living children, namely: Arthur, Winifred, Margaret and Samuel.
FRANK TRANSUE. An enormous amount of dynamic force and initiative ability has been expended in connection with the development and upbuilding of Alliance as one of the important industrial and commercial centers of the Buckeye State, and in the furtherance of this advancement large and important influence has been wielded by Frank Transue, who has long been known as one of the city's representative citizens and men of affairs and whose more noteworthy interests are those implied in his tenure of the office of president of the Transue & Williams Drop Forging Company, one of the leading industrial concerns of Alliance, and of that of president of the Alliance Bank Company, controlling one of the solid and admirably managed financial institutions of the state. As a citizen Mr. Transue has always proved distinctively broad-minded, loyal and progressive, and his high standing in Stark County makes it virtually imperative, as well as a matter of consistency, that he be accorded recognition in this history.
Mr. Transue views with due satisfaction the fact that he can revert to Ohio as the place of his nativity, and he is a scion of a family whose name has been long and worthily identified with the annals of this great commonwealth of the Middle West. Mr. Transue was born at North Benton, Mahoning County, on the 17th of June, 1842, and is the second in order of birth of the four children of Samuel and Margaret (Santee) Transue, the only other survivor of the four being his sister, Mary IL, who is the widow of Alvin Stone and who maintains her home in Alliance. Reuben, eldest of the children, represented Ohio as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war and sacrificed his life at the battle of 'Chickamauga. The other brother, John, died in infancy.
Samuel Transue was born and reared in Pennsylvania, in which state the family waS founded in the early colonial epoch of our national history. the name having long been one of special prominence in the vicinity of Lancaster, in which section of the old Keystone State there have lived numerous representatives of this family, the lineage of which is traced back to sterling French origin. In his native state Samuel Transue acquired in his youth proficiency at the tailor's trade, and as a young man he came to Ohio and established his residence at North Benton, Mahoning County, where he engaged in the tailoring business in an independent way and where he continued successfully identified with this line of enterprise until 1852, besides having served several years as postmaster at North Benton, where he was an honored and influential citizen in the early pioneer (lays and where his marriage had been solemnized within a short time after he had there established his home. In the year last mentioned Samuel Transue removed with his family to Alliance, Stark County, the place having at that time been a mere village and the section where he located having borne the name of Freedom, this being now an integral part of the City of Alliance. Here Mr. Transue continued in the work of his trade, and in 1859 he became a member of the firm of Transue & Such, which opened a well equipped tailoring establishment in the business center of the ambitious
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little city. When his two surviving sons enlisted for service in the Civil war the family home was broken up, and Samuel Transue retired from active business, finally returning to Pennsylvania, where he also entered the government service, as an attache of the commissary department, at Harrisburg, the capital of the state, his wife and daughter having in the meanwhile remained in Alliance, to which place he returned after the close of his service in behalf of the cause of the Union. His wife died shortly afterward—in the following year—her birth having occurred in Mahoning County, this state, and her age at the time when she passed to the life eternal having been fifty-six years. Soon after meeting this maximum bereavement of his life Samuel Transue removed to Akron, Summit County, where eventually was solemnized his marriage to a Mrs. McMasters, the one child of this union being Nellie, who is now the wife of Harvey Caldwell, of Oil City, Pennsylvania. Samuel Transue passed the residue of his long and worthy life at Akron, whore he died on the 4th of March, 1892, at the age of seventy-seven yearso his widow surviving him by about eighteen months. Concerning this sterling pioneer the following consistent statements have been written and they are well worthy of perpetuation in this connection : "Samuel Transue was a man of strong mentality and marked individuality. While never an aspirant for office, he became influential in the councils of the Know- Nothing party and later in those of the Whig party, with which he remained identified until the organization of the Republican party. when he became a sturdy advocate of the principles of the latter. He was true and upright in all of the relations of life and his name merits enduring place on the roll of the honored pioneers of Ohio, his influence having been potent and benignant, though he never sought publicity or high estate."
Frank Transue acquired his early education in the schools of his native place and Alliance, to which latter embryonic city his parents removed when he was a lad of about ten years. At the age of sixteen years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of machinist, in the shops of the Fisher & Shallters Company, at Alliance, with which concern he remained for several years after the completion of his apprenticeship, with incidental reputation as a skilled and reliable artisan. When the dark cloud of the Civil war spread its pall over the national horizon, he promptly subordinated all other interests to go forth in defense of the Union. In 1861, in response to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers, Mr. Transue enlisted as a private in Company Thirteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, for a term of three months. His term of enlistment expired, however, before his regiment reached the front, and he consequently resumed the work of his trade. In 1863 Mr. Transue went to Galion, Crawford County, where he was employed about one year in the shops of the Bellefontaine & Indianapolis Railroad, now a portion of the Big Four system. On severing this connection he returned to Alliance, where he remained until 1865, when he went to Kent, Portage County, to assume a pcsition in the shops of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, now known as the Erie Railroad. He was thus engaged about three years and then returned to Alliance, where he accepted a position with the Nixon Company, succeSsor of the company
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in whose shops he had served his apprenticeship. In 1872 the company failed in business and Mr. Transue then went to Massillon, this county, to supervise the installation and placing in operation of the machinery in the establishment of the C. Russell Company, manufacturers of threshing-machine teeth. He remained until the plant was in good working order and then returned to Alliance, where he entered the employ of the Stark Manufacturing Company, which had been organized after the failure of the Nixon Company. Concerning this new company it may be said that it did not long survive its incipiency and that J. S. Craft soon assumed control, immediately after which action he purchased also the old tow-mill plant at Freedom, as that section of the city was still known. Concerning further forward steps in the career of Mr. Transue, whose life has been one of close application and indefatigable industry, there can be no impropriety in making quotation from a preivously written article: "At this juncture Mr. Transue practically gave inception to his independent career. He entered into a contract with Mr. Craft, who supplied the material and delivered the same to the factory, while upon Mr. Transue devolved the responsibility of turning out the finished products at a stipulated price. In 1879 he became associated with Dr. Johnson Armstrong in the purchase of the plant and business, and the enterprise was continued under the name of the Keystone Spike Company, the products being teeth for threshing machines, as well as general forging. Mr. Transue now assumed the entire management of the business, and through his wise and discriminating efforts the enterprise was materially advanced in scope and importance, finally becoming one of the substantial industries of the State. In 1887 the firm sold the plant to the Whitman-Barnes Company, at that time a Canton concern but now at Akron, a stipulation in connection with the sale being that Mr. Transue should continue as superintendent for one year. At the expiration of this period Mr. Transue returned from Canton to Alliance, where somewhat later he accepted a position in the experimental department of the Solid Steel Casings Company. In 1892 he directed the assembling of an exhibit for this company and took the same to the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, where he had charge of the exhibit during the progress of the great exposition of 1893. After his return from Chicago he resumed his experimental work in the interests of this company, but about six months later its interests were absorbed by a syndicate and Mr. Transue severed his connection with the business. Later he became associated with Silas J. Williams in the organization of the Alliance Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of stump- pullers, heaving, dragging machinery and other special products, but the venture did not prove a financial success and was abandoned. In 1895 the Transue & Williams Company was incorporated, its organization having occurred about a year previously, for the manufacture of drop forgings of all kinds. The company began operations in the old Nixon shops, but with the rapid expansion of the business these quarters soon proved entirely inadequate, and in 1898 the ground waS broken for the present large and finely equipped plant, which was completed in the spring of the following year. Since that time the shops have been in operation, most of the time both day and night, in order to keep pace
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with the demands of the trade, the while employment is given to a corps of about 250 workmen, a fact that shows that the industry is one which has distinctive value to the city aside from the direct financial transactions implied in the sale of its products. Mr. Transue has been president of the company from the tIme of its incorporation, and the other members of the executive corps are as here noted : Silas J. Williams, vice-president; James M. Seymour, secretary-treasurer; and Oliver F. Transue, general manager." It may further be said that this admirable industrial enterprise has shown a constantly cu mulative tendency and that its affairs have been managed with great circumspection under the executive administration of Mr. Transue, who combines technical ability with careful yet progressive business policies and whose course as a business man and a citizen has been so guided and governed that he has merited and received unqualified popular confidence and esteem.
For many years Mr. Transue has been a valued member of the directorate of the Alliance Bank Company, known as ode of the stanchest financial institutions of Stark County ; in 1899 he was elected its vice president; and he has served as its president for about eight years, with secure reputation as an able and reliable executive and judicious financier.
On the 6th of May, 1903, Mr. Transue was appointed one of the three members of the Alliance board of public works, for a term of two years, and in this position his services proved of great value to the city, owing to his broad knowledge of mechanical subjects and his earnest desire to do all in his power for the furtherance of the best interests of his home city. He served two terms as a member of the city council and for several years was a member of the board of education. In politics Mr. Transue gives his unfaltering allegiance to the republican party, and in a fraternal way he is identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Honor and the Royal Arcanum. He is now one of the veteran business men of Alliance and is a citizen whose circle of friends is virtually coincident with that of his acquaintances.
On the 19th of February, 1863, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Transue to Miss Amanda J. Aultman, who was born and reared at Alliance and who was a daughter of the late Jacob Aultman, who was for many years one of the prominent manufacturers and influential citizens of Stark County. Mrs. Amanda Transue died February 3, 1910. Mr. and Mrs. Transue had four children : Minnie B. is the wife of Frank Kingsbury, connected with the Transue & Williams Company; Oliver F. is general manager of this company, as previously noted ; and Charles R. and William H. likewise are actively identified with the affairs of this company, of which their father is the president. On the 15th of May, 1913, Mr. Transue was married to Miss Ellen E. Esterly, a native of Ohio and daughter of S. J. and Rachel (Longanecker) Esterly, both also natives of Ohio.
BENJAMIN F. STANTON. Among the men of the Middle West, the name of the prosperous and cultured State of Ohio is associated mentally with culture, courtesy and intellectual gifts. From it have gone forth men who have achieved national prominence, as statesmen and
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in the professions; its sons, in whatever community found are men of worth and standing. To the cause of education it is producing men of talent and zeal, who are earnestly striving for the attainment of higher standards, and in this latter class may be numbered Benjamin F. Stanton, superintendent of the public schools of Alliance.
Mr. Stanton is descended on both sides of the family from old and sturdy New England stock, his grandparents migrating from Connecticut to Ohio in the early part of the ninteenth century. He is a product of the farm, having been born on his father's homestead in Ashtabula County, and his early education was secured in the public schools of his native locality. This was followed by attendance at Oberlin College, where he was graduated in 1896, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and lie next further advanced his training by a course at Harvard University, where he was given the degree of Master of Arts in 1900. Mr. Stanton did not cease to be a student at that time, however, for his advanced preparation included one summer at the Chicago University and four summers of special work at the University of Michigan. After his work at Harvard he entered upon his career as an educator as principal of the high school at Salem, Ohio, where he remained from 1900 to 1909, then becoming superintendent of schools at Ashland, Kentucky, a position which he held from 1909 until 1913. In the latter year Mr. Stanton was induced to come to Alliance as superintendent of the public schools, and here has continued to the present time. He has worked conscientiously and industriously to make this one of the best school systems in the state, and the force of his efforts has been apparent in the elevation of school standards.
Mr. Stanton has for some time been engaged in summer school work, having been a teacher in the summer school at Wooster University during 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1912 and 1914. His services as a lecturer are greatly in demand by teachers' institutes, and his ability in this line has also led him into chautauqua work, he having been engaged therein in Iowa during the summer of 1909 and on the Pacific Coast in 1913. As a citizen Mr. Stanton has taken a foremost part in advancing the interests of Alliance, and may always be found supporting movements which promise civic betterment.
VINCENT L. FISHEL. One of the oldest families in Northeastern Ohio is represented by this prominent young attorney of Alliance. More than a century has passed since his ancestors came over from the eastern states and founded homes and cleared up sections of the wild land in the eastern part of Ohio.
About 1805-06 Henry Fishel came from Frederick County, Maryland. to West Point in Columbiana County, Ohio. He was a millwright, and is said to have built several of the early mills in and around Columbiana County. At least two of his sons were in the War of 1812. One of them died while returning from the campaign on the Maumee, the other, Frederick, came with his father Henry in 1814 to Carroll County, Ohio, locating in Brown Township, a mile and a half southwest of Minerva. He died at Minerva in 1872. His wife was a Clark, whose father was a pioneer in Ohio and is said to have entered
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the land office to file on land now covered by the City of Wellsville just as the fortunate Mr. Wells emerged from the office after having secured the coveted title. The original Fishel farm near Minerva remained in the hands of the two sons of Frederick—Adam and Abner —until quite recent years. Both Adam and Abner were men of more than ordinary influence, characterized by excellent business judgment, and enjoyed a large personal following of friends. Abner Fishel was a teacher in early life, and among his pupils were a few Indians. He died in 1915 in his ninety-seventh year. He was capable, well informed, with a wonderful memory, and a fine type of that class of men who redeemed this western country from the wilderness.
Adam Fishel, the other son of Frederick, was a veteran of the Ninety-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war and died August 22, 1912, in his eightieth year. He lived retired at Minerva during his latter years. His son C. D. Fishel, father of Vincent L., became a railroad man and for more than forty years has followed that vocation. The past fifteen years he has lived at Alliance. C. D. Fishel married Anna Fultz. One of the brothers of C. D. Fishel is W. H. Fishel, a well known teacher and county school superintendent in Kansas.
Vincent L. Fishel was born in Minerva, Ohio, November 4, 1884, the day Cleveland defeated Blaine for President. He attended school at Minerva, and in 1902 was graduated from the Alliance High School. He then took the Liberal Arts course in Mount Union College, graduating in 1906 A. B. as class valedictorian. His alma mater bestowed upon him the Master of Arts degree in 1911. Having chosen the law as his vocation, he entered the Western Reserve University, and graduated LL. B. in 1910. Admitted to practice he has for the past five years enjoyed a growing reputation as a sound and able lawyer at Alliance.
Mr. Fishel is a Mason. He is identified with the Presbyterian Church, in which faith his ancestors have worshiped for generations, and his great-grandfather Frederick Fishel founded the First Presbyterian Church at Minerva eighty years ago. Mr. Fishel was married in November, 1913, to Anna M. Jones, daughter of Eb M. Jones, a machinist at Alliance. They have one son, Edwin Clark.
HON. DANIEL W. CRISP.. With the business and financial interests of Stark County, Daniel W. Crist is perhaps best known as president of the People's Bank of Alliance. He was one of its organizers and has been its president since it was established, and has also made a creditable record as a member of the Ohio Legislature, but, in Northeastern Ohio, and in fact all over the country, his fame chiefly rests upon his work as a musical composer and publisher. The music publishing house of D. W. Crist at Mountrie is probably the largest of its kind between Philadelphia and Chicago, with the possible exception of the John Church Company at Cincinnati. Mr. Crist may be called a born educator and teacher, has inspired thousands of young men and women by precept and example, and the product of his talent in songs and instrumental compositions has touched and bettered the lives of many thousands.
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Daniel W. Crist was born at New Chambersburg, Columbiana County, Ohio, November 28, 1857, and is a son of Robert and Mary (Ruff) Crist. His father was born in Maryland, and at the age of three was brought to Stark County by his parents, Robert and Elizabeth (Stevens) Crist, who settled near Osnaburg, about 1835 removing to a farm in Marlboro Township. Both Robert and Elizabeth Crist lived there until their deaths in old age, the old homestead being in possession of this family for over half a century. The grandparents were identified with the Catholic Church at Harrisburg, but only one of their children remained in that faith. Of their seven children six were sons, all now deceased, Robert Jr. having been the last. 'Daniel went from Stark County to the Union army, and died in the service.
Robert Crist at marriage moved to West Township, in Columbiana County, and there spent the rest of his life. From sixteen he had been a teacher in the old log schoolhouse. He possessed broad information and was a useful citizen. He later identified himself with farming in West Township, where he held several offices, and died there in 1898, at the age of seventy-three. Mary Ruff was born in West Township, in 1832, and there resided until her death in 1908. She was a great-granddaughter of Michael Zehner, who served as an aide in General Washington 's army during the War of the Revolution. He was a resident of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and came to Columbiana County in 1804. Her paternal grandfather, Anthony Ruff, was also a Westmoreland County man, who also settled in Columbiana County early in the last century. Another grandfather, Rudolph Bair, came from the same county and located in Columbiana in 1803, becoming the first commissioner of that county. Robert and Mary Crist were active in the Bible Christian Church. Seven of their children revehed maturity and six are living in 1915, those in Stark County being Daniel W. and Mrs. F. W. Foulks of Canton. One brother, Prof. Owen Crist, who died in 1900 at the age of thirty-seven, was for fifteen years principal of the commercial department of Mount Union College, being corsidered one of the most expert of penmen in artistic and commercial work.
Daniel W. Crist received his earlier education in the common schools and later attended the Northwestern Ohio University at Ada. He "taught fourteen years in Columbiana and Stark counties, and in 1880 became superintendent of the Osnaburg graded school. a position he held two years, when he accepted a similar position at New Franklin until 1890. In 1886 he published the "Gospel Gleanings," a collection of Sunday school music of his own composition. He had great natural talent in music, and for a number of years sang in choirs and other organizations, taught singing, and also exercised his art in connection with evangelistic work. His book met with so flattering a reception that it led him to make music composition and publishing his principal business. Besides the compositions for religious and secular purposes, his piano selections are well known. He is the author of eighteen song books for day and Sunday school use and church use, about 150 special compositions, besides some fifteen volumes of musical collections. He began publishing his own music at Moultrie, Ohio, and has developed a large plant, which was the chief claim of Moultrie to prominence as a business
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center until May, 1915, when he moved his plant to Alliance. Among other works he has published a complete series of piano instruction books. There are thousands of Sunday schools and churches that now make regular use of his collections, and his arrangement for band and other instrumentation scores are popular in musical circles.
In 1901 Mr. Crist was elected to the State Legislature as a republican, being re-elected in 1903. In 1905 he was elected to the State Senate from the district composed of Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson and Belmont counties. He gave particular attention to the cause of education and taxation, served as chairman of the house committee on taxation, and wherever possible exerted influence for improvement of the common schools and elimination of many radical faults in the taxing system. The present idea of a State Tax Commission received its chief impetus during his service in the Senate. In 1912 he removed to Alliance. He had assisted in organizing, and became president of the People's Bank in 1907. Besides his bank holdings he also has interests in local manufacturing and real estate. Mr. Crist is a Knight Templar Mason and interested in social and charitable work.
In 1882 he married Mary Reed, of Columbiana County, an active worker in church circles. They have a family of three children : Mertie May, wife of Charles Miller of Bellevue, Pennsylvania ; James R., of Canton, Ohio; and Dillon, a high school student.
HOWARD D. TOLERTON. The Tolerton family has been prominently identified with the mercantile and general business life of Alliance for many years. Howard D. Tolerton is manager of the I. G. Tolerton & Company, one of the largest concerns in Stark County for the handling of all classes of building materials except hardware. He is also vice president of the People's Bank of Alliance, and has been connected with that institution since its organization. He is vice president of the West Park Realty Company, and a director of the Consolidated Realty Company.
His father and the founder of the building supply business is I. G. Tolerton, who for the past seven years has divided his residence time between Alliance and Florida, having a beautiful winter home in the latter state and also a fruit ranch. The I. G. Tolerton & Son headquarters occupy a large two-story building 40x105 feet, with basement, and large yards for storage of surplus stock. They handle all manner of building supplies, and also deal extensively in coal, tile, crushed stone and other materials. About twenty-five men are employed, and the firm also operates a planing mill. This business has seen a development in the last ten years more than double its original capacity and volume of trade.
Howard D. Tolerton has been a director in the board of trade since its organization, and was one of the local men who established that body. He is the director and the vice president of the Alliance Building & Savings Association and the Surety Building & Loan Company. He is active in the Masonic Order and is a trustee of the First Methodist Episcopal. Church.
Howard D. Tolerton was married in 1896 to Minnie Aiken of Alli-
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ance, daughter of William S. Aiken, who was at the time of his death one of the oldest building contractors in Stark County. Mrs. Tolerton was born in Alliance, attended the Mount Union College, and is well known in club and social circles. Their four children are : Robert I., Mary Ellen, William Howard and Edgar J.
FREDERICK WALLACE BOND, attorney and counsellor at law, with a national reputation as a solicitor for patents, has been engaged in practice at Canton for nearly forty years. Since the fall of 1877, when he became a resident of this city, he has extended to eminent proportions his reputation as a thoroughly reliable solicitor of foreign and domestic patents and trademarks, having established not only a good private practice in these lines, but, in view of his ability, has been appointed general counsel of various industries whose interests depend largely for their development and permanence on the stability of the patents involved.
Mr. Bond was born at Edington, Portage County, Ohio, September 19, 1850, and is a son of Frederick W. and Mary (Norton) Bond. The Bonds are of English stock and the family was founded in America during Colonial days by two brothers of the name, one of whom settled in Connecticut and the other in Virginia. The family was founded in Ohio by Jonas Bond, the grandfather of Frederick -Wallace Bond, who came to the Western Reserve in 1812, settling at Ravenna. He served for several years as sheriff of Portage County, but subsequently returned to his farm there, and in 1865 removed to Canfield, then the county seat of Mahoning County, Ohio. The paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Bond, was a cousin of Judge Joseph Story. Frederick W. Bond was born in Portage County, where he was engaged in farming until his death, in 1850, when his son was a babe of three months. Mrs. Bond waS born in Trumbull County, Ohio, and was a member of the old Western Reserve family of Norton. Her death occurred in 1853.
Following the death of his mother, Frederick Wallace Bond was taken into the home of his grandfather, Jonas Bond, on his farm in Portage County. As a youth he worked on the farm during the summer months and attended school in the winter terms, and continued that programme after his grandfather removed to Canfield, Ohio. Later he taught school in the country districts, and while thus engaged began the study of law. For several years he read in the office of Van Hyning & Johnston, attorneys of Canfield, Ohio. Mr. Bond was admitted to the bar October 14, 1876, and just one year later to the day came to Canton, which city has continued to be his home and the scene of his professional labors. He commenced the practice of law in association with Ensign Blocksom, under the firm style of Bond & Blocksom, a partnership which continued until the latter part of 1879, Mr. Blocksom then retiring and Mr. Bond continuing alone. On January 1, 1908, Mr. Bond formed a partnership with W. H. Miller, a native of Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, which partnership was known as Bond & Miller, said partnership continuing until May 1, 1914, the firm giving its especial attention to patent law in all its branches. Since the retirement of Mr. Miller from the firm, Mr. Bond has devoted all of his time to the practice of patent law and
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its various allied branches. In the spring of 1880 he was elected justice of the peace for Canton, an office which he filled for a full term of three years, and then, returning to practice, took up patent law and its allied branches, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc., a professional field which requires mechanical ability of a high order, thorough mastery of countless details, and continuous and intense application to the entrusted matters.. During the period of his practice at Canton, Mr. Bond has taken out patents upon which many of Canton's largest industries have been founded, these including the Berger Manufacturing Company, the Canton Culvert Company, the Diebold Safe and Lock Company, the Canton Foundry and Machine Company and the Nye Manufacturing Company and others. He has practiced before state and Federal courts all over the country, and has represented clients from New Hampshire to California, and from Michigan to Louisiana. A few of his important cases have been: Canton Steel Roofing Company vs. Alvin C. Kanneberg. et al.: William J. Plecker vs. Oscar O. Poorman ; Pennsylvania (,lobe Gas Light Company vs. Louis M. Bachtel, et al.; Nye Manufacturing Company vs. V. L. Nye; and the celebrated trademark case of William Wrigley, Jr., vs. the Grove Company, regarding the rights in the use of the word "Spearmint" as a trademark. Mr. Bond is a valued member of the Stark County Bar Association, and holds membership also in the Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Bond married Mary Knight, who was born at Ellsworth, Mahoning County, Ohio, daughter of Robert Knight, a native of Ireland. To this union there were born two daughters: Josephine, who is the wife of Harry E. Schellhasse. of Canton ; and Lettie, who married William R. Miller, an attorney of Cleveland, Ohio.
JULIUS H. SCHLAFLY. A well known Canton inventor and manufacturer, Julius H. Schlafly possessed the qualities which enabled him to grow and adapt himself in proportion to his opportunities. He was at one time a common laborer in the small shop which some twenty-five years ago represented the plant of the Berger Manufacturing Company. The Berger Manufacturing Company is now one of the largest concerns of its kind in Ohio and in its material development J. H. Schlafly's ability has grown not only in keeping with but in advance of material proportions of the plant. Mr. Schlafly is now general superintendent of this great industrial concern and is also president of the Canton Culvert & Silo Company.
Julius H. Schlafly was born in what is now the Third Ward of the City of Canton. March 3, 1871. His parents were Moritz and Margaret (Schumacher) Schlafly. His father was a native of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and died in September. 1911. After his education was finished in the local public schools Julius H. Schlafly found a place in a retail grocery store, where he performed the general work of clerk and porter for about six months. On March 4, 1887, the day following his sixteenth birthday, he entered the employ of what is now the great Berger Manufacturing Company. This concern had been established only the previous year, and its factory was still housed in a barn on Rex Street. While he was employed in general work, he quickly showed a native talent in
PICTURE OF JULUIS H. SCHLAFLY
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mechanical lines, and his inventiveness as well as his executive ability have been the main factors in raising him to his present prominent position. After a year he was made foreman in the small plant, and held the same position, though its duties and importance were many times expanded, up to 1907. In that year he became assistant superintendent, and in 1910 took charge of the entire plant as general superintendent. In 1908 the Canton Culvert & Silo Company was organized as one of a group of several industries of which the Berger Manufacturing Company is the chief, and Mr. Schlafly has since been president of the Canton Culvert & Silo Company, the duties of which office he combines with the superintendency of the Berger Company.
Mr. Schlafly is a mechanic through and through and skillful not only in the operation of machinery but expert in the adaptation and invention of new devices and methods. He has invented numerous automatic machines for the manufacture of piping, culverts and other sheet iron and sheet steel construction, and his patents on machines are now in use in the plants of the Berger Company and the Canton Culvert & Silo factories. He was of the first men to get out machinery for the manufacture of ten-foot conductor pipes. His own career is reflected in the great growth and advancement of the Berger Company. When he entered the employ of that concern he and the president worked side by side in the little shop, at which time the total number of employes were less than half a dozen. Today the plant and company rank among the largest in the country, and Mr. Schlafly's ability and genius have been one of the strongest resources of the concern from the beginning. He is still as studious in mechanical work as ever, and is constantly planning and experimenting on improvements that will increase production and lighten running expenses.
Mr. Schlafly is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, belongs to the United Commercial Travelers and to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mrs. Schlafly before her marriage was Mary E. Wielandt, who was born in Canton. Their one son, Julius, was born March 2, 1898.
HENRY B. SIBILA. A native of the City of Massillon, Mr. Sibila has always maintained his residence within its borders, has been prominent in business and civic affairs, has held various offices of trust and responsibility and no citizen is better known or held in higher esteem, this being measurably indicated by the fact that he is now serving as postmaster of this thriving and attractive city, a position to which he was appointed by President Wilson and of which he has been the efficient and popular incumbent since July 2, 1913.
Mr. Sibila was born in Massillon on the 8th of May, 1862, and thus bears a name that has been long and worthily identified with the annals of Stark County. He is a son of John and Catharine (Sherag) Sibila, both of whom were born in Germany and both of whom were young when they came to America, the parents of the former having been numbered among the pioneer settlers of Stark County. John Sibila was a successful merchant and prominent citizen of Massillon at the time of his death, and was but forty years of age when he passed from the
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stage of life's mortal endeavors. His wife was summoned to eternal rest when forty-seven years of age, both having been communicants of the Catholic Church and he having been an unwavering supporter of the cause of the democratic party. Of the seven children the present postmaster of Massillon was the third in order of the birth, and of the number three others are still living.
Henry B. Sibila attended a parochial school in Massillon until he had attained to the age of thirteen years, and his alert mentality and excellent powers of absorption and assimilation have enabled him to profit fully from the lessons since learned under the direction of that wisest of all head-masters, experience. He is a man of broad information, well fortified convictions and utmost civic loyalty and progressivenesS. At the age above noted Mr. Sibila entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of cigarmaker, and after becoming a skilled workman he was finally, in 1885, enabled to engage in the cigar and tobacco business in an independent way, and to this line of enterprise he gave his close and careful attention until he had built up a good business. He still retains his interest in this enterprise, though he has not given his personal attention to the same since assuming the office of postmaster.
From the time of attaining to his legal majority Mr. Sibila has given unswerving allegiance to the democratic party, and he has long been one of its active and influential workers in Stark County. In 1893 Mr. Sibila was elected to the offIce of justice of the peace, and of this position he continued the incumbent twelve consecutive years, by successive re-elections every four years. After an interregnum of one term he was again elected to this judicial office, in 1907, and he held the same one more term, his final retirement occurring in 1911, so that the aggregate duration of his regime in this office covered a period of sixteen years. In 1908 Mr. Sibila was appointed deputy clerk of elections, and he retained this incumbency until his appointment to the important office of postmaster, his candidacy for the position having received a large and significant popular support in his native city and the appointment having come through President Woodrow Wilson.
Mr. Sibila and his wife are zealous communicants of the Catholic Church, and he is affiliated with Massillon Council. No. 554, Knights of Columbus; St. Paul's Court, No. 725, Catholic Order of Foresters; and Massillon Aerie, No. 190, Fraternal Order of Eagles.
On the 9th of March, 1886, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sibila to Miss Rose Crimmings, who likewise was born and reared at Massillon, and they have two chlldren,—Florence May, and Paul H.
JOHN ANTHONY SCHONER. About thirteen years ago Mr. Schoner resigned his position as a teacher in Stark County to engage in merchandising, and has since gained an important position among Stark County's merchants and is senior member of the firm of Schoner & Fulmer, general merchants at Middlebranch. also with stores in the City of Canton and with business interests elsewhere.
The Schoner family has long been well known in Stark County. John Anthony Schoner was bern on his father's farm southwest of Hartville, August 11, 1877, son of Philip and Catherine (Brumbaugh)
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Schoner. Philip Schoner was a native of Germany, but when six years of age came to the United States with his parents, who settled in Lake Township of Stark County, on a farm about a mile from Hartville. Catherine Brumbaugh was born in Lake Township, daughter of William Brumbaugh. In 1904 Philip and Catherine Schoner moved from their farm to Hartville, where they still reside, he in his seventy-fourth year and she in her sixty-ninth.
John A. Schoner had the advantages of the public schools at Lake Center and the Hartville High School, and spent one term in Mount Union College. He also had a practical farm training and came to manhood well prepared for a career of usefulness. His work as a teacher continued for four years, and he had charge of the school at Mid way when he resigned in the spring of 1902 in order to go into business at Middlebranch with C. R. Fulmer. They bought out the old store which had been conducted by the Smith Brothers and has since carried on this and extended their relations as merchants to a large patronage. They operate a general mercantile store and also a meat market, and in January, 1915, established a retail grocery store and meat market at 1516 Tuscarawas Street, in the City of Canton. Since November, 1911, they have also operated a stand in the Canton City Market for the retailing of meat. The firm also owns lots in Edgefield, Stark County, and some city real estate in Mobile, Albama.
Mr. Schoner married Maude Kreichbaum, who was born in Cairo of Stark County, daughter of Edward Kreichbaum, now deceased. Their home has been blessed by the birth of one daughter, Dawn, aged four years.
CHARLES W. BAIR. Hartville's list of progressive business men would not be complete without inclusion of the name of Charles W. Bair, who is secretary and treasurer of the Quality Tire & Rubber Company, and at different times has been connected with several other important local undertakings. Mr. Bair formerly was a railroad man, but retired from that service to engage in independent business at Hartville. He is a clean-cut business man, aggressive in pushing his own affairs and public spirited in co-operating with any movement that helps out the community. His activities have been an important factor in making of Hartville a thriving industrial and commercial center of Stark County.
His family was established in this county in the early half of the last century. Charles W. Bair was born at New Berlin in Stark County, February 18, 1870, a son of Allen and Sarah A. (Baum) Bair. His father was born in Plain Township, about five miles north of Canton, in 1846, a son of George Bair, who established the Bair family in Plain Township many years ago. The mother was born in Marlboro Township of Stark County in 1846. daughter of Jacob Baum. Jacob Baum, an early settler in Marlboro Township, was a carpenter by trade, and moved to Can ton and later to Middlebranch, and in his time constructed the greater number of farmhouses and barns in the country north of Canton. Mrs. Sarah Bair is still living and resides with her son, Charles W. Allen Bair was a harnessmaker by trade, and one of the first to
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represent that business in New Berlin, being associated with H. H. Hoover. He died at Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1913. Charles W. Bair was the oldest of four children, the others being : Harvey, deceased; George, deceased; and Robert E., who is connected with the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company at Akron.
Mr. Charles W. Bair has been a practical, hard-working man since the age of fifteen, at which time he left school in Middlebranch, having previously attended at New Berlin, and found employment at farm labor at day's wages. In 1866 he was made agent at Hartville for the old Connolton Valley Railroad, now a part of the Wheeling & Lake Erie. He put in four years there, and was then sent to Valley Junction in Tuscarawas County, where he was agent, chief clerk and telegrapher of the Wheeling & Lake Erie, the Cleveland & Marietta and the Connolton Valley lines for a period of twelve years. On leaving the railroad service he removed to Hartville. and became a member of the firm of Schoner & Bair, general merchants. After ten years of business under this firm name they sold out. He and Mr. H. F. Schoner then organized the Hartville Plumbing Company, and continued in that business for two years. On August 6, 1914, Mr. Bair became secretary and treasurer of the Quality Tire & Rubber Company, now one of the prospering young industries of Hartville.
Mr. Bair married Miss Minnie E. Schoner, daughter of Philip Schoner and a sister of C. C. Schoner of Hartville. Their children are: Ruth, who graduated from the Hartville High School in 1912, then attended Heidelberg University at Tiffin, and is now in the junior year of the Ohio State University at Columbus; Willard and Lowell, both at home and attending the local schools. Mr. and Mrs. Bair are members of the Lutheran Church.
WILLIAM P. BARNUM. Elected mayor of the fine industrial City of Alliance in November, 1913, Mr. Barnum has retired from active business and is giving virtually his entire time and attention to his executive office, in which he is giving a vigorous, clean-cut and progressive administration that gives distinct evidence of his high civic ideals as well as his courage and determination in the furtherance of wise policies of municipal government and social reforms. He was elected mayor by a larger plurality than has been ever given in Alliance to any other democratic candidate for this important office, and his administration is fully justifying the popular confidence and esteem thus exemplified. In a preliminary way it should be noted specially that the present mayor has effected the elimination of the "red-light district" of Alliance and also been implacable and successful in his efforts to wipe out all gambling in the city. He was also the instigator of the public-school gardening contests in Alliance, and when the city council refused to make the required appropriation for this admirable work the mayor succeeded in raising by popular subscription the money necessary for carrying forward the enterprise, the board of education defraying the salary of the technical instructor, fully 300 pupils of the schools having been enrolled for this laudable educational contest and excellent civic enterprise. Broad minded and sympathetic, Mayor Barnum has shown
PICTURE OF WILLIAM P. BARNUM
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in his executive capacity as well as in a personal way his deep interest in the general welfare of his home city, has individually interposed in effecting amicable settlement of disputes and has been specially vigilant in safeguarding the interests and welfare of the boys and girls of Alliance. the mayor of Alliance can claim direct kinship with the late Phineas T. Barnum, the world's greatest showman, the original American ancestors of both having been brothers who migrated from England in an early day, three of the brothers having come to the New World in the Mayflower, and many worthy descendants now perpetuate the name.
William P. Barnum was born at Eaglesville, Ashtabula County, Ohio, on the 14th of May, 1b54, and is a son of Frederick G. and Elizabeth (Atwood) Barnum, both natives of the State of New York. The father became an expert artisan as a morocco finisher, and he followed his trade for a number of years after establishing his home in Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1905, his devoted wife having passed to the life eternal in the preceding year and both having attained to venerable age, even as they gained the high regard of all who came within the sphere of their gracious influence. They became the parents of live children: Mary is the wife of Henry H. Pease, of Kingsville, Ashtabula County ; Carrie L. is the widow of Mark Brock- away and resides at Rock Creek, that county ; William P., of this review, was the next in order of birth ; Frank E. is a resident of Nelson, Portage County ; and Ella Gertrude, who first married Fred Brown, and there were two children by that union, Fred and Hattie. After the death of Mr. brown she married Almond Woodward, and their place of abode is the historic old home of Gen. James A. Garfield at Hiram, Portage County, where General Garfield had been graduated in Hiram College, of which institution he later became president, even as he was destined to become President of the United States and the nation's second martyr in this office.
In his native town William P. Barnum attended the public schools until he had completed the curriculum of the high school, and as a young man he became identified with the jewelry business. Later he was engaged in the manufacturing of nail kegs, and finally he entered the confectionery business, with which he continued to be identified for thirty years and achieved distinctive success, his operations having been of both wholesale and retail order. Sixteen years of this period found him numbered among the representative business men of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; two yearS were given to the same line of enterprise at Youngstown, Ohio, and the remainder of the time of his active association with the business was as a progressive and honored representative of this field of enterprise in the City of Alliance, where he established his residence in 1901, and where he continued in active business until the 1st of July, 1913, when he sold the prosperous enterprise which had been built up through his well ordered endeavors. In the following November he was elected mayor of the city, a preferment that offers unequivocal evidence of his strong vantage-place in popular confidence and esteem in this community.
Mr. Barnum has accorded unwavering allegiance to the democratic
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party, and since the age of nineteen years he has held active membership in the Christian Church, in the affairs of which he has been zealous and influential. In Pennsylvania he served sixteen years as an elder of the church of this denomination, and in Ashtabula County, the place of his nativity, he served fourteen years as superintendent of a Sunday school. His first wife was a devoted member of the same church, as is also his present wife. In a fraternal way the mayor is affiliated with the local organizations of the Knights of Pythias, the Order of Reindeers, and the Knights of the Modern Maccabees.
On the 20th of June, 1877, Mr. Barnum wedded Miss Nannie L. Knowlton, of Rock Creek, Ashtabula County, and she is survived by three children : William P.. Jr., who is serving on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas in Mahoning County, where he had previously gained precedence as a representative member of the bar; Wayne J., who is claim agent of the street railways at Youngstown, Mahoning County ; and Dollie May, who is the wife of Robert J. Andrews, of Meadowbrook, Virginia.
On the 17th of April, 1902, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Barnum to Miss Anna Watson, of Enon, Pennsylvania, no children having been born of this union.
CHARLES W. KEPLINGER. For over a quarter of a century Charles W. Keplinger, cashier of the Isaac Harter & Sons' Bank, has been closely identified with the banking, financial, industrial and civic affairs of Canton, and has been a potent factor in the wonderful progress made by the city in recent years.
Mr. Keplinger is of German antecedents, though the Keplingers have been in America for many generations and is an old family in Stark County. Over eighty years ago Daniel Keplinger (grandfather of Charles W.) left his native home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, for Ohio, and in the year 1833 he settled on a farm in Osnaburg Township, Stark County. Subsequently he removed to Crawford County, Indiana, where he was twice elected sheriff of that. county. His eldest son, Jacob (father of Charles W.) was born on the farm in Osnaburg Township. Early in life he engaged in railroading, and for upwards of fifty years he was in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, most of that time at Fort Wayne, Indiana. He married Elizabeth Carper.
Charles W. Keplinger was born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, on September 12, 1859. and began his business career when he was a boy of fifteen years in a Fort Wayne store. He was later promoted bookkeeper by that firm and held the position until 1879, in which year he resigned to come to Canton to accept a position as bookkeeper for the Isaac Harter & Sons' bank. His efficiency, natural aptitude and unusual qualifications for the banking business were early made manifest to his superiors and his promotion as cashier came in due time. He has been cashier of what is the oldest and best known banking institution in Stark County, and there is no better-known or more popular banker in the county than Charles W. Keplinger. His sound judgment, unfailing courtesy and genial personality has made him the ideal banker and man of affairs.
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Aside from banking, Mr. Keplinger has other important financial and industrial interests. He was one of the organizers and is president of the Metropolitan Paving Brick Company, one of the organizers and is president of the Gordon Tire and Rubber Company, and is secretary of the Artificial Ice and Storage Company, all of which are successful concerns of Canton.
Mr. Keplinger is a member of the Canton Club, Congress Lake Club, Lakeside Country Club, the Canton Chamber of Commerce, the Masons and the Elks and belongs to Trinity Lutheran Church.
In 1885 Mr. Keplinger married Fannie, the daughter of the late P. H. Barr of Canton, and they have two sons, Robert B. and John C., both of whom are engaged in business in Canton.
WILL H. STAHL. It is in connection with the cause of education that Will H. Stahl is best known to the people of Stark County, although his activities in business and as the incumbent of public offices of importance have contributed also to his reputation as a helpful, stirring citizen of substantial worth. From 1881, however, he has always been in touch with educational work, and his fine abilities as an instructor, combined with his executive ability and progressive spirit, have done much to elevate the standards of the public school system in Stark County.
Mr. Stahl was born at Carrollton, Carroll County, Ohio, April 29, 1861, and is a son of John P. and Barbara (Zinsmaster) Stahl, natives - of Germany. John P. Stahl came to the United States in 1850, being then a young man of twenty years. He was employed as a miller until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he enlisted in Company C, Fifty- first Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, an organization with which he served bravely and faithfully until wounded during participation in Sherman's march to the Atlantic, an injury from which he never recovered, his death occurring at the field hospital at Mount Hope, Georgia, June 10, 1864. Mrs. Stahl, who came to the United States as a child of eight years, in 1847, survived him until 1897.
Will H. Stahl was reared in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and in his youth was given excellent educational advantages, attending the country schools, the Canal Dover High School, and the Northern Ohio University, at Ada. He began his career as a teacher in the fall of 1881, his first school having been located near Shock's Mill, in Canton Township, Stark County. Later he taught in different localities until 1889. In 1888 he purchased a general store at Winfield, Ohio, but in 1889 established himself in the dry goods business at Navarre and in 1890 at Dalton, Ohio, and continued therein at both places for eight years. During the winter term of 1892-93 he taught as superintendent of the Dalton, Wayne County, village schools. Leaving the dry goods business, Mr. Stahl was for two years bookkeeper in the Navarre Stoneware Company's office, but returned to teaching after one year and became superintendent of the Navarre schools. a position which he retained one year, quitting on , account of poor health the winter of 1900-1. For four years following, he was foreman in Zinsmaster Brothers grain and implement warehouse, and once again resumed teaching, as assistant high school teacher in the Sugar Creek Township High School in the Village of Justus, where he
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remained four years. He was next assistant teacher at the Navarre High School for one year, and then became salesman for the Navarre Stone- ware Company. After one more year, he was again drawn back to his educational work as assistant high school teacher at Navarre, and in 1914 was appointed superintendent of schools for Supervisory District No. 4. In 1915 this district was divided and he became superintendent of schools of the part designated as Supervisory District No. 6, which comprises all the schools of Sugar Creek Township, including the villages of Brewster, Beach City, Wilmot and Justus, and one rural school in Tuscarawas Township and two in Bethlehem Township. Mr. Stahl is one of the most efficient and popular educators in Stark County, and many of his pupils of former years have attained to positions of prominence in the various avenues of life's endeavor.
Mr. Stahl is a member of the Ohio State Teachers' Association and the Northeastern OhIo Teachers' Association, and holds a life certificate. As a citizen he has been a stanch and helpful supporter of progressive movements, and has done his full share in the line of public service, having served capably as mayor of Navarre in 1896 and 1897, and in the office of clerk of the village for eleven years, almost continuously, also in his present capacity of clerk of Bethlehem Township for two years. He is fraternally affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics and the Modern Woodmen of America.
Mrs. Stahl was formerly Miss Mary L. Lind, who was born in Canal Dover, Ohio, the daughter of Jacob Lind. They have had four children, namely : Eleonora C., who during the past ten years has been one of the popular and capable teachers in the Navarre public schools; Edward P., now a resident of Detroit, Michigan; Esther R., who became the wife of W. L. Fulton, now of Flint, Michigan, but formerly of Navarre; and Frances L., who died in January, 1912, at the age of five years.
JOHN WHELAN, JR. While Mr. Whelan has lived for a number of years at Massillon, one of its popular citizens, his business experience has covered a wide field, particularly in the coal mining districts, and both he and his father before him have for many years been prominent as coal miners and operators in West Virginia, Ohio, and other states. Mr. John Whelan Jr. is now general superintendent of the Massillon Coal Mining Company, operating mines located in Stark and Wayne counties. He is not entirely an offIce man, having had practical experience in all departments of mining beginning when he was a boy.
Born at Wadsworth, Ohio, March 6, 1878, he is a son of John and Catherine (Blake) Whelan. His father, who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, came to the United States when about twenty years of age. For several years he lived in Philadelphia. He was a coal miner by trade, worked out of the sphere of an employee to an independent operator, and also did a large amount of railroad construction as a subcontractor in different parts of the country. After his marriage he located at Wadsworth, Ohio, and from that point operated a number of coal mines. He is now living retired. His wife, Catherine Blake, was born in the City of Cork, Ireland, and came when a young woman to this country, living at Bloomington, Illinois, until her marriage.
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John Whelan, Jr., spent his early youth in Wadsworth, attended the public schools, the Wadsworth Normal School, and finished with a business course in the latter. In vacations and other times he worked as a boy around the coal mines, made himself proficient in the various departments and when twenty years of age was superintendent of mines for the Card Coal Company of Cleveland. Four years later he transferred his services as general superintendent to the Burton, Biedler & Phillips Company, with whom he spent five years. For the next three years Mr. Whelan was superintendent for the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company of Cleveland, and from there became connected with the M. A. Hanna & Company of Cleveland as general superintendent of that company's mines. The Hanna corporation operates the Massillon Mining Company, and in addition Mr. Whelan has general supervision of its mines in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He has coal interests of his own in the State of West Virginia.
Mr. Whelan is a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church at Massillon, is a member of the Cleveland Coal Club, the Elks Club, and takes a very active part in the Knights of Columbus. He married Miss Rosa A. Selle of Akron. Ohio, (laughter of Ferdinand Selle. Their two children are named James and Marie.
ELMER F. REINOEHL. Few men have it in them to adapt themselves to circumstances, to overcome handicaps, and make a better general success of life than Elmer F. Reinoehl, now secretary-treasurer and general manager of the Ohio Printing & Publishing Company of Massillon. His has been an interesting career and will be told briefly as follows: He was born on a farm five miles west of Massillon in Tuscarawas Township, February 26, 1879, a son of J. William and Susan (Groff) Reinoehl. The family was established in Stark County by his grandfather. William Reinoehl, who was born in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and came to Stark County in the '30s, settling in Tuscarawas Township, where he prospered and became owner of several fine farms. William Reinoehl married Louisa Bowman, who was also a native of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. The grandfather died during the '70s and his wife passed away in 1890. J. William Reinoehl was born in Tuscarawas Township of Stark County in 1844. His wife, Susan Groff, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. in 1846, daughter of Benjamin Groff, a native of the same state. who came to Ohio when his daughter Susan was a child, and they settled in the same part of Stark County as the Reinoehls, in Tuscarawas Township. J. William Reinoehl has spent all his active career as a farmer, but has done a considerable business as a contract driller in the coal districts. In 1861 he enlisted in Company F of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio Infantry at Massillon. and at the close of three years of service re-enlisted as a veteran. He served until wounded in the head at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, one of the last great battles in the Middle West. He lay on the battlefield for twenty-four hours before he was taken to the hospital. Being incapacitated by this wound, he was invalided home. and at the close of the war received an honorable discharge. He made a splendid record as a soldier, and has long been one of the honored members of the Grand
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Army of the Republic in Stark County. His home is how at Cridersville, Washington Township. For several years he conducted a store and was also postmaster of one of the smaller Stark County villages, and has also given service as a school director.
Elmer F. Reinoehl was reared on the home farm until thirteen years of age, and in the meantime attended school both in the country and at Massillon. The turning point of his career came at the age of thirteen when he met with an accident on the railroad, resulting in the loss of one foot. While that closed to him any such active career as farming, it was perhaps more than anything else a spur and incentive to a line of work which has enabled him to perform a broad and useful service in the world. He soon afterwards invested about $300 in a small printing outfit and started in business as a printer while still attending school. He worked at the case and with his press mornings, evenings and Saturdays, but in a few years the printing business grew until lie was obliged to give it his entire attention, and consequently left school. In time he made of it a quite profitable mail order business.
In 1900 Mr. Reinoehl bought the Geauga County Record at Chardon, and then removed his printing plant to that town. He continued to publish the Record until 1909, as a democratic paper. In 1905 he organized a stock company at Chardon, capitalized at $25,000, and bought the only opposition paper, the Geauga Republican. He also bought the Middlefield Times of Middlefield, and in his plant at Chardon he printed all three papers, each one having its own editor. In the meantime Mr. Reinoehl became a recognized leader in democratic polities in Geauga County. In 1908 he was the democratic candidate for member of the Legislature, As he found it difficult to mix business and politics, he accordingly sold his controlling stock in the printing company. In 1908 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention from the Chardon District, the nineteenth.
In 1909, Mr. Reinoehl having sold his interests in Geauga County, came to Massillon and bought the old newspaper plant of the Daily Gleaner. He renovated it, added new material, and established the Reinoehl Printing Company. After the company had gone on for about a year it was consolidated with the Ohio Printing & Publishing Company. Of this he is now secretary-treasurer and general manager.
While in Geauga County Mr. Reinoehl served as president of the Democratic Executive and Central Committees for a number of years, and for two years was chairman of the Nineteenth Congressional District Committee. When nominated for the Legislature, as already mentioned, he came within 400 votes of being elected, though the county presented a normal ratio of four republicans to one democrat. Mr. Reinoehl is a popular member of Chardon Lodge No. 190, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
In 1905 he married Miss Effie Zimmerman of Massillon, who was born in that city in 1880, daughter of Charles and Ella (Stoner) Zimmerman. They have one daughter, Eleanor Susan, born November 1, 1911.
The Ohio Printing & Publishing Company of Massillon was organized in 1908 as The OhiO Novelty Manufacturing Company. It was incor-
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porated the same year by Thomas C. Davies, John Igelstroem, H. W. Williams, and Frank Stoner. The first board of directors comprised the following well known names: N. W. Culbertson, J. A. Shardnagle, R. W. Williams, Frank Stoner, John Igelstroem, Thomas C. Davis and T. B. C. Voges. The first president was Mr. Igelstroem. In the spring of 1910 the company was consolidated with the Reinoehl Printing Company, but was continued for a time under the original name. At that time the capital was increased from $10,000 to $23,000. Mr. Elmer F. Reinoehl was placed on the board of directors, made treasurer and manager of the printing department. Mr. Williams continued as manager of the novelty department. In October, 1910, Mr. Williams retired and Mr. Reinoehl then became general manager of the company's affairs. His next change was in 1911 when the present title of the Ohio Printing & Publishing Company was adopted, and the separation made so as to allow the novelty manufacturing end to be continued under the original name of the Ohio Novelty Manufacturing Company.
The present officers of this prosperous Massillon concern are : J. A. Shardnagle, president ; E. G. Pocock, vice president ; Elmer F. Reinoehl, secretary-treasurer and general manager. Besides these other members of the board of directors are P. A. Taggart, a merchant, and Frank L. Stoner, a contractor. The business of the Ohio Printing & Publishing Company is largely the printing and handling as jobbers of calendars and various advertising novelties. The company also does a large amount of general printing, and has several salesmen that cover the Ohio territory.
PHILIP EDWARD MIESMER. In commercial circles of the northern part of Stark County, a name which has become well known in recent years is that of Philip Edward Miesmer. For several years a factor in the business life of Crystal Springs, in 1912 he came to Aultman, where he assisted in the organization of the Aultman Co-Operative Company, which under his management has since grown to important proportions. Not only in mercantile circles, but in civic affairs, Mr. Miesmer has taken an active and helpful part, and in 1915 received the appointment as postmaster of Aultman, a capacity in which he has already shown himself possessed of the capacity to render valuable service to the community.
The career of Mr. Miesmer, like those of other men who have attained successful positions in the business life of Stark County, was started on the farm. He was born on his father's property near Crystal Springs, in Jackson Township, Stark County, Ohio, November 16, 1868, and is a son of Philip and Elizabeth (Porr) Miesmer. His father was born in Germany, and came to this country when his parents decided there was a better future for themselves and their children in the United States, he being at that time a lad of twelve years, whose only advantages were a public school education and an ambition to make something of himself. The family located at Massillon, Ohio, where Philip Miesmer, as a youth, learned the trade of blacksmith, and continued to follow that vocation throughout his career, a hard-working, industrious man, who made the most of his opportunities and always acted honorably in his dealings with
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his fellowmen. He was just making a success of life, when his death occurred in 1885, he being then forty-seven years of age. At the time of his marriage, Mr. Miesmer had purchased a farm in Jackson Township, Stark County, but continued to follow his trade, the farm work being carried on by hired help. The mother, who was born at Coshocton, Sullivan County, New York, survived him until 1905, and was sixty-two years of age at the time of her demise. In the family there were eight daughters and one son, as follows: Anna, who became the wife of Philip E. Moock, general manager of the Canton Electric and Engineering Company; Philip E., of this notice; Clara, who became the wife of Henry Fashbauch, Wilson Electric Company of Canton ; Elizabeth, who is the widow of Thomas Fashbauch ; Eleanora, who is the wife of Henry Ries, of Crystal Springs, who is now a resident of Akron, where he is connected with the rubber works; Edith, who became the wife of Charles Platt, an electrical worker, who met his death in 1913 by electrocution as a result of the coming into contact with a live wire while engaged in work for the City Fire Department, Canton; Bertha, who became the wife of Otto Kuligorski, of Crystal Springs formerly, but now of Dalton, Ohio; Harriet, who is the wife of Harvey Dunn, of Albion, Michigan, their present place of residence; and Maude, who is the wife of Cyrus Large, who is a member of the City Fire Department, Akron.
The only son of his parents, the boyhood and youth of Philip Edward Miesmer were passed on the home farm and there he worked faithfully until reaching the age of twenty-four years. As a boy he attended the Stover District School, where he obtained his educational training during the winter terms, and when his schooling was completed he spent a part of each year as a worker in the mines. At the time of his marriage, in 1902, Mr. Miesmer left the farm and turned his attention to mercantile lines, as secretary of the Crystal Springs Co-Operative Company, a concern which he had helped to organize. He remained as manager of the store there until 1912, in which year he changed his residence and business headquarters to the thriving little community of Aultman, joining the company of progressive business men who founded the Aultman Co- Operative Company. Mr. Micsmer's experience and training in this line of endeavor made him the logical candidate for the office of manager, and to this he was appointed. His energetic efforts have resulted in the development of an important business institution, which is now considered in the light of a necessary commercial adjunct and which attracts its trade from all over this part of Stark County. The success of Mr. Miesmer has been self attained and each step upward in his career has been accomplished only after earnest and well directed effort. A stanch and active democrat, he has worked hard for the success of his party, and March 16, 1915, his loyalty was rewarded when he received the appointment as pcstmaster of Aultman, a position in which he has endeavored faithfully to serve the best interests of the people. Mr. Miesmer is well known fraternally, belonging to Greentown Lodge No. 450, Independent Order of Odd FellowS; Clinton Lodge No. 47, of the Masons ; Massillon Stark Tent No. 186, KnightS of the Maccabees, and Garfield Council No. 118, Junior Order United American Mechanics. Mrs. Miesmer is a member of Perseverance Council, Daughters of America, and, like her husband, has numerous friends in fraternal circles.
PICTURE OF WILLIAM SOULE, M. S., Ph. D.
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Mr. Miesmer was married in 1902 to Miss Eliza Ries, who was born near Crystal Springs, Ohio, in Jackson Township, daughter of Martin and Sophia (Pitts) Ries, residents of Crystal Springs. To this union there have been born the following children : Lillian May, who holds a position with the Snyder Grocery Company, at Akron, and is considered an accomplished young business woman ; Ruth Ellen, who is her father's assistant in the postoflice and acts as clerk in the store; Irene Verde, who also served as clerk in the store at Aultman ; Vearl Clifford, who is working as a machinist for the Hoover Manufacturing Company, of New Berlin, Ohio; and Cletus Philip, Mildred C. and Gladys Lucille, who reside with their parents and are attending school at Aultman.
WILLIAM SOULE, M. S., Ph. D. As a proper memorial to the many years of distinguished services rendered by the late Doctor Soule to Mount Union College at Alliance and to the cause of education and science at large, the following article has been prepared for this publication by Martin L. D 'Ooge, professor emeritus of Greek and member of the class of 1862 of the University of Michigan :
Dr. William Soule was born at Dover Plains, New York, December 5, 1834, and died at Alliance, Ohio, April 18, 1914.
He was the only son of John Benson Soule and Jane Tabor Soule. His father was a descendant of George Soule, who came from England in the Mayflower and was one of the signers of the Cape Cod Compact. On his mother's side he traced his descent from John and Priscilla Alden. His immediate ancestors for several generations lived in the eastern part of New York near the Connecticut state line.
Dr. Soule's father was an intelligent business man, who was fond of books and had been at one time a teacher. William inherited his father's fondness for reading and received from him his earliest schooling. His mother was a domestic woman who looked well after the comfort of her family. The home life was a quiet and peaceful one.
After attending the school of his native town Doctor Soule went to Armenia Seminary to prepare for college. This seminary was then a flourishing school under the direction of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was presided over by Cyrus D. Foss, who later became a well known bishop of that church. In March, 1858, Doctor Soule entered the University of Michigan and was admitted to the freshman class in advanced standing. He was graduated in 1861 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. In college as in all his life he was remarkable for his studious habits, his gentle manner and his high sense of duty. His favorite studies were scientific and his most inspiring teachers were Alexander Winchell in geology and botany, Andrew D. White in history, and Chancellor Tappan in philosophy. But he made special studies, in chemistry and for his work in this science he received a special diploma. In 1861 he returned to the university and took post-graduate courses in chemistry and entomology, for which he received the Master's degree in 1862. Mount Union College honored itself in 1881 by conferring upon Doctor Soule the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
The calling of the teacher early attracted Doctor Soule. Soon after graduation he taught chemistry, physics and botany for a year in the
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high school of his native town. For the thirteen years following he taught these sciences in the Cazenovia Seminary in the State of New York. During this time he was volunteer meteorological observer for the Smithsonian Institute, and later he rendered a similar service to the national weather bureau.
In August, 1880, he was appointed professor of physics and chemistry in Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio, a position which he filled with eminent satisfaction until 1904, a period of twenty-four years of successful and faithful labor. In addition to his regular work he gave instruction also for a part of the time in geology and mineralogy, and, as if this were not enough to tax his strength and occupy his time, he was also charged with the care of the college library, which he rearranged and classified with much labor. The burden he tried to carry proved too great for his health, which before he came to Mount Union College had broken down, and to repair which lie had to retire for a while from active service. At the close of the academic year of 1904 his broken health compelled him to sever his connection with the college which he had served so long and so well. In his retirement he tried to occupy himself with various lighter tasks, but even these became too burdensome for his failing strength.
Dr. Soule was a great reader. His students called him "a walking encyclopedia." He aimed to keep abreast with the rapid advance of the sciences which he taught. His merits as a scholar were recognized outside of his own community. In 1884 lie became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1899 he was honored by an election as fellow of that learned body. He was a charter member of the Ohio State Academy of Science. In 1894 he was invited to read a paper before the International Congress of Applied Chemistry that met in Brussels. He was elected in the fall of 1912 as a member of the Royal Geographical Society of England and invited to read a paper before it. Failing health compelled him to decline this invitation. His attainments in his chosen fields of study were such that he was urged to make some permanent contribution to science in the form of a book or monograph, but his native modesty, together with the numerous demands upon his time and strength, prevented him from rendering this additional service.
Doctor Soule identified himself in early manhood with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he became an influential member. For many years he held an important office in his local church and taught a Bible class. While Doctor Soule never held any political office his influence as a member of the republican party was pronounced and persistent in favor of high ideals of citizenship and of good government.
At the close of his student days in May, 1862, Doctor Soule married Miss Adelia E. White, the youngest daughter of Mr. Eber White, one of the pioneers and prominent citizens of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mr. Soule was survived by his wife and by two daughters, both former students at Mount Union College. The older daughter, Stella, was the wife of Dr. Darwin W. Waugh, a successful physician of Brooklyn, New York. She died within a year after the death of her father, passing away at her home in Brooklyn, New York, April 14, 1915. The
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younger daughter, Marion, lives with her mother and is a music teacher and organist of local renown.
On a beautiful spring day in April all that was mortal of Doctor Soule was laid to rest in the Forest Hill Cemetery at Ann Arbor. Such is the record of this man who lived laborious days and did his duty well, and of whom it may fittingly be said what one of our English poets wrote of "the first true gentleman that ever breathed," that he had "a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit."
CARL HENRY MEYER. Mr. Meyer's position in the affairs of the City of Canton is that of au educator, in connection with the department of science in the Central High School. He has been connected with the high school at Canton for fifteen years, and while thoroughly fortified in scientific and general Scholarship, is pre-eminently a teacher, and his success and long retention in the Canton schools are abundant testimony of his qualifications as an educator.
Carl Henry Meyer was born at Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb. of Columbus, on July 21, 1880. His parents were Louis F. and Anna (Eller) Meyer, both of whom are now residents of Canton. His father was born in Dayton, Ohio, and his mother in Germany, having been brought to the United States when a girl. Louis F. Meyer was educated in the Capital University at Columbus and studied theology in the seminary connected with that institution. After his graduation and ordination his first pastoral charge was at Gahanna, and in 1882 he came to Canton and became pastor of what is now the First German Lutheran Church. He served that society continuously for twenty-seven years, and after this long and capable service retired from the ministry in 1909, but has since kept his home in Canton. He is now in his sixty-seventh year.
Carl H. Meyer has spent practically all his life in 'Canton, and his early education was acquired by attendance at the parochial schools of the Lutheran Church, where he was instructed both in German and English languages. He afterwards entered the East Fourth Street Public School, and continued until graduating from Central High School in 1899. His higher education was attained at Lima College in Lima, Ohio, where in 1902 he graduated A. B. and B. S.
Mr. Meyer began teaching at the Central High School in the fall of 1902. His first subjects were botany and algebra, and since that time he has taught in nearly all the departments. He has been instructor in the science department since 1908. In the meantime he has spent several summer vacations in post-graduate study at the Ohio State University, and now has almost sufficient credits to entitle him to his Master's degree. Mr. Meyer is a member of the Central Association of Science and Mathematic Teachers and of the Northeastern Ohio Teachers Association. He was for seven years a member of the Stark County Board of School Examiners. Since 1909 he has had charge of the local weather station under the auspices of the Federal Government.
Mr. Meyer married Ida A. Mack, of Canton, daughter of Henry E. Mack, of the old Canton family of that name. Their children are two in number : Miriam Albertine, and Harold Henry.
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BERNARD C. BATES. A flourishing enterprise of Alliance, which has contributed materially to the commercial importance of the city, the Alliance Hardware Company since its inception in 1906 has shown a steady and pleasing growth, testifying eloquently to the ability and resource of the men whose interests are wrapped up in its life. The success of this concern may be accredited in large measure to the sterling efforts of its secretary, treasurer and general manager, Bernard C. Bates, than whom there is probably no better known man in the hardware trade in Ohio.
Mr. Bates was born at Osnaburg, Stark County, Ohio, March 4, 1851, and is a son of Charles and Frances Bates. The father, a native of Germany, came to the United States about the year 1850 and located at Osnaburg, Stark County, where for some years he was proprietor of the hotel known as the Cross Keys Tavern. Subsequently he removed to Canton, and in 1864 to Louisville, Stark County, where he became proprietor of a grocery store and boarding house, a venture with which he was identified until his death in 1886, being survived by Mrs. Bates several years. Of five children all are residents of Stark County except a daughter who lives in Des Moines, the others being : Mrs. J. H. Bruner, of Alliance ; Ed C. Bates, manager of the Buckeye Jack Company ; R. C. Bates, a jeweler of Alliance ; and Bernard C.
Bernard C. Bates was thirteen years of age when his parents removed to Louisville, Ohio, and there his education was completed in the public schools. He was nineteen years of age when he entered upon his career in the capacity of clerk in the hardware store of Henry Miller, at Alliance, and thus engaged in the business in which his life was destined to be passed. After remaining with Mr. Miller for ten years, Mr. Bates decided to engage in business on his own account, and accordingly founded a company for the manufacture of pocket knives, but after one year disposed of his interests therein and became a commercial salesman for the McIntosh Hardware Company of Cleveland, Ohio. For upwards of a quarter of a century he covered the same territory in Northeast Ohio, and probably no man in the state has a wider acquaintance among hardware men, In 1906, leaving the road, Mr. Bates formed a partnership with Mr. W. H. Ramsey, and organized the present business, the Alliance Hardware Company, as successor to the firm of Crowl & Devinnie. At that time Mr. Ramsey became president. while Mr. Bates was made secretary and treasurer, and has continued as general manager in directing the business of the house. In addition to general shelf and heavy hardware, the firm specializes in heating and plumbing appliances, roofing and sheet metal work, and from twenty-five to thirty-five men are employed in the various departments as the trade demands. The store may he said to be a model of its kind, and under its present management the business is enjoying a very satisfactory trade. 'Mr. Bates has not allowed outside interests to interfere with his business. He has long been prominent in the State and National Hardware associations, being ex-president of the former and a delegate to the latter. The Ohio State Hardware Dealers Association has about 1,000 members, with about half that many honorary members. and is one of the most important trade organizations of Ohio. Its annual conventions, held only in the larger cities, give opportunity
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for the display and introduction of new goods and the extension of acquaintance, resulting in great general benefits to dealers, salesmen and manufacturers everywhere.
Mr. Bates was married to Miss Etta Snider, of Salem, Ohio, who prior to her marriage was a teacher in the public schools of Alliance. She was the mother of two daughters: one who married T. L. Lowe and died in New Mexico; and Etta S., who lives at home with her father. The present Mrs. Bates was formerly Miss Margaret Heacock, and was also of Salem, Ohio.
The editors are in receipt of a communication from the secretary- treasurer of the McIntosh Hardware Corporation of Cleveland, with which Mr. Bates was so long identified, and the expressions of esteem for his long service are so unusual and commendatory that it is only just to conclude this brief sketch with some quotations from the letter: "Mr. Bates commenced with our concern, The McIntosh Hardware Corporation, about the year 1881 and represented us as a salesman on the road for I think from 25 to 30 years, and was one of the most genial and successful traveling salesmen. Owing to Mr. Bates' thorough reliability, he had a great many strong friends among the retail hardware dealers throughout his territory, and I think without exaggeration I can say that these retail hardware dealers felt toward him more as a friend than as a traveling salesman calling to do business. I am sure they were always as glad to see him as he was to see them, and they felt any business they did with him would be handled in a manner entirely satisfactory to them, and which I am sure was the case and I know their confidence was never misplaced. It would be interesting for you to know that during the entire time Mr. Bates traveled for us I don 't believe he had a single misunderstanding. with any customer. I don't believe that he ever lost a customer that he or our company cared to retain. This is a very exceptional record, and one that Mr. Bates should be proud of. It was with regret that we were compelled to part with his services when he resigned to enter the retail hardware business in Alliance, but feeling it was to his personal interest to make this change and having such a personal interest in him, the only thing we could do was to accept his resignation and extend to him our very best wishes for his future success."
HON. JOHN G. WARWICK. A man who attained special eminence not only in Stark County but in the state and nation, was the late John G. Warwick of Massillon. In the early '50s he was known to a very limited circle as clerk in a small store at Navarre. Forty years later when he died, he was filling the office of congressman from the Ohio district including Stark County, and for years had been one of the most conspicuous figures in merchandising, railroad building, and the financial and political life of Stark County.
He came to America a young Irishman. having been born in County Tyrone, Ireland, December 23, 1830. Educated in his native land, he came to America. in 1850 without friends and without resources. After a brief stay in Philadelphia he arrived at Navarre in Stark County, and soon was employed as clerk and bookkeeper in a store. He was there two years, and in 1853 engaged in the dry goods business at Massillon. He
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was soon prospering and in a few years his interests had a greatly expanded scope. He became the principal owner of the Sippo Valley Mills, and late in the decade of the '60s identified himself actively with railroads, serving as a director in the Massillon & Cleveland, the Wheeling and Lake Erie, and the Cleveland and Marietta Railway companies. Still later he turned his attention to coal mining, and in that industry became one of the largest operators in Ohio. From 1872, in which year he sold out his mercantile interests at Massillon, he was one of the most prominent men in the industrial affairs of Ohio. He helped to organize the MaSsillon Building & Loan Association, which he served as president for a time ; was a director in the Massillon Water Company, and was a stockholder in nearly every important enterprise launched in Massillon during the years following the war and up to his death.
In the democratic party he was long one of the diStinctive leaders in the state. In 1883 he was elected lieutenant governor of Ohio on the democratic ticket with George Hoadly as governor. He presided over the Senate when Henry Payne was elected to the United States Senate. The culminating success of his political career came in 1890, when he was the democratic candidate for Congress and contested the district with the late William McKinley. Major McKinley had additional prestige through his previous service and was at that time occupying the seat in Congress to which Mr. Warwick aspired. After a closely contested campaign Mr. Warwick was elected and enjoyed the distinction of being the only man who ever defeated Major McKinley in an election. During the sessions of Congress which began in 1891, Mr. Warwick proved himself the worthy successor to the distinguished McKinley. He soon gained a following at Washington and was one of the valued advisers to his party in the national legislature.
Mr. Warwick died in New York City, where he was attending to some business interests, on August 14. 1892, before the close of his term as congressman. In 1864 he married Marie E. Lavake, whose father was a native of Prussia, Germany, and after settling in Baltimore became prominent as a merchant. Mrs. Warwick is still living, and is one of the best known and most highly esteemed ladies of Massillon.
JUDGE JACOB A. AMBLER. One of Ohio's most distinguished men was the late Judge Ambler, who for nearly fifty years was either in the active practice of law or engaged in his duties as a judge or congressman. While his residence for the greater part of the time was at Salem. he was almost as well known in Canton, and it was in that city that he died. One of his sons is now a prominent lawyer of Canton.
Jacob A. Ambler was born at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, February 18, 1829, and died at Canton, Ohio, September 22, 1906. His parents, Henry and Hannah Ambler, emigrated from England in 1822 and settled at Pittsburg. The late Judge Ambler received his early education in the public schools of Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, and in 1849, began reading law in the office of his brother, the late Henry Ambler, at Salem, Ohio. Admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1851, he began active practice at Salem as a partner with his brother, and later was associated with Judge Peter A. Lanbie. His practice soon extended over the counties of Stark,
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Mahoning, Tuscarawas and other sections of Eastern Ohio, and for a number of years he ranked easily with the most eminent members of the Ohio bar. In 1857 he was elected a member of the Ohio Legislature, and after one term resigned to accept appointment from Governor Salmon P. Chase as judge of the Common Pleas Court. In 1868 he was elected from the Seventeenth Ohio Congressional District, afterwards the Eighteenth district, and known as the McKinley District, including Stark County,. and served during the Forty-first and Forty-second congresses. He declined renomination for a third term in order to resume the practice of law. President Arthur appointed him a member of the United States Tariff Commission in 1882, and he gave the benefit of his counsel in the investigations and findings reported by that body. During the later years of his active law practice Judge Ambler was chiefly identified with corporation law and was counsel for many important manufacturing concerns.
Judge Ambler had become a member of the republican party at its organization, and had lifelong friendships with state and national leaders in that party, including William McKinley, John Sherman, Marcus A. Hanna and others.
In 1852 Judge Ambler married Mary Steele, daughter of Andrew and Sarah Steele of Salem, Ohio. Mrs. Ambler died in 1898. Their surviving children are : Judge Byron S. Ambler, a former United States federal judge in the Philippines, and now a resident of Washington, D. C. ; Judge Ralph S. Ambler, former common pleas judge of Stark County. and now one of the leading members of the bar at Canton ; Mrs. M. C. McNabb, wife of the well known Youngstown attorney ; Mrs. F. E. McManus, wife of a minister at Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
Judge Ambler was buried from his Salem home, and a number of Ohio's leading men attended the funeral and paid the tributes of long friendship. In the services held at Canton, Justice William R. Day of the United States Supreme Court, a lifelong friend of Judge Ambler, paid him a notable tribute in an address which is quoted as follows:
"We are gathered to pay a last tribute of affection and respect to an honorable life, now closed after a notable career. Words of fulsome praise could never be more out of place than in the brief service of this hour. Jacob A. Ambler never uttered them of others, and he would have rejected them with scorn for himself. A life of seventy-seven years— nearly fifty of which were passed between the public service of the state and nation and the activities of an engrossing profession—cannot pass unnoticed.
"Judge Ambler, as he has been familiarly called since 1859, when his friend and fellow laborer in the cause of liberty, Salmon P. Chase, then governor of Ohio, named him, though only thirty years of age, for judicial place, was a man of strong character and clear intellect. He filled the most difficult of judicial positions—that of a nisi prius judge—with impartial fairness and ability to the entire acceptance of the bar and the people. He came to the duties of manhood through the gateway familiar to so many eminent Americans, of earnest effort for himself and reliance upon his own resources. At the early age of twenty-two he was admitted to the practice of the profession of the law, which for half a century he
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steadily pursued, save when called to public service, and in which he was destined to achieve an acknowledged leadership among the great names of Ohio's bar.
"Judge Ambler was undoubtedly ambitious of professional success, and had a strong man's satisfaction in the victories of forensic warfare, but he never stooped to conquer. He rejoiced to wear the palm of victory when it was honorably won, but it never so much as occurred to his honest mind and purpose that he might filch triumph from an adversary by unworthy means. He made war for his clients in the open and with his banner carried high in air. Artifice and trick were not among his weapons. If he struck hard blows they were fair ones. Independence was the leading feature of his character. He acted upon his own judgment, fearlessly and with perfect courage.
"Devoted to his profession, he gave much thought and investigation to public questions and rendered important service to the state and nation. He was associated with the great men of his state, and the early days of the party of his choice, and his voice rang out for greater freedom and the restriction of the bounds of human slavery. In the national council he met on equal terms the leaders of the country and left a strong impress on the public thought and legislation of his time.
"Judge Ambler was a friendly man. He loved to encourage the young men of his calling and was ever ready with advice and help to less brilliant and well-equipped professional brethren. There is a curtain which the hand of friendship may not push aside too rudely ; but no summary of his character and career, however brief, would be just which would not speak of his love of home and family. Those, and they are many, who enjoyed the hospitality of his fireside, could not fail to observe that it was there he had 'garnered up his heart' and had the keenest enjoyment of his successful life. The strong man never faltered until the finger of death was laid upon the beloved companion of his youth and manhood. A changed man from that day, he seemed to calmly wait until the summons should come to him. In the homes of his children he found such peace and consolation as was left to the rest of his earthly journey.
"His professional brethren reverently follow him to the last resting place today and mourn the loss of a leader endeared to them by his friendship. His career strengthened the confidence of the people in the pure and fearless administration of the law, and was an example of faithfulness to public and private duty which we may well emulate. To those who follow him and bear his honored name we extend our heartfelt sympathy in their bereavement. He has left them precious legacy of a life of spotless purity and the memory of a character without fear and without reproach. Honored and beloved in life, his departure is lamented as a loss of a great and true man by all who number it among their privileges to have known him and enjoyed his friendship."
At the services held in Salem the chief figure was the late Judge Robert W. Tayler, judge of the United States courts in the Eastern District of Ohio. He had likewise been a close personal friend of Judge Ambler for many years, and what he said in large part serves to supplement the character sketch given by Judge Day. Judge Tayler said : "Thirty years ago I first came to know Judge Ambler. He was in the
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prime of his intellectual and physical manhood and at the meridian of his professional life. During the following twenty years he had such career as no man in Columbiana county ever had. He was the unchallenged leader of its bar. He stood in his class alone. Active, industrious, careful, intense, high-minded, eloquent, successful, he was a great lawyer and a great man. He did not need to die to have that praise accorded him. It was said of him daily while living, and it is therefore easy and truthful to say it of him now. Many of us have known him long. Some of us have especially known him in the work to which he gave his life. Upon us who knew him as a lawyer and as a man he made a most profound impression. The struggles, triumphs and defeats of the bar arouse many animosities. Sometimes they are lasting. A man of Judge Ambler 's force and temperament must needs have had his share of these. He did not shirk them if they came. He gave as good and as many as he got, but everybody knew it. There was no remote corner of his memory where such things were laid away. If he had them he wore them on his sleeve for all men to know. So whatever comes as the price of success, or with the sting of defeat, came with our professional associations with this great lawyer. Some of us were especially drawn to him as a man, but all had and expressed an unqualified admiration of him as a lawyer. This was so true that I have often said that no man ever so profoundly influenced the younger members of this bar as did Judge Ambler. He had a very exalted idea of the duty which lawyers owe to each other. The ethics of the profession he believed in and acted upon to the utmost limit. If he agreed to do or not to do, that was the end of it. To him the law was a most honorable profession, and he signalized his own conception by being a most high-minded and honorable member of it. And so it resulted that with his fascinating personality, his extraordinary acuteness and mental activity, his profound learning, his marvelous memory, his courage, his integrity and his great success he became a model which young lawyers sought to imitate.
"The finest thing in life is strength—strength of soul, strength of purpose, strength of mind—and the outcome of these in robust, useful and effective deeds. There can be no very useful goodness without strength. Our good intentions but animate our vain regrets when we find ourselves not strong enoughto do the right. There can be no very great accomplishment of knowledge if it be not accompanied by strength. Wisdom is a dead and useless handmaiden if we have not sturdy purpose and real courage to endow it. Therefore do I praise strength—the strength that knowing the right does it ; the strength that accompanying a conviction makes it blossom into a great fact of life. The chief characteristic of this man was strength—the kind of strength that I have just described. Strong he was in soul, in mind, and in his affections. Such weaknesses as he, in common with his fellow mortals, may have had, were but the incidents of his temperament. He was steadfast and courageous and absolutely honest in his convictions and in his conduct. His mind was more acute and comprehensive and painstaking, but always he exhaled strength, the power of his convictions, the force and certainty of his courage, the magnificent independence of his acts; these were always manifest, and were his chief and splendid attributes. He was
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the only man I ever knew who added to a marvelous acuteneSs and quickness of intellect the incongruous associates of a most profound conservatism and au amazing accuracy. This was but an expression of that strength which could put a bridle on his abounding intellectual activity. Of the strength of his affections no tongue can fitly or fully speak. It is known in the hearts only that grieve today.
"There was in Judge Ambler a sturdy, old-fashioned kind of honesty which was as much a mark of his intellectual force and independence as of his moral nature. Dishonesty of any kind was abhorrent both to his mind and his conscience. He delighted to know that the results of his efforts and the success which came to him were due to his own work, unaided by any adventitious force either of right or of wrong. He was so independent that he wanted to stand always upon his strength, and find in his own self respect the reward of his efforts.
"It is difficult often to say how, in a community in which a man of wide repute has long lived, that man is appraised. After a close observation of his life and methods for twenty-five years, and recognizing more year after year his strength of character and the force of his intellect, I am. induced to say what. I have said before—that considered as a combination of industry, of force, of discriminating intellect, and of capacity for constant and effective accomplishment, I never knew an abler man than this man whose mortal tenement lies here before us.
"There is much more that ought to he said when such a man is taken away, but I cannot say it I have done the best I can He was to me at once an incentive and an example, and nothing in all my life has so influenced me as what. I thought and think he stood for in the practice of our great profession I think we shall look on his like no more."
HON. RALPH S. AMBLER. Both actual and acknowledged leadership in the Stark County bar is accorded the firm of Pomerene, Ambler & Pomerene, the senior member of which now represents Ohio in the United States Senate, while Mr. Ambler has for thirty years been successfully identified with the bench and bar of Canton as one of the foremost lawyers of the state. Mr. Ambler has had a varied experience in official and public life prior to the formation of his present legal partnership, and his reputation is especially secure through his long and capable services as judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Ralph S. Ambler was born at Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, July 24, 1859, a son of Hon. Jacob A. and Mary Ann (Steele) Ambler. His father is at once recognized as having been one of Ohio's greatest lawyers and most prominent public leaders. He had a long and distinguished career. A native of Pittsburg, he came to Ohio about the time he reached his majority, located at Salem in Columbiana County, and after his admission to the bar practiced in all the surrounding counties and in fact all over the state, and was well known in Canton, perhaps as much so as any member of the Stark County bar. Early in his career he served as a member of the Ohio State Legislature and afterwards was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the Ninth Judicial District, which at that time included Stark County.
PICTURE OF PHILIP EDWARD MOOCK
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Thus, while a resident of Columbiana County, his relations were unusually intimate with Stark County. For four years he was one of the ablest members of the Ohio delegation in Congress, having been elected in 1868 and re-elected, serving from 1868 to 1872. In 1882 President Arthur appointed Mr. Ambler a member of the National Tariff Commission. His death occurred in Canton, September 27, 1907, while visiting his son. His wife was the daughter of Malcolmson Steele.
Ralph S. Ambler grew up in Columbiana County, attended the Salem public schools and the Salem Select Quaker School, and was graduated from Adelbert College with the class of 1883 and the degree Bachelor of Arts. He had a distinguished instructor in the law in the person of his father, and after a thorough course of reading in the elder's office was admitted to the bar in 1885. Mr. Ambler removed to Canton and began the practice of law in 1886 with partnership with Judge Henry A. Wise under the firm name of Wise & Ambler. Subsequently Col. J. J. Clark became associated with him under the name of Clark & Ambler, and with the admission of Mr. Clark's son George H., the title of the firm was Clark, Ambler & Clark.
Mr. Ambler was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of Judge Isaac H. Taylor on the Common Pleas bench, and in 1900 was elected judge of that court and re-elected in 1905, serving more than two full terms. After leaving the bench in 1911 and resuming private practice, Mr. Ambler became a member of the firm of Pomerene, Ambler & Pomerene.
Judge Ambler is president of the Stark County Bar Association, the Stark County Law Library Association and is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association. By his marriage to Mary Eva Phillips, daughter of Dr. Thomas H. Phillips, now deceased, of Canton, Judge Ambler has one son, Phillips Ambler, aged thirteen years.
PHILIP EDWARD MOOCK. To the constructive enterprise of Philip E. Moock Canton owes the establishment of one of its most important industrial enterprises, the Canton Engineering & Electric Company, of which Mr. Moock is secretary, treasurer and general manager. He has more recently taken the chief executive responsibilities of the Canton Motor Car Company. Mr. Moock is a native of Stark County. and his business experience has been a progressive ascent from humble to important responsibilities.
He was born on a farm about six miles north of Massillon November 6, 1863. His parents Jacob J. and Eva (Mueller) Moock were natives of Germany, where they were married, and where four of their children were born. The family emigrated to the United States in 1851, coming direct to Stark County and locating on a farm near that on which Philip E. Moock was born. Later they bought the latter farm, and the parents continued to live there as quiet but substantial farmers the rest of their lives. The mother passed away in 1890 at the age of sixty-seven, and the father attained nearly the age of eighty-three, his death occurring in 1900. Their children who grew to maturity were: Elizabeth ; Catherine, now deceased ; Sarah ; Jacob J.; John; Henry, deceased; Lulu; and Philip E.
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Mr. Moock grew up on the old homestead farm, and from that environment and from such education as he could obtain in the district schools he derived the chief influences which formed his youthful character. He remained on the farm until about twenty-three years of age, and during the last few winters had been employed as an engineer at one of the neighboring coal mines. His early inclinations were for mechanical pursuits, and in 1883 he left the farm and went to Massillon to take a position with the Russell Engine Company of that city. For nine years he was one of the most trusted employes of that company. In 1896 he took charge as chief engineer of the plant of the Canton Light, Heat & Power Company, and carried those responsibilities until January, 1904. Having resigned, he accepted a position as traveling salesman for the Pittsburg Gauge & Supply Company, and soon afterwards removed his family to Pittsburg. In the interests of that company he traveled all over the United States, selling their steam specialties and oiling systems. Later the company sent him to take charge of the branch house in New York City.
Mr. Moock having resigned from the Pittsburg company in the latter part of 1906 returned to Canton. and on January 1, 1907, completed the organization and incorporation of the Canton Engineering & Electric Company, which was the first large concern of its kind established in the city. In this company he became treasurer and manager. and there was a reorganization in 1911, at which time Frank L. Cole of Canton became president, S. C. Glutting of Akron became vice president, with Mr. Moock as secretary, treasurer and general manager. When the Canton Motor Car Company was reorganized in 1910, Mr. Moock's skillful services were brought to the affairs of that organization in the office of president, and he is now officially identified with these two concerns, among the most important of their kind in Northeastern Ohio.
He is a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, the Young Men's Christian Association, is a Mason and all Elk, and has membership in the Trinity Reformed Church. Mr. Moock married Miss Anna Valeria Miesmer, who was born on a farm close to that on which her husband first saw the light of day. Her father, Philip Miesmer, was born in Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Moock have two children: Gourney ; and Harold M., who now has a position with the Western Electric Company at Cleveland.
DAVID TODD MACHAMER. Perhaps the most useful and necessary occupation of mankind is that of agriculture, which in these modern times has been perfected in an almost exact science. It is also one of the most independent and the most healthful, the average farmer being usually a long-lived, sturdy specimen of manhood. One of the most prominent representatives of this class in Stark County, Ohio, is David Todd Machamer, of Lake Township, a man widely known and respected all over the county. Mr. Machamer was born on the old George Machamer farm, near Huntsville, on August 7, 1837, a son of John and Catherine Machamer. The paternal grandfather was George Machamer, a native of Berks County, Pennsylvania, who, when a boy, after the
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death of his parents, was put out to learn the blacksmith's trade. After serving his apprenticeship he married and in 1821 came to Lake Township, Stark County, where he bought what was known as the Moore farm, about one mile west of Huntsville, its original proprietor having taken it from the Government during President Monroe's administration. When Mr. Machamer bought the land it had no improvements on it and was covered with timber. With the true pioneer spirit, he built a log cabin and set about the work of felling the trees and making other improvements, in time developing the place into a good farm. Here he resided for the rest of his life, which closed in March, 1863. At his own request he was buried on his farm. During the War of 1812 he was drafted for a soldier but, for some reason, never served. His wife, at her death, was also buried on the farm.
John Machamer, son of George and father of David T., was six years old when he accompanied his parents to Lake Township. He was reared on the homestead and in due time became the owner of 120 acres of the old farm. Devoting himself to its cultivation, he remained here until his death, which occurred July 26, 1897. His wife, Catherine, was born in Center County, Pennsylvania, February 11, 1816, and died before him, in about 1891. They were members of the Reformed Church.
David Todd Machamer was reared on his parents' farm and acquired his education in the district school and at the Canton High School, which he attended two terms. At the age of twenty-one years he began teaching school and taught eight winters. In the meanwhile, however, when he was twenty-two, he left home and took charge of his uncle George Machamer's farm, which he had for five years. He then engaged in general mercantile business in Cairo and for twenty-one years successfully operated a store. During that time he bought his brother's part of the old home farm and is still its owner. He also bought the old William Kossler farm of seventy-eight acres, at Cairo, and the Jacob Garty farm of eighty acres, situated half a mile east of Cairo, of both of which properties he is the owner.
Mr. Machamer was married on May 30, 1868, to Hannah Wertenberger, who was born in Stark County, Ohio, a daughter of Jacob Wertenberger. She died September 9, 1891, having been the mother of three children, namely : Anthony W., residing on the farm east of Cairo ; Emma E., who married Levi S. Holbin and lives on the Kossler farm, and Frances C., the wife of Charles W. Reed, of Canton, where her husband has been a mail carrier for the last twenty-five years. Mr. Machamer is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He is one of the most prominent men of his township, which he has served as treasurer and trustee for many terms. Although somewhat advanced in years he is still hale and hearty and numbers among his friends almost the entire population of township, together with many of the best known people in other parts of the county. He married for his second wife, Miss Lavina Wonstler, a daughter of Solomon H. Wonstler, of Lake Township, Stark County.
IRA B. BRYAN. There is no more representative class in any community than the farmers, for upon agriculture depends the very exist-
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ence of the human race. Many other things are luxuries, or the mere comforts of civilized life, but bread is a daily necessity with everyone— the, one article with which we cannot dispense. Even the savage who goes without clothes and depends in part for his living upon the product of the chase, makes his wives cultivate a little patch of ground, that he may have vegetable sustenance in one form or another, and so, to a limited extent, is a farmer; and with most peoples bread is, as it has been aptly termed, the "staff of life." The farmer is, therefore, the man upon whom all others depend for the first necessity of their existence. The advances made in agricultural methods in recent times have called for more brain work than was formerly the case, so we find that the farmer of today is, as a rule, a man of good mentality, often with a superior education, and generally quite as "smart" as his neighbor, the merchant, banker or manufacturer. Among the up-to-date and representative farmers of Stark County is Ira B. Bryan, whose fine and well cultivated farm is located about five miles northeast of Hartville, in Marlboro Township.
Mr. Bryan is a native of this county, having been born on the old John Bryan farm, one mile west of Baltimore, in Marlboro Township, September 2, 1852, his parents being John and Anna (Young) Bryan. The paternal grandfather was Peter Bryan, who was born in Maryland and removed with his family to Lake Township, Stark County, Ohio, in 1837, locating on a farm in the southern part of the township. Subsequently he removed from there to another farm not far from the Lutheran Church in the same township, which place was his last residence. He was a member of the Reformed Church.
John Bryan, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Maryland in 1821 and came with his parents to Stark County. After his marriage to Anna Young, who was born in Marlboro Township, this county, a daughter of Michael Young, he resided for awhile with his wife's people. In a short time he purchased the Wilhelm farm in Lake Township, but subsequently sold it and bought the farm west of Baltimore. During the Civil war period he bought what is now known as the Cope farm, also in Marlboro Township, and moved to that location, where he lived for about seven years, still retaining his ownership in the farm near Baltimore. Subsequently he made another purchase, this time of the farm on which his father had died, and here he himself passed away in 1885. His wife survived him a number of years, dying in 1908, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. They were members of the Christian Church. At the time of his death John Bryan was a well to do man, owning two good-sized farms, besides another place of ten acres—in all about 330 acres. Their family consisted of four children, namely Harriet, who married William L. Nash and died in 1913 ; Lucetta, who is the wife of Samuel Dickson and lives at East Liverpool, Ohio; Frank N., a resident of Dayton, Ohio ; and Ira B., whose name forms the caption of this article.
Ira B. Bryan in his youth acquired a good education. Beginning in the district school near his home, he subsequently attended the Marlboro graded school, afterwards the old Christian College at Alliance, then Bethany College, at Bethany, West Virginia, finishing his literary
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education at Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio. At the age of eighteen he began to teach school and continued in this occupation for eighteen years following, his work as a teacher being confined to Marlboro Township, except four years, during which he taught in Portage County. His present farm, known as the Whetstone farm, he purchased in 1876. It originally consisted of but forty acres, but by subsequent purchases he has increased its size to about 100 acres, and has built on it a good residence and other commodious buildings. The whole property bears the marks of careful attention and indicates unmistakably the thrift, good management and prosperity of its owner. As a man of influence in his community Mr. Bryan has at times taken part in local government, serving ten terms as treasurer of Marlboro Township and two terms as a member of the school board, both of which positions he is well qualified to fill from his strict integrity and the educational advantages he received in his youth.
He was first married to Godora Kindig, who was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, the daughter of John Kindig. She died in 1894, leaving four children—John L., James K., Marie and Ethel—whose record is, briefly, as follows : John L. married first Margaret Tombaugh and after her death took for his second wife Caroline Stiles, with whom he is now living in the State of Kansas. James K. married first Ada Gaskill. She died and he then married Elma Reichard, their home being in Marlboro Township, this county. Marie is the wife of Ora A. Reichard of Marlboro Township. Ethel is now Mrs. Perry Ripley of Akron, Ohio.
In 1895 Mr. Bryan was married, for the second time, to Belle Coombs, the daughter of David Coombs of Columbiana County, Ohio. Of this marriage two sons have been born—Ira B., Jr., and Willard C., both of whom are residing at home with their parents. Mr. Bryan and his family are members of the Christian Church. He gives his political allegiance to the democratic party.
JAMES C. CORNS. For fully a third of a century the name Corns has been one of established significance in the business and industrial life of Massillon. The name has meant much in the iron working industries of Eastern Ohio for half a century, at first through the activities of the late Joseph Corns, then through the unusually close relationship in business between father and son, and now with many responsibilities carried by James C. Corns.
Perhaps no citizen of Massillon has more important associations with the larger business affairs of the city than James C. Corns. He is president of the Massillon Foundry & Machine Company; president of the Massillon & Tuscarawas Coal Company ; a director in the Massillon Iron & Steel Company; director of the Massillon Bridge & Structural Company, the Everhard Company, the Peerless Drawn Steel Company, the Brown Lumber Company, the Union National Bank, the Massillon Savings & Buildings Company, and the Massillon City Hospital Company. He is a trustee of the MeClymonds Public Library.
His birth occurred in Buffalo, New York, on March 3, 1852. a son of Joseph and Sarah A. (Pearson) Corns. His father came from Wales, a country that has sent thousands of skilled workers in metals to this
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country. He came over in 1830, locating first in Baltimore, where he found employment in the rolling mills. For the next sixty years he was identified with the manufacture of bar iron in Maryland, Eastern and Western Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio and New York. He was one of five men to establish the first rolling mill in Buffalo, New York, in 1847. From Buffalo, New York, he moved to Akron, Ohio, in 1869, and became managing director of the Akron Iron Company. On leaving that concern in 1878 he organized the Corns Iron Company at Girard, Ohio, and directed that industry until 1880. In the latter year he leased the Massillon Iron Rolling Mills, and after operating under lease for three years bought them in 1883, and becoming president of the company so continued until his death on June 24, 1892. His wife had passed away in Buffalo, New York, in 1867.
The first seventeen years of his life James C. Corns spent in his native City of Buffalo, where he attended school and also gained some familiarity with business. Accompanying his father to Akron in 1869. he was in the employ of the Akron Iron Company until 1878 and was then with the Corns Iron Company at Girard until 1880. He became actively associated with his father in the management and control of the mills at Massillon, and was junior member of the firm of Joseph Corns & Son from 1880 until his father's death. On the organization of the Corns Iron & Steel Company in 1896 he was made president and general manager of the company, and directed its affairs through those offices until the plant was sold to the Republic Iron & Steel Company. He then remained with the larger corporation as district manager and manager of the Massillon plant until 1909, when he resigned to give his time to the variety of interests which in the meantime had grown up with himself as an important factor in their making.
Mr. Corns is a member of the Massillon Chamber of Commerce, Massillon Social Club, Lakeside Country Club, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTER. On other pages of this work will be found an historical sketch of the origin, growth and development of Mount Union College at Alliance, an institution which in 1916 will complete the seventieth anniversary of its founding, and which during an existence of seventy years has prepared for lives of usefulness many hundreds of men and women since active and prominent in public and business affairs and cultured members of various communities. Many of the well known professional and business men in this section of Ohio received their early training at Mount Union, and Doctor McMaster, who for the past six years has been president of the college, is also an alumnus of the institution. The following is a brief sketch of Doctor McMaster :
A son of Dr. James Nelson and Susan Elizabeth (Neff) McMaster, both of whom were born in Belmont County and live at Akron, where his father is a retired physician, William Henry McMaster was born in Demos, Ohio, September 17, 1875. He has a brother, Dr. S. E. McMaster, a physician at Akron, and a sister. Lenora, wife of Rev. A. A. Brown of Cadiz.
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His early education was obtained in the common schools of his native county, where he also taught for two years. In September, 1895, he entered Mount Union College, and in 1899 graduated with the degree Ph. B.
In 1902 he graduated from Drew Theological Seminary with the degree B. D. In his senior year at the latter school he won a scholarship entitling him to pursue advanced theological study abroad. For this purpose he chose United Free Church College, Glasgow, Scotland, which he attended during the year 1903-04. While at Drew he also pursued graduate work at New York University, where he was awarded the degree A. M. in 1903. Since that time at intervals he has continued his graduate study at the university, and has practically completed the work requisite for the doctorate degree.
While in college and also in the seminary Mr. McMaster was called to preach at various places. During the periods of 1.902 to 1906 he served as minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Elmhurst, New York. From 1906 to 1909 he served Embury Memorial Church, Brooklyn, New York, whence he was called to the presidency of Mount Union College.
On May 8, 1907, he married Miss Isabella Thoburn Mills of Cleveland, Ohio. Their three children are William Henry, Jr., Isabella and Janet Lyle.
Doctor McMaster was called to the presidency of Mount Union College in 1908. On April 8, 1909, he arrived with his family to assume the duties incumbent upon his office. The hearty and enthusiastic reception he was given by the faculty, students and citizens indicated the general approval of the selection made by the board of trustees. This fact, together with the quickened interest and enthusiasm among the alumni and friends of the college, augured well for the success of the new administration and for the future prosperity of this institution.
President McMaster possesses the qualifications essential to the making of an efficient executive of his alma mater. He has the education, the temperament and the personal magnetism ; he knows the traditions of the college ; he has the confidence of the trustees, faculty, alumni and students; he has had the loyal support of every friend of Mount Union.
During the six years of his work at Mount Union College $200,000 of additional endowment has been raised, Lamborn Science Hall and Elliott Hall for Women have been erected, the campus has been landscaped into a beautiful park, a new athletic field has been built, two adjacent streets paved, the attendance in the College of Liberal Arts has been trebled and the alumni in the important centers have been permanently organized. Also the college has become a member of the North Central Association of Colleges, being now on the "approved list," and is a member of the Ohio Athletic Conference and in list "A" of the University Senate.
EDWIN HOWARD WALKER. The position of Edwin Howard Walker among the contractors and builders at Canton is well indicated by his office as president of the Canton Builders Exchange. Mr. Walker is a
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