20th century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 70

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 993

USA > Ohio > Clark County > Springfield > 20th century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 70

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Thomas H. Roberts was reared on the farm on which he was born and which has always been his home, with the exception of two years which he spent at Springfield and an absence of four months in the army. He followed agricultural pursuits after completing the usual country school education, leaving home for the first time when he enlisted in Company E, Sixteenth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. April 23, 1861. He served until Septem- ber 7, 1861, although his discharge papers were dated August 18, 1861, being sta- tioned during all this time in West Vir- ginia. Mr. Roberts returned home and resnmed farming. His property is situ- ated on what was once the Urbana and

On March 26, 1863, Mr. Roberts was married to Mary Coffey, who was born in Pleasant Township, Clark County, Ohio, and is a daughter of William and Naney (Curl) Coffey. Her paternal grand- father, Joseph Coffey, came to Clark County in 1803. Both her father and mother were born in Pleasant Township. Her maternal grandfather, Jeremiah Curl, was born in Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts bave six children, namely: Charles. James William, Annie, Elizabeth, Lney and Mary. Charles Roberts is the manager of the home farm. He married Josephine Warwick and they have five children: Agnes, Josephine, Thomas Edwin and John. James William Rob- erts is engaged in farming in Moorefield Township. He married Blanche Baldwin and they have one child, Blanche. Annie Roberts married Richard Marsh and they live in Indiana and have four children: Gladys, Grace, Elizabeth and Nathan. Elizabeth Roberts married Harry Bruce and they live at Troy, Ohio. Lucy Rob- erts married Nathan Marsh and they have three children : Douglas, Emily and Mary Catherine; and Mary Roberts married George Maxwell. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have lived to see all their children com- fortably settled in homes of their own He is a man of quiet tastes, devoted to his home and interested in local matters only so far as becomes a good citizen. taking no very active part in politics. He he- longs to the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

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WILLIAM BAYLEY, president of the tive interest in furthering the interests of William Bayley Company, manufacturers the City of Springfield, and served two years on the board of park commission- ers. Religiously he and his wife are mem- bers of the High Street Methodist Episco- pal Church. of structural and ornamental iron work, has been a resident of Springfield, Ohio, since 1875. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, July 28, 1845, and was there reared to maturity, attending the public schools during his youthful days.

Mr. Bayley remained in his native city until he passed the age of twenty-five years, then went to Wilmington, Dela- ware, where he conducted a machine shop one year. He removed to Springfield, Ohio, in 1875, and thereafter until 1889 was identified with the Whiteley plant. He then entered the employ of the Rogers l'ence Company, and subsequently the Rogers Iron Company, which three years later was succeeded by the William Bay- ley Company. The latter company was organized and incorporated with the fol- lowing officers: William Bayley, presi- dent; W. D. Bayley, vice president ; G. D. Bayley, second vice president; L. D. Bay- ley, treasurer, and A. G. Dey, secretary. They do all kinds of structural, ornament- al and artistic iron work and have built up an extensive business in this section of the state.

In 1871 Mr. Bayley was united in mar- riage with Miss Mary Dicus, of Balti- more, Maryland. and they have five chil- dren living, namely: William D., of Ash- ville, North Carolina; Guy D., of Spring- field; Lee D., of Springfield; Elden D., a student at Chapel Hill College in North Carolina, and Mary, wife of Prof. J. H. Pratt, chief of the geological department of the state of North Carolina and an in- structor in Chapel Hill College. Fra- ternally our subject is a member of Clark Lodge, F. & A. M. He has taken an ac-

ENOCH K. NAVE, a prosperous farmer and well known citizen of Green Township, Clark County, Ohio, who was born on what is now the Shobe farm in that township, August 24, 1844, is a son of Jacob, Jr., and Mary (Knable) Nave, and grandson of Jacob and Catherine (Garlough) Nave.

Jacob Nave, Sr., was a native of Vir- ginia, and was a young man, unmarried, at the time he came to Clark County, Ohio, in 1807. The Garlough family, into which he married, came to this county at about the same time. He was a soldier in the War of 1812.

Jacob Nave, Jr., was born on what is now the Shobe farm on the banks of the Little Miami River, August 22, 1811, and engaged in farming in Green Township throughout life. dying on the old home place in 1865, aged fifty-four years. He married Mary Knable, by whom he had eleven children, as follows: John G., a farmer of Green Township; Catherine (Shobe), formerly of Green Township, but now deceased; Margaret (Williams), of Madison Township; Jacob H., who died as a result of injuries received at Beverly, West Virginia, during the Civil War; Enoch K., whose name begins this article; William O., of Tremont, Ohio; Thomas, a resident of Springfield; Harriet (Ramy), of Plattsburg, Ohio ; Eliza ( Eichelbarger) ; Ezra L., who lives at Pitchin; and Ervin

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Elroy, a carpenter, of Madison Township. Mrs. Nave lived to the advanced age of eighty-six years, surviving her husband nearly a half century.

Enoch K. Nave was reared on the home place in Green Township, and lived under the parental roof until he was twenty-five years of age, when he struck out for him- self. When the Civil War was in pro- gress he enlisted for service in the Union Army, serving thirteen months in a cred- itable manner. Upon his return he re- sumed farming operations, which has been his life work. In 1894, he purchased his present farm of eighty-three acres, lo- cated about eight miles southeast of Springfield. He is now retired from busi- ness activity, enjoying the fruits of many years of toil.

Mr. Nave was joined in wedlock with Miss Rachel Mckinney, a native of Clark County, and they have three children liv- ing: William; Mayne (Mrs. W. H. Walker) ; and Mrs. Clara Garlough. Mrs. Nave died in October, 1881, and Mr. Nave took for his second wife, June 3, 1884, Ad- die Swisher, of Gallia County, Ohio. Po- litically, our subject is a Republican, and on January 1, 1908, he completed his sixth year as township trustee, an office he has filled with great credit to himself and the entire satisfaction of his constituents. Re- ligiously, he is a member of the Free Bap- tist church.

JACOB BAKER, a prominent citizen and general farmer, owning seventy-five acres of valuable land in Mad River Town- ship, was born November 11, 1833, in Maryland, and is a son of Jacob and Han- nah (Der) (Youtsey) Baker.

Mr. Baker's paternal ancestors came from Germany and a record is preserved in an old German Bible in the family, which shows that Conrod Baker, his grandfather, held high rank. The record does not further tell why Conrod and his two brothers left their native land and came to America, but the cause was prob- ably either of a religious or political char- acter. Two of the three brothers settled in Virginia, and all trace of them have been' lost by the Ohio Bakers. Conrod Baker established himself in Maryland and acquired much land in the neighbor- hood of Middletown, Frederick County, Maryland. He reared several children, but they did not survive him, and his last days were spent with his daughter-in-law, the widow of his son, Jacob.

Jacob Baker was reared on his father's estate, and he, too, became a large farmer. He married Mrs. Hannah (Der) Youtsey, a widow, who was born near Middletown, Maryland. No children were born to her first marriage, and the five born to her second union were: Elizabeth, who is the widow of Armstead T. M. Alexander, lives on the old homestead in Maryland; Susan, who married T. B. Wiles, is deceased: Catherine, who died young; Philip, who was married (first) to Mary Smith, and (second) to a Miss Donovan; and Jacob. who was born four months after the death of his father. The latter had served as a soldier in the War of 1812.

Jacob Baker remained with his mother through childhood, youth and early man- hood, and continued to live in Maryland for eleven years after his own marriage. His wife, Rachel Minnich, was born in Frederick County, Maryland, and at the time of marriage she was earning fifty

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cents a week and his wages were nine dol- lars a month. They left Maryland in Oc- tober, 1864, and after reaching Clark County, Ohio, lived for six months near Snyder's Mill, west of Springfield, from which place they moved to Woodington, Darke County. It was while living there that Mr. Baker learned of the death of his beloved mother, in her home in Maryland, at the age of sixty-nine years. From Darke County, Mr. Baker came to his present farm, which he bought of John Peterson. It was not in very good condi- tion and Mr. Baker subsequently tore down all of the old buildings and replaced them with substantial ones. His farm is now bounded on one side by the Rebert turnpike road, two miles of which Mr. Baker built and hauled the first load of stone over it for the building of the court- house at Springfield, three miles distant. Mr. Baker continues to carry on general farming on his land and has it carefully cultivated.

Mr. and Mrs. Baker have five children, namely : Harlin C., Charles M. F., Isaiah S., Mary Elizabeth, and Anna L. Harlin C. Baker was born in January, 1855, mar- ried Julia Webber and lives at Cleveland. Charles M. F. was born in 1856. He man- ages his father's farm. He married Alice Dudley and they have one child, Stanley H. Isaiah S. was born in 1858, and re- sides in Champaign County, Ohio. He married Emma Esterline and they have ten children, namely: Elizabeth, who has always lived with her grandparents; Charles, Luther, Helen, Mary, Nellie, Wil- liam, Julia, Teddy, and an infant son. Mary Elizabeth Baker married George Sultzbach, and they live north of Spring- field. They have four children : Walter,

Harry, Benjamin and Dorothy H. Anna L'. Baker married Judge L. F. Young, of Springfield. Mr. Baker and family belong to the Lutheran Church, of which he has been a member for the past fifty-four years. Politically, he has long been a stanch Republican, but he has never con- sented to serve in any office except that of school director. He belongs to the Junior Order of United American Me- chanics.

HON. JOHN L. ZIMMERMAN, one of Springfield's leading citizens, a prominent member of her bar, and an active and successful politician, was born on a farm in Mahoning County not far from Wash- ingtonville. He comes of pioneer stock and possesses many of the sturdy quali- ties found in his grandfather, who came to Ohio and settled in Columbiana County in 1803.

John L. Zimmerman's boyhood was spent on the paternal farm, and his early education was obtained in the country schools. He was ambitious, and when only seventeen years of age became a teacher and by his own efforts, in a spirit of independence, earned the money to en- able him to pursue academic and collegi- ate studies. He became a student in Mt. Union College, going from there in the fall of 1875 to Wittenberg College, at Springfield, from which institution he was graduated with honors, in 1879. He im- mediately began the study of law, in the office of Judge J. K. Mower, with whom he remained two years, and in October, 1881, he was admitted to the Ohio bar, and on May 1, 1882, he opened his office at Springfield, where he has continued

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until the present. Mr. Zimmerman has gressive Democrat, the principles of Jef- been twice elected president of the Clark ferson and Jackson claiming his adher- ence. He is a loyal party man and from early manhood had public offices urged for his acceptance, but he never permitted his name to be used prior to his candidacy for Congress in the Seventh District, against Hon. Walter Weaver. In later con- tests, when he has been brought forward for still higher honors, to his great credit may it be said, that in the heat of sharp political campaigns, no whisper has ever been heard impeaching his personal in- tegrity or the honesty of his motives. County Bar Association. For eighteen years he has been a member of the board of directors of Wittenberg College, a part of that time being its president, and has also been a director of the Warder Free Library at Springfield, for a period of twenty-two years. In the business field he is vice-president of the E. W. Ross Company, a large enterprise of this city, in the manufacture of feed cutters, and is vice-president of the D. Q. Fox Company, wholesale grocers.

In 1889, Mr. Zimmerman was married to Miss Helen E. Ballard, who is a mem- ber of one of the leading families of Springfield, and they have two sons, typ- ical young Americans, Charles Ballard, aged sixteen years, and John L., Jr., aged eleven years. Their beautiful home is one of culture and refinement and is frequent- ly the scene of pleasant social functions.

Mr. Zimmerman's name is well repre- sented in Springfield, attached, as it is, to four of the city's most substantial busi- ness blocks : the Zimmerman Building, on Main Street; Citizens' National Bank Building, the three-story structure at No. 7 West Main Street, and the five-story New Zimmerman Building, situated on the corner of Main and Limestone Streets. Mr. Zimmerman has been one of the city's most liberal benefactors. He donated to Wittenberg College the Zimmerman Me- morial Library, a splendid structure which elicits admiration from every vis- itor. He gave liberally also to the build- ing of the Masonic, Knights of Pythias and the Odd Fellows' Homes, being a member of the two former organizations.

Mr. Zimmerman calls himself a pro-

WILLIAM C. STEWART, a prominent resident of Green Township, and formerly a well known citizen of Springfield, is lo- cated on the old Stewart homestead, and is occupied in farming. He has five hun- dred and forty acres of land, partly in Greene County, and farms on an exten- sive scale.

Mr. Stewart was born on his present farm along the Little Miami, October 27. 1835, and is a son of Jolin Templeton and Ann (Elder) Stewart, a further record of whom may be found elsewhere in this work. He was reared on this place and re- ceived a meagre educational training in the schools of this vicinity. A natural stu- dent, he applied himself to private re- search, and is at the present time well read on all topics of current interests, being a broad gauged, liberal minded man. He was a little past fourteen years of age when his father died, and he thereafter took care of his mother during her life- time, living on the home place. This con- sisted of 260 acres originally, Mr. Stew- art inheriting 129 acres of it, and the re-

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MOTION R.ISSOA "TANDON K KVITILA AO ADNICISAM

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mainder of his property being acquired through his own hard work and judicious management. He remained on this place for fifteen years after his marriage, then in 1896, in order to give his daughter bet- ter educational advantages, moved to Springfield. Here he took rank among the substantial men and occupied a place high in the esteem of his fellow citizens. In 1907, after eleven years of retirement, he returned to Green Township, and re- sumed his agricultural operations.

Mr. Stewart was married September 9, 1880, to Elizabeth Theodosia Sellers, a daughter of Albert and Harriet (Johnson) Sellers, of Cedarville Township, Greene County, Ohio. Mrs. Stewart's father was from Berkley County, Virginia, and her mother from an old family of Clark County, Ohio. Two children were the issne of this union: Lea Virginia, who died in infancy; and Hazel Marie, who was, on November 21, 1907, joined in mar- riage with Nathan Nesbitt Murray. Po- litically, our subject is a Republican and has served on the School Board and as supervisor. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias, and religiously is a member of the Presbyterian Church.

WILLIAM MAHLON ROCKEL, the only child of Peter and Margaret Rockel, was born on the banks of Mad River, one mile east of Tremont City, July 18, 1855. It is tradition that the ancestor of the Rockel family was a German schoolmas- ter. who came to the colonies in 1752. The great-grandfather, Peter Rockel, having intermarried with one Anna Maria Brown, lived near Allentown, Pennsyl- vania, until 1822; he was a miller by oc-

cupation. At this latter date he gathered together his belongings and with his wife and six children, leaving three elder ones, started in a wagon overland- and landed one mile south of Tremont City in the same year. Here he purchased a small tract of ninety-six acres, which is still in the Rockel family. As his will on file in the probate judge's office shows, he died in 1824. when sixty-three years of age, his family here remaining being his wife, who died about 1841, and his son Adam and five daughters. Adam was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1793, and died May 13, 1884. In 1829 he married Mary M. Baker, daughter of Phillip and Elizabeth Baker. She was born in Shenandoah County, Virginia, in 1810, and came with her father's and grandfather's family in 1813 to a tract of land which her grandfather had pur- chased a short distance west of Eagle City. She died in 1886.

Adam Rockel did service in the War of 1812, under General Henry Shearing. He had learned the shoemaker's trade, but was well educated, speaking and writing both the English and German languages, and served in various official capacities in German Township.

Peter Rockel, father of the subject of this sketch, was the eldest son of Adam. He was born on the old homestead one mile south of Tremont City in May, 1831. In 1854 he married Margaret Shick, who was born in Harrison County, Ohio, in 1833, and came with her father to Logan County, Ohio, in 1837. William Shick, her father, was born on the banks of the Potomac River, twelve miles above Wash- ington, in 1808. In 1825 he started for the West, stopping in Harrison County,

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where in 1829 he married Catherine no opportunity of gazing outside, unless Shawver. William Shick died in 1894, his it were at the sky. Immediately below wife having preceded him to the grave in 1891. They were people of good re- pute and resided for over a half-century one mile north of Bellefontaine. Mar- garet, the mother of the subject of this sketch, died in April, 1864.

In 1866 the father remarried, his bride being Sarah Ilges. After his first mar- riage he moved east of Tremont City on the banks of Mad River, and after his second marriage in 1867 moved two miles further east on the Urbana Pike, where he died in 1896, having never changed his post office address. He was an aetive, en- ergetie citizen, well liked and popular in his community. For a number of years he was justice of the peace in Moorefield Township.

William M. Rockel had the lot usually falling to farmers' sons, forty-five years ago the loss of his mother, at an early age, depriving him of the loving kindness and tender care that only a mother knows how to bestow upon a child. The means of attending sehool were not as good then as at this time, and being a small and rather delicate child, he did not start until eight years of age. The first school- house which he attended was one of the old-time log school buildings, located at the southeast corner of the eross roads west of Bowlusville. This building was shortly afterwards burned. It was a" typieal sehoolhouse of the early days. A log had been omitted or taken out along the sides of the building. In this space single window panes or two of small di- mensions were put in horizontally, fur- nishing the light for the schoolroom. This was up so high that the little fellows had

this window on each side was a broad board, which served for a desk, the larger pupils sitting with their faces to the light. The smaller pupils sat on benches around a stove in the center of the building. The next schoolhouse young Rockel attended was what is known as Dears, in the same neighborhood, the brick for the building of which, in 1864, he helped to haul.

In 1867-72 he attended the Franklin school district, on the Urbana Pike. He was very desirous of going to Wittenberg College, but other arrangements were made which ultimately defeated his in- tention of obtaining a collegiate educa- tion, and he accordingly went to live with his grandfather near Bellefontaine, where he attended the high school, being gradu- ated in 1876.

In order to earn some money to assist in his education, in the winter of 1875 and 1876 he taught the common school at Franklin, and while teaching this school he also kept up his studies in the high school. This was too much of a strain on his eyes and he had serious trouble with them, which materially interfered with his further education.

In the fall of 1876, however, he gradu- ated in the business department of the Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, and as his eyes would permit, took up some special studies in the following year.

In 1877, having the previous winter commenced the study of Blackstone, he entered, as a student, the law office of Keifer & White, afterwards Keifer, White & Rabbitts. General Keifer was then in his first year in Congress. Charles R. White afterwards became Common Pleas

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PETER ROCKEL

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judge. James H. Rabbitts became county 'it had considerable weight in preventing clerk, editor, and is now postmaster. He was admitted to the bar in April, 1879, by the old District Court, at London, Ohio.

In the fall of this year he opened a law office in a rear room of the Kizer Build- ing, 2516 East Main Street. All of his ancestors were of the Democratic faith, and he started out in life voting that way. In 1880 he was the nominee of the Demo- cratie party for prosecuting attorney, but was defeated by the usual Republican ma- jority. For some time he had been dis- satisfied with the various views and pol- icies of the Democratic party. Not liking the position taken by it in the past on ma- terial national questions, and its then at- titude, local particularly, in regard to the temperance question, only the exemplary life of W. S. Hancock, the Democratic nominee for president, kept him in line in the presidential election of 1880.

In 1881 he announced that he had left the Democratic party. This gave great offense to many of his former Democratic friends, and many presaged and possibly hoped for dire results, and in the same spirit pressed for a reason. Feeling that whatever reason he might assign would be misconstrued, he declined to give any. other than what he later stated in his pub- lic addresses. Some of his former Demo- cratic friends not being able to extract from him a reason, started one of their own, and gave out the report that he had said that there was no chance in the Dem- ocratic party to get any public position, and for that reason he had changed his politics.

This was absolutely false; however, it was such a report as those who were not friendly to him were glad to believe, and

him from securing any political prefer- inent. In 1890 he was nominated for pro- bate judge by the Republicans, elected in the same year and re-elected three years thereafter.

In 1904 he was an unsuccessful candi- date for Common Pleas judge, being sec- ond in a race of three.

In 1889, unsolicited, he received the appointment by the Supreme Court as one of the examiners upon the board to examine applicants for admission to the har, and served until he took up the active duties of probate judge. Not having a very large or active practice, he began along in the eighties to prepare articles of a legal nature, which were published in the Weekly Law Bulletin and the Cen- tral Law Journal. These led afterwards to his selection by the editors of the first edition of the American and English En- cyclopedia of Law to prepare some of the articles for that work. This was terinin- ated by his incumbency of the judgeship. Shortly after his admission to the bar he had made a selection of questions from the Supreme Court decisions. The editor of the "Bulletin" coming in contact with these, requested the privilege to print them, and this was done in 1886 in pampn- let form. Afterwards, on solicitation of Judge Charles R. White, he joined with him in 1889 in getting out the first book in Ohio on Mechanics' Liens, and in 1890 his book on Township Officers was issued, which is now in its tenth edition. During his incumbeney of the probate judge's of- fice a number of his decisions were print- ed, and upon his retirement from this po- sition he was engaged by the W. II. An- derson Company to prepare a work on

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20th century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 70

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co. Number of Pages: 993

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 993