USA > Ohio > Lorain County > A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the. > Part 17
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While at Bellevue, Mr. Mapes was raised a Mason, and continued to be actively interested in the work of that fraternity up to the time of his death. For three years prior to that event he had been secre- tary for the several branches of the order at Elyria, including King Solomon Lodge No. 56, and Marshall Chapter No. 47, and he was also recorder for Elyria Council No. 86, and a member of Elyria Command- ery No. 60, Knights Templar, of which he was made a member April 13, 1905. He became a member of the Royal Arcanum at the time of its organization at Elyria. Mr. Mapes died March 29, 1907, and his funeral was in charge of the Masonic order and held at Masonic Temple. He was widely mourned, not only among his family and immediate friends, but among a wide acquaintance who knew him as a kindly, charitable man, and as a citizen who was always giving his support to some bene- ficial movement in the community.
On January 27, 1866, Mr. Mapes was married to Miss Mary Etta King, who survives him and resides at the old family home on Broad Street. One daughter was born to this union: Minnie Angeline, who is now the wife of Artemas Beebe, of Elyria, the daughter and son-in- law making their home with the mother at the old home which Mr. Mapes built many years ago.
CHARLES P. EDWARDS. When Charles P. Edwards came to Oberlin in 1882 he was an ambitious young man, possessing considerable skill and experience in the tin and metal working trade and as a plumber. For a number of years he went steadily ahead as an employe of different firms in the town, and in 1905 he borrowed some capital and started a business of his own. That he has done well is the general consensus of opinion in that community. He now furnishes perhaps the most reliable service in plumbing and tin and metal work in the community.
He was born at Seville, Medina County, Ohio, June 24, 1860. His parents were James D. and Ellen (Sickner) Edwards. His grandfather was Andrew Edwards, who was born at Paisley, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States about 1825, first settling in New York, and thence moving to Seville, Ohio, during the early '50s. He was a tanner and currier by trade, having served a thorough seven years apprenticeship in
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those lines in Scotland. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Edwards was James Sickner, who was born in one of the New England states and for many years sailed the ocean as an able bodied seaman, and saw practically all the ports of the civilized world. On leaving the sea he came inland to Ohio, and there followed his trade of blacksmith. James D. Edwards, father of Charles P., was born in Watertown, New York, in 1836, while his wife was born at Strongsville, Ohio, in 1837, and died in 1897. They were married in Seville, Ohio, in 1858. James D. Edwards was a tinsmith for more than forty years in Seville, and he now lives at Jefferson and is still working at his trade. He is a member of the Baptist Church and is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. As a republican he served as mayor of Seville a number of years and was also a member of the town council. During the Civil war he was one of the Ohio volunteers who aided in repelling Morgan's raids, while his brother John lost his life at the siege of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Reared in his native Village of Seville, Charles P. Edwards acquired a common school education, and when only a boy began working and learning the trade of tinsmith under his father. After his apprenticeship he became a journeyman, and while he is duly modest about his own accomplishment, his friends say that he has prospered by steady adherence to one line and by doing everything he undertakes well and thoroughly.
In 1881 he married Mary Freehold, of Cleveland. To their union were born four children: Arthur, who is in business with his father; Mrs. Stella Williams, of Elyria, whose husband is a motorman; Mrs. Fannie Rathwell, wife of a farmer in Lorain County ; and Alma, who is employed in a local telephone office. The mother of these children died in 1893. In 1895 Mr. Edwards married Eliza Rathwell, who was born at Oberlin. There are also four children by this union : May Udora, Grace and Harley, all of them at home. Mr. Edwards is a member of the Baptist Church, and finds an outlet for his interests in fraternal work. He has passed the chairs of the subordinate lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is also a member of the Knights and Ladies of Security. In politics he is a republican, and is a factor in the munici- pal government of Oberlin, where he has served in the city council for the past four years.
H. C. OTTERBACHER. For many years the name Otterbacher has been closely and successfully identified with business affairs at Wellington. The late John Martin Otterbacher, who died September 8, 1910, was in early life trained to the trade of harnessmaker, and he used that trade to build up and develop a business which made him prominent at Wellington.
The successor of his father in mercantile affairs at Wellington is H. C. Otterbacher, who was born at Wellington, September 6, 1879, a son of the late John Martin and Rosa L. (Fahrion) Otterbacher.
H. C. Otterbacher acquired his early education in the Wellington public schools, graduating from high school in 1897, and afterwards attending Oberlin Business College for one year. He then became his father's assistant in the harness business and has continued and expanded the business since his father's death. He now has a large and well equipped store and factory, keeps all supplies in the way of harness required by the trade, and keeps a large stock of buggies, wagons and farm implements. He is an ex-president of the Tri-State Vehicle and Implement Association and is at present a director in that organization.
On September 2, 1914, Mr. Otterbacher married Miss Phillipine Handiges of Cleveland, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. Handiges.
Mr. Otterbacher is a prominent Mason, being senior warden of Wel- lington Lodge, No. 127, Free and Accepted Masons, and has taken his
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degrees in both the York and Scottish Rites, is a thirty-second degree Mason and is a member of Al Koran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of Cleveland, Ohio. In politics he is a republican.
THOMAS T. WINCKLES. Now in the seventy-ninth year of his age, Thomas T. Winckles has had a truly noteworthy career, not in the abnormal sense of the term but in the sturdy accomplishment of duty, the fulfillment of obligations to home, friends and community, and a straight- forward career, loving justice, practicing charity, and walking in the fear of God. Mr. Winckles has spent practically all the years of his life in Lorain County, and is now one of the grand old men among its native citizens.
Born on a farm in Avon Township, March 29, 1837, a son of Thomas T. and Ann (Buck) Winckles, both of whom were born in Northampton- shire, England, and were married there, emigrating to the United States early in 1836 and spending about a year in New York City. His father bought property in New York City but sold it on moving to Avon Town- ship in Lorain County. They settled in this county the same year that Mr. Winckles was born and the elder Winckles spent his active career as a farmer. In 1845 he removed to Ridgeville, and built a fine estate in that section of the county. He had owned about ninety acres in Avon, and selling that bought fifty acres first in Ridgeville and later acquired more than 200 acres of wild land. His estate was finally reduced to 187 acres in Ridgeville, and for more than sixty years that has been in the possession of the Winckles family. The father lived in that com- munity until his death at the age of forty-four, and his wife passed away at the age of fifty-one. The elder Thomas T. Winckles took an active part in local affairs, serving as a township trustee and justice of the peace at Ridgeville. In his family were seven children, three sons and four daughters. Elizabeth, who married Thomas Martin, died in Vir- ginia ; the second is Thomas T., Jr .; Cary H. was a graduate of Oberlin College, early enlisted in the army during the Civil war as a private, was promoted to orderly sergeant and finally to first lieutenant only a few days before his death, his fatal illness having overtaken him when near Covington, Kentucky, in 1863, while with the One Hundred and Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry ; Sarah Jane died in childhood and all the other children died in infancy.
Thomas T. Winckles received most of his education in the Elyria public schools, with a few terms in Oberlin College. His school and home training well prepared him for the serious and practical duties of life, and he then took up farming on the old estate. He was only twenty years of age when his father died, and he continued to cultivate and manage the homestead until 1881, at which time he bought the property. This fine farm of 187 acres in Ridgeville is easily one of the best in Lorain County, and is now the property of his son Cary T. Winckles. Thomas T. Winckles owned and managed the farm up to 1900, since which year. he has lived almost retired in Elyria. His home in Elyria comprises a substantial residence surrounded with four and a half acres of land and as it would be contrary to his nature to be idle, he finds employment in working his large garden. His home is at the corner of Cleveland Street and Winckles Street, the latter being named in his honor. Ile laid part of this street out, and the late Parks Foster continued the thoroughfare, and it is now one of considerable length.
During his residence in Ridgeville Mr. Winckles took an active part in civic and religious life. He was a trustee of the township for a num- ber of years and since coming to Elyria served six years as a member of the city council, representing the first ward. In politics he is a repub-
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lican. In the way of local improvements he had erected four residences on Winckles Street, and still owns three of these, which he rents. He is also interested as a stockholder in The Farm Implement Company at Elyria, of which his son Harvey T. Winckles, mentioned on other pages, is president and the active head. Mr. Winckles has long been prominent in the Congregational Church at Ridgeville, and up to a year ago served as one of its trustees, his service in that office beginning when he was only twenty years of age and at the time of the organization of the church and continuing for more than fifty-five years. He helped to build the first church home, and has been one of its main supporters, a work and interest in which his wife was equally zealous.
At the home of Thomas and Jane (Townshend) Hurst in Dover, Cuyahoga County, on January 16, 1861, Mr. Winckles married Miss Lucy A. Hurst. She was born in Dover, received her early schooling there and later attended Oberlin College. For more than fifty-four years Mr. and Mrs. Winckles have traveled life's highway together, and theirs has been a marriage ideal in its communion and its interests and accom- plishments. A few years ago they celebrated with family and friends their golden wedding anniversary. Of the five children born to them three are still living. Arthur died when three years of age; Lillian is now Mrs. W. M. Barnes of Cleveland. Cary T. is president of The Elyria Construction Company and owns and operates as a dairy farm the old homestead in Ridgeville, as related on other pages. Lena died at the age of eighteen, being at that time a graduate of the Elyria high school. Harvey T. is president and general manager of The Farm Implement Company of Elyria and his career as a business man is recited on other pages. All these children received their early education in the Elyria public schools.
PERRY G. WORCESTER. One of the best known carpenter contractors in Lorain County is Perry G. Worcester of Oberlin. Mr. Worcester as the basis of his business learned his trade thoroughly and skillfully, and during the past twenty or thirty years has employed his individual services and the organization which he has built up and maintained in the construction of some of the best homes, offices and other buildings in the county.
He comes of a very old American family, which originally came from England and settled in Massachusetts and Vermont, from which states the stock has spread to all parts of the Union. There were a number of the Worcesters who served in the rank and file in the patriot army during the Revolution, and one of them was colonel of a regiment.
It was fully seventy years ago that this branch of the Worcesters became identified with Lorain County. Grandfather Samuel Worcester, a native of Vermont, came to Lorain County in 1845, took up a tract of land and lived on it as a farm until his death. Perry G. Worcester was born in Lorain County on a farm May 1, 1863, a son of James M. and Adeline (Hill) Worcester. The father was born at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, in 1828 and the mother in Vermont in 1831. His father died in August, 1907, and his mother in June, 1895. James M. Worcester was about seventeen years of age when the family came to Oberlin, and he combined farming and work as a carpenter. He owned several farms in the county, and was quite successful, though he started in life with practically nothing. In the '40s and '50s he was an active abolitionist, and helped to keep up the underground railroad. He was a republican in politics, served as a member of the city council at Oberlin, as town trustee for a number of years and also as assessor. He was also a member of the Masonic order, while his wife was a Methodist. They were the parents of thirteen children, eleven of whom are living.
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The ninth in order of birth, Perry G. Worcester completed his early education in the Oberlin High School. For the first twenty-one years of his life he lived almost entirely on the farm, and then learned the carpenter's trade and gradually developed his trade into a contracting . business. It is said that he has contracted and built more of the first class homes in Oberlin than any other man. He has been in the business for twenty-one years, at Oberlin, and for four years he was located at Mentor, Ohio.
On February 27, 1889, Mr. Worcester married Emily Corning, daughter of Nelson and Adelia (Tyler) Corning. Her father was born in Mentor, Ohio, in 1831, and died in 1907, and her mother was born in New York State in 1832 and is still living at the age of eighty-four. Nelson Corning was a farmer by occupation and spent practically all the days of his life at Mentor. Mr. and Mrs. Worcester have four children : Nelson C., a farmer at Oberlin ; Mills E., who is in the United States regular army ; Emily A., who is still attending school at Oberlin; and Harriet Elizabeth, born September 16, 1900, and died February 5, 1905.
Mr. Worcester has for many years taken much interest in the Masonic order, and is affiliated with the Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter, Knight Templar and Commandery, is a thirty-second degree Mason and belongs to Alkoran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Cleveland, Ohio. He has served as junior warden of his lodge and is now generalissimo in the Knights Templar. In politics he is a republican.
ORLANDO T. MAYNARD, M. D. If there is one institution more than another of which the citizens of Lorain County are proud it is the Elyria Memorial Hospital, and it was a high tribute to the standing, ability and recognized qualificatons of Dr. Maynard as a physician and surgeon that he was chosen as the first president of the medical staff of that hospital when it was organized. He has continued a member of the staff ever since, and is also on the medical staff of the Nurses' Training School. Dr. Maynard is one of the older physicians of Elyria, where he has prac- ticed more than a quarter of a century, and his entire record of service in that profession covers forty years.
Born at Ripley, Huron County, Ohio, September 14, 1851, he is a son of George C. and Polly (Woodward) Maynard. His father was born in New York State, February 18, 1821, and when a boy accompanied his parents to Huron County, where he became a substantial farmer, and died there June 29, 1897. The doctor's mother was also a native of New York State, born October 8, 1827, and when a girl was brought to Hancock County, Ohio, by her parents. She died in Huron County, August 12, 1903, on the same farm she came to as a bride fifty-three years before.
The first twenty-one years of his life Doctor Maynard largely spent on his father's farm in Huron County, attending in the meanwhile the public and select schools of that locality. Prior to his twenty-first birth- day he taught school for two terms in Ripley, his native township, and taught another term later, just before entering medical college, and part of his expenses while studying medicine were defrayed from his earn- ings as a teacher. He began the study of medicine at North Fairfield, Ohio, and in 1875 was graduated from the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati. Since then, a period of forty years, he has been continuously in the practice of his profession. Few medical men in Lorain county have secured for themselves so generous an equipment and training in the various medical centers of the world. In 1884 Doctor Maynard grad-
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uated from Western Reserve Medical School, and in 1886 was given a diploma by the New York Polyclinic. He has also traveled extensively abroad, spending four summers in hospitals in London, and has done post-graduate work in that city, in Berlin, Germany, and Dublin, Ire- land. Doctor Maynard and his wife have made two trips to Egypt and the Holy Land, the first in 1906 and the second in 1912.
From 1875 to 1877, Doctor Maynard was assistant physician in the Hospital for the Insane at Toledo. His home has been in Elyria since 1887. He is a member of the Lorain County Medical Society, the Cleve- land Academy of Medicine, the Ohio State Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and is a trustee of the Elyria Public Library.
Doctor Maynard in politics has always endeavored to support the cleanest and best man who was candidate for office and where no dif- ference has been apparent in their respective qualifications has usually supported the republican ticket. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Royal Arcanum, and has been a member of the Baptist Church since 1873. In 1877 in Amherst Township of Lorain County, Doctor Maynard married Mary E. Lyman, daughter of Charles Lyman.
HENRY OSWALD WURMSER. Architecture, the art which constructs either for beauty or utility, or combines both, is one of the oldest of the refining and civilizing agencies of man. While it has necessarily been regulated by natural conditions and configuration of the country in which it is exercised, the development of a modern palace, either for residence or business, step by step from the ancestral cave or tent, is one of the great and interesting romances of civilization.
Worthily in the front rank of this difficult and important profession, Henry Oswald Wurmser possesses a very large circle of professional and social friends. The mention of his name brings at once to mind Lorain's beautiful school buildings, which have been incidents in an immense field of labor successfully and honorably accomplished. Just as the names of some public and business men who have passed into the history of the county suggest their fulfillment of important enterprises, so also it is probable the name of Mr. Wurmser will be identified with the architectural and building interests of Ohio for many years to come.
Henry Oswald Wurmser was born at Findlay, county seat of Han- cock County, Ohio, April 27, 1861, and is a son of Oswald and Mary ( Alheile) Wurmser, who were born in France and came to the United States soon after they were married. As a boy Oswald Wurmser, Sr., adopted the building profession and followed it with success throughout the period of his active life, designing and erecting many of Findlay's most beautiful and imposing structures of the early days.
H. O. Wurmser's direction of study was mapped out for him early in his life, and his preparatory education for the professions of engineering and architecture, quite often united in that day, received most careful development and supervision from his father, under whose guidance he chiefly gained his preparatory education in his calling, beginning to learn its rudiments while still a student at the public schools. After some years of practice at Findlay in 1893 he came to Lorain, and from that time to the present his name has continued to be identified with the best work of his profession, which he has followed throughout the State of Ohio.
The labors which have brought this accomplished architect most prominently into public view have been probably in the line of public
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school buildings. At Lorain he has erected all the public school build- ings during the past twenty-one years with the exception of three. Among these are to be found the Oakwood Park School, a $40,000 structure, and the Lincoln School, located at Vine and East Thirty-first Street, the contract price for which was $60,000. This latter structure, built in 1913, two stories and basement, occupies ground dimensions 106 by 76 feet, with basement under all, and with an auditorium 31 by 76 feet. During his active career Mr. Wurmser has designed and built 1,224 buildings in Ohio, including among many others the Methodist Church at Elyria and the Reeves Hotel at New Philadelphia, Ohio, the latter costing $75,000.
Mr. Wurmser has various business connections outside of his calling, one of which is with the Parkside Automobile Company, of which he is vice president. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. In former years he took much interest in politics, having been a member of the Central Committee of Lorain, but recently the demands of his profession have been so heavy as to take his entire time and attention.
In 1884 Mr. Wurmser was married at Findlay, Ohio, to Miss Allie S. Woodley of that city. Four children have been born to their union. Frank J., who is now traffic manager for the National Stove Company of Lorain, married Jessie Rood, and they are the parents of one child, Joan. Roy G. and Cliffe L., twins, have also reached the stage of inde- pendent usefulness in their careers, and Roy is identified with the Park- side Automobile Company in the capacities of secretary and treasurer, while Cliffe is one of the popular and efficient teachers in the public schools of Lorain. The youngest child, Paul W., is a student in the Lorain High School.
BERT O. DURAND. The oldest real estate and insurance business in Lorain County under the continuous management of members of one family was established at Oberlin in 1865, the same year as that in which occurred the birth of Bert O. Durand, who is now head of this old and reliable business, which has recently completed a record of fifty years.
The business was established by the late William B. Durand, who was born in Ohio in 1839 and died at Oberlin in 1909. He followed the work of an educator for several years, but in 1865 opened his office as an insurance and real estate man at Oberlin, and developed a very extensive business, though he had gone into the work with practically nothing. He was also prominent in local affairs. During the Civil war he spent two years with an Ohio regiment until stricken with brain fever and taken from the army to the hospital at Nashville, Tennessee. Wil- liam B. Durand was the son of Henry Durand, who was born in Bed- ford, Connecticut, and was an early settler on a farm in Erie County, Ohio. William B. Durand served as township clerk at Oberlin for twenty-eight years, and was a member of the school board eight years. He was a republican and was affiliated with the Royal Arcanum, and for thirty-five years was superintendent of the Baptist Sunday School and very active in the church itself. His wife belonged to the First Con- gregational Church. William B. Durand was married at Grafton, Ohio, in 1861, to Hannah Breckenridge, who was born at Grafton in 1842, and died in 1914. Her father, Benjamin Breckenridge, was a native of Illi- nois and moved to Ohio, following farming near Grafton.
Bert O. Durand, the only son of his parents, was born at Oberlin October 30, 1866. He was liberally educated, graduated from Oberlin College in 1890. and soon afterwards entered business with his father. A little later his father went on the road in the interests of business Vol. II- 8
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