USA > Ohio > Lorain County > A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the. > Part 43
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Pliny H. Rogers grew to manhood on the old family homestead. When about eighteen years of age he went to Findlay, Ohio, and while attending high school there was employed in a drug store and eventually became a registered pharmacist. He was in the drug business at Findlay for five years until failing health compelled him to abandon that vocation.
On February 20, 1895, on the farm where he now lives, he married Miss Jessie Cleverdon. Mrs. Rogers was born in the Village of Lodi, Medina County, Ohio, daughter of William and Emeline (Woods) Clev- erdon. About 1888 her parents removed to Grafton Township, where her father bought sixty acres and later another sixty acres. Her parents are now retired at Litchfield, Ohio, where her father is living at the age of seventy-six.
After his marriage Mr. Rogers spent several years in the business of well drilling, and from that he got the start which enabled him in 1907
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to buy his present farm. The house burned the same year he bought, and afterwards he erected his present modern home. His improvements show that he is very progressive and enterprising. He constructed two silos of good capacity, and some years ago he bought a cider mill and .began the industry which is now perhaps the most distinctive feature of his business. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers have five children: Ruth, who graduated from the Elyria High School with the class of 1913, and is now a successful teacher; Glenn A., who spent a year and a half in the Elyria High School; Donna, Marjorie and Lois, all young and living at home.
In politics Mr. Rogers is a republican and cast his first presidential ballot for Mckinley in 1896. For one term he served as township trus- tee, and he passed the highest competitive examinations and received appointment as assessor from Governor Cox. He and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Belden, and he is a trustee and is superintendent of the Sunday school. He is also affiliated with the Masonic Lodge at Litchfield.
PHILIP D. REEFY, M. D. In the world of modern thought there is coming about a gradual and better appreciation of fundamental values and relationship. Emphasis is being placed more and more upon indi- vidual and personal service as at least coequal in importance with vested property and material rights and privileges. It was these better and higher ideals and principles of human life that were well exemplified in the career of the late Dr. Philip D. Reefy of Elyria, and in a time and age which saw the highest development of material achievement and in which the spirit of human ministry to fellowmen was overclouded by those accomplishments which could be measured only by material stand- ards. Whether as a soldier, as a physician, practicing medicine at Elyria continuously from 1869 until his death, or as a public spirited and hard working citizen, Doctor Reefy lived and exemplified the life of service.
He was born on a farm near Mount Eaton, Wayne County, Ohio, December 29, 1845, and died at his home on West Third Street in Elyria October 7, 1913. His parents were Johan Heinrich and Marie (Gnaegi) Ryffe, as the name was spelled in Switzerland, whence the parents came as pioneer settlers to Ohio. In many ways the influences of Swiss nation- ality and character were expressed by the late Doctor Reefy. His early education was limited to a few months each year in the district schools. He gained bodily strength by working the land and helping clear the forests, and as a youth possessed that love of freedom and ardent patriot- ism which subsequently made him so valuable as a soldier in the Union army. He had an uncle who was one of the famous Swiss guards around Emperor Napoleon and followed that leader on his disastrous Russian campaign. Less than sixteen years of age at the time, Philip D. Reefy on September 7, 1861, enlisted in Company F of the 19th Ohio Infantry. He did much to inspire others in his community to take part in the war for the preservation of the Union, and he always in every emergency and in every duty set an example of fearlessness, courage and devotion to duty. He went with his company into the Army of the Cumberland, and from the battle of Shiloh to the battle of Nashville, which finally broke the strength of the Confederacy in the West, he served first as private and then as captain in eighty-four engagements, including all the great battles around Chickamauga and Atlanta. For two years he was captain of his company, for one year served as adjutant, and at the close of the war was detailed as mustering out officer of the Third Division, Fourth Army Corps, on the staff of Major-General Wood. He was also an ordnance officer in the central district of Texas, and assistant
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adjutant-general on the staff of Major-General Beatty. He went through the war, constantly exposing himself to danger, with only a slight injury caused by a fragment of a shell.
Of his army service one of his lifelong friends at Warren, Ohio, wrote in tribute to him at the time of his death as follows: "My knowledge of him as a soldier was derived from close acquaintance with him during four years which we spent together in the Civil war as members of the 19th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. By nature and intellect he was a leader of men. He belonged to that coterie of bright young fellows who attained command of companies ere reaching their majority. His record as a soldier was that of the bravest of the brave. Always ready for duty, no matter how arduous or hazardous that duty might be, he knew not the meaning of cowardice. A man among men, a hero among heroes, his proudest boast was his citizenship of the grandest republic on earth. His friendship was as steadfast as his loyalty to his country. With him, friendship meant a covenant, a baptism, a sacrament. His was a nature that despised mean manners and mean methods. Had he enemies, per- sonal or political, he fought them with the same open courage with which he met the enemies of his country on the field of battle."
Many memories might be recalled of Doctor Reefy as a soldier and in his relations with old comrades after the war. He possessed a remarkable memory, and it is said that practically his entire individual experience as a soldier and all the important movements of the troops with which he was associated were photographically registered upon his mind, and he could give expression to the incidents of many campaigns with mar- velous descriptive powers. To quote the words of an editorial: "He served his country well, but it can be truthfully said he has served even better the hundreds and hundreds of survivors of the war, who in one way or another came into his life after the great conflict. He loved his war comrades with undying affection and he never hesitated to perform any act which meant for the veterans more comforts in their advancing years, and he constantly preached to the younger generation of the great benefit which had come to the nation through the bloody sacrifice of the flower of the nation's youth in the early '60s."
Mustered out and given his honorable discharge November 25, 1865, Captain Reefy then entered the Roanoke Seminary at Roanoke, Indiana, the head of which was at that time his brother, the late Professor F. S. Reefy. After two years of study there he entered the Eclectic College of Medicine at Cincinnati, graduated M. D. in 1869, and following about six months of practical experience in the Bellevue Hospital at New York City came to Elyria and became associated in practice with the late Dr. Paul W. Sampsell. Later in 1871 Doctor Reefy graduated from the Cleveland Medical College, and in 1873 he went abroad and studied under the direction of some of the most eminent physicians and surgeons in the great hospitals at Vienna and Berlin.
For more than forty years Doctor Reefy practiced in Elyria and the surrounding country. He was not a mere dispenser of medicine, but entered into the lives of his patients and became the true family physician who has long been an ideal of praise and honor. He gave his professional time and services, and also dispensed a broad and liberal charity with lavish hand. In the words of another who spoke of his life at the time of his death, "for forty-four years he has with tireless energy and indom- itable purpose pursued his ideal in the practice of his profession. For forty years his name has been a household word in Lorain County. He knew, it is said, until a few years ago, about every resident of the county, familiarly by name. For years, before the interurban cars or motor cars made travel easy, he traversed the rough roads of this county and neigh-
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boring counties by day and by night in the practice of his beloved profes- sion. None called to him in vain. No home too distant, no night too dark, no poverty too deep, for him who held his professional skill as a trust in keeping for his fellow man."
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After his death Doctor Reefy was honored also for his public services, when the city council of Elyria drew up resolutions to be made a part of the public records in recognition of his work as mayor. He was twice elected mayor of Elyria, in 1899 and 1901, and both administrations were characterized by such respect for law and order that ever afterward they were synonyms of good government. His last civic duty was to serve on the charter commission. His public spirit was not manifested alone when in office, but he was constant in exercising his influence either per- sonally or by the wielding of a vigorous pen toward any betterment which he was convinced was necessary for the city. He was long promi- nent in Richard Allen Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Whether in his profession or in his relations as a citizen Doctor Reefy always had the courage to have an opinion and to express it without a quibble. At times he might have been thought a little blunt of speech or manner, but it was the action of a sincere, honest mind that believed in the frank expression of a conviction.
On December 29, 1877, Mr. Reefy married Miss Libbie Mountain. He was survived by Mrs. Reefy, by a son, Dr. Karl P. Reefy, a successful physician of Elyria, and a daughter, Mrs. Mayo E. Roe of Elyria.
In conclusion should be quoted some of the words delivered by Rev. George B. Ranshaw at the memorial services held in honor of Doctor Reefy : "We do not forget his high integrity as a citizen. As we recall the story of his busy, rushing life, the spectacle of this occasion is significant in the history of our city. This memorial is not, I take it, a tribute to offi- cial service, a recognition of extraordinary genius, to literary or scientific attainments. It is homage to personal character and worth. It is a solemn public declaration that a life so long devoted to the highest ideals, so unselfish in its devotion to the welfare of others, as exalted in its conception and estimates of citizenship, furnishes an example so inspiring, a patriotism so lofty and a public service so splendid and beneficent that in contemplating them, discordant opinions, differing judgments and the sharp sting of controversial speech vanished like dew before sunshine."
GEORGE C. PRINCE. During the past thirty years George C. Prince has been a resident of Oberlin. His connections with Lorain County have been many and varied, both in a business way and in public affairs. The foundation of his business prosperity came as a mill owner and lumberman, though his name has been associated with a number of enter- prises of other kinds. He is now living retired in the beautiful little City of Oberlin and is one of the men whose careers have helped to make this county what it is.
His birth occurred in Erie County, New York, December 10, 1830, a son of William and Betsy (Fargo) Prince. He comes of old New Eng- land ancestry as is the case of so many of the older residents of Lorain County. His great-great-grandfather was Daniel Prince, who was born in Birmingham, England, about 1655, and first came to America as a soldier of the British army. Upon being discharged from the army he decided to become a citizen of the New World, and he died at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1728. His son Robert married a Miss Warren. She was arrested for witchcraft during the historic period when witches were persecuted in New England, and was convicted to be hanged, but died in jail. Abel, the grandfather of George C. Prince, was horn in Brooklyn, Windham County, Connecticut, July 3, 1763, and
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died at Brooklyn in that state, January 17, 1819. He married Lucy Cady, who died at the age of seventy-seven.
William Prince, father of George C., was born in Brooklyn, Con- necticut, July 23, 1791, and died in January, 1842. He was married at Providence, Rhode Island, to Miss Fargo, who was born in New London, Connecticut, in 1800, and died in 1885. William Prince was a merchant all his life, and for a number of years he conducted a store near Buffalo, New York, where he died. Of the six children born the only one now living is Mr. Prince of Oberlin. One of the sons, William, served in the Civil war as a soldier and was badly wounded at the battle of Stone River. William Prince was a member of the Presbyterian Church. After his death his widow brought her family to Medina County, Ohio, buying a farm on which she reared her little family. She afterwards removed to Lorain County, and lived on a farm there until her death.
As a boy the circumstances in which George C. Prince was reared were those of limited advantage but of sturdy ideals. He was able to acquire only a common school education, and at the age of sixteen he started out to make his own living. For about fourteen years he was extensively engaged in the lumber business, and in that time directed the operations of some five or six mills. It was this business which gave him the foundation of the fortune which he has since con- served and now enjoys the use of.
In 1861 Mr. Prince married Lucy A. Hill, of Camden Township, of Lorain County. To their union were born six children. Clarence G. is connected with the American Book Company of New York City ; William I is now mayor of Duluth, Minnesota; Grace is the wife of Ira D. Shaw, who is connected with the industrial department of the Y. M. C. A. and travels extensively; Sarah, who lives at home is a graduate of Oberlin Kindergarten Training School and is a teacher; Ernest L. and Edith, twins, are the youngest children, and Edith is the wife of Harry R. Hazel, a teacher in the Glenville High School at Cleveland.
Mr. Prince is a member of the First Congregational Church and in politics has always been identified with the republican party. Again and again he has been called to public office. In early days he was township clerk and assessor and justice of the peace. After his removal to Oberlin in 1885 he served as village treasurer and as personal prop- erty assessor. For four years he was deputy state supervisor of elec- tions. A man of comfortable means, acquired through the strictest prin- ciples of integrity, Mr. Prince has long enjoyed the special confidence of the people in Lorain County, and this was well testified when he was made guardian of the largest estate ever probated in the county, valued at $140,000. He handled the estate with vigor and tact and in such a way as to satisfy all interested parties. At different times in the course of his life he has adminstered some thirty or forty estates.
GEORGE W. INGERSOLL. It is always pleasing to the biographist or student of human nature to enter into an analysis of the character and career of a successful tiller of the soil. Of the many citizens gaining their own livelihood, he alone stands pre-eminent as a totally independ- ent factor, in short, "monarch of all he surveys." His rugged honesty and sterling worth are the outcome of a close association with nature and in all the relations of life he manifests that generous hospitality and kindly human sympathy which beget comradeship and which cement to him the friendship of all with whom he comes in contact. Successfully engaged in diversified agriculture on his fine estate of 150 acres in Elyria
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Township, George W. Ingersoll is decidedly a prominent and popular citizen in Lorain County, having lived in this section of the state since 1886.
George W. Ingersoll was born at Grafton, Ohio, September 10, 1864, being a son of George M. and Mary (Preston) Ingersoll, the latter of whom died in 1870. Shortly after the death of his wife, Mr. Ingersoll removed to Elyria in order to have better educational facilities for his children. For his second wife he married Elvira Bradley, who survived him for a number of years. He passed to rest in 1895. There were three children born to the first marriage of whom two are living, in 1915. Henry W., an attorney of Elyria, Ohio, married May Hamilton and has two children living, Mary C. and Henry W., Jr .; George W. is the sub- ject of this review; Anna A. died, aged fourteen years, March 18, 1881.
In the common schools of Elyria George W. Ingersoll completed his preliminary educational training and he was graduated in the Elyria High School in 1884, at the age of nineteen years. He then purchased a book store in Elyria and conducted the same with marked success for a short time. He disposed of that business, however, on account of his health and went west to Colorado, where he obtained a tract of Govern- ment land on which he engaged in ranching for the ensuing three years. In 1886 he returned to Ohio and engaged in farming in the vicinity of Camden, Lorain County. He remained there for about three years and after his marriage, in 1889, located in Elyria Township, this county. Here he is the owner of a splendidly improved farm of 150 acres, the same being situated on Lake Avenue, just outside of the city limits of Elyria. He is engaged in the raising of high-grade stock and has met with remarkable success in his agricultural pursuits. The fine condi- tion of his farm indicates good business management and everywhere can be seen signs of thrift and untiring industry. In polities Mr. Ingersoll is a staunch supporter of the principles and policies for which the republican party stands sponsor and he takes a public-spirited inter- est in everything calculated to advance the welfare of the community along material and moral lines. He is well known and highly respected throughout this section of the county.
September 18, 1889, in Elyria, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Ingersoll to Miss Myrta Parmely, a daughter of Stanley M. and Mary (Sampson) Parmely, both of whom are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Ingersoll have an adopted daughter, Gladys, who is now attending high school.
The great-grandfather and the great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Inger- soll on the paternal side were early residents in Connecticut and were soldiers in the Revolutionary war. Asahel Parmely, grandfather of Mrs. Ingersoll, was a native of Vermont, and in August, 1817, in com- pany with his parents, two brothers and his wife and two children, he came across the country in a covered wagon to Ohio. He settled, first, in Sullivan Township, Ashland County, and in 1829 removed to Elyria Township, Lorain County, and located on a farm which included all of George W. Ingersoll's and a part of an adjacent farm. He died January 4, 1859, and his wife survived him many years, passing away October 18, 1875. Two children were born to Asahel and his wife, Fannie (Wright) Parmely, in Vermont, and five others in Ohio. The first two were Hannah and Amandrin, the former of whom died in Medina County, Ohio, August 22, 1817, when the family was en route; she was buried in the woods. Amandrin was a farmer in Elyria Township for many years and his death occurred March 21, 1891; he married Emily Thomas. Concerning the five children born in Ohio the following facts are here inserted : Ashley, born February 21, 1818, married Julia Mann, and
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died in Ashland County, Ohio; Lovilla M., born May 11, 1822, died, unmarried, in Elyria, August 8, 1848; Rexaville E., born February 28, 1825, died, unmarried, in Elyria, May 23, 1848; Freeman, born November 17, 1828, married Pamelia Hecock, in 1851, and died January 10, 1893; and Stanley M., born in Elyria, April 18, 1830, died February 15, 1894.
Stanley M. Parmely, the youngest of the' foregoing children, was the father of Mrs. Ingersoll. He married, in Chester, Massachusetts, Janu- ary 25, 1855, Mary Sampson, who died on the old homestead in Elyria Township, December 6, 1915, aged eighty-four years. To Mr. and Mrs. Stanley MI. Parmely were born the following children: Nellie R. and Clara B. both died in childhood; Myrta P. is the wife of George W. Ingersoll, of this sketch; and Clarence D., born September 11, 1876, is engaged in farming on the parental estate in Elyria Township; he married, first, Gertrude Burlingame, who bore him one child, Marx Gladys, and for his second wife he married Margaret Tanswell. The second union was prolific of three children : Marian, who died at the age of two years; and Inez and Thelma, both living, in 1915. ยท
FREDERICK S. REEFY. If the City of Elyria had wished to express through the character of one citizen its best ideals of thought and action during the past forty years, no one man could have represented those ideals so broadly and fully as the late Frederick S. Reefy. His death June 9, 1911, marked the passing of a citizen of remarkable character and activities. For nearly forty years he had been identified with local journalism as senior editor of the Elyria Democrat. His most attractive and valuable characteristic as an editor was that quality, now considered old fashioned, of vigorous, positive expression of conviction. He was never content to deliver the news alone, but made his paper an assertive force in the molding and converting of public opinion. However, there were many other interests and activities through which the influence of the late Mr. Reefy can be traced. Before taking up newspaper work he was an educator in Indiana and educated hundreds of boys and young women to lives of broad usefulness and honor. For years he stood for the best in the community, and is particularly remembered as an uncom- promising opponent of the liquor interests. His love of flowers and birds and nature in all its manifestations was a trait of gentleness to be treasured in the memory of his friends. The influence which his character necessarily exerted cannot be measured by any of the ordinary standards of achievement.
The late Frederick S. Reefy was born in the little Village of Boetzingen at the foot of the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, September 1, 1833. He was of Swiss Huguenot ancestry, and true to his inheritance always showed an unconquerable love of freedom, an indomitable courage and ideals as lofty as the mountain peaks of his native land. A few months after his birth, his parents, Johan Heinrich and Marie (Gnaegi) Ryffe, started for America to realize in their own career the abundant opportu- nities of the New World. The father disposed of his land, gathered the household effects together, purchased wagons and some instruments of agriculture. and leaving the little village among the vineyards on March 28, 1834, transported their family to Havre de Grace, and thence came by a sailing vessel, which after thirty-five days on a stormy sea landed them safely in an American harbor. Going west to Cleveland, they found that city stricken with cholera, and hastened on by way of the Ohio Canal to Massillon and ended their long journey at Mount Eaton in Wayne County. They secured a tract of land which had been previously cleared, but which had only an unfinished log cabin upon it, and the father lived there
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as a pioneer farmer and homesteader for a number of years. When the late Frederick S. Reefy was fifteen years old the family moved to Tusca- rawas County to a farm of seventy-five acres near the Town of Wilmot.
Frederick S. Reefy was a fine type of the self-made man of the last century. Living in a time and under conditions which denied him the opportunities which are now so lavishly bestowed upon growing youth, he kept himself at the white heat of enthusiasm regardless of limitations and the obligations bestowed upon a simple country lad who from early youth had to bear his share of the strenuous toil needed to improve and develop a farm. He attended school during the winter months, and the few books which came into his possession he mastered with a consuming thirst for knowledge. It was in those years, in close touch with the wil- derness, that he laid the lasting love and eagerness for his pursuits as a naturalist. In this way he continued to help his father on the home farm and store his mind with useful knowledge from every available source until the age of nineteen, when he was given a certificate and taught his first term of district school.
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