USA > Ohio > Lorain County > A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the. > Part 60
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Commodore Huntington has extensive real estate interests both in Ohio and in Florida, and is financially connected with several business enterprises, including the Elyria Telephone Company of which he is a director.
As a yachtsman he has been prominent on the Great Lakes for a number of years. He owns one of the swiftest yachts on Lake Erie, and has been owner of several of the noted boats which at various times and in contests with the finest pliers on the lake waters have captured a number of silver cups and other trophies. Besides yachting he is also fond of hunting and fishing. He is a member of the Cleveland Yacht Club, Sandusky Yacht Club, of which he was commodore ten years, of the Toledo Yacht Club, Maumee River Yacht Club, and the Put-In-Bay Yacht Club, of which he has been commodore for the past four years. He was also commodore of the Inter-State Yachting Association in 1901 and again in 1912. He also belongs to the Cleveland Athletic and Union clubs, the Cleveland Gun Club, the Ottawa Shooting Club, and is a life
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member of the Masonic fraternity, having attained the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite, and is also a life member of Holywood Com- mandery No. 32, Knights Templar, and Al Koran Temple Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a past exalted ruler of Elyria Lodge Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and a member of the Knights of the Maccabees, the Knights of Pythias, the United Commercial Travelers, and is a member and was one of the founders of the Elyria Country Club.
In January, 1884, Commodore Huntington married Miss Mary E. Baldwin, a granddaughter of the late Judge Horace Foote, of Cleveland, and a daughter of Jonas. C. and Ann Eliza (Foote) Baldwin. Commo- dore Huntington has a daughter, Lillian Elizabeth, now the wife of Edward E. Bishop of Elyria. Mrs. Bishop, like her father, is an enthu- siastic yachtswoman and is probably the most skillful woman navigator on the Great Lakes.
Commodore Huntington, during the administrations of Governors Asa S. Bushnell, James E. Campbell and William Mckinley served as game commissioner of Ohio for six years.
HENRY HACKER. Even as the kindly earth and its natural resources must ever figure as the basis of all human prosperity, even so the able and enterprising representatives of the basic industry of agriculture must always play an important part in connection with the presentation of the productive activities of every community, for back to the land must the great metropolitan centers revert for the very necessities of life. It is always pleasing to find a locality in which the dignity and precedence of agriculture are maintained at a high standard and Lorain County is remarkably favored in the personnel of its leading exponents of this great fundamental art, and one of the substantial farmers and progressive citizens who can claim the farther distinction of being native sons of Lorain County is he whose name initiates this paragraph and whose well improved farmstead is eligibly situated in Russia Town- ship, two miles northwest of the City of Oberlin.
Mr. Hacker was born in Russia Township, this county, on the 24th of May, 1878, and is a son of Henry and Sophia (Kruse) Hacker, both natives of Germany, where the former was born in 1824 and the latter in 1834, their marriage having been solemnized in 1854, after each had become a resident of Lorain County, Ohio, where they passed the resi- due of their long and earnest lives, secure in the high regard of all who knew them. Mr. Hacker was called to eternal rest in 1910 and his loved wife passed away in the following year, both having been zealous communicants of the Evangelical Church.
Henry Hacker, Sr., came to the United States as a youth and while he had no financial resources he was amply endowed with energy, self- reliance and a determination to make his way to the goal of independence and prosperity. For nine years after he came to America he was em- ployed as a farm worker, and by the careful saving of his earnings and the gaining of high reputation for industry and sterling character, he was finally enabled to purchase a little farm of thirty acres in Lorain County, which became the stage of his first independent operations as one of the enterprising agriculturists of the county. With increas- ing prosperity, he eventually purchased another and larger farm, and at the time of his death he was the owner of one of the well improved and valuable places of the county, the same having comprised 100 acres of fertile land which he had brought to a high state of productiveness. He was deeply appreciative of the county in which he had thus found opportunity for the winning of worthy success and was always ready
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to lend his support to progressive measures and enterprises projected for the general good of the community, his political allegiance having been given to the republican party. Of his six children all but one are living, the eldest being John, who is one of the prosperous farmers of Brighton Township, this county; Frank is a skilled machinist and as such is em- ployed in the City of Elyria, judicial center of his native county; Polly is the wife of Henry Horning, another of the successful farmers of this county ; Eliza is the wife of Louis Behnke, a substantial farmer of Am- herst Township; and Henry, Jr., of this review, is the youngest of the number.
Henry Hacker, Jr., passed the period of his boyhood and youth on the homestead farm of his father and early began to contribute his quota to its work, the while he expanded his mental ken by availing himself effectually of the advantages afforded in the public schools of his native township. He has never severed his allegiance to agriculture and his independent operations have been successfully carried forward on his present fine farm of 125 acres, which he purchased when he was about thirty years of age. He has not been content merely to follow along in the beaten path but has brought to bear much discrimi- nation in utilizing scientific methods and progressive policies in the work and management of his farm, besides which he has made excellent improvements, including the remodeling of his house and the erection of a large and well equipped barn and minor farm buildings. He has two large silos and other modern accessories for the facilitating of the work of the farm, and in addition to his diversified operations as an agriculturist he has been very successful in the raising of high-grade live stock, his dairy herd of more than twenty cows proving one of the valuable adjuncts to his farm. He is a republican in his political pro- clivities and though emphatically progressive and public spirited in his civic attitude he has not been diverted from his course by any ambition for political prominence or public office. He is one of the appreciative and popular members of the local Grange and takes a lively interest in its affairs, as does also his wife, who has been his able helpmeet and coadjutor in his earnest activities as a farmer and stock-grower.
In 1903 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hacker to Miss Mary M. Lauer, a daughter of Martin Lauer, who was born and reared in Germany and who has been for many years one of the substantial agri- culturists and representative citizen of Carlisle Township, Lorain County, where he is the owner of a valuable landed estate of more than 200 acres. Mr. and Mrs. Hacker have three children : Florence, Martin and Evangeline, and the two older children are attending the local schools.
ALBERT THOMAS GRILLS, M. D. In the ten years of his work as a physician and surgeon in Lorain County, Doctor Grills has enjoyed many of the better distinctions and successes of professional activity. While representing the new and modern methods and learning in the science of medicine, Doctor Grills also has that fine character and conscientious devotion to duty which were so signally exemplified in the old time prac- titioner and family doctor.
His youth and early manhood were spent in Lorain County, though he was born in Ashawa. Canada, June 9, 1877. His parents, Samuel and Elizabeth (Grant) Grills, natives of England, came from Canada to Ohio in 1882, and established their home on a farm in Carlisle Township of Lorain County, where they continued to reside until 1915, in which year they moved to Lorain and are now making their home with their son, Doctor Grills. The father and mother are now old people, and for many years have been worthy and esteemed citizens of the county.
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The first seventeen years of his life Doctor Grills spent on the old homestead, and has much of the strength and vigor which are a product of rural environment. He attended the district schools, went to school in Elyria, and in 1900 graduated from high school. He soon afterwards entered the Western Reserve Medical College in Cleveland, where he was graduated M. D. in 1904. The following two years were spent as resi- dent physician at the Charity Hospital in Cleveland.
Doctor Grills' professional work has been in the City of Lorain. Dur- ing the first year and a half of his residence there he was resident physi- cian in St. Joseph's Hospital, and is still a member of the hospital staff, and also has served as medical director of the Devonian Mineral Spring Company of Lorain. His private practice makes very extensive demands on all his time and energy and he is regarded as one of the leaders in Lorain County's medical circles today.
He is a member of the Lorain County Medical Society, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is also active in the Lorain Chamber of Commerce. A prominent Mason, he has affiliations with Lorain Lodge No. 552, Free & Accepted Masons; Mystic Chapter No. 170, Royal Arch Masons; Lorain Council, Royal & Select Masters; Lorain Commandery No. 65, Knights Templar; and Lake Erie Consistory of the thirty-second degree and Al Koran Tem- ple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Cleveland. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias and of Lorain Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
In July, 1905, Doctor Grills married Miss Olive A. Mahany, of Cleve- land. Mrs. Grills, who before her marriage was a trained nurse, passed away October 5, 1915.
GEORGE A. HAHN. The great Empire of Germany early gave valu- able contribution to the civic makeup of Lorain County, and he whose name initiates this article is a scion of sterling pioneer families of this county, where both his paternal and maternal grandfathers settled at a time when this section of the Buckeye State was little more than a semi- wilderness. As a scion of the third generation of the Hahn family in Lorain County George A. Hahn is well upholding the prestige of the name which he bears and is known as one of the progressive farmers and loyal and public-spirited citizens of this beautiful and opulent section of his native state.
Mr. Hahn was born on the homestead farm of his parents, in Black River Township, Lorain County, on the 13th of April, 1873, and is a son of Charles and Catherine (Baumhardt) Hahn, both likewise natives of Lorain County, where the former was born on the 10th of June, 1847, and the latter on the 17th of March, 1851. The parents of Mr. Hahn were reared and educated in this county, where they still maintain their residence on their fine landed estate, and of their children six are living: Louis E. is one of the prosperous farmers of Erie County ; George A., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Martha A. is the wife of Charles Schibley, a farmer in Elyria Township; Minnie K. is the wife of Arthur Wangerien, a farmer of this county; Bertha E. is the wife of Henry Smithkons, another representative agriculturist of the county, as is also Walter Holstein, husband of Amelia, the youngest daughter.
Charles Hahn and his wife are zealous members of the Evangelical Church and in politics he is found aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party. He is serving, in 1915-16, as trustee of Black River Township, and is one of the prominent and influential citizens of that part of the county, where he is the owner of a well
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improved and valuable landed estate of 390 acres, the same being recog- nized as one of the best farms in the county. Charles Hahn is a son of George and Elizabeth (Pretz) Hahn, both natives of Germany, where the former was born in 1822 and the latter in 1821. George Hahn came to the United States in 1838 and became one of the first settlers in Lorain County, Ohio, where he reclaimed a farm from the wilderness and where he gained prosperity and independence through his well ordered labors. He had virtually no financial resources when he came to this county as a youth, and at the time of his death he was the owner of one of the large and valuable estates of this section of Ohio. Adam Baumhardt, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, likewise came from Germany and numbered himself among the early pioneer settlers of Lorain County, where he became a substantial farmer and where he continued to reside until his death. It will thus be seen that both the Hahn and Baumhardt families have contributed much toward the development and progress of Lorain County along both civic and industrial lines, and the names of both merit enduring place in the recorded history of this now opulent section of the Buckeye State.
George A. Hahn found the period of his childhood and youth com- passed by the invigorating and benignant influences and discipline of the home farm, and in the meanwhile he did not fail to profit fully by the advantages afforded in the public schools of his native township, besides which he completed a four months' course in the commercial college at Oberlin. He continued to be associated with the work and management of the home farm until he had attained to the age of twenty- four years, and he initiated his independent enterprise as a farmer on a tract of 126 acres presented to him by his father. With character- istic energy and good judgment he bent his energies to the development and improving of his farm, which he made a valuable property. In 1906 he purchased his present fine landed estate of 234 acres, situated in Russia Township, 31% miles distant from the City of Oberlin. Here he has found ample scope for his progressive and specially success- ful operations as an agriculturist and stock-grower, and his homestead is one of the valuable and admirably improved landed estates of his native county. Mr. Hahn is a vigorous and public-spirited representa- tive of the agricultural interests of the county, is always ready to give his influence and co-operation in the furtherance or undertakings tending to advance the general welfare of the community, and in his political allegiance is independent.
On the 2d of June, 1892, Mr. Hahn wedded Miss Carrie Schaible, who was born and reared in Elyria Township, this county, and who is a daughter of Jacob and Caroline (Eppley) Schaible, the former of whom was born in Germany and the latter in the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Schaible still reside on their homestead farm in Elyria Town- ship. Mr. and Mrs. Hahn have four children: Catherine, who was born March 29, 1900, is a member of the class of 1918 in the Oberlin High School; Harold, who was born in 1903, is an eighth-grade student in the public schools; Marian, who was born in 1907, is in the fourth grade of the local school; and Charles was born February 28, 1911.
HENRY HOBART HITCHCOCK. For the greater part of half a century Henry Hobart Hitchcock has been one of the leading farmer citizens of Grafton Township. About forty-six years ago he located on his present home place, which is situated on the Grafton Pike, one mile south of the village of that name. With a farm of 245 acres he carries on an exten- sive business in general agriculture, dairying and stock husbandry.
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He came to Lorain County after his marriage. He was born on a farm in Montville Township of Medina County, Ohio, December 14, 1843, a son of Daniel Bristol and Sarah E. (Welton) Hitchcock. The father was born near Amboy, New York, where he grew to manhood and where he became a skilled workman in the fabrication of such articles as spinning wheels, rakes, etc. When he was about twenty-one years of age he came to Ohio with his parents Daniel and Martha (Thayer) Hitchcock, who located in Medina County in 1836. Daniel Hitchcock was born in Connecticut while his wife was a native of Massachusetts. In Medina County Daniel Hitchcock acquired a fifty-eight acre farm and his only son, Daniel B., inherited that place and spent his days there as a successful farmer until his death when about fifty-one years of age.
Henry Hobart Hitchcock spent his early life on his father's farm and had such advantages as the local schools could bestow. After his father's death he bought from his sister Mary her interest in the homestead. His sister is now the wife of Samuel Rosenberry and lives on a farm in Ful- ton Township of Kalamazoo County, Michigan.
After reaching manhood Mr. Hitchcock made a visit to his grand- father who was then living on the farm where Henry H. Hitchcock now lives, and there became acquainted with Miss Eleanor S. Breckenridge. Their acquaintance ripened into love and on August 17, 1867, they were united in marriage. Mrs. Hitchcock was born on the farm where she and her husband now reside, and is a daughter of Justin Breckenridge, while her mother was a Miss Pohlman. Both were natives of New York State and early settlers in Lorain County.
About two years after his marriage Mr. Hitchcock sold his farm in Medina County and bought the place where he now lives, paying $40 - an acre for land that is now worth several times as much. His wife's father Mr. Breckenridge built the home residence in 1851. Its walls were substantially constructed of brick and they still stand solid, and the house is almost as good as new. The outside buildings Mr. Hitchcock has remodeled since taking possession and has always kept his own farm apace with the advancement in agricultural methods.
To him and his wife were born four children. Clarence Pohlman, born August 30, 1868, and now a successful insurance man at Lorain, married and has two children, Marie and Ralph. Willis Nelson, the second child, was born October 14, 1870, and is his father's capable as- sistant on the home farm; he married Miss Mary Benzing and has two children Eleanor S. and Nelson G. Howard Hobart, the third son, was born June 18, 1879, is a farmer in Brunswick Township of Medina County and married Della Stearns. Dwight Bristol, the youngest child, was born April 19, 1880, and still lives at home.
Since early manhood Henry Hobart Hitchcock has been a devoted adherent of republican principles in politics. He cast his first presiden- tial ballot in 1868 for President Grant. He served as trustee of the town- ship two terms and was land appraiser one term. He was reared in the Episcopal Church, and his middle name was given in honor of Bishop Hobart of New York, whose name is also preserved by Hobart College at Geneva, New York. When Mr. Hitchcock removed to Grafton, in the absence of any Episcopal Church, he put in his membership with the Congregational society at Grafton, and has always been one of its active members and is serving as a trustee and deacon. His son Willis was at one time superintendent of the Sunday School.
DAVID DECKER. Out on the Murray Ridge Road in Elyria Town- ship one of the best improved and most attractive farms passed by the traveler on that highway is the Decker place of 101 acres. Mr.
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Decker is a native of Lorain County, was born not far from where he now lives, and has made an ample success in his chosen line of endeavor and also stands for the good things in the life of his com- munity.
The farm on which he was born June 2, 1853, was also located on the Murray Ridge Road, and was at that time owned by his parents, Fred- erick and Catherine (Cook) Decker. They both come from Germany as young people, his mother with her parents when sixteen years of age. The father was a tailor by trade, and after landing in Boston worked there for several years and was married in that city to a Miss Cook when the latter was nineteen years old. They finally came West and settled in Lorain County, locating in Amherst Township, but after a short time moved to Elyria Township, where they occupied the farm on Murray Ridge Road about half a mile from the old Telegraph Road. That was their home for nearly thirty years. They then moved to the City of Elyria where Frederick Decker died January 21, 1880, at the age of about seventy-two. His widow for several years kept house for her youngest sons, Frank and George, in Amherst Township, and died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Lenz, in Greytown, Ottawa County, February 4, 1901, at the advanced age of eighty-five. There were twelve children in the family, all of whom grew up except Peter, who was accidentally drowned when four or five years of age in a well. The names of the children were: William, Jacob, Catherine, Frederick, Elizabeth, Peter, Phillipine, Adam, Carry, David, Frank and George. The son, William, early in life went to Michigan, where he was en- gaged in lumbering, served with a Michigan regiment all through the Civil war, and was afterwards identified with lumber mills in that state until his death; he was twice married, and by the first wife had two children, Kittie and Willie, and by the second marriage there is a son, Fred, who still lives in Michigan. Jacob Decker, the second son, also lives in Lorain County. Catherine, the third child, married Abraham Halter, lived in Elyria Township a number of years, from there moved to Hancock County, and she died there about five years ago when seventy years of age; she was the mother of four children: Edward, Susie, Arthur and Clarence. The next in the family is Fred- erick, who was a farmer in Elyria Township up to the age of twenty-two, then went to the war and died while fighting for the Union cause. Elizabeth lived in Elyria Township until her marriage to Jacob Lenz, which occurred in 1863, and she is now living at Greytown in Ottawa County, a widow and the mother of nine children: Fred, deceased ; Alice; Henry ; Julia; Edward; Frank, and three others now deceased. Phillipine was married at the age of seventeen in Elyria Township to George Hansman, a blacksmith, and they are now living in Amherst ; their children are: Allie, deceased; Fred; Elmer; Kittie; and Arnold. Adam, who now lives at Elyria, was first a farmer, later was engaged in shop work and is now an engineer in the steel mills at Lorain; by his marriage to Margaret Wonder of Carey, Ohio, he has two children named Mamie and Clarence. Carry is the widow of the late Orland McQueen, who for a number of years was captain of a lake vessel. though they made their home at Elyria, and she is now living at Elmore in Sandusky County ; her three children are Catherine, Lillian and Ralph. Frank, now deceased, was a farmer, later a teaming con- tractor at Amherst, and died about fifteen years ago; he married Lizzie Ackerman, who is still living, and her children are Frank, Martha, Arnold and Leland. George was associated with his brother, Frank, in the contracting business and died the same year as the brother; he
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married Kate Wenard, who lives at Amherst, and has four children, Anna, Albert, Edith and George.
Mr. David Decker grew up in Lorain County, attended the schools near his boyhood home, and was well trained for the business which he has made the basis of his career. He lived with his parents until twenty years of age, after which he followed the carpenter trade several years. He did his first farming for himself for one year in Elyria Township, and in 1878 moved to Sheffield Township, where for eighteen years he operated a farm of 1361/2 acres. Returning to Elyria Town- ship in March, 1896, he has since prospered as the proprietor and man- ager of the old Michael Eppley farm.
On April 24, 1879, he married Angeline May Botamer. She was born in Elyria Township, a daughter of Christopher. Frederick and Chassie (Fessler) Botamer. Her father was born in Germany, but was married in Sandusky, and his wife was of English stock. Mrs. Decker was one of a family of twelve children, two of whom died in infancy. Her brothers and sisters were named: Emma, deceased; Sarah, deceased; William, who lives in Elyria; Mamie, who died after her marriage; Catherine (Botamer) Beese, who lives in Elyria; John; Frank and Adam, both residents of Elyria; George, deceased; and Leon.
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