USA > Ohio > Lorain County > A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the. > Part 71
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J. H. Calkins grew up in a home of plenty and of liberalizing in- fluences and high ideals. He secured an education in the township schools and was trained to a life of industry on his father's farm. He remained with his father an active assistant in the management of the
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farm until twenty-five years of age. For a few years he rented land, and in 1899 bought his present estate, a place of ninety-five acres, which he devotes to general farming. He has a farm which has well repaid all his energies, and shows in every corner an efficiency and system which might well be studied by less progressive agriculturists.
On December 24, 1890, Mr. Calkins married Miss Sarah E. Freeman, a daughter of George and Caroline (Coydendall) Freeman. Her father was a native of England and for many years was an active farmer in Lorain County. Mr. and Mrs. Calkins have two daughters, Mabel B. and Elsie A. The daughter Mabel is the wife of Vernie Taylor of Pitts- field Township. Mrs. Calkins is an active member of the Baptist Church. In politics he is a republican and is affiliated with the Knights of the Maccabees. Having always taken an active interest in public affairs, and his work in his own interests having won the confidence of his fellow citizens, he was honored in 1913 by election as township trustee, and his first term was given a vote of confidence by reelection in 1915. -
LEROY PETER BURGETT. A member of the young generation of business men of Lorain who is winning success because of the knowledge and mastery of a useful trade, is LeRoy Peter Burgett, who is connected with the well known contracting and building firm of L. A. Burgett & Company. He is a native son of Lorain, a product of its public schools, and 'received his training here, and his entire career has been passed within its limits. Mr. Burgett was born at Lorain, November 10, 1892, and is a son of Lawrence Anthony and Josephine B. (Miller) Burgett.
LeRoy Peter Burgett attended the public schools of Lorain, follow- ing which he further prepared himself for his career by attending a commercial college at Lorain, in which he completed a business course. At that time he was apprenticed to the trade of bricklaying, a vocation which had honorably been followed by his father and grandfather be- fore him, and after serving four years as an apprentice, became a journeyman bricklayer. In this line he secured one year's further experience, and in January, 1913, joined the forces of the concern of L. A. Burgett & Company, with which he has continued to be connected.
Mr. Burgett is a master of business singularly adapted to his inclina- tions and abilities, and the fact that his work is congenial adds not a little to his possibilities of continued advancement. He is unmarried. With the other members of the family, Mr. Burgett attends Saint Mary's Catholic Church, and is a valued and popular member of the Knights of Columbus.
JAMES L. EDWARDS. A prominent and old established real estate man of Oberlin, James L. Edwards has been identified with this city in a successful and public-spirited manner for thirty-five years, and is numbered among those who have been instrumental in helping to promote many projects for the upbuilding and progress of the community. His present position of prosperity and influence is the more notable for the fact that he early became dependent upon his own efforts to advance himself in the world and has really had an active business career since earlv boyhood.
He was born in Gorham. New York, April 25, 1862, a son of Thomas and Rachel (Morgan) ) Edwards. Both parents were born in Wales, where their respective families had resided for generations. Thomas Edwards was born in 1823 and died in 1914, and the mother was born in 1824 and is still living though past ninety-two years of age. They were married in England, and in 1860 emigrated to America and settled in New York State. Thomas Edwards was a carpenter and contractor.
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and kept at his work until a year before his death, which occurred when he was ninety. In 1873 he removed to Elyria, followed his trade there for a time, and afterwards at Cleveland, and about 1904 established his home in Oberlin, where he spent the rest of his years. Thomas Edwards had the gift of song, like so many Welshmen, and took a prominent part in the musical activities of his church and also in the early days taught a great number of singing classes. Though not a citizen of the United States at the time, he enlisted for service toward the close of the Civil war and served as a carpenter in the army. There were seven children in the family, and the five now living are: Sarah, who lives in Oberlin ; W. G., who lives at Oberlin and was for eleven years in the hardware business ; James L .; M. F., in the advertising business at Chicago; and Thomas L., a mail carrier at Cleveland.
James L. Edwards finished his education in the high school at Elyria. When only thirteen years of age he gained his first experience as cash boy in a store. For five years he was employed as a clerk by Henry Brush of Elyria and he then went on the road and sold the goods of the Henry Brunt Pottery Company at East Liverpool, Ohio. He did that work for about six months and in 1881 arrived at Oberlin, where he spent three years with the Johnson & Whitney dry goods store. On account of failing health he was compelled to go to the open prairies of Dakota, and he spent about two years there. In 1891 he established himself in the grocery business at Oberlin and after three years sold out his stock, and has since been in business as a real estate man. Mr. Edwards is one of the reliable dealers in real estate, and his transactions have covered the entire State of Ohio and he occasionally handles lands outside the state limits.
In 1890 he married Ella Crittenden, of Ruggles Township, Ashland County, Ohio. Mrs. Edwards was educated in the Academy and the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin. They have one child, Gertrude, wife of R. L. Curtis of Saginaw, Michigan.
The family are members of the Second Congregational Church at Oberlin. Mr. Edwards is a member of the Knights and Ladies of Secur- ity, and in politics is a republican.
For a time Mr. Edwards served as village assessor, has been president of the local Board of Commerce, has been secretary and is a director of the State Savings Bank, and for fully twenty years has been very active in the Lorain County Agricultural Association, of which he is serving his second term as vice president. In fact, everything that concerns his community is a matter of concern to Mr. Edwards himself. In addition to his regular business he represents the Studebaker automobile with agency covering three townships. He resides in a beautiful home in the suburbs of Oberlin, and owns a tract of twenty acres surrounding it.
HENRY OTIS FIFIELD. It is given to few men to round out such a life of varied service as that of Henry Otis Fifield, the veteran editor and well known citizen of Wellington. He can properly claim to be one of the oldest printer-editors in the State of Ohio, and is still using his pencil or typewriter and making copy every working day. At this writing in the spring of 1916 he enjoys the best of health at the age of seventy-four, and his friends join with him in hoping to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday.
His interesting career began at Corrina, Maine, August 7, 1841. At an early age his parents moved to Bangor, where they resided several years. He is a son of Samuel Stillman and Naomi (Pease) Fifield. His mother died in 1848. In 1863 Samuel S. Fifield, Sr., together with his two sons, Samuel S., Jr., and Henry O., went west and located in Pres-
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cott, Wisconsin, where they resided until after the Civil war, when the father joined his oldest son at Osceola Mills, Wisconsin, and died in 1869.
In 1858 at the age of seventeen Henry O. Fifield left school and en- tered the printing office to learn the "art preservative of all arts," and with the exception of three years' service in the Union army during the Civil war has since been engaged in the newspaper business in various parts of the country.
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April 19, 1861, he enlisted in the famous First Minnesota Regiment, which was the first regiment accepted by Mr. Lincoln for three months' service. The command was sent south in May, arriving in Washington in time to take part in the first battle of Bull Run, where it lost 182 men and retired from the field in good order. For that act the regiment was recognized as one of the best in the service at that time, and during the entire war it kept up its record for bravery and gallant performance of duty. At Antietam, September 17, 1862, the regiment lost 147 men and stood its ground to the end of the battle. At Gettysburg it again distinguished itself sustaining the greatest loss of any regiment in the war-83 per cent. This act of almost unprecedented heroism came on the evening of the second day of Gettysburg at 7 o'clock. The regiment was ordered by General Hancock to charge against four times its num- bers at an important place in the line, where there existed a gap between the third corps and the main line of the second corps extending to the cemetery. In responding to this command the colors fell seven times and of the 264 officers and men who made the charge only 47 came out alive, while 17 out of the 23 officers lay dead and wounded upon the field. And historical critics say that not a man skulked or was missing.
Up to date Mr. Fifield has been in the printing business upwards of fifty-seven years and in the early days he helped carry the influence of the printing press to the bounds of civilization on the frontier. In 1869-72 he conducted the Bayfield Press on Lake Superior, moving the plant from that place to Ashland in 1872. He was the pioneer printer there. In fact the town existed only on paper when he began the publi- cation of his paper in the primeval forest, where there were more Chippe- was than white men. However, Ashland was the lake terminus of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, now known as the "Soo road" and within a few years it became a prosperous city and one of the great iron ship- ping ports on Lake Superior. After he left Ashland in 1873 he worked on the Stillwater Lumberman and also the Gazette of the same city. In 1879 he bought the Menominee (Mich.) Herald, and for twenty-three years issued that sheet, both as a daily and weekly.
In 1902 Mr. Fifield removed to Wellington, Ohio, where he has since resided, owning and editing the Wellington Enterprise. In poli- tics he has been a republican since that party was born "under the oaks at Jackson, Michigan," and has the honor of being a stalwart all these years.
September 25, 1866, at Osceola Mills, Wisconsin, he married Miss Emma L. Walker. They had one son who died at the age of twenty- nine, and his daughter is now living with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Fifield.
JOHN PATERSON. A native of bonnie old Scotland, where he was reared and educated, a scion of fine old Scottish stock, Mr. Paterson possesses in marked degree the sterling traits of character that have always designated the sturdy race from which he is sprung. About one year after his arrival in the United States he established his home at Lorain, and here he has become one of the representative and especially
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successful contractors and builders of Lorain County, in the domain of brick, stone and concrete construction. His fine technical ability as a brick and stone mason is supplemented by energy, ambitious purpose and marked executive and business ability and thus he has been able to develop an extensive and prosperous enterprise as a contractor, in which con- nection he has been identified with the construction of virtually all im- portant buildings of the more elaborate order in Lorain County within the last decade, his interposition having been sought in the providing and installing of the high grade cut stone work on many fine buildings that in this respect stand as enduring monuments to his skill. His character and achievement have gained him secure place in popular esteem and he is one of the well known and influential business men of the younger generation in Lorain.
Picturesquely situated on the River Tay, in Perthshire, Scotland, is the Village of Errol, which figures as the native place of Mr. Paterson, his birth having there occurred on the 20th of September, 1879, and that village being still the home of his honored parents, Thomas and Margaret (Watson) Paterson, his father being a stone mason by trade and vocation.
Mr. Paterson duly availed himself of the advantages afforded in the schools of his native land and as a boy he gained his initial knowledge of the stonemason's trade under the effective direction of his father. He served a thorough apprenticeship and in due time became a skilled workman, especially in cut stone architectural work. In 1903, when about twenty-four years of age, Mr. Paterson severed the gracious ties that bound him to home and native land and, amply fortified in ambition and in practical knowledge of a trade which ever offers excellent oppor- tunities for the expert artisan and faithful worker, he immigrated to the United States. He passed the first year in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania, and then came to Ohio and established his permanent residence in the City of Lorain, his good judgment in taking this action having been effectually demonstrated by the large and worthy success he has here achieved. Mr. Paterson is a young man of vigorous and buoyant nature and greatly enjoys outdoor sports, especially football. He is actively affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which his maximum prestige is represented by his membership in the Lorain commandery of Knights Templars. This popular young Scotsman, who has entered fully into the spirit of American customs and institutions, still permits his name to remain enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors in Lorain County.
CHARLES MANNING IRISH. During a period of nearly thirty years Charles Manning Irish has been identified with the business and financial interests of Lorain, and while he now gives the greater part of his atten- tion to banking matters, in his capacity of secretary and treasurer of the Lorain Banking Company, he is still interested in the general merchandise store which he opened on first coming to Lorain and of which he is half owner. It has been his fortune to have contributed to the making of financial and commercial history here during several decades, and in this time he has always maintained a high reputation for strict fidelity and integrity which has made him the repository of a number of public trusts.
Mr. Irish was born September 14. 1862. at Pittsfield, Lorain County, Ohio, and is a son of Charles and Jane (Ware) Irish, his father being a blacksmith and farmer. The public schools of his native community supplied him with his early educational training. and as a youth he adopted the vocation of farming. an occupation which he followed for some seven or eight years, or until coming to Lorain, in 1886. Here he joined the business colony as the proprietor of a small general store.
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which proved successful from the start, the young merchant seeming to possess just those attributes and characteristics which attract prosperity in any line. Courteous, enterprising, ambitious and industrious, he built up an excellent trade. Having succeeded so well in his initial venture, Mr. Irish was encouraged to enter a different line, and accordingly opened a grocery store, in which he now owns a half interest.
The Lorain Banking Company was organized in September, 1905, with a capital of $125,000, its first officers being: Capt. Richard Thew, president ; Orville Root, first vice president; L. M. Moore, second vice president ; and E. M. Pierce, secretary and treasurer. Its officers in 1915 are the same, with the exception of Charles M. Irish, secretary and treasurer, with Irven Roth as assistant secretary and treasurer. The capital remains as $125,000, but the institution at this time has surplus and undivided profits of $10,000, and deposits of $500,000. The new banking house is a handsome three-story brick edifice, 28 by 120 feet, including the banking rooms, offices and apartments, and the institution, which pays 4 per cent on savings, is considered one of the strong, sub- stantial and conservative concerns of northern Ohio.
Mr. Irish is a director of the National Bank of Commerce of Lorain and is variously interested in other ventures. As a citizen he has taken an active part in public affairs, having been elected county treasurer in 1905 and serving two terms beginning from 1906. He has been a member of the city council for a long period, and for fifteen years a member of the school board, and in the latter body served four years as president, until his resignation. His public life has been characterized by the same fidelity to duty and unswerving integrity that have made notable and successful his personal affairs. Fraternally, Mr. Irish is a thirty- second degree Mason and belongs to the Knights of the Maccabees and the Knights of Pythias.
On February 9, 1887, Mr. Irish was united in marriage with Miss Florence Baker, of Kipton, Lorain County, Ohio, and to this union there have been born four children : Blanche Irene, Ruth Marie, Glenn Marion and Warren Baker.
NATHAN MILLER. Of those farm homes in Wellington Township which represent the last word in improvement, cultivation, fertility and skillful management, the Nathan Miller farm is one of especial interest, not only because it represents those various qualities enumerated, but also because it is the home of one of the sterling citizens of Lorain County.
Born in Medina County, Ohio, June 29, 1849, Nathan Miller is a son of Silas and Lydia (Branch) Miller. The family are of New England stock. His grandfather, Ephraim Miller, was born in Massachusetts, and came out to Ohio at the advanced age of eighty-six, and lived to be ninety-three. The maternal grandfather, Nathan Branch. was a native of New York State, lived for a number of years in Ohio, but finally moved to Michigan, where he died. Nathan Branch was both a farmer and physician. Silas Miller was born in Massachusetts, April 2, 1802, and died June 1, 1883. He came from Medina County, Ohio, in 1839, took up a farm. afterwards sold it and moved to Russia Township in Lorain County in 1851, where he acquired land at $10 an acre. After two years he sold his farm for $25 an acre and his next home was on a farm in Amherst, and in 1864 he moved to Wellington Township, where he established his permanent home on a farm of 174 acres and lived there until his death. Silas Miller married for his first wife, Cynthia Holcomb, and they were the parents of three children, one of whom is still living. He was married in Medina County to Lydia Branch, who
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was born in 1809 and died in April, 1886. By that union there were five children, and the two now living are Lucinda Whitehead, wife of a gardener in Penfield Township of Lorain County; and Mr. Nathan Miller. Both parents were members of the Congregational Church, and Silas Miller was a republican in politics.
Nathan Miller acquired his early education in the district schools at Amherst and at Wellington. He grew up on a farm, took to that voca- tion naturally, and though he started out on a modest scale he has acquired a prosperity that speaks well of his persistent industry and his good judgment. He now owns 475 acres of land, including his father's old homestead. He bought out the other heirs to this place for $8,150 and for many years has conducted his farming operations on a broad and extensive scale. While engaged in general farming he also conducts a dairy of about forty cows, and has altogether some eighty-five head of cattle. He specializes in the thoroughbred Holstein. In the course of his many years of residence in Wellington Township Mr. Miller has effected numerous improvements, and he and his family now reside in a very fine country home.
In 1883 he married Miss Elizabeth Dute, a daughter of Casper Dute, who was born in Germany, but spent his active career as a farmer in Amherst Township. Mr. and Mrs. Miller had nine children: Herbert C., who lives on his father's farm, married Blanche Myers, and they have three children, Grace, Harold and Harriet E .; Laura, wife of Don Barber, who is employed in the postoffice at Wellington, and they have one child, Robert; Minerva, who is a typist and makes her home with her father; Rollin, at home; Lida, widow of A. L. Bacon, reference to whom is made on other pages; Clara, who married William Warren, has one child, Ralph, and lives on a farm in Russia Township; Archie, at home; Wesley, at home; and L. G., who is still attending school. The family are members of the Baptist Church and in politics Mr. Miller is a republican.
OTIS E. PEABODY. One of the factors in the mercantile enterprise of Oberlin is Otis E. Peabody, who belongs to some of the stanch agri- cultural stock of Lorain County, and who about fifteen years ago engaged in business in the college town as a dealer in implements and farm hardware. He gives his best energies and time to the management of this flourishing business, and has been very successful.
The family represented by this merchant has been identified with Lorain County for more than seventy years. Otis E. Peabody was born on a farm in Lorain County October 6, 1871, a son of Harvey M. and Martha (Petty) Peabody. The Peabodys are of old New England stock. Grandfather David Peabody was born in Vermont July 10, 1812, and settled in Lorain County in the year 1843, when the inhabitants still were living in the midst of comparative pioneer conditions and had a heavy task to perform in clearing up the country. David Peabody lived to be ninety-three years of age. He was a very saintly man and the esteem felt for him was not confined to one locality. The maternal grand- father was Thomas Petty, who was an Englishman and brought his family over to America in a sailing vessel, locating in Lorain County about 1840.
Harvey M. Peabody was born in Vermont October 20, 1837. and was only six or seven years of age when he came to Lorain County. His career was spent as a farmer until 1897, at which date he retired and moved into Oberlin. He owned a fine farm, and was quite prosperous. He died March 25, 1914. In politics he was a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife was born in Lorain County in
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1842, and is still living. The parents were married in 1863. Their five children were: William II., a farmer living at Elyria; Clayton D., a Lorain County farmer; Otis E .; Mattie B., wife of Harry I. Squire, a coal dealer at Oberlin; and Ethel B., wife of Homer Worcester, a contractor at Youngstown, Ohio.
Otis E. Peabody grew up on a farm. His education came from the district schools, with one year in city grammar school and with a course in the Oberlin Business College. He and a brother managed the home farm for their father for a number of years, but in 1902 Mr. Peabody came to Oberlin and set up a business as a dealer in implements and farm hardware. He was the only dealer in that line when he first began and has since extended his trade over a wide radius of country.
In 1893 Mr. Peabody married Laura Wellman, a native of Lorain County. They have two children, Doris W. and Lois L., both attending school. Mrs. Peabody died November 5, 1910. She was a devout member of the First Baptist Church. On July 24, 1913, he married Louetta Siemens. She was also born in Lorain County, and is a member of the First Presbyterian Church, while Mr. Peabody is a Methodist.
In politics he has been identified with the republican organization since casting his first vote, and his work and influence have not been without substantial benefit to his community. He served as township assessor eight years and is now in his third successive term as a member of the city council of Oberlin. Mr. Peabody recently completed a splendid new home at Oberlin, equipped with all the modern comforts and conveniences.
A. W. MITCHELL. One of the thrifty, honorable and highly esteemed citizens of Rochester Township, A. W. Mitchell several years ago reached that fortunate point in life where he was'able to retire from the heavier responsibilities of business, and is now enjoying the comforts supplied by his many years of capable work as a farmer. Mr. Mitchell is one of the surviving veterans of the great Civil war, and besides his military serv- ice rendered in the critical days of the '60s, he has made his influence count for value in various local offices in his home county.
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