USA > Ohio > Crawford County > A centennial biographical history of Crawford County, Ohio > Part 78
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The youngest son, Charles W. White, was the grandfather of our sub- ject. He was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, July 18, 1802, and when about eight years of age accompanied his father on his removal to Ross county, Ohio. At the age of eighteen he left the parental home and visited the "New Purchase" in northern Ohio. He secured work on the Indian mill, located on the Sandusky river, being employed by the government Indian agent at fifteen dollars per month. There he worked for three years and saved his money, with which he purchased two hundred and seven acres of land in what is now Dallas township, Crawford county. After working for the succeeding nine years for different people, he removed to his land, and by industry, economy and good business management became one of the largest land-owners and most successful farmers and stock-raisers of the county. In 1830 he married Hannah Simmons Hoover, and unto them were born the fol- lowing named children : Lorena, Willard T. and Charles. Willard T. White, the father of Leo White, was born in Dallas township, August 8, 1845. After engaged in farming and stock-dealing on an extensive scale for many years and meeting with prosperity in his undertakings, Mr. White, the father, re- moved to Bucyrus, where he is now living in retirement from business cares.
Leo White resides upon the old homestead in Dallas township, where his birth occurred July 17, 1870. He was educated in the district schools and has always been connected with the cultivation of the fields and the raising and sale of stock. He has dealt quite largely in cattle and is a very energetic. wide-awake young business man, carefully conducting his interests, yet his methods are progressive and his enterprise and straightforward dealings have gained him prominence as one of the leading agriculturists of his community.
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In 1899 Mr. White was united in marriage to Miss Velma Maud Shemer, a daughter of Levi Shemer, of Dallas township, and they have one child, Helen Lorena. Mr. White is now serving as township treasurer, an office to which he has been twice elected. He is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is one of the leading and influential citizens of the com- munity in which his entire life has been passed.
ELIAS CRISSINGER.
Elias Crissinger, a trustee of Dallas township and a prominent farmer and successful stock-raiser, was born near Peru, Illinois, August 11, 1853. He was a son of William and Mary ( Baker) Crissinger, both natives of Ohio, the former of Marion county and the latter of Crawford county. The paternal grandparents were of Dutch ancestry and removed from Pennsylvania to Crawford county, Ohio, early in its settlement, later going to Marion county where they spent their last days.
William Crissinger was reared in Marion county, but his wife grew up in Crawford county, where her father, Benajah Baker, was a pioneer settler of Whetstone township. Later in life he removed to Indiana and died in Jasper county. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Crissinger, one of whom has passed away. After the death of our subject's mother in Illinois, when he was but two years old, the father placed the children in the care of their paternal grandparents. Later he married a second time and lived in Marion county, and from there, in 1861, he entered the United States army, and upon the expiration of his term of enlistment re-enlisted, and died at Murfreesboro while serving in the cause of his country.
Our subject did not live with his grandparents very long, as after his second marriage the father claimed his children. After his death they were directed by a guardian and thus Elias had several early homes, but was given a common-school education and was taught how to work on a farm. From early life, however, he was obliged to earn all he received and perhaps the stern discipline of neseccity helped to make him the reliable and excellent man he now is.
In 1874 Mr. Crissinger was married to Harriet L. Houser, a daughter of Anthony Houser, of Marion county, Ohio, and then settled in Dallas county, where he began farming, first as a renter. An accidental discharge of a shot- gun so injured his hand that the amputation of his arm below the elbow be- came nescessary, and affliction which was borne with most woderful courage.
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For the following seventeen years the family resided in Marion county upon a forty-acre farm given to Mrs. Crissinger by her father, but in 1896 he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, in Dallas township, Crawford county, where he has since lived and followed farming.
In 1897 Mr. Crissinger was elected trustee, and in 1900 was re-elected for a second term and in the spring of 1901 he was made assessor also and is now serving in both positions, to the entire satisfaction of the community. In politics he is a member of the Democratic party and is one of the representa- tive men of his community. With his wife and family of eight children he belongs to the Methodist church, where he is most highly esteemed for his many traits of Christian character. His business relations have brought him into contact with almost all the residents of the township and there is no one nho nas more friends than Elias Crissinger.
JESSE HOLLINSHEAD.
The family of Hollinshead are representatives of those who have been leaders in thought and in action wherever their lots have been cast. The fam- ily has been ably represented in Ohio, by Richard Hollinshead and his sons, one of whom, Jesse Hollinshead, is a prominent citizen of Texas township, Craw- ford county.
Jesse Hollinshead was born near McConnellsville, Morgan county, Ohio, August 25, 1823, a son of Richard and Catharine (George) Hollinshead, who had five sons and three daughters and two of whose sons, Jesse and Philip, fought gallantly for the Union cause in the Civil war, the former in Company H. One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the latter in the Fourteenth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
In 1829 Richard Hollinshead moved with his family from Morgan coun- ty, Ohio, to Seneca county, and in 1838 to Crawford county where he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Lykens township, of the United States government, his purchase being comprised in what was known as the Indian reserve. The land was heavily timbered and he cleared a small space in which hie erected a log cabin and addressed himself bravely to the work of improving his property ; but he died at the age of fifty-two years, in 1842, only four years after his arrival there, and his wife died in 1853. When his parents located in Lykens township, the subject of this sketch was fifteen years old, and he received a scanty education in the common schools and was brought up to the hard life of a poor boy on the frontier. He began an independent career at
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the age of twenty years, when he married Christina Feasel, who bore him five children. She died on the 29th of September, 1893.
Amanda, eldest daughter of Jesse and Christina ( Feasel) Hollinshead, married J. G. Snyder, a wagon-maker and sawmill proprietor of Benton, Ohio. Their daughters, Sarah and Catharine, and their sons, Lawson and Herman, are dead. They have only one grandchild, Jesse H. Hollinshead, son of their son Lawson.
August 19, 1862, Mr. Hollinshead enlisted in Company H, One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. At Winchester, where he saw his first experience of battle, he was made a prisoner of war. After being confined two days in Libby prison he was transferred to Belle Isle prison, from which he was liberated after about thirty days on parole and went to a camp at Martinsburg, Virginia, and participated in the engagements at New Market and Snickers G ap. He fought under General Hunter at Kerns- town and later under General Sheridan at the battle of Opecken. Still later he participated in the fighting at Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, and after that his regiment was transferred to the Army of the James, under command of Gen- eral Grant, and for a time was stationed at Camp Holley at Deep Bottom. Mr. Hollinshead fought at Hatchers Run and participated in the movements against Petersburg and Richmond. After the fall of Richmond, as a means of pre- venting Lee from crossing the river the One Hundred and Twenty-third Ohio and the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Regiments were detailed to destroy a bridge, and in an attempt to carry out that purpose were captured by the enemy. and were prisoners with Lee at the time of the latter's surrender.
After the war Mr. Hollinshead returned to Ohio and took up carpenter work and for nearly forty years was successfully engaged in contracting and building. He is a Republican in politics, has been township trustee three years and is a member of Roberts Post, No. 672, Grand Army of the Republic.
THE MONNETT FAMILY.
The Monnett family is one of the oldest of the pioneer families of Craw- ford county. Its origin is traced to the French Huguenot refugees. One branch came from near Lyons, France, having been driven from their native country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, A. D. 1685. Many fled to England, some to Holland, and afterward three brothers emigrated from England to America and settled in Maryland and Virginia. A large number of the French families by the same name are now living in Montreal, many of
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them keeping up their native tongue, and others are found in the French set- tlements of New Orleans. Different branches of the same family vary the orthography somewhat, some attaching the final "e," others omitting one of the "n's," and some of the old families even spelling it with one "n" and one "t." The Anglicized or American spelling is with the two "n's" and two "t's," and usually accented on the last syllable, but perhaps more properly with an equal emphasis on the first and last syllables.
The earliest record of accurate data of the Crawford and Marion counties branch of the family is of Isaac Monnett, born about 1726, in Westmoreland county. Maryland, where there is still an old homestead by that name. Isaac and his wife Elizabeth had children at this place, and among their immediate descendants was Abraham Monnett, born March 16, 1748. The latter mar- ried Ann Hillary, daughter of William Ilillary ; branches of this family are still found in Virginia, also in Ross and Pickaway counties, Ohio. Of this Abraham Monnett and Ann were born the following children, namely: Isaac, Osborn, William, Thomas, Elizabeth, Margaret, Ann and Jeremiah. Isaac, Osborn, Thomas and Jeremiah settled in Crawford and Marion counties. This elder generation all seemed to have lived to an advanced age and some to extreme old age, and have everywhere left a highly honorable record. Abraham Monnett, the father of Jeremiah, moved into Ohio in 1803, and en !- tered a section of land in Pickaway county, and also land in Ross county, which sections are in the neighborhood of Kingston on the border line between Ross and Pickaway counties, and still bear the name of Monnett sections. Part of the real estate is now in the possession of the Downs family.
The Monnett family in religion became Virginian Episcopalians, but in the pioneer life of Ohio became Methodists.
The wife of Jeremiah, hereinafter referred to, and her ancestors were Roman Catholics,-a strange meeting of the Jesuits and the Huguenots after generations of religious persecution ! It could be truthfully said of the elder pioneer Monnett family that they were "diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." The above named Jeremiah was an enthusiastic, old-time and old-style Methodist, and opened his home at all times generously to the circuit-rider, presiding elders and the bishops. Before the days of churches his home was the "meeting-house." Ilis daily family prayer, his exemplary life and his exhortations, precept and example, have left their impress upon all who came in contact with him, even descending to the third and fourth generations. The good deeds done by Jeremiah Monnett have been to his descendants an inspiration, and he has, truly, by them been "sainted."
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Jeremiah Monnett was born September 12, 1784, and his wife Aley (daughter of Jacob and Hannah Slagel) was born March 1, 1788. They were the parents of seven sons and seven daughters, two of whom died in infancy. Twelve lived to mature manhood and womanhood: Jacob, born March 18, 1806; Isaac, November 16, 1807; Abraham, October 12, 18II; Elsie, October 13, 1813; Margaret, July 11, 1816; Hannah, December 13, 1817; Ann, August 25, 1819; John, January 11, 1820; Jeremiah, January 2, 1823; Mary, April 2, 1824; Thomas J., January 16, 1826; and Martha, Janu- ary 21, IS28.
At the marriage of Jeremiah Monnett with Aley Slagel, at Cumberland, Maryland, a part of the bride's dower included a number of slaves. All of these so delivered to him in bondage, he freed, and he early became an abo- litionist.
In 1814, accompanied by his wife and young family, he removed to Pick- away county, Ohio, and located near Kingston, and thence he moved directly north, in the year 1835, to a point five miles south of Bucyrus, Crawford county, being half way between Sandusky City and Columbus. He was a man of great physical strength, filled with energy and possessed of great endurance. He not only managed his large landed estate wisely but also reared his family of twelve children to be honored citizens wherever they took up their abode for life. His interest in church buildings and church founding and education never ceased, and he filled his posterity with high ambitions along these nobler lines. Hardly a Methodist church, in fact church building of any denomination, in that part of the county, but that he assisted finan- cially, as well as personally, attending their services and admonishing and ex- horting more earnest work for the Master whom he lived to honor. About the year 1844 he founded and established Monnett chapel and donated the premises whereon to build the same. This little spot has been famous in that community for the number of noble youth, also men and women of more mature years, who have received their inspiration for a religious life and their aspirations for a higher social development. In this year, 1901, as a fulfill- ment to his request of forty years ago, we might say, as a fulfillment of his prophecy, a memorial stone chapel has been contracted for, to supplant the present church edifice that has. occupied the site so dedicated by him about sixty years ago. He requested, and frequently repeated in his last prayers, "that a church would be continued there to the last generation." This ex- empiary citizen and his noble wife each lived to within a few weeks of four- score years, and are both buried in the cemetery adjoining Monnett chapel.
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Many of his children and part of their families have chosen this for their last. resting place.
Abraham Monnett, his son, referred to in another part of this work, car- ried en as his life work stock-raising, farming and banking in Marion county, and amassed an unusually large estate, leaving at his death property to about the amount of six hundred thousand dollars. Mrs. Martha Warner, widow of the late R. K. Warner, is the only survivor of the large family and occupies a large landed estate adjoining the old homestead.
The descendants of Jeremiah Monnett have made enviable records also in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and in almost all the western states. Colleges have been endowed, seminaries named for their beneficences, and public charities and churches have ever been remembered by many of these noble sons of a noble sire. From his family altar and from the hearthstone of this devout pioneer have gone forth influences that have reproduced ministers, lawyers, professors, teachers, physicians, railroad men, bankers, ranchmen, land-owners .- in fact, almost all the honorable professions and vocations have been honored by the descendants.
Thomas Jefferson Monnett, the seventh and youngest son of Jeremiah and Aley Monnett, came with his parents to Crawford county in 1835, at the age of nine years. Being the youngest in the family, he had better oppor- tunities than some of the elder ones for cultivating his natural instinct and taste for scholarship and literary life; and in addition to attending the district schools he prepared for college in a select school held in the neighborhood, and afterward attended the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, to fit himself for the ministry. He was licensed to exhort as early as 1845. He prepared for his life-work by teaching school in the winters and working on the farm in stimmer, and all the time taking an active part in church work. After com- pleting his education he became a member of the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was stationed at Melmore, Fostoria, Kenton, Upper Sandusky and other points. He was an extremely hard worker in his pastorates, finally breaking his health down in the work of 1860 and 1861, and so severely injuring his throat that for years he was obliged to retire from the regular work. In taking up his secular work from 1864 until he retired from active work in 1899, he never failed to give much time to church and Sunday-school work and educational enterprises. For twenty years he was at the head of the Woolen Mills at Bucyrus; for eighteen years he was president of the Bucyrus Gas Company and owner of the plant, and at the same time was interested in banking and stock-raising and engaged.
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in looking after his landed estates. He spurned all sham methods of accumu- lating wealth, and his word was considered in commercial and business circles as good as his bond ; and, notwithstanding his attention given to church and educational work, he amassed a comfortable fortune, as well as endowing hia children with a liberal education and financial opportunities.
Thomas J. Monnett died of bronchitis May 10, 1901, at his beautiful home in Bucyrus, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and was buried at Monnett Chapel near his parents, brothers and sisters, the spot so dear to him. He was married October 19, 1847, to Miss Henrietta Johnston, daugh- ter of Hon. Thomas F. Johnston and Martha (Walton) Johnston, honored pioneers and leaders in their community and for many years residents of Marion county. Of this marriage were born seven children, hereinafter re- ferred to. Mrs. Henrietta Monnett died November 20, 1871, at the early age of forty-one, leaving five children surviving her. Mr. Monnett was mar- ried the second time, to Miss Sarah Rexroth, who was at the time prin- cipal of the Bucyrus high school. She was an alumna of Mount Union Col- lege and brought with her a rich Christian experience, a well-trained intellect and a mind and heart full of noble inspirations. She gave the best years of her life to the rearing of the family and fitting them for the more serious duties of life and training them for high-school and college education, along with her other arduous family duties. She was a devoted companion and a ministering angel to Mr. Monnett in his declining years.
The children of Thomas J. and Henrietta Johnston Monnett were Web- ster and Agnes, who died in childhood; John Gilbert, known among his com- panions as "Bert," who died at the age of eighteen years, March 26, 1879. Orin Bruce, the oldest of the surviving children was born September 29, 1850, at the farm near Monnett chapel. He attended school at Kenton and Upper Sandusky, and afterward the district school, complet- ing his education in the Ohio Wesleyan University. Bruce spent sev- eral years in the Bucyrus Woolen Mills, was superintendent of the gas works and was interested in the grocery business for many years. He retired to one of his farms in Bucyrus township, where he resides in luxury and ease, sur- rounded by his happy family. He was married November 24, 1877, to Miss Anna, daughter of Charles and Katherine Hoffman. They have two chil- dren,-Ethel Mae and Bessie Monnett.
William Arthur Monnett, the second son, was born at Fostoria, January 4, 1854, attended the union schools at Upper Sandusky and the district schools in Crawford county, and graduated at a commercial college at Pitts-
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burg, Pennsylvania, in 1873. He spent ten years as one of the foremen of Wood Brothers in the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. He has always been a stockman, and for years has occupied the old family homestead where he still resides. He was married, February 25, 1875, to Miss Annetta Boyer, daugh- ter of J. P. and Charlotta ( Stough ) Boyer. They have three children,-Kay, Grace and Charlotta.
The third son was Francis Sylvester Monnett, born in Kenton, Hardin county, Ohio, March 19, 1857. He was educated in the district and select schools and took a preliminary training under Mrs. Sarah Rexroth Monnett, his stepmother, who assisted in training him for the high school and the university. He graduated at the Bucyrus high school in 1875; took the full Greek classical course at the Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating in 1880, and received numerous honors at college in his class, literary societies and in his fraternity. In childhood he mapped out his career and stated before he entered the high school at Bucyrus that he expected to graduate at the high school and at Delaware and take a course in law at Harvard University. He did not vary from his self-arranged program, except to substitute the National Law School of Washington, D. C., for the Harvard Law School, either one of which he had his choice of entering. Having several warm friends at the National Law School, and, preferring the opportunities afforded at the capital city, he chose the latter and graduated at that institution on June 15, 1882.
He was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia in June of that year, under the common-law practice, and was admitted by the supreme court. in 1882, to practice law in Ohio. He opened up an office January I, 1883, at Bucyrus, thoroughly in love with his profession, and always adopted the maxim, "Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee." He was never without a substantial clientage, and entered actively into the social, political and professional life of Bucyrus and its environments. He was twice elected city solicitor by the Republican party, a party greatly in the minority in this Democratic Gibraltar. He was a frequent delegate to the county, district and state Republican conventions. His young friends in power in the district urged him to accept the nomination for congress, but as he had pledged him- self to place in nomination and support "Uncle" Stephen R. Harris, he de- clined to betray his friend Harris, placed him in nomination and assisted in electing the first Republican congressman ever sent from the district; and in turn Harris's friends urged his nomination for attorney general of the state of Ohio, for which place he was nominated at Zanesville, this state, May 30, 1895, and, being elected, served in that office from 1896 to 1900.
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In this position he carried through to the United States supreme court the taxation cases against the Western Union Telegraph Company, the five ex- press companies and the thirteen national bank cases, winning each and every contest, and in his second term took up the fight on behalf of the state of Ohio against the Standard Oil trust, the Tobacco trust, the Cracker trust, the Beer trust, and was the author of the anti-trust act passed by the Ohio leg- islature in 1898. When he retired from office there were pending upward of twenty-five cases of ouster against these law violators. His vigorous cam- paign against monopoly brought a cyclone of corporate wrath that hurled him from his office. He resumed general practice the day following his termina- tion of office as attorney general, and has a large and remunerative clientage in the state and federal courts at Columbus and throughout the state.
Mr. Monnett has campaigned in almost every county in the state many times, and spoken before the leading literary clubs of Boston, Philadelphia and several times at New York City, Chicago and Detroit, and campaigned for the national committees through the northwest. He is a constant con- tributor, on economic questions, to the leading magazines and newspapers of the country.
He took a trip abroad for pleasure and study in the summer of 1899 .. under contract with a newspaper syndicate to write up municipal ownership of four of the leading cities of England, which articles were broadly published throughout the United States in the leading newspapers.
Mr. Monnett was married to Miss Ella K. Gormly, daughter of James B. and Virginia (Swingly) Gormly, of Bucyrus, February 16, 1888. Mrs. Monnett was a pupil of the Cincinnati Musical College after graduating at a private school at Newburgh, New York, and also took a short course at the Ohio Wesleyan at Delaware. She took a prominent position among the club women of the capital city, and takes a keen delight in public and social affairs. She has always been a church worker, both at Bucyrus and at Columbus.
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