USA > Ohio > Richland County > A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio > Part 37
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accumulated considerable land and left a farm to each of his five sons and two daughters. Prominent in public affairs, he exercised potent influence in the progress and upbuilding of the community, and his labors were of marked benefit. He donated the ground upon which was erected the first Lutheran church, and in many ways contributed to the public good. His death occurred when he had attained the age of fifty-six years. His father, Robert Darling, was also a native of Virginia.
Abraham Darling. the father of our subject, was born on the 3Ist of May, 1824, on the old family homestead in Worthington township, where he was also reared. At the time of his marriage his father gave him the farm now owned by our subject, and upon that place he spent his remaining days. He wedded Rebecca Ann Manchester, who was born in Holmes county, Ohio, January 9, 1829, and came to this county during her girlhood. Both Mr. and Mrs. Darling were active members of the Lutheran church, and he was a Democrat in politics. On the ticket of that party he was elected township trustee and proved a capable officer. His wife died January 26. 1897, at the age of sixty-eight years, and he passed away on the 10th of August, 1898. They had seven children, of whom two died in infancy, the others being Mary F., the wife of Thomas H. Beavers, a stock dealer of Perrysville, Ohio; William A., a farmer of Ashland county, Ohio; Luther E., who is engaged in merchandising in Marshalltown, Iowa; Marion M .; and Walter A., who is the proprietor of a fruit farm in Monroe township.
Marion M. Darling was reared under the parental roof and early became familiar with all the duties and labors that fall to the lot of the agriculturist. He remained at home until twenty-five years of age, when he rented land in Monroe township and cultivated the same for two years. On the expira- tion of that period he went to DeKalb county, where he conducted his father's farm for two years, after which he returned and took charge of the old home place, continuing its cultivation until his parents' death, when he purchased the property. He has since given his time to its further development and improvement, and has now one of the most attractive and desirable farms in this portion of the county, the fields being well tilled and everything about the place kept in good condition.
Mr. Darling has been twice married. He first wedded Miss Ida Cole, a daughter of John Cole, of Worthington township. She was a member of the Lutheran church and died at the age of twenty-nine years, leaving one son, Howard C., who is now at home. For his second wife Mr. Darling chose Miss Silva, a daughter of Josiah Switzer, of Richland county, and they have three children-G. Blake, C. Carlton and Bonnie Belle,-all at home. The
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parents are members of the Lutheran church, in which Mr. Darling has served as a trustee and deacon. In politics he is a Democrat and socially is connected with Letonia Lodge, No. 507, K. of P., of Perrysville. He is one of the representative young farmers of Richland county, enterprising and progressive, honorable in all his dealings, faithful in friendship and reliable in all life's relations.
BENJAMIN J. WILLIAMS.
In modern ages, and to a large extent in the past, banks have constituted a vital part of organized society, and governments, both monarchial and popular, have depended upon them for material aid in times of depression and trouble. Their influence has extended over the entire world, and their prosperity has been the barometer which has unfalteringly indicated the financial status of all nations. Of this important branch of business Ben- jamin J. Williams is a worthy representative, having for a number of years been the cashier of the First National Bank. He was born in Marion, Ohio, June 23, 1842, a son of Walter and Jane (Williams) Williams. His father was a native of Wales and his mother of Ohio. His father died in Missouri, in 1862, at the age of forty-five years, while his widow survived him until 1899, passing away at the age of seventy-six years. In their family were four children, three sons and one daughter, namely: Jolin T., James W., Benjamin J. and Elizabeth J. In 1858 the family removed from Marion to St. Louis county, Missouri. Benjamin J. Williams became deeply interested in the incidents which led up to the Civil war, and when hostilities were inaugurated between the north and the south he resolved to strike a blow in defense of the Union, enlisting in the home company of Major Inks' battalion, with which he served for one year. He then came to Ohio and enlisted in the Ninety-sixth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, with which he served throughout the remainder of the war. His command was attached to the Army of the Tennessee, and after the siege of Vicksburg his regiment entered the Depart- ment of the Gulf, where they remained until the close of the war.
Mr. Williams then returned to his home in Missouri and was engaged in railroad work until 1872, when he resigned and came to Shelby, Ohio. Here he organized the First National Bank and has since served as its cashier. He is a very popular officer, is prompt in the execution of business, at all times reliable, and by his honorable methods has secured a liberal patronage. He assisted in the organization of the Shelby Steel Tube Company, of which he has been director from the beginning, while for three years he acted as the
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secretary and treasurer. This is a very extensive concern, capitalized for thir- teen million dollars. He is a director in the Shelby Water Company, which was incorporated for eighty thousand dollars, and is also a director of the Easy Spring Hinge Company, which was incorporated and has a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars.
On the 24th of December, 1868, Mr. Williams was married to Miss Ida Whiting, of Buffalo, New York, a daughter of D. W. and Susan (Page) Whiting. In their family are four children-Mrs. Florence Williams Haynes, Lucia Williams, Beatty B. and Charles Whiting. Beatty is now a mechanical engineer in the Tube Works. Both sons are graduates of Ober- lin College, of the class of 1899, and Florence is a graduate of the Wesleyan University, at Delaware, of the class of 1890. Mr. Williams belongs to the Masonic lodge of Shelby and the Grand Army of the Republic, and the family attend the Methodist Episcopal church. Over the record of his public and private career there falls no shadow of wrong or the suspicion of evil, and he is known as a citizen whose judgment is sound, whose business methods are honorable and who is also true and loyal wherever he is found.
DAVID CRALL.
David Crall, one of the foremost and most successful farmers of Richland county, Ohio, whose farm is situated in section 19, Sharon township, and whose postoffice is Vernon Junction, was born at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1821, on the 25th of November. He is a son of Henry Crall, who was born at the same place in 1779, and died in Crawford county, Ohio, when in his eighty-fourth year. His father also was named Henry. The maiden name of the grandmother of the subject of this sketch was Schopp. The Crall family came originally from Switzerland and settled in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, in 1740, and in this county one of the descendants still lives and owns a farm. The maiden name of the mother of the subject was Eliza- beth Henshaw, who was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She married Mr. Crall in 1809. They were well-to-do and prominent farmers and sold their Pennsylvania farm in 1845 to the state.
David Crall first came to Ohio in 1844, riding across the Alleghany mountains on horseback ad consuming nine days in making the journey to Ohio. After purchasing an eighty-acre farm, upon which had been erected a log house and barn, he returned in the fall of the same year to his old home in Pennsylvania, returning to his Ohio farm in the spring of 1845. This farm cost him in cash thirteen hundred dollars and upon it some clear-
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ing had been done and there were a good many girdled trees. Upon his return in the spring of 1845 he was accompanied by his eldest brother Simon, who was married and brought his wife with him to this then new country. They all three lived in the log house one year, and in the spring of 1846 the subject was married to Miss Maria Stentz, of Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania, and a daughter of John and Sophia (Hentz) Stentz, they being also of Harrisburg, and having settled in the dense forest in that vicinity in 1834. They were industrious, honest and well-to-do farmers, owning two good farms and having a family of two sons and eight daughters. Mr. Stenz died at the age of sixty-eight, and his widow at the age of eighty-two. Both rest from their labors in Oakland cemetery, a beautiful city of the dead.
Mr. and Mrs. Crall began their domestic life in a hewed-log house and hewed out a home in the woods, when wild game was plentiful and neighbors few and far between. To the eighty-acre farm originally purchased in 1844 they have added from time to time other acres, until his landed possessions amount to two hundred and ninety acres, or did amount to that number of acres before the construction of the railroads through this part of the county. Then Mr. Crall laid out the village of Junction City, the plat of which con- tained about ten acres, and this, together with what has since been occupied by the railroad, reduced the size of his farm. He and his wife are the parents of nine children, three sons and six daughters, as follows: Elizabeth, the wife of Ezra Kochenderfer, a sawmill owner of Richland county : they have one son and five daughters; John, who occupies and manages the old farm and who married Mattie Sipe ; Sophronia, the wife of William Hollengbaugh, of Plymouth township; William Rhinehardt, a farmer living in the vicinity, who has a wife, two sons and one daughter; Susannah, the wife of John Shrock, of Shelby; Mary Sophia, the wife of Willis Hershiser, a farmer of Plymouth township, who has a wife, two sons and two daughters: Emily Alice, the wife of George Sprague, a farmer of Springfield township, who has a wife, three sons and five daughters; Henry Nelson, a machinist of Shelby, who is married and has one son and one daughter ; and Anna Eliza, living at home. All of the above-named children have been well educated at the common school, and four of the daughters have taught school. All are unusually intelligent and of unimpeachable morals and habits of life, using neither tobacco nor intoxicating liquors.
Mr. Crall, the father of this interesting family, was the youngest of his father's family, which consisted of six children-four sons and two daughters. Simon, born about the year 1810, and who died in Crawford county in his seventy-fourth year, having reared nine children: John, who
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died at Bucyrus about 1882, leaving six children living, two or three others having died; Elizabeth, who married William Crumb and who died at Har- risburg, Pennsylvania, leaving eight children; Susannah, who married, first, John Ely and after his death John Fortney : she reared six children, and died in Van Wert county, at the age of fifty-eight; Henry, who died in Craw- ford county, at the age of eighty-two; and David, the subject of this sketch. The parents died while all of their children were living, the mother about six months before the father.
David Crall is a member of the United Brethren church, of which his wife was a most efficient member. In politics he is a Republican. He has held the office of township trustee several terms, besides having been a school director and road master. His present fine, large brick house he erected in 1854, and the large evergreen trees which stand as sentinels around his residence, and which attract the admiring attention of all passers-by, were planted by his own hands and will continue to live and remind his relatives and friends of him long after he has moldered into dust. His son's residence is an excellent frame structure, erected in 1887 on the farm. Mr. Crall is a man of unusually strong body and mind, and has a most retentive memory; and, as his father died before any of his children, so it is altogether probable, notwithstanding his firm health, that he will do the same, they being, like him, of unusual bodily health and strength. When he passes away the beautiful poem "The Old Farmer's Elegy" would be a fitting tribute to his memory, and might almost be regarded as having been written to commemorate his life and virtues. All that know him know him but to honor him for the hon- orable career he has made for himself and the noble character he has always maintained.
LE ROY PARSONS.
Among the prominent business men of Mansfield none are more pro- gressive and public-spirited than the subject of this biographical record. He has been identified with the growth and progress of his adopted city for thirty- three years, and during this period he has generously contributed of both means and labor to the advancement of its interests. For some time past he has been connected with the Chamber of Commerce in Mansfield,-an or- ganization corresponding to the board of trade in some cities, and having for its object the advancement of public enterprises in the way of se- curing manufactories, building railroads into the city and such other in- dustries as would tend to the material growth and prosperity of the
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city. At the present time Mr. Parsons is the secretary of the Board of Com- merce, active in securing contributions toward the extension of the Short Line Railroad into the city. But this is only one item in the many that might be cited to show the public spirit and local pride of our subject in enhanc- ing the interests of Mansfield. He served four consecutive terms as the clerk of the city council,-a longer period than any other man has filled that im- portant office. He has taken an active interest in various social fraternities and held places of honor and responsibility in them. He is a member of Madison Lodge, No. 26, K. of P., and Mansfield Lodge, No. 56, B. P. O. E.
Mr. Parsons was born in Bennington, Vermont, May 12, 1843, a son of Hial K. and Harriet (Robinson) Parsons. The mother died in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1861, but the father is still living, at the age of eight- one years, and is now a resident of Mansfield. In early life he was engaged in commercial business, but spent his productive years in mechanical pursuits.
During his youth Mr. Parsons accompanied his parents on their removal to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he received his elementary education. To this he has added by careful reading and study until he is exceptionally well informed upon current history and public affairs. On the 14th of September, 1876, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Shumway, a native of Akron, Ohio. Their only child, Ed Roy, was born in Mansfield, March 18, 1878, and is now engaged in the manufacture of gloves. He was educated in the high school of his native city, and at a special art school on Broad street, Philadelphia, devoting two years to study there. He married Miss Grace Bowland, of Columbus, Ohio, a representative of a well known pioneer family of Mansfield.
In 1867 Mr. Parsons came to Mansfield and for five years was engaged in the sale of manufacturing implements, but during the greater part of his residence here he has given his time and attention to the insurance and real- estate business. In fact since 1872 he has been actively and successfully en- gaged in that business. Perhaps no man in Richland county has a wider or inore favorable acquaintance than Mr. Parsons. This is in a measure due to his extensive transactions along the lines of his chosen work. Yet his affable temperament and genial disposition contributes largely to this re- sult. He has bought and sold thousands of acres of Richland county real estate, and through his popular agency carries insurance on a vast amount of the country's destructible property. In all of his varied experiences, the public-that severest of critics-has found Mr. Parsons an honest, upright, straightforward business man, whose capabilities have never been questioned, and whose word is as good as his bond.
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Mr. Parsons comes of Revolutionary stock, his ancestors settling in New England prior to the war for independence and participating extensive- ly in that historic struggle. During the Civil war he served nine months as a member of the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and participated in the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Po- litically he is a stanch Democrat, and has served in the city council of Mans- field, being president one year. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Building, a magnificent edifice erected to the memory of deceased soldiers, and he is the secretary of the board. He and his family attend the Episcopal church and stand high socially.
CHARLES H. KEATING.
This well known member of the bar of Richland county has gained a prominent place among the lawyers of pronounced ability who have con- ferred honor and dignity upon the profession by their wise interpretation of the principles of jurisprudence. Mr. Keating is the only son of Thomas B. Keating, and he is a native of Mansfield, having been born here in the year 1870. His father had come here from Columbia county, Pennsyl- vania, and contracted for the building of the city water works, successfully completing the task, after which he also secured other important contracts with the local municipality, putting down a large portion of the excellent brick pavements in our streets, the city having a number of miles of streets thus improved. The mother of our subject was Sarah Jane (Hedges) Keating, daughter of Ellsey Hedges, who was a prominent busi- less man and influential citizen of Mansfield during his life. Mrs. Keating entered into eternal rest in 1883, deeply mourned by a large circle of friends in Mansfield, where her entire life had been passed. She was a sister of Hon. Henry C. Hedges and a niece of Gen. James Hedges, who surveyed and founded the town of Mansfield. Josiah Hedges, an uncle of Mrs. Keating, was the founder of the city of Tiffin, Ohio, the name having been long and conspicuously identified with the history of the Buckeye state. The great- grandfather of our subject in the maternal line was Charles Hedges, who was a resident of eastern Virginia, and who had nine sons and two daughters. Joseph, Samuel, Hiram and Otto remained in Virginia; Elijah removed to Fairfield county, Ohio; John to Muskingum county ; and James and Josiah first settled in Belmont county, this being in the year 1812. Josiah Hedges was clerk of the courts of Belmont county, and James was sheriff, while the youngest of the brothers, Ellsey, the father of Mrs. Keating, served as
Chart Beating.
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deputy to both. In 1812 he went on foot to Columbus to carry the presi- dential election returns from Belmont county, his brother James having been commissioned a captain of the United States army, for service in the war of 1812.
Our subject, Charles Hedges Keating, secured his preliminary educa- tional discipline in the public schools of his native city, graduating in the Mansfield high school as a member of the class of 1889, after which he prosecuted his studies in Amherst College, Massachusetts. Having deter- mined to prepare himself for the profession of law, he began his more purely technical study in the office and under the preceptorship of Messrs. Cum- mings and McBride, representative members of the bar of this county and well known citizens of Mansfield. He was duly admitted to the bar of the state in 1896 and immediately entered upon the active practice of his pro- fession. His success has been unmistakable and is the direct result of the inherent ability, thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the law, and capacity for consecutive application, which Mr. Keating has brought to bear. He is ambitious and yet is duly conservative in his methods, realizing that the law is a jealous mistress and will admit of no divided attention or luke- warm allegiance. -
Mr. Keating has rendered a stalwart support to the Republican party and its principles, and was for some time the efficient chairman of the county central committee of his party, being at the present time a member of the county executive committee and also a member of the congressional com- mittee of the fourteenth congressional district. During the presidential cam- paigns of 1896 and 1900 his services were in requisition at the Republican national headquarters, in Chicago, where he did very effective work in the speakers' bureau, being the chief clerk of that bureau. Other distinctive pre- ferment came to Mr. Keating in 1898, when Judge Ricks, of the United States district court, appointed him referee in bankruptcy, for a term of two years, and to which position he has been reappointed for a second term. He is a young man of marked ability in his profession and as an executive, and in the field of legitimate politics it is practically certain that further and more notable honors await him in case he consents to turn his attention in that direction.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Keating is a member of the Masonic order, in which he has attained the Knights Templar degree, and he is also identified with the Knights of Pythias. His religious faith is that advanced and maintained by the Presbyterian church. He was married. June 6, 1900, to Gertrude A. Simpson, the youngest daughter of Professor John Simpson.
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SOLOMON W. ABY.
This well known and highly esteemed citizen of Mifflin, Richland county, Ohio, was born in Ashland county, three miles east of his present home, October 6, 1842, and is a representative of one of the honored pioneer families of that county, nis paternal grandfather, Jacob Aby, a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, being one of the early settlers. His father, Ephraim Aby, was born in Ashland county, where he continued to make his home until he started for California just prior to the Civil war, since which time nothing has been heard of him. He was united in marriage with Mary Vail on the day William Henry Harrison was elected president in 1840. His widow makes her home near our subject and is a well-preserved old lady of seventy- nine years. Her parents were James and Sarah (Copus) Vail, the latter a daughter of James Copus, who was killed by the Indians in 1812. Mrs. Vail died in 1884, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. She had four chil- dren, namely : John, who served as a captain in the war of the Rebellion, married Fannie Kisling, and from Ashland county, Ohio, moved to Missouri, where they reared ten children. Nancy married Scott McDennitt, a black- smith of Ashland county, who died about thirty years ago, leaving three chil- dren, and a widow, who now lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mary, the mother of our subject, is next in order of birth. Solomon lives on the place where his grandfather, James Copus, was shot by the Indians near a spring of water that flows from the roots of a willow tree. He married Louise Haney, and they have three children living .- John Wesley, Marida and Elizabeth,-all residents of Ashland county.
The subject of this sketch is the oldest in a family of six children, the others being as follows: Jacob, who died unmarried in Pittsburg. Penn- sylvania, in 1877: he was a member of Company E, Seventy-fourth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil war, and was wounded in the battle of Chattanooga, but never applied for a pension; Amanda, now a resident of Mansfield, Ohio, who married John Beek, a farmer, who died about eighteen years ago, leaving four children,-Nettie, Rella, Alice and Kittie; Sarah, who married William Yoh, who died about eight years ago, and his widow and three children now live in Michigan; Fanny, who married Josiah Will- iams, of Michigan, and they have one child; and Mina, who married Martin Hender and lived on a farm adjoining our subject's place, where both died in the spring of 1897, only fourteen days apart: they had two children,- Clarence and Alice,-who died in June, 1896. Of Amanda's children Nettie is now the wife of William Daubenspeck, a carpenter of Mansfield; Rella
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is the wife of Jefferson Swengering, of Waterford, Knox county, Ohio; Alice is the wife of Burr Gettis, a bookkeeper living in Denver, Colorado; and Kittie lives with her mother in Mansfield, Ohio.
Solomon Aby, the subject of this review, was reared in his native county and educated in the common schools. He successfully engaged in agri- cultural pursuits in Ashland county until the spring of 1883, when he sold his place and purchased a farm of one hundred acres in Richland county, to the improvement and cultivation of which he has since devoted his energies with marked success. He is a member of the Lutheran church, and is highly. respected and esteemed by all who know him.
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