USA > Ohio > Richland County > A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio > Part 69
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In 1884 Mr. Humbert was married to Miss Lucy Hubley. a native of Butler township and a daughter of Adam Hubley, whose birth occurred in Pennsylvania. They began their domestic life on the old homestead, in a building which had been erected some time before, and Mr. Humbert con- tinued to cultivate the fields on the shares. After his father's death he pur- chased the interests of the other heirs and is now sole owner of the place, having a rich and productive tract of land. The home has been blessed with a family of two children, Clyde and Rhea.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Humbert are members of the Disciple church and his political support is given the Democracy. He is now classed among the substantial, wide-awake and enterprising farmers of his community. What he has accomplished in life is indeed creditable. With few advantages in youth, he has worked his way upward, brooking no obstacles that could be conquered by honorable and determined purpose.
JOSEPH WARD PALMER.
The subject of this sketch, who is one of the representative farmers of Washington township, has spent his entire life in Richland county, his birth having occurred in Franklin township July 24, 1841. His father, Charles S. Palmer, was a native of London, England, and a son of John
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E. Palmer, who died when Charles S. was only three years old, leaving con- siderable property. In his family were three children,-John E., Charles S. and William.
The father of our subject completed his education at the age of sixteen years, and for the following two years he was employed in a bank as a collector. He then acted as a collector and bookkeeper for his guardian, who was an auctioneer. In 1819 he and his brother, John E., came to the new world and the same year located in Mansfield, Ohio, boarding for three months at the Wiler House, which was then a log structure. They brought with them a stock of dry goods, expecting to engage in mercantile business, but finding no favorable opening sold the stock to E. P. Sturges. In 1820 Charles S. Palmer purchased a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of wild land, at a dollar and a quarter an acre, and erected thereon a log house, inwhich he made his home while clearing and breaking his land. Later he erected more substantial buildings and continued to make his home in Weller township until 1856, when he purchased the farm in Washington township upon which our subject now resides.
In 1821 he married Miss Annie Ward, and they had twelve children, namely : Charles S., of Wyandot county, who died at the age of seventy years ; Francis, a fruit-grower of Davenport, Washington; Mary, who died at the age of nineteen years ; John E., of Wyandot county, who died at the age of sixty-eight ; Elizabeth, the deceased wife of Michael Depler, of Upper Sandusky, Ohio; Fanny, the wife of David Hughes, of Weller township, this county; Martha, the deceased wife of Henry Gallady, also of Weller township; Amanda, the deceased wife of William Watson, of Iowa; Phoebe J., the wife of Robert Hughes, of Weller township; Henry G., a resident of Mansfield; Joseph W., our subject; and Anna M., the wife of Jacob Gal- lady, of New Lisbon, Ohio. Eleven of the twelve children lived to be over fifty years of age. None of the five sons used tobacco or drank intoxicating liquors, and were well worthy of the high regard in which they were uni- formly held.
The first fourteen years of his life Joseph W. Palmer passed in his native township, and then accompanied the family on their removal to Wash- ington township, where he has since made his home. He received a good practical education in the high school of Mansfield and the Normal School at Bucyrus, and at the age of nineteen years commenced teaching, a pro- fession which he successfully followed through the winter months from 1860 to 1870, while during the summer season he engaged in farming. In the latter year he purchased his present farm of seventy acres in Washington
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township, which is conveniently located three miles from Mansfield Since then he has given his attention principally to farming, and since January, 1896, has also acted as agent for the State Grange Insurance Company in . Richland county.
Mr. Palmer's wife was formerly Miss Mary Kelso, a daughter of Will- iam Kelso, a druggist of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Jane Knox Kelso, a sister of John and Wilson Knox, of this county. Miss Kelso was a teacher and for a number of years previous to her marriage was employed in the public schools of Lexington. Their children are Grace and Alice, both grad- uates of the Mansfield high school and teachers in the city; Charles, an employe in Tracy & Avery's wholesale house; Fred, who graduate.l at the high school in 1900 and is now teaching in Washington township; Edward. who is still in school; and William, who died in infancy.
Mr. Palmer was in the one-hundred-day service during the Civil war, enlisting as a private in May, 1864, in Company E, One Hundred and Sixty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. With his command he went first to Washington, D. C., and from there to Richmond and Appomattox, in Vir- ginia. Politically he is a supporter of the Republican party. In 1897 he was appointed by the county commissioners as a trustee of the Children's Home, and is now serving his second term of four years in that capacity. For many years Mr. Palmer has been a consistent member of the Congre- gational church at Mansfield, and he is also a member of the order of Patrons of Husbandry.
ROSS R. BARNES.
On a farm on section 3. Cass township, Ross R. Barnes makes his home, devoting his energies to agricultural pursuits. He was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, on the 10th of May, 1852, his parents being Joshua and Sarah (Strayer) Barnes.
His father was a native of Maryland, born in 1803, and when eleven years of age he accompanied his parents on their emigration to Jefferson county, Ohio, where he grew to manhood on the home farm, experiencing all the hardships and trials of pioneer life. In his early manhood he spent two or three years as a clerk in a general store in the village near his home, but soon after his marriage he removed to Richland county, set- tling near Lexington. After a year, however, he returned to Jefferson county to take care of his wife's parents, who were then well advanced in years and needed the assistance of younger people. Upon the Strayer farm
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Mr. Barnes then spent his remaining days, passing away on the IIth of March, 1878, in his seventy-fifth year. · In early life he endorsed the prin- · ciples of the Whig party, and on its dissolution became a Republican and was an ardent Abolitionist, and three of his sons became Union soldiers and fought to free the slaves. Amos was killed in an explosion in Newbern, North Carolina, and thus gave his life in defense of his country. Will- iam was also one of the "boys in blue," and the third son, Philander, was wounded at Peach Tree Creek. The father was a Lutheran in his religious belief and died in the faith of that church. He had eleven children, of whom eight are yet living, namely: Cyrus, a farmer of Jefferson county, Ohio; William, who also is engaged in farming in that county; Philander, who makes his home in Shiloh; Albert, an agriculturist of Cass township; George, who owns and cultivates land in Butler township; Samantha. the wife of Rev. William Eaton, a Presbyterian minister of Chicago; Samuel, a practicing physician of Massillon, Ohio; and Thomas, who follows farm- ing in Jefferson county.
Ross R. Barnes was reared in the usual manner of farmer lads of the period and in the common schools became familiar with many branches of the English language. After his father's death he had charge of the hom: farm for two years .. On the 10th of September, 1879, he was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary McBride, a native of Richland county and a daugh- ter of Calvin McBride, one of the prominent farmers of Cass township, this county. In the spring following his marriage Mr. Barnes removed to Richland county and for three years engaged in the cultivation of rented land, the tract being now comprised in Clear Creek township. Ashland county. In the spring of 1883 he removed to his present home, at that time purchasing fifty acres of land, to which he added a tract of thirty-six acres the following year. Here he has since given his time to the further devel- opment and cultivation of his fields, and now has a well improved place, his labors annually augmenting his income.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes has been blessed with seven chil- dren, namely : Mabel E., Elsie P., Amy M., Lena B., Sylvia M., Fred A. and Elda M. The family circle yet remains unbroken and the children are still at their parental home. Mr. Barnes and his family attend the Meth- odist Episcopal church, of which he is an earnest and consistent member and in which he is now serving as recording steward. Of the Republican party he is an ardent supporter. He is now filling the position of president of the school board, the cause of education finding in him a warm friend, for he realizes its importance and value in the work of life. He belongs
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to Highland Court, No. 53, of the Tribe of Ben Hur, at Shiloh, and is one of its popular and highly esteemed representatives. He is a self-made man, and whatever he has achieved in life is due to his own efforts. He is now in possession of a very good farm and is accounted one of the weil-to-do agriculturists of the community.
FRANK M. CLINE.
Frank M. Cline, an agriculturist living on section 3, Franklin town- ship, was born July 15, 1863, on the old Cline homestead which was entered from the government by his great-grandfather, William Foulks, at an early period in the development of Ohio. William Foulks was born in Pennsyl- vania, a native of Beaver county. When he was only ten years of age he and his younger sister were captured by the Indians, who at the same time killed their elder brother. He was held captive by the red men until he was twenty-one years of age, when he finally made his escape. They allowed him many privileges, permitting him to hunt, and on one such occasion he stole away, rowed over a stream in a stolen canoe, and on the other side met a young lady who assisted him to escape. His romantic history was further heightened by his marriage to the young lady some time afterward. On coming to Ohio he secured wild land on the Indian trail between Sandusky and Pittsburg. It was situated near Hilton, half a mile below the camp- ing ground of the Indians. He afterward took up a claim which he had seen in Ohio when he was with the red men as a captive.
Jacob Cline, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was born in Mary- land, near Hagerstown, and married Elizabeth Foulks, the daughter of Will- iam Foulks, thus mentioned. About 1815 they came to Richland county. They had eleven children : George F., William, Alfred, Charlotte, Henry, Eli, Standard, Louisa, Pressley, Catherine and Elizabeth. Henry Cline. the father of our subject, was born on the old family homestead in Richland county September 4, 1826, and became a general farmer. His death occurred February 5, 1900. He married Harriet Miller, who was born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, October 29, 1830. They had five children : Neotia. born in November, 1855, became the wife of W. H. Morris, of Shelby, and unto them were born five children,-Ada J., wife of William D. Turner, of Shelby; Jeffra C., who married Sarah Roberts and lives in Shelby; Pearl H., Wade H. and Jack S .; George F., the second of the family, died at the age of two years; Carrie O., born July 2, 1861, became the wife of Charles Black, and they had one child, Roy C., who was drowned about three years
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ago, at the age of thirteen; Mrs. Black resides with her mother in Shenan- doah, Ohio; Frank M. is the next of the family ; and Judson J., the youngest, born October 12, 1869, resides in Franklin township. He married Ella Zehner, who was born in Mifflin township, Ashland county. September 6, 1872. They had one child, Martha Lucilla.
Frank M. Cline, whose name introduces this review, obtained his edu- cation in the common schools and in Bethany (Virginia) College, where he pursued his studies for one term. He also spent one term in the Geneva (Ohio) Normal School, and after putting aside his text-books he entered upon his business career, engaging in the grain trade in Shelby in connec- tion with his brother-in-law, W. H. Morris, for nearly three years. On the expiration of that period he turned his attention to farming and has since resided on the old homestead on section 3, Franklin township, where he carries on agricultural pursuits in a very successful manner. As a companion and helpmeet on life's journey he chose Miss Anna Lodema Urich, who was born in Weller township October 16, 1863. They now have an interesting little son, Hugh L., who was born January 3, 1890. Mr. and Mrs. Cline are widely known in the county of their nativity and enjoy the warm regard of their many friends.
CHARLES W. FRENCH.
Charles W. French was born on a farm beside what is now known as the southern division of the Lake Shore road, near Wakeman, Huron county, Ohio, September 2. 1862. His progenitors on the side of both father and mother were of Connecticut stock, and it is not known for how many genera- tions they had lived in America.
The eldest son of parents who were indebted for much of the purchase price of their farm, he cheerfully assumed a share of their burden of toil while yet a child. At the age of eleven years he loaded and stacked forty-four acres of grain, his father pitching both ways. He was patient and careful in his work. He was kind to domestic animals and pets, with all of which he was a welcome playfellow. He would sometimes work in summer with as many as three chipmunks playing about him, each one ready to scamper into his pockets if alarmed. A fine. yet spirited, young horse used to carry him on errands to the village at a dead gallop without so much as a rope on. He was deeply attached to his mother, who died just before he was fourteen years old. and to a few other good women with whom he came in contact in childhood. Their influence has survived the shock of nearly a score of eventful years.
Chân. W. French. .
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Neither liquor, tobacco nor profanity has he ever indulged in. He scorned the so called lighter follies of youth. A reverence for womanhood has always been one of the strongest traits of his character. There has not been anything in his private life from which a good woman would need to shrink or a little child should avoid. This was not so much because he resisted allurement of evil, to which, in fact, he never paid serious attention, as it was that he yielded to a craving for good.
His opportunities for attending school were limited to a rural district and later a village high school. After he was ten years old he did not attend school in summer, and did not average quite sixty days per year in school from the age of ten to that of nineteen, after which he attended no school whatever.
To a misfortune that clouded his early years he is indebted in a large meas- ure for a mental training that widely influenced his later life. As a child he was frail in body and shy in spirit, naturally diffident to a painful degree. He was born a stammerer and so seriously was he thus afflicted that it was often difficult to understand his attempted speech. The usual fellowships of child- hood were therefore shunned by him. He was not without compensation. He had access to a good library. Early driven by the wounds to which a sensitive spirit was ever exposed to the society of his own thoughts and the fellowship of his own mind, the history of the world was his playground, its episodes his toys. The senate of Rome, the assemblies of France, the parlia- ments of England and the congress of the United States had much more to do with forming his character than did either the precepts of his elders or the examples of his fellows. He delved into the lore of ancient Greece, southern Asia and all vanished peoples. He marched with the legions of Rome from the Euphrates to Gibraltar. He cried himself to sleep over the ruin of the Roman empire. He paced the corridors of the great hall, watching the growth of that spirit of personal liberty which is the crowning glory of the Anglo-Saxon. He walked the aisles of the great abbey, musing upon the record of generations that have made our race illustrious forevermore. Thus a shy, nervous boy, dressed in home-made clothes, grew up under the shadow of characters that have ennobled human life in all ages.
As a youth he had almost no social life. His attempts to make the ac- quaintance of other young people usually resulted painfully to him. An inci- dent of his childhood will illustrate the degree of misunderstanding to which he was subjected when seeking social intercourse. At a revival in a village church a woman who was a zealous worker approached him with the query, "My boy, are you prepared for death?" With grave simplicity this child, who had lived with the centuries, stammered, "Yes, ma'am; I would be will-
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ing to die if I thought that I could then talk with William of Orange for a few minutes." The effect produced by this peculiar profession of faith so abashed the boy that he fled from the church.
At the age of sixteen he began attending debating societies in the school districts and villages of Huron county. To his surprise, when addressing an audience the bonds of the stammerer seemed to fall away from him. The faces before him often appeared to fade away and in their place there assem- bled about him the famous dead of all ages with whom he had been familiar rather than with the living. As a public speaker he attained some degree of success.
At the age of nineteen he began life for himself, commencing with a job of cutting stove-wood in the winter of 1881-2. During most of the summer of 1882 he worked on a farm. In the fall of that year he began blowing stumps with dynamite. He rapidly became skillful in the use of this ex- plosive, of which little was then known. Within a few montlis his operations extended over much of northeastern Ohio. He introduced the use of dyna- mite in the stripping of sandstone quarries and the working of limestone quar- ries in northern Ohio and on the islands of Lake Erie. He engaged in submarine work to some extent. He was always successful in his calculations respecting the use of high explosives. He sometimes fired single charges containing nearly a ton of dynamite !
Lack of practical knowledge of men proved to be fatal to his early busi- ness career. At the age of twenty-two he failed for twenty thousand dollars. The assets then in his possession, consisting of property, contracts and plans, would have yielded a fortune had he then been able to control men as well as he handled nitro-glycerine.
The result of this failure was to discredit him almost entirely among ordinary people. The next few years of his life were passed in a ceaseless struggle to regain such a standing as would enable him to reduce to prac- ticable operation the industrial projects with which his mind was usually filled. Repeated failures gave a somber hue to his mind but did not crush his spirit. In the summer of 1881 he succeeded in acquiring considerable property at Sandusky, Ohio. He designed and built a novel barge for taking up reef rock in submarine work. This apparatus cost seven thou- sand dollars, and every sea captain who examined it declared it to be an utter failure. It was a success, doing all that it had been planned to do. He began the construction of a mill for crushing limestone into rock ballast. This plant was located about four miles south of Sandusky, on the Lake Erie division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and before this mill was
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completed he organized the Sandusky Stone Company, which finished the plant and operated it for several years. It was finally sold to the Lorain Steel Company and is now the property of the United States Steel Trust.
In the spring of 1889 Mr. French and his associates bought a tract of sandstone quarry land near Lucas, Richland county, Ohio, and began the de- velopment of the same. Nearly one hundred thousand dollars was expended upon this property. In the winter of 1892-3 nearly all of the men who were associated with Mr. French in this project failed disastrously. The property was involved in a tangled mass of litigation. It was finally sold and now belongs to a corporation controlled by Mr. French.
On June 27, 1890, Mr. French was married to Miss Alberta Walker, of Sandusky, Ohio. Miss Walker's father had been at first a foreman for Mr. French and afterward the superintendent for the Sandusky Stone Com- pany during the summer of 1888. He was killed by an accidental explosion of dynamite in Sandusky, on Thanksgiving day, 1888. At the time of her marriage Miss Walker was the secretary of the Baker Stone Company, of which Mr. French was then the president. Their domestic life has been in the main a very happy one. One child, a son, died at the age of four months. The mother and two younger sisters of Mrs. French find a home with them. They have taken three little girls, whom they are trying to train into Christian womanhood. Mr. French's career is greatly influenced by the peace and affection of his domestic life.
In the summer of 1896 Mr. French began planning the construction of a steam road to be used as a branch of the Big Four, from Shelby to Mansfield, Ohio. This section of road is now graded and ready for track- laying. The project gradually grew until he finally undertook to create prac- tically a new system that should link existing Vanderbilt lines by two trans- Ohio divisions through territory yielding a heavy tonnage. He is now at the head of several railway companies, holding Ohio charters, the Youngs- town & Cleveland Railway Company, the Richland & Mahoning Railway Company and the Chicago Short Line Railway Company being the prin- cipal ones of this combination of corporations. Including new roads to be built and existing lines to be bought, he is projecting about five hundred and fifty miles of main line road and perhaps two hundred miles of belt lines. He has gathered about him an official staff of capable men, all of whom work harmoniously to a common end. The new system will reach from a point near Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to New Washington, Ohio; from Youngstown to Delphos, Ohio; from Carey, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, In- diana; from Youngstown to Cleveland, Ohio; and from New London to
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Norwalk, Ohio. This system will link the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad, which is practically the Pittsburg terminal, direct with the Lake Shore at Cleveland, with the Lake Shore at Norwalk, and with the Nickel Plate at Fort Wayne, Indiana. The southern division will pass through Salem, Alliance, Canton, Massillon, Wooster, Mansfield and Shelby. The nothern division will pass through Youngstown and Akron.
Mr. French and his staff have succeeded in interesting such support for this project as insures the completion of the system. It may be extended after its lines as now projected are finished.
At the age of thirty-nine it would seem that Mr. French is destined to complete a work that will at least leave a record of his career. In his private life he is eager to add to the sum of human joys before earth shall have passed. In his public career he is ambitious to do a man's work while it is yet day.
PETER SMITH.
Peter Smith, one of the prominent farmers of Sharon township, whose farm is a part of section 36, and whose postoffice is Crestline, was born in a log cabin standing on the identical spot where he now lives, December 25, 1842. He is a son of Martin Smith, who was born in December, 1807, near Heidelberg, Germany, and who was a son of Jacob Smith, of the same place. Jacob Smith was a man of wealth and when he entered the service of Napoleon furnished his own outfit as a member of a regiment of cav- alry. His family consisted of his wife and three sons, viz .: Martin, the father of the subject of this sketch, and Jacob and Philip. The latter are still in Germany, if living. The father of these three sons died at the age of eighty-four, surviving his wife, who was the daughter of a minister of the gospel.
Martin Smith was liberally educated in Germany, was reared to an agri- cultural life and was married in his native country to Catherine Weidner in 1836. In 1838 they emigrated to the United States, landing in New York city in what was then considered a remarkably short or quick voyage, of thirty-six days. At the time of coming across the sea he had consider- able capital and made his first purchase of land in the fall of 1838, consist- ing of eighty acres of land, now a part of the farm of Peter Smith, the sub- ject of this sketch. Upon this first purchase he spent the remainder of his days, engaged in farming and enjoying the respect and confidence of his neighbors and friends. His family consisted of seven children, -- four sons
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