USA > Ohio > Seneca County > A centennial biographical history of Seneca County, Ohio > Part 35
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George E. Seney was born in Uniontown, Fayette county, Penn- sylvania, May 29, 1830, and when less than two years of age his parents removed to Tiffin, where his years have been near three-score and ten. With a good common-school education, he was at the Norwalk Seminary for three years, when its principal was that eminent scholar and divine. Rev. Edward Tlionson, D. D., late a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church. Later, and for two years, he was employed as a clerk in a Tiffin dry-goods store. At the age of eighteen years he was in the city of New York, purchasing a stock of books and stationery for a book store, which he and an uncle opened and conducted in Tiffin. In this store he remained for a year or more, and afterward, for a time, assisted
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the auditor and the treasurer of Seneca county in the assessment and collection of taxes.
With a desire to be a merchant, he, through a relative in the east, secured a position in a wholesale dry-goods store in St. Louis. To this his parents were opposed, for they desired him to be a lawyer. To please his father and mother he entered the office of Luther A. Hall, Esq., of Tiffin, to study law, with the understanding that if at the end of three months he preferred the place open for him at St. Louis, neither parent would object. Years afterward, when he was well established in his profession, Mr. Hall, in speaking of him, said: "The first day George was in my office, he and the law fell in love, and they have been loving ever since." Certainly neither he, his kindred, nor his friends have had occasion to regret that he entered professional, instead of commercial, life. Two years of study prepared him for admission to the bar, and in 1851 he commenced the practice of law as a partner of his preceptor, Mr. Hall. This copartnership continued for less than three years ; and, upon its dissolution and until his election as judge, he practiced law alone. When the law firm of Hall & Seney dissolved, of the eighteen practicing lawyers in Seneca county several were of marked ability and had been long at the bar, but from the beginning Judge Seney had a lib- eral share of the legal business. His clientage grew, both in volume and in importance and at the end of four years, when he became judge, his practice compared favorably with that of lawyers of twice or even thrice his years and experience. At the bar he had made the reputation of a studious, methodical and reliable lawyer and an able and effective jury advocate.
At the age of twenty-seven years, George E. Seney was elected judge of the third judicial district of Ohio, for the constitutional term of five years. He was made the candidate of his party for judge by the unanimous vote of a convention composed of many representative Democrats, a number of whom were lawyers. The voting strength of the two political parties in the district was about equal, but at the elec- tion Judge Seney had a majority of one thousand and six over the Re-
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publican candidate, General John C. Lee, then a practicing lawyer at Tiffin.
After the election of Judge Seney, and before his term of office commenced, he declined the appointment of United States district attor- ney for the northern district of Ohio, tendered him by President Bu- chanan. The third judicial district was composed of twenty counties, in each of which three terms of the common-pleas court and one term of the district court were held in each year,-the former by one of the five district judges and the latter either by three of these judges or by two and a judge of the supreme court of Ohio. In several of these counties Judge Seney held terms of the common-pleas court, in other counties parts of their terms; and, either with two of the district judges, or with one and a judge of the supreme court, held a term of the district court in sixteen of the twenty counties of the judicial district. The judges holding these courts during these five years were Josiah Scott, Thomas WV. Bartley, Milton Sutliff, William Y. Gholson and Jacob Brinkerhoff, of the supreme court, and Mathias C. Whitney, William Lawrence, Alexander Latta, Josiah S. Plants and George E. Seney of the common- pleas court ; and of these ten judges Judge Seney is the sole survivor.
The first court held by Judge Seney was at Perrysburg, then the county seat of Wood county ; and the first lawyer to address him in a cause was the Honorable Morrison R. Waite, then a practicing lawyer at Toledo and later the chief justice of the supreme court of the United States. In this connection it may be remarked that Judge Seney was one of the committee appointed by congress to accompany the remains of Chief Justice Waite from Washington to Toledo and to be a pall- bearer at his funeral. Upon the bench, Judge Seney presided with dignity, courtesy and strict impartiality. So marked was his knowledge of the law and his ability to apply it to the points at issue that his decis- ions were valued as the considerate judgment of a sound lawyer and an upright and just judge. While on the bench he prepared and had pub- lished what is known to the legal profession as Seney's Ohio Code, which was republished in 1874. Among lawyers this work is highly
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valued, and is in constant and extensive use in Ohio and several of the western states.
Judge Seney, near the close of his judicial term, which was in the second year of the late Civil war between the states, enlisted in the One Hundred and First Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and upon its organization was commissioned one of its first lieutenants, and subse- quently its quartermaster. Recruiting for this regiment, in which he and another enlisted man largely assisted, began late in July, 1862, and early in September following the regiment, over one thousand strong, was on the hills near Covington, Kentucky, resisting the advance of the Confederate forces under General Kirby Smith upon Cincinnati.
In the Army of the Cumberland, under Generals Buell, Rosecrans, Thomas and Sherman, the One Hundred and First Ohio Regiment served until the close of the war. Its service was conspicuously effective at the battles of Perryville, Lancaster, Nashville, Stone River, Chicka- mauga, Chattanooga and Franklin, and in the five months of fighting and marching from Missionary Ridge to Atlanta, under General Sher- man. From the day the One Hundred and First Ohio Regiment crossed the Ohio river at Cincinnati until impaired health unfitted him for further service in the field, a period of nearly three years, Judge Seney served with his regiment in all of its campaigns. Upon resigning his commis- sion in the army he resumed the practice of law, at Tiffin, and in a short time was in the enjoyment of a large and lucrative practice, easily main- taining his place among the leading representatives of the profession.
In the law, as in every other walk of life, success depends largely upon industry, and the Judge was known as one of the most indefati- gable and tireless workers. His large clientage connected him with much of the most important litigation tried in the courts of this part of the state. More than twenty years ago a biographer in writing of him said : "As a lawyer he is highly esteemed by the profession; his cases are thoroughly prepared and ably and effectively presented to the court and the jury. While he is a fine speaker and with his oratorical gifts and graces excels as an advocate, he no less excels by his sound judg- ment and rare sense as an attorney and counselor. The fact that he is
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usually assigned the closing argument in a case indicates the esteem in which he is held by his associates in the trial. As a man he is genial. and has the native delicacy and refinement of the educated gentleman." A later biographer says: "Judge Seney rose rapidly in his profession and is known as an able lawyer and an eloquent and effective jury advo- cate,-firm and decisive in character, quiet and gentle in manner, unos- tentatious in bearing, a pleasing public speaker, a person of refined tastes, and esteemed and popular with his professional associates." Still another biographer says: "Judge Seney was the youngest man who ever held common-pleas court in Ohio. He was elected judge at the age of twenty-six years and served a term of five years with satisfaction to litigants and lawyers and with honor to himself. He was a hard and conscientious worker and has the qualities that commend a judge,- patience and gravity, dignity and courtesy, urbanity in demeanor, a high sense of justice, a desire to be right and the application required for careful research and investigation to ascertain the law applicable to a case."
In politics Judge Seney has taken more or less interest, more as a Democrat and less as a politician. His paternal ancestors were strong in the Democratic faith and the Democracy of the Judge is, and has been, always and ever, unwavering. He has made many speeches in support of the men and measures of his party, and in many other ways has been active and efficient in the affairs of his party. In conventions to nominate Democrats as candidates for office he was either a delegate or a spectator, but never a candidate except when nominated for judge and for member of congress. When elected to congress he was fifty-two years of age, and the only office that he had held or had been a candidate for was that of judge twenty-five years before. The Democratic state convention in 1856 nominated him for presidential elector on the Bu- chanan and Breckinridge ticket. He was a delegate to the Democratic national convention at St. Louis, in 1876, which nominated Samuel J. Tilden for president of the United States. He was the president of the Democratic state convention which met at Cleveland in 1887. As a spec- tator he was at the Democratic national convention which nominated
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for president James Buchanan at Cincinnati in 1856, Stephen A. Douglas at Baltimore in 1860, Winfield S. Hancock at Cincinnati in 1880, and Grover Cleveand at Chicago in 1884; and as a spectator attended the Republican national convention which nominated for president Benja- min Harrison at Minneapolis in 1892, and William Mckinley at St. Louis in 1896. He was a delegate at large from Ohio to the convention of Democrats at Indianapolis, in 1896, which nominated General John M. Palmer for president and Simon B. Buckner for vice president, and to them he gave his vote at the election.
In 1874 he was the candidate of the Democratic party for congress, and at the election was defeated by less than one hundred and forty votes. This defeat a friend explained in this language: "It will be re- membered that in the convention he refused, again and again, to be a candidate for the nomination, and protested, again and again, against his candidacy when nominated. These refusals and protests gave every voter to understand that he was opposed to his own election, and this, with the fact that he made no effort to be elected, was enough to elect the opposing candidate by a very large majority."
Indeed, of Judge Seney it may be truthfuly written that he had 110 ambition for distinction in public affairs, but regarded the pursuits of private life, and particularly those pertaining to his profession, as being in themselves abundantly worthy of his best efforts. Endowed by nature with high intellectual qualities, to which have been added discipline and embellishments of culture, his is a most attractive personality. Well versed in the learning of his profession and with a deep knowledge of human nature and of the world, with great shrewdness, keen sagacity and extraordinary tact, he is in the courts an advocate of great power and influence, while his private life has left its impress upon the moral growth of the community. Had Judge Seney been less a lawyer and more a politician, his public career would not have ended at the close of his fourth term as a representative in congress. He was the choice of several members of the Ohio legislature for United States senator when the late Henry B. Payne was elected to that office, and later, when the late Calvin S. Brice was made a senator in congress. More than once
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during his congressional term, and since, he was urged by prominent and leading Democrats and by his party press to be a candidate for governor of Ohio, but always and ever refused the use of his name in a nominating convention.
When the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one be- came a political issue, the Republican party and the anti-free-coinage Democrats proposed to make him their candidate for congress, and in refusing the candidacy he said that he would not accept the commission of a member of congress if tendered him.
Years of industrious and energetic labor in his profession have not been without substantial rewards to Judge Seney. Until recently he was the owner of the Tiffin Gas and Electric Works. He is the largest stockholder in the Tiffin Savings Bank, and now is, and has been, since the organization of the bank twelve years ago, its president.
In the city of Tiffin and in the county of Seneca he is the owner of valuable real estate and gives personal attention to its management. His elegant residence at the corner of Clay and Water streets is, within and without, a most elegant structure.
Progressive, liberal and enterprising, he takes an active and leading part in whatever is calculated to advance Tiffin and the good of her people. His estimable wife, Anna Walker Seney, is a daughter of the late Joseph Walker, Esq., long a merchant of Tiffin, and a granddaugh- ter of the late Josiah Hedges, Esq., who was the founder of Tiffin and is remembered by many citizens as an active leader in public affairs fifty years ago.
JOHN M. McDONALD.
This name is one known throughout Seneca county, for here Mr. McDonald has passed his entire life and here his parents resided for many decades. He has long been recognized as one of the leading agri- culturists of his locality, and for many years has held a foremost place in the public affairs of the county. He has been faithful to his concep-
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tions of the duties of citizenship, ever striving to advance the interests of his fellow men.
Mr. McDonald was born in Tiffin, Ohio, May 6, 1835, a son of Upton and Rebecca (Cromer) McDonald. The father, who was a na- tive of Maryland, was there reared and married, and after that event they came with her parents, three brothers and two sisters to the Buckeye state, immediately taking up their abode in Seneca county. For a time after their arrival here they camped in a tent in Tiffin, the city then containing but two or three houses, and later her father located on a farm near what is now Cromer Station, which was built on the farm of her brother, Ezra Cromer. Mr. and Mrs. McDonald made their home with her father for about three years, when they purchased a farm near by, consisting of eighty acres, and there they spent the remainder of their lives, he dying when our subject was about ten years of age. After the father's death the mother became the wife of Jacob Warner and survived about twenty years. The union of Mr. and Mrs. McDonald was blessed with ten chil- dren, seven of whom are now living, namely: James, a resident of Carbondale, Kansas; Susan, the widow of John Walters and a resident of Liberty township, Seneca county; John M., the subject of this re- view ; David, a prominent farmer of Pleasant township; Ezra, a shoe- maker at Fort Seneca; Rebecca, the widow of Lafayette Letherman and a resident of Liberty township; and Albert, of Williams county, Ohio.
John M. McDonald, of this review, acquired but a limited educa- tion, for in early life his services were needed in developing a new farm. From the time of his marriage until 1861 he was employed at various occupations by the day or month, and at the latter date enlisted for ser- vice in the civil war, becoming a member of Company F, Forty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in which he served for one year. During his military career he took part in the battles of Murfreesboro and Stone river, also many others of lesser importance, and after being confined in a hospital in Murfreesboro, on account of a severe illness, for three months, he was honorably discharged. For about three years after his return from the war he suffered from ill health, and he has never fully recovered his former strength and vigor. He subsequently became the
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owner of forty acres of land in Pleasant township, where he made his home for three years, when he sold that property and purchased the land which he now owns, paying eight thousand four hundred dollars for eighty acres one and one-half miles northwest of the courthouse in Tiffin. Incurring five thousand dollars of indebtedness, Mr. McDonald paid it in seven years. He is a man of energy and enterprise, and along the line of his chosen calling he has met with a well merited degree of success.
On the 22d of February, 1855, occurred the marriage of Mr. Mc- Donald and Miss Emily R. Van Natter. She is a native of the state of New York and a daughter of Moses and Rachel ( Adams) Van Natter, who came to Seneca county in 1841, locating near Bettsville, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Of the nine children born unto our subject and wife only five are now living, namely : Nelson W., who is engaged in the manufacture of buggies in Tiffin, Ohio; Milan W., who is employed in a glass factory in Fairmount, Indiana; Chester, of Lib- erty township, Seneca county ; Orton W., a prominent farmer of Reed township; and Daisy B., the wife of Otto Bour, also of Reed township. At the age of eight years Effie E., the eldest girl, was drowned through carelessness of playmates. One child died in infancy. Korah G. died at thirty-two. He had been a farmer in Seneca county, and a daughter, Adelsa, died at twenty-three, having lived at home and being summoned to the great hereafter almost without a moment's warning.
In his social relations Mr. McDonald is a member of General W. H. Gibson Post, G. A. R., and his political support is given to the Re- publican party. His religious preference, as is that of Mrs. McDonald, is indicated by membership in the United Brethren church in Tiffin.
WILLIAM H. DORAN.
For many years the Doran family has occupied a distinctive place in the affairs of Seneca county. From a wilderness this section has been gradually transformed to a fertile farming country, dotted with happy
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homes, and in this glorious labor the Dorans have been active and zeal- ous, leaving to their children and to posterity the records of useful, well spent lives.
John Doran, the grandfather of our subject, was a native of Vir- ginia, but as early as 1822 he came to Seneca county, Ohio, entering eighty acres of government land where a brother of our subject, George W., now resides. At the raising of the old Hunter mills his back was seriously injured, but he survived the fracture for thirty-five years and reached the ripe old age of ninety years. Jonas Doran, the father of our subject, was born on his father's farm in Hopewell township, Seneca county. As a companion on the journey of life he chose Mary A. Arm- strong, and they became the parents of ten children, five sons and five daughters, namely: William H .; Inez, the wife of W. C. Welty ; John; Della, the wife of Walter Hiser; Rosa, the wife of Lafayette Covert; Ella, the wife of Elias Zeis; Sheridan; Frank; George; and Ida, de- ceased. The father of this family was called to his final rest in 1890, at the age of fifty-nine years, but his widow still survives and resides on the old home farm, three and one-half miles northwest of Tiffin, where their children were born and reared.
William H. Doran, whose name introduces this review, was born on the 19th of February, 1855, and he continued to reside on the old homestead until after his marriage, when he rented a farm in Clinton township, there remaining for one year. For the following six years he farmed on rented land in Seneca township, coming thence to Hopewell township, where he again located on rented land, thus continuing for seven years. On the expiration of that period he became the owner of one hundred acres of his present farm, and as the years have passed by he has added to his original purchase until his landed possessions now consist of one hundred and eighty acres of rich and fertile land. He has placed his fields under a fine state of cultivation, has erected commodious and substantial buildings, and in many other ways has added to the value and attractive appearance of his place. In addition to the raising of the cereals best adapted to this soil and climate he has also engaged
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extensively in the stock business, and in both lines of labor he has met with a high degree of success.
In October, 1877, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Doran and Miss Amanda Lynch. Mrs. Doran is the daughter of John A. and Sarah (Utz) Lynch, was born in Liberty township, and was eighteen at her own marriage. Her father died the year of her marriage, while her mother is still living, residing at Tiffin. Mr. and Mrs. Doran have be- come the parents of eight children,-Nellie, Olive (wife of Peter War- ner), George, Thomas, James, William, Jesse and Laura. Mr. Doran's social relations connect him with the Masonic fraternity, and politically he is identified with the Republican party. He is greatly esteemed by all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance, and is a man of wide influ- ence in this, his native township.
PHILLIP BOLLINGER.
One of the well known and influential citizens of Venice township is Phillip Bollinger, who has spent his entire life here. He has always been actively interested in everything which tended to promote the de- velopment of this region, and has been confidently counted upon at all times to endorse progressive measures and to uphold the law, right and justice.
The Bollinger family are numbered among the old and honored residents of the county, and their history may be found in the sketch of L. W. Bollinger in this volume. Our subject was born in Venice town- ship, Seneca county, February 20, 1852. Shortly after his marriage he became the owner of eighty acres of land in this locality, and as the years have passed by and prosperity has rewarded his well directed efforts he has been enabled to add to his original purchase until his landed possessions now consist of two hundred and thirty acres of rich and fertile land. His fields are under an excellent state of cultivation. good and substantial buildings adorn the place, and its neat and thrifty
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appearance indicates to the passer-by the supervision of a progressive owner. In matters of political importance he gives his support to the Democracy, and his religious preference is indicated by his membership in the Reformed church, in which he has long served as a deacon.
For a companion on the journey of life Mr. Bollinger chose Miss Anna M. Funk, a native of Stark county, Ohio, and a daughter of Isaac and Catharine ( Kitzmiller) Funk, he now residing in Bloomville, Sen- eca county, and she being deceased. Seven children have blessed the union of our subject and wife, namely: Ida, the wife of James Free- born, who resides on a portion of his father's farm; George F., William E., Ollie, Cora, Emma and Andrew J., and with the exception of the eldest all are at home. Mr. Bollinger is at all times charitable and benevolent, and it is safe to say that no man in Seneca county has a wider circle of friends and acquaintances.
CLAY HOLTZ.
A native son of Seneca county and one of its progressive and in- fluential citizens is Mr. Holtz, who is a worthy representative of one of the honored pioneer families of this section of the state, where he has passed his entire life, devoting his attention to agricultural pursuits, in connection with which he has attained a high degree of success, the while commanding the high esteem of those who have known him and had appreciation of his honorable and useful career.
Mr. Holtz was born on the old homestead, in Pleasant township, Seneca county, on the IIth of December, 1841, one of the six children of William and Catherine M. (Cramer) Holtz, who became the parents of four sons and two daughters, namely: Harrison, who was drowned in childhood; Clay, the immediate subject of this sketch; William, who was a member of Company I, One Hundred and First Ohio Volunteer Infantry, being captured by the enemy at Chickamauga and dying while held a captive in Andersonville prison ; Susan, who is the wife of
MRS. CLAY HOLTZ.
CLAY HOLTZ.
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