USA > Ohio > Erie County > A standard history of Erie County, Ohio: an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, civic, and social development. A chronicle of the people, with family lineage and memoirs > Part 113
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Maj. Clinton B. Wilcox is the only one surviving of a family of four children. He had a liberal education and ample advantages for learning the business in all its details. He attended the Western Reserve Uni- versity and the Ohio Wesleyan University, and was about twenty years of age when his father died. He then assumed the junior partnership in that firm.
Since 1899 Major Wilcox has been engaged in the gas and electric business, at which time he was elected vice president of the Sandusky Gas & Electric Company. In May, 1913, this company was sold to the W. S. Barstow & Company, Incorporated, of New York, and at that time Major Wilcox was elected chairman of the board of directors. This industry has a notable history and combines some old and familiar organizations.
In addition Major Wilcox has been identified with a number of other business industries in Sandusky, and his ability as an organizer and conductor of important affairs is too well known to need elaboration. He was vice president of the Moss National Bank, and at one time director of the Commercial National Bank. He was one of the original directors and organizers in the Sandusky. Milan & Norwalk Elcetrie Railroad, one of the first electric railroads operated in the United States: also treasurer for several years of the Erie County Agricultural Society and at one time president of Providence Hospital ; president of the San- dusky Board of Trade in 1909, and at one time a member of the board of health. He served a number of years on the board of education, and Governor Myron T. Herrick appointed him a trustee of the Toledo State Hospital, succeeding the late Governor Charles Foster.
In 1885 he enlisted in Company B, Sixteenth Regiment, Ohio National
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Guard, and was afterwards corporal and sergeant, eaptain of Company B, Sixth Regiment, O. N. G. : in 1901 beeame major First Brigade, Ohio National Guard; in 1902 on the staff of Gen. Me. W. V. MeMaken.
Ile has also been active in various fraternal, social and eivic bodies. Ile is a member of all the Masonle bodies, ineluding Seienee Lodge No. 50, F. & A. M .; Sandusky City Chapter No. 72, R. A. M. : Sandusky City Council No. 26, R. & S. M .: Erie Commandery No. 23, K. T .: and all the Seottish Rite bodies, including the thirty-second degree, and has presided over all the bodies except the Sandusky City Chapter, R. A. M. He was president of the Seottish Rite class of 1909; member of the Masonie Veterans' Association: 1911-12. offieer of Grand Lodge, F. & A. M., at Ohio : is director, and in 1911 president. of the board of directors of the Masonic Temple Association. Major Wilcox is president of the Sunyendeand Club, and is a member of the board of directors of the Federated Commercial Club. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is senior warden of the Calvary Episcopal Church, and member of the board of missions of the Episcopal Church for the Diocese of Ohio.
In politics a republican. he is a member of the State Republican Central Committee, and at the inauguration of Roosevelt and Fairbanks for president and vice president of the United States was appointed to serve as adjutant general of Third Brigade, First Division, of the City Grand Division, Washington, D. C. He was a member of the Finance Committee for Ohio of the National Republican Committee in 1912. He was also offered the nomination for Congress from this district, but declined the honor. While this is a very brief outline of his various activities and relationships, it is sufficient to suggest the faet that Major Wileox is one of Northern Ohio's most influential citizens.
On September 28. 1887, Major Wileox married Miss Mary B. Fuller of Norwalk, Ohio. Her father was Steven M. Fuller. Mrs. Wileox died October 31, 1909, after they had been happily married for more than twenty-two years. She is survived by one daughter, Helen W., wife of Russell K. Ramsey.
ERNEST MILLIMAN. To see intensive farming at its best, particularly fruit and vegetable farming, it is only necessary to visit the fine home- stead of Ernest Milliman in Milan Township, located near Petersburg Corners. While Mr. Milliman pays attention to some of the general branches of farming, his specialty is fruits and vegetable growing. He has 6,000 fine trees on his farm, ineluding 3.500 peach trees, six acres of apple trees, two acres of pears, and 116 acres of cherry trees. He also has large quantities of smaller fruits, and raises a splendid vege- table crop, including some of the best watermelon, musk melons and cantaloupes found anywhere in Northern Ohio. Perhaps his most profitable crop is sweet corn for seed. Each year he puts in about twelve acres in selected sweet corn, tested by experience and nse, and sells the seed so as to net him about $50 for each acre in the crop. The Milliman homestead comprises seventy-five acres of fine land in Milan Township, and its improvements include a substantial nine-room house. painted white, and other good farm buildings, barns, sheds for tools and for drying seed corn and other facilities.
This farm has been Mr. Milliman's home and has been owned by him since 1897. ITe is a native son of Milan Township and was born at the old Milliman Farm on the Cleveland and Elyria Road in Febru- ary, 1875. In that environment he grew to manhood, gained his educa- tion in the publie schools of Milan Village, and partly, by early training. but more through extensive experience and hard work. has developed into one of the most eapable fruit-growing and general farmers in Erie
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County. Ernest Milliman is a son of John and Maria ( HIoak) Milliman, a fine old Erie County family.
In his home township Ernest Milliman married Miss Burtis Curtiss. She was born at Collins, Huron County, Ohio, August 7, 1879, and was well educated in the public schools, having the valuable instruction afforded by that venerable educator, Job Fish, and prior to her marriage she herself taught school. Her parents were John Perry and Phoebe (Peasley) Curtiss. Her father was born in Ohio and her mother in Pennsylvania, and they were married in Huron County, and a few years later moved to Milan Township, locating on a farm. On that farm the mother died in the prime of life, and when Mrs. Milliman was quite young. Mr. Curtiss later moved to Willoughby, Ohio, married a second wife, and is still living there, about seventy years of age. Ile is a democrat in politics. Mr. and Mrs. Milliman have two promising young sons: Russell, born June 27. 1905, and attending the fifth grade of the public schools, and Donald, born September 5, 1907. Both Mr. Milliman and his wife are active members of Milan Grange No. 342 of the Patrons of Husbandry, and also belongs to the County and State Grange organizations. In all political matters he is strictly independent. and votes only for candidates and policies which his judgment approves.
HENRY AKERS. This worthy citizen of Vermilion Township, whose home is on Rural Route No. 2 out of Vermilion Village, is a representa- tive of one of the pioneer families of Erie County, and is well entitled to a place in the annals of a county whose development from a wild primitive state to its present condition he has witnessed, being himself a material factor in the grand result.
While most of his life has been spent within the borders of Erie County, ITenry Akers was born in West Prussia, February 6, 1852, a son of George and Eva (Riever) Akers, who were natives of the same province and of old German stock. Both their children were born in Prussia. The daughter was Elizabeth, who died in Vermilion Village after the birth of her only child, Alden Gerlaw.
It was in 1856 that this little family set out from the shores of Germany to come to America. They spent ten weeks of rough sailing and landed in the latter part of the month of October. From New York they came on to Ohio and soon after found a wild tract of land in Vermilion Township. Their first home was a log cabin in the midst of the heavy woods. Both George Akers and his wife were indus- trious and thrifty people of the typical German stock, and hy their united efforts they finally produced a farm of forty aeres with many of the improvements and home comforts. George Akers died at that home at the age of eighty-six and his wife lived to be eighty-five. They were members of the German Reformed Church and in politics he was a democrat.
The only one of the children now living, Henry Akers grew up from the age of four years in Erie County. His earliest recollections are of a. country vastly different from that which now greets his eye. From the local schools he gained a sufficient edneation for his needs. and since early youth has been pursuing an industrious and honorable course through the world. He has proved very energetic in the handling of farms, and in the course of his active career he brought under culti- vation and improvement three different places. ITis present home is on a farm of 521/2 acres, all of it under cultivation, and improved with a good house and barn.
In Vermilion Township on September 8, 1872, Mr. Akers married Miss Amanda Rackley. She was born in Doylestown, Ohio, September 28. 1852, but she received most of her education in the schools near
Sarkakyfull.
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Birmingham in Erie County. Her parents, John and Rachel (Green- ough) Rackley were Pennsylvania people. Her father died in Doyles- town, Ohio, and her mother in Birmingham, Ohio. Her mother was very active in the Presbyterian Church. Her father was quite well educated for his time, and served as a justice of the peace and in other local offices while living in Doylestown. In polities he was a democrat.
Mr. and Mrs. Akers are members of the German Reformed Church, he is likewise a democrat, and for fourteen years helped to maintain the local schools at a high standard of efficiency in the office of school director. He stands high in the estimation of his fellow citizens, and he has helped to make Erie County what it is today. He and his wife are the parents of one son, Arthur.
FREDERICK W. WAKEFIELD. The closing months of the year 1915 find Mr. Wakefield serving his second consecutive term as mayor of the vigorous and attractive little City of Vermilion, Erie County, and his administration has been marked by the same liberality and progressive- ness that have made him one of the most prominent and influential busi- ness men of this part of the county. At Vermilion he is the executive head of the F. W. Wakefield Brass Company, manufacturers of lighting fixtures and other general lines of brass products, and the company rep- resents one of the important industrial enterprises of Erie County, its inception and development being primarily due to the well ordered efforts of him whose name initiates this paragraph. The well equipped and essentially modern plant of the company gives employment to about fifty persons, including a number of specially skilled artisans, and the enterprise has been a valuable addition to the business interests of Ver- milion.
Mr. Wakefield was born in the City of Birmingham, England, on the 26th of April, 1863, and is a son of William and Sarah (Wright) Wake- field, both of whom were likewise natives of Birmingham, in which important manufacturing city of England they continued their residence until 1875, when they came with their children to the United States and established a home in the City of Cleveland, Ohio, the parents having passed the remainder of their lives in the Buckeye State.
Frederick W. Wakefield acquired his early educational discipline in the schools of his native city and was about twelve years old at the time of the family immigration to the United States. In the City of Cleve- land he continued his studies in the public schools for some time and finally he became associated with his uncle, William Wilkshire, who was the pioneer manufacturer of gas fixtures in the metropolis of Ohio. Mr. Wakefield entered the employ of this unele in the year 1882, and continued his services about five years, within which he acquired a prac- tical knowledge of all mechanical details of the business and also gained valuable knowledge concerning commercial and general business meth- ods. Later he was employed for some time in the Cleveland establish- ment of C. A. Selzer, an importer of and dealer in lighting fixtures, brass goods, bric-a-brac, etc. He remained thus engaged about eight years, and thereafter established himself independently in a similar line of business in Cleveland. There he continued his operations from 1895 until 1905, devoting his attention primarily to the manufacturing of lighting fixtures and a general line of brass goods. In the year last mentioned Mr. Wakefield transferred his residence and business head- quarters to Vermilion, Erie County, where he has successfully developed his manufacturing enterprise to substantial proportions and where he has become an honored and valued addition to the contingent of influ- ential business men of Erie County, as well as a prominent and public- spirited citizen.
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Mr. Wakefield is found arrayed as a stanch and well fortified advo- cate of the principles and policies for which the republican party has always stood sponsor in a general sense, and in November, 1911, he was elected mayor of Vermilion, his indnetion into office having occurred on the 1st of the following January. His broad-minded and progressive administration met with popular approval, and at the expiration of his first term he was re-elected, so that he still remains as the efficient and valued executive head of the municipal government of Vermilion. In his home city he is affiliated with Ely Lodge No. 424. Free and Accepted Masons, and he retains membership in the Chamber of Commerce in the City of Cleveland. He is resourceful and resolute in the activities of business and has the elements of character that not only beget objective confidence and esteem, but also make for popularity in both business and social circles. The beautiful family home provided by Mayor Wake- field at Vermilion is a large and modern residence on the shores of Lake Erie, and the same is a center of much of the representative social activities of the community, with Mrs. Wakefield as its gracious and popular chatelaine.
On the 14th of February, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wakefield to Miss Mary Poley, who was born in the City of Brooklyn, New York, a daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Seeats) Poley, who were natives of the City of London, England, whence they came to the United States in 1872, their home having been established in Brooklyn, New York, for a number of years and the death of Mrs. Poley having there occurred. Mrs. Wakefield later accompanied her father to Cleveland, Ohio, and there her marriage was solemnized. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield have nine children, namely : Clara M., Albert F., Alice M., William R., Ruth M., Frederick W., Jr., George P., Theodore D., and Ernest II. Clara M. is now the wife of Albert C. Hofrichter, of Vermilion, concern- ing whom individual mention is made on other pages of this publication. Albert F. Wakefield, the eldest of the sons, is a member of the class of 1917 in the great University of Michigan, in the City of Ann Arbor.
CHARLES L. KUEHLMANN. A resident of Vermilion Township since 1877, Mr. Kuehlmann has here shown his strength in the mastering of expedients and the taking advantage of opportunities presented, for from a small tract of land which he first obtained and which was largely given over to the native timber, he has reclaimed and improved a fine landed estate of more than 350 aeres. As a young man, and within a decade after his immigration from his German Fatherland, he estab- lished his home in Erie County, and that he has made the intervening years prolific in personal achievement needs no further voucher than his present status as one of the substantial agriculturists and general farmers of the county and as a citizen whose prominence and influence have further basis in the sterling characteristics that have gained to him unqualified popular esteem. He is one of the leading farmers of Vermilion Township and is serving with characteristic fidelity and eir- cumspection as president of the board of edneation of that township. a position of which he has been the valued incumbent for several years.
In the Prussian Province of Posen, Germany, Mr. Kuehlmann was born on the 25th of June. 1850. his parents, John and Wilhelmina (Radke) Kuehlman, having been born and reared in that section of Germany. In his native province Mr. Kuehlmann was reared to adult age and there he received the advantages of the national school. At the age of eighteen years, in 1868. he severed the home ties and set forth to seek his fortunes in America. Soon after landing in the country of his adoption young Kuehlmann made his way to Ohio and estab- lished his residence at Berea, Cuyahoga County, where he continued
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P. M.Laarmad
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his activities about a decade. He then, in the spring of 1877, came to Erie County and purchased fifty acres of partially cleared land in Vermilion Township, this tract constituting an integral part of his present fine homestead place of 203 acres, the additional land having been purchased from time to time, in consonance with expenditures justified by his increasing success and financial prosperity. He first set- tled virtually in the forest wilds, and then set himself vigorously to the task of reclaiming his land to cultivation. It may well be under- stood that under such conditions prosperity is not easily won and that sybaritie tendencies have to be foregone entirely. Energy, determina- tion and self-relianee bring results and thus it is through his own efforts that Mr. Kuehlmann has developed not only his present fine homestead of 203 acres but has beeome the owner also of another well improved farm, of 15112 aeres, likewise eligibly situated in Vermilion Township. He gives a most punetilious supervision to all details of his farm opera- tions and is one of the progressive and substantial agriculturists and stock-growers of a county to which he came as a young man with but nominal financial resources. His parents eame to the United States in 1869 and resided at Berea, Ohio, until 1877, when they likewise came to Vermilion Township, Erie County, where they passed the closing years of their long and useful lives.
Mr. Kuehlmann is found aligned in a general way as a supporter of the principles and policies for which the republican party stands sponsor, and in community affairs he has shown the utmost liberality and publie spirit. Ile has had no ambition for public office but his eivie loyalty and his desire to further the educational interests of his township have been shown through his efficient service as a member and president of the township board of education. He is a director of the Vermilion Telephone Company and he and his wife hold mem- bership in the German Methodist Episcopal Church in the Village of Vermilion.
At Berea, this state, on the 17th of April, 1872, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Kuehlmann to Miss Augusta Seidler, who likewise is a native of the Province of Posen, Prussia, where her parents passed their entire lives, her father, Jacob Seidler, having there been a pros- perous farmer. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Kuehlmann are: Fred- erick C., Rudolph, Minnie L., Otto H., Reinhard E. and John W. The only daughter is now the wife of Capt. Charles Gagenheimer, and they reside in the Village of Vermilion.
RALPH M. LOCKWOOD. In the death of Ralph M. Lockwood on June 22, 1906, there was removed from Erie County one of the most upright, energetic and lovable of the local merchants and business men. He rep- resented that fine New England stock which after being transplanted to Northern Ohio flowered and gave to Erie County some of its most notable men and women. Mr. Lockwood himself is remembered as a man of even and gentle disposition, singularly alert in business matters, and public spirited in his attitude toward eitizenship and toward the larger social life of his community.
He was born at Milan, Ohio, July 21, 1851, and was not yet fifty-five years of age when he died. He was the second of eight children born to Stephen and Sarah (Lockwood) Lockwood, and was a grandson of Ralph Lockwood, who with his two brothers, George and Henry, became identified with the very earliest settlement of Erie County. The Lock- wood family before coming west lived in and around Norwalk, Con- neetieut. The name of various members of this family is frequently referred to in the course of the individual sketehes that appear in this publication.
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The early education of Ralph M. Lockwood came from the common schools. He was still very young when he acquired his first experience as a merchant, and it was as a merchant that he rendered his best service to the community. He was a man of strict honesty, and his own reputa- tion stood behind all the merchandise which passed over his counters. For many years he was senior member of the firm of Lockwood & Smith, which mercantile establishment was known throughout Erie and Huron counties.
On June 17, 1874, Mr. Lockwood married Emma Montgomery, a daughter of Usher and Sarah Montgomery. To their marriage were born two children, one of whom died in infancy. Verna is now the wife of Judge Roy HI. Williams, judge of the Court of Common Pleas at Sandusky.
Fraternally Mr. Lockwood was a Mason, being affiliated with the lodge at Milan. His own life was in keeping with the principles of that craft, and it is the nature of the highest praise to say that he was a devoted husband and father, a loyal friend, and instant in charity to the poor and needy.
CHARLES KUHL. Probably no family had harder and more romantie experiences in getting started in the world than the Kuhls, now rep- resented by Charles Kuhl of Vermilion Township. Mr. Kuhl himself has inherited all the industry and enterprise of his honored father, though his career has been one of comparative ease compared to the dif- ficulties which his father met and encountered during his early experi- ences in Northern Ohio. Mr. Charles Kuhl has a fine farm and rural home on rural route No. 2 ont of Vermilion Township. He was born in Brownhelm Township of Lorain County, January 11, 1861.
His parents were Henry J. and Catherine (Cook) Kuhl, the former a native of Hessen and the latter of Mecklenburg, Germany. Henry J. Kuhl was born April 10, 1815, and his wife was born four or five years later. It was in 1837 that Henry J. Kuhl came to the United States on a sailing vessel, spending seven weeks in the voyage, his ship encountering very rough seas. At one time it was blown back on its course and delayed fourteen days. The Hanover was a good ship how- ever, and finally landed its passengers at Baltimore, Maryland. Henry J. Knhl came in company with some comrades from the same seetion of Germany, and on landing he was completely without resources and had no friends to depend upon. He started out with a pocketful of hard- taek, and in the course of his wanderings experienced hunger and many hardships. He finally reached Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and was given some work that paid him four dollars a month. His father had died back in Germany and some time previously his mother and the other sons and danghters had come to America and had located in Huron, Ohio. They expected the arrival of Henry J., and advertised in various papers for him. He first heard of this advertisement and knew the location of his people while he was in Pittsburg. He wrote his mother, and she sent her son, Wolf Kuhl, to Pittsburg. Wolf walked all the way, found his brother, and they at once started back on foot and soon the family were reunited in Erie County. Later the sons, Henry, Wolf, John and Peter, went to Toledo to get work on the Maumee Canal. While there the mother and two danghters who had remained behind at Huron died from malaria fever. These were only a few of the hardships encountered by the Kuhl family during their early years in America. The sons finally got a start, and individually they pros- pered in varying degrees.
Henry J. Kuhl finally located on a farm in Brownhehu Township of Lorain County, bought a few aeres, and having already proved himself
I.V. Baumgardner
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honest and trustworthy he got sufficient credit to enable him to work his farm properly and establish a home. Then in 1863 he left Lorain County and moved to Vermilion Township. Here he bought 112 acres and went in debt $3,000 for it. He and his wife were people of that type of character who are not afraid to assume responsibilities, and by hard work, much self denial, they finally paid off the debt and then went ahead increasing their possessions until eventually over 400 acres of land were owned by Henry J. Kuhl, and at the time of his death he was worth over $50,000. It was all honestly won, and for what he made of his opportunities and resources there are few other men in Erie County who were more successful. He died on his Vermilion Township farm on May 5, 1886, and his wife passed away six years later, being at that time a year older than her husband when he died. They were members of the Reformed Church, active in local affairs, and in poli- tics he was first a democrat and afterwards an ardent republican. His fellow citizens bestowed upon him several local offices, and in every way he was worthy of trust.
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