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 54
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Mr. Schaffer is a man of well fortified politieal convictions, is a loyal supporter of the cause of the democratie party, and is essentially vig- orous and progressive as a citizen. Since 1910 he has served as clerk of the board of affairs of Erie County, and since 1905 he has been chief of the volunteer fire department of Huron. He is deputy assessor of Huron Township and the Village of Huron, of which position he has been the incumbent sinee 1913. Since 1908 Mr. Sehaffer has been Government inspector for the doeks and two light-houses of the Port of Huron, and he had previously served in a similar capacity at Toledo, Lorain and ('leveland.
Ile is essentially a vital, straightforward and enterprising man of affairs and commands the unqualified esteem of the community in which he maintains his home and in the general welfare of which he takes the deepest interest. Mr. Sehaffer is affiliated with the Huron Camp of the Order of American Woodmen and is past banker of the same. He and his wife reside in one of the beautiful modern homes of Huron, the same having been erected by him, on South Williams Street, and it is known as a center of gracious and unostentatious hospitality.
CHARLES W. DILDINE. The chief engineer of the municipal eleetrie- light and waterworks plant of the thriving little City of Huron is one of the valued expentives and popular citizens and has been the ineumbent of his present position sinee 1909, his serupulous attention to all details and careful handling of the important service entrusted to his charge having resulted in the effective upkeep and operation of these important departments of public utility serviee. As pertinent to his recognition in this publication further interest attaches to his career by reason of
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the fact that he is a native of Erie County and a representative of a well known and highly esteemed family of this favored section of the Buckeye State.
Not far distant from his present place of residence in the City of HIuron, which was then known as Huronville, Mr. Dildine was born on the 30th of April, 1876, and in the publie schools of this place he con- tinued his studies until he had attained to the age of seventeen years, his discipline having thus included the curriculum of the high school. At the age noted he began the theoretical study and also a practical apprenticeship to stationary engineering, and incidentally he had the good judgment to fortify himself by a simultaneous course of technical study in the Scranton Correspondence School, which has a national repu- tation. From 1905 to 1907 Mlr. Dildine served as stationary engineer at the Huron water station of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Rail- road, and this experience proved of great value to him in fitting him to assume the responsible office of which he is now the incumbent. At the municipal light and water plant he has the supervision of two fine en- gines of most modern type-one capable of developing 150 horse power and the other seventy horse power. In the handling of the mechanical equipment of the plant he has never encountered an accident to the machinery and has kept the service np to the highest standard of effi- cieney, his administration of affairs having been loyal and creditable and having innred to the general benefit of the city and its people.
Mr. Dildine is a son of William and Betsey (Wolverton ) Dildine, the former of whom was born near the present beautiful little ('ity of Hills- dale, Michigan, on the 2d of July, 1836, and the latter of whom was born in Huron Township, Erie County, Ohio, on the 1st of November. 1850. The lineage of William Dildine traces back to sturdy German stoek and the original American representatives of the name settled in Pennsylvania in the colonial era of our national history. In that state the parents of William Dildine were born and that they became pioneer settlers in Michigan is fully indicated by the fact that he himself was born in the Territory of Michigan in the year prior to the admission of the state to the Union.
William Dildine was reared and educated in the Wolverine State and there continued his association with agricultural pursuits until there came to him the eall of higher duty, with the breaking ont of the Civil war. He promptly manifested his patriotic loyalty by enlisting as a private in Company E, Fourth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and with this gallant command he participated in the first battle of Bull Rnn, the Battle of the Wilderness, and many other engagements mark- ing the progress of the great internecine conflict. He proved a faith- ful and valiant soldier of the Union and was fortunate in that he escaped other than nominal wounds and in that he was never captured. He con- tinued with his regiment until the close of the war, his service having covered a period of nearly five years, and after receiving his honorable discharge he returned to his home in Michigan. In later years he vital- ized the more gracious memories and associations of his long and honor able military career by his affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republie, and he was one of the organizers of Moses Martin Post of this noble organization at Iluron; he was for many years one of the most popular and influential comrades of this post and he was its commander at the time of his death, his funeral services being held under the anspiees of this patriotie organization.
In Michigan William Dildine continued his residence until 1867. when he came to Erie County and engaged in farming in Huron Town- ship. A year or two later, however, he severed his association with this line of enterprise and turned his attention to the fishing industry, with
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which he continued to be identified during the remainder of his active career, his operations having been exclusively in the waters of Lake Erie and excellent success having attended his operations. His death occurred at Fairport, Lake County, on the 8th of July, 1904, and he was well known in navigation circles as well as in Erie and other counties bordering on Lake Erie, his sterling integrity and genial personality having drawn to him troops of staunch friends. He was unfaltering in his allegiance to the republican party and was active and enthusiastic in the promotion of its cause.
At Huron was solemnized the marriage of William Dildine to Miss Betsey Wolverton, and in her native place her death occurred on the 9th of September, 1887. She was a devoted wife and mother, was a zealons member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as was also her husband, and her circle of friends was limited only by that of her acquaintances. Mrs. Dildine was a daughter of Charles Wolverton, who was a pioneer of Erie County, where he settled on a farm at Rye Beach, west of the present City of Huron, and on this homestead both he and his wife con- tinued to reside until their death, he having been a native of England, where their marriage was solemnized, and his wife having been born in Scotland. He whose name initiates this article was the second in order of birth in a family of five children, and the first-born, Leonard, is now a resident of the Village of Rocky River, Cuyahoga County; Otis was the next in order of birth; and Cora is deceased, as is probably true in the case of Belle, concerning whom the other members of the family have lost trace.
The year 1900 recorded the marriage of Charles W. Dildine to Mrs. Louisa Maeky, who was born and reared in Huron Township and who is a daughter of Alexander and Angeline Gilmore ( Paxton ) Thompson, both natives of Ohio. Mr. Thompson, who celebrated his eighty-second birthday anniversary in 1915, is living retired in the City of Huron and is one of the well known and honored pioneer citizens of Erie County, his devoted wife having been summoned to the life eternal in June, 1899. No children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dildine, but Mrs. Dildine hecame the mother of three children by her first marriage, to George Macky, whose death occurred several years ago. Two of the children died in infancy, and George died in January, 1904, a fine youth of twenty years and one whose friends in his native county were many. Mr. Dil- dine gives his political allegiance to the republican party, is affiliated with Camp No. 113 of the Woodmen of the World, at Huron, of which he is clerk, and both he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church.
ULYSSES G. SMITH. The proprietor of the Huron Roller Mills, which are thoroughly modern in equipment and control a substantial and rep- resentative trade, has literally grown up in the line of industrial enter- prise to which he is thus giving his attention, and it is needless to say that he is admirably fortified in both technical knowledge and in practical experience. Mr. Smith not only holds prestige as one of the prominent and successful representatives of the milling business in Erie County and as one of the progressive and influential citizens of the thriving little ('ity of Huron, but he is also a man whose buoyant and genial nature and sterling attributes of character have won for him an impregnable vantage-place in popular confidence and esteem, his coterie of staunch friends being virtually limited only by that of his acquaintances.
The Huron Roller Mills do a general milling business and the prin- cipal brand of flour produced is designated the "Sweet Home," its superior excellence having gained to it a wide and appreciative demand throughout Erie and adjoining counties, the product being distinctively
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staple and standard. The mills were established about the year 1866, by the firm of Barker & Slack, and after the property passed from the control of this firm it changed hands several times before it came into the possession of the present owner. This pioneer fouring mill, origin- ally equipped with the old-time buhrs, has not fallen behind in the progress of the milling industry, as it has been remodeled from time to time and was finally supplied with the best mechanical facilities and accessories that are now in evidence and that give it high standard. Mr. Smith first became identified with the operations of these mills in 1892, and since 1903 he has been the sole proprietor, many improvements hav- ing been made since he assumed control. Power is supplied by an excellent steam plant, and the facilities are such as to obtain the best results in the grinding not only of wheat but also of corn, buckwheat, ete., the capacity of the plant being for the aggregate output of fifty barrels a day. Mr. Smith has stated that he gained his initial experience in the milling business when he was but seven years old, and his long association with this line of enterprise makes him an authority in all details of the same.
Ulysses Grant Smith was born at Lexington, Richland County, Ohio, on the 16th of July, 1863, but moved from there when a mere child and acquired his early education in the common schools of Liberty Town- ship, Haneock County, Ohio, the while he incidentally became familiar with the activities of his father's flour mill, as already intimated in a preceding paragraph, the entire active career of his father having been given to the milling business. Mr. Smith has been personally concerned with his present line of industrial enterprise for the long period of thirty-six years, and from the time he completed his praetical term of apprenticeship he has never been found absent from his station of busi- ness for a total period of more than three or four months, his energy, ability and close application having been the conservators of his suc- cess and advancement and there having been no time at which he could not readily find employment. As a young man Mr. Smith was associated with his father in the operation of the Carland Mills at Findlay. this state, and later they assumed control of the mill at Bloomdale, Wood County, Ohio, from which place he came to Birmingham, Erie County, where the subject of this review was operator of a mill until his removal to IIuron, in 1892. He and his father met with considerable loss through a flood which did great damage to the mill which they were operating at Findlay, but both have proved that courage and continued industry will win out in the face of obstaeles and financial depression, and it may consistently be said of Mr. Smith that he has never faltered in purpose and never permitted himself to think of defeat or continued misfortune within the realm of possibility.
Leander C. Smith, father of him whose name introduces this review. was born in Wayne County, Ohio, in the year 1835, a member of a family that settled in that county in an early day. As a youth he was engaged in teaching school about seven years, and when the Civil war was precipitated on the nation he tendered his service in defense of the Union by enlisting in a regiment that was recruited largely in his native county. After ninety days of service he was granted an honorable dis- charge, by reason of physical disability. Thereafter he remained for a time on the farm of one of his brothers, and later he found employment as a general mechanie, at MeComb, Hancock County, his natural mechan- ical ability having made him an effective artisan at the trade of cabinet- maker and engineer and having finally enabled him to become a profi- eient exponent of the milling business, with which he contimted to be closely identified for fully twenty years.
In Wayne County was solemnized the marriage of Leander (. Smith
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to Miss Fannie George, daughter of Isaac George, the maiden name of whose wife was Gault, both parents having been born and reared in Pennsylvania and having early established their home on a farm in Wayne County, Ohio; they later removed to Wood county, where the mother died at the age of sixty-six years and where the father passed away at the patriarchal age of ninety-two years, both having been zealous church folk of the highest integrity and honor. Leander C. Smith died at the age of seventy-two years, as the result of an accident; in an attack of vertigo he fell from a porch, his head striking a rock and the skull being crushed, so that he died about two hours later, his widow surviving him about four months and dying when about sixty-eight years of age. They became the parents of seven children, all of whom are still living and all of whom are married and have children. Mr. Smith was a staunch republican and was a man of broad views and superior intellectuality.
At Ashmont, Erie County, was solemnized the marriage of Ulysses G. Smith to Miss Clara Bryant, who was born in Indiana but who was reared to adult age in Erie County, Ohio, where she acquired her educa- tion in the public schools and where her parents continued to reside until their death. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have two children, Helen A., who is, in 1915, a member of the sophomore class in the Huron High School and who is developing exceptional talent as a pianist, and Paul, who was born in 1906, and who is attending the public schools.
Mr. Smith accords unfaltering allegiance to the cause of the republi- can party, takes a lively interest in public affairs of a local order and has served two years as a member of the City Council of Huron. He was Formerly in active affiliation with the Knights of Pythias, and he and his family attend and support the Presbyterian Church.
MILES LANDER. Few farms in Erie County have undergone a more complete transformation than that of Miles Lander, located in the north- west corner of Berlin Township. When Miles Lander was born there April 2. 1870, only a portion of the traet of 100 acres was arable, and fields were thickly strewn with stumps. It was his father, the late William C. Lander, who worked this transformation in the landscape and the combined efforts of the Lander family has produced as fine a Farm as can be found within the limits of Berlin Township. Miles Lan- der is one of two sons of the late William C. Lander, grew up and received his education in the public schools.of his native township, and his home has always been on what is known as the old Lander Homestead, comprising 100 acres of well managed and productive soil, with excel- lent drainage, and cultivated with such rotation of crop as to bring out the best possibilities. Mr. Lander grows about fifteen acres of wheat, fifteen to twenty acres of corn, one or two acres of potatoes, and also has crops of oats and considerable meadow land. To the traveler along. Rural Route No. 2 out of Huron the farm at once commends itself by reason of its attractive group of buildings. There is a large barn 36 by 96 feet, besides wagon and tool sheds and other structures for the shelter of stock and equipment. The home is a big white two-story eleven-room house, which was built in 1871 by the late William C. Lander.
William C. Lander was born in Hadenham, England, May 28, 1830, being an only son and child, and as an orphan was reared by his grand- mother until about nineteen years of age. He then set out for the New World on February 27. 1852, and landed in New York City April 9, 1852. He came on to Akron, Ohio, to visit an unele, James Lander, spending a year or two in that locality, part of the time employed in a printing office at Akron owned by T. and H. G. Canfield. While there
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he helped to set type on an old history of Summit County, Ohio. In 1855 he came to Erie County, and being still poor found employment with Charles W. West in Berlin Township in April of that year. On March 17, 1857. he entered the employ of Mr. William Henry Iline, a prominent citizen and business man, and received a great deal of en- couragement from Mr. Hine, who aided him in getting a start. Early in the '60s. acting on the advice of Mr. Iline, who gave him all the time he needed to make his payments, Mr. Lander made his first purchase of thirty acres. Economieal and thrifty and with the aid of a capable wife, he soon had the land paid for, and about 1870 sold it and purchased the 100 acres where his son Miles now lives. On this land he wrought with all the industry of which he was capable, laid many rods of tile. constructed the fine large house already mentioned, and not only pros- pered there but accumulated the surplus which enabled him to secure 100 acres ad joining his first home, now owned and occupied by his son, Charles Lander. William C. Lander died at the old homestead Novem- her 10, 1913. He was as good a man as his township possessed in its ranks of citizenship, and was not only a capable home maker but also a man whose influence was good in behalf of religion, morality and all local betterment. lle was an independent republican in politics. Ile was married at the home of William Henry Hine, while he was in Mr. Hine's employ, to Mary . Jane Ceas, who was born in New York, July 2, 1830. She also lived for several years in the Hine home before her marriage. She was one of a family of seven children and the daughter of El. Nathen and Ennice (Jackson) Ceas, they having moved from York State while their family of children were small and located at Harper's Corners (now known as Ceylon). She was married to Wm. C. Lander April 27, 1861, and died at the Lander farm October 5, 1883. She was a kind mother and known as a quiet and peace-loving neighbor.
Mr. Miles Lander was married to Miss Anna C. Oetzel, who was born in Oxford Township of Erie County, October 5, 1873. She grew up there and in Milan Township and is the daughter of Justus and Anna B. ( Bauereis) Oetzel. Her father was born October 24, 1833, in Ilesse- Cassel, and her mother was born March 21, 1836, near Berlin, Germany. They both came to the United States in 1853, the former locating at Sandusky and the latter in Milan Township. In the latter locality on Christmas Day of 1857 they were married. They lived in Milan Vil- lage until 1861, and then moved to Oxford Township, in a farm. In 1883 the Oetzel family bought and oeenpied a farm of 170 aeres in Milan Township, and that is still the property of the family. Mrs. Oetzel died there July 16, 1907, and Mr. Oetzel is still living, being now past eighty years of age. Ile was reared in the faith of the Reformed Church, while his wife was a Lutheran, and after their marriage they both affiliated with the Lutheran Church and reared their children in the same faith. There were seven sons and five daughters in the Oetzel family, four of whom died young, and one daughter has passed away since the death of her mother. Of the seven still living six are married and have children.
Mr. and Mrs. Miles Lander are the parents of three children. Bar- bara Ellen, born September 7, 1900, is now a student in the Berlin Heights High School; William J., born April 6, 1904, is in the sixth grade of the common schools; and Emma E. was born June 2, 1909. Mrs. Lander is a member of the Lutheran Church, and Mr. Lander is independent in polities.
TALLIEN M. CLOCK. The publishers of this history of Erie County have been fortunate in enlisting in its preparation the co-operation of Mr. Clock, who is one of the representative newspaper men of the county, a citizen of prominence and influence, of distinctive intellectuality and
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great publie spirit, and who maintains deep and abiding interest in all that touches his home county. He is editor and publisher of the Erie County Reporter, the only one in the fine little Village of Huron, and under his direction it has been made a most effective exponent of local interests and the generic principles of the republican party. Mr. Clock is a seion of one of the old and honored families of Huron County, within whose borders his paternal grandfather settled at an early day, and the family name has been closely and influentially linked with the annals of this favored section of the historic old Western Reserve, so that it is but natural that the subject of this review should manifest lively interest in the history of the county and have given mneh study to the same.
As editor and publisher of the Erie County Reporter Mr. Clock is the successor of his honored father, David Clock, by whom the paper was founded under its present title, the first edition having been issued on the 19th of March, 1879, and the founder having continued the publica- tion of the paper for more than a quarter of a century and up to the time of his death, which occurred on the 11th of June, 1905.
David Clock was a man of strong character, broad mentality and well fortified convictions, so that he was admirably equipped for leader- ship in popular sentiment. As a newspaper man he was vigorous and independent, and his experience in this line of enterprise covered vir- tually his entire active career. He believed the functions of a newspaper of the order of that which he so long published to be aside from politics of partisan order, and thus he made the Erie County Reporter inde- pendent in politics and a vehicle for the expression of his sentiments regarding public affairs without the restrictions of partisan lines. lle developed the Reporter into one of the strong and popular publieations of Erie County and its representative circulation indicated the popular appreciation of his efforts and of high sterling character as a man and a publie-spirited citizen of high civie ideals. Ile was indefatigable in his efforts to promote the best interests of the community and his paper was made to wield large influenee throughout the eastern part of Erie County, a precedence which it fully maintains under the direction of his son. Individually Mr. Clock was a staunch supporter of the principles of the republican party and he was active and influential in its councils in Erie County, where he was a frequent delegate to its county conventions and also to the republican state conventions. When Hon. James G. Blaine was nominated for the presidency Mr. Clock became one of the organizers of the Blaine Club of Huron and was elected president of the same.
David Clock was born at Monroeville, Huron County, in August, 1831, and was a seion of one of the staunch old Holland Duteh families that was founded in the Mohawk Valley of New York about the middle of the eighteenth century, where the name was one of prominence in social and industrial associations for several generations. Timothy Clock, father of David, was the founder of the Ohio branch of the family. Upon his immigration to the Buckeye State he settled in Huron County, he having been a young man at the time and one well fortified for the life of a pioneer. Ilis parents finally joined him in Huron County, and several of his brothers and sisters also came to Ohio, the entire number of children having been sixteen and the family having been remarkable for physical and mental vigor in this, as in preceding and later genera- tions. Timothy Clock and his wife passed the remainder of their lives in Huron County, where he followed the vocation of tanner and eurrier, his brother who came to Ohio having devoted their attention to agricul- tural pursuits. In Huron county was solemnized the marriage of Tim- othy Clock to Miss Phoebe Carr, a representative of a pioneer family of
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