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 58
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and died in the Christian faith. He was buried in the Old Washburn Cemetery, a burying ground in which one of the very first interments had been the body of his father. Lemuel L. Brooks, Jr., was married in Erie County in Berlin Township to Miss Mary Gordon. She was born in Connecticut in 1827, and died in 1893 in Michigan, but was brought back to Ohio and laid beside her husband. She was of New England ancestry of Seoteh origin. Her brother, Gilbert Gordon, served as a soldier in the Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and having been captured in one of the battles in which his regiment was engaged was confined for nine months in the notorious Libby Prison at Richmond. Virginia, and came out so nearly starved that he tottered as he walked. However, he brought out of prison $150 which he had kept in his belt all the time. He is now living at Fremont, Ohio, and is eighty years of age.
George M. Brooks is the youngest in a family of four children. The oldest, Byron, lives in Michigan, where he is a farmer and is married and has five children. Burr is a farmer in Vermilion Township, lost his wife in 1915, and has a family of eight children. Ida is the wife of James Wangh, now a farmer in Lapere County, Michigan, and has two daughters and one son.
On the okl Brooks homestead where his brothers and sister were also born. George M. Brooks first saw the light of day December 10, 1860. He grew upon the farm, and by purchase and inheritance now has forty- four acres of the homestead and has it improved much beyond the aver- age standard of Erie County rural homes. In 1915 he erected a mod ern residence of eight rooms with all the facilities and improvements,
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including bath room, furnace, and acetylene lighting plant. He also has a good new barn and other equipment necessary for adequate farming. For a number of years Mr. Brooks conducted business chiefly as a gar- dener, selling his produet to city markets.
At Florence Mr. Brooks married Miss Emma Grobe. She was born in Florence Township September 12, 1864, and was of German parents, a daughter of Mathew and Christina Grobe, who came from Germany when young people and located in Cleveland, Ohio. In Florence Town- ship they spent the rest of their lives. Iler father died at the age of eighty and her mother when past seventy-five. They were thrifty farm- ers and reared a family of children as follows: Mary, Henry, Elizabeth, Emma and Anna. By a former marriage Mr. Grobe became the father of two children, Matthias and Sophia. Mrs. Brooks' parents were active members of the German Methodist Church, and her father was a repub- lican and strong temperance worker. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks attend the Methodist Church and in politics he is a republican.
CHRISTIAN SPRANKEL. Erie County has been signally favored in the personnel of its citizens of German birth or extraction, and from this source has had much to gain and nothing to lose. The German contin- gent in the county has been one of very appreciable order, and its rep- resentatives have not only stood exponent of the most loyal and useful citizenship but have also been specially prominent and influential in the development and furthering of the agricultural resources of the county, within whose borders are found today many substantial citizens and rep- resentative farmers who are of the second and third generations of the respective families in this favored section of the Buckeye State.
He whose name initiates this review is one of the enterprising and prosperous agriculturists and stockraisers of Berlin Township and has been a resident of Erie County from the time of his birth, his father having established a residence in this county fully half a century ago, and within a few years after immigration from his German Fatherland .. Christian Sprankel was born in Huron Township on the 9th of August, 1869, and is a son of Henry and Edith (Zeller) Sprankel, both natives of Germany, where the former was born, in Hesse-Cassel, on the 2d of July, 1832, and the latter, in the Province of Baden. in the year 1839. Both passed the closing years of their lives in Milan Township, Erie County, where Mrs. Sprankel died December 23, 1884, her husband hav- ing survived her by a quarter of a century and having been nearly eighty years of age at the time of his death, which occurred on the 28th of October, 1910. llenry Sprankel and his wife were both of the staunch- est German lineage and both exemplified throughout their lives the admirable characteristics of the race from which they were sprung, the while they entered fully and loyally into the spirit of American insti- tutions and customs and were deeply appreciative of the manifold advan- tages of the land of their adoption.
Henry Sprankel was reared and educated in his native land and was a young man of energy, ambition and sterling integrity of purpose when he severed the home ties and came to the United States to gain independence and success if these ends were to be accomplished through the earnest application of his ability and industry. In the early '50s he made the voyage to America on one of the old-time sailing vessels, and he was on the ocean somewhat more than seven weeks before the boat reached its destination in the port of New York City, whence the young immigrant soon made his way to Cleveland, Ohio, in which place he arrived in the rigorous winter and with his financial resources utterly exhausted. In making his way about the city and its vicinity in search of employment he encountered such exposure that both of his feet were
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severely frozen, so that his problem in making his way as a stranger in a strange land began to assume a formidable aspect. Ile was finally taken into the home of a kindly German carpenter named Meyers, and was accorded all consideration and care during his period of ineapacity, while he was waiting for his feet to recover their usefulness. Mr. Meyers then gave him employment at the nominal but greatly appreciated sti- pend of $5 a month, his board also being furnished, and about two years elapsed ere his employer was able to pay him his wages in full. Mr. Mey- ers eventually became a man of influence, and he always continued to manifest a deep interest in his former protege. as did also his sons, who in many ways showed his friendship for Mr. Sprankel.
After the lapse of a few years Mr. Sprankel made his way to San- dusky County and finally into Huron County, where he met and married Miss Edith Zeller, a daughter of John and Mary Zeller, who were then living near Weavers Corners, that county, but who later came to Huron Township, Erie County, where they maintained their home for many years, Mr. Zeller having long survived his wife and having been a resi- dent of that township at the time of his death, which occurred when he was eighty-four years of age. Mrs. Sprankel was a girl at the time when she accompanied her parents on their immigration from Germany to the l'nited States.
For a few years after his marriage Henry Sprankel and his wife continued their residence near Weavers Corners for a few years, and they then established their home on the old Sage Farm, in Huron Town- ship, Erie County, where they remained nine years. Mr. Sprankel then purchased a farm of sixty-five acres in Milan Township, where he became definitely successful in his vigorous operations as an agrieulturist and stoekgrower and where both he and his wife passed the residue of their lives, both having been zealous communicants of the Lutheran Church and having shown devotion in the early days by regularly attending church services. In her girlhood days Mrs. Sprankel was compelled to ·go some distance from home to accomplish this and to make the jour- ney to and from with a cumbersome vehicle and a slow-moving ox team. Mr. Sprankel was liberal and loyal as a citizen, was a stauneh supporter of the cause of the democratic party and was called upon to serve in various local offices of publie trust, his uprightness and his mature judg- ment having gained to him the inviolable esteem and good will of his fellow men and his entire life having been one of signal usefulness and honor. Of the children, Christian, the immediate subject of this sketch, was the fourth in order of birth, seven sons and three daughters having been reared to maturity and all of the number still surviving the parents -all married and well established in life. The father ultimately con- tracted a second marriage, when he wedded Miss Elizabeth Schuster, who likewise was born in Germany and who still remains on the old homestead farm in Milan Township, two sons of this second marriage still surviving the father.
Christian Sprankel was born in Huron Township, as already noted. and was about one year of age at the time of his parents' removal to Milan Township. in 1870. There he was reared to adult age under the conditions and influences of the old homestead farm, and in the mean- while he duly prolited by the advantages afforded in the public schools. Ile has never abated his liking for and allegiance to the fundamental and independent vocation of farming, and his present status shows that he has effectively directed his energies toward the goal of success. He finally purchased his present fine homestead farm in Berlin Township, which comprises 100 acres of fertile land of remarkable integrity in pro- duetiveness, and which is a part of the onee extensive landed estate of the Preke family. It is eligibly situated in Berlin Township, one mile
MR. AND MRS. PETER REIGHLEY
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south of Ceylon Junction, and the permanent improvements on the place are of exceptionally excellent type, including a substantial and commo- dious brick house, two large barns and a modern granary. In addition to his successful operations in the line of diversified agriculture Mr. Sprankel has given special attention to the breeding and raising of ex- cellent grades of livestock, his cattle being principally of the Durham breed and including the valable registered bull designated by the name of "Peter." Mr. Sprankel also raises good horses and swine and his various forage crops are virtually used in entirety for the feeding of stoek raised on the farm. Like many other enterprising farmers of the county Mr. Sprankel has been very successful in the raising of potatoes upon a somewhat extensive scale, and of this product he has taken as high an average as 3,000 bushels from a tract of twelve aeres. He is a thorough, practical and progressive farmer and both he and his wife take lively interest in community affairs, he being an independent in polities and a communicant of the Lutheran Church, and Mrs. Sprankel holding the faith in which she was reared, that of the Reformed Church.
In Berlin Township was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sprankel to Miss Anna Knott, who was born in this township on the 13th of September, 1871, and who was here reared and educated. She is a daughter of Henry and Martha (Schildt) Knott, who were born and reared in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, where their marriage was solemnized. soon after which important event in their lives they came to the United States and established their home in Erie County. They first located in Vermilion Township and later removed to Berlin Township, where they still reside on their well improved farm, which is not far distant from the homestead place of Mr. and Mrs. Sprankel, the latter having seven children, whose names, with respective ages in 1915, are here indi- cated, all of the children being still at the parental home: Walter H., twenty years ; Roy E., sixteen ; Sidney L .. fourteen ; Raymond E., twelve; Elmer L., eleven : Edith L., eight ; and Nelson M., five.
PETER REIGHLEY. Shortly after the close of the War of 1812 George Reighley, grandfather of him whose name introduces this paragraph, settled in Norton Township, Summit County, Ohio, and thus the family name has been identified with the history of the Buckeye State for more than a century. George Reighley further merits distinction in the pages of Ohio history, for he had previously served through this commonwealth as a gallant soldier in the War of 1812, in which he endured the full tension of the hazardous and ardnous campaign activities in a country that was a virtual wilderness and in which the military contests were rendered the more formidable by reason of the support given to the enemy by the Indians. George Reighley was a native of Pennsylvania and was a representative of that commonwealth in the second conflict between the United States and England. Ilis parents were natives of Germany and early settlers of Pennsylvania, where they continued to reside until their death, the father having there devoted his attention to agricultural pursnits.
After the close of the War of 1812, George Reighley, a sturdy and patriotic veteran of that conflict, in company with his wife and their one son, John, who was born in Pennsylvania in March, 1812, settled in the midst of the forest wilds of Norton Township, Summit County, Ohio, where he reclaimed and improved a good farm and where his energy and well ordered endeavors enabled him to acenmulate eventually a competency of fully $20,000-a substantial fortune, as gauged by the standards of the locality and period. On the old homestead his wife died at the age of seventy years, and he thereafter resided in the home of his son Peter, near Plymouth, Marshall County, Indiana, until his
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death, at the age of seventy-five years, his name meriting enduring place on the roll of the honored pioneers of Ohio and on the roster of the gal- lant soldiers of the War of 1812. He had but fifty cents to represent his cash capital when he established his home in Ohio, and his sueeess in the accumulation of a fortune was dne entirely to his own ability and efforts. He was a staunch advocate of the eause of the democratic party and his wife was a zealous member of the German Reformed Church.
John Reighley, eldest of the children and father of him to whom this sketch is dedicated, was a child at the time when the family home was established on the pioneer farm in Summit County, where he was reared to adult age and where his educational advantages were . neees- sarily limited to those afforded in the primitive schools of the locality. At the age of eighteen years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the carpenter's trade and incidentally also that of eabinetmaker. After the completion of a thorough apprenticeship that had made him a skilled artisan in these lines, he worked as a journeyman and contraetor in his home county for several years and then removed to Doylestown, Wayne County, where he engaged in the manufacturing of furniture in an inde- pendent way, all work having been done by hand and being of the most substantial order. In his little establishment he also manufactured by hand the coffins that were used in the community and that were nsually made to order after deaths had oeeurred. The first bureau which he turned out was made for use in his own home, the same being of solid cherry wood and being still retained in the possession of the family- unimpaired by the ravages of time and standing in evidence of the hon- ost and thorough work that characterized sueh manufacturing in the early days. After remaining at Doylestown for a number of years John Reighley returned to the old homestead farm, which had been devised to him by his father, and there he continued to reside until his death. which occurred in 1856. He had four brothers: George, William, Ben- jamin and Peter, the family eirele having had no daughters, and all of the brothers except Benjamin married and reared children. Peter died in Indiana ; George at Chilton, Marshall County, Wisconsin ; Benjamin in Norton Township. Summit County, Ohio; and it is supposed that William was killed in California, to which state he made his way at the time of the gold excitement and in which he had aeenmulated an appreciable fortune.
In Clinton Township, Summit County, Ohio, was solemnized the mar- riage of John Reighley to Miss Rachel Greenhoe, who was born in that county in 1816, her parents having been pioneers of that seetion, where they settled upon their immigration from their native State of Pennsyl- vania. The father of Mrs. Reighley owned and developed a large farm in Summit County, and on the same he developed two coal mines, besides which he also erected and operated a distillery on his farm. Late in life he purchased for his large family of sons and daughters a good farm, and he and his wife passed their declining years in Liverpool Township, Medina County, where several of their children had thus been estab- lished. Both were somewhat more than eighty years old at time of death.
John Reighley was about forty-four years of age at the time of his death and his widow subsequently became the wife of John Young, and she was a resident of Erie County at the time of her death, when abont sixty years of age. Mr. Yonng long survived her and attained to the patriarchal age of ninety-two years, the closing period of his life having been passed at Wellington, Lorain County, one son having been born of his marriage to Mrs. Rachel Greenhoe Reighley. By her first mar- riage Mrs. Young became the mother of seven children, five of whom married and reared children, Peter, of this review, being the only sur- viving son, and the other two surviving children being Mary, who is the
RESIDENCE OF DR. JOHN W. BOSS
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widow of George Whitman and who resides at Carson City, Montealm County, Michigan, she being the mother of three sons and one daughter, all of whom are married; Amanda, the younger of the two surviving sis- ters of Mr. Reighley, is the wife of Henry Akers, of Vermilion Town- ship, Erie County, and they have one son, Arthur.
Peter Reighley was born in Wayne County, Ohio, on the 31st of July, 1842, and there received his early educational discipline, which was sup- plemented by his attending the common schools after the return of the family to the old homestead farm of his grandfather, in Norton Town- ship. Summit County. Ile was about thirteen years old at the time of his father's death and after his mother's second marriage he accompanied her to Lorain County, his filial care and solieitude continuing until she passed to the life eternal. After her death he purchased a home in Lorain County, where he continued his residence for more than thirty years. In 1907 he purchased seventeen aeres of land in Florence Town- ship, Erie County, adjacent to the Lorain County line, and here he is snecessfully engaged in the raising of apples, peaches and other varieties of fruit, his fine little place having been developed into one of the admir- able fruit farms of this section of the state. The family residence is a commodious and attractive house of nine rooms and it is equipped with the best of modern improvements and facilities, including natural gas, furnace, water service, bath room, etc. This pleasant rural home is eligibly situated on the state road and within a short distance of the Vil- lage of Birmingham, and Mr. Reighley and his family are well known and enjoy marked popularity in this favored seetion of his native state.
In Camden Township, Lorain County, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Reighley to Miss Locisco Harley, who was born at Lexington, Ken- tueky, on the 29th of April, 1848, and who was a girl at the time of the family removal to Ohio, where she was reared and educated. Mrs. Reighley is a daughter of Jacob and Rebecca (White) Harley, the former of whom was born in Germany and the latter in the State of Virginia, to which commonwealth Mr. Harley came upon his immigration from his native land, his marriage having been solemnized in the historie Old Dominion, whenee he removed with his wife to Kentucky and later they established their home in Lorain County, Ohio. He followed his trade of shoemaker for many years and died in Lorain County, at the age of sixty-five years, his widow passing the closing period of her life in Ten- nessee, where she died at the age of seventy-eight years.
In conclusion is entered brief record concerning the three children of .Mr. and Mrs. Reighley : Virginia E., who was born July 23, 1867, is the wife of Clarence Higgins, factory superintendent for the Western Auto- matie Machine Company, at Elyria, Lorain County, and they have six sons, Ellis, Lewis, Harley, Carroll, Orlo and Wendell, all of whom are well educated and now self-supporting. Rinaldo, who was born in March, 1870, holds a responsible executive position in the City of Ober- lin. IIe wedded Miss Ida Bailey and they have two sons and five dangh- ters, Hollis, Irving, Floy, Grace, Virgie, Ruth and Lucille. Carl Deloss, the youngest of the three children, was born in the year 1878, and is now foreman over more than 200 men in the manufactory of the West- ern Automatie Machine Company, at Elyria. He married Miss Ida Portman and they have one daughter, Margaret L.
JOHN W. Boss, M. D. In the county and township that have rep- resented his home from the time he was a child of two years it has been given Doctor Boss to achieve snecess, prestige and unequivocal popular- ity as one of the able and progressive physicians and surgeons of Erie County and also as a loyal and publie-spirited citizen. He is estab- lished in the practice of his profession in the Village of Birmingham, Vol. II-25
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Florence Township, and is prominent and influential in communal af- fairs aside from his earnest and effective service in his professional capacity.
The public schools of Vermilion Township afforded to Doctor Boss his early educational advantages, and after his completion of a course of study in the high school at Vermilion he was matriculated in Oberlin College, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1894 and from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. For a period of four years after Inis graduation the doctor was a successful and popular teacher in the public schools at Vermilion, where also he initiated the study of anatomy and kindred subjects, under the direc- tion of Dr. William F. Beck, this work having been taken up as, a pre- liminary to the attaining of his ambition, which was to enter the medical profession. Finally he entered Western Reserve Medical College, in the City of Cleveland, where he applied himself with characteristic vigor and earnestness until his completion of the prescribed curriculum. Ile was graduated in 1902, and soon after thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he established himself in practice at Birmingham, having previously gained valuable experience through a period of service as interne in Lakeside Hospital, in the City of Cleveland. Close application, admirable technical ability and personal popularity soon enabled Doctor Boss to develop a substantial practice, and the same has become one of broad and representative order. He has not permitted himself to lapse in the least in the matter of keeping in close touch with the ad- vances made in medical and surgical science and in addition to availing himself of its best standard and periodical literature he has taken two effective post-graduate courses in the celebrated New York Post Gradu- ate Medical School and Hospital. The doctor holds membership in the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society and the Erie County Medical Society. Ilis practice now extends into three dif- l'erent counties and his success in the work of his profession is the best voucher for his ability and his unflagging devotion to the work of his humane vocation.
Doctor Boss was born at Altamont, Effingham County. Illinois, on the 2d of July, 1870, and is a son of Capt. John H. and Ermina (Sherod) Boss, the former of whom was born in New York State, the latter in Ohio.
Capt. John II. Boss was a student in Oberlin College at the inception of the Civil war and his youthful patriotism was forthwith shown by his enlistment in Company E, Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he served about four years, his gallantry and tactical ability bring- ing to him promotion to the office of captain of his company. 1Ie took part in many important engagements marking the progress of the great conflict between the states of the North and the South, including the see- ond battle of Bull Run, and the battles of the Wilderness, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. He participated in the Atlanta campaign and was with Sherman's forces on the ever memorable march from Atlanta to the sea. He received no serious wound and was never captured during his long period of valiant service as a soldier of the Union, and after the final surrender of the great Confederate leaders, Generals Lee and Johnston, he took part in the Grand Review of the victorious but jaded troops in the City of Washington. After receiving his honorable discharge Captain Boss resumed his studies in Oberlin College. In 1864, while on a furlough, Captain Boss wedded Miss Ermina. Sherod, who was born in Vermilion Township, Erie County, on the 16th of June, 1842, a representative of an honored pioneer family of the county her mother having been of German lineage and her father a member of a family early founded in America. After the close of the
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