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 83
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The Beutel Brothers were both born in Wuertemberg, Germany. ('arl G. was born in 1865, and his brother William Henry was born in 1874. They grew up and received their education according to the German standards and practices, and the first of them to come to America was William HI., who made the journey across the ocean and located in Erie County in 1891. Later in the same year his brother ('arl G. and their sister Amelia and their father, Christian Beutel, like- wise came to this country. Christian Beutel died in Erie County in 1909, when seventy-four years of age. Ile was a baker by trade, had followed that occupation in Germany, and his son Carl G. had also been trained along the same lines. William II. learned the trade of butcher, and that was his means of self-support after coming to America prior to embarking in his present business as a farmer and stock raiser. The sister Amelia is now the wife of Fred Ruff, an engineer living at San- (Insky. The mother of these children died in Germany in 1889 at the age of forty-eight. Her maiden name was Catherine Bauer. All the family are members of the Lutheran Church, the sons are democrats, and their father adhered to the same political faith.
C. VICTOR TURNER. When a citizen of any community has lived 10 the age of more than three score and ten years, maintaining through all vicissitudes an unblemished character, faithfully meeting the obligations incident to his lot and discharging with manly fidelity the duties incum- bent upon him in all the relations of life, it is eminently appropriate that the story of his career be placed in enduring form. The foregoing lines apply with obvious pertinence to C. Vietor Turner, of Milan Town- ship, who as soldier, eitizen and agriculturist is entitled to the good will and esteem of the people of his community, among whom he has lived and labored for so many years.
Mr. Turner was born in a log cabin on the old Turner homestead in Milan Towrship, a part of which property he still occupies, November Vol. II-35
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20, 1843, and is a son of Alvin and Sophia ( Carpenter) Turner. llis grandfather was Peter Turner, a native of Connecticut, who moved as a young man to Massachusetts, and later, as an early pioneer, to Victor. Ontario County, New York. Alvin Turner was born at Stockbridge. Massachusetts, and as a hoy was taken to Victor, New York, where he resided until 1835. In that year, deciding to seek his fortunes in the West, he mounted his horse and traveled across the country to Ohio, where, in company with his brother, Benjamin D., he purchased 344 acres of land, along each side of the Huron and Milan Road, in Milan Township, paying therefor at the rate of $12 per acre. This land was but partly improved, but the brothers settled down to its cultivation and continued to operate it as partners until the death of Benjamin D. Turner. At that time one-half of the property was deeded to his widow by Alvin Turner, who took over the management of the other half and continued as its owner until his death in 1865. He was an industrious, thrifty, painstaking and progressive farmer, practical in his views yet possessed of the courage to try new methods, and out of his labors won a satisfying success. He improved his land in numerous ways. and his substantial farm buildings ineluded a large and well equipped barn and a brick house of modern construction and attractive appearance. When he came to Ohio it was as a bachelor, but in 1844 he was married in Milan Township to a young Quakeress. Sophia Carpenter, who was born in Westchester County, New York, who had been brought as a child to Ohio. She was born 1807 and died in 1882, at the age of seventy-five years, in the faith of the Episcopal Church, which she and her husband had supported in their declining years. Mr. Turner was active in the conneils of the democratic party, although his only interest in public life was that taken by a publie-spirited citizen. There were three sons in the family, all of whom became soldiers during the Civil war: Martin V., C. Victor aud George V. Martin V. Turner was engaged in farming until the Civil war, when he enlisted and served for some months in Company (, Eighty-eighth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and when his services were completed returned to his agricultural pursuits. lle died at the Soldiers' Home at Sandusky, at the age of seventy-one years, leaving two sons. George V. Turner was for two years a member of Company E, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Vohin- teer Infantry, and while serving on the skirmish line in front of Atlanta. was shot through the lings, two of his ribs being knocked loose from his spinal eolumn. Although apparently mortally wounded, he was taken to the hospital, made a quick recovery and was paroled to his home, and after a few months was sufficiently well to rejoin his regiment at the front. He was honorably discharged at the close of the war and returned to his home where he carried on farming pursuits until his retirement, and since that time has been living at the Old Soldiers' Home, at San- dusky. He has been the father of five children, of whom three are living. One of his sons, Alvin Turner, was a marine on the battleship Oregon, the flagship of the Pacific fleet, at the time of the Boxer troubles in China, in which he met his death, his body being returned to San Fran- cisco, California. and interred in the National Cemetery. Another of his sons. Frank Turner, has been in the United States Army for sixteen years, participated in the war with the Philippines, and now has head- (marters at Pensacola, Florida. On the Soldiers' Monument at Sandusky, on the roll of the heroes who fought in defense of liberty, are to be found the names of Martin V., C. Vietor and George V. Turner.
(. Victor Turner was reared and educated in Erie County, attend- ing the district and normal schools, and when but eighteen years of age. July 22, 1862, enlisted in Company M. First Ohio Heavy Artillery. as a private, Capt. II. J. Bly, Col. C. D. Hawley. The regiment went first
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to Covington, Kentucky, where it was in defense of Cincinnati untu February, 1864, when the command was transferred to Knoxville, Ten- nessee, in defense of the railroads in that state. While Mr. Turner experienced numerous hardships during his army life. he never saw heavy fighting, and returned to his home safely after receiving his honorable discharge at the close of the war at Knoxville, being mustered out of the service at Camp Dennison. Since that time he has been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and at the present time is the owner of 100 acres of very desirable land, all under a high state of cultivation and improved with up-to-date buildings and other improvements. His operations have been sueeessful, for he has brought to his labor industry, intelligence and well-directed energy, and today he is considered one of the substantial men of his community. Always a democrat in his politi- cal views, Mr. Turner has been active in his party's interests. Ile has at various times been a delegate to county, judicial and congressional conventions, was elected a member of the board of commissioners for Erie County in 1883 and served in that capacity for three years. His reputation among those with whom he has had transaction is that of an honorable and upright man, reliable in his dealings and faithful in all his engagements.
Mr. Turner was married in 1873, in Huron Township. Erie County, Ohio, to Miss Rhoda A. Hardy, who was born in Lorain County, Ohio, January 16, 1851, and was reared and educated in that county nntil she was sixteen years of age, since which time she has resided in Huron and Milan Townships, Erie County. She is a daughter of Charles and Katharine (Whitney ) Hardy, natives of Binghamton, New York, who had come as children with their respective parents to Lorain County, and lived in Camden Township as farmers all their lives. Mr. and Mrs. ITardy spent some twelve years in Erie County and then returned to Lorain County, where their parents had died, and where they, too, passed away, both past sixty years and in the faith of the Christian Church.
To Mr. and Mrs. Turner there has been born one son: Wade Il., born in 1876, who was educated in the local schools and at Oberlin College, and since that time has been a farmer, at present operating the home farm and residing with his parents. He married Miss Dora Moore, of Milan Township, and they have five children : Alvin M., eight years old and attending school ; Ella M., who is six years old and also a pupil ; Graee A .. aged four years: and Claud and Clark, twins, aged eighteen months.
WILLIAM MOLT. Erie County has no better source of supply for fine bakery products than the Molt establishment at Milan. William Molt is a practical and scientific baker, and an excellent business man as well, and at Milan, which has been his home for about twenty years, he has condueted and built up an enterprise which is a eredit to that village.
His success has all been made since he came to America a poor boy about a quarter of a century ago. Hle was born in Wuertemberg. Germany, June 21, 1870. In the same locality where he was born hoth his parents and his grandparents lived and died. His grandfather was a farmer. William Molt is a son of John and Maggie ( Weiler ) Molt. ITis mother's father was George Weiler, who had a reputation in that section of Germany as a flour miller. His son George Weiler served in the German Revolution of 1848, and was so severely injured that he died soon after his discharge. All these families were closely identified with the German Lutheran Church. John Molt died in Germany at the age of seventy-three, and his wife at the age of fifty. They were the parents of six sons and two daughters. Four of the sons and one dangh- ter came to the United States.
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William Molt came to this country with his brother Jacob in com- pany with their uncle Charles Molt. They emigrated in 1887, starting from Bremen and making an unusually quick passage for those days, only six days and six hours elapsing from the time they left Bremen until they arrived in New York City. From there they came on to ('leveland, lived in that city for abont seven years, and the unele then moved out to Wayne County, Illinois, where he is still living on his farm and has a wife and children. Later two other Molt brothers came to this country, Fred and John. Fred became a farmer and is now living in the State of Oregon and has a family. JJohn located in Chicago, and for six or eight months was employed in a sausage factory, and while engaged in that work accidentally fell into a vat containing boiling water and died as a result of injury. Ile left a widow and four children back in Germany, where his widow still lives. Jacob Molt, who came with his brother William to this country, died while working at Norwalk, Ohio, and was still unmarried.
In 1893 William Molt came to Milan. As a boy back in Germany he had learned the trade of baker in the fine old university Town of Goeppingen, and worked as a journeyman while living in Cleveland for seven years. On going to Milan he bought a small bakeshop and has since employed his own technical ability as a baker and his business judgment to build up and extend his enterprise to one of the best in Erie County. . The output of his ovens include about 2,500 loaves of bread each week and a large variety of other bakery products, which have a wide sale and are recognized as standard goods of the class. Mr. Molt's business is conducted in a large and prominent bloek, with a frontage of 511_ feet and 70 feet in depth. Half of his store is fitted up as an ice cream parlor. Another branch of his business is the handling of flour and feed, and he also has a shelf loaded with a supply of sundry groceries. This block was formerly known as the Andrews Block, but after Mr. Molt came into possession of it he remodeled it and it is now known as the Molt Block.
In Milan Village Mr. Molt married Miss Angusta Collman. She was born in Milan, grew up and received her education there and is a daugh- ter of Herman and Louisa (King) Collman. Her father was born in Wuertemberg and her mother in Bavaria. Her mother came to this country with her parents when she was thirteen years of age and they located in Huron, where she was reared and lived until her marriage. ller grandfather. Ernst King, went ont to California following the dis- covery of gold on the Pacific Coast during 1849-50, and was never heard of again. Within less than a year his wife had died of grief because of his absence. Herman Collman and wife were married in Milan, and he was a ship and house carpenter by trade, and died during the winter of 1897 at the age of sixty-four. His widow passed away March 14, 1915. at the age of eighty-one. They were members of the Lutheran Church and he was a republican in politics. There were ten children in the Collman family, including Fred, George, Mrs. Molt, Louis, John and Mark. John and Mark are still unmarried.
Mr. and Mrs. Molt take an active interest in the work of the Presby- ferian ( 'Intrch at Milan. In local affairs his name has been usefully and influentially associated with the village for a number of years. lle has served as a member of the water board and is now on the city council. Politically he votes with the republican organization. The principles and benefits of fraternalism have always appealed to Mr. Molt, and he is identified with several of the older and standard organizations. le is affiliated with Lodge No. 239 of the Masons, with the Royal Arch Chapter No. 135 at Milan, with the Council No. 24 R. & S. M. and with the Knight Templar Commandery No. 18 at Norwalk. He is also interested
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in the Scottish Rite degrees and belongs to the Consistory at Toledo and to the Temple of the Mystic Shrine in the same city, In Odd Fellowship he belongs to the Lodge at Milan, of which he is a past grand, and to the Encampment at Norwalk. Mr. Molt is also a member of the Knights of the Maecabees.
CAPT. IIUGII HASTINGS. Of the many fine characters that sailed the Great Lakes it is doubtful if there was one who represented a better type of physical manhood and thorough manliness than the late Capt. IIugh Hastings, who is deserving of long memory in Erie County, particularly at Milan, where he lived for more than half a century and where his widow and danghter still have their beautiful home. Captain Hastings was a true sailor, and life on the water was to him a delight as well as a profession. He lived past eighty years, and to the last retained the splendid physical proportions which were an exeellent environment for his sterling character. IIe made a most imposing figure on the bridge of the vessels which he commanded on Lake Erie for many years, and while he was a strict disciplinarian and a prompt and vigorous executive, he was also noted for his essential kindliness in his relations with subordinates.
Ilis life began in County Down, Ireland, October 6, 1834, and came to a close in the beautiful home at Milan, January 6, 1915. His father, Robert Ilastings, was of an old Protestant Seotch-Irish family of County Down. The splendid physical attributes which Captain Hastings exemplified were more or less characteristic of the entire family, since most of them were large in build and proportions, and distinguished for strength of body and mind. Robert Hastings married a native of his own county and in 1840 the little family set out for the United States. The voyage was made on a slow sailing vessel, and from New York they came on west by the Hudson River, Erie Canal route to Buffalo, and thence in a small boat to Huron and Milan. At that time Milan was the eenter of traffic in Northern Ohio for the grain products raised in the surrounding agricultural neighborhood, and was also one of the prom- inent ship building centers around the lake. Besides the parents there were the following children who came to Milan fully seventy-five years ago: Jane, Hugh, James, Robert, Jr., and Maria. Two others were born at Milan, William and Maggie. All these are now living except Jane and the late Captain Hugh and all of them married and had families except Robert, Jr. Robert Hastings, the father, after coming to Milan acquired a few acres of land, and followed farming. His wife died when about three score years of age at Huron. The father later worked on the lake on boats captained by his son, and at his death was quite an old man. Robert and his wife were members of the Presbyterian Church and in polities he was a republican.
Capt. Hugh Hastings grew up in Milan, acquired his education there. and from early childhood all his desires and thoughts were of a sea- faring life. While a child baek in his Irish home, which was close to the sea, he would stand for hours watching the vessels that sailed by, and this early longing and imagination proved the dominating influence in his life. When still a boy he gained his first practical experience on lake boats and when hardly past twenty-one was master of a vessel, the Darian. Later he became captain of the Jura, the Hyphen, the Amaranth and others, and for ten years was in command of several vessels operated by the Valentine Fries Company. After more than forty years in the lake service he retired in 1900, and there was no veteran mariner on the lake who had a better record for efficiency, for safe conduet of his vessel and eargoes, and for all round ability as a seaman than Captain Hast- ings. In lake marine eireles he was one of the most familiar figures
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and had a host of friends and acquaintances at every port around Lake Erie, and it is of record that he made the fastest run of any master between the ports of Toledo and Buffalo.
In the meantime his home for a great many years had been at Milan and there he spent the months when lake navigation was closed, and lived there in quiet retirement for the fifteen years before his death. llis wife, while he was away engaged in his duties. put up the beautiful home in which sbe now resides. This is a twelve-room modern residence on Center Street, and is located on the same lot where they ocenpied a small cottage after their marriage more than fifty years ago. For ten years Captain Hastings was a member of the cemetery board at. Milan and held that position at the time of his death. He was a strong repub- lican, a Blue Lodge Mason with Milan Lodge 239, F. & A. M., and had maintained that affiliation since he was twenty-five years of age.
At the Village of Milan September 23, 1864. Capt. Ilngh Ilastings married Miss Elizabeth E. Edridge. She was born in Norwalk, Ohio. seventy-four years ago, but was reared and educated at Milan, and had tanght school before her marriage. She is a woman of thorough culture, and for a long period of years has been devoted to home and family and to kindly service among her friends and the community. For more than half a century her home has been on one lot in Milan, where she and Captain Hastings started housekeeping in a small cottage and she still owns that cottage. She has other valuable property interests in the village. Her parents were Charles and Nancy J. ( Latham) Edridge. Her father was born in Gloucestershire, England, about the year 1810. and was a young man when he immigrated to the United States and located at Norwalk in Huron County, Ohio, and a little later met and married his wife there. She was a native of New London, Conneetient, and had been brought when an infant to Norwalk, where her father died not long afterwards, and the widow then returned to Connecticut and spent the rest of her years there. Mrs. Edridge and her twin sister subsequently returned to Norwalk, and she lived there until her marriage to Mr. Edridge, after which they lived in IInron County for several years and then made their home in Milan. Mr. Edridge was a grocery merchant at Milan for a number of years and died in that village when nearly fourscore years of age. His widow passed away some years later and was ninety-three years six months old. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. Hastings had a brother and sister, Nelson and. Mary, who were twins. Nelson is married and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while Mary, who is deceased, was the widow of Capt. John Coulter, another old Lake Erie captain. Of the Coulter children there are two living daughters, Fannie and Libby, the latter now married. Captain Hastings and wife had only one danghter, Carrie E., who grew up in Milan, received good advantages in the schools, and is now living with her mother in their beautiful and attractive home.
WILLIAM J. SMITH. In the fine little City of Huron Mr. Smith has built up a large and substantial business as a dealer in produce, and he has made a specialty of the buying and shipping of potatoes, a product for which this favored section of the Buckeye State has gained high reputation.
Mr. Smith takes justifiable pride in his ancestral history and is a scion of a family that was carly founded in the State of Virginia, where his paternal grandparents passed their entire lives and where his father was born and reared, the name having been closely and successfully linked with agricultural enterprise in the historie Old Dominion. The grandparents of Mr. Smith attained to venerable age. both were con-
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sistent members of the Baptist Church, and they were residents of Cumberland County, Virginia, at the time of their death.
James Smith, father of the subject of this review, was born in Cum- berland County, Virginia, in the early part of the nineteenth century. and his death occurred in the year 1855. He was a successful planter and was the owner of a number of slaves, these having been given by him to his brother Charles, as he had become convinced that within ten years all slaves would be given liberty, a prophecy that came true within the decade after his death. He personally held much antipathy to the institution of slavery but in a degree was constrained by the customs of his native state, within whose gracious borders he continued to reside until the close of his life. llis widow, Mrs. Lucy Smith, came to Ohio after his death and passed the closing years of her life in the home of her son Robert, in Medina County, where she died at the venerable age of eighty-four years of age, her earnest religious faith having been that of the Baptist Church. . She became the mother of seven children, all of whom attained to years of maturity, the eldest of the number having been Rev. Charles Smith, who beeame a clergyman of the Methodist Church and who was a resident of Kentucky at the time of his death, one son and one daughter surviving him. Robert, whose wife is deceased, is still one of the substantial farmers of Medina County, and with him resides his brother John, who is a bachelor. William J., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; Dr. Edward Smith became a successful physician and was a resident of Berea, Ohio, at the time of his death, several children surviving him. Nancy, who is the widow of Frank Peek, resides at Milan, Erie County, and has one son and one daughter. Mary is the wife of Charles Brasse, of Lorain County, and they have one daughter.
William J. Smith was born on the old home place in Cumberland County, Virginia. There he was reared to the age of nineteen years, and such were the conditions and exigencies of time and place that he received in his youth practically no definite school advantages, but his alert mentality and broad and varied experience in later years having enabled him effectually to overcome this educational handicap.
In 1866, the year following the close of the Civil war, Mr. Smith pro- vided a covered army wagon and a team of horses, and with this prim- itive vehicle he transported his mother and most of his brothers and sisters to Ohio, the journey having covered a period of twenty-seven days and the family having encamped at night by the wayside, while en route to the new home. Arriving at Union Corners, Erie County. the sons soon obtained a home for the family at Page's Corners, and later William obtained a position in the employ of Deaeon Scott, under whose direction he acquired his first specific educational training, which was later supplemented by his attending school at Berea, Cuyahoga County. For many days he carried his books about with him when possible, and by his assiduous application in otherwise leisure moments he finally acquired a fair degree of scholastic training.
Since the year 1868 Mr. Smith has been a grower of potatoes, and in the initial stage of his enterprise along this line he paid two cents a pound for the famous old Early Rose variety of potatoes, his first crop having brought forth a splendid inerease and netted him an appreciable profit. Ile finally extended his operations by engaging in the buying and shipping of potatoes, and with this branch of commercial enterprise he has been successfully identified for many years, so that he naturally pays due respect to the humble tuber which has in a sense been the basis of his prosperity. Ilis operations have been of extensive order and he has gained throughout this section of Ohio the familiar and significant sobriquet of "Potato Smith," a distinction to which he has never
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