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 93
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After the war Captain Chapin engaged in business affairs as a grain
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merchant in Indiana and as a dealer in lands. These transactions took him over the country, but he always considered his permanent home in Erie County. He finally retired and spent his last years in Berlin Heights.
The first wife of Captain Chapin was Mary Watts Knight, who died a year after her marriage, when in the prime of life. Her one daugh- ter. Bertha Watts Chapin, is the wife of Walter Moats of East Norwalk, Ohio. Mrs. Moats attended school at Champaign, Illinois, and at Milan, Ohio, and received a musical training.
On March 22. 1881, Captain Chapin married Mrs. Helen II. ( Inghes ) Williams, daughter of Elisha and Eliza R. ( Root ) Hughes. Both her parents were born in Erie County, and were married near Spears Cor- ners in Milan Township, but subsequently located in Huron Township, where they followed farming for many years. They spent their last days in Milan, where Mrs. Chapin's father died May 13, 1901, at the age of seventy-six. and her mother passed away January 3, 1913. aged eighty-three. Mrs. Hughes was a writer of considerable note, and her unpublished poems would fill a goodly sized volume. She was also a public speaker and addressed many of the Grange's meetings in Erie and other counties. They were people of the finest worth, thrifty, intelligent, good managers and highly respected. Mr. Hughes was a Universalist while his wife was reared in the Baptist Church. In politics he was a republican.
Mrs. Chapin married for her first husband Charles Ronald Williams. who was born in Avon, Lorain County, Ohio, February 22, 1850, and after finishing his edueation in Oberlin College took up teaching and was principal of the Milan Normal School for a time. In 1871 failing health compelled him to abandon teaching, and in the endeavor to recover his health he turned his attention to the breeding of fine horses, but while driving a fine registered colt he was kicked, and died from the injuries three days later. Ilis death occurred in 1879 when only twenty-eight years of age. Mrs. Williams was then left with two chil- dren. Iler daughter, Loubertha Nell, graduated from the Milan High School and is now the wife of John L. Moats of Berlin Heights. They have two children, Helen Lucile and Ronald Williams. Her son, Judge Roy Hughes Williams, graduated from Milan High School in June, 1890, at the age of fifteen years, then attended Oberlin College . for a time, and finally entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated in the law department in 1897. He began the practice of law in Sandusky, was elected prosecuting attorney in 1900 and served two terms, and is now judge of the Common Pleas Court of Erie County. HIe married Verna Lockwood, who also graduated from Milan High School in 1893 and spent four years in the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin.
Mrs. Chapin by her marriage to Captain Chapin has two sons: Leonard Burnham, who graduated from the Milan Iligh School and then in 1905 from the dental department of the University of Michigan. and has since been in active practice as a dentist at Milan. Ile married Hannah Olga Prentice, who is a graduate of the high school at Castalia and also pursued normal studies at Lima and Sandusky, Ohio. Elisha II., the younger son of Mrs. Chapin, graduated from the Milan lligh School, attended the Northern Ohio University at Ada and the high school at Sandusky. also Kenyon College, the Episcopal Institution at Gambier, Ohio, and finally took his degree in medicine at the Ohio State Medical College, Columbus, where he is now in active practice. lle was married in Mount Vernon to Miss Lena C. Krebs, who received her education at Tiffin, Ohio. They have had two children, Mary Louise, and a son that died in infancy.
Edward Jordan
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EDWARD JORDAN. Among the native sons of Erie County who have won places of responsibility with large railway corporations one who is well known is Edward Jordan, yardmaster for the Big Four Railroad at Sandusky. The career of Mr. Jordan is typical of many men who have risen in railroad life. He was but a boy when he started to make his own way in the world, and as he had secured only ordinary advantages was forced to start in a humble capacity. Energy and ambition, with an inherent ability and predilection for his work, carried him steadily upward, and he now occupies a position of more than ordinary impor- tance in the service of one of the country's greatest carriers.
Mr. Jordan was born January 24, 1867, at Sandusky, and is a son of Ilenry and Anna Elizabeth (Hartung) Jordan. ITis father. a native of Germany, came to the United States in 1851 and immediately located at Sandusky, where he secured a position in a elerical capacity with the old and well known firm of C. C. Keech & Company, tanners, and later with Robert Hathaway, grocer. He possessed the thrift and industry characteristic of those of his race, and worked steadily onward with the ambition always in view of becoming the proprietor of a business of his own. This goal was finally reached and he established himself in busi- ness as the owner of a grocery store, this being one of the first exclusive grocery stores at Sandusky, which at that time had a population of no more than 5,000 people. He made a success of his venture and continued active in its operation until 1880, when he retired and disposed of his interests. His death occurred May 25, 1887. 1Ie was a man who always took a keen and helpful interest in matters which affected the welfare of the eity, and contributed frequently and generously to its advance- ment and progress. He was a stalwart republican on which party's ticket he was elected to various offices, being for several terms a member of the Sandusky City Council. Ilis friends, well wishers and admirers were many, and he stood high in the esteem and confidence of all who came into contact with him either in a business, publie or personal way. Mrs. Jordan, his wife, also born in Germany, where she and her husband were married. still survives, having reached the advanced age of eighty- five years. They were the parents of nine children, of whom six survive. Edward having been the eighth in order of birth.
Edward Jordan received his education in the public schools of San- dusky and was still a lad when he began to contribute to the family support by working as a messenger boy for the Western Union Telegraph Company. He is only one of a great many successful men who began their careers with the Western Union as messenger. While thus em- ployed he devoted his spare moments to learning telegraphy. As telegrapher he took his first position in that calling in 1883 with the I., B. & W. Railway at Sandusky. When that company in 1887 reverted back to the C., S. & C. Railway, its owner, he remained with the latter company as general office telegraph operator. The C., S. & C. was pur- chased by the C .. C., C. & St. L. Railroad in 1890 and the division superintendent's office was moved from Springfield to Sandusky. Mr. Jordan was appointed train dispatcher. He held that position until 1893, when the superintendent and dispatcher's office was moved to Bellefontaine, Ohio. As he wished to remain in Sandusky, he was appointed ticket agent and acted in that capacity for ten years. ITis faithful and capable service was rewarded at the end of this time by his appointment to the office of general yardmaster of the Cleveland, Cinein- nati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, or, as it is more familiarly known. the Big Four. Since 1902 he has been in charge of the Sandusky vards and is known as one of his company's most trusted and efficient men.
Mr. Jordan's official duties require his attention to the practical exclusion of everything else save his home, yet he finds time to discharge the responsibilities of good citizenship and to enjoy the companionship
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of his fellows. A stalwart republican in his political allegiance, he has steadfastly supported the candidates of the party. His fraternal affil- iation is with the Masons, in which he has attained to the Knight Tem- plar degree, being a member of Sandusky Commandery No. 23.
Ile was married July 27, 1898, at Sandusky to Miss Ida Henrietta Zipfel, a daughter of Constantine Zipfel, one of the early pioneers of Erie County.
F. ERICH HARTMANN. Few men have made better use of their oppor- tunities both in behalf of their own advancement and for the welfare of the community in which they reside than F. Erich Hartmann during the thirty-five years of his residence in Sandusky.
Ile came to this country alone when a young man, practically unac- quainted with the language of America and its institutions and customs. From such work as a farm laborer he has made himself one of the most influential and successful business men of Sandusky.
Born February 22, 1857, in Salzungen, Saxe-Meiningen, Germany, he is a son of Johan Casper Ferdinand and Fredericka Christina ( Moeller) Hartmann.
During his early life in Germany he attended the common schools and the German college or gymnasium, and for one year saw active service in the German army. It was in 1881 that he ventured out alone to discover what opportunities America could present to a young man of little capital but of unlimited energy. When he arrived in Erie County he went as a farm laborer for two years, then elerked in a gro- very store four years, and from 1886 to 1905 conducted a grocery estab- lishment on Pearl Street in Sandusky. Thus for nearly twenty years he was one of Sandusky's popular merchants. In 1905 he was appointed to fill out the unexpired term existing in the office of county recorder, and at the next general election he was chosen by the people for that office. With admirable efficiency he filled the recorder's office for two terms, serving from 1905 to 1911. On leaving the county office Mr. Ilartmann engaged in the abstract business, and he now has the leading office to render that important service in Erie County.
Mr. Hartmann is a republican, and is affiliated with the Knights of the Maccabees. On July 17, 1890, in Erie County he married Miss Emma Widmer.
ILIRAM E. BRUNDAGE. The Brundage family is among the older ones in Erie County. For almost thirty-five years Hiram E. Brundage has been one of the prospering fruit growers and agriculturists of Vermilion Township, and he and his family are people of marked prominence in the religious, social and moral life of that community.
The Brundage ancestors lived for several generations in Connectient. The paternal grandparents of Mr. Brundage were born and married in Connecticut, and from there they came to Erie County and established a home in Vermilion Township, where they spent the rest of their days. They are buried in the Cranberry Creek Cemetery in that township. They died some time before the Civil war and were quite old at the time. In their family were four sons and three daughters who grew up and married, and according to the last information one of the daughters is still living in Indiana.
Giles L. Brundage, father of Hiram E., was born on the old home- stead in Vermilion Township and during his brief career as a civilian followed farming. Hle died near Auburn, Indiana, in 1866 at the age of twenty-seven. He had enlisted in the Civil war, was with a Massa- chusetts regiment, and after some active service he contracted the black measles and was discharged in 1864. lle returned home, but a year or two later moved to Auburn, Indiana, where he died. His widow then brought her two children back to Erie County. These children were
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Iliram E. and his sister Carrie. The latter is the wife of John Loucks of Berlin Township, a well known citizen of that locality. Giles L. Brundage married Ella Mason. After his death she married a second and also a third time, and she died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. John Loucks, in 1913 when nearly seventy years of age. She was a member of the Methodist Church.
Hiram E. Brundage was born in Vermilion Township November 12, 1862, and has practically no recollection of his father. He was reared in this township and attended the public schools, and at the age of nine- teen started life by purchasing twenty-eight acres of land on the Joppa Road. Ile worked hard to improve the land, put it into cultivation and when he started he had practically nothing but the resources of his own industry to aid him. It was on that farm that he started fruit growing, and there are many things that now represent his years of steady indus- try. lle erected a large two-story house, and has several large barns for the shelter of his stock and farm products. Mr. Brundage now owns 100 acres, and much of it is cultivated to fruit orchard. Ile has about three thousand peach trees and other large and small fruits, and his fields grow some of the finest erops of corn, wheat and oats. During the past year his eorn yield was eighty bushels per aere, wheat twenty-eight bushels, and oats sixty bushels.
In Vermilion Township Mr. Brundage married Lillian Lee. She was horn November 13, 1862, just one day later than her husband. She was reared and educated in Vermilion Township, and is a daughter of Thomas B. and Olive (Minkler) Lee. Her mother was a daughter of Daniel Minkler, a pioneer settler in the Joppa neighborhood of Erie County. After many years of farming on the Hill Road in Vermilion Township, Thomas B. Lee retired to Berlin Heights, and is now living there with an ample competence for his declining years.
Mr. and Mrs. Brundage have one son, Elwin P., born March 9, 1883, in Vermilion Township. He was educated liberally, at first in the com- mon and high schools, then at Oberlin College, and in the Ohio Spence- rian College, and he took his theologieal course at Nyack, New York, and on leaving that institution took up the active work of the minstry in the Evangelical Church. He now has charge of the church at DeGraff, Ohio. Rev. Mr. Brundage married Blanche Gibson of Erie County, and they have a daughter Doris, thirteen years of age, who is carrying on her studies both in the regular school work and in musie. Mr. and Mrs. Brundage are very active members of their community and Mr. Brundage is head of the local Sunday school and in polities a republican, though not a seeker for official honors.
FRED HUTTENLOCKER. It is of that staunch German stock that has been so important an element in Erie County history that Fred Hutten- locker is a representative. He is a vigorous, ambitious, and hard working agriculturist of Vermilion Township, occupies a good home, with fertile fields and excellent improvements, and while enjoying ample material comforts has surrounded himself with home and growing children and is rich in the esteem which is paid to good citizenship.
Born in Vermilion Township November 6, 1873, he is a son of Chris- tian and Caroline (Beek) IIuttenlocker. Both parents were born in Wurtemberg, Germany. Ilis father was born in October, 1849, and his mother in 1851. They grew up in that country and were sweethearts he- fore they left Germany to find their home and fortune in the New World. They were of Lutheran families and when quite young they set out from Hamburg and voyaged to New York City and thenee to Huron, Ohio, where they married. After marriage they located near Huron, and they have since been among the active farming people of Erie County. Most of their years have been spent in Vermilion Township, where they bought and improved a farm of fifty-one acres. That was their home for about
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twenty-eight years, but in the meantime Christian Huttenlocker had bought thirty-one aeres near the street car line and the Mittewanga Grove neighborhood, and he subsequently lived on that place for about twelve years. Hle then sold it to his son Fred, and with his wife returned to the old homestead, where both now reside, hale and hearty people, in a position to enjoy life at leisure. Both are members and were among the founders of Mittewanga Reformed Church, in which Christian Ilut- tenloeker was an elder for a number of years. In polities he is a repub- liean, but formerly voted with the democratic party. The children of Christian and Caroline Iluttenlocker are: Christ, who died unmarried at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, at the age of twenty-six: Fred: Rose, who is the wife of Daniel Meeker, a doek engineer at Huron, and they have a son Freemen ; Mary is the wife of D. L. Fox, a Berlin Township farmer and also an employee of the street car company, and their children are Sylva, Bernard, Esther and Clara : Louise is the wife of John Ililde- brandt of Berlin Township, a railroad section boss for the Lake Shore Railroad, and their children are Frederick and Caroline : John, a farmer in Berlin Township, married Sophia Ackerman, and their one son is named Ralph P.
Fred Huttenlocker was reared and educated in his native township. attended the publie schools, and after reaching manhood he married and bought the thirty-one aere place of his father near the lake shore in Vermilion Township. His farm has a frontage of 150 feet on the State Road. ITe does farming on a business-like basis, and has almost every foot of his land under intensive cultivation. IIe has an orehard of forty apple trees, has an attractive eight-room white house and a large red barn on a foundation 32 by 42 feet with 16-foot post.
Christmas Day of 1897 will always be memorable in Mr. Hutten- locker's history, since on that day in lInron Township he married Miss Catherine Bartzen. She was born in Huron July 13, 1876, and was reared and educated there. Her parents were Peter and Margaret (Elenz) Bartzen. Her father was born in Germany and her mother in Erie County, Ohio. Her father died here in April, 1913, at the age of sixty, and her mother on December 10, 1906, at the age of fifty-two. ller father spent all his active career as a blacksmith, having learned that trade in Germany. In fact all the male members of his family for several generations followed blacksmithing, and they lived along the River Rhine in Germany. where Mr. Bartzen was born. Five of the Bartzen children are still living: Mrs. Huttenlocker: Peter, a blacksmith and teamster, who married Erna Felcum; Elizabeth, wife of George Ritzen- thaler of Huron, and they have six children ; Anna is the wife of Gottlieb IIauff, a well known citizen of Erie County ; Anthony now lives in Iluron. is a blacksmith by trade, and is unmarried.
Mr. and Mrs. Huttenlocker are the parents of six children: Louis Frederick, horn Mareh 9. 1899, has completed the course of the loeal schools and assists his father on the farm. Christian was born May II. 1900, and is a student in the high school at Huron. Fredia was born December 10, 1901, and is in school. Elma was born July 21. 1902. and is in school. Dorothy was born April 21, 1904. Peter J. was born April 26, 1906. The family all attend the Reformed Church and Mr. and Mrs. IIuttenlocker and two oldest children are confirmed in that faith. Mr. Ilnttenlocker in polities is a republican.
PETER SCHEID. Since the Scheid family became established in this part of Northern Ohio more than sixty years ago, its members have played many worthy parts in varied activities, helped to clear up the wilderness and develop new farms, have proved vigorous workers and efficient citizens in every line of duty to which they have been called, and the name is one of the most highly honored in Erie County. It was as a pioneer that Mr. Peter Scheid was first identified with Erie
PETER SCHEID
MRS. CATHERINE SCHIEID
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('ounty and he lived a long and industrious career until his death at his home farm in Oxford Township, October 22, 1905. Before his death he had bought a pleasant home on Front Street in Milan, and his widow, Mrs. Scheid, and some of her children now occupy that residence.
It was as a youth of seventeen that Peter Scheid came away from Germany and started his career in the New World in Erie County. Ile was born in Nassan July 31, 1834, and was in his seventy-second year when he passed away. Ilis parents were Anthony and Catherine Scheid. His father was born near Deitz in Nassau, which was noted as a training point for German soldiers. He grew up as a farmer, and married a German orphan girl, who had been reared in the home of a prominent man in the community, a forester by profession. All the children of Anthony and Catherine Scheid were born in Germany. When the sons, William and Peter, had attained years of independence, they left the old home and set ont for America, buying land near Pontiac, Ohio, in Huron County and starting its development. Two years later these brothers were followed by their parents and the other children. They all eame aeross on sailing vessels, spending about four weeks on the ocean, and from New York the parents came out to Pontiac, Ohio, and on the homestead which the two sons had started to improve the parents spent their last years. The father died at the age of sixty- eight and the mother when past seventy-two. They had been reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church and always kept pretty close to the standards of that old religion.
The late Peter Scheid was the second in quite a large family, and was about seventeen years of age when he and his brother, William, ventured across the Atlantic and arrived as comparative strangers in Sherman township of Huron County. In 1853 they secured 172 acres of wild land, and the only improvement on it was a small log house. Their first work was cutting out the timber, which they sold to the railway company and used also in building barns. In 1860 the family put up a large residenee on that farm, a brick house, which is still stand- ing and is now owned and ocenpied by Charles Scheid, a brother of Peter. Charles was born in 1842 and for a number of years has owned the old homestead. Anthony Scheid during his lifetime donated a lot from his farm for a church and schoolhouse.
It was on the old homestead near Pontiae that Peter Scheid grew to manhood, though he was already a vigorous youth when he arrived there with his brother and started to clear the land. After his marriage he located on a fine farm of his own in Oxford Township of Erie County, containing 175 acres, and in the course of years he made that one of the best properties in that splendid agricultural section of Erie County. It was in the duties of this farm and in its comforts that he enjoyed the principal years of his life, and died there. He placed many improvements on the land, including a commodious house and several barns, set out a good orchard, and had the land well tiled and thoroughly cultivated. When he died the homestead comprised 235 acres, and it is all still in the family and is now managed by his son, Henry.
While a resident of Oxford Township Mr. Scheid took a prominent part in local affairs. Ile served as township trustee, as treasurer, and at the time of his death was a director of the Commercial Bank at San- dusky. In politics he was a demoerat. He was one of the organizers of the German Lutheran Church at Union Corners, was for many years an official in the society, and his widow and daughters are still mem- bers there.
At Pontiac, Ohio, February 26, 1860, Peter Scheid married Miss Catherine E. H. Heuser. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. Mr. Smokrow. Mrs. Scheid was born also in Nassau, near Deitz,
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March 6, 1842, a daughter of HIenry and Elizabeth (Thorn ) Ilenser, who were natives of Nassau and of old German stock. Mrs. Seheid was their only child. In 1853 this little family took passage on a small steamer, which brought them down the River Rhine to Rotterdam, Hol- land, thenee they crossed over to London, and from there by sailing vessel arrived in New York after a voyage of twenty-eight days. From New York they went to Monroeville in Erie County, and arrived at that place June 19, 1853. Mr. HIenser was a mason by trade and his first work in Northern Ohio was in the construction of the Maumee River bridge near Toledo. There he was overtaken by the ague, which was a common malady among the early settlers, but it was an entirely new experience to this German immigrant. Ile soon returned home, and later practiced himself in farming and gave up the mason trade alto- gether. He finally bonght land in Oxford Township, and in its activi- ties passed the remainder of his days. IIe died at the age of eighty-five in 1896. Ile had survived his wife about thirty years, she having passed away at the age of sixty. They were both members of the German Lutheran Church, and their old homestead in Oxford Township is now the property of their only daughter, Mrs. Scheid.
To Mr. and Mrs. Peter Scheid were born ten children. Charles P. is unmarried and lives at home with his mother in Milan. Louise C., who died June 6, 1915, was the wife of Louis Dorr, who is a coal mer- "hant at Milan, and she left children named Norma, Lonis, Jr., and Russel. Flora, who died June 6, 1913, was the wife of Robert Streck, proprietor of the Streek Hotel at Milan, and she left a daughter, Nellie. Ilenry L. is a prosperous farmer in Oxford Township. Catherine L. is the wife of George W. Waldock, a farmer in Perkins Township, and their children are Verna I. and Howard S. Amelia died at the age of ten months. Louis W. is a successful farmer in Erie County and man- ages the old Scheid homestead. Julia is the wife of Verne Pascoe, a grocery merchant at Sandusky, and their two sons are named Milton and John. Amanda L. died January 31, 1915, in young womanhood. Alda M., who, like the other children, received the best advantages of the local schools, was graduated from the Milan High School in 1902 and later in 1908 from the Conservatory of Musie at Oberlin College and now makes her home with her mother in Milan.
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