USA > Ohio > Fulton County > A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. II > Part 21
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In 1910 Mr. Pontious was married to Miss Maud M. Widener, who is a daughter of John and Vina (Goebel) Widener, of Ellwood, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Pontious have an adopted daughter, little Nina Rose, now at the attractive age of four years, too young yet to realize her good fortune. Mr. and Mrs. Pontious are members of the Christian Church. Since early manhood Mr. Pontious has been a republican voter, finding in this party's platform and achievements the expression of his own views on public matters. He is a good eitizen and a very busy one, and is a valued member of the Modern Woodmen Lodge at Wauseon.
WILLIAM J. HARPER, sole owner of the Indian Coal Company of Wauseon, Ohio, and a man who has succeeded well in his many enterprises of a long business career, has been connected with Wauseon since 1866, and has been in business since 1869, a period of fifty-one years. He is among the responsible, representative business men of Wauseon, and has many busi- · ness and financial interests, being a stockholder and director of a coal mining company at Wellston, Jackson county, Ohio, of the Beaver Board Company of Buffalo, New York, of the Metropolitan Paving Brick Company, Canton, Ohio, and he has holdings in the Northwestern Ohio Telephone Company, in the Clinton, Iowa, Home Telephone Company, and in the Central Home Telephone Company,
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Louisville, Kentucky. In addition to these financial interests, Mr. Harper also has real estate holdings in Wauseon and the vicinity. It will therefore be recognized that he has shown good business ability during his long and active carecr. And his long association with Wauseon people has brought him an enviable repute, botlı among business men and residents generally.
He is the son of John and Susan (Buckler) Harper, and was born near Inniskillin, Ontario, Canada, in 1854. He comes of an English family, his father and grandfather having emigrated from Berkshire, England, when the former was in his boyhood. The grandfather settled in Ontario, Canada, and followed agricultural pursuits, but his son Jolin, fatlier of William J., eventually became a machinist, mill-wright and pump-maker.
William J. attended the public school at Inniskillin, Province of Ontario, Canada, until he was about twelve years old. He came with his parents to Wauseon in 1865, and for the next three years attended the Wauseon High School. At fifteen years of age he began to help his father in the latter's shop in Wauseon, John Harper by that time having established himself in good business in that city as a wood pump-maker. William J. learned that trade and remained with his father until he was twenty-one years old. After a short time spent as fireman in the Bryan foundry, Wauseon, he entered into independent business as a building contractor, continuing very successfully in that business for nine years. Sickness then forced him to cease work, and when he again was able to take to business affairs he took up a somewhat different connection, opening a machine shop in Wauseon. He continued that enterprise with success for five years, his plant being known as the Wauseon Novelty Works. Then he again entered the contracting business, this time as a well-digger, being still interested to some extent in this business. In 1904 he opened a general hardware store in Wauseon, trading under the name of Harper, Blizzard & Company. Six years later he sold that busi- ness to Mr. Arthur Riddle, with good advantage to himself. And in that year, 1910, he became well established in Wauseon as a plumb- ing and heating contractor. He continued in business for a further five years, when he decided to retire altogether, having up to that time been forty-six years in business. Of course he could not alto- gether sever his connection with business, for the reason that much of his capital had been invested in industrial and commercial enter- prises. Some of these interests have been before referred to, and, with his real estate interests, would have been sufficient to pleasantly occupy most men in retirement. Mr. Harper had, however, been in business for so very many years, had applied himself so energetically to industrial life, that his semi-retirement, in having only directorial duties to fill his days, did not satisfy him, and in less than three years from the date of his retirement he was again actively under- taking the daily executive routine of quite a substantial business. In 1918 he purchased the Wauseon interest of D. S. Knight, coal mer- chant, and during the last two years he has done quite a substantial wholesale and retail coal business, trading as the Indian Coal Com- pany, of which, of course, he is the sole owner. The coal yard of the company is on the tracks of the New York Central Railway Com- pany at Wauseon. Mr. Harper's business is not only with city customers; he has a good country trade, and he has a substantial interest in. a coal mining business at Wellston, Jackson county, Ohio.
During his many decades of connection with Wauseon activities, business, social and civic, Mr. Harper has manifested a praiseworthy
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public spirit. Politically he is a republican, latterly of independent leaning, and without seeking public office he has always taken close interest in political movements. His friends influenced him to stand for nomination for the office of county commissioner, but through- out his life his public actions have been entirely free from self- seeking. He has given generously to many local charities, and has personally furthered more than one project which he considered likely to prove of consequence for the city. In earlier days he was prominent in the functioning of local fraternal lodges, belonging, as he has for many years, to the Wauseon Blue Lodge of Masons, to the Defiance Commandery of that order, to the Knights of Pythias of Wauseon, and to the local branch of the Maccabees.
In 1875, at Wauseon, he married Martha, daughter of John and Jane (Smith) Linfoot, of Wauseon. One child, a son, was born to them, which son, F. R., now a well known business man of Wau- seon, has married and is the father of three children.
ALBERT C. LLOYD. While his interests for several years past have been centered in the capable management of a farm in Gorham township, Albert C. Lloyd, a native of that section of Fulton county, has had his personal horizon enlarged by an interested and varied experience outside his native county.
He was born in section 23 of Gorham township, June 26, 1871, son of Ebenezer and Julia E. (Smith) Lloyd. His father was a native of Vermont and his mother was born in Chesterfield township, of Fulton county. All the grandparents came at an early date to Gor- ham township. The maternal grandparents were John and Mahala (Edmunds) Smith. Grandfather Lloyd lived to the extreme age of a hundred and one years. . Ebenezer Lloyd also had a long life, and was ninety-three at the time of his death in 1917. The widowed mother is still living in Gorham township at the age of eighty. She ocupies the old homestead, where she and her husband located imme- diately after their marriage, and for many years farmed its eighty- six acres. Ebenezer Lloyd married for his first wife Lettie South- worth. The four children of that union were Ernest, who died in 1911; Mary, Mrs. Silas O'Dell, of Adrian, Michigan; Elmer, of Amsterdam, Ohio, and Anna, Mrs. Alonzo Smith, of Gorham town- ship. Albert C. Lloyd was the younger of two sons born to his mother, his brother being Herbert R., of Chicago.
Albert C. Lloyd acquired a good education. At the age of four- teen he attended the district school at Handy Corners. He was then a student in the Fayette Normal, Music and Business College and the Fayette Normal University, graduating in the commercial and penmanship course. The following year he taught commercial practice and penmanship in a business college at Coshocton, Ohio. From there he moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia, and for years was head bookkeeper for the Curtis Music Company. While at Parkersburg he made use of his talents as a musician and was leader of bands and orchestras for several years. Since his return to Fulton county he has engaged in farming and stock raising.
November 26, 1911. he married Miriam E. Henry, who was born at Canandaigua, New York, daughter of Russell R. and Cassie (Gallo- way) Henry, natives of New York City. After his marriage Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd for three years lived on the home farm, and he then bought eighty acres across the road in section 23 and improved it by the erection of a modern bungalow, one of the most attractive homes in that township. Thirty acres of his land was in timber,
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and this he has cleared, and in many other ways direets his work along the line of advanced agriculture. He has put up a great deal of fencing and has laid about forty thousand tile to complete the drainage system of his farm. Besides his own place Mr. Lloyd farms the old homestead, which is known as the Lloyd Jersey Stock Farm. Mr. Lloyd keeps one of the largest and best herds of Jerseys in the county, forty-two in number, and much of the revenue from his enterprise is derived from his cream shipments. His farm is also the home of some good horses. He raises registered Axworthy and MeKinney trotting horses. Another branch of his industry is poul- try, specializing in the White Leghorn chickens and Mammoth Bronze turkeys. His hogs are the big type Poland China. .
Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd have two children, Cary and Catherine. They are members of the Methodist Church, while Mr. Lloyd is a republican, affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Fayette, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fulton County Fair Association.
JOSEPH D. SARGENT is proprietor of one of the high class farms found in Gorham township, the place where he was born, and where his grandparents in pioneer times acquired land direct from the Government.
Mr. Sargent was born in Gorham township March 26, 1878, a son of Oscar M. and Georgia (Cottrell) Sargent. His father was a native of New York state and his mother was born in Gorham township. The paternal grandparents were Ephraim and Hulda (Collins) Sargent, while the maternal grandparents were Joseph and Maria (Lloyd) Cottrell. All were natives of New England and all of them arrived at an early day in Fulton county and settled on land grown up with heavy timber. Thus three generations of the Sar- gent and Cottrell families have contributed to the improvement of northern Fulton county. Oscar Sargent and wife after their mar- riage settled in Gorham township, and Oscar spent his aetive life as a substantial farmer in that section. He died February 24, 1912, and his widow is still living on the home farm. They had three sons, Joseph D. being the youngest and only survivor. Frank, the oldest, died when one year old, and Wilber was accidentally shot and killed at the age of fourteen.
Joseph D. Sargent since he was eight years of age has lived on his present farm. He acquired his education in the district schools .. supplemented by courses in the Fayette Normal. For a number of years he has been specializing as a dairy farmer, and has a herd of ten Holsteins, the prevailing dairy breed in this county. His farm comprises a hundred sixteen acres. Mr. Sargent is an official of the Methodist Church and in polites is a republican.
October 2, 1902, he married Jessie Baker, also a native of Gorham township, and a daughter of Thomas and Eliza (Muhn) Baker. Her father was born in New York state and her mother in Pennsyl- vania.
RELMON D. AMSBAUGH, who has spent practieally all his life in Fulton county, has had a career of more than ordinarily well di- rected purpose and energy, and has to his credit those achievements which represent real success; a good property, a good home, family and friends, and a respected name.
Mr. Amsbaugh was born June 12, 1855, in Richland county, Ohio, a son of George I. and Lovina (Hopp) Amsbaugh, also na-
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tives of the same county. About the time he was born or a little before his father, George Amsbaugh, had come to Fulton county and bought eighty acres of timbered land in Gorham township. After the purchase he cleared a space, erected a house and other buildings typical of the time, and thus made preparations for the removal of his family. George Amsbaugh did his work as a pioneer well. When the eighty acres were well under cultivation he added land across the road, and about 1872 bought another forty acres a mile north in the same section. All of this became part of his orderly and well kept farm. Some years later he bought still another forty acres adjoining his first farm, and after his work had been done and the fruits of his career were in bountiful evidence, he died, hon- ored and respected, in May, 1910. His wife died June 12, 1901. Their children were: Rissia, who died in 1893, wife of J. W. Lilly; Relmon D .; Frances, who lives at Fayette, widow of John Woolace; Cassius O., of Gorham township, and Jennie, who died in 1900, the wife of Elbert Cottrell.
On March 16, 1881, Relmon D. Amsbaugh married Estella E. Gay. She was born in section 8 of Gorham township, September 7, 1858. Both she and her husband grew up in the same community and received their educations in the local schools. Her parents were Willard E. and Adelia A. (Mace) Gay, both natives of New York, her father of Herkimer county and her mother of Onondaga county. Her grandparents were Amos and Sarah Gay and Abram and Sarah Mace, New York families, who were added to the citizenship of Ful- ton county in 1841.
After his marriage Mr. Amsbaugh moved to the old Gay home- stead of a hundred twenty acres, owned by Mrs. Amsbaugh. Her father had died shortly before her marriage, on December 2, 1880, while her mother died June 13, 1883. Mrs. Amsbaugh had one brother, Theodore, of Gorham township.
After settling down Mr. Amsbaugh diligently cultivated the fields and improved the farm, remaining there until 1899. He then spent a year in the livery business at Fayette, after which he sold his stock and returned to the farm. In former vears he was an extensive feeder of sheep, but his farm has been chiefly noted for its thorough- bred Holstein and Shorthorn cattle. Mr. Amsbaugh has reinvested his returns in farm improvements, and all the buildings on the farm except the house, which has been remodeled, date from his ownership and management. He also added another twenty acres in section 8 and forty acres in section 17. Mr. Amsbaugh is a prom- inent Mason, being affiliated with Lodge No. 387, Free and Accepted Masons, at Fayette, Royal Arch Chapter No. 77, at Wauseon, Coun- cil No. 111, at Wauseon, Defiance Commandery No. 30, Knights Templar, Toledo Consistory of the Scottish Rite, and has held nearly all the offices in several of these Chapters and Orders, and he is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias Lodge No. 689 at Favette. His wife is a member of the Eastern Star, Fayette Chapter No. 77.
Mr. and Mrs. Amsbaugh have two children, W. Mace and Geor- gia. The daughter is the wife of C. W. Sutherland, of Lenawee county, Michigan. They have two children, a son, C. W., Jr., and a daughter, Estella H. W. Mace is now the responsible manager of the Amsbaugh homestead, and has been in charge there since 1912. He has shown his abilties and good judgment not only as a general farmer, but has more than a local reputation as a breeder of pure bred Holstein and Shorthorn cattle.
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WILLIAM OTIS FORD, who has been a resident of Fayette thirty years and prior to that time lived on his farm in Gorhani township, has made his principal business since boyhood the buying of wool. He has been a wool buyer in this section of northern Ohio fully thirty-five years, and is one of the men who can speak with utmost authority on the subject of the sheep industry and wool production in Fulton county.
Mr. Ford, who is one of the veteran business men of Fayette, has long been active in civic and fraternal affairs of that comunity, was born in Gorham township October 19, 1846. His great-grandparents were Hezekiah and Hulda (Cobb) Ford, of old New England stock. His grandparents were Ansel and Deborah (Tower) Ford. Ansel Ford, who was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, June 27, 1788, became a farmer and carpenter in New England. Having a large family to provide for, he determined to seek better oportunities in the newer country of the west, and in the spring of 1841 arrived in Gorham township, then part of Lucas county. He arrived there with only five dollars in money, but at once arranged for the purchase of a hundred twenty acres of land covered with heavy timber, and made such good use of his time and energies in subsequent years that the greater portion of this tract was cleared and developed as a farm. Ansel Ford died December 21, 1858. His wife, Deborah Tower, was born July 16, 1786, and died August 1, 1869.
Cyrus Ford, father of William O., was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, March 18, 1821, and was twenty years of age when he reached Fulton county. He, too, gave his active years to agri- culture, and died August 24, 1868, at the age of forty-seven. No- vember 16, 1845, he married Fannie Landis, who was born in Erie county, New York, August 18, 1825. She was a daughter of Jacob and Margaret (Conally ) Landis, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Maryland. Margaret Conally was a sister of John Conally, who distinguished himself as a colonel in the American army during the Revolutionary war.
William Otis Ford acquired his early education in the schools of Fayette, including high school. He was married at the age of twenty-three, and he and his wife began housekeeping on a farm of eighty acres in section 21 of Gorham township. He planted his first crop on the land that had been cleared, and busily employed all his spare time in clearing additional acreage. He cleared a good farm there and continued to reside in the country until 1890, when he turned over his farm to a responsible tenant and moved to Fayette. Since then his principal business has been buying wool. He ac- quired his first experience in wool buying when about fourteen years of age.
September 11, 1869, Mr. Ford married Sarah Binns, who was born in Medina county, Ohio, September 17, 1847, a daughter of Samuel and Ellen (Taylor) Binns. Her parents were natives of Bury, Lancashire, England, where her father was born August 22, 1816. At the age of fourteen he was bound out as an apprentice to a tailor. the term of indenture being seven years. He acquired his education by private instruction. His wife was born February 27, 1816. and they left England in 1835, and after nine weeks on the ocean landed in America June 12, 1835. In October, 1843, Mr. Binns located at Westfield. Ohio, and on December 8, 1865, was ordained a minister of the Universalist Church, and became widely known in several Ohio communities in that capacity. He became a resident of Fayette in 1867 and died June 17, 1889. Mr. and Mrs.
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Ford have had no children of their own, though their home has been opened to many. They reared Clayton L. Murphy, an attorney, now of Toledo.
Mr. Ford has a long record of public service, having been deputy sheriff sixteen years, constable for about thirty years, for a time was truant and health officer, one term a member of the high school board. He is a republican in politics. One of the prominent Masons of Fayette, he served twenty-four years as treasurer of the local lodge, as junior warden two terms, and has also held chairs and offices in the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His wife is a Rebekah and Mr. and Mrs. Ford were charter mem- bers of Fayette Chapter No. 77, Order of the Eastern Star, Mrs. Ford having served as its first treasurer and was worthy matron and past associate matron. She was one of the chief organizers of the women's rest room and one of its managers; also organized the Profit and Pleasure Club, and served as its president for three years. Mr. Ford is a member of the Fayette Detective Association of many years standing and is now president of that body. He has filled the office of Patron and Grand Sentinel of the Order of the Eastern Star of Ohio.
NEWTON HOMER WARD was for a number of years associated in the furniture business at Fayette with L. J. Pike, a veteran busi- ness man of the community, and since Mr. Pike's death the establish- ment has been carried on with progressive enlargement of its facilities and service by Mr. Ward.
Mr. Ward was born at Holbrook, Canada, April 3, 1874, son of Samuel and Sarah Matilda (Freland) Ward. His father was a shoemaker, and after leaving Canada followed his trade at several points in Michigan until 1886, when he located at Fayette, Ohio. For nearly thirty years he continued his trade and business here, · but since 1915 has been retired and makes his home with his chil- dren. His wife died in February, 1908. Newton H. is the youngest of the children, the others being noted as follows: Chauncey A., of Fostoria, Ohio; Della, Mrs. George Newberry, of Croswell, Michigan ; Olive, Mrs. J. E. Dodge, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Eva, Mrs. Carl L. Ely, who died at Clayton, Michigan, in August, 1899.
Newton Homer Ward was about twelve years of age when his father came to Fayette. Already he had begun contributing to his own support by selling newspapers. While he attended the high school and the Fayette Normal University, he was dependent upon his own exertions for his living and his education. At the age of nineteen he began learning the cabinet maker's trade in the Barnes Furniture Factory at Adrian, Michigan, but subsequently returned to Fayette and worked as a cabinet maker and clerk in the furniture business of L. J. Pike. That relationship continued for several years and in 1904. Mr. Ward was taken in as an equal partner with Mr. Pike, and the business was profitably and harmoniously managed between them until the death of Mr. Pike in May, 1910, Mr. Ward soon afterward becoming sole proprietor. He is a licensed embalmer in Michigan and Ohio, and has served as registrar of deaths in the State of Michigan. He has a store completely stocked with all the lines of furniture demanded by the local trade, and also has a picture and picture framing department.
December 5, 1895, Mr. Ward married Eva McQuillin, who was born in Pike township of Fulton county, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Dunbar) McQuillin. Their only living child is Geneva,
-
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at home. Carmon Albert was born March 15, 1902, and died Feb- ruary 5, 1919. The Ward family are Methodists. Mr. Ward is a democrats and has served two terms as senior warden of Gorham Lodge No. 387, Free and Accepted Masons, at Fayette, and is a mem- ber of Defiance Commandery No. 30, Knights Templar.
FRANK E. PRICKETT for a long period of years was a successful building contractor in Fulton county and over the line in Michigan, but latterly has given his energies to the successful management of a general hardware business at Fayette. He is now sole proprietor of this business and has made his store one of the chief supply points for everything in the hardware line and draws a trade from a wide territory surrounding Fayette.
Mr. Prickett was born in Gorham township of Fulton county February 10, 1865, son of Samuel and Naomi (Mason) Prickett. Both the Mason and Prickett families originated in Burlington coun- ty, New Jersey, where their ancestors settled as early as 1685. For many generations both families were staunch Quakers in their relig- ious faith. Samuel Prickett was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, while his wife was a native of Franklin township, Fulton county, where her parents, John and Charity (Borton) Mason, had settled from Burlington county, New Jersey, at an early date. The Mason family were among the earliest settlers in German township of Fulton county. Samuel Prickett and wife after their marriage located in Gorham township, where he died about 1894. His widow was born in 1840 and is now living in Wauseon. A brief record of their children is as follows: Elizabeth, Mrs. Charles A. Smith, of ,Morenci, Michigan; Ida, Mrs. C. Hochstetler, of Wauseon; Frank E .; Rhoda, deceased; Lillie, wife of George T. Curtiss, in Michi- gan, and Henry, of Fayette.
Up to the age of twenty-one Frank E. Prickett lived at home with his parents and attended the county schools. He also learned farming by practical experience, and acquired his skill as a carpenter at Adrian, Michigan, and Morenci. He worked three years as a journeyman and then began taking contracts for building, and many examples of his workmanship can still be pointed out in the vicinity of Morenci and in Fulton county. In 1903, with Charles Hause, Mr. Prickett bought a general hardware business from Edward Perry, at Fayette. They were in partnership five years, and Mr. Prickett since then has had several other partners, but in the spring of 1917 he took over the sole management of the store.
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