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 59

Author: Reighard, Frank H., 1867-
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 628


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 59


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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His wife was Rachel Lee, who was born in Holmes county, Ohio, but their long married life ended in 1912, when she died in Delta. Mr. and Mrs. Finney were the parents of five children: Estella, who died at the age of thirteen years; William, who died when nine years old; Eddie, who was seven in the year of his death; Jennie, who is the wife of Thomas Kirkham, of West Winameg, Fulton county, Ohio; Elmer Grant, of Delta, Ohio.


As a Civil war veteran, Mr. Finney has an honored place in national records, and honor is accorded him locally because of his patriotic service. He followed the progress of the recent war with great interest, and would have liked to have been more active in it himself. In earlier years he was somewhat prominent in the func- tioning of fraternal bodies, being a member of the Masonic and Knights of Pythias Orders. Personally he has lived a good life of helpful and useful endeavor for his fellow residents.


ASA BORTON. Seventy years of continuous residence, his time of service in the Civil war counted out, is the citizenship record of Asa Borton of Pine Grove Farm in Dover, Fulton county. Mr. Bor- con was born in Columbiana county March 24, 1845, and when he was but four years old his father, Asa Borton, Sr., moved to Ful- ton, one year before it was an organized county. Mr. Borton was a


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boy in Franklin Township when Fulton set up its own county gov- ernment-one of the few remaining men who are living in Fulton when it was part of Lucas county.


Mr. Borton lived a short time in Michigan, but he has always considered his home in Fulton county. Mr. Borton was the young- est in a family of ten children born to Asa and Elizabeth (Hazen) Borton. They are: Deborah, Ahimaaz, Lucinda, Mary Ann, Sarah, Ruth, Mercy, Roland, Arthur and Asa. All except Deborah Ruth and Arthur were living, A. D. 1919, when this family history was being tabulated. When Asa Borton was seventy-five years old he still had six brothers and sisters who were older than himself, a very unusual record for longevity. On the day of this interview, October 13, 1919, he was in the field husking corn and his older brothers and sisters were all active men and women. (The biographer one time wrote the story of a man who at sixty had ten brothers and sisters older than himself.) Mr. Borton had cultivated nine acres of corn alone. All of his life has been spent in action, and that accounts for his physical condition.


There are many different branches in the Borton family history, the branch from which Asa Borton is descended having come from England. There were three Hazen brothers who came in an early day from Brazil, and Elizabeth Hazen came from that ancestry. While it is known that the Hazens were a long lived family, only Mrs. Borton ever lived in Fulton county. Asa Borton, Jr., married Sarah Hagerman March 26, 1868, and their children are: Ellis H., who married Sarah Riger, their children are Dessie, Nettie, Paul and Hazen. Arthur D. Borton married Addie Fausey. Their children are: Asa and Thelma Aline. Elizabeth Borton is the wife of Clarence W. Belknap. They have one daughter, Marjey Amelia.


Mrs. Borton died February 19, 1905, and since that time a niece, Miss Elizabeth Mason, has been housekeeper for Mr. Borton. While all the Borton children were given educational advantages all have continued in the pursuit of agriculture. Ellis has invested in land in the "cut-over" district in Michigan, and while he hires men to operate it he divides his own time between Michigan and Ohio, his land in Franklin and Dover. Although he owns a farm in Dover, A. D. Borton lives in Warren, Ohio. (See sketch, Belknaps.)


When Asa Borton located at Pine Grove there was a nucleus of twenty acres, but he has added to it until he now has 105 acres, with no waste land except the banks of an open ditch, and that is well set in blue grass. "I never was a democrat," said Mr. Borton when asked about his political faith. In a moment he exclaimed : "Well, I have known some good men who only had that one fail- ing." He served Dover Township as a trustee at one time, although he did not seek the honor.


While he is not identified with any church, Mrs. Borton was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Spring Hill, and of course that is the church nearest the heart of the Borton family. Mr. Borton was not yet a voter when he enlisted in the Civil war, March 31, 1864, and served until the end of the war. His brother, Arthur Borton, was also a soldier. A number of younger relatives were enlisted in the World war, and George Oldfield lost his life "somewhere in France." He was a nephew to Miss Mason, and a grand-nephew to Mr. Borton. A brother's son, Abram Mason, had


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the necessary military training but did not get "over there," before the signing of the Armistice.


Mr. Borton keeps in close touch with the news of the day through the Wauseon Republican and the Literary Digest. He attributes his activity to the fact that he has always worked-has always been busy, his two years in Michigan being in a sawmill, and the rest of the time in the great out-of-doors on the farm. There are two stock water ponds on the farm that mark the site of a brick vard that Mr. Borton operated for many years. His father before him was a Fulton county brickmaker, and the pio- neer families all knew about the Borton brick kilns. Mr. Borton made brick by hand, and he began off-bearing on his father's brick yard when he was such a small boy that he only carried two bricks at a time.


The brick in the house in which Mr. Borton lives, built in 1882, were made in his own factory. That was the last of his output from the factory. Since that time Mr. Borton has done general farm- ing, with special attention to livestock. He has always bred and fed a great many hogs, but recently he plans only enough labor to keep him in good physical condition. They say "Uncle Asa Borton" in the community.


CLARENCE W. BELKNAP. It was in 1851 that the Belknap family history had its beginning in Fulton county, and Clarence W. Belknap of Sycamore Stock Farm in Dover is in the third genera- tion. He is one of seven children born to Zera and Mary Jane (Kesler) Belknap. He has one brother, Frederick G. Belknap, and there were five who died in infancy. Only the twins, had been given names. They were George and William, and because they were born February 14, each was given the name Valentine.


Zera Belknap was the oldest in a family of seven children born to Thomas and Polly Ann (Farr) Belknap, and he was the only one born in Lorain county. He was not yet two years old when his parents came by wagon from Lorain to Fulton county. They encountered many difficulties crossing the black swamp enroute to the new country. They located at Delta, and there six children were born to them. They were: Myron, Lucile, Lucretia, Thomas, Lucina and Arthur. While Thomas Belknap attained to the age of eighty-five years, his wife died while she was yet a young woman. They lie buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery.


Thomas Belknap was married three times, and Zera Belknap was a son from his third marriage. There was a half brother, Fran- cis Marion Belknap, who was from the second marriage, and he came along with the family to Fulton county. There were three children by the first marriage, but their mother died in Vermont and the father went to Wisconsin before he finally located in Lo- rain county. These children never came west and nothing is known of them today. In all there were eleven children born to Thomas Belknap-three different mothers.


Zera Belknap married Mary Jane Kesler June 3, 1875, and except four years in a Michigan lumber camp they have always lived at Spring Hill. She was a daughter of Peter and Catharine (Gier) Kesler. There were ten children : Catharine, Mary Jane, Ida Ellen, Leah Adeline, Elizabeth Etta, Frances Adelia, Franklin, Alice Dell, Emma and John. In the Belknap family, October, 1919, there


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were four brothers and one sister living and in the Kesler family three sisters.


While the Peter Kesler family were originally from Pennsyl- vania, they came from Ashland to Fulton county. It was soon after the coming of the Belknap family, and Mr. and Mrs. Belknap grew up in the community, and all realized the hardships of the pioneers, and the year of "sick wheat," everybody who had wheat flour was glad to change it for corn meal-an unexplained incident in the community.


When Thomas Belknap removed from Delta he located at "Hornetsville," and he helped cut the timber from the site of Wau- seon and work it into barrel staves. While there was white oak timber in abundance, his occupation was stave-making, the staves sent to Buffalo and the barrels made there. All that is changed today. It is as a story that is told when there is no more white oak timber in Fulton county. The United States mail aeroplanes crossing Fulton county today are a stride in advance from the time of the coming of the Lake Shore, now the New York Central Rail- way System.


Clarence and Fred Belknap are the only men bearing the name in their generation in Fulton county today. It illustrates the truth that "the places that know us now shall soon know us no more for- ever." On July 3, 1907, C. W. Belknap married Elizabeth Borton (see sketch Asa Borton), and when she left her father's house she went across the road with her husband to Sycamore Stock Farm, and here was born one child, Marjey Amelia. Pine Grove and Syca- more Stock Farm are across the road from each other. In the wood lot at Sycamore Stock Farm is a tulip poplar that furnishes an abundance of flowers each Decoration Day, and many friends of the family come there for them.


While Thomas Belknap was a Baptist, the Zera Belknap family belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Spring Hill, although C. W. Belknap and his wife sometimes attend the Fountain Valley Baptist Church. The Belknap family vote is cast with the republi- can party, and there has always been a military note in its history. It is known that Thomas Belknap was born on a family homestead in Vermont that had come to his father, name unknown to Zera Belknap, in consideration of his service in the War of the Revolu- tion.


Francis Marion Belknap did the honors of the family as a soldier in the Civil war, and in the present generation Frederick G. Belknap, who lives with his parents in Spring Hill, spent fourteen months in the service in the war of the nations. For eleven months in the World war he was "somewhere in France," and like other young soldiers he says very little about his war time experiences. As soldiers grow older the campfire spirit takes deeper hold on them. While there is a Belknap genealogy in existence, C. W. Belknap does not possess it. Zera Belknap, father of C. W. and F. G., died March 3d, 1920, and was buried in Spring Hill Cemetery.


LEVI McCONKEY. While the name McConkey is of Scotch origin, the coming of Levi McConkey of Dover to Fulton county, July 1, 1859, was the beginning of the local family history. Mr. Mc- Conkey was born April 22, 1839, in Wayne county, and when he was twenty he came to Fulton county. He is one of four children


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born to William and Rachel (Miley) McConkey. They were: Mar- garet, Levi, Isaialı and Adeline. When he was thirty-eight years old William McConkey died, and later the widow married James Welles. They had two daughters, Rachel and Sophronia, half sis- ters to Levi McConkey, who enrolls the family in the Fulton County History.


It was with the family of liis step-father, James Welles, that Levi McConkey came from Wayne to Fulton county. In the an- cestral line William McConkey was one of ten children born to Thomas and Elizabeth (Hague) McConkey. He was the oldest and the others: Mahalcth, Mary, Rachel, Orpha, Ruth, Elizabeth, Namona, Hannah, and Reason. Thomas McConkey, "with what family he had," migrated from Pennsylvania to Wayne county, Ohio, when there was nothing but a blockhouse at Wooster to pro- tect the settlers from the Indians. He moved in an ox-cart and forded many streams. Hc entered a section of land in the Wayne county wilderness when the forest was full of Indians and wild animals-Indians their only visitors. IIere part of the children mentioned were born, and Levi McConkey is the son of William.


There is a place in Pennsylvania called McConkey's Ferry com- memorating this pioneer McConkey family. While the definite time of the removal of the family to Ohio is unknown, the father of Thomas McConkey, who had come from Scotland to Pennsylvania, came with him to Wayne county. While there is no definite in- formation the story is told that he met his wife aboard a sailing vessel when both were coming to America. Levi McConkey does not know the name of this ancestor, but he is certain that she lies buried at Shreve in Wayne county. There is an old cemetery there on the McConkey farm, but in that time the graves were not marked as they are today. However, there is a small marker at the grave of William McConkey.


Isaiah McConkey, of Wauseon, is a brother of Levi, and there is a half-sister, Mrs. Sophronia Welles, of Chesterfield, all of the family who are living today. James Welles and his wife, Rachel Miley McConkey Welles, lie buried in the Ayres Cemetery.


January 7, 1869, Levi McConkey married Emily C. Minnich, who was one of four children born to Peter and Catharine (Downs) Minnich. The brother and sisters are: Louisa, John and Lodema. The Minnich family is of German descent, the ancestry coming to America about 1600, and the direct line had lived in Pennsylvania before coming to Ohio. The Downs family settled in Seneca county in 1824, and while Peter Minnich came from Pennsylvania the time is unknown, but he was married in Seneca county. They set- tled on a farm in the part of Lucas now known as Fulton county.


It was here the Minnich children were born, and Mr. and Mrs. Levi McConkey were married, and their two children, Catha- rine A. and Clarence L., are citizens. Mrs. McConkey died Novem- ber 14, 1913, at the family homestead in Dover, and the daughter remains as home-maker for her father. Clarence L. McConkey mar- ried Elizabeth Wilford, January 27, 1906, and their children are: Ida May and Emily Jane.


The McConkey family have been identified with Fulton county community affairs for three score years, and its record will bear investigation. Their politics are republican, although years ago Levi McConkey was a democrat. One day at a political meeting in


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Wooster he saw a street pageant representing Lincoln as the rail- splitter. He was in sympathy with the cause of labor and other issues before the country, and from that time he has voted with the republican party.


As a family the McConkeys have communed with the Church of Christ both at Shreve and at Spring Hill, and for fifty years Levi McConkey was teacher in the Bible School connected with the local church. The industry of the family has been the world's old- est occupation, agriculture, and since 1871 Mr. McConkey has lived on the farm in Dover. The barn was built in 1898, and the house in the Century year-and here they all live in comfort.


While Mr. McConkey is four score years old he has not abated his interest in the news of the day. While he is no longer active in public affairs he is still interested in them. He has read the National Tribune from its first publication. He enlisted as a Civil war soldier in Company I of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry in August, 1862, one of the fighting regiments of the war, and while he was in the thickest of the fire in a number of battles he came through without personal injury. It was a trained regiment he joined and there was no delay. He was on the firing line from the beginning, and he has the honor of being among those who fired the last shot at Appomattox.


Mr. McConkey participated in the capture of the last piece of artillery taken from the Confederate Army, and his entire regiment had the same feeling of pride about it. Now that he looks from life's hill slope over a life well spent, Levi McConkey has pride in his military record as well as in his career as a private citizen. When one has lived for sixty years in one community he becomes a part of it, and pride is pardonable in such things. Aye, pride in achieve- ment is a commendable thing.


DEALTON ADELBERT BOYERS. There is little definite informa- tion as to the exact time of the beginning of the Boyers' family history in Fulton county. There is evolution in the spelling of many family names, and Dealton Adelbert Boyers of Dover is con- vinced that in Pennsylvania the ancestry had been known by the name of Boyer. There is a Boyertown where his ancestry had lived, but somewhere along the way another letter has been added in spelling the name-Boyer in Pennsylvania, and Boyers in Ohio. In Fulton county the name has always been written Boyers.


The local Boyers' family history began with the coming of Jacob Boyers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He came with the family of an uncle, William Jones. There was an influx of Penn- sylvania families to northern Ohio along about 1840, and it is esti- mated that Jacob Boyers came about that time. He was young, and none of his relatives ever visited him, and while the name Boyer is often heard in Ohio, no relationship has ever been estab- lished with people of that name. The immediate descendants of Jacob Boyers know absolutely nothing of his early history.


When Jacob Boyers came as a boy to Ohio he looked out for himself. Finally he worked by the year for a settler named Thomas Walters, receiving in payment an eighty acre tract of land at a con- sideration of $125, the land now rated at $200 an acre, and here on March 31, 1844, the Boyers family history properly had its begin- ning in Ohio. On that day Jacob Boyers married Lydia Jewell.


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She was a daughter of the Rev. Joseph Jewell, a pioneer minister of the Disciples of Christ, known today as Christians. The same church exists today in Spring Hill. While the Jewells were a Con- necticut family, Lydia Jewell was born September 12, 1824, in Newburg, Ohio, it being on the itinerary of the frontier minister. As a young girl of sixteen years she later came with the family to the territory since developed into Fulton county, and here she met Jacob Boyers.


It is known that Lydia Jewell had three brothers in the Civil war, Enos, Simon and Joseph, and two of them, Simon and Joseph, died in the Southland. Her sisters were: Julia, Margaret, Nancy and Sarah, but none of that generation is living today, and little is known of their personal history. In 1849 Jacob Boyers joined a prospecting company being organized in Wayne county, Ohio, and he went overland to California. He remained long enough to se- cure sufficient gold nuggets from the proceeds of which improve- ments were later made on this farm he owned in Fulton county. D. A. Boyers treasures a finger ring today that was made from gold ore dug from the mines by his father.


A letter bearing date of January 20, 1853, written by Jacob Boyers to his family, tells of his life in the mining camps in Yuba county, California. It is written in legible hand and is a relic care- fully guarded by the son and his wife, a connecting link in the chain of family history. Thus ends the story of that generation, their names having all been inscribed on tombstones in the Ayers Cemetery not far from Spring Hill in the west edge of Dover. The children born to Jacob and Lydia (Jewell) Boyers are: Simeon J., deceased ; Jane, Ella, Belinda-the latter deceased, and always called Duck ; next was D. A. Boyers, who relates the family story ; William, Levi, deceased, and Addie. Louis died in infancy.


The Bovers-Jewell families have been engaged in agriculture with here and there a digression, there having been ministers and teachers in the different generations. Politics-unanimously re- publican, with decided "water wagon" convictions. The family has always been allied with the Christian Church, and identified with all movements for the better community conditions.


On August 18, 1878, Dealton Adelbert Boyers married Laura Rebekah Miley at the Miley homestead near Spring Hill, and since that time it has been the home of the Boyers family, although March 1, 1920, they left it. The Miley family name has been in the annals of Fulton county since 1845, when George Miley located in Wauseon. In 1872 he removed to Dover-the Miley-Boyers fam- ily homestead near Spring Hill. George Miley was born December 12, 1816, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he married Lettisha Welles, March 31, 1839, in Holmes county, Ohio. They located in Hancock county, where their first child, Jesse W. Miley, was born, and they returned to Holmes county, where two sons, Benjamin F. and William B., were born before they came to Fulton county.


The children born in Fulton county on the farmstead near Wauseon are Levi E., Enos S., George H., and Laura R., and two who died in infancy were Rufus and Mary Ellen. The four living, 1919, are: Benjamin F., Levi E., and Enos S., beside one sister, Mrs. Laura R. Boyers. Through the oldest brother, Jesse W. Miley, there are children in the fifth generation and through Mrs. Boyers there are twenty-six in the fourth generation of the Mileys in Fulton county.


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The children in the Boyers family are: Loren W., who mar- ried Lottie Ives. Their children are: Ralph, Ray, Otto, Elbert, Laura, Lueile and Kenneth. George M. married Eunice Clark. Their children are: Glen, Bertha, Leo, Clark, Howard and Edith. Elma is the wife of George Campbell. Their children are: Paul, Helen, Louis and Wayne. Florenee is the wife of B. F. Shaffer. Their children are: Wave, Bruce, Donald, Byron and Fern. Helen is the wife of Prof. E. L. Hoskin. Their children are: Eldon El- bert and Helen Elizabeth. Levi married Joy Krontz. Their chil- dren are: Gerald, Gracc, Beatrice and Bertram. Bernard, the youngest ehild, is a student in Spring Hill speeial school, where all the older Boyers' children were enrolled, and as they graduated there they went to Wauseon High School, and Helen went to Hiram College. Elma was a teacher in common school, and exeept L. W., who is a painter in Wauseon, and Levi, who has a garage in West Unity, and Helen, who lives in Portland, Oregon, the Boyers family are located on farms in Fulton county. Now that the family homestead has been sold, Mr. and Mrs. Boyers have planned a west- ern trip, after which they will live in retirement somewhere in Fulton county.


While the name Miley was one time known to all in the Spring Hill community, today it is only known in Delta and on the grave- stones in the Ayres Cemetery, where sleep the grandparents on both sides-Boyers-Miley. These pioneers had all been associated with the community development, and all of them exerted an in- fluenee for good, the obituary notice of George Miley reading: "He was one of that old stock of Christians who earried his Testament in his poeket, and niet everybody with the 'Thus sayeth the Lord.' "


While Jacob Boyers died comparatively a young man, George Miley attained to more than ninety-two years, and an account of his Golden Wedding anniversary reads: "About eighty guests as- sembled at the family residenee near Spring Hill on Thursday, March 21, 1889, to do them honor. Fifty years ago they had joined hands and lives, and have been mutual in toil and interests for the best half of the most progressive century in the world's history."


Mr. and Mrs. Boyers remember many of the stories of pioneer life, and said Mrs. Boyers: "If young people today had to live as did the pioneers they would think it a terrible thing;" and, again, they remember hearing them say: "The happiest days in our lives," and believe they meant it. When William Welles first came into Fulton county prospecting for land on which to loeate his children, one of them, Mrs. Lettisha Miley says he left his saddle bags in the eare of the tavern keeper for the night, saying it was "nails," when in reality it was the purchase money for the farm land he finally left to them.


While they had sugar camps and plenty of home made maple sugar in the frontier community, they did not have furniture and George Miley used to put logs in the fireplace and in lieu of chairs roll out the sugar kegs on which to seat his guests while spend- ing an evening in the cabin. Time was when the dense forest was the problem, but under war time' economies today the question is where the next cord of stove wood is to be found, or what the sugar limitation will be at the grocery store. There are very differ- ent economic conditions confronting the citizenry of today from the civilization known to the Fulton county pioneers. The Boyers-


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Miley family story reflects conditions in scores of other pioneer families in Fulton county.




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