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 6

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 6


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He remained in school until he was about seventeen years old, thus acquiring a good academic education upon which to base a commercial career. After leaving school he entered the dry goods store of the Mercer Co-operative Company, Wauseon, with which company he remained as clerk for five years, in that time gaining a comprehensive understanding of the business. For the next four years he was a salesman in the store of Spencer and Edgar. His


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home training had instilled in him commendable habits, and during his years of salaried employment he showed much strength of char- acter, avoiding expenditures in unnecessaries, his thriftiness ulti- mately bringing him into the position of being able to join his brother in purchasing an established grocery business at Tedrow, Ful- ton county, in 1915, that store thereafter taking the trading name of Porter Brothers. During the five years of their joint operation of the Tedrow store they have substantially increased the volume of business and widened the scope so that now it is an up-to-date, well- stocked general store. In December, 1918, the brothers ventured into business in the City of Wauseon, purchasing the grocery busi- ness of H. J. Gelzer and Son. In that enterprise also the brothers have had good success, and are placed among the responsible mer- chants of the city and county.


Melvin Porter is a member of the Christian Church, Wauseon, and he and his wife take interested part in church and community affairs. Politically he is a republican. In 1914 he married Gladeus, daughter of Frank and Mary Elizabeth (Gabriel) Donovan, of Delta, Fulton county. They have one child, a daughter, Wanda- merle.


JAMES GRISIER. The proprietor of "The Fountain Farm," adjoining Fayette in Gorham, is a French immigrant, James Grisier, having been born July 30, 1837, at Batztenia, France. He is a son of Jacob and Catharine (Vanier) Grisier, who in 1844 migrated to America, coming directly to territory now included in Fulton county. They invested in land 11/2 miles northwest of Archbold, which was all in timber, and James Grisier, who relates the story, helped his father to clear it.


Mr. Grisier remembers when his father hauled wheat-twenty- five and thirty bushels being a load, to Maumee and sold it for fifty cents. At that time there was no government guarantee, and the law of supply and demand controlled the markets. Notwithstanding the price it required three days to make the trip and return from Fayette to Maumee with an ox team, and the settlers earned their money.


In June, 1864, Mr. Grisier married Catharine Miller, who came from France to the new country. She was born in 1843, near Bell- ford, France. She is a daughter of Peter and Catharine (Miller) Miller, and she came with her parents to Defiance by water. They arrived just before the first train was run into Archbold.


In 1873 Mr. Grisier, associated with his brother Henry, became the local repersentatives of the Ohio Farmers Insurance Company, their territory being Fulton county. The brother died and Mr. Gris- ier has continued the business, and is the oldest continuous insurance agent living today of the Ohio Farmers Insurance Company.


Soon after his marriage Mr. Grisier located on an eighty acre tract of land in Gorham, adjoining Fayette. There was only one store and one blacksmith shop in Fayette when the Grisiers came into the community. They have watched the growth of the town. In the beginning the town was called Gorham Center. The farm was in the brush and much of it under water when Mr. Grisier located on it. He later acquired forty acres more land adjoining his eighty acre farm.


"The Fountain Farm" presents a different aspect today from the time when Mr. Grisier purchased it. He has everything up-to-date. with modern buildings, ornamental shrubbery and native shade, and


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the passerby is attracted by the beauty of the surroundings. While Mr. Grisier still lives at the old homestead, since 1904 he has rented the land to others. He lives there where he has so much pleasure in the surroundings, and looks back over a lifetime of industry that made his present enviroment a possibility.


The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Grisier are: Henry, who died at the age of fourteen; Eliza, wife of Frank Farnsworth, of Hillsdale, Michigan; Charles, of Wauseon; Clara, wife of Cyrus Farnsworth, of Roswell, New Mexico; Ella, wife of C. D. Haues, of Fayette, and she had a twin brother, Edward, who d.ed July 3, 1873. Henry, the oldest son, died January 26, 1881.


Mr. Grisier had his education in the days of the log schoolhouses in Fulton county. He is a republican, and has served the community as a school director. He is a charter member of the Fayette Masonic Lodge, and he belongs to the Lutheran Church.


CHARLES JEROME IVES, the well-known and well-regarded senior partner of the Ives Furniture and Undertaking Company of Wau- seon, has had a noteworthy career in business and public life. As a business man he has succeeded well, giving sympathetic and thor- ough service. And some of his public endeavors have been partic- ularly meritorious. Especially worthy of note have been his years of active interest in the welfare and guidance into manly . brother- hood of the boys of the city. He was the organizer of the Ives Boys Brotherhood, which was an active organization before the Baden-Powell Boy Scout movement had developed much strength in this country. He has also to some extent entered into public affairs, having undertook the responsibilities of clerk for Gorham township for seven years, and for two terms he was county auditor. And since he has been in the undertaking profession he has given close thought to the excellence of the company's service, taking the course and graduating from the Barnes School of Anatomy, Sanitary Science and Embalming at Chieago, and also taking the state exam- ination, so that he is bringing to his praetice good qualifications.


He was born in Wyandotte, Kansas, in 1873, the son of Jerome and Elizabeth (Bradley) Ives. The Ives family is of French origin, but in the maternal line Charles J. Ives is in descent from a family which for many generations has been resident in America, pioneers of Adrian, Michigan.


The family eame to Fulton county not long after the birth of Charles Jerome, settling at Fayette, where the boy attended public school, and eventually took the course at the Fayette Normal School, gaining a teacher's certificate in due course. He did not, however, take up that profession, and soon after leaving normal school he entered the employ of F. L. Farnsworth, general store dealer at Fayette, Fulton county. Young Ives remained as salesman in that store for six years and after that he was for a while in Oklahoma, but returned to Fayette and resumed his old connection with the store, which. however, was then conducted by C. M. Farnsworth, a brother of his former employer. For two years he was an employe, and for a further five years was a partner, having purchased an interest in the business. He was fairly well-known throughout the county, and was a man of distinct eapability and enviable personal reputation so that when he sought election to the office of county auditor he had little difficulty in securing the office and was re-elected at the end of his first term in office. All the while he continued to hold an interest in the Fayette store. In 1914 he with other well- known local people established the firm of Ives, Edgar, Knight


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Company, furniture dealers and embalmers. In the following year he graduated from the Barnes School of Anatomy, Sanitary Scienee and Embalming at Chicago, and assumed the responsibility for the embalming part of the company's serviee. Soon afterwards Mr. Roy Pike acquired the interest of Mr. B. S. Knight, and the firm under the reorganization became known as the Ives, Pike Company, eon- tinuing as such for two years, when, because of the failing health of Mr. Pike, and of his desire to retire from the business, Mr. Ives pur- chased the Pike interest in January, 1918, thus becoming the prin- cipal owner. Much confidence is placed in the company, and in the quality of their service by the people of the city and county, and they have probably as much work as they can handle. And their furnishing business is also substantial so that Mr. Ives has not good reason to regret coming to Wauscon and entering into business rela- tions with the people of Fulton county. He is today a man with many financial interests, including real estate. And he has always been more or less in publie life, although his main publie work has been centred in his interest in the training of boys for worthy man- hood and citizenship. In 1910 he organized the Ives Boys' Brother- hood at Wauseon, gave unstintingly of his time and thought to the project, and at one time had a strong brotherhood of more than one hundred boy members. Of course the object was somewhat similar to that of the, in this day, more generally known Boy Seout organization, and it eventually, in 1914, was merged in the Boy Scouts of America organization, but to Mr. Ives is due the credit of pioneering the work of banding the boys together in loyal manly brotherhood at a time when the general publie was more or less apathetic to the movement. It has been stated that Mr. Ives con- ceived the idea long before the Baden-Powell movement had gained strength in America, and that he had accompanied his boys on long hikes and at encampments at a time before it was to any great degree generally known. These circumstances point to the sincerity of his interest in the welfare of the rising generation, and of his desire to influence for good as many boys as he could reach. He had the pleasure of seeing twenty-six stalwart young men, members of his original boys' brotherhood, step forward at the national call to arms, ready to take the part of men in the defense of the nation. And during the decade of his association with the bovs of Wauseon Mr. Ives has seen many boys step into the sterner walks of life well equipped morally and perhaps better fitted physically because of their healthv activities as members of the brotherhood in the grow- ing years. Mr. Ives has rendered a distinct service to the boys of Wauseon. Politically he is a republican, and. as before stated herein, has to some extent taken part in administrative work. Fraternallv he is identified with many orders. He is a Mason, a member of the Wauseon Blue Lodge, Defiance Commandery. the local Chapter and Council, and also to the Eastern Star bodv. He is a member of the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and he belongs to the Maccabees. He is also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic auxiliary organization. Religiously he is a Methodist. a consistent member and supporter of the local Methodist Church. Generally his life has been a creditable one, well worthy of notice in this historical work of Fulton county.


In 1899 he married Ola A., daughter of Eugene and Melissa (Sweetland) Belding. of Fayette. Fulton county, Ohio. To them have been born two children, Arline Lois and Irene Lucille.


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ERNEST C. REYNOLDS, owner of the Wauseon Monumental Works, is one of the substantial young business men of that city. His product is of high grade workmanship, and he is painstaking and reliable in the execution of the contracts placed with him. He is an enterprising, public-spirited citizen, a conscientious chureli- man, and takes much interest in the affairs of the community. A' man of superior education and of wide experience in executive mat- ters, he is bringing to his business an ability such as enables him to keep closely in touch with the best markets of supply, and to obtain such supplies at advantageous prices, thus insuring his patrons high grade and economical service.


He was born in the Wauseon district on October 29, 1885, on the Reynolds family homestead, which is about three miles to the eastward of the city. He comes of Dutch-Irish ancestry, although the family has long been resident in America. He is the son of W. H. and Charlotte (Parks) Reynolds, the former a farmer well- known in Fulton county. As a boy Ernest C. attended the clemen- tary school nearest to his home until he was fourteen years old, when he became a student at the Wauseon High School. He was an ener- getic lad, and was not yet in his teens when he was of much assist- ance to his father in the operation of the home farm of 100 acres. During the long summer vacations he gave practically all his time to his father, so that long before he entered high school he knew most of the main farming operations, and undertook those for which he had the strength. His high school education was obtained under difficulties, as the school was more than three miles away from his home. He drove to and from school daily for the whole of the four years he was a student thereat. He was eighteen years old when he graduated with the class of 1904. Soon afterward he took employ- ment with Clarence Brigham, tinsmith and hardware dealer, for whom he worked for about one year. Then he went to Toledo to take the business eourse at the Davis Business College of that city. Eventually he graduated, and after some experience as a bookkeeper returned to Wauseon and associated with his brother, who owned the monumental works of which he, himself, is now the sole proprietor. He became conversant with the business during the year he spent with his brother, and left him to proceed to Poughkeepsie, New York, there to continue his technical sehooling at the well-known Eastman Business College. After completing the business course at that col- lege he was well fitted for most general phases of commercial man- agement. For three years he was employed as bookkeeper by the Anchor Bolt and Nut Company, Poughkeepsie. He left the employ of that firm in 1911 and returned to Wauseon in order to join his brother in business partnership. They became equal partners in the monument works, and thereafter traded as Reynolds Brothers, Ernest taking charge of the commercial affairs of the partnership. The brothers extended their operations, opened branches at Leipsic, Ohio, and Paulding Centre, Ohio, to good advantage. Eventually Ernest sold his interest in the Paulding establishment to his brother, and purchased the interest of his brother in the Wauseon works. The partnership was thus dissolved, and Ernest C. Reynolds has since been sole owner of the Wauseon business.


He is a man of distinct business ability, and has entered inter- estedly into some of the public movements in Wauseon, which might almost be considered to be his home town, and has, unostentatiously, given support to many local charities. He is a man of independent polities, is a staunch Methodist member of the local Methodist


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Church, and belongs to the Masonic and Knights of Pythias fraternal orders.


On April 14, 1914, he married Sarah, daughter of Charles and Maude (Hannaman) Hardisty, of West Unity, Williams county, Ohio.


GEORGE DAVIS GREEN, retired merchant and for more than fifty years a responsible citizen of Wauseon, Ohio, has for many years been prominent in business and financial circles of that place. He was successful in business, and was niainly instrumental in founding the Peoples State Bank of Wauseon, of which he has been a director since its establishment. He is well-regarded in the city and vieinity, having lived an estimable life, in which has been much unostenta- tious public work.


He was born in 1842, in Mcdina, Lenawee county, Michigan, the son of Noah and Eliza (Baldwin) Green. The Green family is of Massachusetts American descent, and of English origin. Many generations of the family lived in Massachusetts, but Noah Green, with the sturdy spirit of the typical American pioneer, took his few belongings with him in 1834 and drove his wagon into the wildcr- ness, settling in that part of Michigan now eleared and valuable land, but at that time wild and undeveloped property. He experi- enced the privations of the average pioneer, but eventually eleared a tract of land in Medina, where he settled his family and where his son George D. was born seven years later. In the healthy but rigor- ous conditions of that part of the country in that early day the boy was reared, and, as he grew, George D. took good part in the labor- ious work of development. Eventually the family possessed a good holding, and conditions were more comfortable. In December, 1865, George D. came to Wauseon, and for four years thereafter was a clerk in the general store of Eager and Green. In 1869 he went into independent business in Wauseon, and continued successfully in general merchandising business for many years. In 1889 he was the prime mover in the organization of the People's Bank, of which he has been a director since its foundation, and which after a successful period of private banking was made a state bank in 1906. Much of the success the bank has gained has been due to the careful and conservative administration of its affairs by level- headed, reliable business men such as is Mr. Green. He gave mueh of his time to the affairs of the bank, and has been steadfastly eon- tinued as a director year by year. Excepting for his banking con- nection Mr. Green has praetieally retired from business associations.


He has been a loyal republican practically throughout his vot- ing years. His first presidential vote was cast in the election which gave President Lincoln his second term and in the subsequent politi- cal campaigns Mr. Green is able to recall many interesting experi- ences and incidents. He has been prominent in the functioning of loeal branches of the Masonic Order, being a Mason of the thirty- second degree. He belongs to the Warren Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons and to No. 7 Commandery. Religiously he is a Congrega- tionalist, for very many years having been a member of the Wauseon Congregational Church.


In 1880 he married Maria Louise Sheldon, of Litchfield, Hills- dale county, Michigan. Mr. and Mrs. Green have very many sin- cere friends in Wauseon, in which they have lived for so many years.


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WARD A. ROBINSON is a native of Wauseon, Ohio, born in 1890, the son of J. C. and Mathilda (Smith) Robinson, who owned a farm near Wauseon. He was cducated in the country school near- cst to his home, after passing through the grades of which he for two years attended the high school at Wauseon. He of course had long before that time taken some part in the minor tasks of his father's farm, and after leaving school he remained at farming occupations until he had reached the age of eighteen years, when he entered the Wauseon plant of the Van Camp Packing Company, with which company he remained for eighteen months. Then, in 1910, notwithstanding that he was still a minor, he with commend- able enterprise ventured into the business in which he has since continued, which means that he has shown himself to be a man of good business ability, for he has succeeded well in that business. His ten years of independent business have been marked by praise- worthy steadiness and stability of purpose, and by a persistent appli- cation to the labors, physical and mental, demanded by such busi- ness responsibility. That he was a man of optimism and pluck is also evident, when one knows that at the time he resolved to enter independent business he had as business capital only forty dollars. Under the circumstances his success has been quite commendable. and he may safely be classed among the worthi-while citizens of Wauseon.


Politically he has been independently inclined. At least he was during the progress of the war and he has more than once shown sincere public spirit, contributing freely to what he has considered to be worthy local undertakings.


In 1916 he married Libbie L., daughter of Jacob B. Lee, of Wauseon. They have two children, Elizabeth Ellen, and Robert L., the latter born on January 23, 1919.


FRANK S. HAM, attorney-at-law at Wauseon, is a member of a family long distinguished for the number of professional men it gave to the country, and he is a son of Judge Thomas F. and Char- lotta A. (Scudder) Ham. The stock is of English and Welsh extrac- tion, and originated when four brothers came to this country from England and located at Bethany, Pennsylvania, the grandfather of Frank S. Ham. John C. Ham, being one of them. Frank S. Ham has two brothers and one sister.


After attending the public and normal schools at Wauseon, Frank S. Ham studicd law by himself, and, passing his examinations was admitted to the bar in 1905, having an incentive in his work in his father's example. After being admitted to practice in the State and Federal Courts Mr. Ham began specializing in corporation law, and is now the attorney for five railroads, the New York Central, the Wabash, the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton, Toledo & Indiana, and the


Toledo & Western. While he is considered an authority on cor- poration and railroad law, Mr. Ham is equally qualified for criminal practice and became famous for his work as special attorney for the state in the celebrated first degree murder case of Fred Leyman. Mr. Ham prepared the case. the trial of which consumed five weeks, and secured a conviction. It is safe to declare that Mr. Ham is easily the leading attorney of Fulton county, and his services are often re- quested in cases of state and national importance. As a relaxation from his professional duties Mr. Ham owns and supervises a mag- nificent farm of 320 acres in Swan Creek township.


In 1889 Mr. Ham was united in marriage with Clementine Mat-


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Frank Staw


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Residence of Frank S. Ham, Wauseon, Ohio. Mr. IIam and his son, Charles F., now deceased, appear in foreground.


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tison, a daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Frazier) Mattison, and they had three children, namely: Joseph Mattison, who was born in 1891, is married and lives at Wauseon; Margaret H., who is Mrs. McDer- mott, of Wauseon, and Thomas Howard, who was born in 1897. Mrs. Ham died in 1898. Mr. Ham married for his second wife, Alice E. Ilinkle, also deceased, a daughter of Charles and Lydia Hinkle.


In politics Mr. Ham is a republican, but in 1915 he was selected as the independent, non-partisan candidate for the office of judge, and ran a close second against the organization candidate. Having always been a close student of English literature, Mr. Ham has de- veloped into a pleasing writer of both prose and poetry, and a force- ful speaker, and is in great demand as an orator on occasions of moment. During the late war he rendered very effective service as one of the speakers on the Liberty Loan and war work contributions, and belonged to the National Bureau of Speakers for Ohio and Pennsylvania. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows and Maccabees of Wauseon.


Mr. Ham never makes any argument in court without displaying his habits of thinking, resorting at once to some well founded prin- ciples of law, and drawing his deductions logically from his premises. Law is always treated by him as a science, founded on established principles. He has risen to his present height in his profession by his profound penetration, his power of analysis, the comprehensive grasp and strength of his understanding, and the firmness, frank- ness and integrity of his character. Mr. Ham has an overwhelming share of the corporation law business of this part of the state, and deservedly so. No one who has ever heard him present his case can fail to be impressed with the reasoning powers, the intensity and sagacity with which he pursued his investigations, his piercing criti- cisms, his masterly analysis, and the energy and fervor of his appeals to the judgment and conscience of the tribunal he was addressing.


His studies and researches have made Mr. Ham a profound be- liever in the liberties of the people being steadfastly upheld, and he has always shown himself to be one of the most enlightened, intrepid and preserving friends to the commercial prosperity of the country. His interests are many and varied, his enthusiasms unbounded, and he is a man who always carries out successfully anything he under- takes. His connection with any movement insures its ultimate satis- factory termniation, and he is recognized as one of the strongest factors in public affairs in this part of Ohio.


It is an axiom of his that nature is man's best and most indul- gent friend; and, for what little may be, even grudgingly, given her, she in return gives lavishly of rare gifts of beauty and splendor -- pleasing to the eye-restful to the soul -- and lulling into peaceful repose the tired mind.


He is an ardent lover of both rod and gun, and his home (shown on an adjoining page) is occupying a site on one of Wauseon's prin- cipal streets, yet is surrounded by spacious grounds abounding with fruits, berries and flowering plants and shrubs. He speaks of shrubs, peonics, roses, etc., in terms of hundreds, and of bulbous plants (tulips, etc.), in thousands. His peony garden is one of the largest private plantings in this section.




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