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 66
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Mr. Domitio is a stauneh republiean, and has given unwaver- ing support to that party since entitled to a vote. And in the local
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affairs he has taken close interest, although he has never shown any desire to seek public office. He is a devout Catholic.
In July, 1882, in Toledo, he married Mary Neidhardt, of To- ledo, who has borne him three children: Mary, who married Schuy- ler Sullinger, of Wauseon, and has one child, a son, William; Eleanor, who married Charles Gerringer, of Wauseon, and has one child, her son Richard; Joseph Casper, who was born in Wauseon, Ohio, in 1896, was educated in the public schools of the place, and eventually graduated from the Wauseon High School in the class of 1914. He intended to enter into business association with his father, and with that object began to work in the store soon after he had graduated, and he had gained a good knowledge of the business during the next few years. In 1917, however, when the nation became involved in the European war, young Domitio was one of the first of Wauseon's young men to volunteer for military service. He enlisted in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army on May 2, 1917, at Toledo, Ohio, and was sent to Washington Bar- racks, District of Columbia. On August 17, 1917, his regiment was ordered to France, and was one of the first units to reach the theatre of war. Eventually young Domitio was transferred to General Headquarters, under General Nolan. He rose steadily through the grades until he had the responsibility and rank of sergeant-major to which grade he was promoted on March 25, 1918. On May 1, 1919, he was still at Chaumont, France, attached to the General Headquarters of General Pershing; and he was among the last American troops, with the exception of odd details and the Army of Occupation, to leave France. He and his friend, Le Roy Donat, were the two first boys to leave Fulton county for the military serv- ice after the outbreak of the war and the two first to land in France, and he was one of the last to return-a creditable record. In April, 1920, he married Nola Strayer, of Wanseon, and they now make their home in Toledo. ยท
OTTO RICE represents the young and progressive element in Ful- ton county's agricultural citizenship. He is living on part of the farm where he was born in Gorham Township, and in recent years has gone in for the diversified farming, which has proved the most profitable for this section of country. He is a dairyman, chicken raiser and general farmer.
Mr. Rice was born in section 22 of Gorham Township June 20, 1887, a son of Oscar and Minnie (Boger) Rice. His father was born in Gorham Township, where the Rice family were early set- tlers. His parents were Milo and Lydia Rice. The mother was born at the little village of Hamburg, near Sharon, in western Pennsylvania. Oscar Rice after his marriage located on 1541% acres in sections 22 and 23 of Gorham Township. He was a good farmer in his generation, kept up his improvements, and owned good live- stock. and interested himself in the welfare of the community. He died in 1896, respected and honored, and was survived by his widow until February 22, 1912. They had two sons, Ellis and Otto, the former a resident of Jackson, Michigan.
Otto Rice married on March 22, 1911. Julia Shaffer. She was born in Gorham Township March 19, 1894, daughter of George and Bertha (Randall) Shaffer, also natives of Gorham Township. Mr. Rice acquired his education in the Handy district school, while
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Mrs. Rice attended the Hoffman district school in Gorham Town- ship.
Both were young, enterprising and ambitious, but at the time of their marriage possessed little capital. For a time they lived on the Riec farm and then rented forty acres in Gorham Township for a year. After that Mr. Rice bought eighty acres of his father's home, and his work and improvements have justified his ownership. He has laid about five hundred rods of tilc, effecting complete drain- age for his fields. He has also built 250 rods of new wire fence, has remodeled the barn and has complete equipment for a herd of twelve grade Holstein cows. He has also built a combined milk house, wood house and garage, and has a well equipped chicken house, specializing in the White Leghorn breed of chickens.
Mr. and Mrs. Rice have two children, a son, Rollen George, born March 4, 1913, and a daughter, Rena Belle, born December 11, 1919. The family attend the Methodist Church and Mr. Rice is a republican voter.
THE HIBBARD FAMILY. There is English, French, Scotch, Welsh -in fact many of the nations of Europe are represented in the blood lines of the Hibbard family in America through its relationship to the Green, Rice, Palmer, Cary, Crane, Backus, Griswold, Hill, Pren- tice, Wheeler, Wood, Rudd, Bent, Sprague, Graves, Walden, Newell and Owen families-all this line of Hibbard family ancestry having come early in the history of the New World. These families all came between the years of 1624 and 1660, and many New England and other Atlantic coast cities bear their impress today, although Massachusetts and Connecticut were the scenes of their greatest aetivities.
The founder of the House of Hibbard in America was Robert Hibbard, who came from Salisbury, England, as early as 1635, and almost two hundred years later the Hibbard family history had its beginning in Athens county, Ohio. On February 4, 1838, is the time it had its beginning in the vicinity of Spring Hill-long be- fore there was a Fulton county or a Dover Township, Spring Hill being one of the earliest frontier settlements. It was then part of Lucas county. The site of the original Hibbard homestead was called Spring Hill, and later a village sprang up around it and it was given the name of the homestead. Spring Hill is still the home of the remnant of the Hibbard family.
On June 15, 1809, occurred the birth of Mortimer Dormer Hib- bard-the head of the House of Hibbard in Fulton county. He was a son of the Rev. Elisha Hibbard. His mother, Abbie Owen. was born near Fannington. Connecticut. The young minister and his wife were living in Jefferson county, New York, at the time of the birth of their son, and when he was seven years old they rc- moved to Athens county. Ohio-the beginning of the Hibbard fam- ily history west of the Allegheny mountains. It was while growing up in Athens county that Mortimer D. Hibbard met Mary Rice Green. She was born there June 25. 1809. a frontier maiden only ten days younger than the gallant suitor who courted and won her. She was a daughter of William Green of Malden, Massachusetts, and Deborah (Rice) Green, a native of Marlborough, Massachusetts, but she was born in Athens county.
Mr. Hibbard married Miss Green July 30, 1829, in Athens
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county, and five children, Jason R., Caroline S., Susan A. and twins, Edgar M. and Oscar S. were born there, and Edgar, dying in in- fancy was buried in Athens county. It was in the winter time, early in 1838, that the family left Athens county, traveling by wagon to seek its home in the north country. They came into this Indian inhabited wilderness upon the invitation of Ambrose Rice, an uncle to Mrs. Hibbard, who was a government surveyor in the new country. Treasured as heirlooms in the family today are the chain and compass used by him in the original survey of much of the wild land in northwestern Ohio.
The Indian trails were the only avenues of travel through the "oak openings" when, February 4, 1838, this pioneer family reached its destination in the almost totally unbroken wilderness. Conditions have changed in the cycle of the years, and the well de- veloped farmsteads of Fulton county are the result of the efforts of the pioneers, the men and the women who blazed the trail for the present day civilization in Fulton county. In her journal Mrs. Hib- bard wrote: "The country here is so level that when a fire spreads in the dry leaves and grass we can see it in an unbroken line to a great distance, uninterrupted to view except by the trunks of inter- vening trees," and here the family lived to witness the onward march of civilization.
When this pioneer father and mother and their four children were safely ensconced in their two-room log house they soon estab- lished friendly relations with the few remaining Indians, and here were born children as follows: Charles M., who lived but one year; the next child was named Charles A., and soon after the family had moved into a more commodious log house there were the following children : Francis E., Marie A., Daniel I., Ellen L. and Edward M. There were ten who reached adult years, although at the time of the interview, in 1919, only three: Marie A., Daniel I., and Ellen L., survive,
After many years of absence as educators the Misses Marie and Ellen Hibbard have again taken up their residence in Spring Hill, the environment of their early family history. Daniel I. Hibbard is a resident of Benton Harbor, Michigan. While the name Hibbard does not occur often in the Fulton county directory today, it has been inscribed many times on the imperishable granite in Spring Hill Cemetery. In this God's acre are six generations of the Hib- bard family, while there are four generations among the living in Fulton county today. The Rev. Elisha Hibbard, who had come to visit his son, died and lies buried, carrying the dead back one gen- eration in local history. It is the exception when an Ohio family looks backward farther than forward over the generations that com- prise its history. Is there another instance of it in Fulton county?
There has always been a high educational standard, there hav- ing been four generations of teachers in the Hibbard family. Miss Marie A. Hibbard was a principal for many years in the Toledo . public schools, while Miss Ellen L. Hibbard was one of the founders, the first principal and for twenty-five years a teacher in the New England Deaconess Training School, which is now the department of religious education in Boston University. Daniel I. Hibbard is a chemist and a man of varied business accomplishments and re- sources.
Members of the Hibbard family have always been identified with
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agriculture, professional and mercantile life, and in the family there has always been an inclination to literary pursuits, the mother hav- ing kept a journal through all the years of her womanhood. The daughters have drawn from it in detailing this family history today. The father was an editor and a frequent newspaper contributor, and two daughters, Caroline and Susan, were frequent writers both in verse and story. The Misses Hibbard themselves have committed many facts to paper and have prepared much copy for publication.
The politics have been republican since the organization of the party. The first local clection, August 7, 1843, was held in the home of M. D. Hibbard. Mr. Hibbard was the first auditor of Ful- ton county, and his son, Jason R. Hibbard, who succeeded him, filled the office five successive terms. The official records of the county show the handwriting of father and son in official capacity, something not duplicated in local history.
The family has always been divided in its church affiliation, and there have been many ministers in the Hibbard family ancestry. In the immediate family there have been Presbyterians, Univer- salists, Methodists and Christians, and some have supported the dif- ferent churches without having united with them. As a family they have been strong anti-slavery advocates and temperance agita- tors-always ready to espouse the question of the day when it means the weal of the community. The first temperance lecture heard in what is now Fulton county was delivered July 24, 1842, by the Rev. Elisha Hibbard in the home of his son, Mortimer D. Hibbard. In her journal of that date Mrs. Hibbard wrote: "There were about one hundred present."
At the home of the speaker, Rev. Elisha Hibbard, in Athens county there was a station on the famous Underground Railway through Ohio, and he was an apostle of reform in everything. From the days of Miles Standish of Plymouth, when John Cary served in his army, there has been a strong spirit of patriotism in evidence in the family, and the Misses Hibbard representing the family at Spring Hill today long ago established their membership in the patriotic society, the Daughters of the American Revolution, through the war records of five Revolutionary soldier ancestors. Their grand- father, the Rev. Elisha Hibbard, who lies buried at Spring Hill, was a soldier in the second war with England, and while there was no family representation in the Mexican war, Mortimer D. Hib- bard, who was past the age for active service in the Civil war, qual- ified in the Quartermasters' Department at Lexington, Kentucky, and thus he had his part in the great conflict between the North and the South. Two of his sons, Charles A. and Francis E., were soldiers in Company I, Sixty-seventh Ohio Volunteer Veteran In- fantry, both having served three full years and remained until the end of the war.
While none of the immediate Hibbard family served in the Spanish-American war, three grcat-grandsons of M. D. Hibbard, Christopher M. Ott, who September, 1919, was a lieutenant in the Army of Occupation on the Rhine, and Charles A. Ott, who re- ceived the necessary military training for overseas service, and Lloyd E. Hibbard, who enlisted as a marine, but was detained in camp at Paris Island off the coast of South Carolina as a coach on a rifle range because of his expert marksmanship, these young Ameri- cans all had their part in the war of the nations. While the spirit of patriotism has stirred the whole country in its different wars, there
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has been military response from each generation from the time of the Revolution down to the World war. There is no question about patriotism in the House of Hibbard in America.
In the way of genealogy the history of the Hibbard family has been given attention through its different branches and ramifica- tions, and in the library at the home of the Misses Hibbard are many volumes tracing their ancestry back through hundreds of years. While it dates back to the first half of the seventeenth cen- tury in the New World, it runs much further into the past in Welsh, Scotch, English and French history. The name Hibbard will go down in history in connection with the development of Ful- ton county as well as in the annals of other communities.
CLARK A. ROBINSON. There are few farmers of southern Ful- ton county who have met with more encouraging success here than Clark A. Robinson, one of those strong, sturdy characters who has contributed largely to the material welfare of the community and township in which he resides, being a modern agriculturist and progressive in all that the term implies.
Clark A. Robinson, who operates a fine old farm of 110 acres. in Clinton Township, was born near his present farm on January 10, 1877, and is the son of George W. and Sarah (Edington) Robin- son, through whom he inherits sterling old Yankee blood. His paternal grandfather, George W. Robinson, lived and died in Wayne county, Ohio. George W. Robinson, the father, came to Fulton county from Wayne county and settled on the present home- stead, where he created a fine farm and established a home, and has resided ever since. He is now seventy-seven years old and is living retired. He has also been successful as an agriculturist and is held in high repute in his community.
The subject of this sketch attended the schools of Clinton Center until nineteen years of age, after which he followed agricultural pursuits on his own account, renting several farms during the sub- sequent years up to 1913, when he took charge of the maternal farmstead and now farms the Robinson home place as well as the Edington homestead. He carries on general farming operations, in which he exercises sound judgment and excellent discrimination and enjoys the reputation of being thoroughly up-to-date and pro- gressive in all his work.
In 1899 Mr. Robinson was married to Chloe E. Walters, a daughter of George W. and Ruth (Fieldmire) Walters, of Tedrow, and their union resulted in the birth of six children, namely: Homer Lisle, George W., Opal Gertrude, Mary Aline, Clark Eu- gene and Edward Dale.
Mr. Robinson has always given his support to the republican party and has been an active worker in the party ranks, having served as a member of the county committee from Clinton Town- ship. Fraternally he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Knights of Pythias. A man of generous impulses and genial disposition, Mr. Robinson easily makes friends and en- joys the confidence and regard of all who know him.
HARMON AND GEORGE VAN PELT, brothers and joint owners and operators of a good farming property of 130 acres in Clinton Town- ship of Fulton county, Ohio, are well-known Fulton county men, representative of the more responsible of Fulton county agricultur-
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ists. They are the sons of Jacob and Matilda (Kline) Van Pelt, and belong to a family which has had honorable record in Ohio for three generations, and national record through their father, who was a veteran of the Civil war.
The Van Pelt family is of German origin, but has been in the United States for many generations, colonial records of the State of Pennsylvania authenticating the settlement of the family in that state in early colonial days. Jacob Van Pelt, grandfather of Har- mon and George, however, was the first of the family to enter Ohio, he being among the early settlers of Freedom Township, Henry county, where he and his son cleared an extensive acreage of timber land. His son Jacob, father of Harmon and George, grew to man- hood in Freedom Township, and comes into notable record through his personal services to the nation and the Union as a soldier dur- ing the Civil war. He was a man of strong characteristics and manly personality, and was much respected in his home district. Apart from his war service he spent his life almost wholly in Henry county, and for the greater part of his life farmed industriously and with good success. Hc died in 1907, and his obsequies were marked by ceremonies which emphasized the respect in which he was held by the residents of Freedom Township, and by his Civil war com- rades.
Harmon and George Van Pelt, sons of Jacob and Matilda (Kline) Van Pelt, were both born in Freedom Township, Henry county, and attended the district schools of that township until about sixteen years of age; and both after leaving school took active part in the tilling of the home farm. In 1900 their birthplace was sold, and the brothers then came into Fulton county and purchased the farm of 130 acres in Clinton Township upon which they have since lived. They have proved themselves to be men of responsibility, worthy character, and commendable public spirit. They have by industriousness and enterprise had good returns season by season from the cultivation of their farm, and have never shirked the labors in connection therewith. Their farming has been of the general character, and they have entered somewhat extensively into stock raising. Also they have been apt in adopting to good advantage many of the modern methods of scientific farming. They are hold- ing their property in first-class condition, and have much improved it since they first entered into possession. Politically both are re- publican in allegiance, although neither has very actively concerned himself with politics. They of course follow local public movements with interest, but they have never had any inclination to follow national politics with a view to office. They have preferred to re- main industrious, hard-working and honest-thinking citizens and producers. And they have probably given better service to their home district and to the nation in that capacity. They certainly did during the strenuous years of the war, when world famine placed such reliance upon American farmers for foodstuffs.
Harmon Van Pelt married April 11, 1903, Martha, daughter of Henry and Lavine (Lenhart) Berner, of York Township, Ful- ton county. They have one child, James Parmenton. The brothers have very many friends in Clinton Township, and are generally well- regarded.
CORTLAND ANDREW KNAPP, a retired farmer, an esteemed and public-spirited resident of Delta, and active in many phases of pub-
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lic affairs in Fulton county, Ohio, has a good record of successful enterprise and helpful and unselfish public service. He has mani- fested much capability in public office, and marked ability as an organizer. He is the president of the Fulton County Farm Bureau, and its success may be attributed in great measure to his enthusiastic, onerous and effective organizing labors during its uncertain early days. Mr. Knapp has an enviable reputation both in private and public life. He is a consistent and earnest church worker, an elder of the local church of the Presbyterian denomination.
Cortland A. Knapp was born in Wellington, Lorain county, Ohio, December 13, 1862, the son of Orson A. and Mary (Hocomb) Knapp, the former having been born in Rochester, Lorain county, Ohio, and the latter near Lodi, Medina county, Ohio. The Knapp family is one of the colonial American families, and in early gen- erations lived in West Webster of New York State. The grand- parents of Cortland A. Knapp, John and Mary (Welcher) Knapp, were born in New York State, but were early settlers in Lorain county, Ohio, where John Knapp acquired a tract of land and lived a pioneering life. Their son Orson was reared in Lorain county, and there he married, soon afterward enlisting in the Eighth Ohio Light Artillery. He was one of those patriots who made the su- preme sacrifice for their country during the Civil war. He was wounded and placed in a field hospital at Bridgeport, Alabama, where he succumbed to his wounds. The only child of Orson A. and Mary (Hocomb) Knapp was Cortland A., who was only six years old when his mother married again. Her second husband was Herman Miller, who brought the boy and his mother to Delta, Fulton county, after the marriage, and from that time forward Cortland A. Knapp has lived in Fulton county. His stepfather had a farm near Delta, and provided a comfortable home for his stepson, who was given a good education. He attended the elemen- tary and high schools of Delta, later attending the Northwestern Ohio University at Ada, Ohio. He was a school teacher at the age of eighteen years, and when twenty-one years old, in 1883, bought the home farm in York Township, a place of seventy-seven acres upon which much virgin timber stood, and upon much of the sup- posedly cleared land of which stood the tree stumps, the farm there- fore being not an casy one to work. Young Knapp was a man of strong purpose. and had much of the spirit of the pioneer, and in course of time he cleared the farm of all timber as well as of the stumps, thereafter having a property that paid well for cultivating. By skilful farming and persistent application to what labor it en- tailed Mr. Knapp prospered well, and was able to build substantial, modern buildings. He resided on the farm, and showed much enterprise in his farming, maintaining a large dairy and entering extensively into cattle and hog raising. In 1911 he retired front farming and moved into Delta, where he bought a fine residence, with most of the modern conveniences that add to residential com- fort, and some conveniences that are unusual, if not unique. The illuminant in Mr. Knapp's house is clectricity, but he could have gas if he wished, obtaining the supply from his own well upon the property ; as a matter of fact, his gas well supplies him with all that is needed for heating purposes. He still owns the farming property of ninety-eight acres, and also some residential property in the City of Wauseon, but for practically the last decade he has not actively followed farining, having placed his farm in charge of liis son. So
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that he has been free to give much of his time to public affairs. He has given especially good service to the Department of Agri- culture and to the Fulton county agriculturists by his skilled han- dling of the early organization work of the Fulton County Farm Bureau, of which he was president. It will be generally conceded that the standing of the bureau today has been mainly because of the indefatigable persistence of Mr. Knapp in his advocacy of its value to the agriculturists of the county. And during the recent war Mr. Knapp did much useful patriotic work in furthering the cause of the government and the wish of the administration that American farmers should strain every nerve to bring about an abnormal yield of foodstuffs to defeat the threatened exhaustion of allied peoples through famine, which was the natural outcome of the long period of devastating warfare, with its drain upon the manpower which nor- mally would be exerted in the tilling of the soil. The part played by the farmers of America in the final victorious ending of the war is generally known and has a definite place of honor in national annals; and it was brought about by the efforts of such an organiza- tion as that of which Mr. Knapp was the president during the period of national stress. He also entered whole-heartedly into the various drives to ensure the adequate subscription of the war funds.
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