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 70

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 70


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In 1863 Mr. Hill re-enlisted again, this time in Company F of the Fighty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and February 13, 1864, he was discharged and immediately re-enlisted in the Sixth Ohio


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Cavalry at Petersburg, Virginia, receiving his final discharge June 27, 1865, when the northern army was disbanded and the soldiers returned to their homes. In October of that year Mr. Hill went to Tuscola county, Michigan, and followed the lumber woods for a time. For twelve years he was stationary engineer in a saw and planing mill, and then for a time he worked in a butcher shop in Cass City, Michigan. In 1891, Mr. Hill returned to Delta, where he worked for several firms as a butcher.


Since 1915 Mr. Hill has lived retired from active business in the old homestead in Delta, where his mother located in 1859. In July, 1865, Mr. Hill married Salma Alwood, of Pike Township, a daugh- ter of E. K. and Betsey (Saulsbury) Alwood, the father from Mary- land and the mother from Pennsylvania. Mrs. Hill died May 20, 1891, in Michigan.


The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Hill are: Charles, of Toledo; Ida, wife of Fred Sherwood, of Toledo; Mary, deceased, was the wife of William Wright; William, deceased, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Emma Hill, of Cleveland, Ohio; Minnie, wife of Elmer Royer; Edith, wife of Mr. McClure; Nellie, wife of Frank Pierce; all of Toledo. Eliza, a sister of Mr. Hill, lived with her mother in the family homestead in Delta, and now she is the homemaker for her brother there.


With his military history Mr. Hill would not think of remain- ing out side the social influences of a Grand Army Post. While in Michigan he was a member of Milo Warner Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and now he is in the McQuillin Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of Delta. While in the Michigan post he was officer of the day.


ARTHUR G. SIEGEL, a successful and respected farmer of Ger- man Township, Fulton county, Ohio, comes of one of the pioneer families of the county, notwithstanding that he, himself, was born in Kansas. His grandfather settled in German Township almost seventy years ago, the township at that time being in its first stage of development.


He was born in Larned, Kansas, in 1884, the son of Daniel W. and Anna (Roth) Siegel, a woman remarkable for her great mem- ory and grandson of Jacob and Catherine (Nofzinger) Siegel. The family was originally from Bavaria, Jacob Siegel having been born in that country. He did not immigrate until some years after he had married; in fact some of his children were also born in Bavaria, although Daniel W., son of Jacob and Catherine (Nofzinger) Siegel, and father of Arthur G., was born in 1847 in Wayne county, Ohio, his parents having at that time been resident in Wayne county for three years. In 1852 Jacob Siegel took his family through the wilderness from Wayne county into Fulton county, settling in Ger- man Township, where he acquired 160 acres of uncleared land, and in the clearing of that holding he spent the remainder of his life. Their son Daniel W. was given the best possible education, although facilities were somewhat primitive in the country schools of that section in his boyhood. He attended the country school nearest to his parents' farm during the winter term each year, and during the summers was wont to spend most of his time in the execution of various minor tasks upon the home farm. After passing through the grades of the elementary school he entered the high school at Wauseon, and he was twenty-one years old before he closed his


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schooling altogether and took wholly to farming oeeupations in asso- eiation with his father. For three years he remained at home, and for the next five years farmed independently. Then he married, and soon afterward moved to Larned, Kansas, where he homesteaded 160 acres, and purehased a further like acreage from the Santa Fe Railway Company, owning in all 320 acres. There he lived for nine years, growing each year mueh wheat, but at the end of his ninth season in Kansas he sold his holding and brought his family back to Ohio and to Fulton county. He purchased a good farm of eighty-six acres, situated partly within the bounds of the borough of Arehbold, in 1885, and later acquired a further forty acres that adjoined his property. He now owns 100 acres, and has had good success in general farming. He is a man of industrious inelina- tion, has always been responsible, and is well-regarded in the town- ship generally. Politieally Mr. Daniel W. Siegel is a republican. He is a member of the Archbold Encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a good ehurehman, a Methodist by convietion and a member and good supporter of the Archbold Methodist Episcopal Church. Of the five children born to Daniel W. and Anna (Roth) Siegel, four are still living. They are: Carrie C., who married John B. Theobald, of Bryan, Williams county, Ohio; Catherine, who married C. E. Hyatt, of Stryker, Williams county, Ohio and is the mother of one child, their daughter, Mae; Arthur Garfield, of whom more follows; and Mrs. E. A. Beuhrer.


Arthur Garfield, now thirty-five years old, was only a small ehild when his parents returned to Fulton county, Ohio, from Larned, Kansas, where he was born. His life has therefore been almost wholly lived in Fulton county and in the township with the early settlement of which his family was so closely associated. In due eourse he took good part with his father in the operation of the home farm. Both he and his wife are graduates of the local high school and both spent some time teaching, Mrs. Siegel in the vil- lage school. They both take an interest in educational matters, Mrs. Siegel at present serving the Woman's Reading Club of Arch- bold as its president, while Mr. Siegel is serving his second term on the village Board of Education. He is a stanch republican.


In 1912 he married, and has since that time continued to farm industriously, and generally with good suceess. He and his wife, who was Arvah Skeels, daughter of Silas and Adelaide (Gilbert) Skeels, are the parents of two children, James Arthur, born in 1913, and Anna Adelaide, now four years old. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Siegel are members of the Archbold Methodist Episcopal Church, and both have taken active part in church work. Mr. Siegel es- pecially has shown practical interest in the moral welfare and spirit- ual guidanee of the young people of that ehureh, and for some years has been superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday School. He has the reputation of being a man of high moral character. a man whose life is governed by high standards of Christian prineiple. Fraternallv he is a Mason, a member of the Blue Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of West Unity.


HENRY BREHM, a respected resident of Franklin Township, and a successful farmer of that section of Fulton county, Ohio, was born in Whitehouse. Lucas county, Ohio, December 31, 1858, the son of Anthony and Rebecca (Fineauer) Brehm, who at that time owned a farming property in that place. Anthony Brehm was a


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native of Wurtemberg, Germany, but came to this country when a young man, settling in Toledo, Ohio. He was a mason and stone layer by trade, and he helped cut all the spiles that were driven in the water of the river for a foundation for the first depot at Toledo. He was in Toledo for four years, and then, having accumulated some capital and desiring to take up agricultural life, he rented a farm of forty acres in Whitehouse, Lucas county. There his son Henry was born, some time after which event the Brehm family removed to Franklin Township, Fulton county, Ohio, where An- thony took over as a tenant farmer the old Darby farm of 160 acres. Later he purchased a Franklin Township farm of forty acres, and upon it lived until his death.


Henry Brehm was educated in district school No. 7 of Fulton county, which was the country school nearest to his home in Frank- lin Township. He attended school until he was fourteen years old. After leaving school he was associated with his father in the opera- tion of his father's farm, but when seventeen years old hired out to neighboring farmers. In that way the next five years passed. Then he married, and the farm on which they settled was a present from his father-in-law, Jacob Kibler, upon which he still lives. His life has thus been spent almost wholly in Franklin Township, and his record throughout life has been that of a good-hearted, sincere and industrious man, of consistent Christian character and unselfish public spirit. Politically he votes for the man irrespective of party ties. In local affairs he has been ready to take his portion of the duties of the public administration, and for a while was trustee of the township, but he has not interested himself actively in National politics. During the war he proved himself to be a whole-hearted patriot, ready and eager to co-operate in the plans the national ad- ministration made for the successful prosecution of the war. And upon many occasions he has manifested a commendable public spirit.


In 1881 Henry Brehm married Emma Kibler, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Yost) Kibler. Jacob Kibler was one of the pioneers of Fulton county, one of the early settlers in German Town- ship. He was twenty years old when he came to America from Schauffhausen, Switzerland, accompanying his father and mother. They came down in an ox cart to Fulton county, through the wilder- ness from Wayne county, and settled in German Township. He was the eldest of seven children, and was more or less responsible for the welfare of the family. He was born in Switzerland on January 5, 1813, and died in German Township, Fulton county, Ohio, on December 25, 1894, being then almost eighty-two years old. His wife Elizabeth Yost died four years later, August 19, 1898. She was born in Berne, Switzerland, on May 15, 1832. Their daughter Emma, who married Henry Brehm, was the youngest of the five children, three sons and two daughters, of Jacob and Elizabeth (Yost) Kibler, and all her brothers and sisters are now deceased. Jacob Kibler was a worthy pioneer, resolute and indefatigable. Latterly he owned 320 acres of good agricultural land, all of which. he cleared himself.


L'NEAR EUGENE CARTER. The Carter family of which L'Near Eugene Carter of Amboy Township is a representative has migrated quite a little, having lived in Royalton, Amboy and Fulton Town- ships and in two different counties in Michigan, and now he is on


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The Carter family homestead of Amboy, with mail service from Delta. His parents were George and Ruth (Sprague) Carter, and the paternal grandparents were Norval and Mary L. (Bird) Carter. The grandfather Carter was a Civil war soldier from Fulton county who did not return from the battle fields of the Southland. The maternal grandparents were Alonzo and Susannah (Chase) Sprague.


When George Carter married he first settled in Amboy, and later lived in Royalton and in 1892 he bought land in Fulton Township. There were fifty acres in the farm, with forty-five acres under culti- vation. He died there July 21, 1914. Mrs. Carter died in Decem- ber 29, 1917, leaving their only son, L. E. Carter, the homestead. In March, 1904, he married Effie Gardinier, of Royalton. She is a daughter of Watson and Alice (Snyder) Gardinier. For three years they lived on rented land in Fulton, then moved to Wauseon county, Michigan. Two years later they moved to Jackson county, Michigan, remaining there three years.


When Mr. Carter returned to Fulton county he bought land near the home of his father, and since the death of his parents he has lived at the old homestead. They have one son: Wade Norval. Mr. Carter casts his ballot with the republicans.


FRANK MCQUILLIN, of "Popple Grove Farm" in Pike Town- ship, has always lived at the old family homestead. He was born there April 14, 1877, a son of John W. and Elizabeth (Dunbar) McQuillin. When he bought forty acres and then added twenty acres by purchase it gave him sufficient land for one man to culti- vate, and vet after the death of his father he bought out other heirs until he now owns a farm of eighty-four acres-Popple Grove Farm. Mr. McQuillin follows general farming, dairying and the livestock business.


On November 24, 1903, Mr. McQuillin married Viola Johnson, a daughter of John and Lucinda (Boyer) Johnson, of York Town- ship .. The father is a native of Fulton county, while the mother came from New Baltimore, Ohio. The Boyer ancestry, Henry and Elizabeth (Otto) Boyer, were Pennsylvanians. They were early settlers in York. Mrs. Johnson died July 17, 1911, and Mr. John- son lives with the McQuillins.


The McQuillin children are: Lillian May, born September 12, 1907. and died in infancy; Gerald Dale, born June 6, 1909; and Hazel Marie. born September 11, 1913. Mr. McQuillin attended Hoxie district school and his wife attended the Bradley school and the Delta High School. She was a teacher at Tough Match in York Townshin and at the Brailey school in Swan Creek Township.


Mr. McQuillin votes the republican ticket. He belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America in Delta.


SOLOMON E. LAVER, of Pike, is the son of a German immigrant, John Laver. The father was born April 12, 1833, at Hesse-Darm- stadt. He married Marv A. Alwood, of Pike Township, in Feb- ruary. 1857, her people having come in 1835. She died in 1859, and John Laver married her sister, Pauline Alwood. They were daughters of Peola Alwood.


John Laver came to the United States before he was fifteen years of age, and he located at Stamford, Connecticut. where he worked for three years in a pump factory. In 1850 he came to Ful- ton county and began working at the carpenter trade. He became a skilled workman and in 1865 he bought an eighty-acre farm, mostly


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wife of Ollie Albright, of Royalton; and Ella May and William D., at home with the parents.


Mr. Baldwin votes the republican ticket and has served the com- munity as a member of the board of education.


As the facts above related show he began life with an exceed- ingly modest capital, and while he was born in the pioneer era, he repeated many of the pioneer's experiences in his own manhood by developing a tract of heavy timber, clearing away the woods, putting the land under cultivation, and creating a farm that bears favorable comparison with any in its vicinity. It is appropriate to speak of him therefore as one of the useful men of Fulton county, and only good influences have emanated from his home.


WILLIAM STRAYER. One year after the organization of Fulton county the Strayer family story began in it with the coming of William and Elizabeth (Kring) Strayer from Pennsylvania. Their son Wiliam Strayer of Pike Township, was born April 13, 1855, and all of his life has been spent in Fulton county. There were thirteen children, ten of them living today.


In 1886 William Strayer married Augusta Dunbar, of the same community in Pike Township. She is a daughter of Boyd and Rachel Dunbar, the parents from Pennsylvania-the Strayers and Dunbars both from the Keystone state. For one year they lived on the Dunbar farm, then bought forty acres of partly improved land and remodeled the buildings on it. He added thirty acres, and aside from three acres of timber it is all under cultivation. Mr. Strayer has a Holstein dairy.


Mr. and Mrs. Strayer have one son, Arby Clay Strayer, born July 4, 1894. He married Gladys G. Bittikofer, and they have three children: Geneva May, Lola Audrey and Frances Mildred. They all live as one family at the family homestead. They are member of the Disciples Church in the community. The family vote is with the republican party.


One of the older native sons of the county, and member of one of i+ worthy pioneer families, William Strayer has so ordered his own life that it has been productive in the material sense, has served to create and build up one of the farms of which the county is proud, and in all the relations of a busy life has proved true to the standards of manhood and good citizenship.


GUY HARVEY BOGER .. While Guy Harvey Boger lives in Royal- ton he was born August 9, 1890, in Chesterfield. He is a son of George Alvin and Edith (Todd) Boger, the father a Pennsylvanian by birth and the mother a native of Chesterfield. His grandfather, David Boger, lived in Pennsylvania, while Oliver and Lucinda (Devereaux) Todd, lived in Chesterfield.


Guy Harvey Boger supplemented his common school education by graduating from the Fayette High School and from the Ohio State University at Columbus. He is a member and a deacon in the Church of Christ. He votes with the republican party and holds membership in Chesterfield Grange.


On April 15, 1914, Mr. Boger married Erma N. Dennis, a daughter of Charles and Mary (Leininger) Dennis, of Franklin Township. He at once took up his residence on a quarter section farm owned by his father in Royalton. His father died March 29, 1919, and his mother lives in Lyons. Mr. Boger operates a Holstein dairy, having twenty-five head of thoroughbred cattle.


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in the wild, and being a carpenter he could use the timber on it in improving it.


In June, 1863, Mr. Laver enlisted in Company F, Eighty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. For six months he served as commissary sergeant, and was then promoted to captain, serving as such until the end of the war. He was in a number of minor engagements, and was discharged in July, 1865, and is today a member of Mc- Quillin Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of Delta. Mr. Laver is a republican, and has served the community as township assessor, and for eighteen years as justice of the peace.


In 1880 and again in 1890 Mr. Laver was a United States census enumerator. By his first marriage Mr. Laver has one daughter, Mary, and by the second marriage the following children: Grant S., of Fulton; Solomon E., who relates the family history; Philip, of Pettysville ; John, of Pike; and Ura, who resides with Solomon and the sister Mary at the old homestead. On June 28, 1913, their father died there.


Solomon E. Laver has always lived on the farm where he was born except for short periods when he has had employment away from there. He never called any other spot his home. When he was a young man he sometimes worked out by the month. For many years he has conducted the farm, and he operates a Holstein dairy along with general farming and the livestock business. On October 23, 1908, he had the misfortune to lose his right hand in a corn shredder.


Mr. Laver has served the township as assessor nine consecutive terms, being the republican party representative. He has filled several of the chairs in Delta Knights of Pythias Lodge. He was a bond salesman in the different Liberty and Victory loans, and is a member of the American Patriotic League.


Solomon E. Laver, who was born in Pike Township December 21, 1866, is widely known not only as a successful dairy farmer, but for his usefulness in public affairs. His good citizenship in times of peace supplements the honorable record of his father as a soldier of the Civil war. His own sterling patriotism received abun' .. dant proof in the World war.


WILLIAM BALDWIN. While the life time home of William Bald- win has been in Fulton county, his parents came from Pennsyl- vania. He is a son of John and Lucy Ann (Clingerman) Baldwin, and was born in August, 1855, in Fulton Township, where the Baldwin were early settlers. However, in 1863 they removed to Amboy, where they purchased eighty acres in the timber and made it their home the remainder of their days. Their children are: Joseph, of Toledo; Levi, of Toledo; William ; Mrs. Mary Ann Tech- worth ; and John, of Amboy.


On May 26, 1885, William Baldwin married Marie Celeste Hig- ley. She is a daughter of Darius and Sabina (Johnson) Higley and was born in Huron county. They began on twenty acres in the timber, and they have cleared and added land until they now have 114 acres of well improved farm land, and there are good buildings on it.


The Baldwin children are: Jesse Earl, of Toledo; Milford Ray, of York; Gertrude Pearl, wife of William Krieger, of Fulton; Tressa May, wife of Perry F. Churchill, of Swan Creek; Ruby Etta,


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The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Boger are: Mary Elizabeth and Robert Marlin.


PETER MYERS. While Peter Myers of Amboy is a native of Ohio, his parents immigrated in 1848 from Germany. He was born in September, 1854, in Lorain county. He is a son of John and Mary Ann (Gries) Myers. They were married in Germany, and when they came to America they located at first in Cleveland. He was a blacksmith in Germany and worked at his trade for the gov- ernment in some of the wars engaging that country. He crossed the ocean to escape militarism in Germany. They were six months on their bridal journey to the United States.


The Myers family soon moved from Cleveland to Lorain county, where they secured twenty acres of land, adding to it until they had doubled the size of the farm, and in June, 1862, they sold it. Their next investment was a forty acre tract in Lenawee county, Michigan, mostly in timber, and a year later, September 17, 1863, while working on this farm, the father was struck by lightning. The wife and children remained there another year, when they sold out and bought land in Fulton county. Peter Myers grew into manhood on this farm in Amboy.


On July 4, 1875, Mr. Myers married Mary Ann Hall, who was born in Amboy, although her parents, George O. and Catharine (Cory) Hall, had come from New York to Ohio. For a time he lived in Metamora, and beginning in 1869 he carried United States mail for twelve years from Metamora to Swanton. He began farm- ing on a seven-acre tract adjoining Metamora, but some years later he sold it and bought thirty-six acres of partly improved land farther from town. He lived there from 1891 until 1908, when he sold it and bought 100 acres where he lived a short time, and then re- moved to Metamora.


Since retiring from farm activities Mr. Myers has engaged in house moving and general contracting work. He has served the community as constable, and for seventeen years he was a member of the board of education. . He has also served as road superinten- dent in Amboy. In politics he is a democrat. He is a member of the Knights of the Maccabees No. 421, Metamora, Sanders Tent, and Mrs. Myers is a member of the Lady Maccabees.


The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Myers are: Catharine Amelia, wife of Melvin Luke, of Metamora; Nellie, wife of Ernest Brewer, of Monroe county, Michigan; Jennie, wife of Fred Setzler, of Mon- roe county, Michigan; Rosa, wife of Freeman Bird, of Terre Haute, Indiana; and Clara, wife of Prof. E. W. Smith, of Columbus, Ohio.


Left fatherless at the age of nine years, Peter Myers had to do a man's work in the tender years of boyhood. He has performed his task well, as his neighbors and friends abundantly testify. Along with sound industry he has always exercised a high degree of busi- ness ability, and his record shows an increasing degree of prosperity with successive years. No one is more deeply interested and more willing to do his share in work that is connected with the welfare of the entire community.


EUGENE CARPENTER. While his ancestry came from Michigan and New Jersey, Eugene Carpenter, of Royalton, is a native of Ful- ton county, having been born June 11, 1853-three years after the


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family came to Fulton county. His father, Andrew Jackson Car- penter, came front Michigan. His mother, Anna E. (Stretch) Car- penter, was a New Jersey woman. The Michigan home of the Car- penters was at Carpenter Hill, near Adrian, and Eugene Carpenter's parents married there. Samuel Carpenter was his grandfather. The maternal grandparents, John and Elizabeth (Lippincott) Stretch, were later residents of Adrian.


When Eugene Carpenter was a young boy he worked on a farm, and has always been a farmer. At the age of sixteen he hired out by the month, and later he started farming on his own aceount, and for many years he was a breeder of race horse stock. That was be- fore there were any Fords in Fulton county. Mr. Carpenter raised beef cattle and butchered and sold the product on the Toledo market and on other markets. He was well known as a butcher and live- stock dealer.


Mr. Carpenter owned property in Lyons, and in 1878 he bought an eighty-acre farm in Pike Township. Five years later he sold it and bought forty acres one mile north of Lyons, some of the land across the line in Michigan. He owned this land ten years and sold it, buying 130 acres of partly cleared and improved land one mile east from Lyons. In 1905 he changed his investment again, this time taking over a farm of 210 aeres in Royalton. He has cleared all of it, and it is all under cultivation. Twee Mr. Car- penter has suffered loss by fire, and the result has been modern farm barns replacing those destroyed, and splendid farm buildings are the result.




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