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 76

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 76


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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MARY AGNES HOWARD MCCLARREN, of Winameg, one of the associates and advisory editors of the History of Fulton County, belongs to one of the oldest and most prominent families in north- western Ohio. Her father was the late Dresden Howard, who was descended from Thomas Howard of Scotch and English ancestry. He had an ordinary education in the schools of his time, was a farmer in Yates county, New York, and during the war for inde- pendence served with the American colonists. Late in life, in 1821, he came to the Maumee Valley of Ohio with his five sons, and died


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in 1825. Thomas Howard married Elizabeth Armstrong, who was of Irish descent. She was born January 16, 1761, and was married in Mifflin, Pennsylvania, March 17, 1783. She died at Benton, Yates county, New York, September 17, 1810.


One of their five sons was Edward Howard, who was born in Yates county, New York, November 10, 1787. In Yates county on December 31, 1816, he married Nancy Height, of Scoteh-Irish stock. Edward Howard served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and grew up with only the ordinary education of his generation. He accompanied other members of the Howard family to north- western Ohio in 1821 and settled at Grand Rapids in Wood county. He developed some land, was a practical farmer, and for many years as a hotel keeper had the only house of public entertainment between Toledo and Fort Wayne. He died in February, 1841.


The late Dresden Winfield Huston Howard, son of Edward and Nancy (Haight) Howard and father of Mrs. McClarren, was born in Yates county, New York, November 3, 1817, and was three years of age when brought to northern Ohio, where for years he figured conspicuously in the development of that section from wilderness conditions. He knew the country when its principal inhabitants were Indians. He became adept in all the variations of a frontier existence, skilled in woodcraft, and inured to hardships and dangers. Many of the interesting incidents of his career are to be found in Howe's History of Ohio in Vol. I. He grew up with his father on the farm, and in boyhood the Indians were his associates and play- mates. He had a great influence with the red men, and one of the first important missions he ever filled was in 1833, when at the age of sixteen he was appointed to assist the government forces in remov- ing the Indians from northwestern Ohio. Subsequently he spent a number of years on the Upper Missouri River in the service of the government at Indian posts. On the death of his father in 1841 he returned to Ohio and the following year, December 2, 1842, at Monroe, Michigan, he married Mary Blackwood Copeland, a woman of strong character and unusual intelligence, of Scotch-Irish descent, who had all the courage and bravery required of the pioneer women of those days. She was born in Seneca county, New York, May 4, 1824, being the second daughter of William Copeland and Hannah Sterrett. In 1852 Dresden Howard and wife moved out to Allamakee county, Iowa, where as pioneers they established a new home. The inheritance in Ohio brought them back in 1852 and Dresden Howard was engaged in farming and wool growing and subsequently for many years filled a position of influence and leadership in his community. He held many offices and trusts and gave his assistance to numerous enterprises of a business nature. During the Civil War he was appointed by Governor Dennison a member of the State Military Board, and was retained on that Board through the administrations of Governors Tod and Brough. He was one of the original republicans and long prominent in the party. He was elector from the Tenth Ohio District in 1860, and in that capacity helped choose Lincoln for the first term. Four years later he was a delegate at the Baltimore Convention which nomi- nate Lincoln for a second term. 1878 he was elected a member of the State Board of Equalization and in the fall of 1871 was chosen to the State Senate, where he represented his constituents with a high degree of usefulness. He was president of the Toledo and Grand Rapids Railroad, an ambitious railway project which he hoped to


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see built into the eapital of Mexico. Altogether the late Dresden Howard was a man of strong eharacter, broad-minded and benevolent toward all men. He sleeps with his beloved wife by his side beneath the great trees his hands planted. The rustling of the leaves, the song of the birds he loved are his requiem.


Dresden Howard and wife had two children. The son, Oseola E. M., is now a resident of San Diego, California. The only daughter is Mary Agnes.


Mary Agnes Howard was born February 17, 1861, graduated from the County High School, and has given her best years to the duties and responsibilities of a farmer's wife. She and her husband live on the beautiful inherited Howard farm in Fulton county at Winameg. She was married in Winameg, April 27, 1893, to Wil- liam Byron McClarren, second son of William and Rebeeca Alwood MeClarren, pioneers of Fulton county. Mrs. MeClarren is a member of the Congregational Church, belongs to the Daughters of the American Revolution, and in politics is a republiean and through the privilege of woman's suffrage will give her vote to Warren G. Harding in November, 1920.


Mr. and Mrs. McClarren are the parents of five children : Dres- den William Howard, the oldest, was born May 5, 1895, graduated from high school, is a farmer by occupation, and was a soldier in the World War. December 25, 1919, he married Norma Whiteman. The second in the family, Mary Rebeeca, was born May 7, 1897, after leaving high school finished her education in Wooster College, Ohio, and on December 5, 1917, became the wife of William F. Bruee, an agricultural teacher at Columbus. Robert Lowell McClarren, born February 7, 1899, graduated from high sehool, at- tended the Ohio State University, and was a member of the Students Army Training Corps, though mueh to his disappointment was never privileged to go to the front. Richard Monroe, the third son, was born Deeember 3, 1900, and is now a student in the Ohio State University. Bruce Kenneth, the youngest, was born September 30, 1904, and is a pupil in the Wauseon High School. All the children were born on the old homestead at Winameg.


WILLIAM O'NEIL. The name O'Neil at once suggests Ireland. While William O'Neil of Amboy was born May 11, 1872, in Royal- ton, his parents, Thomas and Mary (Brady) O'Neil, were Irish emigrants, although they met and were married in Buffalo. Later they located on a farm in Royalton. She died there August 11, 1896, while he died in November, seven years later. Their ehildren are: James, of Metamora; John, deeeased; Thomas and Michael, of Amboy; Martin, of Royalton; William, who relates the family story; and Maggie and Ella, who died in infancy.


On February 9, 1893, William O'Neil was united in the holy bonds of matrimony with Catherine Mossing. She was born Novem- ber 20, 1873, in Germany. She is a daughter of Jaeob and Mary (Gillan) Mossing, who emigrated to the United States when she was a babe and they located on a farm in Amboy. After their marriage William O'Neil purchased land in Royalton, but in April, 1903, he sold it and bought a farm in Amboy. He has 120 aeres of well improved land, although part of it was in the brush when he bought it.


Mr. O'Neil built a house and added other improvements from time to time. He tiled and fenced the land and it is now practically


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all under cultivation. He is the man to make two blades of grass grow where there was one. He is a democrat and a member of the Catholic Church in Caraghar, Ohio. The children are: Martin, of Royalton; John, of Royalton; Edward, Lawrence and Anna, at home.


GEORGE REIGHARD, father of Mr. Frank Reighard, supervising editor of the Fulton County History, is a native son of Fulton county, born here nearly seventy-five years ago, and is still doing a day's work in season on his farm in Swan Creek Township.


He was born November 24, 1846, in York Township, son of Jacob and Rebecca (Crile) Reighard. His parents were Pennsyl- vanians and pioneer settlers of Fulton county.


George Reighard attended the district schools and made good use of such advantages of learning as were available to a boy in Fulton county sixty years ago. He married when he was about twenty years of age and thereafter lived for some years with his parents. The first land he owned was forty acres, fifteen acres cleared and improved. Eventually he bought other land until his old homestead, known as the Maple Drive Farm, contains ninety- six acres, all under cultivation. Mr. George Reighard lived there until the spring of 1909, when he turned the farm over to his daughter, Mrs. Roscoe Dunbar, and then moved to an adjoining place of twenty-five acres where he and his wife enjoy the comforts of a good home and the friendship and neighbors of their old com- . munity.


April 9, 1866, Mr. Reighard married Elizabeth Elton, who was born in England, September 1, 1848. Her parents, Thomas and Jane (Young) Elton, came to this country in 1857, and for seven years lived on a farm in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and then moved to Swan Creek Township in Fulton county. Her father first bought forty acres and later another forty acres, and died on the home farm in 1889. Mr. Reighard's mother died in 1862. The oldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. George Reighard is Frank Reighard, of Wauseon. Adelbert, who died in the fall of 1909, left a wife and one daughter, Grace, of Delta. Sophia is Mrs. Delmore Gill of Swan Creek Township and has two daughters, Gertrude and Georgia. Royal, of Swan Creek Township, married Sophia de LaMar, and their family consists of Alfred and Orlyss. Bert, a resident of Swan Creek, married Maud Gill, and has three children, Clairmond, Mary and Marguerite. Florence is the wife of Roscoe Dunbar, now living on the old Reighard homestead, and their children are Adel- bert, Dale, Glenn and Amy.


George Reighard is a member of the Church to Come and Church of Abrahamic Faith. He is now health officer in his town- ship and in former years held positions of trustee and school director. He is a republican voter. He has lived his whole life within a mile and a half of his birthplace.


FRANK H. REIGHARD, editor of the Wauseon "Republican," and of this historical work, was born near Delta, in Swan Creek Township, October 8, 1867. .


In his youth, he attended the country schools of Swan Creek Township, and when sixteen years old entered the Fayette Normal University, at Fayette, Gorham Township. He was only seventeen years old when he entered professional life, in 1885, becoming a


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teacher in one of the district schools of Swan Creek. The next ten years were busy ones for him, but, withal, happily passed. Not- withstanding that that decade of his life was probably the most strenuous, in mental strain, and contained little of what are gener- ally looked upon as the pleasures of life, Mr. Reighard looks back upon that period as among his happiest. The years were filled with accomplishment; were passed in the development of a definite pur- pose, pursued to consummation. When, at seventeen, he began to teach, he had resolved to properly fit himself for his profession by taking a college course, and had resolved to do so upon his own resources. He could count upon only one financial resource-his slender earnings as a school teacher; but the fact that he graduated seven years later, from the Ohio Northern University, at Ada, Ohio, and, later, spent two years at the University of Wooster, Ohio, gives some indication of his strength of purpose. His plan, indeed his necessity, during these years was to keep "digging in" at teaching (and incidentally when at home, to give his father what help he could in the working of the home farm), and with the proceeds of his term of teaching cover the cost of a period at college. When funds were exhausted, he would return home; would resume teach- ing again for a while; and then, with replenished exchequer, would again take up the college course. So, the years passed, something being accomplished each year. Mr. Reighard feels that to his good right-thinking and simple-living mother he owes his ability to pursue the right purpose through, despite discouragements and temptations, to the end he and she had planned. Her love and care, in moulding his thoughts through the period when a boy is most susceptible to good or evil, developed in him the strength he needed to successfully adhere to the, at times uninviting, purpose during the ten years from 1885. The possession of a good mother is the greatest blessing a spirited boy could have.


In 1894, Mr. Reighard married Florence M. Tischer, of Wauseon. Two children have been born to them: Helen, in 1898, she, however, dying in infancy; and Frank, Jr., who was born in 1907.


Mrs. Reighard was born in Medina county, Ohio, in 1867. She came to Wauseon in 1876, with her parents, William and Helen (Holb) Tischer, who were quiet, careful, hard-working people, of German antecedents, and at their decease, Mrs. Reighard inherited some property they had acquired in Wauseon during their residence in it. Mrs. Reighard received the greater part of her education in Wauseon schools, eventually graduating from the High School. She takes good part in many of the public activities of Wauseon, and belongs to several women's organizations, including the Eastern Star, of the Masonic Order, and the Women's and Shakespeare Clubs, of Wauseon. She is also secretary of the Women's Republi- can Association of Wauseon.


In 1895 Mr. Reighard was prevailed upon to stand for election to county office. He became county surveyor in that year, and was re-elected, serving until August, 1902. On January 1, 1903, he entered the newspaper field, becoming editor and publisher of the Fulton County "Tribune." His service to the people of the county, in this capacity, brought him election to the State Legislature, in 1912. He was State Representative for Fulton county for three successive terms, which by the way is noteworthy, for no other Ful- ton county man has had three successive terms, as representative.


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His legislative record, also, has creditable place in state annals. Especially as chairman of the House Finance Committee, were his services of value to the state. In addition, while a legislator, he was a member of the State Emergency and Controlling Boards, in 1915 and 1917; and in the later year was selected as Republican Floor Leader of the House of Representatives, a clear indication of his standing and popularity among his fellow legislators.


In 1917 he purchased the Wauscon "Republican," to the build- ing up of which he has since applied himself, with marked success. As a circulation builder he seems particularly gifted, that result coming mainly from his instinctive, almost sub-conscious. realiza- tion that the newspaper belongs to the people, and that it is his duty to convey to the people all the news that assiduous attention to its gathering and preparation will enable him to provide. His writings have also carried the impression that he is sincerely one of the people, and that he has, in particular, a lasting respect for all those of the early residents who have had part in the pioneer work within Fulton county.


During the World War, the pages of his newspaper were ever at the disposal of all workers in the great national effort; he endeav- ored to do justly by the boys who went away. and, in their absence, to further all helpful war purposes; he gave much of his time to executive work in connection with the various war activities; was secretary of the Y. M. C. A. Campaign Fund, in 1918; was mem- ber of the county executive of the Liberty Loan Committee; and member of the executive committees of the County War Chest and Red Cross bodies.


He is affiliated with several fraternal orders. including the Masonic, York and Scottish rites, the Knights of Pythias, and Odd- fellows. Mr. Reighard has a host of friends, which possession testi- fies to his general character. Friendship is short-lived if it is not reciprocal; a selfish man, even though brilliant, will be able to count few his genuine friends.


The writer has not known Mr. Reighard long. but believes he has rightly read his character. In any case, Mr. Reighard's public record is, in itself, ample to indicate that he has served his home county well. No laudatory remarks are necessary. As before stated, his happiest recollection is of his ten years as teacher; he is gratified to realize how successful in life many Fulton county men, who once were his pupils, have been. And he hopes, as the years pass, to be able to look back upon this present county labor of his-the editing of this historical work-as not the least worthy of his efforts for the people of the county. He has given close attention and care to the editing, and knows that he is placing into permanent county record, in a medium readily accessible to the people, much valuable and hitherto unrecorded data of historical import to the present generation. and to the posterity of Fulton county.


JACOB BECHSTEIN. Having spent all of his mature years in general farming and stock raising industries, Jacob Bechstein of Swan Creek Township is an authority on agricultural matters. He was born in his present township in October, 1872, a son of Jacob and Anna (Goodloch) Bechstein. natives of Germany, who came at different times, to the United States and located in Erie county, Ohio, where they became acquainted and were married. In 1856 they came to Fulton county and bought eighty acres of unimproved


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timberland in Swan Creek Township, which they developed into a valuable farm, and also became the owners of another eighty-acre farm. Their children were as follows: Henry, who is a farmer of Swan Creek Township; Ida, who is Mrs. John Reiber of Wood county, Ohio; Mary, who is Mrs. John Evans of Swan Creek Town- ship; John, who is a resident of Delta, Ohio; Anna, who is Mrs. Henry Wenig of Wood county, Ohio; Lucy, who is Mrs. Edward Smith of Wood county. Ohio; Jacob, whose name heads this review ; and Altha, who is Mrs. Martin Andrews of Swan Creek Township.


Growing up in his native township, Jacob Bechstein learned to be a practical farmer while he was attending the district schools and in them securing a knowledge of the fundamentals of an education. In October, 1897, he was married to Clara Havens, born in Pike Township, a daughter of George and Amelia (Steadman) Havens, natives of New York and Amboy Township, Fulton county. Her grandparents, Alva and Thankful (Rogers) Steadman, were early settlers of Amboy Township. For thirteen years after his marriage Mr. Bechstein conducted his father's farm, and then bought 110 acres of section 5, Swan Creek Township, of which sixty acres are under cultivation, the balance being in pasture and woodland. Here he is carrying on a general farming and stockraising business and is making a success of his undertaking.


Mr. and Mrs. Bechstein have had the following children born to them: Marion J., who is a resident of Fulton county ; and Henry, George Herbert, Earl V., Gertrude Margaret and Neola Fern, all of whom are at home. In politics Mr. Bechstein is a strong democrat. He is an attendant on the services of the Christian Union church of his neighborhood, but is not a member of any religious body. A hard working man, he has steadily advanced through his own efforts and deserves his present measure of prosperity.


HECKMAN BINDERY INC. JUN 94 A MANAUCOTED





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