USA > Ohio > Trumbull County > A twentieth century history of Trumbull County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Vol. II > Part 5
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In 1832 he married Miss Olive D. Perkins, daughter of General Perkins, and soon after assumed a position as partner in the office. This agency of Western Reserve lands was one of the most extensive of any in the state, General Perkins at one time paving over one-fifteenth part of all the land tax in the state of Ohio. The agency was nearly all, in the end, transferred to Mr. Kinsman. The Erie Company and the agency for Daniel L. Coit (Mr. Coit being president of the Erie Company) were among the leading agencies that induced General Perkins to make his
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home in Ohio. The Erie Company Agency was settled up in his life time. The Daniel L. Coit Agency was continued after his decease by his executors in the hands of Mr. Kinsman until 1872, when, as the very last of his agencies, it was closed out, having covered a period of over seventy years in one direct and continuous line.
In 1845 Mr. Kinsman was appointed associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Trumbull county. He was one of the original directors of the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad, and was chosen a director of the Western Reserve Bank, of which his father had been one of the founders twenty-five years before. For four years he was a member of the Warren city council, and during that period was active in forwarding measures for the improvement of the city in paving, sewering and similar work. His efforts did not cease with his term of office, but were long continued, with large expenditures of time and labor, to the great benefit of the town. A Republican in politics, he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention that nominated Mr. Lincoln for the second term, and was chosen presi- dential elector to cast the vote of the nineteenth district for General Grant in 1868. During the rebellion he was an ardent and energetic Unionist, laboring and contributing freely in the cause of the Union. He regularly attended the service of the Episcopal church and supported that organiza- tion with work, money and example. In agricultural matters he took a deep interest and was himself an agriculturist on a considerable scale, being the owner of several hundred acres of grazing land and fine farms. His death occurred in 1884. He was twice married : first to the daughter of General Perkins, as mentioned, who died in 1838, their three children also dying young ; and in 1840 to Miss Cornelia G. Pease, daughter of Hon. ('alvin Pease, chief justice of Ohio. She died in 1873, leaving five sons, four of whom are living: John, Thomas and Charles P., residents of Warren, Ohio ; and Frederick, residing in New York City.
Charles P. Kinsman, the fourth son, was born in Warren, December 17, 1847. He was reared and educated and has always been a resident of this city. He is the owner of much property in the way of farming lands in Trumbull county. He is unmarried and is now retired from active labors.
John Kinsman was born in Warren, April 2, 1843, and was reared and educated in his native county. After finishing his education he began farming. He married October 12, 1866, Mary E. VanGorder, daughter of Cyrus J. and Jane W. (Seeley) VanGorder. The father was born in Portage county, Ohio, in 1815, and died February 7, 1907. The mother born in Trumbull county, at Howland, died June 24, 1906. Mrs. Kins- man was born in Warren, August 8, 1845, and obtained her education in the local schools.
Mr. Kinsman farmed on land which is now within the city of Warren, beginning to work this land in 1866, just after his marriage and continuing until recent years to reap from the fertile lands in his possession. Much of this land has now been platted into town lots and disposed of at good figures. During the Civil war he was a soldier in the One Hundred Days'
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service, being a member of the One Hundred and Seventy-first Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, Company A. He was wounded in Kentucky. He is a mem- ber of the Masonic fraternity, being a Knight Templar.
Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. John Kinsman: Mary, born June 24, 1823, wife of John D. Wick; Jennie C., born December 31, 1875, wife of James A. Reeves ; they have one child, Mary Kinsman Reeves.
DANIEL A. GEIGER, cashier of the Western Reserve National Bank, at Warren, Ohio, well and most favorably known among bankers and business men throughout Trumbull and adjoining counties, is a native of Calhoun county, Michigan, born February 8, 1866. He is numbered among the enterprising and vigorous business men of his time.
He is the son of Eseciah Geiger, a native of that historic old place, Germantown, Pennsylvania, now a part of Philadelphia. He accompanied his parents to Trumbull county, Ohio, locating in Howland township, where he was reared 'midst the rural scenes of the then New West, which was within the great timbered section of Ohio. When twenty-one years of age he went to Michigan, settling in Calhoun county, where he purchased a tract of land which he improved into an excellent farm. In Trumbull county he married Polly Camp, a native of the county, her parents being old settlers there, having emigrated from Pennsylvania at an early day. Daniel A. Geiger's parents lived in Calhoun county, Michigan, until 1870, then returned to Trumbull county, Ohio. They located at Farmington, where the father built a flax mill, which enterprise he carried on about five years, then sold and moved to Cortland, and in 1883 to Warren, where he still resides, now in his sixty-eighth year. The wife and mother still survives. Three children were born to this union: One daughter who died at the age of eight years; Daniel A., of this sketch, and Fred L., of Warren, a contractor.
Daniel A. Geiger, the eldest in the family of E. Geiger and wife, was about five years of age when his people removed to Trumbull county, Ohio. He received a good common school education at the local schools of Farm- ington and Cortland ; also attended school at North Lewisburg, Ohio, and Union City, Pennsylvania. When he graduated from the high school he went to Mt. Union College, in Stark County. Ohio, graduating in the busi- ness department in 1883. coming the same year to Warren and beginning work in the old Trumbull National Bank as collector and assistant book- keeper. He has been associated with banking ever since. In 1885 the Western Reserve National Bank was organized and Mr. Geiger started in as its bookkeeper, and in 1892 was made teller, and in March, 1894, was made cashier, which important position he still holds, being in charge of the $300,000 capital and surplus. The president of the bank is S. W. Park; vice-president, Charles Fillius : assistant cashiers, J. H. Nelson and E. F. Briscoe. This is one of the old and solid financial institutions in Ohio. and has during its existence built up a reputation second to none for honor and business enterprise.
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Mr. Geiger is a member of B. P. O. E. No. 295, of Warren. Politically he is a Republican, but not active in party work. He is one of the directors of the Warren Rubber Company. He was united in marriage March 16, 1887, to Jessie L. Frisbee, daughter of Henry and Mary C. ( Moore) Frisbee. She was born in Erie county, Pennsylvania, where she was reared.
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THOMAS H. DEMING, editor of the Warren Daily and Weekly Tribune, is a native of Mt. Olivet, Kentucky, born April 28, 1814, a son of O. S. Deming, who was a native of New York, but who moved to Kentucky prior to the war of the rebellion. He was a prominent attorney and well known in Republican circles. He was elector-at-large for the state in 1896. He was president of the only Republican electoral college the state ever has had. He was honored by a seat on the bench, serving several years, and was also prosecuting attorney and held various local offices. He came to Warren in 1904 and is now retired from active business cares. The wife of Judge Deming was Leona Rigg, born in Kentucky, in Nichols county, the daughter of Rev. Thomas Rigg and wife. She is still living.
Thomas H. Deming is the third child in a family of one daughter and three sons. He was reared and educated in his native place, attending the home schools and Allegheny College, of Meadville, Pennsylvania. In 1896 he went to Warren, Ohio, where his brother, W. C. Deming, was editing the Tribune. The brother went to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and pur- chased the Tribune of that city, of which Thomas H. is now owner, in partnership with his brother. In 1903 Thomas H. became editor of the Warren Tribune. It has a circulation of 2,:50 daily and 3,000 weekly, the publication being the leading paper in the city and Republican.
Mr. Deming is a member of the Elks order, Lodge No. 295, and of the Knights of Pythias, at Warren : also belongs to the Trumbull Club. He commenced his first newspaper venture at the age of eighteen years, in Kentucky, by leasing a weekly paper called the Tribune-Democrat, at Mt. Olivet.
JOHN E. BRADY, ex-treasurer of Trumbull county, Ohio, was born in Geauga, Ohio, July 3, 1842, a son of Barney Brady, a native of Ireland, who came to America when a mere lad, locating in Ohio, where he married Jane McCain, a native of Pennsylvania, after which they moved to Geauga county, Ohio, in 1829, and there reared five sons and three daughters, John E. being the sixth child and fourth son in the family. He was reared on the farm and obtained a common school education. In 1877 he went to Warren and there embarked in the hardware trade, continuing therein for thirty years, still having an interest in the firm of Brady, Drenner & Morgan Hardware Company.
In 1905 he was the successful candidate for the office of county treas- urer of Trumbull county, having run on the Democratic ticket. He has also served on the city council of Warren. In the month of May, 1878, he
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was married to Martha Williams, by whom there is no issue. For thirty- one years he has been identified with the interests of Warren and Trum- bull county.
It is not infrequently the case that a man who has been absorbed in business affairs for a long term of years is chosen by the people as the proper custodian of the public funds, in the place of some perpetual, pro- fessional office-seeker, who ofttimes is unfit for the trust reposed in him. Years of business in a given community, where one is correct in his affairs, insures the people a character at once trusty and reliable in business methods.
CHARLES W. MOSER, the capable sheriff of Trumbull county, residing at Warren, is a native of Warren township, and was born October 26, 1859. He is a son of Owen Moser, a native of Ellentown, Pennsylvania, who was born in 1827 and went to Trumbull county in 1834. For many years he was engaged in the restaurant business, and is now eighty-two years of age, being one of the oldest men within the town of Warren. He is of German descent, his grandfather coming from the Fatherland. Charles W. Moser's mother, Laura Lane, was a native of Trumbull county, born in 1836, and died in 1907. Her father, John Lane, came from Connecticut and located in Trumbull county at an early day, in Wethersfield township, having come to America from Ireland.
Charles W. Moser is the eldest of the four living children born to his parents. He was reared in Warren, attending the district schools. He learned the blacksmith's trade, which he followed for thirty years in Warren. In 1905 he was elected sheriff of Trumbull county, which important position he still holds. From the Second ward he was a coun- cilman for three terms, and a worker in the Republican ranks. Fraternally, he is connected with the Odd Fellows order, belonging to Lodge No. 29 (Mahoning), at Warren; also B. P. O. E. No. 295 and Eagles No. 311. In 1884 he married Anna McNulty, who is now deceased. She was the mother of two children : William C. and Laura B.
JUDGE SAMUEL BAXTER CRAIG, one of the prominent attorneys-at-law of Warren, Ohio, was born in Braceville township of Trumbull county, . October 2, 1844. His father, Samuel Craig, was born and reared in Ireland and, coming to America when a young man, he located first in Braceville township of Trumbull county, Ohio. This was sometime in the thirties, and he subsequently married Margaret R. Darling, a native of Pennsyl- vania, and reared a family of nine children, seven of whom reached mature years. He was both a stone cutter and farmer throughout life, and his early home was in the dense woods of Trumbull county, where he built a log cabin and improved his land.
Samuel Baxter was his second child and first son, and in the little log cabin in which he was born and where each night he was rocked to sleep in a sap trough clusters his memory of childhood days. From the
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high school of Warren, which he attended for two years, he passed to the Western Reserve Seminary, and studied in that well known institution of learning for three years, teaching school during the meantime in the winter months. Later he matriculated in Allegheny College of Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he gradnated in 1871, in the month of June, and the following September began the study of law with Hutchings, Glidden and Stull, at Warren. He was admitted to the bar in April of 1873, and located for practice at Warren, where he has ever since remained, and is now one of the oldest attorneys within that sprightly city. For six years he held the office of probate judge, served as chairman of the executive committee in the William McKinley campaign for governor, was for six years a member of the board of education, and during many years was the clerk of Warren township. He is one of the directors of the Union National Bank and president of the People's Ice and Cold Storage Company of Warren. His entire life has been spent in Trumbull county.
Judge Craig is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Mahoning Lodge No. 29, and is a representative to the Grand Lodge of Ohio. In Masonry he belongs to the lodge at Warren. In his church affiliations he is connected with the Methodist Episcopal faith, and is an active worker and a steward in his church.
Judge Craig married in 1814 Mary Ellen Forbes, a daughter of James and Lavina (Covert) Forbes, from Pennsylvania. Mrs. Craig came to Trumbull county when very young, and their union has been blessed by the birth of four children: Alice Belle, wife of George W. Phelps, of Warren; Ella Florence, at home; Eugene F., of Warren; and William Benjamin, of the same place.
LEMUEL DRAY. the present city treasurer of the city of Warren, Ohio, is a native of Columbiana county, born in Yellow Creek township, June 2, 1837, a son of Thomas Dray, born in 1804, who was a native of Boardman township, Trumbull county, Ohio (now in Mahoning). His father was Charles Dray, born in Ireland. The father of Charles was Edward Dray, the name being spelled at that date as Drake.
Thomas Dray was reared in Trumbull county and became a farmer, as well as a machinist; was a successful business man who reached his eighty-ninth year, dying in Hancock county, where he was at the time en- gaged in farming. His father lived to be about a hundred years old ; he was a true pioneer of Trumbull county, Ohio.
Lemuel Dray's mother was Hannah (Willock) Dray, of Dutch descent, born in 1812. When but thirty-six years of age she was the mother of five children, and during that year, 1848, she died. Mr. Dray married for his second wife Mellissa Sheffleton. by whom four children were born. Lemuel is the second child of the first. marriage. He was twelve years of age when he went to Trumbull county. He first attended school at Wells- ville, Ohio, and after coming to Trumbull county attended school at Girard and at Niles, where he completed his education. He applied himself to
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
the moulders' trade, which he mastered, and also clerked in stores and in other ways earned money, which he wisely saved until he was able to attend Duff's Business College, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he took the regular full course. In 1857 he returned to Niles and was, the following year, married to Martha E. Wilson, daughter of James and Mariah Wilson, of Girard, Ohio. He then located in Warren, where he began housekeeping in the month of May, 1858, and has been a resident of Warren ever since. At first he took charge of James Ward's foundry as manager. He was with that concern about two years and a half, after which he was with James B. Dunlap, as the bookkeeper of his wholesale grocery house. After remaining there seven years Mr. Dray was then employed in the grocery business as a partner of Charles Wilson; this continued three years, when he sold to Mr. Wilson and then engaged in the meat business from 1870 to 1878. He was shipping clerk for the Westlake Iron Company from 1879 to 1883, when that company failed, and Mr. Dray closed up the business in November of the year named. He then went with the Trumbull Iron Company at Girard, as their shipping clerk, and was with the Union Iron and Steel Company, of Youngstown, until 1896, when he went with the American Steel Hoop Company and the U. S. Steel Company and the Carnegie Company. In November, 1905, he resigned, since which time he has practically retired from active business operations. March 3, 1908, he was appointed city treasurer of Warren by Hon. William Kirkpatrick, mayor.
Mr. and Mrs. Dray are the parents of ten children, seven of whom are living : Frank W., of Warren; Hon. William O., of Victor, Colo., repre- sentative of the third congressional district; Harry T., of Akron, Ohio, with the Falls Rivet & Shaft Co .; Clarence J., with the B. & O. R. R. Co., at Cleveland ; Bert A., general clerk of the Carnegie Company, at Youngs- town; Minnie, at home, and Edith M., secretary of the Youngstown City Hospital. Those who died are: Mattie E., died aged one year; Charles L., aged nine years, and Emma Belle, aged forty-four years.
Mr. Dray has lived in Warren for a half century and now resides at No. 504 E. Market street. At one time he served on the city council from the Fourth ward, it being in 1896-97.
FRANK H. FLOWERS, chief of police at Warren, is a native of Vernon township, Trumbull county, Ohio, born March 23, 1868, a son of Henry and Anna (Culp) Flowers. The father was born in Brookfield township, Trumbull county, and his father was one of the early pioneers of this county, who came from Pennsylvania and was of German descent. Anna Culp was a native of Trumbull county, the daughter of Thomas Culp, an early pioneer of the county. The father of Frank H. Flowers died at the age of seventy-four years, while the mother is living, aged seventy-eight years. They were the parents of nine children, and six sons are now living, Chief Flowers being the fifth child and fourth son.
He was reared on the old homestead in Vernon township and educated
LUMAN EASTON
MRS. LUMAN EASTON
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
at the public schools and high school. He continued to live at home until he was twenty-one years of age, when he engaged in business for himself, working at various kinds of employment. He was engaged with his brother- in-law, Robert J. Hamilton, of the firm of Hamilton & Daily, stone and bridge contractors, constructing bridges in various parts of the country. He finally came to Warren and became a stationary engineer, which he fol- lowed a year and a half. His next employment was with the Denison Manufacturing Company, of Warren, and while there engaged he was appointed special police, serving two years, and was then made a regular patrolman, serving six years as night patrolman and two years on the day force. Having proven his competency, he was made chief-of-police. Politically, Mr. Flowers is an active Republican and is the county detective. He belongs to the following fraternal societies: Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias. He is a life-long resident of Trumbull county, and comes from one of the pioneer families. He was united in marriage in 1890 to Hannah D. Hamilton, daughter of James and Betsey Hamilton. One son is the fruit of this union-Harold Webster.
LUMAN EASTON was born in Mesopotamia township many years ago, on the 15th of December, 1836, and he is a member of one of its earliest pioneer families. It was in August of 1816 that Joseph Easton, his grand- father, came with his family drawn by oxen to Mesopotamia township, Trumbull county, Ohio, and here his wife died just two years later, in 1818, and was the second to be buried in Mesopotamia cemetery. He had traded his farm in Massachusetts for timber land here, and he cleared a portion of this land.
The parents of Luman Easton were John and Sophia (Densmore) Easton, from Massachusetts, and the mother was a daughter of Randolph Densmore, also from that state. John and Sophia Easton were the first of the family to come here, and they always lived in a little settlement of Massachusetts people. The father, born on the 8th of December, 1790, died in 1875, and the mother, born in 1797, died in 188%.
Luman Easton, the youngest of their five sons and four daughters, resided with his parents until he was thirty-five years of age. In 1873 he bought a farm of improved land in this township, and he at one time also owned another tract of land here, and after coming to his present homestead he worked at the carpenter's trade much of the time in addition to his farm labor. In March of 1865, he enlisted in Company F, Thirty- ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, for the Civil war, and his services were principally in North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky, receiving his dis- charge from the service on the 3d of July, 1865.
On the 13th of September, 1859, Mr. Easton was married to Martha Cole, also a native of Mesopotamia township, a daughter of John and Nancy (Lepper) Cole, the father born in 1812 in Buffalo, New York, and the mother in Amsterdam that state. The children of this union are: Edith, now the Widow Hathaway of Cleveland, Ohio; Emery, of Mesopo-
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tamia township; John, of Coalbrook, this state; Bertha M., who became the wife of Fred Goodin and died on the 24th of February, 1907; Bert J., a twin of Bertha, who died when but two years old; and Carl R., of Pains- ville, Ohio. In political matters Mr. Easton is allied with the Republicans, and he has served as a road supervisor and as a school director.
JOHN CAMPBELL, postmaster at Warren, Trumbull county, not only represents a family whose activities are woven into the pioneer history of Ohio, but is intimately associated with the Mckinleys, being himself a cousin of the lamented president. He was born in Niles, this county, on the 2nd of October, 1830, son of David Campbell, a native of Lisbon, Columbiana county, Ohio, who came hither in 1825 with William McKin- ley, the father of the future chief executive of the United States. The two neighbors and friends were first associated in the conduct of the old Eaton furnace, and engaged for some time in the manufacture of charcoal iron. About ten years thereafter David Campbell removed to Akron, Ohio, and subsequently operated various furnaces at Millville (seven years ) and Salem (two years). He then returned to Niles, and for the remainder of his active life was connected with various sawmill enterprises at that place, Vienna, Bristol and Fowler, his death occurring in the town last named, at the age of seventy-nine. President McKinley's mother and the father of Postmaster Campbell were first cousins, and the father of the late president and Mr. Campbell's mother (Elizabeth Mckinley) were brother and sister.
Mrs. David Campbell was born in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and was the daughter of James Mckinley. Her parents died at South Bend, Indiana, and as they were separated by death for only two hours, they were buried in the same grave. They also were about the same age, seventy- nine years. They had given eight children to the world, seven of whom reached maturity and three of whom are living at this writing-Sarah, Aldrich and Alexander.
Postmaster Campbell is the second child and the second son of his family, and he remained at home assisting his father until he himself mar- ried, at the age of twenty-two, and established a household of his own. By his first wife (nee Losina Jordan), who died in 1856, he had two children: Charles, now deceased, and Lewis, an Ashtabula county farmer. In 1866 Mr. Campbell married as his second wife Miss Eliza E. Kingdom, and their four children were as follows: Frederick, deceased; George D., a resident of Washington: Allen J., assistant postmaster of Warren; and Alice J., now Mrs. F. H. Buchanan, of Terre Haute, Indiana, whose hus- band has been connected with the Vandalia Railroad for more than fifteen years, his present position being that of signal inspector. The two children of the Campbell family last mentioned (Allen and Alice) are twins.
The postmaster commenced his active business life in 1862, when he became connected with the sawmill business at North Bloomfield, Ohio, and afterward built and operated a cheese factory at the same place. He then entered the hotel field, conducting various houses at North Bloomfield,
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