USA > Ohio > Wayne County > Commemorative biographical record of Wayne County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families > Part 30
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Hon. Edward S. Dowell was born in Middletown, Holmes Co., Ohio, March 28, 1847-the month of the return of the sun, the awakening of the world, and when the scent of the soil is in the air. His parents, Thomas and Mary ( Pfonts)
Dowell, were also natives of Holmes County, whither, from Maryland. in 1520, the paternal grandfather removed, and where he settled and reared his family. He was an able, devout and pions minis- ter of the Methodist Church, and was married to Elizabeth Harrold, a lady of most estimable virtues and sincere piety, and who, after the death of her husband, continued the exercise of an active and earnest spiritual control over the family, permitting no stone to be removed or shaken in the altar of prayer. around which the home group had so often knelt in worship.
Thomas Dowell, the father of the sub- ject of this sketch, pursued the vocation of a earpenter, and was united in marriage with Miss Mary Pfouts in 1845. Four children were the result of this union, two of whom, in infancy, passed to the glory of the eoming world, and speak not to us. In 1852, and when Judge Dowell was bnt five years old, his parents went to California, going by way of the Isthmus of Panama. There being, at that time, no inter-oceanic railway com- mnieation, the mode of transit was of a more primitive character, and the youth- Inl hero of this narrative was borne along the banks of the Chagres and the tropical jungles of the Isthis on the shoulders of an escort. During his passage across this narrowed spine of the two continents,
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as a result of exposure to the contagious poisons of that section, he suffered from an attack of measles, which, withont the aid of saffron, ginger, spearmint, or other aromatics, disappeared and made no sign. But a sadder and more painful visitation was in reservation for the adventurous and ambitious family. After taking apart- ments on the steamer for their destina- tion, the mother of Judge Dowell, having contracted that malignant disease, the Panama fever, after a brief illness passed away, no more to look upon the Freshen- ing sea, or sport upon its breast, but in its depths, like a drop of rain, to fall without the memory of a grave. As if a triple fate ling over the little circle so sadly torn and rent, upon their arrival at San Francisco, Alice, the only daughter, sank to the "dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, where all have gone and all must go." Of the happy and harmonious quartette that, with full hopes and antici- pations, went in quest of gold, like the Argonants who sailed with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, now none were left but the father and son. The first labor in which they engaged was cutting, mak- ing and bailing hay for shipment, on the Montezuma Hills, in Solano County, a region well adapted to stock-raising, and especially for agriculture, for which its climate and soil were peculiarly adapted. It was originally noted for its luxuriant
growth of wild oats. After having a large quantity of the grasses cured and prepared for shipment, it was destroyed by fire, and their residence, likewise, per- ished in the flames. This sudden and temporary frown and reverse of fortune diverted the attention and industry of the father in a different direction. He began work in the mines of Nevada City, where gold at that time was the chief product. In this enterprise he met with gratifying success, but indications of declining health made it prudent for him to abandon for- ther work in the mines, when he returned to Montezuma Hills, and went to raising sheep. During his residence in Nevada City, his son, Edward, was enjoying, at Marysville, some of the first reflective hours of life and study; but when he re- turned to Solano County the youthful student accompanied him. Here they remained for four years. A more serious and alarming state of health, on the part of Mr. Dowell, made it advisable for him to return to his home in Ohio, which he did in 1859, bringing his son with him. lle died in Angust, 1860, at his home in Paint Township, Holmes Co., Ohio, In his experiments and speculations in sheep husbandry, in California, that "wonderful piece of the world," the Fates had been propitions, as if to compensate him for the adverse winds that had blown against his hand of toil. He accumulated money
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rapidly, and made, as he thought, judi- cious investments of it in the interest of his son. After the death of Thomas Dow- ell, it became necessary to obtain the money through the courts, and a decree was rendered in favor of the son, to the amount of $34,000, when it was discovered that the title to the land on which the mortgage was placed was defective. The catastrophe which followed entailed an ahost penniless condition upon Mr. Dowell.
After his mixed, varying and checkered experience in the Golden State, return- ing to the rich valleys and fertile hills of his native State and county, he at once entered the common schools, and at the age of sixteen became a student at Berlin Academy, in Holmes County, and afterward at Fredericksburgh, in Wayne County. It is the old story so often toll and written, and that must be applied to him, of teaching in the winter to procure funds to defray academic or collegiate ex- penses in summer. It has been given to the cold type a thousand times in regard to the self-taught, self-educated man. in the legal profession and ont of it, from the days of the first law-giver to those of Chief-Justice Marshall. In 1867 he put a period upon his educational pursuits, and having fixed upon the law as his profes- sion, he entered the office of Critchfield ! day on which he was clothed with the & Uhl, at Millersburgh, Holmes Co.,
Ohio, where he remained for two years, when he determined upon going to Cal- ifornia again to try, if possible, to make further investigations in relation to the property out of which he had been most palpably defrauded. Foiled and disap- pointed in this adventure, he returned to Ohio, andcommenced anew and vigorously his studies in the office of Lyman R. Critchfield, who in the meantime had gone to Wooster. His course of legal reading was completed here, which eminently fit- ted him to unravel the gnarled and knotty problems, the Gordian knots, which fall to the lot of the disciples of Coke and Little- ton. In 1569. at the December term of the supreme court of the State of Ohio, he was admitted to the bar, and without any delay opened an office in the old court-house in Wooster, Ohio. In 1873 he formed a partnership in the practice with the late Hon. John K. MeBride. In 1874 he was elected prosecuting attor- ney of Wayne County, and re-elected two years thereafter. In the autumn of 1857 he was elected judge of the common pleas court for the third subdivision of the Sixth Judicial District, embracing the counties of Wayne, Holmes and Coshoe- ton, and was installed in office on Febru- ary 9, 1SS8.
He was married February 9, ISSS, the judicial ermine, a happy coincidence,
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wherein Cupid was enthroned as first to be crowned after the dignity of the judge- ship was conferred. The fortunate lady to whom the bias of the court was evi- dent was Miss Rolla Z. Riffil, danghter of Samuel and Sarah ( Taylor) Riffil, and who is a native Wayne Countian, to the manner born, On December 14, 1SSS, a son was born to Judge and Mrs. Dowell, whom they have named, after his father and grandfather, Edward Samuel Dowell.
Judge Dowell became a member of the Ancient Order of Free Masons in 1878, joining Ebenezer Lodge, Wooster, Ohio, and December 4, of the same year, a Master Mason, and a Royal Arch Mason in 1879. In 1880 he was added to the membership of Wooster Council of Royal and Select Masters, and in 1881 took the Templar degrees at Massillon, and is a member of Massillon Command- ery No. 4. He is likewise a member of the commandery recently established in Wooster. He is a charter member of Wooster Council No. 13, Royal Arcanum, organized September 5, 1577. and assisted materially in preparing, correcting, etc., the by-laws of the order. He is a mem- ber of the Improved Order of Red Men, Uneas Tribe No. 57, instituted May 20, 1571, having passed through all the chairs of the lodge, and has been for years and now is past sachem. In ISSS he joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Wooster Lodge No. 42. chartered June 21, 1815.
The career of Judge Dowell, as will be seen, in its earlier features, at least, is in- vested with many of the sorry experiences of life, as well as some of the perfumes of its romance. The loss of father, mother and sister at his tender age was a sad and ir- reparable one. The additional misfortune which swept away the capital of his father, and to which he was the only and rightful heir, looked like the cruelty and savagery of fate. He was left a child, parentless and alone in the world, so far as those who were closest and nearest to him in nature were concerned. But he had friends, true ones, of kindred and blood. The battle of life he had, however, to fight for himself. His home was a pleas- ant one, a residence in the country, in the midst of an industrious and frugal people, with the same habits and generally the same employments. An atmosphere of religion pervaded it .. It matters little on what door above the street or of what size in the fields the domestic hearth is, pro- vided it be the asylum of love, integrity and those family affections which it per- petuates. In this circle is predestined the child, and his very soul is molded from the impressions which he remem- bers, The glance of a mother's eye is a part of our soul, which penctrates into us through our own eyes. Where is the per-
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son who, when he sees or remembers that glance, in imagination or a dream, does not feel something not wholly of the earth descend into his thoughts, which intensi- fies their serenity and tranquilizes agita- tion. The battle being left to him, he fought it to an issue, and successfully. In private life he is a courteous, affable, well-bred gentleman, and marked in all contacts with him by the strictest integ- rity and action. His temper is placid and usually tranquil, though liable, at times, to be ruffled, when the resistance is meas- ured in proportion to the exigency, though he possesses an inborn, kindly joyousness of nature. He is cautious in dispos- ition, and somewhat sensitive; but this is perfectly compatible with courage, strength and mental firmness. Coleridge, in speaking of this mental quality, says: " Sensitiveness is not only a characteris- tic feature of, but may be deemed a counterpart of, genius." There " must be delicacy with firmness," writes Ruskin. The white skin of Homer's Atrides would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its Feeling in the glow of battle, and it would behave like iron. He is characterized by a stern independence, has great intelli- gence and decision of character, prefers to deal with facts and principles, has lit- tle use for theories, unless they explain their own phenomena, and that without contradicting themselves, and when, upon
reflection and investigation, he has arrived at a conclusion, it would be as nseless to undertake to change the result as to at- tempt to remove a stone from one of the pyramids. .
In politics he is a Democrat, an active and capable defender of the principles of his party, and upon the public platform their conspicuons and eloquent champion. As a lawyer he rapidly grew and strengthened in his practice, and soon achieved popularity in the courts and reputation as an advocate. He prosecuted unremittingly the study of his books, "scorning delights and living laborions days," believing that no sphere of life or refinement of society was desirable which could not be connected with toil. He was honest, exacting sincerity from his clients, conscientious and diligent in his conduet of causes on trial, courteous to adverse counsel, circumspect to the court, logical, clear, compaet and convine- ing to the jury; and in his discussion and analysis of questions of law to the court, he was sound, forcible and cogent, not aiming to be dazzling or brilliant, or seek- ing to flounce propositions in meretricions ornamentation. His remarkable snecess in his chosen profession demonstrates that he did not mistake his path, or miscalculate his own fitness for the law. As a judge he has acquired a just and enviable popu- larity, second only to the esteem in which
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he is held as a citizen and man. He pos- sesses that skillful generalization which readily seizes upon the strong points of a subject; that happy condensation of ; thought which, at once, extracts the sub- stance of an argument, and that ingenu- ous foresight and comprehension which immediately grasps the angularities of the ' most intricate legal problems. Whether he be enunciating a principle of law or| exploding a sophism, or gently, and with skill and courtesy, recalling a wandering disputant to the point at issne, perpetrat- ing a joke, or launching an epigram, or charging a jury, he not only makes manner subservient to matter, but subdues that manner to an equable and delightful speech, transposed to a pleasant and fluent conversation, free from the methodical stiff- ness of modern Oxonian tribunes, and ex- empt from the prosaic drawlings of the conscript fathers, or the bench of a cent- ury gone.
the farm he now owns, in Plain Town- ship, Wayne Co., Ohio, January 15, 18443. Michael Shelly was born in Cumberland County, Pen., in 1811, and came to Wayne County, Ohio, in 1828, with his
parents, Jacob and Eliza Shelly, who pur- chased 160 acres of land in Plain Town- ship. Jacob Shelly, the grandfather of our subject, was a hard-working, industri- ous man, and by his industry and perse- verance accumulated about 900 acres of land. He never aspired to political hon- ors, and never held any offices. He died in 1853, a member of the Mennonite Church. Several of his children grew to be men and women, but all are now dead except Elizabeth, wife of John Yocum, of Mercer County, Ohio, and Michael.
Michael Shelly was married in 1835 to Elizabeth, daughter of Jacob and Cathe- rine Houser, and located on 160 acres of land in Plain Township, which is now owned by his son Jacob. Here he lived for many years, and then purchased the farm he now occupies, in another portion of Plain Township. He is well and favor- ably known, and at one time owned nearly 800 acres of land. He has always been a member of the Republican party, and takes an active interest in township affairs. Michael Shelly has reared ten children to be men and women, viz .: Christian, in Plain Township, Wayne County; Michael,
ACOB SHELLY, son of Michael and Elizabeth ( Honser ) Shelly, both na- tives of Pennsylvania, was born on | deceased ; Jacob, on the home farm ; Peter, in Ashland County; Joseph, in Franklin Township, Wayne County ; John, in Plain Township, Wayne County: Eliza, wife of David Mellinger, of Jefferson, Wayne County : Sarah, wife of Robert MeAtfeo,
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in Wooster, Ohio; Mary, wife of William McQuigg, in Plain Township, Wayne County, and. Susan, wife of James Alex- ander, also in Plain Township.
Of these, Jacob attended the township schools until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted in Company C, Sixteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving three years. In 1866 he married Miss Harriet, daughter of Alex. Culberson, an early settler of Wayne County, who afterward moved to Ashland County, Ohio. By this union have been born three children: Charles C., Ella T. and Jennie V. Mr. Shelly is prominently identified with the Republican party, and has held several township offices; at the present time he is serving as trustee. He is a member of Wooster Lodge, No. 42, I. O. O. F., and of Gibson Post, No. 183, G. A. R. He and his family are members of the Plain Lutheran Church, of which he has been deacon.
Alex. Culberson, the father-in-law of Jacob Shelly, was born in Westmoreland County, Penn., and came in IS14 to Wayne County, Ohio, where he purchased a traet of land in Plain Township, near Millbrook. Here he lived for several years, and finally moved to Ashland County, Ohio, where he died in 1869. He was twice married, and by the first wife he ! had two children: Imeretia Nelson, in Illinois, and Abraham, in Mansfield, Ohio.
His second wife was Nancy Beard, by whom he had two children: Harriet, wife of Jacob Shelly; Margaret, wife of J. Il. Wilhour, of Wooster, Ohio. Mr. Culber- son was a Republican in politics, and held several township offices.
A. BONEWITZ is a son of Jacob and Catherine ( Franks) Bonewitz, natives of Fayette County, Penn. About 1832 they came to Wayne County, Ohio, and purchased the farm where their son, J. A., now lives. The father was a shoemaker by trade but after coming to Wayne County he gave his attention en- tirely to farming, and at his death left an es- tate of 160 acres of land. He was a prom- inent member of the Imtheran Church, also a leader in the Democratic party. He died in 1868, and his widow in 1885. They reared nine children, one of whom, M. V., died at the age of thirty-nine years. Those living are F. J., in Van Wert, Ohio: H. W .. in Huntington Conn- ty, Ind. ; Sarah J., wife of O. E. Jameson, of Nebraska; D. R., in Van Wert. Ohio; Julia G., wife of Abraham Eymon, of Portland, Ind .: Elizabeth Ann, wife of John R. Kling, of Sherman County, Kas. : Martha C., wife of Wilson Richwine, of East Union Township, Wayne County, and the subject of this memoir, who was
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born on the homestead, December 4, 1843. He attended the township schools, and has always remained on the home- stead in East Union Township, where he follows agricultural pursuits. In 1876 he married Miss Nancy J., daughter of Robert Cook, of East Union Township, and by this union they have had six chil- dren: Mary Belle (deceased), Anna Lee, Lula Idella, Jennie C., and Robert C. and Ethel J., infant twins. Mr. Bonewitz and family attend the Presbyterian Church; he is a member of the Democratic party.
B ENJAMIN DOUGLASS was born in Plain Township, Wayne Co., Ohio, August 13, 1838, and is next to the youngest son and child of James and Elizabeth ( Wallace) Douglass, and on both the paternal and maternal sides he is of Scotch ancestry. His mother crossed the ocean at the age of ten. His father was a large, stout, muscular man. full of strength and courage, and was by ocenpa- tion a successful farmer. Mr. Douglass remained with him upon the farm until he was twenty years old, in the mean- time attending the village school at | Wise and 1. Tannahill ( who entered the
Jefferson, five miles west of Wooster. His first teacher was George Phillips. subsequently a quite prominent Methodist minister and writer of religions books.
For five years he was a pupil of the late Judge Joseph H. Downing. Later he at- tended Vermillion Institute, at Hayesville, Ashland County, for abont three years. That place of learning was then under the presidency and management of Dr. Sanders Diefendorf, a distinguished ed- ucator and Presbyterian divine, under whose superintendeney it enjoyed signal prosperity. For a number of years it bore the title of "the Ohio Annex " to Can- bonsburgh (Penn. ) College, as its contri- butions of students to that flourishing institution were copious and constant. Three and four hundred students were in regular attendance, and among those who were in his classes were Hon. Joseph Reed (for many years a member of the Supreme Court of Iowa, now a member of Congress from the Council Bluffs district) ; the Hons. John Bruce and John Glenn (both of whom are United States district judges, the former in Alabama, with res- idence at Montgomery, and the latter in Illinois, with residence at Momnouth) : Robert Quincy Beer, of Ashland ( who became a member of the publishing house of Wilson, Hinkle & Co., now Van Ant- werp, Bragg & Co., of Cincinnati ): Frank Confederate service from Missouri, and won the star of " brigadiers" ).
After leaving the institute Mr. Doug- lass comeneed the study of law with
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Messrs. William M. Orr and John Ervine, ! and lawyers being in the army, the law with whom he remained a year, when he | went to the Cleveland Law College, from which he graduated in 1861, in the mean- time having been admitted to the bar by the supreme court at Columbus, Ohio.
He was married the same year to Miss ; the county, and was largely instrumental Nereissa L. Newkirk, of Big Prairie, Ohio, a graduate of Urbana Seminary, Ohio, and has two daughters, Mabel and Dail, the former graduating from the Uni- versity of Wooster, in the class of 1887, the latter from the high school of Woos- ter, in the class of 1888, and is now a student in the Wooster University. He began the practice of law during this year, having formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, the late Joseph H. Down-' ing.
The threatened war-cloud was then bursting upon the country, and the law office of the firm was soon converted into a reerniting station, Mr. Downing admin- istering the oath to the soldiers as fast as they were recruited. Mr. Donglass wrote the first call that was made for volunteers in the county, and that call, in his hand- writing, was framed by his friend, the late R. B. Spink, and now hangs in the hall of Given Post, G. A. R., at Wooster. In the fall of 1862 Mr. Downing en- listed in the military service, and, as it was next to impossible to conduct busi- ness in the courts, on account of witnesses
office was, therefore, abandoned, and Mr. Douglass, until the close of the war, was principally engaged in recruiting work. He made patriotic, thrilling speeches in almost every church and school-house in in recruiting many companies. For reasons possibly best known to himself, he never returned to the practice of the law, although the writer of this sketch is of the opinion that, had he done so, he would have stood at the front of the bar, the peer of MeSweeny, Critch- field, Rex, or Hemphill. He seemed, however, to dislike the evasions, deceits, tergiversations, combats and collisions of the practice.
In 1568 Mr. Douglass went to the Pa- cifie coast, by invitation of the Na- tional Executive Republican Commit- tee, and made twenty-five speeches for Grant and Colfax, in Nevada and Cali- fornia. He made the first speech advo- eating the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment delivered in Nevada, at the opera house in Carson City, presided over by Gov. Blaisdell, and it was the first State in the Union to ratify the amendment. On his return he was pub- licly requested by the citizens of Woos- ter to deliver an address, which he did, under the title of " A Trip Across the Continent," which was afterward pro-
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sented in Illinois and other points in the West. He went the overland route, by rail to Benton, one hundred miles west of Cheyenne, Wyo., and thence by Concord coach across the Rocky Mountains, a dis- tance of 400 miles, to Salt Lake City; thence by stage to Austin, and thence across the great alkali desert to Reno, and thence to Virginia City, his destina- tion, traveling in coaches 1,000 miles, among hostile Indians, white bandits, and other desperate characters. He paused for a week in the City of the Saints, in- specting the principal points of interest, there being then but 500 Gentiles within its borders, presenting a paradox in the fact that the Gentiles were principally Jews. He bathed his feet in the rock- born Jordan, and floated in the lake of salt. Ho walked amid the stones and foundations of the temple; attended wor- ship with the apostles in the tabernacle; interviewed President Brigham Young within his gates'and palaces, and sent to the New York Times and other Eastern papers the results of his tele-a-lete with the eagle-nosed champion wife-owner of of the Western Hemisphere. Returning from his trip by steamer, and after arriv- ing in New York City, he called upon and presented letters of introduction to Hlon. Henry J. Raymond, editor and proprietor of the New York Times. So favorably impressed was Mr. Raymond with Mr.
Douglass that he was solicited to go to Old Mexico in the capacity of correspond- ent for the Times, which proposition Mr. Douglass was favorably considering when Mr. Raymond suddenly died.
As a part of his literary labors Mr. Douglass wrote and published in 1878 at Indianapolis the history of Wayne County, Ohio, a book of nearly 900 pages, and the best county history in the State. In 1879 he completed for the publishers a work entitled the " Oddities of Colonial Legis- lation," writing and adding thereto about 300 pages for John B. Dillon, historian, of Indiana, who died in the midst of his editorial labors. He has written, and now has ready for publication, a history of the Grand Army of the Republic, a book of 550 pages. Mr. Douglass did not confine himself to history and prose writing, but occasionally sang with the muses, and he has written poetry that compares favorably with that of Whittier, Dr. Holmes or Moore. The following is a specimen, written for the Chronicle while he was at Washington, and it indicates that lofty sentiment found in all his verses:
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