Commemorative biographical record of the counties of Sandusky and Ottawa, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, Part 25

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1040

USA > Ohio > Sandusky County > Commemorative biographical record of the counties of Sandusky and Ottawa, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens > Part 25
USA > Ohio > Ottawa County > Commemorative biographical record of the counties of Sandusky and Ottawa, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens > Part 25

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WILLIAM THRAVES, son of Samuel, was born December 27, 1799, in the town of Tythby, Nottinghamshire, England, of Anglo-Saxon descent. He was five feet ten inches in height, with blue eyes and flaxen hair, and when in the vigor of man- hood weighed about 180 pounds. He was a member of the Church of England, and his occupation was that of butcher. In 1827 he married Miss Marilla Graves, who was born December 29, 1799, in the village of Austin, Nottinghamshire. She was also a member of the Church of Eng- land. The names and dates of birth of the children born to them in England were: George, July 19, 1828; Ann, July 19, 1828; Robert, May 14, 1830; Mark, December 7, 1832; Faith Elizabeth, March 20, 1835; William, July 15, 1837; Thomas, September 6, 1839. In 1844 the entire fainily emigrated to America, and settled in Washington township, Sandusky Co., Ohio, where they followed farming and

stock-raising, and here the youngest son, Levi, was born March 2, 1847. In 1854 they settled upon a farm of eighty acres, in Ballville township, which they had bought. This was their family home for many years, and here William Thraves and his sons followed farming and dealing in live stock with good success. In 1882 he retired from active life to a quiet home which he had bought, adjoining the farm of his son, Mark. William and Marilla Thraves celebrated their golden wedding in 1877. She died April 2, 1883, after which Mr. Thraves lived here and there among his children at his own pleasure until August 21, 1889, when he passed away at the home of his son, Mark. Both were buried in McGormley cemetery, Ballville township. Of their children, Ann M. Thraves married John Crowell, and subsequently moved to California, where they both died-she in 1867, he in 1882-leaving three children. Robert Thraves is in Camptonville, Yuba Co., Cal. Faith E. Thraves married Henry Bowman, and died in 1867. William Thraves (son of William, Sr.,) was killed in a railroad accident on the Isthmus of Panama in 1856, and buried there. George, Mark and Thomas are all farmers of Ballville township, Sandusky county.

G EORGE THRAVES, farmer and dealer in live stock, son of Will- iam Thraves, was born in Eng- land, July 19, 1828. He attended school a few terins in Nottinghamshire, and at the age of sixteen came with his father's family to America, into the region of the Black Swamp, about four miles west of Lower Sandusky (now Fremont), Ohio. Here he endured some of the toils and privations incident to pioneer life, and attended a few terms of school in the country. After working on a farm for several years he served an apprenticeship at the blacksmith trade in Lower San- dusky with Mr. Lansing, afterward fol-

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lowing his trade about two years in the shop of Samuel Moore, in Fremont, Ohio. On April 14, 1853, he was married to Miss Mary Jane Crowell, who was born in Sandusky township, in 1829, a daughter of Samnel and Mary (Link) Crowell. She had received a very liberal education, and had taught several terms of school in the country districts.

In 1855 Mr. Thraves and his wife went to California by the Panama route, and located in Yuba county where he bought a mining claim and worked at gold min- ing about four months. He then sold his claim and bought a blacksmith shop in which he worked about one year, doing a thriving business. The society of the miners not being congenial to his wife, he returned with her to Ohio in 1858, and purchased a farm of eighty acres in Ball- ville township, Sandusky county. Here he followed mixed farming and stock rais- ing for about thirty-five years with good success. Mr. Thraves has been an active friend of education in his neighborhood, having held the office of local director for twelve years, and taken a deep interest in the literary exercises of the young people. He also held the office of township trus- tee, and other positions of honor and trust in the community. He has been a member of Croghan Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Fremont, Ohio, since 1852, and held, at intervals, all the offices of the subor- dinate lodge. In politics he was a Whig until the Know-nothing agitation in 1856, ever since when he has been a Democrat. Mrs. Thraves became a member of the Methodist Protestant Church, near her old home, three miles west of Fremont. She proved a faithful and acceptable work- er in Sunday-school and society work, and maintained a high standard of Christian character. She died at her home August 5, 1885, and was buried in McGormley Ceme- tery. Mr. Thraves has continued to reside on the farm with his youngest danghter, Lillie. The children of George and Mary Jane Thraves were: (1) Samuel, who died

in infancy. (2) Ann Marilla, born in San- dusky county, Ohio, July 2, 1855, mar- ried to Charles Young, September 25, 1878, and their children are: Justin Irv- ing, born July 13, 1879, and Elsie Lois, born December 21, 1883. (3) Mark Eu- gene, born April 18, 1859, now residing in the vicinity of Los Angeles, Cal. (4) Ida Hortense, born July 4, 1861, mar- ried to George Sommer, of Green Creek township, October 18, 1882, and their children are Wilbur, born in September, 1883; Fred, born in October, 1885; Bar- bara, born in September, 1887; Robert, born in November 1891, and Corinne, in August, 1893. (5) Meade George, attor- ney at law, Fremont, Ohio, born Feb- ruary 15, 1863, who was married April 9, 1890, to Miss Mary M., daughter of Ever- ett A. and Maria L. C. Bristol; she was born at Fremont, Ohio, November 2, 1868. (6) Lillie May, born September 13, 1865, who was married April 9, 1895, to Merritt Cornell Huber, of near Green Spring, Ohio.

L EWIS K. WRIGHT, the subject proper of this sketch, has seen the development of Scott township, Sandusky county, from the time it was a wilderness down to 1895. He was born July 13, 1812, and is the son of William and Polly (Squire) Wright, who were born in Vermont in 1784, and Can- ada in 1788, respectively.

At the age of twenty-four years our subject came to Scott township, Sandusky county, at a time when no roads were made in the township, and when it took two days to go to Fremont and back, a distance of ten miles. He cleared a fine farm, and made a comfortable home for himself and family, which he is now en- joying in his old age. On May 7, 1835, he was married to Miss Finette Lock- wood, of Madrid, N. Y., and their union was blessed with three children: (1) Ellen C., born September 4, 1836, now resid-

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ing with her father and mother at Tinney, Ohio; (2) Levi L., born September 12, 1838, married to Julia Green, of Fremont, and now residing in Lincoln county, Tenn., and (3) William L., born in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, September 26, 1847, and married to Almeda Tinney, daughter of Darwin Scott and Sarah (Wig- gins) Tinney, pioneers of Scott township (to them were born three children-Clara F., born September 3, 1874, was gradu- ated in music from the Musical School of Indianapolis, Ind., June, 1895; Ralph R., born September 29, 1880, is also a mu- sician and member of the Tinney Cornet Band, and Stella E., born September 9, 1882, who is also developing her musical talent on the piano; the children inherited their musical talents from their father, who is a violinist and also a cornetist; he in turn inherits his ability in this line from his mother and her ancestry); William L. is a merchant, having a general store at Tinney, Ohio, and is also engaged with his father in farming. Politically the Wright family are Democrats. Mrs. Will- iam Wright was born March 5, 1852, at Tinney, Ohio, where she has always re- sided.

The father and mother of our subject were pioneers of Sandusky county, Ohio, and the father died in 1856. They reared a family of four children, of whom our subject is the only one living; the other children were: Martin, born in 1810; Harriet, born in 1814, and Solomon, born in 1816. Our subject's paternal grand- mother was born about 1756, and died in 1820; she was born in Vermont, and moved to New York, where she married Solomon Squire. The maternal grand- father of our subject was born in Lower Canada in 1756, and was the father of three children.

Levi Lockwood, the father of our sub- ject's wife, was born April 24, 1781, in Vermont, and died January 13, 1854; he went to New York, and thence to Ohio, locating near Cleveland, where he died.

His wife was born March 20, 1788, in Connecticut; they were married March 30, 1803, and were the parents of ten chil- dren; she died October 10, 1850, in Brighton, Ohio. The paternal grand- father of Mrs. Wright, Nathaniel Lock- wood, was born in 1750, in Connecticut; he moved to Vermont, thence to New York, and died in 1830. His wife, Annie (Bostwick), was born about 1754 in Ver- mont, and moved to New York. Mrs. Wright's maternal grandfather, Reuben Stone, was born about 1756, and his wife, Deborah (Comstock), was born about the same time, and died in 1855.

F RANK M. METCALF, as a pro- duce merchant of Clyde, has a wider acquaintanceship than most citizens of that city can claim. In the parlance of trade he is a " hustler," and the splendid business which he does is the fruit of his own unremitting efforts. Ever since he came from the service of his country as a veteran he has followed his present vocation, save three years which he spent in the mining regions of Arizona.

Mr. Metcalf was born in Monroe county, Mich., May II, 1843, son of Joseph and Sarah (White) Metcalf. Joseph Metcalf, who was born in Ver- mont in 1810, migrated when a boy with his father, Samuel Metcalf, from the Green Mountain State to New York State, and subsequently to Toledo, Ohio, whence, after engaging there for some years in the lumber trade, he removed to Monroe county, Mich., and there followed the same business. In 1843 he returned to Ohio, locating in Wyandot county, where his father, Samuel Metcalf, died aged eighty-six years. In 1857 Joseph came to Clyde, where he died two years later. Joseph Metcalf was a public-spirited and enterprising citizen. In New York State he had been appointed captain of militia, and he also served there as justice of the

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peace. For several terms he was justice of the peace in Michigan, and in Wyandot county he was elected to the same judicial office. He was a man of ripe judgment, possessing that rare common sense upon which all law decisions rest, and few of the decisions he made were ever reversed. He was well-read in law, and acquaint- ances frequently consulted him in business and legal matters. Sarah, his devoted wife, who was born in St. Lawrence county, N. Y., in 1820, is at this writing still living at Clyde, an active lady for her many years. She was one of the organ- izers of the Woman's Relief Corps in Clyde, and has since been an active mem- ber of the same. Both her sons fought upon Southern battlefields for national union. Her parents died at Berlin Heights, Erie county, aged eighty-six and eighty-seven years, respectively. The three children of Joseph and Sarah (White) Metcalf were Judge L., Louisa and Frank M.

Judge L. Metcalf was born in Monroe county, Mich., in 1839. He enlisted in Company K, One Hundreth O. V. I., and was taken prisoner at the battle of Lime- stone Station, Tenn., in 1863. He was imprisoned on Belle Isle and at Richmond, Va., about a year. He never recovered from the effects of prison life, and died in 1874, as a result of the indescribable hardships, the starvation and exposure to which he was subjected. Louisa was born March 2, 1841, and married Henry Miller, of Clyde. She died in 1862.

Frank M. Metcalf was fourteen when his parents came to Clyde, and here for several years he attended the village schools. In July, 1861, when eighteen years of age, he was one of a company of young men from Clyde, Green Spring and Tiffin, formed to join a regiment of sharpshooters in New York City, but that regiment not being fully recruited they enlisted in the First United States Chas- seurs, and were afterward assigned as the Sixty-fifth N. Y. V. I. This regiment

saw hard service from the start. In a letter to the editor of the National Tribune, Washington, D. C., and pub- lished in the issue of June 21, 1894, F. M. Metcalf thus recounted a few of his army experiences as follows:

Editor National Tribune: Well do I remem- ber the skirmishes during the fall of '61 in Vir- ginia above the Chain Bridge; also, McClellan's move toward Centerville, and our return; also, the trip on the Peninsula; Yorktown; the hot fight at Williamsburg, and the fight around Richmond; how Gen. Casey's troops were forced back from their breastworks by the Confeder- ate troops.

The First U. S. Chasseurs were sent across the railroad to reinforce the Thirty-first Penn. and Brady's battery. After Casey and Couch had been driven back we were north and rear of the Confederates, picking up prisoners. At this time a man rode over to us from the ene- my's lines and told us we would all be captured. The boys were inclined to give him the laugh. He said he was only doing his duty; also, that the woods to our right and front were full of Southern troops, which we soon found to be a fact. This man again rode back to the enemy's lines. The question has always been in my mind, who was he? He at least showed us where his sympathies lay. We then, on a dou- ble-quick, fell back through a strip of woods; Brady's battery, near the railroad, with the Thirty-first Penn. and Chasseurs behind an old rail fence and woods in front. The enemy massed, and, amid a deadly fire of shell and canister and musketry, charged, and would have captured our battery but for the timely arrival of a portion of Sumner's Corps, which turned the tide of battle here. After the Chas- seurs saw the First Minn. forming behind them they felt safe, as these two regiments had seen service together before. Our infantry reserved their fire until the enemy were within a few rods of our line of battle. The rebel loss was terrible; the ground was covered with their dead and wounded. They made a noble fight. This was their first repulse and defeat that day. The next day our troops retook the ground lost the day before, but the loss on both sides was heavy.

My memory will ever follow the marches and battles of the army of the Potomac-Mal- vern Hill, Manassas, South Mountain, Antie- tam, Fredericksburg, under Burnside and Hook- er. The Chasseurs were the second regiment to cross the river below Fredericksburg, and its skirmishers the last to recross after the fight under Burnside. After the Pennsylvania Re- serves had made their fatal charge the writer was with the troops who relieved this command. The moans of the dying and the appeals of the wounded in front of us was enough to touch the hardest heart. During Hooker's Chancel- lorsville fight the Sixth Corps was below Fred-

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ericksburg. At night, about 10 or 11 o'clock, the Chasseurs were deployed as skirmishers, and advanced to drive the Confederates out of the city. We met with such resistance we con- cluded to wait for daylight. The writer and fifteen or twenty men were with the Chasseur colors on the Richmond turnpike. We ran against their reserve pickets, who were behind a barricade across the road. They had us at a disadvantage, and we had to either be shot down or run to the rear or front. We gave them a volley, fixed bayonets, and with a gen- nine Yankee yell charged them from their po- sition. They then withdrew their forces from the city back into their intrenchments on the heights, probably thinking the balance of our troops were at our heels. We kept hid in the city nntil morning, between the two lines, not daring to show ourselves to either side, and ex- pecting to be captured by the Johnnies, but came nearer being shot the next morning by our own troops before we could make them be- lieve we belonged to the Chasseurs.

History tells how Marye's Heights were cap- tured at the point of the bayonet by the troops under our old Col. Shaler. The general's mem- ory will ever be fresh in the minds of the sol- diers in that charge by the daring and courage he displayed riding along the line, and with his presence encouraged the boys charging the en- emy's works. The next morning found the Sixth Corps silently recrossing the Rappahan- nock, where we all breathed freer, as we could tell by the distant "boom, boom" to our right and rear that Gen. Hooker had run against a snag at Chancellorsville. The writer was with the Sixth Corps at Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, against Early's raid on Washington, and Cedar Creek; but space will not permit making men- tion of incidents during these hard-fought bat- tles. Where are the Chasseurs now?

After the war Mr. Metcalf returned to Clyde and engaged in the produce-ship- ping business. During the three years -- 1882-85-he was located in the Santa Rita mountains, Arizona, looking after the interests of the Salero Mining and Milling Co., of New York City, and also operating silver mines of his own there. Mr. Metcalf is a man of energetic, push- ing habits, and he has thereby built up a large trade. He is a prominent member of the U. V. U. command at Clyde. Mr. Metcalf was married in February, 1886, to Miss Emma J. Miller, daughter of Lyman Miller. Her three brothers were in the war of the Rebellion, and the oldest was shot and killed in that war.

G EORGE J. BLOOM. Among the thousands of emigrants, of vari- ous nationalties, who, during the last half of the nineteenth cen- tury, have come to our shores from the overcrowded hives of population in the Old World, none have contributed more to our national prosperity and the stabil- ity of our American institutions, than those who came from the German Father- land. Wherever they have settled, whether in the busy marts of our rapidly growing cities, the stirring lumber and mining re- gions of the mountains, or the broad fer- tile prairies of the West, they have, as a class, established an enviable reputation for industry, frugality and thrift, and are to-day among our most trustworthy and law-abiding citizens. As a gentleman possessing these characteristics, in a mod- est way, we present the subject of this sketch.

George J. Bloom, retired farmer, Fre- mont, Ohio, was born in Baden, Germany, November 25, 1836. His parents were Jacob Bloom and Barbara (Florien), the former of whom was also born in Baden, where he followed the trade of shoemaker, and after his marriage in the year 1854, emigrated with his family to America. They took passage in a sailing vessel, en- countered severe storms and adverse winds, and were fifty-four days on the ocean. Proceeding westward, they came to Sandusky county, Ohio, and settled on a forty-acre farm in Ballville township, on which they made their home. After a useful and exemplary life, and living to see his children in good circumstances, Jacob Bloom died, July 2, 1883. His wife, Barbara, was born in Alsace, France (now Germany), and passed away at the age of forty-five, after faithfully performing her duties as a helpmeet to her hus- band and mother to her children. Her father, Joseph Florien, a pioneer of San- dusky county, died here at the advanced age of one hundred and nine years. His children were: Joseph, Barbara, Mag-

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dalene, Catharine, George and Julia. The children of Jacob and Barbara Bloom were: Jacob, a physician, who lived in Indiana and died in Ballville township, Sandusky county (he was unmarried); William, who is engaged in the manufac- ture of potash, at Fostoria, Ohio; George J., our subject; Barbara, who married Lewis Mutchler, and lives on a farm near Green Spring; and Mary, wife of George Bloom, a laborer, at Fremont, Ohio.

Our subject went to school in his na- tive city of Baden about eight years, also attending the services of the Lutheran Church, and learned the trade of barber. At the age of eighteen years he came with his father's family to Sandusky county, Ohio, where he assisted his parents in the purchase and clearing up of a farm, be- sides working several years as a farm hand among the neighbors, learning the meth- ods of well-to-do farmers. On February 18, 1863, he married Miss Annie Cole- man, who was born February 2, 1841, in Hanover, Germany, of which place her parents, Frederick and Marie (Stratman) Coleman, were also natives; they emi- grated to America in 1845, and settled near Woodville, Ohio, where the father died in 1887, aged eighty-one years, and the mother at the age of thirty years. Their children were: Annie, wife of our subject; William, a farmer, living in Ot- tawa county, Ohio; Henry, a farmer of Sandusky county; John, a soldier of the Civil war, now an employe of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railroad, living at Fremont, Ohio, and Frederick, living at Woodville, Ohio.

After his marriage Mr. Bloom settled on a farm near Green Spring, Ohio, where he lived about nine years. He then sold his farm and bought another near Genoa, in Ottawa county, on which he remained four and a half years, when he again sold, next buying a farm of eighty-five acres in Ballville township, about three miles southeast of Fremont, which he greatly improved and made his home thereon for

seventeen years. He was quite successful in the raising of grain and the rearing of live stock. In the year 1892 he bought property in and removed to Fremont, to give his children the advantages of the city schools. This property he traded, a year later, for a farm of seventy-three acres (formerly the Thraves' homestead), ad- joining his other farm in Ballville town- ship.

Mr. Bloom has been a Democrat in politics, but is not a partisan. He and his wife were reared in the doctrines of the Lutheran Church, but during the last twenty years have been worthy members of the Evangelical Association. Their children were: Caroline, wife of Charles Martin, a farmer, who has four children- Ralph, Blanche, Vinnie and Mabel; Amelia, who married Oscar Lemon, and has two children-George Edward and Hazel; and Mary, Barbara, Anna, George, Ida and Charles, all of whom are unmar- ried and living with their parents.

F REDERICK SMITH, a resident of Sandusky township, Sandusky county, was born in Baden, Ger- many, June 2, 1829, a son of John and Catharine (Ernst) Smith. The parents were also born in Baden, the father August 24, 1783, the mother No- vember 5, 1787; both died in Rice town- ship, Sandusky Co., Ohio, where they had settled in the then forest. John Smith served in the Napoleonic wars, be- ing with the staff of officers. He was on the famous march to Russia, where so many thousand soldiers were frozen, and was one of the few who escaped impris- onment.

Frederick Smith grew to manhood in Sandusky county, and attended the com- mon schools a short time. He remained with his parents on the farm, and by dili- gence and hard labor cleared off the heavy timber and drained a large tract, now some of the finest farming lands in

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the county. In 1852 he married Miss Elizabeth Kaiser, born in France, Febru- ary 22, 1830, who is still living. He and his wife remained with his parents until their death, in 1870, soon after which time he removed to his present home in Sandusky township, but a short distance from Fremont. His brick resi- dence is one of the finest in the township. Mr. Smith and his family are members of the Lutheran Church; in politics he is a Democrat, and has held public offices for twenty-two years. To Mr. and Mrs. Smith were born children as follows: Christina, deceased; Frederick, Jr., who is married to Caroline Loganbach; Car- oline, wife of Lewis Nicholas; J. Will- iam, married to Maud Kinman; Eliza- beth, Clara, Amelia, all at home, and Edward F., now at Toledo, Ohio.

G EORGE W. KENAN. Among the hardy sons of toil who have subdued the towering forests, drained the malarious swamps and developed the vast agricultural re- sources of the region of northern Ohio known as the Black Swamp, the subject of this sketch deserves honorable men- tion. Beginning at the very foot of the ladder, at the age of ten, he patiently worked his way up the rounds, step by step, until he reached the height of com- petence.

George W. Kenan was born July 31, 1824, a native of Perry county, Ohio. His paternal grandfather, James Kenan, was born about 1778, in Ireland, and died, in 1858, in Jackson township, Sandusky Co., Ohio. The grandmother was born in 1780. They reared a family of eleven children, three of whom are yet living. The father of our subject, Silas Kenan, was born February 3, 1807, near Wheel- ing, W. Va., and migrated thence to Perry county, Ohio, where he remained until 1835, the year of his removal to Jackson township, Sandusky county,

where he resided till his death in 1875. He married Barbara, daughter of Jacob and Mary Overmyer, of Harrisburg, Dauphin Co., Penn., the father born in Pennsylvania about 1784, the mother about the same time. They reared a family of nine children, only one of whom survives, Peter, now aged eighty- five years, and a brief record of them is as follows: Barbara, Mrs. Kenan, was born February 20, 1802. Hugh, a farmer in Jackson township, married Miss Nellie Yost, and has eight children- Henry, Harrison, Mary, John I., Frank Mitchell, France, Martha and Hiram- three of whom are living; he is a Demo- crat, and a member of the Baptist Church. Margaret married Hugh Mitch- ell, a farmer, and has four children; Mr. Mitchell is a Democrat and a Baptist. Lewis, a farmer of Jackson township, like his brothers, is a Democrat and a Baptist, is married and has five children-Susan, Ellen, Ben, Catharine and Hugh. Eva

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Commemorative biographical record of the counties of Sandusky and Ottawa, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, Part 25

Author: J.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1040

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1040