USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 36
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
In the year 1883 Daniel C. Hiller was united in marriage to Miss Catherine Saddler, a daughter of Philip Saddler, and unto them have been born three children, Hannah E., Tracy C. and Ruth M. All of these children have had a good common school education, while the two eldest received the advantages offered by a normal course at Ashland College. Mr. Hiller belongs to the Lutheran church and also holds membership with the Grangers, while he gives his political allegiance to the democratic party. Although interested in the general welfare and upbuilding of the community, Mr. Hiller, like his father and grandfather before him, has taken no active part in public affairs, preferring rather to concentrate his energies upon his own personal business, which, care- fully conducted, is proving a source of gratifying income.
JAMES R. McADOO.
After long and active connection with business affairs in Ashland county, James B. McAdoo is now living retired, merely giving his supervision to his farming interests in Sullivan township. He is a native of this township, his birth having occurred April 14, 1854, a son of William and Mary (Gordon) McAdoo, the former a native of Washington county, Pennsylvania, while the latter claimed Harrison county, Ohio, as the place of her birth, her people removing to Ashland county when she was a little maiden of eleven years. The father came to Ashland county to visit a sister and being much pleased with the country decided to remain and to this end engaged in teaching a district school .: He was a graduate of Bethany College in West Virginia. After being engaged in educational work for a time, William McAdoo learned the trade of a mill- wright and built many of the first mills of Ashland county and other sections of the state. It was while engaged in the erection of a mill in Holmes county that he met with an accident which resulted in his death and his widow was thus left in limited financial circumstances with a family of small children dependent upon her. As above stated, she was but eleven years old at the time her parents removed from Harrison to Ashland county, the journey being made by wagon. The family home was established on the land which is now owned by our subject. Mrs. McAdoo was accorded liberal educational advantages during the period of her girlhood and youth and prior to her marriage she engaged in teaching.
James B. McAdoo was but a young lad at the time of his father's death and as it was necessary that he assist his mother in the support of the family just as soon as old enough, his opportunity for attending school was very limited, the greater part of his time and attention being given to the duties of the little home farm. However, his mother having had considerable experience as a teacher, proved of great assistance to him in study at home and in that way he acquired a good English education, so that at the age of eighteen years he entered the profession and for twenty-two years thereafter he was numbered among Ashland county's most successful educators. In June, 1893, he aban- doned the profession and engaged in merchandizing in Sullivan, conducting a very successful enterprise for fifteen years. In the meantime he invested his
J. B. MCADOO
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capital in farm lands and is now living retired, merely giving supervision to his farming property, for in the years of his active connection with business affairs he so capably managed his interests as to acquire a competency that now supplies him with all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life.
Mr. McAdoo was married December 16, 1877, the lady of his choice being Miss Iris Irene Rickets, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Shopbell) Rickets, who came to Ashland county from the Keystone state. The father was en- gaged in farming throughout his active connection with business interests and now at the age of eighty-seven years he is enjoying good health, being a strong and vigorous man. The mother, however, is deceased, her death occuring May 2, 1902. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. McAdoo has been blessed with five children but two of the number are deceased. William, the eldest, wedded Eva Eversole and operates the homestead farm. They have two sons, Harold and Marshall. Ethyl is still under the parental roof. Frank is a dental student at Western Reserve University of Cleveland.
Politically Mr. McAdoo is a democrat, active in his support of the party and of all measures calculated to benefit the community. He has never been active as an office seeker, however, preferring to do his duty as a private citizen. He is identified with Sullivan Lodge, No. 313, F. & A. M., in which he has filled all of the chairs except that of master. He and his family are members of the Congregational church, of which Mr. McAdoo is serving as a trustee, while as a Sunday school worker he has been a superintendent for about thirty years. In this way he keeps in constant touch with the young people as they grow up around him and exerts a wider influence upon the community than falls to the lot of most men. Mrs. McAdoo is also an active and helpful worker in both the church and Sunday school. Their home bears every evidence of education, refinement and genuine hospitality and Mr. McAdoo finds his greatest social enjoyment at his own fireside where his family and intimate friends know him to be a delightful companion. He has spent his entire life in Ashland county and is therefore well known to our readers.
M. W. McCREADY.
The growth of a city does not depend upon its machinery of government or even upon the men who fill its offices, but upon the enterprise and progressive spirit of the men who are controlling the veins and arteries of trade and traffic. As one of the prominent business men of Ashland, M. W. McCready well deserves representation in this volume. He is proprietor of a hardware store which is the visible evidence of his life of well directed strength and energy. Born in Ohio, the place of his nativity was Vermillion township, Ashland county, and the day, July 4, 1850 -. He was one of the seven children of John and Sarah {Carter) McCready, natives of Washington county, Pennsylvania, and Ashland county, Ohio, respectively. Robert McCready, the great-grandfather of our subject, came to the United States in 1772 from Scotland, his native land, and
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on his arrival worked for a time on a farm in New Jersey. He then went to York county, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in teaching school until the out- break of the Revolutionary war, when he took up arms for the cause of independ- ence and served under General Washington. When liberty was won for the colonies he returned to York county, Pennsylvania and soon afterward removed to Washington county, that state, settling on a farm of three hundred and thirty- two acres near Eldersville, now owned by his grandson, B. W. McCready. He was prominent and influential in his community and left the impress of his individuality upon public affairs. For many years he served as justice of the peace and his decisions were strictly fair and impartial. He was also county commissioner and was an elder in the Cross Creek Presbyterian church. When the country again became engaged in war with England he once more took up arms in defense of American interests and became a veteran of the war of 1812, serving as adjutant in the Lisbon Regiment. He was a man of command- ing presence with a voice of unusual strength and power, and these qualities well fitted him for military command. He died in 1846 at the advanced age of ninety-four years, his remains being interred in Cross Creek cemetery, where an imposing monument has been erected to his memory. The McCready family through successive generations has numbered among its members noted educators and professional men. One of the ancestors was private secretary to Washing- ton in the Revolutionary war. David McCready, the grandfather of M. W. McCready, came to Ashland county in pioneer times and here entered two farms, the deeds for which were signed by James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, respec- tively, and are both now in the possession of the subject of this review, although the land has passed out of the family.
John McCready, the father of M. W. McCready, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1811, and was reared there to his twenty-first year, when he came to Ashland county, Ohio, locating on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres which had been entered by his father, and to which they added until the farm comprised three hundred and ten acres. It was situated in Vermillion township, adjoining the present Ashland County Infirmary farm on the west. He resided on that place throughout his entire life subsequent to his arrival in Ohio, and died in 1898 at the age of eighty-seven years. In politics he was a whig and republican, stanchly advocating the principles which he espoused but never seeking office as the reward of party fealty. His wife was the daughter of Daniel Carter, one of the first settlers of Ashland county, who arrived here in the days when Indians still inhabited this section of the state. He hewed his farm out of the virgin forest and passed through the hardships and privations of the early pioneers. In later years, however, his place had become so productive that it yielded abundant harvests and as time passed he prospered in his undertakings until he acquired eight hundred acres of valuable land. Unto John McCready and his wife were born seven children: David B., who died in Beaufort, North Carolina; James A., a farmer of Ashland county; M. W., of this review; Lucy, the wife of William Hull, also a resident of Ashland; Emaline, the widow of Samuel Sheets, of Richland county, Ohio; Mary A .; the wife of Dr. J. F. Johnston, of Perrysville; and Sarah Ann, who died when seven years of age.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
On the home farm M. W. McCready was reared and in the public schools acquired his early education, after which he attended Vermillion Institute and Greentown Academy. He was one of the youngest soldiers of the Civil war, enlisting when but thirteen years of age. He was large for his years, however, and he possessed the courage and valor equal to an old and time-tried veteran. He served with distinction during the period of hostilities as a member of Company E, One Hundred and Sixty-third Regiment of Ohio Infantry, and was with Grant in the army of the Potomac. In September, 1864, after his term of service had expired, he returned home.
At seventeen years of age Mr. McCready took up the profession of teaching as a vocation and for fifteen years was identified with educational work. His connection therewith, however, was not continuous, for at nineteen years of age he entered the mercantile field as a partner in a general store in Perrysville, Ohio. A year later he went to Tipton, Missouri, where for three years he was engaged in the boot and shoe business. He next went to Atchison, Kansas, where he accepted a position as bookkeeper in the wholesale grocery house of A. B. Symns. His health failing, he remained there only a year when he resigned and returned home. For fifteen years thereafter he operated his father's farm, comprising three hundred and ten acres of land, and during the winter months he engaged in teaching school. Reentering commercial circles in 1893, in that year he removed to Ashland, establishing an implement store, while three years later he extended the scope of his labors by also opening a hardware store. In the intervening years to the present time he has been one of the prominent factors in the hardware field in Ashland and he also continues to deal in im+ plements. In the years which he has spent in the county seat he has made his influence felt not only through his activity in commercial lines but also owing to the enterprise which he has displayed in matters of citizenship. When the right man was wanted to lead the city in the march of progress in securing public improvements, Mr. McCready was elected president of the board of trade, which organization was instrumental in having established the various industrial plants which have made Ashland one of the important productive industry centers of the state. No city of similar size can surpass Ashland in this regard and the result is largely due to the efforts of Mr. McCready who has worked untiringly for the benefit of the town.
In August, 1870, just after he had passed the twentieth anniversary of his birth, Mr. McCready was married to Miss Eunice E. Parkinson, of Perrysville, Ohio, and unto them have been born three sons and a daughter: Harry, who for many years was connected with the hardware business in Chicago and Cleveland, and is at present with the Prudential Life Insurance Company of Cleveland; Laura E., the wife of William Bockley, of Ashland; Alfred P., who has been connected as commercial salesman with several important hardware, paint and glass houses; and Arthur L., who was with the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company for some years but is now with the Toledo Plate Glass Company in the capacity of commercial salesman.
Mr. McCready has been somewhat prominent in political circles and in 1903 was chosen by the republican party as its candidate for the mayorality, but the strong democratic majority and the saloon element, to which he was strongly
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opposed, caused his defeat. His position has never been an equivocal one. He always stands firm in support of what he believes to be right and throughout his life has been actuated by high and honorable principles. He is a member of the Presbyterian church and since his twenty-fifth year has served as an elder of the church, is also clerk of the session and chairman of the joint official board composed of the elders and trustees of the church. He belongs to the newly organized Ashland Commercial Club and is a member of the Board of Trade. Broad minded and public spirited, he is a factor for progress in various lines of advancement in Ashland, and his labors have accomplished important and far- reaching results, contributing in no small degree to the expansion and commercial growth of the city, while from his labors he also has derived substantial benefits.
SAMUEL L. ARNOLD.
Samuel L. Arnold, of the real-estate and insurance firm of S. L. Arnold & Son, is one of the most prominent financial factors of Ashland. His success in business lines has been grounded upon his excellent judgment and innate ability and the benefits which, through his activity, have accrued to this vicinity, are many. His birth occurred in Milton township, Ashland county, August 26, 1846, a son of Daniel and Parmelia (Anderson) Arnold, both of whom were natives of this county. They came here at an early day and were numbered among the pioneers of this region. When about four years of age the elder Mr. Arnold was taken in charge by an aunt, Mrs. Samuel Zigler, of Milton township, by whom he was reared to manhood and while under her care he was educated in the public schools and given advantage of a higher course of training in Savannah Academy. In 1868 his foster parents removed to this city, Mr. Arnold accompanying them, and it was here for a period of two terms he at- tended Savannah Academy, after his graduation teaching school during the winter of 1869-70. Not long after, his mother having been previously married to D. W. Whitmore, who was elected probate judge in 1869, Mr. Arnold was made deputy probate clerk and performed the duties of that office for six years. Upon resigning this office he served for two years with J. D. Jones, an attorney and ex-probate judge and ex-sheriff, with whom he performed the duties of clerk until he engaged in the boot and shoe business, with which he was identified for about three years. In 1881 Mr. Arnold was made deputy auditor and in
the fall of 1884 was elected auditor of Ashland county. At the expiration of his first term he was reelected and in this capacity served for six years and ten months. During this period he also officiated as a member of the board of education and at the termination of his service as auditor he again engaged in the boot and shoe business, with which he was identified for about seven years, when in 1898, he formed a partnership with A. M. Kohler, to engage in the real-estate and insurance business, under the firm title of Arnold & Kohler. This connection existed until 1903, when it was dissolved. Mr. Arnold then took into partnership with him his son, John Edwards, the firm name then be- coming S. L. Arnold & Son, under which the company is now doing business.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
Mr. Arnold's administrative and executive abilities are widely acknowledged and in 1901 he was made secretary of the Ashland Building & Loan Company and still performs the duties of that responsible position. He has also served as a director in the Ashland Board of Trade.
Mr. Arnold was united in marriage, on April 4, 1871, to Miss Amanda Bryte, a native of this county, and to them have been born four children: John Edwards; Emma S., the wife of H. B. Van Osdall, a furniture dealer of this city; Ross, deceased; and Gail Bryte, the wife of Ray C. Ash, a practicing physician and surgeon of this place. Mr. Arnold belongs to Mohican Lodge, No. 85; Ashland Encampment, No. 130; and Canton Ashland, No. 41, I. O. O. F. He was elected first captain of the Canton and later was elected major of the First Battalion of the Third Regiment. His religious affiliations are with that denomination of Christians known as the Disciples of Christ, having been a member of that body since his fourteenth year, and for almost thirty-eight consecutive years he served as superintendent of the Sunday school, only recently having resigned that responsible position. A democrat in politics, he is a strong advocate of the policies advanced by the party and is a loyal supporter of its candidates. His business ability and financial success have given him high standing in the commercial circles of the city and his excellent character has always enabled him to maintain the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens.
JOHN EDWARDS ARNOLD.
John Edwards Arnold, the eldest son of Samuel Arnold and junior member of the real-estate and insurance firm of S. L. Arnold & Son, was born in Ashland April 13, 1872, and has thus far in his career served as an efficient factor in enhancing the worth of the enterprise with which he is affiliated. He acquired his preliminary educational training in the public schools of Ashland, subse- quently completing a course of study at Bethany College, West Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1893 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Immedi- ately upon completing his education he was employed in the office of F. E. Myers & Brother until 1894, when for a period of one year he was engaged by the Kentucky Union Land Company, surveying coal and timber property in the Kentucky mountains. Upon returning to this place he again entered the employ of F. E. Myers & Brother, with whom he remained until April, 1903, when he became associated in business with his father, with whom he remained until the fall of 1904 when he engaged with his father-in-law, D. A. Phillips, in the contracting business, and they have since been executing extensive con- tracts in street paving and grading work, having also been engaged in the partitioning, grading and paving of the property of the John Sherman estate in Mansfield, Ohio, which was a large contract requiring considerable time to com- plete. Mr. Arnold, however, still retains his interest in the real-estate and insurance firm operating as S. L. Arnold & Son.
In 1898 Mr. Arnold was united in marriage to Miss Helen B. Phillips, a daughter of D. A. Phillips and they have one child, Lois P. Mr. Arnold has
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wide fraternal relations and is a member of Mohican Lodge, No. 85, I. O. O. F., Ashland Encampment, No. 130, and Canton Ashland, No. 41, I. O. O. F., having been captain of the latter since 1901. He and his wife are members of the Disciples of Christ, in which church they are energetic workers and Mr. Arnold, being a thriving young business man of excellent character and superior judg- ment, deserves the prosperity with which he is surrounded. In the estimation of those who know him he holds a high place as one of the city's enterprising and aggressive business factors.
WILLIAM WHITFIELD MOORE.
The success of William Whitfield Moore is such as to make the principles which have guided his actions in commercial fields of interest to the business world. Through well defined lines of labor he has reached a position as one of the leading dry-goods merchants of Ashland, being now second member of the firm of Brubaker, Moore & Mayner. One of the native sons of this city, his birth occurred October 26, 1858, his parents being Moses B. and Mary (Hunter) Moore. The father was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in 1831, and with his parents came to Ashland in his boyhood days. His father, Samuel Moore, located on a farm in Mifflin township, which he purchased soon after his arrival in the early '30s, and his remaining days were spent in the development and improvement of that property. Not caring to devote his life to agricultural pursuits, Moses B. Moore learned the carpenter's trade and for many years was actively and prominently identified with building interests in Ashland, where he died in 1894. His wife, who was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1829, was a daughter of William Hunter, who served with the famous Captain Jack in the war of 1812, while later his widow drew a pension for several years in recognition of the military aid which he had rendered the country. Their daughter, Mrs. Moore, survived her husband for a few years and passed away in 1897. In the family of Moses B. and Mary (Hunter) Moore were six children, of whom five are yet living, namely: May B., the wife of Dr. J. B. Buchanan, of Fort Recovery, Ohio; Charles D., who is employed in his brother's store; Frank S., who is a silent partner in the firm of George Little & Company, dealers in wall paper at Cleveland, Ohio; Harry H., who is with the Ashland Hardware Company ; and William Whitfield, of this review.
The last named was reared in Ashland, where he has always made his home. Entering the public schools at the usual age, he passed through consecutive grades to his graduation from the high school, while later he spent one term as a pupil in a business college at Adrian, Michigan. He returned from college at the age of fifteen years in debt to the sum of two hundred and ten dollars for his schooling, which had been advanced him by Judge Osborn, in whose office he had worked in his early boyhood. He then sought a position with the inten- tion of early discharging this indebtedness and entered the employ of Brubaker Brothers, acting as salesman in the store for seven or eight years, during which time he gave ample proof of his ability, fidelity and enterprise. That he won
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the confidence and approval of the firm is indicated by the fact that after seven or eight years he was admitted to a partnership and during the various changes which have since occurred he has remained to the present as one of the active factors in the management and successful control of this business and has long been regarded as one of the most prominent, worthy and successful merchants of Ashland. The firm today owns and controls an extensive and well equipped store, carrying a large line of goods and enjoying a liberal patronage, owing to their reasonable prices and straightforward business methods.
Mr. Moore has been married twice. In 1884 he wedded Miss Mary Ebert, of Ashland, who died in 1893, leaving a son, Tierney Ebert Moore, who is now employed in his father's store. In October, 1902, Mr. Moore wedded Miss Jennie C. Pearson, a daughter of Ora Pearson, of Indianapolis, Indiana, and a granddaughter of Michael Miller, a pioneer hotel proprietor of Ashland There were two children born of the second marriage but only one, William Pearson, is now living.
In his political views Mr. Moore is a stalwart republican, voting for the party since casting his first presidential ballot and at all times laboring earnestly in legitimate lines for its success, yet never has he allowed his name to be used in connection with a candidacy for any office. He belongs to Mohican Lodge, No. 85, I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. For the past seven years he has been a member of the Ashland cemetery board and in the social circles of the city he is likewise prominent and popular. He was one of the active spirits in the organization of the Commercial Club, of which he has recently been elected president and he is likewise a member of the Colonial Club, of Ashland. There has been no movement for the advancement and up- building of the town during the period of his manhood which he has not endorsed and to which he has not given active and helpful support. Starting out in life for himself at the age of fifteen, handicapped by an indebtedness, he early displayed the elemental strength of his character in the willingness with which he performed every task assigned him and in his adaptability, perseverance and energy. These qualities have enabled him to make steady progress and today no citizen of Ashland is more valued or more respected than William Whitfield Moore.
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