USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 61
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John M. Pidgeon completed his schooling at New Garden Boarding School, now Guilford College, and for many years taught school. He had a . birthright in the Society of Friends and in 1866, not long after the coming of the family to Ohio; was ordained a minister of the Friends church, a posi- tion he occupied until his death. In 1875 Mr. Pidgeon bought the fifty-acre farm in Jefferson township, where his widow is now living, and there he spent the rest of his life, his death occurring there on March 20, 1918, and he was buried in the cemetery at Jamestown.
The Rev. John M. Pidgeon was twice married. On July 4, 1858. he was united in marriage to Caroline Priscilla Thompson and to that union were born three children, Ida May, born on January II. 1860, who married Henry Pearson and died on July 11, 1910, leaving two daughters, Fleta Belle and Maude May; Carl A., July 11, 1861, who married Belle Vennemin
CARL A. PIDGEON LAUREL V. PIDGEON
VERNON PIDGEON REV. JOHN M. PIDGEON FOUR GENERATIONS OF THE PIDGEON FAMILY.
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and has five children, Vernon, Charles, Arthur, John Vance and Egbert ; and Charles T., February 12, 1863, now engaged in the wholesale millinery business at Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who married Maud Keplinger and has one daughter, Mervyn. Mrs. Caroline Pidgeon died on December II, 1908, and on December 14, 1910, Mr. Pidgeon married Mrs. Catherine (Stethem) Hughes, of Hillsboro, who survives him. Mrs. Pidgeon is a daughter of Moses and Martha (Allen) Stethem. Her first husband, Frank Hughes, was born at Hillsboro in November, 1866, and by her first marriage she has one child, a daughter, Grace D .. who on January 1, 1911, married William N. Linton, a hardware merchant at Bowersville, and has two children, Cath- erine, born on December 23, 1911, and Mary Elizabeth, March 19, 1914.
HORACE STEELE KEMP.
Horace Steele Kemp, former trustee of Sugarcreek township, whose tragic death in the summer of 1915 by reason of a farm accident in the vicinity of his home in Sugarcreek township proved a shock to the whole community, was a member of one of the old families in this part of Ohio, the Kemps having settled in the Dayton neighborhood, over in Montgomery county, in the early days of the settlement of that section. He was born on a farm in Mad River township, Montgomery county, April 17, 1872, son of Louis A. and Hester (Taylor) Kemp, both of whom were born in that same county.
Louis A. Kemp was born on the old Kemp farm, just east of Dayton, now a part of the city corporation, and remained there until the year 1875, when he came over into Greene county and located on a farm in Sugar- creek township, where he continued farming until about 1889, when he re- tired from the farm and moved to the village of Bellbrook, where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring there in 1891. He and his wife were the parents of six children, those besides the subject of this memorial sketch being the following: Stephen A., now a ranclier in New Mexico; John, who died in infancy; Josephine, wife of W. E. Strain, of Dayton; Augustus, who also is a rancher in New Mexico, and Ada, wife of Walter Weller, living one mile south of Bellbrook, in this county.
Horace S. Kemp was three years of age when his parents came to Greene county and he grew up on the home farm in Sugarcreek township and received his schooling in the neighborhoodl schools. He remained there until grown and then went to Kansas and became engaged in the cattle business in the vicinity of Emporia, where he married and where he re- mained for some years, at the end of which time he disposed of his interests there and returned to Ohio, for a year thereafter being engaged in the bak-
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ery business at Greenville. He then, in 1890, returned to the home farm in this county, his father having retired from the farm about that time, and resumed farmning there, continuing thus engaged until his tragic death on June 22, 1915. Mr. Kemp was at the barn of his brother-in-law, Mr. Willers, where men were haying, when the pully of a hayfork broke and he was struck on the head by the flying missile. He was hurriedly taken to a hospital at Dayton, but surgical skill was powerless to give him relief and he died that same evening. He was buried in the cemetery at Bellbrook and the funeral was one of the most largely attended ever held in that community, there being no fewer than one thousand sympathizing friends present. Mr. Kemp was a Democrat and had served as township trustee several terms and also for several terms as a member of the district school board. He was a member of the Mt. Zion Reformed church and was affil- iated with the Grange and with the Junior Order of United American Mechanics.
Mr. Kemp was twice married. During the time of his residence at Emporia, Kansas, he was united in marriage to Ida David, of that city. To that union two children were born, Lawrence and Helen, both of whom are now in high school. The mother of these children died on January 20, 1905, and on June 13, 1907, Mr. Kemp married Lora Kemp, daughter of Joseph W. and Mary (Pearson) Kemp. of the Dayton neighborhood. The late Joseph W. Kemp was a farmer living near Dayton and he and his wife were the parents of six children. To Horace S. and Lora (Kemp) Kemp were born two children, John, born on November 8, 1908, and Hester, May 28, 1911. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Kemp has continued to make her home on the home farm on rural mail route No. I out of Waynes- ville.
GEORGE DODDS AND SONS.
The business now conducted by the George Dodds & Sons Granite Com- pany at Xenia was established in the year 1864 and has for more than half a century been carried on continuously from its present headquarters in that city. George Dodds, from whom the company derives its name, was one of the original founders of the business, and his six sons have grown up with knowledge of its various branches. The business was incorporated in 1911, under its present name. During the same year the Victoria White Granite Company was organized, with quarries and cutting plants at Keene, New Hampshire. The properties of the Milford Pink Granite Quarries, at Milford, Massachusetts, have also been acquired by the Dodds brothers, the
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transaction having been mentioned by a leading trade journal at the time as "the greatest granite deal of this generation." The Milford Pink Granite Company is also incorporated. The executive offices of all these companies are in Nenia, all are incorporated under the laws of Ohio, and in all of them the Messrs. Dodds own a controlling interest. The president of the George Dodds & Sons Granite Company is Earl C. Dodds, now in charge of the Victoria White Granite Company's general offices at Keene, New Hamp- shire, and who for nearly ten years past has been the general executive head of the business at Xenia. He also is vice-president and treasurer of the Victoria White Granite Company and treasurer of the Milford Pink Granite Company. John Charles Dodds, vice-president and general manager of the company, as well as president of the Victoria White Granite Company and president of the Milford Pink Granite Company, resides in Xenia, but is kept traveling much of the time looking after the company's interests. Leslie J. Dodds, second vice-president, was for some years in the engraving depart- ment and is now at the head of one of the departments of the wholesale house of Wilson Brothers at Chicago, in which city he resides. Ralph C. Dodds, third vice-president, was for many years a salesman for the whole- sale house of J. V. Farwell & Company at Chicago, but is now devoting his entire time to the sales department of the George Dodds & Sons Granite Company, in charge of the territory adjacent to Indianapolis, with headquar- ters in Indianapolis. Frank W. Dodds, secretary of the company, is now in charge of the company's executive offices at Xenia. He is a graduate of the Ohio State University College of Law and was for years a student of art and architecture at home and abroad. He also is secretary of the Milford Pink Granite Company and assistant secretary of the Victoria White Granite Company. George F. Dodds, treasurer and superintendent of construction of the company, secretary of the Victoria White Granite Company and vice- president of the Milford Pink Granite Company, is also located at Xenia and has charge of the manufacturing plant there, as well as of the work of setting up important work outside.
The late George Dodds, founder of the business above referred to and father of the six brothers who are now in charge of the same, was a native of Scotland, but had been a resident of this country since he was seventeen years of age, most of his life being spent in Xenia, where he died on Novem- ber 17. 1914. He was born at Primside Mill, near the village of Yetholm, in Roxboroughshire, February 19, 1837, fifth in order of birth of the seven children born to George and Isabel (Taylor) Dodds, who were born in that same community and who spent all their lives there, and he remained in his native Scotland until he was seventeen years of age, when, in response to
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the request of his elder brother, Andrew Dodds, who three years before had come to this country and was then engaged as foreman of a marble-cutting esablishment at Madison, Indiana, he came over and joined his brother at Madison. It was on July 11, 1854, that George Dodds sailed from Glasgow and sixteen days later he landed at the port of New York, losing little time thereafter in joining his brother in Indiana. Under his brother's direction George Dodds became an expert marble-cutter. In 1859 the two brothers left Madison and came over into this part of Ohio and set up a marble shop in the vicinity of Antioch at Yellow Springs, in this county, where they remained until 1864, in which year they moved to Xenia and there enlarged their facilities for monumental work and erected a plant for general marble cutting, doing business under the firm nanie of A. & G. Dodds. In the spring of 1866 Andrew Dodds returned to his native Scotland and sent back a large quantity of Scotch granite, the Dodds brothers thus becoming the first importers of this quality of granite west of New York City. In the meantime they had established a branch house at St. Louis and in 1867 Andrew Dodds moved to that city to take charge of the business there, George Dodds remaining in charge of the plant at Xenia. The partnership thus being dissolved, George Dodds continued in business alone until 1871, when he admitted to partnership Alexander Caskey and in the next year established a branch house at Pittsburgh, of which Mr. Caskey took charge in 1873. Mr. Dodds thus again being left alone in charge of the business at Xenia, and from 1873 to 1897 he conducted the business. In the year last mentioned Mr. Dodds took into partnership with him his son, John Charles Dodds, present general manager of the George Dodds & Sons Granite Com- pany, and thereafter extended the operations of the concern, making more of a specialty of the architectural phase of the business than theretofore, the original operations of the plant having been confined largely to monumental work, and this business has since been extended from year to year until now it is recognized as the greatest establishment devoted to architectural and mortuary art in the world.
George Dodds was twice married. On October 1I, 1861, at Madison, Indiana, he was united in marriage to Elizabeth I. Ferguson, of that place, and to that union were born two children, George Fremont Dodds, present treasurer and superintendent of construction of the George Dodds & Sons Granite Company, of Xenia, and one who died in infancy. Mrs. Elizabeth I. Dodds died on August 20, 1865, while on a visit to her mother at Madison, and on October 16, 1866, Mr. Dodds married Mary E. Brown, of Xenia, daughter of Hiram and Rebecca Brown, the former of whom, an architect and builder, had come to Xenia to superintend the erection of the old court house. To that union were born eight children, three daughters besides the
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five sons mentioned above, Carrie B., widow of the Rev. George H. Geyer and further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume; Mary Alice, who died at the age of one year, and Jessie K., who resides at the family residence in Xenia. Mr. Dodds was a member of the First Methodist Epis- copal church, was for many years recording steward of the congregation with which he was affiliated and was a leader in the work of the Good Templars during the days of that organization's strength. Mrs. Dodds, who died on October 10, 1913, was for years contributor to the cause of temperance here- about through her activities in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, of which organization she was for some time the president.
PROF. DEWALT S. LYNN.
Prof. Dewalt S. Lynn, district superintendent of the Beavercreek and Bath township schools, is a native of the old Keystone state, but has been a resident of Ohio since the days of his young manhood. He was born in Pennsylvania on October 14, 1876, son of Andrew R. and Elizabeth ( Schultz) Lynn, both of whom also were born in that state, the former in 1847 and the latter in 1852, and the former of whom is still living, now a resident of Fair- field, this county. The latter died on February 22, 1917.
Andrew R. Lynn was reared as a farmer in his native state and followed that vocation there until 1895, in which year he came with his family to Ohio and located on a farm in Bath township, this county, where he con- tinued farming until his retirement and removal to the village of Fairfield, where his wife died and where he is still living. To them six children were born, of whom the subject of this sketch was the second in order of birth, the others being Frances, wife of Samuel A. Weaver, a farmer, of Bath town- ship, this county; Anna, who died at the age of nineteen years; Claude, a locomotive engineer in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, who married Jessie Hoffman and is living at Xenia; William, who died at the age of twenty-eight years, and the Rev. Ralph Lynn, minister of the Reformed church, who married Irene Bell and is now pastor of the Caesars- creek charge, including Maple Corner and Hawker's church.
Reared on a farm, Dewalt S. Lynn received his early schooling in the schools of his home neighborhood in his native state and when the family moved to this county he entered the Bath township high school and after two years of further instruction there began teaching school, and was thus engaged for five years, at the end of which time he entered Heidelberg Uni- versity at Tiffin, this state, and was graduated from that institution, after a four-years course, in 1906. He then accepted the position of superintendent
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of the village schools at Basil, in Fairfield county, this state, and after three years of service in that capacity returned home and was for a year there- after engaged in the service of the Bath township schools. He then accepted the position of superintendent of the schools of Jefferson township, in the neighboring county of Montgomery, and was there thus engaged for four years, or until 1914, when he returned to Fairfield and has since been engaged as district superintendent of the schools in Bath and Beavercreek townships, the present enrollment of pupils under Professor Lynn's charge being three hundred from the former township and four hundred from the latter.
On June 21, 1906, in Bath township, this county, Prof. D. S. Lynn was united in marriage to Clara Tobias, daughter of Martin L. and Mary (Barn- hart) Tobias, of that township, the latter of whom is still living, now making her home with her youngest son, and to this union have been born two sons, Leroy, born on February 22, 1909, and Carl, January 12, 1916. Professor and Mrs. Lynn are members of the Reformed church and reside at Fairfield. The professor is a member of the local grange. By political persuasion he is a Democrat, but reserves the right to maintain an independent attitude on local issues.
EDWIN H. SCHAUER.
Edwin H. Schauer, proprietor of a farm in Miami township, a part of the old Confer place on which he was born, has been a resident of this county all his life. He was born on April 3. 1867, son of Isaac and Mary (Confer) Schauer, both of whom also were born in this county, the former in Bath township and the latter in Miami township on the farm above referred to.
Isaac Schauer was born on November I, 1832, a son of Samuel Schauer and wife, early settlers in the Byron neighborhood. Samuel Schauer had a brother, Jesse, and a sister, Elizabeth. Isaac Schauer was the sixth in order of birth of the seven children born to his parents, the others having been John, Jacob, George, Sarah, Samuel and Simon, all now deceased. In 1862 Isaac Schauer was married to Mary Confer, daughter of Samuel Confer, of Miami township, who was the father of three children, Mrs. Schauer having had two brothers, Hiram and Henry. After his mar- riage Isaac Schauer became engaged in farming on his own account and presently took up the cultivation of nursery stock. For a time during the later sixties he conducted a hotel at Yellow Springs, but in 1870 returned to the old Schaner farm in Bath township and there remained for nine years, at the end of which time he moved to a farm in Beavercreek township and there was engaged in farming for thirteen years. About the year 1897 he retired from active labors and moved to Yellow Springs, where he spent
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his last days, his death occurring there on May 7, 1907. His widow is still living. To Isaac and Mary (Confer) Schauer were born six children, of whom the subject of this sketch, the third in order of birth, is now the only survivor, the others having been Lulu, who died in infancy; Ida, who mar- ried William Beatty and died before she was twenty-three years of age, and Clinton, George and Clifford, who died in infancy.
Edwin H. Schaner received his schooling in the school at Byron and in the Ludlow school in Beavercreek township. In the week following the attainment of his majority he married. For three years thereafter he re- mained on the home place and then bought his present farm, on which he has ever since been living, a part of the old Confer place. formerly the Walker farm, bought during the 'sos by his grandfather, Samuel Confer. Mr. Schauer owns there a farm of one hundred and ten acres and in addi- tion to his general farming gives considerable attention to the raising of live stock, Shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs being his specialty. He is a Republican with independent leanings.
On April 10. 1888, Edwin H. Schauer was united in marriage to Eliza- beth Morgan, of Xenia township, who was born on March 25, 1869. daugh- ter of David and Rose (Greene) Morgan, both of whom also were born in this county, the former in Xenia township and the latter in Beavercreek township, and who were the parents of nine children, those besides Mrs. Schaner being the following: John Morgan, a resident of the city of Xenia; Emma, wife of Richard Bull, a farmer on Clarks run in Xenia township; Joseph, a building contractor at Knoxville. Tennessee; Rose, wife of Wesley Swadener, a farmer of the Oldtown neighborhood in this county; Clinton, who is now the manager of a poultry farm in Indiana, and Margaret, wife of James Shaw, a farmer of the Oldtown neighborhood, and two who died in infancy. Mr. and Mrs. Schauer have nine children, namely : Ethel, born on April 24, 1889, who married Warren Carpenter, a Miami township farmer, and has one child, a daughter, Marjorie; J. Myrtle, January 22, 1892, who married James Hoffman, now living at Yellow Springs, and has one child, a daughter, Marie; Goldie, August 6, 1893, who married Prof. Gilbert Funderberg, now a teacher in the high school at Pittsburgh, Penn- sylvania, and has one child, a son, Joe; Luther, May 15, 1895, a soldier of the National Army, now ( 1918) in camp at Camp Custer at Battle Creek, Michigan ; Ida, April 14, 1898, at home ; Isaac Lester, September 25, 1900, at home, a member of the class of 1918, Yellow Springs high school; Clar- ence, December 5, 1902, a member of the class of 1920, same school; Fern, February 26, 1905. and Catherine, December 22, 1910. The Schauers are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and Mr. Schaner has been a member of the board of trustees of his church for more than twenty years.
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WARREN B. STEEL.
For more than a hundred years the Steels have been represented in Greene county and particularly in the Beavercreek neighborhood, where the family became established in an early day in the settlement of that part of the county, the first of the family to settle in this county having bought a tract of timber land there upon coming over here from Maryland, paying three dol- lars an acre for the same, and there established his home, he and his wife, the latter of whom before her marriage was Ann Palmer, spending the rest of their lives in that neighborhood. This pioneer Steele cleared a portion of his land and in his declining days sold the place to his son Ebenezer, father of the subject of this sketch, and moved to Alpha, where his last days were spent. Ebenezer Steel was the fifth in order of birth of the ten children born to his parents, the others having been John, Jacob, Harvey, William, Mary, Sarah, Ann, Elizabeth and Martha. As most of these chil- dren reared families of their own it is apparent that the descendants of this pioneer couple must form a numerous connection in the present generation.
Ebenezer Steel was born on the pioneer farm above referred to on April 6, 1821, and there grew to manhood. He married Catherine Shuey, who was born in April, 1818, and after his marriage bought his father's farm of one hundred and fifty-nine and one-half acres and there made his home until 1875, when he disposed of his interests in this county and moved to northwestern Missouri, buying a farm in the vicinity of Lathrop, in Clinton county, that state, where he died in May, 1886. His widow survived him for more than fifteen years, her death occurring in January, 1902. Ebenezer Steel was a Republican and he and his wife were members of the Reformed church. They were the parents of seven children, namely : John, who enlisted his services in behalf of the Union during the Civil War, went to the front as a member of Company E, Ninety-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at the battle of Buzzard Roost, Georgia; Henry Erman, who married Sarah J. Ross and moved to Missouri, where he died leaving one child, a son, Edgar Ross Steel; Joseph Granville, who married Salomie Palmer and became a farmer in Noble county, Indiana, where he died on February 1I, 1916, leaving two children, Ada, who married Forest Moore, and Stacy; Melvin David, who died unmarried in Missouri, at the age of twenty-five years; Ebenezer Cattie, a farmer in Clinton county, Mis- souri, who married Elizabeth Trice and has six children, Harry, Frank, John, Maude. Eva and Mary; and Oliver Perry Morton, who married Car- rie Trice and later became established at Grand Junction, Colorado, where he was engaged in the real-estate business and where he also served as deputy county clerk and who died in 1915, leaving two sons, Dr. Guy Steel, now a
MR. AND MRS. WARREN B. STEEL.
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dentist at Independence, Missouri, and Hugh, who is now serving in the national army.
Warren B. Steel, fourth child and third son of Ebenezer and Catherine (Shuey) Steel, was born on the old Steel place in Beavercreek township on February 17, 1847, and there grew to manhood, receiving his schooling in the neighborhood schools and remaining there until after his marriage in 1870, when he began farming on his own account, as a renter, and was thus engaged in this county and in the neighboring county of Clark for some years, at the end of which time he moved to Noble county, Indiana, but after two years of residence there returned to this county and bought a seventy- acre farm in the vicinity of the Ludlow school house. On this latter place he made his home for thirteen years, at the end of which time he disposed of the farm and moved to Xenia, where he became engaged as an inspector in a handle factory and later was employed as an inspector of sidewalks and sewers, in the municipal service, continuing thus engaged for four years, at the end of which time, in 1905, he bought the farm on which he is now living in Beavercreek township, four and a half miles west of Xenia, rural mail route No. 10 out of Xenia, and has since made his home there, though of late years he has been living practically retired from the active labors of the farm, renting his fields. Mr. Steel has one hundred and three acres and since taking possession of the same has created there an entirely new farm plant, building new buildings and making other improvements. In addition to his general farming he has given considerable attention to the raising of Hol- stein cattle, Poland China hogs and Cottswold sheep. Mr. Steel is a Repub- lican and, fraternally, is affiliated with the Masonic order. He was made a Mason forty-six years ago in the lodge at Yellow Springs, but is now connected with the lodge of that order at Xenia.
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