USA > Ohio > Morrow County > History of Morrow County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Vol. II > Part 20
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Mr. Yeager has been twice married. He married first Mary E. Klinefelter, a daughter of Jacob and Catharine (Kiefer) Kline- felter. She passed to the life beyond May 1, 1890, leaving six children, as follows: May, wife of Grant Haldeman, of Marion, Ohio; Daisy D., wife of Edwin Croft, of Mansfield, Ohio; Edith, wife of Charles Garverick, of Troy township; Clara, wife of Ira Garverick ; Carlson J., living at home; and Bertha. living at home. Mr. Yeager married for his second wife, January 26, 1893, Jennie F. Stull, who was born April 28, 1868, in Morrow county, a daugh- ter of George Stull. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Yeager, namely : Cloyd, born November 2, 1896; Glenn, born May 3, 1899; Kenneth, born July 8, 1906; and Jennie M., born Septem- ber 1, 1908.
In his political affiliations Mr. Yeager is a Democrat, and has filled various local offices, having been township trustee, assessor for eight years and land appraiser for North Bloomfield township. He is a member and one of the directors of the Morrow County Agricultural Society, and both he and his wife belong to the Johns- ville Grange, of which he has been master, while she is now lecturer for the local grange. Both Mr. and Mrs. Yeager are members of the United Evangelical church of Troy township, and liberal con- tributors towards its support. Fraternally Mr. Yeager belongs to Johnsville Lodge, No. 469, I. O. O. F., of which he is past noble grand. The pretty homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Yeager is known as "The Maple Grove Farm."
UPTON J. COVER, who has for years figured as one of the repre- sentative business men of Mt. Gilead, Ohio, is now engaged in the seed business, with headquarters in the Center Block, on Center street.
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Mr. Cover was born in Morrow county October 10, 1853, a son of Jason J. and Catherine (King) Cover, and was reared in the village of Johnsville in Perry township, this county, where his father was both a farmer and merchant. After completing his common school studies he went to Westerville, where he entered Otterbein University and pursued a course of study. Returning home, he worked for his father on the farm and in the store until 1878, when he engaged in the grain business at Edison, Ohio. After two years spent at that place he sold his interests there and then, in 1880, associated himself as a partner with Mozier Brothers in the grain and seed business at Mt. Gilead. In 1890 Mozier Brothers sold their interest in the business, and the firm became Levering and Cover, which continued five years. After- ward Mr. Cover continued the grain business, which claimed his attention until 1905, when he sold out to Wagoner Brothers. Since that time he has conducted a seed business. He has a three- fifths interest in the building in which his store in situated, and where he has a prosperous business, and he owns several residences in Mt. Gilead and one in Columbus, Ohio.
Mr. Cover married Sarah Held, of Johnsville, Ohio, in 1879, and they have two sons: Donn, a clerk in the post office at Mt. Gilead, was born October 30, 1883, and Franklin, born October 22, 1895, has entered Mt. Gilead high school.
Politically Mr. Cover is a Republican. Religiously he is iden- tified with the Methodist Episcopal church of Mt. Gilead, in which he is prominent and active, being a trustee and member of the official board.
GEORGE W. MODIE was for many years a leading and influential citizen of this section of the fine old Buckeye state and his activity in business affairs, his cooperation in public interests and his zealous support of all public objects that he believed would con- tribute to the material, social or moral improvement of the com- munity kept him in the foremost rank of those to whom this county owes its development and present position as one of the leading commercial and agricultural regions of Ohio. His life was characterized by upright, honorable principles and it also exempli- fied the truth of the Emersonian philosophy that "The way to win a friend is to be one." His genial, kindly manner won him the kind regard and good will of all with whom he came in contact and thus his death was uniformly mourned throughout this district. He was a fine old veteran of the Civil war and during the major portion of his active career was engaged in agricultural operations on his fine farm cast of Chesterville. He was summoned to the life eternal on the 27th of May, 1885, and is survived by his cherished and devoted wife.
At Mansfield, Ohio, on the 8th of October, 1832, occurred the birth of George W. Modie, who was a son of William and Margaret
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(Gates) Modic, both of whom were natives of this state. William Modie was twice married, and by his first union was the father of two sons-Milton and Wesley. His second marriage was prolific of nine children, whose names are here entered in respective order of birth: George, Sanford, Martin, William, Mary, Martha J., Margaret A., Minerva I. and Emma. George W. Modie, the imme- diate subject of this review, recived his elementary educational training in the Washington district school and at the age of twenty- two years, when President Lincoln issued his first call for volun- teers to defend the cause of the Union, his intrinsic loyalty to his country caused him to enlist as a soldier in Company A, Twentieth Regiment, Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. Hc immediately proceeded to the front and after the expiration of his three years' term of enlistment he reenlisted for the remainder of the war. He participated in a number of important engagements marking the progress of the war and he also accompanied Sherman on that general's memorable march to the sea. After the elose of the sanguinary conflict he went to Washington, where he took part in the Grand Review, in which the hosts of brave veterans marched up Pennsylvania avenue in the Capital city and lay down their arms, the worthy recipients of a nation's gratitude and praise.
Returning home to Ohio in 1865, Mr. Modie was variously engaged until after his marriage, in 1868, when he turned his atten- tion to farming on the old home estate three miles east of Chester- ville. This farm comprises forty-three acres of most arable land and on it Mr. Modie was engaged in diversified agriculture and the raising of high-grade stock. He was a blacksmith by trade and worked at that occupation off and on as long as his health would permit. In his political adherency he was a stanch supporter of the cause promulgated by the Democratic party. In his religious faith he was a consistent member of the Chesterville Baptist church, and he was for twenty years the efficient incumbent of the office of church treasurer. He was a man of fine moral caliber, broad information and charitable impulses, and in all the relations of life he so conducted himself as to command the unalloyed regard of all with whom he came in contact.
On the 20th of October, 1868, Mr. Modie was united in marriage to Miss Isabel E. Nye, of Chester township. She is a daughter of W. W. and Martha (Ball) Nye, the latter of whom was a daughter of Uzell and Penina (Lyon) Ball. Mr. Nye's mother was a school teacher in New York prior to her marriage to Samuel Nye, of New Hampshire. She was related to Josiah Bart- lett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. While Mr. and Mrs. Modie were never blessed with any of their own children they took into their home and reared to maturity a boy named Lewis Howell, who was a soldier in the Spanish-American war. After his return home from Porto Rico Mr. Howell con- tracted dyptheria and died, at the age of thirty-two years.
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Through their energy and industry Mr. and Mrs. Modie had been enabled to build for themselves a fine and comfortable home, but as a result of debts arising from his long illness and subsequent death the grief-stricken widow found herself facing a debt of two thousand dollars. Determined to retain her home, she borrowed enough money to eradicate the indebtedness and after a number of years of close and persistent management she was enabled to cancel the debt against her property. After her husband's death she took a young girl, Rose Dement, into her home and cared for her until her twenty-seventh year, when she became the wife of Wilbur Buckmaster. Mrs. Modie is a woman of unusual liberality and being very much interested in homeless boys and girls she has frequently harbored orphans and helped them to -places of independence. In connection with her varied interests she is an extensive contributor to a number of newspapers. She has traveled extensively and visited cach of the following expositions: Phila- delphia, Chicago, St. Louis and Jamestown, and she is an annual attendant at the World's International Stock Show at Chicago. She is a brilliant woman, an interesting conversationalist and an exceedingly popular hostess. She is a member of the local lodge of the Order of the Eastern Star and recently gave a memorial recitation to her fraternity sisters, the name of her selection being "The End of the Labyrinth." She also holds the office of state inspector of the Ladies Grand Army members, having been elected thereto at the last state encampment of that organization at Florida. She passes her winters at Kissimmee, Florida, where the southern sunshine and flowers have won her heart.
EDWARD D. MECKLEY .- A man of ability and scholarly attain- ments, Edward D. Meckley, of Troy township, has for many years been actively associated with the development and advancement of the educational interests of Morrow county, and has won a far more than local reputation as a faithful and effiicent educator. A son of Andrew Meckley, he was born September 12, 1863, in Crow- ford county, Ohio. His paternal grandfather, David Meckley, came with his family, sometime in the early forties, to what is now Troy township in Morrow county, Ohio, from Pennsylvania, his native state, and here spent his remaining days. To him and his wife seven children, four sons and three daughters, were born, and of these six children were living in the spring of 1911.
A lad of ten or cleven years when he accompanied his parents from York county, Pennsylvania, the place of his birth, to Olio, Andrew Meckley was brought up in what is now Morrow county. and during his active career has been prosperously engaged in agricultural pursuits, his well-improved and highly cultivated farm being advantageously located in Troy township. He is an in- fluential member of the community, and has served as township trustee, assessor and treasurer, in each and every official capacity
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proving himself worthy of the trust reposed in him by his fellow- citizens. He married Mary Hassler, and they became the parents of five children, as follows: Laura A., wife of Dr. J. W. Davis, of Anderson, Indiana ; Edward D., the subject of this sketch; Emma, who became the wife of C .. M. Hershner, of Galion, Ohio, has passed to the higher life ; and two children that died in infancy.
Brought up on the old home farm in Troy township, Edward D. Mecley obtained his rudimentary knowledge of books in the district schools of his township, and later continued his studies at the Upper Sandusky High School. Scholarly in his tastes and ambitions, he then entered the Ada Normal School, at Ada, Ohio, where he became well qualified for a professional career, and has since pursued his chosen vocation most successfully, for twenty- eight years having been one of the leading educators of Morrow county, his ability and skill as an instructor being widely recog- nized.
Mr. Meckley married, September 26, 1888, Winnie May Miller, who was born and educated in Troy township, being a daughter of J. A. and Nancy (Stull) Miller .. She died June 9, 1897, leaving three children, namely : Orrie H., a graduate of the Troy township High School and the Anderson (Indiana) High School, is now a teacher in Iberia, Ohio; John E., who was graduated from the Troy township High School, is teaching in. North Bloomfield town- ship; and Marie, a pupil in the Troy township High School. Mr. Meckley married for his second wife, Mary B. Lewis, and to them three children have been born, namely; Blanche F., Ruth L. and Mary L.
Politically a Democrat, Mr. Meckley has served continuously as township clerk since 1898. Fraternally he is a member of Lucullus Lodge, No. 121, Knights of Pythias, at Butler, Ohio; and of Live Oak Camp No. 11321, Modern Woodmen of America.
JOHN WILLIAM LEWIS-A man of good business enterprise and much intelligence, John William Lewis, a prosperous farmer of South Bloomfield township, is a fine representative of the self-made men of our times, his life furnishing to the rising generation a forcible example of the material success to be obtained by persever- ing industry and a wise system of economy. A son of John V. Lewis, he was born February 11, 1862, in Belmont county, Ohio, where he was bred and educated. He is of pure English ancestry, his paternal great-great-grandfather having emigrated to the United States during the later years of the eighteenth century. He was a blacksmith by trade, an occupation which has since been followed by his descendants for five generations, and brought with him from his English home an anvil which is still in possession of the Lewis family.
John V. Lewis, a son of Theodore Lewis, a native-born citizen of Ohio, was born in 1837, in Belmont county, Ohio, and until his
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marriage lived with his parents, being, so as to speak, raised in his father's smithy. Succeeding to the ancestral occupation, he be- came an expert blacksmith, and followed his chosen trade through- out his active life. His wife, whose maiden name was Julia A. Luke, was born April 26, 1841, in Belmont county, Ohio, where her parents, Robert and Ellen Luke, spent their lives, her father at- taining the venerable age of ninety years.
After the death of his mother, which occurred when he was eighteen years old, John William Lewis left home, going first to Cardington and later settling in Stantontown, where he operated a blacksmith's shop for a time. After his marriage he lived first in South Woodbury, from there going to Cardington with his family. In 1897 Mr. Lewis purchased in South Bloomfield town- ship his present farm of eighty-five acres, and has since been actively engaged in agricultural pursuits. His estate, with its valuable improvements, constituting one of the most attractive and desirable homes in this part of Morrow county.
Mr. Lewis married, April 4, 1885, Emma Clark, who was born June 24, 1860, in Morrow county, Ohio, which was likewise the birthplace of her father, George W. Clark, who was born October 21, 1832, in that part of the county then included in Delaware county. Her great-grandfather, Nathan Clark, was born June 20, 1756, in New York state, and there married, May 25, 1791, Jemima Daggot, who was born June 18, 1771. They became the parents of ten children, all of whom lived to years of maturity. Early in the nineteenth century, his two older children being married and settled in Pennsylvania, he came to Ohio with his wife and the other eight children, coming down the Allegheny river on a raft. Coming to Morrow county, he located on East Alum creek, near a spring, not far from Stantontown, and in the midst of the dense wilderness took up one hundred acres of land from the government. With the assistance of his sons he redeemed a farm from the forest, it being the estate now occupied by. Mrs. Lewis' father. His son, Dr. Nathan Clark, a practicing physician, was the father of George W. Clark. Dr. Clark was born in New York state July 18, 1796, and came with his parents to Ohio. He married, January 10, 1830, Eleanor Britt, whose father, John Britt, was a noted pioneer school teacher, some of the text books which he used being now in the possession of his granddaughter, Mrs. Lewis.
George W. Clark succeeded to the ownership of the old Clark homestead, near Stantontown, and as an agriculturist has met with excellent success, his farm being under a good state of cultivation and well improved. He married, August 11, 1859, Mary MeGregor, who was born June 26, 1840, and died February 20, 1900. She was of Scotch ancestry, as her name indicates, having been a daughter of James L. and Thankful (Thompson) MeGregor, who had four sons in the Civil war, one of whom, Rob Roy MeGregor, served as captain of a company, while another son, Dr. Leander MeGregor,
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was a surgeon in the Union army and in later years was a member of the Missouri State Legislature. The McGregors are lineal des- cendants of Robert McGregor, or Rob Roy, the hero of Scott's novel of that name, a celebrated freebooter of the Scotch Highlands who incurred the displeasure of Robert Bruce, of Scotland, and after the outlawry of his clan assumed the name of Campbell. Ten children were born to Mr. and Mrs. George W. Clark, namely : Emma, now Mrs. Lewis; Ella, deceased; William; Alfred ; Lettice ; deceased ; Lutitia; McGregor; Myra, Mary J .; and George.
Ten children have brightened the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, namely : Mattie, born February 1, 1886, taught school six years, and at the age of twenty-three years on August 9, 1909, became the wife of Prof. Win. A. Danford; Lillie born August 23, 1887, taught school three years, and wedded William O. Bishop on October 16, 1907; Estella, born June 26, 1889, was graduated from Sparta, from the Ashley high school at the age of seventeen years, from the Ohio University, at Ada, with the class of 1908, and has been engaged in teaching for eighteen months, at the present time, 1911, being superintendent of a buiness college at Washington, C. H., Ohio; Luella, born February 23, 1891, was graduated at Sparta and at Centerburg, and is now engaged in teaching at Bethel; Charles W., born January 17, 1893, graduated at Sparta and took the scholarship and is now a student in Delaware College; Carrie M. and Callie M., twins, born February 4, 1895, are attending the Sparta high school, being members of the senior class; William Le Roy, born October 20, 1896, is a bright pupil in the publie schools ; Emma Alma, born November 4, 1898, is a pupil in the dis- trict school near her home; and Flossie I., born August 29, 1903, died January 5, 1904. These children, as their record reveals, are bright and brainy, and have inherited, without doubt, much of the talent of their gifted mother, who was a successful teacher for ten terms prior to her marriage, and taught one year after becoming a wife. Mr. Lewis and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Sparta, Ohio. Fraternally Mr. Lewis belongs to the Knights of the Maccabees, and Mrs. Lewis is a member at large of the Ladies of the Maecabees.
JACOB C. MCCORMICK, M. D .-- A man who is well versed in the science of his profession and one who has gained distinctive pres- tige as an able physician and surgeon at Mount Gilead, Morrow county, Ohio, where he has been engaged in active practice since 1900, is Dr. Jacob C. McCormick, who was born at Millsboro, Penn- sylvania, on the 25th of September, 1861, and who is the son of Reverend J. B. and Sarah (Crawford) McCormick. Reverend J. B. McCormick was a minister in the Methodist Protestant church during the major portion of his aetive career and he was a man of extensive learning and broad human sympathy. For a number of years he was engaged as a preacher in the Methodist church at
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Cardington, this county. The MeCormick family traces its ances- try to staneh Scotch-Irish stock and Dr. McCormick is a descendant of Colonel William Crawford who was burned by the Indians in Wyandot county, Ohio. His parents came to Ohio from the old Keystone state in 1868. Reverend and Mrs. McCormick became the parent of eight children, five of whom are now living. The mother died in 1876.
Dr. Jacob C. McCormick was a child of even years of age at the time of the family immigration to Ohio and in the district and graded schools of Morrow county he acquired his preliminary educational training, which was later supplemented by a course of study in the high school at Cambridge, Ohio, in which he was graduated. In 1881 he was matriculated in the academy at New Hagerstown, where he was enrolled as a student for some time. after which he entered Adrian College, at Adrian, Michigan. Subsequently to his leaving the latter institution he was a popular and successful teacher in the publie schools at Denmark and Iberia, Morrow county, Ohio, for a period of four years. Developing a desire to study the science of medicine he became a student in the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, but after two years' at- tendance there he entered the Western Reserve College of Medicine, at Cleveland, Ohio, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1890, duly receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine. He began the practice of his profession at Iosco, Michigan, where he maintained his home for some ten years and where he gained reeog- nition as a skilled physician and surgeon. In 1900 he severed his business connections in that place and returned to Morrow county, Ohio, settling at Mount Gilead, where he has been eminently successful in building up a large and representative practice and where he is known as one of the leading doctors in this section of the state. In connection with his profession he is a valued and appreciative member of the Morrow County Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He has kept abreast with all the advances made in his particular line of work and holds a high place in the regard of his fellow practioners as the result of his close adherence to the unwritten code of professional ethics. In
addition to his extensive practice Dr. McCormick has various finan- cial interests of important order in Mount Gilead. He is a stock- holder and director in the Peoples' Savings Bank and is the owner of considerable valuable real estate.
Dr. MeCormick has completed two post-graduate courses in medicine and surgery in the Post-Graduate College of Chicago- one in 1890 and the other in 1893. Besides his professional duties he is examiner for the following well known insurance companies, the Mutual Life, the New York Equitable, the JJohn Hancock, the Travellers,' the Home, the Ohio State and the Union Central. He has a fine medical library and an excellent selection of standard works, his shelves containing five hundred volumes. He is a con- stant student of his profession.
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On March 20, 1884, was solemnized the marriage of Dr. McCormick to Miss Emma J. Ward, of Livingston county, Michi- gan, where she was reared and educated, she being a daughter of Guerdon and Rachel (Miller) Ward, of that county. Mrs. Mc- Cormick, who is excellently educated and a former Michigan school teacher, is a woman of most gracious refinement and magnetic personality and she and her husband are prominent and popular factors in oennection with the best social activities of Mount Gilead. Dr. and Mrs. McCormick became the parents of six children ; John, Blaine and Rachel are deceased. The others are: Ward, born in 1888, who was graduated in the Mount Gilead high school and who is now a student in the University of Michigan; Willie, who was born in 1890, and who is now a student in Oberlin College; and Rose, born in 1896, a student in the Mount Gilead high school. Ward is pursuing a course of study in medicine and surgery and will graduate in the class of 1913. He received his degree from the literary department of the University of Michigan with the class of 1911.
Politically Dr. McCormick is a stalwart adherent of the prin- ciples of the Republican party and as a citizen he has ever been prompted by intrinsic patriotism and public spirit to do all in his power to advance the general welfare of the community. He is a man of wide experience and broad information, is honest and upright in all his dealings and his life in every respect is worthy of commendation and emulation. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with Mount Gilead Lodge, No. 167, Free and Accepted Masons. His wife is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church, to whose charities and benevolences both are liberal contributors:
JOSEPH CARPER SWETLAND .- It is decidedly a matter of grati- fication to the publishers of this work to here enter a brief sketch of the Swetland family, one of prominence and long standing in connection with the development of Morrow county. Joseph C. Swetland at one time owned as much as nine hundred acres of most arable land in Chester and South Bloomfield townships, and in con- nection with his extensive operations as a sheep raiser he has handled as many as one thousand head. His participation in public affairs has extended to the office of county commissioner, of which he was incumbent for a period of six years, during which time he was influential in securing various important improvements to the county. Although he has attained a ripe old age Mr. Swet- land is alert on all matters touching the general welfare, and his almost boyish enthusiasm makes him a popular and well beloved citizen.
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