History of Putnam County, Ohio : its peoples, industries, and institutions, Part 125

Author: Kinder, George D., 1836-
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1744

USA > Ohio > Putnam County > History of Putnam County, Ohio : its peoples, industries, and institutions > Part 125

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and has earned the high regard of all his neighbors and of all the people of Pleasant township, among whom he is well known.

Joseph Losh was born on November 26, 1859, in Pleasant township, Put- nam county, Ohio, on the farm where he now lives. He is the son of Abraham and Sarah Ann (Frost) Losh, the former of whom was born on July 17, 1817, in Licking county, was the son of Jacob and Mary Elizabeth (Schuler ) Losh. Jacob Losh was a native of Northumberland county, Penn- sylvania, and immigrated to Licking county, in 1817, where he died. His. son, Abraham, came to Putnam county, in 1850, settling on a farm near Gilboa. He lived here for one year and then moved back to Licking county. In 1852 he returned to Pleasant township, where he purchased eighty acres- of land, adding forty acres to this before his death. It was almost an un- broken forest. He built a log cabin here which still remains on Joseph Losh's farm. He farmed until his death, October 24, 1892, at which time he was seventy-six years old. He was a stanch member of the Lutheran church, but was not a member of the church in Putnam county. He exercised his right of franchise by voting the Democratic ticket. His wife, who was Sarah Ann Frost, before her marriage, was born on June 20, 1820, in Licking county, and died, May 31, 1880. She was married to Abraham Losh on March 20, 1841. She was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Ann ( Schevaler ) Frost, natives of Massachusetts, who came to Ohio in an early day, and who, without a doubt,. are descendants of the Puritan pioneers.

To Abraham and Sarah Ann Losh, eight children were born, Mary A., Henry, Hannah, who married John Geib, Joseph, the subject of this sketch, and four who died in infancy.

Joseph Losh grew to manhood on the farm where he now lives. He received his education in the township schools and in the Fostoria Academy, at Fostoria, Ohio. Subsequently, he attended the theological school at Stan- fordville, New York, and remained in college until time for his ordination, but he was never ordained. He was a local preacher in the United Brethren church and a student preacher in Putnam county for some time. In 1888 he came back to the farm.

Joseph Losh was married on January 1, 1890, to Emma Bunte, the daughter of Jacob and Josephine ( Hedrick) Bunte. Jacob Bunte was a native of Prussia, as was also his wife. They were married in Germany and came to America with a family of five children, settling first at Cincinnati, where they remained for a short time. He was a practicing physician and worked during the cholera epidemic of 1845. He taught a school in Cin- cinnati, and was organist in the Catholic church there. He came to Delphos,

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Ohio, in 1846 and taught school during the pioneer days, when wild hogs ran at large. He was the first teacher in the parochial schools at that place. From Delphos, he moved back to Cincinnati, thence to Toledo, from there to Albany, New York, and from Albany to Putnam county, Ohio. He prac- ticed medicine at Delphos and was also organist in the Catholic church there. During a part of his life, he was engaged in the manufacture of pianos. Jacob Bunte settled in Putnam county, when Mrs. Losh was five years old. After acquiring a farm of eighty acres, he farmed until his death, at the age of seventy-eight. His brother was one of the early settlers of Glandorf and, at one time, was a large landholder in and about Glandorf. He was known as Doctor Bunte. He came to Glandorf with Professor Horstman, the founder of Glandorf, Putnam county.

Jacob Bunte and wife were the parents of twelve children, Matilda, Daniel, Amelia, Fredericka, John, Frederick, Joseph, Sophia, Josephine, Adeline, Anna and Emma. Joseph, Josephine, Adeline and Mrs. Losh are the only ones now living. Mrs. Jacob Bunte was born on October 17, 1816, and died at the age of eighty-two. Her daughter, Mrs. Losh was born at Albany, New York, on May 17, 1881.

To Joseph and Emma ( Bunte) Losh, eight children have been born, Abraham J., of Columbus Grove, who married Mary Kramer and has one son, Joseph, who operates the Columbus Grove laundry; Lewis, who mar- ried Anna Wort and helps his father on the home farm; Mabel, who married Lawrence Burkhart, a clerk in the War Department, at Washington, D. C .; Sarah, married Joseph Kastner, lives in Dayton, Ohio; Sol H., and Stella, all at home; Leona died in infancy and Francis is living.

Joseph Losh follows general farming and has made extensive improve- ments on his farm. He is enterprising and has been successful in everything that he has undertaken.

Republican in politics, Mr. Losh is independent in state and national affairs. He is now a member of the Presbyterian church at Columbus Grove. At one time he was a stanch Catholic and he organized the movement to secure the first Catholic church at Columbus Grove; also secured the services. of the noted missionary, Father Charles Martus, as a missionary who held two missions for non-Catholics in Columbus Grove, which culminated in the establishment of the present church. Mrs. Losh and children belong to the Catholic church at Columbus Grove. Mr. Losh is widely acquainted in Put- nam county. He has a splendid home and a fertile farm and is highly re- spected by his neighbors and honored by all with whom he has come into contract, and has one of the most diversified libraries in the county.

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BERNARD JOSEPH MEYER.

Germany is among those nations that have contributed a large quota of their population to that of the United States. No country has furnished better citizens. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, with the best blood of that country coursing through their veins, have come to our shores, and have become the most substantial citizens of the various localities in which they settled. Forunate, indeed, is the community which has German descendants numbered among its citizens, for wherever they are found they are always numbered among its most substantial citizens. The habits of thrift and frugality which they inherit from their ancestors make them val- uable residents to the community at large. No one has ever heard of a Ger- man dying in the poorhouse. The examples set by the thrifty German citi- zens have been very beneficial, not only to our native Americans, but to the citizens of all other countries as well. Ohio has been fortunate in attracting to her fertile soil many thousands of good Germans, and among the promi- nent families of Putnam county of German descent is the Meyer family. One of the representative citizens of Putnam county, who is a scion of a thrifty German family, is Bernard Joseph Meyer.

Bernard J. Meyer was born on June 12, 1863, at Glandorf, Putnam county, the son of Gerhard and Anna (Moening) Meyer, whose life histories are found elsewhere in this volume. These histories give the Meyers family history.

Growing up on a farm near Glandorf, Bernard J. Meyer was married in 1886 to Mary Elizabeth Ellerbrock, who was born in Glandorf and who is the daughter of John Ferdinand and Theresa (Klemen) Ellerbrock. The Ellerbrock family history is also found elsewhere in this volume.

In the spring of 1886 Mr. Meyer purchased a farm in the southeastern part of Liberty township, and he has lived upon this farm since his mar- riage. He began with eighty acres that were largely covered with swamps, and, aside from being mostly cleared of timber, it was almost totally unim- proved. Mr. Meyer has erected an excellent house, a large substantial barn with a tile roof and a number of other substantial outbuildings. He now owns one hundred and fifty-nine acres of fertile land, which produces abundant harvests. Bernard J. Meyer is a farmer and thresherman and is well known in Liberty township as an enterprising citizen and a successful business man.

To Bernard J. and Mary Elizabeth (Ellerbrock) Meyer have been born four children: John Ferdinand, Catherine Wilhelmina, Catherine Agnes and

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Joseph Henry. John Ferdinand married Anna Susanna Gores, the daughter of George Gores, and lives on his father's farm. They have one daughter, Mary Elizabeth. Catherine Wilhelmina is the wife of George Steffen and lives east of Leipsic. They have one daughter, Eulalia Marie. Catherine Agnes and Joseph Henry are unmarried and live at home.

The Meyer family have always been members of the Catholic church and contribute liberally to the support of this faith. Mr. Meyer is a repre- sentative citizen and a successful farmer. He is interested in all public move- ments and does not hesitate to devote his time and money to worthy public enterprises.

JOHN B. NORMAN.

Among the representative citizens of Putnam county, Ohio, is John B. Norman, a well-known farmer of Pleasant township. Mr. Norman has im- pressed his personality upon the community where he lives and is honored and respected by a large circle of friends and acquaintances. Moreover, Mr. Norman has made a creditable success of his life's vocation and he, likewise, takes an active interest in public questions, adding to the wisdom of the com- munity by his counsels and helpfulness. On both sides of his family, he is descended from good old English stock, men and women who left their native land to find homes in the new country .. By marriage, Mr. Norman is identi- fied with the Beam family, one of the best-known and most highly respected in Putnam county.

John B. Norman was born on February 17, 1859, in England and is the son of Samuel and Sarah ( Beridge) Norman, the former of whom was born at Uppingham, Rutland, England, on August 7, 1833, and the latter of whom was born at the same place.

Samuel Norman was the son of Samuel, Sr., and Deborah ( Pickering) Norman. Samuel Norman, Jr., left England in 1860 and came to Huron county, Ohio, where he worked by the month for one man during a period of seven years. He lived in Huron county, altogether, for fourteen years and then came to Putnam county, in 1874, settling in 'Union township, on a farm of forty acres. He operated this farm for thirty years and then sold it and removed to Pleasant township, Putnam county, where he bought six and one- half acres and farmed it until his retirement a few years ago. He now lives near his son, John B. Samuel Norman, Jr., was married in England, De- cember 2, 1856, and was the father of two children in that country, Mrs.

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Elizabeth Jane Buckingham, born in 1857; and John B. Samuel Norman, Jr., is a Republican and a member of the church of Latter-Day Saints. When he came to America, it took him twenty-two days on a sailing vessel. He landed in New York on Thanksgiving day and came overland to Huron county. Samuel Norman, Sr., came from England to America ahead of his son, in 1856, and settled in Huron county, where he farmed twenty acres. He came to Putnam county in 1863 and settled in Union township, farming twenty acres there until his death, January 16, 1885, at the age of eighty-two. His wife, who was Deborah Pickering before her marriage, was a native of England also. She died in November, 1890, aged ninety-two years. She was the mother of five children, Samuel, Jr., Ann, Jane, John and Eliza, all of whom are deceased except Samuel, Jr. Mrs. Sarah Norman, who, before her marriage, was Sarah Beridge, was the daughter of Michael and Alice (Wiles) Beridge, both of whom were natives of England, the former of Northamptonshire and the latter of Keton, Rutland. They never came to America. Mrs. Sarah Norman is still living.

John B. Norman spent his boyhood days in Huron county, Ohio, and came to Putnam county when fourteen years of age with his father, living with him until he was married. He first operated a one-hundred-acre farm in Union township. He began with forty acres which he farmed for about six years and then purchased the John Buckingham farm of forty acres, after which, he bought twenty acres from his grandfather, but, on March 1, 1901, he came to Pleasant township and located on his present farm of eighty-seven and one-half acres. He follows general farming and is still active in this vocation.

Mr. Norman was married on November 27, 1884, to Lydian. Ann Beam, the daughter of Amos and Mary ( Burkhart) Beam, the former of whom was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 27, 1823. Amos Beam was the son of Jacob and Rosa (Carnes) Beam. Jacob Beam was born on April 13, 1796, and his father was Peter Beam, who was born on December 5, 1732. The complete family history of the Beams is contained elsewhere in this volume. Amos Beam died, January 29, 1900, at the age of seventy-six.

To John B. and Lydian Ann ( Beam) Norman, six children have been born, Nellie, who married Harmon Allen, a grocer, of Lima, Ohio, and has three children, Alice L., Norman C. and Ruth Olive; Rosa, who married Pearl Bowers, of Lima, Ohio, who is an engineer on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad; Sarah, who married Ray Sakemiller, a farmer of Sugar Creek township; Zelma, who married Charles Stover, of Ottawa, and has one son, Norman ; Mary and Ruth, both of whom are at home.

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John B. Norman is a quiet, unassuming man with a clean record. He is a good, substantial farmer, and in his community is well liked. His habits are thoroughly domestic and he is a kind and loving father, as well as a good provider. Throughout his life he has been a strong and ardent advocate of sound principles in farming and follows these principles himself. He owns a splendid home and a valuable, well-located farm. Fraternally, Mr. Norman is a member of Columbus Grove Lodge, No. 376, Knights of Pythias. He has always considered himself a stanch Republican, but of late years has been more or less independent in his voting.

HENRY KAUFMANN.

That tiller of the soil who knows the significance of the opportunities presented to him, and who takes pride in grasping those opportunities and developing them to the credit of himself and the commonwealth, is indeed fortunate. Such a man is Henry Kaufman and he is that type of man of whom a community might justly be proud.

Henry Kaumann's father was born in March, 1823, in Westphalia, Prussia, and came to America in 1860, first locating at Cleveland. Henry was born in the same town as was his father, on November 25, 1850, his parents being John and Louisa (Lentz) Kaufmann, who were also the parents of Louis and William, both deceased; Mrs. Philomena Lammers, of Liberty township, Putnam county ; Frederick, who is deceased ; a child who died at the age of four, and Joseph, deceased.

After locating in Cleveland, John Kaufmann worked as a miller, which trade he learned in Prussia and had been following there some time before coming to America. The new land was strange and a hardship was worked on him because of his inability to speak the new tongue. After a short stay at Cleveland, he went on to Tiffin, where he stayed six months and then came to Glandorf, Putnam county, where he rented a grist-mill which he operated for three years. Then he bought the farm where Henry now lives, and which was then uncleared. Soon after this he purchased the Emlinger grist-mill, of Ottawa, which he ran for three years and then sold out when he returned to his farm, where he died. John Kaufmann was a Democrat, but not a politician. He was an active member of the Holy Family Catholic church of New Cleveland, Putnam county, and was well known and highly respected as a loyal neighbor and liberal business man. His wife, also a native of Prussia, was born in 1818, and died on the homestead in March, 1905, aged

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eighty-seven years. She was a loving wife, a devoted mother, and took proper pride in her home and its affairs.

The entire life of Henry Kauffmann has been lived on the home farm, which he inherited at his father's death. This farm formerly had a log house and barn, but modern buildings have been since erected by Mr. Kauf- mann, who also owns three eighty-acre tracts in Ottawa township and one forty-acre tract in Pleasant township, comprising two hundred and eighty acres in all. The farm in Pleasant township is being farmed by his sons. The land is given over to general farming, live stock and grain being the principal products.

The marriage of Mr. Kaufmann and Theresa Niese took place on June 12, 1877, the wife being the daughter of John Henry Niese and Anna Cath- arine (Schierloh) Niese. To Mr. and Mrs. Kaufmann the following chil- dren were born: Mary married John Lammers and of their nine children five are living, namely : Loretta, Philip, Veronica, Stella and Frederick; Edward, who married Veronica Schroeder, is the father of four children, of whom Arthur, Edwin and Leonard are living; William died in infancy ;. Joseph married Agnes Kuhlmann and tills a farm in Ottawa township; Fred- erick, who married Emma Schroeder, farms in Pleasant township and has one- child, Albert; Adolph and Stella live at home.

Mrs. Kaufmann's father, John Niese, came from Munster, Prussia, to. Putnam county, about 1840, where he settled on land near Glandorf, where he cleared and improved fifty acres. He was born in 1809, and died in 1884, aged seventy-five years. His wife was born in Glandorf, Germany, about 1822, and died on August 5, 1905. The two were hard-working people and were successful in life. Their deaths on the homestead were mourned by the many to whom they had endeared themselves. They were the parents of thirteen children, as follow: William died in 1910; Rosa died in infancy ; Mary died at the age of twenty-one; Henry; Mrs. Elizabeth Rosenthal, of Kalida ; Barney and John; Mrs. Catherine Inkrot, of Liberty township, and Frank, are twins; Laura died in infancy; Theresa, the wife of the subject of this sketch ; Bernadina lives in Tiffin, and Anna, deceased.

Jovial and good-natured, Mr. Kaufmann is accordingly liked by his neighbors. He belongs to no fraternal orders; his political preferences are- with the Democratic party; in religion a member of the Holy Family Catholic church at New Cleveland, as are his family, with the exception of two sons, Edward and Frederick, who belong to the same denomination at Ottawa. Mr. Kaufmann's reputation as a farmer and a good father gives him a title clear to stand in the company of the select of his county. Mr. Kaufmann is-

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practically retired from farming, but is still active in body and mind. His residence is a good brick house, one of the best in the community. Mrs. Kaufmann is a kind woman, of motherly disposition and has contributed much to her husband's success. Mr. Kaufmann is a member of the building committee to supervise the erection of the new Catholic church at New Cleve- land and is one of the most active members of this committee. The new church is to cost between thirty thousand and forty thousand dollars, and the task of the building committee is a very important one.

REV EDWARD LAYPORT, D. D.

Rev. Edward Layport, D. D., was born on a farm near Laceyville, Har- rison county, Ohio, on January 24, 1850.

His paternal ancestors were of French Huguenot stock, the name origin- ally being La Porte, but was anglicized as a rebuke to French infidelity and religious intolerance. They emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine to the state of Maryland prior to the Declaration of Independence, and came to Ohio in 1805, securing an entry of land from the government by letters patent. George Layport, the great-grandfather, and five of his sons were engaged in the early Indian wars. One of the sons, Thomas, was killed by Indians. Having been sent home to see how his mother fared, the Indians surprised them, burning the cabin and killed Thomas, while his mother and her younger child escaped in the forest.

The maternal ancestry of Rev. Edward Layport were Scotch-Irish from County Antrim, Ireland. His mother's name was Loughridge, and religi- ously they were Covenanters.

Reverend Layport was the eldest son of William and Jane Layport. He was educated in a country school, studied science in Scio College and the classics in Franklin College, graduating, July 4, 1876. He studied theology at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, graduating on May 8, 1879. He was ordained to the Gospel ministry on June 3, 1879 and installed pastor over the Bluffton and Rockport Presbyterian churches, in Lima Presbytery.

On October 16, 1879, Rev. Edward Layport was united in marriage to Lillie May Tripp, of Carrollton. One daughter, Mrs. F. M. Belden, Jr., of Akron, Ohio, was born to this marriage.

Reverend Layport held pastorates in Loudonville and Nashville. He was pastor at Columbus Grove from 1884 to 1889; of the First Presbyterian church, of Akron, for nine years, from 1889 to 1898; at Loveland, from 1898

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to 1903 and at Van Buren, from 1903 to 1906. In June, 1903, Franklin College conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.

In October, 1906, owing to impaired health, Reverend Layport moved on a farm near Columbus Grove, where he has since resided. For three years he acted as missionary superintendent of Lima Presbytery. He then sup- plied the Welsh Presbyterian church of Sugar Creek and, later, has had charge of the Leipsic Presbyterian church.

In the second year of his pastorate at Akron, Reverend Layport's wife died on May 10, 1891. On August 21, 1895, he married Laura Adella Trumbo, of Rockport, a daughter of Enoch and Martha Trumbo. One son, Edward Trumbo, was born to them, on December 10, 1898. He is now a student in the Columbus Grove high school.

Mrs. Laura (Trumbo) Layport is an alumnus of Leland Stanford, Jr., University at Palo Alto, California, and is prominent in missionary and tem- perance work. She is president of the Putnam County Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and has seen the number of unions double during her administration. She is also an ardent advocate of woman's suffrage.

Reverend Layport, politically, is no partisan, voting for the man instead of the party. He believes fully in our public school system and also in free speech and a free press. He takes an active interest in farm life, making a specialty of pure bred Rhode Island Red chickens. The Ridgeway poultry farm, of which he is owner and manager, has a wide reputation.

JOHN HENRY UTENDORF.

Being numbered among the life-long residents of the locality in which he lives and having had a fair start and a fixed determination to succeed, John Henry Utendorf is worthy of the praise and admiration of his fellow men, because of his careful management, continued industry and set purpose and the fact that he has acquired a fair competence of this world's goods. His career has been one of honorable methods in all his dealings with those with whom he came in contact, and a history of the people of Putnam county, who are worthy of mention in a work of this nature, would be incomplete without his record.

John Henry Utendorf was born in Ottawa township, this county, on July 7, 1876, and is the son of Joseph and Catherine (Shulte) Utendorf, whose life history appears elsewhere in this work under the name of Benjamin R. Utendorf.

MR. AND MRS. JOHN H. UTENDORF.

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Remaining under the parental roof and attending the township schools during his early days John Henry Utendorf assisted his father until about the time of his marriage, on November 25, 1903, to Catherine Hueve, a daughter of Joseph Bernard and Regina Gertrude (Klaform) Hueve. Her father was a native of Hanover, Germany, where he was born in 1822, and left that country, in his seventeenth year, accompanied by his parents, who came to the United States and settled on a farm some distance west of the town of Glandorf, Putnam county. This farm was probably land entered from the government and his father farmed it for some time. The son, Joseph, left his parents when he arrived at the age of twenty-eight and went to work as an employee of the Miami & Erie Canal Company, which was con- structing a canal through this region at that time, and, at which he continued to work for some time. After his marriage, in the year 1852, he returned to his father's home and remained with him for three years, then struck out again for himself and purchased eighty acres of land in Pleasant township, and for which he paid six dollars per acre. It was all timbered with virgin trees and here it was that he began his career. His first meal, in this section, was eaten on an old tree stump and after cutting the required amount of timber he erected a log house for himself and wife, also a log barn, and, eventually, cleared the entire eighty acres. It was here that he suffered the untold hardships of pioneer days and many a time he was known to be at work on this place without boots or mittens to protect him from the elements of the weather. At later dates he added two other tracts, the first consisted of forty acres and another of forty-six, both in Pleasant town- ship, and heavily timbered. It was on this place that he died, May 16, 1898, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, after living a most useful christian life. His wife and the mother of our subject's wife, was also a native of Germany, where she was born on April 12, 1834, and died in this country, November 3, 1893. She came to this country with her parents when she was but two years of age. Their first experience after arriving in this new land was sleeping in the timber the first night her parents settled on a place near the town of Glandorf. The mother died on this homestead farm, in Pleasant township, in the fifty-ninth year of her age. To their union were born thirteen children, as follow: Joseph, deceased in infancy; Mary (Mrs. Kleman), of Ottawa township; William; Anne (Mrs. Koenig), of Paulding county ; Theresia (Mrs. Moening), of Ottawa; Magdaline ( Mrs. Brinkman), of the state of Texas; Elizabeth and Bernadina, who died in infancy ; Theo- dore, who lives on the old homestead in Pleasant township; Philomena Cath-

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History of Putnam County, Ohio : its peoples, industries, and institutions, Part 125

Author: Kinder, George D., 1836- Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1744

Author: Kinder, George D., 1836-
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1744