USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 43
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LOCKINGTON
Lockington, once known by the name of Lockport, was a flourishing little place and a point of much interest in the old days of canaling. The last census accorded it a population of 166. It was surveyed by Jonathan Counts, in 1837, for its owner David Mellinger, and the plat recorded on December 18, of that year. Upon petition to the county commissioners, Lockington was incor- porated as a village on September 9, 1857. Its first municipal election was held April 1, 1858, and the following officers elected : W. S. Burns, mayor; G. A. Gillespie, recorder ; Jacob Rasor, treasurer; John Agenbroad, marshal ; and W. B. Valentine, F. Whitby, D. K. Gillespie, Thomas Wilson and N. B. Boust, members of the council. The present mayor of Lockington is Thomas Bailey, an old and respected resident of the village.
About all of the industrial activity of Washington township has been centered at Lockington. About the year 1830, a man named Steinberger started a small flour mill on Loramie creek near where the village now is
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located, and in connection operated a sawmill which a man named Aldrich had previously built near by and abandoned. John Brown became the pur- chaser of these mills in 1837, and in addition conducted a woolen mill. It was sold to Robert Ewing, who in 1844 built a new flour mill and ran it until 1859. It was subsequently operated successively by D. K. Gillespie, John Johnston, John Fuller and O. C. Horton, the latter having it in 1872 when fire destroyed it. Rasor & Brother, having bought the site, erected a new mill the following year, which continued in operation until some fifteen or sixteen years ago.
The first sawmill in Lockington was built by William Stephens about the year 1845, and was later sold to Reed Brothers, who closed it down after a few years. The site was sold in 1860 to Daniel and Jacob Rasor, who erected a new mill, with a corn crusher and chopping burr attached. They operated it until 1873, then sold out to the Summit Paper Mill Company, who sold it a few months later to Francis Bailey and two sons. They con- tinued the business until 1876, when it was sold to J. T. and H. P. Bailey, who operated it with success for years. The mill was burned down some eight or ten years ago and was never rebuilt.
At the present time there is located in Lockington the grain elevator of C. N. Adlard, which was established by D. K. Gillespie and came into the hands of the present proprietor about eight years ago. With respect to storing capacity this elevator is one of the largest in the state. It is a modern build- ing in every respect and was substantially improved by Mr. Adlard in 1912.
Vogler & Hershey conduct a general store here and keep a wagon on the road, selling and buying produce.
G. A. Pope, who is postmaster, also conducts a general store, and in summer has a good ice cream business.
The Buxton Pattern Works were established here about four years ago, Mr. Buxton devoting his personal attention to the designing of special machinery.
Lockington Tent, No. 68, Knights of the Maccabees, is also located here.
CHAPTER XXIII
MISCELLANEOUS
Singing Schools-The Old Shoemaker-Some Well Known Citizens, John Blakeley, John E. Bush, S. I. Gamble, Morris Hounell, Nathan Moore, Philip Smith, Dr. Hezekiah Stout, Dr. J. A. Throckmorton, Silas D. Young
SINGING SCHOOLS
I do not know much about singing schools in the country in Ohio, for I did not spend my youth in the rural districts of the Buckeye state, but I did in Vermont, and have a most distinct recollection of them in the Green Mountain state. How fondly the boys and girls looked forward to winter, when singing schools would be held in the various temples of learning, the only place for entertainments. There was no loitering of the youths on their way home from school when the singing occasion arrived; chores had to be done and there was no lagging in filling up the wood-box for the night, feeding the pigs and watering the horses, and no grumbling about so many duties to perform. Faces were as radiant with smiles as if Christmas was at hand and not a complaining word was uttered at the table, lest the contemplated fun should be given a back-set by our parents for our unseemly conduct. We did not dress especially for the event, for our winter wardrobe was on our backs, with exception of a dickey and a neck ribbon for Sundays. Our hair, barbered by our mothers in a style of Quaker severity that underwent no change, in its Puritan exactness was oiled and combed to amazing sleekness and parted with not a lock out of place. In those days oil was profusely used to make each hair keep in order. Bear oil, supposed to be the best, could be bought in bottles, but as the marrow from beef bones served the purpose just as well it was carefully saved and tried out like lard from pork to be utilized. As it was generally scented with bergamot, a room full of boys emitted an odor like a sachet bag.
If the night was only clear or not outrageously blustering we were not deterred from being present. Ten or twenty degrees below zero were not minded if the sleighing was good, as buffalo robes were plenty, and with mufflers and mittens, knit at home, with caps drawn down over our ears and the girls wearing quilted hoods, the weather was joyously defied. Thick blankets were taken to cover the horses, as they stood hitched to a fence
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while we were ostensibly learning to sing. There was no singing teacher in our town for many years, so one had to be procured from some outlying vil- lage, to whom the princely sum of two dollars a night was paid, which some thought was exorbitant, as he only had to drive his own turnout but seven or eight miles. The instructor could usually fiddle, as well as sing, so the instru- ment was brought along to get the right pitch and assist the rustic warblers in keeping on the tune.
Lamps had not generally come into use and gas and electricity had not stirred in the womb of the future. Candles, homemade, were brought for illuminants, set in auger holes in pine blocks and snuffed with the fingers. They shed a feeble light-and some tallow, when not held vertically. As nine-tenths of the attendants forgot to bring them, the room was not a blaze of glory, and a half dozen or more would crowd round each luminant of several lightning-bug power, to sing out of the church singing-book. The repertoire was not large and the pieces were so often repeated that the words as well as the music were soon learned and given with a gusto in the dark corners that figuratively raised the roof. It was a contest of strength and endurance without regard to sentiment.
Not being well equipped with books or light, the boys at each lull in the proceedings, would slide out of the cavernous gloont to wrestle, play tag and fox and geese in the snow, and when recess came the girls would join them and forget to return for the second part, as hills were numerous and coasting fine, so it was not strange that the singing schools were well patron- ized by the youths for miles around.
The tingling air painted the cheeks of the happy maidens and imparted a glow to their sparkling eyes so entrancing that obdurate was the boy who did not experience palpitation of the heart under their bewitching glances. How chivalrous we were and even glad to see one of the mischievous hoydens slip down, or purposely give out, in ascending a hill, and how we would scramble to be the first to render knightly assistance.
It was prudent to keep an eye on the schoolhouse, in order to start home when the rest did, lest the folks at home would surmise we had been playing truant and call us to account for not improving our physical talents when we had such a favorable opportunity. The horses, gingered by exposure to the biting temperature, were on their mettle and the jingle of the resonant sleigh bells with laughter and song flooded the air. It was permissible to sit close for sundry reasons, only one of which is here given, that it was a self-sacrificing necessity for health and comfort. Those happy years were not many, but they are treasures in the album of memory and afford a pleasure as they are recalled in the sober hours of waning life.
THE OLD SHOEMAKER
The generation which can recall from the dim mist of years the old shoemaker has not all faded from earth. Here and there one remains, and no one stands clearer in the recollections of his youth than that unique char-
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.acter who, with his kit of tools, used to make his annual visits to, the home- steads of the farmers to make the boots and shoes of the families and mend the footgear which was no dry dock for repairs.
In New England-and no doubt the same custom prevailed here-the head of the rustic household took to the tannery, a cow hide, kip skin and calf skin, to be tanned to furnish leather for family needs. The latter was for shoes for the female part of the household; the kip for the boys who had commenced to attend winter parties and shave; the cow hide for the men of sturdier growth, whose line of travel lay through barnyards, muddy roads and plowed fields. New boots had to serve at least six months for handsome, as they termed it, meaning by that that they were only to be worn to church, donned on training and election days, and other state occasions.
The old footgear had to perform the menial service, be tallowed to turn water, twice a week, and in Connecticut, where extreme frugality prevailed, boots were deemed but half wornout when the soles could be kept on by willow withes.
Perhaps the advent of the shoemaker was not looked for with such yearn- ing anxiety by the elder members of the family as by the children, but, it can be truly said that to them he was the most important personage, cheer- fully considered, who entered the home during the year. He was usually a gossipy character, read little, but knew much, and had a way of getting on to the inside of the social secrets of the community which he took infinite pleasure in revealing. To the children, if not to all, this gossip broke the monotony of intensely rustic life and his tales were devoured with insatiable eagerness. The shoemaker who comes to my mind was old Dan W. Smith, whose tongue seemed hung in the middle, that both ends might play, who sang like a steaming tea kettle, knew an endless variety of songs, and could fiddle like the "Arkansaw traveler."
With what wonderment we stood around and watched him take his ball of shoe thread, break it the required length, wax it, roll it on his leather apron until the numerous strands were made one and strong enough for an effective lasso, and then deftly introduce the bristles into the wax ends. How we did enjoy chewing the black wax which he would give us. With what prompt- ness and alacrity we took our places when our time came to be measured for a pair of new boots, and how plainly I can hear my father's injunction to old Dan W. to make them big enough to allow at least for a two years rapid growth of our pedal extremities without pinching them. The extra room the first year was occupied by hat soles in the bottom and cotton in the toes-in fact they just got ready to fit our feet when they were worn out. We used to kick, in common parlance, as vehemently as we dared at the extravagant allowance of room, but kicked in vain, as probable expansion had to be con- sidered by the powers that were.
The old shoemaker is a thing or personage of the far away past. Machin- ery, the concentration of capital, enterprise and energy in huge factories, cheapening and beautifying the product has destroyed his profession, yet he
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lives in the memory of all who have had my experience and will be cherished as long as the days of youth are remembered.
The following sketches of old and prominent citizens, were written with- in recent years by the Editor of this volume and contain some interesting rem- iniscences, together with historical facts.
SILAS D. YOUNG, the twentieth child of Philip Young, whose family consisted of twenty-two children, was born east of Anna September 11, 1837. Handicapped in the race of life with Mr. Ludwig by ten years he has never been able to overtake him. His youth was of the uneventful one of a farmer boy before machinery had lightened labor, and to be horny handed and horny footed was. the rule not the exception as now. After amusing himself until twenty years old clearing land, burning logs and brush he concluded that he should take life more seriously, and with fear and trembling made a proposi- tion to Miss Mary Jane Munch which was favorably considered and March 19, 1837, the double bow nuptial knot was tied.
Mary was an orphan from birth as her father died before she was born and her mother also when Mary was six months old, so she never knew the care and fervor of parental love.
Six children, all girls, blessed this union, four of whom are living, Ella, now Mrs. William Shuter, of Delaware; Minnie, now Mrs. John Manning, of Anna; Myrtle, Mrs. Richard Curtner, of Anna; and Berth, Mrs. Edward Zaigler, of Medina.
When the Civil war broke out and President Lincoln called for troops, Silas, fired with patriotism so intense as to induce him to leave his wife, two small children and his home for the privations and perils of the tented field. Being the 20th child he enlisted in the 20th regiment on the eighteenth day of August, 1861, under Col. J. C. Fry, serving three years and one month. At the hot fight at Champion Hills, Mississippi, though he sought protection of a tree, he could not entirely screen himself from a sharp shooter who seemed to have a desire to pick him off and shattered the bark of the tree several times. Unfortunately a small buck shot struck the bridge of his nose at the corner of one eye passing through his nose. This "doused his glim" and for two months he was in the hospital as blind as a mole. When he recovered the surgeon wanted to give him a ward in the hospital to superintend, but Silas demurred, as the buck shot put ginger into him and he vowed he would be revenged but was not pacified until after the battle of Atlanta where he killed as many rebels as they did of him if not more. He did not go with Sherman to the sea and when his term of enlistment expired returned to the bosom of his family. In Cincinnati he was offered $1,500 to enlist again as a substitute but he deemed that Mary Jane, whom he had promised to protect and who had been on the anxious seat of dire apprehension for three years and the two children had a prior claim and he was not to be diverted from its fulfillment. He is a live member of Neal Post of Sidney and few are the grand encampments that he and Mrs. Young have not attended and he stands at the head of the list or about there of the Red Chair enterprises which have been in vogue for twenty years or more. Many years ago five
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chairs were presented to veterans or their widows in one day at the Kah house in Anna where 325 took dinner. Knowing that W. D. Davies, of Sidney, was billed to speak at Botkins, the soldier boys went to the station a few rods distant and called out Mr. Davies to the platform of a north bound car. When he appeared they kidnapped him and bore him to the Kah house where he became the orator of the day and sent word to Botkins that not today, but some other time, he would be in Botkins and that they ought to have known better than to have started him out by way of Anna, filled as it was with buccaneers, without a guard.
Few farms as so delightfully situated as their home place of seventy- three acres. The corporate limits of Anna have been extended until it embraces part of the farm, a cement sidewalk extends to his very door and with a few steps he can enjoy the delights of country life or the bustle of an embryo city. This gives him polish on one side and the glow and appetite of rustic health on the other.
When fourteen years of age he was converted, joined the Methodist church and never got over it. He frequently led prayer meetings when in the army.
Out of such sterling material it would be impossible to fashion anything but a republican of fast colors and that is what Silas is, a shining example worthy to be followed. A. B. C. H.
DR. J. A. THROCKMORTON was born in old Virginia several moons ago, if not more, and if the Mother of Presidents had not suffered from being sliced on account of being too strongly democratic, there is no telling how differently his career might have been shaped. As luck would have it, he was on the piece snipped off which put him three miles from the dividing line between Old and West Virginia on the west side. Of course this snuffed out whatever ambitious flame he may have had in the white house direction. It was such as he that occasioned, by their loyalty, the division of the old state for a love of the common country and lofty patriotism which thrives and abides in mountain air kept the western part true to the old flag. The merciful amputation was painless and ever since the new state has had a healthy growth.
The Doctor was small for his age, and is not huge yet, but his avoirdupois deficiency has been fully compensated for by his being a bundle of activity which years have not stiffened. When the slogan of war sounded, he donned a uniform of blue, probably made especially for his light and lithe form, and marched with patriotic stride to the front and was as good as new in the closing carnage of Petersburg and around Richmond and joined in the glad huzzas when the Appomattox episode was known. He was a difficult mark to hit and even the sharp shooters had to give him up as a hard proposition, with the odds all the time in his favor.
Not having forgotten what he learned in his youth, he taught school for a time and then emigrated with his parents to Ohio, settling on a farm bought in this county a few miles north of Hardin in Turtle Creek township. The bottom land in that vicinity was crowded out by knolls and knots not tractable
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to manage and at that time had to be subdued by main strength and awkward- ness, commodities of which he did not have a surplus, and the vocation sort of went against the grain. He concluded that he had served a full term in fighting for his country and did not relish another prolonged conflict by an attempt at warfare with mother Nature, especially at small wages with no prospect of a pension as a reward for his endeavors.
Looking over the catalogue of possibilities he settled on dentistry as a profession, packed his trunk, and with somewhat scanty accumulations bade the obdurate farm a tearless good bye for an education and finished at Ann Arbor with the honorable degree of D. D. S. and located in Sidney, where he has resided plying his profession for thirty-two years. Previous to gradua- tion at Ann Arbor the Doctor attended the Baltimore College of Dentistry in Maryland and subsequently took a post graduate course in Chicago.
Upon returning from the war, he stayed on the farm in West Virginia for awhile and being of a mechanical turn of mind and having a distaste to being blistered by the sun when driving a mowing machine or harvester, he constructed a device that would hold an umbrella whose grateful shade pro- tected him in comfort and did not hinder his efficiency as a harvest hand. This was something new to the rustics, who shook their heads and remarked that Mr. Throckmorton had the laziest son in those parts. They had not subscribed to the idea that if work must be performed a man had the privilege of doing it in the most comfortable way possible; but the Doctor had, and if bread must be earned by the sweat of the brow, the less sweat the better, especially where one was not over juicy. Their gibes did not in any way disconcert him and the umbrella was kept raised. Being brought up in that hilly and mountainous region he early learned to ride a horse, of which he was extremely fond, if it was a good one and his taste seemed to increase with his years, for he has two Kentucky thoroughbreds as tractable as kittens and which he has taught to so amble under the saddle that it makes equestrianism a delight.
In 1844 he married Miss Nannie R. Thomas, of West Virginia, who is an equestrienne of rare grace and accomplishment which seems to be indigen- ous to the rugged state of West Virginia and perfected by continual practice. At one time Doctor Throckmorton had branch offices in Chicago and San Francisco and did considerable laboratory work in Sidney, having impressions sent here for plate work.
DR. HEZEKIAH STOUT AILES. The patronymic surname, Ailes, the sub- ject of this sketch, of course, is ancestral, but christening of the hopeful to designate him in a family of fifteen children was out of what may be deemed an excessive regard for their family physician, Dr. Hezekiah Stout, but not- withstanding this handicap he has survived, flourished, and is now our esteemed and prominent townsman, Hezekiah Stout Ailes, and has led an eventful life in peace and war.
Hezekiah was born at Lost Creek, Harrison county, now West Virginia. May 19, 1840, so that his infantile prattle mingled with hurrahs for "Tippe- canoe and Tyler too."
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His father sold the rugged home farm in 1842 and moved to the northeast corner of Franklin township, this county. Of this numerous family of fifteen children Hezekiah is the only one living and none lived, not even his parents, to be so old as he is now though they outlived all their children but him.
The farm was purchased of Daniel Baldwin, now dead, who was known in Sidney as Sassafras, for each spring his bent form carried a basket of it to purify and thin the blood of our people grown thick and sluggish by too sub- stantial food and lack of exercise.
The mansion into which they moved was a round log house well chinked and warm, one story high, but the barn was more pretentious, being two story. In that sparsely settled time people were considered neighbors two or three miles distant and in the absence of those diversions which now prevail were neighbors in fact willing to assist each other in any emergency.
The round log schoolhouse not crowded with conveniences nor ease-inviting seats was one and three-quarters of a mile distant and he had to start alone, but was joined by the children of two other families on the way across the fields and through the woods. His a, b, c, teacher was Eli Bruner and his second Miss Elizabeth Allen, who afterward married William Edwards. He gradually absorbed the intellectual pabulum of the menu furnished in that crude temple of learning and when sixteen or seventeen years old, with two other boys, aspired to better things and as Sidney had just completed what is now the central school building, hired the front room over Thompson and Christian's drug store, boarded themselves, and slept three in a bed. They went home every Friday night and early Monday morning could be seen returning with loaves of bread and a pound of butter. They would occa- sionally buy some ginger cakes at the grocery and when feeling convivial and careless of expenses would indulge in a glass of spruce beer at Washington Carroll's emporium, but refrained from taking enough to get boisterous.
Hezekiah went one term when the schoolhouse was first opened in 1857. His teacher was Miss Harriet Chapin, who subsequently married John Frank- erberger. Being sufficiently advanced to have confidence in his ability to teach school he obtained a certificate and thus armed and equipped as the law directed, procured a school near home and his pedagogical pin feathers soon became fullfledged plumage for taking his experience both before and after the war embraced a period of fifteen years. When he had taught two weeks of his fifth term he resigned and enlisted in Company C, 118th regiment with Edgar Sowers, superintendent of schools at Port Jefferson as captain, and W. H. Taylor, of Sidney, now of Mansfield, as lieutenant.
At the battle of Resaca, Georgia; he received the only wound he got in the war. He was shot in the shoulder and lay on the ground by the side of George Murray Thompson, brother of Mrs. E. T. Mathers and H. W. Thompson, of this city. George's was a dangerous and painful one in the foot and he returned home and never went back. Hezekiah was reported dead, but pleasantly surprised his people by appearing clothed in his right mind and arm in a sling. Upon recovery he went back and was promoted to sergeant-major. In that engagement 112 soldiers out of 220 of that
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regiment were either killed or wounded in five minutes time. Upon returning, as his corps did not go with General Sherman to the sea, they participated in the battles of Franklin, the severest one of the war, and the struggle around Nashville which destroyed General Hood's army. They were also in the East Tennessee campaign and were forty-six miles from Knoxville when Burnside was bottled there. As the rebel army was between them and Knox- ville they were powerless to give assistance.
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