USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 29
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William L. Strong, ex-mayor of New York city, went to Wooster in May, 1845, and was employed by the firm of Lake & Jones, the largest re- tailing dry goods house in Wooster, and remained in their employ until the first of January, 1847. He removed to the city of New York in 1857, and at the end of forty years had risen to the rank of one of the merchant princes of that city.
Thomas W. Bartley also figured in the courts of Wooster. He became Governor of Ohio.
Charles R. Sherman is on record as among the first lawyers, with J. W. Lathrop, William C. Raymond, John C. Wright, John M. Goodenow, .Roswell M. Mason, Nathaniel Maher and Elderling Potter, in attendance at the court, in Wooster, at the October term, 1813. He was the father of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Judge Charles T. Sherman, and Hon. John Sherman of Washington, D. C., who in the earlier time appeared in trial of causes at the Wooster bar.
Rufus P. Ranney was recognized by the lawyers of Wayne county, where professional duties occasionally called him, as a man of superior legal talent.
Rufus P. Spalding and David K. Carter quite frequently were interested in legal contentions in the Wayne county court, both having been in Con- gress and both lawyers and jurists of wider than state reputations.
Col. Enoch Totten was a son of our late respected pioneer fellow-citizen, Michael Totten, and was born in Wayne county. He won a national reputa- tion as a lawyer.
Samuel H. Kauffmann, formerly of near Millbrook, Wayne county, reared in that neighborhood, and yet remembered by some of our citizens, possesses the distinction of being one of the owners and editors of the Wash- ington (D. C.) Star, a great metropolitan daily.
John Sloane in his day was a distinguished citizen of Ohio, and an honor to Wayne county, to which he removed soon after the admission of the state
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into the Union. He was a member of the Ohio Legislature as early as 1804. In 1807 President Jefferson appointed him receiver of public moneys of the new land office at Canton, Ohio. He served ten years in Congress, from 1819 to 1829. In 1841 the Legislature of Ohio appointed him secretary of state for three years. He held the office of treasurer of the United States, by appointment of President Fillmore, dying in 1856.
Major-General David Sloane Stanley is a growth of Chester township, Wayne county, Ohio, of over seventy years ago. He was reared and edu- cated by the late Doctor Leander Firestone, of Wooster. He graduated from West Point in 1852. In 1861 he was appointed captain in the Fourth United States Cavalry. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers, in 1861, and soon rose to the rank of major-general.
Hon. Patrick A. Collins, a native of county Cork, Ireland, ex-mayor of Boston, and twice elected to Congress, lived for a time in Wayne county, acting in the capacity of coal miner.
Thomas Corwin lent his fascinations to the old court house in Wooster, and in the early days was a noted orator.
Wooster and Wayne county have had the following representatives in Congress : Reasin Beall, John Sloane, Benjamin Jones, Ezra Dean, George Bliss, Martin Welker, A. S. McClure, M. L. Smyser, and Lewis P. Ohliger. The last-named four gentlemen all resided in Wooster, and with the excep- tion of Hon. Martin Welker, all vigorously and successfully engaged in their respective pursuits, two of them swordsmen of the law.
John K. Cowen, of Baltimore, Maryland, formerly lived in Wayne county. He has been congressman and president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad company.
Rush Taggart, of New York, is a brother of Judge Frank Taggart of Wooster, and was born in Smithville, Wayne county, Ohio. He completed his collegiate course at the University of Wooster, a member of a class of six, who were the first graduates of the institution. After this he taught for a year in the Wooster high school, when he entered the law department at Ann Arbor, from which he also graduated. He commenced the practice of law in Wooster.
Gen. Samuel R. Curtis was a Wooster lawyer, with a record of states- man, patriot and soldier, and shed lustre on the American army in two of his country's wars.
John Bruce points to Plain township, Wayne county, as his old home. He is of the Scotch clan of Bruces, of Bannockburn. His parents immigrated
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to the United States and settled in Wayne county in 1840. He was a sol- dier in the Civil war from Iowa, rose to the rank of general, and became a prominent lawyer in Keokuk, Iowa.
Hon. Martin Welker was lieutenant-governor of Ohio, with Chase as governor, a patriotic and prudent legislator in Congress, judge of common pleas and United States courts, a doctor of laws and for years lecturer on international and constitutional law in Wooster University.
PRESENT-DAY WAYNE COUNTY LAWYERS.
Lyman R. Critchfield was born in Knox county, Ohio, May 22, 1831, and is a son of the late Reuben T. Critchfield, of Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio. He was graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohia, in June, 1852. Soon thereafter he commenced the study of law, in Columbus, Ohio, with Hon. George E. Pugh, then attorney-general of the state, and after this, a United States senator from Ohio. He was admitted to practice in March, 1853, and the following year he spent in the Queen City, in the office of the clerk of the superior court. He opened an office in Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio, where he rapidly grew into practice and became a conspicuous member of the bar. He has served as prosecuting attorney of Holmes county, and was a member of the senate in the General Assembly of Ohio. He was attorney-general of Ohio, in 1863-4, and dis- charged his duties in a manner satisfactory to his constituents and the state. As one of the leaders and foremost thinkers and orators of the Democratic party, he has fought congressional battles. On two occasions nominated for the supreme judgeship of Ohio on the Democratic ticket, in each instance he made a vigorous and animated canvass, and with a splendid running record shared in the disasters of his party in the state.
Hon. Addison S. McClure was born in Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio, October 10, 1839. He received a common school education in Wooster. In the fall of 1853 he entered Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, where he remained five years, taking the honor for oration in the annual literary contest. In 1859 he left college and went to the South as a teacher, and found employment near Natchez, Mississippi, where, for a time, he re- mained, when he returned to Wooster, in April, 1860. He immediately entered the law office of Messrs. Cox & Welker, where he completed his ele- mentary studies, and was admitted to the bar of Ohio, in March, 1861. April 16, 1861, he enlisted in Company E, Fourth Regiment Ohio Volunteer In-
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fantry, to serve for three months, re-enlisting in the same company and regi- ment for three years at Camp Dennison, Ohio, June 4, 1861. In October, of the same year, he was transferred to the Sixteenth Regiment Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, then being organized at Camp Tiffin, Wooster, Ohio, recruit- ing Company H of this regiment, having been commissioned captain of the same. After the close of the war he resumed the practice of law in Wooster. He was elected recorder of the then village of Wooster, in April, 1867, and was appointed postmaster of this city in May, 1867, serving for twelve years. He became one of the proprietors of the Wooster Republican in August, 1870, assuming the editorial management and direction of that paper, which continued until 1881. He was a member of the Republican national conven- tion, held in Chicago in 1868, which nominated General Grant for the presidency, and of a similar convention, held in Cincinnati, in 1876, which nominated Rutherford B. Hayes. He was elected to Congress in 1880, was unanimously renominated in 1882, and was defeated. In 1894 he was again elected to the federal House of Representatives. He ran eighteen hundred ahead of the state ticket, carrying Wayne county by the unprecedented major- ity of nine hundred and ten. He was renominated in 1896, and was defeated He was married September 26, 1866, to Mary L. Brigham, of Vienna, Mich- igan. Their only child, Walter C. McClure, was born in August, 1880.
Judge Martin Welker was born in Knox county, Ohio, April 25, 1819; his early life was of obscure and modest origin. At the age of fourteen he held a clerkship in a store in the neighborhood. Four years later, at Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio, he commenced his researches of the law, and at twenty-one was admitted to practice. He was appointed clerk of the common pleas court in Holmes county, serving five years. The Whigs nominated him for Congress in 1848, but he was defeated. He was elected common pleas judge of the sixth district of Ohio, and served five years, under the new constitution of 1851. He was nominated for lieutenant-governor in 1859, upon the ticket with Salmon P. Chase, and was elected, but refused a second nomination. During the Civil war he was a gallant defender of the Union cause; he was appointed major on the staff of Gen. J. D. Cox, and served with the three months' enlisted recruits, subsequently acting as aide-de-camp to the Governor, and as judge-advocate-general of the state, until the expiration of the term of Governor William Denison. He superin- tended the Ohio drafts in 1862 in the capacity of assistant adjutant-general of Ohio. While in the military service he was nominated by the Republi- cans for Congress, but was defeated. He was nominated again in 1864,
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this time being successful, re-elected in 1866 and 1868. President Grant in 1873 appointed him district judge of the United States for the northern dis- trict of Ohio.
Judge Martin L. Smyser was born in Chester township, Wayne county, April 3, 1851, on a farm, where he was reared. He remained on the paternal homestead with his father, Emanuel Smyser, a native of York county, Pennsylvania, who removed to Wayne county in 1832, when he registered as a student at Wittenburg College, Springfield, Ohio, from which institution he graduated in 1870. He soon thereafter commenced the study of law in Wooster in the office of Hon. L. R. Critchfield. He passed his legal examination at Columbus, Ohio, in April, 1872, opening an office at once in Wooster. He was nominated during the fall of that year for prose- cuting attorney of Wayne county, by the Republicans, having thien but passed his twenty-first year. In 1873 he entered into professional relations with Hon. A. S. McClure, which partnership continued for much more than a quarter of a century. To the Republican national convention at Chicago in 1884 he was chosen as an alternate delegate, and in 1888 he was sent as a regular delegate, and during this year he was elected to Congress. He was appointed to the bench of the circuit court, January 15, 1898, by Governor Asa S. Bushnell, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge Julius C. Pomerene.
Eugene W. Newkirk was born in Clinton township, Wayne county, Ohio, is a son of Isaac Newkirk, who died in December, 1870, and a grand- son of Henry Newkirk, a native of Washington county, Pennsylvania, he being a son of Isaac Newkirk, who was a soldier under General Crawford, in the disastrous military campaign against the Indians of Sandusky, Ohio, in 1782. Isaac Newkirk, the father of Wade N., was a successful farmer. The son graduated from the University of Wooster in 1882, and from the Law College in Cincinnati in 1885, and then opened an office in Wooster.
Samuel B. Eason was born at the old Eason homestead in Springville, Plain township, Wayne county, Ohio, April 2, 1844, and is a son of the Hon. Benjamin Eason, of Wooster, the oldest member in active practice at the Wooster bar. The son enlisted in the Federal army May 27, 1862, and served three months. Then he studied at Mt. Union, Ohio, Vermilion In- stitute, Hayesville, Ohio, and the law department of the University of Mich- igan, graduating in 1869. He has practiced about thirty-five years in Woos- ter, was appointed to a judgeship, and he is something of an astronomer.
Thomas B. Keeler was born in the village of Congress, Congress town-
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ship, Wayne county, October 14, 1849, at which place he lived until April, 1876, when he removed to West Salem. He first engaged in the tanning business and then at the carpenter's trade with his father, John Keeler, who was mantied to Hannah Matthews, of Wooster, a sister of Mrs. Sarah Kuffel, a daughter of the famous Adam Poe, the Indian fighter. He received a good education and taught school until he removed to West Salem. During the time he was teaching, he commenced the study of law at Wooster. He was admitted to the bar in Wooster in 1874, but did not enter upon practice until 1876. He was married in 1874 to Ida Wiltmer, and has two children, John V., his son, and a daughter, Ida. He has been engaged in the practice of his profession at West Salem.
Lyman R. Critchfield, Jr., was born in Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio, and is a son of Hon. Lyman R. Critchfield. His primary education was received in the schools of his native town, which was supplemented by a college course at the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. After the termination of his studies at this institution he returned to Millers- burg, entered the office of his father, and there completed the elementary work of preparation for the professional practice. He passed the state exam- ination at Columbus, Ohio, for admission to the bar June 4, 1891. In politics he is a Democrat, and on that ticket in April, 1899, he was elected to the office of city solicitor of the city of Wooster. He was married September 28, 1898, to Rose, daughter of Allen Brown, of Salt Creek town- ship. When the war between the United States and Spain was declared he enlisted as a private in Company D, Eighth Regiment Ohio Volunteer In- fantry.
Asbury Durbin Metz was born in Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio, July 24, 1852. He was a son of Jacob Metz, in the earliest history of Wooster and when it was a village, and for years afterwards a boot and shoe mer- chant. The son was graduated from the University of Wooster in 1874. He studied law and has practiced in Wooster.
Price Russell was born on a farm in Medina county, Ohio. In 1865, when he was ten years old, with his parents he came to Creston, Wayne county, where he continued to live. He passed through the common schools, and the Ohio University, then studied law for one year with Hon. Lyman R. Critchfield. at Millersburg, Ohio; then graduated from the Cincinnati Law College in 1890. He engaged in newspaper work for some time, owning the Medina Standard; then began practicing law in Creston, Wayne county.
Lorenzo D. Cornell of Shreve, Clinton township, Wayne county, was
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born in Chester township, November 26, 1854. He was educated at the business college of Valparaiso, Indiana. He was editor and manager of a weekly journal published at Shreve. He read law in the office of McClure & Smyser of Wooster and was admitted to the bar about 1899. He has an office in Shreve and is engaged in the law and insurance.
Charles M. Yocum was born in Plain township, Wayne county, Febru- ary 17, 1842, the son of Joseph G. Yocum, a farmer in that vicinity for over a half century. The son graduated from the Vermilion Institute in 1866. He had a short military service in Company D, One Hundred and Sixty- sixth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in 1864. He was admitted to the bar in 1868. On December 25, 1872, he married Isabella A. Ross, of Wooster. For many years he has practiced law in Wooster.
D. Wenger was born March 22, 1864, in Sugar Creek township, Wayne county, Ohio. His parents were Pennsylvania Dutch. They removed to Ohio about fifty-five years ago, and settled on the farm where Mr. Wen- ger was born. His early days were occupied on the farm, where he re- mained until he was eighteen years old, when he entered mercantile life, in which he is at present engaged. He began the study of law in the spring of 1893 and was admitted to the bar in March, 1896. He studied under the Sprague correspondence system.
Harry R. Smith, son of Richard H. Smith, received a common school education and studied law, opening an office in Wooster. He is attorney for the Camp system of railroads, having assumed general management of the Ashland & Wooster Railway April 15, 1899.
James B. Meech was born in Chippewa township, Wayne county, and he has been engaged in the practice of law for over thirty years in this county. He is a Republican.
William C. Yost was born July 5, 1854, in Congress township, Wayne county, Ohio, and spent his earlier years on his father's farm. At the age of sixteen he entered the Smithville high school, which he attended for two years, when he commenced the study of law, and graduated at Ann Arbor University, Michigan, in the class of 1884. Soon thereafter he came to Wooster, opened an office and began the practice of his profession, in which he is at present engaged. He was elected mayor of the city of Wooster, in 1889, and re-elected to the same position in 1891; he was elected city solicitor of the city of Wooster in 1893 and re-elected in 1895. He was largely instrumental in organizing the Wooster Shale Brick works, also in locating the preserving works in Wooster, of which he is one of the board of managers.
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John S. Adair was born May 26, 1859, the son of Anderson and Hen- rietta (McClure) Adair. He was reared on a farm in Wooster township. He studied six years at the University of Wooster, began studying law in 1881, moved to Kansas in 1886 and began practicing law, returning to Wayne county in 1888; elected city solicitor of Wooster the following year.
George W. Miller was born in Wayne township, Wayne county, No- vember 22, 1857. His parents came from Pennsylvania. In 1870 he began learning the carriage-making trade, and served a three-years apprenticeship and worked in many different cities at this trade for ten years. In 1880 he entered school, graduated from a normal and began teaching; in 1890 he entered the Cincinnati Law School, graduating in 1891, then lived in Chip- pewa township until 1895, farming, serving two terms as justice of the peace. He still farms and practices law.
M. L. Spooner is a native of the Queen City, Ohio, where he was born October 22, 1852, and is a son of Hon. Thomas Spooner, who, as a member from Ohio of the Republican national convention in 1860 assisted in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency, and who, in the fifties, was president of the national organization of the American party. At the age of sixteen he entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, New York. In 1869 he was engaged upon the survey and construction of the Kansas Pacific railway, and in the winter of 1869-70 he became a mem- ber of Troop E, Seventh United States Cavalry, then stationed at Ft. Wallace, Kansas, in which he served for a year, guarding the line of the road against the attacks of hostile Indian. He then located at Humboldt, Kansas, where he learned the trade of printer in the office of the Humboldt Union. In 1872-73 he was engaged in the government survey of what is now Oklahoma. In 1875 he returned to Cincinnati, where he resumed the craft of printer, having been foreman in a number of the large printing establishments of Wooster, whither he came in 1881, taking charge of the Wayne County Herald. From 1884 he engaged principally in examining and abstracting titles. He became a member of the Ohio bar in 1897.
Edgar E. Stone is a resident of Milton township, spent his earlier years on his father's farm, was a student at the University of Wooster for a term, also at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was admitted to the bar about 1888. He is not, we believe, actively engaged in practice, and lives on his farm near Sterling, Wayne county.
Warren Ramsey, a son of Warren Ramsey, is a native of Wayne county. and remained with his father on the farm until he was sixteen years of age,
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when he attended the Smithville Academy, Wayne county. He graduated from the University of Wooster in 1887, was admitted to the bar and opened an office in Orrville, where he continued in the practice.
Edward Maag was born in Mt. Eaton, Paint township, Wayne county, about forty years ago. He is a man of good education, and was a teacher for a number of years. He studied law and was admitted to the bar.
Thomas W. Peckinpaugh was born in Pennsylvania, November 17, 1817. On his father's side he is of German extraction, on the mother's English. In 1821 his parents emigrated to Green township, when the subject of this sketch was but four years of age. His father was a farmer, and with him his son remained until he was twenty-one. He studied law in Wooster and was admitted to the bar in 1848. On October 18th of that year he married Jane E. Cotton, then began practice in Chippewa township. He filled sev- eral local offices and two terms in the Legislature.
Eugene Carlin, son of George Carlin, a prominent physician of West Salem, Wayne county, is a graduate of the high school of that village and the law school at Ada, Ohio, and has been practicing many years.
D. T. Downing was born in Wooster township, July 17, 1849. After attendance upon the public schools in Wooster, he took a classical course at Denison University, Granville, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in 1877. He opened a law office in Wooster, but after a few years retired from practice.
George A. Starn was born in Wayne county, February 20, 1874, and was reared on a farm, upon which he remained and worked until he was eighteen years of age. He was a student at the University of Wooster and is a graduate of the law department of Ada Institute, Ada, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in 1899. He is located in practice in Orrville.
John C. Morr was born in Holmes county, Ohio, July 18, 1850. His father was a farmer, and the son worked on the farm until he was seventeen years of age, then began plastering and stone cutting, continuing until the spring of 1880. May 5, 1880,,Mr. Morr was admitted to the bar by the su- preme court and has since been practicing his profession in Wooster.
Benton G. Hay was born in Ashland county, Ohio, February 18, 1874. He was reared and worked upon the farm until he was eighteen years of age, when he began a course of study, taking the law course at the Ada Normal Institute. He was admitted to the bar, at Columbus, Ohio, in March, 1898, and during the fall of that year opened an office in Wooster.
Joseph Gallagher, of Smithville, was born January 12, 1860, in Wayne township, Wayne county. He is a son of Victor Gallagher of that commu-
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nity, his mother, Elizabeth Lehman, being a daughter of David Lehman, de- ceased. He was admitted to the bar in 1898, at Columbus, Ohio. He hoisted his legal gonfalon in Smithville.
John R. Mckinney was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, No- vember 12, 1843, his parents removing to Wayne county, Ohio, in 1847. His father was a native of Washington county, Pennsylvania; his mother of Scotch birth, her parents immigrating to the United States when she was young. The family settled near Dalton, in Sugar Creek township, where they remained until 1867, when he transferred his domicil to Wooster. His son worked on the farm until his seventeenth year, when he went to the Ontario Academy, Richland county, Ohio, where he studied for two years. August 22, 1862, he joined the One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment, Ohio Vol- unteer Infantry. After his return from the army he attended Vermilion Institute, Hayesville, Ohio, for one year; then taught school, then he came to Wooster. In June, 1875, he was admitted to the bar here. He was three times elected justice of the peace on the Republican ticket. He is now located in Wooster.
Ed S. Weitz is one of the latest recruits to the Wayne county bar, and since establishing himself in Wooster he has won a very creditable standing in his profession.
Alfred J. Thomas was born in Paris, Stark county, Ohio, and is the son of a mechanic. At an early age he went to Salem, Ohio, and entered a machine shop. From there he removed to Wooster, in 1859, and became an employe with the old firm of McDonald, Laughlin & Co., with which he remained for a number of years. He read law with the late Hon. William M. Orr, of Orrville, was admitted to the bar, opened an office in Wooster, - and continued in the practice here.
Reno H. Critchfield was born in Ripley township, Holmes county, Ohio, September 22, 1865. He was reared on a farm and his earlier years were spent in labor upon it. In 1886 he made a tour of the Pacific coast, for sixteen months remained there, when he returned to Ohio. He then reg- istered as a student at the Ohio Normal University, a learner in summer, a teacher in winter, and this he continued for twelve years. The last three years of his school life were exclusively spent in studying law, and on the completion of this course of research in the law college he entered an office in Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio, where he remained until March,' 1899, when he was admitted to the bar. He then located at Shreve. Wayne county.
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