USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 90
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During the eight years that Robert Eason lived in Perry township he and his neighbors joined in building the first log school house. The site of this early "college," the structure itself having long since disappeared, is in Chester township, near the county line. Here Sarah Elwood, niece of Mr. Eason, opened the first country school. In the summer of 1826 Robert Eason built the first frame bank-barn of any magnitude in Perry township. On January 19, 1832, he moved his family to and settled on the farm in Plain township, later owned by his son, Hon. Benjamin Eason. Here he succeeded
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Dennis Driscoll in the business of milling, and commenced improving a new farm, and there he lived and continued the milling business until his death, April 14, 1854. At this place, on March 12, 1850, to this family a most sad and terrible accident occurred, the wife of Robert Eason being crushed to death by the machinery of the mill. The remains of husband and wife rest side by side in the old graveyard near Millbrook.
In his boyhood days, Benjamin Eason for several years pursued the vo- cation of teacher, varying his employment. at times. in surveying and managing and cultivating a farm. He was not exactly a child of the wil- derness, but wilderness conditions surrounded the rude cradle in which he was rocked, his birth having occurred on May 5, 1822. He spent his life in Wayne county and became one of the eminent men of his day and generation, having devoted the latter part of his life to the law. He taught his first school when nineteen years old and when twenty-six was elected justice of the peace and served until 1850, when he and his brother, Alexander, who died at Placerville, Cali- fornia, made the long. hazardous trip over the plains to California in search of gold, being members of the "Dennison Company," composed of about forty Wayne county men. He returned home the following winter from the Eldorado of the far West. In 1851 he was elected clerk of the common pleas court, and was re-elected in 1854. He was elected to the state Senate in 1859 on the Democratic ticket, and also served in the Senate in 1882 and 1883. He was, by appointment, treasurer of Wayne county nine months. In 1862 he was commissioned captain of Company E, One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and for some time he served at the front in the South. In 1864 he purchased the Wayne County Democrat and edited the same for some time. April 1, 1870, he opened an office in Wooster with his son, Samuel B., of this review, as partner, and devoted his time to the practice of law and continued successfully during the remaining active years of his life.
Samuel B. Eason, the immediate subject of this biographical record, had the privileges of the common country schools, which he attended during the winter months and worked on the home farm the remainder of the year, Caroline Culbertson being his first teacher in the little school house at Spring- ville, and at an early age he evinced an inclination to study and a passion for books. When eighteen years of age he tendered his services to the govern- ment, and on May 27, 1862, was mustered into service, joining Company D, Eighty-sixth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, under Capt. Andrew H. Byers and Col. Barnabas Burns. In this regiment he served four months,
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his enlistment being three months, and he was discharged on September 25th following.
Upon his return from the army, Mr. Eason registered, in the fall of 1863, at Mt. Union, Stark county, and remained in the college there one year altogether, having attended school at home in the winter of 1863 and 1864, returning to Mt. Union later. For one year he had charge of the college telescope of six and three-eighths aperture. He then entered Vermillion Insti- tute, Hayesville, Ashland county, Ohio, remaining in that institution, with the exception of one term of teaching, until September, 1867, then, accom- panied by Hon. John K. Cowen, late president of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road Company. as roommate, he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1869, having completed the course in law. Hon. John W. Kern, of Indianapolis, was his class-mate at Ann Arbor. In the winter of 1867-8 he was elected one of five to take part in the public exercises of the Webster, the most prominent literary society of the law department, and the next day after the exercises they were entertained at dinner by Judge and Mrs. Thomas W. Cooley, and he carries the incident in memory as one of the most pleasant of school days. The next winter he was president of the Webster.
Mr. Eason located at Columbia City, Indiana, but 'in 1870 he returned to Wooster, Ohio, and formed a partnership with his father, practicing thus for two years. Later his brother, Benjamin, joined the firm of B., S. B. & B. F. Eason, which continued until 1885, when Samuel B. began practicing alone, having by this time won an enviable reputation at the local bar.
In 1897 Samuel B. Eason was elected judge of the common pleas court. in which he made a splendid record and was re-elected to the same responsi- ble position in 1902, and by legislative enactment the term was lengthened to six years, and he served until January 1, 1909, then resumed the practice of law. The Taggart divorce case and the Dickinson murder trial were among the noted cases that came before him as judge.
Judge Eason was married on May 7, 1885. to Anna Hindman, a lady of education and refinement, the daughter of John and Nancy ( Phillips) Hind- man. She was born at Apple Creek, this county, and at the time of her marriage lived at Wooster. This union has been without issue.
The Judge's home, at No. 117 West Liberty street, is one of hospitality and good cheer, cozy and a favorite mecca for the many friends of himself and wife. The business of the Judge is exclusively the practice of law, and he is also the owner of a valuable and attractive farm of two hundred and
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forty-five acres in Franklin township, which he operates. He has placed many valuable improvements on it, including forty-six thousand feet of drain tile, erected substantial buildings, etc.
Politically, Judge Eason is a Democrat and as a speaker and advisor during campaigns his services are most valuable, the success of the ticket in a number of campaigns being largely attributable to his wise counsel and judicious leadership.
As a lawyer Judge Eason busies himself with those things in which success depends upon the symmetrical judgment and practical grasp that come from reading and reflection. These characteristics were observed while on the bench, his fidelity to duty there and his faithful discharge of the same winning the admiration of all concerned, irrespective of party alignment. He is a man of intense energy and application. He goes into court with his case completely in hand. The labor of preparation is not considered. He has a keen perception of the varying phases of human nature which charac- terize his professional career. In counsel he is inquisitive, exacting and ex- haustive, wanting to know the truth and the facts. As an advocate he is earnest, resolute and persuasive, and is, withal, one of Wayne county's ener- getic, public spirited citizens, richly deserving the high esteem in which he is held by all classes.
Judge Eason is the owner of a fine refracting telescope of nine inches clear aperture, made for him in 1882 by the celebrated firm of Alvan Clark & Sons, and of which Alvan Clark, Sr., the founder of the house, in an autograph letter to him, states that the object glass was made with his own hands and that it is one of his best. This he uses for occasional recreation, and with it in 1882 he obtained a view of the atmosphere of Venus, which would not be visible again for one hundred and twenty years, or until the next transit, and many other interesting and beautiful views of the planets and stars have been gained by him through this splendid instrument.
CYRUS A. RIEDER.
As long as history endures will the American nation acknowledge its indebtedness to the heroes who, between 1861 and 1865, fought for the pres- ervation of the Union and the honor of the starry banner which has never been trailed in the dust of defeat in a single polemic conflict in which the country has been engaged. Among those whose military records, as valiant
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soldiers of the war of the Rebellion, reflect lasting honor upon them is the subject of this sketch, who is now living a retired life in the pleasant little town of Apple Creek and who is known as one of the sterling citizens of Wayne county, where for a number of years he was successfully engaged in professional pursuits.
Cyrus A. Rieder was born at Maysville, Saltcreek township, Wayne county, Ohio, on the 30th day of January, 1844, and is a son of Daniel, Jr .. and Sarah A. (Mowrey) Rieder. Daniel Rieder was brought to Wayne county by his parents in 1813, when he was but a boy, and here he adopted the pursuit of farming, which he followed during the remainder of his active life. He was prospered, and eventually became the owner of two hundred acres of good land. Unfortunately, however, he became surety on a bond. which, becoming forfeited, ruined him financially. He married Sarah A. Mowrey and they became the parents of sixteen children, ten of whom grew to mature years.
The subject was reared on the parental farmstead, on which he worked until he was seventeen years old. At that time the war had broken out in the Southland and, feeling the patriotic impulse, he volunteered for service in the defense of his country and joined Company C. Forty-first Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the date of his enlistment having been August 8, . 1862. He remained with this command, participating in a number of the bloodiest battles of that great conflict, including those of Stone River, Chick- amauga and Missionary Ridge. In the last named engagement Mr. Rieder received a terrible wound in the right leg, from the results of which he has had to undergo two amputations. He was discharged in 1864, and, returning to his Wayne county home, he at once took the first steps towards securing a good education. He attended first the school at Fredericksburg, and then went to Professor Eberley's school at Smithville. He then engaged in teach- ing school, in which he was successful and which he continued for nine years. He had determined to take up the profession of the law and to this end during the past several years he had put in all his spare time in the study of Black- stone, Kent and the other great legal authorities. Eventually he took the ex- aminations at Wooster and was properly admitted to the bar of Wayne county. He located at Wooster and entered actively into the practice of his profession and was soon numbered among the leading members of the bar. He was elected city attorney of Wooster, in which position he served four years, and also served two terms as county attorney and prosecuting attorney. In all these positions he acquitted himself in a manner which won for him an en- viable reputation among his professional brethren. He went to Kansas and
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located at Anthony, where he remained for eight years, during which time he engaged in the practice of the law. While there he served four years as postmaster, receiving his appointment under President Cleveland's first ad- ministration. At the end of the period noted Mr. Rieder returned to his old home in Wooster and resumed the practice of his profession, in which he continued until 1900, then went to St. Regis Falls, New York, and stayed eight years, and came back and retired at Apple Creek, where he is now living. In recognition of his faithful service during the Civil war, and as a partial recompense for the physical injury from which he suffered, the subject now receives a liberal pension from the government which he helped to preserve and perpetuate. In his professional life Mr. Rieder was recog- nized as a man of unusual attainments and occupied a high position in the estimation of those who knew of him and his work. He is a good speaker, a close student and an indefatigable worker,-elements which contribute to a large measure to the success of any lawyer. In private life he is a man whom it is a pleasure to know. Genial in manner, a splendid conversation- alist, faithful in his friendships and of unimpeachable personal character, he is eminently deserving of the unstinted confidence and respect which are accorded him throughout the community, and he is particularly deserving of representation in a work of this character.
PETER WELTY.
A representative of one of the old and honored families of Wayne county, which since pioneer days has been prominently connected with the develop- ment and substantial progress of this section of the state, Mr. Welty is worth- ily sustaining the high reputation of the family, through his active and useful life, prominence in connection with the agricultural industries of this favored section of the Buckeye state and his influential position as one of the county's extensive landholders. There is utmost compatibility in here entering a brief review of his career, and aside from being a valuable and perpetual record, the article will be read with interest by the many friends of himself and family.
Peter Welty was born on the farm on which he now resides in section 5, Paint township, Wayne county, Ohio, on February 17, 1839. He is a son of John and Barbara (Lukenbill) Welty. John Welty was a native of canton Berne, Switzerland, and came to the United States in his young manhood un-
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accompanied. He went first to Virginia, where he remained for a time, and then came to Ohio, settling in Wayne county. He is supposed to have been married in Holmes county, for he farmed for a while near Minesburg, that county. Subsequently he came to Wayne county and bought the land where the subject now lives. He was in politics a strong Democrat, but declined to accept any public office. Besides being a successful farmer, he was also a good mechanic, being proficient in blacksmithing and carpenter work. He was also the owner of land in Putnam county, this state, and was in all his affairs a prosperous man. He was a member of the Mennonite church and lived a life consistent with his professions. After coming to America, Mr. Welty was married to Barbara Lukenbill, who settled in Holmes county with her parents when she was quite young. To Peter and Barbara Welty were born nine children, as follows: Chris C., Catherine, Barbara, Mary, Anna, Peter, Magdalene, Fannie and John, the latter dying in infancy.
Peter Welty remained under the parental roof during his youth and received a fair education in the district schools of the neighborhood. He early applied himself to the labors of the farm and gave his undivided atten- tion to the work, in which he has continued during all his active days. He has followed general farming and has been progressive in his methods, keep- ing in close touch with the most advanced ideas relating to the science of agri- culture. He has never been tempted to forsake the great basic art, which is the foundation and strength of the commercial life of the nation, realizing that the successful husbandman is the most independent and carefree man in the country. Mr. Welty owns a fine farm and has given intelligent direc- tion to every detail of the work thereon. His buildings are commodious and well arranged, his machinery is thoroughly up-to-date, the fences well kept and everything about the place shows the owner to be a man thoroughly .prac- tical in his ideas and methods. In connection with the tilling of the soil he also gives some attention to the breeding and raising of livestock, in which also he has been prospered. Now in the golden sunset years of his life he has laid aside much of the actual manual labor of the farmi, but his interest in the work is unflagging and he is as alert and keen in his interest in passing events as in his prime.
Politically, Mr. Welty has always voted the Democratic ticket, but has never sought nor held public office of any nature, being content to occupy the rank of a private citizen, though at all times lie has been found an earnest supporter of all worthy movements for the general good. He and his wife are members of the Mennonite church, to which they give an earnest support.
In 1861 Mr. Welty was united in marriage to Anna Gerber, who was
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born in May, 1839, in Sugar Creek township, this county, the daughter of Woolerick Gerber. To the subject and his wife have been born eight chil- dren, namely : Benjamin, Barbara (deceased), John, William, Rosa, Daniel. Sarah and Reuben.
Mr. Welty has through a long course of years retained the unqualified esteem of the community. He has consistently devoted his time and attention to his business interests, through which he has gained a gratifying and well- merited success. Industry, energy and progressive spirit have ever been dominating characteristics in his makeup and through these forces he has attained a distinctive degree of prosperity and is numbered among the repre- sentative agriculturists of the county.
J. H. TODD, M. D.
The ancestors of Dr. Joe H. Todd on his paternal side were Scotch- Irish and Welsh; on the maternal, they were Holland Dutch and Welsh, with a mingling of what Emerson calls "compact old English blood." His mother was a direct descendant of Peter Yokom, who immigrated to America from Holland in 1693 and settled at Sweedsford, near Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania. His oldest son, John, married Elizabeth DeHaven, a Welsh Quak- eress, and died or was killed in the Revolution February 10, 1777. About this time, at a family reunion, the name Yokom was changed to Yocum. His son, also named John, was born at Sweedsford February 14, 1757, and mar- ried Mary Evans, of Welsh-English blood, at Chester, Pennsylvania. He migrated to York county, Pennsylvania, where he established Yocumtown, on the Susquehanna, and removed to Wayne county, Ohio, in 1828. He was a Revolutionary soldier and Doctor Todd's great-grandfather. His son, Elijah, was the Doctor's grandfather and was a local. Methodist preacher and a builder of carding machines and mills. He was married to Catherine Wagoner, a "Pennsylvania-Dutch" girl, at Yocumtown, and here was born the Doctor's mother, Caroline Matilda Yocum, in 1813. Doctor Todd's paternal great-grandfather, Capt. James Todd, was born in county Antrim, north Ireland, of Protestant parents, in 1690, and came to America with a Welsh wife about 1740 and located at Baltimore, Maryland. He had the mariner's thirst for the sea, the skill and education of the mechanic and sailor in building and sailing his craft. He was a sea captain and became the owner of vessels plying between his home city and the Bermudas, Ba-
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hamas and Cuba, as well as an importer of Arabian horses. But, like many who go out on the sea in ships, he met with disaster, and the requiem of his hopes was chanted in tempest and storm. His two ships went down off Hat- teras. The losses were heavy, his spirit broken, and he retired to a small farm in York county, Pennsylvania, where his family had a summer home in his absence. Here the Doctor's grandfather, James Todd, was born in 1750, who as a boy frequently went on voyages with his father, for he, too, loved the sea; but when disaster destroyed their wealth, he was appren- ticed to a saddler in York. He learned the trade, but later was a teacher in a Quaker school, where he married a Quaker maiden and returned to the old farm. He was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Trimble and made captain of militia. The Doctor's father, James Todd, was born on this farm in 1796 (the name James had been given to the eldest son for many generations). After the death of his father, in 1828, he came to Ohio and located in Wayne county, dealing in land and horses. He was married in 1836 to Caroline Matilda Munhall, a widow, whose maiden name was Yocum. To them two children were born, Joe H. and Lunette Yocum, the former of which is the subject of this sketch.
A number of Doctor Todd's earlier years were spent upon his father's farm near Millbrook, where he attended the old conventional, but now tradi- tional, country school, subsequently registering as a student at Vermilion Institute, Hayesville, Ohio, under the presidency of Rev. Sanders Diefendorf. then one of the foremost academic educators of Ohio. From here he went to Fredericksburg Academy. On the completion of his disciplinary course of institutional drill and methods in 1861, he commenced the study of medicine. After the battle of Gettysburg, in response to the national gov- ernment call for medical aid, although yet a student. he hastened to the scene of that desperate struggle, which supplied him extraordinary opportuni- ties in the practical part of surgery, both as an operator and assistant in those crucial tests to the unfortunate which resulted from the iron game of war. Here and at Chambersburgh and Harrisburg he remained during the summer, when he proceeded to Bellevue Hospital, New York, remaining there during the winter of 1863-64. Here were afforded him special les- sons in surgery by Professor Smith of Bellevue, and private instruction from Austin Flint, Sr., directly in the branches of percussion and auscultation of the lungs, from whom came a strong and merited endorsement of his skill and accomplishments. In 1864 he was a private student of Frank Hamilton. In 1865 he received his diploma and commenced practice with a clientage from the beginning that prognosticated his future success. In 1869 he was
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a delegate to the National Medical Society at New Orleans, being commis- sioned by the Medical Society of Wayne County. To further gratify his aspiration to attain the highest possible skill and excellence in the various departments of his profession, he returned to New York, placing himself under the special care of Austin Flint, Jr., as second assistant in the depart- ment of physiology, receiving private instruction in surgery from Professor Hamilton and also from Delafield, in microscopy. In 1870 he again visited New York, where he was for a period assistant to Austin Flint, Jr., in physiology laboratory.
In 1876 Doctor Tood purchased a home in Wooster and permanently located there. He is a member of the American Public Health Association, and has been since 1892. He was a delegate to the International Medical Congress at Washington, D. C., in 1885, and again to Berlin, Germany, in 1890, visiting the hospitals of Europe in the interests of his profession. He assisted in founding the Ohio Archaeology and Historical Society at Columbus, Ohio, in 1881, and was one of its earliest members. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, chosen in 1892. He was present at the second meeting of the Ohio Academy of Science after its organization, was elected a member and is uniform in his attendance of its meetings, at Columbus, Ohio, where it was established in 1892. Its first president was Edward W. Claypool. It is composed of about two hundred members. He has read three papers before the academy on the preglacial drainage of Wayne and associated counties.
The investigations and researches that Doctor Todd has made in his various fields of scientific thought have been most valuable contributions and have served a distinctive purpose with other scientists and specialists of the institutions of which he is a member, in establishing and sustaining organized societies and institutes for original research.
In the processes along these lines of scientific and antiquarian research there seem to be three stages of development. In the first there comes a period of discovery, during which the region is traversed by traveling special- ists, either as independent investigators with a laudable and instinctive love for their work, anticipating no special reward for their labors, only so far as they can enlighten mankind, stimulate inquiry into the mysteries of the arcanum of nature and add some new chapters to the folios of science, or by such persons attached to expeditions sent out by government or by scientific institutions. In this way the general nature of the anthropologic, ethnologic, archaelogic and biologic conditions are made known to science, and in most cases much data and many hitherto unknown facts, truths and
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results are attained and described. In the second stage the field is occupied by local residents, collectors, persons who are able to devote a portion of their time to observation and research and to the preservation of the speci- mens that they find, without the opportunities and accessories of libraries and other facilities for original research. Such persons seldom publish the re- sults of their labors and accumulations, but send their treasure to specialists, more favorably situated, who know the discoveries of their correspondents. In the third stage comes the development of local research, by resident anti- quarians and scientists, who spend years of patient toil, extracted from busi- ness or professional life, in studying the conditions that surround them, traversing home and adjacent districts, and by publishing the results of their exploitations gradually introduce to the light a rich profusion of scien- tific data. As the resident specialists increase in number they specialize by degrees, so that in time all phases of the subject receive proper attention. The culmination of these conditions is the founding of great establishments for original research.
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