USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume II > Part 40
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B. G. Copa
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of a brother, he commenced the manufacture of drills at East Greenville, Stark county, and their enterprise met with success from the start. They paid particular attention to the quality of their work and soon found themselves in possession of a business which warranted their branching out. From this nucleus has grown the great Cyclone Drill Company, which will be referred to in following paragraphs. Mr. Cope now has other business interests, being a stockholder in the Orrville Foundry Company and a member of the firm of Cope & Cornelius, of Orrville, manufacturers of blast hole loaders.
On January 1, 1895, Mr. Cope was married to Emma Custer, of Mont- pelier, Ohio, where she was born, being a daughter of Peter and Nancy Cus- ter. No children have been born to this union. Fraternally, Mr. Cope is a member of the time-honored order of Free and Accepted Masons, and in his life he exemplifies the beneficent teachings of the order. Though a compara- tively young man, Mr. Cope's business career has been one of brilliant order, and yet has been the natural sequel of the determined application of his dis- tinctive abilities and to his extraordinary grasp of manifold details and his indefatigable energy. As a young man he has risen to a position of unmis- takable prominence in the financial and industrial world and he now occupies an enviable position in the community.
In a previous paragraph mention has been made of the drill manufac- turing business established at East Greenville by the Cope brothers. Their business increased rapidly and the outlook looked so promising that they felt they would be justified in seeking a better location and to this end they re- moved the plant to Orrville in 1900. The concern continued to prosper here and in 1903 a stock company was formed and incorporated under the name of the Cyclone Drill Company. The present officers of this company are as follows: President, B. G. Cope; vice-president, C. R. Smith; secretary-treas- urer, Levi Mumann ; directors, W. H. Tschantz, C. R. Smith, Levi Mumann, Arthur Jones and B. G. Cope.
The company is engaged in the manufacture and sale of well-drilling machinery, mineral and metal prospecting outfits, blast hole drills, engines, and drilling and finishing tools. The company builds a distinctive type of machine that handles both churn and core tools, and is the only machine of this type built. They also manufacture a gasoline traction drill, being also the only one of its kind on the market. Though the Cyclone is not the largest factory of its kind in the world, it enjoys the distinction of manufacturing the largest line of drilling and prospecting machinery in the world, and it is a significant fact that their line of hole prospecting outfits has developed ninety- five per cent of all the coal mines in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois dur-
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ing the last ten years. The products of this concern find a ready sale in all parts of the world and are being demanded above all others in many contracts where a specially good tool is required. The factory gives employment to eighty men, most of them highly skilled workmen, and the rapid growth of the business gives great promise for the future. Five large buildings are occupied and the erection of others is being considered. Those now occupied are the main building, forty-five by one hundred and sixty-five feet in size ; the forge shop, seventy-five by one hundred and seventy-five feet ; wood shop, sixty-two by one hundred and twenty feet ; and the shipping and stock room, each fifty by seventy feet, besides the modern office, which is finished and equipped for the ready dispatch of business under the most favorable conditions.
REZIN B. WASSON.
Fortunate is he who has back of him an ancestry honorable and dis- tinguished, and happy is he that his lines of life are cast in harmony there- with. The late Rezin B. Wasson, a well-remembered and highly-honored cit- izen of Wayne county, Ohio, was blessed in this respect, as he sprang from two prominent families distinguished in the early annals of what geogra- phers are usually pleased to designate as the "Middle West" and since the early pioneer epoch the name he bore has been one of which present-day descendants may well be proud. He was born on his father's farm in Wayne township, this county, two and one-half miles northeast of Wooster, March 28, 1833, the second son of David Wasson, who was of sterling English descent. The great-grandfather of Rezin B. emigrated to the United States from England during the last half of the eighteenth century, and settled in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where Joseph Wasson, grandfather of Rezin B., was born March 27, 1775. He was married at Lewistown, that state, July 10, 1800, to Jane Mcconahay, sister of David McConahay. Her father, who came to Wayne county, Ohio, in 1816, served as one of the early asso- ciate judges of the common pleas court of Wayne county in 1819, also serving two terms in the General Assembly of the state of Ohio in succession, hav- ing been first elected in 1826. He was the father-in-law of Ephraim Quinby, long since deceased.
It was as early as 1819 that Joseph Wasson moved with his family to Wayne county, Ohio, first settling in Greene township, and the same year he purchased what was then known as the Davison farm and owned by David
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Wasson, father of Rezin B., at the time of his death in 1882. David Was- son, the third son of Joseph Wasson and father of Rezin B., was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and came here with his father in the year mentioned in the preceding paragraph. He married, on June 3, 1830, Mar- garet Beall, a niece of General Beall, for whom Rezin Beall Wasson, of this review, was named. It will be remembered that General Beall was the first representative in Congress after Ohio had been admitted to the Union in 1803, from the district of which Wayne county is now a part, having served from 1813 to 1815. He was commissioned a brigadier-general in the war of 1812; he served as clerk of the supreme and common pleas court, and when the position of register of the land office for the Wooster land district became vacant in 1814, he resigned his seat in Congress to accept the appoint- ment.
Rezin B. Wasson spent his boyhood days on the old home place, where he assisted with the work when he became of proper age, learning many val- uable lessons that assisted him in the later battles of life and laying by an excellent store of potential energy that resulted in a strong, virile manhood, for he had plenty of hard work in connection with the clearing and develop- ing of the farm, and he very faithfully and uncomplainingly performed well his just share of the same. When nineteen years of age his boyish imagina- tion was fired by tales of gold in California, and, not having any capital of his own, he borrowed a small sum and bravely struck out, "like a tramp," as he later explained, toward the trackless plains of the arid West beyond which lay the "sundown seas." This feat alone is enough to stamp him as one pos- sessed of no usual amount of courage and the innate qualities that win. On March 10, 1852, he left Wooster, making his way to Mansfield, thence by rail to Shelby, thence to Cincinnati, thence by steamboat to St. Louis, with numerous companions whom he did not know previously, all bent on reach- ing the Eldorado in the West; they went on to Lexington, Missouri, and other Missouri river points on the steamer "Pontiac," an old condemned ves- sel, which blew up in a turn of the river, killing one hundred and thirty Mor- mons and other passengers, including the captain and pilot, Mr. Wasson and a few other passengers escaping by reason of the fact that they had only a few moments before left the boat. He sought and found employment with a farmer at Independence, a village a few miles west of Lexington, where the explosion occurred, with whom he remained for a time, learning his first les- sons in ox-teaming from the old planter. He then worked for a company who had a contract with the government for freighting corn, flour and other materials and provisions to one of the frontier posts, and while in the employ
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of the company managed to get as far west as Fort Laramie, where he met a man who had collected a large drove of sheep with the object in view of driv- ing them over the plains and across the Rockies to Salt Lake and young Was- son went with him as a driver and herder, the distance being over seventeen hundred miles and through a very wild region, overrun with savages and through which there were only dim trails in places, the way being perilous for many reasons, partly from the Indians and partly from white bandits. The trip was made without serious mishap, and in the city of the Mormons Mr. Wasson remained for a fortnight, during which time he heard President Brigham Young preach a sermon in which he admonished the "sisters" to beware of familiarity with the Gentiles. The problem that now confronted our young adventurer was how to cover the seven hundred miles that yet inter- vened between him and the gold fields of California. While in Salt Lake City the stockman who brought the sheep to Salt Lake decided to purchase a drove of mules and take them to California, and so young Wasson's services were again needed in assisting to take the mules across the sands and moun- tains, thereby enabling him to complete his long journey, and so he plodded on over the hot alkali soil, through the rugged gorges and mountain passes, pushing on like the dauntless and unfaltering man of courage until he reached Sacramento with his charge, arriving in that beautiful valley on October 15, 1852. having been six months on the long, weary journey from Wooster. But, being anxious to try his fortune in the mines, he spent no time in the semi-tropical luxuries of the Sacramento valley. His first experiences were at Dutch Bar Middle Fork on the Amazon river. He remained on the Pa- cific coast eight years, giving his attention very largely to mining. He was there during the days of lawlessness, desperadoes, the Vigilantes, and when little or no protection was afforded to property or life. His career was one of peril, often romantic and filled with thrilling and desperate adventuries.
Mr. Wasson was at last ready to forsake the varied experiences in the Golden state and in 1860 returned to Wooster by way of the Isthmus of Pan- ama. On his return he began work for O. K. Griffith, digging wells, cut- ting cord-wood, making rails and doing general work. He sought lighter employment and was engaged as clerk in a dry goods and general store in Doylestown, where he continued for two years, when, in 1862, he purchased a farm which he kept three years, then sold it and bought another. In 1865 he launched in the saw-mill business in western Ohio and continued in the same there and in central Michigan for a number of years, discontinuing the same in 1875, having been very successful in this line. For a short time he then shipped logs and veneering wood to New York City. In 1878 he pur-
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chased what is known as the Christian Stoll farm, in Wayne township, Wayne county, Ohio, five and one-half miles northwest of Wooster, where he con- tinued to live until his death, he having retired to this place, his health having begun to fail in 1892.
Mr. Wasson took considerable interest in local political affairs and he was elected treasurer of Wayne county on the Democratic ticket in 1887 and re- elected in 1889, his term of office expiring in September, 1892.
Rezin B. Wasson was married while in business in Doylestown to Lu- cetta Franks, of Chippewa township, the wedding occurring on March 26. 1861. Mrs. Wasson was the daughter of Abraham Franks, the fourth son of Henry Franks, who was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, February 9. 1798, and who came to Chippewa township, Wayne county, Ohio, with his father on May 18, 1825. He married Lydia Blocken and they became the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters. He was a man of great muscular power and endurance, full of industry and energy and for many years he was prominent as a farmer and leading stock man, also in mer- cantile business generally. He brought the first sheep to Chippewa township. In 1861 he retired from business and divided his handsome estate among his children, retaining a competency for himself and living a life of quiet ease until his death, on February 24, 1865. His wife is also dead. Although often solicited to hold some public office, he would never do so; however, he was an active worker in the Democratic ranks. To Abraham Franks and wife a large family was born, five of whom are living at this writing, namely : Ly- man, Riley, Morgan, Phoebe and Lucetta, widow of Rezin B. Wasson, of this review.
To Mr. and Mrs. Rezin B. Wasson eight children were born, named in order of birth as follows: Abraham died when seven years of age. Amanda married Charles Zimmerman, of Cleveland, Ohio. Martha Belle is living at home. John always lived at home on the farm, and he married Elizabeth G -- , who has borne him four children: Grace, Josiah Allen, George Beall and Albert. Richard Wasson is at Barton, Ohio; he married Josephine Hill and they are the parents of three children, Hill R., Dwight M. and Harold. Thomas Wasson, who is a practicing physician at Ellenburg, Wash- ington, was educated in Kansas City, Missouri, Los Angeles and Sacramento, California, and also took other courses, and has become a very successful gen- eral practitioner ; he married Flora E. Germain, of Walla Walla, Washing- ton. Kate Wasson is still a member of the home circle. Louis F. is single and is practicing dentistry at Tacoma, Washington.
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Mrs. Wasson is a woman of gracious personality and has hosts of friends in this vicinity ; she is a member of the First Presbyterian church of Wooster, where her two daughters also hold membership.
Rezin B. Wasson's varied and interesting career was a most successful one. It combined energy, persistency, honesty and generosity, and as a public official he was sincere, competent and trustworthy. Both as a farmer and business man he was diligent, self-reliant and independent, and as a citizen he aimed to discharge his duties as they appeared to him, honestly and in a spirit of candor and fairness. He was always ready to assist when he saw that aid was needed and he certainly deserved the high esteem in which he was held by everyone.
JOHN A. YODER.
Although John A. Yoder, a progressive agriculturist of Wayne township, Wayne county, has spent most of his life in his home locality, is perhaps not especially conversant with conditions prevailing in other portions of the coun- try, he is a man who could have succeeded either in his home country or any other, for a study of his life record reveals the possession of those qualities that make for success in any environment, and he is now one of the substantial citizens of a community which holds high rank in the list of foremost coun- ties in the Union. He is a native of Greene township, Wayne county, where he first saw the light of day May 19, 1861, the son of Samuel and Catherine (Naftzinger) Yoder, the former a native of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, and the latter was born in Germany. For a full history of the subject's an- cestry the reader is directed to the sketch of M. P. Yoder, appearing elsewhere in this volume, and owing to its completeness there, it is deemed unnecessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that they were people of the highest integ- rity and were prominent in their neighborhood.
John A. Yoder received only a common school education in his native community, having worked on the home farm during the major part of the year until he reached maturity. He began doing little chores about the place when he was a very small lad, remaining under the parental rooftree until he was twenty-one years of age. He then turned his attention to the West and went to Johnson county, Missouri, while yet a single man. He formed a matrimonial alliance with Sarah Neuhauser in the month of January, 1885. She was a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and the daughter of C. B. and Catherine (Stoltzfus) Neuhauser, both natives of Lancaster county,
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Pennsylvania, who later went to Knox county, Tennessee, where they still re- side. To Mr. and Mrs. Yoder three children have been born, namely: Cris- sie, Nellie and Roy.
After the year 1885 Mr. Yoder lived in Johnson county, Missouri, where he became the owner of an excellent piece of land, consisting of eighty acres of prairie ground, on which he resided for a period of eleven years, prosper- ing by reason of his good management. But his old home in Wayne county, Ohio, still had its allurements and he was never wholly satisfied away from it, so in 1896 he came back to his native community and purchased thirty acres of land where he now lives in Wayne township, known as the Joseph Blocker place. It was badly run down when Mr. Yoder took possession of it, but he has made many valuable improvements and is making a comfortable living on the same. He is a man who takes no special interest in public af- fairs, never aspiring for office, merely voting the Republican ticket on election days. He and his wife are members of the Amish Mennonite church at Oak Grove, Greene township.
JAMES BEDELL PUTNAM.
To attain a worthy citizenship by a life that is always honored and re- spected, even from childhood, deserves more than mere mention. It is no easy task to resist the many temptations of youth and early manhood and plant a character in the minds and hearts of associates that will remain an unstained figure for all time. One may take his place in public life through some vigorous stroke of public policy, and even remain in the hearts of friends and neighbors, but to take the same position by dint of the practice of an upright life and without a craving for exaltation merely for selfish ends, whose chief desires seem to be to serve others and lead a life of usefulness and honor, is worthy of the highest praise and commendation. Such a man is James Pedell Putnam, well-known business man of Wooster, who is duly re- spected by all classes, not especially because of the vigorous training of his special talents, but because of his daily life, each day being one that is above criticism, viewed in the light of public-spirited citizenship and true American manhood. He is a native of Wooster, where he was born on October 8, 1858, the second child of Samuel and Anna (Wilson) Putnam, and Wayne county has always had such attractions for him that he has continued to make his home here and labor in the county's best interests. His father, an honest,
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hard-working and highly respected man, was a pioneer shoemaker here, who made a very comfortable living for his family, being a skilled workman, hav- ing taken up his residence in Wooster in- 1850, and he was called from his earthly labors on February 9, 1864, survived until March 14, 1872, by his widow, a woman of excellent traits.
James B. Putnam received a common school education, studied hard and made the most of his advantages. Following in the footsteps of his father in the leather working trade, he served an apprenticeship of five years at "collar- making," then for the same length of time he worked for the Standard Coach Pad Company, being regarded by the same as one of their most adroit and trusted employes. Since then he has represented a number of large firms, handling household necessities, etc., and he has built an extensive business, giving each firm entire satisfaction.
Mr. Putnam has always taken considerable interest in the affairs of the Democratic party, never missing an opportunity to aid the local cause in what- ever way possible, and for some time his counsel has been sought by party leaders who have recognized his influence. He was elected clerk of Wooster township in 1896, and according to statements of many of his constituents, the township never had a better official.
Mr. Putnam is a man of patriotic impulses, ready at any time to defend his country in time of peace or war, and he served very faithfully as a mem- ber of Company D, Eighth Regiment Ohio National Guard.
On December 28, 1887, Mr. Putnam was married to Minnie Mowery, the representative of a well-established and highly respected family of Ches- ter township, the daughter of David and Susan Mowery, and this union has resulted in the birth of one child, Wayne Wooster Putnam, a bright lad, born April 22, 1890.
SAMUEL GEORGE GILL.
The county of Wayne numbers among its citizens many skillful physi- cians, lawyers of state repite, well-known manufacturers and business men of more than local reputation; while proud of them, she is not lacking in others who have achieved distinction in callings requiring intellectual abilities of a high order. Among the latter, Samuel G. Gill, who is now engaged in the in- surance, real estate and stock and bond business at Wooster, but who formerly for many years was one of this county's most successful pedagogues, deserves a conspicuous place. No one is more entitled to the thoughtful consideration
MRS, S. G. GILL
.
SAMUEL G. GILL
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of a free and enlightened people than he who shapes and directs the minds of the young, adds to the value of their intellectual treasures and to a large degree moulds their characters. This is pre-eminently the mission of the faithful and conscientious teacher and to such noble work was the life of the subject for many years devoted.
Samuel G. Gill was born September 19, 1850, in Plain township, Wayne county, Ohio, and is a son of George and Anna (Miller) Gill. George Gill was also a native of this state, born in 1819, and followed farming during his active years. He was descended from sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, the family name having originally been McGill. The father's death occurred July 27, 1861, on the old homestead in Plain township, where he had lived for nearly twenty years. The subject's paternal grandfather, Isaac Gill, was a native of Pennsylvania, who came to Ohio and settled near Reedsburg, Wayne county. where he lived until his death, which occurred when he was about eighty- seven years old. Anna Miller was born April 22, 1821, near Harnsburg, Cum- berland county, Pennsylvania, and is still living, making her home with her daughter, at Reedsburg. By her union with George Gill, she became the mother of the following children: Isaac died in infancy; Jacob M., of Je- romesville, Ashland county, Ohio; William W., of Plain township, this county ; Sarah Jane, who is the widow of Ralston Brown, now makes her home with the subject of this sketch; Samuel G. is the next in order of birth ; Martha is the wife of John A. Stottler, a merchant at Reedsburg : David M., who is a clerk in the employ of William Annant, at Wooster.
Samuel G. Gill was reared under the parental roof and secured his pre- liminary education in the common schools of his home township, supplement- ing this mental training by attendance at a select school at Reedsburg, Wayne county, taught by an educator from Boston. At the early age of sixteen years, Mr. Gill began teaching school, a profession he followed with distinctive suc- cess through many years. His first school was in Greene county, Indiana. where he closed a summer term and then taught a full winter term. He was then engaged to teach the school at Blachleyville, this county, and so satisfac- tory were his services that altogether he taught nineteen terms at that place, there being two intervals during this period. He also taught twelve terms at Reedsburg, ten terms in his home district (Union Institute, Plain township). fourteen terms at Yankeetown, twelve terms in Wooster at Valley College, and four terms at School No. 8 in Wayne township. He then assisted Pro- fessor Dickison during a summer term at the Wooster University. This makes a total of seventy-three terms of school which Mr. Gill taught, a record which is believed to be, beyond a doubt, without an equal in this county, and
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probably not excelled in the state of Ohio. Fifty-six terms of school were taught by him in his home township. During 1866-67 Mr. Gill also served as clerk of Plain township. He is now engaged in the insurance, real estate, bond and stock business in the city of Wooster and is enjoying a large and satisfactory business. He is the owner of a farm of one hundred and seventy- two acres in Plain township, on which are three sets of farm buildings and other valuable improvements. With his son and another man, Mr. Gill owns a large elevator at Richwood, Ohio. He is also a director in the Buckeye Clay and Coal Co., of New Salisbury, this state, which concern possesses some splendid prospects. The company owns two thousand acres of land, touch- ing the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad for three miles, and underlying this land there have been developed seven veins of coal and three of clay. Of the coal, one vein, which is now being mined, is four and a half feet thick, and there is a fifteen-foot vein of drift coal. Of the clay, one vein is nineteen feet thick, one thirteen and two of eight foot thickness, all said to be the finest sewer-pipe clay in the United States. The stockholders in the company feel sanguine they have a paying proposition in this property and it has been so pronounced by competent judges of the value of such properties.
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