USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume II > Part 59
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George M. Young. of this review, was educated in the common schools of Chester township and was reared on the farm, and he took up farming for a livelihood. He bought out the heirs and now owns the old home place of eighty-four acres, and he has one hundred and sixteen acres elsewhere. He has been very successful as a general farmer and stock raiser, and has a well kept and well improved place.
Mr. Young was married on May 27, 1879, to Minerva Billhimer, a native of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Abraham and Lucinda Billhimer, who came to Wayne county in about 1865 or 1866. Both are now deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Young seven children have been born, namely: Oliver Clinton, who married Mae Warner; Minnie is the wife of Foster Warner; Carrie is the wife of Garfield Warner; Charles Edward married Fay Warner. (The Warner girls are twins; these are all children of Henry Warner.) Sylvia Young was next in order of birth, then Guy and Raymond.
In politics Mr. Young is a Democrat and he has been township trustee for seven years, and for the past sixteen years has been a member of the local school board. In 1909 he was a candidate for county commissioner, and his candidacy was looked upon with much favor by all concerned from the first, owing to his general popularity and his fidelity to public trusts. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
CHARLES E. FOLSOM.
Charles E. Folsom, well known and popular traveling salesman, who maintains his home at Wooster, Wayne county, is a man of tact, ingenuity and foresight, and it is safe to say that he would make a success at whatever he turned his attention.
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Mr. Folsom comes of a highly honored and influential family, and he was born at Braceville, Trumbull county, Ohio, March 6, 1868. His father was James Byron Folsom, a native of Hampden, Geauga county, Ohio, and he was a traveling salesman all his life, being very successful in this line and becoming well known. His death occurred in May, 1889, at Auburn, Ohio, at the age of forty-seven years. He was a man highly respected by those who came into contact with him.
The Folsom family is of Yankee origin, the great-grandfather of the subject having been a resident of the state of Connecticut, and there his son. James K., grandfather of Charles E., of this review, was born, and from there he came to Hampden, Ohio, in an early day and there engaged in the hotel business.
James B. Folsom married Cordelia Miller, a native of Braceville, Trum- bull county, Ohio, and her death occurred when the son, Charles S., was two and one-half years of age, on June 20, 1871. She had one other child, Eugene M., now deceased. Thus the only member of the Folsom family left is the subject.
Charles E. Folsom remained at the place of his birth-Braceville, Ohio-until he was sixteen years of age, and there he attended school, and while yet in his boyhood he began clerking in a country store near Farming- ton, Ohio. Later he attended the Mt. Vernon Commercial College, graduat- ing from that institution when eighteen years of age, in 1885. He then went to Cleveland, Ohio, and found employment with Strong. Cobb & Company, wholesale druggists, and he has remained in the employ of this firm to the present day, having given them the utmost satisfaction in every particular and been regarded by them from the first as one of their most faithful and trusted employes. He started in as porter, and later was given work in the office, where he soon distinguished himself. and eventually he was sent out on the road, and he has been their traveling representative for the past sixteen years. .
Mr. Folsom left Cleveland and located in Wooster on January 29, 1904, and he has remained here ever since, maintaining a cozy home on Beall avenue.
Mr. Folsom was married on January 9, 1889, to Lucy B. Harris, of Cleveland ; she was born in Buffalo and is a lady of winning characteristics. This union has resulted in the birth of four children, namely : George B .. born October 27, 1889, died when eight weeks old: Margaruite C., born
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July 25, 1893 ; Helen Phylis, born July 4, 1895; Kenneth Miller, born March 3, 1899.
Mr. Folsom belongs to the United Commercial Travelers. He is a Demo- crat politically, but takes no special interest in the affairs of the party.
CYRUS G. CRANE.
Success has been worthily attained by Cyrus G. Crane, one of Wayne county's honored citizens, whose long and very active career has been one of which his descendants may ever be proud. He has done his full share in the development of his community and is a man whom to know is to honor. He was born in Jackson, Wayne county, Ohio, near where he now lives, on January 22, 1837. He is the son of Zenas and Polly (Stiles) Crane. His father was born in New Jersey and his mother in Massachusetts, the former in 1802 and the latter in 1807. The elder Crane came to Wayne county, Ohio, in 1829 and bought a farm of eighty acres in the vicinity of Jackson and in 1837 he built one of the first brick houses in the neighborhood, cleared and improved his farm. He took a prominent part in the Presbyterian church, becoming a ruling elder. He also took an interest in political affairs, but he never aspired to official positions. He was a highly honored man, his character being above reproach. His death occurred in 1884, his widow surviving sixteen years, dying in 1900. Their family consisted of nine children, six of whom are living. At the time of his death he was a very extensive land owner. The subject's paternal grandfather was Zenas Crane, of Caldwell, New Jersey, and his wife was Abbey Grover, daughter of Joseph Grover, who was pastor of the Presbyterian church in Parsippi, New Jersey. The first of the Cranes to come to America were the traditional three brothers from England, some time during the eighteenth century ; one settled in Con- necticut and the other two in New Jersey. Joseph Grover was a Whig in politics and a preacher during the Revolutionary period, and it is said that he preached with a revolver by his Bible many times. Zenas Crane was the first member of the family to come to Ohio to make his home. He was married in 1831 or 1832. The maternal grandparents, Enoch Stiles and wife, were natives of Massachusetts. They came to Medina county, Ohio, and settled in Westfield township, and they moved from there to Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and there lived until their deaths, about the time of the Revo- lutionary war.
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Cyrus G. Crane was educated in the common schools of Wayne county and was reared on the home farm. He took up farming and bought land in Canaan township, and he has sold off all but five acres of the old place. He carries on general farming and stock raising and he has been very suc- cessful in this line of endeavor. He was one of the patriotic men who went out to defend the flag in the sixties, having enlisted in August, 1862, in Company H, One Hundred and Second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and after a faithful service of six months he was discharged for disability, although he had enlisted for three years. He returned home and resumed farming, but he now lives retired. In politics he is a Republican, but he has never sought office. He joined the Presbyterian church in Jackson township in 1860 and has remained a faithful member ever since.
Mr: Crane was married in 1870 to Frances J. Pierson, of Licking county, Ohio, the daughter of Nelson and Jane Pierson, old settlers there. To this union three children have been born, namely: Orville P. is engaged with the electric line; Grace, deceased ; Lois E., wife of I. J. Eshelman.
Mr. Crane is now the oldest resident in Jackson. Jason Jones owned the farm before he purchased it. Mr. Jones was a half-brother of the subject's grandmother.
DAVID W. MUSSLEMAN.
In placing the name of David W. Mussleman among the progressive busi- ness men of Wooster, Wayne county, simple justice is done a biographical fact. A man of judgment, sound discretion and business ability of a high order, he has, with tactful success, managed important enterprises and has so impressed his individuality upon the community as to gain recognition among the leading citizens and public spirited men of affairs.
Mr. Mussleman was born in Souderton, Montgomery county, Pennsyl- vania, November 6, 1850, the son of David Mussleman, a native of the same place. He was a shoemaker by trade and taught school in his early days. He came to New Pittsburg, Wayne county, in 1853 and lived there until his death in 1893. Grandfather Mussleman was also a native of Pennsylvania and died quite young. He married a Miss Castle.
The mother of the subject was Catharine Wile, who was also a native of Pennsylvania. Her death occurred in 1898, at the age of eighty-two years. She and her husband became the parents of eleven children, seven of whom are living ; besides the subject, these are, Mrs. Eliza McEwen, of Perry, Ohio:
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Henry W., of New Pittsburg, Ohio; Mrs. Lucy A. Will and I. W., both also of New Pittsburg ; Mrs. Lydia Martin, of Cleveland ; and Mrs. Rosalind Barn- hart, of New Pittsburg.
David W. Mussleman was two and one-half years old when his parents moved to Wayne county, Ohio. He received a common school education here, and he started in life for himself as a cooper, which he followed a few years, then engaged successfully in the grocery business at New Pittsburg for eleven years. During that time he was postmaster of that place, under Cleve- land's administration. He also served two terms as township clerk and two terms as township treasurer, performing his duties as a public servant in a very acceptable manner. In 1893 he was elected county clerk on the Democratic ticket and he moved to Wooster that year. He was in the clerk's office from February, 1893. to August, 1899, having been re-elected in 1895 .. He made a splendid record in this office and won the hearty approval of all concerned. Since then he has been looking after various business interests and he has been very successful at whatever he has turned his attention to. He is president of the Building & Loan Association of Wooster, and its large success and prestige has been due very largely to his judicious management and wise counsel.
Mr. Mussleman was united in marriage on December 15, 1892, to Martha R. Myers, daughter of David Myers, one of the most substantial and best known citizens of Wooster. Mrs. Mussleman is a lady of culture and refine- ment and, like her husband, has a wide circle of warm personal friends. This union has been graced by the birth of two children, David, now seventeen years of age, and John, now seven years old.
Mr. Mussleman is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has a neat, attractive and pleasant home on East Bowman street, Wooster, where the friends of the family frequently gather, finding here a genuine hos- pitality and good cheer.
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APPENDIX
[The following valuable and interesting matter, concluding Doctor Scovel's historical sketch of the University of Wooster, was received too late for insertion in its proper place, but its character and value forbid its omission from the work .- En. ]
XI. RELATIONS OF UNIVERSITY TO CITY AND COUNTY.
To close this history sketch, it is worth our while to note, first of all : I. That the university is indebted to Wooster and Wayne county for an almost ideal site. The environment could scarcely be improved. That the university might have profited by being nearer the centre of the state and that it has experienced disadvantage in the past from the lack of better railroad connections may be acknowledged, but these inconveniences are compensated for by its delightful location. The university has a noble background in Wooster and Wayne counties. Elevated and breezy, with extended views and pleasingly diversified surroundings, healthful and suggestive to higher thought and feeling, the situation justifies the many eloquent descriptions it has received and the enthusiastic comments always made by visitors from other scenes. This fact allies the city, the county and the university in a steadfast and in- creasingly successful effort to make here a "city beautiful."
2. But there was another background into which the university was fortunate in being built-that of character. The mental and spiritual ele- ments could not but be more important than the physical. Such elements. for example, hewed noble Oberlin out of a flat forest and has made "Slab Hall" a centre of historic interest for the world. There was a mingling hereabouts of stems and races-especially of Germans and Scotch-Irish, with a Yankee border to the north and not far away to the south a Southern infusion. These were not extravagant and high-flying people. They were earnest. hardwork- ing and, in the main, a sober people (despite the drinking habits of the day). In the same month, March, 1818, in which Wooster was organized with "president, recorder and five trustees," a committee was appointed to "bring in a bill to prevent horse-racing and shooting;" and the next month to "bring
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in a bill for the prevention of immoral practices." The notices of the trustees brought to the reader's attention some of Wooster's worthies, but there were many more as fully deserving grateful mention. There were men all along Wooster's history of special acquirements and high character. The people were generous and hospitable. "Our city has not been of mushroom growth." writes Mrs. General Wiley in her admirable contributions to our early his- tory. "Time was taken for foundation. * * Her corner-stone was laid and cemented to lofty sentiments, patriotism and love of education." Many "celebrities at one time or another made Wooster their home.
There has been no time in the history of our city that our professions have not been filled by men of superior talent. General Beall ( 1815) was a man prominent as a soldier who had filled important offices for the government. After ten years' service in Congress, he was made secretary of the treasury under President Fillmore. The painter Rhinehart was born but a few miles from here. The Fuller sisters, famed as writers, were recognized and praised by Edgar Allan Poe. All their education was obtained in the early schools of Wooster. * By 1816 so many educated men, per- sons of culture and moral worth had taken up their residence in Wooster, that it was considered the Athens of the West. From General Wooster our citizens should not only have imbibed a love of country but also of learning ; he was a scholar as well as a fighter. He was a graduate of Yale and mar- ried the daughter of the president of that institution."
Benjamin Douglas describes the early population as "men of intelligence. enlightened judgment, iron nerve and indomitable perseverance. Hopeful and hardy, they met hardships and developed high moral stature when en- countering misfortune. With sound faith in God, they learned to labor and to wait. Predominantly from Pennsylvania, they had come also from Vir- ginia, Maryland and New Jersey." It was no light thing for Mr. Douglas to write that "from 1808 to 1878 we had passed from the empire of silence and chaos to a population of forty thousand." Such people could not but welcome the university enterprise and do much in its care and support. Agreeable re- lations have always existed. There could be no "town and gown" feeling here. The nearest approach to it has been found in the marked accent with which a certain few have been accustomed to speak of "Piety hill." The stu- dents have been always welcome in the homes of Wooster and there have been many points of contact in social and in religious life-with, in some cases, re- sulting permanent relations. Doctor Gordon, of Van Wert, bore this testi- mony in the valedictory of 1882: "We rejoice to say that Wooster shares toward the students none of that antipathy so common in college localities, but
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to us has been ever generous and hospitable. It must be considered that the partnership of the university with the city and county began a long time ago in the preparation of a population at once capable and sympathetic."
3. The inbuilding of the university was prepared for by the life of the local schools. It has always been recognized that the population in and about Wooster was of that class which never could be contented unless the school followed hard upon the church. Our New England contingent shared the conviction which said (even before Harvard was founded) to a Mr. Beecher of that day : "Take us up a school, Brother Beecher, lest learning be buried in the graves of our forefathers." The German contingent had like views and the Scotch-Irish as well. Subscription schools were begun promptly. The new constitution of Ohio gave a great impulse toward realization of the great principle of the Ordinance of 1787. Later when the 1853 law came it was taken up gladly in all this region. The first school teacher in Wooster (Carlos Mather) was a lawyer from New Haven-coming in 1814. A school was commenced in the "Block-House" by "Priest" Jones in 1815. Then came Cyrus Spink (later known as General Spink), an excellent teacher, it is said, and fond of teaching his scholars to read well and fond of such a classic as Paul's speech before Agrippa. In the county there was a school so popular as to be called "The People's College." Debating clubs were frequent. Sam- uel Whitehead, who succeeded General Spink, was a cultured linguist and began at once to prepare boys for college. The citizens built for him a brick school- house. The Rev. Thomas Hand came from London, England. His was an advanced school for young women and he left a fine impression for literature and history work. Even then Wooster was recognized as having "gone be- yond most pioneer settlements." Later came the well-remembered Mrs. Pope (1848). In a long career of high-class teaching and especially in her own school, after 1853, she "left her imprint," writes Mrs. General Wiley, "upon the character of many young women, not only in the community, but many from a distance who came to be her pupils. Her curriculum was well advanced." It was an early habit for leading citizens to make frequent visits to the schools. This previous preparation made itself manifest in the manner in which the coming of the university stimulated the school-system, culminating in the building of the more than ordinarily handsome high school building which was dedicated in the same year in which the university was opened. The writer in the gray morning of a day in August, 1883, on the occasion of a visit to meet the faculty, innocently mistook the high school, at first, for the university building. The two institutions have gone on in the flying years pari passu in a friendly parallel. Many teachers and officers and some superintendents of
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our local corps have been graduates of the university, and every year a con- tribution of Wooster's best material goes farther up the hill-literally and metaphorically. With a just perception of mutual interests Wooster is sure to continue its development as an educational centre.
4. The university has always enjoyed the kindest and most efficient co- operation of the local press. There are few names better remembered among us than those who have conducted the various journals, political and literary. One may read the interesting facts of their administrations in Benjamin Doug- las' History of Wayne County-who was himself an ornament of our journal- ism. Some of the community's best talent found in the types various modes of expression. Toward educational interests, secondary and higher, these men were friendly after a positive and co-operative fashion. The university is under infinite obligation to them. They have served to secure the sentiment of solidarity which now reigns. They were always, as they still are, courteous and obliging and considerate. Much of the otherwise unrecorded history of the university's life and growth has been conserved by them through "the art preservative of all arts," and lies enfolded in the strata of the successive vol- umes of their issues for the future historian. Dedication occasions, inaugura- tions, obituary testimonials, financial successes they have recorded with "ample space and verge enough," so that to know many things of the interior life of the institution-the things that often contain the motif and the color of the picture, one must have recourse to their hidden treasures.
5. The same general estimate of kindly relationship with the churches of Wooster and Wayne county must be recorded. With the slenderest con- sideration for denominational lines these churches have given the university the support of their contributions and their patronage. To them may be mostly attributed the fact that of the five hundred fifty-seven students re- ported in collegiate and preparatory courses for 1909, while four hundred forty-one were all from Ohio, one hundred seventy of these were from Wayne county.
But of course the principal interest in the university from the beginning and continuing as the institution has become a matter of city and county con- cern, was taken by the First Presbyterian church of Wooster. It is with peculiar pleasure that the writer, after twenty-seven years of fellowship and having been privileged to know a number of those most essential to the early stages of the enterprise, can put here again upon record the abiding sense of obligation which is felt by all in the university circle who know the facts. Without the First church there never would have been a University of Woos- ter. They prayed for it, sharing the faith and fervor of Pastor Reed who con-
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secrated the campus by anticipation when he prayed under the shade of its great trees that God would put it into the heart of his servant Ephraim Quinby to offer those identical acres as a site for the Christian college. They planned for it largely. They gave liberally. They set the example which aroused the generosity of others and made it apparent that the great undertaking could be and would be realized. Had not the First church moved, the city would never have moved and the "local habitation" for this modern "ark of the covenant" (concerning which we hope it contains both law and gospel and above which, we believe, invisible but real hangs the "Shechinah" of the God we would glorify ) might never have been secured. In all historic events there are many causes and forces uniting from large areas (as a stream is fed by a vast watershed), but there is somewhere a centre about which the forces gather and from which the outburst and efflorescence emerge though they be those of a century-plant. That centre for Ohio was Wooster, for Wooster it was the First church, and for the First church it was Ephraim Quinby, Jr. Ever since the opening and in every crisis of the university's history, this same band of faithful men and women have stood by-watchful and sympathetic. They have given the university, all in all, much more than any other church in the land in material help, not to mention the time and talent given continuously by pastor and people to aid in the management of affairs. They stood by most gallantly when a goodly portion of reliable supporters were organized into the Westminster church ( April 28, 1874). Then they deferred erecting a new building and were content with executing only improvements because the university's needs were so pressing. When the reconstructed house was dedi- cated the second president of the university (Doctor Taylor) pronounced the sermon of the occasion and was successful in securing a subscription of four thousand dollars to remove all indebtedness before the ceremony of dedica- tion was completed. With entire propriety did Pastor McCurdy write in 1876; "The Westminster church and the university are the legitimate children of this congregation. Not a little of the unwritten history of this congregation enters into the existence of the university. If the mother has reason to be . proud of this child much more has the child reason to be proud of its mother." The whole course of these forty years goes to prove that the sheet-anchor of the university's trust may well be considered as found in the fundamental faith and warm interest of Christian people, and that help front without will always come when that interest has proved itself by sharp sacrifice.
6. The value of the university to the county was, in one sense, begun when others began to realize the thereto almost unexampled enthusiasm and generosity with which our environment took up the enterprise. The trustees
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report in 1869 that the people of Wayne county "have not only redeemed that offer, but have increased their cash subscription until they have made their donation in money more than the whole sum originally required [$100,000]. Surely it ought to be a strong additional reason for pushing for- ward the endowment, that the county in which it is located is ready so fully to do its part." Many gifts of that day were made at a personal sacrifice that, we fear, will not be often equalled in our day of larger resources but also of larger expenditures. Some of the larger gifts are not represented by such for- tunes among the descendants, so far as I have learned, as could now give equal amounts. For example five thousand dollars from John Longenecker ; five thousand dollars from the Messrs. McFadden ; five thousand dollars from Mrs.
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