USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne county, Ohio, from the days of the pioneers and the first settlers to the present time > Part 76
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John Keeler was born within four miles of Philadelphia, Pa., August 20, 1819. His father came to Wayne county at an early date, bringing his family, and worked for a period on the Samuel Funk farm in Chester township. He then removed to Galion, Ohio. John, however, remained in Wayne county, and was mar- ried to Hannah Matthews, of Wooster, whose mother was Cathe- rine Poe, sister of Mrs. Kuffel, and daughter of old Adam Poe, the Indian fighter. After marriage they removed to Congress village, and lived there until Mr. Keeler's death, February 14, 1875. They had four children, two of whom are dead, one dying when a child. William, a son, was a soldier in Company F, 102d Regiment, and was killed by the explosion of the steamer Sultana, on the Missis- sippi river, April 28, 1875. Sarah C. is the wife of Joseph McVicker. Thomas B., married to Ida J. Weltmer, is a lawyer in practice in West Salem.
Congress .- This village, originally called Waynesburg, was laid out March 6, 1827, by Philip Gates and David Newcomer, and surveyed by Peter Emery; plat and certificate recorded March 27, 1827, and can be found in vol. 6, page 24, County Records.
Robert Lowry, a gallant soldier of the Mexican war and the last conflict between the North and South, informs us that Michael Funk and Elmer Yocum built the first house in the village of Con- gress, and that it was situated upon the site of the present Metho- dist church ; that Jacob Hare was the first postmaster, the office being kept on lot No. 5, in the village; that Dr. Mills was the first permanent physician ; that George Wicks kept the first hotel, and that David W. Poe established the first tannery in the village. An Indian died in the house now occupied by the Beard family, and was buried in the old Congress graveyard. The old Indian and his wife were on a tramp, and stopped at Griffith's Tavern, where they got tight and abusive, and the landlord's wife threw a pot of boiling water on him, and he died.
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CONGRESS TOWNSHIP.
We here reproduce the line of officers of the incorporated vil- lage since 1838 :
1838. Mayor-John Tarr; Recorder-William Rogers; Councilmen-Joe Fish, John Zuver, P. Pancost, R. Summerton, John Potts.
1839. Mayor-William Rogers; Recorder-John Tarr; Councilmen-John Rogers, Samuel N., John Stickle, A. Warring, G. K. Hickok.
1840. Mayor-R. Summerton ; Recorder-A. Warring; Councilmen-M. Funk, John Stickle, John Tarr, William Rogers, G. Boydston.
1842. Mayor-David Carlin; Recorder-L. Firestone; Councilmen-David Moore, P. D. Campbell, W. W. Hunter, G. H. Helfer, G. Boydston,
1844. Mayor-George Fresh; Recorder-L. Firestone; Councilmen-P. P. Pancost, John Stickel, Eli Wagner, John Keeler, A. Kline.
1846. Mayor-David Moore; Recorder-L. Firestone; Councilmen-D. B. McCoy, G. W. Helfer, P. Ross, John Keeler, A. Kline.
1848. Mayor-D. B. McCoy ; Recorder-D. B. Littell ; Councilmen-George Dulin, J. F. Crane, J. Stickle, A. Kline, P. Wagner.
1850. Mayor-William Lusk ; Recorder-William C. Moore ; Councilmen- D. B. McCoy, L. Firestone, D. Carlin, G. S. Dulin, J. Stickle.
1851. Mayor-G. K. Hickok; Recorder-L. Firestone; Councilmen-John Keeler, John McCoy, John Stickle, Jacob Fresh, Dan. Helfer.
1853. Mayor-G. K. Hickox ; Recorder-John Tarr; Councilmen-A. Wieler, G. Seacrist, G. Fresh, I. Fresh, D. K. France.
1855. Mayor-R. Summerton ; Recorder-W. C. Moore; Councilmen-P. Pancost, J. P. Dorland, J. Brenneman, Dan. Helfer, J. T. Shepperd ; Marshal-E. Brubaker.
1857. Mayor-P. Pancost; Recorder-I. S. Tarr; Councilmen-J. Leather- man, J. Warner, John Keeler, W. C. Moore, G. H. Helfer ; Marshal-J. Lemon.
1861. Mayor-John Eliott; Recorder-R. B. Lowry; Councilmen-John Thornby, John Dorland, John Galaher, John S. Tarr, George Fresh ; Treasurer- A. Weiler.
1869. Mayor-G. M. Michael ; Treasurer-G. Galloway; Recorder-J. H. Breneman ; Marshal-W. C. Berry ; Councilmen-P. J. Brown, Joseph Garver, Joel Good, G. Leiter, H. L. Shepherd.
1871. Mayor-G. A. Whitmore; Recorder-George Michael; Treasurer- George Fresh ; Marshal-R. Sardam ; Councilmen-P. J. Brown, John Shepherd, J. P. Patterson, W. A. Bonewitz, B. S. Burgan.
1872. Mayor-G. A. Whitmore; Recorder-G. W. Galloway; Treasurer- George Fresh ; Marshal-W. S. Brown ; Councilmen-W. A. Bonewitz, B. S. Bur- gen, P. J . Brown, H. L. Shepherd, J. P. Patterson, R. S. Dulin.
1874. Mayor-G. A. Whitmore; Recorder-S. B. Stecher ; Treasurer-George Fresh ; Marshal-W. A. Bonewitz ; Councilmen-P. J. Brown, J. H. Breneman, B. S. Burgan, H. L. Shepherd, A. Weiler, R. C. Dulin.
1876. Mayor-Philip Madison; Recorder-R. Summerton ; Treasurer-Geo. Fresh ; Marshal-R. H. Sardam; Councilmen-J. K. Andrews, J. Breneman, J. Lawrence, William Rice, R. C. Dulin, P. J. Brown.
1877. Mayor-Philip Madison ; Recorder-William H. Carlin; Treasurer- George Fresh ; Marshal-John Ward; Councilmen-J. K. Andrews, J. Lawrence, J. Breneman, R. C. Dulin, W. Brown, N. Patterson.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
David Carlin, son of James Carlin, who emigrated from Ireland to America about 1798, was born in Columbiana county, this State, in 1811. We extract the following from an obituary, pub- lished in the Wayne county Democrat :
He was, in infancy, brought by his parents to Wayne county. They settled in Congress township in 1814, which was then an almost unbroken wilderness.
Although in early life he never had the facilities and advantages of a modern education ; yet, from his own native strength of mind and love of mental improve- ment, he acquired, under one of the severest afflictions incident to childhood, which made him a suffering cripple for life, that cultivation of mind which prepared him for life's stern duties, and which enabled him to fill well his place in the world as an active, energetic and highly useful man.
His neighbors and immediate friends around him, for a long series of years, can attest his worth as a ready helper in their business affairs. Their confidence in him, as all know, was almost unlimited. Trusts of importance were given him. Official positions of every description in his township were thrust upon him. His county placed in his hands the highest and most important trust, that of Treasurer, it had within its gift. Through all of these, as everyone knows who knew him, he walked the upright citizen, the pure and honest man. In all his worldly transac- tions his integrity and honesty were never questioned or doubted. His death oc- curred several years ago.
Reminiscences of Royce Summerton .- Phineas Summertou, my father, was raised near Boston, and was a native of Massachusetts. His father, for many years, was a sea-going man, engaging in whale-hunting and other pursuits of that jolly old comrade, the sea. Abandoning that occupation, he removed to the then western wilds of Cayuga county, New York, settling about sixteen miles from Auburn, where he purchased 600 acres of land, and there he died.
His children were Phineas, Thomas, Kitura and Phoebe. Father was born in Cayuga county, State of New York, where he married Rhoda Royce. After the expiration of twenty years after his marriage he immigrated to Kendal, Stark county, where he stopped with a Quaker family named Clay. Leaving his family with Mr. Clay, he came to Wayne county and entered the north-east quarter of section I, in Perry township, then in Wayne county, and now in Chester township, and owned by Mr. Jacobs. He then removed his family from Kendal, and staid with Isaac Matthews, on the farm now owned by Samuel Shoemaker, west of Lat- tasburg. With Matthews the family remained until Mr. Summerton could build a cabin, which was 18x24, with clap-board roof, clay floor, chimney in the end of it, cupboard in notches in the logs, and blankets for a door, as he was too busy with his crops to make one. Indians frequently came into the house. Once they came when he was away, and seeing bottles upon a shelf, asked for them, thinking they contained whisky. He had six children, to-wit: Hannah, Amanda, John, Taber, Royce and. Thomas. Of this family only Taber, Royce and Thomas survive. Father, aided by his sons, cleared up his lands, and soon thereafter bought another quarter in Chester township, and continued accumulating until he acquired six quarter sections.
But prior to his removal to Wayne county, he had purchased a farm, and his father had given him one. Selling the one that had been presented to him, he formed a partnership with a Mr. Hungerford, in the saw-mill business in the pine country, in connection with which they built a carding machine and cloth-dressing
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. factory. When they were about ready to begin operations, a cloud-burst occurred, and the water of the two streams on which their mills were located, rose to the hight of eighteen feet, sweeping mills and everything in its course. Father and Hungerford, and a hired man, were in one of the mills at the time, and barely es- caped. This accident likely induced him to remove west, where they started in a two-horse wagon, crossing to Buffalo, and then up the lake shore, over roads so bad that, at times, they had to remove the children from the wagon. He was a hard working, quiet, industrious man, a member, with his wife, of the Baptist church in New York, but after his arrival in Wayne county he united with the Methodists. He and the father of President Fillmore were neighbors, and at this time Millard began the study of law.
Royce Summerton, son of Phineas, was born October 14, 181I, and removed to Wayne county with his father. He was married June 19, 1834, to Martha A. Helfer, of Ashland county, by which marriage he had two children, viz: Maria A. and Mary J. Sum- merton. The former became the wife of A. M. Beebe, then resid- ing at Cleveland, she dying March 6, 1864. Mary J. married W. Pancoast, and died January 10, 1861, and was re-married to G. A. Whitmore, November 14, 1864.
Mr. Summerton remained on the farm until April 1, 1832, when he was hired as a clerk in the store of William Spencer, where he remained to September, 1833, when his father rented a store-room in Congress village and gave him $1,000, and when he went to New York City, gave him $1,100 more. This latter sum, Mr. Summerton says, in three years cost him $3,600. His father was first a partner with him for three and one-half years, and after that his brother Thomas for twenty-two months. He went out of the mercantile business in 1838, lay idle two years, then resumed it, and continued in it until March, 1852, when failing health com- pelled him to abandon it entirely. He now invested his money in real estate, owning between 700 and 800 acres of land.
Mr. Summerton is one of the most enlightened and intelligent of the pioneers of Congress township. He is probably the weal- thiest man in it, and has made his money by the reduction to practical application the irreversible and incontrovertible maxims of business. He is a man of strictest and most unrelaxing integrity, of irreproachable life, who for forty-five years, with his wife, has been a member of the Methodist church.
Taber Summerton, son of Phineas, was born in Cuyahoga coun- ty, and removed to Wayne county with his father. He was married in May, 1831, to Elizabeth Kuffel. After owning and ex-
52
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
changing various estates he finally removed to his present residence -the farm originally opened up and owned by Samuel Thorley. He has been devoted to the pursuits of the farm all his life, and has been prosperous and successful in his labors. He has a family of ten children, and has been a member of the church, with his wife, for forty-eight years.
Other Reminiscences of Royce Summerton .- When father and his family moved into the county there were but five neighbors within a radins of several miles. Isaac Matthews came in as early as 1814, and the Poes were here and Peter Chasey and his son Samnel. On one occasion, when father and I were coming from Naftzger's mill, with two oxen in the wagon and one horse in front and I mounted on the horse, the wolves gathered in large numbers around us, and I got terribly scared, but father just laughed and said there was no danger. After butchering day the wolves were troublesome, and on one occasion a large hog was missing for three days, when it returned mangled and fly-blown, having been, as was supposed, attacked by a bear.
In the early days the woods were infested with pea-vines, which crept over the ground and would climb small shrubs and trees to the hight of two and three feet, and in the fall the cattle would eat it and fatten on it, and many of them died, and, it was believed, from the effect of this vine.
In the first log church (Methodist) in Congress Harry O. Sheldon was preach- ing at a quarterly meeting, and there being a large crowd present, it was difficult for all to be seated. Joseph Ewing stood up defiantly in the center of the church. Mr. Sheldon came back to him and asked him to be seated, which he refused, when Sheldon caught him violently on his hip, carried him ont and forced him to kneel down while he prayed with him.
Charles J. Warner, M. D., was born in Wayne township, Wayne county, Ohio, January 1, 1836. His father, Peter Warner, was a farmer and a native of Sunbury, Northumberland county, Pa., with whom the subject of this sketch remained until he was eighteen years of age. The farm life, we are quite ready to believe, harmonized with the developing manhood of Dr. Warner, and enables us to describe him as a splendid specimen of physical and muscular out- line. While thus engaged, he utilized every opportunity and em- ployed his leisure hours in study and in the perusal of such books as he could make accessible, and which would most benefit him in establishing a foundation for future acquisitions and fields of useful- ness.
He availed himself of such advantages as the common schools afforded, and was diligent and vigilant in his exertions to qualify himself for some honorable and worthy sphere of labor. Like most of our self-made professional men, he made his first debut to. the public in the role of teacher, in his nineteenth year, his servi-
Hammerstein Bros & Co Indpls Litho Institute
E.g. Waren.
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ces being first rendered in the Rumbaugh district, for which he ob- tained eighteen dollars per month and boarded himself. In the summer he would attend school, and in the winter teach, and in this line of employment as preceptor and pupil, he assiduously ap- plied himself for five years. During this time he became a profi- cient English scholar, and acquired a valuable knowledge of the Latin language.
It seems that the Doctor, from an early age had conceived the idea of the Divinity, as Dr. Holmes would say, of the Healing Art, and that if Day and Firestone had
"Hurled a few score mortals from the world,"
They had
"Made amends by bringing others into it;"
And why should not he enter this most honorable profession, and "hurl" and "bring" like them-and like them carve a name, and bare a
" Snow-white arm to wield
The sad, stern ministry of pain."
In pursuance of his contemplated purpose, in March, 1857, he entered the office of W. C. Moore, M. D., then a practicing physician in Congress village, with whom he remained four years, three as a student, and one in partnership with him.
He then removed to Homerville, Medina county, Ohio, where he staid two years, and during this time attended a course of study at the Cleveland Medical College, where he graduated in 1862.
In the spring of this year he returned to Congress, since which time he has resided there. His tireless and unremittent efforts to prepare and fortify himself for the responsible duties of his profes- sion have been rewarded by a profitable and lucrative practice, and though but a little past forty years of age, he has attained a de- served popularity, and compasses within his professional jurisdic- tion as wide a circuit as any rival in the county. He was married September 15, 1859, to Mary E. Pancoast, of Congress village, and has had two children, A. C. and Ellsworth, the latter dying Sep- tember 7, 1863. After a happy marriage relation of a little over seven years, his wife died, December 8, 1866.
Of Charles J. Warner it can literally and truthfully be said, that he is in the meridian of his years. His sun has barely climbed to its zenith; it burns with clear and steadfast ray upon his path, without the remotest sign of dipping toward the western sky.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
He stands solid six feet high, weighs two hundred and seven- teen pounds, is built of substantial material, has a bright, intellec- tual face, is a man of pleasing manner and affable disposition, of fair complexion, firm and erect carriage.
He is emphatically a self-made and self-taught man, and one of the most pronounced and enthusiastic advocates of a popular and more diffusive education in the community. Realizing the obsta- cles that lie too often in the path of the ambitious youth who as- pires to the loftier levels of intellectual culture, and the measureless advantages that accrue from a more general diffusion of knowledge, he places himself to the fore-front of the vast army of educators, and his voice is heard ringing along the line, and mingling with the echo, of "more schools, more and better teachers, and wider diffusion of knowledge, and a greater enlightenment of the masses ! "
Dr. Warner believes with Froude, that
We ought not to set before a boy the chance of becoming President of the Re- public, or President of anything ; we should teach him just to be a good man, and next to do his work, whatever it be, as well as it can possibly be done. It is better that a boy should learn to make a shoe excellently than to write bad exercises in half a dozen languages.
He believes that all men should be educated, not simply those who contemplate an entrance into the professions, but those as well who are to exert their activities on the lower planes of life. We extract from one of his published addresses the following, touching upon this point :
The idea of educating our youths to fill some humble station is entirely ig- nored, and every boy and girl that has a memory sufficient to contain so much poetry is almost constantly repeating the stanza written by Longfellow :
" Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time."
This sounds very finely, but it is " only a musical cheat." It sounds like truth, but it is a falsehood. The lives of great men all remind us that they have made their own memories sublime, but they do not assure us at all that we can leave foot- prints like theirs behind us. If you do not believe it, go with me to the cemetery yonder. There they lie-ten thousand upturned faces-ten thousand breathless bosoms. Dreams of fame and power once haunted those hollow skulls. Those little piles of bones, that once were feet, ran swiftly and determinedly through the forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years of life ; but where are the prints they left ? He lived-he died-he was buried-is all that the headstone tells. We move among
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the monuments, we see the sculpture, but no voice comes to us to say that the sleepers are remembered for anything they ever did. Natural affection pays its tribute to its departed object, a generation passes by, the stone grows gray, and the man has ceased to be, and is to the world as if he had never lived. Why is it that no more have left a name behind them? Simply because they were not endowed by their Maker with power to do it, and because the offices of life are mainly humble, requiring only humble powers for their fulfillment. The cemeteries of one hundred years hence will be like those of to-day. Of all those now in the schools of this country, dreaming of fame, not one in twenty thousand will be heard of- not one in twenty thousand will have left a footprint behind him.
My idea of correct teaching is this : that the pupils be taught that all useful and legitimate callings in life are honorable, though ever so humble; that they can not all attain to " high places," and that many will be compelled to fill some station in the " lower walks of life ;" that the laborer is worthy of respect; that a man can be as truly great following the plow, wielding the hammer, or shoving the plane, as in any of the public positions in life. In teaching, one of the principal objects should be to educe the entire "character and disposition of the pupils ;" and when any individual is found to be incapable to fill some important and responsible sta- tion, he should be persuaded to select another calling less difficult and responsible. They should not be taught any less than they now are; but should be taught more practical knowledge and less of the ornamental. No difference how humble the station we occupy may be, we can not know too much to fill it honorably and suc- cessfully.
Education, considered in its proper light, is not designed merely to fit men " to read and write, to peruse newspapers and keep accounts," but aims to make an in- dividual thoughtful, reflective and intelligent ; to render the mind vigorous and con- stant in purpose, and prepare it to conduct business skillfully, intelligently and suc- cessfully. There is not a calling in life that is not made much less laborious and more efficient by the laborer understanding his own powers, and the qualities of the objects with which he deals; and it will make life much more pleasant and cheerful to know that he is an intelligent being, and that he is filling the station in life that God intended him to occupy. Education, then, rightly understood, makes labor honorable and the laborer happy, and clothes it with dignity, as well as the higher professions of life.
It will be well to remember that only one in every thousand is needed for pub- lic life, and only one in that number really fitted for the place. This teaching all scholars to aspire to the highest stations in life, without reference to mental capaci- ties, is certainly a great curse to the prosperity of our country. It creates a mor- bid desire for distinction, engenders an unnatural thirst for public life, and brings out many candidates for office, men utterly unfitted to fill the place to which they aspire ; and the result is that many of our public offices are occupied by men of small mental capacities and inferior business qualifications.
Thousands seek to be "somebodies " through the avenues of professional life ; and so professional life is full of "nobodies." The pulpit is crowded with goodish "nobodies"-men who have no power, no unction, no mission. They strain their brains to write common-places, and wear themselves out re- peating the rant of their sect and the cant of their schools. The bar is cursed with " nobodies " as much as the pulpit. The lawyers are few ; the pettifoggers are many. The bar, more than any other medium, is that through which the am- bitious youths of our country seek to attain political eminence. Thousands go into the study of law, not so much for the sake of the profession, as for the sake of the
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
advantages it is supposed to give them for political preferment. Multitudes of law- yers are a disgrace to their profession, and a curse to their country. They lack the brains necessary to make them respectable and the morals requisite for good neighborhod. They live on quarrels, and breed them that they may live. They have spoiled themselves for private life, and they spoil the private life around them.
As for the medical profession, I tremble when I think how many enter it be- cause they have neither piety enough for preaching, nor brains enough to practice law. It is truly lamentable to see the number of inferior men that yearly enter the medical profession, being a disgrace to their calling, and a curse to all who repose confidence in them.
It is the duty of every parent and teacher to ascertain by close and constant observation to what particular calling each individual scholar is by natural qualifi- cations best adapted, and educate them, so far as it is possible, to fill that station with honor, profit and success. Teach them that it will be much more honorable to be a good blacksmith than an inferior minister of the gospel-an accomplished shoemaker than a pettifogger-an honest boot-black than a quack doctor; and that in pursuing some humble occupation successfully, they will contribute incalculable good to their fellow man ; while on the contrary, were they to pursue some public or professional calling, and not be qualified for it either by nature or education, they will only be doing evil, and that continually. And should we be convinced that we are not adapted by nature or education to occupy any of the " high places" in life, it will be consoling to know while pursuing our humble calling, that God condescended to do little work before man had an existence. He made the pebble, as well as the mountain ; the smallest insect, as well as the largest quadruped; the tiny plant, as well as the giant oak; and painted the wings of the butterfly, as well as the transcendantly beautiful drapery of the setting sun. It requires just as much skill and ingenuity to construct a watch as it does an engine; it is just as difficult to do a " small thing well as a large thing, and the difficulty of accomplishing a deed is the gauge of the power and ingenuity required for its doing." And let us bear in mind that " when we go down, we are going just as directly toward infinity as when we go up, and that every one who works God-ward, works in honor."
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