History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 29

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 886

USA > Ohio > History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II > Part 29

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Mr. Garford was one of the organizers of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, of which he was the first president and of which he is now a director, as well as chairman of its trans- portation committee. He enters heartily into the social life of his home city, to whose prog- ress and prosperity he has contributed in most generous measure and in which his popularity is of the most unequivocal type. He is a char- ter member of the Elyria Country Club and was its first president. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Elyria public library and he and his wife are valued members of the First Congregational church of this city. He holds membership in the Engineers' Club, New York City, is a resident member of the Union Club of Cleveland, and is identified with various other social and semi-business organi- zations. He called together the first meeting of the citizens of Elyria to promote the secur- ing of a water supply from Lake Erie, and he was a leader in the contest, prolonged during a period of seven years, which culminated in

providing Elyria with a water system unex- celled in the entire Union, as the supply is se- cured directly from properly arranged intakes that bring to the city the pure water from Lake Erie. His interest in all that concerns the wel- fare of his home city is of the most insistent order, and no man has done more to promote the advancement and civic and material pros- perity of Elyria than has this honored native son.

In the ranks of the Republican party, while never a seeker of public office, Mr. Garford has been a most zealous and effective worker. He has been a frequent delegate to the state, dis- trict and county conventions of his party in Ohio, and in 1896 he was a delegate to the Re- publican national convention, in St. Louis. where Mckinley was nominated for the presi- dency. In 1908 he was a delegate to the na- tional convention which placed President Taft in nomination. Concerning his association with public affairs the following estimate has recent- ly been given: "In taking an interest in the politics of city, county and state he has always stood for what was clean and for the better- ment of the people. He was one of the first Ohioans to champion the Taft cause, and he fought for a new deal in the Republican organ- ization in 1906." He is a member of the Na- tional League of Republican Clubs, and in March, 1909, its president, Honorable John Hays Hammond, appointed him to member- ship on its advisory board, as representative of the state of Ohio.

On December 14, 1881, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Garford to Miss Mary Louise Nelson, daughter of the late Thomas L. Nel- son, of Elyria, and they have two children,- Mary Katherine, now Mrs. James B. Thomas, born July 17, 1883, and Louise Ely, born July 19, 1885.

FRANK M. WHITNER. - A manufacturing enterprise which contributes its quota to the industrial and commercial precedence of the city of Akron is that conducted by the Akron Varnish Company, of which Mr. Whitner is secretary and treasurer. He is known as one of the aggressive and representative business men of this city, where he has attained to suc- cess through his own well directed efforts, and where he is held in unequivocal esteem as a citizen.

The Akron Varnish Company was organ- ized on the Ist of February, 1897, and was in- corporated with a capital stock of two hundred

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and fifty thousand dollars. The personnel of the original executive corps was as here noted : Edward G. Kubler, president; John M. Beck, vice-president and general manager ; John H. McCrum, treasurer ; Stephen H. Kohler, sec- retary; and Fremont A. Fauver, superintend- ent. Under such administrative control the enterprise was continued until 1901, when the treasurer of the company took a hasty leave of absence, and a reorganization of the com- pany took place, with the following named offi- cers: Edward G. Kubler, president; John M. Beck, vice-president and treasurer; Edward M. Beck, secretary ; and Frank M. Whitner, assistant treasurer. In April, 1908, J. M. Beck succeeded Mr. Kubler in the presidency, E. M. Beck became vice-president, and Frank M. Whitner became treasurer and in January, 1909, he became incumbent of the dual office of secretary and treasurer. The plant of the company is thoroughly modern in equipment and facilities, and its products include all kinds of varnishes, japans and driers, besides paints and oils of the best type. The concern controls a large and constantly expanding business, and represents one of the valuable industrial enterprises of Akron, whence its goods are shipped into most diverse sections of the Union.

Frank M. Whitner was born on the home- stead farm of his father, in Copley township, Summit county, Ohio, on the 7th of February, 1868, and is a son of Wilson and Lenah C. Whitner. The father was born in Summit county, February 19, 1845, and was a son of Joseph Whitner, one of the honored pio- neers of the county. Wilson Whitner was a carriage builder by trade, and was identified with this line of enterprise for many years. He was a resident of Akron at the time of his death, and was a business man of no little prominence in his native county.

Frank M. Whitner gained his early educa- tional training in the public schools of Sum- mit county, after which he continued his studies in a grammar school in Geauga county. Still later he was afforded the advantages of an excellent select school at Chardon, Geauga county. When about eighteen years of age he became a clerk in a grocery store in Akron, and later he was here employed in other cler- ical capacities, in leading retail establishments, including the dry goods store of John Wolf. In 1891 he became one of the interested prin- cipals in the business conducted by the firm

of Kubler & Beck, varnish manufacturers, and of this firm the present Akron Varnish Company is the direct successor. Of his offi- cial connection with the latter mention has already been made, but it may be further stated that his progressive ideas and effective executive service have done much to forward the development of the concern to its present status as one of the successful manufactories of the Western Reserve.

In politics, Mr. Whitner gives his support to the Republican party, and while he has never been a seeker of public office. he is ever ready to lend his aid and influence in the furtherance of measures and enterprises pro- jected for the general good of the community. He is identified with various fraternal and social organizations in his home city, and he and his wife hold membership in the Trinity Lutheran church.

In the year 1891 Mr. Whitner was united in marriage to Miss Clara M. Fraunfelter, daughter of Professor Elias Fraunfelter, who was for fourteen years the able and popular superintendent of the public schools of Akron. Mr. and Mrs. Whitner have one daughter, Lucile C., born in Akron, November 16, 1892.

ALBA BURNHAM MARTIN .- A man of abil- ity, enterprise and character, Alba Burnham Martin, late of Geneva, was for many years. actively identified with many of the leading interests of this part of Ashtabula county, and took an active part in public affairs, hold- ing positions of trust and responsibility. He was born, July 12, 1841, in Windsor town- ship, this county, and died at his home in Geneva, January 24, 1908, his death being a loss to the community in which he had so long resided, as well as to his immediate family.

He was of New England ancestry, his father, Leonard Martin, having been a native- of Connecticut. When a boy, Leonard Mar- tin went with his parents to New York state, and there resided until after his marriage. About 1838 he came with his family to Ohio, took up land in Ashtabula county, and from the dense wilderness redeemed a portion of this beautiful country, improving the home- stead on which he spent his remaining days, dying at the age of seventy-two years. He married, in Buffalo, New York, Louise Burn- ham, a native of Connecticut, and they became the parents of six children, two of whom are+

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now (1909) living, namely: O. J. Martin, of Rock Creek, Ohio; and Emma, wife of Sam- 11el Miner, also of Rock Creek. One child, Milton, lived but three years; Edgar, another son, for many years a farmer in Windsor township, died when a little more than sixty years old; Sarah, widow of Milton Loomis, of Rock Creek, died October 22, 1909; and Alba Burnham Martin, the subject of this sketch, whose death occurred as above men- tioned.

Having scholarly ambitions when young, Alba B. Martin was given good educational advantages, attending both the Farmington Academy and the Orwell Academy, fitting himself for a professional career. He subse- quently taught school winters for a number of years, in the other seasons writing insur- ance and selling lightning rods, traveling ex- tensively in New England. In 1875, in order that his children might receive good educa- tional advantages, Mr. Martin located in Ge- neva, and at once became associated with the Geneva Tool Company, being made its secre- tary, and a salesman. For a number of years he had charge of the office of the company, eighteen in all, at the end of that time retir- ing from active work. He still retained his stock, however, until the company was ab- sorbed by the trust. Engaging then in the real estate and insurance business, Mr. Martin and his sons, with whom he formed a partner- ship, carried on an extensive and lucrative business, buying and selling village and farm property, many valuable estates passing from one owner to another through the agency thus established. Mr. Martin was an active as- sistant in promoting the welfare of both town and county, and served six years in the city council, and was for five years a member of the Geneva school board, during which time the Normal School building was erected. He refused, however, to run for mayor.

On September 27, 1866, Mr. Martin mar- ried Azelia Waters, who was born in Harts- grove, Ohio. Her father, Milton B. Waters, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and came with his parents to Ohio, settling in Trumbull county, where he subsequently married Pluma Moore, who came with her parents, Isaac and Alcinda Moore, from Connecticut to Ohio. Two sons and two daughters brightened the union of Mr. and Mrs. Martin, namely : Ward B., Frank W., May Louise, and Cora Pluma. The sons are among the foremost real estate dealers of Geneva, having an extensive and

remunerative business. All of the children were graduated from the Normal School, and the daughters have, in addition, taken a col- lege course. May Louise completed the library course at the University of Illinois, in Cham- paign, Illinois, and is now an assistant in the Cleveland Public Library. Cora Pluma had a kindergarten training in Chicago, Illinois, and is now teaching in a kindergarten school at Lakewood, Ohio.

Mr. Martin was prominent in fraternal cir- cles, belonging to lodge and chapter, and serv- ing each in an official capacity, being a mem- ber of Eagle Commandery, No. 29, K. T., of Painesville, and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He served during the Civil war in the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, from which he was honor- ably discharged on account of physical dis- ability, and was a member, and past com- mander of Bowers Post, No. 41, G. A. R.

GEORGE W. BILLOW .- One of the represent- ative business men of the younger generation in the city of Akron is he whose name initiates this paragraph. He is secretary of the Billow Sons Company, funeral directors, and is a son of Captain George Billow, the founder of the enterprise, and one of the honored citizens of Akron, where he is now living virtually re- tired. Concerning him individual mention is made on other pages of this work, so that in the present connection further review of his career and of the family genealogy is not de- manded. In the sketch of his life also is given an outline of the history of the representative business now conducted by his sons and one with which he was actively identified until the summer of 1908.

The Billow Sons Company was incorporated on the roth of June, 1908, with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, and succeeded to the business theretofore conducted under the firm name of Billow & Sons. The stock of the concern is all retained in possession of members of the immediate family, and the personnel of the executive corps of the com- pany is as here noted : Captain George Billow, president ; Edwin L. Billow, vice-president ; George W. Billow, secretary; and Charles F. Billow, treasurer. The establishment of the company is thoroughly metropolitan in all de- partments and is the most extensive of the kind in Akron. The finely equipped building is three stories in height and is located on Ash street, where are to be found spacious recep-

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tion parlors and general undertaking rooms, in which are carried large and select lines of caskets and coffins, both of wood and metal, together with all accessories demanded. The company own and operate three fine funeral cars and five coaches, and have their own liv- ery department, so that they are prepared to assume full charge of all details and relieve the afflicted families of responsibilities attend- ing necessary service. All of the brothers have been thoroughly trained in the business and are practical funeral directors and licensed embalmers.

George W. Billow, the eldest of the three sons interested in this enterprise, was born in , Akron, on the 13th of May, 1866. Here he was reared to maturity and here, after duly availing himself of the advantages of the pub- lic schools, he became a clerk in the dry goods establishment of Wolf & Church, with whom he remained about three years, after which he was similarly engaged in the establishment of J. Koch & Company. His next position was that of bookkeeper for J. Koch & Com- pany, engaged in the clothing business, and thereafter he was incumbent of a similar posi- tion with Whitman & Barnes Manufacturing Company, another representative local man- ufacturing firm. He next passed thirteen months in Ravenna, Ohio, as senior member of the firm of Billow & Lenhart, and upon his return to Akron, in 1898, he became asso- ciated with his father in the undertaking busi- ness with which he has since been actively iden- tified, as indicated in preceding paragraphs of this article. He is also a stockholder in a num- ber of other leading corporations in his native city, and is essentially a broad-gauged and progressive business man and loyal and public- spirited citizen.

In politics Mr. Billow gives his support to the cause of the Republican party, and he and his wife are communicants of the Church of Our Saviour, Protestant Episcopal. He is an appreciative and valued member of the Ma- sonic fraternity, in which his York Rite affili- ations are with Adoniram Lodge, No. 517, Free & Accepted Masons; Washington Chap- ter, No. 25. Royal Arch Masons; Akron Council, No. 80, Royal & Select Masters ; and Akron Commandery, No. 25, Knights Tem- plars. He is identified with Lake Erie Con- sistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Ma- sonry, in which he has attained to the thirty- second degree, also member of Al Koran Tem-

ple, A. A. O. N. M. S., and is also a member of the Masonic Relief Association of Akron. He is a member of the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and holds membership in the Masonic Club and other civic and social organ- izations in his home city, where his circle of friends is limited only by that of his acquaint- ances.

On the 5th of June, 1888, Mr. Billow was united in marriage to Miss Myrtie Lenhart, daughter of William and Prudence (Morris) Lenhart, of Akron, where she was reared and educated, and in whose social activities she is a prominent figure. Mr. and Mrs. Billow have one son, Archie L., who was born on the 2d of August, 1889, and who was graduated in the Akron high school as a member of the class of 1907; he is now incumbent of a posi- tion in the offices of the Diamond Rubber Company, in Akron.

MARTIN E. GRAY, now deceased, of Wil- loughby, was born in Madison county, New York, January 29, 1815. He was a son of Andrew and Sarah (Harkness) Gray, natives of Hampshire county, Massachusetts, he the son of Jacob Gray, also of Massachusetts ; several generations before him lived in New England. Andrew Gray settled in New York in 1810, there working at his trade of black- smith. In 1837 he came to Ohio, and settled on his farm in Willoughby township, on the lake shore, spending seven years in a log house. He was a soldier in the war of 1812. He died in 1861, being past eighty years. He was a Baptist and his wife a Methodist. She lived to be over ninety. Martin was the only one of eight children to reach maturity.

Martin E. Gray cast his first vote for William Henry Harrison; he was a Whig until the inception of the Republican party. whose cause he then espoused. He served as township trustee, and for six years as justice of the peace. He married, in 1844, Mary Hopkins, born in Groton, Tompkins county. New York, and came with her parents to Ohio in 1833. Martin Gray and his wife had three children, namely: Andrew, Ophelia, who died in childhood, and Marie, deceased. Andrew married Myra Bostwick and operated the old home farm; he was educated at Dennison. Ohio. The Gray farm contained originally but one hundred acres, but Martin E. Grav kept adding to it until it was two hundred. The

Polly Harper.

MRS. JANE HARPER

4. JHanfu

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present brick residence was built by him in 1875, and the old frame house built by his father about 1840, is still a good house.

Andrew Gray spent nis entire business life on the farm, and he died there in 1895, aged fifty years. The sawmill which was erected by his grandfather, Andrew Gray, Sr., and operated by him, and also by Martin Gray, was operated by Andrew Gray, Jr., until his death, and then by Frank M. Gray until 1902, in which year it was carried out by the water, having been in operation about fifty years. Andrew Gray's widow resides in California. Their children who reached maturity are: Cora B., the wife of Roscoe Huber, of River- side, California; Frank Martin, occupying the old farm, married in 1901, Alice Ida Orr, daughter of Mrs. L. E. Orr, of Willoughby, and they have no children; Nellie Bostwick, married Everett Campbell and has one child, James Gray, and lives at the old Gray home- stead.

STELLA CYNTHIA HARPER, daughter of Alexander and Jane Harper, of Unionville, Ashtabula county, is of an old Irish family whose American ancestor, James Harper, brought his wife and children to New Eng- land in 1720. They first landed on the shores of Casco bay (now Maine), but the Indians frightened them to the Massachusetts colony and they settled finally at Boston. John, one of the sons of the original emigrant, married Abigail Montgomery, who was also of an Irish family whose experience in the new world had been similar to that of the Harpers, as its founders had been driven away from the Casco coast by savages and sought safety in Massa- chusetts. John and Abigail Harper had eleven children, of whom Alexander, the ninth, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, February 22, 1744. Captain Alexander Harper, as he is known far and wide in the family records, first brought the name into the history of the West- ern Reserve, as one of the first pioneers of the country northwest of the Ohio river. In 1754 he moved with his parents to Cherry Valley, New York, where he received what was con- sidered quite a liberal education for the coun- try and times. In 1768, with three of his brothers and eighteen other associates, he ob- tained a patent for 22,000 acres of land in what is now Delaware county, New York, and the location of the colony in 1770 resulted in founding the town of Harpersfield. In 1771 he married Elizabeth Bartholomew, who had

recently migrated from New Jersey, and eight children were born to them. The three years from 1777 to 1780 were filled with perils for the family, on account of Indian attacks, Alex- ander Harper serving as first lieutenant at one of the Schoharie forts and as a frontier scout. On March 3, 1780, he received his captain's commission. In April of that year while a de- tachment of troops from the fort were making maple sugar near the headwaters of the Char- lotte river they were captured by a band of Indians under the noted Chief Brant. It hap- pened that he and Captain Harper were school- mates and this fact undoubtedly prevented a massacre of the American prisoners, who were hurried on to Fort Niagara, the British strong- hold. Before reaching their destination, how- ever, the prisoners were forced to run the gauntlet, the captain being the first selected. Fortunately, he passed that ordeal, only to endure a painful captivity of two years and eight months. After his release, in 1783, he returned to his family at Harpersfield, New York, and spent the following fifteen years as a builder of a prosperous community. In June, 1798, the family moved to the wilds of the Western Reserve, being among the first to settle in what is now Ashtabula connty. The township in which they settled was named Harpersfield in honor of the captain, who was the leader of the colony which located there, but he did not long survive this second migra- tion, as he died of malarial fever on the 10th of the following September. His remains still repose in the old churchyard, just south of the square in the old village of Unionville.

Robert Harper was the eighth and last-born to Captain Harper and his wife, his natal day being May 16, 1791. He married Miss Polly Hendry and died December 15, 1850, and of his four children Jane Harper, who married a cousin (Alexander J.), was the youngest. Colonel Robert Harper (colonel in the war of 1812) built the old homestead still standing. and beloved, known as Shandy Hall, and which was so long occupied by "Uncle Alexander" and "Aunt Jane," the former of whom passed away May 1, 1906, and the latter, October 6, 1908, at the respective ages of seventy-seven and seventy-five, the former having been born September 28, 1829, and the latter March IO, 1833. In 1835, when "Aunt Jane" was two years of age, the first piano was brought into the Western Reserve and set up with much ceremony and amid much neighborhood ex- citement in the old Harper homestead. The

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eldest son born to Alexander J. Harper and his good wife, Robert by name, died December 16, 1905, at the age of fifty-two. Rice Harper, the other son, is the general manager of a wine company at Santa Cruz, California. The two daughters, who have never married, are Stella Cynthia and Ann, and they still reside at the historic old Shandy Hall, at Unionville.

ADDISON D. MYERS .- One of the largest landholders of Geneva, Ashtabula county, widely known as proprietor of the "Maple Tree Hackney Stock Farm," Addison D. Myers is one of the most enterprising and progressive agriculturists of this part of the Western Reserve, and for many years has held a place of prominence among its leading busi- ness men. A native of Erie county, New York, he was born, April 11, 1836, in Aldon, where he spent his boyhood days.

When he was ten years old his father died, and he was soon afterwards thrown upon his own resources. Leaving home at the age of fourteen years, he was for a year chore boy at a hotel in Geneseo, New York. Pushing his way onward, he went first to Pittsburg. Pennsylvania, then to Cincinnati, where he found employment in the Galt Hotel, where he remained several months. The following two years he worked on a river boat plying between Cincinnati, Natchez, and New Orleans, and while thus employed had a rough experience, oftentimes seeing old gamblers playing for negroes. In 1853 his companion, Lagrange Tiffany, died of spotted fever in New Orleans, but before dying made Mr. Myers promise to take his body home to his friends, in McGregor, Iowa. After perform- ing that sad duty, Mr. Myers spent two years in St. Charles, Iowa, selling cheap jewelry. Going. to Illinois in 1858, Mr. Myers spent a year in Chicago, working as a carpenter, and while there met Damon Davis, from Aldon, New York, who told him that his mother had removed to Geneva, Ohio.

Therefore, after an absence from home of nine years, Mr. Myers hastened to Ashtabula county, and found that his mother, who had come here with her son, Haskell Myers, had married a Mr. Battles, and was living in Aus- tinburg, this county, while his brother Haskell was keeping a hotel in Geneva, at the same time being engaged in lumbering in the south- ern part of the county, rafting logs down the Grand river. Hiring out to his brother for a year, Mr. Myers managed the hotel, the Union

House, his brother being absent the greater part of the time. He afterwards worked at his trade in Paducah, Kentucky, and at Evansville, Indiana, following it awhile, and then returned to Geneva. At the breaking out of the Civil war, the Geneva Light Artillery, an inde- pendent state military company, was ordered out. As it was short of men, Mr. Myers and one of his friends, Frank Viets, enlisted in it, and went with the company to West Virginia, where, at the Battle of Philippi, Captain Ken- ney's company, to which he belonged, had the honor, as given by the war records, of having fired the first gun after the taking of Fort Sumter. After serving for three months, Mr. Myers, with his comrades, was honorably dis- charged, and returned to the Union House, in Geneva.

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History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 29

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 886

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 886