History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 52

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

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Albert D. Greenlee was born September 17, 1861, and received a district school education, and he remained on his father's farm and as- sisted with its work until moving to a place of his own. He is a dairy farmer, and is also the present trustee of his township. He has also served as an assessor and as a school director, and his politics are Republican. He married on July 1, 1892, Nellie Denslow, who was born at Cherry Valley March 22, 1868, a daughter of Frank and Josie ( Witter) Denslow, and a son, Boyd Greenlee, was born to them on July 18, 1900. Albert D. Greenlee is a member of the order of Maccabees, and he is truly one of the representative men of Cherry Valley township.

JOHN W. STRICKLAND, a Ravenna township agriculturist, was born in the city of Ravenna June 29, 1871, and is a member of one of the earliest and most prominent of its pioneers. Willis Strickland, his paternal grandfather, was born on June 10, 1801, in Sandisfield, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and in 1827 he married Lucy Hawley. In June of 1839 they came to Windham township of Portage county, Ohio, where this wife died in January, 1841, leaving three children, who are all now deceased. He then married in June of 1841 Mrs. Caroline Gardner, from New Lebanon, New York, and they became the parents of three children, who are also now deceased. This wife died in January, 1866, and in the fol- lowing. September Willis Strickland wedded Mrs. Sarah E. Richards, who by her former marriage, had one daughter. Alice, now Mrs. Milton R. Furry. This daughter resides in Spokane, Washington. In April of 1855 Wil- lis and Caroline Strickland came to Ravenna, and during the remainder of his life he was an active public worker, a farmer and a live stock dealer. Before leaving his native state of

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Massachusetts he served as a postmaster and also as a representative in the legislature, and after his identification with the interests of Ravenna he was twice elected a justice of the peace and was a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of Ravenna. In July, 1875, in company with N. D. Clark, he went to Dakota and exchanged $125,000 in Northern Pacific railroad bonds owned by themselves and other citizens of Portage county for land in Cass county, and that proved a good invest- ment. Mr. Strickland died in the faith of the Disciple church in April, 1890.

George. Strickland, one of the three children of Willis and Caroline (Gardner) Strickland, was born in Windham township, Portage conn- ty, Ohio, June 26, 1843, and in Ravenna in August of 1867, he was united in marriage with Lucretia Welton, a member of another of its pioneer families. She was born in this city on May 16, 1845, a daughter of Isaac and Eunice (Oviatt) Welton, born respectively in Watertown, Connecticut, and in Hudson, Por- tage county, Ohio, and they lived here when the Indians were among the community's most numerous residents. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Strickland took up their abode on his father's homestead just north of the city of Ravenna, and there they spent the remainder of their lives and died, the husband and father on March 22, 1903, and the wife on December 30, 1907. Their children were: John W., who is mentioned below ; George W., who was born on October 19, 1875, and he resides with his brother at the old home; Eunice C., born on July 29, 1877, is a teacher in the public schools of Ravenna; and Charlotte Jenette, born June 3, 1879, is an accountant in the Loomis Sani- tarium at Loomis, New York.

John W. Strickland, the eldest son of George and Lucretia Strickland, supplemented his pub- lic and high school training in Ravenna by a one year's attendance at the Hudson Western Reserve Academy, and his home has always been on the old parental farm, a valuable tract of 125 acres, all of which is under cultivation or in pasture with the exception of twenty-five acres of timber. During three years, begin- ning in 1896, he was a fireman on the Balti- more & Ohio railroad, but with the exception of this brief period his life's work has been on the farm. In company with his brother he conducts a dairy of twenty cows, and in Jan- uary of 1907 they organized a milk route in Ravenna, and now have one of the largest trades in this line in the city. This business

is carried on in connection with their general farming.

George W. Strickland married on April IO, 1907, Zora Dronberger, who was born in Rootstown township, Portage county, a daugh- ter of William R. and Mattion (Warren) Dronberger, the father born in Rootstown township and the mother in Chardon, Ohio, and she is now living in Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania. John W. Strickland is a member of Lodge No. 225, Knights of Pythias, in Ra- venna, of Unity Lodge No. 12, F. & A. M., and of Tyrian Chapter No. 96, R. A. M.

MAXWELL G. GARRISON .- A native son of Portage county who has here attained to pre- cedence as a representative business man and progressive citizen is the present cashier of the City Banking Company, of Kent, where his popularity is measured only by the roster of his acquaintances.

Maxwell Graham Garrison was born in Franklin township, Portage county, on April 12, 1851, and is a son of James and Hannah (Walker) Garrison, the former of whom was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, and the latter in Summit county, Ohio. When James Garrison was a child the family removed from Pennsylvania to Portage county, Ohio, and settled in Deerfield township, where his father, Joseph Garrison, reclaimed and developed a good farm and passed the residue of his life, having been one of the sterling pioneers of that section of the county. In Deerfield town- ship James Garrison was reared to manhood on the home farm and his educational advan- tages were those afforded in the pioneer schools. In that township his marriage was solemnized and about 1850 he removed to Franklin township, where he continued to be actively engaged in agricultural pursuits until his death, at the age of fifty-nine years. He was a man of integrity and honor in all the relations of life and held a secure place in the confidence and esteem of all who knew him. His widow long survived him and lived to at- tain the extremely venerable age of ninety- three years. They became the parents of four sons and two daughters, all of whom attained years of maturity and of whom three are now living, Maxwell G. of this review being the fifth child and third son. The parents were devout members of the Christian church and the father was a Democrat in his political pro- clivities.

Maxwell G. Garrison passed his boyhood

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and youth on the old homestead farm in Frank- lin township, and after completing the curri- culum of the district schools he was matricu- lated in Hiram College, in which historic insti- tution of the Western Reserve he was a stut- dent. After leaving school he began reading law under effective preceptorship and in 1876 he was admitted to the bar. He engaged in the practice of his profession in Kent, where he continued to devote his attention to this voca- tion until June, 1881, when he was elected cashier of the City Banking. Company, of which office he has since continued incumbent. He is a capable and popular executive and it is in large measure due to his discriminating administration that the institution has gained so marked a prestige as one of the solid and successful banking concerns of the Western Reserve. He is virtually the executive head of the bank and gives his personal supervision to all details of its management. The insti- tution is incorporated with a capital stock of $25,000 and now maintains a surplus fund of $10,000. Mr. Garrison is also president of the Seneca Chair Company, which is incorporated with a capital stock of $300,000 and which has large and finely equipped factories both in Kent and at Mansfield, Ohio. The company gives employment to about 700 persons and the enterprise is one of the important indus- tries of the state. Mr. Garrison is also one of the principal stockholders of the Kent Ma- chine Company, of which he is president, and he is a director and vice president of the Por- tage Savings & Loan Company, of Ravenna. He is one of the aggressive and successful business men of this section of the state and his executive talent has done much to forward the interests of the various corporations with which he is identified and incidentally to further the progress and material prosperity of his home city, county and state.

In politics Mr. Garrison accords an un- wavering allegiance to the Republican party, and as a loyal and progressive citizen he mani- fests a lively interest in public affairs of a local order. He served a number of years as treas- urer of the city of Kent and for four years was incumbent of the office of treasurer of Portage county,-preferments which well indi- cate the confidence and esteem in which he is held in the county which has ever represented his home. He is affiliated with the local lodge and chapter of the Masonic fraternity and also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

In the year 1873 was recorded the marriage

of Mr. Garrison to Miss Sarah L. Peck, daughter of Rufus H. Peck, of Portage coun- ty, and concerning the five children of this union the following brief data are given : Ruth is the wife of Harry C. Callinan, a prosperous farmer of Franklin township, Portage county ; Bessie is the wife of J. F. Reed, who is en- gaged in the grocery business at Akron, Ohio ; Charles is chief engineer of the water-works plant in Ravenna ; Guy is a locomotive fireman on the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad, as is also Iliff, the youngest of the children.

S. F. MACDONALD, president of the Ashta- bula Hide and Leather Company and a leading citizen of business, financial and public affairs, is an ardent representative of the policy of leaving nothing to chance. "Be prepared- then go ahead" means with his class not only a thorough practical training in whatever field is to be occupied, but a broad education from the scientific standpoint ; so that the man shall .always be larger than his business, and lead it into new avenues of development, instead of being bound and cramped by it. After years of hard work and the mastery of the mechan- ical part of his business Mr. MacDonald pur- sued special courses both in the Case School of Applied Science and the Western Reserve Uni- versity, so that he was fully prepared to seize the natural opportunities for advancement which especially offered themselves after his father's retirement in 1891 and the death in 1903 of J. R. McKay, these gentlemen being associated in the founding of the business.

At the reorganization of the company, under its present title, in 1892, Mr. MacDonald bought stock in the new concern, and assumed a more responsible part in the development of the business. He gradually advanced to the presidency, succeeding J. R. Mckay in 1903, and under his energetic and enterprising management the capacity of the manufactory has been more than doubled and now repre- sents one of the largest plants in the world de- voted to the specialty of carriage furniture and automobile leather. A foreign office is main- tained at Ely Place, Halborn, E. C., London, England, and the goods of the concern have a European as well as an American reputation second to none of their kind. The other of- ficers of the Ashtabula Hide and Leather Com- pany are Charles H. Albrecht, vice president ; E. M. McKay, secretary, and R. H. Pfaff, treasurer. Besides holding the presidency of this extensive industry and business, Mr. Mac-

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Donald is a director in the National Bank of Ashtabula, and virtually interested in all the industries which have developed the place lo- cally and tended to make it one of the most prosperous harbors on the great lakes. He is a leading member of the American Leather Manufacturers' Association and Council of In- dustry, as well as of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Acad- emy of Social and Political Science. A firm, working Republican, he wields a wholesome influence in political and public affairs, having served as president of the City Council for two years and is a candidate for re-election. He is also president of. the Y. M. C. A. of Ash- tabula, and is known in fraternal circles as a Mason and an Elk.

Mr. Ma@Donald is still in his thirty-seventh year, having been born at Whitehall, Michigan, on April 12, 1873, son of J. R. MacDonald and wife. While he was an infant the parents moved upon a Nevada ranch, where they lived for a number of years; then located at Salem, Massachusetts, where S. F. obtained a public school education. There, also, his father em- barked in the leather business, but in 1881 moved to Ashtabula and associated himself with J. R. Mckay in the establishment of the house, which, in its vastly enlarged and its modern form, is now being conducted by the son. The latter completed his public school course at Ashtabula ; then went into his father's tannery and learned the trade; after which he broadened his education by several years at the Case school and the Western Reserve Uni- versity. The father continued as a vital force in the progress of the business until 1891, when he sold his interests and retired. How the en- terprise which he assisted to found has been assumed and improved by his son has already been told.

In 1898 S. F. MacDonald married Miss Maud Harrington, of Painesville, Ohio, and they have four children,-Dorothy, Hope, Jean and James. Both parents are members of the Presbyterian church of Ashtabula.

HENRY E. YORK, M. D .- Among the able representatives of the medical profession in the Western Reserve is Dr. York, who is en- gaged in practice in Fairport Harbor. The doctor is specially fortified in the scientific and other technical learning of his exacting pro- fession, and the success which has attended his efforts as a practitioner offers the most effective voucher for his power of applying

his knowledge to the practical issues involved in the work of the physician and surgeon.

Henry Edward York comes of stanch north of Ireland lineage. He was born in Osgood, province of Ontario, Canada, on the IIth of September, 1867, and is a son of James and Elizabeth (Brown) York, natives of Belfast, Ireland. The parents are now both deceased. The father followed the vocation of farming. during the major portion of his active career. He was a man of fine intellectuality and ster- ling character, and his name is honored in the community which long represented his home.

Dr. York passed his boyhood days on the home farm, and his early educational train- ing was secured in the public schools of his native province, after which he continued his studies in the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, in the city of Ottawa, where he was a student for four years. He then was matriculated in the medical department of the celebrated Mc- Gill University, in the city of Montreal, in which he was graduated as a member of the Class of 1894, and from which he received his degrees of Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery. After this he came to Ohio and took up his residence in Fairport Harbor, in 1894, and here he has built up a large and repre- sentative professional business as a general practitioner of medicine and surgery. For eleven years he was division surgeon for the Baltimore & Ohio Northern Railroad; he served six years as coroner of Lake county, and he is a member of the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society, the Lake County Medical Society and other professional organizations. He is affiliated with the time-honored Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-second de- gree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. He is progressive and public-spirited as a citi- zen, and is held in unqualified esteem in his home city, in whose welfare he maintains a deep interest. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, of whose principles he is a stanch advocate, and he is a member of the county committee of his party for Lake county.

On the 29th of May, 1901, Dr. York was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth J. Mer- rill, daughter of Samuel Merrill, a representa- tive farmer and honored citizen of Painesville township, Lake county. Mrs. York was born in the western part of the province of Ontario, Canada, but was a child at the time of her

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parents' removal to Lake county, Ohio, where she was reared and educated. Dr. and Mrs. York have four children-Jimmie, Jack, Wal- lace and Florence Elizabeth.

DANIEL NOBLE WEBSTER, whose death at Conneaut, January 20, 1892, closed a long career of nearly sixty years in that place, was one of the pioneer merchants of the town and was closely identified with the progress of Conncaut from its village era through its rise to importance as a commercial center. Many evidences of his energy and business ability are still to be seen in the city. His career was typical of the business virtues and strength of character which made the successful men of the middle west during the last century.

Born at Swanton, Vermont, July 9, 1816, he became a citizen of Conneaut in his sixteenth year. In the fall of 1832 his parents, John and Charity Bennett Webster, were en route by steamer from Buffalo to the state of Michi- gan, when the son Daniel left the family at Erie and, walking the distance from there to Conneaut, arrived at the scene of his subse- quent career with the modest sum of six-pence as working capital.

His first employment during the winter was as farm hand on the Chester Sanford farm, west of the village. The following spring. he found employment in the village as clerk in the little grocery store of Lester Johnson, on the southeast corner of Main and Harbor streets. After four years his employer, Mr. Johnson, fell dead behind his counter, and Mr. Webster, then barely twenty-one, with the savings he had accumulated and his credit for the balance, bought from the widow the little stock of groceries.

This was the beginning of a business which he continued throughout the rest of his active career, and which became one of the largest and most successful merchandise houses in Ashtabula county. During the prosperous years of the lake business at this port his trade was particularly large. At that time grain, wool, lumber and dairy products were brought from a region of many miles in extent sur- rounding Conneaut in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, and shipped by lake to east- ern and western markets. His enterprise was one of the large factors in this trade. As an interesting item of local history of Conneaut, may be given in this connection the names of the principal business men who were contem- porary with Mr. Webster at Conneaut during

the early fifties. They are : Robert Lyon, John Reid, Cyrus & J. B. Cleveland, P. W. Krick, Lake & Carpenter, Milo Osborne, Loren Gould, David Phillips, James L. Webster, Charles J. Fenton, Samuel Fenton, Charles Hall, while at the harbor John H. Hall and John B. Lyon were in the forwarding and commission busi- ness. At this period also Conneaut harbor was the scene of great activity in shipbuilding, some of the best vessels sailing the lakes hav- ing been built in the Conneaut ship yard. Con- neaut was the home of many lake captains, whose names are familiar all along the lakes, among them being Captains C. W. Appleby, M. Capron, L. B. Goldsmith, Harrison Perry, Charles Howard, Cyrenus Blood, James Tubbs, Andrew Lent, Orange Capron, D. Wolf and many others.

Mr. Webster's family was of old New Eng- land stock. It is believed that James Webster, his grandfather, whose home was at Winton- bury, Connecticut, was descended from the John Webster who settled in Connecticut about 1633 and was fifth governor of that colony. Anyhow, this branch of the family had resided in Connecticut from colonial times. James Webster, the grandfather, married Hannah Hubbard, and their son, John Webster, who was born in Wintonbury, September 1, 1776, married Charity Bennett.

Daniel Noble Webster married, at Con- neaut, March 4, 1841, Miss Emma Walling- ford, and they had one son, Augustus L. His second wife, whom he married March 5, 1851, was Miss Martha E. Wheeler, and she is still living. By this marriage there was one son, Elwyn P. Webster, a resident of Chicago.

Augustus L. Webster, the son by the first marriage, was reared at Conneaut and has fol- lowed his father in business lines, being presi- dent of the Webster Grocer Company, whole- sale grocers, of Danville, Illinois. He left Conneaut in 1866, at the age of twenty-four, was married in Conneaut, Ohio, September 30, 1862, to Miss Eliza E. Innis.

GEORGE D. BARCLAY, one of the brave men who fought for the preservation of our union, was born November 19, 1844, and is a son of George W. and Hannah (Dawson) Barclay, natives of Mahoning county, Ohio. They came to Portage county about 1832 and be- came the owners of 112 acres of land.

George D. Barclay resided with his parents until he reached the age of nineteen, when he enlisted in Company I, under Captain Wells,

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in the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, and served two years and ten months, going through Kentucky, taking part in an engagement at Knoxville, then on to Atlanta and through to the Coast. July I, 1864, Mr. Barclay was wounded and taken to the hospital, after which he received his dis- charge, three weeks before the rest of the regi- ment.

Mr. Barclay married July 1, 1865, Martha C. Ellis, after which he engaged in farming on seventy-three acres of land. He has carried on his farm in an enterprising and skillful manner, and has met with the success his ef- forts deserve. Mr. and Mrs. Barclay have been the parents of four children, namely : Frank W., Walter T. (deceased), Robert J., and one who died in infancy. Frank lives in Ravenna and Robert is on the home farm. Mr. Barclay is a Democrat in political views, and earnestly interested in the progress and de- velopment of the country which he has done so much to serve.

ARTHUR F. DICKINSON is one of the enter- prising and respected citizens of Randolph township, Portage county, who is doing his full part in continuing the good name of the family which has been established in this sec- tion of the Reserve for more than a century. He was born on the fine old farm of which he is proprietor, October 20, 1853, and is a son of William Penn and Harriet (Gillett) Dickinson, both natives of Randolph township. Oliver Dickinson, the great-grandfather, came alone on horseback in 1804, selected and pur- chased 600 acres of land for a homestead, and then returned to New England in 1805 for his wife and five children-Oliver, Cromwell, Walter, Alpheus and Comfort.

Arthur F. was educated in the Randolph district school and, on account of the death of his parents when he was quite young, lived with his grandfather until the founder of the family passed away. He has since continued to operate the old homestead, and also con- ducts a hotel at Randolph Center. Mr. Dick- inson is a Republican in politics; in his reli- gion is connected with the Disciples church. Married November 26, 1880, to Miss Eliza- beth Reed, Mr. Dickinson's first wife died January 2, 1892, and he wedded as his second wife, Miss Viola Gigger, the ceremony occur- ring November 26, 1897, the anniversary of his former union. Mrs. Viola Dickinson was born December 21, 1861, and is a daughter of

Solomon and Emeline (Kuntz) Gigger, her parents being natives of Pennsylvania, of Ger- man ancestry. George Weis Dickinson, the child of the first union, was born October 23, 1882, and resided at home until his marriage to Miss Jennie Jones, August 2, 1907. He is now a resident of Oregon.

GEORGE L. WELLER, for twenty years super- intendent of the Elyria Water Works, Elyria, Ohio, is a native son of the Western Reserve, he having been born in the town in which he lives on March 24, 1864, son of John and Mary (McCollum) Weller, for many years well known residents of Elyria. John Weller died here in 1890, at the age of fifty-seven years; his widow is still living at the home place just north of the city, at this writing in her seventy-fourth year.

George L. Weller had good opportunities for education. After completing his studies in the public schools of his native town he was sent to Oberlin College, and he afterward went to Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, where he took a commercial course. Of his father he learned the trade of stone mason, and followed it until 1890. In 1889 he was appointed superintendent of the Elyria Water Works, a position he has since filled, and during the twenty years of his connection with the company it has kept pace with the progress of the times. The plant has been re- built and its capacity more than doubled, and in this work of rebuilding, the superintendent was the civil engineer ; the filters now in use were built from the superintendent's designs, the filtering process being his own invention. At the time he became superintendent, the fil- tering alone cost the company nine dollars per million gallons; the cost today is fifty cents per million gallons. And the cost of operation has been reduced at least one-half.

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History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 52

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