History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 53

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 53

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In the meantime Mr. Weller has been inter- ested in the manufacture of one of his inven- tions, a channeling machine, to be used in quarrying. From 1895 to 1903 the Weller En- gineering Company manufactured these ma- chines, and a number of them are now in use. Also Mr. Weller has invented and patented other quarry machinery.

July 19, 1893, he married Miss Ida Alma Black, of Vermillion, Ohio, daughter of John and Mary Black, the former deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Weller have two children: Jay C., born August 17, 1894, and Vileda, August 17, 1898. Mr. Weller is a member of the Cham-

Brainard of. Ryder

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ber of Commerce, the Modern Woodmen and the National Union. Politically he is a Re- publican.

BRAINARD F. RYDER has been identified with the life and interests of Ashtabula county throughout his entire life, and he is a son of Henry Ryder and a grandson of Samuel and Naomi H. (Hulbert) Ryder, early residents of the Buckeye state. Samuel and Naomi Ryder were born in Connecticut, the former at Torrington in 1765 and the latter at New Hart- ford, Connecticut, June 6, 1806, and died in the year of 1810, and locating in Austinburg township, Ashtabula county, they spent the re- mainder of their lives here, Samuel dying on March 25, 1834, and his wife Naomi on No- vember 19, 1854.

Henry G. Ryder, one of the sons born to these Ohio pioneers, was born in New Hart- ford, Connecticut, June 6, 1808, and died in Austinburg township, Ashtabula county, of this state, February 22, 1885. He came here with his parents in 1810, and became one of the substantial farmers of the county, first hav- ing to clear his land. He married Ann French, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, October 29, 1805, but a resident of Lake county, Ohio, at the time of her marriage, and she died on November 25, 1888. Mr. and Mrs. Ryder reared a large family of children, including : Henry Martin, who served as first lieutenant of Company C, Twenty-ninth Ohio Volunteers in the Civil war, was born in Austinburg January 14, 1836, and died in Georgetown, Virginia, September 25, 1863; Annette, born March 3, 1837, married in October, 1870, C. C. Lukens, and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Cecil Samuel, born November 25, 1839, married, and died in 1906; Brainard F. was born November 25, 1839 ; Mary L., born March 12, 1841, mar- ried Rush King and died in 1907; Alfred B., born May 9, 1843, died September 7, 1864; Helen R., born May 9, 1844, married Theodore L. French, a farmer in Austinburg; Emily C., born November 14, 1845, married Cyrus Green : and Charlotte E., born April 14, 1847, married Henry Chaffee and died in August, 1888.

Brainard F. Ryder attended first the district schools of Austinburg township, and completed his educational training in Grand River Insti- tute in Austinburg. Farming has been his life's occupation, and he now owns fifty acres in Pierpont township, but he rents his land. He married Laura Dean on November 29, 1866, Vol. II-18

and a son, Ralph H. Ryder, was born to them on February 7, 1874, but he died on August 13, 1899. He, too, had attended the Grand River Institute, and was a musician, a member of the home band, and was a young man of the greatest promise and ability. He married Mattie Preston December 4, 1894, and she died four months after the marriage. After his wife's death he went to Natick, Massachu- setts and engaged in the music business. Brainard Ryder is a Republican in his political allegiance, and he is one of the representative citizens of his community. Mr. Ryder is the last one of thirty-five in this township that car- ried the name of Ryder.

JOHN HARVEY THOMPSON, a leading plumber and steam and gas fitter of Elyria, was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, June 11, 1867. He is a son of John Peter and Elizabeth (War- riner) Thompson. John Peter Thompson was born in the northern part of Sweden in 1834, and came to the United States in 1845; his wife was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1843, and came to the United States when sixteen years of age. They were married in New York City.

John Peter Thompson was a sailor and navi- gator, and was in the government service when but nineteen years of age ; he was in command of a vessel engaged in testing the cable in the Gulf of Mexico. At the beginning of the Civil war he enlisted in the One Hundred Forty- fifth New York Regiment, and was afterwards transferred to the navy, where he served four years and four months. He was at the bom- bardment of Charlestown, South Carolina, after Fort Sumter had been captured, and was the first Union man to go ashore ; upon reach- ing the shore, in charge of a squad of men, he took down from the walls of the city building the ordinance of secession passed by the state of South Carolina, and turned it over to the commodore commanding the fleet. A copy of this paper is now in the hands of his son, John Harvey. During the battle before Charles- town Mr. Thompson was for this act of brav- ery promoted from able seaman to gunner, and later became captain of the gunners, and finally ensign. He remained with the navy until the spring of 1866, when, having mar- ried February 4 of that year, he resigned. His rank was equal to that of Captains Ridley and Reed, who were so famous. After his resig- nation Captain Thompson removed to Erie, Pennsylvania, and for a time followed his old

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occupation on the lakes. Later he took a po- sition with Erie Ice Company, where he re- mained over seven years, and then engaged in hotel business, conducting what was known as the "Sailors' Home," and while in this busi- ness he died, in 1894. His widow died in Erie ten years later.

John Harvey Thompson was educated in the public schools of Erie, and learned the trade of plumber with George E. Fry, in that city. He worked in Erie until the time of his mar- riage, and in 1889 removed to Springfield, Ohio. A year later, however, he returned to Erie, and in the fall of 1892 removed to Con- neaut, where he went into business on his own account, and remained there twelve years, and in the spring of 1904 came to Elyria. On first coming to Elyria he worked a year as journeyman, and then embarked in business on his own account, on the corner of West ave- nue and Broad street. About one year later Mr. Thompson bought property at No. 19 West avenue, and erected his present place of business. He has built up a large and lucra- tive trade, and his work is its own advertise- ment and recommendation. He is a man of good business acumen and enterprise, and well deserves the success he has attained. Frater- nally Mr. Thompson is a member of the blue lodge, chapter and council of the A. F. & A. M., also of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, No. 465, and of the Maccabees. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and past president of the Builders' Exchange. He has been a delegate to the state convention of Master Plumbers of Ohio, and in 1909 was delegate-at-large to the national convention of Master Plumbers, held at Detroit, Michigan, in June of that year.

Mr. Thompson married Ola, youngest daughter of Captain H. A. Sisson; she is a descendant from Revolutionary soldier stock on the maternal side. Mr. and Mrs. Thomp- son have children as follows: Elizabeth Isabell, Harvey Elmer, Lillian Ednah Ola and War- riner Elwin. The oldest son, Harvey Elmer, is a bicycle rider of note, and holds numerous world's records, for all of which he has re- ceived medals. Among them are: Five-year record at Jefferson Fair in Ashtabula county, one-quarter mile in fifty-nine and one-quarter ; six-year record, the same distance, at Ashta- bula County Fair at Jefferson, in forty-four and one-quarter ; seven-year record at Erie, Pennsylvania, one-half mile in one twenty-five

and one-fifth, and his eight-year old record was one mile, unpaced, in three-ten, raced at Conneaut. His parents are justly proud of these world's records, as they have ample rea- son to be.

ROBERT GEORGE ANDERSON, M. D., Elyria, Ohio, was born in the province of Ontario, Canada, May 25, 1868. His parents, Archibald and Mary (Burns) Anderson, both natives of the north of Ireland, and Protestants, came to America in their youth and became resi- dents of Ontario, where subsequently they were married and became pioneers in a fron- tier settlement. There Archibald Anderson cleared away the primitive forest and devel- oped a fine farm, and there he lived to the ripe old age of seventy-eight years, dying in July, 1895.

On his father's farm Robert G. Anderson spent his boyhood days. He received a public and high school education, and subsequently took up the study of medicine at Trinity Med- ical College (now the Toronto Medical Col- lege), where he graduated with the Class of 1895. The same year he graduated he came to Elyria, and engaged in the practice of his profession on the West Side, where he soon won the confidence of the people among whom he lived, and found himself in the midst of a successful practice. He is a member of the medical staff of the Memorial Hospital of Elyria, and has membership in the Lorain County Medical Society, the Ohio State Med- ical Society and the American Medical Asso- ciation.

Mrs. Anderson, like the doctor, is a native of Canada. She was formerly Miss Lanra E. Ferguson and was born in Toronto. They have two children, Eva Louise and George Bertram. For a number of years Dr. Ander- son has been a member of the Masonic Order, having taken the degrees of both the blue lodge and chapter.

FRANK R. FAUVER .- A wide-awake young man, Frank R. Fauver, who completed, Janu- ary 1, 1910, his second term as auditor of the city of Elyria, has started in life with brilliant prospects for a long and honorable career, his energy, ability and tact having already won him a substantial position among the younger citizens of prominence and influence. A son of the late Alonzo B. Fauver, he was born on the parental homestead, in Eaton township,

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Lorain county, coming from Revolutionary stock.

A native of New York state, Alonzo B. Fauver came to the Western Reserve seventy- five years ago, a young boy. Purchasing land in Eaton township in early manhood, he was there prosperously employed in tilling the soil until his death, in 1889, at the age of sixty-six years. His wife, whose maiden name was Martha Thayer, was born in Holmes county, Ohio, in 1837, and died in Lorain county in 1903, aged sixty-six years. Her father, Eph- raim Thayer, was born and reared in Coshoc- ton county, Ohio, and served in the War of 1812, while his father, Ephraim Thayer, was lieutenant of a company in the Revolutionary war.

After his graduation from the Elyria high school, in 1897, Frank R. Fauver entered the University of Michigan, where he took two years of the literary course. Returning then to Elyria, he accepted a position with the Na- tional Tube Company, at South Lorain, Ohio, with which he was associated until May, 1903. Mr. Fauver was at that time elected auditor of Elyria, and gave such satisfactory service that in 1907 he was re-elected to the same posi- tion. He is likewise a member of the board of road commissioners of Lorain county, hav- ing been appointed under the law recently enacted to represent District No. I. He is a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, an organization which is doing much towards promoting the city's prosperity.

Fraternally Mr. Fauver belongs to the An- cient Free and Accepted Masons, and to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Re- ligiously he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.

PATRICK H. FARNHAM has been a lifelong resident of Conneaut township, and he traces his descent to one of the patrons of the Revo- lution, Thomas Farnham, who fought with Moses Cleveland in the Second Connecticut Regiment. Thomas Farnham married Abigail Durkee, from Connecticut, and Elisha Farn- ham was numbered among their sons. He was born in Connecticut June 8, 1806, received a common school training, and taught school a number of terms before his marriage. After the completion of his education he entered a machine shop in Pittsburg, and coming to Ohio about the year of 1825, journeying by stage from Pittsburg, he with Thomas Gibson bought the mill which had been built years be-

fore by a Mr. Jones. In time Elisha Farnham bought his partner's interest in the enterprise, and also built in 1841 the mill now owned by Mr. O. Fuller. Before 1878 the dam for this mill was some distance further up the stream than at present, the overflow compelling a. change of location, and the son Patrick erected two new dams in 1878, and these are still in use, as is also the mill, the only one now oper- ated by water power on Conneaut creek. Elisha Farnham gave his attention to his mills, con- sisting of grist, saw and carding mills, and during a number of years he also filled the office of justice of the peace and was a super- visor and a member of the school board. His politics were Republican, and he had fraternal relations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. During the Civil war period he was connected with the "underground railroad," and was an intimate friend of Ben Wade and of J. R. Giddings. At the time of his marriage he lived across the road from the present home of his son Patrick, and later built the house in which this son now lives. Elisha Farnham wedded in 1830 Mary Ring, from Massachu- setts, and a daughter of Joslin and Polly (Thayer) Ring. The children of this union are: Don A., who died during his Civil war service in 1862, a member of the Second Ohio Battery, Light Artillery; Flora, who lives in Conneaut, is the widow of T. S. Young, who served as second lieutenant of his company during the war; Patrick H., mentioned below ; Mary, who married first Martin Reals and is now the widow of Steven Haviland and lives in Conneaut, the mother of one child ; Lydia, the widow of Cornell Fuller, and also the mother of one child ; Emma, widow of William Buss, of Conneaut, Ohio, who was a soldier for five years.

Patrick H. Farnhamı was born November 14, 1838, in Conneaut township, just across the street from his present home, and after completing his educational training in the dis- trict schools and the academy at Springfield, Pennsylvania, he went west to Minnesota in 1856, but returned in the following year. Dur- ing the opening period of the Civil war he en- listed for service at Conneaut, and was mus- tered into the ranks at St. Louis, Missouri, Au- gust 28, 1861, becoming a member of the Second Ohio Battery, Light Artillery. His first services were under General Fremont, and afterward he was with General Curtis. Just before the battle of Pea Ridge he was made

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a prisoner of war, and later he served in the siege of Vicksburg and its accompanying bat- tles, and was one of five men who bravely vol- unteered to run the blockade at Vicksburg to secure supplies for his company. In the fall of 1863, on account of sickness, he was sent home on a furlough, and was later discharged from the same cause. Mr. Farnham has served his community as a justice of the peace, and he is both a Republican and a Mason.

On January 1, 1860, he was married to Mary A. Mallory, also from Conneaut township, born June 16, 1834, and she taught school a number of terms before her marriage. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Farnham are : Nina, who died at the age of three years; Charles, who was born September 30, 1864, married Emma Kluff and lives in Wisconsin ; Emma lives in Conneaut, the wife of T. J. Dillon, and they have two children; and Flora married Clyde Hamilton, who is connected with the street car company in Ashtabula.

CHARLES WATSON SAWYER .- Prominent among the merchants of Elyria is numbered Charles Watson Sawyer, a dealer in shoes and a well known and representative self-made citizen. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, De- cember 14, 1863, a son of Levi M., who was born in Connecticut. He came out to the Western Reserve when a small boy, and he died in the city of Cleveland in 1865. Levi M. Sawyer wedded Clara Nichols, who was born in Grafton township, of Lorain county, Ohio, the daughter of a pioneer, and she died in the year of 1878. Two sons were born to them, William Spencer and Charles Watson. Will- iam S. is a ranch owner at Albany, Oregon.

Charles W. Sawyer was reared and edu- cated in Grafton, to which village his mother had moved after the death of her husband, when Charles W. was twelve years of age. Thrown upon his own resources, being left an orphan at the age of fifteen, when his mother died, he was engaged at farm labor until the age of twenty years. His first business experi- ence was in the selling of machinery as an agent, his territory covering six counties in Ohio. In 1887 he embarked in the shoe busi- ness in Grafton, and in 1898 he came to Elyria and engaged in the same vocation at 124 Cheapside, as senior member of the firm of Teasdale & Sawyer. He is very prominent in the business life of his city, and is also promi- nently identified with its social and fraternal interests, being. a member of its orders of

Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Elks and Maccabees, and for many years, as a stanch Republican, he has been active in local politics.

Mr. Sawyer married, on January 4, 1888, Myra M. Haven, a daughter of Raymond Haven, of Eaton, Lorain county, and their two children are Benjamin H. and Maurice W. Sawyer.

WALTER E. BROOKS .- Prominent among the foremost citizens of Elyria is Walter E. Brooks, a well known manufacturer and capi- talist, who has been conspicuously identified for many years with the development and pro- motion of industrial enterprises of importance, not only in Ohio, but in neighboring states. A son of James E. Brooks, he was born August 13, 1846, in Avon, Lorain county, coming on both sides of the house of substantial English ancestry. His paternal grandparents, Joshua and Polly Brooks, came from their native state, Vermont, to Ohio in pioneer days, locating in Avon township.

Born in Vermont, James E. Brooks came with his parents to Lorain county when young, and lived for a number of years thereafter in Avon, where he was actively engaged for some time in mercantile pursuits, having a typical country store, at the same time serving his fellow-townsmen as justice of the peace. Mov- ing to Elyria in 1870, he was a resident of that city until his death. He married Eliza- beth Sweet, who was born and bred in Ver- mont, and came as a girl to Ohio with her parents, Waterman and Amy Sweet, who were among the very early settlers of Avon town- ship.

Acquiring his early education in the district schools, Walter E. Brooks remained in his na- tive township until 1870, when he came to Elyria to establish the agricultural implement and hardware business which he subsequently managed with unquestioned success for eight- een years. In 1888 he became identified with the Topliff & Ely Manufacturing Company, a business which he eventually absorbed, and is now its president and active head. During the period between 1890 and 1895, Mr. Brooks drilled many oil wells in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and was also financially inter- ested in Ohio oil fields for a number of years.

For the past two years Mr. Brooks has been especially active in the promotion of electric railways from Cleveland to Zanesville and Elyria. known as the Cleveland, Barberton,

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Coschocton and Zanesville Railway, of which he is vice-president. Since 1905 he has served as president of the Elyria Telephone Company, and is likewise president of the Elyria South- ern Telephone and Telegraph Company. Mr. Brooks has been very prominent, and is at the present time, in the promotion and building of telephone exchanges in villages and towns throughout New York state, and is a director of the Albany, New York, Telephone Com- pany, and of the Home Telephone Company, Niagara Falls, New York. He is officially connected with other organizations of impor- tance, being president of the American Con- struction and Trading Company, capitalized at $1,000,000, with headquarters in Albany, New York, and is a director of the Elyria National Bank. He is an extensive owner of real estate, having property of value in Elyria, Lorain and Toledo. For four years he served as president of the City Council, and is a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce and of the Country Club.

Mr. Brooks is very prominent in all branches of Masonry, being a thirty-second degree Mason. He is also a member and past exalted ruler of Elyria Lodge, No. 456, B. P. O. E.

Mr. Brooks married, in 1877, Fannie, daugh- ter of the late John A. and Caroline (Beers) Topliff. She passed to the higher life in 1893, leaving two children, namely: Margaret B., wife of Theodore E. Faxon, an attorney in Elyria, and now clerk of Lorain county ; and John Prentice, a member of the senior class at Cornell University. Mr. Brooks married second, in 1902, Marella, daughter of Profes- sor Noah K. Davis, of the University of West Virginia. Mr. Brooks and family are attend- ants of the Congregational church.

DAVID ELMORE HURLBURT, of Hartsgrove township, Ashtabula county, was born in Go- shen, Connecticut, December 26, 1835, a son of Erastus and Clarissa (Goodwin) Hurlburt. Erastus G. Hurlburt was born in Winchester, Connecticut, March 21, 1787, and came to Ohio in 1844, from Goshen, Connecticut ; he died one year later. He came to Erie by way of the Erie canal, and thence by boat to Fair- port, Ohio, and by wagon to Hartsgrove town- ship, settling on a farm of fifty acres. He married, December 16, 1812, Clarissa Good- win, who was born March 21, 1791, died De- cember 15, 1858, and their children were: Clarissa, born February 19, 1814, married Ben- jamin Norris, and died December 30, 1879;

Erastus B., born June 5, 1815, died March 14, 1818; Elizabeth, born February. 4, 1817, died March 12, 1855 ; Louisa, born August 5, 1818, married Reverend S. C. Freer (deceased) and lives in Mount Union, Iowa; Beldin G., born March 25, 1820, went to California with an ox team, in 1849, married Caroline Delano, and has served in California as state repre- sentative, and has been common pleas judge ; Edward G., born March 12, 1824, died in 1897 ; he was active in church work, was county commissioner twelve years, married Jane Bab- cock, 1851; Russell H., born April 21, 1826, died April 14, 1883, was a preacher and pre- siding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church, and had been a delegate to the general con- ference, and chaplain of the Twenty-ninth Ohio during the war; Jehiel B., born June 1, 1828, has been sheriff and county treasurer of Boone county, Iowa, and was a Union soldier during the war, now lives in Colorado; mar- ried (first) Eliza Bushnell and (second) El- mira Lloyd; Henry Clay, born August 19, 1830, died in 1905, married Laura Worth- ing; Ruth M., born July 1, 1833, died in 1901, married B. F. Seaton, ex-sheriff of Marion county, Iowa ; and David Elmore.

David Elmore Hurlburt came with his par- ents to Ohio when eight years of age. He enlisted in the Pennsylvania Thirty-eighth Regiment for three months, and re-enlisted September 28, 1861, as private, but with enough men to be a commissioned officer, and was at that time appointed first lieutenant, and he was promoted to rank of captain, April 13, 1862. He was wounded through the shoulder in the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, taken prisoner at Port Republic and held four months before exchanged on parole. He was in Salisbury, North Carolina, Belle Island and Libby prisons. Mr. Hurlburt received his dis- charge August 20, 1864.

He is a Master Mason, of Hartsgrove Lodge, No. 397, and he and his wife are mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church. He belongs to Windsor Post Grand Army of the Republic, and is a member of the County Sol- diers' Relief Commission, which office he has held several years. He has served many years as trustee and steward of the church. He is a prominent man in the community and takes an active interest in the welfare and growth of the township and county. In 1866 Mr. Hurlburt married Lucy D. Babcock, born April 9, 1843, and their children are: David G., born November 20, 1868, is an attorney,

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unmarried, and lives in Chicago, Illinois ; Ruth M., born November 2, 1872, married Dr. O. C. Robinson, lives in Colorado and has three children, Russell H., Natalia R. and Howard F. Robinson; Martha J., born September 2, 1874, married Robert Morgan and lives in Geneva, Ohio, has one child, Hugh F. Mor- gan ; Lydia C., born August 15, 1877, married P. M. Hodgman, a traveling, man, and lives in Cleveland; and Russell H., born September 22, 1880, died in 1890.

JOHN C. WARD, county surveyor of Lake county and long connected with railroad engi- neering in this section of the Western Reserve, is a native of Willoughby, Ohio, where he was born in the year 1856. He is a man of thor- ough and varied education, and has enjoyed an experience which also marks him as a man of decided practical ability. He concluded the first phase of his higher education by gradu- ating from Ohio State University in its liter- ary and scientific course. Mr. Ward's early ambitions were directed to the law and he made some progress in his studies, but after- ward entered the educational field to such ad- vantage that he was elected superintendent of schools at Willoughby, which office he retained for some four years. His Republicanism was also of such an active and pronounced type that he became clerk of the courts by favor of his party, and creditably served in that office for two terms of three years each.

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History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 53

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