USA > Ohio > History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II > Part 75
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the father from Alsace and the mother from Berlin, Germany. They came to the United States and to Defiance, Ohio, in their early lives, and after their marriage located on a farm there. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Branson are: John, in the hardware business in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Allan, in business in Wellington; and Edna, Carl and Frank, in the parental home. Mr. Branson is a member of the Masonic order, Wellington Lodge No. 127, Wellington Chapter No. 89, and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Tribe of Ben-Hur.
CHARLES P. GRANT is numbered among the agricultural residents of Conneaut township, and he was born in the house in which he now resides May 9, 1854. The history of his family is given in the sketch of Henry Grant else- where in this work. After a good educational training in the schools of Conneaut, Kings- ville and Austinburg, Mr. Grant prepared for a business life in the Eastman's Business Col- lege at Poughkeepsie, New York, but owing to the death of his brother Sidney about this time, he remained on the home farm with his mother instead of going into business as pre- viously planned. The homestead farm con- tains about fifty-three acres, and Mr. Grant is engaged in general farming there.
He married, in 1876, Elva Hiler, who bore him two children, Frederick G. and Bessie M. The son is unmarried and lives in New York City, where he is a captain in the Salvation Army. The daughter has taught in the schools of North Conneaut during the past five years. She is a member of the United Brethren church. Mrs. Elva Grant died on October 21, 1893, and on September 14, 1899, Mr. Grant married Hattie Isadore Chilson, who was born in Fairview, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1857. There are no children of this union. Mrs. Grant is a member of the Methodist church and of the Protected Home Circle. Mr. Grant is a member of the State Police.
PHINEAS MERRELL, one of the venerable and honored citizens of Painesville, where he is now enjoying that generous and grateful retirement and comfort which are the due reward for years of consecutive and productive industry, is a native of Lake county and a member of one of its well known pioneer families, of which he is here a representative in the third generation.
Mr. Merrell was born in Concord township,
Lake county, Ohio, on December 5, 1842, and is a son of Corell and Lura (Baker) Merrell. The father was a native of Connecticut, where he was born in the year 1810, and thus he was a lad of seven years when, in 1817, his parents, Phineas and Lucy Merrell, came from the old Nutmeg state to Ohio, making Lake county their destination. Phineas Merrell, Sr., and his brother Erastus purchased wild land in Concord township and paid for the same at the rate of two and one-half dollars an acre- twenty shillings, as the common expression was at that time. They both instituted the reclamation of their farms, which lay adjoin- ing, about one and one-half miles south of Painesville, which was then a little hamlet in the midst of the forest. Phineas, Sr., died when a young man and his widow subsequently became the wife of William Lee, with whom she lived on the farm mentioned until his death, when she removed to Painesville, where she passed the residue of her life, which was pro- longed to more than ninety years. Phineas
and Lucy Merrell had two sons-Corell and Lucy-and the latter remained on the home farm until the same was purchased by his brother, when he removed to Munson, Geauga county, where he continued to reside for a number of years. He finally removed to Lan- sing, the capital of the state of Michigan, and there he passed the residue of his life.
Corell Merrell was reared to maturity on the old homestead, and rendered his due quota of aid in its development, while in the mean- time he availed himself of such advantages as were afforded in the pioneer schools. As a young man he became associated with Truman Rust in the ownership and operation of the Concord furnace, one of the early manufactur- ing institutions of the county. In the same were manufactured stoves and plows, besides various other products. He finally purchased the interest of the other heirs in the old home- stead, located on the Center road, leading to Chardon, Geauga county, and also the adjoin- ing farm of his uncle, Erastus Merrell, of which mention has already been made. This gave to him a fine landed estate of 264 acres, and he made excellent improvements as the years passed, developing the homestead into one of the best farms of this favored section of the old Buckeye state. He there continued to maintain his home until his death, in 1897, at the venerable age of eighty-seven years.
At the age of thirty years, Corell Merrell was united in marriage to Miss Lura Baker,
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who was then twenty-two years of age. She was born in Concord township, in the year 1818, and was a daughter of Hosea and Betsey (Winchell) Baker, who were numbered among the very early settlers of that township, where the father died when nearly seventy years of age and the mother when past the age of three score and ten years. The Baker homestead was at Concord Center. Lura (Baker) Mer- rell died in 1882, about fifteen years prior to the death of her husband, and was sixty-four years of age when summoned to the life eternal. They became the parents of four children, of whom the eldest is Phineas, the immediate subject of this review; Arthur is a representative farmer of Concord township; Corell is engaged in the insurance business in the city of Cleveland, and Antoinette is the wife of Gillard S. Hodges, of Painesville.
Phineas Merrell, to whom this sketch is dedicated, was reared to manhood upon the old homestead, and his educational discipline in his youth was gained in the common schools of the locality and period. He was identified with the work and management of the home farm for a period of thirty-three years, and had the sole supervision of the same after his father had retired, owing to advancing years, with attendant infirmities. At the expiration of the period noted he sold his interest in the home- stead. no portion of which is now owned by members of the family, and he then, in 1897, removed to Painesville. He purchased an attractive home and about seven acres of land adjoining the corporate limits of the city on the south, and here he has since lived virtually retired, save from the attention that he has given to the raising, of fruits and garden truck, for which he has found a ready market, and in connection with which work he has found much of satisfaction. For the last ten years of his residence on the farm here he conducted a successful dairy business, maintaining an average herd of twenty milch cows and sup- plying milk and cream to the citizens of Painesville, where he had a representative patronage.
Though a stanch Democrat in his political allegiance, Mr. Merrell has been devoted to his family and his farming industry in past years, so that he had no desire for public office of any description. He was an adherent of the Republican party until the nomination of Cleveland as the presidential candidate of the Democratic party, when he transferred his sup-
port to the latter, whose policies as since de- fined have most nearly met the approval of his judgment.
In 1864 Mr. Merrell was united in marriage to Miss Harriet Fitch, and both were twenty- two years of age at the time. She was born in Mentor township, Lake county, and is a daugh- ter of Norman M. and Chloe Ann (Moore) Fitch, who were pioneers of that section of the county, whither they came from Connecticut and where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Merrell have one son, Frederick C., who is a city mail carrier in Painesville. He married Miss Edith Scoville and they have no children.
CHENEY J. MOORE was born at his present home in Mantua Center on April 11, 1839, and he is a member of one of the first families to seek a home in this part of the Western Re- serve. In his early boyhood he attended the district school nearest his home, was then in school at Kent for one winter, and completed his educational training in the Hiram Eclectic Institute, of which James A. Garfield was then the president. Leaving that institution of learning in 1859 he returned to the farm, and here he has since lived and labored.
Jason Moore, the father of Cheney J., was born in Southwick, Massachusetts, August 31, 1798, and was one of the old-time physicians of this section of the state. He was one of the seven children born to Samuel and Eunice Root (Gillett) Moore. Samuel Moore was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, May 24, 1764, and was a son of Joseph Moore, who lived in Grandby, that state. Samuel and Eunice Moore and their seven children drove through to Mantua in 1806 in a wagon drawn by oxen and a span of horses, and they brought with them a cow. Six weeks were consumed in this journey, the family in the meantime sleep- ing in their wagon, and en route they passed through Warren when it contained but one house. This section of the country was then a dense wilderness, infested with hungry wolves and other wild animals, and only a few houses here and there marked its progress toward civilization. Perley Moore, one of the daughters of this family, is recorded in the annals of the early history of this community as furnishing the pillow of feathers with which Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered in this state. Samuel Moore died on November 3, 1816, and was laid to rest with others of the
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early and honored pioneers of Portage county, while on October 10, 1850, his wife Eunice followed him to the grave.
Jason Moore, one of the seven children mentioned above, was a boy of eight at the time of the westward emigration of his parents in 1806, and he was prominently identified with much of the early history of Portage county and the Western Reserve. He helped to bury the first white person who died in this section. Studying medicine in the office of Dr. Deo Wolf, of Ravenna, he became a com- petent and successful physician and practiced in his own town and surrounding country for fifty years and more. He married on Novem- ber 20, 1833. Christiana Ingell, who was born in Chester, Massachusetts, March 27, 1808, and both are now deceased, the husband dying on March 23, 1887, and the wife on February 18, 190I.
Cheney J. Moore married on November 20, 1862, in Mantua, Adelucia B. Ferguson. Her father, Alva Ferguson, was born in Blanford, Massachusetts, and married for his first wife Amanda Doolittle, and for his second, Betsy Hawkins, she being the mother of Mrs. Moore. Her paternal grandfather, John Ferguson, died in 1814 from wounds received in the war of 1812. Her maternal grandfather, John Haw- kins, born in Connecticut, April 20, 1775, mar- ried Acenath Pease, and they came from En- field, Connecticut, to Mantua, Ohio, many years before the birth of Mrs. Moore. Three children have been born to Cheney J. and Ade- lucia Moore. Henry L., the eldest, was born October 9, 1863, on the old Moore farm in Portage county, and on July 5. 1905, he mar- ried Addie Gardener. Frank C. Moore, born October 27, 1866, married on June 1. 1898, at Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Carrie L. Dean, and their two children are Bernard L., born May 9. 1899, and Treva E., born July 20, 1903. Amaret A. Moore, born January 19, 1875, mar- ried William N. Herbert on February 14, 1900, and their three children are: John Cheney, born December 5, 1900; Maud Ama- ret. April 18, 1904 : and Roger William, March 6. 1907. Mr. Moore politically was reared in the faith of the Republican party, but he has since taken up the cause of Prohibition. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist church.
CHARLES LAMSON .- Among the industrious, enterprising and persevering men of Ashtabula county that have chosen agriculture as their life occupation, and in the prosecution of their
independent calling have met with a substan- tial reward, is Charles Lamson, of Pierpont township. He was born December 10, 1849. in Fowler, Trumbull county, Ohio, a son of Willis Lamson. He comes of pioneer ancestry, being a grandson of Benjamin and Theda Lamson, who migrated to the Western Reserve from New York state to Ohio in 1822, locating in Trumbull county when the country round- about was in its virgin wildness.
Benjamin Lamson made an overland journey from New York to his new home on the fron- tier, coming from Buffalo up the Lake beach with an ox team, a horse being hitched ahead of his oxen. He bought an extensive tract of wild land from the Connecticut Land Com- pany, and from the dense forest improved a large farm. He was noted as a hunter and a fisher, being expert with both the gun and the rod. He died at the age of fifty-seven years, in Fowler, Ohio, having lived a widower about three years. He and his wife reared three children, namely: Willis, father of Charles; Milo, a farmer in Trumbull county, married Martha Cook, of Fowler; and Milton, also a farmer in the same county, married, and reared two children.
Willis Lamson was born March 15. 1813, in Onondaga county, New York, and as a boy of nine years came with his parents to Ohio, and received his education in the district schools of Trumbull county. He began preach- ing in the circuit of Trumbull county, for the denomination of the United Brethren, and con- tinued his religious labors until eighty years of age, laboring with zeal and fervor. In 1850 he settled in Pennsylvania and remained there until 1890, when he returned to Ohio, settling on a farm of eighty acres in Pierpont town- ship, where he lived until his death, in August, 1906. He was a very strong Republican in his political views, and heartily opposed to secret societies of all kinds. He married Nancy F. Greenwood, of Trumbull county, and she died in Pennsylvania, about 1866. Ten children were born of their union, as follows: Sarah, wife of Daniel Dain, of Beaver, Pennsylvania, has eight children; Wade, who died in 1898. married first Achsa Allen, and married second Delia Ross, having by each marriage two chil- dren ; Penelapa, who married Francis Hewitt, died. in 1904, in Pennsylvania, leaving, ten children ; Mary, who died in October, 1908. married first Jerome Brooks, by whom she had four children, and married second Robert Martin, by whom she had one child ; Theeda,
Mas Sena Samson Charles damjan
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wife of Edson Norton, of Pierpont, Ohio, be- came the mother of one child, who died at the age of sixteen years; Harriet, wife of Luther Norton, of Trumbull county, a brother of Edson Norton, has three children ; Jerome, liv- ing in Trumbull county, married Phebe Stil- son, and they have five children ; Viola, wife of Daniel Hazeltine, of Conneaut, has four chil- dren : Eveline, residing in Oklahoma, married first Charles Little, by whom she had five chil- dren, and married second B. F. Allen ; and Charles, the special subject of this sketch, who is the fifth child in succession of birth.
Charles Lamson received his early education in the district school, and began his active career as teamster for the proprietor of a saw mill. After his marriage he lived for three years in Vienna, Trumbull county, then located on his present farm in Pierpont township, Ash- tabula county, buying at first but fifty-six acres of his present estate. He has since added to it by purchase, owning now one hundred and eighteen acres of as good land as can be found in this section of the Reserve, and on it has made the greater part of the valuable improve- ments, having been very fortunate in his operations.
Mr. Lamson married, December 30, 1871. Rosaline Norton, of Vienna, who was born December 25. 1853, a daughter of Merritt and Diadama (Cratchly) Norton. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lamson, namely: Cora, born January 13, 1873, living in Wayne county, Ohio, married George Hill, of Richmond, Ohio; Lettie lived but fifteen years; Archie, born March 24, 1877, owning the greater share of a large mill in Pierpont. married Jennie Turner, and they have three" children, Lloyd, Lois, and Clara ; Merritt, born August 7, 1880, an employe in his brother's mill, married Maud Byrnes of Pierpont, and they have one child, Willis : Ruby, born March 15, 1884. married first Charley Smith, of Pierpont, by whom she had two children, and married second Virgil Case, and they have one child : and Elta, born September 21. 1887, is the wife of Edna Turner, a Pierpont farmer, and has one child. Politically Mr. Lamson is a stanch adherent of the Republican party, and religiously hoth he and his wife are active members of the Congregational church, and belong to the local Grange.
JAMES FULTON SCOVILLE was born in Derby, Connecticut, November 13. 1843. He obtained his educational training in the grammar school
at Springfield, Massachusetts, and shortly after his graduation therefrom in the spring of 1862 he enlisted for the Civil war with the Forty-sixth Massachusetts volunteers and later with the Eighth Massachusetts volunteers. During his military career of two years he took part in the hard fought battles of Gettys- burg, Walnut Creek and others, and on leav- ing the army came directly to the Western Reserve of Ohio in 1865 and secured work on the farm of G. H. Kent. But during the past thirty years, or covering the period of his residence in Mantua, he has worked as a brick and stone mason.
Mr. Scoville is a son of Leveritt and Betsy (Durand) Scoville, and was one of their five children. Their home was at Derby in New Haven county, Connecticut. He married on December 22, 1870, in Mantua, Lucy Eliza Root, who was born August 21, 1848, on the old Root farm in Mantua, and she attended the district schools and the Hiram Institute, having been a pupil of that institution the first year after it became a college, a Mr. Thomp- son being president of the institute and Gar- field the president of the college. Her father, Henry Root, was born in Aurora, Ohio, July 7. 1825, and on September 29, 1847, in Bain- bridge, Geauga county, this state, he married Ann Eliza Kent, a daughter of Gamaliel and Eliza (Granger) Kent, from Suffield, Connect- icut. Jeremiah Root, Jr., the paternal grand- father of Mrs. Scoville, was born November I, 1795, in Massachusetts, and coming to the Western Reserve in Ohio, he married on Jan- uary 28, 1825, Huldah, a daughter of Ebe- nezer and Mary Horner. They began their married life in a little log cabin in the south- western part of Mantua township, located on land which Ebenezer Horner drew from the Connecticut Land Company and sold to Jere- miah Root in 1807, and which afterward be- came known as the old Root farm.
This Jeremiah Root, the grandfather of Mrs. Scoville, was a son of another Jeremiah, who was born July 7, 1765, and came with his family to Ohio in 1806 and located near Aurora in the southern part of the township. His father also bore the name of Jeremiah Root, and was a descendant of Gideon Jere- miah, who married Lucretia Page, a daughter of Isaac and Abigail (Barnes) Page. This last Jeremiah Root was a son of Gideon Root and his wife Huldah, a daughter of Philip and Sarah (Lamphear) Nelson, and Gideon was a son of John Root. Jr., who married Anna, a daughter of William and Martha
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(Morley) Loomis. John, Jr., was a son of John and Mary Page, the latter a daughter of Josiah and Sarah (Dumbleton) Leonard, while John, Sr., was a son of Thomas Root.
Two sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Scoville, Neal Nelson, on September 29, 1872, and Clarence Joy, on December 23, 1874. Both attended the schools of Mantua and Hiram, and the elder son is connected with the Erie Railroad. He married in Cleveland, Myra King. Clarence has taken up farming, and on September 8, 1901, in Mantua, he married Retta Jean Bissell, and they have a daughter aged four years.
GEORGE A. BATES .- As one of the able and popular officials of Lake county, Mr. Bates, the efficient county recorder of deeds, is well entitled to consideration in this publication, which takes cognizance of the generic and biographical history of the various counties constituting the original Western Reserve.
George A. Bates was born in Dryden town- ship. Tompkins county, New York, on No- vember 29, 1860, and is a son of Nelson L. and Mary (Murphy) Bates, the former of whom was a carpenter by trade and vocation and one who went forth in defense of the Union in the Civil war, in which he was a member of a regiment of New York volunteer infantry. He died in 1906. In 1865 George A. Bates came with his mother to Ohio, and located in Geauga county, whence they re- moved to Painesville in 1873. His mother later became the wife of Judson W. Haley, and they now reside in Burton, Geauga county, Ohio.
The early educational training of George A. Bates was secured in the public schools of Geauga county. Upon the day which marked his twentieth birthday anniversary, Mr. Bates engaged in teaching in the district schools of Geauga county, and he followed the pedagogic profession for three years, with marked suc- cess. He then returned to Painesville, where he began reading law in the office of the well known firm of Burrows & Bosworth. He came soon to a full realization of how slow and uncertain could be advancement in the legal profession, and under these conditions he took up the study of shorthand or stenog- raphy, in which he became proficient without having recourse to other instruction than that afforded by text books. In 1886 he was ap- pointed the first official court stenographer for Lake county, and he continued incumbent of this office about five years. In the meanwhile
his health had become much impaired, and he found it expedient to turn liis attention to some other vocation. He accordingly engaged in the real estate and insurance business, in which he continued until 1904, when he sus- tained a severe injury of the spine, the result being the almost total loss of the use of his legs. After nearly two years of treatment he recovered sufficiently to resume his operations as a dealer in real estate, though it was neces- sary for him to utilize his wheel chair in show- ing property, even when utilizing a horse ve- hicle for portions of the various trips made. His experience in the real estate business with the incidental and very frequent investigation of the records of titles, made him familiar with the records of this order in Lake county, and thus when the county recorder was sud- denly removed by death he was recognized as a most eligible successor in this office. His choice was that of the voters of the county. Under these conditions an appeal to the citi- zens of the county gave him a gratifying ma- jority over four other candidates in the pri- mary election and in the regular election which followed he has reason to feel proud of the fact that of about fifty candidates voted for he led the entire ticket in the supporting popular vote. He has given a most satisfactory administra- tion of the affairs of the office, of which he has been in tenure since November, 1908, and has made many improvements in the matter of sys tematizing the work and making the record; more readily accessible. His son is his deputy, and he also has one other assistant in his office.
In politics Mr. Bates is aligned as a stanch advocate of the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor and he has taken a lively interest in public affairs of a local order. especially in all that has touched the general welfare of his home city. He served two terms as a member of the city council. and in 1903-4 was mayor of Painesville, having received more votes when elected to this office than have ever before or since been received by any candidate for the mayoralty of this city. As chief executive of the municipal government his policy was one of progressiveness and liberality, but marked by due conservatism in the matter of public expenditures. While a member of the city council he was chairman of the city commis- sion on water supply, in which connection he was chosen to go to New York and close con- tracts for the purchase of the water works system in Painesville. Though this involved an expenditure of one hundred and fifty thou-
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sand dollars he was given full authority and satisfactorily closed about twenty-five different contracts incidental to this noteworthy public improvement. For a period of about six years Mr. Bates was secretary of the Lake County Agricultural Society.
In the year 1886 was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Bates to Miss Nellie E. Sawyer, of Chardon, Geauga county, and they have two children,-Morton O., who is his father's deputy in the office of the county recorder, and Zola E., who remains at the parental home, one of the popular young ladies in the social life of the community.
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