USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920 > Part 66
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Herman Plesenton Jeffers got his early schooling in the rural schools of his neighborhood and when he was fourteen years of age, the family moved to another farm one and a half miles west of Beallsville, enabling him to attend the village school for the following two years. At the age of sixteen he began teaching school in the adjoining county of Belmont. After teaching in the rural schools for four years, at the age of twenty, he became principal of the village school of Glencoe, Belmont county, and the following year was made superin- tendent of schools for the township of Richland in Belmont county, and thus was one of the pioneer township supervisors of rural schools for this State, starting a system which was generally adopted throughout the State some fifteen years later. From 1900 to 1904 he was superintendent of schools-one year at New Baltimore, Stark county, Ohio, and three years in Gnadenhutten, Ohio. During all this period from the time he began teaching until 1901, he did work in Scio, Mt. Union, and Wooster Colleges, during the spring and summer terms, first as student and later as teacher.
In 1904 he entered the life insurance profession with the Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany of New York in Warren Ohio, and January 1st, 1906, became superintendent of agents under the J. C. Trask Agency of the Northwestern Life Insurance Company in north- eastern Ohio.
In November, 1906, he associated himself with the newly organized life insurance com- pany, The Midland Mutual Life Insurance Company of Columbus, Ohio, as an assistant to Lot H. Brown in organizing the agency force for that company. This connection with The Midland Mutual Life Insurance Company resulted in the formation of the partnership of Tice & Jeffers in 1909, which has since that time handled the agency work for that company in southeastern Ohio.
On August 8th, 1901, Mr. Jeffers was united in marriage with Eva Hicks of Brook- ville, Pennsylvania. Of this marriage three children were born, namely, William Hicks, Charles Andrew and Margaret Jeffers. Eva Hicks Jeffers died in December, 1909, and on September 2, 1911, Mr. Jeffers was again united in marriage with Bertha Louise Petry, who was born in the Moravian settlement of Gnadenhutten, Tuscarawas county. Ohio, and who
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graduated from Ohio State University in June, 1911. To their union three children have been born, namely, Herman Plesenton, jr., Walter Wilson and Elizabeth.
Mr. Jeffers is a thirty-second degree Mason, is a member of the Columbus Athletic Club. Scioto Country Club, the Kiwanis Club, the Columbus Auto Club, and a member of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. He has been twiee president of the Alumni Associa- tion of the Sigma Nus of Columbus and was second president of the local Kiwanis Club.
WILLIAM NEIL KING. William Neil King, for many years one of the sterling figures in Columbus financial and commercial life, was born in Cineinnati April 1st, 1849, the second son of Thomas Worthington King and Elizabeth Jane Neil King. The mother was the second daughter of William and Hannah Neil-William Neil, distinguished by his excep- tional service in the development of the infant capital and its transportation facilities, and Hannah Neil revered for her progressive philanthropy, marked today by the Home of the Friendless which bears her name. The father, Thomas Worthington King, was a grandson of Rufus King, a member of the Continental Congress, one of the framers of the United States Constitution, first United States Senator from New York, Minister to England under Wash- ington and John Quiney Adams, and also a grandson of Thomas Worthington, Governor and first United States Senator from Ohio.
William Neil King received his early education in Canterbury, England, in the Columbus publie sehools, the Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N. H., and Harvard University from which he graduated in 1871. He was a member of the Harvard Hasty Pudding Club, the A. D. Club, the Institute of 1770 and the D. K. E. fraternity. He was a fine French scholar, speaking the language fluently, the old French as well as the modern, also had a useful knowledge of Spanish and was a persistent student of business, social and political problems.
In September, 1872, he entered the banking house of Andrews & Co., Place Vendome, Paris, France, and later was sent by the firm to manage a branch house in Boston. At the dissolution of the firm Mr. King went to Cineinnati and entered the banking business, first with the First National Bank and in 1879 with the Commercial National Bank, of which he was eashier.
In 1885, owing to ill health, Mr. King resigned his post and went to San Diego, Cali- fornia, where, as he somewhat regained his health, he conducted a banking business. He was a director of the First National Bank of San Diego, and was associated with the syndicate building the Mexican Central railroad from El Paso to the City of Mexico. He also participated in the building of braneh lines of the Sante Fe system in southern Cali- fornia.
It was in 1887 that Mr. King married Mary Horton, daughter of Thayer and Elizabeth R. Horton, of Pomeroy, and together they went back into the wonderful west, where for a time they made their home. Business and other interests recalled them to Columbus, where Mr. King beeame interested in many business enterprises. He was a director of the Seioto Valley Traetion Co., a director of the State Savings Bank and Trust Company, president of the board of trustees of the Hannah Neil Mission of Columbus, a member of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, a life member of the Young Men's Mereantile Library Association, of Cineinnati, a member of the Columbus Club, the Scioto Country Club, the State Street Sehool Association of Columbus, a charter member of the Harvard Club of Central Ohio, a member of the University Club, of New York, and had been for many years a member of the Queen City, University and Literary Clubs of Cincinnati.
Before the facilities of travel were what they now are Mr. King went to Alaska and through the Yosemite and Yellowstone parks, later visited the Grand Canyon, explored New Mexico and California and travelled in Old Mexico, Cuba and Canada, thus supplementing the travel that he had begun in his youth in Europe. Wherever he made his home he identified himself with the social and educational societies and the list of them in the several places of his residence would be long. He was an Episcopalian by inheritance and choice, and a few years before his death, erected a window in Trinity Episcopal Church, Columbus, in memory of his mother and his brother's family. The window is a beautiful work of art de- signed by Maitland Armstrong, of New York.
Mr. King died at his residence, 52 Jefferson avenue, Columbus, Monday, July 2, 1917, and is survived by his wife and two daughters, Mrs. Thayer B. Farrington and Mary Alsop King.
William N. Kun
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William Neil King was an illustration of the man who is not spoiled by wealth and social position. Friends of his boyhood remember him as a manly, high thinking, courageous fellow who was devoted to natural history, forestry and all kinds of athletics and manly sports, but who never allowed his love for these things to interfere with his work in hand, whether it happened to be his school or his business. He was a man who could always give a reason for the faith that was in him and, all in all, was a fine example of American man- hood.
FOSTER COPELAND. It is a pleasure to review the lives of those who have at once been successful in their business undertakings and, as citizens and neighbors, have won the lasting regard of all. Such a man is Foster Copeland, banker and man of affairs and an honored citizen of Columbus.
Mr. Copeland is a native of Indiana, but descended from a pioneer Ohio family. His paternal grandfather, Josiah Copeland, settle I in Zanesville in 1810 and was the first mayor of that city. He was also elected a member of the Ohio Legislature from Muskingum county. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, and he was a soldier in the war of 1812. His son, Guild Copeland, began business as a merchant and banker in Kenton, this State, and afterwards was a banker in Evansville, Indiana, and New York City. He married Eliza Jane Foster, who was a native of Indiana, a danghter of Judge Mathew Watson Foster, an Indiana pioneer, and a sister to the late Colonel John W. Foster, diplomatist, who was at different times United States minister to Mexico, Russia and Spain, and Secretary of State during President Benjamin Harrison's administration, and whose daughter is the wife of Robert Lansing, late Secretary of State in President Wilson's cabinet.
Foster Copeland, son of Guild and Eliza J. (Foster) Copeland, was born March 9, 1858, at Evansville, Indiana. He attended the public schools and the Polytechnic Institute at Brooklyn, N. Y., also studied at Mt. Pleasant, Amherst, Massachusetts. He began his business career as an errand boy in his father's offiee in 1876. He came to Columbus in 1882 and entered the office of H. C. Godman & Company, as bookkeeper. When that company was re-organized into a stock company in 1889 he was elected its treasurer and so continned for a period of ten years, giving his employers high-grade service in every par- ticular and enjoying their confidence and trust from the first.
Mr. Copeland entered the field of banking in 1898 as president of the old City Deposit Bank of Columbus, which in 1905 became the City National Bank. He has continued as president to the present time, the rapid growth of this popular and sound institution being due in great measure to his able and judicious management. He is regarded as one of the best informed men in central Ohio on all phases of the banking business and is far-seeing and conservative. His activities as a banker and general business man have contributed to the growth of Columbus, whose interests he has ever sought to promote in legitimate ways. He is president of the Columbus Forge & Iron Company, vice-president of the Forest Realty Com- pany and a director of the Columbus & Xenia Railway Company, the Columbus Pharmaeal Com- pany, the Midland Mutual Life Insurance Company, and of the Columbus Varnish Company. His timely counsel and sound judgment have contributed to the success of all these concerns.
In civic affairs Mr. Copeland has long been active and influential. For a period of five years he served as president of the Franklin county jury commission. He has been for ten years a trustee of the Columbus Teachers' Pension Fund, president of the Columbus Academy, president of the Columbus School for Girls, treasurer of the Anti-Saloon League of America, treasurer of the Columbus Home for the Aged, and president of the Columbus Children's Hospital. He was for ten years president of the Columbus Young Men's Christian Association, and is a member of the Ohio State Young Men's Christian Association Com- mittee. He is a member of the official board of the Broad Street Presbyterian Church. He belongs to the National Service Commission and to the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion War Work Committee, and was treasurer of Columbus Chapter of the Fatherless Children of France. At the present writing he is treasurer for the joint Y. M. C. A .- Y. W. C. A. $300,000 fund, the Victory reconstruction fund of the Ohio Sunday schools, the New Era fund for the Synod of Ohio and for the Salvation Army collections in Ohio.
These multifarions services speak the character of Mr. Copeland better than the words of anv biographer. Although otherwise a very busy man, he has year after year taken upon himself at the solicitation of others, these exta duties, cheerfully doing what he could in
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aid of church, charitable and worthy public causes. To many of them he has given largely, not only of his time, but also of his means. In his church (the Broad street Presbyterian) his services have been, and are, of an exceptional character. No good enterprise has lacked his active support or, where it was needed, his financial aid. For forty-five years he has been a Sunday school worker and for years he has taught a large class of men from various walks of life.
On January 26, 1893, Mr. Copeland married Martha H. Thomas, of Columbus, and they have the following children: Alfred Thomas, Eleanor Foster, Martha Hoge and Foster, jr. Mr. Copeland is a thirty-third degree Mason and belongs to the Columbus Country Club.
JOHN PROUTY MCCUNE. For many years John Prouty McCune, a retired manu- facturer of Columbus, has been one of the active men of affairs of the Capital City. He did not begin his career with the get-rich-quick idea, but sought to advance himself along steady and legitimate lines, so shaping his course that each succeeding year found him further advanced and with a wider circle of friends.
Mr. McCune was born in Columbus, January 1, 1857. He is a son of the late Jonas MeCune, for many years one of the leading merchants and best known citizens of Columbus in her earlier history.
John P. MeCune grew to manhood in his native city and here he has been contented to spend his life. He received his education in the public schools and high school, later entered Yale University, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1878. In August of that year he entered his father's business house in Columbus, with which he was identified until December, 1894. However, in the meantime he engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements here, the factory being later removed to Newark, Ohio, where it was known as the Newark Machine Company, of which Mr. McCune was president, and which, under his able and judicious management it grew by leaps and bounds, its products continuing to find a very ready market owing to their superior quality. Expert machinists and artisans were employed and only high grade work turned out. It was in 1911 that the Newark Machine Company began to manufacture motor trucks. Mr. McCune continued as president of the company until August, 1917, when he resigned and disposed of his interests in the same. In 1920 he was appointed by Mayor Thomas as Director of Public Safety, where he is serving at this writing.
Mr. MeCune is a member of Goodale Lodge No. 372, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he was master in 1889. He also belongs to Temple Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, of which he was high priest in 1890; also belongs to Mt. Vernon Commandery, Knights Templar, of which he was eminent commander in 1888. He was grand commander of the Ohio Grand Commandery K. T. in 1895. He belongs to Scioto Consistory, Scottish Rite, of which he has been commander since 1900. He received the honorary Scottish Rite thirty- third degree in 1897, and the active Scottish Rite thirty-third degree for Ohio in 1911. He belongs to Aladdin Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of which he was potentate from 1893 to 1903. He is one of the most active and best known Masons in the State and has been for twenty years, and is influential in Masonic affairs throughout the State. His exemplary life among his fellow men indicates that he has always tried to live up to the sublime precepts taught by this time-honored order.
On September 25, 1879, Mr. McCune married Fannie Stokes, a daughter of Horace M. and Ann ( Partial) Stokes of Lebanon, Ohio. Mrs. McCune passed to her eternal rest in 1909, leaving the following children; Louise, a graduate of Rhyeon-Hudson Seminary, New York : William Prouty, a graduate of Yale University, Bachelor of Arts, 1906, and also a post-graduate of that university, with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in 1909, taught at Yale until 1915, then entered the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where he was ordained to the Episcopal ministry, and is now pastor of St. Ignatins Church of that city ; John Stokes, third of our subject's children, was graduated from Yale University with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1907, and was chemist in the United States government general laboratory, then in the food laboratory, later accepting a position as chemist for the Ohio State board of health; he entered the officers' training camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis. Indiana, at the time of America's entrance in the world war, and was commis- sioned second lieutenant of infantry, then promoted to first lieutenant and transferred to the
John J. Chrster
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chemieal warfare corps and put in charge of gas instruction at Camp Taylor, Ky., as chief gas officer ; Dorothy, fourth ehild of Mr. and Mrs. McCune, was graduated from Engleside Semin- ary for Girls in Connectient, in 1912, then married Reginald O'Dunhill of Toronto, Canada, in which city they now reside; Donald Lumley, youngest of our subjeet's children, was edueated in the publie schools of Columbus and a private school in Wiseonsin, and he is now (1919) in the United States army as a member of the Fourth regiment, motor meehanies, stationed in Franee. These children have all been given excellent educational advantages, which they have made the most of and are all well started out in life.
The MeCune family is one of the best known and most highly respected in Columbus.
JOHN JONAS CHESTER. It is a fine thing to be able to say that we are descended from one of the sterling first families of America, especially if in the annals of the family there is nothing of which one might be ashamed. The record of the Chesters in this country is that of a people who have led useful and honorable lives, the various members of which have done much to further the interests of their fellow men in various ways.
One of the descendants of this exeellent old family in Columbus is John Jonas Chester, who is of the third generation of this name in Ohio and of the seventh generation of his branch of the Chesters in America.
The Chester family was established in the new world prior to the year 1663 by Captain Samuel Chester, an Englishman, who commanded the brigantine "Adventure," and was captured by the French. He settled in the east parish of New London, Connecticut, (now ealled Groton), where he owned large tracts of land. He was the direct ancestor of six generations removed of John J. Chester. John Chester, son of Captain Samuel Chester, married Mary Starr, a daughter of Thomas Starr, who was the second son of Hannah Brew- ster, the youngest daughter of Jonathan Brewster, the eldest son of Elder William Brewster, "Chief of the Pilgrims," and one of the passengers on the "Mayflower," which landed at Plymouth Roek in 1620. Simeon Chester, the first, who was the second son of John and Mary (Starr) Chester, removed to Truro, Nova Scotia, at the out break of the Revolutionary War. His loyalty to the colonies caused him to sacrifice his valuable property in Nova Scotia and to return to Conneetieut. However, his loyalty was recognized by Congessional aets in 1789 and in 1801, which aets accorded him nine hundred and sixty aeres of land in three separate traets, situated in Ohio, one of which was located in Franklin county, the other two in Lieking county. His eldest son, Elias Chester, the Ohio pioneer, settled on the Franklin county traet, in Truro township, which township he named in honor of his father's Nova Scotia home. The Lieking county traets were settled by Simeon Chester, the second, and the second son of Simeon Chester, sr., who was born March 20, 1717, and who married Anna Higby.
Austin Eaton Chester, son of Simeon Chester, the second, and Anna (Higby) Chester, was born at Groton, Connectieut, July 16, 1821, and was five years old when he came with his parents to Ohio. Here he grew to manhood and attended school, being graduated from Granville College. He subsequently became a successful merehant and manufacturer at Newark, Ohio, where his death occurred January 10, 1891. In 1851 he married Cordelia MeCune, of Battleboro, Vermont, who died in 1881. She was a sister of the late Jonas M. MeCune of Columbus, and a cousin by marriage of William C. Whitney of Ohio, seere- tary of the navy in President Cleveland's eabinet. Her grandfather, Captain William MeCune, raised a company in Battleboro, Vt., in 1776 and served throughout the Revolu- tionary War.
John Jonas Chester, son of Austin Eaton Chester and Cordelia (MeCune) Chester, was born at Newark, Ohio, June 18, 1860. After attending the common sehools he was a student at Wootser (Ohio) University, later studied at Lafayette College at Easton, Pennsyl- vania, from which institution he was graduated in 1882, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. His Alma Mater conferred the degree of Master of Arts on him in 1885.
Deeiding upon a legal earcer he read law with the law firm of Converse. Booth & Keating of Columbus, and was admitted to the Bar in 1884, and in that year entered the praetiee of his profession in Columbus. He began as a general lawyer, but gradually drifted into corporation law and for a number of years he has confined his praetiec to this branch, in which he is now regarded as an authority and in which he has built up a large and luera- tive praetiee.
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Mr. Chester is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, also Belongs to the Benjamin Franklin Chapter of Sons of the American Revolution, of which he was at one time president, He belongs to the Columbus Athletic Club, the Columbus Country Club, the Masonic order, in which he has attained the thirty-second degrec, belonging to the Scottish Rite, Knights Templar, and the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a mem- ber of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
On August 10, 1894, Mr. Chester was united in marriage with Harrict E. Lisle, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To their union three children have been born, named as follows: John, the sixth, born August 10, 1898. He attended college at Kenyon and Amherst, and in the summer of 1917 enlisted in the headquarters troop of the 37th (Ohio) Division, U. S. A., and is at this writing, February, 1919, a sergeant serving with his division in France.
Jeanette L., born September 10, 1900, graduated from the Columbus School for Girls and is now enrolled in Bishothorpe Manor, Bethlehem, Pa.
Catherine Louise, born June 9, 1903, is a student in the Columbus School for Girls.
Mr. Chester is one of the progressive citizens of Columbus in civic affairs, always ready to lend a helping hand to movements having as their object the general public welfare.
CLARENCE DEWEY LAYLIN. One of the most successful young lawyers of Colum- bus is Clarence Dewey Laylin. At the outset of his career he realized that there was no royal road to success in the legal profession, so he went to work earnestly and diligently to advance himself and has continued to apply himself closely and honestly, therefore he is mounting the ladder of achievement gradually and surely.
Mr. Laylin was born at Norwalk, Ohio, August 29, 1882 and is a descendant of one of the pioneers of Huron county, this State, his grandfather. John Laylin, having settled there in the spring of 1811. He was a native of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, where his birth occurred on May 22, 1791. He came to Ohio just prior to the War of 1812, with a group of pioneers whose efforts to establish a settlement were frustrated by the hostility of the Indians during that war. After the war, in which he served as a soldier, he returned to Huron county.
He married Olive Clark, in 1818, after which they settled on a farm near Norwalk. His wife and two children dying in 1841, he was married a second time, in 1847, his last wife being Mrs. Mary (Weyburn) Slates. Her death occurred on April 26, 1877, and ten days later, April 26th, he followed her to the grave at an advanced age.
The parents of the subject of this sketch, Lewis C. and Frances Lattimer (Dewey) Laylin, were natives of Norwalk, Ohio, where they spent their childhood and attended the common schools. The father is now a prominent attorney and citizen of Columbus, where he is regarded as a leader in civic and political life. As secretary of state for the common- wealth of Ohio for three terms he made a brilliant record. He was also chairman of the codifying commission of 1910, and assistant secretary of the interior of United States.
Clarence D. Laylin attended the public schools of Norwalk, in which city he spent his boyhood, and he was graduated from the high school there in 1899. Ile then took the course in Ohio State University and was graduated there with the class of 1904, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Deciding to follow in the footsteps of his father in a profes- sional way, he began reading law while taking his classical course, and after completing his literary studies he entered the law department of Ohio State University, from which he was grad- uated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1906. In that year he was admitted to the Bar, and in a short time after his admission he was appointed chief elerk in the office of the attorney general of Ohio, Wade II. Ellis, and he has been identified with the attorney general's office in some capacity ever since, at one time as second assistant attorney general. Siner 1915 he has been what is termed special counsel in that office. He has also been professor of law in the College of Law, Ohio State University, a chair which he has filled most faithfully and acceptably.
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