USA > Ohio > Knox County > Past and present of Knox County, Ohio, Vol. II > Part 26
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Mr. Smith was married on June 24, 1908, to Ferne Miller, daughter of William and Mary ( Payne) Miller, her father being a prominent dry goods merchant of Centerburg.
Politically, Mr. Smith is a Republican and he is active in public affairs, endorsing and supporting all progressive movements. He has filled many of the local offices and is at present a member of the town council and school board. As a public servant he has discharged his every duty in a faithful and conscientious manner, to the satisfaction of all the people.
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Fraternally, Mr. Smith is a member of Bloomfield Lodge No. 422, Free and Accepted Masons, and he and his wife are members of Manila Chapter No. 100, Eastern Star. He is a member of Hawthorne Lodge No. 228, Knights of Pythias, and the Sons of Veterans. He and his wife belong to the Methodist Episcopal church, and he has been superintendent of the Sun- day school for a number of years, succeeding his father. He is also a mem- ber of the official board of the church. He and his estimable wife are prom- inent in local social circles. They have a pleasant home and are most affable and hospitable, numbering their friends only by the limits of their acquaint- ance.
ARTHUR W. BROWN, D. D. S.
To attain a worthy citizenship by a life that is always honored and respected even from childhood deserves more than mere mention. It is no easy task to resist the many temptations of youth and early manhood and plant a character in the minds and hearts of associates that will remain an unstained figure for all time. One may take his place in public life through some vigorous stroke of public policy, and even remain in the hearts of friends and neighbors, but to take the same position by dint of the practice of an upright life and without a craving for exaltation and popularity is worthy of the highest praise and commendation. Arthur W. Brown, of Centerburg, recognized throughout Knox county as one of the leading dentists of the younger professional fraternity in this locality, has won the honor and respect of the people here since casting his lot among them a few years ago, not be- cause of the vigorous training of his special talents, but because of his daily life, passed upon in the light of real true manhood.
Doctor Brown was born on September 5, 1881, in Maple Rapids, Michi- gan. He is the son of D. D. and Isabelle (Frazier) Brown, both of Scotch ancestry; neither ever became residents of Ohio. The father is deceased. having died when his son, Arthur W., was only seven years old. The mother survives.
Dr. Arthur W. Brown was educated in the schools of Maple Rapids. Michigan, and was graduated from the high school in 1898. He then entered the University of Michigan in 1901, department of dentistry, in which he remained one year. In the fall of 1902 he entered the dental department of the Ohio Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, and was graduated from the same in 1904, having made an excellent record, winning the admiration of (43)
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his colleagues and the praise of the instructors. Thus well equipped for his chosen life work he located the year of his graduation at Centerburg, Knox county, this state, and here he has continued to successfully practice his pro- fession, having enjoyed a large and ever-growing patronage from the first and taking his place in the front rank of dentists in this and adjoining coun- ties. He has a neat, well arranged and modernly equipped office, in fact, every approved appliance for the prompt, safe and skillful performance of all phases of dental work.
Doctor Brown was married on June 5, 1907, to Edna Florence Faraba, daughter of Marion and Claude ( Brentlinger) Faraba, a highly respected family, and this union has been graced by the birth of two children, Faraba Devon and Marian Isabelle Brown.
Fraternally, Doctor Brown is a member of the Masonic, order and the Knights of Pythias, and politically he is a Republican. He belongs to the Ohio State Dental Society, and while in college he was a member of the Xi Psi Phi fraternity. He and his wife belong to the Methodist Episcopal church. He is at present clerk of the town council at Centerburg.
The Doctor is fond of athletics and was well known in this field while in school. Since coming to Centerburg he and his wife have made a host of warm personal friends and they take an active part in local social affairs.
L. TATE CROMLEY.
One of the best known of the younger professional men of Knox county is L. Tate Cromley, of Mt. Vernon, for many years a national figure in athletics. Combined with the excellent personal and official qualities of the successful attorney, he is infused with the genius of enterprise and is a man of enlarged public spirit. He always stands ready to identify himself with his fellow citizens in any good work and extends a co-operative hand to ad- vance any measure that will better the condition of things, that will give better government, elevate mankind, insure higher standards of morality and the highest ideals of a refined, ennobling, intellectual culture.
Mr. Cromley was born on March 14. 1880, at Paulding, Ohio. He is the son of Joseph B. and Anna J. (Tate) Cromley, both natives of this state, the father born in Defiance county and the mother in Paulding county. The father devoted his business life to merchandising and he served two terms as clerk of courts of Paulding county. In politics he was a Republican and
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was always active in party affairs. He was a member of the Republican county executive committee, and was a frequent delegate to party conventions. He was an admirer and breeder of fine horses in Paulding county, and was long a prominent man there in both private and public affairs. Fraternally, he belonged to both the Masonic and Independent Order of Odd Fellow lodges. His death occurred on November 6, 1891, and his widow subse- quently married Capt. O. G. Daniels, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Mr. Cromley, of this sketch, was reared in Paulding county, and he was graduated from the Paulding high school, class of 1897, then, coming to Mt. Vernon, he took an additional course in the high school here, and in the fall of 1899 he entered Kenyon College, from which he was graduated in 1903, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, having made an excellent record, While in college he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity and the honorary fraternity Phi Beta Kappa as a reward of high standing as a student. He was a member of the college athletic teams during his college course and was captain of the baseball club for three years and manager of the club one year. He also acted as secretary to President Pierce of the college during his entire course, and while in school there he was elected justice of the peace of College township, in which capacity he served with much credit to himself and to the satisfaction of all concerned until leaving college, discharging his duties faithfully and in a fair and unbiased manner. He was salutatorian of his class at the commencement exercises. In the fall of 1905 Mr. Cromley entered Georgetown University at Washington for the course in law, remaining there one year. During his stay there he was a inember of the baseball and football teams. During Easter week of 1904 he shut out Princeton, Yale and Harvard baseball nines, one after the other, a feat never accomplished before or since. In the three games only ten hits were made off his pitching. In the fall of 1904 he joined the Indianapolis team of the American Association, as pitcher and he played with them four seasons. In the latter part of 1907 he finished up with the Kansas City team of the same league and in 1908 he played with the Rochester, New York, team of the Eastern league and closed his baseball career with the Toledo, Ohio, team of the American Association in the fall of 1908, having become one of the popular American players and widely known to the fans through- out the country, his record being a most enviable one.
Mr. Cromley then turned his attention exclusively to the law, returning to the offices of H. H. & R. W. Greer, of Mt. Vernon, where he had really been a law student during the intervals and vacations for ten years. During his baseball career. he was admitted to the bar in 1906 on examination at
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Columbus. During the winter of 1907 and 1908 he was bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Mt. Vernon, where he gave eminent satisfaction to officials, stockholders and patrons, leaving the same to resume baseball in the spring of 1908.
Since then his attention has been given exclusively to his profession and has met with a large measure of success. As a lawyer he ranks deservedly well at the Knox county bar. His habits of study, research, ability to analyze and comprehend the law, to deduce and apply it, make him an informed, re- liable and certain lawyer, and necessarily popular. In his practice before the court he is characterized by fairness in stating the position of an adversary, and strong enough and broad enough to desire no undue advantage. His ut- terances are expressive of a calm dignity, a tolerant spirit, but a fixed purpose. In his discussion of the law he is clear, precise and incisive. and to the jury he is clear and deliberate. In his active practice of the law his character for personal and professional integrity has been fully recognized and appreciated. He has escaped the suspicion of ever having knowingly failed to fulfill all proper obligations of his profession.
Politically, Mr. Cromley is a Republican, but he has not been especially active. In the fall of 1910 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Knox county, the county giving the head of the Democratic ticket a majority of four hundred and ninety-nine, and Mr. Cromley received a majority on the Republican ticket of seven hundred and ten, a difference of twelve hundred votes. This is certainly criterion enough of his popularity and high standing in Knox county. He has discharged the duties of this important office in a manner that has reflected much credit upon his ability and to the satisfaction of all concerned, irrespective of party alignment.
Fraternally, Mr. Cromley is a member of the Masonic order and the Knights of Pythias. In religious matters he belongs to the Presbyterian church. He has remained unmarried. Personally, he is a good mixer, genial, obliging and unassuming and is universally liked.
FRANK O. PADGETT.
Whether we are more indebted for the improvement of the age to the men of study or the men of action, these two classes being the most in- fluential in promoting the advancement of society and in giving character to the times in which they live, is a question of honest difference in opinion. Since neither can be spared, both should be encouraged to occupy their sev-
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eral spheres, zealously and without mutual distrust, spreading their influence and prosecuting their chosen labors. In the following paragraphs are briefly outlined the leading facts and characteristics in the career of a gentleman who combines in his makeup the elements of the energy of the studious, public-spirited man of affairs, a man who has made his influence felt for the upbuilding of the town of Danville and the county of Knox, and is not un- known to the wider field of journalism of the state, occupying, as he does, a prominent place in his profession.
Frank O. Padgett, publisher of the Tri-County Leader, was born on February 12, 1875, in Columbus, Ohio. He is the son of Pius J. and Sarah J. (Weaver) Padgett, both parents natives of Ohio, and here they grew up. received their education in the public schools and were married. The father was a newspaper man of considerable reputation in various Ohio cities and a man of high standing. His death occurred in September, 1894, at his home in Zanesville. His widow is still living.
Frank O. Padgett was eight years old when he moved with his parents to Zanesville and there he grew to manhood and was educated in the public schools. His first employment was a reporter on the Zanesville Signal, during the school vacations, and after leaving school he was regularly em- ployed as reporter on that paper. He was a senate page at Columbus while Hon. D. H. Gammer, the editor of the Signal, was a state senator. He went from Zanesville to Marion, Ohio, as reporter on the Daily Mirror. During the Spanish-American war Mr. Padgett was active in the field, having en- listed in Company G, Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and he saw service in Porto Rico as a private. After the war he went to Delaware, Ohio, where he worked as reporter on the Daily Herald, of which paper his brother, George L. Padgett, was editor. He had achieved an envied reputation as an able news gatherer and writer, having possessed all the qualifications of the suc- cessful reporter-tact, diplomacy, untiring energy, perseverance and a genial address.
In January, 1902, Mr. Padgett left Delaware and came to Danville, Knox county, and purchased the Danville Citizen, which he named the Tri- County Leader, with a view of covering the field in Knox, Coshocton and Holmes counties, the town of Danville being located near the borders of all these counties. He was successful here from the first and soon the circulation of the paper was increasing at a rapid rate, which it has kept up, and he has made this one of the leading papers of its type in the state, brightened its mechanical appearance, rendered it a newsier and more valuable advertising medium, while its editorial page carries much weight in the affairs of the
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three counties. It is independent in politics and fearlessly advocates what- ever seems to be for the best interests of the community which it so ably serves. He also conducts a large, modernly equipped job office in connection with his paper, prompt and high-grade work being his aim, and this depart- ment is extensively patronized.
Mr. Padgett was married on February 28, 1901, to Anna Mary Dodd. daughter of James F. and Ruth E. (Murray) Dodd, a highly esteemed family of Delaware, Ohio. This union has been blessed by the birth of one daugh- ter. Ruth Ann.
Politically, Mr. Padgett is a Democrat, but he is not a biased partisan. He is a public-spirited man and uses his paper for the general betterment of the community. He has never been an office seeker or an office holder. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
ORANGE H. ELLIOTT.
The respect which should always be accorded the brave sons of the North who left homes and the peaceful pursuits of civil life to give their services, and their lives if need be, to preserve the integrity of the American Union is certainly due Orange H. Elliott, a venerable farmer and respected citizen of Monroe township, Knox county, where his long and industrious life has been spent. He proved his love and loyalty to the government on the long. and tiresome marches in all kinds of situations, exposed to summer's withering heat and winter's freezing cold, on the lonely picket line, a target for the missile of the unseen foe, on the tented field and amid the flame and smoke of battle, where the rattle of the musketry mingled with the terrible concussion of the bursting shell and the deep diapason of the cannon's roar made up the sublime but awful chorus of death. All honor to the heroes of the early sixties. To them the country is under a debt of gratitude which it cannot pay, and in centuries yet to be posterity will commemorate their chivalry in fitting eulogy and tell their knightly deeds in song and story. To the once large but now rapidly diminishing army that followed "Old Glory" on many bloody fields in the sunny South, crushed the armed host of treason and re-established upon a firm and enduring foundation the beloved govern- ment of our fathers, the subject of this sketch belonged. Like thousands of comrades equally as brave and patriotic as himself, he did his duty nobly and well and retired from the service with a record unspotted by a single un- soldierly act.
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Mr. Elliott was born in Monroe township, this county, on June 16, 1838. He is the son of James and Hannah Reed ( Berry) Elliott, the father born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, and the mother in Knox county, Ohio. When eight years of age James Elliott 'came with his parents to Knox county. Grandfather William Elliott was a miller by trade and he built a mill on Owl creek, this being one of the very first mills in this locality. The father of this subject was also a miller and in addition an operator in a woolen mill. He worked for Orange Hollister, who conducted an early busi- ness establishment here. James Elliott later in life turned his attention to farming and became the owner of considerable land and was an active man of affairs. Politically, he was a Democrat in early life, but after 1860 he voted the Republican ticket. He took considerable interest in public matters, and was a man of upright character and sound judgment. His death oc- curred in February, 1887. his wife preceding him to the grave about twelve years.
To James Elliott and wife ten children were born, only four of whom are now living, Orange H., of this sketch, being the eldest of the serviving children. The others are Elizabeth, who has remained single; Alice Mary, who married Leander Farquar, of Gambier, died November 8. 1911; Alex- ander lives in Mt. Vernon.
Orange H. Elliott, of this sketch, was reared on the home farm, on which he worked hard when a boy during the crop seasons, receiving such education as he could in the old-time schools of his neighborhood.
Mr. Elliott enlisted in Company C, Thirty-second Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, in the fall of 1861 and he served over two years in the Army of Western Virginia, taking part in many hard-fought engagements and trying campaigns, finally being discharged for disability. He was taken prisoner at Harper's Ferry in 1862, the entire command of nearly twelve thousand men, including his whole regiment, being captured. He was immediately paroled and exchanged in due time, returning to his company and regiment. He re- turned home and, after regaining his health, he resumed farming, remaining at home until his marriage, on March 17, 1865, to Emily J. Hartsook, daugh- ter of William and Amy (Ganoe) Hartsook, a pioneer family of Monroe township. To the subject and wife was born one daughter, Amy R., who married John W. Totman, a farmer of Monroe township, this county.
After his marriage Mr. Elliott lived one year in Milford township, then returned to Monroe township, where he located about two miles north of Gambier and engaged in general farming and stock raising of all kinds, and here he has continued to reside. He has a fine farm and has laid by a
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competency for his old age. He has always been a Democrat and is a great admirer of William J. Bryan, the great commoner. He has served as town- ship trustee and as a member of the school board. He has always been deeply interested in public matters. He has been a frequent delegate to county and district conventions. He and his family are members of the Dunkard church, in which he is a deacon and is active in church and Sunday school work.
ROLLIN S. CLEMENTS.
Those who belong to the respectable middle class of society, being early taught the necessity of relying upon their own exertions, will be more apt to acquire that information and those business habits which alone can fit them for the discharge of life's duties, and, indeed, it has long been a noticeable fact that our great men in nearly all walks of life spring from this class. The subject of this sketch whose life history is herewith delineated is a worthy representative of the class from which the true noblemen of the republic spring. He is the present able and popular chief of police of Mt. Vernon.
Rollin S. Clements was born July 26, 1875. on a farm four miles north of Mt. Vernon, Knox county, and he is the son of George W. and Paulina (Scott) Clements, both natives of this county, where they grew up, were educated and married and here the father engaged as a stone mason and farmer. Politically, he was a Democrat and he very ably served as justice of the peace in Monroe township for more than twelve years. He was a man of exemplary character and highly respected; his death occurred on May 10, 1900; his widow survives, making her home in Mt. Vernon.
Rollin S. Clements grew to maturity in Monroe township, this county, and attended the district schools. He came to Mt. Vernon when fifteen years of age and attended the public schools for two years. In 1894 he began clerking for A. F. Sauffer in the clothing business, remaining with him until October 5. 1905, giving entire satisfaction. In the fall of that year he was appointed sheriff of Knox county to fill an unexpired term, and he per formed his duties in such a capable and praiseworthy manner that in the fall of 1906 he was elected to the office of sheriff, which term continued until January 4. 1909, having made a record that reflected much credit upon him- self and gave eminent satisfaction to all concerned, irrespective of party alignment. Upon the expiration of his term of office he engaged in the livery business in Mt. Vernon for over a year; then he went with the Ohio
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Fuel Supply Company in the leasing department and operated in Ohio and West Virginia and he continued with this company until April 1, 1911, when he was appointed chief of police of Mt. Vernon, which office he is holding in his usual satisfactory manner, giving it his closest attention and discharging his every duty with fidelity and a public spirit that elicits the hearty approval of the people. Politically, he is a Republican and he has been active in party affairs since attaining his majority. He was a member of the city council from the sixth ward in 1902, serving one term, and was city treasurer in 1903 and 1904. He has always been regarded as a faithful and efficient pub- lic official.
Fraternally, Mr. Clements is a member of the Knights of Pythias, thc Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he has been exalted ruler : he also belongs to the Woodmen of the World, standing high in all these orders.
Mr. Clements was married on June 25, 1896, to Mary C. Chase, daughter of O. C. and Jerusha ( Holt) Chase, a highly honored family of Mt. Vernon, who came from Morrow county, Ohio. Mr. Chase is a tinner and is engaged in business in this city. Mr. and Mrs. Clements have the following children : Mildred B., Margaret, George W. and Marian E.
The family home is at No. 201 East Hamtramck street. Mr. Clements is a man of high character and standing in the community and is faithful to every trust that has been reposed in him, seeking to do the right at all times as he sees and understands the right.
LYMAN WORKMAN.
Among those who first braved the wilds of Knox county when the Indians were still here and wild animals were everyday sights in the dense woods, was the progenitor of Lyman Workman, well known carpenter and builder of Brown township. At the time all of southern Ohio was an almost unbroken wilderness, with a general covering of heavy timber, but here and there interspersed with small open tracts or prairies. When the first Work- man arrived here the wigwams of different tribes of red men dotted the banks of every stream in the country. They fished and hunted and always brought in many kinds of game they killed. Joseph Workman, the subject's paternal grandfather, came from Maryland with his family in 1812, leaving his home in company with other cmigrants for Ohio, but while enroute he
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was drafted for service in the war of 1812, thus, leaving his family and teams, he returned to Maryland, secured a substitute, later rejoining his family and proceeded to Ohio. He first settled in Union township, south of Danville, Knox county, there entering one hundred and sixty acres of land from the government. This was wholly in the deep woods and the trees and brush had to be cleared off before a crop could be raised. Here he erected a log cabin and began to experience the hard work and privations of the life of a first settler. But there were many pleasures in the woods for all that, the pleasure of rearing his large family being not the least, for in such environ- ment a happy household may be established easier than in the midst of populous surroundings, for reasons too evident to recite here. There were eight sons and six daughters in Joseph Workman's family, a remarkable thing about this large family being that they all grew to manhood and womanhood and lived useful lives. Here the parents, Joseph and Sarah Workman, spent the balance of their lives, becoming leaders in Union and adjoining townships, known for their integrity and hospitality, Joseph Work- man dying at the age of sixty-six years, his widow surviving to quite an old age.
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