A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II, Part 2

Author: Miller, John, 1849-
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 910

USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 2

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The fourth son of Captain William Old was Ezekiel, who is on record as having been a sergeant in the French and Indian war in 1751, and a captain of Massachusetts troops at the siege of Boston and the

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

battle of Bunker Hill. He was also a member of the Committee of Cor- respondence, Inspection and Safety, dying in the service in 1777.

The sixth son of Captain Ezekiel Old was Phinchas, who settled about 1195 in Williamstown, Vermont, where he became eminent as one of the leading agriculturists of that part of the state. He was the father of thirteen children, seven of whom were sons, and four of these sons settled in Erie county. The eldest of these sons was Joel Olds, who came with a company from Vermont in the early spring of 1813. This Company were intending to go on to Ohio and settle in the "Western Reserve," but having camped overnight at a little settlement then or later known as Federal Hill (now within the city limits) a sudden thaw set in and the company having come on sleds or sledges found themselves unable to proceed on the bare ground and were constrained to settle in that immediate neighborhood-thus many good citizens were saved to the state of Pennsylvania who except for "hard sledding" would have gone further west. Joel Olds settled about two miles south of the city near the old French Military road. He was followed some two or three years later by the next younger brother, Asa Gilbert Olds, who settled on the Lake Pleasant road just where the P. & E. R. R. now crosses that highway. He became the father of the late L. W. Olds, for many years one of the leading residents of Erie City, Nelson Olds, late of Greene township, and Erskine Olds, late of the old homestead in Mill Creek township. A few years later came another brother, Elisha Olds, who settled on the next farm east while still later, in 1835, came Lewis, seventh and last son of Phinehas Olds. Lewis was born in Williams- town, Vermont, March 14, 1814, and located in Conneautville, where in 1840 he was married to Eunice V. Scovel, whose ancestry also dates back to the Revolutionary period and whose maternal grandfather was Col. John Titus, a member of Washington's staff, who by special act of Congress was granted a pension for gallant service. The children born of this union were Mary E., born April 7, 1850; Independence L., born July 4, 1852, at Conneautville ; and Winter Jesse, born in Fillmore county, Minnesota, January 22, 1860.

Winter J. Olds followed clerking during the first year of his business life, and coming to Union City in 1873 he has since made his home here. He is the present proprietor of the Union City Greenhouse, one of the leading establishments of its kind in Erie county. He is well versed in the germination and cultivation of flowers of every kind native to or grown in this climate, but he has made a specialty of the growing of chrysanthemums. His greenhouse contains ten thousand square feet of glass, and he receives orders from all parts of the United States, his trade extending as far as Oregon, Texas and Nova Scotia, and this extensive business has grown from his small gardening plant of 1882.

On the 22d of January, 1889, Mr. Olds was married to Miss Evan- geline Van Meurs, and they have had four children: Lewis W., born November 18, 1889; Mary E., deceased, was born September 4, 1892; Hugh W. was born April 13, 1895; and John Alfred was born June 27, 1904. Mr. Olds votes with the Prohibition party, is one of the pioneers of that party organization in Erie county, and has served as secretary of the Prohibition county committee and is one of its strongest men and most efficient workers in the county. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Royal Arcanum. Since 1884 his religious home has been with the Presbyterian church.

IHISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

FRANKLIN FARRAR ADAMS. Now a retired and deeply honored citizen of Erie, Franklin F. Adams was for half a century a leader not only in its business and industrial development, but in its municipal and civic progress. A pioneer in many things; ultimately successful in all his undertakings ; a careful, practical calculator, and yet a broad operator in all the affairs of his life-Mr. Adams is a typical New Englander. transplanted in his youth to the more stirring life of Pennsylvania, where his substantial and adaptable nature has developed into a type of man- hood fully representative of the state and his home community. Ex- mayor of Erie, ex-president of its board of trade, for years at the head of some of its largest business and industrial enterprises-no man is more representative of past progress, present aspiration, and future ad- vancement all along the line.

Mr. Adams was born at Amherst. New Hampshire, on August 6. 1830, son of Levi and Lucy (Farrar) Adams, natives respectively of the Granite and the Green Mountain states. In early life his father was a merchant, subsequently keeping a hotel at Ipswich, New Hamp- shire, and farming near that town, his death occurring on his homestead in the latter locality in 1834. Following the death of her husband, when Frank F. was but four years of age, the widow went to make her home with her father in Vermont. At the age of nine years the boy was apprenticed to a farmer to remain until he reached his twenty-first year, at the end of which service he was to receive one hundred dollars in money and a yoke of oxen. But his new home was not congenial to young Adams and at the end of a year his mother took him away. When he was twelve years of age the boy came to Pennsylvania and spent a year with his uncles, F. F., and A. J. Farrar, merchants at Waterford, this county. IIe thien joined his uncle, Wheeler Farrar, of Boston, and, until 1848, resided on Mr. Farrar's farm at Lexington, Massachusetts. Then (in his eighteenth year) he left the Lexington farm and returned to Waterford, soon afterward buying the right for Pennsylvania for the manufacture and sale of a patent washing machine. This was the commencement of a long and remarkably successful career in this field. Mr. Adams began the manufacture of the washing machines at Waterford on a very small scale, first selling the finished product to the citizens of the village and surrounding country. A year later he sold his patent rights for $2,000, with which he went to Winchendon, Mass- achusetts, where he purchased a machine for the manufacture of clothes- pins. This he brought to Waterford and installed it at Middleton dam, on French creek, at which point was located the Hayes chair factory, and to which concern he sold his business a year later. He next began the manufacture of cheese boxes in Waterford. In equipping this factory he went to the state of Maine and purchasing a steam engine of a Kennebec river mill owner shipped it to Waterford. But the engine was delayed in transit and was finally frozen in the ice of the Erie canal. Impatient to get his box factory in operation, Mr. Adams de- termined not to waste the winter, and so came to Erie and had the old firm of Senet and Barr make him an engine. Discovering, also, on the docks, a boiler that had been taken out of the steamer "Missouri." he purchased it and shipped it to Waterford. Within thirty days his engine was complete, but he put in the balance of that winter in sawing lumber. In the spring, however, he began the making of cheese boxes and so continued for two years, when he sold his factory to H. H.

IHISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

Whitney. The Maine engine finally arrived, but he sold it to Walter Little, of Erie.

After disposing of his cheese box factory, as a member of the firm of Phelps and Adams, Mr. Adams engaged in general merchandising at Waterford, but after an experience of about two years in this line sold his interest in the business. At about this time he was seized with the prevailing "Colorado gold fever," but his attack proved so light that it passed away in the establishment of a general store at Waterford which he called "Pike's Peak Store." This he conducted for about two years, when he sold it to a Mr. Oliver. In 1860 Mr. Adams came to Erie and took a clerical position in the wholesale grocery store of Johnson Bros., receiving a salary of $1,200 a year. He induced the firm to handle flour, put some of his own money into the venture, and received half the profits made on the sale of that commodity. A year later he left the firm and, with Casimer Seigel, engaged for about three months in the flour and feed business, when Mr. Adams bought the bakery of Dodd Goodrich, on the corner of Fifth and Sassafras streets, at the same time opening and operating a "variety" store on State, near Fifth street. Knowing nothing about baking Mr. Adams went to Buffalo in quest of a practical baker, and in that city met William S. Sands, then about eighteen years old, whom he brought back to Erie in that capacity. Their division of labor was as follows: young Sands would go to work at three o'clock in the morning baking rolls which Mr. Adams would load, hot and crispy, into the two-wheeled cart he had bought in Buffalo, and, ringing a large bell, would peddle his goods over the city in time for breakfast. That was the first time the people of Erie were supplied with hot rolls for breakfast from an outside source, and, so far as history goes, the last time. In his variety store, Mr. Adams established the first ice cream parlor in Erie, and also the first depot for the sale of fresh oysters in cans. He also manufactured candy in large quantities and put men and wagons on the road to sell his goods all over northern Pennsylvania. After becoming firmly established in this business his plant was destroyed by fire with considerable loss, but he removed across the street to the southeast corner of Fifth and State streets and con- tinued there for about two years, when he sold out to Benar and Burgess.

In the course of a year, however, he opened another store on North Park Row, where he remained for about two years, and next removed to State street near Eighth. There he established another bakery in connection with his variety store, also continuing the ice cream parlor. While at that location a man came to Erie with a patent driven well, the rights of which he tried to sell Mr. Adams. Of course it was a new thing and Mr. Adams was skeptical. naturally remaining unconvinced when the experiment made in the rear of the store was a failure. Mr. Adams, therefore, refused to purchase and the man departed to Corry. this county, in his search for a purchaser, leaving the pipe in the ground where it had been sunk. Then Mr. Adams investigated and experi- mented himself, and for a change drove the pipe into the gravelly soil in front of the store with the result that it brought water. When the man returned to Corry still anxious to sell the rights in Erie county at any cost. Mr. Adams secured them for about one hundred dollars "taken out in trade." After several demonstrations in different parts of the county the purchaser began selling township rights, and in about a month's time cleared about $3,500 on the well. Later, Mr. Adams

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

removed his store to the old Noble (now Penn) block, Eighth and State streets, and there continued for two years, when he sold his business to George Barr.

In the meantime Mr. Adams had conceived the idea of engaging in the manufacture of patented articles, and finally made arrangements with the late M. N. Lovell and a Mr. Walker as partners to carry out his plans. They erected a brick factory one door south of the corner of Eleventh and State streets, installed the necessary machinery and began the manufacture of washing machines, step and extension ladders, etc. After the plant was in full operation, Mr. Adams entered into a contract with A. H. Franciscus, a wealthy carpet merchant of Phila- delphia, whereby that gentleman was to be furnished with one hundred and fifty thousand washing machines to be delivered at the rate of one hundred per day, Mr. Franciscus to have the sole right of sale for the United States. At the appointed time shipment of the machines began as agreed upon and continued until Mr. Franciscus, failing to dispose of them by sale as rapidly as anticipated, countermanded the order. Mr. Adams called on him, made a reduction in the price of the machines, and the deal continued, but not for long, as finally the contract was rescinded by the payment of $5,000 to Mr. Adams and his partners. The machines thus being left on his hands, Mr. Adams began a selling campaign throughout the county by disposing of sale rights in different localities; and so successful was he in this venture that the machines brought greater returns than if the contract with the Philadelphia mer- chant had been carried out.

Mr. Adams' next move was to build the F. F. Adams factory on Cherry street, near Fourteenth, where the manufacture of the different articles was continued. In the meantime both Mr. Walker and Mr. Lovell had withdrawn from the business; but on the completion of the new factory Mr. Lovell returned and Messrs. T. W. and C. W. Farrar were received as partners. Sometime later Mr. Lovell again withdrew and was succeeded by Mr. Adams' son, Charles F. The business flour- ished, became highly successful and remunerative to all interested. In 1880 the factory, after having been enlarged by the addition of another story, was destroyed by fire, at a loss of upwards of $80,000, covered by insurance, however. The company began at once to rebuild and until the completion of the new plant small factories were rented, in different parts of the city, and manufacturing operations were scarcely inter- rupted. The enterprise met with strong competition from large concerns all over the country ; suit was brought by rivals for infringement and much expensive litigation ensued; but Mr. Adams and his partners met the opposition at all points and continued a successful business. In 1888 was formed the American Wringer Company to which the F. F. Adams Company sold its business for $330,000, its founder at that time owning a three-fifth's interest. The Erie plant was then closed, and Mr. Adams retired from active business. In 1886, Mr. Adams purchased the Hoskinson farm of one hundred acres, just east of the city on the Lake road, and there he spends his summers. It may be added that he recently sold fifty acres of this tract to the General Electric Company for its projected plant, for which he received one thousand dollars an acre.

Mr. Adams always took an active and prominent part in public affairs, and in 1885 was elected mayor of the city, but ill health made it necessary for him to resign after he had served about a year and a

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

half of his term. He has also served as president of the board of trade, of which he is yet a member ; is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and for fifteen years was president of the Humane society. He is a Mason of high degree. Reared from boyhood as a Universalist, Mr. Adams has long been very active in the local church at Erie. In 1854 Mr. Adams married Martha A., daughter of William Lowell. His wife was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1836, and died at Erie in 1901. To Mr. and Mrs. Adams the following children were born; Charles F., Jennie F. and Frankie, the two last named being deceased.

As already stated, the status which Mr. Adams holds at Erie is that of a representative citizen, but the fact should be emphasized that he stands for its best type not for his strength and ruggedness of char- acter alone. He has struggled manfully against great material obstacles and forged on to success, but he has not thereby become proud, hard and autocratic. Hle is a man of too much breadth and depth for that. On the contrary the struggles along the hard road have mellowed him and made him kind and charitable toward his toiling, stumbling fellows, and this combination it is, more than all else, which has given him the enviable standing he now enjoys.

ERASTUS B. LIPTON, retired, is one of the well known citizens of Erie and for years was esteemed one of the most expert accountants of this section of the state. A native of Pennsylvania, born at Milesburg, Center county, on September 29, 1832, he is a son of Samuel Lipton, also a native of that county, born in 1801. The grandfather, Robert Lipton, was a native of Ireland who came to Center county in the seventeenth century. He was a farmer and was also interested in iron works, in connection with the Curtins ( father of Governor Curtin) owning a num- ber of furnaces. As a young man, Samuel learned the trade of shoemak- ing which he followed for a number of years, and subsequently engaged both in mercantile and lumbering pursuits. The latter business was mainly conducted on the Susquehanna river, in Center and Clearfield counties in connection with Governor Bigler. Grandfather Lipton mar- ried Anna Maria Hoover, a native of Center county born in 1802, dangh- ter of Jacob Hoover, also born in that county, of German ancestry. Sam- uel Lipton died March 20, 1850, and his widow passed away March 2, 1877, mother of the following: Robert, deceased; James HI., who re- sides in Kansas; Nancy Jane, who married William McMean and re- sides in Center. county, Pennsylvania ; Theodore, deceased; E. B., of this sketch; John H., Anna Eliza, Samuel and David A. P., all deceased ; Edwin, who resides in Oregon, and Mary Clara, also dead.

Mr. Lipton. of this biography, was reared in Center county and received his education in its common schools, and at Allegheny College. As a lad, he clerked in his father's store, his collegiate course being pursued after the death of the senior Mr. Lipton. In 1852, when twenty years of age, Erastus went out to California, spending about eighteen months in Sonoma and Napa counties. Returning to Center county he became successively associated with an uncle and two brothers (Robert and James) in the lumber business. In 1856 he located in the northern part of Iowa, where he remained until 1862 returning then to Center county and for two years being a clerk in the office of prothonotary. then held by his uncle, at Bellefonte. In 1864 he came to Erie, at the invitation of J. Johnston, taking charge of his books and remaining with the Ironse after it became Johnston and Brevillier. Later he acted as

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

bookkeeper for Clemens, Caughey and Burgess, grocers, and subsequent- ly for W. L. Scott and Company and the Stearns Manufacturing Com- pany. Mr. Lipton was then connected with a bank at St. Petersburg, Clarion county, Pennsylvania. Returning from the latter place in May, 1800, he assumed a position as bookkeeper for the Jarecki Manufacturing Company, at the time mentioned Henry and Charles Jarecki being at the head of the works. For twenty-seven years Mr. Lipton remained as head bookkeeper for that company, retiring in 1907 on account of ill health.

In 1862 Mr. Lipton was married to Martha R. Pruden, who was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, daughter of Isaac Pruden, an early settler of that section. She died in 1904, at the age of sixty-three, mother of the following :- Cora N., who resides with her father ; Anna M., wife of James D. Hay ; Emma, deceased; John H., bookkeeper with the Jarecki Manufacturing Company ; and Ada, who married A. W. Milne, treasurer of the Ball Engine Works. Mr. Lipton is one of the oldest and most honored business men of Erie, his entire life being a fine and striking illustration of faithfulness and efficiency. A Democrat in politics, he has been too busily engaged performing the legitimate duties assigned him to engaged in politics, and, in retirement, has no in- clination to enter the field.

WILLIAM S. BROWN. The late William Saltsman Brown, who died in his native city of Erie in his eighty-second year, was both a remark- able and a thoroughly good man. There are few who have been con- nected with the founding and up-building of the place who have made so fine a record as he, in so many active and practical fields. In the founding of railroads and elevators, in the administration of the public service, in the development of the common school system and in the support of worthy charities, his strong, clear mind and generous, warm heart were ever constant influences always working for the substantial and higher interests of the city to which he was so firmly attached. His noble wife, who survived him less than two months, was even more a pioneer and a leader than he himself, in the establishment and promotion of not a few of Erie's most worthy charities. Mrs. Brown will be long remembered with gratitude and love as one of the founders of the Home for the Friendless, the true mother of the Bethel Mission and to the last, an ardent and unfaltering promoter of not only their ad- vancement but of the general progress of practical charity and philan- thropy in her community.

William S. Brown was born in the old Brown block, on French street, opposite the Reed House, on November 20, 1826, his father, Sam- uel Brown, being a native of Berks county, Pennsylvania, born in 1796. The Brown family came to America in 1736, settling in Berks county at an early day. Samuel located in Erie in 1822, and there became a man of prominence. There he also married Elizabeth Saltsman, born in 1800, at Wesleyville, just east of Erie, William Saltsman, her father, was a native of Pennsylvania, son of Anthony Saltsman (who was killed by the Indians on the Susquehanna river) and first came to Erie county in 1796, being well known as one of its surveyors. Settling here permanent- ly in 1800, he married Jane Stephenson and died in 1865, his wife passing away in the following year.

It may be stated as one of the early and noteworthy events in the life of William S. Brown that he was the first child baptized in the First

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

Presbyterian church of Erie. He was educated at the Erie Academy and at the age of fourteen years was ready to enter Princeton College, but because of business reverses which his father suffered, he enrolled him- self as a world's worker at this time instead of a college student. At first he became a clerk for his uncle and three years later entered the Erie postoffice in a like capacity. Later he assumed a position in the office of General Reed and thus became an associate of the late Hon. W. L. Scott and the ties of intimacy and friendship thus formed. death alone terminated. It was at this period of his railroad career that Mr. Brown became a member of the committee which received Zachary Taylor. then lately returned from the Mexican war, who came to Erie county to participate in the celebration of "Perry Day" in 1819. In 1851 Mr. Brown became the local agent of the Erie & North East Railroad (now the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern) and later continued that office with that of treasurer, being thus identified with the railroad for many years. He was prominent during the "railroad war" and in 1865 be- came superintendent of the Erie & Pittsburg Railroad, having previous- ly been a director of the old Oil Creek Railroad. In 1866, with Orange Noble, Joseph McCarter and Henry Shannon, Mr. Brown built the first elevator in Erie, an enterprise which was the beginning of the Erie and Western Transportation Company, now the Anchor Line The elevator property was afterward sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and Mr. Brown's active interest in railroads closed at that time. As agent at Erie he had charge of the train which carried Abraham Lincoln through Erie on his way to this first presidential inauguration and in 1865 he had charge, in the same capacity, of the train which bore the remains of the martyred president through Erie toward Springfield, Illi- nois. He was brought prominently before the public, in 1876, in con- nection with the great Ashtabula railroad wreck, being selected to as- sist in the settlement of claims against the Lake Shore Railroad.

During President Grant's first term, Mr. Brown's name was sent to the United States senate for confirmation as collector of revenue for his district. Senator Cameron was his sponsor ; the appointment (quite un- solicited) was unanimously confirmed and he resigned the office after holding it about eighteen months, subsequently serving as deputy col- lector of customs of the Erie port for four years under the administration of Presidents Taylor and Fillmore. At a later date Mr. Brown had a personal acquaintance with Grant, Conkling and other men of national note. Locally, he served for eleven years on the Erie school board ; but in still later years he lived in retirement, his only active participation be- ing in connection with his directorship of the Second National Bank, with which institution he had long been identified.

On October 10, 1845, Mr. Brown married Rosena, the daughter of the late Joseph and Sallie ( Shattuck) Winchell, of Erie. The Winchells. who were of English origin, first settled in New England, and then in New York state, migrating to Erie at an early date. Her mother was born at Harborcreek. Erie county. Mrs. Brown was educated in Erie and, even as a young girl, was active in church work. As stated she was one of the founders of the Home for the Friendless and an ardent pro- moter of its interests, as well as the founder of the Bethel Mission. On October 10, 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Brown celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at the old Brown home. No. 831 Peach street, where they had lived during the entire fifty years. At that time they were the only couple living who were born in Erie. Mr. Brown died July 24, 1908,

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A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II, Part 2

Author: Miller, John, 1849- Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 910

Author: Miller, John, 1849-
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 910