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 35
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Rinaldo E. Clemens, who is now living virtually retired in the city of Erie, with whose business interests he was long and prominently identified as a progressive and loyal citizen, was born in the village of Fairview, this county, on the 9th of October, 1844, and is a son of John and Lydia (Hutchinson) Clemens. John Clemens was born in Le Boeuf township, this county, in 1819, and was a son of John and Mary (Irwin) Clemens, whose marriage was solemnized in Pennsylvania. John Clem- ens, Sr., was a native of county Armagh, Ireland, where he was born in
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the year 1762 and where he was reared to the age of fifteen. In 1777. when fifteen years of age, he severed the ties which bound him to the Emerald Isle and immigrated to America, to whose upbuilding and advancement those of his race have contributed in liberal and noble measure from the colonial era to the present day. He first settled at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and in 1795 he removed to Erie county. He established his home in Le Boeuf township, about one and one-half miles south from the present village of Waterford, and there he secured from David McNair two hundred acres of land a very considerable portion of which he reclaimed to cultivation. He was a man of energy and strong mentality, so that he naturally became a leader and power in his community. He developed a valuable property and continued to reside on his fine old homestead until his death, which occurred in the year 1822. His wife, who was a native of north of Ireland, survived him by a number of years.
John Clemens, Jr., father of Rinaldo E., was reared to manhood on the ancestral homestead and his early educational advantages were those afforded in the common schools of the locality and period. In 1840, soon after attaining to his legal majority, he took up his residence in the vil- lage of Fairview, this county, where he became associated with John Avery Tracy in the general merchandise business, under the title of Tracy & Clemens. Later he conducted a hotel in the same village, where he remained until 1848, when he removed to Girard, where he entered into partnership with David Olin and again engaged in the mercantile busi- ness. His operations in this field were attended with success and he con- tinued his residence in Girard until 1854, when he took up his residence in Erie, where he greatly amplified the scope of his business by forming a partnership alliance with his brother-in-law, William M. Caughey, and opening a well ordered wholesale grocery establishment. The prescience and judgment of this firm were notable, as they were among the first to recognize the advantages of Erie as a wholesaling center and were among the first to show their confidence in the definite manner desig- nated. They built up a fine enterprise, controlling a trade throughout the large territory normally tributary to Erie, and Mr. Clemens continued to be actively identified with the business until 1869, when he retired to engage in the wholesale and retail lumber trade, in which his acumen and honorable dealings likewise made his success assured. In 1878 he retired from this field of enterprise and became associated with Prescott Metcalf and founded the Erie Malleable Iron Works, which grew to be one of the most important industrial enterprises in the county. He was also one of those prominently concerned in the organization of the com- pany which erected the Park Opera House, and his aid and influence were given in the promotion of numerous other enterprises conserving the progress and material prosperity of his home city, in which his inter- ests centered and in which he was ever regarded as a most loyal and gen- erous citizen. His life was ordered on a broad plane of integrity and honor, and his success, which measured large, was won by legitimate means, so that no shadow rests on any portion of his career as a citizen and as a business man. His political allegiance was given to the Repub- lican party, and as already intimated, he took an active interest in public affairs, though he never had aught of desire for the honors or emolu- ments of political office. His wife held membership in the Episcopal church and was active in its work and support. In 1842 was solemnized his marriage to Miss Lydia Hutchinson, daughter of the late Judge
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Myron Hutchinson, who presided on the bench of the county court in this county, and of the two children of this union the subject of this review is the elder ; Frances Eliza died in 1863. when a young woman. John Clem- ens rounded out a life of signal usefulness and honor and was summoned to eternal rest on the 24th of August, 1892. His wife passed away in November, 1896, and their memories are revered in the city which so long represented their home and in whose social life they were prominent.
Rinaldo E. Clemens was a child at the time of the family removal to Erie, and in the public schools of this city he secured his early educa- tional discipline. He became in time associated with the various enter- prises with which his honored father was identified, and his career has added new laurels to the family name. He was concerned in many important business corporations, and contributed in large measure to the industrial and commercial advancement of Erie, to which city his loyalty has ever been on a parity with that shown by his father. Since 1905 he has lived virtually retired, though he gives his general supervision to his various capitalistic interests, and is a member of the directorate of the Marine National Bank, of Erie, one of the stanch financial institutions of northern Pennsylvania. Though never active in the arena of prac- tical politics, he is an adherent of the Republican party, and his wife holds membership in the Episcopal church. He is identified with no fraternal organizations except the Royal Arcanum but is a member of the Erie Club, the leading social organization of business men in the city.
In 1874 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Clemens to Miss Anna C. Hays, daughter of the late William B. Hays, who was an old and hon- ored citizen of Erie at the time of his demise. Mr. and Mrs. Clemens became the parents of two children, John Hays, who died in July, 1908, at the age of thirty-three years, and Hays H., who was graduated in the Troy Polytechnical Institute and is now a civil engineer by profession : he still maintains his home in Erie.
GEORGE S. RAY, M. D. A leader among the younger and most pro- gressive physicians and surgeons of Erie. Dr. George S. Ray was born at Meadville, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of May, 1870. The family is of ancient Scotch descent, but its American home has long been in the east- ern and especially, the New England states. The doctor's parents. S. H. and Margaret (Hart) Ray, were early settlers of his native city. He graduated from the Meadville High School in 1888 and from Allegheny College in 1892, after which he completed a three years' course in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1895. His graduation from that institution was followed by service of a year in the Methodist Episcopal Hospital, and he began the practice of his profes- sion at Cooperstown, Pennsylvania, in the later portion of 1896.
Dr. Ray became a resident of Erie in the fall of 1897, and has since established a substantial general practice and is especially recognized as a skilful, but conservative surgeon. At the present time he is a member of the surgical staff of St. Vincent's Hospital, Erie, and surgeon of the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad. He is actively identified with the Erie Medical Society, of which he served as president for a year, and is also a member of the Northwestern Medical Society of Pennsylvania, State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. The doc- tor is a Free Mason, connected with Keystone Lodge of Erie, and enjoys membership in the Chamber of Commerce. His wife, known before her marriage as Miss Emma Eby, is the daughter of Bishop Isaac Eby, of
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Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so prominent a figure in the Mennonite church of the east. There is one child by the marriage, Frederick M. Ray, born February 16, 1906.
CHARLES E. GUNNISON. Distinguished not only as the worthy representative of a pioneer family of much prominence, but for the eminence he has achieved as a man of affairs and one of rare business and executive ability, Charles E. Gunnison occupies an assured position among the respected and valued citizens of Erie, and as president of the Marine National Bank exerts a wide influence in the realms of finance. A life-long resident of this beautiful city overlooking the blue waters of Lake Erie, he has been identified with its highest interests during his active career, and has contributed in no small measure to its progress and prosperity. Charles E. Gunnison, president of the Marine National Bank, Erie, was born August 9, 1829, at Erie. His parents were E. D. and Sophia Gunnison who came to Erie in 1815. After the usual attendance at private schools he closed his school career at the Erie Academy. At the age of fourteen he found employment as clerk in the general store known as the "Canadian Store" located in the original Reed House block on North Park Row. From 1847 to the spring of 1851 he was engaged in a clerical capacity in the Reed Store owned by the late General Charles M. Reed.
Mr. Gunnison's banking career commenced April 1, 1851, when he accepted a position with Joseph H. Williams, banker, Erie. In 1853 he went to Terre Haute, Indiana, to assume the cashiership of The Southern Bank of Indiana where he remained a portion of the year returning thence to become a member of the banking firm of C. B. Wright & Co., the members of which were Charles B. Wright, Francis P. Bailey and Charles E. Gunnison. This firm was dissolved in 1858. In 1859 Mr. Gunnison, associated with his brother John B. Gunnison, established the tannery business. During the years of 1860 to 1864 he assisted in the firm of Vincent, Bailey & Co. He became assistant cashier of the Marine National Bank in the spring of 1866 and subse- quently became the cashier and then president.
Mr. Gunnison was married September 1, 1852, to Jane T. Welsh, a native of the City of Douglas, Isle of Man. Of their three children, Emma G., wife of Dr. David H. Strickland, alone survives. Harry, who married Lucy Morrison, died while cashier of the Marine National Bank and Carrie married Frank T. Kimball, both of whom are deceased. Mr. Gunnison has been a member of the board of trade of Erie and of the Park Presbyterian church for many years.
JOHN W. LITTLE. Among those who have stood as distinctive types of the world's workers is John W. Little, who is president of the People's Bank of Erie, and whose identification with the civic and busi- ness interests of this city has extended over a period of fully two score of years, within which it has been his to mark by definite accomplishment a place of honor on the record of progress made by the city within the period noted. It is naught more than simple justice to refer to him as one of the representative business men of Erie county, and the most emphatic voucher for his sterling characteristics is that offered in the uniform respect and confidence accorded to him in the community which has so long represented his home and been the center of his interests.
In a characteristic paraphrase Senator Chauncey M. Depew gave utterance to the following statement: "Some men are born great, some Vol. II-16
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achieve greatness, and some are born in the state of Ohio." This indicated a signal appreciation of the part the fine old Buckeye commonwealth has played in giving to the nation men of beneficent influence in public affairs, and the application may well be taken to wider limitations in not- ing the accomplishment of sons of Ohio in the manifold departments of productive business activity. The distinction thus lies with Mr. Little that he can claim the Buckeye state as the place of his nativity, and he is a scion of one of the honored pioneer families of the Western Reserve, which has been designated as "the largest and most distinctly individual- ized and most influential of all the varied elements" in the compos- ite population of Ohio. He was born in Aurora, Portage county, Ohio, on the 14th of November, 1848, and is a son of John and Lucy (Eggles- ton) Little, the former of whom was born in the state of New York, where his parents were temporarily sojourning, and the latter of whom was a native of Aurora, Portage county, Ohio, where her father, Mar- tin Eggleston, of New England birth and lineage, was an early settler. The Little family was founded in America in the colonial epoch of our national history, and in the state of Massachusetts was born Warren Little, grandfather of John W. Warren Little removed from the old Bay state to Ohio in the pioneer days, and it was his to become one of the early settlers of the historic Western Reserve, which, though its boun- daries are no longer designated in modern geographies, bears a name that still belongs to a well defined portion of Ohio, a section whose resi- dents are knit together by historic associations and social ties as close as though indicated by strict political limits. Upon his removal from the east to the Western Reserve of Connecticut, Warren Little took up his abode in the wilds of Portage county, where he reclaimed a farm from the virgin forest, and there he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. He there became the owner of a generous landed estate, and it is interesting to record that his old homestead is still in possession of his descendants of the name.
John Little was reared under the conditions and influences of the pioneer era in the Western Reserve, where his educational advantages were such as were offered in the schools of the day. He lived up to the full tension of the arduous labors of the pioneer farm, and continued to be actively identified with agricultural operations in Geauga county, Ohio (to which he removed in 1852) until 1872, when he removed to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he lived virtually retired until his death, which occurred in June, 1877. His cherished and devoted wife was sum- moned to the life eternal on the 12th of December, 1898. They were consistent members of the Disciple church and in politics John Little was a Republican. They became the parents of nine children, of whom three are living.
John W. Little, the immediate subject of this review, was three years of age at the time of his parents' removal from Portage county to Geauga county, Ohio, in which latter he was reared to maturity. After duly availing himself of the advantages of the common schools of the locality and period he continued his studies in Geauga Seminary, a well ordered institution, and he put his scholastic attainments to practical test and util- ization by assuming the position of teacher in the district schools of his home county. In the pedagogic profession his labors were successful, and to the same he devoted his attention for two years.
In June, 1869, about five months before attaining to his legal major- ity, Mr. Little severed the ties which bound him to home and native state.
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and came to Erie, where he assumed a clerical position in the offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad, under William E. Baldwin, general superin- tendent. He continued to be identified with the interests of the corpora- tion noted until 1876, when he marked the centennial year by assuming a position in the offices of W. L. Scott and Company, long known as rep- resenting one of the most important industrial enterprises of this section of the state. On the death of W. L. Scott in 1891 he became one of the stockholders and executive officers of The W. L. Scott Company, and with the same he continued to be identified until its retirement from bus- iness, in 1905. He exerted no little influence in the building up of the large and successful enterprise of this well known company, whose oper- ations were in the mining and shipping of anthracite and bituminous coal and during the long years of his connection therewith he gained distinc- tive recognition as one of the progressive and representative business men of the city of Erie.
In the year last mentioned Mr. Little became one of the organizers and incorporators of the People's Bank, in which he is the largest stock- holder and of which he has been president from the time of its incorpor- ation. The bank bases its operations upon a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars with a surplus from organization of one hundred thou- sand dollars and it has gained secure prestige in popular favor and sup- port. A progressive but duly conservative policy has been maintained, and as executive head of the institution Mr. Little had ordered its affairs with consummate discrimination and ability, so that it stands to-day as one of the most solid banking houses of northern Pennsylvania. As a citizen and business man Mr. Little has shown much of public spirit and loyalty, and all that concerns the welfare of his home city has been a mat- ter of definite interest to him during the long years of his residence in Erie, where he is held in unequivocal confidence and esteem and where his popularity is based upon a record marked by sterling integrity and honor. He is a valued member of both the Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Trade, and is identified with various civic and fraternal organizations. Though never manifesting aught of ambition for the honors or emoluments of public office he is arrayed as a stalwart sup- porter of the cause of the Republican party, and both he and his wife hold membership in the First Presbyterian church.
On the 25th of September, 1879, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Little to Miss Anna Henry, daughter of the late Robert H. Henry, of Erie. Mr. and Mrs. Little have had no children.
JOHN H. BERKENKAMP. For the past twenty years a leading busi- ness man of Erie John H. Berkenkamp is a representative German-Amer- ican whose family name was established by his father in this section of the state more than fifty-six years ago. He himself was born in West Mill Creek township, Erie county, February 18, 1863, and is a son of William and Louise (Fogel) Berkenkamp. The father was a native of Prussia, born in 1832, and celebrated the attainment of his majority on shipboard, in the course of his sixty-three days' ocean voyage from the fatherland to America. Going direct to Erie, he at once entered the employ of John A. Tracy, owner of a farm in West Mill Creek township. Subsequently, he purchased a place himself at Franklin Centre, operated it for eight years, and then sold the property, after which he was identi- fied with the Reed farm, east of the city, for a period of thirty-five years. William Berkenkamp then built a home on Buffalo road and Downing
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avenue, to the rest and comforts of which he retired until his death in September, 1903. His wife and the mother of John H. is still living, in her eighty-second year. She is a native of Wurtemberg, Germany ; came to Erie when a young girl and was married in the county. She is a life- long German Lutheran, as was her husband.
John II. Berkenkamp, of this sketch, was reared on the old Reed farm, received a public school education and obtained a commercial train- ing-the latter at Clark's Business College. Until he was twenty-two years of age he remained with his parents, and then, for a year, was em- ployed on the plantation owned by W. L. Scott at Cape Charles, Virginia. For the succeeding year and a half he was with the C. F. Adams Com- pany, stationed both at Erie and Chicago, and in 1889 he established him- self in the furniture and house furnishing business at the former city. Having completed the regular course at the Pittsburg College of Embalm- ing, Mr. Berkenkamp added an undertaking department to his business, which developed so satisfactorily that in 1906 he disposed of the furni- ture branch and devoted his entire time to it. Both as an embalmer and a funeral director Mr. Berkenkamp is now widely known, his high stand- ing being the natural result of his scientific knowledge of the business and his straightforward and pleasing traits of character. His popularity as a citizen is also partially demonstrated by his membership in the Cham- ber of Commerce and the Business Men's Exchange, and his active iden- tification with the Masons, Elks, Odd Fellows, Royal Arcanum and Knights of the Golden Eagle. He is also a member of the Young Men's Christian Association and a leader in the work of the Central Presby- terian church. Mr. Berkenkamp's wife was formerly Mrs. Ella Metcalf, a San Francisco lady.
W. ED. MARSH. For upwards of thirty years W. Ed. Marsh has been actively engaged in the practice of law in Corry, Erie county, and in the meantime has won in an eminent degree the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens, those who know him best placing implicit confidence in his integrity, fidelity, and good judgment. A Pennsylvanian by birth, of English descent, he was born, January 15, 1851, in Farmington township, Warren county, where the birth of his father, William S. Marsh, occurred July 9, 1826. Of his parents the following account is interesting in several ways: "In a little Quaker church, John Marsh and Phebe Allen of the township of Woodbury, Middlesex county, New Jersey, having declared their intention of marriage with each other before several montlily meetings of the people called Quakers, at Rahway, on the 26th day of August, 1790, and in the presence of fifty-one witnesses did, according to the custom among them, take each other by the hand and declare that they took each other for man and wife, promising by the Lord's assistance to be faithful unto each other until death should them part."
On the 10th of March, 1795, Joseph Marsh was born to them, being their third child. In 1800, when Joseph was a little over five years old, the parents saw the opportunity to secure a new and cheap home in the lands which had been ceded to the Commonwealth by the Seneca Indians, who then occupied this part of Pennsylvania. They left their old home in New Jersey, and started for the wilds of Northwestern Pennsylvania. They carried their family and goods in ox-carts, drawn by oxen. Slowly they wended their way along through rough and hilly roads until they reached Franklin, where they unloaded their goods and placed them in
HEd Marsh
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keel boats, as there was no road up the river at that time, and pushed them up the river to Warren-their cattle being driven over the hills and through the woods to Warren, where their goods and wagons were dis- embarked from the boats, and they proceeded as before, until they reached their destination in what was known as Beech-woods, later Pine Grove, now Farmington township, on the 15th day of October, 1800. His brother, Hugh Marsh, had preceded him two years before. Here he spent the remaining years of his life.
In the year 1803, John Marsh taught the first school in Warren county, in a part of his own house, the scholars being his own and his brother Hugh's children, with one or two others. He built the first frame building, (a barn) in Warren county, in 1812.
Joseph Marsh always retained a good share of the Quaker belief, as he was reared among them, his parents being of strict Quaker faith, hold- ing regular meetings at their own fireside. Succeeding to the ownership of the parental homestead, Joseph S. Marsh was there engaged in agricul- tural pursuits until his death. He was the first justice of the peace in what is now Farmington township, Warren county, serving fifteen years beginning in 1842. He married Ruth Sheldon, who died in middle life, and of their children but three grew to years of maturity, William S .. John A., and Phebe Ann.
William S. Marsh grew to manhood on the ancestral farm, and after attaining man's estate bought land in Farmington township, and was there employed to some extent in general farming during his active life. He was also elected justice of the peace serving several terms. He was, however, a natural mechanic, expert in the use of tools, and spent much of his time in carpentering, although he had never served an apprentice- ship at the trade. He spent his entire life in Farmington township, passing away, in 1902, at the age of seventy-six years. He married Rosaville P. Knapp, who is still living in Farmington township. She was born, August 22, 1828, near Boston Corners, New York, being a daughter of Hiram and Clarissa (Barrett) Knapp. William S. Marsh and wife reared three children, namely: W. Ed., of this sketch; Carrie, wife of Sherman Brown ; and Fred S., who received the Peabody prize when he was graduated from the Buffalo School of Pharmacy, and is now chemist for the Straight Dry Plate Company at Jamestown, New York.
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