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 97
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Mr. Waldo, of this sketch, left school when he was fourteen years of age, learned the painter's trade and has followed that calling ever since. On March 2, 1908, he married Miss Alice Goodenow, born at Cranesville, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of August, 1889, daughter of David and Margaret (Randall) Goodenow. Her parents are both living in Elk Creek township, her father being fifty-seven and her mother, fifty-one years of age.
Mr. and Mrs. Waldo are the parents of one child, Ransom. The former also has a brother living, Louis Waldo, a painter of Erie, Penn- sylvania, who married Jennie Reed and is the father of Glen and Ar- line.
EMERY J. FRANCIS, of Franklin township, is one of the strongest and broadest members of the agricultural community in Erie county- the more definite meaning of this statement being that he has contrib- uted to its progress as effectively and in as many different ways as any man within its limits. He has been, and still is, a thorough and scien- tific farmer ; as a professional thresher has been an active figure in harvesting the crops of Erie county for many years, and as represen- tative of the McCormick Company and other great manufacturers of agricultural machinery has been largely concerned in the introduction of modern labor-saving devices which have so increased the produc- tive capacity of the present-day farm and added to the prosperity of its proprietor. There are many evidences that the able and useful labors of Mr. Francis have been fully appreciated by his fellows, one of them
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being the honors which they have conferred on him in the form of public responsibilities. Although a firm Republican, he has impar- tially served his constituents as supervisor, assessor, auditor, collector and in other offices.
The Francis family is prominent in the pioneer history of Essex county, New York, of which Alvin Francis, grandfather of Emery J., was a native. In his youthful years he served in the war of 1812, and in 1833 fixed his homestead in the woods of the present Franklin town- ship. He cleared his purchase of ninety-one acres, on the site of what is now Francis Corners, continued the home improvements for years, reared a family of six sons and three daughters (with the able as- sistance of his good wife, Betsy Soper), and died in 1867, at the age of sixty-nine years. The widow survived until 1884, or until she was eighty-seven. Alva Francis, the eldest of the family, was also a na- tive of Essex county, New York, and was born July 14, 1821, being twelve years of age when his parents brought him to the log home in the forest of Erie county. He spent his life as a farmer on the old homestead, and died January 25, 1903, at the age of eighty-one years and six months. The deceased was a member of the Christian church, and an industrious, unpretentious representative of his community and his faith. On November 17, 1845, he married Miss Mary Bliss, born February 13, 1821, daughter of Harry and Polly (Wright) Bliss, and still living in her eighty-ninth year. Besides her son, Emery J., she has one surviving daughter, Ellen, now the wife of Erric Babbitt.
Emery J. Francis was born on the old homestead at Francis Corners, October 1, 1846, and until he was twenty years of age di- vided most of his life into winters of schooling and summers of farm- ing. At that age he dropped the schooling altogether and remained on the home place until he was twenty-two. Seven years of independ- ent farm work then enabled him to purchase fifty acres of timberland in the township, but he soon sold that tract and bought the land com- prising his present homestead, which was then a raw place of promise, since improved into property of value and attractiveness. Soon after purchasing the place he also bought a threshing outfit and operated it for about twelve years, still later engaging in the sale of agricultural machinery. In 1886 Mr. Francis located at Lockport, where for three years he engaged in merchandising, but in 1889 returned to the busi- ness of dealing in farming machinery. For sixteen years he was thus identified with the McCormick Harvester Company, during that pe- riod placing his farm in charge of a competent superintendent. For more than forty years he has been an active worker in the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities, being a charter member of both lodges in Girard. He joined the Masons in 1869, being a member of Girard Lake Erie Lodge No. 347, and is connected with the I. O. O. F as a member of Girard Nickel Plate Lodge No. 1125 and Girard Five Stars Encampment No. 97. He is also an enthusiastic supporter of the State Police.
In 1871 Mr. Francis married Miss Martha M. Allen, who was born in Fairview township, Erie county, November 15, 1850, and is a daughter of L. D. and Jane (Culbertson) Allen. Mr. Allen came to Erie county with his parents when a boy and died in 1883, aged seven- ty-three years, while his wife, a daughter of John Culbertson, died in 1901, at the age of eighty-nine. Mrs. Francis was a school teacher
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for several years before her marriage. There were seven children in the family, the only survivor, besides herself, being a brother, Leander C. Allen, a retired farmer of Ames, Iowa.
CHURCH FAMILY. The Church family in this county is of New England stock, and the first of the name to migrate from Connecticut to Genesee county, New York, was Thomas Church. The Churches first settled in Genesee county, New York, whence Henry L. Church came to Warren county, Pennsylvania, and finally to Union township in Erie county. Thomas Church came from Haddam, Con- necticut, made the journey to LeRoy, New York, accompanied by his wife, nee Sallie N. Parmelee, from Killingworth, Connecticut, and the following children: Henry L., Russell S. and Thomas R. Thomas and Sallie Church died in Union City.
Henry L. Church, the eldest son, was born in Connecticut in 1811. He married Electa M. J., a daughter of Henry Whitney, from Oneida county, New York, in 1838, and their children were: Charles. born in 1840; Russell S., in 1843; Caroline E., in 1844; Horatio L., in 1847; Thomas, in 1849; Richard, in 1851; and Frank, in 1860. Frank, the youngest, was the only one of the children born in Union City. In due process of time Henry L. Church with the aid of his sons erected both a grist and saw mill, and also operated a general store, and in all these ventures he was successful. The one hundred acres of land which he purchased in and adjacent to Union City was laid out in lots, and thus made possible the future growth and development of the place. The town was then noted for the number of its cooper shops, their products being utilized in the oil fields, and Mr. Church under the firm name of H. L. Church and Sons continued his milling and mercantile business until 1884, when the mill was burned and never rebuilt, and the mercantile department was also discontinued. Mr. Church died in the year 1898, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. He was a man of influence and great worth in his community, and he served his town in various capacities. He was the second man to fill its office of burgess, and he was several times elected to that position. During his residence in Union City, Erie county, he was president of the First National Bank, of Union City, and during the operation of the Union & Titusville railroad he served for some time as its president. His fraternal relations were with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mrs. Church died in 1876, and only two of her children survive, Russell S. and Horatio L.
Horatio L. Church is a stockholder in the Standard Chair Com- pany of Union City, and served at one time as its president. The in- dustry was organized in 1898 on a small scale, but in 1900 it was in- corporated as the Standard Chair Company and has since been in- creased to large proportions. Its present force is two hundred em- ployes, and it has a capacity of thirty-five hundred chairs every ten hours. The plant is operated by electricity, having a four hundred horsepower engine, and it contains all the latest and most modern im- provements for the carrying on of the work. Horatio L. Church served his city as postmaster during Cleveland's administration. He is a 32d degree Mason ; is a past master of Eureka Lodge No. 366, F. & A. M .; is a member of Columbia Chapter No. 200 and of Clarence Commandery No. 51, Knights Templar, of Corry, and also the Con-
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sistory at Pittsburg; the Zem-Zem Temple at Erie; and a member of the Lodge of Perfection of Erie. He is also a member of Erie Lodge of Elks No. 67, and a member of Clement Lodge No. 220, I. O. O. F. He is also a member of John W. McLean Post No. 102, G. A. R., at Union City. In his political views Mr. Church is a Democrat. He married Miss Lelia W. Waite of Cleveland, Ohio.
Russell S. Church, who has never married, has served Union City as a councilman, and he is a past master of Eureka Lodge No. 366, F. & A. M.
LEON M. SHERWOOD, a substantial farmer of Waterford township, comes from well known pioneers on both sides of the family. He himself may be placed in this class as he was born in the township named. March 28, 1862; received his education in its public schools and in those of Washington township and has been engaged in farm- ing in this locality all his life. On December 29, 1887, Mr. Sherwood married Miss Elizabeth Ann McFayden, a daughter of Alexander and Emeline (Woodford) McFayden. Her father, who was born April 27, 1899, emigrated from his native Scotland when a boy of eighteen and located in the vicinity which afterward became his homestead. Shortly after his arrival his parents, Neil and Catherine McFayden, joined him in his wilderness home and all the male members of the family joined forces to clear the land and make a home. In this locality Alexander McFayden reached manhood and was married in 1850, his wife being a native of Waterford township and of an old Connecticut family, her parents migrating from that state at an early day. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander McFayden were: Katherine Isabelle ; William T., Alexander, Elizabeth, Finley and John. With the exception of Mrs. Sherwood, who lives on the old farm, all the children are residents of the city of Erie.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Leon M. Sherwood are as fol- lows: Alexander McFayden, born November 1, 1888; Emeline Bell, May 6, 1893 ; Mabel Irene, December 8, 1896. The oldest child, Alex- ander, is now a junior at Bucknell College, while the other children are students in the public schools. Mr. Sherwood is a Republican and he is a member of I. O. O. F., Lodge No. 974, at Waterford.
REV. ROBERT STANSBURY VANCLEVE, D. D., one of the oldest and most prominent ministers of Erie, was born at Beaver Meadow, Car- bon county, Pennsylvania, October 16, 1842, the son of Aaron H. and Henrietta (Chambers) VanCleve. The VanCleve family emigrated from Holland in early times, and have been in America for six gen- erations. The Chambers family is English, and the great-grandfather of Robert S. VanCleve, David Chambers, was an officer in the Revolu- tion, and at one time attached to the staff of General Washington.
Aaron H. VanCleve was born at Lawrenceville, New Jersey. August 25, 1806, the son of Jacob VanCleve, a farmer of Lawrence- ville. His wife, Henrietta (Chambers) VanCleve, was born at Tren- ton, New Jersey, the daughter of Clark and Mary (Guild) Chambers. This couple was married in New York city October 29, 1828, shortly after which they removed to Pennsylvania, where Aaron VanCleve had charge of large mining interests; in 1846 they returned to Tren- ton, New Jersey, where he became organizer of the Trenton Locomo-
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tive & Machine Manufacturing Company, of which he became presi- dent. Later he became purchasing agent for the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company, at South Amboy, New Jersey, and subsequently su- perintendent of the Western Division of the Chesapeake & Ohio rail- road, with headquarters at Huntington, West Virginia. He spent his declining years in Trenton, New Jersey, where he died August 2, 1880. His wife died on March 22, 1858.
Rev. Robert S. VanCleve was reared principally at Trenton, New Jersey, and prepared for college at Lawrenceville. He entered Prince- ton College, taking the academic course, and graduated with the class of 1863, with degree A. B., three years later taking the A. M .; then entered Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in the Class of 1866. The Grove City (Pennsylvania) College conferred upon him, in 1895, degree of D. D. He entered the ministerial field at Westfield, New York, in October, 1866, and in 1870 removed to Leetsdale (Pennsylvania) Presbyterian church, the postoffice address of which was Sewickley, and continued at this place for seventeen years. He first came to Erie in 1866, intending to spend a vacation there, but was induced to take the pastorate of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian church. Soon after he took a year's vacation in Colorado, and on his return to Erie, again was induced to take it in charge, and has since continued its pastor, using his best efforts to build up and maintain a flourishing society, and has practically built the present church. He has the affection and gratitude of all his parishioners, and his efforts have been greatly appreciated in circles outside the church. He is stated clerk of the Erie presbytery, in which there are seventy- one churches, which office makes him one of the most active workers in the Presbyterian church in that part of the state. He contributes his services to all church work in the city, and is leader of the crusade against vice, now being made an issue in municipal affairs, and an im- portant one. He is a member of the local Princeton Club, the Ameri- can Whig Society of Princeton College, also the Greek letter society Zeta Psi.
Dr. VanCleve married Catherine Spencer, daughter of the late Judah Colt Spencer, a pioneer of Erie, and sister to William Spen- cer, president of the First National Bank of Erie. She died January 25, 1897. To this marriage the following children were born: J. Spencer, a graduate of Princeton College, a prominent manufacturer of Erie, and president of the Erie Foundry. He married Grace, daughter of John W. Reynolds, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany ; children, Henrietta and Frances L., twins. Henrietta married Otto G. Hitchcock, vice president and treasurer of Hayes Manufacturing Company, of Erie. Frances L. lives at home with her father. Dr. VanCleve's present wife was Miss Lucy Carter White, a lineal de- scendant of Governor Thomas Nelson, governor of Virginia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
JOSEPH H. KING is numbered among the men of affluence in Erie county who can justly claim the title of a self made man, the dis- tinctive architect of his own fortune. He was but a lad of nine years when he started out on an independent career as a lighter of street lamps, and from that on he pushed steadily forward and at the age of fifteen began learning the trade of a boiler maker. But after five
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years of work along that line he in 1890, being then twenty years of age, turned his attention to the teaming business, and from the small beginning with one team he has greatly enlarged the scope of his ac- tivities until he now operates twenty-three head of horses and is at the head of the largest business in his line in the city of Eric. During two years from 1906 he served as the president of the grade crossing com- missioners, and in the year of 1907 was elected to the common council from the Fourth ward. He is a member of the Builders' Exchange, the Progressive League Club, the Sherman Greys, the South Erie Turners, the Maennerchor, the White Lilies Cascade Club, the Bay View Fishing and Hunting Club and is the president of the Cascade Park Club.
Mr. King was born in the Fourth ward of Erie March 24, 1870. His father, Joseph King, a native of Lisbon, Portugal, born in 1847, left home and native land when a boy of twelve years, and becoming an ocean sailor shipped first on a whaling vessel. Finally coming to the United States he located in Erie in 1864, and for years afterward was a sailor on the Great Lakes. He married a native daughter of this city, Catherine Fleming. Her father, John Fleming, was also a sailor and fisherman, and her mother was born in Ireland. The grandfather, Benjamin Fleming, located in Erie as early as the year of 1810, coming from the New England states. He was of Scotch descent and a salt water sailor, and as a gunner in Commodore Perry's fleet he took part in the battle of Lake Erie on the "Niagara." He died in this city in 1870, at the advanced age of ninety-six years. He was for a long period a noted character in and around Erie, and participated in all celebrations pertaining to Perry and his fleet here and at other points. Mrs. King yet survives her husband, and is living in Erie, being now sixty-three years of age. Their family numbered five children, as fol- lows; Joseph H .; Mary, who died at the age of nineteen years ; John, who died at the same age; Thomas, who died aged thirty-one; and Daniel.
Joseph H. King married in 1890 Kittie Pruyn, who was also born in Erie, but her parents, Matthew and Angeline (Bondy) Pruyn, were both from Michigan, where they were also married, and from there they came to Erie in 1868. Among the paternal ancestors of Mrs. King was Simon Pruyn, a Holland Dutchman who located in this city in an early day, and he lived to the age of ninety-one years, while his wife, nee Mary Steele, died in Erie at the age of eighty-six. The maternal grandfather of Mrs. King was Andrew Bondy, also from Michigan. Matthew Pruyn died in this city on the 2d of June, 1894, and his widow survived until the 27th of January, 1896. Mr. King has membership relations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and its Encampment with the Elks, Moose and Eagles fraternities.
LEE H. POMEROY, storekeeper of the Bessemer Railway at Albion, was born on the old Pomeroy homestead in Elk Creek township, on the 17th of July, 1878, and is a son of Fred Lee and Mary Elizabeth (Joslin) Pomeroy. Fred L. Pomeroy was born January 14, 1854, on the present homestead. After leaving school he farmed the remainder of his life on the farm which came into his possession after his parents' death. He is still active and is a member of the Knights of Pythias of Wellsburg and politically a Democrat but has never desired office.
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His wife, Mary E. Joslin, was born January 29, 1854, in Crawford county, a daughter of Hiram Joslin and Lydia Wyard, the mother being a daughter of Lehman Wyard and Elizabeth Chamberlain, both natives of Connecticut. The grandfather of Mrs. Lee H. Pomeroy was Darius Joslin, a farmer, and his wife was Elizabeth Jevin, both natives of New York. Grandfather Horace Pomeroy, was born in Conneaut township and died August 27, 1889, aged seventy-two. He built and prepared the present homestead. He was married to Mary E. Huntington, still living at the age of ninety-one, a daughter of John Huntington and Betsy Metcalf, natives of Vermont, who later moved to York State where they died. The father of John Huntington was David Huntington and the mother's name was Nancy. The father of Horace Pomeroy was Nathaniel Pomeroy and the mother Sarah Ran- dall. Nathaniel Pomeroy's father was Medad Pomeroy, a Revolu- tionary soldier who came with his family from the east, and was the first settler in Conneaut township, though the records do not show in what year they came. Mrs. Mary E. Pomeroy, the mother of Lee H., though now ninety-one years of age, is wonderfully active in body, with clear mind and memory, unusual for one of her age.
Mr. Pomeroy is a graduate of the Albion high school, and has followed the railroad business since he was twenty years old. For two years he was connected with the construction department of the road at Pittsburg, but returned to Albion in 1906, in order to assume charge of the Bessemer Company's business interests as storekeeper. On February 5, 1907, Mr. Pomeroy married Miss Zora L. Wilcox, who was born October 6, 1878, daughter of Martin Wilcox and Elizabeth Jane Stephenson. The father died November 30, 1906, at the age of seventy-six years, the mother having passed away August 17, 1880, at the early age of twenty-three. Martin Wilcox was born in Eng- land, but came to America as a boy and settled at Girard, Pennsylva- nia, with other members of the family. When he had attained his majority he settled in Kansas as a farmer ; afterward raised cotton and located at Joplin, Missouri, to work in the zinc mines and to engage in the mining business. He died at Joplin. The deceased was highly intelligent-in fact, quite scholarly -- and was such a devoted valued member of the Methodist church that he often officiated as a local pastor. Mrs. Pomeroy was reared by her grandparents, and after she left school was employed as a bookkeeper until her marriage. She is the only child now living. Mr. Pomeroy has one brother, Clair Mon- roe, who is with his parents, and one sister, Sarah, the wife of Daniel Roberts, postmaster at Cranesville.
John G. Stephenson, the grandfather of Mrs. Pomeroy, was born in Yorkshire, England, on the 29th of August, 1830, and is a son of Frederick and Mary (Cook) Stephenson, the former of whom died in 1869, at the age of sixty-seven, and the latter in 1867, aged sixty-five. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1844, when the boy was fourteen, and he was engaged in gardening in Buffalo until 1851. In that year, when of age, he moved to Elk Creek township, this county, and purchased the land which he has since improved so that it is one of the most productive truck farms in the locality. The early years on the old farm were anything but downy. The land was well timbered and the first crops were raised in rather scant soil between the stumps. It is related that the pioneer crop was one bushel of corn. In the
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household were three sons and three daughters. John G. was em- ployed on the home farm until he was twenty-four years of age, and then (after his marriage) purchased the family homestead of sixty acres. He finished clearing the land, added a sixty acre tract, and aside from general farming engaged in horticulture for the succeeding twenty years. For some years past he has made a specialty of garden- ing and his place, known as the "Old Stephenson Corners," is not only a historical landmark but a model farm for the raising of all garden produce.
On October 6, 1851, John G. Stephenson wedded Miss Mary Fin- cham, the ceremony occurring in Cambridgeshire, England, where the bride was born February 10, 1830. She is a daughter of William Fincham, a civil engineer in the employ of the British government, who died in 1871, aged sixty-three, and of Sarah Fincham, whose death occurred in 1849, at the age of fifty-four. At the golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Stephenson, celebrated at "Old Stephenson Corners" October 6, 1901, were present not only their five living chil- dren but forty-seven grandchildren ; so that the family seems destined to be perpetuated, so far as the Erie county branch is concerned. The six children are as follows: Sarah, born in 1853, who is now the wife of A. J. Lasher, of West Mill Creek township, and the mother of six children, as well as the grandmother of one child; Elizabeth, who died in 1880 was the mother of Mrs. Lee H. Pomeroy ; William Earl, born in 1859, a farmer of Albion who married Elizabeth Mitchell and is the father of Lyle (who has two children)-Wilbur (one child) and Vivian (three children) ; Rose May, born in 1861, the wife of Andrew J. Richardson (a farmer of East Springfield, Pennsylvania), the mother of five children and the grandmother of one child; John Henry, who was born in 1865, married Mary Lasher, is connected with the Lake Shore road at Ashtabula, Ohio, and has eight children ; and Frank W., who was born in 1870, married Anna Smith and is the father of four children. Elizabeth Stephenson, the mother of Mrs. Pomeroy, was a thoroughly educated and lovable woman. She was a graduate of the Edinboro institution conducted in her time by Professor Cooper, and taught for several terms in the district schools of Elk Creek town- ship.
WILLIAM MILLE MAXWELL. A skillful mechanic, thoroughly versed in all the departments of his work, William Mille Maxwell. of Albion, Erie county, is ably filling the responsible position of head blacksmith in the Bessemer shops. He belongs to a good old family of Scotland, being a son of Andrew Maxwell, the first member of his branch of the family to come to America. His great grandfather, Alexander Max- well, was born in Falkland, Fifeshire, his home having been very near the castle built by James V, king of Scotland. Alexander Max- well, a weaver by trade, attained the venerable age of ninety-five years, his birth having occurred in 1737, and his death in 1832. He married Jeannette Wells, who died in 1837, aged ninety-five years. They were people of eminent piety, belonging to what is now called the United Presbyterian church, and were very strict in the observance of their religious duties, holding family worship every evening at eight o'clock ..
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