USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 77
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
During the fifty-six years in which he was engaged in lumbering, Mr. Hall, who marketed his own lumber, never failed to make his annual trip to Louis- ville, and in the earlier part of his life would go as far as Vicksburg and Natchez ; would stack his lumber at Cairo, let it season, and tow it on barges by steamboat to St. Louis, which was always a ready market before the lumber was floated down the Mississippi. At times his business would take him down the river more than once during the year. He remained in active business longer than any of those who began with him.
His most honorable characteristic, however, was his love for his home and family. After the rivalries and resentments of the day were over, it was his delight to forget them in the repose and comfort of domestic life, in the com- pany of his wife and children. In the outside world he was known as a man of strong attachments and equally strong resentments. Indeed, it is a prop- erty of human nature, that a good lover is also a good hater, that a man who loves his friends is capable of keeping his enemies at a distance. But no man was ever more fair in his treatment of those whom he disliked than Mr. Hall. He hated trickery, and whenever he came to the conclusion that he was being imposed upon, he stood firmly for his legal rights. This is a more noble trait than a pusillanimous submission to fraud. Finally, he was a believer in the di- vine truths of the Christian religion, and his faith sustained him in the last try- ing days of his life, and removed the fear of death.
On the 10th day of March, 1830, he married Eliza, daughter of Colonel Joseph Hackney, who became a resident of Warren in 1814. She was born near Meadville, in Crawford county, Pa., on the 9th of February, 1809. For many years her father occupied a substantial block house on the site of the First National Bank. Mrs. Hall was a faithful Christian and a working member of the Presbyterian Church. Her kindness of heart, her cheerfulness of disposi- tion, her liberality to the poor, her many social qualities, and her other amiable traits of character had endcared her to a large circle of friends and acquaint- ances. She was the mother of a large family of children, of whom five sons and four daughters survive. Mrs. Hall died on the 15th day of March, 1885.
D INSMOOR, CHARLES. The subject of this sketch is in the fifth gen- eration in direct descent from John Dinsmoor, the founder of the family in America, who came from Londonderry, Ireland, in 1719, and settled at Windham, N. H. John Dinsmoor, although coming from Ireland, was a Scotchman, his parents having been born and raised in Scotland. To the family of his descendants belong the Governors Samuel Dinsmoor, the elder and younger, whose pure and vigorous administrations are still remembered in the Granite Statc. The elder Governor Dinsmoor was in Congress in 1811-12, and as his name was first on the roll, he is the first member recorded as voting for the series of measures which led to the declaration of war be-
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CHARLES DINSMOOR.
tween this country and Great Britain. To this family also belong Robert Dinsmoor, the "Rustic Bard," a New England poet, who achieved something more than a merely local celebrity in the early part of the present century, and some of whose songs, in the Scotch dialect, deserve to live along with those of Scotland's famous poets; and also Colonel Silas Dinsmoor, the famous Indian agent and teacher of the arts of civilization to the Cherokee and Choc- taw nations, and William B. Dinsmore, now president of the Adams Express Company.
Charles Dinsmoor was born at Alabama Center, Genesee county, N. Y., on the 19th day of September, 1834. He is the son of George F. and Catha- rine (Harper) Dinsmoor. His mother, the daughter of George Harper, of Elba, Genesee county, N. Y., died in the year 1872, aged sixty-six years. His father, born at Keene, N. H., in 1794, removed from the State of New York to Elk township, in this county, in 1836, and remained there until his death, in 1868. Charles received a fair education, though it was obtained against great disadvantages and under circumstances of peculiar hardship. He attended the common schools in Elk township for a time, but very irregularly, owing to his services being required in the support of a large family in poor circumstances. After he left home in 1850 he became, through his own ex- ertions, successively a student at the academies at Warren, Smethport, and Coudersport, Pa., and Randolph, N. Y. He was engaged in the printing business at Smethport, Pa., Corning, N. Y., Condersport, Pa., Randolph, N. Y., and Warren, Pa., in connection with teaching and attending school, for about eleven years, during the last three of which he was editor of the Warren Ledger. During the years 1856 and 1857 he attended the Randolph Academy one year, and read law in the office of Weeden & Henderson, attorneys of that place, six months. In 1858 he came to Warren, and continued his law studies under B. W. Lacy. He was admitted to the bar of Warren county in Septem- ber, 1859. In 1860 he was appointed assistant United States marshal, and took the census of the northern half of Warren county. In February, 1861, he was elected justice of the peace for Warren borough, and was successively re-elected for fifteen years, practicing law in the courts in the mean time. He retired from the office of justice voluntarily in 1876, and has never since held any office of his seeking. He has been elected to many positions in the borough government, from town clerk to chief burgess. In 1878 he was elected unanimously to the office of school director, and has been continuously in that position ever since. No man, probably, has contributed more in that position to bring about the present high condition of the schools of Warren than Mr. Dinsmoor. From the beginning he has taken a deep interest in the · association now known as the Struthers Library Association, and was for sev- eral years its treasurer and a member of its Board of Control. Since 1868 he has been connected with the order of Odd Fellows, and is now a past grand 42
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
master of Warren Lodge No. 339. Politically, Mr. Dinsmoor is a Democrat, of very decided opinions. He has, at times, taken an active part in politics, having, as chairman of the Democratic County Committee, led the party of the county in the only two successful contests for the office of member of Congress for this district, which it has made in the last thirty years.
Mr. Dinsmoor is now, as a lawyer, engaged in the practice of his profession in Warren and several adjoining counties, and in the Supreme Court of this State, and the United States Circuit and District Courts. His abilities have marked him as a man peculiarly adapted to the functions of referee and mas- ter, and his legal opinions, delivered in these positions, are quite numerous in the Reports of this State.
In October, 1861, he married Elizabeth C., daughter of Abijah Morrison, who was elected sheriff of Warren county in 1840 and again in 1846, and is one of the only two men who ever held the office under two elections. He was the son of James Morrison, and was born in Mead township, as now con- stituted, in 1807, on what is now known as the Rogers farm. While he was a young man, his father, James Morrison, purchased what have ever since been known as Morrison Flats, just below Warren, and erected thereon a large dwelling house, which is now one of the oldest landmarks in the county. Abi- jah Morrison was also an extensive lumberman and merchant in this county, and the community sustained a severe loss in his death, in 1869. He had al- ways been a zealous Democrat in politics, and was many years a constable in Warren borough. His wife was Euphemia J., daughter of Josiah Deming, a leading pioneer in Spring Creek township. She died at Warren in 1878. Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmoor have had four children, as follows: Imogen G., born Octo- ber 17, 1867, and was graduated from the Warren high school in May, 1885 ; Loten A., born January 25, 1870, graduated from the Warren high school in the spring of 1887; Harry, born in August, 1873, died in March, 1874; and Frederick, born January 13, 1875.
H ERTZEL, ANDREW, was born near Strasbourg, in Alsace, France, now Germany, on the 6th of January, 1829. His father, Christian Hertzel, a carpenter by trade, was born in Switzerland in 1788, and went to Alsace when a young man. In 1832 he left Europe, and in April of the following year reached Warren, Pa. He died in February, 1841. He was twice married, and had one son by his first wife, and five sons and a daughter by his second. The second wife, Marie, mother of the subject of this sketch, dicd in the fall of 1853. Of her six children, five are now living, as follows: Jacob, in Iowa, Philip, in Pleasant township, in this county, Martin, in Glade, Andrew, in War- ren, and Mary, the wife of M. E. Stranger, of Downer's Grove, III.
Andrew Hertzel was but just past four years of age when he was brought by his parents to Warren county. His father settled in Warren borough, and
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ANDREW HERTZEL.
for two years worked by the day at common labor. He then purchased fifty acres of timbered land in Pleasant, and in the pathless forest erected his little log hut. Andrew, being the youngest of the children, did not have much to do in clearing the farm at first, but at a very early age was utilized in various ways. His father, in two years, added fifty acres to his original purchase. He remained at home until 1845, when, at the age of seventeen years he came to Warren, which has ever since been his home. Here he began to learn the blacksmith's trade under an agreement to work for three and a half years as an apprentice to S. J. Page, which contract he performed. He continued in Mr. Page's employment until April, 1852, when he purchased his employer's shop and tools, and became an independent artisan. He did not relinquish this business until 1872, at which time other investments which demanded his entire time, drew him from the anvil. As early as 1860 he was drawn by circumstances into the lumber trade, and two years later purchased tim- bered tracts in Limestone township. From 1866 to 1870 he devoted his sole time and attention to the development of this industry with success. He has not abandoned the business, but is still interested in the trade. He owns some timber in Forest county. He runs most of his lumber down the river in rafts to the various markets - Pittsburgh and below. In 1872 he became inter- ested in the oil business in Clarion county. But when they developed the petroleum interest in Warren he transferred his interest to the county of his adoption. He is still connected with oil operations and has owned interests in twenty wells at one time. He owns a quarter interest in the Warren grist- mill, which he acquired when it was rebuilt in the fall of 1881, and helped to rebuild the present structure. Mr. Hertzel has never been desirous of hoard- ing his money, but immediately upon acquiring it seeks some safe channel in which to set it in circulation. He has owned stock in the First National Bank of Warren ever since its incorporation, and has been a director of the Citizens' National Bank from the time of its organization.
A city full of rich misers might be a temptation to plunderers, but not to laborers, nor to men who look for enterprises in which they may safely invest their capital. Money does no good to the world while it is locked in chests or buried in the earth. It is the free circulation of wealth which at once marks and creates a prosperous community. Mr. Hertzel and men of his stamp have made Warren proverbial throughout the State for its enterprise and progress- ive energy. As an example of this praiseworthy public spirit, may be related briefly the circumstances attending the construction of the bridge over the Allegheny River to the township of Pleasant. In the winter of 1870-71 they, after suffering inconvenience about twenty years from having no bridge across this river at Warren, began to agitate the question of the feasibility of building such a structure. They at once communicated with a number of eminent civil engineers and bridge builders throughout the country, particularly with the
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Roeblings, and afterward with George W. Fischler, of Elmira. In the same winter they organized a stock company under the name of the Pleasant Bridge Company. Negotiations resulted in the hiring of Mr. Fischler, by the month, to build the bridge. It was crossed in November, 1871, but was not com- pleted until the next year. The cost of construction and of subsequent re- pairs was about $45,000. Mr. Hertzel has ever since remained the president of the company, and may justly be proud of the monument to his public spirit and zeal.
In 1881 another company was formed under the name of the Allegheny Bridge Company, which built a bridge across the river two miles above War- ren, and Mr. Hertzel was from the first a stockholder, and is now the treasurer of that company.
In the upbuilding of the material prosperity of the town and its advance- ment in every way, Mr. Hertzel has undoubtedly done as much, at least in proportion to his means, as any man who ever lived in the county. In 1864, in company with two others, he built the Union block. In 1870 he and Mr. Nesmith erected the clothing store which now the joins the Union block on the east. He has also been interested in many other building operations. In 1867 he contributed more than any other two men toward the erection of the Lutheran Church, which was finished two years later. During the two years in which it was in process of construction he superintended the work, devoting much valuable time to the task. He was a member of the town council when the new town hall was built, and was made the superintendent of its construc- tion. In literary and educational matters he has taken the same unselfish in- terest, and generously assisted the inauguration of the library society which preceded the Struthers Library. He also contributed one hundred dollars to- ward the purchase of the lot on which the Struthers library building now stands.
Politically, Mr. Hertzel was during the greater part of his life a Democrat, but for four years or more he has voted the Prohibition ticket, believing that the greatest evil in the country and world can never be eradicated until a powerful public sentiment will support proper legislation prohibiting it. In this Mr. Hertzel evinces that he has the courage of his convictions. He has never desired to hold public office, although he has accepted office where he conveniently could, for the reason that he holds it to be the duty of every honest citizen to bear his proportion of the public burden. He has held a seat in the town council many years, and has been burgess, school director, etc. He is a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Church, and for years has been a trustee of its affairs. He contributes also to the support of other churches. He is in addition a trustee of twelve years standing of the Lutheran College at Greene- ville, Pa.
Andrew Hertzel married, November 30th, 1851, Mary, daughter of John
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ANDREW HERTZEL. - JAY WHITE.
Reig, of Warren. Mrs. Hertzel is also a native of Alsace. They have had a family of six children, five of whom are sons. Two children died in infancy. The eldest, Isabel, died in March, 1876, aged twenty-three years, then the wife of Frederick Morck. She left one child, Gertrude W. Morck, who now lives with her grandparents. The eldest son, Albert G. Hertzel, born in Septem- ber, 1854, died in November, 1884, while holding the position of cashier of the Citizens' National Bank, leaving one child, Eda May; Freeman E., born September 29, 1865, and Roy Laird, born July 8, 1871.
W HITE, JAY, of Corydon, is the grandson of Israel White, who died in Oneida county, N. Y., in 1812, and the son of Orange White, who died in Farmington, in this county, in January, 1877. He is a descendant, also, of Hugh White, the first settler at Whitestown, Oneida county, N. Y. Orange White was born in that county on the 13th of June, 1806, at the same time with a twin brother, Otis, who died within two years thereafter. He had five other brothers, Moses, Israel, George, Willard, and another Otis, all of whom are deceased, but who have numerous descendants in Oneida county at this day. In the winter of 1836-7, Orange White came to that part of Farmington township, Warren county, which was then a part of Sugar Grove, where he passed the remainder of his life. In the spring of 1867 he leased the home- stead and removed to Lander, where his widow still resides. He was twice married, first to Bethilda Brainerd, of Oneida county, deceased in March, 1833, leaving one child, Delia, who died in 1861 ; and secondly, in January, 1837, to Nancy Robbins, who still lives. She was a daughter of Ebenezer Robbins, a lawyer of the town of Western, N. Y., and was the eldest of his thirteen children, all but two of whom are now living. Ebenezer Robbins lived to a ripe old age, and died about ten years ago, he and his wife within a short time of each other. Orange and Nancy White had nine children, all of whom are living, and all of whom but one are married. The subject of this sketch is the eldest of these children. He was born in Sugar Grove, now Farmington town- ship, on the Ist day of October, 1837. There he received a common school education, remaining on his father's farm until he was twenty-one years of age. At that time he went to McHenry county, Ill., where he remained two years and six months, teaching and farming. From there he went to Howard county, Ia., where, until the spring of 1866, he taught and worked as clerk in a store. His next venture was in Busti, Chautauqua county, N. Y., where he engaged in the mercantile business, his father taking an interest in the trade until the fall of 1869. He then opened a store at Lander, in Farmington, and remained in that place for one year. His father, meantime, retained a financial interest in the store, and with him removed the stock from Lander to Corydon in the fall of 1870. Father and son remained partners five or six years in all, though Orange resided all the time in Farmington. After the dissolution of this part-
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
nership, Jay White continued the business alone until the fall of 1884, when he relinquished it and engaged largely in buying and selling lumber. He was persuaded to enter upon this occupation by the belief that the growing importance of Corydon village had already created a demand for dressed lumber, and the result has evinced the accuracy of his supposition. He does not manufacture the lumber, but hires it dressed in a mill which he owns and rents. Although he has abandoned the mercantile business, he still owns sev- eral stores, which he leases. He has never been smitten with oil fever.
In politics Mr. White was formerly a Democrat, but for some three years he has favored and upheld the Prohibition party. He has held a number of the im- portant township offices in Corydon, serving one term as justice of the peace, and being re-elected to the same office, though he did not qualify because he had been appointed postmaster. He also served two terms as school director. He was postmaster of Corydon for about ten years, and until the spring of 1886. For a number of years he carried on the only mercantile operations in the whole township, but the opening of the railroad in 1882 increased the im- portance of the place in the eyes of outsiders, and other merchants brought their stock hither.
His religious belief is in the final salvation of all. He is a friend of all churches and of good schools as the props of the good order, stability, and purity of society. He is at present one of the trustees of the Methodist Church in Corydon. He was the most generous contributor towards the build- ing of the Methodist house of worship, and did more to assure its success than any other one person.
On the 19th of September, 1868, Mr. White married Alice, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Airron, formerly of Sugar Grove, then of Busti, N. Y., and for eight years last past members of Mr. White's household. They have two adopted children-Jay M. and Vernie M., children of Mrs. White's sister.
W TETMORE, HON. LANSING, was born at Whitestown (now in Oneida county), N. Y., on the 28th of August, 1792, and died in Warren l'a., on the 15th day of November, 1857. His father, Parsons Wetmore, was an early settler in Whitestown, N. Y., whither he had gone with his parents in 1786. In the year 1815 Lansing Wetmore emigrated from the place of his birth, where he had received a good common school education, to the head- waters of the Little Brokenstraw, in Warren county, Pa. There, in 1816, he married Caroline, daughter of Abraham S. Ditmars. His wife survived him until June, 1878. His mother was Aurelia, daughter of Judge Hugh White, one of the settlers of Whitestown, as Western New York was called in 1784.
After living for a while at Pine Grove, he removed his family in 1820 to Warren, where and in the vicinity of which he resided until his death. On the 25th of September, 1819, soon after the separate organization of Warren
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LANSING WETMORE.
county, he was appointed its first prothonotary by Governor Findlay, which office, together with those of register and recorder of deeds, and clerk of the several courts, he held until the spring of 1821. On the 23d of January, 1824, he was again appointed by Governor Shulze to the several offices of prothono- tary, recorder, register, etc., in which he continued until the year 1830. About the year 1831, as will be seen by reference to the list of attorneys of Warren county, he was admitted to the bar, and he continued in the practice of law from that time until his retirement to his farm in Conewango in 1842. For a number of years between 1825 and 1830 he was interested in the publication of the Warren Gazette, in which enterprise he expended considerable time and money. In the fall of 1851 he was elected one of the associate judges of the county, and faithfully and ably discharged the duties of that office for his term of five years. The latter years of his life were devoted to agricultural pursuits, in which he always felt a deep interest, and to the advancement of which he contributed perhaps more than any one else in Warren county.
Without ostentation he was always found with the foremost in every enter- prise that promised progress in the improvement of society and the develop- ment of the county, and was ever ready to bestow liberally of his time, toil, and money, to further all educational or literary projects, as well as also all enterprises looking to the material improvement of the county in the construc- tion of roads, bridges, etc. He came to the county when its population num- bered not more than three hundred. He was gratified at the advancement to which he had contributed in the county, isolated from the civilization of the east, and dependent for development on the character and spirit of its pioneers.
Coming into the wilderness peopled by an infant and scattered colony, without resources except character, ability, courage, and energy, he “grew with its growth, and strengthened with its strength," for forty years of contin- uous and faithful work in all the varied duties which devolve upon an active man in a new and growing county. The competent fortune which crowned his life of labor, was the slow growth of industry, fair dealing, and good judg- ment.
Perhaps the most prominent features of his character were his integrity and evenness of temper. He was in all circumstances and at all times the same calm, conscientious and unimpassioned man, performing every duty quietly and completely, disarming opposition by his gentle firmness of manner, and inspiring all his associates with admiration for the firmness of his purpose, the soundness of his judgment, and considerate regard [for the rights and feelings of others ; he was one of the original stockholders of the Sunbury and Erie now the Philadelphia and Erie R. R. Co. As a citizen his influence was always found on the side of order and sobriety, morality and progress; as a public officer he performed burthensome duties with the same promptness and fidelity with which he discharged those that were more agreeable; as a politician he
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
was intelligent, tolerant, and firm in his adhesion to the old Whig party ; as a lawyer his conduct was characterized by integrity of purpose and urbanity of manner; in the limited duties which devolve on the associate judge he was patient, sound, and impartial ; as a Christian (a member of the Presbyterian Church), he was earnest and consistent ; and as a husband and father, as was said at the time of his death, " he left a widow and numerous family, whose characters and positions in society are enduring monuments to his virtues in his domestic relations, and his faithful attention to the interests of education in the community where he had to be one of the originators of educational facilities."
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