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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Educational, Civic and Social Development
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Prepared Under the Editorial Supervision of
Dr. Benjamin F. Prince
President Clark County Historical Society
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Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors
--
Volumes 2
--
Published by
The American Historical Society
Chicago and New York
1922
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THE KELLY-SPRINGFIELD MOTOR
TRUCK COMPANY is definitely to be
considered one of the more important of the many industrial
concerns that lend commercial prestige to the City of
Springfield. About the eyar 1905 Oscar Lear
organized at Columbus, Ohio, a company to build racing and
motor carts, under the Frayer-Mille patents on air-cooled
motors. In 1907 the headquarters of teh company were
transferred to Springfield, through the cooperation and
financial assistance of public-spirited citizens of this
place, and the title of the Frayer-Mille Company was adopted
by the corporation. Here the company first confined its
business to the manufacturing of pleasure cars and taxicabs.
After about two years the enterprise was directed
exclusively to the manufacturing of air-cooled motor trucks,
and E. S. Kelly effected a reorganization of the
company, which was then incorporated as the Kelly Motor
Truck Company. In 1912 the company produced an output of
water-cooled motor trucks and abandoned the air-cooled
motors. At this juncture the firm of Emerson,
McMillen & Company of New York secured the controlling
interest in the business, which has since been thus
retained, and the corporate title was then changed to its
present form, the Kelly-Springfield Motor Truck Company.
This vital and progressive corporation has gained an
enviable success and reputation, its motor trucks being
recognized as among the best manufactured, and the trade
having been extended to virtually all parts of the civilized
world. The company bases its operations on a capital stock
of $6,000,000, and in the extensive and modern manufacturing
plant an average of 600 employes are retained. During
the border troubles between the United States and Mexico the
Kelly-Springfield trucks were largely used by the
Government in connection with operations there, and in the
period of the great World war, after having previously
purchased a few of these trucks, Belgium standardized the
Kelly-Springfield trucks in its war activities, as did
also the Canadian Government and other allied nations, all
of which purchased large numbers of these celebrated trucks.
The personnel of the present official corps of the company
is as here noted: James L. Geddes, chairman of the
Board of Directors; Charles W. Young, of New York,
president; Capt. Marion McMillen, vice president.
James L. Geddes, chairman of the directorate of
this representative Springfield corporation, is a native of
Scotland where he was reared and educated and whence as a
young man he came to Canada and found employment in
connection with railway operations. He came to the
United States about the year 1895, and for several years he
was treasurer and auditor of the Detroit City Gas Company,
in the metropolis of Michigan. Since 1913 he has been
a resident of Springfield, and he has entered most loyally
and effectively into the civic, industrial and commercial
life of the community, the while he has proved a liberal and
progressive citizen of strong constructive powers in
connection with business affairs of broad scope and
importance.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 307 |
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THE KELLY FAMILY
has been one whose name has been written
large upon the history of Springfield and Clark County,
where its representatives have stood exponent of
constructive enterprise and high civic ideals.
The family was founded in Clark County more than a
century ago, its original American representatives, of
Scotch-Irish lineage, having come to this country in the
early Colonial period and having settled in Virginia.
James Kelly, grandfather of Oliver S. Kelly,
who became a citizen of prominence and influence in Clark
County, went forth from Virginia as a patriot soldier in the
War of the Revolution. John Kelly, son of this
Revolutionary soldier, accompanied his father to Ohio when a
youth, and the family home was established in Clark County
in the year 1808. John Kelly, as a soldier in
the War of 1812, well upheld the military honors of the
family name, and he was in the prime of life at the time of
his death, in 1825. His wife, Margaret, was a
daughter of Alexander McBeth.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 5 |
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EDWIN S. KELLY
was born at Springfield on the 17th of April, 1857, and here
has well upheld the high industrial and civic prestige of
the family name. In 1878 he graduated from Wooster
University, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. He has
been virtually self-sustaining since he was a lad of twelve
years, and he depended upon his own financial resources in
completing his education. After leaving college, with $400
of borrowed capital, he bought an interest in the commission
coal business, with William Pimlott as his partner.
This enterprise proved successful and was continued sixteen
years. Mr. Kelly then organized the now
widely known Kelly-Springfield Tire Company, his interest in
which he sold five years later, at a handsome profit.
He then organized the Home Lighting Heating & Power Company,
and his fine administrative ability made this concern
likewise a distinctive success. Mr. Kelly
likewise organized the Kelly-Springfield Motor Truck
Company, and developed the same into one of the foremost
industrial concerns of its kind in the United States.
He has disposed of the major part of his stock in this
company, but is still interested in the large and prosperous
enterprise. He is now president of the Kelly-Springfield
Printing Company, and aside from his executive service with
this corporation he gives his personal supervision also to
his extensive farming interests near Yellow Springs, Ohio.
He is liberal and public-spirited as a citizen and takes
lively interest in all that touches the welfare of his
native city and county. His political allegiance is given to
the republican party.
In 1881 Mr. Kelly was united in marriage
with Miss Patti C. Linn, and they have four children:
Ruth (Mrs. Stanley J. Fay), Leah (Mrs.
George M. Fees), Oliver S. and Martha.
In the World war the son, Oliver S., enlisted under
the English flag, but was later granted a transfer to an
American command and was assigned to the army truck service
in France, he having been assigned to special duty after the
signing of the historic armistice and after his return home
having received his honorable discharge, with the rank of
second lieutenant. He is now on a plantation in Santo
Domingo (1922). Miss Martha Kelly,
who is now actively engaged in social-service work at
Springfield, took a special course of training for nurses at
the time of the World war, and was in active service at the
Wilbur Wright aviation field during the
influenza epidemic, after which she served seven months in
the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, District of Columbia.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 8 |
Oliver S. Kelly |
OLIVER S. KELLY,
son of John and Margaret (McBeth) Kelly, was born in
a pioneer log cabin which is still standing, about four
miles south of Springfield, and the date of his nativity was
Dec. 23, 1824, his father having been a native of Kentucky
and having died when Oliver S. was an infant.
The widowed mother later contracted a second marriage, and
the stepfather proved austere and unkind in the treatment of
the boy. A quarrel between the two led to Oliver S.
leaving home when a lad of fourteen years, his devoted
mother having grieved at the parting and having prepared his
little package of personal effects when he started away from
home one Sunday morning, with determination not to submit to
further abuse on the part of his stepfather. He
proceeded to the home of William (“Uncle Billy”) Mclntire,
a mile or two distant. Of his reception at this
pioneer home the following brief record has been given:
“When he arrived he found Aunt Polly, the wife
of William Mclntire, and to her he told his story.
In her great-hearted way, she said, ‘Oliver, stay
right here, and you don’t need to go any farther for a
home.’ He remained with the Mclntire’s four
years, and worked on the farm, for fifty dollars a year.
At that time the Mclntire children were small, and
Aunt Polly used to say in after years that
Oliver Kelly did more to rear them than she did. In
later years, when Mr. Kelly had succeeded in
life and accumulated a competency, and when his stepfather
and Uncle Billy Mclntire had fallen
into hard lines financially, it was a source of pleasure to
Mr. Kelly to sooth the declining years and
smooth the pathways of these folk - the one having been his
early friend and the other having had the proverbial coals
of fire placed upon his head when the stepson came to his
rescue.”
At the age of eighteen years Oliver S. Kelly
entered upon a practical apprenticeship to the carpenter’s
trade, in the learning of which he worked four years at a
wage of $75 a year. A number of the barns which he
erected in Clark County in those early days are still
standing. In those days a carpenter had to possess
skill as an architect also, and Mr. Kelly was
able to build as perfect a winding staircase as can be
produced today, few of the average working carpenters of the
present time having equal skill. As a young man Mr.
Kelly wedded Miss Ruth Ann
Peck, who was born at Springfield, this county.
When the gold excitment was at its height in
California Mrs. Kelly bravely responded when
her husband expressed a desire to go to that land of
promise, and she assured him that she would care for the
home and children during his absence. He made the
journey to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama in
1852, and upon his return, four years later, he brought back
$5,000 in gold. With this capital he engaged in the
wholesale grocery business at Springfield, and was the
founder of one of the very first wholesale houses in the
progressive town. After the lapse of one year Mr.
Kelly sold this business and formed a partnership
with William Whitely and Jerome
Fassler, Mr. Whitely having been an
inventor and Mr. Fassler a machinist. Mr.
Kelly had available his capital of $5,000, and his
partners being able to invest only $1,000 each, he loaned to
them the other $4,000, for which they gave a joint note,
Mr. Kelly having held this note twenty years before it
was settled. The history of the Whitely, Fassler &
Kelly Company has become a well known part of the
industrial and commercial history of Springfield, and needs
no rehearsal in this connection. In the first few
years of the partnership Mr. Kelly, with the aid of
one assistant, did all of the carpenter work of the firm;
Mr. Fassler, with one of two assistants, did all the
machine work; and Mr. Whitely carried on the
experimenting and research that brought increasing success
to this pioneer manufacturing enterprise. Mr. Kelly
continued his connection with the business until 1881, when
he sold his interest to Mr. Whitely. He played
a large part in the civic and industrial development and
progress of Springfield, and his name merits a place of
enduring honor in the history of his native county.
In politics Mr. Kelly was originally a
whig and thereafter a republican. In 1887 he was
elected mayor of Springfield, in which office he served one
term, with characteristic ability and loyalty. In 1863, as a
young man, he was elected a member of the City Council, in
which position he served six consecutive years. In
this and other ways he had much to do in shaping the destiny
of the future city. He was one of the trustees that
had charge of the installing of the original waterworks
system of Springfield, and while he was mayor the City Hall
and the City Hospital were built and equipped. His
life as a whole was a fine exemplification of the “Golden
Rule.” Mr. Kelly had exceptional musical
talent, and in the earlier period of his residence at
Springfield his fine voice was heard regularly in the choir
of the old Baptist Church that stood at the northeast corner
of High and Limestone streets. After many years a
dissention in this church so disgusted him that he severed
his connection therewith, never afterward to become actively
identified with any church organization. The death of
Mr. Kelly occurred Apr. 9, 1904, and that of his wife
occurred in the following year. Of their five children
only two are now living, Oliver W. and Edwin S.,
of whom specific mention is made in following paragraphs.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 6 |
O. W. Kelly |
OLIVER WARREN KELLY,
elder of the two surviving sons of the late Oliver S.
Kelly, was born in the family home on South Center
Street, Springfield, Dec. 11, 1851. In 1869 he was
sent to Weinheim, Germany, to learn the German language and
also to attend a leading preparatory school. When the
Franco-Prussian war was precipitated he pursued his studies
in the polytechnic school at Zurich, Switzerland, and at the
close of the Franco-Prussian war he was a student in a
similar institution in Aix la Chapelle, Prussia. He
returned home in 1873, and at once entered the employ of
Whitely, Fassler & Kelly, his experience
having eventually covered every department of the business,
including held work. In the fall of 1877 Mr.
Kelly became superintendent of the Champion Malleable
Iron Works at Springfield, and he thus continued his service
until the fall of 1880. After passing two years in
Colorado, where he was associated with mining enterprise, he
returned to Springfield and became general superintendent of
the Springfield Engine & Thresher Company, which in March,
1890, was reorganized as the O. S. Kelly Company.
Upon the death of his father, in 1904, Mr. Kelly
succeeded to the presidency of this company, of which he has
since continued the executive head, with secure status as
one of the influential factors in the industrial and
commercial circles of his native city.
Mr. Kelly is a republican, and has completed the
circle of both the York and Scottish Rites of the Masonic
fraternity, in the latter of which he has received the
thirty-second degree, besides being affiliated with the
Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Kelly wedded Miss Kate Fassler,
daughter of Jerome Fassler, and of their four
children three are living: Armin Lee, Louise (Mrs.
Carl Ultes) and Katherine. Bessie
died in infancy.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 7 |
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STEPHEN KITCHEN.
Oneof the fine old farms of Clark County, now under the
capable supervision of the grandson of its pioneer owner, is
the Kitchen homestead in Greene Township, five miles
west of South Charleston.
The pioneer ancestor of the Kitchen family in
Clark County was Stephen Kitchen, who came
here from Warren County, Ohio. Subsequently he went to
Illinois. The old farm just mentioned was the home of
his son Abraham L. Kitchen, who married Mathilda
Jones, daughter of Erasmus Jones.
They were married Nov. 19, 1829, and all their eight
children are now deceased.
One of their sons was Erasmus J. Kitchen, who
was born at the old hometead, Aug. 11, 1836. He
died in February 1905. He attended the schools of his
day, and as a young man he enlisted in Company F of the
Forty-fourth Ohio Infantry in August, 1861, and was in
service until the close of the war. He participated in
a number of battles, including Lynchburg and Knoxville, but
was never wounded. After the war he worked on the
farm, married and settled on another place near Pleasant
Grove. He was an active member of the G. A. R., the
Baptist Church and was a republican. Erasmus
Kitchen married Lavina M. Hatfield, and they were
the parents of six sons, four of whom are living: Joseph
L., a farmer in Greene Township,; Abraham L., who
died at the age of twenty-one; James H., a farmer in
Greene Township; Stephen; E. J., a farmer in Greene
Township; and Wayne, who died at the age of ten years.
Stephen Kitchen, who now occupies and
manages the old homestead, was born on a nearby farm June
12, 1877. He had a common school education while
growing up in Greene Township, and for many years has been a
successful farmer and stockman. He owns 136 acres in
his home place. He is also a stockholder in the
Farmers National Bank at Springfield.
Mar. 11, 1902, he married Josie Stewart,
daughter of C. F. Stewart. Mr. and Mrs.
Kitchen’s children are: Rhoda A., wife of
William Bussey; E. J., and Frances,
both attending high school; Margaret, Stewart
and Wayne, school children; Margaret,
deceased; and Stephen . The family are members of the
Presbyterian Church of South Charleston. Mr.
Kitchen is affiliated with Fielding Lodge No. 192, F.
and A. M., and is a republican.
SOURCE: A Standard History of
Springfield and Clark County, Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F.
Prince, 1922 - Page 361 |
Jacob L. Kohl |
JACOB L. KOHL
came to Springfield thirty-four years ago, and after
continuing work at his mechanical trade for a number of
years turned his attention to the coal business, and has
built up and directed two successful enterprises in that
line, and is still owner of one, though he has turned over
practically all the responsibilities of management to his
children.
Mr. Kohl, who is one of the highly respected
citizens of Springfield, was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania,
Dec. 31, 1863, son of Frederick and Christiana (Light)
Kohl, who were also natives of Lebanon County. His
grandfather, Frederick Kohl, was born in France, came
to Pennsylvania at the age of sixteen and lived in that
state all his life. The father of Jacob L. Kohl
was a Pennsylvania farmer.
Mr. Kohl was educated in the public schools of
Pennsylvania, and in 1886 he married Katie H. Holenbach,
who was born in Burks County, Pennsylvania, daughter of
Joshua Holenbach. As a young man Mr. Kohl
learned the molder’s trade, and in 1888 moved to
Springfield, and was employed in some of the local
industries of the city until 1906. In that year he
opened his first establishment as a dealer in hard and soft
coal, at 1300 Lagonda Avenue.** Ten years later he
sold this business, and after two years it was acquired by
his daughter Mabel, Mrs. Charles Magaw, and is
still conducted under that proprietorship. In 1914
Mr. Kohl started his second coal yard, at 2868
East High Street*. This is a business handling coal
both retail and wholesale and also gasoline and automobile
accessories. On Oct. 1, 1920, Mr. Kohl
retired from the active management of the business.
In the meantime, in 1916, he had a modern brick home
constructed close to his business plant, at
2862 East
High Street. Mr. Kohl is a member of the
Church of God and a republican in politics. Of his
children, the son Charles is employed at the coal
office, and by his marriage to Carrie Cutler,
has five children, Dora, Charles, Genevieve,
Ruth and Margaret. Leroy, also a
resident of Springfield, married Fanny Yoder,
and their six children are: Eleanor, Martha,
Selma, Robert, Mabel and Bettie.
Ralph, of Springfield, married Anna Rehm,
and is the father of five children, John Jacob,
Richard, Lewis, Donald and Jean.
The daughter Mabel has already been named as the wife
of Charles Magaw. The youngest child,
Lewis H., is at home.
SOURCE: A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County,
Ohio; Vol. 2; Benjamin F. Prince, 1922 - Page 131
*Address not found on map.
** Address is a parking lot now. |
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