BIOGRAPHIES

A Standard History
of
Erie County, Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Civic and Social Development.  A Chronicle of the People, with Family
Lineage and Memoirs.
By
HEWSON L. PEEKE
Assisted by the Board of Advisory Editors
Volume I.
ILLUSTRATED
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1916

Henry J. Kelley	HENRY J. KELLEY.     The youngest man ever elected to the Board of County Commissioners in Erie County is Henry J. Kelley, who was not quite twenty-seven years old when that honor was paid him, and who is still giving much of his time and attention to the duties and responsibilities of this office.  There is perhaps no better known citizen of Erie County than Henry J. Kelley, and he is a splendid representative of the young and vigorous type of business men, farmers and citizens.  He has large possessions in the agricultural district of the county, and also carries on a considerable business as a dealer in sand.  His home is in Milan.  In that township he has spent most of his life, was graduated from the Milan High School, graduated in 1907 from the Cleveland University School, and for one year was a student in Cornell University.  Mr. Kelley is one of the ablest athletes who ever went from Erie County into the larger circles of collegiate and university sports.  At Cornell he made a great reputation on the football team, and has been a follower of clean and wholesome sport since boyhood.  He is essentially a student, particularly in the lines of applied science and politics.   When only twenty-four years of age he was elected trustee of Milan Township and resigned from his first term in order to accept the nomination for county commissioner.  He is a natural leader of men, and politics is a natural element for him.  His large portly stature and commanding figure, furnishing a picture of rugged health, a vigorous mind in a vigorous body, have had much to do with his ability to make progress in business and politics.  Commissioner Kelley has the frank open and genial nature and thorough honesty which generates confidence wherever he goes.  Ever since coming to years of manhood he has been a leader in the republican party of Erie County.  Nominally Mr. Kelley is a farmer, owns a substantial property near Milan, though other affairs have taken so much of his time that it has become necessary to rent his valuable place and give over its cultivation to others.  Among other interests he handles coal and has established a successful business.      Mr. Kelley was born in Milan Sept. 17, 1888, and ahs many interesting relationships with some of the older families of Erie County.  His parents were Frank and Ora Ann (Williams) Kelley.  His father was born in Erie County, Dec. 2, 1855, and the name of his parents was Streeter, and they died and left him an orphan, and when twenty months of age he was adopted and took the name of Capt. Henry Kelley.  Captain Kelley was one of the fine old figures in early Erie County.  He was born near Rochester, New York, Mar. 1, 1816, and was himself orphaned when a child and grew  up to the trades of ship carpenter and builder.  He came to Milan when that village was one of the greatest ship building centers in America.  Later he became prominent as a lake captain, and was master of the Surprise, the Monsoon, the Minot, the Mitchell, the Day Spring, and other boats that helped to handle the great grain cargoes that went out of the port of Huron.  From 1831 for thirty years he was a sailor and master of boats on Lake Erie, keeping his home in Milan, where he spent his later years in quiet retirement and died in 1903 at the age of eighty-seven.  He was a wealthy and prominent citizen, served the village as mayor, and also served as county commissioner for one term.  He was first a whig and later a republican in politics.  Captain Kelley married Betsey Jones, who was of Welsh family.  She died in Milan some years before her husband.      Frank Kelley under the direction of his foster parents, was given a substantial education in Milan and in the Oberlin Business College.  He took up a career as a farmer and was also interested in various business matters at Milan.  He has long occupied a substantial place in the community, and owns and occupies one of the most commodious homes of the village, having accumulated a substantial fortune through his long continued work as a farmer and business man.  On May 30, 1877, in Milan Township.  Frank Kelley married Ora Ann Williams.      The Williams family is one of the oldest and best known in Erie County.  Ora Ann Williams was born on her father's farm near Milan, Mar. 3, 1856, and died June 23, 1907.  She was a woman of splendid qualities of mind and heart, and performed nobly every relationship imposed upon her as daughter, wife and mother.  Her father is one venerable John L. Williams, who is now almost a century old and is passing his rapidly declining years in the Kelley home at Milan.  John L. Williams was born in Wayne County, Ohio, Nov. 4, 1816, a son of Daniel and Catherine (Harney) Williams.  The parents were born and reared and married in Center County, Pennsylvania, and after four children were born to them there they set out in 1813 and became pioneers in Wayne County, Ohio, locating in the wilderness of Perry Township, where the father fashioned a cabin out of logs from fresh cut trees on the site, and started his improvements on the land among the Indians and surrounded by the dense forest filled with wild game of all kinds.  John L. Williams was the second white child born in that township.  After and other children were partly grown, Daniel Williams moved and pushed into the new lands at Milan Township and Erie County.  He came here during the '20s and secured a fine property two miles east of Milan Village.  That farm is still owned by his descendants.  Daniel Williams improved the land, and both he and his wife died there at the home of their son John, Daniel at the age of seventy-nine and his wife at the age of seventy-six.  They now lie side by side in the old Milan cemetery, where many of their descendants are also buried.  Daniel Williams and wife were among the earliest members of the Methodist Protestant Church in Erie County, and had much to do with the founding and upbuilding of that denomination.  John L. was the first of their five sons and seven daughters born in Ohio.  All of them are now deceased except John, who in many ways is a most remarkable centenarian.  His descendants and other members of younger generations can have only admiration and wonder at the tremendous work he was able to do in his time in improving the large farm which he has subsequently donated to other members of the family.  He remained active and vigorous until past eighty years of age, and even after that was found almost daily working in his garden and performing other chores.  He has reached a fullness of years such as seldom is bestowed upon mortal men, and by all is honored for his upright character and will bear the love and veneration of his large circle of friends and family to the grave.  He has voted the republican ticket ever since that party was organized.  In Wayne County, Ohio, John L. Williams married Mary, daughter of Peter Pittenger.  She was born in Perry Township of Wayne County, near the old Williams home in 1824, and died at Milan in 1891.  Like her husband, she possessed a large list of old time friends and neighbors, and some of them survive to mourn her loss.      To the marriage of Frank Kelley and wife were born a son and a daughter: Henry J. and Bessie May.  Miss Bessie May is a highly educated and cultured young woman.  She graduated from the Milan High School and from Oberlin College, took normal training in the Ypsilanti (Michigan) Normal, gained a life certificate as a teacher, and for several years taught in Michigan.  She is a musician and artist, and some of her delicate and faithful pictures adorn the beautiful Kelley home.      Commissioner Kelley also has a wife and family.  He was married at Norwalk to Miss Helen G.. Harrington.  She was born in Columbus, Ohio, Apr. 28, 1889, was reared and received her education in Norwalk, and is a young woman of many qualities of social leadership and interested in the various social programs of Milan.  Mr. and Mrs. Kelley have  a daughter, Jean Elizabeth, born Oct. 26, 1911.  The family are members of St. Luke's Episcopal Church.  Mrs. Kelley is a daughter of Charles and Elizabeth (Lamb) Harrington, who now make their home at Milan.  Mr. Harrington being connected with the American Publishing Company of Norwalk.  Source:  The Standard History of Erie County, Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 1014
	MALCOLM KELLY.     Bringing to the practice of his chosen profession an earnest zeal, a well trained mind, and habits of industry, Hon. Malcolm Kelly, a leading citizen of Sandusky, has won success as an attorney-at-law, and holds an honored position in the legal circles of Erie County.  A son of the late John Kelly, he was born in Danbury Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, of excellent Irish ancestry on his father's side, and Puritan New England ancestry on his mother's side.      His paternal grandfather, William Kelly, was born in 1779, in the Parish of Gardaughy, County Down, Ireland, where he began life for himself as a linen draper.  Shortly after his marriage with Jane Reed, a native of County Down, he started for America in 1805, arriving in Philadelphia, and from there going to New York State.  In 1818, taking passage at Buffalo on the sailing vessel Perseverance, he came to Ohio, landing in Sandusky after a lake voyage of six weeks, in the month of December.  With his family, he spent the following winter in a log cabin that had been used as a cooper's shop.  He was very well educated for thos days, and for some time after coming to Ohio was employed as clerk in the office of the county auditor at Port Clinton, Ottawa County.  He spent the last of his life with his son John, dying there in 1867.      John Kelly was born in Troy, New York, in 1809, and as a lad of nine years came with his parents to Ohio.  In early life he worked at the mason's trade, but afterwards bought land in Danbury Township, and was there successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits until his death, in 1883.  His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Pettibone, was said to have been the first white child born in Newburg, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, her birth having occurred there in 1814.  Her father, Truman Pettibone, a native of Vermont, migrated to Ohio in early manhood, and for awhile followed his trade of a cabinetmaker.  Mr. Pettibone married Phebe Wolcott, a daughter of Benajah and Elizabeth (Bradley) Wolcott.  Mr. Wolcott, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, being a member of the Forty-first Connecticut Regiment.  In 1809 Mr. Pettibone came with his family to Ottawa County, Ohio, locating in Danbury Township, on land donated to his wife by Epiphras Bull, to settlers coming in.  After the surrender of Hull, in 1812, the Indians of that vicinity were very troublesome, and all of the whites fled, the Pettibones going to Newburg, where they remained until peace was restored.  On their return to the home farm they found that nothing had been disturbed, a fact that he attributed to the influence of his friend, Chief Ogontz.  For some time Mr. Pettibone had charge of the Marblehead light.  His death occurred in 1832.      After leaving the rural schools of his native township, Malcolm Kelly attended the Sandusky High School two years, after which he taught school two or three terms.  Going then to Oberlin, he completed the course of study in a business college, where he was subsequently employed as a teacher for two years.  He then began the study of law, for which he had a natural aptitude, with Homer Goodwin, and in 1873 was graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan.  Going to Chicago, Mr. Kelly was soon admitted to the Illinois bar, and continued the practice of his profession in that city for two years.  Returning to Ohio in 1875, he was admitted to the Ohio bar, and immediately opened a law office at Port Clinton.  In 1898 Mr. Kelly located in Sandusky, where he has since continued in active practice, holding high rank among the more able and successful lawyers of this section of the state.  In 1891 he was elected judge of the first subdivision of the fourth Judicial Circuit to fill  both an unexpired term and a full term, and remained on the bench for six years, filling the position most acceptably.      Mr. Kelly married, in 1876, Susan Smith, who was born in Fremont, Ohio, a daughter of John and Eleanor (Bowland) Smith, pioneer settlers of Sandusky County.  Mr. and Mrs. Kelly have three children, namely:  Amy R., Bessie A., and Donald M. Source:  The Standard History of Erie County, Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 556
	ALBERT C. KROMER.     Of the families of German origin few have been longer and none more prominently identified with the agricultural and civic life of Erie County than the Kromers.  Albert C. Kromer, who was born after the family became established in Erie County, has for many years directed the management of an excellent farm in Margaretta Township, and his prominence as a citizen is indicated by the various public positions which he has held.  Since 1900 he has been one of the directors of the Erie County Agricultural Society, and his own attainment as a farmer well fit him for that representative position in the community.      Born in Perkins Township of Erie County, Nov. 21, 1853, Albert C. Kromer is a son of Charles and Apollonia (Herb) Kromer, both of whom were born in Baden, Germany.  Charles Kromer when eighteen years of age came with his father, Andrew Kromer, and other members of the family to America, and after reaching Erie County lived for a time in Sandusky and later moved to a farm in Perkins Township.  They were quite early settlers in that district, and few men were better known there than Charles Kromer, whose death at the age of eighty-four removed one of the substantial early settlers of Perkins.      Albert C. Kromer was reared to man's estate on the old farm in Perkins Township, and gained his education from the local schools, this early training having been several modified and supplemented by practical experience in after life.  On May 11, 1880, a little more than thirty-five years ago, he married Miss Rosa Mainzer, who was also born in Perkins Township, a daughter of Peter and Christina (Smith) Mainzer.  Her father died in 1900 and her mother is still living at the age of seventy-nine.  Peter Mainzer was for many years a leading figure in agricultural and civic affairs in Perkins Township and for thirteen consecutive years served as township treasurer, and for a quarter of a century was one of the directors of the Erie County Agricultural Society.  At one time he was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of infirmary director of the county.  Peter Mainzer came to Erie County from Germany when about fourteen years of age with his father Karl Mainzer, who located his family in Perkins Township, where Peter grew to manhood, and after his marriage spent many productive years as a capable agriculturist.  He was a democrat in politics, and his activities as a farmer resulted in the clearing up of more than 100 acres from a wild state and the contribution of just that amount of fertile soil to the agricultural area of the county.      Mr. and Mrs. Kromer by their marriage have become the parents of eight children.  Adella B. is the wife of Dennis Messenburg of Margaretta Township; Amelia M. is the wife of George Ritzenthaler of Sandusky; Rosa E. is the wife of Chester Christman, living near Galion, Ohio; while the other living children are all residents of Margaretta Township, their names being Alva J., Karl P., Tena W., Aaron A., while the daughter, Winifred, is now deceased.      Mr. Kromer and family are members of teh St. Mary's Catholic Church at Sandusky.  For seventeen years Mr. Kromer served as a member of the board of education of Margaretta Township, and part of that time was president of the board.  He is actively interested in the improvement of schools, and his own work has set an example and model for the progressive and enterprising agriculturist.  He and his family are highly esteemed in the social circles of Margaretta township. Source:  The Standard History of Erie County, Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 920

NOTES:

.