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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
1798
History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio
with Illustrations
and Biographical Sketches of its Pioneers Most Prominent Men
Philadelphia - Williams Brothers
1878
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Silo P. Warrener |
SILO P. WARRINER, COUNTY SHERIFF, was born
May 10, 1840. He is the second of a family of four children.
His parents were Willard and Emeline A. Warriner of Claridon
township. The father settled there at an early date, and now
lives at Riverton, Franklin county, Nebraska. The mother died
Sept. 7, 1846, aged thirty-two years. The education of the
subject of the present sketch was derived from the common schools of
his native township. Upon the completion of which, or upon
attaining, his majority, he became one of the noble band who went
out to do battle for the flag. He enlisted Sept. 10, 1861, as
a private in Company G, Forty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was
promoted to sergeant, then orderly-sergeant, and then first
lieutenant, of his company, in which position he was mustered out on
the 27th day of November, 1865. He was with the regiment in
all its hard fought battles. Upon the call for re-enlistments
he was among the first of his company to respond, re-enlisting for
another term of three years. He was wounded at the battles of
Chickamauga - where he was slightly wounded in the right ankle - and
at Mission Ridge, - at the latter battle receiving a gunshot wound
through the right arm above the elbow, and another in his right
side, the ball passing out near the spine. This was a painful
affair, from the effects of which he was disabled for a short time.
His record as a soldier is something of which he may well be proud.
Discharged as above mentioned, he returned to his native county, and
was actively engaged in the milling and lumber business until 1875,
when he closed out, and purchased a half interest in an extensive
cooperage manufactory. This was burned Mar. 6, 1876. He
was elected to the office of sheriff of Geauga County in October,
1876. Having been renominated by acclamation at the county
convention, fall of 1878, - thus paying him the highest possible
compliment to his faithfulness-as an officer. He was united in
marriage, Oct. 14, 1868, to Miss Sarah M, daughter of
Benjamin K. and Louisa Brainard, of Hambden.
From this marriage has been born one child, Elwin P., born
Apr. 2, 1875. Mr. Warriner has ever been a
member of the Republican party. He is a member of the
fraternity of Freemasonry, at present affiliating with Chardon
Lodge, No. 93, Chardon Chapter, No. 106, and Painesville Council,
No. 23, R. and S. M.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg.
104 |
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THE WELLS FAMILY.
Long years ago when the New World was a land of promise among the
many who turned their backs on the mother country, were two or three
brothers of the Wells family, who, after landing,
separated and went their different ways, settling in various States.
From them have sprung all of that name in our country.
Passing more than half a century from the time of their
landing, which we conclude to have been in 1650, we find in
Connecticut a lad, Thomas Wells, of whom little is
known; his boyhood and manhood were passed on a farm in the simple
and primitive pursuits of those primitive days. It is not
until we come to his son Timothy, that we have any record of
the family.
Timothy, born in 1747 in West Hartford, was one of
three children; he had a fair education for the times, but was a
restless lad, and when the first blow for freedom was struck, he was
off with his musket to the front.
Just how long he was with the army is not now known.
He was in the division under the immediate command of Washington;
was at the battle of Germantown in 1777; passed the next long,
terrible winter with the army at Valley Forge; fought at Monmouth,
and in all the battles that followed. He was the first
sergeant of his company, suffered from the smallpox which affected
his sight so that he was unfit for further duty, and he was
discharged “for loss of eyesight in the service of his country," the
paper run. He never applied for a
pension, thinking it unpatriotic and unmanly to want any reward for
serving his country.
He returned to his home in West Hartford, where, in
1780, he married Esther Clark. Of this marriage there
were three sons born, - Timothy, Ebenezer, and
Chester. After thirty years spent in the old home, they,
in 1810, exchanged their farm in Connecticut for five hundred acres
of wild land in Claridon, which the old soldier equally divided
among the three sons, the only stipulation being that the parents
should always be provided for. The war of 1812 delayed their
emigration to the new home.
In December, 1820, Timothy died, at the age of
seventy-four, and Esther, the daughter of Solomon Clark,
survived him several years, and died Jan. 30, 1838, aged
eighty-seven. Of these three children, Ebenezer, the
eldest, was born in 1784. His chances for education were such
as the common schools offered. In that day boys were at school
till they were old enough to be of use to their parents, then were
bound out or put somewhere to learn a trade. So it was with
Ebenezer. At fourteen he worked the farm ; at twenty-four
he married Diantha Coe, of good New England stock, and a true
helpmeet. Shortly after this marriage, the exchange of the New
England farm for the wild land in Ohio was made. On the
arrival in Ohio, a large double log house was built, into which they
all moved, the seniors, Timothy, Jr., wife and five children,
Ebenezer, wife and two children, and Chester, then
unmarried. In a few years they grow too many for one family,
and Ebenezer, who had been at work on his own land, built a
log house of his own. Industrious, thrifty, a good axeman,
things prospered with him, and in a few years the log cabin
disappeared, and a fine framed house rose up in its place. In
1828 an addition to the barn - “the cow-house" - was raised - the
first without whisky, - an event in the history of Claridon.
In 1831 he and his wife made a visit to Connecticut. They
traveled by the lake and Eric canal. In October, 1832, after a
useful and active life, Ebenezer died suddenly of apoplexy,
and being widely known, he was widely mourned. He died at the
age of forty-nine. Few men left a better record. His
widow lived in the same house, honored, till Apr. 9, 1873, when she
died, at eighty-seven. Of their five children, two were born
in Connecticut and three in Claridon. Calvin died in
infancy. The others, Goodwin, Mary E., Jason
O., and Anna D., grew up and were married.
Goodwin, an esteemed and respected man, lived in the old home
till his death, in 1871. Anna married Elisha
Taylor, was left a widow, and Esther, unmarried, resides
with her.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio, Publ. Philadelphia by Williams Brothers - 1878 -
Page 173 |
H. H. Wells
Mrs. H. H. Wells
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HENRY
H. WELLS was born in Claridon, Geauga County,
Ohio, Mar. 11, 1816. He was the son of Timothy and Hannah
Wells, who came from Connecticut in 1814, with a family of five
children, nine in all, five of whom now survive. He is a
farmer, and remained on his father’s farm till 1840. He then bought
a house, lot, and store at East Claridon, taking Charles
Bolster as a partner. In October of 1840 he married
Miss Eliza J. Beldin, from Genesee county, New York. In
1846 he sold out his interest in the store, and bought a farm at the
centre. In 1850 he was employed as superintendent of a
farmers’ union mercantile store, in Claridon, for the term of four
years, after which he bought a farm near the centre, known as the “Smith
farm.” In 1861 he received a commission as enrolling
officer of the twenty-fourth military district, composed of
Ashtabula, Geauga, Portage, and Mahoning counties, reporting to the
board of drafting commissioners at Warren, composed of Darius
Cadwell, Dr. Howe, and C. S. Field,
which position he faithfully filled during the war. In 1873 he
bought a house at the centre of the township, where he and his
family now reside. They have two children, A. B. Wells,
who married Miss E. T. Taylor, and Carrie M. Wells,
who married J. M. Wariner.
He has been called upon to hold many township and other
public trusts, all of which he has honorably discharged.
Mr. Wells is one of the best known and most public
spirited of the men of his township. He was prominent in the
independent county fairs, and was president of the association.
He was an earnest and useful assistant in collecting the pioneer
history of Claridon.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio, Publ. Philadelphia by Williams Brothers - 1878 -
Page 172-173 |
J. C. Wells |
JASON C. WELLS.
The remaining son, Jason C., was born about three years after
the family moved to their home in the wilderness, Jan. 24, 1818,
where the only thing that could do service as a cradle for the
little one was a sap-trough. He was a sturdy, bright child,
with quick perceptions and retentive memory.
He grew up a Claridon boy, with the advantages in the
moral atmosphere of a primitive town of the Western Reserve, and
shared the vicissitudes of life as met there. He went to
school during the winters, and grew to manhood. After his
majority he attended the academy at the centre, then under the
instruction of the Rev. S. B. Canfield. He was quick,
had a retentive memory, and usually the first in his classes.
His father died when he was fourteen, leaving him to the sole care
of his mother. At nineteen he took fifty acres of land in the
Mills tract, in exchange with his brother, for his interest in his
father's property. To this he added thirty acres, in 1844
built a house, and was married to Caroline Mofitaat,
Jan. 22, 1845. After two years the young couple went to take
care of the wife’s parents. He afterwards became the purchaser
of the homestead, where they still reside, about a mile south of the
centre. He was once or twice elected township trustee, and
justice of the peace in 1873, and again in 1876, which office he
still holds. Has been for years a. member of the farmers‘
club, and was the first reporter of its debates voluntarily, and
later by appointment of the club. In early manhood he began to
write short sketches and essays upon various subjects in prose and
also in verse, and for a non-professional literary man is a very
creditable writer. He has been quite a contributor to the
county press, and his sketches of the pioneer history of Claridon
were freely drawn from in our history of that township. Mr.
Wells is a man of fair intellectual endowment, much general
intelligence, and generally esteemed. He may be regarded as a
favorable specimen of the Puritan of these later years, the product
of Western Reserve soil.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio, Publ. Philadelphia by Williams Brothers - 1878 -
Page 173 |
T. C. Wells
Residence of
T. C. Wells,
Maple St.
Claridon Tp.,
Geauga Co., O |
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RUSSELL WILLIAMS,
the elder brother of S. H., Sr., was also born
at Salem, Connecticut, May 11, 1793; was married to Mary
Morgan, at Aurora, and died at Parkman, Oct. 5, 1846, aged
fifty-three He was a large, tall, stout, robust man, of
good person, much intelligence, rare judgment of men and the values
of property; led an active out-door life, lacked the polish of his
brother, had an excellent understanding, and, under an abrupt
manner, carried a kindly nature; was just, and could be generous.
The death of his brother was a severe blow, long felt. Without
children of his own, be supplied the care of a father to his brother
Sherburn's family, so far as the management of their property
was concerned. This, and his own, consisted largely in notes secured
by mortgages, and yet required care. His death was a disaster
to their interests, which greatly reduced a handsome fortune.
Mrs. Mary Williams, as stated, was childless.
Lucy Morgan, a niece of hers, was reared in the family and
became the wife of Samuel Huntington, of Painesville.
Something more wishes to be said. I recall the
Parkman of my early days, not of the old time of Robert B.
Parkman and Colonel Williams, but when Mrs.
Sherburn H., at her best, was surrounded by her family and
kind-hearted uncle Russ and his wife, whom we called Aunty,
and gentle Lucy Morgan lived just beyond the wall, and
really in the same inclosure; when Judge Converse was
in middle life, and his three daughters, of rare intelligence, were
in the Converse homestead; when S. J. Tilden, bred to
business by Sherburn H., was a blooming young merchant there;
when the old academy stood up the hill a little from the highway,
north, and Mrs. Harry Cook kept a hotel on the corner.
Was there in the world a pleasanter place than Parkman? Were
there gentler, kinder, warmer hearts, or more cultivated people?
Of them all, Fred. Williams, an elderly, middle aged
bachelor, full of rare thought, is still there, and Mrs.
Lyman (the eldest Miss Converse), in the old
Converse mansion, with the younger sister, the gentle
Amelia, - alone remain. She has devoted the later hours to
the pleasant, melancholy labor of writing the history of Parkman,
which I thus supplement.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg.
160 |
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SHERBURN H. WILLIAMS,
was born at Salem, Connecticut, May 16, 1794, married to Harriet
Delano at Aurora, New York, Dec. 28, 1820, and died at
Parkman, Geauga County, Nov. 23, 1835, aged forty-one years. Any
sketch of Parkman that should fail to make more than a passing
notice of this gentleman would be defective. The hand which
performs that task has undoubtedly performed it faithfully and well,
and this may be superfluous.
Leaving his Connecticut home, where his opportunities
were limited, he went early to Aurora, New York, where he made the
acquaintance of his wife. Immediately on their marriage they
left for Parkman, where they made their only home, and where he
engaged at once as a merchant, which he pursued with skill,
diligence, and success to the day of his early death.
Though of slight education, he was a man of great
personal advantages, superior mental faculties, and much general
intelligence. In person, manners, and address he is remembered
as unequaled by those familiar with the courtly manners of the old
school whose style was not his. He was the gentleman born, and
remained such all his life, alike by habit and instinct. His
polish was not the daintiness of effeminacy; his mind was vigorous,
his will strong, his opinions pronounced, his habit active, and his
life industrious. With his address and ability, his success in
business, he made himself widely known, and was a man of deserved
influence. vigilant in business, punctual to all his engagements, he
was careful of his own interests, and incurred the usual penalty of
success in trade, - that of being charged in the vulgar mind with
strictness and exaction against others. In his dealings he was
inflexibly just; in his neighborhood and to the needy liberal and
kind. Among his friends and associates known and loved forhis
frankness, warmth, and manliness of character.
For the most of his business life he was a partner with
his elder brother, who came to Parkman later, and who was the busy
out-door manager of their extensive and successful enterprises.
The affection which always subsisted between these two remarkable
men was touching and well known. The firm was known as that of
R. & S. H. Williams; its transactions extensive, the younger
being the centre and soul of the house. Though unambitious of
place, he accepted the command of a regiment of militia, and was
known as Colonel Williams. This was at a time when
such positions were not without honor.
His death was sudden, to his own circle irreparable, to
his township and section a great loss, and widely regretted.
His wife, Harriet, was a rare, lovable, superior, almost a
remarkable, woman. Her mental endowments were much above the
average; her acquisitions, especially from reading, were really
extensive. In refinement, breeding, and lady-like deportment,
she was without a superior. In address and powers of pleasing,
she was rarely equaled. Few of her sex were ever more
liberally endowed with the excellences which go to form the ideal
woman than this rarely-gifted lady. One who came to know her
well could easily imagine the sway which some of the well-endowed
French women may have exercised in their circles. In her home,
the gentle loving idol, and greatest there; in society, the sought
and loved, elegant, gentle, refined, never dreaming of ruling where
her wish was law. Rich in good deeds of charity and
benevolence, and yet withal full of strength, nobleness, and capable
of acts of heroic devotion and self-sacrifice, she ruled by serving.
Of this husband and wife were born eight children, of
whom the two eldest died in infancy. Frederick D., born 1829,
unmarried, resides in Parkman. Sherburn H., born in
1826, married Lydia Eaton, and resides in Kansas.
Harriet, born in 1828, died at the age of thirteen. Russell
M., born in 1829, married Sophia Pitner, and
resides in Kansas. Christopher M., born in 1831, and
died, unmarried, in 1864. Mary M., born in 1834,
divides her time among many friends-too glad to secure her.
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Williams
reared the family, while the outside affairs were managed, until his
death, by the rare uncle Russell. A more
delightful home, a more charming place for the numerous friends and
visitors, thanthe homestead was rarely found. This ceased with
the death of the mother, Nov. 26, 1871, at seventy-four years of
age. The house then passed into other hands.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg.
160 |
B. B. Woodbury |
HON. B. B. WOODBURY.
The head, face, and eyes of this gentleman indicate the possession
of qualities distinguishing him from the mass. Energy,
enterprise, force of character, with breadth of intellect, are
apparent there. One would expect success in life. His
career is marked by these qualities, and success has been achieved
without the suspicion of indirect means. Out of all the years
of his active life, seemingly no memories can arise to cast shadows
on his days of retirement.
Of good old English stock, early planted in New
England, his father, Daniel Woodbury, was born in Essex
county, Massachusetts, in 1778, and carried to New London, New
Hampshire, when he was six, by his parents, where he was reared,
married, and lived till 1834. A stanch Democrat, and the first
of that faith to be elected to office in New London. He served
his town as representative in the Legislature, and in other
capacities; removed to Geauga in 1834, and died at Chardon in
September, 1854, at seventy-six years of age, a man of marked traits
of character and much intelligence.
The mother also was a native of Massachusetts, a
Messenger, greatly esteemed in life, and, with her husband, a member
of the Baptist church. She died at Chardon, May 8, 1856, aged
seventy-eight. Of the eight children of these parents, the
eldest, D. P., was a graduate of West Point, belonged to the
engineer corps, and died in the service in 1864. Though never
a resident, he was often in the county of Geauga. W. W.
Woodbury, a younger-brother, was a partner of B. B., and
died at Chardon in 1849. James M., the youngest, was
for many years a resident of Chardon, married Sophia
Benton, of that place, and died in Illinois in 1850. A
daughter, Mrs. Chase, was also a resident of Geauga. Of
the family but three survive, the subject of this sketch and two
sisters.
Benjamin B. was born at New London, Merrimac
county, N. H., Dec. 12, 1810, and grew up a New England farmer boy,
in the tough, hard ways, as children would now think, to which the
families of that day and region were necessarily subjected. At three
years of age he began to go to school, and secured about ten weeks
each summer and winter, till at nine or ten, when steady work took
the place of school. When sixteen and seventeen, he had three
months each year at an academy, and this, with his intellectual
quickness and intelligence, was all the help he ever derived from
schools. At seventeen he taught school, and from that time on
till twenty-two he taught winters and worked the rest of the year.
In 1832 he went to Concord, now Lake County, where he had friends,
and became a clerk in the establishment of T. Rockwell & Co.,
where he remained two years. In 1834 he returned to New
Hampshire to aid his father in a removal, with the younger members
of the family, to Ohio. Their first stay was in Newbury, where B.
B. taught a school in the well-known West Part, in the winter of
1834-35. This was the Utley-Munn-Hayden neighborhood, and his
school was attended by quite all the young people which at that
important period of the township history made up Newbury society.
The school was long remembered, and Mr. Woodbury, then
twenty-four, was for years the standard of excellence as a teacher,
and never forgotten by the young ladies and gentlemen, his
associates as well as scholars, of that memorable winter.
The ensuing year was spent in straightening up and
closing out the affairs of Rockwell & Co., then came a year
in charge of a blast-furnace company in Pennsylvania, when he became
a clerk on a steamboat, running from Pittsburg down the Ohio and the
lower rivers, in which service he remained till 1840. These
were in the “flush times of the southwest," when steamboating on the
Mississippi and its lower tributaries was full of that incident and
adventure, half romance, half matter of hard fact, and all rough and
robust life, on the borders of civilization, which used to startle
and charm the northern reader, of whatever of its semi-savage usages
and history which found relation in the current press. A
volume of the occurrences and incidents of these four or five years,
which happened to, and in the presence of, Mr. Woodbury
might be written.
The clerk was the important man of the boat; of more
consequence to the owners than the captain. Had more actual
powers and greater responsibilities. He made all the
contracts, saw to the receipt of all freights, its delivery, and the
collection of all bills, and payment of all charges. It was
new life and experience to the New England clerk and schoolmaster,
then in the early maturity of twenty-five, well-looking, of frank,
gentlemanly manners, alert, shrewd, ready, modest, sagacious, and
not wanting pluck. He was soon up to the whole science of the
river, of advertising to leave at a certain hour, firing up, and yet
holding steam and passengers twenty-four or thirty-six hours at
Pittsburg, or stopping all that time at Wheeling for the
stage-passengers from Washington. At Cincinnati, Louisville, or St.
Louis, till the hidden purpose was accomplished. He explored
the business habits of the Wabash men, became familiar with the men
and waters of the Tennessee and Cumberland; knew the manners and
ways of life on Red river, and all the pleasant and piquant
peculiarities of the lower river sporting world, and yet had the
address to carry himself unharmed, and unsullied in person and
character, through them all. He met the full variety of river
life, was “snagged" on the third trip down, when the craft became an
utter loss; was placed on a new boat, and for two or three of the
last years her practical master as well as clerk.
Wearying of the life, desiring a different field and
larger revenues, he left the river, and in June, 1840, with such
savings as he had made, embarked in merchandise in Chardon, where he
established himself with his younger brother, W. W., in a
general retail establishment, in the old Samuel Squires
store, at the southeast corner of the square. This they
carried on successfully for three years. Business then could
alone be conducted on a system of credits, so long and wide, as
eventually to absorb-the largest capital. At the end of three years
the firm found all its means in debts due it, while its liabilities
were almost alarmingly large. There was little money in the
county. To force collections and pay off these liabilities was
past the power of the shrewdest men. The county was full of
good oxen, steers, sheep, and hogs. Indeed, after fifteen or
sixteen years of dealing in cattle, Mr. Woodbury has
been heard to say that the county at that time would support a third
more stock than now. With the debts due them, evidenced by
notes, the Woodburys went out and changed them for cattle and
farm-stock, with the proceeds of which they met their own
indebtedness, at least fifteen - sixteenths of it. In a
comparatively short time every dollar was paid without a suit or
compromise of a dollar.
This closing out of merchandise led to a change of
business. Mr. Woodbury purchased the well-known
stock-farm south of Chardon village, and became a most successful
dealer in cattle for sixteen years. The junior partner died in
1849, after which the senior worked on alone. How lonely after
his brother left his side no one knows. In business his methods were
buying, improving, and selling at home. The risks and costs of
an eastern market he left to others. He had facilities for wintering
seventy-five head, and summering twice that number of cattle on his
own lands.
When he commenced as merchant he had but the savings of
the wages of a few years as clerk. No one would hazard an
opinion of the results upon retiring from the cattle trade. It
might be safely said that he was a capitalist, knowing the full
value of money, and had rendered the commercial equivalent of his
acquisitions. Mr. Woodbury’s promptness, the
certainty with which he met every engagement, the sterling integrity
which marked all his transactions, largely augmented his working
capital, while the sagacity with which he conducted his affairs
saved him from losses.
In the June of 1858 he was appointed to fill the post
of county commissioner, vacant by the death of a member of the
board, and was elected to succeed him self at the ensuing election,
- a rare thing for a resident of Chardon.
The ethos of commissioner is one of the most important
in the county; and in this position Mr. Woodbury’s
intelligence, business tact and skill, with his broad and liberal
views, were of great service to the public, and contributed much to
put the affairs of the county on the basis of enlightened business
principles.
In 1861 he was elected to represent the county in the
State Legislature, and re-elected in 1863, a great and unusual
compliment to a dealer in stock by his customers and neighbors.
This position, so often mistakenly estimated by the people, so often
unworthily bestowed, has rarely been by the votes of Geauga
committed to worthier hands.
Mr. Woodbury was reared a Democrat.
To that party, with his father, he steadily adhered till 1844, when
it became apparent to them that it was irrevocably wedded to
slavery, and they withdrew from it on the fullest convictions of
their duty. During all the years of Republicanism he was a
Republican by judgment and a patriotic sense of duty. Well
informed, accustomed to liberal views, Mr. Woodbury
carried into the House the same sagacity and appreciation of
practical life and affairs which had marked his career in private
life.
In nothing do the people more often blunder than in the
qualities most useful to them in deliberative bodies. The
ready, fluent speaker is usually their firstchoice. Such are
often the most useless men in the body, and if they escape being
bores their constituents may be regarded as fortunate. Every
man is soon known by his fellows for his real worth, and esteemed
accordingly; and no qualities are valued higher, and none are found
more useful in a legislative body, than a thorough and practical
knowledge of business. Mr. Woodbury soon came to
be known for his really useful talents and capacity, and was rated
accordingly. Nature formed him for a ready and fluent speaker,
but an early disease marred the organs of speech, notwithstanding
which he became with practice a good business debater.
Mr. Woodbury shared all the earnestness
of purpose and determination in action of the men of his section and
party, on the breaking out of the war, to put down the rebellion.
His prominence as a public man, and known energy and sagacity as a
private individual, marked him as peculiarly well fitted for the
important post of chairman of the military committee of the county.
The histories of this and similar organizations never have been, and
probably never will be, written. Quite as important in their
hearing on the results as the movements of men in the field, no
éclat marked their most successful and important achievements, and
at the end of the war they melted out of existence without note or
word. A great necessity called them into existence; they met
its demands, and disappeared. All that can be said is, that
the chairman of the Geauga military committee promptly, faith fully,
and efficiently met the requisitions of the trying position, and
performed its duties with unselfish and patriotic fidelity.
In the summer of 1867, Mr. Woodbury sold
out his outlying real estate, and moved into the village of Chardon.
Wishing for more active life, in the autumn of that year he became
interested in a wholesale grocery establishment at Toledo, from
which he withdrew the year following. He returned, but did not
intend to remain in Chardon. The disaster of the fire
overwhelmed the village, enlisted his sympathies, and in the effort
to rebuild the town the sufferers received his hearty co-operation.
The story of that effort is told in the history of Chardon.
One hesitates to speak of the personal merits and deservings of some
of the prominent actors in this enterprise, for fear that it might
seem invidious. I believe it is conceded that, as president of
the building association, Mr. Woodbury was of great
service, while by his prominence in organizing the savings bank, and
in the erection of its fine building, as well as in other ways, he
liberally and effectively contributed to the reconstruction of the
town.
In the life-and-death struggle of Chardon for the
county-seat, in all its various phases and bearings, as in the
erection of the new court-house, his services were of the utmost
value. His extensive knowledge of men and things at the State
capital, and the position he held in public estimation there,
enabled him to be of great service in the legislative contest, while
his intimacy with the affairs of the county and business experience
enabled him to contribute largely to the enterprise of building the
new court-house.
It may be also mentioned that for the time of his
residence in the village he has been an efficient member of the town
council, and is now the chief engineer of the fire department.
He has for several years been a director of the First National Bank
of Painesville, and president and director of the Savings Bank of
Chardon.
I have not deemed it worth while to recall the dead
enterprise of the Painesville and Hudson railroad. The fault
of its failure was not chargeable to Mr. W. and the gentlemen
associated with him, nor was his and theirs the fault of loss to
others. Of the old struggles that attended the abandonment of
the project, nothing need here be said. Had it not been for
the Painesville and Hudson the Painesville and Youngstown railroad
would never have been built.
In person Mr. Woodbury is slightly above
the average height, spare, yet well formed, erect, and active, with
a frank, manly face, courteous and affable, there is yet a tone of
reserve in his manners, which may be mistaken for coldness or
distance. These are no part of his nature; manly, kind, and
warm-hearted, a man of much reading and wide observation, of
singularly good judgment of men, a fine conversationalist, marred
only by the slight injury of the organ of voice before referred to,
few can be more pleasing companions, and few men of Geauga have
gained a more enviable position, or fill and enjoy it so worthily.
In July, 1840, Mr. Woodbury was joined in
marriage with Mary Ann, daughter of John
Murray, of Concord, an accomplished woman of great intelligence,
attractive person, and charming manners. Though childless, the
union is one of rare felicity.
In an elegant residence on the east side of the square
in Chardon, surrounded with an opulence honorably gained, this
happily-matched pair, with the respect and esteem of a wide circle
of acquaintances and friends, seem secure in a well chosen and
well-ordered withdrawal from the more bustling activities of life.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties,
Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 99 |
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