Source:
History of North Central Ohio,
Embracing Richland, Ashland, Wayne, Medina, Lorain, Huron & Knox Counties,
By William A. Duff
in Three Volumes
- ILLUSTRATED -
Publ. by Historical Publishing Co., Topeka-Indianapolis -
1931

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Tilmon H. Smith	TILMON H. SMITH, M. D.   One of the most prominent and successful professional men of Huron County is Doctor Smith, who is engaged in the practice of medicine at New London.  He was born at Water Valley, Miss., July 31, 1883, the son of Rev. Tilmon Holley and Frances (Hawkins) Smith.      Rev. Tilmon Holley Smith was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and his wife was a native of Banner, Miss.  He was a professor of mathematics in the Southern Alabama Institute for a number of years, and later became a minister of the Baptist Church.  He died in 1896 and his wife died in 1927.  Both are buried in Elzey, Miss.  He was a Democrat and belonged to Masonic Lodge.  There were six children in the Smith family, as follows:  Samuel, who is serving as sheriff of Cahoon County, Miss.; Tilmon H., the subject of this sketch; Myrtle, married Virgil Cabe, lives at Mize, Miss.; Mary Lee the widow of B. Clark lives at Mize, Miss.; and George, who died at Mize, Miss., in 1927.      The early education of Tilmon H. Smith was received in the public schools of Pittsboro, Miss., and after his graduation from high school in 1899 he entered the University of Mississippi, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1902.  He spent one year in the Mississippi Medical College, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Tennessee in 1915.  The following year he served as an interne in St. Joseph's Hospital, Memphis, Tenn., and was also assistant pathologist and bacteriologist at the University of Tennessee.  He began his professional career at Pittsboro, Miss., and in 1923 was made chief surgeon of Santo Tomas Hospital, Panama City, Canal Zone.  He served in that capacity for one year and on Feb. 15, 1924, was appointed chief surgeon of the Cabin Creek Consolidated Coal Company, of Charleston, W. Va., where he remained until the mines were closed in July, 1924.  He has since engaged in practice at New London.  Dr. Smith is a member of the Huron County Medical Society, Ohio State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association.      1908 Dr. Smith was united in marriage with Miss Mickle Stone, the daughter of John A. Stone, of Tennessee.  She died in 1910 and is buried at Okolona, Miss.  Their daughter, Fanny Catherine, lives at New London.  Doctor Smith married (second Dec. 26, 1916, Miss Hortense Gregory, the daughter of William Harrison and Ada (Knowles) Gregory.  The former is deceased and the later lives in Mississippi.      Doctor Smith is a Democrat, a member of the Baptist Church, of which he is a deacon, and he belongs to the Kappa Psi fraternity.  He is affiliated with Floral Lodge, F. & A. M., No. 260; Albert Pike Consistory,32nd degree; Wahaba Temple; Masonic Club; and New London Shrine Club.      During the World War Dr. Smith served with the rank of first lieutenant, U. S. Medical Corps. Source: History of North Central Ohio, Embracing Richland, Ashland, Wayne, Medina, Lorain, Huron & Knox Counties, By William A. Duff - in Three Volumes ILLUSTRATED - Publ. by Historical Publishing Co., Topeka-Indianapolis - 1931 - Page
	GEORGE SWAYNE STEWART, manufacturers and attorney-at-law, was born in Dubuque, Iowa, Mar. 25, 1866, but soon thereafter his parents returned to the historic old Colonial house, 6 Church Street, Norwalk, Ohio, where Mr. Stewart and his family still reside.      His father, Gideon Tabor Stewart, was born Aug. 7, 1824, at Johnstown, N. Y., of Scotch-Irish descent.  His grandmother, Elizabeth Ferguson Stewart (daughter of Dr. Thomas Ferguson of Stewarttown, Ireland) a noted educator and scholar of her day, opened the first English school and academy at Schenectady, N. Y., which continued under her auspices until it was merged into Union College.  His mother, Petreshe Hill, was a daughter of the distinguished divine and Revolutionary patriot, Rev. Nicholas Hill.  The Hill family came to Schenectady from Londonderry, Ireland, at about the beginning of the 18th century.  Henry Hill, grandfather of Petreshe, was a prominent citizen of Schenectady, and for his patriotic utterances, was arrested and so cruelly maltreated and tortured by the British soldiers, that he died in less than a year after near the beginning of the Revolution.  Inspired by his patriotism, and to avenge his death, his two youthful sons, Nicholas and Harry, entered the Second New York Regiment.  They were with Washington at Valley Forge and Yorktown, and remained until his army was disbanded in 1783.  Then, for the first time they returned to Schenectady.  Nicholas, completing his studies, entered the Christian ministry.  He lived on his beautiful plantation by the Mohawk, to the advanced age of ninety years, greatly honored and beloved by his church and country.  Petreshe Hill was a sister of the celebrated lawyer, Nicholas Hill, Jr., who had the largest private law library and most lucrative practice of any lawyer in the United States.  Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography says of him:  "He was appointed State law reporter in 1841, and became one of the best special pleaders in the State, taking part in over three-fourths of the cases on the docket of the Court of Appeals during his active practice."  At his death, in 1859, his life-size portrait, as standing in the act of addressing that court, was placed in its rooms by the Bar of the State.  She was also a sister of the eminent lawyer John L. Hill, who was leading counsel for the defense in the famous Tilton vs. Beecher case.  She had four sons, who followed the example of her two brothers, sought the legal profession.  The first was Merwin Hill who graduated with honors from Union College, but died preparing for the bar.  The second was James Ferguson, who graduated at Oberlin College, went with early settlers to California, and was one of oldest lawyers of San Francisco when he died in 1893, leaving a son and grandson, who are worthy members of the bar of that city.  The third was Alexander Adams Stewart, prosperous merchant of Columbus, Ohio.      The fourth was Nicholas Hill, who was both scholar and lawyer, and acquired fame as an educator, being at the head of the principal educational institutions in the state of Florida, at Quincy, where he died in 1858.  The fifth was Gideon Tabor, who mother died in his infancy.  As a boy he was brought by his father to Birmingham, Ohio, near Oberlin, at which college he obtained his education and began the study of law, which he completed at Columbus.  He engaged largely in newspaper work, as editor of the Norwalk Reflector, Dubuque (Iowa) Daily Times, and as part proprietor and publisher of the Toledo Blade and commercial.  He was an ardent supporter of the Union, opposed slavery, was active in the Whig and Republican parties.  Gideon Tabor Stewart called "The Father of the Huron County Bar" was admitted to the practice of law Aug. 14, 1846, and became a law-partner of Jairus Kennan.  Mr. Stewart occupied first rank in his profession, and his ability was recognized throughout Ohio, and, in fact, beyond the confines of the State.  Originally he belonged to the old Whig Party, and was opposed to slavery.  At the commencement of the Civil War he became a Republican; but at the close he passed into the Prohibition party, where he remained and was always one of its most earnest and conscientious workers.  He was fifteen years a member and four years chairman of its national committee.  He was unanimously nominated by three State conventions of the party in Ohio as its candidate for president of the United States, but each time declined to be a candidate for that office.  He was at one time the candidate for Governor of Ohio, and nine times its candidate for judge of the supreme Court of the State.  He was one of the founders and first officers of the Whittlesey Academy of Arts and Sciences at Norwalk.  He was one of the organizers and directors of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company.      His wife, Abbie Newell Simmons was also descended from old pioneer stock.  One of her ancestors Moses Symonson, landed at Plymouth, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1621, having sailed from Leyden, Holland, on good Ship Fortune.  Her great-grandfather lives in Rehobath, Bristol County, Mass., owned large mills here, which were burned by the British during the Revolution, but afterwards rebuilt.  He served as Captain in the Continental Line during the Revolution and was an influential figure in military affairs.      Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Tabor Stewart were married Mar. 30, 1857, and had four children:  Mrs. Francis A. Powers, (nee Mary Abbie) who was born Apr. 27, 1858, died June 24, 1924, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Norwalk; Charles Hill, born Nov. 6, 1859, a resident of Cleveland for the last 40 years, interested in real estate and law; Harlon Lincoln, born Dec. 12, 1861, attorney at law, Panama City, Fla.; and George Swayne the youngest of the family.      George Swayne Stewart was educated in Norwalk schools and at Oberlin College.  He later studied law in the office of his father, Gideon Tabor Stewart, and was admitted to the Ohio Bar Mar. 3, 1888.  He began his career in Norwalk as an attorney at law, and was associated with his father in the practice of law.  Later he became interested in the manufacturing business which was incorporated as the G. S. Stewart Company, of which he is president.  The principal products are cedar chests, screens, decorated furniture, and wholesale lumber.  The G. S. Stewart Company factory occupies a block close to the business center of the town and is the largest employer of labor in Norwalk.      Mr. Stewart has always been a Republican in politics.  He is a Mason and Knight Templar, a member of the Shakespeare Club, Norwalk Country Club, and Plum Brook Country Club of Sandusky.  He and his family are Episcopalians and for many years Mr. Stewart has been a vestryman in St. Paul's Episcopal Church.      Mr. Stewart has always been a leader in civic activities in Norwalk - and an ardent supporter of all great social movements, such as Prohibition and Woman Suffrage.  He was an indefatigable worker for the dry cause and was chairman of the Huron County Dry Committee in the campaign preceeding the fall election of Nov. 7, 1918, which finally enrolled Ohio in the dry column.      Mr. Stewart helped to organize Norwalk's Memorial Hospital, and has been a member of the hospital board of directors ever since. He was one of the organizers of the local Kiwanis Club.  He is a member of the library board and vice president of the Whittlesey Academy of which his father was one of the founders.  During the World War he was active in the Red Cross and Liberty Loan Drives.      Mr. Stewart married Cora Taber, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. B. C. Taber of Norwalk, Jan. 10, 1893.  She died Sept. 28 1893.  In 1899 Mr. Stewart married Marguerite Morris Rice of Chester, Pa., who was born in Wilmington, Del.      Mr. George S. Stewart is a man of high ideals, earnest purpose, energetic, genial disposition, kindliness of heart.  He is fond of life and sees it whole.  HE is possesed of the saving grace of humor.  His merry, hearty laugh is contagious.  His fondness for sport takes him on his holidays into the open, and makes him a rare reconteur of experiences with rod and gun.  He is a lover of nature in her various moods.  He is a keen business man, whose probity, conservatism, far-sightedness, unselfishness make him a man trusted, followed, Honored.  He is definitely domestic in his habits, and is never happier than with his family.  He stands for the best things in his community.      Mrs. George Swayne Stewart, nee Marguerite Morris Rice, was born in Wilmington, Del.  Her father, John V. Rice, Esq., was a well known lawyer and member of the Pennsylvania and Delaware Bars, and a descendant of the ancient and noble family of Ap-Rhys of South Wales.  Her mother, Sarah Lowe Rice, was descended from the Lowes of Talbot County, Maryland.  One of the incorporators of the Virginia Colony, 1609, was Vincent Lowe.  His descendants owned large estates in Talbot, Calvert and St. Marys Counties.  From this family are also descended Charles and Daniel Carroll of Carrollton. General J. Oliver Bradford, maternal great uncle of Mrs. Stewart, was first Paymaster General of the Navy.  General Bradford, close personal friend of Commodore Farragut, was off his staff when the United State Fleet made its tour of the world.  He was also with Commodore Perry at the opening of the port of Japan, 1854.      Mrs. Stewart inherited from her mother marked musical ability which she displayed at an early age, and before long made the pipe organ her special subject of study under the tutelage of David Wood and other noted musicals of Philadelphia.  She soon became a member of the American Organists' Club of Philadelphia and her recitals wee musical events.  She is now a member of the American Organ Guild, Cleveland Chapter.      On Dec. 27th, 1899, she married George Swayne Stewart, at the home of her brother, William Lowe Rice, Esq., Lowe Ridge, Euclid Heights, Cleveland, Ohio.  In a few years her increasing responsibilities as mother of three small children led her to join a Child Study Club of which she became the first president.  From the activities of that Club the Kindergarten movement with equipment was started in Norwalk, which afterwards was incorporated in the public schools of the city.  She then became president of the "Child Conservation League."       The natural sequence of her interest in childhood and its conservation led her to espouse the Suffrage Cause where greater opportunities were sought for women of their work of conservation.  With the full sympathy and cooperation of her husband, Mr. George S. Stewart, whose father, Gideon Tabor Steward, had been one of the ablest protagonists of progressive movements in Ohio, the Stewart Colonial home was the first to be opened to the propagandists of the suffrage cause, and Mrs. Stewart became the first vice president of the Huron county Equal Franchise League, raising more than the County's quota of names in the petitions for the vote.  Mrs. Malcomb Patrick and Mrs. Stewart represented Huron county in Columbus when the petitions were presented at the State House.  Fifty years before this Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony had been entertained in the Stewart home by Gideon Tabor Stewart.  In 1899 he greeted there Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Howard Shaw and Harriet Taylor Upton.  Mrs. Stewart has since been made a life member of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association.      When the war broke out Mrs. Stewart served as first Huron county Chairman of the Woman's Committee, Council of National Defense under Mrs. George Zimmerman of Fremont and Miss Belle Sherwin of Cleveland, and organized a unit in every township of Huron County.      The League of Women Voters was the fruition of the achieved suffrage cause and Mrs. Stewart was made director of the Thirteenth District of the Ohio League of Woman Voters from its beginning to 1924.  ("Her district was known at the State office as the best organized District in Ohio.")  She was next unanimously elected Director at Large of the State League in 1924 in place of Miss Belle Sherwin, and since 1926 she has been a trustee of the State League.  For the year 1928-9 Mrs. Stewart was president of the Norwalk League of Women Voters, and has served as finance chairman, raising the League's quota almost every year since its inception.      Mrs. Stewart has been a delegate to nearly every State Suffrage Convention, in Daytona, Lima, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, etc.  She was elected Ohio delegate to the National Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia, 1912; St. Louis, 1919; the Jubilee Suffrage and League of Women Voters Convention in Chicago, 1920; to the National League of Women Voters Convention in Cleveland, 1921; National League of Women Voters Pan-American Convention in Baltimore, 1922; National League of Women Voters Convention in Buffalo, 1924; Richmond, 1925; and Louisville, 1930.      But with all Mrs. Stewart's outside interests and activities, her family, her husband, her four daughters, Elizabeth Bradford (who attended Vassar and the Philadelphia Academy for Fine arts); Margaret Morris (graduate of the Columbus School for Girls and Wellesley College); Anne Ide (graduate of Columbus School for Girls and also student at Wellesley adn Antioch College); Patricia Hill (now a junior at Bryn Mawr); and her one son, George Swayne, Jr., (fifteen, and preparing for Princeton where his father's cousin, Dr. George Black Stewart is senior trustee) - have always come first.  With their interests and future at heart has Mrs. Stewart thrown her heart and soul into the great causes with which she has been identified.  None could be more proud and more appreciative of her activities than is each and every member of her family. Source: History of North Central Ohio, Embracing Richland, Ashland, Wayne, Medina, Lorain, Huron & Knox Counties, By William A. Duff - in Three Volumes ILLUSTRATED - Publ. by Historical Publishing Co., Topeka-Indianapolis - 1931 - Page
	JOHN A. STRUTTON.  As president of the Home Savings & Loan Company, Mr. Strutton is recognized as one of the most prominent business men and influential citizens of Norwalk.  He was born in this city, Sept. 19, 1866, the son of Louis D. and Eliza A. (Wiles) Strutton.      Louis D. Strutton, was born in London, England, and his wife was also a native of that city.  He spent his boyhood in London and was educated in the Bluecoat Boys School.  For several years he was associated in business with his older brother and at the age of 28 years he came to America and located at Milan, Ohio, where he engaged in the shipbuilding business for a time.  He settled in Norwalk in 1850 and practiced law in this city for half a century.  At the time of his death in 1902, at the age of 82 years, he was recognized as one of Norwalk's leading citizens.  He was a Democrat, a member of the Episcopal Church, and always took an active interest in civic affairs.  His wife died in 1897.  Both are buried in Norwalk.  Their children were:  Sarah, deceased, was the wife of Henry Taber; Elizabeth, deceased; Charles, deceased; William, lives near Milan; Louis D., lives at Savannah, Ga.; Rebecca, deceased; Lucy E., lives at Norwalk; and John A., the subject of this sketch.      John A. Strutton grew up in Norwalk, and attended the public schools.  He was graduated from Kenyon College in 1887, and then studied law in his father's office, being admitted to the bar in 1889.  He did not practice that profession, however, but became interested in the banking business as teller for the old First National Bank.  He served in that capacity for 13 years, and at the organization of the Citizens Banking Company, Mr. Strutton became assistant cashier.    Three years later he became identified with the Home Savings & Loan Company as secretary, and held that office continuously until April, 1922, when he was elected president.      On June 15, 1897, Mr. Strutton was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Wooster Boalt, of Norwalk, the daughter of Frederick H. and Charlotte W. (Wooster) Boalt, natives of Ohio, both now deceased.  To them were born two children:  Fredericka, attended Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and Mr. Ida School for Girls, Boston, Mass., now holds the position of secretary to the superintendent of Norwalk schools: and Louis D., III, who attends Kenyon College, member of the class of 1931.      Mr. Strutton is a Democrat in politics and has served as a member of the board of education for many years, as well as clerk.  He holds membership in the Episcopal Church, of which he is treasurer, and he also belongs to the Kiwanis Club.  He is treasurer of the Firelands Historical Society, which was founded in 1857.  He is also a member of the Young Men's Library & Reading Room Association, which was established in 1866, and of which he is now secretary and treasurer.      Oliver Wolcott, great-great-great-granduncle of Mrs. Strutton, was a singer of the Declaration of Independence, and her great-grandfather, Roger Griswold, served as Governor of Connecticut.  Her great-great-grandfather, Mathias Griswold, and her great-great-great-grandfather, Roger Wolcott, also served as Governors of Connecticut. Source: History of North Central Ohio, Embracing Richland, Ashland, Wayne, Medina, Lorain, Huron & Knox Counties, By William A. Duff - in Three Volumes ILLUSTRATED - Publ. by Historical Publishing Co., Topeka-Indianapolis - 1931 - Page 930

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