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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
History of Richland Co., Ohio -
from 1808 to 1908
Vol. I & II
by A. J. Baughman -
Chicago: The J. S. Clarke Publishing Co.
1908
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B. F. PALMER
Source: History of Richland Co., Ohio - from 1808 to 1908 by
A. J. Baughman - Chicago: The J. S. Clarke Publishing Co. 1908 -
Vol. II - Pg, 578 |
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FRANK
PHIPPS is a member of the firm of Phipps Brothers,
proprietors of a meat market in Butler, his native town.
He was born here February 25, 1864, of the marriage of Samuel
and Elizabeth (Teeter) Phipps. His father was born in
Richland county, and followed the occupation of farming
throughout his entire life, and became the owner of a productive
tract of land of one hundred and sixty acres, which he brought
under a high state of cultivation, transforming it into a
productive and valuable property. He died in this county,
May 19, 1894, at the age of seventy-two years, and is still
survived by his widow, who was born in this county, May 6, 1826.
She is still living in Worthington Township. This worthy
couple were the parents of eight children and those who still
survive are: Mary, whose home is in Worthington
township; J. A., a conductor on the Pennsylvania
Railroad; Frank, of this review; and Robert, who
is the partner of our subject.
Spending his boyhood days on the home farm, which was
less than a mile north of Butler, Frank Phipps early became
familiar with the duties and labors incident to the development
of the fields and the care of the crops. He acquired his
education through the medium of the public schools, was married
when nineteen years of age and began working on his father's
farm. In 1895, he removed to Indiana and there the
succeeding four years was employed as a fireman on the Wabash
railroad, but in 1899 returned to Butler and established a meat
market in connection with Tom Sheehy. This partnership was
continued until 1903, when Mr. Sheehy sold his interest to the
brother of our subject, and the market has since been conducted
under the firm style of Phipps Brothers. They kill all
their own meat and conduct a must neat and attractive market,
receiving a liberal patronage because of the quality of meats
which they handle and the good service which they render to
their patrons.
On Christmas day of 1883 Frank Phipps was married to
Miss Sarah C. Ward, who was born in Worthington township August
24, 1863. She is a daughter of Jacob and Sarah (Hilderbrandt)
Ward, both of whom were natives of Richland county, but are now
deceased. They had but two children, the son being Charles
Ward, now a resident of Worthington township. Mrs.
Phipps
is the elder and by her marriage has become the mother of two
children, Doris and Francis.
Mr. Phipps is a member of Sturgis Lodge, No. 357, I. O.
O. F. and in politics is independent, voting for men and
measures rather than for party. He has always lived in
this locality and is well known to its citizens as a business
man who is thoroughly trustworthy and as a resident whose
interest in public affairs is manifested in the hearty
cooperation which he has given to many movements for the general
good.
Source: History of Richland Co., Ohio - from 1808 to 1908 by
A. J. Baughman - Chicago: The J. S. Clarke Publishing Co. 1908 -
Vol. II - Pg, 605 |
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ARCHIBALD
PURDY is numbered among the successful and enterprising
farmers of Madison township, and he is now engaged in the
operation of the McElroy farm, comprising two hundred and
twenty acres, having made his home on this place since 1907.
He is a native son of Richland county, his birth having occurred
on a farm in Springfield township, January 24, 1855. His
parents were James and Mary (Barr) Purdy, he former born
in Springfield township, where he engaged in farming throughout
his entire life, his death occurring in 1861. The mother
was also born in Richland County and was representative of an
old and prominent pioneer family here. She died in 1904,
at the advanced age of seventy-six years. Their family
numbered five children, two sons and three daughters, as
follows: Archibald, of this review; Ina, the
widow of Frank Richie; James, who follows farming in
Washington township, this county; Ella, who has passed
away; and Maggie, who died at the age of sixteen years.
Archibald Purdy, whose name introduces this
record, was reared on the home farm and acquired his education
in the district schools of Springfield township and in the
Savannah high school. He was thus provided with good
educational advantages and was fitted for teaching, having been
granted a teacher's certificate, but as this pursuit was not
congenial to him, he never followed the profession.
Instead he engaged in the work to which he had been reared and
eventually became the owner of a good tract of land in
Washington township, which he disposed of in 1907, and is now
waiting until he finds a satisfactory place to invest his
capital. In 1907 he took up his abode on the McElroy
farm, consisting of two hundred and twenty acres, on which
stands one of the best farm residences in Richland county.
There are also good barns and other outbuildings for the shelter
of grain and stock and Mr. Purdy is here giving his time
to general farming and stock-raising, in which he is meeting
with gratifying success.|
In 1879 occurred the marriage of Mr. Purdy and Miss
Ollie Norrick who died three years later. In 1885 he
was again married, his second union being with Sarah M. Baker,
by whom he has three children: Clara, the wife of Emil
Zimmerman, a mechanic of Mansfield; Garfield and
Lola B., at home
Mr. Purdy gives his political support to the men
and measures of the republican party, and his wife and daughters
are members of the Christian church, in the work of which they
take an active and helpful interest. Having spent his
entire life in Richland county, Mr. Purdy has a very
widow and favorable acquaintance, while his honorable business
methods ever command for him the high regard of all with whom he
comes in contact.
Source: History of Richland Co., Ohio - from 1808 to 1908 by
A. J. Baughman - Chicago: The J. S. Clarke Publishing Co. 1908 -
Vol. II - Pg, 1128 |
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JAMES
PURDY. In the spring of 1828 James Purdy, a
young lawyer from New York state, seeking his fortune in the new
western country, arrived at Mansfield and took charge of a
newspaper; admitted to the bar, he rode the circuit of the
surrounding counties; as editor, his opinion was felt in local
affairs, and his influence extended to the legislature at
Columbus, where he procured the survey of a canal rout through
Mansfield; obtained a charter for a railroad from Pittsburg and
organized the corps that surveyed the line; was first president
of the first steam road to enter Mansfield; established the
first banking house in the county; built a railroad in Iowa,
mills near Toledo, and died at the age of ninety-three, having
passed in Mansfield sixty-three yeas filled full with the many
activities of a prominent townsman and pioneer man of affairs.
The Purdy ancestry was thoroughly Scotch-Irish,
the four preceding generations on both sides having been drawn
from the Scotch Covenanter stock which continued in the north of
Ireland after the general emigration of the sect under
Charles II. The grandfather, Hugh Purdy (with
wife, Esther Bell), came to American in 1762 and joined a
previous Scotch settlement at Hopewell, in York county,
Pennsylvania, bringing with him his two sons, one of whom,
Patrick B., chose a wife (Jeannette Wallace)
among the daughters of the colony, and inherited half his
father's land; born a captain's commission in the Revolution,
built a grist mill and became the miller of the district.
The flour was carted to Baltimore, forty miles to the south, and
there shipped to foreign ports.
Patrick Purdy's son James was born
July 24, 17983, and, together with seven brothers and sisters,
was brought up with all the strictness of early Scotch
Presbyterianism. Hopewell was at that time, a thorough
Covenanter Colony, the earliest church in the district (perhaps
the first United Presbyterian church in America) had been
organized in 1754 at grandfather Wallace's house;
and in the district schools Saturday afternoon was devoted to
catechism. The homestead consisted of a four hundred acre
farm and its barns, a big stone house, with "P. B. Purdy,
1800,) cut in the gable, the spinning-house, the flour mill in
the valley, the cooper-shop and warehouse. There were
negro domestics and black farm hands, and each Sabbath morning
the family, spinning maids and workmen all listened to a long
sermon at Round Hill church. Amid such surroundings young
James, the eldest of the children, grew up - going to
district school, puzzling over Greek and Latin works found among
his father's books; working with a surveyor and studying his
science; becoming an expert cooper in the shop connected with
the mill; joining with the neighbors at barn-raisings and
getting a bad fall in one case form the top of the structures.
Enlisting with the infantry volunteers he served under arms as
corporal when, twice, calls were made for the defense of the
frontiers in the war of 1812. Previous to this struggle
the Non-Intercourse Acts wrecked the flour industry and (in
1811) the father gave up his mill and moved the family to
Canandaigua, New York, a place known in early times as a center
of a cultivated society and the seat of the Canandaigua Academy.
Here the name James Purdy was presently enrolled among
the students. He mastered Latin grammar and read Virgil,
obtaining a state license as teacher and taught in the newly
organized township schools; studied geometry and taught himself
surveying, and in the fall of 18189 was appointed assistant
professor in the academy. For three years he studied law
with Attorneys Adams & Sibley at
Canandaigua and Benjamen at East Bloomfield. In the
autumn of 1822, having been admitted to the bar, he considered
his classical and legal education complete and prepared himself
for a journey to the new west.
James Purdy and James Stewart attached
themselves to a party of farmers going prospecting to Ohio, and,
reaching Norwalk turned south, heading for Cincinnati on foot,
no conveyance being available. They passed through
Mansfield, Fredericktown and Worthington and arrived at
Columbus, a town of five hundred inhabitants. Here
Stewart gave up, and meeting with a Mansfield man went home
with him; set up the first classical school in the region;
became judge of common pleas court and a valued citizen of early
Mansfield. His companion kept on through Cincinnati to
Louisville where he waited for a boat that would take him to New
Orleans, his intended destination being Pensacola, Florida.
At Louisville the brutal treatment of a slave so impressed him
that he abandoned his journey to the south and cross the Ohio
river to Corydon, the seat of government of Indiana.
The state and federal courts being then in session he
secured immediate admission to practice and rode the circuit
with his friend, H. H. Moore, the district attorney.
The south of Indiana seemed to Mr. Purdy to be filling up
with an inferior class of immigrant settlers and he was not long
in deciding to return northeastward. He forthwith started
on foot, bearing a soldier's knapsack. It was a dozen
miles between adjacent clearings, and Indianapolis, which had
just been laid out, boasted a big log tavern. From
Indianapolis to Fort Wayne he followed an Indian trail, the
Indians having sold their lands to the government, were just
then leaving their villages and moving westward, and squatters
were taking possession of their abandoned habitations and
clearings. These settlers housed the traveler over night -
as mentioned in his diary; he in this way met with several
settlers of an earlier date who had come west to escape
imprisonment for debt during the industrial depression of 1810.
Mr. Purdy was ferried across White River by Bill Connor,
the notorious trader and squaw-man, who had managed to
negotiations between congress and the Indians relative to the
cession of their lands.
Leaving behind Fort Wayne, with its
twenty stores, its throng of Indian traders and fur trappers
with their ponies and packs, and striking for Defiance, the trip
became very rough, and a bivouac under a bush was the only
available night's lodging in one case. At Fort Meigs there
was a tavern. Between Fort Meigs and Fort Stevenson
(now Fremont) the distance of thirty-five miles was covered
between sunrise and sunset of December 25th, and his journal
says: "It being Christmas night the neighborhood was giving a
ball, which I attended." The remainder of the winter he
spent at Norwalk writing up the court records, which had been
allowed to lapse. Here the country and been organized
seven years and the legal profession well established.
After visiting various places in the north of the state
Mr. Purdy decided on Mansfield, and came here May 29,
1823. Not allowed to practice until he had been a resident
in the state for a year, he bought the small equpment of the
unsuccessful pioneer newspaper, employed J. C. Gilkinson
as printer and began the publication of the Mansfield Gazette.
The outfit of type having proved insufficient the editor rode to
Cincinnati and brought back a new supply in his saddle bags.
Subsequently the entire equipment was renewed and enlarged and
the paper continued under Mr. Purdy's editorship until he
sold in 1832 to T. W. Bartley, afterward supreme court
judge and governor of the state. The Gazette was
consolidated with the Western Herald, which had been started in
1830, and the resulting paper was named The Ohio Spectator.
Having been admitted to practice in the state and federal courts
late in 1823, he rode the circuit, which was then composed of
the counties of Richland, Wood, Huron, Sandusky, Seneca,
Crawford and Marion. Among his associations on the circuit
were Messrs. May, Parker, Coffinberry and Stewart
(John M. May being the first resident attorney of the
settlement, having arrived in 1815), all of whom rode good
horses, carried their legal papers in their hats and spent jolly
evenings t the log taverns along the way. Mr.
Purdy continued in practice until 1860, gradually
relinquishing this practice, however, in favor of other
interests. Although he was an active whig and republican
he was only a candidate for office once, when he was defeated
for state senator in 1828. As time went on he developed a
wide acquaintance and many intimate friendships among the
prominent politicians and leading men of affairs of the state.
Work on the important Ohio and Erie canal having begun
in 1825, Editor Purdy urged the value of a canal
improvement for Richland county, and a act was passed directing
the survey of a route up the valley of Black Fork creek.
In 1833 he summoned from Detroit an engineer to take charge of
some local enterprise, which was afterwards abandoned, so,
securing authority from the legislature, he sent this engineer
with a corps of assistants to survey the Black Fork canal.
The line was laid out but the work of building never undertaken,
it being found impracticable in this , the "back-bone" county of
the state.
Steam railroads were a recent appearance in the East.
The Sandy and Beaver canal was in process of construction in the
eastern part of the state. Mr. Purdy thought a good
railroad route was to be had from the western terminus of this
canal, westward through Mansfield and on to Fort Wayne.
His professional calling had made him acquainted with various
prominent men at Pittsburg and with others along the line of the
contemplated improvement. He therefore, in the summer of
1834, arranged a meeting at his office in Mansfield, which was
attended by representatives of all counties from Stark westward;
measures were taken to obtain an act of the legislature, and
Dr. A. G. Miller, S. R. Curtis and Mr. Purdy were
appointed a committee to forward the work of the proposed
railroad. A charter was secured and the state paid the
cost of a survey, completed under S. R. Curtis in 1836.
Construction could not begin without the aid of Pittsburg
capital, and for the present this was not forthcoming.
Richland county's earliest outlet for produce was
Sandusky City, on the lake. Huron had diverted most of
this traffic by building a canal to Norwalk, and Sandusky had
replied by building a horse-power railroad to Monroeville.
A steam road between Mansfield and Sandusky appeared so
desirable that several charters had been granted for such a
line, but no work done as yet.
In December, 1839, Judge William Patterson and
Mr. Purdy were appointed to go to Columbus and obtain or
have amended a charter for a road from Mansfield to New Haven.
This was effected, and Mr. Purdy, together with the
others interested, spent the rest of the winter among the
farmers, holding meetings in the schoolhouses and booming the
enterprise. In the spring of 1840 the company was
organized and Mr. Purdy appointed president. He
took direct charge of the work, employed an engineer and had the
line located as far as New Haven. The work was let and a
day appointed (in August, 1840) for the ceremony of breaking the
first ground. This was performed by John Stewart,
first surveyor of the county, and Robert Bentley, an
early pioneer settler, in the presence of a large and interested
assembly at Mansfield, and a very important step in the
development of the town and county had been taken. This
was among the very earliest steam roads in the state. The
undertaking was, in large part, dependent upon the money
subscribed direct by the farmers along the line; later these
funds were augmented by well-to-do Mansfield citizens.
Work having been retarded by changes of administration and
financial disaster, it was not until 1846 that the first train
steamed into Mansfield.
Mr. Purdy had been a stockholder in the Bank of
Wooster, organized in 1834. When in 1845 the Ohio State
Bank was created by the legislature, he organized a banking
company which was approved and accepted as a branch of the State
Bank, and as such entered into business in September, 1847.
This was known as the Farmer's Branch of the Ohio State Bank
(capital $100,000.00), and was the first permanent and
substantial institution of the kind in the county. Mr.
Purdy was president and John M. Rhodes cashier.
Mr. Purdy thereby became a member of the state board of
control which finance the early times of Ohio, and in 1883, at
ninety years of age, was the oldest member present at the annual
reunion of that notable body. About 1848 he established
branch banking houses in Mount Gilead, Findlay, Ashland and
Millersburg - the last two became national banks when (in 1865)
the old state bank system was discontinued. The Farmers'
Bank at Mansfield at this date was reorganized as the Farmers'
National Bank, Mr. Purdy continuing to be its president
until his death.
Soon after the establishment of the Mansfield and New
Haven line, at the request of the Pittsburgers who had failed to
support the Big Sandy and Fort Wayne project, Mr. Purdy
called a meeting of the original promotes of that enterprise at
Massillon in 1848. The proposed route was extended to
reach Pittsburg and a joint charter was obtained from the
Pennsylvania and Ohio legislatures, Mr. Purdy
attending to the Ohio end of it, and the Ohio and Pennsylvania
Railroad was built to Crestline. It was afterward extended
through Mansfield to Fort Wayne and became the Pittsburg, Fort
Wayne & Chicago Railroad. In 1855 he joined with a number
of eastern capitalists in the organization of the Clinton
Railroad & Land Company, which laid out the city of Clinton,
Iowa, and proposed building a railroad from that point to Cedar
Rapids. For some succeeding years Mr. Purdy, as
vice president of this company, spent most of his time in the
west, taking active charge of the work of construction, which
included a bridge across the Mississippi. He laid the
corner stone of the first house in Clinton.
Mr. Purdy derived a fondness for mills from the
homestead at Hopewell, and when in 1828 he acquired a farm in
Richland county, including a small mill, he rebuilt and enlarged
the plant. In 1836 he purchased a tract of land on the
Maumee river, abreast of the rapids (Grand Rapids) and became
proprietor of an extensive water power, built a sawmill, and
later added a grist mill, equipping it extensively with
machinery of the period, so soon to become obsolete and
worthless.
Mr. Purdy's long life covered the period of
three wars. As a young lad he had been an enthusiastic
reader of accounts of the Marlborough campaigns and Queen
Anne wars found among his father's books. He had
enlisted in the volunteers' service of New York state and served
two calls to the front in 1812; at the third call a substitute
took his place and was killed and his command captured. In
1824 he took part in organizing a volunteer gun squad, equipped
with a six-pounder howitzer, which was one of Mansfield's crack
military organizations and upon the outbreak of the Civil war
was revived and put into service, Captain McMullin
commanding. In 1827 Mr. Purdy was appointed assistant
adjutant general, and in 1846, at the request of the governor,
raised four companies for the Mexican war service. In 1862
Governor Tod appointed him commissioner to make a draft,
and later, when Cincinnati was threatened, he raised a company
of "Squirrel Hunters," one hundred and twenty strong, and
started for Columbus within twenty-four hours. His son
James enlisted at the age of fifteen years in the Fifteenth
Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861 and served throughout the Civil
War.
A man preeminently of business interests and active
affairs, Mr. Purdy still found time to gratify an
inquiring mind by wide and miscellaneous reading, being informed
on a variety of subjects not usually explored except by the
student. He had a great reputation among his neighbors as
an authority on points of Biblical history. His interest
in higher education was shown by a substantial gift to
Washington and Jefferson College in 1858 and by his life-long
support of Wooster University, the state institution of his
religious denomination. In the story of this life we see
portrayed a typical pioneer man of affairs. In the
development of a new country first there comes the settler who
breaks the first roads, clears the forest, drains the swamps and
builds himself a rude home; next com the men of affairs, men of
brains who practice in the courts, edit the papers and manage
the politics of the country; then men of means who establish the
stores, build the warehouses, extend traffic and intercourse and
supply the money for new enterprises. Successively school
teacher, editor, lawyer, banker and capitalist, Mr.
Purdy was a fine example of this type.
Late in life (October, 1839) he
married Mary Beaufort Hodge, third daughter of William
Hodge, one of the early bankers of the city of Buffalo.
There were seven children: Mary H., wife of William H.
Weldon, of the United States, United States army; James
Purdy, who married Emma Kennedy; Helen S., who
married Henry M. Weaver, of Columbus; Adelaide W.,
wife of Frank S. Lahm, of Canton; Kate H., wife of
Dr. Frank D. Bain, of Kenton; and Hamilton Patrick
Purdy.
Source: History of Richland Co., Ohio - from 1808 to 1908 by
A. J. Baughman - Chicago: The J. S. Clarke Publishing Co. 1908 -
Vol. II - Pg, 1158 |
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