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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
History of Shelby County, Ohio
and
representative citizens
Publ.
Evansville, Ind.
1913
947 pgs.
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HARRY J. TAYLOR,
proprietor and manager of the Sidney Hardware Company,
at Sidney, O., a leading business concern here, has been
identified with the hardware trade since a boy. He
was born at Sidney, Mar. 27, 1855, and is a son of
Oliver J. Taylor who is also in this line of trade.
Harry J. Taylor was educated in the public
schools and afterward worked in his father's hardware
store until 1898, when he embarked in business for
himself. Mr. Taylor began in a modest way
and through close attention to business and a complete
knowledge of all its detains, has greatly prospered.
To his first quarters he has added space and now has two
large rooms and two warerooms and carries at very full
stock, handling everything in light and heavy hardware,
farm fencing and factory and plumbers' supplies.
Mr. Taylor was united in marriage with Miss
Belle Runyon, of Shelby county, and eight children
have been born to them, namely: Oliver F., who is
associated with his father in the store, is married and
they have three children - Harold, James and
Amelia Belle; Harry, who is also in the hardware
business with his father; Mabel, deceased, who
was the wife of Frederick Heiser, of Sidney, and
they had one child, Mary Louise; James T., who is
also in his father's store; and Mary, Rosanna, Cora
and Julia, all of whom reside at home.
Mr. Taylor is active in his citizenship, assuming
responsibilities when necessary and in every possible
way working for the general welfare. He belongs to
several fraternal bodies including the Royal Arcanum and
the Order of Ben Hur.
Source: History of Shelby County, Ohio and
representative citizens - Evansville, Ind. - 1913 - Page
466 |
OLIVER
J. TAYLOR, a representative business, man of
Sidney, O., where he is a leading hardware merchant,
founded his present establishment on June 1, 1854, and
is now in his fifty-ninth business year in his native
city, where he was born September 26, 1830, and is a son
of Jason and Sarah C. (Skillen) Taylor.
The Taylors were pioneers in Shelby county.
Samuel Taylor, the grandfather, was born in
England, coming to near Harper's Ferry, Va., and from
there moved to Ohio and settled first near West Liberty,
O., subsequently removing to Shelby county, where he
entered land in what is now Salem township. He built, a
log cabin on a hill on a suitable part of his 160-acre
purchase and there remained through a long and
industrious life and is still recalled as one of the
county's well-known pioneers.
Jason Taylor,
father of Oliver J., was a boy when his parents
moved to Shelby county and settled in Salem township. He
married early, before he was twenty-one years of age,
and with wife and a capital of $28.50, came to Sidney,
where he began business life as a shoemaker. He
prospered at his trade and started a small general store
and when he could spare the sum of $37.00 invested it in
land, and the time came when that same lot of land was
sold for $10,000. For many years he continued as a
merchant at Sidney and then went into the jobbing
business in New York City, where he remained for about
eighteen years. Failing health induced him to close out
his interests there and to return to Sidney; where his
death occurred two years later. He married Sarah C.
Skillen, who was of Irish parentage but was born in
Pennsylvania and came to Ohio in girlhood.
Oliver J. Taylor had
very limited educational opportunities in his boyhood
and remained with his parents until his eighteenth year,
when he began the study of civil engineering and spent
several years on the Big Four and Pan Handle railroads.
Finding that his heart, was not in that line of
industry, Mr. Taylor turned his attention
to the hardware business, and, as noted above,
established his store at Sidney at so early a date that
he can justly claim to be one of the oldest men in the
hardware line, not only in this city, but in Ohio. He
had a capital of $800 to start with, the same having
been earned and providently saved while on the railroad,
and he bought his first stock up to this amount, of the
firm of. Norton, Jewett & Busby of
New York City, and the goods were shipped to him by way
of Buffalo and Toledo, arid then transferred to a
warehouse. Learning that this warehouse was destroyed by
fire on that night, Mr. Taylor presumed
his goods had been destroyed and duplicated his order,
with the rather disturbing result of receiving both
orders and having only money enough to pay for one. His
business shrewdness extricated him and soon he found he
needed not only both orders, of goods but that it became
desirable for him to make annual trips to eastern
markets and make his own selections. Still later he
found his best market to be Pittsburg, later Cincinnati,
and despite slow and exasperating delivery, he did a
fine business. The first commercial traveler to visit
him was John Williams, representing the
Wheeler, Madden & Clenson Works, saw
manufacturers, of Middletown, N. Y., this mark of
growing importance being shown him in 1859. It is
interesting to learn of Mr. Taylor's
business methods as they proved so successful. It was
his early habit to open his store at about 6 A. M. and
probably close about 10 P. M. He has made it a point to
boy for cash and to owe no one a dollar, although his
purchasers very often did not follow the same honest
line, buying largely on credit and having no definite
time for settlement. Mr. Taylor remembers
the advent of the wire, nail, the family washing
machines, the glass lantern that has succeeded the old
tin cone pierced with holes. In his first stock of goods
the cleaver was the only meat cutter and his padlocks
that he then had to sell for perhaps fifty cents he can
improve on for ten cents. He recalls his first door
locks which were made to open with a lever instead of a
knob; the old Spear & Jackson English
saws were used and Mr. Taylor remembers
that he had some trouble in convincing his customers
that the Henry Disston saws were superior.
His first American pocket cutlery he bought at
Northfield, Conn., and for forty years he has handled
the same goods. In every other line he notes progress
arid improvement and has always been open to conviction
himself and anxious to provide the very best goods on
the market. In 1874 Mr. Taylor moved into
the building he now occupies and there are few business
men of Sidney who are more prompt in their daily
activities or more active in attending to customers than
is Mr. Taylor, at the age of eighty-two years:
On June 7, 1855, Mr. Taylor was married to Miss Sarah
Harrison, who died suddenly July 30, 1887, the
mother of seven children, four of whom survive; Harry
J., who is the owner of the Sidney Hardware
Company, of Sidney; Jennie A., who is the wife of
J. C. Cummings, cashier of the First National
Exchange Bank of Sidney; Willis B., who is buyer
for O. J. Taylor; and Charles J., who is a
traveling salesman, representing the Chicago Hardware
Company, with his home at Kansas City, Mo. Mrs.
May Belle Lyon died leaving three children.
Oliver Earl, the fifth born is deceased, and
Edwin, the sixth child in order of birth, died at
the age of eight months. Mr. Taylor's
second marriage was to Miss Helen C. Search,
who is a sister of Prof. P. W. Search, the
well-known lecturer. Mr. Taylor has been
creditably interested in many of the industries of
Sidney and has been called the father of the Sidney fire
department, .and, in association with the late George
Burnell, organized the present paid fire
department. For almost his lifetime he has been a member
of the Presbyterian church and until recently, when he
retired voluntarily from the office, for many years has
been an elder in the church. His long life of
persevering industry has brought him financial
independence and his probity and business integrity have
earned him the confidence and respect of his fellow
citizens.
Source: History of Shelby County, Ohio and
representative citizens - Evansville, Ind. - 1913 - Page
446 |
PERCY R. TAYLOR,
attorney at law and a representative citizen of Sidney,
O., was born in the great city of Birmingham, England,
Jan. 8, 1872. and is a son of F. D. and Catherine
(Campbell) Taylor.
F. D. Taylor was
born in England and became a mining and civil engineer
and in a professional capacity came to Canada and while
there was married. Afterward he went back to
England but subsequently returned to Canada, where his
wife died in March, 1888, he surviving until 1895.
They had four children: Percy Radcliffe;
Nora, who is the wife of Charles Price Green,
of Toronto, Canada; Claud, who is manager of a
branch of the Union Bank of New Liskeard, Canada; and
Naomi, who is the wife of Gordon
McCullough, of Toronto.
Percy Radcliffe Taylor was the
second born in the above family and during two years of
early life, lived in Switzerland. He was ten years
old when the family came from England to Toronto and up
to the age of thirteen years he was instructed by a
governess in his home. He then spent one year in
the public schools of Ontario and for two years was a
student at Bishop's College, at Lenoxville, province of
Quebec, completing his high course there. His
first business experience was as a bookkeeper for a
contracting firm for the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
On July 4, 1892, he came to Sidney, O., where he
accepted a position as reporter on the old Sidney
Journal and remained with that publication until June,
1898, in August of the following year becoming editor of
the Piqua Dispatch, at Piqua, O., and additionally,
until April, 1900, was interested in the publishing of
law books with the Lanning Publishing Company.
Mr. Taylor then became proofreader for the
Western Publishing Company at St. Paul, Minn., and
continued until March, 1901, when he accepted a position
as traveling salesman, his territory being Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia, and afterwards Ohio, and
continued on the road until the fall of 1905. In
the meanwhile he had utilized all his spare moments in
the study of law and in 1903 he took the bar examination
at Columbus, having been encouraged in this ambition by
his wife, and passed very creditably and on Sept. 1,
1905, opened his law office at Sidney, where he had
already a wide circle of friends. On Oct. 1, 1905,
he reentered the employ of the Western Publishing
Company and in one month organized a department for them
and then returned to his professional work at Sidney,
where he has resided ever since and has rapidly built up
a practice. He is a member of the Shelby County
Bar Association and has been active and energetic in
furthering the interests of the Commercial Club at
Sidney and served as its president from 1910 until 1911.
Mr. Taylor was married Feb. 27, 1897. to Miss
Dorothy Cary, of Sidney, and they have one daughter,
Claribel, who was born Oct. 12, 1906.
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor attend the Episcopal church.
Fraternally he is identified with the Knights of Pythias
and the D. O. K. K. In politics he is a
republican, and he stands high both as a citizen and as
a member of the bar.
Source: History of Shelby County, Ohio and
representative citizens - Evansville, Ind. - 1913 - Page
618 |
DR. J. A. THROCKMORTON
was born in old Virginia several moons ago, if not more,
and if the Mother of Presidents had not suffered from
being sliced on account of being too strongly
democratic, there is no telling how differently his
career might have been shaped. As luck would have
it, he was on the piece snipped off which put him three
miles from the dividing line between Old and West
Virginia on the west side. Of course this snuffed
out whatever ambitious flame he may have had in the
white house direction. It was such as he that
occasioned, by their loyalty, the division of the old
state for a love of the common country and lofty
patriotism which thrives and abides in mountain air kept
the western part true to the old flag. The
merciful amputation was painless and ever since the new
state has had a healthy growth.
The Doctor was small for his age, and is not huge yet,
but his avoirdupois deficiency has been fully
compensated for by his being a bundle of activity which
years have not stiffened. When the slogan of
war sounded, he donned a uniform of blue, probably made
especially for his light and lithe form, and marched
with patriotic stride to the front and was as good as
new in the closing carnage of Petersburg and around
Richmond and joined in the glad huzzas when the
Appomattox episode was known. He was a difficult
mark to hit and even the sharp shooters had to give him
up as a hard proposition, with the odds all the time in
his favor.
Not having forgotten what he learned in his youth, he
taught school for a time and then emigrated with his
parents to Ohio, settling on a farm bought in this
county a few miles north of Hardin in Turtle Creek
township. The bottom land in that vicinity was
crowded out by knolls and knots not tractable to manage
and at that time had to be subdued by main strength and
awkwardness, commodities of which he did not have a
surplus, and the vocation sort of went against the
grain. He concluded that he had served a full term
in fighting for his country and did not relish another
prolonged conflict by an attempt at warfare with mother
Nature, especially at small wages with no prospect of a
pension as a reward for his endeavors.
Looking over the catalogue of possibilities he settled
on dentistry as a profession, packed his trunk, and with
somewhat scanty accumulations bade the obdurate farm a
tearless good bye for an education and finished at Ann
Arbor with the honorable degree of D. D. S. and located
in Sidney, where he has resided plying his profession
for thirty-two years. Previous to graduation at Ann
Arbor the Doctor attended the Baltimore College of
Dentistry in Maryland and subsequently took a post
graduate course in Chicago.
Upon returning from the war, he stayed on the farm in
West Virginia for awhile and being of a mechanical turn
of mind and having a distaste to being blistered by the
sun when driving a mowing machine or harvester, he
constructed a device that would hold an umbrella whose
grateful shade protected him in comfort and did not
hinder his efficiency as a harvest hand. This was
something new to the rustics, who shook their heads and
remarked that Mr. Throckmorton had the
laziest son in those parts. They had not
subscribed to the idea that if work must be performed a
man had the privilege of doing it in the most
comfortable way possible; but the Doctor had, and if
bread must be earned by the sweat of the brow, the less
sweat the better, especially where one was not over
juicy. Their gibes did not in any way disconcert
him and the umbrella was kept raised. Being
brought up in that hilly and mountainous region he early
learned to ride a horse, of which he was extremely fond,
if it was a good one and his taste seemed to increase
with his years, for he has two Kentucky thoroughbreds as
tractable as kittens and which he has taught to so amble
under the saddle that it makes equestrianism a delight.
In 1844 he married Miss Nannie R. Thomas, of
West Virginia, who is an equestrienne of rare grace and
accomplishment which seems to be indigenous to the
rugged state of West Virginia and perfected by continual
practice. At one time Doctor
Throckmorton had branch offices in Chicago and San
Francisco and did considerable laboratory work in
Sidney, having impressions sent here for plate work.
Source: History of Shelby County, Ohio and
representative citizens - Evansville, Ind. - 1913 - Page
399 |
DANIEL
TOY, one of the prominent citizens of Sidney, O.,
representing the second ward in the city council and an
influential factor in democratic politics in Shelby
county, is a native of Sidney, born November 14, 1876.
He is a son of W. M. and Mary (Haslup) Toy.
Daniel Toy was reared at Sidney and attended
school here, afterward learning the printer's trace,
entering the office of the Sidney Daily News on the day
of its first issue. For four years Mr. Toy
worked as a printer and afterward, for a couple of
years, was in the employ of the Sidney Steel Scraper
Company, finally entering the shops of the Philip Smith
Company, where he learned the machinist's trade and is
now foreman of these same shops.
Mr. Toy married Miss Emma Louise Pfefferle,
a daughter of Carl Pferfferle, and they have one
son, Harold. Mr. Toy comes naturally by him
mechanical skill, his father and his grandfather having
been identified with mechanics and manufacturing during
the greater part of their lives. He has always
been interested in public matter, strong democrat in his
political belief, and has served as a member of the
Shelby County Democratic Central Committee and also has
been a member of the Sidney Democratic Executive
Committee. When D. H. Warner resigned as
alderman of the Second ward, in order to become the
director of public service, in January, 1912, Mr. Toy
was immediately selected to fill out Mr. Warner's
unexpired term and has proved a useful member of the
city council.
Source: History of Shelby County, Ohio and
representative citizens - Evansville, Ind. - 1913 - Page
595 |
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