OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS - Defiance Co., Ohio

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DEFIANCE COUNTY
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BIOGRAPHIES

These biographies have been extracted from
Commemorative Biographical Records of Northwestern Ohio
including the counties of Defiance, Henry, Williams & Fulton.
Published at Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co. 1899.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

NOTE: If you are interested in any of the names listed below, please contact me
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* SASS, Henry C.
* SCHELL, Myron J.
* SCHMALTZ, William A.
* SCHOONOVER, Henry
* SCHRACK, Aaron F.
* SEYMOUR, Charles
* SHARP, David G.
* SHUTER, Samuel
* SITES, Frank B.

* SLOCUM, Charles Elihu, M. D., PH. D.
* SNIDER, Willis A.
* SPONSELLER, Reuben
* SPANGLER, John
* SPRING, Louis O.
* STEFFEL, John G.
* STEVENS, Merari Bunajah, M. D., PH. C.
* SUTPHEN, Silas T., Hon.

HENRY C. SASS
     The northern Sea Kings in this descent upon and occupation of England, and the Normans who subsequently invaded and conquered that country, left no stronger impress upon succeeding generations in the "tight little isle" than has been given to the United Stats by that brave numbers in almost every portion of the country. Their strong individuality has stamped their characteristic traits upon our civilization, and in social and business life, in our churches and institutions of learning, in politics, finance, and all the varied activities of peace and war, the German element among our people has been an important factor in the progress of which every citizen is proud. The subject of this sketch, a prominent resident of Defiance, and a typical representative of this class, is himself a native of the Fatherland, although by education and training he belongs to the Buckeye State.
     Mr. Sass was born May 6, 1862, at Pass, Mecklenburg, Germany, where his family had been domiciled for many generations. His grandfather, Henry M. Sass, was a prosperous business man in the cooperage line, and Henry Sass, our subject's father, was a merchant tailor there in his early manhood. In 1866 he and his wife, Fredericka (Sames), came to the United States with their seven children, and for five years resided at Defiance, where Mr. Sass continued his former business. Later he removed to Toledo, engaging again in merchant tailoring until his retirement from active work in 1886. He is still a resident of Toledo, and is held in high esteem by all who know him. Of the seven children all are living except one: (1) Mary married Matthias Shuewack, a carpenter at Toledo. (2) William, a carpenter, resides in the same city. (3) Anna married Charles Tonesing, and died in Toledo at the age of twenty-eight, leaving one daughter, Amelia. (4) Augusta married (first) John Garding, who died leaving one child, Ella. By a second marriage, with Edward Mueller, a carpenter of Toledo (now deceased), she had one son, Henry. She still resides in Toledo. (5) Lena married R. Hecht, a ranchman of Wyoming, and resides at Laramie City; they have four children. (6) Henry C., our subject, is mentioned more fully below. (7) Emma married Henry Trost, of Toledo, a carpenter an manufacturer of sashes and doors. They have two children: Ella and Carl.
     Henry C. Sass was four years old when his parents came to this country, and nine when they moved to Toledo, his education being mainly acquired in the public schools of that city. On leaving the high school at the age of sixteen he learned the tinner's trade, which he followed in Toledo until 1884. He then went to Defiance, and securing employment at his trade there continued until 1889, when he took a position as clerk in the hardware store of C. Biede, of the same place. He was married in 1884 to Miss Nathalie May, daughter of George May, a well-known resident of Defiance and speedily established himself as one of the substantial, progressive and reliable citizens of the place. By industry and thrift he accumulated sufficient capital to enable him to start in business on his own account. In 1893 he purchased his employer's entire business, and has since conducted it successfully. Under his able management it has expanded until he has now one of the most extensive hardware stores in that section with an annual business of twenty-five thousand dollars and upward. The store is advantageously located on Clinton street, and occupies three floors of the building, the upper floor being used for a thoroughly equipped tin shop, and the others taken for the storage and display of goods. Mr. Sass keeps all kinds of heating and cooking stoves, ranges, furnaces and fittings, together with a complete stock of the shelf goods usually found in a first-class hardware store. His success may be attributed largely to his thorough knowledge of every detail of the business, learned in his years of service as an employe, as this experience, with his quick perceptions and excellent judgment as to ways and means, has given him command of every available source of advancement. Prompt and decisive in his dealings he is at the same time most genial in manner, and his unfailing courtesy to all customers adds to his list of friends while tending to the increase of his bank account. His history furnishes a bright example of the possibilities open to a boy who, though poor, determines to make his way to an honorable position in the business world.
     Mr. Sass has a handsome residence, built by himself in 1891, at No. 324 Second street, East Defiance, containing all modern conveniences, including furnace heat, hot and cold water, and other features not often found outside of our larger cities. Four children - Linda, Eva, Arnold and Henry - brighten his home. Mr. Sass and his wife are identified with the Lutheran Church, and have always shown a deep interest in all that pertains to the welfare of the community. Politically Mr. Sass affiliates with the Democratic party, and at times has been a candidate for local offices, his popularity with all classes doing much to strengthen the ticket. He is now a member of the school board of Defiance.

MYRON J. SCHELL. Mr. Schell, who is one of the proprietors of the "Hicksville Weekly News," is displaying marked ability as a journalist, and his work as editor has brought added popularity to that excellent paper. It is an eight-page, six-column quarto, established in 1873, and was leased on April 1, 1895, by Mr. Schell in partnership with B. B. Dowell, the latter withdrawing two years later, leaving Mr. Schell sole manager and publisher. The paper takes independent ground upon political issues, and its able and fearless championship of progress in all lines makes it popular among the best classes of the community.
On the paternal side Mr. Schell is of Holland-Dutch descent, but his ancestors came to America at a very early period, locating in New York during the administration of Governor Peter Stuyvesant. They established their home at Albany (then called Fort Orange) and various members of the family intermarried with the VanValkenburgs, wealthy patrons of that locality. Both families owned extensive tracts of land, and were also connected with large brewing interests. Philip J. Schell, the grandfather of our subject, was born and reared in Albany, and in 1838 came west with his wife and family, settling in Scipio township, Allen county, Indiana, three miles from Hicksville, purchasing a section and a quarter of land. Doctor Frank VanValkenburg Schell, our subject's father, was only five years old at the time of the removal to Indiana, and as the schools of that locality were then inferior, he returned to the East a few years later, and was educated at Albany, graduating from a medical college. At present he resides at Camden, Michigan, where he is engaged in handling proprietary medicines. His wife, whose maiden name was Jennie Reed, is a native of Salem, New York, and a descendant of an old Scotch family, her ancestors having settled in New York State previous to the Revolutionary war, in which some members of the family took an active part.
Mr. Schell was born in 1862 at the old homestead in Allen county, Indiana, and received his education in the public schools of Monroeville and Fort Wayne. At the age of seventeen he became interested in the milling trade, but after working about four years at that occupation he gave it up to take a more congenial position with a mercantile firm in Fort Wayne. For six years he was connected with a large grocery in that city, in the capacity of foreman. Later he spent a year and a half as exchange clerk in the "Old" National Bank at Fort Wayne, and on leaving that position he became a "drummer" for a wholesale paper and stationery establishment, with which he was connected about two years. He then formed the partnership with Mr. Dowell, leasing the plant of "The News' and he has since devoted his attention to that publication. Politically Mr. Schell is a Democrat, but his paper takes independent ground upon all the issues of the clay.
In September, 1883, Mr. Schell was married to Miss Claretta E. Dowell, and they have had four children, viz.: Hattie, born July 15, 1886; Arthur, January 9, 1890; Marguerite, November 21, 1893, and Fleda, August 7, 1895. The family is prominent socially, and is identified with the Christian Church at Hicksville, of which Mr. Schell is a leading member, and he is also connected with the National Union, a mutual benefit association organized on social lines.

FRANK B. SITES.      Prominent among the business men of Defiance county, who by their genius and enterprise have risen to positions of usefulness and influence, was the gentleman whose name introduces this sketch, now deceased. The "Old Dominion" is his native State, he having been born in Edenburg, Shenandoah county, March 14, 1851.
     Henry Sites, he father, married Rebecca Kesinger, and they passed the first years of their married life in Edenburg, Virginia. In 1857 they left that place and took up their abode in Ohio, settling finally in Mifflin township, Richland county. Mr. Sites made farming his life business.
     Frank B. Sites attended the schools of Richland county, applying himself to study until eighteen years of age, from which time till the year 1881 he followed the life of a commercial traveler, still making his home with his father. A propensity for inventing led him to experiment continually. In 1881 he entered the employ of the Trumbull Wagon Company, Defiance, Ohio, and was with that firm one year, revising and improving machinery. One year with John Marshall in the same line of business followed, after which he was general superintendent of the works of the latter for one year. He then gave his attention to the manufacture of various articles in his own interest; but meeting with losses, he bought machinery for fence manufacturing, and engaged in that business on a small scale, while perfecting and patenting inventions that led to the establishment of the Defiance Box Works. This enterprise was inaugurated in a small way - a company of four, with Mr. Sites at the head, entering upon the project. For two years he conducted the small concern, when, demand for the goods having increased to such a large extent, he formed a stock company with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and established a large plant, erecting four buildings - a main building forty by one hundred and twenty feet with an annex forty by eighty feet, a dry-kiln forty by twenty-four feet, and a warehouse thirty by sixty feet. Projector and original promoter of the extensive business, Mr. Sites is one of the stockholders also, and the inventor and patentee of its various products, which comprise poultry coops, pottery crates, and crate boxes of all kinds and sizes, the goods being sold in all sections of the United States. The machinery for the manufacture of the goods is also the invention or Mr. Sites, and his genius continued to be busied with the perfection of other inventions in the same line. The value of the annual product of the works is already forty thousand dollars, while with continual increasing facilities the business is constantly assuming greater proportions, and Mr. Sites enjoyed a royalty on all products. Thus in a few years the modest venture has passed to a permanent and lucrative business success.
     Mr. Sites was married, in the fall of 1883, to Miss Kittie Wisler, of Defiance, and they have one son, John Albert, born in August, 1884. Mr. Sites passed away September 18, 1897, and was buried in the Defiance cemetery. He was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, and in politics was a Prohibitionist. Three years prior to his death he was a member of the Methodist Church, to which Mrs. Sites also belongs, and he was a social, genial Christian gentleman, living in the enjoyment of the respect and confidence of a wide circle of acquaintances and friends.

CHARLES ELIHU SLOCUM, M. D., PH. D.
     Charles Elihu Slocum, M. D., Ph. D., physician, banker and philanthropist, of Defiance, Ohio, is of pure English ancestry, the ancient home of his race being near Taunton, Somersetshire, England.
     The founder of the branch in the United States from which our subject descends was one Anthony Slocombe, who came to America with his wife and family at the time of the absolute and despotic reign of King Charles I., and was one of the first purchasers in 1837 of several townships of land around the present site of Taunton, Massachusetts, which town he helped to found. It was in the records of this purchase that the clerk gave the present spelling to the surname. American marriages have kept the blood of the descendants of this first American ancestor in English lines.
     The direct ancestors of Doctor Slocum, covering eight generations in America are as follows: Anthony's son Giles, born in England, was a young married man when he came from his native country, his wife's given name being Joann. He was prominent in the colony of Rhode Island, as a man of large possessions, and was also a leading member of the Society of Friends, and family affiliating with that religious body on its first appearance in New England in 1656. The descendants continued in that relation until after the Revolutionary war, when removal to eastern New York widely separated them from the Society. Giles and Joann Slocum had a family of nine children, the youngest of which was a son, Eleazer, born the 25th day of "10th month," 1664, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He became a resident of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in 1684. He married Elephel Fitzgerald, and one of their sons, also named Eleazer, born January 20, 1694, married Deborah Smith and had a son, John, born August 4, 1717, who became a yeoman and trader. He married Deborah Almy, and had a son, Eleazer, born May 15, 1744, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, who married Anstace Viall, and this couple, after the Revolutionary war, removed with their family to what is now known as Northville, Fulton County, New York, which remained the family home for many years. Joseph, the eldest son of Eleazer and Anstace Slocum, was born Feb. 6, 1766, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and was married in Cambridge, New York, to Elizabeth Wright in 1790. Their second son, Caleb Wright Slocum, our subject's father, was born in Northville, New York, October 22, 1797, and died their in 1864. He was a man of strong character and high standing, and was engaged in various business enterprises, being a farmer, merchant, tanner and manufacturer. His wife, Elizabeth (Bass), was born at Northville, November 25, 1798, and died there in 1866.
     Coming now to the ninth generation, we return to our subject, who is also a native of Northville, New York, born December 30, 1841. His early education was obtained with the aim of preparing himself for teaching and general business, his studies being pursued in the schools of his native town, and by his own exertions in Fort Edward Collegiate Institute, and at Poughkeepsie, New York. Several years of his early manhood were passed partly in attending school and partly in teaching in public and private schools with ascending grades. His services were also in demand as instructor in teachers' institutes.
     While teaching in Albion, Michigan, in 1865, he began the study of medicine with a late army surgeon, Doctor Willoughby O'Donohue. He attended the medical department of the University of Michigan, giving special attention to analytical and applied chemistry, and practical microscopy. He also attended the Detroit Medical College, and in that city registered under the preceptorship of the venerable Professor Zina Pitcher and Doctor David O. Farrand, who were then in partnership. There he saw, and participated in, much of practical medicine and surgery. He attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, in New York City, and was there granulated Doctor in Medicine in 1869, with health somewhat impaired. He at once entered into partnership with his brother, Doctor John Caleb Slocum, who had established a large practice at Shelbyville, Indiana. In 1870 he traveled for his health through the South and along the Atlantic coast, and in July, 1871, he settled in Defiance, Ohio, where he has since remained, excepting some travels for study and recreation. Parts of several years have been passed in post-graduate studies, embracing literary studies, general medicine, surgery and various specialties, in New York and in Philadelphia, where he received a degree from Jefferson College upon examination. He also passed two years in the University of Pennsylvania, and there received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in course, upon examination, with the highest grade of his class. In 1879 he visited Europe, giving attention to his profession in Vienna and London specially, and visiting other medical center.
     Doctor Slocum's practice has been general, including delicate work in the specialties as well as capital surgical operations, and his careful attention to details has brought him large patronage and gratifying success. He has been president of the Defiance County Medical Society, vice-president of the District Society, and member of the Ohio State Medical Society since 1874. He was chosen delegate from the State Society in 1875 to the American Medical Association, since which time he has been a permanent member of the last named body.
     He became a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in 1876; charter member of the American Microscopical Society in 1878; member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1885; member of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society; of the Ninth International Medical Congress in 1887; member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science from the first year of its organization; and charter member of the Ohio State Academy of Science, of which he has been first vice-president. In 1896 he organized the Fort Defiance Scientific Association, with a membership of thirty-five, and he has sine been its president. He is also a member of various other important societies of both a local and general character, including the American Public Health Association.
     He served several years as United States examining surgeon for pensions, as railway surgeon, and as examiner for numerous life insurance companies. He has several times declined proffered professorships in medical colleges in different cities, but since 1896 he has been professor of psychology and ethics in the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons, Cleveland, Ohio. His medical writings have been few, and confined mainly to reports of cases in his practice, which were published in different medical journals, and also occasional papers read before medical, scientific and other societies, by request.
     In 1882 he published a large octavo volume, the preparation of which had been his principal diversion for several years, entitled "A Short History of the Solcums, Slocumbs and Slocombs of America, Genealogical and Biographical; Embracing Eleven Generations of the First Named Family, from 1637 to 1881; With their Alliances and the Descendants in the Female Lines so far Ascertained. Also the Etymology of those Surnames, an Account of some ...................more to come upon request.

LOUIS O. SPRING.      Defiance boasts of the most efficient fire department of any city of it size in Ohio, this fact being largely due to the faithful chieftain, whose commanding personality, keen judgment, and unshaken confidence under trying emergencies have won the confidence of the community.
     With commendable foresight, Mr. Spring, who as been at the head of the department since 1888, has left nothing undone which could prepare his corps of brave assistants for a struggle with the fire fiend, and the ringing of the alarm bells lacks much of the old terror and apprehension to the citizens. A fire department should be like a well-disciplined army in the presence of a possible enemy. Alert, thoroughly prepared, ready for duty at any moment, even at the hazard of their lives, each man is a necessary unit in the ranks, but the practical efficiency of the entire force depends upon the general who directs it. If he be known as thoroughly qualified for his duties, all under his command, from the private in the ranks to the highest subordinate officer, will follow his directions with implicit confidence in the judgment. Should he call upon them to charge the enemy on "a forlorn hope," they will respond with that unanimity and enthusiasm which can work wonders and wring victory against apparently overwhelming odds. In Mr. Spring and Defiance Fire Department has such a leader, and under his capable direction the men are prompt to respond and do valiant service whenever life or property is endangered.
     Mr. Spring's experience in fighting fire dates back to 1881, when he became a member of the Defiance department, and in the seven years that intervened before his promotion to his present post his ability and courage were fully tested. At present the force consists of seventy-five men, three of whom are regularly employed at full salaries. Seven are known as "minute men," receiving partial pay, and the others are volunteers. There are three commodious brick buildings in different wards occupied by hose companies, and one central brick building where is stationed a hose company, a hook and ladder outfit, three hand hose reels, and a large first-class equipment. In this building is the headquarters of the fire-alarm system, and three men are always on duty there. About thirty-five hundred feet of good hose is available for use altogether, and the water supply is obtained both by direct pressure and from a standpipe system, the steam engine being used only in case of a general alarm. The buildings cost in the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars, exclusive of equipment.
     The following brief history of the chief will be of interest: He was born Feb. 7, 1860 at Marshall, Michigan, the son of August and Bertha Spring. Both parents were natives of Germany, but they came to the United States about forty years ago, and after residing for some time in Michigan located in 1870 in Defiance. They were devout members of the Lutheran Church, and were held in high esteem among their associates for their excellent qualities of character. As our subject was but a boy at the time of the removal to Defiance the greater portion of his life has been spent there. His education was acquired in the common schools, and at an early age he was employed in the woolen mill. At sixteen he began to learn the machinist's trade with the Defiance Machine Co., with which he was connected for twenty-two years. In November, 1896, he began in business on his own account, establishing a meat market at the southwest corner of Clinton and Fourth streets, and this, with his official duties, occupies his entire attention. Politically he is affiliated with the Democratic party. As a citizen he is highly respected, and his failing courtesy makes him popular everywhere. In August, 1893, he was married to Miss Josephine Gottwald, of Defiance, and they have one daughter, named Esther, and a son, Louis, Jr., born January 23, 1898. Mrs. Spring is a daughter of Christian and Christina Gottwald, both of whom are now deceased. They came from New York City to Defiance about 1875. Mrs. Spring was born in New York City, and came to Ohio when a child. Her education was obtained in the public schools of Defiance, where she has had her home nearly all her life.

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