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JOHN HARVEY WOODS, a rural mail carrier living at No. 50 Glesner avenue in Mansfield, was born Aug. 16, 1844, upon a farm in this county.  His father, James Woods, was a native of Pennsylvania, and with his parents removed to Ashland county, Ohio, in his childhood days.  When he had attained his majority he began farming on his own account across the line in Richland county and was thus identified with agricultural pursuits in Ohio until 1863, when he removed to Indiana, where his death occurred in 1865.  His entire life has been devoted to farming.  He wedded Mary Fifcoat, who was born in Marion county, Ohio, and they became the parents of four children; John F., who, though a resident of Mansfield, is now sojourning in Los Angeles, California, for the benefit of his health; William, a resident of Oklahoma; John H., of this review; and Ebenezer, deceased.
     John Harvey Woods pursued his early education in Quail Trap school in Springfield township until the age of sixteen years, after which he devoted his undivided attention to the work of the home farm, continuing thus to assist his father until he reached the age of nineteen years.  He had not yet attained his majority when he offered his services to the government in defense of the Union, enlisting at Mansfield on the 19^th of August, 1862, as a member of Company I, One Hundred and Twentieth O.V.I.  He served for three years, two months and four days, and was discharged at Detroit, Michigan, although the regiment was mustered out at Columbus.  Mr. Woods, however, was at that time a messenger on staff duty.  He participated in the battles of Chickasaw Bayou and Arkansas Post and went down the Mississippi river to Young’s Point, where he was in camp for a time.  With his command he afterward crossed the river below Vicksburg and participated in the battle of Thompson Hill, while later he took part in the battles of Jackson and Black River and was also present at the siege of Vicksburg until its surrender.  From the battle of Arkansas Post he served as a messenger on special duty until the close of the war, being connected with the staffs of General Henseman, General Joseph Hooker, and others.  Although he was not wounded in battle he had met with an accident which, though seemingly slight, has since been felt.  HE started with a message on a dark night and, tripping on a rope, fell and hit a stake.  The fall impaired his health and he feels the effects to this day.
     When the war was over Mr. Woods returned to Richland county and began to clerk for his brother.  He afterward went upon the road as a traveling salesman and subsequently was engaged in business on his own account until about six years ago, when he began carrying the mails on rural delivery route No. 7.
     In 1873 Mr. Woods was united in marriage to Miss Emily A. Brown,  who was born in Medina county, Ohio, and came with her parents to Richland county at the age of sixteen years.  They now have one child, Cassius H., who was born in 1876 and after attending the public schools of Mansfield became a student in the dental department of the Ohio Medical University.  He was graduated in 1897 with the D. D. S. degree and began the practice of dentistry in Bellville, where he remained for six years.  He afterward practiced in Mansfield for two and a half years, but during the past four years awake, progressive business man.  In 1899 he married Miss Jeannette . Oberlin, a resident of Bellville, Ohio.
     In his political views Mr. Woods is a stalwart republican and, keeping well informed on the questions and issues of the day, is enabled to support his position by intelligent argument.  Hew as born and reared in the faith of the Seceders church, but both he and his wife are now members of the Congregational church.  They own an attractive and well furnished home in the city, keep a team of horses and are pleasantly situated in life.  Comparatively few men of Mr. .Woods’ years can boast of three years’ service as a soldier in the Union army and in the years which have since come and gone he has proven himself equally loyal to the interests of his country.
Source#2: History of Richland Co., Ohio - from 1808 to 1908 - Page 1151

CHARLES H. WORKMAN.  One of the old families of Ohio is that bearing the name of Workman, and its representatives are to be found in different sections of the commonwealth, although the funder of it in Ohio, Elias Workman, settled in Holmes County, where Charles H. Workman, at attorney of Mansfield, whose names heads this review, was born April 23, 1859.  The Workman family is of English origin, and for some time was located in Maryland, came west and entered a large tract of land from whence Elias Workman, the grandfather of Charles H. Workman, came west and entered a large tract of land from the government in what is now Holmes County.
     The nineteenth century was just beginning; Ohio was still frontier country; and there were no provisions made for the instruction of the children.  A well-educated man, Elias Workman in 1800 made an agreement with his neighbors that for four months of the year, when his farm duties left him at leisure, he would teach their children, and take his pay in bolts of cloth or produce of any kind, and through this barter gained the equivalent of fifty dollars a month.  His son, John Workman, father of Charles H. Workman, was born on his father’s homestead about 1831, and he, too, was a teacher.  The elder man encountered more difficulties in his scholastic labors, for he faced an absolute dearth of textbooks, so he had to make his own, and some of his carefully written pages, still preserved, prove him to have been a splendid penman.  John Workman also a farmer, and he died on this same farm when he was in his early ‘60s.
     Charles H. Workman was reared on the Workman farm in Holmes County, which became the site of camp of Federal soldiers in 1863, at the time of the Holmes County rebellion.  With the other children Charles H. Workman was sent to the Smithville Academy in Wayne County, Ohio, where he had the good fortune to be under the instruction of J. B. Eberley, a noted educator.  This was the last of the old New England academies that had been established in the state from which came so many men later illustrious in the history of the state and nation.  So well prepared was Mr. Workman in this academy that he was able to begin teaching in the Normal School at Ada, Ohio, occupying the chair of literature, rhetoric and civil government, and from 1883 to 1893 he maintained this connection with the institution.  During this period, however, he was studying law, and taking an active part in local politics.
     In 1894 Mr. Workman was elected to the Legislature of his native state, and served during the two sessions of the first administration of President McKinley.  Mr. Workman was author of two important measures while in the legislature, one of them the Workman School Law, which recognized the township as the school unit, and which became the basis of the present school law; the other being the law which established a board of arbitration to settle disputes between capital and labor, one of the first moves in this direction in any state.  The youngest member of the Assembly, Mr. Workman consulted Governor McKinley with reference to the latter bill before he drew it up, and was advised by that dignitary to submit the latter to Attorney General Richards, whose views coincided with those of Mr. Workman.  As this bill was introduced over thirty years ago, Mr. Workman was a pioneer in this line of legislation.
     It was in 1894 that Mr. Workman located permanently at Mansfield, and for five years was secretary of the board of managers of the Ohio State Reformatory.  He was made a member of the board of examiners of applicants for admission to the bar, and held that office for many years.  Probably no one man in Ohio has carried more legal questions originating in the local courts to the higher tribunals where precedent has been established than he.  Independent and advanced in thought, new points have been fought out upon original lines, and in this way he has largely contributed to present legal practice, the law now practically demanding his entire attention.  He is legal adviser for several important enterprises.
     Ever a Republican, the Blaine campaign found him making stump speeches, and there has not been a campaign since then that has not had his services.  In 1896 he was sent by the National Executive Committee of has party into the West to beard the “silver-tongued orator” on his native heath, and made gold-standard speeches all over those states considered strongholds of the free-silver doctrine.  Having made a special study of economics, social conditions and civil government he was well prepared to meet any opposition, and so eloquent and convincing was he that although some of his addresses lasted for three hours, he held his audiences enthralled.  No matter what questions were put to him he was ready with an answer, and he was very active in what was known as “Mark Hanna’s Educational Campaign.”
     Earlier in life Mr. Workman desired nothing more than to become an editor, and he did not conduct a local paper.  His institute and normal labors made him a popular figure during a number of years, and he added to those laurels on the lecture platform in connection with educational work.
     Mr. Workman was married to Mary Sheedy, who had been a teacher in the Miami Valley, and author of “An Americanized Singer in Paris.”  She was quite familiar with the romance languages, having spent some years in Paris with her two daughters, Helen and Florence, who were both educated there in modern languages and music.  Both were accepted by the director of grand opera in Paris, but their studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the World War, although they have continued studying systematically ever since.  Mrs. Workman died Mar. 21, 1826.  Long before the United Staes became involved in the war Mr. Workman had taken a decided stand publicly, asserting that no self-respecting citizen could be neutral.  Upon the return of Company M of the National Guard from service on the Mexican border its membership dwindled to about forty men.  With them as a nucleus he was constantly working, and after holding “open house” for ten days in the park, and having almost continuous speaking, the company was recruited to 180 men, who responded when the call came, and no Ohio county has greater cause for pride in its “Doughboys” than Richland.  In Central Park, Mansfield, is erected his design of “The American Doughboy,” a figure in Carrara marble mounted upon a granite boulder, seeming to say, “The American Doughboy could fight in a just cause in a foreign land, but his feet were forever on the rock of his native hills.”  It faces Lincoln Highway, and is viewed with interest by tourists from coast to coast.
     Mr. Workman successfully promoted the erection of the Richland Trust Building, located at the corner of Park Avenue, West, and Main Street, Mansfield.  He is president of the Richland Building Corporation.  He was instrumental in the consolidation of three banks in the city of Mansfield into one, the Richland Trust Company, and he is chairman of the executive board.
Source: History of North Central Ohio - page 592 (photo available)

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