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SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO
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OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS
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BIOGRAPHIES
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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. |
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. |
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