Prohibition Days in Hicksville

 

It was in the midst of Prohibition, 1925, and the WCTU and law enforcement were on a mission to rid Defiance County of its alcoholic beverages. This story is from the Bryan Press, July 23, 1925, and would have been a great movie scene.

"1,600 BOTTLES OF CANADA BEER
IN HICKSVILLE HAUL

Truck Carried High Priced Load
But Driver Got Away

"Friday afternoon, a man drove into the Mastin garage in Hicksville to leave in storage a new Reo truck with sixteen barrels labeled 'Bicarbonate of soda."  After he left, one of the garage men got curious and soon discovered that the barrels were filled with bottled Canadian beer.

He summoned the marshal who swore in deputies and set an ambuscade (i.e. ambush) in the garage to capture the owner of the truck when he came back. The man did not return until about three o'clock the next morning. 

                                          1925 Reo truck

Then he walked up to the garage and at that moment the village nightwatchman came along in uniform, which seemed to alarm the bootlegger who jumped into a passing touring car and made off.

The armed marshal and his deputies kept watch for another 24 hours, but the man did not come back again and had apparently become suspicious of the trap laid for him. So the truck and its contents were confiscated.

Breaking open the barrels, they were found to hold 1,600 bottles of Canadian nine percent, worth at current prices about $4,000. The booze will be emptied into the sewer. The truck was a new one and worth $1,000."

Who Killed Tecumseh?

 

The Defiance County Genealogical Society 

will meet

Monday, September 23, 2024

St. John United Church of Christ

Webster Street, Defiance, adjacent to the 

Defiance College Campus

at 

7:00 P.M.

Our speaker will be

Frank D. Kuron

who will discuss his

book

THUS FELL TECUMSEH

about the historical mystery 

of who really killed Tecumseh.

An autographed copy of his book will be 

the door prize for the evening.

                      See you there!

Andrew Jackson Moran - A Confederate Soldier in Defiance, Putnam, and Williams Counties

 

Andrew Jackson Moran

"Jack" Moran

Born in North Carolina, A. J. Moran was a loyal, Southern man who joined the Confederate Army and served nearly the whole war in its ranks. Born on February 3, 1838, to parents both born in Ireland, he could not be found without question on the 1860 Federal Census. In his land census, he noted the parents were born in Mississippi, but all the rest claimed Ireland.

According to the Confederate records, Andrew joined Company D, 18th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in May 1861, and he may have reenlisted in 1862 for a three year stint.  Company D was very active on the eastern coast, with important battles at Sharpsburg, Maryland and Chancellorsville, Virginia.  The regiment served at Gettysburg in 1863 and ended their term in Virginia again at Spotsylvania and Petersburg.

The 18th Mississippi Regimental Flag

When Andrew was enumerated for the 1890 Veterans Census, he lived in Milford Township, Defiance County, Ohio, and there he reported being in Company E of the 18th Regiment, serving from 1861 - 1865. His name and information, however, were all crossed out with a single line. 

He married Edith Ruth Hannah Updyke after the war's end on June 1, 1865, in Virginia. The couple were found in the 1870 census of Hampton Township, Rappahannock, Virginia with their children, Virginia, Joseph and Thomas. 

By 1880, he had found Ohio and the family was enumerated in Leipsic, Putnam County. A.J. Moran, 42, born North Carolina, was a laborer, and his wife Edith, 39, had six children listed: Jennie (Elizabeth Virginia), Joseph, Thomas, Malinda, Alfred, and Robert E. L. (Robert E. Lee Moran).

We know the family lived in Milford Township, Defiance County, in 1890 when the Veterans Census was taken. By the Federal Census of 1900, they had moved to St. Joseph Township, Williams County, where A. J., now enumerated at "Jack," rented a farm and engaged in farming at the age of 62. Edith had had seven children, but now four remained living. Jennie had married and moved on to her own home, but still with the parents were Joseph, 30, a day laborer; Sinnie, 26, who worked as a servant; and Alfred, 24, who had no occupation listed.

They remained in Williams County until their death. In 1910, Jack, then 73, still rented a farm in St. Joseph Township. Edith was 65, and with them now was only Malinda, 35, working as a laundress. These Southerners had adapted themselves to Northern life. Edith died on February 14, 1919, and her short obituary appeared in the Bryan Democrat on February 21:

"Mrs. Jack Moran died at her home Saturday morning, funeral held at the M. E. Church Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. conducted by Rev. G. M. Baumgardner. Interment in Edgerton Cemetery."

Just a few years later, on April 29, 1921, Jack Moran died at the age of 83. He was a Confederate soldier who learned to love the North for at least the last thirty years of his life. He never had much monetarily, but he seemed to have a rich family life. In 1920, he lived with his daughter, Malinda, and her husband, Peter J. Theison, in Williams County, perhaps in the family home. He was buried with his wife in Maple Grove Cemetery, Edgerton, Ohio.

The Bryan Democrat ran his obituary on May 6, 1921:

"A. J. Moran died at his home near Edgerton Friday morning. Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at two o'clock at the Methodist Church, conducted by the Pastor, Rev. R. Wright; interment in Maple Grove Cemetery."

Levi and Olive Stone Wilder, Prominent Farmers and Early Settlers of Farmer

 

"LEE W. WILDER TAKEN BY DEATH

PROMINENT FARMER HAD PASSED AWAY MONDAY AFTERNOON

CAME HERE IN 1846

AND LIVED ON SAME FARM FOR MORE THAN 66 YEARS - LIFE STORY

Lee W. Wilder died at his home near Farmer Monday afternoon after an illness of several weeks. He was 81 years, 6 months and 4 days old when the end came.

Mr. Wilder was born in Three Rivers, Canada on the 27th day of December 1830 and when a child of a few months, his parents moved to New Hampshire, where his early childhood was passed, but while still a little lad, he came to the new West with his family, and his boyhood up to the age of 16 was passed in the Western Reserve, his home being at Mantua, Medina County, a place of which he has written so interestingly in the columns of this paper*."

*The newspaper referred to is the Bryan Press, Bryan, Ohio, which is where this obituary appeared on Thursday, July 4, 1912. 

"At 16, he pushed on west and settled in Farmer township, buying a 50 acre farm, the same ground on which his house stands today, and where he made his home for more than 66 years.* He bought the original farm for $295 and had it paid for before he was 21 years old, although he was never able to earn more than $11.50 a month in that time. From his youth, he was a man of great energy and activity."

*The farm was in Section 20 of Farmer Township, just a few miles west of Farmer Center. By the 1860 census, the real estate was reported to be worth $2,000, and by 1870, the value was $8,880; however, he could have added to the farm elsewhere by then. His personal wealth in 1870 was reported at $1500.

"While in his youth and after he had paid for his farm, he devoted some time to railroad building and constructed 11 miles of the Wabash Railroad under a contract with Paul, Rodman?, and Gilson, and for this he received a comparatively large salary of $60 a month. And it was by this activity and (frugality) of the early days that he set the foundation for his companions of his later years when he was able to devote much time to the pursuits he enjoyed, and make himself one of the best known men in this section of the country.

At the age of 23, he was married to Olive Stone*, and the happy association continued until June 2nd, 1908 when the partner of his joys and sorrows was taken away. Their home was brightened by the birth of two children, one of whom, Mrs. A. R. Nisly, passed away last winter in Clarence, Wyoming, where she had gone for her health. The other, a son, Mr. Otis Wilder, remains to cherish his memory."

*Olive Abigail Stone was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, a county that contributed many settlers to Farmer, Ohio. She was the youngest daughter of Alpha Stone Jr. and his wife, Rhoda. She had come to Defiance County in 1846 with her parents. They had a daughter, Lilly, who married Abner Nisley. Both are buried in Farmer Cemetery.

Farmer Cemetery - From www.findagrave.com - "This is an unusual cemetery plot and family monument. The family monument has three very large red and gray stone arches with a very tall statue of a woman on the center arch. The statue is facing west. The plot is raised about eighteen inches and is covered all the way around with a stone wall. There are eight persons buried on the plot, five with the surname Wilder and three with the surname Nisley..."

Continuing the obituary...

"Funeral services were held Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock, and the mortal remains were laid at rest in the beautiful cemetery at Farmer, in which he took such pride and for the beautifying of which he was so liberal.

Lee Wilder was a man of exceptional abilities in many ways. He enjoyed unbounded health for a long lifetime and took the keenest pleasure in healthful pursuits and pleasures. He was a fisherman of experience and no man ever enjoyed a trip to the northern lakes more than he.  He had a wide grasp of public questions and always discussed them with intelligence and fairness.

No one in this country was more interested in the progress of the country, and he had a vast lot of accurate information of the early days which it delighted him to recount. He contributed many stories to this paper and they were read with pleasure and interest by hundreds of people, who came to regard him as an authority and will regret that his active pen has been forever laid aside.

We will all miss his hearty greeting, his strong and firm hand clasp, his kindly eye and cheery voice."

 Farmer Cemetery - Levi and Olive Stone