Hugh Manon, Old Settler of Williams Center

 

We're venturing just a bit outside of Defiance County to honor one of the oldest settlers of the area. Later, some of his descendants did venture across the county line, and the author of the piece, found in the Bryan Press of October 22, 1914, was a Farmer area fellow.

Hugh Manon, 88, Last Old Settler

W. S. Tomlinson Writes of Days When Williams Center Was Metropolis of the County"

Men go back to some historical event to establish dates, while women remember them by the birth of their children. Hugh Manon remembered the date when he came to Williams Center as being the year before Tyler was hung.* This was 66 years ago and many of you will wonder why he came to settle down in that quaint old town, but you must remember that at one time Williams Center was a flourishing village, and I can recall a time when there were four general stores, two groceries, three tailor shops, three blacksmith, two wagon, two furniture, three shoe, one harness, a tine, and I do not recall how many carpenter shops, for at that time everything was a shop and besides that, there was a large sawmill and an Ashery* where Mr. Manon worked for many years.

In those days every town had an ashery where the ashes from the timber burnt on the new lands were converted into peals and sent to the eastern cities to pay for goods, and many a day, when I was playing around the corners, I have seen Mr. Manon unloading ashes, filling leaches, pumping water with the old chain pumps for half a day at a time, wetting down the leaches.

Then boiling the lye down into salts in large iron kettles and finally ending up with pearls in the pearling oven, ready to be placed in large barrels to be shipped to New York city where father went twice a year to buy goods on tick* which were sold in like manner.

*The Tyler hanging - the next post will be dedicated to this as it's a long story.

* An ashery converted the hardwood ashes obtained when farmers burned the wood and cleared their land. When soaked, lye would leach for soap. Further leaching would create potash and pearl ash.  These were used in glass making, gunpowder, leather tanning, paper and other things.

*on tick - on credit

At one time, all of the Manons lived in Williams Center and Uncle John, who afterwards clerked for father, ran a tailor shop and kept the post office. (These were brothers of Hugh.)  Jacob settled on a farm in the northwest part of the county and Jerry (Jeremiah) and a Mr. Bitner, brother-in-law, and the old folks went back to their old home near Gettysburg, Pa. where they were during that battle, and Mr. Bitner had to contribute the flour from his mill to the Confederacy.  One daughter, Rebecca, remained here and married James Fisher, and died in Bryan a short time ago. Samuel Burtsfield, who had a shoe shop in Bryan for so many years, came here with them and, for a time, ran a shoe shop for father at Williams Center.

I can recall when a man could speak with pride and say he was from Williams Center, the metropolis of Williams county, and it is not a bad place yet, only the railroads let it set out in the cold, and the men who used to loaf around the stores nights and bad weather in the days before Tyler was hung and tell stories that happened in their old eastern homes have all passed to their long homes, as far as I can tell.

Martin Struble and Jacob Rager of Bryan, Dwight Stoddard of Wauseon, John A. Garver of Des Moines, Jacob Lane of Edgerton and Wm. Yeagley of Farmer, all are old residents of Williams Center and vicinity, but I believe these men did not have homes here until after Tyler was hung.

One thing can be said of Mr. Manon that cannot be said of many of us, he had the knack of getting along with men without making them enemies and I never heard any person speak unkindly of Uncle Hugh. He was an honest, hard-working law-abiding citizen and saved enough out of his wages to buy a farm near where he began housekeeping 66 years ago and besides raised a large family of children.

Two of his sons, John and George, a German Baptist preacher of considerable note, have nice farms in Kansas. Wesley also owns a farm near Melbern and Jerry on the old farm, as well as the two daughters now living, were all present at the funeral. Mrs. Manon died in the 60s*and their oldest daughter, Kate, a few years later, and thus ends the life of one of the nicest old men I ever knew."  W. S. Tomlinson

                                Williams Center Cemetery

Note:

Hugh's father, also Hugh Manon, a War of 1812 veteran, and his wife, Margaret moved back to Gettysburg, it would seem. This Hugh Manon Jr. married Lydia Bender in 1848 in Franklin, Pennsylvania and they had seven children, but Lydia died in 1866, at about the age of 38, leaving Hugh to raise the children, which he did, never remarrying.

The children were Kate, John, George, Wesley, Sarah, Lillie, and Jeremiah. John, George, and Sarah went to Kansas to settle. Katie died young in 1875 at the age of 27. Wesley settled in the vicinity, died in 1938 and was buried in Farmer Cemetery. Lillie married locally, Raymond Pollock, as did Jeremiah to Eva Smith, and they are also buried at Williams Center.

At the end of Hugh Jr.'s life, he had an eighty acre farm in Section 33, Center Township,Williams County.