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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
prior to this Avere next to impassable for several weeks every spring
and fall.
J. C. LockAvood and Lucius Stoddard, Avho Avert* associated in the
Alilan Banking Company, Avert* also largely interested in the shipping
interests. Mr. LockAvood AVIIS also engaged for many years in the general
mercantile trade. This business was afterward transferred to
his nephews, Frank C. Smith and R. AL LockAvood.
J. Al. Choate erected a carding mill in 1821, and started the business
which was afterward taken over by J. Brown. About the same time
N. Standart opened a general slore, and Ralph and George LockAvood
opened a store very soon after. The latter business afterward became
the well-known house of F. (J. and R. LockAvood, and then Ralph Lockwood,
No. 2 Lockwood Block. Ralph Lockwood, Sr., became the first
postmaster of Merry's Alills, as the place Avas then called, and held
the office seventeen years. Henry LockAvood began the hat manufacturing
business here in 1824, and conducted it with varying success
for some lime. The first LockAvood Block AVIIS a frame building erected
in 1827, and burned some years later.
Among the old families Avhose names are Avorthy of mention are
those of Kneeland Townsend, Carlos Colton, Joseph Hough, Charles
Eldridge, Judson Perrin, William Daniels, D. Dimon, AVilliam Dimon,
AVilliam Raynor, Doctor Rentier, Squire Emmons, Captain Dean, Henry
Penfield, IT. Stoddard, AVilliam Mackey, II. McMillen, •Captain llieks,
Captain Coulter, Squire Burt, O. Rnggles, the Roots, Ilawleys, Lowrys,
Roscoes, Fays, Minimis, Richards, Gibbs, Roberts, Sohaeffers. AVilliains,
Daleys.
Alilan has furnished a number of men AVIIO have become famous in
a greater or less degree. Thomas A. Edison AVIIS born in Alilan in 1847.
Airs. II. Page, of Page's Corners, doAvn the Huron River, is a sister
of the inventor and can remember when she carried him in her arms
a sickly child. A beautiful and costly memorial to his mother, in the
shape of a window in the Presbyterian Church, was erected by Air.
Edison, but was destroyed in a disastrous fire in 1888, which sAvept
the south side of the public square and East Church Street, destroying
besides the Presbyterian Church the town hall, Cline's Hotel, and tAvo
business blocks. Zenas King, the inventor of the iron suspension bridge
which bears his name, AVIIS at one time a resident of Alilan. J. W.
Stoakes, the inventor of the Stoakes' automatic shading pen. which
produces, a broad line of several different tints at a single stroke, is a
Alilan man.
Among the earliest ncAvspapers of Erie County was the Alilan FYee
Press, Avhich was conducted for some time by AV. Jenkins, and the
Tribune, established in 1848 by Clark AVaggoner, who was afterward
connected with the Toledo Commercial. Other papers have flourished
from time to time, notably the Alilan Bugle, Avhich was sold by its
editor, S. D. Brady, to the Alilan Advertiser, edited by AV. B. Starbird,'
and Messrs. Pratt, Balsey, and Gibbs, in succession since 1868. Avhen
it Avas established by Air. Pratt and others.
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