ELIAS W. ARNOLD.

ELIAS W. ARNOLD, one of the well known and permanent mechanics of Iola, has passed a quarter of a century in Allen county, having come into it in 1875. He was an Ohio emigrant, from Wayne county, where he was born on the 9th of April, 1851. His father, George Arnold, was a farmer and carpenter, who was brought to Ohio when a child from the state of Maryland. The early residents of Wayne and Stark counties, Ohio, well remember George Arnold as a mechanic for he handled the saw and the hammer in the two municipalities nearly half a century.

Daniel Arnold, our subject's grandfather, was the founder of the family in Ohio for it was he who crossed the Alleghenies from Maryland just after the war of 1812 and began the initial work of opening up a farm in Wayne county. He died and is buried in the Buckeye state. George Arnold was an only child. He was born in 1812 and died in 1898. He married Mary Spake, whose father, John Spake, was from the state of Pennsylvania, and served in the war of 1812. Mary (Spake) Arnold died in 1900 at the age of seventy-six years. She was twice married, her first husband being Jacob Plum. George Arnold was also twice married, his first wife being Mary Bowman. The family of Plum children were: John, deceased, who served in the 120th Ohio Infantry; Elizabeth, who married William Cordray, died in Wayne county, Ohio. The first family of Arnold children is composed of John Arnold, who resides in Wayne county, Ohio; Levi, of Blackwell, Oklahoma; Hiram and David, deceased. Eli and Hiram served in the 4th Ohio regiment, the latter dying in the service. The younger generation, which includes our subject, are: Elias W.; Jennie, wife of Calvin Taggart; Mary; Amanda, wife of Jerre Houk, of Wayne county; Daniel and Charles, of Wayne; Jacob, whose whereabouts are unknown; and Elberta, who married John Trout, of Wayne county, Ohio.

E. W. Arnold practically grew up in a carpenter shop. He had completed his trade by the time he had acquired a fair common school education and at the age of about twenty years he undertook the serious side of life. He made no pretentions to any other calling before he came west and the first few years he was in Allen county he picked up a few dollars here and there as the opportunity occurred, in this way. Twenty years ago mechanics were more numerous in Allen county than jobs and Mr. Arnold found it necessary to employ other means, at times, to supply the wants of his family. Gardening and a little truck patch business here and there and doing odd jobs at anything and for anybody is not an exaggerated statement of his experiences for a few years in Kansas. When he became able to buy a lot and improve it, and then sell, he struck his first money-making project. The town property he acquired in this way he finally traded for a farm which he moved onto and cultivated with some degree of profit, a few years. In the spring of 1900 he erected a couple of residences in Jones' addition to Iola, returned to the city and resumed his trade. Toward the development of Iola he has built, on his own account,

seven houses not to say aught of the many he has been connected with merely as a mechanic.

January 22, 1874, Mr. Arnold was married to Louisa A., a daughter of Aaron Altland. The latter married Margaret Jones and died in Stark county, Ohio, in December, 1895, at the age of sixty-seven years. His wife died in 1866 at the age of thirty-four years. The Altlands were from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to Ohio where they settled early. John Altland, Mrs. Arnold's grandfather, was born in 1790 and died in 1871. He was a farmer and was married to Susan Eckroate, who died in 1875 at the age of eighty-one. Aaron Altland's children are: Louisa A., born July 20, 1853; and Andrew and Josiah A. Altland, of Stark county, Ohio.

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold's children are: Clark Warren, born August 11, 1875; Edna, born May 13, 1884; Odella, born April 25, 1888; Almeda, born April 14, 1891. Three children, Aaron, Ethel S. and George S. Arnold, are deceased.

Eli Arnold has been one of the industrious citizens of his community. His sympathies have always been with the struggling, honest toiler for he felt that he was one of them. His life has been in every way honorably spent and he has done his best with the resources at his command.

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