Lake County Ohio GenWeb

George K. Raynolds

This biography is taken from Biographical History of Northeastern Ohio, Embracing the counties of Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake; Lewis Publishing Company, 1893.

Transcribed and submitted by Becky Falin, 1996.

George K. Raynolds, a retired hardware merchant and prominent citizen of Painesville, Ohio, was born in Lodi, New Jersey, July 10, 1820. He comes of New England ancestry of English descent, his father, Peter Raynolds, having been born in Connecticut, and having been for several years a merchant in New York city. Peter Raynolds married Miss Caroline Kingsland of New Jersey, a member of a prominent family in that State. Her father owned a large tract of land in New Jersey, about nine miles out of New York city, which was a grant to him from Charles II of England, and which is still in possession of descendants of the family. The parents of the subject of this sketch had eight children, three of whom are now living. The father died in New York city, aged about sixty years, while the mother survived him several years, expiring at the age of eighty-two.

The subject of this sketch was reared on the old Kingsland homestead in New Jersey. At the age of sixteen he became a clerk in a hardware store in New York, where he continued six years. He then, in 1842, joined the tide of emigration moving westward and came to Painesville, Ohio, where he engaged in the hardware business on his own account, in which he successfully continued eight years. He was then four years in the same business in Warren, this State, after which he removed to Cleveland, where he did an extensive hardware business at the foot of Superior street until 1882. At this time he once more returned to Painesville, and has not since been engaged in any active pursuits, having provided for himself and family by industrious efforts of former years. His prosperity is wholly due to his own persevering labor and intelligent management, combined with uniform uprightness and business transactions, and his career might well serve as an incentive for all young men starting in life.

In 1847 Mr. Raynolds was married to Miss Catherine Cooke Mathews, of Painesville,a lady of superior attainments. Her father, Stephen Mathews, will be remembered as one of the most able and successful lawyers in northeastern Ohio. He was a graduate of Harvard University, and studied law under the celebrated Judge Cady, of Johnstown, New York. He came to Painesville at a very early day, where he was actively engaged in the practice of law for many years, dying in 1884, in his eighty-eighth year. His wife, nee Caroline Cooke, a beautiful and accomplished woman, was a daughter of Dr. Lyman Cooke, a prominent physician of West Chester on the Hudson. She survived her husband, living to the advanced age of ninety years, while her mother lived to the even more remarkable age of ninety-nine. Mrs. Raynolds was one of seven children, four of whom are now living. Mr. and Mrs. Raynolds have had three children: John Henry, residing in Minnesota; William Mathews, a graduate of Kenyon College, Ohio, now a successful lawyer of Cleveland; and Catherine Kingsland, who died at the age of seven.

Politically, Mr. Raynolds is a Republican, but personally has taken no active part in public affairs, his private interests having absorbed his whole time and attention. Both he and his wife are useful members of the Episcopal Church, in which he has been a Vestryman and Senior Warden for a number of years. Such men give stability and worth to a community, their influence for good being immeasurable and far reaching in its effects.