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AGED RESIDENT GIVES HISTORY OF MARSHALLVILLEBy Alice Edison On a small squat stool, beside n stove in the rear of a store within a stone’s throw of the public square of the picturesque village of Marshall-ville, a little old cobbler sits pegging away at worn shoes from early morning BAtil laie~at night.He is Frederick Williams, 94, the town’s oldest and be* known citizen.To talk io this cobbler is like turning back the clock of time itself, andtirely, now he spends most of hU timeih*repairing old ones.Cheap factory-made shoes came on the market shortly after the Civil War and this sounded the deathnell of the cobbler who specialized in them, Williams says.Forced to Buy ,Ready Made Shoes.He was forced to purchase ready made shoes and sell them if he Wished to remain in the business, and thatjust what he did.scanning thejages of the early history of theHe has been.a resident of Marshall-ville for the past 70 years.Today he works in the same store at which he first plied his trade when he came to town back in 1858. He sits on the same stool, which has become hollowed out with long use, and he uses the same tools.One of the most precious of these is a treasured hammer over 100 years old which his father, also a cobbler, used in Germany before him.Only the nature of the work of the veteran shoeman has changed a little. Where in the old days he confined his activities to making new, ahoee enis 1Since 1857 he has been making, gelling and repairing shoes.‘ hThe frontof the store, which he owns, is stockedWilliams was born in Hessen Darmstadt, a little German village. Here he learned the trade of the cobbler from his father. After working at it for two years at home, he decided to come to America.He arrived in Cleveland in 1853 at the age of 28. He worked there several years when friends from the I Fatherland who had settled in Mar-shallville persuaded him to give up his city business where he was working for another, and come to Marshallville and get into business for himself.*“I listened to them,” Williams stated. Sometimes I don’t think that advice was so good. But here I stayed and I have become used to the town and like it.”Despite his age Williams is in good health. He is at work every morning at-7 o’clock and usually keeps hs shop
Newspaper Details
Orrville Courier Crescent
Orrville, Ohio, US
Tue, Feb 28, 1928
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
James N.
CA, USA 30 Jul 2017
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