MS 1025 - Baldwin Family Biographical Sketches

Watson Baldwin (1805-1867), was born on November 2, 1805, at Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, to Jude Baldwin (1775-1821) and Eleanor Watson (1782-1833). There he owned and operated a store until 1837. In that year he came, with his wife and four children, to Ohio and located in Townsend, Huron County. He opened a mercantile business there and also manufactured potash. Eleven years later in 1846 he came to Wood County and purchased a sixty acre farm in Portage Township. He then moved to Weston Township in December 1855 where he built and operated an ashery, but later moved back to Portage Township where he once again undertook farming. He died there on January 15, 1867. Watson married Almira G. Church (1814-1892) on April 15, 1832, in Plymouth, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Almira was born on April 27, 1814, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and the couple raised a large family of eleven children: Eleanor E. (1833-1833), Ruth Ann (1834-1873), Helen E. (1835-1873), Byron C. (1836-1864) who died during the Civil War at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, Charles B. (b.1839), Abid V. (1841-1886), Edward (1843-1916), Wilson M. (1845-1855), Mary J. (1848-1848), Sarah E. (1849-1881) and Alice G. (1852-1852). Almira lived for another twenty-five years after her husband's death, before dying on October 10, 1892, in Weston, Wood County, Ohio.

Edward Baldwin (1843-1916) was the seventh child born to Watson Baldwin and Almira Church. He was born on November 28, 1843, at Townsend, Huron County, Ohio. He attended schools in Weston and Portage in his youth before getting a job in a local store with the starting pay of $5.00 a month. A few years later he entered the hide business in the early 1860s and continued in that profession until 1864 when he went to Milton Center, Wood County, and purchased a store. He then built a store in Weston the following year in partnership with J.E. Clarke. The next year he sold his share of the business to his partner and bought a farm, but ill health eventually forced him to sell it. Edward then partnered with W.B. Ladd in the operation of a hardware store and subsequently purchased a gristmill in Weston, which he operated for twelve years. In 1870 he began speculating in land which earned him a great deal of money. In the 1880s, though, his business nearly collapsed after losing $42,000 in a three year period. He recovered, however, and began increasing his business interests in the community, which he continued to do until his death on December 17, 1916, in Weston.

Edward married Harriet Maria Taylor (1844-1922) on January 1, 1866 in Wood County. She was born on August 29, 1844, in Weston to Thomas Taylor (1800-1870) and Sarah Keeth

(1802-1852). The couple had five children: Albert Byron (1867-1926), Thomas Watson (1869-1869), James Vining (1871-1938), Harriet A. (1872-1954) and Almon (1875-1875). Harriet died on July 18, 1922, at her home in Weston.

Thomas Taylor (1800-1870), an early pioneer of Wood County, Ohio, was born in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, on April 19, 1800, to William Taylor and Jean Wilson. Thomas' father William served in the Revolutionary War in Andrew Long's Company in the Pennsylvania Militia where he fought at the battles of Flatbush Pass (August 22, 1776), Long Island (August 27, 1776) and Monmouth (June 28, 1778). Around 1820 Thomas moved to Richland County, Ohio, and thence to the Weston area in Wood County where he settled on April 20, 1834. On October 5, 1853, Thomas platted Taylortown, which was subsequently renamed New Westfield. The settlement bore that name until 1857 when it was switched to Weston. Taylor constructed a sawmill in the new village in 1854 and in 1859 also built a

James Vining Baldwin (1870-1938), was the third son and child born to Edward and Harriet Taylor Baldwin, born November 20, 1870. He like his brother, Albert, graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. James married Maud L. Munn on November 25, 1891, and shortly after there marriage moved to Los Angeles, California, and entered into the real estate business. The couple divorced and James remarried to Katherine Curley Cuthrie on August 24, 1916, in Santa Barbara, California. During this time James became a large automobile salesman in the Los Angeles area. He only had one child, a son, through his first marriage Andrew Edward Baldwin (April 30, 1893-May 24, 1943). Andrew married Jane Charlotte Richardson (December 9, 1896-December 5, 1985) on July 18, 1917, in Los Angeles, but they divorced. He then remarried to Jane Loveland Dickinson on February 16, 1935. James V. Baldwin, lived in Los Angeles the remainder of life, dying there on August 30, 1938.

Albert Byron Baldwin (1867-1926), the eldest child of Edward and Harriet, was born March 14, 1867, in Weston. He attended school in Weston and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. After graduating Albert worked as a salesman for the wholesale notion and dry goods business L.S. Baumgardner & Company of Toledo. He married Fannie Augusta Uhlman (1870-1963) on November 25, 1896, in Weston. Two children were born to them, Henry Albert on August 10, 1900, and Grace Virginia on March 28, 1906. In 1903 he purchased part of his father-in-law Henry C. Uhlman's dry goods store in Weston. Albert served on the board of education for the Weston school system and was active in the Presbyterian Church. Albert, known as A. B., retired and sold his business in 1924. During a stay in Florida in early 1926, Albert became ill with pernicious anemia and went to a sanitarium. He never fully recovered from this illness and died November 19, 1926, at the family home on West Wooster Street in Bowling Green.

Henry Albert Baldwin (1900-1984), was born in Weston, August 10, 1900, to Albert Byron Baldwin (1867-1926) and Fannie Augusta Uhlman (1870-1963). He graduated from Weston High School in 1918, serving as class orator at the commencement exercises. In the fall of that year, Albert began attending classes in the Students Military Training Corps (SATC) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After two years, he transferred to the Ohio State University and joined the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. Albert graduated from Ohio State in 1923 with a degree in marketing. He worked for his uncle, Fred Uhlman, in a department store in St. Joseph, Michigan, for the early part of 1926 and later became affiliated with Lehman-Baldwin Motor Sales in Defiance, Ohio. Henry had difficulty finding employment through the depression, but through wise investments by himself and his father maintained a fairly good standard of living. Henry worked for some time early in 1936 as a salesman for the Hawley Huller Company in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1941, prior to the U.S. involvement in World War II, Henry unsuccessfully tried to secure positions in the Reserves and in the Morale Department of the military. Henry throughout his life struggle with alcoholism and had been previously hospitalized in Toledo and in Cleveland because of the problem. In May of 1942, Henry was denied a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserves. He received an induction notice for the army in November of the same year, but this notice was canceled a couple weeks later. While Henry was living in New York in 1943, he

Grace Virginia Baldwin Orwig (1905-1984), known by her middle name of Virginia, was born March 28, 1905, in Weston, Ohio. She graduated from Weston High School in 1923 then attended the Western School for Women (Western College) in Oxford, Ohio for two years. She spent time in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Battle Creek, Michigan, for an unspecified reason and later in July 1927 Virginia was hospitalized in Toledo with an undisclosed illness and underwent an operation. She attended Barnard College (part of Columbia University) in New York for part of 1928. It was around this time that she met her future husband Benton Bradley Orwig (1899-1966), son of Gale B. and Elsie Bradley Orwig, originally from Napoleon, Henry County, Ohio. In May of 1929, Virginia and her mother departed for Europe and thus began Virginia's career traveling abroad; visiting Cuba and Bermuda regularly. In December 1933, Virginia relocated to New York City. Benton and Virginia married on June 20, 1936, in the First Presbyterian Church of Bowling Green. Benton worked for the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company in New York from 1930 until retiring in 1965 after thirty-five years, having graduated from Brown University in 1920. The couple had no children. Benton died of a heart attack in Palm Beach, Florida, on January 27, 1966. Virginia died there also on November 6, 1984.

Family image below: Baldwin Family, ca. 1904 - Back Row: Albert, Maud Munn Baldwin, Harriet, Fannie Uhlman Baldwin, James Front Row: Andrew, Edward, Harriet Taylor Baldwin, Henry