FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP.
A HISTORY OF FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP FROM ITS EARLY SETTLEMENT
TO MARCH, 1887—CONTAINING, ALSO A NOTICE OF
MANY OF ITS CITIZENS.
POPULATION 899.
Elsewhere will be found also an account of its early settlers. It was named for Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the great and distinguished American Philosopher and Statesman. It was organized 1854, and now comprising only township 84 north, range 24 west.
There are several who ship stock and grain from GILBERT and Ontario, we will name L. R. Jones.
There are those who raise stock and grain for sale, and other farmers and citizens of energy and nerve, some of whom I will name below: W. H. H. Grove, L. C. Allen, Henry Barnes, J. R. Decker, Fred Eckard, L. O. Oliver, D. M. Hayden, I. De Long, C. F. Ruth, Peter Marshall, J. B. Grove, Wm. Arrasmith, R. M. Hunter, F. C. Hunter, D. G. Ferguson, H. C. Wakefield, J. J. Coon, T. A. Barrett, H. C. Cameron, Ira Briley, Elisha Briley, James Briley, I. N. Briley, O. Ward, Eli Zenor, W. H. Zenor, Wm. Menhennett, Rob. Shearer, T. I. Miller, J. S. Hughes, Jas. Dodds, Robt. Dodds, Jas. Gibson, J. H. Cook, Frank Wilson, A. U. Stewart, GILBERT GILBERT, Geo. Stitzell, O. D. Allen, A. Van Campen, C. Waiters, A. H. Buck, R. R. Craig, W. H. Cole, J. E. Davis, — Cameron, H. C. Foster, F. M. Coffelt, E. Favre, etc., etc.
There have been several fires at Ontario since and including 1869.
Two good store houses—good ones—were burnt, goods included in the year 1869. Hiram Scott owned one of these good buildings and C. & E. Thurman owned the other. Fired by lightning, or so supposed.
The elevator was burnt about 1878—a very fair building. The cause of the fire mysterious. One or two blacksmith shops were burnt since 187O. A store house of G. C. Harrison's burned about 1873. The station house or depot on the railroad, burnt June