WILLIAM S. TOPE, whose farm of 120 acres is
situated in Monroe Township, Carroll County, on
Rural Mail Route No. 1 from the village of Dellroy, has
secure standing as one of the substantial
agriculturists and stock-growers of his native county,
and he gives special attention to the raising of sheep
and Shorthorn cattle, besides which he has
established a prosperous business in the buying and
shipping of stock.
Mr. Tope was born in Union Township, this county, on
the 4th of February, 1857, and is a representative of
one of the honored pioneer families of this section of
the Buckeye State.  He is of Scotch Irish lineage and
his paternal great grandfather came to America from
Scotland.  The grandfather, Stephen Tope, was one
of the early settlers of Carroll County, where he
developed a productive farm and where he and his
wife passed the remainder of their lives, their children
were eleven in number.
William S. Tope is a son of Jacob and Jane (Parker)
Tope, who passed their entire lives in Carroll County,
the father having been one of the representative
farmers of Monroe Township at the time of his death,
in 1886, and William S. was the eldest in the family of
three children.
The district schools afforded William S. Tope his
early educational advantages nd in the meanwhile he
gained equally valuable experience in connection
with the work of the home farm.  He continued to
attend school during the winter months until he had
attained to the age of eighteen years, and his
association with the activities of his father's farm was
not interrupted until the time of his marriage, when
twenty-one years of age, to Miss Dane Campbell,
daughter of James and Catherine (Hustin) Campbell,
of Harrison Township.  Mrs. Tope passed to the life
eternal in 1906 and is survived by three children:
Oliver James, who resides in the city of Pittsburgh,
PA, married Miss Elva Woods, and they have two
children,--James and Sarah Jane.  Jackson Ralph,
the second son, is engaged in farming in Stark
County.  The maiden name of his wife was Lettie
Brooks, and their three children are Linn, John
Lindsay and Katherine.  Anna, the only daughter, is
the wife of Donald Elliott, of Harrison Township.
On the 11th of June, 1919, was solemnized the
marriage of Mr. Tope to Mrs. Melissa Holmes,
daughter of William and Rebecca (Boggs) Holmes,
of Harrison Township, the Holmes family having long
been one of prominence and influence in Carroll
County.
After his first marriage Mr. Tope rented land in
Monroe Township, where he became the owner of
forty acres, and where he continued his farm
enterprise ten years.  He then became associated
with his brother Robert in the hardware business in
the village of Dellroy, where they continued successful
operations, under the firm name of Tope Brothers, for
a period of thirteen years.  The building and stock
were then destroyed by fire, and William S. resumed
his association with farm enterprise.  For three years
he utilized a farm of 160 acres in Harrison Township,
a property which he rented, and he then purchased a
farm of equal area in the same township.  There he
remained eight years, at the expiration of which he
sold the farm and engaged in the dry-goods and
grocery business at Dellroy.  Three years later he
sold this business and purchased his present well
improved farm of 120 acres, where he has since
continued his successful activities as an agriculturist
and stock-grower.
Mr. Tope is a stalwart in the ranks of the Republican
party, and has been influential in public affairs of a
local order.  He served three years as trustee of
Monroe Township, and has given effective service
also as Township Treasurer and as a member of the
school board.  He is a charter member of Dellroy
Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, and he and his wife
hold membership in the Presbyterian Church.  Mrs.
Tope is a woman of fine intellectuality and takes lively
interest in all things tending to advance the social and
material welfare of the community, besides being a
popular factor in social affairs.
"History of Carroll and Harrison Counties, Ohio," The
Lewis Publishing Company, 1921, Volume II, pg.809.

SHERMAN W. SNEE controls a substantial and
representative mercantile business as a dealer in
hardware and agricultural implements in the village
of Dellroy, Carroll County, and is a popular citizen
who has passed his entire life thus far in the section
of Ohio to which this history is dedicated.  He was
born in Deersville, Harrison County, on the 5th of
September, 1855, a son of William and Emma
(Wells) Snee and a scion of staunch Scotch and
Irish ancestry.
William Snee was born and reared in Pennsylvania,
and there learned in his youth the trade of
shoemaker.  Upon coming to Ohio he established
his residence in Harrison County, and he was
engaged in the work of his trade at Deersfield, that
county, at the time of his death, in 1868.  His wife
survived him by many years and was of venerable
age at the time of her death in 1901, both having
been active members of the Methodist Church.  
They became the parents of three sons and four
daughters, and of the number Sherman W., of this
review, was the fifth in order of birth.
Sherman Weller Snee gained his early education in
the village schools of Deersville, and he was but
thirteen years of age at the time of his father's
death.  The financial position of the family was such
that he forthwith began to work at whatever
employment he could find, and thus he aided in the
support of his widowed mother and the other
members of the family.  At the age of eighteen
years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the
blacksmith trade at Deersville, and after becoming
a skilled workman he followed his trade as a
journeyman.  On the 25th of November, 1880, he
came to Carroll County and established his
residence at Dellroy, where he engaged in the work
of his trade with a partner.  One year later he
assumed full control of the business, and thereafter
he successfully conducted his well equipped
blacksmith shop in this village until 1906, be sides
which he conducted also a prosperous livery
business for some time.  In 1906 he engaged in the
hardware business at his present location, and
here he has built up a large and prosperous
enterprise in the handling of heavy and shelf
hardware, stoves, ranges, and agricultural
implements and machinery, his trade extending
throughout the wide are of country normally tributary
to Dellroy as a distributing center.  Mr. Snee also
owns a well improved farm of seventy-seven acres
in Harrison Township, and twelve acres in Monroe
Township, and to this he give a personal
supervision.
In 1882 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Snee
to Miss Alice Yant, daughter of Samuel and Ester
(Wyse) Yant, of Dellroy, and of their three children
the eldest is George Raymond, who is now
associated with his father's business.  George R.
Snee was one of the patriotic young men who
represented Carroll County in the nation's military
service in the late World war.  He entered service in
1918, and after being for some time in training at
Camp Sherman, Ohio, was sent to Virginia, from
which state he was later transferred to Camp
Merritt, New Jersey, where he continued in service
until the signing of the armistice, which brought the
war to a close.  Upon his return to Camp Sherman
he was mustered out and received his honorable
discharge.  Ethel, the second of the children, was
graduated in the Dellroy High School and has been
for the past eight years a successful teacher in the
public schools of her native county.  Mary B., the
younger daughter, was graduated in the Dellroy
High School and Scio College in Harrison County,
and she likewise is a successful and popular
teacher in the public schools.
Mr. Snee is a democrat in politics and has been a
staunch advocate of prohibition.  He is known as
one of the progressive and public-spirited citizens
of Dellroy, has served two terms as mayor of the
village, besides having been otherwise a member
of the village council for a number of terms and
having also given effective service as a member of
the Board of Education, as treasurer of Monroe
Township, and as a member of the Dellroy Board of
Health.  Both he and his wife, as well as their
daughters, are active members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of Dellroy, in which he has
served in virtually all official positions for which a lay
member is eligible.
"History of Carroll and Harrison Counties, Ohio,"
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1921, Volume II,
pages 812 & 813.

THOMAS RAINSBERGER is a sterling citizen who is
specially entitled to consideration in this publication, for he
is not only one of the venerable native sons of Carroll
County, a representative of an honored pioneer family and
known for his worthy achievement in connection with farm
industry, but he is also a man whose character and ability
have gained to him inviolable esteem in the county which
has ever represented his home.  He resides on and
continues in the general supervision of his excellent farm
of sixty acres in Monroe Township, some distance from
Sherrodsville, from which village the farm receives service
on rural mail route No. 1.
On the old homestead farm of his father, in Monroe
Township, this county, Thomas Rainsberger was born July
27, 1849, a son of John and Patience (Davis) Rainsberger,
the former of German and the latter of Welsh ancestry.  
John Rainsberger, great-grandfather of Thomas, was born
and reared in Germany and was a young man when he
immigrated to America and established his home in
Pennsylvania.  From that commonwealth he went forth as a
loyal soldier of the Continental Line in the War of the
Revolution, and after the war he continued his residence in
Pennsylvania, as a farmer, until the close of his life.  His
son John, grandfather of him whose name initiates this
article, became the founder of the family in Carroll County,
Ohio, where he established his residence in 1812, more
than a quarter of a century before this county was created.
He obtained a quarter-section of government land near the
present village of Sherrodsville, in Orange Township, and
he reclaimed from the forest wilds a productive farm, this
place having continued to be his home until his death , in
1842, at the patriarchal age of ninety-seven years.  This
sterling pioneer endured his full share of the hardships
and heavy labor that fell to the early settlers of this section
of the state, and contributed his quota to the initial
development of Carroll County.  In the earlier period of his
residence here he found it necessary to make his way on
horseback to Syracuse, New York, to obtain the salt
required in the proper maintenance of his live stock.  He
was born in Pennsylvania, on the 25th of June, 1790.  Mr.
Rainsberger married Miss Susan Albaugh, a member of
the representative pioneer family of that name in Jefferson
County, Ohio.  In July, 1819, the father of Mrs.
Rainsberger took up 146 acres of Government land in
what is now Monroe Township, Carroll County, which
section was then included in Jefferson County, and here
the family home was established in a pioneer log cabin.  Mr
Albaugh continued to reside on this farm until his death, in
an epidemic of fever, in 1835, his children having been
eight in number.  It was in the pioneer home of Mr. Albaugh
that was organized the little religious society which was the
nucleus of the methodist Episcopal Church at Leavittsville,
Carroll County.
John Rainsberger (III), father of the subject of this sketch,
was born on the pioneer homestead farm in the present
Orange Township, and the year of his nativity was 1821.  
Here he passed his entire life, and as a farmer and as a
loyal and substantial citizen he well upheld the prestige of
the family name.  He became on of the representative
farmers of Monroe Township, was a staunch republican in
politics, served at one time as road supervisor, and he and
his wife were earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.  He and his wife became the parents of three
children -- Isabelle, George D. and Thomas.

Thomas Rainsberger was reared on the home farm which
is still his place of residence, and his youthful education
was obtained in the common schools of the locality and
period.  He attended school during the winter months and
during the summer seasons applied himself vigorously to
work on his father's farm, he having been a mere boy
when he began to do a man's work, including plowing
and other arduous farm service.  He continued to attend
school until he was eighteen years of age, and upon
attaining to his legal majority he further signalize his
independence by taking unto himself a wife, his marriage
to Miss Margaret A. Pearch, a daughter of Conrad and
Elizabeth Jane (McDevitt) Pearch, of Monroe Township,
having been solemnized in the year 1870.  After their
marriage they remained nine years on the old farm of Mr.
Rainsberger's father, and then, in 1879, purchased and
removed to their present farm, which at first comprised
only thirty-three acres and which a subsequent purchase
increased to it present area of sixty acres.  Here Mr.
Rainsberger has continued his successful activities as an
agriculturist and stock-grower during the intervening
years, and he has secure status as one of the
representative citizens of his native township, of which he
served one term as trustee, besides which he held for six
years the office of constable, and was a director of the
county infirmary six years -- 1900-1906.  He is staunch
supporter of the cause of the republican party and he
and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal
Church.
Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Rainsberger grief record
is given in this concluding paragraph: Electa Laura is the
wife of Henry A. Long, of Jewett, Carroll County, and they
have one child, Katherine Nellie, sixteen years of age at
the time of this writing, 1920.  Homer B. married Miss
Alice McCourt, of Loudon Township, this county, and
they have three children -- Lois Patience, Wilma Edith,
and Arthur Bruce.  Hattie violet is the wife of T. I. Tope, of
Monroe Township, and their only child is a son, John
Clayton.  Leroy Ross, the youngest of the children,
resides in the city of Cleveland.  He married Miss Una B.
Orin of Monroe Township, Carroll County.
"History of Carroll and Harrison Counties, Ohio," The
Lewis Publishing Company, 1921, Volume II, pages 815 &
816.