JOHN Q CRIPPEN
Sheriff from 1881-1884
John Q. Crippen was born in Ohio August 1842. He enlisted in Company H 123rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry on August 5, 1862. He was captured June 15, 1863 and served as a POW at Winchester, VA. On September 1, 1864 he was promoted to full corporal and mustered out on June 12, 1865. He married Cornelia Lamon at Wyandot, Ohio December 25, 1866. The first few years of his marriage were spent working in the saw mills in Wyandot. It may have been the lumbering business that brought him to Home Township, Montcalm County, Michigan sometime before 1876.
In a newspaper article in the Montcalm Journal written in 1876 by the editor, J.K. Fairchild, Crippen's livery business was mentioned. Portions of that article are as follows: "Crippen & Buckalew Livery and Sales Stable is among the "pioneer elements". The stable was built and the livery business established in 1868 by Sprague and Horton, and continued by them until last March, when Messrs. Crippen & Buckalew, the present proprietors, purchased the safe. The barn is well equipped with first-class rigs. They keep on hand an average of 19 to 25 horses, and withal do a large and flourishing business. The proprietors are men of good repute, honest in all their dealings and successful in their business." John Dasef also mentions in his book, The History Of Montcalm County, Michigan, that J.Q. Crippen had purchased the Owl's Nest hotel and during his ownership the city had cut away the hill in front of the house (hotel). To get even with the city John graded out from under the building and put in another story, without raising the old building up any, making the hotel four stories high in front.
John's occupation on the 1880 census was listed as shingle manufacturer living in Edmore. He was elected sheriff on November 7, 1880 and served from 1881-1884. By 1900 he had moved to Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio where he worked as a day laborer. John and Cornelia's only child, Zoe P. was born August 1886 in Michigan. By 1910 John and Cornelia had returned to Sycamore Township, Wyandot County, Ohio where he died in 1915/16 and is buried in Bretz Cemetery, Sycamore Township, Wyandot County, Ohio.
(Sources: Michigan Sheriff's Association; Ancestry; Family Search; Ohio MIGenWeb; Montcalm Journal, newspaper clipping from 1876; History of Montcalm County, Michigan by John W. Dasef; Register of Deeds) |
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