J. Oscar Hover
J. Oscar Hover, one of the leading and influential men of Lima, vice- president of The Lima Trust Company and The Hall & Woods Company, operating the Model Mills, interested in many other enterprises, and for years closely identified with the oil developing in the Ohio and Indiana fields. He was born at Lima, April 19, 1850, and is a son of the late William Ulysses Hover.
The father of Mr. Hover come to Lima among the early settlers, locating here in 1833, when the present city of some 22,000 people was represented by only eight families. Migrating form Trumbull County, Ohio, he established a foundry and tin-shop at Lima, but subsequently engaged in farming and devoted the remainder of his life to agricultural pursuits. His death occurred in 1896.
J. Oscar Hover was educated in the public schools of Lima, and of Shawnee township, his entrance into business life being as a clerk in a mercantile establishment of his native city. After an experience of five years, he became associated with his brother, T. L. Hover, under the firm name of Hover Brothers, in a general mercantile business at Cridersville, Ohio, which was successfully continued for 25 years. In 1897 the brothers sold their business in order to give their attention to the oil interest in which they had commenced to invest in 1887. In that year they assumed the first leases in the vicinity of Cridersville, and to them is mainly due the development of the rich oil field of Auglaize County. Mr. Hover also became interest in the oil field in the neighborhood of Geneva, Indiana. At one time they operated 100 wells in Ohio and Indiana, and of that number still retain 50. In 1897 Mr. Hover removed to Lima, where he has a pleasant home and has ever since been connected with the city's business and civic life.
In 1878 Mr. Hover was married to Ella Brown, who is a daughter of the late Hon. D. I. Brown, formerly a prominent attorney and Democratic politician at Ottawa, Ohio. Mr. Brown served three terms in the State Legislature first during the Civil War, and again from 1876 until 1880 and died in 1901. Mr. and Mrs. Hover have one daughter, Hazel. Mr. Hover is connected with several fraternal organizations, and is prominent in business and social societies.