Howard Applegate
Howard Applegate, former sheriff of Greene county and for years engaged in the mercantile business at Yellow Springs, was born in the vicinity of that village and has lived there and in that neighborhood all his life, with the exception of the period spent in the official service of the county. He is the youngest of the nine children, three sons and six daughters, born to his parents. Elias and Ann M. (DeHart) Applegate, both of whom were born in the vicinity of the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, the former in 1805 and the latter, in 1811, who were married in 1831. Three years later, in 1834, with their baby boy, William, they drove through in a covered wagon with their small household belongings to Ohio and settled in the woods just west of where the village of Yellow Springs came to be established, where and in the vicinity of which place they spent the remainder of their lives.
Upon effecting his settlement in this county, Elias Applegate cleared a small plot of ground on the land he had secured and in that clearing erected a log cabin, which was the family home until in due time a better house could be erected. Elias Applegate lived to be eighty years of age and his widow lived to the extraordinary age of ninety-five years and six months. As noted above, Elias Applegate and wife had one child when they drove through to this county, their first-born, William. Eight others were born in Greene county, Catherine, Sarah E., Mary, Julia, Johnson, Margaret A., Hannah M. and Howard, all of whom lived to maturity save Johnson, who died in infancy, and all these who lived married and had comfortable homes of their own. Five members of this family are still living, those besides Howard, the youngest, being Mrs. S. E. Kinney, now past eighty years of age and hale and hearty; Mrs. Mary Olentine, seventy-seven; Mrs. Margret Sizer and Mrs. Hannah M. Bailey, and all of these save Mrs. Olentine live in Yellow Springs.
Howard Applegate was reared on the farm, as a boy receiving a very practical training in the way of farming, but later became employed as a clerk in a general store at Yellow Springs and thus was turned toward commercial pursuits, which he has followed the most of his life. From 1906 to 1910 he served as sheriff of Greene county and upon his retirement from the sheriff's office became engaged in the hardware business at Yellow Springs.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918