John Sherman Elder, D.D.S.
JOHN SHERMAN ELDER, D.D.S., has had a prominent career in his profession and also in the public and business life of his home Town of Millersburg, Holmes County.
Doctor Elder was born in Carroll County, Ohio, on a farm August 31, 1859, son of John and Sarah Jane (Kerr) Elder. His parents were born in Ohio, his grandfather, John Elder, coming to this state from Pennsylvania and entering the land in Carroll County, where he spent the rest of his life. The Elder family is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and the Kerrs of Scotch ancestry. John Elder, father of Doctor Elder, was a farmer, and always lived in Carroll County.
The second in a family of two children, John Sherman Elder, was reared at Scio, Harrison County, where he attended country schools and old Scio College.
In 1881, at Millersburg, he married Miss Belle Voorhees, daughter of Judge C.F. Voorhees. For a time after his marriage he lived at Scio. In 1883 he returned to Millersburg, and for three years he was in business as a stove and tinware dealer. For the next three years he continued in the drug business, and then entered the dental department of the Ohio Medical University of Columbus, where he was graduated in 1894. Doctor Elder has had thirty years' experience in his profession, and has long been prominent in the surgical side of dentistry. He is a member of the Ohio State and Canton District Society of Dental Surgeons. His mechanical disposition, a trait since boyhood, has been of much help to him in his professional work and has given him other diversions. He has long been a skilled taxidermist, mounting many animals and birds.
Doctor Elder has twice served Millersburg in the office of mayor. Each time he was elected on the republican ticket in a strong democratic community. For his first term he took office in January, 1916. In 1920 he was again elected. Soon after beginning the practice of dentistry he was appointed waterworks trustee at Millersburg, and held that office for twelve years. Doctor Elder is a member of the Masonic Order and the Methodist Episcopal Church.
His first wife died, leaving two children. In 1911 he married Mary E. Mason, daughter of William Mason, of Columbus. She is a graduate of the McCormack Neurological College of Chicago, and now practices osteopathy in the same office with her husband.
Doctor Elder's two children are Beulah, now wife of W.R. Ewing, of Chicago, and Charles V., now athletic director at Bethany College, West Virginia. He is an ex-service man, having been overseas fourteen months during the war. C.V. Elder married Ruth Whaley, of New Castle, Pennsylvania.
From History of Ohio, Vol. 5, by Charles B. Galbreath, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925