George W. Dean
George W. Dean, nurseryman, Kent, was born in Wayne Township, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, August 20, 1820, son of Horatio G. and Rebecca (Forbes) Dean, natives of Massachusetts, the former coming to Ashtabula County, Ohio, about 1816, the latter in 1806. The paternal grandfather of our subject was Abiather Dean, of Massachusetts, and his maternal grandfather was Nathan Forbes, who settled in Wayne Township, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, in 1806. Our subject was reared in his native township, and educated in the common schools and the academy at Farmington, Ohio. His father being a shoe-maker, our subject engaged in that trade in his native town and in Auburn, Ohio, until thirty-five years of age. In the winter of 1855 he embarked, in Troy, Geauga Co., Ohio, in the nursery business, which he carried on there for eight years. In 1864 he removed to Franklin Township, this county, where he has been engaged to the present time keeping a general nursery stock, and up to 1874 he carried a florists' stock. Besides horticulture Mr. Dean has of late interested himself in several branches of natural science, and has collections in Archaeology, Paleontology, Mineralogy and Conchology, and his collection in connection with the last-named science numbers 1,350 distinct species of marine, fresh water and land shells, carefully selected and systematically classified and arranged. Mr. Dean was married September 1, 1852, to Maria, daughter of Col. Drayton Jones, of Wayne Township, formerly of Connecticut, and has one daughter—Lillian. Mr. Dean is an active member of the County Horticultural Society, of which he was Vice-President for several years. In politics he is a Republican.
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885