Bucyrus-Area History

Researched and Written by Alison Kovac

John Scroggs, Jr. (1793-1861) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to John Scroggs, Sr., and Frances Hooke Scroggs. John Scroggs, Sr., died when John, Jr., was very young, so he was apprenticed to a hatter at an early age. As a young man, John served in the War of 1812 under Captain Henry Myers of the 39th Regiment of the Maryland Militia and fought a battle at North Point. John eventually moved to Ohio, and, in 1822, he married Ann Shawke Scroggs (1798-1882) in Columbiana County. Ann was the daughter of Jacob Shawke, a German-born veteran of the American Revolution who became a blacksmith, and Dorothea Kester Shawke. Born in Pennsylvania, Ann moved to Ohio with the Shawke family near the Ohio River in 1802. After John and Ann were married, they moved to Canton, Ohio, where John established his business as a hatter. Thomas Shawke, Ann’s brother, moved his family to Bucyrus in 1832, settling on the southwest corner of Mansfield and Walnut streets (where the Opera House was later constructed in 1885).

In 1839 John and Ann Scroggs relocated their family with six children—William, Joseph, Jacob, Almira, Mary, and John B. Scroggs—to Bucyrus where they purchased an original town lot from those that had been created by Bucyrus founders, Samuel Norton and Colonel James Kilbourne.

The Scroggs’ lot on Walnut Street originally extended all the way from Rensselaer Street to Woodlawn Avenue. The back portion of Scroggs House still standing was the home built by John and Ann in 1853. Although both John and Ann were away from Bucyrus when they died, their funerals were held in Scroggs House. Their graves are located in Bucyrus’ Oakwood Cemetery along with many other members of the Scroggs family.

All six children born to John and Ann became noteworthy in their own right. The eldest, William M. Scroggs (1821-1874) was working in Canton as a young tailor but moved to Bucyrus with his parents in 1839. Ten years later William married Margaret Byron Scroggs (1823-1896). William and Margaret lived at 208 S. Walnut Street not far from Scroggs House. They had four children—two of whom lived to adulthood (Myra Frances “Frank” Scroggs Longyear, 1852-1889, and George Scroggs, 1856-1880). William initially worked as a tailor but became a train conductor and then a lawyer. In 1858 he opened one of the first merchant tailor shops in Bucyrus, located within the newly constructed Rowse Block on the town square. William served as Chairman of the Democratic Central Committee for Crawford County, as mayor of Bucyrus (1850-1852 and 1862-1863), and as Crawford County Auditor. Shortly before his death in 1874, William was called to testify at the trial of Mrs. Kate Trimble, who was arrested for disturbing the peace while singing hymns on the street during the women’s temperance crusade movement in Bucyrus.

Joseph R. Scroggs (1823-1867) studied jurisprudence and joined Colonel Thomas J. Turner’s law practice in Freeport, Illinois. Later he worked as editor of the Freeport Bulletin where he became “one of the most profound and able writers in the State of Illinois.” Writing for a Democratic paper at the time of the Civil War, Jacob was said to have differentiated carefully between peace Democrats who were loyal to the Union and “Copperheads” who conspired against it. At the age of forty-four, he died from typhoid fever. His body was returned to Bucyrus, and his funeral took place at Scroggs House. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery along with other members of the Scroggs family.

Jacob Scroggs (1827-1897) was born in Canton and moved with his parents to the current Scroggs’ homesite in 1839 where he lived for 59 years. With limited opportunities for early education, Jacob worked with his father in the hatter trade initially. He then learned to set newspaper type for The Forum (one of the predecessors of the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum). Jacob taught school, served as deputy sheriff, and worked as a copyist in county offices. After briefly pursuing an interest in medicine, Jacob studied law and graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in 1854. He began practicing law in Bucyrus in 1855, forming a partnership with his brother-in-law, attorney Consul Willshire Butterfield. From 1855-1857 Jacob Scroggs served as Bucyrus mayor. In 1859 he married Bucyrus teacher and school principal, Julia A. Walwork Scroggs (1833-1901). Julia had begun teaching at age fifteen in her home state of New York and later taught in Georgia before moving to Bucyrus in 1857  to work for John P. Hopley, who was then superintendent of Bucyrus Union Schools. In 1873 Jacob and Julia engaged Galion builder, George Ross, to construct the handsome Italianate Victorian addition to Scroggs House.  The front portion of the 1853 home place was removed and relocated to Lane Street to make way for the new addition. Jacob Scroggs added the elegant iron fence to enhance the site in 1875.

Jacob Scroggs served as a member of the Bucyrus school board for thirteen years (1872-1885) and as president of the board for ten years (1875-1885). He also mentored prominent Bucyrus law students, including John E. Hopley and Isaac Cahill. Jacob held the distinction of casting an electoral ballot for President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil-War-time election of 1864. Lincoln was assassinated a short time later. In 1880 Jacob again served as an Ohio elector and submitted a ballot for President James A. Garfield, who was also assassinated. Notably Jacob Scroggs was friendly with President Rutherford B. Hayes from Fremont, Ohio. In 1887 Jacob and Julia hosted the former President for dinner, a tour of Bucyrus, and an overnight stay in the southwest bedroom of Scroggs House.

Jacob Scroggs and Julia Walwork Scroggs had one child, Charles Jacob Scroggs (1863-1944). Finishing school in 1877, one month before he turned fourteen, he was the youngest person on record to graduate from Bucyrus’ Union Schools. Charles attended college at Ohio Wesleyan and graduated with a Masters of Arts from the University of Michigan in 1884. He then graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School with Charles Dawes who became a 1925 Nobel Prize Winner for the “Dawe’s Report” concerning World War I reparations and served as Calvin Coolidge’s Vice President. Vice President Dawes remained friendly with Charles Scroggs, visiting Scroggs House in 1926 after participating in the Harding Memorial dedication ceremony in Marion, Ohio.

Charles J. Scroggs began practicing law with his father, Jacob Scroggs in 1886, and later established a partnership with W. L. Monnett. In 1936 Charles was honored with membership in the prestigious Fifty-Year Club recognizing his 50th anniversary of working in Bucyrus in the same profession. At that time, the Scroggs and Monnett law offices were located on the second floor of the Vollrath Opera House building. When the building burned in 1936, records for Oakwood Cemetery were held in Charles’ office safe.

Charles had married Mary Zouck Scroggs (1872-1965) in 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Charles and Mary Zouck Scroggs’ only child, Elizabeth Scroggs Shapiro (1917-2005), grew up in Bucyrus and graduated from Bucyrus High School in 1934 with the highest scholastic average in the class. She returned to Bucyrus while her husband, Dr. John Lawton Shapiro (1915-1983), served in the military during World War II. Elizabeth (“Betty”) was in Bucyrus when her father, Charles, suffered a heart attack and died at home in 1944. Mary Scroggs continued to live at Scroggs House until four years before her death, when she moved to be with her daughter’s family in Nashville, Tennessee. Scroggs House, which has the distinction of having belonged to the same family for the most years of any home in Bucyrus, stayed in Elizabeth Scroggs Shapiro’s possession until 1966 when she sold the site to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. In 1970 the Bucyrus Historical Society purchased Scroggs House for $12,655.83. It received National Historic Register designation four years later on October 9, 1974. Over the following years, the Scroggs family donated original furnishings, fixtures, artifacts, and documents to enhance the significance of this beautiful historic home, making Scroggs House an important destination for anyone seeking a full understanding of Bucyrus-area and Ohio history.

Almira Scroggs (1829-1857) married Consul Willshire Butterfield (1824-1899). Prior to their marriage in 1854, C.W. Butterfield worked as a teacher and superintendent in Seneca County. He wrote the History of Seneca County—the first history published in book form dedicated to a county west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1855 Butterfield was admitted to the bar association and established a legal practice with Mira’s brother, Jacob Scroggs, west of the Post Office on Bucyrus’ Public Square. Mira died as a young woman in 1857, after the death of an infant son who lived to be less than a month old. Notably, Mira shares a gravesite at Bucyrus’ Oakwood Cemetery with her son and with at least three infant children belonging to C.W. Butterfield and his second wife, Letta Merriman Reighneker Butterfield, a widow whom C.W. married in 1858. After Mira’s death, Butterfield wrote a well-received history about Colonel William Crawford (for whom Crawford County is named). Published in 1873, its success launched Butterfield’s career as a distinguished historian. In 1875 Butterfield left Bucyrus with his second wife, Letta Merriman Butterfield, and pursued a career in research and writing in Madison, Wisconsin. He completed more than a dozen books over the course of his life. Butterfield spent the last eleven years of his life in Omaha, Nebraska, where he and Letta are buried.

Mary Elizabeth Scroggs (1832-1889) married William T. Giles (1823-1898) in 1856. William was a journalist from Upper Sandusky who had worked as editor for the Wyandot Union and had recently worked for daily and weekly newspapers in California. In 1858 William and Mary moved to Illinois where William (and Mary’s brother, Joseph Scroggs) edited the Freeport Weekly Bulletin. William eventually became the owner of that Democratic newspaper. Mary and Willliam had three children—Mira, Kate, and William Scroggs. Kate died at the age of eleven from spinal meningitis in 1872. Mira Giles became a respected teacher at the River school, and William Scroggs Giles worked as a clerk in the railway mail service. Both made their homes in Chicago, Illinois.

John B. Scroggs (1838-1899), the youngest child of John and Ann Scroggs, was born the year before his family relocated from Canton to Bucyrus in 1839. He worked as an express messenger for the Pennsylvania Railroad and then for the Ohio and Indiana railroads. John read law with his older brother, Jacob, and was admitted to the bar in 1861. He started his own law firm in Bucyrus but then enlisted in Company K of the 86th Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In 1863 John obtained a government position in Cincinnati, Ohio, but soon moved to Freeport, Illinois, where he began practicing law with Colonel Thomas J. Turner. In 1866 he moved to Kansas where he became a leading attorney and, later, a mayor of Wyandotte City (also known as Wyandott–now a part of Kansas City). On August 15, 1868, John B. Scroggs was invited by Wyandot tribal leaders to speak at the annual green corn festival held in Wyandott, Kansas.

Unlike his brother, Jacob Scroggs, who was a lifelong Republican, John B. Scroggs left the Republican party and became a devoted Democrat. In 1875 John married a widow named Margaret Kerstetter Cruise (1843-1915), also from Ohio. John and Mary built a grand Victorian Queen-Anne-style home in 1887 that became an orphanage in 1919 due to the ravages of the flu epidemic. John and Mary Scroggs’ historic home eventually became known as the Strawberry Hill Museum and Cultural Center, located in Kansas City, Kansas. For more information about John B. Scroggs and his home at 720 North Street, Kansas City, Kansas, please visit: https://strawberryhillmuseum.org/owners/ .