The winter of 1936 had been unusually harsh. A small item at the bottom of the first page of The Vermilion News commented on the "record breaking cold weather" the area had been experiencing since the first of the year, adding that the "red flannels may yet (have to) be routed from the attic" before it was over. Another small article reported severe damage to peach and cherry trees on the C.D. Powell and F.A. Haber farms due to the cold. During the final week of January the local fire department responded to three alarms due to house fires; one on Exchange Street, one on State, and one on Mason Road. Two of them were chimney fires.

On the morning of February 3rd J.A. Klaar left his home on State Street and walked to the Vermilion Township Hall where he held office as Village Clerk to take care of some business. Klaar was a habitually fastidious person well know for his painstaking bookwork. Much of this, no doubt, had come from the near half century he had spent making and mending horse harnesses, producing and selling various other leather goods, and tending to business matters in his own harness shop on Liberty Avenue.

John Adam Klaar was born in Berneberg, Germany on January 2, 1864. In 1870, when he was six years old, he and his parents came to America and settled in Amherst, Ohio. The year 1870 is referred to by some historians as "The Golden Age of the Horse" in our country. That year the U.S. census reported that there were 7,607 harness businesses throughout the nation, employing 23,557 harness makers. Of the 258 industries listed in the census, harness making and saddlery ranked 34th in the number of people employed nation-wide. Given these statistics it is little wonder that Mr. Klaar chose this vocation as a youngster, and went on to cultivate his craft in shops in both Amherst and in Wellington.

While working in Wellington he met, courted, and married a lady by the name of Miss Mary Howk. In 1885 Klaar and his new wife moved to Vermilion and opened the aforementioned harness shop on Liberty Avenue where local resident, Jon Clark, now has his Vermilion Insurance Agency. Following the time of "The Great Fire" in Vermilion (December 3, 1903 -PJ Article 11-13-2003) in which his shop along with most of the business block on the southwest side of Main/Division and Liberty streets were destroyed, he located in the upstairs of the old Hull Coal and Supply warehouse.

The accompanying photograph was taken inside the renovated store about 1915. At about the same time a new form of transportation was emerging in the country that would eventually reduce the demand for Mr. Klaar's product. It was called the "horseless carriage". When his lease on the store expired in the Spring of 1931 he closed the door to his business and retired. While he did do some work in the rooms of the Kenik Shoe Store around the corner on Grand Street after that he harboured no delusions that the harness trade would ever be in high demand again.

Mr. Klaar had always been interested in civic affairs. In addition to his business he had served as village treasurer, and as a volunteer fireman for over 25 years. He had also served as financier of the Security Benefit Association since its organisation in Vermilion. In 1894 he was nominated (in a hotly debated contest) by the Erie County Democratic Party to run for Commissioner. After he retired he ran for and won the office of Village Clerk. He was in his third term and fifth year in that office when he went to the townhall on that frigid Monday in February of 1936. Neither the freezing temperatures nor the arctic gales could keep him from his duties.

At 9:30 that morning the custodian, George Nieding, found him lying on his back in his office in the townhall. The gas burners on the heater were going full blast. Nieding promptly shut off the gas. Enlisting the help of local resident, E.J. Law, they carried Klaar to the outside door and summoned Doctor Heinig. But it was too late. Apparently the high winds had caused a back-draft snuffing out the flames in the gas heater, and with them the life of J.A. Klaar. The harsh Ohio winter had inadvertently taken another life .

The village folks turned out for the funeral that was held in the Congregational Church next to the Townhall the following Friday afternoon. Among those paying their respects was the entire Vermilion Volunteer Fire Department in full uniform. Aside from his wife, Mary, he left two children behind; a son named John, and a daughter. Nellie (Mrs. P.B. Morgan). Another son, George, had passed away some years earlier in Cleveland. Three of their six grandchildren became well known Vermilionites; James C. Klaar, Mary (Woods) Bogart, and Dorothy (Woods) Hart.

And such was the life of John Adam Klaar; The Harness Maker.

(Ref: The Vermilion News; 2-6-36; 125th Anniversary Historical Vermilion; 8-25-62; The Sandusky Register; 9-17-1894; Ancestry.com; A Very Special Thanks to Dorothy Hart)

Appeared in the 5-5-04 issue of the Vermilion Photojournal

Written on 5-1-04

 

Previous Bio Next Bio

Return to Profile Index Page

© 2006 Rich Tarrant