Showing posts with label Axline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Axline. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Marriage of of Tella Axline and Claude B. DeWitt


In the spring of 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Augustus Axline sent out a wedding invitation for their daughter Tella Maude Axline, who was to marry Claude Bennett DeWitt, a lawyer from Sandusky. The wedding took place on Thursday evening, April 25, 1901, at the Axline residence in Columbus, Ohio. Henry A. Axline was known as the “Father of the National Guard in Ohio.”

From about 1902 to 1922, Mr. and Mrs. Claude B. DeWitt lived in Sandusky, Ohio, where he served for several years as a bankruptcy referee. He was also associated with the local law firm of Dewitt & Savord for a time. During World War I, he served as an induction officer. The image below appeared in the Honor Roll of Ohio, a reference book which features biographies and photographs of Erie County Veterans of the First World War.


Unfortunately, the marriage did not last. By the 1930’s Claude DeWitt had moved to Howard County, Iowa, where he remarried. Mrs. Tella DeWitt passed away in Columbus, Ohio on October 31, 1959. The only child of Claude and Tella DeWitt, whose name was Axline Claude DeWitt, moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he became president of the Dunning Coal Company

Monday, November 10, 2008

General Henry A. Axline, “Father of the National Guard of Ohio”


Henry A. Axline was the youngest soldier to serve in the Civil War from Muskingum County. He served in Company G of the 159th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

After the Civil War, Henry A. Axline held the positions of Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel of the Ohio National Guard. During the Spanish American War, Henry Axline was Colonel of the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, taking command at Camp Bushnell. During the Johnstown flood, Henry A. Axline took the first relief train of Ohio troops to that city.

General Axline was the Adjutant General of Ohio from 1886 to 1890, and again from1896-1898. William Taylor Alexander, author of The Centennial History of Columbus, called Henry A. Axline “the father of the National Guard of Ohio.”

Active in Veterans’ organizations, General Axline was often a speaker at Campfires, military reunions, and Memorial Day exercises. The Sandusky Daily Register of May 18, 1914, reported that “as a public speaker General Axline had but few equals.” At the time of his death he was chief of staff of the national encampment of the G.A.R. Henry A. Axline died May 18, 1914 in Zanesville, Ohio. He is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio. (He was buried in Sandusky because his daughter and son-in-law were residing in Sandusky at the time of his death.) Henry A. Axline married Helen Westlake in 1874. They were both graduates of Ohio Wesleyan University. Their daughter Tella Axline was married to Claude B. Dewitt, pictured below. (They later divorced.)