In putting together last week’s post, From Mansfield to Mexico, I utilized many tools and resources (several of which are available to you in the Sherman Room) and turned over every stone I could possibly think of in trying to answer the question of how a Mansfield bakery owner ended up in Mexico. One of those stones included reaching out to archives in the Chicago area. The Pan American Planters Company was a Chicago company, incorporated under the laws of Indiana, with field offices in Mansfield; Elwood, Indiana; and Minneapolis – their business records had to have found a home somewhere! So far, I have had no luck on the business record front. However, the amazing Chicago History Musem has a 1906 company pamphlet in their collection, and they were kind enough to share a copy of it with me. Dated June 15, 1906, the pamphlet is primarily a report from company treasurer, John A. Wilferth, about the different crops, livestock, and projects in the works at the plantation – things like cattle, rubber, sugar cane, and oranges. The pamphlet doesn’t really offer anything new to the research I had already done except for two things. First, we learn that James Brydon was gone by 1906 since the pamphlet refers to a plantation manager by the name of Mr. Abraham (first name unknown). We still don’t know what happened to Brydon, but this at least offers some clues to the timeline of his departure (or disappearance). Second, and most important, is an envelope stapled to the first page of the pamphlet. The Chicago History Museum confirms the envelope is empty, but it is addressed to a John F. Stine in Mansfield, Ohio. This name did not come up in any of my prior research, which begs the question: Who is John F. Stine and what role does he play in this story of the Pan American Planters Company?
John Franklin Stine was born in Chatfield, Crawford County, Ohio, on December 15, 1854. John married Mary J. Robeson on October 13, 1880, and they had two daughters, Ella C. Stine and Lucy Robeson Stine. Both John and his wife died at their daughter Lucy’s home (Mary in 1918 and John in 1932). John did not remarry after his wife’s passing. According to his obituary, John was one of the oldest Mansfield Masons and a prominent machine designer. The 1900 census lists him as a machinist while the 1906 Mansfield city directory offers the more formal occupation of foreman, Aultman Co.
Since Stine’s name did not come up in any of the news reports about the Pan American Planter’s Company, it is safe to assume that he was not a direct investor in the company but rather a business contact of some kind. Based on an 1892 blurb from “Pen and Sunlight Sketches of Omaha and Environs,” it can be ascertained that Aultman and Taylor had established business in “Old Mexico.” One can only surmise from this minimal evidence that Stine was a contact in getting farm machinery for the Santa Isable Plantation.
Adding to this, Stine was a business associate of Charles Henry Voegele and John Henry Krause, veteran members of the Pan American Planters Company team (Krause was a Mansfield sales representative while Voegele was the company president by 1906). In 1903, these men, along with a few others, established the Ideal Electric Manufacturing Company in Mansfield. This raises the additional question of how involved this company was in furnishing the Pan American Planters Company with electric supplies; a question that would hopefully be answered if surviving company records are ever found. The Ideal Electric Company was still going strong in 1910 after Pan American Planters simply vanished, with Voegele as President and Treasurer. Stine served as a member of the board of directors for Ideal Electric though his tenure with the company is unclear as he only appears in two news stories about the company, one in 1903 and one in 1910. Unlike Pan American Planters, Ideal Electric is still a thriving company in Mansfield as of 2023.
Sources:
- “Plantation ‘Santa Isabel’: Oaxaca, Mexico,” from the collections of the Chicago History Museum.
- “John Franklin Stine,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/107220310/john-franklin-stine?_gl=1*qzh3nr*_gcl_au*MTI1ODQyNjE5NS4xNzA1MzQ0ODM2.
- Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 for John F. Stine. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
- “John F. Stine, Widely Known Resident, Dies,” The Mansfield News, October 30, 1932, 1; Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 for Clayton Clifford Wagner. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
- “Mrs. Mary Robeson Stine,” Crestline Advocate, June 13, 1918, 1; “John F. Stine, Widely Known Resident, Dies,” The Mansfield News, October 30, 1932, 1.
- “John F. Stine, Widely Known Resident, Dies,” The Mansfield News, October 30, 1932, 1.
- 1900 United States Federal Census for John F Stine. Ohio – Richland – Mansfield Ward 02 – District 0119. Accessed on Ancestry.com; Mansfield Official City Directory (Akron: The Burch Directory Company, 1906): 343.
- Pen and Sunlight Sketches of Omaha and Environs (Chicago: Phoenix Publishing Company, 1892): 100.
- “A Demonstrated Success,” The Mansfield News, October 4, 1904, 3; Audit Company of New York, Directory of Directors in the City of Chicago 1906 (Chicago: Audit Company of New York, 1906): 697.
- “Electric Supply Plant,” The Mansfield News, May 21, 1903, 1.
- “Annual Meeting Ideal Electric,” The Mansfield News, January 11, 1910, 4.
- “An Ideal History,” Ideal Electric, https://www.theidealelectric.com/about/history/.
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