Fenton Historical Society
Horatio N. Jennings
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Horatio N. Jennings, publisher of the Fenton Independent, one of the best edited and most newsy sheets of Genesee County, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, October 11, 1827. His father, John Jennings, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and came to America in 1812. In New York, he worked at his trade, silk weaving, and then located near Steubenville, and later removed to Trumbull county, Ohio, where he purchased a farm and settled upon it. About the year 1850 he moved to Kent, Portage County, Ohio, and there he died in 1856 at the age of sixty-six. His good wife, Margaret McComb, was a member of the Presbyterian Church. She died in 1843 leaving five children, two of whom are now living.

Mr. Jennings was given the usual school and home advantages of the farmer’s boy, and attended a private school for a short time. At the age of fifteen he entered the office of the Ohio Star at Ravenna, and some five years later he took a position as journeyman printer in the office of the Ohio Statesman. He became one of a stock company which established the Capital City Fact, a daily and weekly paper. In this he was business manager for a year or so and then took the general management of a printing department. Three years later he sold out his interest there and went back to Portage County, where he was foreman on the Portage County Democrat.

In 1867 Mr. Jennings came to Fenton, and the following year he established the Fenton Independent, which he has published for twenty-three years without missing a single number. It has been enlarged in the meantime from a seven-column folio too a six-column quarto. For the past ten years it has advocated Republican doctrines. In 1884 Mr. Jennings took his son, John H., into partnership and the firm name is now H. N. & J.H. Jennings. Our subject was married in 1854 to Ida A. Peck of New York, and their four children are Lizzie M., John H., and the twins Clara Nell, and Carrie Belle. The son is a graduate of Michigan University where he took his diploma in 1883, and for the past twelve years the eldest daughter has been a teacher. Our subject is now a member of the Village Council and has been for a number of years although he is not a seeker of office, but has ever devoted himself to his business. He has built up a fine establishment which is well equipped and is run by steam power. For twenty-five years Mr. Jennings has been a member of the Masonic fraternity.

1892 Portrait & Biographical Album of Genesee, Lapeer & Tuscola Counties, Chapman Bros.

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