John L. Tibbals
John L. Tibbals, farmer, P. O. Kent, was born in Deerfield Township, this county, January 15, 1821; son of Alfred M. and Martha H. (Swem) Tibbals. His paternal grandfather, Moses Tibbals, a native of Massachusetts, settled in Deerfield Township in 1805, where he cleared and improved the farm on which he lived and died. He had five children: Clarissa (deceased), Alfred M. (deceased), Arbet L. (deceased), Francis (deceased) and Seymour. His maternal grandfather was William Swem, a native of New Jersey, and a pioneer of Salem, Columbiana Co., Ohio. The father of our subject was reared from eight years of age in Deerfield Township, this county. There he cleared and improved two farms (one now occupied by his son Frederick) and resided until he was killed at the age of sixty years by a falling limb of a tree. His children were five in number: John L., Norman (deceased), Frederick and Curtis (farmers in Deerfield) and Newell, a prominent lawyer of Akron, Ohio, and who has filled the office of Judge of Common Pleas. Our subject was reared and educated and served as Trustee for several years in Deerfield Township, where he resided till 1875, when he removed to Franklin Township to the farm where he now resides. He was married, February 19, 1851, to Mary C, daughter of Frederick and Fanny (Williams) Dewey, of Franklin Township, this county, former of whom was a native of Chester, Mass., and a son of John Dewey, parent of three children: Mary C, Sylvester F. (deceased), and Harriet F., wife of J. N. Stratton. Frederick Dewey came to Franklin Township, this county, in 1818 and located on the farm now owned by Marius Heighten, and in 1834 settled on the farm now occupied by our subject, most of which he cleared and improved, and here he died in February, 1872, in his seventy-fifth year. Mrs. Tibbals' maternal grandfather, Dudley Williams, also a native of Massachusetts, settled in Franklin Township, this county, in 1820. Our subject and wife are the parents of five children: Floris (deceased), Charles, Frank, John and Frederick. Mr. Tibbals is a Republican in politics.
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885