J. Arter Weaver.— When, in 1917, Judge Weaver was elected to preside on the bench of the Probate Court of Williams County, he had the distinction of being the youngest man, with one exception, ever elected to this office in the State of Ohio, and in Williams County only one other candidate of equal youthfulness has been called to this office — Hon. Charles A. Bowersox. Judge Weaver is a native son of this county and his eligibility for the important office of which he is now the incumbent was fortified by his having previously been graduated in the law department of the Ohio Northern University, and had been actively engaged in the work of his profession for a period of two years.
Judge Weaver was born at Montpelier, Williams County, Ohio, April 20, 1885, and is a son of Jacob F. and Hattie L. (Arter) Weaver, he having been but six days old at the time of his mother’s death, and having then been taken into the home of his paternal grand-mother, with whom he remained until her death, when he was four years of age. Again deprived of fostering care, the future probate judge was then taken in charge by his aunt, Mrs. Addie C. (Weaver) Gilcher, whose husband was a prosperous farmer southeast of Montpelier. There he remained until he was thirteen years old, and in the meanwhile he had attended school and also begun to gain experience in connection with farm operations. At the age noted he went to the home of his father, who had contracted a second marriage, and thus he was enabled to attend the public schools at Montpelier, where he was graduated in the high school as a member of the class of 1905. In 1907 he was graduated in the law department of the Ohio Northern University, and in June, 1907, he was admitted to the bar of his native state. For two years thereafter he was engaged in the practice of his profession at Montpelier, and he then assumed active management of his father’s farm, in Bridgewater Township. There he remained three years, at the expiration of which he became an exponent of agricultural industry in Center Township. He proved an energetic, progressive and successful farmer, but in 1917 he became the republican candidate for the office of judge of the Probate Court of Williams County, the majority which he received at the ensuing election attesting the popular estimate placed upon him in his native county. He assumed his official duties at the courthouse, in Bryan, and his administration of probate affairs has fully justified his selection for the office in which he is serving with marked efficiency and acceptability. The position is no sinecure, as may readily be understood, but Judge Weaver has naught of the attributes of a slacker, as proved by his herculean labors during his career as a farmer, as well as by his punctilious and careful service in his present office. He is influential in the local councils of the republican party, his Masonic affiliations include membership in the commandery of Knights Templar at Bryan, and both he and his wife are active members of the Church of God, at Ada, Hardin County.
Judge Weaver is of sterling German ancestry in both the paternal and maternal lines, but the respective families were early founded in Pennsylvania, the original representatives in Wayne County, Ohio, having come to this state from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Jacob F. Weaver, father of the subject of this review, was most influential in the civic and material development and advancement of Montpelier, Williams County, where, as a successful real estate dealer, he platted and improved four additions to the village, many houses having been erected and sold by him and one of the handsome homes thus built by him having been a fine stone house which he erected for his own use and which he and his wife occupied during the last two years of his life, his death occurring in December, 1917. This is one of the finest homes in Williams County. Mr. Weaver is survived by his second wife, whose maiden name was Martha McCrea, and their only child, Lisle M., was a member of the class of 1920 in the law department of the Ohio Northern University, and now practicing law in Bryan.
Source: Bowersox, Charles A. ed. A standard history of Williams County, Ohio: an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development , 2 vols. Publisher Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co. 1920.