Lakewood Lore

Civil War soldier became the fourth mayor of city

One of the first Lakewoodites to enlist in the Civil War was Jacob E. Tegardine. Impetuous and brimming with the temerity of youth, he signed up originally as a drummer boy and later became a soldier.

He served four years in Company 23 of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was shot in the abdomen at the Battle of Winchester, returned to his command after recovery, and then continued in uniform until he was mustered out at the end of the war.

After the conflict, he married Mary Wagar and lived in a home on the southwest corner of Detroit and Warren. In the early 1870s, he built a general merchandise store on that corner but later quit selling and turned to breeding and teaming horses.

When Tegardine gave up his store operation, the building was moved back several hundred feet and remodeled into a small white cottage. In 1884, it was replaced with a sizable new house that eventually became Lakewood's first city hall.

The city's police and fire departments used the Tegardine barns. At one time, one of these barns housed two steel cages that constituted a lock-up for the community.

Jacob was only 1 year old when his parents, Mark and Jane Tegardine, brought him here from England in 1843. During his adult life, Jacob was active in politics. He served as postmaster and councilman. In 1900, he became the fourth mayor of the hamlet of Lakewood.

He and his wife, Mary, had five daughters -- Maude, Kate, Frances, May and Belle. The later two, in the tradition of their mother's family, the Wagars, became school teachers here.

This article appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post March 30, 1989. Reprinted with permission.

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