COLUMBIANA COUNTY OHIO - BIO: CRIST, Hon. Daniel W. (published 1925)
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History of Ohio, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925
Volume III, Page 297-298

        HON. DANIEL W. CRIST.  The distinctive service and achievement of
Daniel W. Crist of Alliance consists in what he has done as an educator, as
a teacher of schools and music, as a musical composer and music publisher.
He has been publishing music for nearly forty years, and his business at
Alliance, conducted as D.W. Crist, music publisher, is notable in size and
distinctive as a house publishing largely the compositions and collections
of one man, Mr. Crist.
        He was born at New Chambersburg in Columbiana County, Ohio,
November 28, 1857, and is a representative of staunch old American pioneer
stock. His paternal grandparents, Robert and Elizabeth (Stevens) Crist,
moved out of Maryland, and settled near Osnaburg in Stark County, Ohio,
They were Catholic, but only one of their children remained in that faith.
Their son, Robert Crist, father of Daniel W. Crist, was born in Maryland,
was two years of age when brought to Ohio, and after his marriage lived in
West Township of Columbiana County. As a youth he taught in one of the old
log schoolhouses of the community, but for the most part was engaged in
farming. He died in 1898 at the age of seventy-three. He married, Mary
Ruff, who was born in the same section of Columbiana County in 1832 and
died in 1908. Her paternal grandfather, Anthony Ruff, came from
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to Columbiana County, at an early day.
Her maternal grandfather, Rudolph Bair, came from the same
county to Columbiana in 1803, and served as a first commissioner of the
county. One of her great-grandfathers was Michael Zehner, who was an aide
in General Washington's army during the War of the Revolution, and settled
in Columbiana County, Ohio in 1804.
        Daniel W. Crist, one of the ten children of Robert and Mary (Ruff)
Crist, was reared on the homestead farm, attended country schools, and was
also a student in the Ohio Northern University at Ada, where he graduated
in the year 1882. As a teacher in rural schools he did fourteen years of
work in Columbiana and Stark counties. He became superintendent of the
Osnaburg graded school in 1880, and for three years was superintendent at
New Franklin.
        He early attracted attention by his interests, enthusiasm and
proficiency in music, and was one of the pioneer singing teachers of his
day. As a young man he began composing songs and later instrumental music,
and gradually his efforts were directed to broader fields. His first
publication, a collection of Sunday school music of his own composition,
was published under the title of Gospel Gleanings in 1886. This was so
successful that it proved the cornerstone of his business as a music
publisher, which has been steadily growing through the past thirty years.
He is a publisher of Sunday school song books, day school song books, music
folios, sheet music, band music, instruction books, and is himself the
author of eighteen song books, besides some eighteen volumes of musical
collections and over 200 special compositions. For many years his business
as a music publisher was conducted at Moultrie, in Columbiana County, but
in May, 1915, he moved his plant to Alliance. Mr. Crist'
s musical compositions have reached the sale of nearly 3,000,000 copies.
        He was one of the organizers and has been the first and only
president of the Peoples Bank of Alliance. He has served on the school
board of his home city for eight years, and is one of the men first to
respond to organized effort in any worthy community project. In 1901 he was
elected a member of the State Legislature on the republican ticket, was
reelected in 1903, and in 1905 was elected to the State Senate. In the
Legislature he was especially interested in education and taxation. He was
chairman of the House committee on taxation, and while in the Senate he
advocated ideas and principles that subsequently became the ground work of
the state tax commission of Ohio. Mr. Crist is a member of the Christian
Church. In Masonry he is a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Scottish
Rite mason, and Shriner, a member of Al Koran Temple, at Cleveland.
        He married in 1882 Miss Mary A. Reed, of Columbiana County. They
have three children: Myrtie M., wife of Charles G. Miller; James R.,
connected with the manufacturing industry at Canton and Dillon, a prominent
business man of Alliance.


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