This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Bond, Gould, Wilcox, Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/BZB.2ACI/752 Message Board Post: I am trying to locate any information on the family of Eber Wilcox Bond. Eber W. Bond, the second son of Ira, was born at Kirtland, Ohio and died at Willoughby, Ohio. In 1850 he left home and found a berth as a seaman on a ship California-bound. The vessel was six weeks rounding the Cape Horn. He then mined gold in California for several years. In 1853 he came across the plains to Kirtland, he married Sophia Malby, born in Canada in 1835, of English parents. Mrs. Bond's wedding band was made of gold which Mr. Bond had minded in California. For a time he and his brother ran an ashery on the flats of Kirtland. He and Brother, Milton, were running flat boats from Ohio River points to New Orleans before the Civil War. Their headquarters were at Newburg Landing, IN. The brothers did not serve in the Union army during the War Between the States, but bought supplies for the Union soldiers. After the war there was some lumber in Kentucky and in Pennsylvania; then a return to Willougby. In 1871 he went to Michigan and began lumbering. He had one of the first mills at Cadillac. He then went to Round Lake, Bond's Siding on the R.R. & I. R.R...., north of Cadillac, still exists and is all that is left of the town of Bond, which in 1878 had a railway station, a post office and a population of 300.Eber next acquired a mill at Fife Lake. Here 60,000 feet of lumber was cut daily. This mill burned about 1880 with its six million feet of lumber. He then disposed of his Michigan interest and returned to Willoughby. Here he organized the Willoughby Wagon Manufacturing Co., the Bank of Willoughby and built Bond Hall there in 1879. Later he organized the Willoughby Milling Co., and served as Mayor. In 1880, he first visited Florida, homestead a choice tract of land near DeLand, erected a saw mill and put in an orange grove. In 1891 this mill, at first called Bond & Rich, and after 1881, The Bond Co, was moved to Glenwood and located on what is now the Atlantic Coast Line. At the point chosen their logging trains had access to the higher lands as well as the flat woods. Eber built in 1884, the first railroad in Volusia Co, The St. Johns and Deland R.R.- - five miles of narrow gauge, between DeLand and DeLand Landing. His son, Frank, was called from Kalkaska, Mich., to build this road. Traces of the road bed as it neared New York Ave. are still visible. The DeLand depot was on New York Ave. between Tanner home and the present Elks Club. He collected 50 cents for the five-mile trip. And the line was busy until the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West R.R. reached DeLand. About this time Mr. Bond was sued by the U.S. District court at Jacksonville by a passenger who had wandered about the wharf and fallen. The jury, evindently hating the railroads that killed their cattle, and bearing a grudge against all Northerners, gave the plaintiff $30,000 damages. This Mr. Bond refused to pay and lost his railroad. For some years he was less active in Volusia Co., but spent the winters on the homestead in DeLand. In 1904 he obtained property at Lake Helen, FL and built a saw veneer mill. He organized the E.W. Bond Co. and became associated in the Bond Sandstone Brick Co. He was the head of these two corporations until his death. Eber was always prominent in Democratic politics and was a delegate to the convention at San Francisco on 1908. He was also president of the National Spiritualist Association, and was responsible for the southern camp of that organization being located at Lake Helen. No history of the early settlement of Volusia County or of its later business development would be complete without mention of Eber W. Bond, his sons or his nephew. Throughout many busy years he was a founder, a builder, and a developer. The fact that men who were with him in the Bond mills of Michigan followed him to Florida and continued here with his sons, shows that he was considerate of other's interest. Taken from the Daytona Observer written by Ianthe Bond Hebel March 7, 1936