William Perry Horton (1823-1923) was born in Pittsford, Vermont and came to Northern Ohio to study at Oberlin College in 1844. In 1846, Horton began to study dentistry with G.B. Miner of Sylvania, Ohio. Horton traveled with Miner to Milwaukee, to open a dental practice. Horton returned the next year to northern Ohio where he taught school and clerked at Pelton’s store in Oberlin. Then in 1851 he returned to Miners practice in Milwaukee where he spent a year completing his dental training and was issued a certificate stating that he was prepared to do anything in the dental line.

In 1852 Horton moved to Cleveland and went to work in Benjamin Strickland’s dental practice, where he was paid $2.50 per day. After some time Strickland gave Horton a one third interest in the practice and that first year the practice brought in $2400.00. Horton was a founding member of the Ohio State Dental Society (1866) and the Society’s first president.

Source: Ambler Henry. History of Dentistry in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland, Ohio Publishing House of the Evangelical Association 1911.