Winchester Township (part 4 of 30)

Mr. Hood had a common school education and was quite efficient in mathematics. For several years he served as one of the County School Examiners of Adams County. He was the first man to introduce the sale of patent medicines in Adams County, from which fact he derived the title of Doctor. Mr. Hood departed this life January 9. 1890, and was laid to rest in the large vault he had erected for this purpose in his private cemetery in West Union, Ohio. It may truly be said of him that he lived in another age and with other people, for in his biography he says: "I can look back to the time when West Union, Adams County, and even the State of Ohio, was a dense forest. I can recollect the stately oaks, tall poplars, lofty walnuts and sugar trees and the thick undergrowth of pawpaws that covered the ground over which West Union is now built. At that time, we could hear the wolves howling around our cabins at night and see droves of deer passing through our town by day."

John Page Hood, the youngest child of John and Hannah Hood, was bom at West Union, Adams County, Ohio, December 6, 1813. His father dying when he was less than one year old, it became necessary for him to look out for himself as soon as possible. When about ten years old, he became connected with the Village Register, edited by Ralph M. Voorhees, where he learned the printing trade. He afterwards learned the cabinet making trade, at which he worked for several years. Later he clerked in the store of his brother, James. Then he engaged in the mercantile business for himself. He was postmaster of West Union during Lincoln's administration, 1861 to 1865. A few years after the close of the Civil War, he sold his store and was employed as book-keeper of the West Union woolen factory, which was then in a flourishing condition. He was cashier of the bank of G. B. Grimes & Company, when death overtook him. After a short illness, he died from heart failure, October 8, 1879, aged sixty-six years, leaving a widow and nine children, all of whom except the youngest were grown to manhood and womanhood, and all are still living.

On December 5, 1837, John P. Hood was married to Sarah Jane Mc- Farland, at the home of Rev. Dyer Burgess in West Union, Ohio, where, being a relative of Mrs. Burgess, she had been making her home for several years for the purpose of receiving the best educational advantages of the times. She was the eldest daughter of Duncan and Nancy McFarland, whose maiden name was Nancy J. Forsythe. Duncan McFarland, when eighteen years old, came from Ireland to this country with his uncle, Andrew Ellison of the Stone House, and settled in Meigs Township. The issue of the union of John P. Hood and Sarah J. McFarland was eleven children. Martha, the eldest, died at the age of thirteen years; Angeline married Andrew Kohler; Nancy J. married William H. Wright; Ellen married George N. Crawford; Anna E. married Dr. J. W. Bunn and Sarah B. married John M. Willson. There were five boys, John A., William, Albert C, and Oscar F. All except two of the children taught school. In Mrs. Hood's young days, the teachers of the county were mostly from the New England States, and it was her ambition to make teachers of her daughters.

In politics, Mr. Hood in his younger days, was a Whig. At the organization of the Republican party, he became a member of it, and so remained until his death. He was an active member of the United Presbyterian Church, in which he held the most important offices.

John P. Hood received a good education for the times in which he lived. He was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, possessing strong force of character and much native ability, and was known far and wide for his upright dealings and honesty. He was a kind husband and an indulgent father and found more pleasure in his home than any- where else. Born of Puritan stock and trained under the rigid discipline of the advocates of this doctrine, he became very methodical in all his manners and customs, and had the complete confidence of his fellow men.

was born April 7, 1784, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. His father, John Jones, emigrated from Maryland in 1768, and settled near Brownsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Our subject was brought up in the Church of England, but had never given any serious attention to religion until he listened to the preaching of Rev. Robert Wooster, who preached near Uniontown. There young Jones became a convert to Methodism. He had received a good education, and as a youth, he evinced a great deal of sensibility, and had a very equable disposition. He was the favorite of the family of children to which he belonged. He married Miss Rebecca Connell, daughter of Zachariah Connell.

He was licensed as a local preacher in the Methodist Church in 1810, and preached in the vicinity of his home until 1815, when he removed to Adams County, Ohio, and settled near West Union. He was admitted as a travelling minister in 1818, and removed to Hillsboro. He preached on the Salt Creek Circuit for two years. For two years after that, he was appointed on the Scioto Circuit. After four years* service as an itinerant minister, he was made a Presiding Elder. He had a strong, lively, and discriminating judgment. He came to the quarterly meetings with everything to learn and nothing to impart. He possessed a strong mind, and was bold and enterprising. He never stopped to calculate consequences.

From the Scioto County Circuit, he went to the White Oak Circuit two years as a minister. In 1828, he was made a Presiding Elder in the Miami District for four years. Cincinnati was in his district. He was accessible to and agreeable in the social circle. He was always ardent and decided in his work. His conversation was plain and to the point. He uttered his thoughts with simplicity and great correctness.

In 1832 he was appointed an itinerant on the Hamilton Circuit, and moved to Hamilton, in that circuit. Here he lost his wife, and was married in 1833 to Mrs. Ross, of Hamilton, Ohio. He disposed of all his property in Adams County, and moved to Bethel, Clermont County, where he became superannuated. However, a vacancy occurred in the West Union Circuit, and he filled it. In 1839 ^^s health was despaired of, and he was sick for a long time. He recovered, and accepted service on the New Richmond Circuit, then at Batavia, and afterwards at White Oak.

He was a good penman, and several times was Secretary of the Ohio Conference. As a business man, he was safe and reliable. He was twice a delegate to the General Conference. He attended the Annual Conference at Marietta, in September, 1834, and while there was attacked with a colic, with which he frequently suffered. He was ill six days and died September 20, 1844, and was buried at Marietta. His death illustrated the faith in which he had lived.

There is an old brown head-stone in the center of the little village cemetery at West l^nion, which recites - "Joseph L. Finley was bom February 20, 1753, and died May 23, 1839." Most of the people of West

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Union and of those who have visited the cemetery or passed by have observed the stone, but do not know the story of him who reposes beneath, but we propose now to tell it so that hereafter so long as tfiis History is preserved, the head-stone will suggest its own history.

Major Joseph L. Finley was bom on the date already given, near Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He was a graduate of Princeton College in the class of 1775. He entered the Revolutionary War on the first day of April, 1776, as a Second Lieutenant in Captain Moorehead's Company, of Miles' Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, organized under a resolution of Congress on July 15, 1776. He was made a Captain on the twentieth day of October, 1777, and his regiment was designated as the 13th Pennsylvania. He was transferred to the 8th Pennsylvania, July I, 1778, and was made a Major July 20, 1780. He served until November, 1783, more than two years after the surrender of Comwallis, and he was seven years and seven months in service in defense of his country. He was in the battle of Long Island on the twenty-seventh of August, 1776, and that of White Plains, the September following. He was at the battle of Brandy wine in September, 1777; at Germantown, in October of the same year, and he was in the battle of Monmouth on that memorable hot Sunday, June 28, 1778. After that, he was sent with Gen. Broadhead to the western part of Pennsylvania in his expedition against the Indians. He subsequently saw much hard fighting. He lost his left eye in the service and was otherwise much disabled.

He emigrated to Adams County in 1815 and settled, first on Gift Ridge, and afterwards moved to the foot of the hill west of West Union, and died there. His wife was a daughter of Rev. Samuel Blair, a noted Presbyterian minister in the early part of the history of that church in this country. She was a woman of much beauty of person and nobility of character, and their daughters were likewise well educated and handsome. She was an aunt of Francis P. Blair, the famous editor of the Globe, of Washington, D. C. She was a sprightly woman, full of energy, and while small, was considered very handsome. She had the blackest of black eyes ; she wrote poetry for the newspapers, and wrote several touching tributes to the memory of deceased friends. She has been particularly described to me and if I were to choose one of her descendants who resembled her as a young woman, I would choose Mrs. Dudley B. Hutchins, of Portsmouth, Ohio, her great-granddaughter.

Major Finley and his wife were both members of the Presbyterian Church of West Union. He was a man of small stature, and in his old age his hair was silvery white. When he and his wife attended church at West Union, during the sermon he always sat on the pulpit steps, as he was somewhat deaf.

He had three daughters and two sons. His daughter, Hannah Finley, was the second wife of Col. John Lodwick, and the mother of a numerous family. Among her sons were Captain John N., Joseph, Pressley and Lyle Lodwick, and among her daughters were Mrs. Nancy McCabe, Mrs. Eli Kinney and Mrs. J. Scott Peebles. She died in 1827, twelve years before her father.

Another daughter, Mary Finley, married John Patterson, once United States Marshal of Ohio, and the father of Mrs. Benjamin F. Coates, of Portsmouth, Ohio. She wa» the mother of seven children.

Margaret Finley married John Chipps and died young. She left a son, John Chipps, who died before his manhood and is buried in the West Union cemetery.

James Finley married a Rothwell. He died young and left several children. His wife contracted a second marriage with Samuel Clark, formerly a well known farmer south of West Union on the old Manchester Road.

John Finley, another son, married down South. No further account of him is known. A daughter of Mr. James Finley, Mrs. John Kincaid, resides at Hamersville, in Brown County, and another daughter resides in Dayton, Ohio.

The ashes of this eminent servant of God repose in the village cemetery south of West Union oVi a hilltop which overlooks a wide expanse of plain in Liberty Township to the southwest, the rough hills of Jefferson Township to the east and the Kentucky hills to the southeast. To the north lies the village overshadowed by the Willson home to the northeast. No lovelier spot in the world for the respose of God's chosen ones and their ashes are all about him.

John Graham was bom in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in 1798. His parents were Scotch-Irish. He was educated at the Philadelphia Academy under Doctors Wylie and Gray. He studied theology in the U. P. Theological Seminary in New York City, and one of his instructors in the seminary was the Rev. John K. Mason, D. D. His training in the. languages was most complete. He read Latin, Greek and Hebrew as readily as English. He was licensed to preach in the United Presbyterian Church in 1819 and ordained August 30, 1820. From August 20, 1820, until October 8, 1829, he was pastor of the Washington and Cross Roads Churches in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and at the same time he was Professor of Languages in Washington College.

In 1 82 1, he made a trip to Ohio and, among other places, preached at Greenfield, Ohio. Here he met Miss Sarah Bonner and fell in love with her. The next year he returned and married her. She survived him until January 15, 1866, when in her sixty-sixth year, she was called away.

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there, Jeremiah Morrow, a former Governor of Ohio, was one of his elders. Mrs. Ellen J. Gowdy, his eldest daughter, who furnished many of the facts for this sketch, speaks of the many pleasant hours she and her brothers and sisters spent in the comfortable and cheerful home of the Governor. Mrs. Gowdy's parents, when the children were at the Governor's, would sometimes seek to curb their festiviti-es, but he always insisted on their being permitted to enjoy themselves.

From 1834 to 1837, the Rev. Graham Vvas in charge of the Greenfield and Fall Creek Churches and lived in Greenfield, Ohio. From 1837 to 1 841, he resided in Chillicothe, Ohio, and was in charge of a boys' academy there.

In 1840, he accepted a call to the churches of West Union and West Fork, in Adams County. Here he made his home in the dwelling now occupied by Salathiel Sparks. It was an attractive place on the hill north of the village and adjoining his church. His family circle here was unbroken until 1845 when his son John, aged nine, died. They called their home "Pleasant Hill," and it was an ideal home, as all their former neighbors and friends remember.

The home of the Rev. Graham, with his two sons grown to manhood, and three daughters, attractive young women, and all fond of society, was one of the places where the young people of West Union of that day met most frequently and enjoyed each other's society. Henry Graham, a son, was at that time studying for the ministry, «ind his brother, David Graham, was a law student. His eldest daughter, Ellen J., afterwards married Rev. Gowdy of the same church, and now has a son a minister. But the home of the Rev. Graham had other visitors than the young people of the village. It was a station on the Underground Railroad and Black Joe Logan was one of the conductors. Rev. Graham kept horses and carriages and they were ever at the disposal of Joe Logan to carry fugitives further north. The writer remembers on one occasion when the horses of the Rev. Graham were taken out of his stable and turned loose and his carriage thrown over the cliff near his home by negro hunters, because they knew to what uses the horses and carriages had often been put.

Mrs. Gowdy speaks of her father's family occupying a part of the house of the Rev. Dyer Burgess (now the Palace Hotel) soon after they came to West Union. Rev. Dyer Burgess and Rev. John Graham were kindred spirits on the question of slavery. Mrs. Gowdy says that while in Mr. Burgess' house the younger children were in fear and trembling, for the house had been treated to unsavory eggs and heavy missiles by the friends of human slavery. The children all stood in awe of the Rev. Burgess.

One would think, naturally, that a minister's home would be a solemn place, but his daughter Ellen says of her father's home, "It was a jolly place, if it was a minister's house." The young men and women of West Union all thought so, for they spent a great deal of time there. One young lawyer in the town was there so often that one night some of the mischievous boys took down his sign and put it up on the Rev. Graham's premises. The daughters, however, were agreeable and attractive and the young men were perfectly justifiable in their partiality for the minister's home. Mr. Graham was fond of vocal and instrumental music and often

If there is any point in the character of Mr. Graham on which more emphasis could be laid than another, it was conscience. He preferred to obey the law of God, shield and rescue the fugitive slave, even if thereby he violated the law of man and was compelled to suffer for it. He never failed to keep an appointment.

On July I, 1849, he was in good health and in the full enjoyment of all his physical powers. Apparently, he had many years of usefulness before him. But the Dread Destroyer, the Asiatic cholera, was abroad in the land. On the fourth day of July, he had officiated at the funeral of Robert Wilson, who died of the cholera, and when he came home, he remarked that he had a singular dread of the disease. On the morning of July 13, both he and his son David were attacked with the disease. At that time, there was no particular fear of it and the neighbors came in numbers and tendered their ministrations. David, the son, though very near death's door, recovered, but the disease was too powerful for his father and on the fifteenth of July he passed away. He left two sons and three daughters.

Mrs. Ellen J. Gowdy, widow of Rev. G. W. Gowdy, resides at Des Moines, Iowa. She has one son living, a minister, and three daughters, one a teacher at Des Moines, one with her and one Mrs. D. B. Baker, whose husband is in the shoe business in New York City. This daughter is an artist as well as the one residing with her mother. .

Mrs. Sallie M. Gordon, the youngest daughter of Rev. Graham, is also a widow. She has one daughter and tv/o sons, both ministers. All three of Rev. Graham's daughters' husbands were ministers, and of their sons, seven are ministers.

Near historic Winchester, Virginia, not a mile out of town, there stands a grand old stone house, surrounded on three sides by a clear, limpid, spring-fed creek, bordered by large shade trees. The stream is called Abraham's Creek, and was so named by Abraham Hollings worth, who built the house before the Revolution. Across the stream to the left of the house is a stone flour mill as old as the stone mansion. The estate originally consisted of some four hundred acres, and was taken up by the Hollingsworth family about the time of Lord Fairfax's grant from Charles the Second. Lord Fairfax claimed his right to be prior, but the Hollingsworth of that day held out stoutly for his rights, and compelled a quitclaim from the English lord, who, though a lord by title, was a boor in his manners and style of living, and there have been Hollingsworths at Winchester from that day to this.

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Here on the twentieth of August, A. D. 1782, the subject of our sketch was born. His father's name was Robert, bom in 1744, and died in 1799. His mother was Susanna Rice, born August 24, 1751, and died in 1833. Abraham was the seventh child of his parents; he had eight brothers and five sisters. The eldest son and child was bom December 25, 1770, and the youngest December 13, 1796. These were the days when people believed in large families and had them.

The family to which Abraham HoUingsworth belonged, originated in the county of Cheshire in England, in the eltventh century. The name was originally Holly'sworth. There were abundance of holly trees grown on the original HoUingsworth manor, in Cheshire, England, and "worth" in original Saxon meant farm or fief, and "Hollyworth" meant Holly manor or farm, and the family took its name from the manor. The family had and has a coat of arms in the Herald's College; the shield contains three holly leaves vert, and the crest a stag's head. The motto is *'Disce Ferindi Patienter" - Leam to endure patiently.

The stone house was started to be built by Abraham HoUingsworth, the great-grandfather of our Abraham. He made his will in September, and died in November. He must have owned an immense quantity of land, for he gave one son 250 acres, part of a tract of 1,050 acres which he owned on Opequan Creek. He willed to his son Isaac the stone house then unfinished, with the materials to finish it, and the lands which were with it. Isaac's son Robert was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. In England the family can be traced back to 1022, and in this country to 1682, when Valentine HoUingsworth, in England, came over with William Penn. There was a John HoUingsworth in England in 1559, who was a gentleman and occupied HoUingsworth Hall. He was an officer of the Herald's College. The Valentine HoUingsworth who came over with William Penn was the founder of the family in America. He was a Quaker as most of the Hollingsworths have since been. It seems he had a son Thomas married in 1692 in the form the Quakers used, and a certificate of the marriage, with the names of the subscribing witnesses, has been preserved and the following is a copy of it:

Whereas, That Thomas HoUingsworth, of ye county of New Castle and manor of Rockland, and Grace Cook of ye connty of Chester, township of Concord, having declared their intentions of marriage before several monthly meetings of ye people called Quakers, held 12, 8, and 1, 14, 1691-2, at Concord in ye county of Chester, whose proceedings were allowed by said meetings.

Now these are to certify, all whom it may concern for ye full accomplishment of their said intentions, this 31 day of the first month, one thousand six hundred and ninety two.

Ye said Thomas HoUingsworth and Grace Cook appeared in an assembly of people, at a meeting for ye purpose, appointed at ye house of Nathaniel Park in Concord, and ye said Thomas HoUingsworth taking ye said Grace Cook by ye hand, did, in a solemn manner, openly declare that he took her to be his wife, promising through ye Lord*s assistance, to be to her a loving and faithful husband until death should separate them. And then and there in ye said assembly Grace Cook did in like declare ye that she took said Thomas HoUingsworth to be her husband, promising through ye Lord^s assistance, to be unto him a loving and faithful wife until death should separate them. And moreover, ye said Thomas HoUingsworth and Grace Cook, (she according to ye custom of marriage assuming the name of her husband) as a further confirmation thereof, did then and there to these presents set their hands, and we, whose names are hereunder written, being amongst others present at the solemnization of their said marriage, and subscription in manner aforesaid as witnesses thereunto, have hereunto set our hands the day and year above written.

Abraham Hollingsworth grew up at Winchester, Virginia, with the usual education that was then afforded in that locality. He learned the tanner's trade at Charlestown, Virginia, and went from there to Louisville, Ky., where he made a tanyard, and after living there a few years returned to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where he was married to Miss Nancy Connel in 1814 and soon went back to Louisville, Ky., to reside. He remained there about three years, when he removed to West Union, Ohio, where he engaged in the business of tanning and currying, which he carried on until 1834, at the yard now owned by Louis Smith, when he retired from all' business and lived a life of ease and comfort until his death on March 7, 1864. Directly after his marriage he started back to Louisville with his wife. At Pittsburg they took a flatboat to Louisville, which was then a small place - so small that he personally knew everyone living there.

He was a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1820, and faithful in attendance on all the public services of his own church. At the weekly prayer meeting, he nas always present and took part. The writer thinks he would have been more at home in the Presbyterian Church. He did not like the revival meeting of his own church, though he attended them until after the sermon, when he would get up and leave. The scenes about the mourners' bench were distasteful to him, and he would not witness them; and he certainly believed in the Presbyterian doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints for he practiced it.

At many of the Methodist revival meetings I have seen him, at the close of the sermon take his grandson, Pat Lockhart, and retire in the most dignified manner. He was a thin, spare man, tall and straight as an Indian and he always walked with a dignified carriage.

In the year 1824, when Adams. Clay and Jackson were candidates for the Presidency, there was a light hors»* militia company in Adams County of which Mr. Hollingsworth was a menlber. At one of their muster days, after the drill and muster was over, and the company was dismounted, the commanding officer drew a line on the groimd for his sword in front of the muster and requested nil who favorcvl Henry Clay for the Presidency to step out of the muster and cross the line. Mr. Hoi-

Pioneer Obaracter Sketches 677

Though not an Abolitionist at the outset, he did not like to live in a slave state and for that reason left Kentucky. He first undertook to be in favor of the removal of the blacks from this country by colonization, but finding that impracticable, he became an ardent Abolitionist, and in his dying hours, he was greatly comforted by the fact that President Lincoln had freed the slaves.

His home in West Union he owned from the time he came there in 1817, and the present Hollingsworth home, built on the plan of "Abraham's delight" at Winchester, Virginia, was built in 1836, in place of his former home taken down to make place for the new one.

The Maysville and Zanesville Turnpike was built between 1838 and 1840, and he superintended its construction between Maysville and West Union. He had three daughters. The first married a Mr. Lockhart. and reared a large family. She died three ^ears ago at the home of one of her sons in Kansas.

Mr. Hollingsworth's daughter, Caroline, never married. She lived in West Union all her life and was most highly esteemed. She furnished the data for this sketch in 1894 and since then she has joined the silent majority.

William Kirker was born January 24, 1791, in the vicinity of Pittsburg, Penn., the son of Governor Thomas Kirker and Sarah Smith, his wife. He was the eldest son and child of a family of thirteen. He married Esther Williamson and died February to, 1857. His father moved to Manchester in 1792 and lived there until 1794 when he located on the well known Kirker farm in Liberty Township. In the War of 1812, he was a First Lieutenant and after the war, he was made a Colonel of the Militia, which position he held until near the time of his death. He was County Commissioner in 1825 and again in 1832. He was made an elder in the Presbyterian Church at West Union in 1826, his father being an elder in the same church. He was a delegate to the Presbytery from his church from September 29, 1826, many times, until April 5, 1854. He was always courteous and kind to everyone and was noted for his philanthropy. Judge J. C. Coryell said of him that he was the most useful man in his community, and that the poor, the widow and the orphan lost their best friend when he died.

His wife, Esther Williamson, was born on June 4, 1797, and died January 4, 1880. He had a large family of children whose descendants are scattered throughout the United States.

late of Wayne Township, Adams County, was bom May 29, 1816. By the time he attained manhood he began work for himself on a farm near Harshaville. He was married in i&j.! to Margaret A. Patton, daughter of John Patton of Cherry Fork, bom on the sixteenth of April, 1824. They had four scmis, three of whom are now living. John Patton Kirkpatrick resides at Kansas City, born June 23, 1843. He married a daughter of William L. McVey. Adams Anderson Kirkpatrick, who has a separate sketch herein, was bom November 14, 1847, and Robert Stewart Kirkpatrick. His wife died soon after the birth of her youngest son, and he was married the following year to Mrs. America Kerr, widow of Robert Kerr. They had one child, Oscar Bennett Kirkpatrick, bom December 6, 1856, now a physician at North Liberty.

Nathaniel Kirkpatrick lived near Harshaville when he was first married. He then removed to the old home, now the property of Huston Harsha, occupied by a man by the name of Beekly, just before his first wife died, and he resided there until 1882, when he removed to North Liberty. While residing at Harshaville, he was one of the first elders in the U. P. Church at Unity, and after his removal to his home on Grace's Run, he was a member of the Cherry Fork Church. He was a trustee of Wayne Township for many years, but never sought or held any public offices, but he usually attended all the political conventions, either as a delegate or spectator.

Mr. Kirkpatrick was a man of wide and extensive reading, well informed on all current topics of Church and State. He was a man of very decided opinions, and was fond of giving expression to them. His opinions on religious and political subjects were well considered, and he was a leader among men. He exercised a great deal of influence in the circles of his own acquaintance. To him is entitled the suggestion which made the Hon. John T. Wilson first State Senator and afterwards Congressman, and many of the political results in his county and district were due to his suggestions. He was a very ardent Republican and always antislavery. He was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, from the station at Gen. William Mclntire's to the house of Joseph W. Rothrock at Mt. Leigh, and has conducted many a fugitive over this route. No fugitive applied to him in vain, and no bondsman ever placed himself under his care and was retumed to slavery. He was an AboHtionist always, but prior to the war, thought it best to go into the Republican party and did so, but never acted as a third party man. Prior to the Republican party he was a Whig. He was a most agreeable companion, a good neighbor and a good citizen. He was always cheerful and genial, and it was always pleasant to meet him and converse with him. He appeared to be built on the plan of which there are very few models, and in this generation which has succeeded him there seems to be fewer. His passing was a loss to the community and to all who knew him. He died June 20, 1886.

was born June 22, 1779, near Richmond, Virginia. He came with his father, Thomas Kincaid, to Limestone (Maysville, Kentucky) about 1788. In 1797, he came to the settlement at Manchester and remained there until 1800, when he married Sallie Hannah, March 27, 1800, and moved to near the Kirker graveyard. Here he and his wife lived for a few years and then moved to what is now the old Kincaid homestead, where they died. They raised a family of eleven children, seven boys and four girls, The boys were Thomas J., John H., Dr. William P., Dr. Samuel W. and Dr. W. P. Kincaid, who was Senator four years from the Clermont County District. John Kincaid was one of the first Justices of the Peace of Liberty Township and served from 1818 to 1830. He was commissioned Captain of the First Company in the First Batallion, Third Regiment, First Brigade and Second Division of the Militia of this State by Gov. Thomas Worthington, May 19, 181 5. He was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment in the First Brigade and Second Division of the Militia of Ohio by Thomas Worthington. Governor, October 20, 1818. He was commissioned Associate Judge for a term of seven years by Governor Allen Trimble, January 18, 1828, which he held at the time of his death, which occurred April 3, 1834. The letters and papers he left behind are living witnesses of a broad and well-balanced mind. He did as much for Adams County from 1800 to 1834 as any man who lived in it. In 181 2, he raised a company at West Union for the war and was appointed Colcmel of a regiment.

John Kincaid was a Presbyterian and helped to build and organize the stone church at West Union in 1809. But in 1830, the Presbyterian Church denounced Free Masonry and he was asked to renounce the order, which he positively refused to do, left the Presbyterian Church and joined the old Union Church at Bentonville.

John Kincaid was one of the charter members Of the West Union Lodge, No. 43, Free and Accepted Masons, which was issued in 1817. He was the first Junior Warden and afterward Master several times. He was a Knight Templar Mason and his Royal Arch apron, sash and Knight Templar jewel are still preserved. The jewel is solid silver and finely engraved. They are all in fine condition and are nearing the century mark. The possessor, his grandson, W. S. Kincaid, prizes them highly. Money could not buy them. Sallie Kincaid, wife of John Kincaid, died October 22, 1824, and on January 19, 1826, he married Dorcas Alexander.

On the morning of April i, 1834, John Kincaid walked down across his farm to look at some calves and came in about ten o'clock, sick, and on the morning of the third, he was a corpse. He died at the age of fifty-five, yet he got in more than a good many men would in one hundred years. At the time of his death, he was the nominee of the Whig party for Congress and would have been elected had he lived.

Joseph West Lafferty was born in Connelsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, October 2y, 1809. In the year 1814 his parents emigrated to Ohio, settled on a farm three miles east of West Union and his father took up the business of wool carding and carried it on for more than thirty years.

From his majority until 1848, he was a Democrat. From November 15, 1834, until December 15, 1841, he was the postmaster at West Union. In 1848, he supported V'an Buren on the Free Soil ticket. When the RepubHcan party was organized in 1856, he identified himself with that and

When the Internal Revenue Act went into effect in 1862, Mr. Lafferty was appointed a Deputy Assessor for his county and served as such for several years. He took great interest in the advancement of the community in which he lived and served on the Board of Education for a number of years. He was a member of the Board when the separate districts were united and a schoolhouse for graded schools built. There was bitter opposition to the new districts and house, but Mr. Lafferty and others stood for the advanced ideas and they prevailed.

In March, 1839, ^^ ^^^^ married to Elizabeth Burwell, daughter of Nicholas Burwell, who survived him. His children were Sarah Rebecca, wife of Smith Grimes of Mineral Springs; Dr. Nelson B. Lafferty. of Hillsboro, Charles L. Lafferty, of Pittsburg, Penn., and Joseph and Julia E. Lafferty, of West Union. Mr. Lafferty was a student of men and affairs. He was a good reader and a careful thinker. He had pronounced views on all public questions and his views were all made and expressed after mature deliberation. It was always agreeable and profitable to listen to his discussion of any subject, because he would not express his views until after much study and after careful deliberation. His views were advanced on all subjects and they were earnest and conscientious. All evil and wrong was abhorrent to him. The emotions of his soul were always generous.

He had the dignity and air of a Chesterfield and it was inborn in him. He always wore a silk hat and wore a standing collar with stock. He was neat and careful of his personal appearance; he had a pleasinji^ address and was always courteous to every one he met. No more of a gentleman in his manners and address could be found anywhere. He was a most useful and valuable citizen, always leading public opinion on all matters of public concern, general or local.

was an early settler of Adams County. He was born November 3, 1769, and must have located in Adams County about 1800. On February 10, 1 8 10, he was appointed an Associate Judge of Adams County, and was reappointed twice, serving continuously in the office until February, 1832.

From April 13, 1836, for three years, he was a Justice of the Peace for Adams County. From July 10, 1841, to November 4, 1846, he was the postmaster at Manchester, Ohio. He died July 4, 1847, and is interred in the old cemetery at Manchester. His wife, Margaret, died August 17, 1826, at the age of forty- four years and he never remarried. He had two sons and two daughters. His sons were Samuel and Lucien. Samuel married Elizabeth Ellison. They lived on the Williamson farm near Manchester, but went to Minneapolis and died there. The daughters were Nancy and Lucinda Jane. Lucinda married David Ellison, a brother of William Ellison and lived and died in Manchester. She has a daughter, Mrs. David Stableton, residing in Manchester.

Judge Livingstone was a Democrat and a Presbyterian. He was a man of the highest integrity and often chosen as guardian and administrator of estates. He enjoyed the confidence of the public all his life.

Pioneer Character Sketches 681

was one of Massie's surveyors and was a native of Mason County, Ken - tucky. He possessed a large fortune and was reported a liberal and honest man. He was unostentatious in his manner and respected by all who knew him. He was nevier married.

Peter Lee was one of Col. Robert Todd's expedition in June, 1787, which marked out Todd's Trace. He was still living in 1826 and testified in May of that year at Georgetown, Ohio, in a case of Martin v. Boone and McDowell, 2 Ohio, 237.

was bom in Winchester, Va., March 24, 1767. There he was reared and there he married Elizabeth Cooley, a widow with one child in June, 1790. She was born in 1760. His eldest child, Sarah, married first to Robert Hood and for a second marriage to Alexander Woodrow, was born July 13, 1791, in Winchester, Virginia. With lliis child, his wife and stepchild, he emigrated to Kentucky in 1792, and in 1794 took up his residence in the Stockade at Manchester, Ohio. He was one of the first grand jurors of Adams County, serving at a Court of Quarter Sessions held at Manchester, September, 1797. He purchased the Col. John Means farm, where A. V. Hutson now resides, directly after the treaty of Greenville, and moved there. His son, William, was bom in Manchester, January 14, 1794. Ludlow was born March 11, 1796, and his son James, long a resident of Portsmouth, was born on the Means farm, March 15, 1798, and here on July 6, 1800, his wife, Elizabeth, died and was buried on the farm.

In June, 1802, he married Hannah Finley, daughter of Major Joseph L. Finley, and by her became the father of the following children, all born in Adams County: Kennedy, Lylc, Joseph, Michael, Preston, John N., Jane E., married to Jacob McCabe, and the only one now living; Martha Scott, afterAvards married to Eli Kinney; Nancy Finley, afterwards married to J. Scott Peebles. In 1803, he was elected Sheriff of the County, and served until 1807. O" ^^y ^7» 1804, be auctioned off the lots in the new town of West Union, and forty-nine years afterwards, on a visit to West Union, could point out each lot and the name of the person to whom he sold it. In 1810, he was again elected sheriff and served one term. In 1812, though fifty-five years'of age, he went into the war at the head of a regiment and performed distinguished services. He was an excellent disciplinarian and one of the bravest of men. Gen. Harrison, under whom he served, gave great meed of praise to his soldierly qualities. In 18 19, he was a fourth time elected Sheriff of the County and served one term. While he held the office, at the opening of the term, he formed a procession and marched the judges from the hotel to the court room with martial music. On these occasions he wore a cocked hat and carried a sword. No one sustained the dignity of the office as fully as he did. He was very fond of musters, and on these occasions he was much admired for his soldierly bearing.

In 1815, he moved to West Union, and built the house afterwards known as the Benjamin Woods tavern, and where Lewis Johnston now resides. In 1819, he sold his farm in Sprigg Township to Col. John Means and purchased the McDade farm west of West Union in Liberty

Township. He was County Commissioner from December i, 1823, for three years. He removed to the McDade farm after his retirement from the Sheriff's office. On July 28, 1827, his second wife, Hannah Finley, died, agped forty-four years.

In October, 1828, he married his third wife, Eliza B. Elliot, a widow, who died October 2, 1857, in Hamilton County, Ohio, and is buried at Spring Grove, Cincinnati. In 1832, Col. John Lodwick sold all his possessions in Adams County and purchased a farm in Storrs Township, Hamilton County, where he spent the remainder of his days. This farm fronted the Ohio River, and he sold off part after part for suburban residences until finally he sold the last part of it and moved on to Pike Street in Cincinnati, where he died.

Many of the prominent families of Cincinnati have suburban homes on the land he bought in 1832. While residing in Storrs Township, he connected himself with the Presbyterian Church, and was a faithful member for the remainder of his days. In 1840, he had the remains of his two wives, Elizabeth and Hannah, taken up and re-buried in the West Union Cemetery. He placed over them a slab tomb, giving the usual data as to birth and death, followed by this :

From that time, during the remainder of his life, as long as able to travel, every summer, he would visit West Union for the purpose of looking after this tomb. His daughter, Sarah, resided in West Union and he would visit her. He always brought her many household gifts and would sometimes remain several weeks. On one of these visits the writer met and conversed with him. He had the most remarkable physical powers. He survived until the age of ninety-four and was then carried off by a cancer of the face. Had it not been for this, he would easily have lived beyond a century. Think of one dying prematurely at ninetyfour, but such was the case of Col. Lodwick. Not one in 100,000 had such vitality as he had. He was always full of animal spirits, of humor and fun. No one enjoyed a humorous story more than he did, and but few had such a repertoire of them.

He was always an entertaining and agreeable companion, as well for the young as for the old, and he retained all his faculties and his great flow of spirits to the last. At ninety-four, he was as cheerful, humorous and urbane as at any part of his life.

In politics, he was always a Democrat and never wavered from that faith. He trained all his sons in that party and they adhered to it during their lives. In religion, he was a Presbyterian and greatly devoted to the church.

No descendants of his are now living in Adams County. A number of them reside in Cincinnati and a few still remain in Portsmouth. It seems remarkiable to reflect that one who at twenty-four years of age had resided in the Stockade at Manchester should survive till the day of President Lincoln's first inauguration, March 4, 1861.

Pioneer Character Sketches 588

Joseph Logan was bom a slave in the State of North Carolina, about 1797 or 1798. He was, of course, kept in ignorance of reading or writing, and was brought up as slaves were at that time. He belonged to the Smith family, then a prominent family in North Carolina, and a daughter of which had married the Reverend William Williamson. He resided in Rutherford County. In about 1817, he contracted a slave marriage with Jemima, a black girl of about seventeen years of age, the property of another branch of the Smith family. Logan was then called Smith, after the family name of his master, John Smith. He was of ordinary height, weight about one hundred and forty pounds, and was a V-shaped man, with broad shoulders, and muscular in every fibre of his frame.

He was as black as a coal, and slave as he was, he was a man, in the full sense of the term, and would take no affront, either for himself, or for any of his friends. While of ordinary size, he was more powerful and muscular than most of the men of his race, and would not hesitate to use his great strength when occasion required.

He was a favorite servant of his master, and usually travelled with him on all of his journeys. In 1803, his master's sister, Mrs. Jane Smith Williamson, emigrated to Ohio with her husband, and they had taken twenty-seven of his race with them, to set them free.

Joseph had accompanied his master to Ohio on a visit to his master's sister, between 1806 and 1816, and had some idea of a free State, and the condition of the freemen of his race. In 18 19, by the death of the owner of his wife, she was willing to pay a legacy of $300 to Jane Smith Williamson, his master's niece, and he knew that she was liable to be sold to pay the legacy, and to be sent to the slave market in New Orleans, and this probable event was freely talked of in the family. His feelings, while such an event was impending, cannot be told. Fortunately for him, Miss Jane Williamson would not permit his wife to be sold, but elected to take her and her two children in satisfaction of the legacy. He heard of this, but did not know what it meant, imtil Miss Williamson came from Ohio, and stated that she would take Jemima and her two children. In the meantime, one of Jemima's children died, leaving her with but one. Logan begged Miss Williamson to buy him, and take him to Ohio with his wife ; but she was unable to do so, for want of means.

It was the tenth of March, 1821, when Miss Williamson and her brother, afterward the Reverend Thomas Smith Williamson, started North. Each of them rode horseback, and the third horse carried Jemima and her child. Logan was not permitted to bid his wife and child good-bye, nor did he know they were started until after they had gone, and it was some time after they left before he learned of their destination. He simply knew that Miss Williamson intended to take Jemima away with her when she went. That same summer his master visited Ohio and took Logan with him. John Smith visited his sister, Mrs. Williamson, and Logan got to see his wife and spent some time with her, and it was there that he told her that he intended to be a free man, and a slave no longer.

ing several months in Ohio, John Smith took his slave Logan, and went back to North Carolina. Logan took note of the entire route of their return, and determined to escape at the first opportunity.

He made friends with the slaves on his route, returning, so that they would remember him, and aid him. As a precautionary measure to his escape, he privately beat and whipped all the slave-hunting dogs in the vicinity of his home, so that they would refuse to follow him.

He started in the summer of 1822, the next summer after his return from Ohio. While his master would not follow him, knowing that he would never be taken alive, other slave hunters of the vicinity undertook to recapture him, but the dogs refused their accustomed duties. When they found the trail of Logan, they sneaked back to their masters, and thus, the hunt had to be abandoned. But Logan was pursued at several points along his route by strange dogs. At one time he killed two dogs with a hatchet, which he carried with him, and wounded two others so badly that they had to be killed. At another time, he plunged into a river to escape the dogs. Two of them swam into the river after him, and he seized them, one at a time, and held their heads under the water until they were drowned. He could not be taken by dogs, as he either frightened them so badly they would not follow him, or he would fight and kill them before the hunters could come up to them. At one time, he was so closely pushed that he was forced to abandon Ihe clothing which he carried, and which was of the best quality, the gift of his master. At another time he was so closely pursued by two men on horseback, that they were within a few feet of him. They ordered him to halt, but he refused, whereupon, they shot at him, but missed him. He traveled mostly by night, and followed the North Star. Wherever he could, he walked in the streams to cut off the scent of the dogs, for these often followed him a short distance. He knew the general course of the mountains and streams he had crossed before, and kept to the' North all the time.

He went from North Carolina to the Poage settlement In Tennessee, where he was acquainted. There he learned that Colonel James Poage had taken his slaves North, and set them free. At this point he came very .near being being recaptured by professional slave hunters. His master had not pursued him, and would not. He knew, and had been told, that Logan would not be recaptured, and would die rather than suffer such a thing. He was, therefore, willing to suffer his loss; but this did not prevent slave hunters anywhere along his route from seeking to recapture him.

The rivers on his route he swam, where he could not wade them: but he swam none, until he had first inspected them by daylight, and then swam them at night. Most of his travelling was done between midnight and morning, and on clear nights. He made his inquiries for the route, of slaves, of children, or of white men, whom he met alone. He would inquire for a route, but would never take the one he inquired for, but would travel parallel with it and away from it.

Occasionally, he ventured to travel by daylight. He swam the Ohio River near Ashland, Kentucky, and started westward, inquiring for the Reverend William Williamson, w^ho was well known in Ohio. He thought it safe to travel by daylight in a free State. Not far east of Portsmouth, he met two men, wiio were willing to be man hunters.

Pioneer Character Sketches 586

They recognized him as a fugitive from labor, and told him they believed they would take him and remand him to slavery. He picked one of them up, and threw him over an adjoining fence. Then the next one concluded that Logan was too powerful a darkey for him to tamper with. They gave him directions, however, to find the Reverend William Williamson, and he took a detour, miles to the north. Near Bentonville, he met a stone cutter who attempted to arrest him. Logan told him he could not take him South unless he killed him first. He then hid himself until the next morning.

"The Beeches," where Rev. Williamson resided, was about a mile and a half from Bentonville, and his wife resided there. Next morning, after his adventure with the "Stone cutter, his wife was the first person he met, and that must have been a joyful meeting for two poor, black people, who felt that they had no friends on tarth but each other.

Jemima had been looking anxiously for her husband, as he had told her, when on the visit the year before, that he intended to come to her, or die in the attempt.

Logan's master knew very well where he was. In fact, several slave hunters wrote him, offering to take Logan back to slavery for a suitable reward, but the master declined to give any reward. He knew that Logan would not be taken alive, and dead, he had no value.

Logan made enemies, who wrote his master where he was, and to come and take him; but the master declined to attempt to recapture him. Logan gave it out freely that if any attempt were made to recapture him, he would kill as many of his captors as he could, and would die himself, before he would be retaken. He had demonstrated his physical prowess on many occasions, and his statement was strictly believed.

In Ohio, Logan was a part of the Underground Railroad system, and he helped every runaway slave he could, to freedom. At one time, twelve slave catchers had surrounded his cabin, but he and his friends got away from them. Once, he accompanied the late Thomas Means to Bentonville. Some of the citizens expressed surprise that a fugitive slave should go abroad so boldly. Mr. Means told them that if any of them were fools enough to get killed trying to recapture Logan, the community could very well spare them. It was a common thing- in West Union, Ohio, after Logan removed there, for anyone who got angry with Logan, to write to his master to come and take him back ; but the master, having promised to free him, and Logan having freed himself, declined to take any steps or to offer any reward to reclaim him.

Logan, like Hercules, was in the habit of carrying a great club with him wherever he went, and it was well known that he would use it on dogs or men, as occasion required. Once, he was caught without his club, and was attacked by three men. Thev were all armed, and he was not. They attempted to seize him, but before they could do anything, he knocked them all three down, disarmed all of them, and then told them that he was glad he had forgotten his club that day, as otherwise, no doubt he would have killed them.

Barney Mullen lived near West Union, and would come to the village, get drunk and over-awe every one by his prowess. ' He had the common Irish prejudice against a negro, and one day struck Logan with his fist. Logan staggered for several yards, but did not fall. As he recovered, he came back at Mullen with a rush, and butted him over. He then pounded him well, and filled his e>'«s with sand from the* highway It took Barney two hours to wash the sand from his eyes. Soon after, he left the country in disgust, emigrating to Illinios. He declared he would not live in a country where a negro could whip a white man.

Logan was fond of being about the hotels and public stables in West Union, and handling horses. He was a follower and attendant of some of the fast young men of West Union, notably, of Bill Lee. One day in 1849, Lee was drunk, and handling a revolveir in his right hand. He dropped it on the floor, and it was discharged, the ball lodging in Logan's great toe. The wound brought on lockjaw, of which Logan died. He was thus carried off in his prime, with a constitution, which, in the ordinary course of nature, would have lasted him to the age of ninety.

Logan learned to read after he came to Ohio, and there is a story that his freedom was purchased of his master for $200, of which he contributed $100 himsdf, and $100 was contributed by his friends. I am led to believe that this story is not true; but it was current in his lifetime for many years before his death. Logan, no doubt, gave it countenance, for it served as a protection against the man hunters. It is said that Logan's master visited Ohio several times after Logan's escape and always saw him and conversed with him on those occasions.

On the first visit after Logan's escape, the master asked Logan to return to North Carolina, urging the kind treatment he had always received. Logan admitted that, but said that he had escaped to be with his wife, and preferred to remain in Ohio. The master told him that he would never send for him, and gave him $10, assuring him of his good wishes.

Jemima, the wife of Logan, survived until September 25, 1885, when she died at the supposed age of eighty-five. Logan left several children. Joseph Logan, his son, at the age of sixty-one, is a resident of West Union. He is a quiet, peaceable citizen, respected by all. Logan also left a daughter, who is married and has a family of children ; one girl of which is a music teacher, and has a class of white pupils.

Jane Williamson, who set Jemima free, at a great sacrifice to herself, survived until the twenty-fourth of March, 1895, when she passed away at the great age of ninety-three. The history of the world contains no nobler act than the freeing of Jemima by Jane Williamson, and no more daring adventure than that of the escape of Logan.

was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, May 8, 1786. He was married to Margaret Black, of Ohio, January 3, 1809. In 1812, he was a Captain in the Voluntaer Service, and was stationed at Buffalo, and then called to the frontier. He was there until Christmas and then went home. He went to Columbus, Ohio, in 1817, and was Mayor of the town in 1823. On locating in Columbus, he connected with the First Presbyterian Church and soon after was made one of its ruling elders. While in Columbus, he followed the business of contracting on public works, as such he never worked on Sunday or permitted the men in his employ to do so. His wife died in 1827, and in 1829 he was married to Miss Elizabeth K. Cunning. He remained in Columbus until 183 1,. when he went to Rockville to get stone to build the canal locks at Cincinnati to lead the canal into the river. That took three years. He then went into the business of building steamboats and built the "Columbia," the "Atlanta" and others. He built a large saw and grist mill at Rockville and carried on a large business. He also went into the culture of peaches and pears. He had great success in the peach culture. He retired from business in 1855, turning it over to his son, John C. Loughry, except the fruit business, which he retained until his death. He to6k a great interest in the Presbyterian Church at Sandy Springs and had the church and parsonage rebuilt. He was an elder in Dr. Hayes' Church in Columbus while a resident there and also in the Sandy Springs Church. He was liberal in all things, kind and generous. He was the build of men which keeps the world going and preserves all that is good in it. He was an enterprising, loyal citizen, a good man, a pleasant neighbor and a devoted Christian.

, He died August 6, 1862, leaving a son, John C. Loughry, who has a sketch herein, and two daughters, Mrs. Dr. Awl, of Columbus, Ohio, and Mrs. Dr. Marshall, of Blairsville, Pennsylvania.

the founder of Manchester and the leader in the third settlement in Ohio, was born December 28, 1763, in Goochland (.'ounty, Virginia His grandfather, Charles Massie, with two brothers, had emigrated to Virginia from Chester in England in 1680. His son, Nathaniel Massie, was married to Elizabeth Watkins in 1760 and our subject was their eldest child. He had two brothers and a sister. His brother Henry was the original proprietor and founder of the city of Portsmouth, Scioto County. When he was eleven years of age, his mother died, and two years later his father married again. Nathaniel Massie had a good education and learned the science of surveying. In 1780 and 1781, he served with the Virginia Militia in the War of the Revolution.

In 1783, at the close of the Revolutionary War, at the age of twenty, young Massie set out for Kentucky. He was a surveyor. His father had already located lands in Kentucky and he had excellent letters of introduction. He adapted himself to the conditions of life he found in Kentucky and made a most expert woodsman, hunter and Indian fighter. He had courage, endurance, and a happy temperament. He would endure any hardships incident to his life without complaint. He was a trader in salt in 1788 and made money in the business. He established a reputation as a land locator which brought him business and made him money. He was a tall and uncommonly fine looking young man. His form was slender and well made. He was muscular, very active, and his countenance expressed energy and good w«ense. During his residence in Kentucky, he made several expeditions into that part of the Northwest Territory now Ohio, and in 1790, formed the determination to establish a settlement at Manchester. He offered an inlot, an outlot and one hundred acres of land to the first twenty-five who would accompany him. His offers were accepted by nineteen persons, and a written contract entered into December i, 1790. Of those who signed, the de-

In the winter of 1790, in pursuance of this agreement, a settlement was made at Manchester, composed of Virginians, the third in Ohio. A block house and stockade were built. While the first people of Manchester lived in daily dread of the Indians, and while two of their number were carried off by them, yet they enjoyed themselves more than the present inhabitants. Massie was not, however, content to remain at the Station at Manchester. He located the land on Gift Ridge in Monroe Township in order to give each of his settlers the one hundred acres of land he had promised and he located one thousand acres of the finest upland for himself, being the tract afterward known as Buckeye Station. This he sold to his brother-in-law. Judge Byrd, in 1807. Massie began his explorations of the Scioto country soon after his location at Manchester and explored Paint Valley. Here, two miles west of Bainbridge, he located one thousand acres of land on which he afterward made his home. It is today the finest body of land in Ohio, and the writer would rather own it than any rract of the same quantity in the state. Massie must have had a wonderful faculty of judging land in the virgin forest, for he never failed to select excellent land. In 1796, he located the city of Chillicothe. In 1799, he represented Adams County in the first Territorial Legislaure with Joseph Darlinton as his colleague.

In December, 1797, though a layman, he was a Common Pleas Judge of Adams County, and a Colonel of the Militia. He was married to Miss Susan Everad Meade, daughter of Colonel David Meade, of Chaumiere. Kentucky, in 1800, and thereby became the brother-in-law of Charles Willing Byrd, then Secretary of the Northwest Territory, and of William Creighton, the first Secretary of the State of Ohio. He was a member of the second Territorial Legislature from Ross County, where he had taken up his residence. He was a member of the first Constitutional Convention from that county. He was a member of the State Senate from Ross County at its first and second sessions.

On January 11, 1804, he was commissioned as Major General of the Second Division of the Ohio Militia, having been elected to that office by the Legislature. It is from this appointment he derived the title of General. At the same time his friend, David Bradford of Adams County, was commissioned as Quartermaster General of the same division. He was a member of the House from Ross County in 1806 and 1807, and a candidate for Governor in 1807 and received 4,757 votes to 6,050 votes for Return J. Meigs, who was declared ineligible to the office. Massie declined to take the office when Meigs was declared ineligible and it was filled by his friend, Thomas Kirker, Speaker of the Senate. To show how he was estimated among those who knew him best we give the vote for Governor in the following counties: Ross - Massie, 1032: Meigs, 62; Adams - Massie, 441; Meigs, 114; Franklin - Massie, 332 ; Meigs, 30.

On the question of the ineligibility of Meigs for the office of Governor, the vote of the General Assembly stood twenty-four in favor to twenty against. Thomas Kirker, the Senator from Adams and Scioto and Speaker, did not vote. Of the representatives from Adams and

Scioto, Dr. Alexander Campbell, Andrew Ellison and Phillip Lewis, Jr., voted the ineligibility of Meigs. That vote made Thomas Kirker Governor from December 8, 1807, for another year. Massie might have had the honor himself, but preferred that it should go to Thomas Kirker, who was Governor of the State almost two years without having been elected to the office, by filling two successive vacancies.

General Massie's activity in public affairs largely ceased after his race for Governor. He had a national reputation and was known as well in Kejntucky and Virginia as in Ohio. He resided in the Virginia Military District and was better acquainted with it both as to the manner of locating lands and the lands in it that any man of his time. He was employed in locating warrants wherever he could or would accept employment. Of course he could not serve all and had to refuse many, but his friends were numerous and some he could not deny. Besides, he had a large private business of his own. The large tracts of real estate which he owned required most of his time. He made sales, subdivisions for purchasers, perfected titles, made deeds, paid taxes and made leases. He built saw and grist mills, paper mills, and, at the time of his death, was making ready to build an iron furnace.

He was full of the activities of this life, but his career was cut short. In the fall of 18 13, he was attacked by pneumonia, the result of exposure. The doctors of that day believed in heroic treatment and the result was that he was bled profusely and the disease carried him off. He died November 3, 181 3, at his pleasant home and was buried there in a field in front of the house, between it and Paint Creek. His wife survived him until 1837, when she died and was buried at his side. There their remains rested until June, 1870, when, by request of the citizens of Chillicothe, they were removed to the beautiful cemetery of Chillicothe and rcinterred on a lot which overlooks the entire city.

General Massie was a lover of fine scenery. He enjoyed the view from Buckeye Station many times, in all its primitive wilderness. He enjoyed the view from his home in the picturesque Paint Valley, and in life he has stood on the spot where his ashes are laid and viewed the beautiful Scioto Valley, and could his spirit visit the scene of the last resting place of his body, it would no doubt be satisfied with the honor shown his memory by the people of Chillicothe.

His son, Nathaniel Massie, was for the greater part of his life a citizen of Adams County. He was born February 16, 1805, in Ross County. He married a daughter of the Rev. John Collins and reared a large family. He made his home in Adams County from 1854 until 1874, when his wife died. He removed to Hillsboro in 1880 and resided there until his death in March, 1894. He and his wife are interred in the old South Cemetery at West Union in a spot which has as fine an outlook as the spot where his distinguished father reposes.

We have refrained from giving a more extensive account of General Nathaniel Massie because his life has recently (1896) been published by his distinguished grandson, the Hon. David Meade Massie, of Chillicothe, Ohio, and we could only copy from that most interesting work. To all who desire to read up the founding of our State, we recommend the persual of this work. General Massie was the founder of Adams County and of its largest town, Manchester, and his memory should be held in affectionate remembrance by every citizen of the county.

iron manufax:turer, son of John and Anne (Williamson) Means, was born November 3, 1803, in Spartansburg, South Carolina. He spent six years in a select school established by his father, which was chiefly for the education of his own children, and he acquired, not only a fine English education, but also a respectable knowledge of the classics. His father moved to Ohio in 1819, when he was sixteen years of age. He labored upon his father's farm and clerked in a store for several years in which hife father was interested in West Union, and in 1826 he took a flatboat loaded with produce to New Orleans. In the same year he became storekeeper at Union Furnace which his father and others were then building four miles from Hanging Rock. This was the first blast furnace built in Ohio in the Hanging Rock region, and he had the pleasure of first "firing" it. The old Steam, Hopewell, Pactolus and Argillite w^ere the only furnaces previous in existence in that region and they were in Kentucky. Since 1885, the old Union has not been in operation, but the lands belonging to it are yet, in part, owned by his heirs. In 1837, he and David Sinton became the owners of Union Furnace and rebuilt it in 1844. In 1845, they built Ohio Furnace. In 1847, he became interested in, and helped build Buena Vista Furnace in Kentucky. In 1852, he bought Belief onte Furnace in Kentucky. In 1854, he became interested in and helped build Vinton Furnace in Ohio; in 1863, in connection with others, bought Pine Grove Furnace in Kentucky, and the Hanging Rock coal works, and in the following year, with others, bought Amanda Furnace in Kentucky. In 1845, he and David Sinton built a tram-road to Ohio Furnace, one of the first roads of its kind built in Ohio, and now a railroad five miles in length runs from the river to Pine Grove Furnace. The Ohio was the first charcoal furnace in the country which made as high as ten tons a day and was the first that averaged over fifteen tons. This furnace also produced iron with less expense to the ton than had then been achieved in any other. In 1832, when the Union had been worked up to six tons a day, the Pennsylvania furnaces were averaging but two tons. He, in connection with the Culbertsons, built the Princess, a stonecoal furnace, ten miles from Ashland, in Kentucky, and also, later with Capt. John Kyle and E. B. Willard, built another at Hanging Rock. In the first year of Union Furnace, three hundred tons of iron were produced; in the last year, 1855, it reached twenty-five hundred. Three hundred in 1837 was as large a yearly production as had been reached in the United States, and this rate was fully up to that of England. The largest furnaces now reach fifteen thousand tons a month in this country. Under the superintendence of himself and David Sinton, the experiments for introducing the hot blast were first made, and at their Union Furnace they put up the second hot blast in the United States, only a few years after its introduction in 1828. This was probably the greatest step forward that had yet been made in the manufacture of iron. Always favoring the advance in improvements, many changes were made by him in the form of furnaces and in the modes of operating them. Under his patronage, in i860, at Ohio Furnace, was introduced the Davis hot blast, which greatly improved and modified the charcoal furnaces of the country. He was longer engaged and doubtless more extensively and directly concerned in the growth and prosperity of the iron business than any other man in the Ohio Valley. Besides his large interests in the various furnaces, he had a very considerable interest in eighteen thousand acres of iron ore, coal and farm lands in Ohio, and nearly fifty thousand acres in Kentucky. He was one of the originators of the Cincinnati and Big Sandy Packet Company and was its leading stockholder ; was one of the incorporators of the Norton Iron Works of Ashland, Kentucky, and one of its largest stockholders ; helped lay out the town of Ashland, was a large stockholder in the Ironton "Ohio Iron Railroad Company;" was one of the originators of the Second National Bank of Ironton, and its president at the organization in 1864, and was also a stockholder of the Ashland Naticmal Bank.

In 1865, he purchased a farm near Hanging Rock and resided there several years. He cast his first Presidential vote for John Quincy Adams, and was indentified with the Whig party while it lasted. At its dissolution, he became a Republican, and during the Civil War was an ardent supporter of the National Government. In his religious views, he was a Presbyterian, but not a member of any church. After the organization of the Congregational Church in Ironton, he attended that. ,

He was a man of fine personal appearance and correct business habits; of a strong constitution, able to sustain a long life of incessant activity; with a high sense of social and business integrity, his great fortune was the legitimate result of uncommon business ability an-d judgment. He possesed a pleasing address, was agrdeable in manners and wholly void of ostentation. He had a peculiarly retentive memory as to historical and statistical facts. He could give names, dates of election and length of terms of State and National officers - Presidents, Congressmen, U. S. Justices, etc. Could give dates and other facts as to tariflf legislation, and as to treaties with foreign countries; also could give in millions, tons, bushels, dollars, values of the imports and exports and production by the United States, and of many of the States, for instance, of cotton, corn, wheat, hay, iron, wines, etc. He was fond of discussion, and often in argument about protection, etc., surprised hearers at his accurate knowledge of matters. He had always a good general knowledge of his business affairs, was good at planning, but poor in detail. Was fearless of man or beast, but careless as to his dress.

Mr. Means was married December 4, 1828, to Sarah Ellison, daughter of John Ellison, Jr., of Buckeye Station, Adams County. She died in 1871 at the age of sixty-one in their home at Hanging Rock. Their children now living are John, of Ashland, William and Margaret. In December, 1881, he bought a residence in Ashland, Kentucky, where he lived until his death, June 8, 1890. No man did more for the development of the Hanging Rock iron region that he, and in that respect he was a gjeat public benefactor.

was born in Adams County, Ohio, June 2, 1821. He received his common school education in a log schoolhouse near his father's home. He taught school three winters, continuing to work on the farm in the summer. In 1842, he started to college at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, graduated in 1846, and was licensed to preach the Gospel by the Chillicothe Presbytery, April, 1849, ^^^ was ordained by the same August 21,

1858. He was Pastor of Tranquility congregation for six years. He was elected as Professor of Mathematics in -Monmouth College, Illinois, in 1856 and served in that capacity until the autumn of 1862. He was Chaplain of the 9th Illinois Regiment from August, 1863, until August, 1864. He published the Western Presbyterian for several years at Monmouth, Illinois; was pastor of Fairfield, Illinois, congregation from January i, 1866, until December, 1870; of Amity, Iowa, from March i, 1871, until August 30, 1876. He was appointed general missionary by the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church for Nebraska and Kansas and served in that capacity for one year. He was pastor of Mission Creek Church from April i, 1878. 'mtil December i, 1889; was pastor of the U. P. congregation at Starkville, Miss., for about one and a half years. When there, he broke down with nervous prostration and had to abandon the active work of the ministry. He returned to Mission Creek, Nebraska, and has made his home with his only daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Barr, ever since, preaching only occasionally when able.

He received the degree of D. D. from Monmouth College. He is the author of the "Life of the Rev. David MacDill, D. D.,'' and of the '^History of the Ninth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers."

Recompense Murphy was born in Pitts' Grove, Salem County, New Jersey, in 1774. He emigrated to Ohio in 1805, coming down the river in a flat-boat. He had been married in New Jersey to Catherine Newkirk. Her grandfather was David Whittaker, and he and his wife followed Recompense Murphy to Ohio.

Our subject located the first summer on the Ohio River, at the mouth of Turkey Creek, in Scioto County. After that, he went to Sandy Springs, Adams County, where he bought land and farmed. He built a brick house on his land near the river front, which has long since disappeared, having been destroyed by the encroachments of the Ohio River. He had a brother William who came with him from New Jersey, but removed to Illinois, were he died. Samuel Murphy, another brother, located near Franklin, Ohio. Mary, a sister, married Samuel Swing, whose son David, was the father of the celebrated Professor Swing, of Chicago. Our subjec^t had a brJother, John, who remained in New Jersey. Another sister, Elizabeth, married a Mr. Ogden and lived at Fairmount, near Cincinnati.

The children of Recompense Murphy were David Whittaker Murphy, born in 1800, of whom a separate sketch appears, Jacob Murphy, who located in Whiteside County, Illinois, and retaining the Presbyterian faith of his mother, became an dder in the church there; Recompense Sherry Murphy, who lived and died at Sandy Springs; Samuel M. Murphy, of Garrison's, Kentucky, now deceased; John Murphy, who resides near Quincy, Kentucky; William, who emigrated to California ; Robert, who died at the age of eighteen ; Rebecca, wife of Simon Truitt, who resides at Agricola, Coffey County, Kansas, at the age of eighty-seven; Rachel Warring, who removed to Posey County, Indiana; Catherine Cox, widow of Martin Cox, who resides at Rome,

Pioneer Character Sketches 593

Recompense Murphy's first wife was a Presbyterian, a member of the Sandy Springs Church from 1826 until her death, June 30, 1832. Recompense Murphy was married a second time to Matilda Ives, a widow, whose maiden name was Fuller, a native of Broome County, New York. Her father was at one time a member of the General Assembly of that State. She was a shrewd, keen Yankee. Some time in the sixties, she removed to her homt in New York and died there.

ReccMnpense Murphy died November 18, 1844. He made his will February 25, 1837. It was witnessed by Socrates Holbrook, Robert W. Robb, Isaac Carr and J. D. Redden. It was proven December 20, 1844, in Adams County. He gave his mansion house and one-third of his farm to his wife. He mentioned all of his children, but having already provided for four of his sons, he provided in the will for the remaining sons and two daughters. The document indicates that he was a just man. He was a member of the Sandy Springs Baptist Church, joining the same after his second marriage, and died in that faith. He was an excellent citizen and aimed to do his part in every respect in his place in the world and his cotemporaries have left the record that accomplished what he undertook. His ddscendants are living witnesses that his training produced the best results.

David Whittaker Murphy, son of Recompense Murphy and Catherine Newkirk, his wife, was bom in Salem County, New Jersey, in 1800. He was brought by his parents to Adams County when five years of age.

This incident occurred when our subject was about twelve years of age. He and another boy near his own age were crossing the Ohio River in a canoe, one sitting at either end. When they had gotton far into the current, they noticed a large animal swimming toward them. It proved to be a bear, nearly grown, and was almost exhausted by its efforts. Seeing them, it made for their canoe and climbel in. The boys, of course, were very much frightened, but nevertheless, continued paddling their canoe to the landing. The moment they touched the shore, bruin sprang out and disappeared. The boys were as glad to be rid of their shaggy companion as he was of their company.

Our subjelct grew to manhood in Sandy Sprinjgs neighborhoodt, having the advantages of such schools as were there, and having the fun and sports that boys of his time were privileged to have. His first wife was a Miss Julia Ann Tumelr, whom he married in Bracken County, Kentucky. By this marriage there were two sons and a daughter ; James, William and Anna Maria. The sons both went South before the Civil War, and were soldiers in the Confederate Army. William was Lieutenant of a Mississippi Battery.

David Murphy's second wife was Cynthia Givens, a widow, whose maiden name was McCall. The children of this marriage were David A., married to Jennie M. Ball, of Portsmouth, Ohio, now living at Oxford. Ella M. Evans, wife of Mitchell Evans, a prominent citizens of Scioto County, residing at Friendship, Ohio; Leonidas Hamline, a partner in the well known wholesale shoe house of C. P. Tracy & Company, of

Portsmouth ; John Fletcher Murphy, a clerk in the Auditor's Office of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Company, in Cincinnati, and Miss Tillie M. Murphy, residing at Valparaiso, Indiana. Our subject and his second wife, Cynthia Givens, were earnest members of the Methodist Church all their days. Until 1848, he was a farmer, residing in Adams County, Ohio. In that year he left Adams County and removed to Buena Vista, just over the line of Adams County, in Scioto County, where he kept a hotel for awhile. He was postmaster at Buena . Vista from 1868 until 1873. His home in Buena Vista was a delightful on«e where it was always pleasant to visit. After the death of his second wife, in 1873, he made his home with his daughter, Mrs. Evans, of Friendship, Ohio, until his death in 1892. Mr. Murphy had a great deal of dry humor and could express himself so as to entertain his hearers and amuse them at th«e same time. He was always anti-slavery, and once, a long time before the war, being asked if he would help execute the Fugitive Slave Law, he said, "Yes, if called by the United States Marshal to be part of a posse to catch fugitives, I would help, as I must obey the law, but I would be very lame." He served as a Justice of the Peace in the two counties of Adams and Scioto, for a period of fifty years, and his decisions gave general satisfaction. He could draw an ordinary deed as well as any lawyer. In politics, he was a Whig, until the Republican party was organized, when, after 1856, he went into that party and remained a member of it during his life. However, he voted for Fillmore for President in 1856, because he fdt that his election would better preserve the Union. In i860, he voted for Lincoln and for ev«ry Republican presidential candidate from that time until 1888, his last presidential vote, which was for Benjamin Harrison. He died in February, 1892.

was a son of Recompense and Catherine (Newkirk) Murphy, who came from New Jersey and settled at the mouth of Turkey Creek, Scioto County, Ohio, in 1805, where the subject of this sketch was bom May 12, 1806. Recompense Murphy, Senior, soon after moved to the Irish Bottoms in Adams County, and located on a farm.

Recompense Sherry Murphy spent his early life working on the farm. He was married to Rachel Kelley, August 4, 1831. They liv^ed together in happy wedlock for fifty-three years. To them were born nine children, four boys and five girls, of whom the following are living: Mary Burwell, Troy, Ohio ; Emman McCall, Agricola, Kansas ; John R., Wellsville, Kansas ; Abram K., of Rushtown, Ohio, and Lucy Givens, of Buena Vista, Ohio.

He united with the Baptist Church about 1835 and remained a devoted member until his death. In politics, he was an unwavering Republican. His wife died May 28, 1883, and he followed her January 5, 1 89 1, aged eighty-five years.

died July 3, 1849, aged sixty-five years. His wife, Margaret, daughter of Andrew and Mary Ellison, died March 6, 1845, in the fifty-fifth year of her age. Their only son, Joseph McConnick, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1814.

Pioneer Chara.Cter Sketches 696

He was a plain common Irshman, with the strongest emphasis on- Irish, as it shone out all about him. He lived on Brush Creek awhile, then moved to West Union. He was a member of the Baptist Church in West Union. He was a strong Whig. He owned a large tract of land near Jacksonville, in Meigs Township. He purchased the Palace Hotel property of the estate of his sister, Isabella Burgess, and died there. He lived in Cincinnati a good part of his time. He was living there in 1814 when his son Joseph was bom. He was also living there in 1831 when his sister married Rev. Dyer Burgess. He was a strong Baptist. He donated the ground where the Baptist Church in West Union stands and built the church. He had considerable improved property in Cincinnati and was at that city to collect his rents in June, 1849, ^"^ when he returned to West Union, was taken sick and died. At the time of his death, he was Superintendent of the Baptist Sunday School in West Union.

It is said he came from Ireland a lad and worked about the furnaces in Adams County. He was the architect of his own fortune. He made money, but how, is now buried in oblivion, but he made it honestly and was highly esteemed as a citizen. He was a carpenter by trade, and was the contractor and builder of the first bridge built in Adams County where the iron bridge now stands. James Anderson crossed it with a team and wagcm loaded with pig iron from Steam Furnace, and that was the only team which ever, crossed it. There was a sudden rise in Brush Creek which undermined one of the piers and the bridge fell. Adam Mc- Cormick lived on the farm on which George A. Thomas now resides. He removed to West Union and purchased the Dyer Burgess property and lived there from 1842 until his death, in 1849.

He was married to Margaret Ellison, April 6, 1813. Andrew Ellison was running Steam Furnace and Adam McCormick was a patttern maker and made patterns at the furnace while his father-in-law run it. James Anderson teamed between Steam Furnace and the river, hauling pig iron, supplies, etc. When the furnace shut down, Adam McCormick went to farming.

We have eight letters written by him to his friend, Robert Shaw, in Virginia. The first is dated Raleigh, Buckingham County, June i, 1809. He acknowledges his of the 20th, in which he finds that his friend had a tedious passage (by water) from Richmond to Baltimore and was seasick. He says he has enjoyed a good estate of health since his friend left. He was a merchant and complains that collections were slow. He desires his friend to bring him a Beed plane that will work one-eighth .of an inch and one-half dozen of two- foot rules.

On December 28, 1812, he writes from* Raleigh, N. C. He asks how his business with the negroes of Anthony Jones is settled. He says he has been tossed on the wheel of fortune since he saw him. It seems he went to Baltimore and purchased goods, and shipped them to Richmond, intending to take them to Nelson C. H., Virginia. At Baltimore, he met a Mr. Callam, who had purchased goods in Philadelphia, and induced him to go to Raleigh where they put the two stocks together and sold as much as $500. He wants to know if there is any store at Raleigh C. H., Va. It seems they w^nt to Raleigh while the Legislature was in session, and s( Id goo<ls rapidly until it adjourned.

His next letter is dated January lo, 1813, acknowledging one of the 4th. He says he boards in the family of Mrs. Burch, a very decent, pious old lady, who has a daughter equally pious as herself and possessing considerable accomplishments, having resided in Philadelphia with a Rev. Burch, her brother. Of Raleigh, he says its people are principally emigrants from Scotland, orderly and sober, but possessing strong prejudices. He says, that with but few exceptions, they are Federalists. He speaks of the schools in Raleigh and their influence in improving the manners and, in some instances, the morals of the people. He says they are the means of circulating a great deal of money. He further says that the country is poor and the planters have nothing which suits the markets but pork, tobacco and cotton.

He wants to know if he thinks his friend, John Randolph, will be reelected in his district in Virginia and whether there is any change in political sentiments there - whethier the people are pleased with the war, and the manner in which it has been conducted. Also his opinion respecting the combination of the non-importation lav/. On January 24, 1 81 3, he is still at Rakigh, but complains of the war affecting the business. He says there is no demand for cotton or tobacco, and pork is the only article that commands money and that at a low price. He says there are twenty stores in Raleigh, and he intends to remove early in the Spring, probably to Virginia. He says in that country, where wheat is cultivated, is the best place to do business during the war, because it will sell high. He wishes to be informed what effect the war has had in that part of the country, where his correspondent resides, as to sale of goods and the circulation t)f money.

February 8, 1813, he writes his friend. Robert, that he intends to leave Raleigh in the Spring and wants to come to Nelson C. H., if his friend thinks best. He is afraid the war is not pushed with energy and that the spirit of the nation has never been up to war pitch. He thinks there will be great difficulty in raising men and money and that the opposition to the war is so strong, and from the way in which the war was managed it will end in a separation of the Union and the destruction of our most excellent Constitution, though he will hope for better things.

February 24, 1813, he writes thanking his friend for full information as to the political situation. He doubts about purchasing spring goods, as the times are precarious. He thinks the Government will be compelled to repeal the non-importation law in order to get revenue, or otherwise levy taxes which will make it unpopular. He thinks in case of a repeal, goods would come in plenty through the neutrals. He thinks our privateers will not bring in many trips Ix'cause the Brittish fleets will blockade Hampton Roads and other bays. He relates a duel between Thomas Stanley, of Newbem, and a Mr. Henry, of the same place, in which the former was killed by the latter. The cause of the duel was that Henry had paid attentions to Stanley's sister, and then dropped her.

May 20, 1813, he writes from Cecil County, Maryland, that he had made money by his venture in RaleSgh. He went to Petersburg, Va., to change the State notes of North Carolina for Virginia as they would not pass to the north of that place and could not be changed at par, at atiy other place. He says goods were too high in Baltimore to purchase with any safety as the war might stop and drop prices. He informs his cousin that he has changed his state of life and married his cousin, Mary McVey ; that she is the only child and daughter of his Uncle McVey, who owns a fine farm on the main stage road from Philadelphia to Baltimore with some negroes and other property. "As to her qualities, you will no doubt think me a partial judge." He says her qualities justified his choice and her appearance pleased his fancy.