PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 627 Rev. Robert Stewart was born January 6, 1797, in Ohio County, West Virginia, but when he was six years old the family removed to Belmont County, Ohio. He was educated in the Grammar School of Steele & McMillan in Xenia, Ohio, then in the Classical School at New Athens, which afterward became Franklin College. He also studied in the academy at New Washington, which grew into Madison College. He studied theology in the Western Theological Seminary two years under Dr. Herr and one year with Rev. Mingo Dick, Professor pro tem. He was licensed to preach May 26, 1830, If by the Second Ohio Presbytery (United Presbyterian Church), and was ordained in December, 1832. At the time of his ordination (by the first Ohio Presbytery) he was installed pastor of the Cherry Fork and West Fork Churches in Adams County, Ohio. In 1838, he resigned the West Fork. Branch of his charge and gave all his time to Cherry Fork. He died November 24, 1851. Rev. Marion Morrison, of Mission Creek, Nebraska, says of him: It was my privilege to have been a member of his congregation for several years, in my youth. While he was a very instructive preacher, he excelled in his work as a pastor among his people. As a companion, he could not be excelled. He was always cheerful and lively, but was 'never in the company of old or young for any length of time without parting some word of instruction that would help in the journey heaven-ward. He was always ready for a joke, but carefully avoided offending in such pleasantries. He looked upon the pastoral relation with the same sacredness as the marriage relation." Cherry Fork was his first and his only pastoral charge. There he married Martha, the eldest daughter and child of John Patton. There his children were born and there he took his departure to the church triumphant. It is said of him that it never occurtred to him to change his pastoral relations from Cherry Fork. Aaron F. Steen. Aaron Faris Steen was a grandson of Robert Steen, who was born near Coleraine, Ireland, about 1735, removed to the British Colony of Pennsylvania, in America, about 1758 ; was married to Elizabeth Boyd about 176o, secured a farm and established his home near Chestnut Level, in Lancaster County, Pa., not far from the Susquehanna River, where he brought up in comfortable circumstances a family of five children, three sons and two daughters, whose names were Samuel, Robert, Mary, Elizabeth, and Alexander Steen. The grandfather, Robert Steen, was a patriotic citizen opposed to British oppression or Toryism, and espoused the cause of American Independence, at the time of the Revolutionary War. He was a thorough Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, an earnest Christian, a successful farmer, especially fond of music and good society, and lived to an old age. Alexander Steen, the father of Aaron F. Steen, was the youngest child of Robert and Elizabeth Boyd Steen, and was born near Chestnut Level, Pa., February 14, 1773, and brought up on his father's farm. He early removed to Berkley County, Va., and was married at Martinsburg. Va.. February 2, 1803, to Agnes Nancy Faris, she having been born at that place March 2, 1777, and died at the home of her son, Aaron F. Steen, in Adams County, Ohio, November 17, 1852, when she was Seventy-Six 628 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY years of age. In 1805, Alexander Steen removed with his family and located near Flemingsburg, Ky., where he resided nearly fifteen yeah, and where all his children except the eldest were born. In 1820, he removed to Adams County, Ohio, and located upon a farm two miles northeast of Winchester, now on the turnpike road to Buck Run. He after wards purchased a large farm one mile north of the Mt. Leigh Presbyterian Church where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a maul) strong character, a zealous Presbyterian, and an enterprising farmer, successful music teacher, and maintained a wide influence. He died at home near Mt. Leigh, April 30, 1837, in the fifty-sixth year of his age was the father of nine children, all of whom except the eldest were mare and brought up families in Adams County, Ohio. Aaron Faris Steen, the subject of this sketch, was the third child and eldest son of Alexander and Agnes Nancy Faris Steen. He was born on his father's farm two miles north of Flemingsburg, Ky., August 23, 1807, and died at his home near Xenia, Ohio, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1881, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He spent a happy childhood in the "Old Kentucky home," and was brought to Adams County, Ohio, by his parents when a mere lad of thirteen years. Here he grew up to manhood upon his father's farm, attending school in winter. When a young man, he taught school. He devoted most of his time and attention to music and became an efficient and very popular teacher, having classes in- various parts of the county. For many years he was the leader of music in the Mt. Leigh Presbyterian Church. His social nature and genial dish position made him a general favorite in the society of both old and young. Aaron F. Steen was married at the residence of Michael Freeman on Scioto Brush Creek, ten miles east of West Union, March 25, 183o, to Miss Mary Freeman, the youngest daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Freeman, she having been horn in the same house in which she was married, October 7, 1810, and died at the home of her son in Knoxville, Tenn., July 27, 1895, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. Soon after his marriage, Aaron F. and Mary Steen located on a farm on Brush Creek two miles east of Winchester, and united with the Mt. Leigh Presbyterian Church of which they were for many years active and useful members. In the Fall of 1834, Michael Freeman, now growing old, requested Mr. and Mrs. Steen to come and take charge of his farm and property on Scioto Brush Creek, which they accordingly did, residing there about fourteen years. But on the thirty-first of August. 1848, they removed again with their family to a farm near Mt. Leigh, three miles east of Winchester, near where he had been brought up. Here the whole family were regular attendants of the Mt. Leigh Church. Aaron F. Steen was ordained an elder, December 1, 1849, which office he continued to hold so long as he remained in that locality, and frequently represented that church in the meetings of the Presbytery of Chillicothe. In the autumn of 1865, he sold his farm near Mt. Leigh and purchased a tract of land adjoining Xenia, Ohio, to which he removed and spent the remaining sixteen years of his life. Here, himself and wife united with the First Presbyterian Church of which Rev. Wm. T. Findley, D. D., was at that time pastor. He cultivated his little farm, and with his eldest son kept a provision store in Xenia. In 1874, a delightful family reunion Was held at his home near Xenia, at which all his living descendants were present. PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 629 Old associates were revived and many incidents connected with every life recalled. Before they separated religious services were held in which all joined heartily, every member and descendant of the family over ten years age being consistent members of the Presbyterian Church. The fiftieth anniversary, or golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Steen, also duly celebrated at their home March 25, 1880, was largely attended, and all present, concurred in the opinion that it was one of the most delightful occasions of the kind ever witnessed. Only a few months later Mr. Steen died. Aaron F. Steen was a man of sterling character and energy, highly respected and beloved by those who knew him. He was the father of ne children as follows : Wilson Freeman, Eli Watson, Samuel Martin, John Freeman, Moses Duncan Alexander, Josiah James, Sarah Catharine, Isaac Brit and William Wirt Steen, only three of whom are now living, Prof. E. Watson Steen, Knoxville, Tenn., Rev. Moses D. A. Steen, D. D., Woodridge, Colo., and Mrs. Kate Steen Coil, Marietta, Ohio. James Baldwin Thomas was born on a farm two miles east of Winchester, May 16, 1811. He was the seventh child of Abraham and Margaret ( Barker) Thomas. His great-grandfather, Reese Thomas, was born in Wales, June 5, 169o. This ancestor was the father of a large family which he brought to America and settled in Virginia during the first part of the eighteenth century. Subsequently, some of the stock moved to Maryland and some to Kentucky, where numerous individuals of the same lineage now reside. The subject of this sketch obtained such education as he could at the schools of Winchester. They were subscription schools, and were not in session more than three or four, months in a year. He had to walk over two miles through woods to attend school, frequently running the gauntlet of wolves. In 1832, he went to the State of Arkansas with the intention of making that his future home. He spent but one year there. During that time he became so thoroughly disgusted with southern institutions as to create within him an intense antagonism to the system of human slavery and the practice of duelling, which remained dominant principles with him through life. In 1833, he bought a farm near where he was born, and he and his brother, Silas, erected a cabin in the woods—a bachelor's hall—and commenced clearing away the timber preparatory to cultivation. Here he worked and lived until December 29, 1836, when he married Miss Esther A., daughter of John and Esther Archer Moore, pioneer settlers of Wheat Ridge, in Oliver Township. This marriage was solemnized by Rev. Dyer Burgess. There were eight children : Francis Marion, married to Annette Holmes, and practicing medicine at Samantha, 0.; Margaret, residing at Winchester ; Sarah Jane, died in 1861 ; Wilson Chester, died in 186o; Silas Newton, died in the U. S. Military service in 1864; Albert Luther, resides with his two sisters at the old homestead ; John Wesley married to Roberta Butler, and is a physician at Lyle, Kansas, and Lily Belle, residing at Winchester, Ohio. Mr. Thomas was a man of decided convictions. He voted for Jackson in 1832, but after that he voted uniformly the Whig ticket until the election of 1852, when he supported John P. Hale. He united with the 630 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY Republican party at its organization, supporting Chase for Governor 1855 and Fremont for President in 1856, and continued a member of party until his death. For some fifteen years preceding the Civil War,, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and scores of fugitive slaves have shared his hospitality and received his assistance on their way to freedom. While he was under surveillance from the slave hunt not a single fugitive whom he took in charge was ever reclaimed and back to slavery. During the Civil War he was a strong Union man. offered two sons to the service of his country and no one rejoiced more he when peace, liberty and union were established. He was honest., all his dealings. He was a good conversationalist and could tell a s in good form. He always had a host of warm friends. He never un with any church but believed in the doctrines of the Baptist Church. was a strong temperance man, practicing total abstinence, and in his ear years as a farmer it was sometimes hard for 'Aim to get help in the ha fields, because he would not treat to some kind of liquor, as was custom during the time referred to. He died March 17, 1892, in his eighty- year. He is interred with his wife in the cemetery at Mt. Leigh. Dr. W. M. Voris. In considering the pioneers of Adams County, Ohio, there is n whose memory deserves more to be praised. It has been sixty-four y past since his life here terminated, and his death amounted to almost tragedy ; yet, in his time, he was of the most highly esteemed, and deserving of it. Like most of the pioneers of Adams County, he had ancestry which could be traced back over two hundred years. The family was Dutch. Stephen Coerte Van Voris emigrated from Holland in April, 1660, and settled at Flat Lands, Long Island, where, on the twenty-ninth of November, 1660, he purchased corn land, plain land and salt meadow, with house and lot, for three thousand guilders. He was a prominent and useful man, a Member of the Dutch Church, and a magistrate. He died at Flat Lands, February 16, 1684. Of his numerous descendants, Rolyff Van Vorhees, born in 1742, and married to Flizabeth Nevins, was the first to drop the Van and write the name Voris. Roloff's son, Ralph, born August 5, Ins, married in Pennsylvania, near Conewago, Margaret McCreary, of Scotch parentage. This Ralph Voris removed to Paris, Kentucky, but not liking it there, moved to Red Oak, in Brown County, Ohio, where he was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church from 1807 until his death in 1840. This Ralph Voris was the father of Dr. William McCreary Voris, the subject of our sketch, who was born in Kentucky, August 5, 1801. When lie grew up he studied medicine and graduated as a physician at the Medical College, at Lexington, Kentucky. He located at West Union, Ohio, to practice his profession, about 1824, and joined the Presbyterian Church there. On April 24, 1827, he married the only daughter of Col. John Means, Elizabeth Williamson Means, and they went to housekeeping in West Union, Ohio, on the southeast corner of Main and Market Streets, in what is known as the James Hood property, and there they resided until January, 1832, when they re- PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 631 moved to the old Brush Creek Forge. There the Doctor was engaged in making iron and hollow ware, till the fourth of June, 1835. In 1830, he was made an elder in the Presbyterian Church at West Union, Ohio, in which capacity he continued to serve until his death. In May, 1835, Alex. Mitchell, aged thirty, the father of Mrs. Samuel Burwell, was living on Ohio Brush Creek between the Forge and the mouth of the creek. He was operating a saw mill and a grist mill. He and Dr. Voris, then aged thirty-four, arranged it between them to load a flat-boat, half with iron and hollow ware, and half with lumber, and float it down to Cincinnati, and sell the cargo. They did so and floated the boat from the Forge to Mitchell's mill, where the lumber was put in, and thence they floated it to the Ohio River. Dr. Voris and Alex. Mitchell went in the boat as far as Maysville, Kentucky, where they landed for repairs to the boat. There Alexander Mitchell was taken down with the dread Asiatic cholera, and died and was buried. Dr. Voris left the boat and went on to Cincinnati by a steamboat, and had scarcely arrived there, when he, too, was stricken with the Asiatic cholera, and died within a few hours. In those days, such was the fear of the dread scourge, that when a person died of it, there was none of the usual funeral ceremonies, but the body was buried within a few hours after death, and at the most convenient spot to where death had overtaken the victim. Such was the case with Alexander Mitchell, but not with Dr. Voris. When the news of the latter's death was brought to his wife, she was so overwhelmed with grief, that she sat as one dumb for six weeks. The attachment between her and her husband was of the most devoted character. Aside from the estimate of Dr. Voris by his family and friends, he was most highly esteemed by the community in which he resided. Like St. Luke, he was, in his social circle, the "Beloved physician," and his death produced a shock which is remembered to this day by those who were living at that time. The pleasant hope at the Forge was broken up, and, with her two little girls, his wife returned to the home of her father, Col. John Means, where A. V. Hutson now lives, on the Maysville Turnpike, just west of Bentonville, where she resided during her widowhood. Mrs. Voris was a woman of lovely Christian character, and was one of the saints upon earth. She belonged to families, both on her father's and mother's side, which could boast of a long line of honorable ancestry, distinguished for their adherence to high principles. Her father left South Carolina with twey-four slaves in order to give them their freedom in Ohio, and her uncle, the Rev. William Williamson, her mother's brother, brought twenty- seven slaves from South Carolina to Ohio, in 1803, in order to give them their freedom. She was of the material of which the martyrs are made, and had she been condemned to have gone to the stake for conscience' sake, she would have gone with a smile on her face, and perfect peace in her heart. In 1842, she married the Rev. Dyer Burgess, and he and she removed to Washington County, and for twenty years they lived together at Warren, six miles from Marietta. Rev. Burgess died September 2, 1872, at the age of eighty-eight. After his death she :Tent the remaining seventeen years of her life in Marietta, Ohio, with her daughter, Mrs. Wm. P. Cutler. 632 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY She fell asleep February 28, 1889, in the ninetieth year of her age, having survived the husband of her youth fifty-four years. In a memorial of her, it was said she united with the Presbyterian Church in youth, and as the years passed, her character and life developed into the rarest beauty and., symmetry. She gave liberally to all good subjects, from the promptings of a heart overflowing with sympathy and love.. She was always active yin, doing good. She was charitable in her judgments, and her amiability and cheerfulness and childish faith scattered sunbeams wherever she was.. Her life was a blessing to all who knew her. Doctor Voris left threat children. The eldest was Anne Eliza, born February 26, 1828, married the Rev. James S. Poage and deceased in 1848, leaving a daughter tender years, who was reared by her grandmother, Mrs. Burgess. second daughter, Elizabeth Williamson, was born July 25, 1832. married the Hon. Wm. P. Cutler, of Marietta, one of the most prominent citizens of the State. He was a member of three Legislatures in this State and Speaker of the House in one. He was a Member of the Thirty-seven Congress and was mainly instrumental in the construction of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. To his daughter, Miss, Sarah J. Cutler, we are mainly indebted for the facts of this sketch. The third daughter of Dr. Voris, Margaret Jane Williamson, was, posthumous, born August I, 1835. She married Mr. Henry Humiston, and lives in Chicago. She has two sons. One of the Sparks boys West Union was with Dr. Voris when he died. His body was brought to Manchester, Ohio and there interred. Ralph M. Voorhees. This young man came to West Union, June 17, 1823, and began the publication of the Village Register. He continued to publish it until bit sudden and unexpected death on March 6, 1828, at the age of twenty-eight He was sick but nine days of a congestive bilious fever. He is buried in the Kicker Cemetery. He had married Mary Kirker (the daughter of Governor Kirker) in 1825, and had two children. One of these, Thomas Voorhees, was a steamboat captain on the upper Mississippi River for almost twenty years. His widow married Hayden Thompson, of Ripley and was living in 1880. Mr. Vorhees conducted his paper according to his best lights but it had no local news. In that day, local news was not thought worthy of publication. There were plenty of legal ads, sheriff's sales, auditor's notices, tax collector's notices, many estray notices—nearly all horses, a number of runaway apprentices, occasionally the notice of a reward for a runaway slave with fifty to a hundred dollars reward. The merchants used the paper to advertise their goods and dun their customers. The files, which have come to us, were preserved by the late John P. Hood who worked in the office, when a boy. The prompts of Congress and the State Legislature were given very fully ; also the Governor's and President's messages. Foreign news in plenty was given, but local news was absolutely tabooed. The very facts we would like to know now are suppressed. The people then knew all the local news. It passed from mouth to mouth, and it was thought idle folly to repeat it in a newspaper. The paper aimed to be neutral in politics, but the editor was a Democrat-Republican. It was largely filled with literary extracts from magazines PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 633 and books which we would not at all look at now, but to tell us what people of the time thought, their political and religious views, what interested them most, or at all, there is not a word. The local news of that day is lost except from tradition. It is difficult to write of a subject after the mists of seventy-one years have obscured him. There is some light on the life and character of Ralph M. Vorhees to be gathered from the old and yellow files of the Village Register. What it is, is clear and distinct, and the picture it reveals is as clear as yesterday. The parts that are, left out are, however, forever lost. His widow is long dead. His son is either dead or cannot be traced, and we must rest content with those few fragments which have been handed down to us. Ralph Voorhees was a man much loved by those who knew him. He was a young man who had but few enemies and they found much in him to admire. He was true and loyal to his friends and treated those who did not like his course with great consideration. He undertook to conduct an independent local paper, an impossibility, and the only enemies he ever made was in this attempt. He offended some because he favored his father-in-law, Governor Kirker, for office, but had he not favored the Governor, he would not have been human. Had he lived, he would, no doubt, have succeeded with his paper and made a respectable citizen, but alas, that fate which none can control, took him from his young wife and infants, from the society and companionship of his friends and cut short a career of great promise. Thomas Campbell Wasson was a grandson of John Wasson, a native of Ireland, and with his wife emigrated to Rockbridge County, Virginia, rearing a large family there. Among his children was a son, Thomas, who married Rebecca Cowen and moved to Ohio in 18o4. He located within four miles of Winchester in what was then Wayne Township. He lived there a year or more and then moved onto the farm near Cherry Fork occupied by our subject during his lifetime. Thomas Wasson and wife connected with the U. P. Church at Cherry Fork soon after its organization in 1805 and remained members thereof during their lives. Thomas Wasson's wife died August 5, 1838, and he survived until December 3, 1851, when he departed this life in his seventy-fourth year. They reared a family of three sons and three daughters, all of whom lived to maturity and married. Mr. Thomas Wasson contracted a second marriage with Elkiah Spencer, by whom he had one son, William F., born August 29, 1845, and who died in the military service of the United States in the War of 1861. The subject of our sketch was born May 20, 1812, and was reared on his father's farm in Wayne Township. He married Martha Patton Campbell, February 9, 1832. Of this marriage there were eight children, five of whom, three sons and two daughters, grew to maturity and married. His eldest son, Thomas Stewart Wasson, is a retired farmer living at Seaman. Ohio. His second son, James P., now deceased, has a sketch in this book. His third son, Samuel Y., also has a sketch in this book. His daughter, Matilda J., widow of B. F. Pittinger, now resides at Min- 634 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY neapolis, Kansas. His youngest daughter, Martha, married to Steele Glasgow, resides at North Liberty. Thomas Campbell Wasson was a man of the strictest integrity and of remarkable energy and industry. He was of strong prejudices every way. If he loved one, there was nothing too much he could do for him. If he hated one, he did it with all the powers of his soul. Once his friend, he was attracted to you by hooks of steel; once your enemy, he was likely to remain so. He believed in the religion taught in the doctrines and practice of the United Presbyterian Church, and all the powers of Hell could not have moved him from his faith. When the right and wrongfulness of human slavery began to be discussed, he became convinced that that institution was a monstrous sin against both God and man, and from that hour until the war destroyed it, he was its mot inveterate enemy. He would tolerate no political party which would excuse or apologize for it, and by word and deed, he did all he could to destroy it. No poor hunted fugitive ever applied to him in vain, and his home was a well-known station on the Underground Railroad. He was an excellent farmer and by great industry and economy, with the best of management, he acquired a competence and spent his latter years in ease and comfort. He did everything in life most earnestly. He was not one of the meek and lowly Christians but one of the fighting kind who believed in taking the Kingdom of Heaven by storm. He believed in struggling and fighting for the right, both in Church and State. His life is best illustrated in the character of his three sons, two of whom are men of influence and importance in their respective communities, and a third son, now deceased, held a like position in the State of Kansas where he died recently. These three sons, like their father, have been able to manage their own affairs successfully and to accumulate competencies. Campbell Wasson, the name by which he was best known, never sought or held public office, but he always believed in taking an active part in the counsels of his own party and did so. He was a Whig first and a Republican afterwards, but all the time he was anti-slavery and believed in the abolition of that institution. He believed in making his views on all subjects felt, and as a consequence he was a man of positive influence both in Church and State. He was never the one to drift with the current, or follow the lead of others, but sought to make all men within his influence feel and think as he did. His influence was always on the side of good order, religion, right and justice. That part of the world which he knew and which know him was better that he had lived. The wife of this subject died May 13, 1871, and in 1872, he contracted a second marriage with Mrs. Eliza J. McNeil, who survived him. He died the eighth day of January, 1888. The Rev. William Williamson. Sometimes a man's career can be judged by his ancestors and sometimes by his posterity, and sometimes we can look to both, to give a fair estimate of him after his life work has been done. The subject of this sketch will bear favorable investigation in both ways. The Rev. William Williamson was born September 23, 1762, near Greenville, N. C. He was the eldest of six children. His father, Thomas, was born in 1736 and his mother, Anne Newton, related to the family of PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 635 Sir Isaac Newton and Rev. John Newton, was born in March, 1738. Her father emigrated from England with his wife and family. He and they were thirteen weeks crossing the ocean, contending with storms and sickness, and buried two children at sea. Anne and Elizabeth survived and married brothers. Thomas and Anne settled at Greenville, N. C., where all of their children were born. During the Revolutionary War, William entered the Revolutionary army and served under General Gates in the hard campaign in the summer of 1780. His command saw very severe service and he has often related of forced marches in the great heat, when the soldiers were not allowed even to top and drink at the roadside, and that often the soldiers were half starved. Young Williamson was small for his age and not strong, and he and two hundred of his command were captured at the battle of Camden, S. C. August 10, 1780. During young Williamson's service, his mother would often stay up all night, and, assisted by her servants, cook food for the soldiers, which his father would carry to them in his wagon the day following. When the war was over, Thomas Williamson, with his family, moved to we Spartansburg District, S. C. He purchased a cotton plantation there, on which the county seat was afterwards located. After this event, he sought a place a few miles distant from the courthouse, on which he lived wed until his death in 1813. Young William Williamson, after the Revolutionary War, was sent to Hampden Sidney College in Virginia, where he received a liberal education and was graduated. He studied theology and was installed as pastor of the Fair Forest Presbyterian Church in April, 1793. The Rev. William Williamson believed in the married state. His first wife was a Miss Catherine Buford, of Abbeville, S. C. By her, he had four daughters, Anne Newton, who married Dr. William B. Willson in 1818; Mary married James Ellison ; Elizabeth married Robinson Baird, and Esther married William Kirker. His second wife was Jane Smith, of North Carolina, by whom he had two children, the Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, missionary to the Dakotas, and Jane Smith Williamson, who never married, but has always been known as Aunt Jane. He also had a third wife in his old age, Hannah Johnson, a widow. The Rev. William Williamson had a brother, Thomas, sixteen years younger than himself. They were devotedly attached to each other and both espoused strong anti-slavery notions. Thomas became an accomplished physician. William Williamson and his second wife regarded slavery as a great evil. While they owned slaves, they believed it wrong to Sell them. Mrs. Williamson felt the condition of the slaves so strongly that she undertook to teach them to read. This, of course, came to the ears of her slave- holding neighbors and she was remonstrated with time and again to no purpose. Finally the patrol visited her and told her if she did not stop, ,she would be prosecuted under the stringent laws of South Carolina, forbidding slaves to be taught to read. Mrs. Williamson had high notions of right and wrong and was a Southern woman of great spirit. Her husband warmly sympathized with her and both thought they might do as they chose with their own property. The authorities, however, were as firm 636 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY as Mrs. Williamson, and she and her husband resolved to take their slaves to a state where they could teach them to read without let or hindrance. They took their slaves and emigrated to Ohio in 1805. His father dying in 1813, by his will gave his slaves to his son William, but with directions to set them free. To accomplish this, his mother left South Carolina soon after the death of his father and brought her slaves to Ohio and set them free. She continued to live with her sons in Adams County till her death in 1820. Our subject's mother was a superior woman, a sincere Christian and philanthropist. She gave a liberal education to two of her slaves— Rev. Benjamin Templeton, who became a Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, and John N. Templeton, who graduated at the Ohio University and became a successful teacher in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. William Williamson took up lands not far from Manchester and made a home there during his life. His lands were near those of his brother-in-law, Col. John Means, who married his sister Anne, born August 17, 1760. This sister had been married to Col. Means in South Carolina, April 10, 1778. Col. Means, however, did not move to Ohio till 1819. The home of Rev. William Williamson in Adams County was called "The Beeches." It is now the property of John Meek Leedom. Our subject accepted a church at Cabin Creek, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, and about four miles from his home, on the sixteenth of May, 1805, and continued to minister to that church until 1820. His record there was that the church grew and prospered and he was esteemed one of the most devoted, pious and popular ministers of his day. He was also minister to the Presbyterian Church in West Union, Ohio, from May, 1805, till 1819 when he was succeeded by the Rev. Dyer Burgess. His religion must have seen sincere and deep, for in 1809, when the stone church was to be built at West Union, he subscribed one-half of his salary towards it. He was received into the Chillicothe Presbytery from the Second Presbytery of South Carolina, on August 28, 1805, along with the Rev. Robert G. Wilson and the Rev. Gilliland. They became the fathers of Presbyterianiam in southern Ohio, and to him and his associates is due the strength and power of the Presbyterian Church in southern Ohio to-day. They laid the foundations upon which others built. Rev. Williamson was many times Moderator and often Clerk of the Chillicothe Presbytery. He was influential, active and useful in the church and as a citizen. When the Rev. Dyer Burgess took charge of the West Union Church in 1829, Rev. Williamson thereafter devoted his labors to the Manchester Church so long as he was able to perform ministeral duties. He died at "The Beeches," near Manchester, Ohio, November 29, 1839, aged seventy-seven years. If, before becoming acquainted with his history, we had learned that of his patriotic father and heroic mother, and had learned that of his son Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, and his daughter, Jane Williamson, we could outline his character and point out his place and power, just as the astronomer can find a new star and state its magnitude and give its orbit from those which surround it. We reason forward from Thomas Williamson and Anne Newton, his wife, that persons of such noble character must produce a like son. From the daughters and son reared by the Rev William Williamson, we see the characters he has molded and sent forth to PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 637 bless the world. No hero ever did nobler or better work than the Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, the missionary to the Dakotas. No woman showed a greater spirit of devotion to the church and to humanity, than his sister, Jane Williamson, coadjutor in the work of evangelizing the Red Men. If they were Thomas Williamson's children, what must have been the father, to whom they owed the missionary spirit? His four daughters, by his first wife, were godly, pious mothers, who reared large families of sons and daughters and taught them the love of God and the devotion to right and justice, which characterized their father and mother before them. The descendants of Rev. William Williamson were wonderfully numerous. They, in their several generations obeyed the eleventh commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, and they to-day, wherever found, are the same God-fearing, God-loving people—pious and devoted the right as they understand the right, as their progenitor was before them. The memory of these pioneers in the Church of God should be carefully preserved and treasured. This generation should know every detail their labors and sacrifices. Where a man could break up a pleasant home, bid adieu to all he had ever known and travel eight hundred miles through a wilderness that he might live in a free State and might give the blacks he owned, the blessings of freedom—such a man was a hero and he deserves to be remembered by posterity. This generation should be proud of such a man and revere his memory, and regret that it has no such opportunity to demonstrate its devotion to right and principle. Jane Smith Williamson. This lady, eminent for her piety, her good works and her missionary labors among the Dakota Indians, was born at Fair Forest, South Carolina, March 8, 1803. Her father, the Rev. Williamson, a Presbyterian minister and a Revolutionary patriot, and her mother, Jane Smith Williamson, brought her to Ohio, an infant, in 1804. Her father and mother believed slaves had souls, and brought their twenty-seven slaves to Ohio, and set them free. Her mother had been fined in South Carolina for teaching her own slaves to read the Bible, and she and her husband removed to Ohio to free their slaves, and to be able to teach them to read and write. She was brought up in an atmosphere of sincere and deep piety and of devotion to Christian teachings. For early educational advantages in a new country were necessarily limited, but she made the most of them. She studied grammar and syntax practically, and mastered all the branches open to her study while she was a girl. She was accurate in the use of language, both spoken and written. She wrote a hand like copper-plate, and was thorough in everything she studied. She read all the good and useful books which were accessible to her. She had an excellent memory and a lively imagination, and with a wide reading, she early acquired the art of writing most interesting letters. From her parents and grandparents, she inherited that marked sympathy for the colored race which was an eminent characteristic of her entire life. At all, times and on all occasions, she stood up for the colored people. In her young and mature .womanhood, when there were no public 638 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY schools in her county—or none worth the name—she taught subscription schools both in West Union and Manchester. In West Union, the venerable David Dunbar, now of Manchester, was one of her pupils, and in Manchester, Mrs. David Dunbar and Mrs. D. B. Hempstead, of Han Rock, were among her pupils. She never excluded a pupil because his or her parents or friends were unable to pay tuition. She sought out the poor and invited them to attend her school. She accepted colored pupils as well as whites. Her teaching the colored people aroused bitter feeling in the community, but she was such an excellent teacher that it did not decrease the number of her white pupils, and her control of her pupils was so per that. the bringing of the colored pupils into the school did not affect the government of her school. The progress made by her pupils was rapid and her teaching so thorough that the presence of the colored pupils did not drive the white ones away. There were many threats of :violence, her school, but she was not alarmed. On more than, one occasion, friends of hers, dreading the attempt to forcibly break up her school, took rifles and went to her schoolhouse to defend her. Some of these men rough characters, and hard drinkers; and some of them were pro-slavery but they were determined her school should not be disturbed. They regarded her as a fanatic in her views, but, as they regarded her as efficient teacher, they did not propose that her work should be interfered with. She was always a volunteer in houses where there was sickness. the age of twenty-six, she went to General Darlinton's and nursed. mother of Mrs. Rev. F. P. Pratt through a spell of sickness. Mrs. Urmston was then a young married woman, just come to Ohio from Connecticut On June 8, 1835, she was teaching near "The Beeches," in Adams County. The next day she learned of the death of Dr. William M. Vorhis, of cholera, at Cincinnati, and it became her painful duty to inform cousin (his wife) of the fact. At first, she told her that Dr. Vorhis been very sick in Cincinniati. As cholera was prevalent there, they at once divined the truth, and swooned away. She went from one swoon into another, and Miss Williamson, in order to terminate her swoons, w out and brought in her two little girls, one seven and the other three years of age, and, leading one by each hand, asked her if there were two good reasons for her to live and to work for. Her love for children was a distinguishing trait of her character. won their affections entirely, and thus ruled them without any apparent effort. The missionary spirit was a part of her life, born with her, a heritage from several generations. When her brother, Thomas Williamson, went as a missionary to the Dakota Indians in 1835, she w to go with him, but felt that she must remain at home and care for aged father, who survived until 1839, and died at the age of seventy-seven, but she did not get to go to her brother until 1843, when she had real the age of forty. Her life, prior to this, had been a preparation missionary work. For years she had been an active worker in Sun Schools, prayer meetings and missionary societies. In her day school, had made public religious worship a prominent feature. PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 639   When she reached Minnesota, she went to work directly and worked with Leith great energy, and with an untiring industry greatly beyond her strength. She had an unusual familiarity with the Bible. She taught several hundred Indians to read the Word of God, and, the greater part of them, as write well enough to write letters. She ministered to all the sick within her reach, and devoted a great deal of time to instructing Indian women in domestic duties. She led the women in prayer meetings, and spent much lime conversing with the women as to their souls. The privations of the missionaries, at that time, were great. White bread was then as much of a luxury as cake would now be considered. Lac-que-Parle, her first missionary home, was two hundred miles west of St. Paul. It was more than a year from the time she left Adams County before a single letter could reach her. She was out in the Indian village when the first mail reached there. She heard of its arrival, and was so eager for news from her old home that she ran to her brother's house as swiftly as a young girl. She saw no signs of the mail, and asked where it was. They told her it was in the stove-oven. The mail carrier had brought At through the ice, and it had to be thawed out. The mail contained over fifty letters for her, and the postage on them was over five dollars. This in 1844. She moved to Kaposia, now South St. Paul, in 1846, and to Pijutazee, thirty-two miles below Lac-que-Parle, in 1852. The Dakotas called her "Dowan Dootanin," which means "Red Song Woman." She gathered the young Indians together, and taught them, as opportunity offered. In the great outbreak of 1862, when it seemed as though the work of the missionaries had failed, she never lost hope or faith. In the Fall of 1894, when nearly two thousand converted Dakota Indians were gathered together, to plan for religious work among their people, she was the only survivor of the first missionaries. In the Fall of 1881, she saw a poor Indian woman suffering with the cold. She took off her own warm skirt and gave it to the woman, and from this she took a cold and a spell of sickness followed, resulting in her total blindness. After the Indian outbreak of 1862, the way never opened for her to resume her residence among the Dakotas, but she was given health and strength for nineteen years' more labor for the Master. Her home continued to be with her brother, at or near St. Peter, until her death in 1879, and in his old home two years longer. In that time she did much for the Indians who lived with her brother, toward their education. She kept up an extensive and helpful correspondence with native Christian workers. As a Sunday School teacher, she labored with untiring patience for the conversion of her pupils, and to train them as Christian workers. She was active in female prayer meetings and missionary societies. She lost most of her patrimony in lending to those most needing money, instead of to those most certain to pay. Her friends, however, were liberal in their donations to her work, and she was able to relieve most of those under her observation in serious want. Here is the story of a modest, unassuming heroine. Without husband or children, alone in the world, she did not repine but nude herself useful wherever she was, in teaching secular learning and religious truth, and 640 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY in ministering to the sick and afflicted, the downtrodden and oppressed. She never sought to do any great or wonderful thing, but only to do goog as the opportunity offered. It has been thirty-two years since she left Ohio, and most of her friends there are dead, but those living, who remember her, recall her with great love. So long as she can reflect on the record of her life, she cannot recall any opportunity slighted, any duty left undone. She died March 24, 1895, at the home of her brother, Rev. John P. Williamson, at Greenwood, South Dakota. Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, M. D. He was the only Son of Rev. William Williamson and Mary Webb Smith, his second wife; was born in Union. DiStrict, South Carolina, March 6, 1800, and removed with his parents to Mason County, Kentucky, in the Fall of 1802, and to "The Beeches," two miles from Manchester, Adams County, Ohio, probably in the Spring of 1805. He prepared for college at home, went on horseback to Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1819. He read medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William B. Willson of West Union, Ohio, and was for two years principal of an academy at Ripley, Ohio, where he prepared a large number of young men for college. He studied medicine in Philadelphia and New Haven, and received the degree of M. D. from Yale College in 1824. He settled in Ripley, Ohio, and built up a large practice. He married Margaret Poage, daughter of the town proprietor, a lady of high Christian character, and most admirably adapted in all respects to be his helpmeet. Settled in a pleasant town, surrounded by warm friends, in the house he regarded the most pleasant in the place, he had everything he could desire to make life happy. But he felt a voice within him, which, to his death, he never for one moment doubted, was the voice of God calling him to leave all these comforts, and endure hardships in bringing to Christ the wanderers of our Western wilderness. His wife was in full accord with him. In the spring of 1832, he placed himself under the care of the Chillicothe Presbytery. August 21, he left his pleasant home, removed with his family to Walnut Hills, and entered Lane Theological Seminary. In April, he was licensed fo preach, and May 2, he left Cincinnati to make a tour of the West, and to Select a suitable field of labor under the care of the A. B. C. F. M. He decided to begin work at Fort Snelling. Returning, he was ordained by the same Presbytery that licensed him, September 18. Early in the spring of 1835, he started with his family, and reached Fort Snelling May 16. Here, June it, he organized the first Presbyterian Church within the present limits of Minnesota—the first Presbyterian Church of Minneapolis. Finding other laborers at Fort Snelling and believing that more could be accomplished by a division of the forces, he pushed on to Lac-qui-Parle, two hundred miles farther west ; this last journey then requiring over three weeks. He worked with indefatigable zeal to acquire the Dakota language and also the Canadian French, and was Soon able to preach in both languages, PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 641 Practicing medicine to relieve their bodies, earnestly sympathizing with those in distress, undauntedly courageous in danger, he soon won the respect of the Indians, of the traders and of the Government officers. He often made long journeys to visit the sick, and was unceasing in his labors to win the savages to Christ. Hostile entertained a great number of travelers and Government officials. He kept up his studies, and in his later years, he could translate from Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, with the same facility with which he read English. He kept up with the progress of improvement in medicine. He made himself familiar with the botany of the region, thoroughly studied the history of the Northwest, contributing many valuable papers to the Historical Society and the magazines. He was untiring in his efforts to secure the Indians their rights, involving a large correspondence with Indian Commissioners, with leading Senators ad Representatives, and made several trips to Washington. His thorough good sense, and his reputation for absolute accuracy in the statement of facts, almost always secured him at least a respectful hearing. His whole heart was in the work of winning souls to Christ. All his studies were subordinated to this end. In 1836, he organized a small native church at La-qui-Parle, the second Protestant church in the present State. He prepared a Dakota reader with the aid of the Ponds, and a part of the Bible with the aid of Mr. Henville. By 1846, he and his helpers had built up a church of nearly fifty native members. It was his decided personal preference to remain, but he felt the call of duty in a request from the Kaposia band, and removed there, to where "South St. Paul now is. This move probably hindered his work for the Indians, but it made him an influential factor in building up work among the whites. He preached the first Protestant sermon in the English language, and also in the French language, within the present limits of St. Paul, and secured for that place its first teacher, Miss Harriet Bishop, and its first minister of the Gospel, Rev. F. D. Usill, D. D. The Indians having sold their land, he removed to Pajutazee, on the Minnesota, nearly thirty miles below Lac-qui-Parle, in 1852. Here he labored until 1862. On August 18, the terrible outbreak occurred at daybreak, thirty-eight miles nearer the white settlements. On Tuesday, the Doctor sent away his family, except his wife and sister, who were unwilling to leave him, hoping that by remaining, he might check the spread of the outbreak. The Christian Indians rallied around him, but it became evident by night, that if they remained, they would be attacked by the hostiles, causing much bloodshed. Aided by Christian Indians, he escaped in the night, overtook his family, came near Fort Ridgely just after the second attack on it, and escaped safely to St. Peter. Many were ready to cry that the mission work was a failure. All the other missionaries began to talk of leaving, but the Doctor and his son did not, for one moment yield to hesitation, but pushed their work with redoubled zeal. However much the Christian Indians might be abused by excited whites, he knew that they had done all in their power to diminish the massacres, had aided hundreds in escaping, and had held the hostiles in check, diminishing, by more than one-half, the size of the war. Had every Christian Indian now gone back to heathenism, the effect of the work in diminishing this blow, would have saved to our country at least fifty times the cost of the mission. 642 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY The Doctor lived to see more than one thousand communicants, members in the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches, the direct result of the mission of himself and his coadjutors. The Episcopalians, building on the foundation they had laid, gathered about as many more. In September, 1894, at a meeting of the Presbyterian and Congregational Dakotas, nearly two thousand were gathered together, earnestly planning for the spread of the Redeemer's Kingdom in their tribe. The Doctor never removed his family from St. Peter. He spent his summers in missionary tours, his winters partly in correspondence with native pastors and other Dakota workers, and the various labors already alluded to, but chiefly in translating the Word of God. He was extremely anxious that the exact meaning of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures should be rendered into idiomatic Dakota. To this end, he spent almost as much time in revising the translation of Dr. Riggs, as in making his own. Dr. Riggs also revised his, and Prof. J. P. Williamson, son of Dr. Williamson also revised nearly all. As a result, very few languages have as good a translation of the Bible. The Dakota Dictionary, regarded as the best of any Indian language and originally prepared by the Messrs. Pond, owed very much to the pains-taking scholarship of Dr. Williamson, though it bears the name of its editor, Dr. Riggs. Mrs. Williamson died July 21, 1872. No couple were ever happier in each other, or mutually more helpful. Still cheerful, he did not, after this time, show the overflowing spirit of calm rejoicing, which, to his family, had always seemed to characterize him, even in the most troublous times. He completed his translation of the Bible in 1878. There was other work he would have liked to do, but the strain of work without his loved companion to solace him had worn him out. His great work was done, and the earnestness in this no longer sustaining him, he gradually failed, and June 24, 1879, fell asleep in Jesus, in his eightieth year. Four children survive him : Rev. John P. Williamson, of Greenwood, South Dakota, since 1860, a missionary to the Dakotas ; Andrew W. Williamson, Professor of Mathematics, Augustans College, Rock Island, Illinois ; Mrs. Martha Stout, Portland, Oregon, and Henry M. Williamson, editor of the Rural Northwest, Portland, Oregon. His daughter, Nancy Jane, was a missionary from 1869 to her death in 1878, performing a grand work. His granddaughter, Nancy Hunter, having lost her mother in infancy, was adopted and soon after his death began the same work, in which she is still engaged the last three years as the wife of Rev. F. J. Lindsay, Poplar, Montana. Dr. William B. Willson. Dr. Willson was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1789. He studied medicine there and received his diploma from Jefferson Medial College, Philadelphia. He located at West Union in the summer of 1816 and the same year he was married to Ann Newton, daughter of Rev. William Williamson. It must have been a case of love at first sight, as he was married soon after locating at West Union. He continued to practice medicine at West Union until his death, July 21, 1840. Dr. Willson was he was old-fashioned Virginia gentleman in every sense of the term. He stood high in his profession and as a citizen, and was a devout and faithful member of the Presbyterian Church. His home in West Union was on the lot PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 643 now occupied by the miller, Plummer. As a. man, Dr. Willson was inclined to take the world easy. He did not trouble people with his opinions and did not desire to be inflicted with theirs. He was conscientious and worked hard. There were no drug stores in his day, and he compounded all of his medicines and consequently had to keep a stock of those on hand. He was the only practicing physician in West Union between 1816 and 1840,except Dr. William Voris, who was in West Union a short time. He would go at the call of a patient the coldest night in the year and would often ride eighteen or twenty miles in the most inclement weather, and it was to this exposure that he owed his early death. He usually had several young men students at his home, and among them were Dr. William F. Willson, his nephew, who has a separate sketch herein ; Dr. Thomas Smith Williamson, also sketched herein ; Dr. Hamilton ; Dr. David McConaghy, and Dr. Henry Loughridge. His son was also a student with him. When he was out on professional business, his wife could compound a prescription as well as he. He often boarded a number of students in order to have them under his direct care. In that day, people did not send for a physician for every little ache and pain. They made it a rule not to send for one unless desperately sick, and then the physician was expected to ride furiously to reach the patient and to give him heroic treatment when he did reach him. During the cholera epidemic in 1835, Dr. Willson was called away to attend a cholera case at some distance. A brother of the patient had come for him and was waiting to accompany the doctor. While waiting, the brother was attacked by the dread disease. It became a question what to do. In the dilemma, the Doctor consulted his wife. She at once proposed that she should take care of the case of the messenger, and would carry out the Doctor's directions, while he should visit the brother. This was done and her patient recovered. Mrs. Ann Newton Willson, wife of Dr. William B. Willson, was borr in South Carolina in 1793. Her father, already mentioned, is sketched elsewhere. After her husband's death, in 184o, she resided in West Union until 1851, when she took up her residence in Catlettsburg, and later, with her daughter, Mrs. Hugh Means, at Ashland, Kentucky, with whom she resided until her death. She had three full sisters and one half sister. Her full sisters were Mrs. Fsther Kirker, Mrs. Robinson Baird. and Mrs. James Ellison. Her half sister was Jane Williamson, who has a sketch herein. Mrs. Willson had much more will power than any of her full sisters. Her step-sister, Jane, was more like her than her full sisters in respect to will power. She might be said to have been an imperious woman, yet she had her own way without creating great antagonisms. Her great force of character she derived from her mother, who was a woman of the strongest convictions and great will power. Her mother's convictions on the subject of teaching the Bible to her slaves caused her to defy the laws of South Carolina against teaching slaves to read, and when she could do it no longer, to take those slaves through the wilderness eight hundred miles and locate in another wilderness where she would be free to carry out what she believed to be right. The same spirit animated her daughter, Mrs. Willson, and she would stop at nothing to carry out what she deemed to be right. No sacrifice would be considered for a moment in deterring her from any course she deemed to be right and duty. She had unflinching 644 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY nerve, great self-reliance and most excellent judgment. These qualities stood her in good use in aiding her husband in the practice of medicine. In the cholera scourge of 1835, she went from house to house, caring for the sick with untiring energy. She had no fear of the disease, and her great will thrice armed her against it, but unlike the Rev. Burgess, she did not defy the dietary of cholera times. In assisting her husband, she acquired an unusual knowledge of remedies, and never hesitated to apply or use them in emergencies when her husband was absent. She was an ardent Abolitionist, , outspoken on all occasions. Her. earliest impressions of the institution of slavery set her against it. She was a born reformer and had she lived in the days of the martyrs, she undoubtedly would have been one of the principal ones among them. While she was chiefly self-educated, she was always an earnest, eager learner and desired to impart to others those truths so dear to her and the contemplation of which filled her soul. It was her delight to share with others whatever she possessed of material or spiritual good. She had no pride or vanity. She was free from self-consciousness and was never troubled for an instant as to what the world thought of her opinions. She was guided by her own conscience and reason, enlightened by her strong religious faith. She was aggressive at all times for what she believed was right. Her stern faith took the practical form. She was always desirous of doing good for others. As old age came on, the strong-willed woman became the indulgent grandmother. The old earnestness and zeal never abated but they were tempered by a large tolerance, a wider sympathy and a gentler spirit. She was always ambitious to be doing good herself, and wanted to see her friends about her, and particularly her young friends, doing something in the service of religion. That spirit within her never abated with her years, but continued until her demise. The writer, as a child, knew her as an aged woman, but he always felt that she carried sunshine with her and had that feeling whenever in her presence, and made this same strong impression on others which she made on children. Of all women who have lived in Adams County, there are none who have done more good or have been more useful in their day and generation. William F. Willson, M. D. William F. Willson, M. D., was a citizen of Adams County from 1836 to 1851. He was born near Fairfield, Rockbridge County, Virginia, September 9, 1815, of staunch Presbyterian, Scotch-Irish stock. His father was James A. Willson and his mother, Tirzah Humphreys. He was educated in the schools of his native county. When he was twelve years of age, an event took place which determined the whole course of his life About twenty-five or thirty years prior to this, a farmer named Steele Rockbridge County had died leaving a few negroes and a large sum debts. By an agreement between the Widow Steele and her husband creditors, they agreed to wait until the increase of the negroes would their debts. Among the Steele negroes at the time of his death was a likely young woman. She contracted a slave marriage with a negro, Har Moore, the property of a neighbor, and had given birth to sixteen children before the time came for the sale required by the creditors of Steele. wife of Harry Moore and his sixteen children from a babe in arms to gr youths were put on the block, with twenty-three other negroes, and sold PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 645 Harry Moore was compelled by his master to be present and to hold his small children in his arms while They were roughly handled by the brutal traders and to see the persons of his daughters, women grown, indecently 'exposed on the block. Young Willson knew all of Harry Moore's children and had played with them many a time. He was a great friend of ,Harry's as a boy is often friendly to his inferiors. Young Willson came to the scene first as Harry was holding in his arms a four-year-old child, which was being auctioned off. The great tears were streaming down Harry's cheeks, and the child seeming to understand the situation, was ,weeping also. Willson looked on the scene and the flood gate of his tears was opened. He being free to go where he chose returned and hid himself to conceal his sympathy and grief. As soon as he could dry his tears, he came back to the scene, but could not contain himself and wept afresh. He had been brought up to believe slavery was a divine institution ordained of God and sanctioned by Holy Writ, but he then and there resolved 4t was a wicked and cruel institution and that he would never live in a state which tolerated it, after he was free from his father's dominion. He so informed the latter, and though the father tried to dissuade him and persuade him to remain in Virginia as the support of his old age, he would not give up' his resolution. It was strengthened by a subsequent private interview with his friend, Harry, who told him God would bottle up his tears against his old mistress who sold his wife and children away. William Williamson at that time became an Abolitionist and anti-slavery and remained such till his views were carried out in the midst of the Civil War. He had an uncle who had located in West Union, Ohio, in 1816, and to him he determined to go as soon as he was of age. In December, 1836, he started for Ohio, traveling to Charleston, West Virginia, by stage; thence down the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers by boat to Manchester, where he landed January 3, 1837. He walked from Manchester to West Union by the old road up Isaac's Creek and over Gift Ridge. At the Nixon place, he sought refuge from a heavy rain, but ran into the small-pox and retreated in an undignified manner, the only time in all his life he did anything unbecoming the dignity of a Virginia gentleman. At West Union, he was welcomed at the house of his uncle, Dr. William B. Willson, who had married Ann Newton, a daughter of the Rev. William Williamson. Here he found sympathy with his views on the institution of slavery, for both his uncle and aunt were pronounced in their anti-slavery sentiments. He taught school in West Union in the old stone schoolhouse, which stood' where John Knox now resides, for twenty- two dollars per month. He read medicine with his uncle who was then the only physician in the place and who resided in a dwelling formerly standing on the site of the present residence of Jacob Plummer. In May, 1839, he located in Russellville, Brown County, to practice medicine, but in July, 1839, he witnessed a brutal fight on the streets, which the bystanders seemed to enjoy, and he concluded that that was no place for him and left. In August, 1839, he located at Rockville, Ohio, and remained there until August, 1840, and some of the most pleasant hours of his life were spent there. He enjoyed the society of James and John Loughry, James McMaters, Judge Moses Baird, Rev. Chester and their families. At that time, Rockville was more prosperous than it ever was before or has been since, because at that time there was a great deal of boat building going 646 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   on there and the stone business was flourishing. In May, 1840, his uncle, Dr. William B. Willson, of West Union, was suffering from quick consumption and was compelled to give up his practice. At his request, Dr. William F. Willson came to West Union and located to take up his practice. His uncle died July 21, 1840, in the fifty-first year of his age. When he came to West Union, Dr. Willson brought with him his letter from the Presbyterian Church at New Providence, in Rockbridge County, Va., and- lodged it with the church in West Union, where he attended regularly. Among the worshipers was a niece of Gen. Joseph Darlinton, Adaline Willson, with black hair and black eyes and very comely to look upon. The Doctor fell in love with the young lady and on the twenty-eighth day of October, 1840, he was married at the residence of General Darlinton by!. the Rev. John P. Vandyke, then the minister of the Presbyterian Church at West Union. There were present at this marriage Gen. Joseph Darlinton, his sister, Mrs Margaret Edwards, Mrs. Ann Willson, the Doctor's aunts. and her daughters, Eliza McCullogh and husband, Addison McCall& Miss Amanda Willson (since Mrs. Hugh Means), Miss Sophronia son, Davis Darlinton and wife, Newton Darlinton, Doddridge Darlinton and wife and Mrs. Salathiel Sparks, then a widow, and directly after the- wife of Gen. James Pilson. Of that company Nit one survives, Mrs. Hu` Means, of Ashland, Ky.   In 1845, Dr. Willson and his wife, Mrs. Ann Willson, his aunt, Addison McCullogh and wife and Mrs. Noble Grimes withdrew from the Presbyterian Church at West Union and joined the New School. A chu was organized at West Union and Doctor Willson and Addison McCull were made elders. From December, 1848, until April, 1849, Dr. Willson conducted a drug business at Pomeroy, Ohio, but with the exception that period from May, 1840, until April, 1851, he practiced medicine a West Union. From the spring of 1849 till April, 1851, he was associa with Dr. David Coleman in the practice, under the name of Willson an Coleman. In the spring of 1851, the Doctor's health broke down, and hi retired to Grimes' Well to recuperate, and was there during the cholera epidemic of 1851 in West Union.   In the fall of 1851, he located at Ironton, Ohio, where he continued‘ to reside the remainder of his life. In Ironton, he connected with the Presbyterian Church in 1852, and the same year was made an elder which office he held until his death. He represented his Presbytery in four dif ferent synods. He attended four general assemblies as a delegate and font more as a visitor. While Doctor Willson would not live in Virginia and while he an his people there differed about slavery, yet he loved to visit his old ho in that state. In April, 1843, he took his wife there and they remained till June. They traveled the whole way in a carriage.   In 1846, he and his wife again visited his childhood home in Virginia, traveling the entire distance upon horseback.   In 1853, he was called to Virginia by the sickness of his mother, traveling by river to Guyandotte and thence by stage the remainder of the way. He had hoped to see his mother alive, but when he preached there she was dead and buried. There were a number of young negroes about the place., and the Doctor asked that one be given him and he selected a boy of nine. named Sam and took him with him to Ohio, solely for the purpose of giv-   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 647   ing him his freedom. Sam was as full of fun and glee as a young healthy animal and had a natural genius for cookery. Notwithstanding the Doctor’s abhorrence of slavery, he consented to be a slaveholder for a week in order to get Sam out of Virginia. He kept Sam for seven years and taught him to read and write and cipher and gave him such further instruction as he could. In 1860, he sent him to Cincinnati to learn the carpenter's trade. Sam could sew and do any housework as well as any woman. He always kept himself neat, clean and well dressed. Whenever the Doctor visited Cincinnati, Sam would buy a number of things for "Miss Adaline," as he called Mrs. Willson. Those articles were usually ladies' clothing or apparel and he could always select them with consummate taste and anticipate Mrs. Willson's wants. Sam always took good care of himself. He never married and is now living in New Orleans.   The Doctor, on the occasion of the last visit to his father in Virginia prior to the Civil War, had a great argument with his father, who was strongly pro slavery in his views and in favor of the Rebellion of the South. In this discussion, the Doctor predicted the Civil War and all its dire consequences to the South, including the abolition of slavery, but his father could not be convinced. They separated never to meet on earth, as James Willson died in 1864, but the Doctor lived to see all his predictions verified, During the war he was very kind to his Southern male relatives who, with the exception of his father, were all in the Confederate army and several of them prisoners at Camp Chase. To those who were prisoners, he sent money, clothing and necessaries, but at the same time no one was more loyal or devoted to the Union cause than he. After the war he practiced his profession in Ironton until the infirmities of age compelled him to desist.   The Doctor and his wife were loved by the entire community, but especially was their church devoted to them. On the twenty-eighth of October, 1890, the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage was celebrated by the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church in Ironton, and it was a most notable occasion which would require an article as long as this. Of those present at their marriage, all had passed away except Mrs. Hugh 'Means, Miss Sophronia Willson and Rev. Newton Darlinton. The two former were present on the fiftieth anniversary.   From 1890 until 1898, the health of the Doctor gradually failed. He was subject to vertigo and was liable to fall at any time and he had to give up his profession, but all the time he was the same cheerful, agreeable person he ever had been. He always welcomed his friends and made them feel refreshed and rejoiced that they had called. He loved to speak of those dear friends who had gone before, but never repined. On the eleventh of February, 1898, his wife passed away and he survived until the twenty-ninth of May, when he, too, received the final summons and answered it. After the death of his wife, an invalid in bed most of his time, unable to walk or stand alone, requiring an attendant all the time, he never complained. He often spoke of the great change which he felt was coming, but to him it was but passing from one room to another. He was ready at the Master's call and it came silently and gently. He passed from sleep to its twin, Death, and the chapter of his life was closed. He was a fine example of the old-fashioned Virginia gentleman, kind and courteous to everyone and quick to appreciate what would please those about him   648 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   and gratify them. In Ironton, when the good men of the city were named, Dr. Willson's name was always first. Everyone felt that he was a sincere and fine Christian gentleman. The world is better that he lived. His life was a most excellent sermon, preached every day, and felt by those with whom he associated.   His old friends in Adams County have all passed over to the majority, but his memory among the younger is like a blessed halo, pictured about the Saints, of which he is undoubtedly one.   Jerusha Adaline Willson.   It is seldom we have biographies of women in works of this character. It is certainly not because they are not deserving of them, as what is said of them is usually said in sketches of their husbands, but the subject of this sketch is deserving of an entire volume, and had her recollections of Adams County been written down, they would make a more interesting volume than this.   She was born December 20, 1820. Her father died when she was but seven years of age and she was taken by Gen. Joseph Darlinton. West Union, Ohio, her great-uncle, and was reared by him. Her home was with the General and his family from her seventh year until her marriage. The General, whose sketch and portrait appear elsewhere in this book, was a most devout Presbyterian, and as our subject has expressed it herself. she was reared on the Bible and the Missionary Herald. If her life is to be deemed a success, she attributed it to the careful training she received in her uncle's home. From her seventh to her ninth year, she listened to the Gospel expounded by the Rev. Dyer Burgess in the stone church at West Union. From her ninth year until she left West Union, in 1851, she was taught in the same church by the Rev. J. P. Vandyke. As his great efforts were always in preaching doctrines, she was well grounded in the Presbyterian faith.   The General's house in West Union was the visiting place of all prominent persons who visited the village. In this way she met and associated with the best people of her time. When she was a girl, educational advantages were limited, but she had wonderful natural ability, and she took advantage of all opportunities for information and intellectual improvement. On October 28, 184o, she was married in her uncle's home to William B. Willson, a young physician, who, in the May before, had located in West Union, and there she went to housekeeping, and resided till the fall of 1851, when she removed to Ironton, Ohio. In West Union, she was the center of a delightful circle of friends of her own sex, who, in their old-fashioned way, took turn in spending the day at each other's houses. She read much, traveled much, and she was delighted in visiting the most noted historical places in our own country and never tired of telling of them. She had fine conversational powers, and that, with her wonderful memory, made her a most desirable companion or guest.   In the church was her great and chosen work, and she took great interest in the Women's Missionary Societies. In 1897, she wrote a fine paper for the Presbyterian Society, giving an account of the organization of the Women's Board of Foreign Missions, which, she attended in 1870 at Philadelphia, and of five subsequent meetings at which she was present. She often dwelt on the advantages the young people had in the present day.   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 649   In her day, she said it was just a privilege for the young to live ; that then the young people had nothing to do but to look on and listen to their elders; that in her youth, nothing but obedience and industry was expected of the young.   This tribute is from the pen of Editor Willson of the Ironton Register: 'Mrs. Willson was a woman of strong character. Her mind was bright ad aggressive. She studied the thoughts of today and kept informed on those subjects which are of real progress. She was a great reader and appreciated the best literature. Her interests lay deeply in religious themes. ad on them she was entertaining and instructive. Her great delight was in the deep and solid orthodoxy of the Presbyterian Church, whose great doctrines were a part of her life and thought. This gave her a serenity that was always beautiful and a seriousness that was always helpful, but through it all, her joys shone like an evening star through the twilight."   In the last five years of her life, she was afflicted, but not a great sufferer. July 29, 1897, she had a stroke of paralysis which thereafter confined er to her bed. She survived till February 11, 1898, when the end came. In all her sickness, she exemplified her religious belief and died with all its comforts sustaining her soul.   Captain Samuel R. Wood   was born September 6, 1788. He died September 23, 1867. Ruth Shoemaker, whom he married as the widow of Samuel Bradford, was born August 18, 1793. She died August 25, 1879. The following children were ',born to them : James Hervey, born April 7, 1816; died March 18, 1844 ; Angeline, now the wife of George Sample, was born January 2, 1818 ; Caroline, now Mrs. S. P. Kirkpatrick, was born December 26, 1819 ; John Nelson was born May 11, 1822 ; David, born December 27, 1824 ; Matilda, born April 20, 1829, afterward married a Mr. Locke, and is now deceased ; Ann Elizabeth, born March 25, 1830, married a Henderson ; George W., born February 24, 1833, deceased ; Joseph William, born December 12, 1834, now deceased ; and Francis Marion, born June 27, 1840.   Ruth Shoemaker is said to have been stolen by the Indians in 1796 while residing on Ohio Brush Creek at Shoemaker's Crossing, in the vicinity of the mouth of Lick Fork. See history of Meigs Township and also biography of Samuel Grimes Bradford in this volume.   Joseph Allen Wilson   was born September 16, 1816, in Logan County, Ohio. His father, John Wilson, was born December 17, 1776, in Kentucky, and died October 5, 1824, in Logan County. His wife, Margaret Darlinton, was born in Winchester, Virginia. She was married to John Wilson, in Adams County, August 6, 181o, by Rev. William Williamson. She survived until March 8, 1869. Her father was born March 24, 1754, and died May 20, 1814, at Newark, Ohio. Her mother was born April 10, 1700, and died December 14, 1832. John Wilson, grandfather of our subject, moved to Maysville, Ky., about 1781, and bought land on the Kentucky side of the river for twelve or fifteen miles along its course. This land is all divided up, and a part of it, opposite Manchester, is known as Wilson's Bottoms.   The father of our subject had fifteen children, all of whom lived to maturity, married and had families. Our subject went to reside with his   650 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   uncle, General. Joseph Darlinton, in Adams County, in 1823. He was brought up in the Presbyterian Church and had such education as the local schools afforded. At the age of sixteen, in 1832, he became an assistant to his uncle in the Clerk's office of the Court of Common Pleas and Supreme Court. In 1837, when he had attained his majority, he started out for himself, with a certificate from J. Winston Price, Presiding Judge of the Common Pleas, that he was of correct and most unexceptionable moral character and habits. Gen. Darlinton also gave him a certificate that he was perfectly honest and of strict integrity ; that he was familiar with the duties of the Clerk's office, and that he had some experience in retailing goods from behind the counter and in keeping merchant's books. Between 1837 and 1840, he was a clerk in the Ohio Legislature at its annual sessions. In September, 1838, he was employed in the County Clerk's office in Greenup County, Kentucky. In November, 1838, he obtained a certificate from Peter Hitchcock, Frederick Grinke and Ebenezer Lane, Supreme Judges, that he was well qualified to discharge the duties of Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County, or any other Court of equal dignity in the State. In November, 1840, he obtained employment in the office of Daniel Gano, Clerk of the Courts of Hamilton County, as an assistant for four years, at $380.00 per year. He was married to Harriet Lafferty, sister of Joseph West Lafferty, of West Union, April 14, 1839, by Rev. Dyer Burgess. He formed a great friendship with Nelson Barrere, a young lawyer who had located in West Union in 1834, and several of Barrere's letters to him are in existence. To Barrere, he disclosed his inmost soul, as to a father confessor, and Barrere held the trust most sacredly. He seemed also to have had the friendship of Samuel Brush, an eminent lawyer of that time, who practiced in Adams County. In 1846, he was an applicant for the Clerkship of Adams Court of Common Pleas, when General Darlinton's term expired. He was recommended by George Collings, Nelson Barrere, William M. Meek, Chambers Baird, John A. Smith, James H. Thompson and Hanson L. Penn, but Joseph Randolph Cockerill was appointed. However, on September 18, 1846, he entered into a written contract with Joseph R. Cockerill, the Clerk, to work in the office at $3o.00 per month until the next spring and in that period to be Deputy Clerk. In April, 1848, he was admitted to the bar at a term of the Supreme Court held in Adams County, but it is not now known that he ever practiced. He always had a delicate constitution and died of pulmonary consumption, December 16, 1848. His wife died August 12, 185o. They had two children, a daughter, who died in infancy, and a son, John 0., who has a separate sketch herein. Andrew Woodrow was born in 1757, in Pennsylvania. He was married to Mary Stevenson, March 8, 1791. She was born March 5, 1765. In 1796, he went to Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky. In 1803, he moved to Aberdeen, Ohio, then in Adams County. In 18o5, he removed to West Union. His wife died there August 19, 1825, in her sixty-second year, and he died there April 2, 1834, in his seventy-seventh year. He was appointed County Surveyor by the Court of Common Pleas, at the April term, 1810, and as such laid off the town plat of Aberdeen, Ohio, and laid out Darlinton's Addition to West Union. He was also a school teacher. His sons were   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 651   Alexander and John. Alexander learned the trade of a cabinet maker and John learned that of a printer first and afterward the trade of a cabinet maker. John Woodrow was born October 5, 1805, and married Jane Crawford in 1831, and removed to Lynchburg, Ohio, in 1832. He died in 1873. Andrew Woodrow's daughter, Milly Ann, married and is the mother of Mrs. Caroline Worstell, of West Union. James Woodrow, a son, died at the age of nineteen and is buried in the Harper cemetery, on Salathiel Sparks' place.   Andrew Woodrow's wife related to Mrs. Caroline Wortsell that when they went to West Union, it was almost all forest and the wolves often went howling through the town at night.   Andrew Woodrow was very fond of music. He had a violin and could draw a crowd at any time and sing and play his hearers into tears or daughter. One of his favorite pieces was the "Battle of Boyne Water."   Robert S. Wilson   was born in Virginia, November 20, 1788. He removed to Adams County in 1811. He was a farmer. He first resided near North Liberty, afterward near West Union. He had a good common school education. He was married in the fall of 1810 to Hester Keyes Wasson, an aunt of Thomas Campbell Wasson.   Robert Wilson died in West Union July 4, 1849, in the Naylor House, opposite the brick schoolhouse, of the Asiatic cholera. His wife died in 1867 of paralysis, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Crawford, near West Union. Their children were Nathaniel, born July 12, 1812 ; John H., born November 22, 1813 ; Robert A., born August 17, 1816; Aquilla Jane, born November 22, 1821 ; Thomas W., born July 12, 1818 ; Hetty Ann, born September 22, 1822 ; Patton, born July 23, 1828 ; David Finley, born June 5, 1827. He learned to be a shoemaker under Abraham Lafferty and afterwards taught school. He married Eva Campbell, October 19, 1854; William McVey, born October 10, 1823; Nathaniel Steele, who was married three times, first to Margaret Chipps, second to Miss Mary Smith and third, to Miss Bromfield. No children by either marriage. John H. Wilson married Rebecca Bayless ; Robert A. married Margaret Markland ; Thomas Wasson married Margaret Schultz ; Aquilla Jane married Harper Crawford ; Hettie Ann married Fdward Lawler; William McVey married Rebecca Lovejoy; Patton married Susannah Newman ; David Finley married Eva Campbell.   Robert Wilson belonged to the United Brethren Church and his wife to the Methodist. Both are buried in the old cemetery at West Union. He was taken violently ill about nine o'clock in the morning and died at eight in the evening. He suffered intensely and was conscious throughout. He had attended the funeral of Adam McCormick and it was thought he got the disease from that. In politics he was an old time Whig.   Rev. John P. Vandyke   was born in Adams County, Pennsylvania, October 18, 1803, and graduated at Miami University in the class of 1826, which was the first class to graduate from that institution. For a time after his graduation he was master of the grammar school in that institution. We are not advised when or where he studied theology. October 1, 1829, he was taken in the   652 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   Presbytery of Chillicothe in a session at West Union, moderated at that time by the Rev. Dyer Burgess. The Presbytery gave him a text to preach from at his ordination on call from the church at WeSt Union. St. John., 6: 37-40.   At a meeting of Presbytery at West Union on April 6 and 8, 1830, Rev. Vandyke was installed. Rev. John Rankin preached on this occasion. At this meeting, Israel Donalson, Abraham Shepherd, Thomas Kirker anal Moses Baird were present. In 1836, he had a call to Georgetown, but de- dined it. On September 8, 1856, Presbytery dissolved the relation of pastor and people between him and the West Union Church and he became stated supply at Red Oak.   At a Presbytery held at Greenfield, April 5 and 6, 1853, he accepted a call from Red Oak Church, and on the third Sabbath of May following he was installed. His pastoral relation to that church was dissolved April 5, 1854, at Hillsboro, Ohio. On September 5 and 6, 1854, he was dismissed to the Presbytery at Crawfordsville, Ind.   After leaving Chillicothe Phesbytery, he labored as stated supply at Frankfort, Ind., until 1856, when he accepted a call from the Pleasant Ridge Church, in the Prebytery of Cincinnati. There he preached as often as his health would permit him, until the summer of 1862, when he removed to Reading. He labored faithfully until his last sickness. Here he died August 13, 1862, of pulmonary consumption.   Soon after his location at West Union, he married Nancy, the daughter of Gov. Thomas Kirker and had a family of children, one son, Lyman B., and several daughters. He was an active, useful minister, distinguished for preaching doctrinal sermons, and dwelling much on the decrees of God. He was very tall and slender. He was always delighted to have an argument and would stop on the street with friends and acquaintances and talk any length of time. He was very fond of conversing on scientific questions. Mrs. Sarah Bradford said of him he was a stronger Calvinist than John Calvin himself. He was always pleased to present the doctrine', of election in his sermons. He was noted for his profound scholarship and his willingness to impart his knowledge.   He preached 1893 sermons in his lifetime of which 2,990 were preached in West Union. I tremble when 1 think of the accounts the members of his West Union Church and congregation will have to give at the Judgment Day of the manner in which they listened to those sermons.   In his last illness, Rev. Vandyke enjoyed to a high degree, the hopes and consolations of the religion he so long preached. He bore his sufferings patiently and spoke of his future prospects with unwavering confidence.   Rev. Burroughs Westlake     was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, February 13, 1792. He connected with the Methodist Church in 1812, and commenced as a minister in 1814 in the Baltimore Conference. He was transferred to the Pittstburg Conference, and thence to the Ohio Conference, and afterwards to the Indiana Conference. During his membership of the Ohio Conference, he was stationed at West Union, in Adams County, and while there lot his wife, Hannah Westlake, who died in 1826, and is the first interment in the West Union Cemetery which had a monument.   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 653   He is well remembered by a few of the oldest surviving citizens of Adams County as a strong minister. He served some nine years in the Conference of Indiana, and while stationed at Logansport fell a victim to an epidemic of erysipelas. He was taken in the morning with a swelling of the throat. His breathing was protracted a few hours by an incision in his throat and the use of a tube. He died at six o'clock in the evening. .He was speechless for some time before his death; but arose, and knelt by his bedside and prayed. He was a rigid disciplinarian and a strong theologian. He was deeply pious. His wife, Ruth Westlake, survived him but seven days, and died of the same disease.   Alexander Woodrow,   son of Andrew Woodrow, was born in Maysville, Kentucky, October 22, 1798. When about seven years of age, he came to West Union with his father and lived there until his death, March 2, 1872, aged seventy-three years. He learned the trade of a cabinet maker. He was married three times, first to Mary Wallace, on June 12, 1823. She died on June IQ, 1825, in the twenty-ninth year of her age, leaving a son, James, who grew to manhood. His second marriage was to Prudence Stevenson, in Mason County, Kentucky, on January 25, 1827. She was a daughter of Nathan Stevenson, an early settler in Mason County, Kentucky, having emigrated from the State of Maryland, and was her husband's full cousin. She was born May 1, 1800, and died of cholera in West Union, June 28, 1835, aged thirty-five years. His third marriage was to Mrs. Sarah Wood, of West Union, widow of Robert Wood. Mrs. Wood was a daughter of Col. John Lodwick, one of the pioneers of Adams County.   The children of Alexander Woodrow's second marriage were Henry B., Edgar, Nathan, Andrew and Mary Prudence, all of whom are deceased but Henry B., the second son, who resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.   Alexander Woodrow was originally a Methodist Episcopal He afterward joined the Methodist Prostestant Church with his second wife. After his marriage to Mrs. Sarah Wood, he became a Presbyterian and remained such during the remainder of his life. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church at West Union for many years. He was elected Auditor of the County in 1843, on the Whig ticket, and served one term.   The Wamsley Family.   Isaac Wamsley, the great-grandfather of the present race of Warnsleys, was born in North Germany sometime in the seventeenth century. He was a seafaring man, the captain of a vessel whose appearance in American waters, about the year 1770, is the beginning of the Wamsley history in this country.   His vessel seemed to be of a warlike character and took part in the early struggle of America upon the high seas. It is not definitely known under which flag he sailed, whether English or American, and the tradition is that he was a kind of free lance, sailing upon his own hook and doubtless exacting tribute from any and all the parties engaged in those early days, when privateers and bucaneers sailed the seas, some with, but more without, letters of marque from organized forms of government.   After the loss of his vessel by wreck or capture, Isaac Wamsley settled in Maryland or Delaware. After the close of the War of the   654 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   Revolution he removed with his family to what was then known as the Northwest Territory, and located on Ohio Brush Creek, at Forge Dam. Jefferson Township. His family consisted of wife and four stalwart Isaac, Jr.; Jonathan, Christopher and William. The three last named tied within the present boundaries of Adams County. Isaac, how went farther west and became a "wild man," as he was called by the of the family, because of his roving disposition, and his fondness for h ing and the wild sports of the trackless forest. His descendants have traced to California and the isleS of the sea.   William Wamsley was the youngest son of Isaac Wamsley and grandfather of the extensive family of that name scattered over the State of Ohio. He settled upon the fertile banks of Scioto Brush Creek, right at the Mouth of Scioto Turkey Creek, and purchased all the bottom land both sides of this creek from its mouth five miles up the stream, being ful to follow, in his line of survey. the base of the mighty hills which close this valley upon both sides of this stream.   This land was entered for him by William Bayless. William Wamsley was married to Sarah Wikoff about the. year 1798. Of this union nine children were born, eight boys and one girl. Leah, the daughter died at an early age. In the naming of their children the strong religion sentiment seemed to prevail, for all were given Bible names save two, follows : Peter, Isaac, William, John, Samuel and Christopher (twins) Leah, Amos and Jesse. All these men were devoutly religious and members of the M. E. Church, and every one of them uncompromising Democrats of the "Old Hickory" stripe.   William Wamsley and his sons built the M. E. Church which was called "Wamsley Chapel." This church was the third meeting house erected within the boundaries of Adams County. It was erected as a matter of convenience for these God-loving men and women who were thus saved a weary journey of seven miles to Moore's Chapel, which was the first meeting house in the county.   How little do the present generation understand how precious the Word of Life was to these toil-worn sons and daughters of men, who, in the almost unbroken forest, with ax, plow, and gun, were laying the foundation to a mighty superstructure whose towering proportions would afford shelter and safety to the weary and oppressed of every land.   William Wamsley died September 26, 1845, in the seventieth year of his age, and was followed by his wife, April 27, 1850, in her seventy-ninth year. They are sleeping side by side in the Wamsley graveyard.   Isaac and Jesse Wamsley were ordained ministers of the Methodist Church. John and Samuel were exhorters in the same church, and all the rest were class leaders and earnest, devout workers in the interest of that church.   It would be interesting to follow the history of each member of this family of eight boys ; we must, however, content ourselves with but two of the fathers of the present living race of Wamsleys residing in Adams County.   Rev. Jesse Wamsley was the youngest son in this family. He was born July 11, 1813, and was married to Mary McCormack, December 15, 1831. Of this union two children were born, James Pilcher, who is still living upon the old homestead where he was born, and William Finley,   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 655   who crossed the silent river but a few years ago. Pilcher Wamsley was born March 30, 1833, and was married October 23, 1856, to Miss Elizabeth A. Graham. Jesse Wamsley, Jr., the only child living of this family, is a young man of fine personal appearance, cultured and refined, a pleasant gentleman, and an honest man.   Jesse, the father of Pilcher and Finley Wamsley, spent his life in the Christian ministry, being converted and licensed to preach in his fourteenth year. He was admitted to the Conference and ordained as a preacher at Chillicothe, Ohio, when about twenty-eight years of age. His first circuit was on the home work which extended hundreds of miles, taking him two weeks of constant travel to get around. After years of travel upon horseback, Rev. Wamsley concluded that it would rest him in his work to ride in a buggy, so he bought one costing him $110.00. This purchase came very near destroying his career as a Methodist preacher, the people seeing in this buggy the symbol of pride, and a worldly spirit refused to hear him preach ; and when he was compelled to buy a set of false teeth, in order to talk plainly, the climax was reached and his best friends withdrew their support. But as the years went by, and buggies and false teeth, became common, his friends returned and enjoyed many a hearty laugh at their own expense over the foolish prejudice of those early years. Rev. Wamsley was compelled to travel to Cincinnati for his teeth, which cost, at that time, one hundred and thirty-five dollars. In 1864, Rev. Jesse Wamsley's name was di opped from the Conference roll of the M. E. Church, the charges brought against him being that he had subscribed for and was reading the Christian Witness, a paper published in the city of Columbus by one Rev. J. F. Givens, the founder and leader of the Christian Union of Ohio.   In 1865, Rev. Wamsley attended the Annual Council of Christian Union at Edenton, Ohio, where his venerable appearance and his high preaching ability at once advanced him to the front ranks of those early workers in the cause of liberty and fraternity.   Returning home he organized a local church with nine charter members, and became their pastor, serving them faithfully for many years. Many local churches were organized by him in the years that followed his identification with the Christian Union cause. He died February 18, 1887. William Wamsley, the father of Rev. Wm. Wamsley, now residing in Wamsleyville, was born in 1804, and died October 12, 1868. He was married to Elizabeth Bolton in 1825. Of This union eight children were born, five sons and three daughters.   Rev. William Wamsley, the subject proper of this sketch, was born August 3, 1843, on the old Wamsley homestead at the mouth of Scioto Turkey Creek. When he was six years of age, his own dear mother departed this life. Deprived thus early of a mother's love and care, the resolution was formed in his young mind to accomplish something for himself, to build a town that should bear his name, and surround himself with friends and neighbors in whom his heart delighted. As the years went by Young Wamsley attended school some little, but the most of the time was engaged in financial ventures which in every instance proved successful, drawing the attention of the people to his giant struggles. At the age of twenty, he had achieved his fortune, and in 1864 began to put in execution the dream of his young life, to build a town. Before this,   656 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   however, he had purchased the home farm containing 210 acres. He laid off the streets of his village through this beautiful farm and began the building of a large mill, blacksmith shop, storerooms and dwelling houses,   This town grew in size and importance and was called by the people "Bill's town." About this time young Wamsley concluded that he needed a helpmate to share his joys and sorrows, and on the twenty-third day of May, 1867, he was joined in wedlock to Sarah W. Wamsley. One child was born to bless this union, a son, Milton Bina, now grown to manhood, married, and with wife and children resides in Wamsleyville, aiding his father in his busy life of toil and ventures.   So prodigous were the efforts of Rev. Wamsley that the attention of the leading men of the county was directed to this rising town, the only one in Jefferson Township. So great was the excitement over his achievements, that Hon. John T. Wilson and Col. Cockerill came to visit Wm. Wamsley and to talk over the situation. After an excellent dinner they visited the steam mill, the shops and stores, had a review of the two hundred men then in the employ of William Warnsley, and expressed their pleasure and interest with all they saw. When about to depart, Mr. Wilson asked Wamsley if they could aid him in any way, and was told that a postoffice was the pressing need of the town. Mr. Wilson then and there promised that an office should be established, and Col. Cockerill declared its name should be Wamsley. The mail route established was from West Union through Wamsley and on to Mineral Springs with mail twice each week. Now, however, it is twice each day. Other visitors came to see and find out all about this wonderful little town. Among the number were bankers R. H. Ellison, Crocket McGovney, and John A. Murry, who at once opened a bank account with young Wamsley which was a benefit and profit to all parties.   Finding that it would be impossible to transport the manufactured articles of this busy town without better roads, Hon T. J. Mullen, of West Union, was called upon and drew up a petition for a free turnpike from Rome, on the Ohio River, to Mineral Springs. Young Wamsley was the promoter of this enterprise, aided by Mr. Salisbury, of Mineral Springs; A. J. Jones, of Wamsley ; Dr. D. H. Woods, George A. Lafferty, of Rome, and others. The struggle was made, and the road granted under the Two Mile Law. Fventually, other roads were opened to the town.   On the evening of November 28, 1879, the fire demon visited this enterprising town and the large mill, the lumber yardo stores, and all the property in touch with it, were entirely destroyed, entailing a loss of some. twenty thousand dollars from the hard earnings of William Wamsley. But this disaster did not daunt the courage of Young Wamsley. In a few hours the ashes were cleared away and work began in the building of a larger and better mill. Five years afterward, fire again destroyed nearly the entire town, burning every house, store and barn upon the east side of Main Street, entailing a loss of sixty thousand dollars, ten thousand of which fell to the lot of William Wamsley. But again the courage of this tireless worker rose above the ruin of all his hopes, and he determined that the town should be rebuilt, and at once began work upon his own home, which had perished in the flames, and the town arose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of its own destruction.   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 657   The third time fire broke out, and on the sixth of February, 1892, the great and famous mill was consumed, bringing a loss of twelve thousand dollars upon the aching head of its owner. But still over these losses this man moves onward ; his mill is in process of erection, and backed up by the fertile acres of his valley farm, he still stands erect, his hair streaked with gray, but his mind and heart young as ever full of vigor and courage to battle on. It is proper to mention that the town of Wamsleyville was laid out, surveyed and plotted, January 15, 1874, and put on record January 3o, same year. There has been added to the town a beautiful Fair Park owned and controlled by Rev. Wamsley, whose management of the Wamsleyville Fair is a noted event in the history of the county. This ground furnishes a pleasant and convenient place for celebrations, Sunday School gatherings, as well as other purposes for which it can be used.   Rev. Wamsley's home life is an ideal one. Between himself and wife love reigns supreme, and peace and plenty crown their board.   Big-hearted, big-bodied and generous, his home door stands open night and day to all corners and his table filled with the food that delights the eye and pleases the palate.   Himself and wife are earnestly religious and devout members of the Christian Union in whose ranks he has been an efficient minister for many years.   His only son, with his interesting family, live near the happy father ad mother and the words "grandpa" and "grandma" from childish lips gladden the heart and home of this happy pair.   The Burbage Family.   In the year 1555, John Burbage was the Bailiff and, ex officio, Chief Magistrate of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birth-place of William Shakespeare. Subsequently, this office was held by Francis Burbage, and later on by Shakespeare, the father of the great poet.   The record of this Court has shown that, during John Burbage's term of office, he presided over a trial in which John Shakespeare was sued for a sum of money. These facts appear in William Shakespeare's biography as published in George L. Duyckinck's edition of his works, by Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, Pa.   The next point of interest is the intimate association of Shakespeare with James Burbage and his son, Richard, in the dramatic profession, in Lodon. Under the title "Shakespeare," in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, it is stated that James Burbage had been a fellow townsman of Shakespeare; and a transcript of a letter written by Lord Southampton, introducing and commending William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, was found among Lord Elsmere's papers filed while he was Lord Chancellor, in which it is said that Shakespeare and Richard Burbage were from the same county. " and almost the same town."   That the advent of the two Burbages in London preceded that of Shakespeare by some years, is the concurrent testimony of all writers on the subject. James Burbage had been an actor in a company of players organized by the Earl of Leicester, sometimes called Burbage's players, which gave performances in London and elsewhere, long before the erection of any building in England, specially designed for such a purpose.   658 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   To James Burbage belongs the distinction of having erected in London, in 1575, the original Black Friars Theater, the first theater built in England.   In an article in Scribner's Magazine for May, 1891, Alexander Cargill says : "This place (the Curtain Theater) and The Theater' as Burbage's place was distinctively known, were the only two theaters in the city proper, when young Shakespeare first arrived in London." From the facts already stated, Shakespeare's connection with the Burbages, in London, is quite natural, on the assumption that he went there to enter the dramatic profession. Accordingly, the writer of the article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Dr. Baynes, referring to Shakespeare's early career in London, says : "But from his first coming up (to London), it seems clear that he was more identified with the Earl of Leicester's players of whom he was more identified with the Earl of Leicester's players of whom his energetic fellow townsman, James Burbage, was the head, than any other group of actors."   It is further stated by the same writer, on documentary evidence, that the Burbages originally introduced Shakespeare to the Blackfriars Company and gave him an interest as part proprietor in the Blackfriar's property. Knight, in his biography of Shakespeare, says there is no 'reason to doubt that Shakespeare first went to London accompanied by Richard Burbage, who, at the time of his death, owned the Blackfriar's Theater, and an interest in several others. He had become the greatest tragedian of his time, was the first actor to perform the part of Hamlet in the great play of that name, as well as the part of the Moor in Othello. He is often spoken of as the "Garrick of the Elizabethan Stage," and Lord Southampton calls him "Our English Roscius," one who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most admirably. Some writers contend that Shakespeare wrote the part of Hamlet expressly for Richard Burbage, and the write, in Scribner's Magazine, says : "There can be no question that it was by the histrionic excellence of Burbage that Shakespeare was influenced and encouraged in the writing of more than one of his great plays." Thus it appears that the Burbages were efficient in preparing and cultivating the field from which Shakespeare was to reap an immortal fame which, in its turn, has served to perpetuate their names in history.   It now remains to indicate, briefly, the lines along which the genealogy of the Burbage family in Adams County may be traced back to the London Burbages should any one have opportunity and an inclination to do so. It is well known that the English colony established at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, was the result of a commercial enterprise undertaken by a company organized in London.   In a large work recently published by Alexander Brown entitled "The Genesis of the United States," he shows from records in England that Richard Burbage was a member of this company. He died in London in 1618, leaving a son, William. The land records of Virginia show that. in 1636, a William Burbage and also Captain Thomas Burbage resided in the colony at Jamestown. From 1636 to 1638, the authorities at Jamestown granted patents to Thomas Burbage for several tracts of land in Virginia, among which was a tract of 1,250 acres located in Accomac County, Virginia, adjoining Worcester County, Maryland. The Record of Wills   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 659   in Worcester County shows that Burbage died there as far back as 1726. In this record the names of both Thomas and William Burbage recur in successive generations. This fact, together with the close proximity of the locality to the land owned by Thomas Burbage in the adjoining county of Accomac, creates a strong presumption of relationship between the Maryland and Virginia Burbages, especially when considered in connection with the well known historical fact that many of the Jamestown people emigrated to the eastern shore of Maryland soon after Jamestown -was settled.   Thomas Burbage's death is accounted for in Henning's Virginia Statutes, Volume I, page 405, wherein the order of the Court is shown directing a division of his lands so that his widow could choose her dower. In this order, William Burbage is to have the remainder as heir at law, but in some of the records he iS mentioned as "head right" in connection with these lands. But in none of the records at Jamestown, thus far discovered, is any evidence found indicating that William Burbage died in that vicinity. This strengthens the presumption that he crossed the bay, settled on the land in Accomac County, and thus became the head of the various branches of the Burbage family in Maryland. Their Presence there can be accounted for in no other way from the present state of facts. It is to be regretted that opportunity to confirm this view of the matter by examination of the records of Accomac County has not been had.   Thomas Burbage, who died in Worcester County, Maryland, in 1722, aged ninety-six years, was the ancestor of the Adams County Burbages. One of his sons, the Rev. Fdward Burbage, who also died in Worcester County, Maryland, in 1812, was the father of Levin Duncan Burbage who settled near the present site of Bradysville ; of Thomas Burbage, near Bentonville; of Dolly Burbage (Mrs. Smashea), of West Union ; of Elizabeth Burbage, full brothers and sisters, and of Joel Burbage, a half brother, who lived near Decatur, together with his three sisters, Ann, Sarah, Rhoda, (Mrs. Schultz) and Mary. They emigrated together, via Pittsburg and the Ohio River, and landed at Manchester in the Spring of 1816. Two years later, Levin D. Burbage went to Maryland and back, traveling alone on horseback, through what was then almost a continuous wilderness.   All of these people were devout Christians and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as was their father before them, and his sincerity was evinced in his refusal to accept from his father a proffered gift of some slaves, on the ground that slavery was contrary to the spirit of Christianity. This brings the history of the Burbage family down to a time within the memory of its oldest surviving members, and of these we have space for only a brief sketch of the career of one, who having represented the county in a public capacity, should, be mentioned along with others sustaining similar relations to the public. We refer to Captain William D. Burbage, who was the youngest of the nine children born to Levin Duncan Burbage and his wife, Sarah H. Cropper, daughter of John Cropper.   Captain Burbage was born on his father's farm near Bradyville, December 31, 1835.   The father having died in 1840, and the mother in 1841, the boy was left in the care of Edward, his only brother and guardian, who resided   660 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   at the parental homestead until 1846, when he moved to a farm which he had purchased, located about two miles from West Union on Beasley's Fork. At that time much of the land in this neighborhood was covered by primeval forests and the business of farming consisted largely of work in the woods, especially during the time when the planting, cultivating or harvesting of crops did not require attention. In such a community. physical labor is respectable and young men and boys have no fear that hard work will degrade them in the general estimate of individual worth. Thus stimulated by environment and blessed with health and strength, young Burbage grew to be an efficient "farm hand," a fact of much importance in his first efforts to acquire an education. Naturally, educational facilities in the country were quite limited— the eusual annual term in the public schools consisting of three months. Yet the boy who could be spared to attend the entire term was exceptionally favored. During one of these years the subject of this sketch was in school but seventeen days, and up to the year 1853, he had scarcely contemplated the possibility of ever acquiring more than the mere rudiments of learning.   But about this time, Wm. M. Scott came into the neighborhood and engaged to teach for a term of three months in the Ellison school house, as it was called, and to this fact, more than any other, Captain Burbage attributes a change in his career which has resulted in his becoming a student for life.   Scott was an excellent teacher and possessed the rare faculty of inspiring in his pupils a feeling of self-reliance whereby almost any one may largely educate himself.   This idea of self-culture took practical form in 1860, when Scott, Burbage and Robert S. Cruzan— all teachers at the time—rented a double log cabin on Moore's Run and started what they called "Trinity Institute." In this they were soon joined by other teachers, and several students who had not yet engaged in teaching.   The plan was for each teacher to conduct recitations in those studies in which he was farther advanced than the others, while they served in like manner in respect to such studies as they were severally best fitted to conduct, as determined by experience and mutual agreement, until the curriculum of an ordinary college course should be mastered.   What the ultimate development of this enterprise might have been, had not the war of 1861 broken it up, can never be known ; but it was the unanimous judgment of all—teachers and pupils alike, that they had never made more rapid progress—even in studies none of them had previously pursued, than they made in that school during its life of two summers.   Captain Burbage was the principal teacher of the public schools in Winchester in 1861, and finished his career as an educator by completing a term as Superintendent of the Public Schools of Manchester in 1869, in the room, in which ten years before, he had ceased to attend the public schools as a student. In 1862, he entered the Army as Second Lieutenant of Company F, 91st O. V. I., in which he served till the close of the war, receiving promotions, meanwhile, to the rank of First Lieutenant and Captain, in succession, according to the rule of seniority. During the summer of 1866, a vacancy was created in the lower House of the Ohio Legislature by the death of the lamented Col. H. L. Phillips, and Capt.   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 661   Burbage was elected to fill the vacancy, having as a competitor for the place, hid friend and comrade in the army, Mr. F. D. Bayless, who was the Democratic candidate. Captain Burbage regards his efforts to secure the enactment of the law under which the public turnpikes of Adams County were established, as the most important of his services in the legislature.   He was elected Mayor of Manchester soon after returning from Columbus, and while serving in this capacity, was very much puzzled on one occasion as to how he ought to decide a question of law argued before him by the distinguished attorney E. P. Fvans, father of one of the two tors of this history.   Experience in the Legislature and the Mayor's office intensified a long felt desire on the part of the Captain, to know more about the laws and institutions of our country.   Accordingly, after moving his family to Kansas, where his father-in-law, the late George Pettit then resided, and after looking over the West for a while to discover ways and means to support his family and pursue his studies, he finally received, in September, 1869, an appointment in the Treasury Department in Washington where he has remained for thirty ,years, graduating, meanwhile, in the Law Department of Columbian University, and employing his leisure time thereafter in the study of scientific ,rand philosophical literature touching the great problems of individual and social life, with a view to contributing, in some small degree at least, to the well-being of mankind.   The Caden Family.   The Caden family, so far as is known, originated in Penig, Saxony, Germany. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, there lived there three brothers by the name of Caden of noble lineage. Two of them were military men, one of whom served in the Russian army and the other in the Austrian army. The grandfather of William Caden, who resides at Buena Vista, died when his father was but three years old. His grandfather was a forge owner. In those days there were no rolling mills, consequently all iron was necessarily forged under the hammer for all mercantile purposes. Carl W. Caden continued in that business until his wife died in 1848. In 1850, he emigrated to America with a family of six children, one daughter and five sons. He had suffered from a throat disease and emigrated, hoping to be benefitted by making the trip across the ocean. The family staid a while in New York City, and from there went to Philadelphia, where he remained a month under a physician's treatment. From there he went to Pittsburg and was thoroughly cured of his throat .trouble. He then took his family to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was unsuccessful in obtaining employment. From Wheeling, he went to Parkersburg, where he bought a farm of one hundred and fifty acres in Wood County, forty miles from Parkersburg. Unfortunately for him, he was not acquainted with the title, and it proved worthless and he lost his farm and all he had invested in it. In 1853, he moved to Greenup County, Kentucky, at one of the iron furnaces, where he remained until 1857, when he rented George Bruce's stone saw mill on the waters of Kinnikinick. He continued that until 186o, when he removed to Buena Vita, where he continued in the sawed stone business; obtaining stone in both Adams and Scioto Counties, but principally in Adams County. In   662 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   1885, the firm of W. L. Caden & Bros. was the successor to Carl W. Caden. In 1875, the Buena Vista Freestone Company was organized by William L. Caden, Adolph Caden, Gustav Caden and Gustav A. Klein. A daughter of Carl Caden died in Tell City, Indiana, in 1881. He died in 1885, as did his son, Gustay. Adolph died in 1897 and Lewis in 1899. William resides at Buena Vista and another brother lives at Evansville, Indiana, engaged in the quarrying and mill business.   The Ellis Family.   Nathan, Jeremiah, Samuel, Hezekiah, James and Jesse, all sons of James Ellis and Mary Veatch, his wife, came to this section from the neighborhood of Brownsville on the Monongahela River, some sixty miles above Pittsburg, in 1795. Mr. and Mrs. James Ellis came from Wales early in the eighteenth century and settled first in Maryland, where after spending a few years, they emigrated to Western Pennsylvania,. where Mr. Ellis died some time after the Revolutionary War. There is nothing to show that there were any daughters in the family.   Religiously, the Ellises were Quakers of the strictest sect and were identified with the Colonists in the French and Indian Wars, and later on in the Revolutionary struggle, several of the name holding commissions, in the Continental army. In the Spring of 1795, Captain Nathan Ellis and his five brothers embarked on boats at Brownsville and floated on down past Pittsburg into the Ohio, looking for homes in the mighty forests and, fertile lands of the then almost unknown Northwest Territory. The Ohio was the great highway over which came much of the tide of emigration which have peopled this section of the Union, a mighty stream hemmed in by a continent of gloomy shade and wierd solitude, rolling its unbroken length for a thousand miles, a beautiful stretch of restless, heaving water which realized to the voyager the "ocean river of Homeric song."   Landing at Limestone, the Ellis brothers were so charmed with the romantic beauty of the region and the productiveness of the soil, that they determined at once to go no further. At that time, with the exception of a few isolated settlements at Marietta, Manchester, Gallipolis, and Cincinnati,  there were but few settlers on the north hank of the river, while upon the south side of the country, it was swarming with emigrants seeking out and appropriating the richest lands and most eligible town sites. Like the Jordan of old, the Ohio was the great boundary line. It stayed the incursions of the Indians, and north of its immediate banks the wave of immigration had not rolled. The very day, April 27, 1795, that Nathan Ellis landed at Limestone, five hundred red men were encamped right' across the river. Finding that the most valuable lands were taken up, the` Fllis brothers determined to push on into the Northwest Territory. Nathan Ellis built the first home in what is known as Aberdeen, and twenty-one years after, laid out the town, naming it for the old University town of Aberdeen, Scotland, in honor of one of his fellow townsmen who was a native of the place.   Samuel Ellis settled at Higginsport, eighteen miles below. James opened up a farm near the present site of Georgetown. Jeremiah Fllis bought lands near Bentonville. Hezekiah Fllis founded a home on the waters of Eagle Creek, and Jesse Ellis entered a tract on what is now known as Brooks Bar ; three miles east, of Aberdeen. More than a century has   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 663   passed, yet such have been the staying qualities of the name that many of the original entries remain in the possession of the family. As a connection, they have ever been blessed with the good things of life and inherit many of the sterling qualities which distinguished their Quaker ancestors. Nathan Ellis was born November 10, 1749, and Mary Walker, his wife, August 31, 1752. They were married in 177o. Nathan Ellis assisted Jonathan Zane and John McIntire in marking out the Zane Trace in 1797 ad 1798. He became quite a large landowner, holding at one time eight thousand acres. Aberdeen was first known as "Fllis Ferry." Nathan Ellis became the first Justice of the Peace. an office he held until his death in 1819. In a very readable and interesting volume, "A Tour in the Western Country," published in 1808 by Fortescue Cumming, we find the following: "On Saturday, I returned to Ellis Ferry, opposite Maysville, on the banks of the Ohio. I found 'Squire Ellis seated on a bench under the shade of two locust trees, with a bottle, pen, ink, and several papers, holding a Justice Court which he does every Saturday. Seven or eight men were sitting on the bench with him, awaiting his award in their several cases. After he had finished, which was soon, after I had taken a seat under the same shade, one of the men invited the 'Squire to drink with him, which he consented to do. Some whiskey was procured from Ladlord Powers in which all parties made a libation to peace and justice. There was something in the scene so primitive and so simple that I could not help enjoying it with much satisfaction. I took up my quarters for the night with Landlord Powers, who is an Irishman from the Ballinbay in the County of Monaghan. He pays 'Squire Ellis eight hundred dollars per annum for his tavern, fine farm and ferry."   Nathan Ellis and his wife were a couple of untiring energy and great force of character, fit representatives of the heroic men and women who settled in the Ohio Valley and laid the corner stone of the empire in the wilderness. Ten children were born to them : Margaret (Mrs. Scicily) ; Mary (Mrs. Campbell), 1773 ; John, 1777 ; Jeremiah, 1779; Jesse, 1782; Samuel, 1784; Nancy (Mrs. Grimes), 1786; Nathan, 1789; Hetty, 1792; she became the wife of Capt. John Campbell, a distinguished officer under General McArthur, in the War of 1812. Jesse was in his company and took part in many engagements. Flender, born 1795, married James Higgins and emigrated many years ago to Johnson County, Missouri, where she died November 10, 1882.   Jeremiah Fllis married Anna Underwood, daughter of a well-known ad prominent Virginia gentleman in 1803. His son, Washington, was born in 1804, and in 1832 married Miss Aris Parker, of Mason County, Kentucky. Jesse Ellis married Sabina, a daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks, of Mason County, Ky., a warm friend and contemporary of Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, and one of the founders of Maysville (1787) Major John Fllis married Keziah, a daughter of William Brooks, who with his brother, Thomas, was captured at the battle of Blue Licks and held a prisoner by the Indians for five years. Major Ellis served in an Ohio regiment in the War of 1812, and had quite a noted career as a soldier. Jesse Ellis died in 1877 in his ninety-fifth year. His wife passed away five years later in her ninetieth year. Nathan Ellis died in 1819 and is buried on the hill overlooking Aberdeen. His mother, Mary Veatch, who died in 1799, rests in the Aberdeen cemetery. John died in 1829. Jeremiah died   664 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   in 1857 ; Washington, in 1873 ; his wife in 1891. They all rest in the Ellis family cemetery at Ellis Landing in Sprigg Township, four miles east of Aberdeen. Jeremiah Ellis and Anna Underwood became the parents of ten children, five sons and five daughters, the best known of whom are the Hon. Jesse Ellis, of Aberdeen, Ohio, who has represented Adams County in the Legislature a number of times, and Samuel Ellis, deceased, formerly a sheriff of Lewis County, Kentucky.   Jesse Ellis, although now a resident of Brown County, was born in Adams County, December 19, 1833. He has always been a farmer, teacher and surveyor, and was at one time surveyor of Adams County for twelve. consecutive years. He is a man of charming personality and has many,”; devoted friends. In connection, it is but right that we should mention the record of the sons of the family in the war for the preservation of the Union. Many of them bore commissions but a far greater number were„ in the ranks. So far as the present writer is informed, the following bore* commissions : Lieutenant Colonel Edward Ellis, 15th Illinois, killed at Shiloh ; Major Ephriam J. Ellis, 33d Ohio ; Lieutenant Jesse Ellis, 59th Ohio, and Captain Isaac Dryden, 24th Ohio, grandson of Samuel Fllis., fell at Chickamauga ; Private William J. Ellis, Company G, 70th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was the first man of that regiment killed at Shiloh.. His head was carried away by a cannon ball. Drs. Samuel and Lewis Fllis, were medical officers ; Dryden Ellis, Captain 6th Ohio Cavalry ; Amos Fllis Lieutenant loth Ohio; Anderson V. Fllis, Lieutenant 49th Ohio ; Willi Ellis, Captain 16th. Kentucky ; Joseph Ellis, Lieutenant 175th Ohio. Maj Ellis was the Captain of the Manchester Company in the 33d Ohio at the time he enlisted in 1861. He commanded his regiment at the battle Stone River and had a horse killed under him. He was a most gallant an beloved officer, and had he lived, would have been put in command of on of the new Ohio regiments then organizing for the field. Of the private soldiers of the Ellis family, it is impossible to speak in detail. Quite number of them lost their lives on the field of battle ; some of them died in rebel prisons ; others perished from wounds and diseases, and many of them lived to get back home to the green hills of the old Buckeye Stat and to rejoice that peace had come to our land, and that we were a reunit nation sovereign, great and free.   Anderson Nelson Ellis, A. M., M. D., son of Washington and Aris Ellis, was born at Ellis Landing, Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio December 19, 184o. In his twelfth year, he entered the public schools Ripley where he remained six years, and during which times, those sch maintained a very high standard of excellence under such well kno efficient instructors as Captain F. W. Hurth, Rev. W. H. Andrews, Prof. Ulysses Thompson and Gen. Jacob Ammen. He then entered the Freshman class at the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, where, remained until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, when, went to the front as a volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of the late Maj-General William Nelson, and remained with him until his death. Subsequently, he was attached to the staff of his old teacher, Gen. Ammen, then commanding the fourth division of the Army of the Ohio under Don Carlos Buell. On the eighteenth of March, 1862, he was appointed Second Lieutenant of the 49th Ohio Regiment, Colonel William H. Gibson which commission he resigned September 28, 1863, on account of failing   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 665   health. Returning home, he at once entered Miami University and graduated the following year. In 1885, his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.   In the Spring of 1865, he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. A. G. Goodrich, of Oxford, Ohio, and afterward attended medical lectures at Ann Arbor, Michigan ; Pittsfield, Mass. ; New York City and Cincinnati. At the Berkshire Medical College, he was assistant to the chair of Chemistry and graduated with the valedictory. Subsequently the board of trustees of that institution elected him Demonstrator of Anatomy. In March, 1868, the Ohio Medical College gave him an addendum degree. After some little private practice in Ohio and Kansas, Dr. Ellis entered the Ohio Regular Army as a medical officer, and spent five years on the. plains and mountains of the Southwest. To one who had as yet known nothing beyond the haunts of civilization, the nomadic life of an army officer presented many attractions. While in New Mexico and Arizona, the Doctor became much interested in the history of the Pueblo Indians—that last remnant of the Aztec population of the days of the Spanish conquest, who present the pathetic spectacle of a civilization perishing without a historian to recount its rise, ruin and fall, its art, poetry, sorrow and suffering—a repetition of the silent death of the Mound Builders. He spent much of his time while off duty in exploring those ancient ruins that lie all over that interesting land. After leaving the service, he delivered many lectures and published a number of magazine articles on "The Land of the Aztec." From the very day of his graduation in medicine, Dr. Ellis had cast longing eyes at the admirable teaching and superior clinical advantages of the great European hospitals. In 1878, he resolved to realize this day dream of his life. He then went abroad and spent eighteen months in Heidelberg, Vienna and London, and afterward made a journey through Italy and France. While absent from the United States, he published many letters in the press, of his observations and travels in those countries, the most notable of which was "Pen and Ink Pictures of Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Leghorn and Genoa." ' Shortly after his return home to Cincinnati, he received the appointment of Assistant Physician at Longview Asylum, a position which he soon found irksome, but which led to an intimate acquaintance with nervous diseases and his appearance in many of the Courts of the State as a medical expert in insanity cases. In September, 1882, he was called to the chair of Laryngology in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, which position he took and held until the close of the session 1890, and found himself to be an efficient and popular teacher. On December 10, 1893, Gov. Charles Foster appointed him Captain and Assistant Surgeon of the First Regiment, Ohio National Guards, Col. Charles B. Hunt, commanding, and on the thirty-first day of July, 1888, Gov. J. B. Foraker promoted him to the surgeoncy with the rank of Major, the vacancy being made by the promotion of the lamented Dr. F. A. Jones, to the position of Surgeon General of the State of Ohio.   In the Spring of 1894, Dr. Ellis determined, on account of failing health, to leave Cincinnati and go to his ancestral acres at Ellis Landing and devote his entire time and energy to the calling of the farmer. He had scarcely settled himself in the old homestead before patients came to his door in great numbers. Not wishing to return to Cincinnati, he has   666 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   removed to Maysville, Kentucky, where he is actively engaged in the practice of his profession.   On the thirtieth of December, 1891, Dr. Fllis was married to Miss Laura Murphy, daughter of James Murphy, a prominent farmer and stock- raiser of Butler County, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Oxford Female College of the class of 1873, and was for many years the Lady President of the Alumnae Association of that institution. One child, a boy now in his fifth year, has blessed their union, who bears the name of William Nelson, in honor of one of the heroes of the war.   The Grime. Family   came from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of Brush Creek, in Adams County, between 1795 and 1797. So far as we can learn now, the family was composed of the mother, Elizabeth Grimes, and her children, as follows : Sons, Noble, Thomas, and Richard ; and daughters, Hannah, Barbara, Mary, and Effa. Noble Grimes appears to have been̊ the most prominent among the sons, and was probably the oldest of the children. The family is said to have come from Ireland prior to the Revolutionary War. Noble Grimes procured a patent to one thousand acres of land on the Ohio River, just west of the mouth of Brush Creek. Thee patent to his survey was dated October 28, 1799. Noble Grimes never married. He was appointed by Gov. St. Clair one of the Judges of the I Court of Common Pleas of Adams County in December, 1799, and served until 1801. He was evidently a Federalist of pronounced type. In 1800, he laid out the town of Washington at the mouth of Brush Creek. It was composed of eighty-four lots, eight of which were reserved for public buildings. He expected it to be the county seat and become a great city. A log courthouse and jail were erected there and were used from March, 1798, until West Union was selected as the county seat. Among the persons residing in the town of Washington were Gen. David Bradford, Major John Belli, William Faulkner and Henry Aldred: All three of the last named were Revolutionary soldiers. After the selection of West Union as the county seat, Washington began to go down, and not a vestige remains. The Grimes family purchased all the lots.   Noble Grimes was one of the assessors of Iron Ridge Township in Adams County. He died in 1805, and was buried on the river hill on the Grimes farm. By his last will and testament he provided for his mother, Elizabeth, and his sister Hannah, who never married, and gave all his other estate, real and personal, to his brother Thomas. He seems to have been a successful man for his time. Richard Grimes, his brother, never married. Thomas Grimes, a brother of Noble Grimes, married Miss Mary Brown, February 10, 1801, and had three sons, Noble, Greer Brown, ad Richard C. He died shortly prior to September 28, 1807.   Barbara Grimes, the sister of the first Noble Grimes, married Gen. David Bradford about 1790. They had two sons, Samuel and David. Samuel lost his life in the War of 1812, and David was at one time famous about West Union. Mary Grimes, sister of the first Noble Grimes, married Moses Smith, of Kentucky, as her Second husband. Her daughter Sarah married Governor Thomas Kirker, and her daughter Mary married John Briggs. She had a daughter Betsey who maried Samuel Davis, and a   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 667   daughter Rebecca who married Robert Edmiston. They had two sons, Jarret and Charles.   Effa Grimes, a sister of the first Noble, married John Crawford, a brother of Col. William Crawford, November 3o, 1797. This is the same William Crawford who was burned by the Indians at Tymochtee. John Crawford had four sons and two daughters.   Noble Grimes, the son of Thomas Grimes, was born July 7, 1805, and died May 31, 1868. He married Harriet Briggs, a daughter of John Briggs, above mentioned. She was born September 6, 1806, and died February 8, 1874, without issue. Richard Grimes married Charity Grimes of another family, but a distant kinswoman, and died without issue. Greer Brown Grimes, the son of Thomas, was born October 23, 1803. He was married in 1827 to Miss Sophia Smith, of Cape Girardeau, Mo. Her father John Smith, was from Maryland, and was a farmer and surveyor. Mrs. Sophia Grimes was born April 7, 1805. Greer B. Grimes died on the eighteenth of February, 1888, and his wife, April 18, 1893. Greer B. Grimes owned four hundred acres of fine land at the mouth of Brush Creek. He was a successful farmer, and made and saved a great deal of money. He was in the banking business at West Union with his son Smith ad the late Edward P. Evans from 1865 to 1878, but gave it no personal attention. He lived a quiet and retired life on his farm devoted to his family. He and his wife had the following children who lived to maturity : Ann, who married — Hensley ; Harriet, who married John McKay ; Smith Grimes ; Louis A. Grimes ; Sophia, who married Frank C. Williams ; Adelaide, who died unmarried ; Byron Grimes ; Blanche, who married John Perry, and Grace Grimes.   Dr. Louis A. Grimes was born November 6, 1839, the sixth child of his parents, the two preceding him having died in infancy. He attended school at the Ohio University, at Athens, Ohio, in 1855 and 1856, and in 1857 and 1858 he attended the Indiana University at Bloomington, Ind. He studied medicine under Dr. David Noble at Sugar Tree Ridge, in Highland County. He attended lectures and graduated at the Starling Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, in 1863, and at the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia in 1864. He began the practice of medicine at Rome, in Adams County, in 1864 and 1865. In 1866, he located at Concord, Kentucky, where he has since resided. He was married October 10, 1866, to Miss Amanda T. Stout, daughter of James A. Stout, of Kentucky. There were two children of this marriage ; a son, Claude B., lately engaged in gold mining, and a daughter, Mary. The mother of these children died September 14, 1879.   Dr. Grimes married a second time, June 27, 1883, Miss Mary Magruder, of Baltimore, Maryland, a daughter of Dr. Archibald Magruder. here is one son of this marriage, Archibald Greer Magruder, aged fifteen years. Dr. Grimes was a pension examining surgeon in Lewis County from 1884 to 1894. He has been a surgeon on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad for three yearS. He is a member of the Episcopal Church. In politics he has always been Democratic.   He was a friend of the late Governor Goebel, of Kentucky, who referred to him in all matters relating to Lewis County. He is a member of he Board of Election Commissioners for his county, and of the County Board of Health.   668 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   After the death of his father, he bought out the other Grimes heirs, and is the owner of 282 acres of fine land at the mouth of Brush Creek, in Monroe Township. He has established a reputation as an able physician . and surgeon, and as such commands the confidence of the community,   A brother physician says of Dr. Grimes : "He is a man of ability and research, and occupies the first rank in his profession. He has been a general practitioner of medicine in the full sense of the term, and has successfully taken care of all kinds of cases both medical and surgical. He is a gentleman of cultivated tastes, and his home is a social and intellectual center. He is an Odd Fellow, Knight Templar, Mason, and a member of the Elks. He is a member of the American Medical Association, State Medical Society, and International Railway Surgeons' Society."   The Puntenney Family,   George Hollingsworth Puntenney, was a son of Joseph Puntenney, whose father was a French Protestant, and was compelled to leave his native home in France on account of his religion. George H. Puntenney brought his family to the West Indies to an island called Eustatia, intending to make that his home, but being dissatisfied with this place, he embarked for Ghent in Holland, and from there went to Oxford, England, where his son, Joseph Puntenney, married Mary Hollingsworth. After remaining It some years in England, the whole family emigrated to America, and settled at Little Gunpowder Falls, in Maryland. At the breaking out of the ; Revolutionary War, George Puntenney was fourteen years old. His father - died in the second year of the war, and his property was sold by the administrator for $22,000.00, which was paid in Continental money, which soon became worthless. The family then moved to Braddock's old battlefield in Pennsylvania, and George H. Puntenney became an Indian scout and a trader with the Delaware Indians, and subsequently he was engaged, with a surveying party in the Green River country, Kentucky. In going down the Ohio River he passed the present site of Cincinnati twice before the virgin timber on that site had been touched by the white man.   He subsequently married Margaret Hamilton and settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky. In March, 1800, he removed to Greene Township, Adams County, Ohio, and settled at Stout's Run, where he lived until his death in 1853. On this farm, his son, James Puntenney, was born Sep- tember 1, 1800, and resided there all his life, until his death on May 7, 189o. James Puntenney was the second white child born in Greene Town-. ship, and he was a man who was loved, honored, and respected by all who knew him.   James Puntenney was a Whig and Republican, but at all times he was anti-slavery in sentiment and might be called a downright Abolitionist He never failed to aid the fugitive slaves who called on him on the way to freedom.   He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church in the latter part of his life, and prior to that, was a member of and a ruling elder in the Reformed Presbyterian Church for a number of years.   He was married April 10, 1823, to Miss Martha Wait a woman of remarkable character. There were seven children of this marriage, but only four survived. Their children were John, Elizabeth, Mary Jane and James Hollingsworth Puntenney. John, the eldest child, carried on a tan-   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 669   nery for a number of years on Stout's Run. He went to Colorado in 1886 ad died there in 1899 in his seventy-seventh year. Mary J. was married October 4, 1864, to Hon. Andrew C. Smith. She and her husband own ad reside on the James Puntenney estate on Stout's Run. Elizabeth married Henry Ousler, November 7, 1850, and died at her home on Stout's Run, May 15, 1891, in her seventy-first year. James H. Puntenney, the youngest of the family, was born October 10, 1848. In his childhood, he showed great fondness for music, and as a youth, he became a violoncellist in a string band. As he grew older, he became a skilled pianist, and cultivated his voice to a great extent. He was bright, quick, and disposed to study, and learn all within reach of him. Until fourteen years of age, he attended the district schools, and at the age of fifteen, he attended the North Liberty Academy, then under the supervision of the Rev. D. MacDill, D. D. He 'spent two years at this academy, and in the Fall of 1886, entered Miami University and graduated in June, 1871. It was his father'S idea that he should study for the ministry, but the son preferred a business career.   In the Fall of 1871, he located in Cincinnati. He obtained a position in the music store of D. H. Baldwin & Co., and in the course of time, he became the book-keeper of the firm and held that position for ten years. In the year of 1882, the firm of D. S. Johnson & Co. was organized and Mr. Puntenney became a member until the business was closed. At that time, he located in Columbus, where he has been engaged in the piano business ever since. Mr. Puntenney is now the senior member of the well-known house of Puntenney & Futsler, of Columbus. They have built up a large and prosperous business, in their line, in the center of the State.   On April 25, 1876, Mr. Puntenney was married to Miss Eliza Love. To them were born two children : Harry, who died at the age of four years, ad Mary Martha, who resides with her father in Columbus. His first wife lived but four years. He was married to Miss Belle Love on December 2 1 21, 1882, and to them two children have been born : Belle, aged sixteen, and James Hollingsworth, aged twelve years.   In politics, Mr. Puntenney is a Republican. He and his family are members of the United Presbyterian Church. He is an elder in the Neil Avenue U. P. Church. He is a genial, courteous gentleman of the strictest integrity, and highly esteemed for his sterling qualities as a business man. He is firm in his attachments and conscientious in all his dealings. He has always identified himself with any and every movement for the uplifting and betterment of mankind. He is known as a liberal-minded, large hearted citizen, whose soul is concerned in the welfare of humanity. He is not devoted solely to his own affairs, but is known as thoroughly unselfish, with the disposition of a true philanthropist.   The Treber Family.   The ancestors of the Trebers were Hollanders who emigrated to this country early in the eighteenth century and settled in Maryland.   John Treber, one of their descendants, moved from Maryland to Lancaster County, Pa., where he married a Miss Campbell. In 1784, he moved to Alleghany County, Pa., and located on the Monongahela River, at or near the mouth of Peters Creek, where he remained working at his trade, that of a gunsmith. In 1794, he, with his family, descended the   670 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   Ohio River in a flat-boat in company with Christopher Rowine and others, and after some adventures with the Indians along the shores, arrived at Limestone (now Maysville), Ky. At that time the landing at Maysville was so overcrowded with flat-boats that it often became necessary to set many of them adrift. Soon after the arrival of the Treber family at Limestone, Mrs. Treber died and was buried in the cemetery at that place.   In 1797, he married the widow Earle, and soon afterward moved with his family to what is nOW known as Adams County, Ohio. He purchased one hundred and thirty-six acres of land about twelve miles east of Maysville. In 1798, he built a two-story, hewed log house, which in later years was weatherboarded and a stone foundation built. It stands to-day in a good, habitable condition and is occupied by one of his grandsons. About the same time, Mr. Treber built a gunsmith shop, where he made from the raw material, every part of a gun, and did such smith work as was needed on the farm.   This house being located on Zane's Trace, the only thoroughfare between Wheeling, Va., and Limestone, Ky., and being large and commodious for that day, many travelers found food and shelter there, and the place soon became known as "Travelers' Rest."   All the noted politicians of the day from the Southwest traveled over this road on their way to and from Washington ; the Wickcliffs, the Shelbys, Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson were often patrons, and many times for brief seasons, sojourners and guests at the noted place, where they were always sure to find the best entertainment for man and beast the country afforded. The principal meats were venison and turkey.   There were no children by his second marriage, and after the death of the second Mrs. Treber, Mr. Treber married Miss Katherine Williams.   The children of his first marriage were Jacob ; Elizabeth, who married Simon Wood, of Scioto County, Ohio ; John, who located in Butler County, Ohio, and married Elizabeth Crawford ; Marion, who died unmarried; Anna, who married Oliver Thoroman, of Adams County, Ohio; Sarah, who married Isaac Fisher, of Butler County, Ohio ; Henry, who located in Butler County, and Joseph, who located in Pike County, Ohio.   The children by the third marriage were Joel, who married Anna McFeeters, and Benjamin, who died in infancy.   In John Treber were embodied all the characteristics of his Holland ancestors in a marked degree. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue, and his hair brown. He was strong of stature and physically very powerful. He could hold at arms length a forty-five pound weight suspended on his little finger, and at the same time, with a piece of chalk in his hand, write his name on the wall with perfect ease.   In 1825, he exchanged his home on Zane's Trace with his son Jacob for another farm about two miles west where he died a few years later.   Jacob Treber, the eldest of the family of John Treber, was born near Lancaster City, Lancaster County, Pa., September 18, 1779, and was the only one of the sons who continued to reside in Adams County. In 1810, he married Jane Thoroman, who died in 1829, and to them were born the following children: John, Oliver, Henry, Jacob, Mary Ann, Samuel, Joseph, Sarah, Elizabeth, William, Minerva and Thomas Jefferson.   PIONEER CHARACTER SKETCHES - 671   In 1833, he married Mary Ann, daughter of Jesse and Rachel Freeland, of Adams County, and of this marriage there were three children, LaFayette Wilson and Louisa J.   Shortly after he became the owner of the homestead, he added to it another one hundred acres by purchase. Here he continued to live until the date of his death, January 4, 1875, leaving surviving him, his widow, twelve children, sixty-four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His widow died at Manchester, Ohio, October 30, 1892. In 1811, Mr. Treber, with George Sample, made a trip to New Orleans on a fiat-boat loaded with produce for that market. On their way, they, with others, bound on a like voyage, tied their boats at New Madrid, Mo. At this time occurred the terrible earthquake at that place, a short description of which is here given in Mrs. Treber's own language :   "The first shock took place while the boat was lying at the shore, in company with several others. At this period there was danger apprehended from the Southern Indians, it being soon after the battle of Tippecanoe, and for safety several boats kept in company for mutual defense in case of attack. In the middle of the night there was a terrible stock and a jamming of the boats So that the crew were all awakened and hurried on deck with their weapons of defense in their hands thinking the Indians were rushing on board. The ducks, geese, swans and various other aquatic birds, whose numberless flocks were quietly resting in the eddies of the river, were thrown into the greatest tumult, and with loud screams expressed their alarm and terror. The noise and commotion was soon hushed, and nothing could be discovered to excite apprehension, so that the boatmen concluded that the shock was occasioned by the falling in of a large mass of the bank near them. As Soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects the crew were all up making ready to depart.   "Directly a loud roaring and hissing was heard, like the escape of stearn from a boiler, accompanied by the most violent agitation of the shore and tremendous boiling up of the waters of the Mississippi in hugh swells, rolling the waters below back on the descending stream and tossing the is boats about so violently, that the men with difficulty could keep on their feet. The sand-bars and points of islands gave way, swallowed up in the tremendous bosom of the river, carrying down with them the cottonwood trees, cracking and crashing, tossing their arms to and from, as if sensible of their danger, while they disappeared beneath the flood. The water of the river which the day before was tolerably clear, being rather low, was now changed to a reddish hue and became thick with mud thrown up from its bottom, while the surface, lashed violently by the agitation of the earth beneath, was covered with foam, which gathering in masses the size of a barrel, floated along on the trembling surface. The earth along the shore opened in wide fissures, and, closing again, threw the water, sand and mud in huge jets higher than the topS of the trees.   "The atmosphere waS filled with thick vapors or gas, to which the light imparted a purple tinge, altogether different in appearance from the autumnal hues of Indian summer or that of Smoke. From the temporary check to the current, by the heaving up of the bottom, the sinking of the sand-bar and banks into the bed of the river, it rose in a few minutes five or six feet ; and as if impatient of the restraint, again rushing forward with redoubled impetuosity, hurried along the boats now set loose by the   672 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY   horror-stricken boatmen, as in less danger on the water than at the shore, where the falling bankS threatened at every moment to destroy them, or carry them down in the vortex of the sinking masses."   They reached New Orleans in safety, and after disposing of the and cargo they returned home on foot, going by the way of Lake Pontchartrain, Mussel Shoals,Nashville and Limestone.   Mr. Treber was a private soldier in the War of 1812, enlisting in company commanded by Captain Dan Collier, recruited at Chillicothe, Ohio. He was Justice of the Peace of Tiffin Township from 1828 1834 and County Commissioner from 1833 to 1836. He was a man of unimpeachable character and integrity, universally respected and esteem by his neighbors, who not infrequently sought his advice on questions public and private import. He was an extensive reader, and probably one in the county was better versed in history or the topics of the tithe He was a lifelong, active and earnest Democrat of the Jefferson school, ad for that statesman cast his first vote for President. While he was ne a member of any church, yet he observed the Sabbath and often attended religious services, and while he was well versed in Scriptures, he dispute* with no one on questions of faith or belief.   He was a man of remarkable personal appearance and vigor---more than six feet in height, slender and lithe—features sharp and angular, eyes blue and piercing, nose slightly Roman. He always stood erect, even in old age.   After a long and useful life he rests in the family cemetery beneath the shades of the old homestead.   Sometime after the removal of the brothers to other parts of country, they changed their names to Traber, but how or under what circumstances is not known. It is supposed that the "a" was substituted for the "e," because the German "e" is pronounced in German "a" as in "day; hence, a German would pronounce "Treber," "Traber," and so they came to spell it as it was pronounced.   Several of Jacob's children after leaving Adams County went to Butler County, and engaged in business in the neighborhood of their uncles, and to avoid explanation and confusion they wrote their names "Traber like their uncles and their cousins, and it would seem that in no distance time that must become the family name, however, much it may be regretted, by many members of the family.