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GUERNSEY COUNTY, OHIO
History & Genealogy


BIOGRAPHIES

Source:
History of Guernsey County, Ohio
by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet
- Illustrated -
Vols. I & 2.
B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana -
1911

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


 
  REV. J. H. WAGNER

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 480

  ANDREW WALL

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 720

  CLINTON D. WARNE

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 691

  
Andrew Wall, M.D.
DR. ANDREW WALL

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2.  - B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 720

  REV. ISAAC N. WHITE, D. D.  The good that a high-minded, whole-souled man like Rev. Isaac N. White does in this practical, worldly-minded age, cannot be measured in metes and bounds, and such an one should receive our heartiest commendations; but man of such pure ideals does not court the admiring plaudits of men, merely striving to do his Master's will.
     Rev. I. N. White, of Fairview, Oxford township, Guernsey county, was born Aug. 17, 1835, at Hickory, Washington county, Pennsylvania, the son of Nicholas and Ann (Edgar) White, the father born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and the mother of Westmoreland county, the same state.  The parents spent their entire married life at Hickory, Washington county, Pennsylvania, where they died many years ago, and where they are buried.  The father was a farmer and a devout member of the Associate church, and died a member of that church in 1851.
     Isaac N. White spent his youth on the farm, assisting in the general work, and his early education was obtained in the village schools of Hickory.  He later attended Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1855.  He then taught school in Natchez, Mississippi, for one year and in the fall of 1856 entered the theological seminary at Xenia, Ohio, preparatory to entering the ministry.  He graduated from the seminary in 1850 and the same year was licensed to preach the gospel and was first called to the congregation at Hebron, in Washington county, New York, where he remained about three years.  He then came to the Steubenville presbytery, Ohio, and was placed in charge of the United Presbyterian congregations of Lebanon and Glade Run, in Columbiana and Carroll counties, and was with this charge for ten years.  He then came to Guernsey county, in the Muskingum presbytery, and was placed in charge of Fairview. Washington and Sandhill congregations.  In serving these congregations he was to give Fairview one Sabbath and Washington the next Sabbath, and at the Sandhill church on the evening of his Fairview service, riding seven miles through all kinds of weather and bad roads to fill this appointment.  He remained serving these three congregations for thirty years, resigning the charge on Dec. 1, 1904, and since that time he has not been engaged in active ministry.  During all those years he was active not only in his own church affairs, but in all movements for the betterment of the local conditions, and was foremost in all work for the uplift of the people of all classes.
     Reverend White has been twice married, first on Oct. 28, 1865, to Mary Miller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Miller, of Hickory, Washington county, Pennsylvania.  Two children were born to this union, Alice M., at home, and John C., in business at Cleveland, Ohio.  The wife and mother died in April, 1870, and his second marriage was in December, 1871, to Margaret McGowan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David McGowan, of Steubenville; no children were born to this marriage.  In 1902 Muskingum College, at New Concord, Ohio, conferred on Reverend White the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.  He ahs been a Republican in politics since the birth of the party in 1856, voting for John C. Fremont for President; has always been interested in educational matters and has served as a member of the board of education.  After his well spent years he is now living a retired life in Fairview where he has since spent so many active and useful years.  His ministerial labors and influence covered a greater portion of the eastern half of Guernsey county and his services were a constant demand in performing marriage ceremonies and conducting funerals of persons both in and outside of the church membership.
     The daughter, Alice M. White, is a highly educated and cultured woman, being a graduate of Washington Seminary at Washington, Pennsylvania, and has been a teacher in the Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf about ten years.  During the summer of 1910 she made a tour of European countries, visiting most of the cities and points of interest.
Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2.  - B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 676
  HENRY L. WILLIAMS.   The present sketch is concerned with a well known and successful jeweler and optician of Cambridge, Henry L. Williams, who has so well qualified himself for his business by experience and education that success in it is the natural result of his training.  He was born on July 29, 1850, in Adamsville, Muskingum county, Ohio, a son of Asher and Jeanette (Hubbell) Williams.  His father was a native of Meadville, Pennsylvania, his mother of New York state, and they were married at Meadville.  Both the Williams and the Hubbell families came to Ohio at the same time, making the trip down the Ohio and up the Muskingum to Zanesville in a flatboat.  The Hubbells remained in Zanesville, and Jedediah Hubbell, the father of Mrs. Williams, engaged in the manufacture of paper and from his factory in Zanesville came the first straw paper made in the United States.  The Williams family moved to Adamsville, where Asher Williams was employed as a foreman in a cabinetmaking establishment.  He remained in Adamsville only for a few years, then moved to Cambridge in the spring of 1857, where he engaged at the corner of Eighth street and Turner avenue in the business of cabinetmaking.  He was a skilled workman, and continued in cabinetmaking during his business life.  Asher Williams was a Republican, and a man well informed in politics but not active.  He was a member of the Methodist church and a devout Christian, a class leader and active church worker.
     The family of Asher Williams consisted of five sons and two daughters: Mary A. is single and resides in Cambridge; Charles H. is in Holton, Kansas; Margaret married William Wenner, of Holton, Kansas: Jedediah is in Cambridge; Asher in Kansas City, Missouri; Fred is deceased; Henry L. is the subject of this sketch.
     Asher Williams, Sr., was born in 1810, and died in 1883.  His wife was born on July 4, 1810, and died in 1893.  Both are buried in the cemetery at Cambridge.
     Their son, Henry L. Williams, was educated in the public schools of Cambridge, and as a lad learned the trade of a signwriter, and later learned the jewelry business with J. F. Salmon of Cambridge.  After a few years he has a desire to become an expert optician and took a course in optics with Julius King of Cleveland, later a course with the Globe Optical Company of Boston, and then studied under A. J. Cross, a recognized optical authority, of New York, with whom he took a special course in retinascopy.  Still later he studied with the South Bend College of Optics, at South Bend. Indiana, from which he obtained the degree of Doctor of Optics.
     Mr. Williams first established himself in the optical and jewelry business in Cambridge in 1891, and has continued here ever since, constantly enjoying a larger business and meeting with wonderful success in the optical line.  His location is at No. 743 Wheeling avenue, and he is a recognized optical expert.
     On July 29, 1897, Mr. Williams was married to Martha Pickering, of Cambridge, who was educated in the public schools of Guernsey county and Cambridge, and is an intelligent, refined and cultivated woman.  She is a member of the Sorosis Woman’s Club.  She and her husband are members of the Methodist church, and Mrs. Williams is a great church and Sunday school worker and a member of the different church organizations and societies.  Mr. Williams is also a teacher in the Sunday school.  He is a Republican in politics, not active, but always interested and is an intelligent voter and upright citizen in every respect, of spotless integrity in all business and private affairs.
Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 523
  ROBERT N. WILLIAMS.    One of the old residents of Jackson township, Guernsey county, one of the few men 'who have come down to us from the pioneer days, is Robert N. Williams, a man whom everyone delights to honor, for he is a true representative type of the brave men, who, courageous and determined, fought the real and industrial battles of the Republic and left to us the grandest nation on the face of the globe.  He has played nobly his part in the drama of civilization in the great Buckeye state, and now that the shadows of evening have begun to lengthen along the last incline of life's royal road, he can look backward with no regrets and to the future with no misgivings, for he “has fought a good fight.”
     Mr. Williams was born in the north edge of Jackson township May 15. 1830. His parents were David R. and Catherine (Brown) WilliamsDavid R. Williams was born at Glasgow, Scotland, July 15, 1797, and at the age of twenty years came to America, bringing with him his sister. Nancy Williams, Who afterward married Robert Nicholson.  The brother and sister went first to Maryland, where for some time he worked on the National pike west of the mountains. About 1820 he came to Guernsey county and lived for several years about three miles north of Cambridge, in the Oldham neighborhood, where he followed the weaver's trade.
     On Jan. 13, 1825, David R. Williams married Catherine Brown.  She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1801, and was of German parentage.  Her parents brought her into Guernsey county during her childhood.  Her parents became the owners of three hundred acres of land not far from Cambridge on the Steubenville road.  When she was twelve years old both her parents died, and she was taken by George Tingle, who then kept a tavern on Wheeling avenue in Cambridge, between Sixth and Seventh streets.  She lived with Mr. Tingle's family till her marriage.  Before his marriage David R. Williams had entered one hundred and twenty acres of land from the government, in the north part of Jackson township, the farm where Robert N. Williams now lives.  There he built a good log house in January, 1824, the year before his marriage, a house that still stands on the farm as a reminder of early days.  When it was built none of the land was cleared.  There were no wagon roads through that part of the country; only bridle paths over which supplies were packed on pack horses.  There in the woods, David Williams and wife established their home and made a farm in the wilderness, living on that farm over forty years.  They took a prominent part in the pioneer life when everybody was on an equality and friendliness, kindness and hospitality were more common than now.  Four children were born to David R. Williams and 'wife, namely: James P., who was a carpenter, married and reared a big family, moved to the West later in life and died there on July 4, 1890; Mary Ann, the next child, married William Rainey, and died Aug. 8, 1860, leaving three children, of whom the eldest son died in the army; Robert N., the third child, is the subject of tins review; Sophia Catherine married A. W. Holliday, now deceased, and she lives at Newcomerstown.  About 1844, when Robert N. was about fourteen years old, David Williams became disabled and the children had to do the farm work.  Although Robert was a boy of only fourteen years he often did a man’s work.  At that age he used to haul wheat as far as Newcomerstown and sell it, fording the Tuscarawas river on his way there.  He also hauled wheat to Zanesville.
     On Mar.13, 1851, Mr. Williams married Mary Kline, daughter of Matthew and Eliza (Greer) Kline. She was born in Maryland and was brought to Cambridge by her parents when she was three months old.  Her father was a cooper, but he took up land in the northwest part of Jackson township, where Mrs. Williams lived until her marriage.  After their marriage they lived on his father’s farm.
     In 1856 David Williams built the house where Robert N. Williams and wife now live, and lived in it until 1867.  In that year the old folks moved into Cambridge and lived there the balance of their days.  David R. Williams died on Dec. 27, 1873, wife died Mar. 24, 1883.  Both of them were among the founders of the old Cambridge Baptist church, near the north line of Jackson township, and were two as active and serviceable members as the church ever had.
     At President Lincoln’s first call for troops in 1861.  Robert N. Williams offered to go to the front and was refused by the examining surgeons.  Again he offered himself when the call was made for three hundred thousand troops, and again he was refused because of physical disability.  When the call came for one-hundred-day men he was finally accepted and joined Company E, One Hundred and Seventy-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  When he came out he had chronic rheumatism from which both hands were permanently crippled and his heart weakened.  Returning to the farm, he has remained there practically ever since.
     In 1863 Mr. Williams had built a good house on the farm, but it burned down on Oct. 23, 1879.  For about eighteen months he lived in Cambridge, but liked farm life better, and returned to the old home farm that his father entered from the government, and there he and his wife still reside, having been spared to each other for about sixty years of congenial married life.
     Mr. Williams owns a good farm of one hundred and eighty acres.  In politics he has been a Republican ever since the party started and voted the Republican ticket every since, beginning with Fremont in 1856.
     Mr. and Mrs. Williams both belong to the old Cambridge Baptist church.  His father was a deacon in this church from the time it was organized. In the early days before the church was built they often held religious services in his home.
     Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Williams, as follows: James Monroe lives at home with his father; Eliza Catherine married William Trenner, lives in Byesville, and has three children living and one dead; Annania Harvenia, who died when two years old; May Eva married William Haynes and lives on South Eighth street, in Cambridge, where Mr. Haynes has a grocery store.  They have four children: John D. Williams is at home with his father; Orrin married Dessie McConnell and lives in the state of Washington, at Centralia; he is superintendent for a company that builds electric railways.  He has two children, a son and a daughter.
     Although well along in years Mr. Williams is still hearty and cheerful, and an entertaining talker of the old days, when the land was new, when people were more neighborly, more hospitable, and, it would seem, more honest.  He and his wife are very kindly treated by the young people, and in fact, all classes in their community.
Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 743
  THEODORE M. WILLS

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 856

  HENRY H. WILSON.  The name of Henry H. Wilson is too well known about Byesville and generally throughout Guernsey county to need any special laudation on the part of the biography, for his career, which has been a busy and upright one, is familiar to our readers, none of whom, we are sure, could or would say aught disparagingly against him.
     Mr. Wilson was born two miles from Byesville, in May, 1847, and he is the son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Witten) Wilson, the former born in Pennsylvania, near Peyton's Monument about 1804.  His father, SAMUEL WILSON Sr., and his mother, Eliza (Dickinson) Wilson, came here from Pennsylvania very early in the nineteenth century, prior to 1804, and located near Middleton.  The Indians acted somewhat hostile at their intrusion and the mother went back to Pennsylvania for safety and while there Thomas Wilson was born.  She made the entire return trip to Ohio on horseback, carrying her six-weeks-old baby.  Here the grandparents spent the rest of their days.  Their family consisted of five children: Henry; Samuel; Jane is the wife of Philip Shoff; Zachariah died when twenty years old, and Thomas.  When the last named child was two yeas old, he was stolen away by squaws, when his father was absent from home and endeavored to induce the mother to come into the woods after him, but she pretended as though she thought they were playing and remained within doors, and the Indians finally returned the baby to the house before the arrival of the father.  Following is an incident illustrative of the rough pioneer life as given by Grandfather Wilson:  A bully visited his cabin early one morning, determined to fight for no reason other than to prove who the best man was.  Mr. Wilson wanted to talk the matter over, but the intruder wanted to have it out at once.  Grandmother Wilson encouraged her husband to "wade into him," and seized a butcher's knife and cut of his hair, which was worn long as was the custom of those days, so that the visitor could ot pull it out and thus have the advantage.  Needless to add, the bully was bested in the melee.  Samuel Wilson was in the war of 1812 and, in company with a friendly Indian, acted as a spy three months during that war and rendered valuable service, making many perilous trips, during which, at times, they were nearly starved, following trails with no food.  After the close of that war the old man and his good wife spent the balance of their days in Guernsey county.
     The Wilson, father of the subject, grew up in this county and entered several pieces of land from the government.  Taking a fancy to one particular tract, which was wanted by others, and, having no money, he rode sixty-five miles to the home of a relative down on the Ohio river and got the money rode home, changed horses here and then rode to Zanesville, securing the land.  He followed farming near Byesville all his life.  He was also a foreman on the famous National pike east of Cambridge.  He was a man of a great deal of natural ability and tact, although having scarcely any schooling.  He dealt extensively in livestock, trading a great deal and could mentally figure what amount of money was due, before others could make the calculation on paper.  He lived to be about eighty years old, dying June 14, 1884, his wife having preceded him to the "narrow house" two years before.  They were a grand old couple and highly respected by all.
     Henry H. Wilson, of this review, was one of a family of thirteen children, of whom five lived to maturity, namely: Mrs. Rachael Riddle, now living about a mile from Byesville; Mrs. Sarah Selby, deceased; Mrs. Lizzie Crowe, deceased, who formerly lived at Glenwood, Noble county, Ohio; Mrs. Malinda J. Forbes, of Byesville, and Henry H., of this review.
     The subject grew to manhood on the farm near Byesville.  Toward the close of the Civil war he enlisted in the one-hundred-day service; being then, however, only a boy, his father took him out of the service.  He has devoted his life to agricultural pursuits and has been very successful.  In December, 1865, he married Amanda Orr, the daughter of Josiah Parker Orr and Sarah (Burt) Orr.  Her father was born in New York City, Feb. 19, 1823, and there grew to manhood.  He was the son of Watson and Lavina (Wheeler) Orr.  Watson Orr was born on Feb. 27, 1780, and his wife on Jan. 7, 1788.  Josiah P. Orr came to Jackson township, this county, in an early day and on October 12, 1847, married Sarah Ann Burt, daughter of Daniel BurtJoseph P. Orr located at the northwest corner of what is now Byesville when it was all a wilderness.  There he made his home and reared his family of five children, of whom Mrs. Wilson was the first in order of birth.
     Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Wilson: Lizzie married Silas Conner, of Byesville; Lennie married Edwin Finley, cashier of the First National Bank of Byesville; she passed to her rest on July 5, 1907.
     Most of Mr. Wilson's life was spent on the old homestead south of Byesville.  About 1885 he moved into Byesville, where he now resides in a comfortable and neatly kept home; however, he has retained his farm, which is highly improved and is a very desirable property.  He is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Byesville and has been financially successful in his life work, having been a very good manager and industrious.  Politically, he is a Republican, as was his father, and he has held various township offices.  He and his wife are members of the Methodist Protestant church.  He is one of the best known and most substantial and highly respected of Byesville' citizens.  He, his parents and grandparents, consecutively, have made this vicinity their home for more than a century, during which time they have done much for the general upbuilding of the locality and have borne untarnished reputations.  The same land has been owned by this family for nearly one hundred years.
SOURCE 1: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2.  - B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 638
  JAMES MADISON WILSON.  The family of which the gentleman whose name heads this sketch is a member has been long and favorably known in Guernsey county, and for several generations the name of Wilson has been borne by many of the most prominent and active citizens of certain communities of that county.  They have been men of industry of certain communities of that county.  They have been men of industry and intelligence, who have, by the exercise of these talents, attained their success in life, and James Madison Wilson is one who have been aided to reach his own success by the memory of the family traditions and examples.
     James Madison Wilson was born in the southwestern part of Valley township, Guernsey county, on Nov. 18, 1856, the son of William Craig and Mary (Seaton) Wilson.  William Craig Wilson was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 10, 1809.  His father was James Moore Wilson, who came with his wife from Vermont to Pennsylvania, and made that state his home until death.  William Craig Wilson came to Guernsey county in early days, first locating at Cumberland, where he was for several years a blacksmith.  About 1831 he bought a farm of eighty acres in Valley township, and there spent the rest of his life.  He prospered in farming, and added to his land until he owned four hundred and twenty-one acres.
     William Craig Wilson was first married to Pulina Heinlein, by whom he had five children.  His wife and three children perished when the cholera scourge swept over the county; the survivors were Harriett, who married Dr. William Helm, and Sarah, who married Andrew E. ScottWilliam Craig Wilson afterward married Mary Seaton, who was born near New Concord in Muskingum county, Ohio, a daughter of Robert and Nancy Richardson Seaton.  Three sons were born to this marriage, one of whom died in early infancy.  The others are John William and James Madison.  William C. Wilson was a Republican, and held various township offices.  He and his wife were both stanch members of the Bethel Methodist Episcopal church, and were among its founders, while Mr. Wilson was identified with the church as an official all his life.  He died on Aug. 30, 1891; his wife survived until July 1, 1907.
     James Madison Wilson grew up on the home farm.  He attended Muskingum College, also Northwestern University at Ada, Ohio.  From 1881 to 1893 he was engaged in school teaching in Guernsey county, and since that time has followed farming on the old home place.  As a teacher he was very efficient and commanded the love and respect of his pupils.  He was married in 1882 to Lottie Johnson, the daughter of William Thomas and N. Cathren (Clark) Johnson, his neighbor from girlhood.  Two children were born to them, both dying in early infancy, the mother and one child dying at the same time, on May 28, 1883, and the other child four days later.
     In 1885 Mr. Wilson married Ida M. Crow, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Wilson) Crow, who was born in the same neighborhood as Mr. Wilson.  John Crow was the son of William J. and Margaret Jane (Johnson) Crow.  William J. Crow came from Pennsylvania in the early thirties, when he was about twenty-one, and entered a whole section of land from the government.  This was located in the southwest portion of Valley township, and part of it extended a whole section of land from the government.  This was located in the southwest portion of Valley township, and part of it extended over into Noble county.  He later bought more land, increasing his holdings to eight hundred acres.  Here he married Margaret Jane Johnson, who was the daughter of John Johnson, one of the early settlers of Buffalo township, Noble county, whose farm adjoined Mr. Crow's.  To this marriage seven children were born: Michael, John, Emma (who married Samuel Dollman), George, Nan (who married James Dollman), one daughter who died when two years old, and Alexander.   John Crow married Elizabeth Wilson, the daughter of Thomas J. and ____(Witten) Wilson.  she was the sister of Henry H. Wilson, whose sketch gives her ancestry.  John Crow continued on the old Crow homestead the remainder of his life.  Five children were born to this marriage, William Thomas, Charles Franklin, Ida May, Theodosia and Mary Amanda.  Mrs. Crow died on April 23, 1897.  She had been a faithful Christian and a devoted mother.  John Crow died on Apr. 11, 1910.  He was a lifelong Presbyterian, faithful to the teachings of his church, and well known and highly esteemed by those who knew him.
     Mr. and Mrs. James M. Wilson are the parents of four children: Earl, who married Elizabeth Wilson, of near Cambridge, is a fireman on the Panhandle railroad, and lives at Dennison, Ohio; Reed, the youngest, is at home attending school; Byrl Meredith, the oldest, died when two years old; Paul C. the third son, died from accidental scalding when fourteen months old.
     Mr. Wilson is a Republican and has held various township offices, to the satisfaction of the people.  He and his wife are members of the Bethel Methodist church.  Mr. Wilson ahs been active in his community in many ways, is an enterprising and progressive farmer, and a man of considerable influence, whose judgment is much esteemed. 
SOURCE 1: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2.  - B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 963
  SAMUEL WILSON, SR.

Source: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2. - Publ: B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 638

  REV. WILLIAM HENRY WILSON.  The writer of biography, dealing with the personal history of men engaged in the various affairs of every-day life, occasionally finds a subject whose record commands exceptional interest and admiration, and especially in this true when he has achieved more than ordinary success or made his influence felt as a leader of thought and a benefactor of his kind.  Rev. William Henry Wilson, of Byesville, Guernsey county, is eminently one of that class who earn the indisputable right to rank in the van of the army of progressive men and by reason of a long and strenuous career, devoted to the good of his fellows and to the dissemination of the Gospel, he occupies a position of wide influence and has made a name which will long live in the hearts  and affections of the people, although he cares little for the plaudits of men, merely seeking to do his duty in following in the footsteps of the Nazarene.
     William H. Wilson was born near Milnersville, Monroe township, Guernsey county, Ohio Nov. 27, 1867, and he is the son of John Neal Wilson and Christian (Morrow) Wilson.  Both parents were born and reared in this county and are still living near Milnersville, a highly respected couple, now advanced in years.  William H. grew to maturity on the farm and after receiving a common school education and attending various normal schools his early life was devoted to the profession of teaching.  After four years of successful work as a teacher, he entered Dennison University and took select work in view of the ministry.  He was licensed to preach on May 27, 1893, by the Baptist church at Milnersville, and he was ordained to the ministry on Mar. 22, 1894, by the Pleasant View Baptist church at Newcomerstown.  During the years of his pastoral labor he has very ably and acceptably served the following churches, building them up and strengthening them in a manner that has proven him to be a conscientious and untiring worker; Union Valley, Piedmont, Pleasant View, Bridgeville, White Eyes Plains, Adamsville, Dresden and Byesville.  On Dec. 7, 1903, he came to Byesville in response to a call from the Baptist church, which was then only a mission of the old Cambridge Baptist church.  Shortly after he came it was organized as an independent church, and he has been pastor of this church to the present time, his work in this place having been wonderfully blessed.  This church now has a membership of two hundred and thirty and is constantly growing, and it has a remarkable Sunday school, consisting of about two hundred and fifty members.  The church is full of life and vigor and their meetings are like one continuous revival.  Their pastor has implicit confidence in the promises of God and inspires his flock with the same faith in the Supreme Leader, with the result that the congregation is ever faithful and earnest.  His leadership has received honorable mention throughout the state.  He was for two years vice-president of the southeastern district of the Baptist Young People's Union of Ohio.  For about four years he has been moderator of the Cambridge Baptist Association.  For three years he was president of the Guernsey County Sunday School Convention.  He was active in Organizing the Byesville Law and Order League about 1904 and has been chairman of the same ever since.  The population ahs grown a great deal since that time, with a large influx of foreigners, but so well has the town been governed that Byesville is an unusually law-abiding place, with officials chosen not for political reasons but for well known merit.  The moral element was active from the first under the leadership of the Reverend Wilson, and had this not been the case of local government might easily have got in the control of the baser element.
     Reverend Wilson is an able organizer and in his own church has adopted what he is pleased to call "The company plan," of keeping each member actively at work as part of a small organization or company.  This plan has produced great results and has been highly commended not only locally, but has been approved and praised by men of national prominence and leadership in the denomination. In the pulpit Reverend Wilson is an earnest, logical and forceful speaker, often truly eloquent.  Besides his busy life as pastor and citizen, he is also director of the First National Bank of Byesville, and he has found time to write several books that have received wide recognition.  One of them is on "homiletics," especially for the pastor, and is highly commended by ministers of all denominations.  Another is "Our Responsibilities in the World's Conquest."  He has a large and carefully selected library of the world's choicest literature.
     At Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907, at the international convention of the Baptist Young People's Union of America, his church at Byesville took both banners, one for the highest grades in Christian culture work, the other for all-around Christian work.  For four years the church was awarded two state banners for the same merits and held the Christian stewardship banner until it became the property of the church.  Such records are criterions enough to show the courage, the sound judgment and the great earnestness of Reverend Wilson.
     On May 23, 1900, occurred the marriage of the Reverend Wilson to Estella Henry Ferrell, of Dresden, Ohio, the daughter of Henry and Emma (McFarland) Ferrell.  She was born near Dresden, and when twelve years of age moved to that place, where she attended high school, completing the course there, and made that city her home until her marriage.  She is a lady worker, and, as president of both the senior and junior branches of the Baptist Young People's Union, had much to do with bringing them to their present state of efficiency.  In her the Reverend Wilson has a most earnest and faithful assistant, a competent aid in many branches of church and Sunday school work.  She is president of the Women's Baptist Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the Cambridge Baptist Association.
SOURCE 1: History of Guernsey County, Ohio by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet - Illustrated - Vols. I & 2.  - B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1911 - Page 569

 

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