Biographies

Source: 
History of Morgan County, Ohio
with
Portraits and Biographical Sketches
of some of its
Pioneers and Prominent Men.
By Charles Robertson, M. D.
 - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co.
1886

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WM. J. RAMSEY, a native of Washington, Pa., and a graduate of the college at that place, came to McConnelsville between 1835 and 1840.  He was a young man of good ability, and served as prosecuting attorney in 1841-44.  He died in McConnelsville in October, 1844. Source:  Chapter XV - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 265   VIRTULON RICH, a native of Vermont, came to McConnelsville about 1838.  He was a lawyer of common ability, and never had a large practice.  He served as justice of the peace one or two terms.  He left McConnelsville in 1857, and now resides near Detroit, Mich. Source:  Chapter XV - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 264   DR. JASON ROBERTS practiced for some years in this place in partnership with Dr. White.  He came from McConnelsville, where he had studied medicine under the tuition of Dr. J. Alexander.  From here he emigrated to Iowa.  After his departure Dr. Abbott was for some time the only physician in the town. Source:  Chapter XVI - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 282 Charles Robertson DR. CHARLES ROBERTSON lived and practiced his profession in McConnelsville nearly sixty years.  During this long period he stood among the foremost men in his profession, and as a citizen his character for integrity, faithfulness to duty and strict adherence to right caused him to he widely known and respected.  On his father’s side Dr. Robertson was descended from Scottish ancestry; his grandfather, John Robertson, a native of Edinburgh, died in this country in 1870.  His mother, whose maiden name was Stanley, was the daughter of Zachariah Stanley, a Virginian and a Quaker.  The subject of this notice was born eight miles from Leesburg, in Loudon County, Virginia, on the 13th of July, 1799.  Shortly after his birth his parents moved to a farm near Wythe Court House, Va.  There, in the backwoods, in a log cabin, the family lived in true pioneer style.  In 1805 the family returned to the farm in Loudon County on which Dr. Robertson was born.  After a year or two on this place they removed to the town of Leesburg, where our subject, then seven or eight years old, first went to school.  When about ten years of age he went to work in the printing office at Leesburg, where he remained about a year.  Often during this time he was obliged to work at the case all night in order that the paper might be issued on time.  About the time he entered the printing office, or shortly before, his father engaged in the mercantile business, starting a small store which his wife attended to, but the venture was a failure, and he was obliged to sell his house and lot to pay his debts.  Soon after this misfortune the family were visited by John Stanley, brother of Mrs. Robertson, who then lived in Belmont County, Ohio.  He advised them to move west, and Mr. Robertson finally decided to do so.  Accordingly, with only sufficient money to defray their necessary expenses to St. Clairsville, Belmont County, the whole family started.  Their conveyance, hired for the occassion, was a common road wagon, drawn by four horses, and carrying Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, their daughters, Maria and Susan, and their sons, Charles, John and Stanley.  On their way they received news of the battle of Tippecanoe, fought by Harrison with the Indians, Nov. 7, 1811, and many well-meaning but ignorant people, believing that they were going into the Indian country, urged them back.      Although so young when he left his native state Dr. Robertson never forgot the scenes of his childhood.  He witnessed the workings of that peculiar institution, slavery, and the impression left upon his mind was such as caused him in after years warmly to espouse the cause of freedom for the colored race.  After reaching St. Clairsville the family took up their abode for the winter.  Charles, exploring the town in boyish fashion, soon after his arrival found his way into the office of the Belmont Repository, where he was soon after set to work as a printer.  But  the work did not last long and the  wages were very low.  Some years later his mother died.  Her death was a heavy blow to the boy.  She was a noble woman; he loved her well and  remembered her with true filial affection.  Toward the close of the war of 1812-15 Claries’ father enlisted in a St. Clairsville company, in which he served several months.  After his return Charles became junior apprentice in the office of the Repository, he remained in the office until nearly twenty years of age, being regularly indentured and leading the life of an apprentice.  During the time he obtained a few months’ schooling— all that he ever had.  During the winter months, in the long evenings and in the spare time, the apprentice made good use of the limited library of the editor and of such other reading matter as came within his reach.  When he had but nine months more to serve before attaining his majority, at his own request and by consent of his employer, young Robertson was allowed to leave the printing office (forfeiting, of course, the customary suit of clothes, at a time, too, when his own wardrobe was exceedingly scant) to take a clerkship or serve as deputy postmaster.  This place he held about a year, and at the end of that time, through the influence of several prominent citizens, among them Mr. Ellis, the retiring postmaster, Hon. James Caldwell, an ex-member of congress, and Hon. Benjamin Buggies, then United States senator, lie received the appointment of postmaster at St. Clairsville.  This event, according to the Doctor’s own testimony, was the turning-point of his life.  He was postmaster, but the income from the office was small; he had plenty of spare time, and therefore cast about for something to add to his business.  About this time Dr. W. Wood, a Baltimore graduate, came to the town and suggested to Robertson that he should study medicine.  After due reflection the young man concluded to do so, and in the summer after he was of age commenced reading under Dr. Wood’s tuition.  He studied diligently for three years, then decided to begin practice.  Choosing Barnesville, Belmont County, as his location, with his wife, whom he had recently married, he removed thither in the fall of 1823.  He was not yet a legally qualified M. D., but on attending a meeting and of the Fifteenth District Medical Society (July 1, 1824) he was admitted to membership in the society and thus became a licensed physician.  He continued in Barnesville until December, 1824, having a small and unprofitable practice.  He. then removed to Woodsfield, Monroe County.  There for six months he practiced in partnership with Dr. Mott, who had been a short time established there and was carrying on the mercantile business in addition to his practice.  Dr. Robertson then took up his practice alone.  But he was not entirely satisfied with his location and was readily induced to change it for McConnelsville.      While living at Barnesville, Dr. Robertson had visited the county seat of Morgan County and had conversed with Dr. Barker, who gave such a gloomy account of the place and business that it seemed unwise for a young physician to think of locating here.  But in January, 1823, Dr. Robertson received a letter from Dr. Barker, inviting him to come to McConnelsville and offering him a partnership if he wished.  This offer was at once accepted.  Dr. Robertson came to McConnelsville and found that the two physicians then here —Dr. Barker and Dr. Johnson—were both serving in public offices, the former as sheriff and the latter as clerk of court.  He formed a partnership with Dr. Barker for two years.  February 20th he brought his family to their new home.  Soon his skill and competency as a physician became known and he had all the practice he could attend to.  In 1827 Wilkin & Christy started the Morgan Sentinel— a name which Dr. Robertson suggested—and the Doctor in his spare moments was wont to resume the occupation of his boyhood in their office, both to oblige his neighbors and to amuse himself.  For many long years, “in summer’s heat and winter’s snow,” Dr. Robertson rode weary miles over the hills and rough roads of Morgan County, leading the arduous life of a country physician, his best efforts sometimes received most ungratefully, and on the whole poorly paid, even in thanks.  In 1840 the Morgan County Medical Society was organized.  He served as its first president and was one of its leading members until his death.  In the same year he first attended a meeting of the Ohio Medical Association, and in 1846 assisted in organizing the Ohio State Medical Society at Columbus.  In 1856 he was a delegate from the society to the American Medical Association.  In 1849-50 he attended a course of lectures at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and received a diploma from that institution.  This be bad long desired.  “Whether or not it was appreciated by the community I could not say, but it was to me a source of satisfaction,” says be in the MSS from which we have already quoted.  In 1862 be was appointed enrolling surgeon of the first military district of Ohio, which position be held until the close of the war.  In 1876 Dr. Robertson began writing the history of Morgan County, first simply for a public address, but afterward with a view toward publishing it.  That work will in after years be regarded as his greatest service to the people among whom he lived so long and labored so faithfully, and will remain a perpetual monument to his memory.  Dr. Robertson was twice married.  His first wife was Miss Eveline S. Foulke.  She died and in 1862 he married Miss Dessie Brown, of Pittsburgh, Pa.  By the first marriage there were four children, only one of whom last, one daughter, Dessie B. Source:  Chapter __ - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 273   HENRY S. ROBERTSON, son of Dr. Charles Robertson, was a native of Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, born June 2, 1824, and came to McConnelsville when about two years of age.  His education was in the primitive semi-occasional schools of the early days of the town - with the exception of one year at the McConnelsville Academy.  He read law with J. E. Hanna and was in partnership with him for several years; was prosecuting attorney and prominent as a politician, member of and chairman of the whig central committee, and writer for the Herald during the years 1846-47-48.  He was also an earnest advocate of the temperance question.  He died after a lingering illness Mar. 30, 1856. Source:  Chapter XIV - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 265   J. W. ROGERS, one of the young attorneys of Morgan County, was born in Malta Oct. 2, 1852.  He was educated in the public schools, graduated from the Law Department of the Cincinnati  College in the class of 1883-84, and was admitted to the bar of Ohio by the supreme court in May, 1884. Source:  Chapter XV - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 270   DR. DANIEL RUSK was born in Clayton Township, Perry County, Ohio, Jan. 23, 1819, and came to Morgan County about 1828.  Both his paternal and his maternal grandfathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary War, serving from its outbreak till the declaration of peace.  They were among the early settlers of Perry County; they were poor, but with fixed religious principles, and energy sufficient to find a way or make one. Daniel Rusk, the father of the subject of this sketch, was married to Jane Falkner, who survived her husband nearly a third of a century.  They reared a family of nine children—John, Annie.  James, Reuel, Daniel, Elizabeth, Jane, Allen and Jeremiah.  John, Reuel and James have been dead many years.  Allen is a farmer in Wisconsin; he has been honored by his fellow-citizens with two terms in the legislature and other responsible positions.  Jeremiah is serving his second term as governor of Wisconsin.  Dr. Rusk was reared on a farm.  From the time he was nine years old till he was thirteen he attended school three months each winter.  The year he was nineteen a “High School” was opened at Deavertown, and this he attended.  No further opportunities offered for secular education.  It bad been, however, his good fortune to have the best and strictest of religious training, as his parents were Presbyterians of the Scotch Covenanter faith, and lived fully up to their privileges.  In 1840 he was married to Matilda Deaver, daughter of Levi Deaver, the founder of the village in this county bearing his name.  The next few years are full of the struggles of a man who had both capacity and longings for a life which would bring him nearer his fellow-men.  He farmed in the summer, taught school in the winter, was a good neighbor and citizen, and probably would never have changed ids vocation had not the infirmities induced by hard work admonished him that his days for toil of that kind were numbered.  Providence seems to have guided him in the choice of a profession.  The aptitude or appetence for treating diseases lay undeveloped and unknown to himself until called out by the suffering of those near to him and the desire to alleviate it.  When eighteen years old he saw his father tortured by a “Steam Doctor,” and to use his own vigorous phraseology he would have hustled the doctor out of the house had he not been restrained by respect for the feelings and opinions of his parents.  When a student of medicine, the northwest part of this county underwent a scourge from typhoid fever, in the treatment of which the most of the physicians of the county made such failures that many families refused to send for a physician.  Dr. Rusk's father was stricken down and died.  The present governor of Wisconsin was pulled through by his student brother.  He treated four or five patients besides his brother, all of whom recovered.  He did all the necessary preliminary work before beginning to read medicine, unaided, without much encouragement, and with no sympathy.  Chemistry he studied in this way, as well as physics.  Then he read three years with his brother James, and two years with William H. Reeves, of Deavertown. practicing with the latter two years.  In the fall of 1847 he removed to Rosseau, living there until the death of his wife, in 1858.  He then, with his two boys, James M. Rusk, present superintendent of the public schools, Malta, and W. A. Rusk, moved to Malta, where he has since been, save one year, from the fall of 1862 to 1863, during which time he resided in Amesville, Athens County, Ohio.  In 1859 he was married to his present wife, a daughter of the late Ezekiel Lynn, and the widow of the late Warner Harrison, of Union Township, this county. He was appointed United States examining surgeon for Morgan County in 1875, continuing in office until 1885.  Such, in brief, are the annals of a life now drawing near the allotted age of man — three score years and ten. In his professional career Dr. Rusk has been a close student and a patient, painstaking observer, basing much of his practice on a knowledge of temperament and tendencies peculiar to the individual.  He is fully in sympathy with the advanced thought of the day and seems to recognize the lines along which further advances are to be made.  In the practical methods he employs where methods are not prescribed; in the bold expedients adopted when death seems to lay claim to its victims; in the calm demeanor amidst the distractions of excited throngs or the lamentations of stricken friends; in the suppression of sentiment when treating one of his own flesh and blood, or battling himself with the cruel attacks of the destroyer, his presence of mind and strength of will never desert him.  His life has been unobtrusive and unostentatious; but it has cast sunshine on landscapse of misery.  His life of activity and exertion is an example to be imitated.  His trust in God, his firm stand on the side of right, his intense desire to promote happiness and alleviate misery, make him the center toward which kindly expressions and tender sentiments flow from every quarter, from the high, and the low, from the rich and the poor, in continually increasing volume. Source:  Chapter __ - History of Morgan County, Ohio with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. By Charles Robertson, M. D.  - Published Chicago: L. H. Watkins & Co. 1886 - Page 277

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