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Pickaway County, Ohio
History & Genealogy

 

History of Pickaway County
Source:  History of Franklin & Pickaway Counties, Ohio
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Published by Williams Bros. 1880

 

HARRISON TOWNSHIP
 

* HARRISON TOWNSHIP
       * ORGANIZATION
       * NATURAL FEATURES - SOIL
       * STREAMS
       * TIMBER
       * SETTLEMENTS
       * EARLY EVENTS
       *
SOUTH BLOOMFIELD
       * CORPORATION
       * BUSINESS OF HARRISON   
       *
MILLPORT
       *
ASHVILLE
       * POST OFFICES.
       * CHURCHES.

       * BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

 

BIOGRAPHIES
 

COCHRAN, John, Col.
 
THOMPSON, J. C., Dr. & Emily
VAUSE FAMILY, The
 John Cochran COL. JOHN COCHRAN first set foot on the soil of Ohio in 1807, when he shipped as a hand on a keel-boat at Pittsburgh, bound for Chillicothe, Ohio.  Both the Ohio and Scioto rivers were high, and the boat lay at Portsmouth five days before the main channel of the Scioto river could be found.  There were five boats in company, and each became fast on the shoals in ascending the river.  They arrived at Chillicothe, in teh month of May, 1807.  He soon returned to his home, in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where he remained until in the month of May, 1812, when he received from Hon. William Eustis, then secretary of war, notice of his appointment as ensign in the Nineteenth regiment of infantry.  He was ordered to report for duty to Brig. Gen. Joseph Bloomfield, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  In the early part of July he left home, and reported to Major McClung, of Pittsburgh, by order of the general commanding.  Here he remained a short time, until he became familiar with his duties, when the command was ordered to Carlisle, and thence to the frontier.  There were five supernumerary officers, of whom John Cochran was one, who were ordered to report to Col. John Miller at Chillicothe.  Three of them came through, Cochran working his fare, as nearly all were without money, or means of transportation.  Sixteen days were consumed in traveling from Pittsburgh to Portsmouth.  They walked from Portsmouth to Chillicothe, and after resting a few days, Ensign Cochran was ordered to Dayton, to which place he walked alone.  Here he remained a short time, when he was ordered to Franklinton, on recruiting service.  He was very successful as a recruiting officer, and was kept at this duty for some time.  In July, 1814, the regiment broke camp at Chillicothe and started for Malden, Canada, guarding a detachment of British prisoners.  Before reaching Malden, Ensign Cochran was ordered on detached service, and did not rejoin his regiment until fall, when they erected winter quarters at the head of the Niagara river.  In the latter part of November they were ordered to Erie, Pennsylvania.  In 1815 he received his commission promoting him to a lieutenantcy.  The captain of his company was ordered on detached service, and Lieutenant Cochran became its commanding officer.  His company had an enviable reputation in the regiment for its efficiency in camp and on the field.  The declaration of peace, in 1815, withdrew many of the inducements for following the life of a soldier, as there would not be no opportunity for winning distinction on the field, and receiving deserved promotion.
     Lieutenant Cochran withdrew from the service soon after the close of the war and returned to Ohio where he had formed the acquaintance of Miss Mary O'Hara while on the recruiting service.  He soon made her his wife and settled near South Bloomfield, where he made a purchase of land, which he improved.  For a time he engaged in business at the village of South Bloomfield.  During the enforcement of the militia law of Ohio he was made colonel of a regiment, which office he held for a number of years.  Col. Cochran was a man who read and thought a great deal, and one who had a widespread influence.  He so far enjoyed the esteem and confidence of the people of the county in which he lived as to be elected to the State legislature, in which he served during the years 1818, 1831, 1832, 1835, 1836, and 1850.  In his political opinions he was a Whig.
     His wife proved a careful, prudent, and loving companion, and a judicious mother in her management of the nine children born to them.  She departed this life in 1875, at the age of seventy-five years.
     During the later years of his life Col. Cochran wrote a series of articles, reminiscences of the early life in his country, and of the war of 1812, through which he served.  These were published at the time in the Herald and Union, at Circleville, and were read with interest.  He died in 1878, at the age of eighty-eight years, and was sincerely mourned by friends throughout the county in which he had lived so long, and where his worth was so well known and appreciated.
DR. J. C. & MRS. EMILY THOMPSON.  The parents of Dr. J. C. Thompson were of Scotch-Irish extraction, and were natives of Franklin county, Massachusetts.  Jesse C. Thompson was born in Heath, in the same county, Jan. 9, 1811.  His father owned a farm, on which Dr. Thompson passed his boyhood, following the usual avocations of a farmer; but he had in him a spirit that would not allow him to be content with being simply a cultivator of the soil.  He aspired to something requiring more mental exertion.  After obtaining a common school education in the district schools of his native town, he attended the Northfield academy two terms.  This was the extent of his school education.  With the knowledge he had now acquired, he applied for the position of teacher in the district school, which he obtained readily.  He followed teaching during the winter months for several seasons; laboring on his father's farm during that part of the year when he was not confined in the school-room, making the most of such opportunities for study as presented themselves.
     He had mapped out for himself the study and practice of medicine as a life work, and in the summer of 1834, when twenty-three years of age, he commenced reading medical works in the office of Drs. Bates and Fitch, at Charlemont, near his home.  He continued his studies under their instruction nearly three years, teaching during the winter, and attended his first course of lectures, at Berkshire Medical college, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1834.  In the fall of 1835 he attended lectures at Dartmouth college, and continued his studies with Drs. Bates and Fitch during the winter of 1835-36.  In the fall of 1836, he again attended lectures at Berkshire Medical college.  At the close of this term he took a high stand among the successful candidates for graduation, and was offered the position of demonstrator of anatomy - which he declined.
     In the winter of 1837 he formed a partnership with Dr. Wayne Griswold (late of Circleville), purchasing the property and practice of Dr. Horace Smith, in Whitingham, Windom county, Vermont.  In April, of the same year, he sold his interest to Dr. Griswold, and came to Ohio in search of a place of permanent location, and finally settled at South Bloomfield, Pickaway county.  Here he has remained during a period of forty-two years.
     His professional life has been eminently successful, and he ranks as the peer of the first physician and surgeon of central Ohio.  With indomitable energy he has successfully managed a practice extending into three or four counties, and, with rare industry, kept pace with all modern medical science and practice.  A keen observer and close student, his many years' experience ahs given him a prominent place in the counsels of all neighboring practitioners, who regard his advice and opinion with great respect.  In surgery he ranks as a wise, careful, and successful operator, and in the course of his professional career has performed some of the most difficult and dangerous operations.  He has the honor of having performed the only caesarian operation recorded in the State, where both mother and child survived.  He has also successfully performed the operation of exsecting of the head of the humerus, leaving the patient - a young laboring man - with a useful hand and arm; besides many others demanding the greatest skill and surgical knowledge.  It is his pride and profound satisfaction that in a career so long and practice so varied, he has left no cripples behind.  And whatsoever success Dr. Thompson has gained, has been the result of his own unaided effort, and under circumstances demanding the truest manhood; a brave, spirit and iron will.  At five years of age he became a cripple by an injury to his right knee joint, and until twelve years old walked only by the aid of crutches.  Since then, with an impaired limb, he ahs been compelled to rely upon a cane for the support of his right side.  Yet, with this impediment, he has braved and overcome all the formidable obstacles of a frontier practice, suffering by accident upon the railways, and by spirited horses, such as his fearless spirit was alone content to drive, two severe fractures, one of the thigh - surely he has been made of true grit.
     Dr. Thompson, in his long career, has been one of the truest of neighbors, and the friend and benefactor of every applicant of high or low degree.  No patient, however poor, was ever turned away, or suffered neglect at his hands.  Never was night so dark, or storm so violent, or stream to be forded so swollen, that he would hesitate to respond to the calls of suffering and disease, from the poorest tenant or penniless laborer.
     Politically, his fortunes have been cast with: first, the Whigs and subsequently the Republicans; his ardent zeal ever keeping him in the leadership in his neighborhood.  Though naturally of a retiring disposition, he has, on several occasions, been compelled, by the call of his party friends, to stand for political place, as candidate for local positions, or district representation in the senate branch of the legislature - facing cheerfully, in the latter case, inevitable defeat, because of the overwhelming majority of the opposition in the county.  But in the race for posts of trust in his immediate locality, he always secured the election by the united vote of both parties.
     June 6, 1838, Dr. Thompson was married to Emily Sage.  They have been the parents of five children - but one of whom now remains to comfort them.
Photo of Dr. J. C. & Mrs. Emily Thompson > Dr. J. C. & Mrs. Emily Thompson
THE VAUSE FAMILYThomas Vause came from Hampshire county, Virginia, to Ohio, in 1810, and settled in Clark county near Springfield, where he purchased a small farm with some improvements.  He further improved his land and engaged in grain and stock raising.  During the war of 1812 he, with others, went to the defense of the frontier settlements against the British and Indians.  He held the rank of captain in the light-horse, and commanded his company while in the service, to which they were called on an emergency, and when they were on duty but a short time.
     In 1817 he married Elizabeth Decker.  In 1823 he sold his property in Clark county and bought land in Franklin and Pickaway counties, building his home in Franklin county, near Lockbourne, where he resided with his wife and family until their death, which occurred in 1852.  His age was sixty-six.  His wife's age was about sixty.
     He began life with a small capital, which, by careful management, steadily increased, until at his death he owned six hundred acres of land, and a comfortable home.
     The children of Thomas Vause were:  John D., William, Rachel, Luke D., James I., Hannah, and Thomas B.  John D. married Mary Perrill, and now lives in the north part of Harrison township, near the Franklin county line.  William married Mary Stimmel, and died in 1852.  Rachel married Thornton Decker, and died, leaving a family of six children.  Luke died in 1848.  Hannah was killed by a vicious cow, when about ten years of age.  Thomas B. married Missouri Moore, and lives at Camp Chase, west of Columbus.
     James I. Vause was born in 1827, in Franklin county, where he lived until 1858, working at farming with his father, and obtaining a common school education at the schools there taught.  November 7 1854, he was married to Eliza Wright, of Madison township.  In 1857 he bought his present farm of four hundred and eighty-two acres, in sections two and thirty-five, in Harrison township.  In 1873 he built a substantial brick dwelling on his farm, and moved out of the log house they had occupied since his purchase of the farm.  They had five children, three of whom are now living.
     Mrs. Vause died June 25, 1878, after a short illness.  Her age was fifty-one years, two months and eight days.
     Mrs. Vause was a member of the Ohio Annual Missionary Society, and a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church.  She died in the full hope of and belief in a blessed immortality.
     Both Mr. and Mrs. Vause were members of Asbury Chapel Methodist Episcopal church.
     In connection with this sketch of the Vause family appears a representation of the house of James I. Vause, accompanied by portraits of himself and wife.
PHOTOS:  Mr. and Mrs. James I. Vause  Vause Family Residence
< BIOGRAPHIES FOR HARRISON TWP. >
 

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