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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
History of Adams County, Ohio
from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time
by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers
West Union, Ohio
Published by E. B. Stivers
1900
Please note: STRIKETHROUGHS are errors with
corrections next to them.
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JAMES
TAYLOR GASTON. The origin of the name is French.
In that language, it is properly spelled "Gastineau."
The ancestors of our subject came from France and located in
South Carolina. They were French Protestants or
Huguenots. His father was James Gaston and his
mother's maiden name was Margaret Patton, who was a
daughter of Thomas Patton, a native of Rockbridge
County, Virginia, though he emigrated to Ohio, settled on West
Fork and died there. His grandfather Gaston was
from Charleston, South Carolina. His grandmother
Gaston was a McCreight, born in South Carolina.
His paternal grandfather came to Ohio in 1800 on account
of his antagonism to the institution of slavery. He
settled on a farm near Tranquility, now owned by our subject.
His grandfather, and himself were all members of the United
Presbyterian Church of Tranquility, and he has lived near that
place all his life. He went to the District schools
until he went in the army. He enlisted in Company G, of
the 129th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, at the age of eighteen, on
the eighteenth of July, 1863, and served until the eighth of
March, 1864. On the fourth of February, 1865, he
enlisted in Company K, of the 188th Ohio Volunteer Infantry,
and was made a Corporal. He was mustered out in
September, 1865. After the war, he attended the North
Liberty Academy until 1867, and in the Fall of 1868, he
engaged in the profession of school teaching and has followed
that consecutively for twenty-eight years, having only given
up the profession in 1896.
He was married on March 21, 1871, to Sarah Wallace.
They have four sons: Roscoe, born in 1873, is
principal of the schools at Donavan, Illinois; Carey,
born in 1875, a teacher in the Weaver Academy at Media,
Illinois; John M., born in 1876, attending school at
Danville, Illinois, and Homer, born in 1882, at home
with his parents.
Mr. Gaston was a clerk of his township for eight
years and Township Trustee for three years. He was
elected Infirmary Director in 1867 and still holds that
office. He is a man of the highest character and
universally respected.
Source: History of Adams
County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers –
West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900 - Page
754 |
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ROBERT ARTHUR GLASGOW,
of Cherry Fork, was
born on the farm now owned by his brother, J. G. Glasgow,
near seaman, Ohio, May 28, 1861. He is a son of
Robert A. Glasgow, and Jane Smiley, both natives of Adams
county. Robert Arthur Glasgow, our subject, was
reared on a farm and received his education in the District
schools. He was married by Rev. John S. Martin,
of the U. P. Church, at Cherry Fork, October 6, 1881, to
Miss Lurissa Jane Caskey, who has borne him five children,
four daughters and one son. He and his family are
members of the United Presbyterian Church at Cherry Fork.
Mr. Glasgow owns a fine farm and is one of the most
intelligent farmers of Wayne Township. His wife is a
most estimable woman and is a descendant of one of the old and
well known families of Adams County.
Source: History of Adams County, Ohio - by
Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B.
Stivers - 1900 - Page 755 |
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REV.
EMILE GRAND - GIRARD, has born in Hericourt, France,
June 4, 1816. He was of Huguenot parentage. His
ancestors, firm in the Protestant faith, fled to Switzerland
at the time of the St. Bartholomew massacre in 1572.
When about fourteen years of age, Mr. Grand-Girard
went to Strasburg, where he pursued his studies under
private instructors, preparatory to entering the Polytechnic
School (one of the French Government Schools) of Applied
Sciences.
He came with his family to the United States in 1833,
landing in Cincinnati, Ohio. For a few years he
followed his profession of architectural designer in
Cincinnati, New Orleans, and other cities in the South.
On Dec. 31, 1840, he was married to Miss Georgiana
Herdman, at Bowling Green, Kentucky, who was descended
from Francis McKarry, the first Presbyterian
minister settled in the Colonies. From this marriage
were born to sons and two daughters.
In 1844, Mr. Grand-Girard decided to enter the
ministry and studied theology under Rev. Samuel Steel,
D. D., of Hillsboro, Ohio. He was licensed in 1846
and ordained to the full work of the ministry the year
following by the Presbytery of Chillicothe. He
preached at different times to the French Church at
Mowrystown, Marshall, Rocky Spring and Red Oak, preaching in
the latter place in connection with Mowrystown for a little
more than eleven years.
In 1866, he removed to Hillsboro, Ohio, where, in
connection with his sister, Emilie L. Grand-Girard,
he engaged in the management of Highland Institute, a
ladies' seminary and boarding school. The institute
was very successful, and from it were graduated large
classes of young ladies who have since filled places of much
usefulness in many homes and circles of society.
In 1875, he became pastor of the Presbyterian Church of
Kingston, Ohio, where he labored for six years.
In 1881, he took charge of the Presbyterian Church of
Eckmansville, Adams County, where he remained until his
decease in December, 1887, rounding out his active service
of over forty-one years in the Gospel ministry. During
the War of the Rebellion, Mr. Grand-Girard, having
learned military tactics in the old country, drilled several
companies for the Union Army. At the time of the
Morgan Raid through Ohio, a regiment was made up from Brown
and adjoining counties had Mr. Grand-Girard was
appointed by the Governor, Colonel of the same.
He was a man of unblemished character. Firm in
his adherence to the right as became a son of the Huguenots,
he was at the same time, gentle and charitable.
Possessed of all the grace and suavity of his native people,
he was a perfect gentleman and most agreeable companion.
He was an earnest preacher of the Gospel, a faithful and
beloved pastor. He filled an honorable and useful
place in the world and earned the reward of the loved and
faithful.
Source: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans
and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E.
B. Stivers - 1900 - Page 752 |
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REV. JOHN GRAHAM, D. D.
The ashes of this eminent servant of God repose in the
village cemetery south of West Union on a hilltop which
overlooks a wide expanse of plain in Liberty Township to the
southwest, the rough hills of Jefferson Township to the east
and the Kentucky hills to the southeast. To the north
lies the village overshadowed by the Willson home to
the northeast. No lovelier spot in the world for the
repose of God's chosen ones and their ashes are all about
them.
The generation now living in West Union do not know the
story of the life represented on the modest stone, which
reads as follows:Rev. John Graham, d.
d.,
died
July 15th, 1849
In the 60th year of his age.
But to those who
read this history and remember it, that stone shall
hereafter speak and tell the noble life it represents.
John Graham was born in Dauphin County,
Pennsylvania, in 1798. His parents were Scotch-Irish.
He was educated at the Philadelphia Academy under Doctors
Wylie and Gray. He studied theology in the
U. P. Theological Seminary in New York City, and one of his
instructors in the seminary was the Rev. John K. Mason,
D. D. His training in the languages was most
complete. He read Latin, Greek and Hebrew as readily
as English. He was licensed to preach in the United
Presbyterian Church in 1810 and ordained August 30, 1820.
From August 20, 1820, until Oct. 8, 1829, he was pastor of
the Washington and Cross Roads Churches in Washington
County, Pennsylvania, and at the same time he was Professor
of Languages in Washington College.
In 1821 he made a trip to Ohio and, among other places
preached at Greenfield, Ohio. Here he met Miss
Sarah Bonner and fell in love with her. The next
year he returned and married her. She survived him
until Jan. 15, 1866, when in her sixty-sixth year, she was
called away.
Rev. Graham was called to the churches of
Sycamore and Hopkinsville, in Warren County, in 1830, and
remained there until 1834. While there,
Jeremiah
Morrow, a former Governor of Ohio, was one of his
elders. Mrs. Ellen J. Gowdy, his eldest
daughter, who furnished many of the facts for this sketch,
speaks of the many pleasant hours she and her brothers and
sisters spent in the comfortable and cheerful home of the
Governor. Mrs. Gowdy's parents, when the
children were at the Governor's, would sometimes seek to
curb their festivities, but he always insisted on their
being permitted to enjoy themselves.
From 1834 to 1837, the Rev. Graham was in charge
of the Greenfield and Fall Creek Churches and lived in
Greenfield, Ohio. From 1837 to 1841, he resided in
Chillicothe, Ohio, and was in charge of a boys' academy
there.
In 1840, he accepted a call to the churches of West
Union and West Fork, in Adams County. Here he made his
home in the dwelling now occupied by Salathiel Sparks.
It was an attractive place on the hill north of the
village and adjoining his church. His family circle
here was unbroken until 1845 when his son John, aged
nine, died. they called their home "Pleasant Hill,"
and it was an ideal home, as all their former neighbors and
friends remember.
The home of the Rev. Graham, with his two sons
grown to manhood, and three daughters, attractive young
women, and all fond of society, was one of the places where
the young people of West Union of that day met most
frequently and enjoyed each other's society. Henry
Graham, a son, was at that time studying for the
ministry, and his brother, David Graham, was a law
student. His eldest daughter, Ellen J.,
afterwards married Rev. Gowdy of the same church, and
now has a son a minister. But the home of the Rev.
Graham had other visitors than the young people of the
village. It was a station on the Underground Railroad
and Black Joe Logan was one of the conductors.
Rev. Graham kept horses and carriages and they
were ever at the disposal of Joe Logan to carry
fugitive further north. The writer remembers on one
occasion when the horses of the Rev. Graham were
taken out of his stable and turned loose and his carriage
thrown over the cliff near his home by negro hungers,
because they knew to what uses the horses and carriages had
often been put.
Mrs. Gowdy speaks of her father's family
occupying a part of the house of the Rev. Dyer Burgess
(now the Palace Hotel) soon after they came to West
Union. Rev. Dyer Burgess and Rev. John
Graham were kindred spirits on the question of slavery.
Mrs. Gowdy says that while in Mr. Burgess'
house the younger children were in fear and trembling, for
the house had been treated to unsavory eggs and heavy
missiles by the friends of human slavery. The children
all stood in awe of the Rev. Burgess.
One would think, naturally, that a minister's
home would be a solemn place, but his daughter Ellen
says of her father's home, "It was a jolly place, if it was
a minister's house." The young men and women of West
Union all thought so, for they spent a great deal of time
there. One young lawyer in the town was there so often
that one night some of the mischievous boys took down his
sign and put it up on the Rev. Graham's premises.
The daughters, however, were agreeable and the young men
were perfectly justifiable in their partiality for the
minister's home. Mr. Graham was fond of vocal
and instrumental music and often played the violin.
His family were all taught to cultivate music and together
could and did carry all the parts.
If there is any point in the character of Mr. Graham
on which more emphasis could be laid than another, it was
conscience. He preferred to obey the law of God,
shield and rescue the fugitive slave, even if thereby he
violated the law of man and was compelled to suffer for it.
He never failed to keep an appointment.
On July 1, 1849, he was in good health and in the full
enjoyment of all his physical powers. Apparently, he
had many years of usefulness before him. But the Dread
Destroyer, the Asiatic cholera, was abroad in the land.
On the fourth day of July, he had officiated at the funeral
of Robert Wilson, who died of the cholera, and when
he came home he remarked that he had a singular dread of the
disease. At that time, there was no particular fear of
it and the neighbors came in numbers and tendered their
ministrations. David, the son, though very near
death's door, recovered, but the disease was too powerful
for his father and on the fifteenth of July he passed away.
He left two sons and three daughters.
The Rev. Henry Graham, his eldest son, is
a minister at Indiana, Pennsylvania, and the father of eight
children.
David Graham, a lawyer at Logansport, Indiana,
died in 1887. He left three daughters who reside in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mrs. Ellen J. Gowdy, widow of Rev. G. W.
Gowdy, resides at Des Moines, Iowa. She has one
son living, a minister, and three daughters, one a teacher
at Des Moines, one with her and one Mrs. D. B. Baker,
whose husband is in the shoe business in New York City.
This daughter is an artist as well as the one residing with
her mother.
Mrs. Elizabeth F. Stewart, widow of R. E.
Steward, resides at Albany, New York. She has four
sons, all in the ministry, and two deceased.
Mrs. Sallie M. Gordon, the youngest daughter of
Rev. Graham, is also a widow. She has one
daughter and two sons, both ministers. All three of
Rev. Graham's daughters' husbands were ministers, and of
their sons, seven are ministers.
Source: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans
and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E.
B. Stivers - 1900 - Page 572 |
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THE
GRIMES 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
been 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.
The patent to his survey was dated Oct. 28, 1799.
Noble Grimes never married. He was appointed by
Gov. St. Clair one of the Judges of the Court of Common
Pleas of Adams County in Dec., 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,
Feb. 10, 1801, and had three sons, Noble, Greer Brown,
and Richard C. He died shortly prior to Sept.
28, 1807.
Barbara Grimes, the
sister of the first Noble Grimes, married Gen.
David Bradford about 1790. they had two sons,
Samuel and Daniel. Samuel lost his
life in the War in 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 married Samuel Davis
and a 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, Nov. 30, 1797. this is the same
William Crawford who was burned by the Indians at
Tymochtee. John Crawford had four sons and two
daughters.
Effa Grimes, a sister of the first Noble,
married John Crawford, a brother of Col. William
Crawford, Nov. 30, 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 Jul. 7, 1805, and died May 31,
1868. He married Harriet Briggs, a daughter of
John Briggs, above mentioned. She was born Sept.
6, 1806, and died Feb. 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
Oct. 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 Apr. 7, 1805. Greer B. Grimes died on the
eighteenth of Feb., 1888, and his wife, Apr. 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
and 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 Nov. 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 Sept. 14, 1879.
Dr. Grimes married a second time, June 27, 1883,
Miss Mary Magruder, of Baltimore, Maryland, a
daughter of Dr. Archibald Magruder. There 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 the Board of Election
Commissioners for his county, and of the County Board of
Health.
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."
Source: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans
and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E.
B. Stivers - 1900 - Page
666 |
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