|
BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
1795
History of
Clermont County, Ohio
with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
of its
Prominent Men and Pioneers
Philadelphia:
Louis H. Everts
Press of J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia
1880
<
CLICK HERE TO
RETURN TO 1880 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
>
< CLICK HERE TO
RETURN TO LIST OF BIOGRAPHICAL INDEXES >
E. G. Ricker |
ELBRIDGE G. RICKER
Source: 1795 History of Clermont County, Ohio, Publ.
Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts - Press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia - 1880 - Page (facing)
439 |
John G. Rogers, M. D. |
DR.
JOHN G. ROGERS. Dr. John George Rogers,
one of the most noted and venerable physicians of
Clermont, was born near Camden, N. J., Apr. 29, 1797,
and was the second in a family of seven children, whose
parents were Dr. Levi Rogers and Anna (George) Rogers.
His father, a native of Maryland, in early life became
an itinerant Methodist preacher; married Anna
George, the only child of John and Sarah George;
relinquished the itinerancy; studied medicine; attended
lectures at Jefferson College, in Philadelphia, under
Professors Shippen,
Rush, Wise, Wistar, Barton,
and other eminent men; and began the practice of
medicine in New Jersey in1798. He removed to Ohio
in 1804, and settled at Williamsburgh. In 1810
located at Bethel, where he died Apr. 4, 1815, in the
forty-seventh year of his age and his wife, Anna
George, a native of New Jersey, died in Batavia,
Oct. 13, 1856. He was an earnest student and very
highly esteemed for intelligence and skill in his
profession. In the War of 1812 he was surgeon in
the 19th Regiment of Infantry. Besides being a
noted physician he was also a preacher; served one term
as sheriff of the county; was a practicing lawyer of
repute, and acted at several terms of the Common Pleas
Court as prosecuting attorney; and served one term of
two years in the Ohio Senate.
Dr. Levi Rogers was the most versatile genius of
the early days of Clermont, but his usefulness was cut
short by death in the prime of life.
Dr, John G. Rogers was designed at an early age
by his father for the medical profession, and, after
having acquired the knowledge usually taught in the
schools of that day, he was placed under the
instructions of his father at home, where he received
most of his literary education, and where the deep and
broad foundations of his professional life were laid.
His father, having a large practice in a new and
sparsely settled country, was necessarily much from
home, and many of the duties of the office devolved on
his son, who in boyhood acquired great dexterity in
extracting teeth, bleeding, and many of the operations
in minor surgery, as well as dispensing medicine in the
absence of his father, who died in the eighteenth year
of his son's age.
When the doctor was a lad only fourteen years old,
William Goble, a farmer living near Bethel, was
severely and it was thought fatally cut by a scythe upon
his back and shoulder, and a messenger came for his
father to come and dress Mr. Goble's wounds; but
the father being miles away on his professional duties,
his wife persuaded her son, John G., to go and
attend the wounded man. The boy went, examined and
dressed the wounds, and sewed them, putting in eleven
stitches an inch and a half apart, and such, and such
was his success that his father, on the next day
examining the patient, declared it to be a perfect
surgical job, and complimented his son on his skill and
desterity. Upon the death of his father, Dr.
John G. Rogers a applied himself closely to the
study of medicine for two years under the instruction of
Dr. William Wayland, who settled in the county
soon after the death of his father. He also
received many practical and clinical instructions from
Dr. David Morris, in studying and investigating
the malarious diseases of that region, while residing in
his family, in Lebanon, Ohio. After studying and
practicing two years longer, under the care and
instruction of Dr. Zeno Fenn, an eminent
physician of Clermont, his pupilage terminated, at the
age of twenty-one years. He was taught with much
care by his distinguished father an intimate knowledge
of anatomy, in which branch of medicine he became
specially proficient. During his long and varied
pupilage he acquired an extensive knowledge of the
principles and practice of medicine, and settled in New
Richmond, June 11, 1818, where he soon became a most
noted and successful practitioner, and where he now
resides and has been for sixty-two years in the constant
and uninterrupted practice of the healing art.
In 1824 he was appointed by the General Assembly,
with others, a a censor, to organize the First District
Medical Society of Ohio, composed of the counties of
Hamilton and Clermont. He continued to practice
medicine with great success up to 1825, when the Medical
College of Ohio, in Cincinnati, was fully organized by
the appointment of Professors Moorehead,
Slack, Cobb, and Whitman, and he
attended the lectures and graduated in that institution
with the highest honors in 1826. He was the main
instrument in the organization of the Clermont County
Medical Society, on May 11, 1853, and was its first
president, and again served as much in 1859 and 1867.
He is a member of the Ohio State Medical Society, and
has often attended its annual meetings, and took an
active part in the deliberations and discussions of the
famous one held at White Sulphur Springs. He also
belongs to the American Medical Association, and has
attended its sessions at Washington City, Baltimore,
Louisville, and other points. He has performed
many important operations in surgery, in which he has
been successful, and for which he has been highly
commended by the medical journals. He also was at
one time physician to the family of Jesse R. Grant,
and officiated at the birth of his son, Ulysses
Simpson Grant, the distinguished general and
statesman, which took place on Apr. 27, 1822, and twice
voted for his elevation to the Presidency.
He was married, Oct. 19, 1820, to Julia Morris,
the accomplished daughter of United States Senator
Thomas Morris, of Bethel, Ohio, by Rev. George C.
Light, an eloquent divine of his day, and his
attendants at the marriage ceremony were Dr. James T.
Johnson, with Miss Hannah Simpson as
bridesmaid, afterwards mother of Gen. Grant.
By the death of his wife he was left with five
small children, - four daughters and one son, - of whom
but one, a daughter, now survives, viz., Eliza H.
Rogers. The deceased are Levinia; Lydia Ann,
married to Jacob Ebersole; Rachel M., married to
Theodore M. Griffis, of Connersville, Ind.; and
Dr. Levi M. Rogers, who received a medical
education, practiced his profession for more than twenty
years in Cincinnati, and died in the fiftieth year of
his age.
The second marriage of Dr. John G. Rogers
occurred Nov. 19, 833, to Sarah Molyneaux, of
Scotch-Irish parentage, born in County Antrim, Ireland,
a lady of fervent piety and remarkable culture.
Her family sprang from the French Huguenots who
escaped from France to Ireland after the terrible
massacre of St. Bartholomew, and her father, Samuel
Molyneaux, with his wife and family, emigrated to
America about 1820, and settled at Point Pleasant, in
this county, where her parents died of malarial fever a
year after their arrival.
Dr. Rogers joined the Masonic order threescore
years ago, and received the symbolical degrees in
Clermont Social Lodge, No. 29, of Williamsburgh.
He is a member, like his most excellent wife, of the
Presbyterian Church, and throughout his long and
eventful life he has ever been prominently identified
with all movements for the advancement of Christianity,
and particularly so with all reforms in educational
matters.
In politics he was originally a Democrat of the Jackson
school, and voted twice for that eminent statesman, but
more recently he has been identified with the Free-Soil
and Republican parties; and, although he has never held
office, he has in all public movements endeavored to
advance the moral and educational interests of the
community in general. In years gone by he gained
prominence as one of the earliest and most influential
and unflinching opponents of slavery, and has lived to
see his cherished anti-slavery principles carried out
and adopted by the government. Under his auspices
James G. Birney began the publication of The
Philanthropist in about a year was removed to
Cincinnati for a larger field of operations, where the
office and presses of this paper were sacked and
destroyed; but afterwards it was resumed, with a new
outfit, and published for several years. While
this famous sheet was published at New Richmond, Dr.
Rogers was the trusted friend and adviser of its
editor, Mr. Birney, who was often compelled to
stand guard with other anti-slavery men over the
printing-office to prevent its destruction at the hands
of an infuriated pro-slavery mob.
The doctor is now in his eighty-fourth year has retired
from his professional labors and is enjoying a quiet and
peaceful old age, and during his long and most honorable
career morality, religion, education, humanity, science,
and the State have found a noble friend, and a coadjutor
worthy of the proud line form which he is an illustrious
descendant.
Source: 1795 History of Clermont County, Ohio, Publ.
Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts - Press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia - 1880 - Page 414 |
A. Roudebush
Residence of A. Roudebush, Dec'd.
Boston, Clermont Co., OH |
AMBROSE
ROUDEBUSH was born in Stonelick township,
Clermont Co., Ohio, Apr. 7, 1823, and was next to the
youngest of a family of ten children, - six sons and
four daughters. His father, Jacob Roudebush,
was one of the pioneer settlers of Clermont County, and
was noted for being one of the best farmers in it at the
time of his death. Ambrose received an
education such as the public and private schools of the
county at that time could give. Receiving a
teacher's certificate at the age of eighteen, he taught
school during the winter months for ten years in
succession. On the 27th of February, 1851, he
married Sarah Ellen Patchell, daughter of
Edward Patchell. By this union there were four
children, - J. L., born Mar. 6, 1852; Edward
Milliard Aug. 14, 1853, who died in infancy;
Clara Belle, Jan. 25, 1855; and Ambrose Patchell,
June 6, 1866. Ambrose Roudebush died Feb.
11, 1875. He was in every sense one of nature's
noblemen. He was a kind and affectionate husband,
a loving father, a successful teacher, a liberal
citizen, and one who conscientiously discharged his duty
as a public officer, and ever labored to make his
children virtuous, honest, intelligent, and useful
members of society.
Source: 1795 History of Clermont County, Ohio, Publ.
Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts - Press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia - 1880 - Page 545 |
|
|
Wayne Twp. -
ELIZABETH
(CLARK) ROUDEBUSH, wife of Col. William
Roudebush, of Wayne Township, and a most estimable
woman, is descended from ancestry on the paternal and
maternal side illustrious in the annals of Pennsylvania
and Virginia, and subsequently honorably associated with
the pioneer history of the Northwest Territory, and
later with the important events attending and succeeding
the admission of Ohio into the Union. She was the
second in a family of thirteen children, whose parents
were Orson and Nancy (Corbly) Clark, and was born
Oct. 26, 1818, near Plainville, Hamilton Co., Ohio.
When one year old she moved with her parents to Miami
County, in this State, on Lost Creek, near the present
beautiful town of Cass, which was then a new country,
thinly settled, and almost an unbroken forest.
There they endured the hardships and privations incident
to the early pioneers of a new country. In the
spring of 1829 she, with her parents, moved to Warren
Co., Ohio, near Lebanon. In 1832 they moved to
Clermont County, and located near Withamsville, but in
1837 removed to Wayne Township, on what is now known as
the Clark homestead, purchased by her
father in 1835. In 1841 she united with the
Stonelick Baptist Church, of which to this day she has
remained a zealous, consistent, and exemplary member.
She was married Dec. 11, 1849, by Rev. William
Blair, to Col. William Roudebush,
by whom she has had two children, William
Franklin and George Milton
Roudebush. Of these W. F. Roudebush,
after a five years' course at the Lebanon (Ohio) Normal
School, there graduated with high honors in the
collegiate course in 1874, attended and graduated at the
Cincinnati Law College in 1876, and was thereupon
admitted to the practice of law, in which he is now
extensively engaged, his office being located at
Batavia. He married Ida, daughter of Dr. W. S.
Anderson, of Newtonville, and in the fall of 1877,
at the age of twenty-five years, was appointed treasurer
of Clermont County to fill a vacancy, and for a year
filled that office with unswerving fidelity and
integrity to the public, and with honor to himself,
being the youngest man who ever held that or any other
responsible county office in Clermont. The second
son, George M. Roudebush, attended the
Lebanon (Ohio) Normal School, and graduated in the
scientific course, and lives at home, assisting his
father in the care of his large landed possessions.
Orson Clark, the father of the subject of
this sketch, was born in Southampton Co., Va., in
February, 1792, and emigrated with his father, Judge
James Clark, to Ohio in 1797, and on May
25, 1815, married Nancy, daughter of Rev.
John Corbly. Mr. Clark
was a hard-working man of excellent business and
personal traits, and by his industry, tact, and
successful management accumulated a considerable estate,
and died in 1864, respected by the community as an
upright citizen who had passed an honorable life in
developing his adopted State, and greatly assisted in
its onward march to moral and material prosperity.
His wife, the mother of Mrs. Elizabeth (Clark)
Roudebush, was Nancy Corbly, born
Jan. 21, 1800, near the present site of Mount
Washington, Hamilton Co., Ohio, and died near
Newtonville, Clermont Co., Ohio, June 30, 1877.
For fifty-seven years she was a faithful follower of
Christ and a consistent member of the Baptist Church,
and for forty-one years was intimately and favorably
known by the people among whom she died. She came
of honored ancestry on both sides, and it can be
truthfully said she was a faithful and devoted mother, a
kind and accommodating neighbor, a true and loyal
Christian, and her life was a long and useful one, and
though void of all ostentation and pride, yet rose to
the dignity of the highest excellence, viz., a
conscientious performance of what she believed to be her
duty in life.
Judge James Clark, grandfather of
Mrs. Elizabeth (Clark) Roudebush,
was one of the most distinguished pioneers of the
Northwest Territory, and became noted in the State after
its admission into the Union by his brilliant and useful
public life, and by his literary and scholastic
attainments. He descended from a family noted for
its patriotic participation and achievements in the
Revolutionary era, both in civil life and in the
Continental army, as well as in the French and Indian
War, in the struggles of the feeble colonies against
French aggressions and savage massacres. James
Clark emigrated from Southampton Co., Va., to
Ohio in 1797, and settled in Hamilton County. On
his first arrival and for a few subsequent years he
taught school. He was a celebrated mathematical
scholar, and the author of "Clark's Arithmetic," so
generally used over fourscore years ago. An excellent
penman, he was in his day unsurpassed as an accountant.
He was a representative from Hamilton County in the
Seventh and Eighth General Assemblies of Ohio, that
convened in the years 1808-1809-1810 in Chillicothe, and
arose to distinction as a legislator. He served
for seven years as associate judge of the Court of
Common Pleas of Hamilton Co., Ohio, and was called in
various other positions to serve the public, all of
which he filled with rare ability and fidelity.
Judge Clark was one of the best types of the
educated pioneers who came West in the last century, and
the impress of whose strong minds, indomitable wills,
Spartan courage, and inflexible honesty has been
indelibly written in the legislation of Ohio, its
material development, and the character of its people.
Rev. John Corbly, Jr., the grandfather of
Mrs. Elizabeth (Clark) Roudebush on the maternal
side, was born in Pennsylvania, and, like his father,
was a Baptist preacher. He emigrated from
Pennsylvania to Ohio about the year 1798, settled in
Hamilton County, founded, or early preached for, the
Clough Church, near Mount Washington, and was one of the
first ministers of any denomination to preach in
Clermont County, and the very first of the Baptist
persuasion. He died in 1814, near Mount
Washington, and his widow, afterwards married
Matthias Corwin, father of the great lawyer,
statesman, and orator, Governor Thomas
Corwin. Rev. John Corbly, Jr., was the
father of twelve children, of whom the fourth was
Nancy, the mother of Mrs. Elizabeth (Clark)
Roudebush, and he was an able and eloquent
expounder of the gospel, a pioneer in his church, as his
father had been before him in Pennsylvania; and among
the Baptists of Southern Ohio the name of Rev. John
Corbly, Jr., is still held in the most sacred
veneration as associated with hallowed memories of their
pioneer history and the organization of their early
churches. Rev. John Corbly, Sr., father of
Rev. John Corbly, Jr., and
great-grandfather of Elizabeth (Clark) Roudebush,
and the ancestor of all the well-known Corbly
families in Clermont and Hamilton Counties, Ohio,
was born in England in 1733. At an early age he
emigrated to Pennsylvania, but being too poor to pay his
passage across the ocean, he was sold, according to a
custom quite prevalent previous to the American
Revolution, for a period of four years. Upon the
expiration of his term of service he removed to
Culpepper Co., Va., where he was converted under the
ministry of a celebrated preacher, Rev. James
Ireland. He soon entered the ministry, and
shared with his brethren in the persecutions that grew
out of their persistence in preaching the gospel as they
understood it.
From June 4, 1768, until the exciting scenes of the
Revolution diverted men's minds from religious
questions, many Baptist preachers were imprisoned, some
of them as often as four times each. Among these
was. Rev. John Corbly, Sr.,
who lay several weeks in Culpepper jail on this account.
In the year 1768, probably because of these
prosecutions, he moved into Pennsylvania, in what was
called the Red Stone country, comprising the
southwestern counties. Here he actively engaged in
the ministry, organizing a number of churches, which in
1776 formed the Red Stone Association. Of one of
these, the Goshen Church, he was its beloved pastor for
the last twenty-eight years of his eventful life.
It was during his ministry in the Red Stone Association
that Rev. John Corbly, Sr., met with a most
terrible affliction at the hands of the Indians.
On Sunday, May 10, 1772, he had an appointment to preach
at one of his meeting-houses on Big Whiteley Creek, and
about a mile from his dwelling-house. He set out
through the woods for the Lord's house, with his wife
and five children, to hold his public worship, and not
suspecting any danger, he walked behind a few rods with
his Bible in his hand, meditating on his sermon about to
be delivered. While thus engaged, on a sudden he
was alarmed by the frightful shrieks of his dear family
before him, and ran immediately to their relief with all
possible speed, vainly looking for a club as he sped.
When within a few yards of them his beloved wife
observing him cried out for him to escape from the seven
Indians. At this instant one of the savages coming
up behind him he had to run, and eluded him. The
Indians killed the infant in Mrs. Corbly's
arms and struck her several times, but not bringing her
to the ground, the one who had attempted to shoot Mr.
Corbly approached and shot her through the body
and then scalped her. His little son, aged
six years, and a daughter of four were dispatched by the
bloodthirsty savages sinking their tomahawks into their
brains and then scalping them. His eldest daughter
attempted to escape by concealing herself in a hollow
tree about six rods from the fatal scene of action.
Observing the Indians retiring, as she supposed, she
deliberately crept out from her place of concealment,
when one of the savages yet remaining on the ground
espied her, and running up knocked her down and scalped
her. The wife and children were all horribly
mangled, and of them only one little girl recovered from
her wounds and survived - the fifth one, not mentioned
above, who crawled into the bushes, lived, and
afterwards emigrated to the valley of the Great Miami,
reared a large family in Ohio, and had a son named
Corbly, who became an eminent preacher. The
father fled to a neighboring block-house and obtained
assistance, but when he and the aid came upon the scene,
sad and awful was the dismal sight that met their eyes -
his wife shot, the brains of her infant (snatched from
her arms) dashed out against a tree, and the other four
children tomahawked and scalped, but one of whom, as
above stated, recovered. For a considerable time the
bereaved father was unable to preach, but he finally
received strength to renew his ministerial labors, which
were very successful. During the celebrated Whisky
Insurrection, which occurred in Western Pennsylvania in
1794, Rev. John Corbly, Sr., was unjustly
suspected of aiding and abetting the insurgents.
With a large number of others he was arrested, taken to
Philadelphia, and after being paraded through the
streets was lodged in prison. Here his wants were
ministered to by his Baptist brethren of that city,
prominent among whom was Rev. William Rogers, D.D.,
formerly pastor of the old First Church, but then a
professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
Rev. Mr. Corbly was discharged without
trial by the government, which discovered the falsity of
the charges against him and his entire innocence. Rev.
Mr. Corbly was married three times, and his second
wife, slain by the Indians, was a superior woman, as was
also his third. He died in 1803, and carried to
his death the scars on his ankles made by the fetters he
wore when in jail for preaching the Baptist doctrine not
according to the established church of Virginia. The
Corbly's and Clark's were of an ancestry
whose pioneer deeds of valor in behalf of liberty of
conscience and freedom from British rule, and of
services against the red men, are commemorated in the
brightest annals of our country, and from these the
subject of this sketch is a lineal descendant, and in
her are blended the virtues and noble qualities that
distinguished them and mark her as the loving mother and
devoted wife, the model housekeeper and zealous
Christian.
Source: 1795 History of Clermont County, Ohio, Publ.
Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts - Press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia - 1880 - Page 515 |
|
|
Wayne Twp. -
WILLIAM ROUDEBUSH. No family in Clermont has' in a
greater degree contributed to the settlement,
development, and progress of the county in all its
relations than that of Roudebush, which at this day is
one of the most extensive in its territory, and is
especially
noted for the rare business tact and high personal
standing that characterize its members and make them
marked personages in all the departments of life.
In the year 1650 two brothers and a sister of the
Roudebush family emigrated from Amsterdam,
Holland, to America, and located at New York City, then
a quaint little Dutch village. There they remained
until 1666, when they removed to Frederick Co., Md.
In Holland they were merchants and reputed to be
wealthy. In America they followed merchandising until
their removal to the Maryland colony, when they became
farmers and the owners of several large mills. In the
New World this family thrived even more than in the Old.
One of their members, Daniel Roudebush,
was born in 1749, and in 1774 married Christina
Snively, born in Pennsylvania in 1759. She was also of Dutch de¢,
and was a niece of Dr. Snively, one of the
most celebrated physicians in the colonies at that.
time. In 1796, Daniel Roudebush,
with his family, emigrated to Bryant's Station, Ky.,
where he remained until 1799, when he purchased five
hundred acres of land from Gen. James
Taylor, of Newport, Ky., in Stark's survey, No.
2753, in Clermont Co., Ohio, at two dollars per acre,
and immediately located on it. He died Oct. 3,
1804, from the effects of exposure while lost in the
woods in the previous December, and his wife
Christina died June 10, 1833. Their son,
Jacob Roudebush, was born in Frederick Co., Md., in
1777. In the month of October, 1806, he bought one
hundred and fifty-nine acres of land from Gen.
James Taylor, in Taylor's survey, No.
4237. On April 17, 1807, he married Elizabeth
Hartman, by which union were born six sons and
four daughters, viz., William, Francis J.,
Daniel, James, John, and Ambrose, the last four
deceased; Mary Ann, married to ex-sheriff
Michael Cowen; Rebecca, married to
John Rapp; Paulina, married to
James Rapp; and Sarah, never married,
the last two deceased. Jacob Roudebush had
one sister, who married Andrew Frybarger,
of Goshen. Jacob died May 25, 1835, of cholera,
and his wife Elizabeth (Hartman) departed
this life July 5, 1869. She was a member of
Baptist Church for sixty-eight years. He was
one of the best farmers of his day, and from being by
avocation in his youth a distiller, he turned his
attention to agriculture and became successful and noted
as a tiller of the soil. He was quiet and
unassuming in his manners, and died universally
respected. Mrs. Elizabeth (Hartman)
Roudebush's memory of places and things and power
of description of what she had seen or known was not
equaled
by any person in the county. She was a woman of
extraordinary mental temperament, and on her maternal
side was related to the Hutchinsons of
Massachusetts and New York, and was descended from
William Hutchinson (her grandfather of three
generations preceding), who emigrated to America in
1626, and settled in Massachusetts Bay. Her
great-grandfather, William Hutchinson, was
born in 1695, and his wife, whose maiden name was Ann
Von, was born March 6, 1700. She was a
native of Amsterdam, Holland, and at the age of six
years was kidnapped and brought to America.
They were married in 1723, and William Hutchinson,
Jr., was born Dec. 13, 1724, who in 1754 was married
to his wife Catherine, born May 17, 1731.
To William Hutchinson, Jr., and his
wife Catherine was born March 24, 1755, Mary,
who married Christopher Hartman.
William Hutchinson, Jr., and his wife Catherine
had also four sons who were Methodist preachers, to wit,
Robert, Sylvester, Aaron, and
Ezekiel. Ezekiel came to Ohio in 1806,
and was the father of Aaron, now living in
Jackson township.
The father of Christopher Hartman (father
of Elizabeth, who was the mother of William
Roudebush) was born in Livintzburg, Prussia, May
6, 1750, and came to America in 1753, accompanied by his
father and four brothers. He was a millwright by
occupation, married Mary Hutchinson in
Mercer Co., N. J., in August, 1776, by which union were
born three sons and five daughters; and of the latter,
Elizabeth, born May 22, 1783, in Mercer Co., N.
J. was married to Jacob Roudebush, father
of the subject of this
notice; and Rachel, married to John
Page, is the only one now living.
Christopher Hartman
emigrated to Kentucky in 1795, coming by water from
Wilmington, Pa., and settled at Lexington.
In 1801 he removed to Williamsburgh township, in this
county, and purchased of Gen. Lytle five
hundred acres of land in survey No.4780. It has
been ascertained that the great-great-grandmother of
William Roudebush, Ann Von, stolen and
kidnapped from Holland, was of noble blood, and belonged
to one of the wealthiest Dutch families, and was
spirited away to the New World by designing persons,
in hopes of securing a large reward for her ransom and
return.
No county in the "Great Northwest Territory" excelled
Clermont in the character of its early settlers, men of
strong muscle and indomitable will, of deep religious
devotion, and rare intelligence for pioneers opening up
the unbroken forests to civilization, and forming a
magnificent frontier bulwark to the then young republic
just launched upon the sea of nations. Among the
first to settle in Northern
Clermont, in the last year of the last century, were two
men who became noted in the annals of the county as its
leading farmers and business men, Daniel and
Jacob Roudebush, respectively the grandfather
and father of Col. William Roudebush, the
present largest land-owner of Clermont soil. Col.
Roudebush was born Feb. 2, ,1809, about two miles
northwest of the village of Boston, on the farm now
owned by Mr. L. Girard, the second year after the
first log cabin was erected on it, and when it was all
in woods. His father had no means of
supporting his family only by his labor in clearing away
the forest and raising what wheat and corn he could on
the land he cleared, cutting his wheat with a sickle and
threshing it with a flail, and blowing out the chaff
with a sheet by the aid of his wife. His father
had paid for his farm the year before William's
birth, and had a team of horses and a cow, and soon got
a few sheep. His wife spun, wove, and made all the
clothing worn from the flax raised on the place and from
the sheep kept, which for many years had to be penned up
every night on account of the wolves then infesting the
county. When about five years old William
was sent to school to a widow lady, who had settled half
a mile from his father's dwelling, for there was no
school-house in that neighborhood, and when not at
school he was required to help his father pick and burn
brush when clearing up the woods. When nine years
old his father and other settlers built ,a school-house
of rough logs, puncheon floor, stick-and-mud chimney,
paper windows, and benches split out of logs. To
this William went a few weeks in the winter, when
there was a subscription school of one quarter (three
months), and the balance of the time he aided his father
on the farm until his sixteenth year, when he attended
the school kept by Samuel McClellan, for five
months. The next winter he studied "Kirkham's
Grammar," walking three miles to school, and the
following season he took up geography in addition.
The succeeding winter he went to school at Goshen, and
made some progress in algebra. The ensuing year he
taught school at what was called Hupp's
school-house, working in the summer and fall on the
canal-lock near Chillicothe as a stone-cutter, and
of nights kept the accounts of the workmen (for which he
got extra pay), on a contract of Gen. Thomas
Worthington,
son of Governor Thomas Worthington,
of Chillicothe. He
returned from Chillicothe, and taught school in the
winters
and worked on the farm in the summers-his father having
bought another one-until 1835, when his father died.
He, with his mother, settled his father's estate, and
had the
management of the old farm, his brother Daniel
having married and moved upon the other. He still
taught school in the winters; was deputy assessor one
spring and assessed three townships. By this time
he had saved some money, and in December, 1835,
purchased the farm on which he now lives, composed of
two hundred and twelve acres on Moore's Fork of
Stonelick Creek, for eight hundred and fifty dollars,
all of which was then in woods, and not a stick of
timber cut off save by hunters. In the following
spring he deadened forty acres of it, and in spring of
1837 began clearing up the first of the forest. In
1833 he' was elected clerk of Stonelick township, and
re-elected the four following years.
In March, 1837, he was appointed county commissioner by
the Common Pleas Court to fill a vacancy, and also was
ex-officio fund commissioner to loan out some thirty
thousand dollars of the county's allotted share of the
State fund received from the government as proceeds of
sales of the public lands, and in October, 1837, was
elected by the people as commissioner for three years,
and re-elected in 1840 for a like term. In the fall of
1843, William Roudebush, John D. White,
of Brown County, and James F. Sargent, of
Washington township, were elected the three
representatives to the Forty-second General Assembly of
Ohio from the district composed of Clermont, Clinton,
and Brown Counties, and in 1844 William
Roudebush was again elected as the sole
representative from Clermont. In his two years in
the Legislature he took high rank as a debater, and
stood. justly reputed as one of the Democratic leaders
in ability and influence. His speech in the House
on Feb. 11, 1845, on the final passage of the bill to
incorporate the State Bank of Ohio and other banking
companies, was published throughout the Democratic press
of the State, and received the marked encomiums of his
party editors for its ability and power, and nettled the
Whigs as much as it pleased the Democrats.
In 1845 or 1846 he was appointed land-appraiser for the
district of Stonelick, Jackson, Wayne, and Goshen
townships, under the first law in Ohio placing all
property at its cash value. In 1839 he had been
elected justice of the peace of Stonelick, and served
three years, and in 1851 was elected magistrate of
Wayne, serving a full term. In 1838 he was appointed on
the board of county school examiners, in which capacity
he served for three years, and previous to that, under
another law, he had been township examiner. Col.
Roudebush took an active interest in the old
militia for fifteen years, and participated in all the
trainings, musters, and marches that distinguished the
county forty years ago in .their evolutions and parades.
He was elected captain of the fifth rifle company in the
First Rifle Regiment, Third Brigade, Eighth Division of
the Ohio militia, on Sept. 7, 1832, and thus served
until September, 1836, when he was elected major of the
same regiment, which rank he held until September, 1841,
when he was elected lieutenant colonel of the same
regiment, serving in that capacity until September,
1844, when he was elected colonel of the same regiment,
and so served until September, 1847, when he resigned
his commission. He was the most popular and
efficient officer of the county, and his command in
appearance
and efficiency were not excelled by any soldiers of the
State militia. All his time has been employed,
when not
engaged in official duties, in agricultural pursuits.
When the war of the Rebellion began, in 1861, he had
passed
the age subjecting him to a draft, and none of his
family was liable to it or old enough for military duty,
yet he paid
out of his pocket over one thousand dollars to relieve
his township from draft and for bounties to soldiers
enlisting in the Union army. On Sept. 13, 1862, he
was appointed provost-marshal of Clermont County, and so
served until the repeal of that county system in 1863.
A Democrat of the Jackson stripe then, as now, he
sustained the government in the suppression of the
Rebellion and in the raising of all the quotas of
volunteers for the war.
In 1870 he was elected a member of the State board of
equalization from the district composed of the counties
of Clermont and Brown, and took in its session of 1870
and 1871, at Columbus, a very active part, and was the
choice of a large number of the board for its president,
but declined in favor of his intimate friend, Hon.
William S. Groesbeck, of Cincinnati, who was then
elected to that position. Clermont County by its
local board had returned the total valuation of its
taxable property at eleven million six hundred and
seventy-six thousand eight hundred and fourteen dollars;
but Col. Roudebush, by his untiring
energy, great ability, and commanding influence,
succeeded in reducing it in the board to ten million six
hundred and fifty-seven thousand four hundred and
eighty.-eight dollars, a reduction of over a million of
dollars, and about the same in Brown, which made the
State tax about fifteen thousand dollars less in each
county than it had been before, and would have continued
to be under the valuations returned to the board had not
his keen intellect and untiring efforts prevented it.
He has been administrator and executor of many estates.
He settled that of his grandmother, Christina (Snively)
Roudebush, nearly fifty years ago j next that of
his father, in 1835, and from that to the present time,
he has administered upon a very large number. He
has acted also as guardian for a great number of minors.
While he has been remarkably successful in the
acquisition of wealth, he has received but little in the
way of official fees, while his labors in the many
public stations he has held have been generally arduous
and often irksome. Hence, in none of his public
offices did he make any money, and when he was county
commissioner he received but two dollars per day, as
fund commissioner the same, and a like amount in the
Legislature. While serving as school examiner and
member of State board of equalization he received no
compensation, as the law authorized none. In all
the military positions he held no fees or salary were
paid to any officer or private, yet all able-bodied men
between the ages of eighteen and forty.-five years were
required to drill at least two-days each year, and the
Rifle Regiment, to which he belonged, was required to
drill several days both in the fall and spring, the
privates having their rifles furnished, but the officers
had to supply their own words, pistols, etc.
On Dec. 11, 1849, he married Elizabeth Clark,
daughter of Orson and Nancy (Corbly) Clark, by
whom he has two children, William Franklin Roudebuch,
ex-county treasurer and an attorney of the Clermont bar,
and George Milton Roudebush. On Jan. 13,
1850, he removed from Stonelick township, in which he
was born, and where he had lilved up to that time, to
the farm of two hundred and twelve acres in Wayne
township which he bought, being occupied entirely by
woods. He has made great improvements on it,
having built the fine residence in which he has ever
since resided. In April, 1847, he purchased six
hundred acres of land of Gen. Stirling H. R. Greham,
of Georgia, of which he soon after sold four hundred
acres, but the balance he cleared up, improved, and
still owns. In 1853 he bought of John Manning
one hundred and fort-five acre in Gen. Lytle's
survey, No. 4440, out of which he made an addition to
the town of Newtonville, and sold many lots, and donated
the one on which the Baptist church is built, making the
largest subscription for its erection. In 1870 he,
with Sylvester Shriner and David Jones,
erected the chair-factory at Newtonville, both of whose
interests he soon bought. He sold the lot on which
the Newtonville school edifice was constructed, and in
1877 sold to John Orebaugh the lot on
which he built the grist-mill in that village. In
July, 1848, he purchased of Mary Pool, of
Scotland, two hundred and twenty-four acres adjoining
his homestead, and of it sold one hundred and twenty
acres to William Dimmitt. In 1859 he
bought of Col. James Taylor, of
Newport, Ky., two hundred and sixty-three acres in
Fox & Taylor's survey, in Stonelick, of which
he conveyed forty-five acres to Rebecca
Williams, twenty-six to J. R. Hill,
twenty-six to Alfred Shields, and four to M. Wood.
Since 1860 he has bought and sold several farms, and
now owns over eighteen hundred acres in Clermont County,
of which some eleven hundred are in Wayne township.
From 1850 to 1880 his time has been almost exclusively
engaged in farming, but during that period he served
several years as president of the Milford, Edenton and
Woodville Turnpike Company, and is now the acting
president of the Cincinnati, Fayetteville, Hillsboro'
and Huntington Railroad, to the building of which he has
contributed four thousand dollars in cash on the stock
he has taken in it. He is one of the largest
stockholders in the First National Bank of Batavia, and
has been one of its directors since its organization,
holding the office of vice-president for over a decade.
In the past third of a century he has paid over five
thousand dollars security debts, yet he is the largest
proprietor in acres and value of Clermont lands in the
county, and probably its wealthiest citizen. He
has ever taken the greatest interest in all educational
matters, and frequently served on the Wayne township
board of education. In the past thirty years he
has raised and sold over thirty thousand dollars' worth
of hay, the same amount of cattle and hogs, the same
amount of corn, wheat, oats, and flax-seed; three
thousand dollars' worth of potatoes, same of butter,
eggs, poultry, etc., making in the neighborhood of one
hundred thousand dollars' worth of productions from his
lands sold direct. His productions up to 1840 were
large, and still larger in the decade following.
Col. Roudebush, although over threescore
years and ten, is still as active as ever, physically
and mentally, and is a type of Ohio's successful
farmers. His stern integrity, his patriotism, his
charitable disposition, and pure, unsullied character
have never been questioned, and his ability and energy
are known and recognized and esteemed throughout the
county in which today, as he ever has been, he is a
favorite. He belongs. to that old school of
gentlemen who believed in honor, honesty, and purity in
official station, and aimed at success by labor and pure
methods instead of the miserable devices and finesse
that have too often characterized the lives of' later
public and business men of this progressive but fast
age, when riches are more speedily acquired, but by more
questionable means, than a quarter of a century ago.
The present generation knows but little of and can
hardly appreciate what it cost their fathers and
grandfathers in suffering and labor to transmit to them
the priceless heritage of these delightful hills and
valleys of Clermont, ever beautiful, whether we visit
them amid the budding flowers of spring, or when
'clothed in the gorgeous beauty of summer, or in the
regal robes of autumn, or yet in the sublime
desolation of winter, when all nature seems left alone
in silent contemplation with its Maker. The
sufferings and trials of our pioneers are oft-told
tales, household stories, historical facts within the
reach of all, yet how prone are we to shut our eyes and
ears to the lessons they teach and the examples they
point out for our imitation! The subject of this
sketch came from a heroic ancestry, among the very first
in this county to blaze the paths to civilization, and
his whole wonderful career of success, high public
services, and pure life should be an example to the
young to follow instead of the blazing meteors of modern
days that rise in splendor, but, devoid of industry and
correct moral principles, soon sink into obscurity and
merited oblivion.
Source: 1795 History of Clermont County, Ohio, Publ.
Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts - Press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia - 1880 - Page 512-515 |
|
