BIOGRAPHIES

Source:
History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio
Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co.
1884

SAMUEL BAKER has been a resident of Jackson County since 1854.  while here he has been variously engaged in mining, and for two terms held the office of County Auditor.  Years ago he retired from active life, and is now living quietly in his home in Jackson, feeble with the weight of ninety-two years upon his shoulders.  Since coming to Ohio his life has been without remarkable history, as indicated above, but prior to that date his career in part has been surrounded with interesting events of history which would form an excellent groundwork for a most valuable historical narrative.  It is to be regretted that want of space precludes from this work more than the briefest outline of the life of this man of so great an experience.  He was born in Franklin County, Pa. Nov. 4, 1791, a son of Samuel and Mary (Beatty) Baker.  He was reared on a farm, adjoining which was the farm of the father of James Buchanan, fifteenth President of the United States.  They were boys together, were nearly of the same age, and were friendly companions at the country school.  Although close companions in early life and life long friends. Mr. Baker remembers an occasion on which boyish rage took the place of friendly feeling for the time, and while in the schoolyard at play he struck young Buchanan in the mouth with his fist and drew blood from the coming President.  In later years, when boyish freaks were forgotten, the young statesman proved his lasting friendship for his old companion by securing for him a clerkship in the Treasury Department at Washington.  At the age of twenty-two young Baker volunteered in a private company organized in Franklin and Lancaster counties, Pa., by Colonel Miller, for the service of the United States against the British and Indians.  With this company he marched through Ohio, past the spot where Columbus now stands, en route for Lake Erie, the principal seat of conflict.  He witnessed the victory of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie with the charm that distance  lends, being on an island nine miles away.  He took part in the engagements at the Thames, Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie.  The former is memorable for the death-place of the great Indian warrior, Tecumseh.  Mr. Baker, being in a near part of the field, was among the group that surrounded the fallen chief and witnessed his dying struggle.  At Lundy's Lane his horse was shot dead under him, falling with such violence as to break the shoulder of his rider.  At this time Mr. Baker had by successive promotions, reached the position of Quartermaster.  From the war he returned to Lancaster County, Pa., and taught school for a few years until, in 1829, he went to Washington, having been appointed clerk in the fifth auditor's office in the Treasury Department.  While here he became intimately acquainted with President Jackson; and, be it said, contrary to the general opinion, that that iron-nerved warrior and statesman was not wanting in the tender feelings of humanity.  He remembers an incident which proves him to have had sympathies of the tenderest nature, although stern duty prevented them from governing his actions.  While in the discharge of some duty which called him to the President's private office, Mr. Baker was present when the mother of young Spencer, the dark, piratical conspirator, whose crime is known to students of history, came to plead for the life of her son, who had been condemned to death on the gallows.  Although the woman plead in piteous tones and clasped the knees of the great magistrate he could only say to the sobbing mother that her son's was a bad case and he would not interfere with the demands of the law.  After she had left, robbed of the last ray of hope, a gloomy spell came upon him, and throwing his pipe into the fire with an air of oblivion, said: "Baker, that woman loves her son; but it is a bad case.  I cannot do anything for her.  I sometimes regret that I am President."  Then, in a pause of silence, tears were seen to flow freely down the President's cheeks.  In 1832 Mr. Baker received the appointment of United States Consul to Chili and went to Valparaiso, where he remained about fifteen months.  He resigned the position and returned to the forest on the west branch of the Susquehanna, where he spent the three years following in hunting and trapping.  Most of the remaining part of his life spent in Pennsylvania he was engaged in teaching school and surveying, being County Surveyor for one term.  He was twice married, and is the father of twelve children, six by each wife.  His first wife was Mary Seldomridge, of Lancaster County, Pa., to whom he was married in 1813, and his second, Jane Starr, of Clarion County, Pa., to whom he was married in 1836, and who is still living.  Mr. Baker was acquainted with most of the leading men of the day while employed at Washington, and has held conversations with all of the Presidents between Jefferson and Lincoln, with the single exception of President Taylor, whom he never knew.  With several of them he was quite intimately acquainted.  He had the rare privilege of hearing the great debate between Hayne and Webster on the subject of State rights, and listened to it with interest throughout.  When a by young Baker made a trip down the Ohio River to visit his uncle, who lived in Maysville, in 1809.  He went on to Cincinnati, and was on its streets when it was a rude village with only a few hundred inhabitants. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 544

S. P. BALDRIDGE, son of Waid and Eliza (McCanahan) Baldridge, was born near Eckmansville, Adams Co., Ohio, in 1836.  He was reared in his native county, where he received a good common-school education, after which he taught school a number of terms.  He was reared in his native county, where he received a good common-school education, after which he taught school a number of terms.  He abandoned the profession in 1861 to join the army, but was not accepted till 1862, when he enlisted in Company E, Ninety-first Ohio Infantry.  He participated in the battles of Cloyd Mountain, Va., New River, Lynchburg, Va., and thence in the Shenandoah Valley under General Sheridan, till the close of the war.  He entered as a private but was soon promoted to Orderly Sergeant, which position he filled eighteen months, when he was made Second Lieutenant, and soon after was promoted to First Lieutenant, and in January, 1865, was made Captain, in which position he served till his discharge in July, 1865.  In September, 1865, he came to Jackson, where he was engaged in the clothing and notions business for several years.  In 1876 he was appointed Postmaster of Jackson, under General Grant, and has since filled that office.  He was married to Hattie A. Riffle, and they have two children living.  Mr. and Mrs. Baldridge and family are members of the Presbyterian church.  Waid Baldridge was a native of Lexington, Va., and when a boy he moved to Cherry Fork, Adams Co., Ohio, with his father, Rev. William Baldridge, who organized a society of the United Presbyterian church, which church he served till his death, in 1829.  Waid followed farming through life, and died in 1859, and his wife died in 1877.  They had a family of ten children, our subject being the fourth child. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 545

V. H. BENTON was born in McKean County, Pa., Nov. 26, 1845, the eldest of three children of A. M. and Beulah (Hill) Benton.  He was educated in the common schools and in Dickenson Seminary, Williamsport, Pa.  In January, 1869, he came to Jackson Ohio, and was employed as bookkeeper in the bank of Chapman, Clare & Co., and upon the organization of the First National Bank was appointed its Cashier, and served till Aug. 5, 1874, when, on account of ill-health, he was obliged to resign, and the next nine months he spent in Clyde, N. Y., in the lumber business.  In May, 1875, he returned to Jackson, and in 1876 he took an agency in a life and fire insurance company, but on the completion of the Springfield, Jackson & Pomeroy Railroad, was appointed the agent at Jackson.  Aug. 15, 1879, he resigned, and engaged in mining and shipping coal.  In September, 1882, he became associated with the Chapman Coal Company.  June 13, 1871, he married Lucy Ferree.  Of their two children but one is living.  His father, A. M. Benton, was the youngest of ten children, of Noah S. and Nancy (Lamkin) Benton, both natives of Connecticut.  His father died in Livingstone, N. Y., aged fifty-seven, and his mother in McKean County, Pa., aged ninety years and nine months.  He was born in Livingstone, N. Y., in 1817, and now resides in McKean County, Pa.  In early life he was a millwright, but of late years has been engaged in lumbering and merchandising. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 546

JACOB W. BEYRON, carriage manufacturer, Jackson, was born in Germany, Aug. 15, 1838, a son of J. W. Beyron, a druggist of Leiselheim, Hesse-Darmstadt, who died in 1853.  Our subject is the eldest of nine children.  He received a good German education, and in 1853 came to the United States.  He attended school three months in Cincinnati, Ohio and in 1854 commenced to learn his trade in Madison, Ind., completing it in 1857.  He located in Jackson in 1862, but in 1863 enlisted in Company I, One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Ohio Infantry.  He was discharged in 1864, and re-enlisted in the Second Virginia Cavalry, serving till the close of the war.  HE returned to Jackson, and save two years spent in Wheelersburg, Scioto County, has since resided here.  He is the only practical carriage manufacturer in Jackson.  His shop since 1873, has been in the rear of the Isham House.  He was married in Wheelersburg in 1866 to Mary J. Stropes.  They have had five children, four only now living. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 546

JONATHAN R. BOOTH was born in Harrison County, Va.,  Feb. 16, 1829, a son of John and Elizabeth (Radcliffe) Booth, and a grandson of William Booth, and a grandson of William Booth, the latter of English parentage.  In 1835 his grandfather moved to Ohio, and subsequently to Logansport, Ind., and still later to Albany, Ill., where he died.  His wife, Deborah (Heart) Booth, was a native of Virginia, and died at the age of ninety years.  Of their fourteen children, seven are still living.  John, the eldest, was born in West Virginia, Feb. 21, 1804, where he was reared and educated, and married Elizabeth Radcliffe.  They, in 1831, with two children, moved to Athens, now Vinton County, Ohio, near Wilkesville, where he purchased and cleared up a farm and still resides.  His wife died in 1863, and he afterward married Mrs. Ellen (Radcliffe) Parks.  Of his children - Jonathan R., Houston, William, Stephen, Daniel and Jasper - the subject of this sketch is the eldest.  He received common-school education, but by applying himself closely to his studies, at the age of eighteen was qualified to teach.  He taught five winters, working on the farm at home in the summer.  Nov. 18, 1852, he married Amanda Braley, a native of Jackson County, Ohio, born Jan. 16, 1833.  Soon after his marriage he settled in Middleton, and engaged in the mercantile business with his father-in-law.  From 1855 until 1866 he was connected with different furnaces as storekeeper and clerk, and at one time owned stock in the Cincinnati, now Richland, Furnace.  From 1866 till 1871 he was in the employ of the Orange Furnace.  In the fall of the latter year he was elected on the Democratic ticket Auditor of Jackson County, and re-elected in 1873.  In December, 1872, he laid out Booth's addition to Jackson, containing two and a half acres.  From 1875 till 1878 he was variously employed, but the latter year opened the hardware store where he is now located, on Main street, and is now doing a thriving business.  March 18, 1876, his wife died, leaving one son, Stephen R., two daughters having preceded her.  Dec. 31, 1877, Mr. Booth married Mrs. Carrie Barber. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 546

J. H. BUNN, sheep-grazer and dealer in stock, Jackson, Ohio, is a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Nelson) Bunn, and was born in 1824, in Jackson County, Ohio.  He matured to farm life and devoted three months during the winter to the inferior schools of fifty years ago.  With these limited privileges he prepared himself for teaching at the age of twenty, but only taught one year and then resumed farming, which occupation he has followed more or less since.  In 1854 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Nelson Cavett, and the same year erected his present residence.  In the same year he, his brother H. C. and Aaron Walterhouse erected the Franklin Mills.  The Bunn brothers operated the mill with excellent successfully operated a general store in Jackson, and during this time they became prominently associated with the Fulton Furnace Company as partners.  Owing to a dissatisfaction, they, the Bunn brothers, became sole proprietors and operated it until 1873, when the Globe Iron Company succeeded them.  As Mr. Bunn has been a land-owner since 1845, in the year 1873, when he freed himself form manufacturing interests, he was in a good situation to engage in handling cattle and grazing sheep, which he has made a specialty of ever since and with the attention he has given this subject, he has acquired a knowledge which nothing but experience produces.  Mr. Bunn is not only a live, wide-awake business man of firm and prompt business principles, but at the same time a special friend to education, in which he has through life felt a deep interest.  He is a man of public spirit, willing to assist in all enterprises having for their effect the good of the community.  Whilst we can speak of his public spiritedness, we can say equally as much of his taste, manifested in ornamenting and making his home convenient, comfortable and making his home convenient, comfortable and attractive.  Although his residence on Main street has stood for over a quarter of a century and is not of modern architecture, it has an imposing and striking appearance which bears evidence of his taste.  Mr. and Mrs. Bunn have two daughters, both good musicians. Source: History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 - Page 547

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