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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
A Standard History of
THE HANGING ROCK IRON REGION OF
OHIO
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with the Extended
Survey of the Industrial and Commercial Development
Vol. II
ILLUSTRATED
Publishers - The Lewis Publishing Company
1916
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WILLIAM H. NEAL.
An able and honored member of the judiciary of Lawrence County,
Mr. Neal is one of the representative citizens of
Ironton, the county seat, and here he is giving a most effective
administration as justice of the peace, his services being such
as to make the office justify its name.
Mr. Neal was born at Keystone Furnace,
Jackson County, Ohio, on the 31st of May, 1856, and is a son of
Levi and Nancy (Hunt) Neal, the former of whom was born
in Pennsylvania and the latter of whom was born in Lawrence
County, Ohio, in 1835, a date that indicates that she is a
representative of a pioneer family of this section of the
Buckeye State, her home being now in Elizabeth Township, this
county, where she is held in affectionate regard by all who know
her. Levi Neal promptly manifested his
patriotism when the Civil war was precipitated on a divided
nation. In response to the first call for volunteers he
enlisted in an Ohio Regiment, and he sacrificed his life in the
cause of the Union, as he was killed on the field of battle, in
1862, when about twenty-seven years of age. His widow
subsequently became the wife of Philip S. Justin, whose
death occurred in 1914, he having been a prosperous farmer of
Lawrence County. Of the nine children of the first
marriage William H., of this review is the only survivor,
and by his mother's second marriage she became the parent of
five children, of whom four are living—Frank, Philip, Daniel
and Charles.
William H. Neal attended the public schools of
Lawrence County until he had attained the age of eighteen years,
and he thereafter became a workman in the iron mines of the
county. While thus employed he was injured by a caving in
of the section of mine in which he was working, and the result
of the injury was that it became necessary to amputate
his right leg at a point below the knee. This injury
incapacitated him for further manual labor of the more strenuous
order, and after attending school for another year he proved
himself eligible for pedagogic honors. For the long period
of sixteen years he was numbered among the successful and
popular teachers in the public schools of Lawrence County, and
this discipline, in connection with earnest study and reading,
enabled him to round out a liberal education, the while he
achieved marked prestige in his chosen profession, besides
gaining secure vantage-ground in popular confidence and esteem.
For nine years after his retirement from the pedagogic
profession Mr. Neal was engaged as manager of the
general merchandise store of Halley & Company at Pedro,
Lawrence County, and he then removed to Ironton, the county
seat, while he engaged in the insurance business. To this
line of enterprise he devoted his attention for three years, at
the expiration of which, in 1912, he was elected justice of the
peace, of which office he has since been the efficient
incumbent. He has accurate knowledge of the basic principles of
the science of jurisprudence, and his judicial rulings have
invariably been marked by circumspection and mature judgment, so
that he has wielded emphatic influence in the conserving of
equity and justice. While a resident of Elizabeth Township
Mr. Neal was called upon to serve in various local
offices of public trust, including those of township clerk,
assessor, trustee and land appraiser, besides which he was for a
number of years a member of the school board of his district.
Mr. Neal is a stanch advocate of the principles of
the democratic party and both he and his wife are zealous
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
At Ironton, on the 11th of September, 1882, was
solemnized the marriage of Mr. Neal to Miss
Lyda Grant, daughter of the late Stephen Grant, of
Pedro, this county. Concerning the eight children of
Mr. and Mrs. Neal the following brief record is given:
Otis, who is station agent for the Chesapeake & Ohio
Railroad at Russell, Greenup County, Kentucky, married Miss
Ethel Taylor, and they have two children—William
A. and Estherlin ; Harry and Jessie are
not married and both reside in Lawrence County; Ray, who
occupies a responsible clerical position with a representative
firm at Norwood, Ohio, married Miss Mabel
Fowler; Inez died in childhood, as did also Clara
and Clarence, who were twins; and Nora remains at
the parental home.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of
Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis Publishing
Company, 1916 - Page 752 |
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ELIAS NIGH.
Born and reared in Ohio and a scion of one of the honored
pioneer families of this favored commonwealth, it was given to
Colonel Nigh to confer distinction upon his native state,
which shall ever owe to his memory a debt of special honor.
As a lawyer, soldier and legislator he wielded large and
benignant influence, and his life was guided and governed by the
loftiest principles of integrity, the while he had a deep sense
of personal responsibility and so ordered his life as to make it
a veritable beatitude. Colonel Nigh died at his
home in Ironton, Lawrence County, on the 24th of February, 1899,
and his memory is revered by all who came within the compass of
his strong and noble influence, so that this publication would
impair its consistency were there failure to enter a proper
memorial tribute.
Colonel Nigh was born in Fairfield County, Ohio,
on the 16th of February, 1815, and thus his death occurred about
one week after he had celebrated the eighty-fourth anniversary
of his birth. His father, Samuel Nigh, was a native
of Maryland and came to Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1802, before
the admission of the state to the Union. This worthy
pioneer lived up to the full tension of responsibilities and
vicissitudes incidental to the formative period of Ohio history,
was influential in his community, and passed the closing period
of his life in Wyandotte County, where he died in 1877, at the
age of eighty-three years. From a previously published
memoir are taken, with slight paraphrase, the following
statements concerning Colonel Nigh:
"As a youth he was employed in business by
General Reese, brother-in-law of Senator Sherman, and
he passed several years in the home of Mrs. Sherman after
the death of her distinguished husband. While thus engaged
he diligently employed his time in reading and study. For
two years after attaining to his legal majority Colonel Nigh
was engaged in business for himself, and he then began the study
of law under the preceptorship of Hon. Hocking H. Hunter,
of Lancaster, the judicial center of Fairfield County. In
the same county he pursued also a classical course in Greenfield
Academy, an institution conducted by Professor John Williams,
a very accomplished scholar. In the spring of 1843
Colonel Nigh was admitted to the Ohio bar, at Lebanon,
Warren County, and in the autumn of this year he located at
Burlington, Lawrence County, whence, in 1852, he removed to
Ironton, the county seat. He was made colonel in the State
Militia; he was thrice elected representative in the Ohio
legislature - in 1847, 1859, and 1876. In 1877, as
chairman of the standing committee on miles and mining, he
introduced a bill to establish a chair of mining and mining
engineering in the Ohio Agricultural College; also a bill to
consolidate land titles in Ohio. He also prepared, and
presented in the house, joint resolutions for the amendment of
the state constitution in such manner as to make provision for the organization of its judiciary.
"In 1861, at the inception of the Civil war, Colonel
Nigh was tendered the rank of major in the First Ohio
Volunteer Infantry, and also that of assistant quartermaster of
volunteers with the rank of captain. He accepted the
latter overture and received his commission in August, 1861,
with assignment to General Thomas' division, at Camp Dick
Robinson, Kentucky. In the spring of 1862 he was placed on
the staff of General Buell, as the chief quartermaster of
the Army of the Ohio, and remained until General Buell
was relieved from the command, in the following autumn. He
was then assigned to duty as depot quartermaster at Louisville,
Kentucky, and about this time he was tendered to office of
colonel of a new Ohio regiment. He forwarded his
resignation as quartermaster, but the government recognized the
value of his services in the latter capacity and refused to
accept his resignation, with the result that he was soon
afterward made chief quartermaster of the Sixteenth Army Corps,
with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
"In April, 1863, as a further reared for his
meritorious services, Colonel Nigh was commissioned
assistant quartermaster in the regular army, with the rank of
captain. In June, 1864, he was given to the additional
duty of acting as disbursing officer of the entire Mississippi
valley, from Cairo to Natchez. Early in the following
month, after having rendered very valuable and distinguished
service to his country, Colonel Nigh resigned his office.
Testimonials of appreciation of his
services as quartermaster were given in many letters from
official and representative sources, and there can be no
impropriety in perpetuating in this review certain extracts from
some of these letters. Lieut. Col. J. D. Bingham,
chief quartermaster of the Department of the Tennessee, under
date of June 13, 1864, wrote to Colonel Nigh, relative to
the latter's retirement from the post of chief quartermaster of
the Sixteenth Army Corps, in the following words: "I
regret exceedingly that you are compelled to resign. You
have rendered me such valuable assistant and performed your
duties in such a satisfactory manner that I fear your
place can not be filled in this department."
Gen. S. A. Hurlburt, major
general of volunteers wrote as follows: " Dear Colonel:
I can not permit you to go off the military state
without some testimonial from me of my appreciation of
your qualities as a man and an officer. I have no
hesitation in saying that your duties as a chief quartermaster
of the corps were discharged with a punctual fidelity and
intelligent foresight and integrity that I have never known
equaled. You retire, my dear Colonel, with
unblemished honor, with the highest reputation for efficiency
and integrity, and with the most complete condence (confidence?)
and regard from your commanding general."
In his final settlement with the government,
Colonel Nigh's accounts footed up more than six million
dollars.
On the 1st of July, 1862, to meet a
special exigency, Colonel Nigh ordered a detail of thirty
negroes to be enrolled from among the camp followers to man a
supply train, the detail of Union soldiers previously ordered
for that purpose arriving too late for the train. This was
the first instance in which negroes were similarly employed, and
Colonel Nigh thus had the distinction of being the man
who introduced negro labor into the Union service. This
example was immediately followed by other officers, the
innovation being made known to and approved by the government
authorities at Washington. Soon large bodies of negroes
were actively engaged in doing much of post and other labor
which had theretofore been performed by details from the
volunteer Union ranks.
For several years Colonel Nigh served as a
member of the Ironton City Council, being called to the
presidency of this municipal body, and also having been chairman
of the committee on the construction of the Ironton waterworks.
Further evidence of his strong hold upon popular confidence and
esteem in his home city was shown in his election to the office
of mayor of Ironton.
In 1869 Colonel Nigh was appointed assessor of
internal revenue for the Eleventh Ohio district, and he retained
this position until the office was abolished, in 1872. All
the positions which Colonel Nigh was thus called upon to
fill were conferred upon him entirely without his seeking.
Shortly after the close of the war he organized the Sheridan
Coal Company of which he was president. After the war he
brought from the South a number of those pitiable and helpless
waifs of humanity, the negroes who has been slaves and had been
made homeless and desolate by the Emancipation Proclamation, - a
class thus suddenly compelled to depend on their own resources,
while previously they had been care-free and without
responsibility. Colonel Nigh brought them to
Ironton, Ohio, and helped them to find homes in a quarter of the
town set apart for their exclusive use, and he became at once
their guide and counselor, with the result that he became deeply
loved and revered by them.
During the flood of 1884 Colonel Nigh devoted
all his time and energies to the alleviation of suffering and
the saving of property throughout the devastated district.
In this connection he collected through personal effort large
sums of money for the benefit of the sufferers.
In politics, it is scarcely necessary to state,
Colonel Nigh was a stalwart republican, and in a fraternal
way he manifested his deep and abiding interests in his old
comrades of the Civil war by retaining affiliation with the
Grand Army of the Republic. Of him the following
consistent estimate has been written: "A leader in all
good public works, a lawyer of marked ability, he was privately
modest, retiring and unostentatious. The fundamental
principles of his religion were honesty, uprightness and
absolute justice, with charity to all men. I known of no
more fitting words with which to close a brief sketch of this
honorable, Christian life that those used by his life-long
friend and admirer, General Sherman, in a toast made to
Colonel Nigh during a meeting of the Army of the
Cumberland, at Washington, some years ago: 'A man who
devoted four years of his life to his country in its greatest
need, and saved for it millions of dollars; who may not leave to
his children great wealth, but will leave to them that which is
a far more precious inheritance, an absolutely honest name.'"
On the 5th of March, 1848, was solemnized the marriage
of Colonel Nigh to Miss Alice Henshaw, of Lawrence
County, who survived him by several years. They became the
parents of eight children: Reese, Samuel Henshaw, Jennie,
Julia, Mary, Elizabeth W., Alice Henshaw, and William
Henshaw. Reese is deceased as are also
Jennie and Julia, the latter of whom was the wife of
Charles B. Taylor. Mary is the wife of E.
Stanley Lee, and Alice H. is the wife of John
Henry Queal. Samuel H. and William H. are
associated in the conducting of an important lumbering business
in Ironton and in the State of Kentucky, as will be noted by
referring to the sketch of the career of William H. Nigh,
on other pages of this work.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron
Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis
Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 650 |
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WILLIAM H. NIGH.
On preceding pages of this publication is entered a memoir to
the late and distinguished Col. Elias Nigh, whose name is
held in enduring honor in his native State of Ohio, and whose
noble achievements are briefly noted in the circumscribed
tribute possible of incorporation in a work of his order.
The son William H. is known as one of the representative
business men of his native City of Ironton, where he is well
upholding the prestige of the family name, but in the article
here presented it is unnecessary to repeat the data that are
given in the memoir of his honored father, as ready reference
may be made to the article mentioned.
William Henshaw Nigh, secretary and treasurer of
the Nigh Lumber Company, of Ironton, is thus identified
with one of the important industrial enterprises contributing to
the commercial prestige of his native city, and the president of
the company is his elder brother, Samuel H., the two
owning and controlling the business, in which they own equal
shares and which has been by them developed to large
proportions. William H. Nigh was born in Ironton on
the 8th of November, 1858, and continued his studies in the
public schools of the city from an early age until he had
completed the curriculum of the high school. At the age of
eighteen years he became associated with his brother Samuel
H., who was engaged in the buying and shipping of lumber,
with headquarters at Ironton. At the end of one year
William H., then nineteen years old, was sent by his brother
to Mississippi to assume the management of a saw mill owned by
the latter on the Yazoo River. William H. passed
about three years in the supervision of the business in
Mississippi and then, in 1890, he became associated with his
brother in the purchase of a portable saw mill at Catlettsburg,
Boyd County, Kentucky. This mill they continued to operate
successfully in that part of the Bluegrass State for four yeas,
and they still have large lumber interests in Kentucky.
Mr. Nigh returned to Ironton, the two brothers here erected
their present saw mill, at the foot of Ellison Street, in
January, 1890, and having placed the same in operation in
addition to their lumbering activities in Kentucky. The
mill has been kept up to the highest standard and has the
capacity for the output of 50,000 feet of lumber a day.
Through progressive methods and definite circumspection the
enterprise has been built up to a status of marked prosperity
and it proves a valuable adjunct to the industrial activities of
this section of the Buckeye State, as one of the foremost of its
kind in the Hanging Rock Iron Region. The brothers
effected the organization of Nigh Lumber Company, which
is incorporated with a capital stock of $10,000, shared equally
by the two. The plant and business at Catlettsburg,
Kentucky, are conducted under the firm name of S. H. Nigh
& Brother. He whose name initiates this review owns a half
interest in each of these important business enterprises, as
already intimated, and he is likewise associated with his
brother in the ownership of a valuable tract of 7,500 acres of
timber land in Kentucky. In Ironton he owns his attractive
modern residence, known as a center of generous hospitality,
besides other houses and lots. Mr. Nigh has proved
a reliable and progressive business man and a loyal and
public-spirited citizen, with abiding interest in all that
pertains to the welfare of his home city and county.
In politics Mr. Nigh is aligned as a supporter
of the cause of the republican party, and he is affiliated with
the Knights of Pythias and the Masonic fraternity, in the latter
of which he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient
Accepted Scottish Rite, besides being affiliated with the
Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
Both he and his wife are zealous communicants of the Protestant
Episcopal Church and he is a member of hte vestry of the parish
of his church.
In September, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of
Mr. Nigh to Miss Josephine Wood, daughter of
George and Martha Wood, of Maysville, Kentucky, and the two
children of this union are William H., Jr., and Samuel
H.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron
Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated - Published by The Lewis
Publishing Company, 1916 - Page 653 |
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