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History of Pickaway County
Source: History of Franklin & Pickaway Counties,
Ohio
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Published by Williams Bros. 1880
HARRISON TOWNSHIP
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* HARRISON TOWNSHIP
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ORGANIZATION
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NATURAL FEATURES
- SOIL
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STREAMS
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TIMBER
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SETTLEMENTS
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EARLY EVENTS
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SOUTH BLOOMFIELD
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CORPORATION
* BUSINESS OF
HARRISON
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MILLPORT
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ASHVILLE
* POST OFFICES.
* CHURCHES.
*
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCHES
BIOGRAPHIES
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COCHRAN, John, Col.
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THOMPSON, J. C., Dr. & Emily
VAUSE FAMILY, The |
COL. JOHN
COCHRAN first set foot on the soil of Ohio in 1807, when he
shipped as a hand on a keel-boat at Pittsburgh, bound for
Chillicothe, Ohio. Both the Ohio and Scioto rivers were high,
and the boat lay at Portsmouth five days before the main channel of
the Scioto river could be found. There were five boats in
company, and each became fast on the shoals in ascending the river.
They arrived at Chillicothe, in teh month of May, 1807. He
soon returned to his home, in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where he
remained until in the month of May, 1812, when he received from
Hon. William Eustis, then secretary of war, notice
of his appointment as ensign in the Nineteenth regiment of infantry.
He was ordered to report for duty to Brig. Gen. Joseph
Bloomfield, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In the early part of
July he left home, and reported to Major McClung, of Pittsburgh, by
order of the general commanding. Here he remained a short
time, until he became familiar with his duties, when the command was
ordered to Carlisle, and thence to the frontier. There were
five supernumerary officers, of whom John Cochran
was one, who were ordered to report to Col. John Miller
at Chillicothe. Three of them came through, Cochran working
his fare, as nearly all were without money, or means of
transportation. Sixteen days were consumed in traveling from
Pittsburgh to Portsmouth. They walked from Portsmouth to
Chillicothe, and after resting a few days, Ensign Cochran
was ordered to Dayton, to which place he walked alone. Here he
remained a short time, when he was ordered to Franklinton, on
recruiting service. He was very successful as a recruiting
officer, and was kept at this duty for some time. In July,
1814, the regiment broke camp at Chillicothe and started for Malden,
Canada, guarding a detachment of British prisoners. Before
reaching Malden, Ensign Cochran was ordered on
detached service, and did not rejoin his regiment until fall, when
they erected winter quarters at the head of the Niagara river.
In the latter part of November they were ordered to Erie,
Pennsylvania. In 1815 he received his commission promoting him
to a lieutenantcy. The captain of his company was ordered on
detached service, and Lieutenant Cochran became its
commanding officer. His company had an enviable reputation in
the regiment for its efficiency in camp and on the field. The
declaration of peace, in 1815, withdrew many of the inducements for
following the life of a soldier, as there would not be no
opportunity for winning distinction on the field, and receiving
deserved promotion.
Lieutenant
Cochran withdrew from the service soon after the close of
the war and returned to Ohio where he had formed the acquaintance of
Miss Mary O'Hara while on the recruiting service.
He soon made her his wife and settled near South Bloomfield, where
he made a purchase of land, which he improved. For a time he
engaged in business at the village of South Bloomfield. During
the enforcement of the militia law of Ohio he was made colonel of a
regiment, which office he held for a number of years.
Col. Cochran was a man who read and thought a great deal,
and one who had a widespread influence. He so far enjoyed the
esteem and confidence of the people of the county in which he lived
as to be elected to the State legislature, in which he served during
the years 1818, 1831, 1832, 1835, 1836, and 1850. In his
political opinions he was a Whig.
His
wife proved a careful, prudent, and loving companion, and a
judicious mother in her management of the nine children born to
them. She departed this life in 1875, at the age of
seventy-five years.
During the later
years of his life Col. Cochran wrote a series of
articles, reminiscences of the early life in his country, and of the
war of 1812, through which he served. These were published at
the time in the Herald and Union, at Circleville, and were read with
interest. He died in 1878, at the age of eighty-eight years,
and was sincerely mourned by friends throughout the county in which
he had lived so long, and where his worth was so well known and
appreciated. |
DR. J. C. & MRS.
EMILY THOMPSON. The parents of Dr. J. C.
Thompson were of Scotch-Irish extraction, and were natives
of Franklin county, Massachusetts. Jesse C. Thompson
was born in Heath, in the same county, Jan. 9, 1811. His
father owned a farm, on which Dr. Thompson passed
his boyhood, following the usual avocations of a farmer; but he had
in him a spirit that would not allow him to be content with being
simply a cultivator of the soil. He aspired to something
requiring more mental exertion. After obtaining a common
school education in the district schools of his native town, he
attended the Northfield academy two terms. This was the extent
of his school education. With the knowledge he had now
acquired, he applied for the position of teacher in the district
school, which he obtained readily. He followed teaching during
the winter months for several seasons; laboring on his father's farm
during that part of the year when he was not confined in the
school-room, making the most of such opportunities for study as
presented themselves.
He had mapped out
for himself the study and practice of medicine as a life work, and
in the summer of 1834, when twenty-three years of age, he commenced
reading medical works in the office of Drs. Bates and Fitch,
at Charlemont, near his home. He continued his studies under
their instruction nearly three years, teaching during the winter,
and attended his first course of lectures, at Berkshire Medical
college, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1834. In
the fall of 1835 he attended lectures at Dartmouth college, and
continued his studies with Drs. Bates and Fitch
during the winter of 1835-36. In the fall of 1836, he again
attended lectures at Berkshire Medical college. At the close
of this term he took a high stand among the successful candidates
for graduation, and was offered the position of demonstrator of
anatomy - which he declined.
In the
winter of 1837 he formed a partnership with Dr. Wayne
Griswold (late of Circleville), purchasing the property and
practice of Dr. Horace Smith, in
Whitingham, Windom county, Vermont. In April, of the same
year, he sold his interest to Dr. Griswold, and
came to Ohio in search of a place of permanent location, and finally
settled at South Bloomfield, Pickaway county. Here he has
remained during a period of forty-two years.
His professional life has been eminently successful, and he ranks as
the peer of the first physician and surgeon of central Ohio.
With indomitable energy he has successfully managed a practice
extending into three or four counties, and, with rare industry, kept
pace with all modern medical science and practice. A keen
observer and close student, his many years' experience ahs given him
a prominent place in the counsels of all neighboring practitioners,
who regard his advice and opinion with great respect. In
surgery he ranks as a wise, careful, and successful operator, and in
the course of his professional career has performed some of the most
difficult and dangerous operations. He has the honor of having
performed the only caesarian operation recorded in the State, where
both mother and child survived. He has also successfully
performed the operation of exsecting
of the head of the humerus, leaving the patient - a young laboring
man - with a useful hand and arm; besides many others demanding the
greatest skill and surgical knowledge. It is his pride and
profound satisfaction that in a career so long and practice so
varied, he has left no cripples behind. And whatsoever success
Dr. Thompson has gained, has been the result of his
own unaided effort, and under circumstances demanding the truest
manhood; a brave, spirit and iron will. At five years of age
he became a cripple by an injury to his right knee joint, and until
twelve years old walked only by the aid of crutches. Since
then, with an impaired limb, he ahs been compelled to rely upon a
cane for the support of his right side. Yet, with this
impediment, he has braved and overcome all the formidable obstacles
of a frontier practice, suffering by accident upon the railways, and
by spirited horses, such as his fearless spirit was alone content to
drive, two severe fractures, one of the thigh - surely he has been
made of true grit.
Dr. Thompson,
in his long career, has been one of the truest of neighbors, and the
friend and benefactor of every applicant of high or low degree.
No patient, however poor, was ever turned away, or suffered neglect
at his hands. Never was night so dark, or storm so violent, or
stream to be forded so swollen, that he would hesitate to respond to
the calls of suffering and disease, from the poorest tenant or
penniless laborer.
Politically, his
fortunes have been cast with: first, the Whigs and subsequently the
Republicans; his ardent zeal ever keeping him in the leadership in
his neighborhood. Though naturally of a retiring disposition,
he has, on several occasions, been compelled, by the call of his
party friends, to stand for political place, as candidate for local
positions, or district representation in the senate branch of the
legislature - facing cheerfully, in the latter case, inevitable
defeat, because of the overwhelming majority of the opposition in
the county. But in the race for posts of trust in his
immediate locality, he always secured the election by the united
vote of both parties.
June 6, 1838,
Dr. Thompson was married to Emily Sage.
They have been the parents of five children - but one
of whom now remains to comfort them.
Photo of Dr. J. C. & Mrs.
Emily Thompson >
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THE VAUSE FAMILY.
Thomas Vause came from Hampshire county, Virginia,
to Ohio, in 1810, and settled in Clark county near Springfield,
where he purchased a small farm with some improvements. He
further improved his land and engaged in grain and stock raising.
During the war of 1812 he, with others, went to the defense of the
frontier settlements against the British and Indians. He held
the rank of captain in the light-horse, and commanded his company
while in the service, to which they were called on an emergency, and
when they were on duty but a short time.
In 1817 he married Elizabeth Decker. In 1823
he sold his property in Clark county and bought land in Franklin and
Pickaway counties, building his home in Franklin county, near
Lockbourne, where he resided with his wife and family until their
death, which occurred in 1852. His age was sixty-six.
His wife's age was about sixty.
He began
life with a small capital, which, by careful management, steadily
increased, until at his death he owned six hundred acres of land,
and a comfortable home.
The children of
Thomas Vause were: John D., William,
Rachel, Luke D., James I., Hannah, and
Thomas B. John D. married Mary
Perrill, and now lives in the north part of Harrison
township, near the Franklin county line. William
married Mary Stimmel, and died in 1852.
Rachel married Thornton Decker,
and died, leaving a family of six children. Luke
died in 1848. Hannah was killed by a vicious
cow, when about ten years of age. Thomas B.
married Missouri Moore, and lives at Camp Chase,
west of Columbus.
James I. Vause
was born in 1827, in Franklin county, where he lived until
1858, working at farming with his father, and obtaining a common
school education at the schools there taught. November 7 1854,
he was married to Eliza Wright, of Madison
township. In 1857 he bought his present farm of four hundred
and eighty-two acres, in sections two and thirty-five, in Harrison
township. In 1873 he built a substantial brick dwelling on his
farm, and moved out of the log house they had occupied since his
purchase of the farm. They had five children, three of whom
are now living.
Mrs. Vause
died June 25, 1878, after a short illness. Her age
was fifty-one years, two months and eight days.
Mrs. Vause was a member of the Ohio Annual
Missionary Society, and a consistent member of the Methodist
Episcopal church. She died in the full hope of and belief in a
blessed immortality.
Both Mr.
and Mrs. Vause were members of Asbury Chapel Methodist
Episcopal church.
In connection with
this sketch of the Vause family appears a
representation of the house of James I. Vause, accompanied by
portraits of himself and wife.
PHOTOS:
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HARRISON TWP. > |
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