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Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio
with Portraits and Biographies
- Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro.
1882
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Amy R. Adams |
AMY R. ADAMS.
Amy Rosalia Bedell, daughter of Benjamin L. Bedell and
Sally Burr, was born in Manchester, Vermont, Jan. 31, 1804.
When Amy was quite small her mother married for her
second husband Smith Bull, and about the year 1810 the
family removed from Vermont to the vicinity of Plattsburgh, New
York. There they lived until the fall of 1815, when they
removed to Worthington, Ohio. Mrs. Bull had by her
first husband two children, a son and daughter, Burr and
Amy. Burr Bedell was born Sept. 1, 1802, and at the
time of his death, a few years since, was residing at Clayton,
Michigan. By her second marriage she was the mother of,
twelve children, viz: Huldah, Mason, Rosetta, Thomas, Smith,
Sally, Squire, Alfred, Orrin, Henry, Anna and Alonzo.
Mrs. Bull died in Urbana, Illinois, in October, 1852,
surviving her husband some twelve years. She was born in
Adams, Massachusetts, Aug. 2, 1782.
The strongest influence in the shaping of the character
of our subject was that of her mother, who was a woman of much
strength and excellence of character, capacity, and directness
of purpose. Her early years were spent in a country home,
where her time was divided between a brief attendance at the
rude district school and the exacting duties of home life on a
farm. After the removal of the family to Ohio, through the
perseverance of her mother she was sent out where she could work
for her board and go to school. Possessing a naturally
bright mind and an insatiable desire for knowledge, the
opportunity thus afforded for its gratification was improved to
the utmost, and although her education at this time was very
limited, she made rapid progress in her studies, and at the age
of sixteen she began to teach school. Looking back to this
time she says those were halcyon days and remembers them only
with tender and grateful emotions. Mrs. Adams
taught altogether, though not continuously, for a period of
seven years, continuing to teach for a time after her marriage.
For a time after she began to teach she continued at intervals
to attend school and had recitations to different instructors;
so that finally she attained a considerable proficiency in the
branches of study in use at that day. From the time she
began to teach she supported herself entirely by her own
exertions. She had a laudable ambition to better her
condition in the world, physical and intellectual, and she
possessed an equal measure the necessary determination and
perseverance to accomplish it. An incident in the
beginning of her career as teacher will illustrate this.
She went to Columbus for the purpose of securing a school.
A friend endeavored for some time to find one for her, but
failing to do so suggested as an alternative that she accept a
vacant position as chambermaid in a hotel. This suggestion
she emphatically refused to entertain, and said she knew she was
capable of something better. Considerably discouraged, but
no less determined in the attainment of her object, she was
about to return to Worthington when another friend interested
himself in her behalf and soon brought her the welcome
announcement that he had secured for her a room in which to
teach and two scholars, and that she could begin the next day.
The room was in a small building not far from where the Neil
House now stands, and the scholars were his own children.
Beginning in this small way the number of her pupils speedily
increased and before her first term closed she had a school of
sixty scholars, and required an assistant.
At the age of nineteen she was married to Horatio R.
Adams, and in the hopefulness of youth they entered upon
that journey of mutual cares and joys, which at its termination
by the death of her husband, spanned by nearly seven years more
than half a century.
In all the vicissitudes of the early years of their
married life, when struggling against poverty and adversity,
Mrs. Adams was the true helpmeet of her husband, sharing the
hardships and privations as well as the simple pleasures of
frontier life. Mr. Adams in later years often
referred to the heroic conduct of his young wife during that
trying period, whose Christian fortitude had smoothed the rugged
path by which a virtuous independence had eventually been
gained.
Mrs. Adams is endowed with more than ordinary
intellectual gifts. She is a woman of ideas and
originality of thought and possesses a happy faculty of
expression, both by speech and pen. She has written much
in both prose and verse, and her productions evince a high
degree of literary talent. The religious element in her
character is predominant. For more than sixty years the
Divine Word, the entrance of which irradiated her soul when a
girl of fourteen, and dispelled the darkness of doubt and
sinfulness, has been a lamp to her feet and a light to her
pathway. From her loyalty to her Master she has never
swerved. She early connected herself with the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and has always remained a firm adherent of its
faith and practices, and been a useful member. A good and
useful woman, with remarkable endowments of mind and character,
improved by high Christian culture, producing those graces which
adorn society, the church, and the world, such is the subject of
this sketch to those who know her best. We who thus know
her feel the power of her single, earnest faith, the beauty and
reward of a life "hid with Christ in God." Since the death
of her husband Mrs. Adams has had the oversight of the
farm, and although seventy-eight years of age, carries it on
with admirable success.
-------
Mr. and Mrs. Adams were the parents of nine children, two
of whom died in infancy. The others are as follows:
Lucia, born in Rochester, New York, April 22, 1828, is now
the wife of Dr. William McCormick, and resides in Grass
Valley, California; they have two children living, Horatio
and Jessie, and one (Willie) deceased.
William, born in Lyme, Huron county, Ohio, in 1831, married
Martha T. Pennell, and resides near Grand Rapids,
Michigan; they have two children: - Charles and Julia.
Delia, born Aug. 31, 1833, now widow of Upton F. Yore,
and resides in Chicago; she has four children - Delia,
Horatio, Upton, and Milton. Sophia, born in
May, 1837, now widow of John S. Berger, and resides in
Bellevue, Ohio; she has one child, Binnie, at present
attending school at Oberlin, Ohio. Julia, born July
11, 1841, now the wife of H. H. Queen, and resides in
Toledo, Ohio; they have two children - Florence and
Waldemar. Frank, born June 27, 1846, died Sept. 8,
1866. Florence, born Nov. 29, 1848, now the wife of
H. Z. Williams, to whom she was married Sept. 1, 1870.
They have two children, Julia and Amy, born
respectively May 16, 1872, and Nov. 14, 1874. All the
children except the two oldest were born at the old homestead in
York township.
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
699 |
H. R. Adams |
HORATIO ROGERS
ADAMS
was born in Montville, Connecticut, May 8, 1802. He was
the oldest of three children, and only son of William
Adams and Nancy Rogers, who were also natives of Connecticut.
When Horatio was about seven years of age his parents
removed from Montville to Albany, New York, where they
afterwards lived. William Adams was a sea-captain,
was the owner of a number of vessels, and a man of enterprise
and thrift. His wife died in the fall of 1820 aged about
thirty-seven, and some two years afterward he married Delia
Olmsted, an estimable lady of Albany, and sister of Judge
Jesse Olmsted, the pioneer merchant of Fremont, Ohio.
Of his three children by his first wife (his second marriage
being without issue) only one is now living, viz: Sophia
Adams, who still resides in Albany. The younger
sister, Mary, died in Albany. Neither of the
sisters ever married.
Horatio being the only child; and his father
well-to-do, was permitted to follow his inclinations and grew to
young manhood surrounded by the social influences of city life.
He attended school but little and employed a part of his leisure
in fishing, his favorite sport, and in visiting at his uncle,
Isaiah Adams's; a farmer living a few miles out of Albany.
During these visits he would help in the work on the farm and it
was there, doubtless, he formed the desire for the occupation
which he subsequently followed. When about eighteen he
made his way to Norwalk, Ohio, where a relative of his mother,
Frederick Forsythe, was then living. He left home
in the company with George Olmsted on the 1st day of
October, 1820, coming to Sandusky on the Walk-in-the-water, the
pioneer steamer of Lake Erie. Shortly afterwards he made a
visit to his friends, the Olmsteds, in Lower Sandusky,
now Fremont, being piloted thither through the wilderness by
William Chapman, the mail-carrier. There was then no
laid-out road west of where Bellevue now stands, which then
consisted, according to Mr. Adams' recollection, of but
one log-house. We next find him in Columbus, whither he
journeyed on foot. He was now thrown upon his own
resources and among strangers, and he found it necessary to do
something to earn a living. The first job he found to do
was to take a horse for a man a distance of thirty miles for
which service he received one dollar. Of course he
had to walk back, but he was well satisfied with his bargain.
It was the first money he had ever earned. A short time
afterward he went to Worthington, a little village nine miles
north of Columbus, where he found employment for a time in a
printing office. In Worthington he first met his future
wife, Amy R. Bedell. They were married on the 4th
day of May, 1823, and a few years afterward settled on Darby
Creek, Madison county. The farm on which they located had
been partly cleared by a former occupant, who had abandoned it,
and the cleared part had grown over with a heavy undergrowth and
practically required a second clearing. The first season
he raised a small crop of corn and a few bushels of beans, which
found a market in Columbus, twenty miles distant, at fifty cents
per bushel. Cotton goods were fifty cents per yard, and
other necessaries in proportion. It required a good deal
of fortitude and hard toil to keep the wolf from the door during
their stay there. While fighting under countless
difficulties for a livelihood, Mr. Adams was much
distressed by doubts as to the validity of his land title, his
farm being embraced in what is known as the Virginia Military
District. This tract comprised a large extent of territory
lying between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers, and was
reserved by act of Congress for compensation of the Virginia
soldiers who had served in the Revolutionary war. Any
soldier, or his representative, who held a warrant was at
liberty to select his lands, wherever he chose within the
military tract; and in consequence of the irregularity with
which many locations were made, some locations encroaching upon
others, considerable litigation ensued. This circumstance
decided Mr. Adams upon disposing of his farm at any
sacrifice, and consequently, after living there a couple of
years, during which he and his always patient and helpful wife
experienced every hardships incident to the lot of pioneers,
they removed, in the summer of 1830, to Huron county, and
located upon a farm rented of Jeremiah Sheffield, near
Amsden's Corners, now Bellevue. He contracted with
Mr. Sheffield to build a log-house on the farm, eighteen by
twenty feet, in consideration of fifty bushels of wheat, and
moved into this house on Christmas Day of the above year.
The following season being very wet, his crops were
scanty, and he decided upon making another change. He was
offered the farm on which he afterwards lived till his death, in
York township, Sandusky county, Ohio, for one dollar and fifty
cents per acre, but he hesitated about making the purchase, the
"oak openings," as they were called, being regarded as almost
worthless for farming purposes. Against the advice of some
of his friends, he decided to make the investment. That
his decision was a wise one, one of the finest farms in the
county is a sufficient proof.
To this farm on New Year's Day, 1832, he brought his
wife and two children, and all his worldly goods, in an ox-cart,
and moved into a log house eighteen feet square, with puncheon
floor, clapboard roof and stick chimney. The farm was then
an almost unbroken wilderness, and the prospect anything but
bright. But attacking his task with his accustomed energy,
he soon had a portion of his land in a condition to be
cultivated, from which he managed to support an increasing
family, while he continued to enlarge the boundary of his
clearing. The next ten years were years of hard work,
attended by trials and frequent failures, but instead of tending
to discouragement it was an experience which only developed the
force and determination of a man by nature determined and
forcible. In 1842 he erected the house which was
afterwards his permanent home, and which is still occupied by
his widow. They took possession of his home on Christmas
of that year, and it is a somewhat singular circumstance that on
each removal they began the occupancy of their new home on one
of the winter holidays.
On the 8th of May, 1874, Mr. and Mrs. Adams
celebrated their golden wedding. They had been married
fifty years the 4th of May the previous year, but as sickness in
the family prevented them from assembling that year, the reunion
was postponed until the next year, and held on the 8th of May,
which was Mr. Adams' seventy-second birthday. It
was a happy occasion to all, and to the aged pair in whose honor
it was held, an event second in interest only to their nuptial
day. They had lived to see a large farm brought from a
wild condition to a high state of cultivation, having increased
in value a hundred fold, and to raise a family of children
esteemed for their intelligence and moral worth.
Mr. Adams united with the Methodist Episcopal
Church in 1829, and ever afterward was an active member and
devoted Christian. His family was brought up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord, and he recognized no higher
duties on earth than those of husband and father.
He contributed with liberality to be the support not
only of the church to which he belonged, but to that of others
as well, and there is hardly a church in the region where he
lived so long that has not been the recipient of his
benefactions. His business record was unimpeachable.
It was characterized by energy, perseverance, and the strictest
integrity, which was an integral part of his nature.
He stood the embodiment of all that was upright, honest
and honorable. A conspicuous quality of his mind was the
faculty of humor. He had a keen sense of the comic and the
ridiculous, and he enjoyed nothing, more than a visit with
friends, for whose entertainment he would relate in his droll
way, some humorous incident, usually in connection with his
pioneer experiences. In, manner he was to some extent
eccentric and blunt, but he was always courteous, and to those
who knew him best he had a nature, as tender and sympathetic as
a child's. Mr. Adams, from force of habit continued
his labor more or less, on the farm, long after reaching an age
when most men are compelled to rest. In June, 1879, where,
at work in the field, he was overcome with the heat, which
resulted in an affection of the brain, and after suffering
intensely, mentally and physically, many months, he died Mar.
22, 1880, aged nearly seventy-eight.
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
697 |
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WILLIAM W. AINGER
located in Sandusky county for the practice of law about 1837,
having come from the Western Reserve. He married, in
Fremont, the daughter of Dr. Daniel Brainard. After
practicing for a few years he removed to Chagrin Falls, where he
died years ago.
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
391
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H. R. AMSDEN
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
686
|
Thomas G. Amsden |
THOMAS GATES
AMSDEN. The subject of this sketch was a
conspicuous character in the history of Bellevue for more than
thirty years. Thomas Gates Amsden was born in
Ontario County, New York, Oct. 8, 1797. His father,
Isaac Amsden, was a Revolutionary soldier. After the
war he settled on a farm in Ontario county, on which the son was
accustomed to hard work, being given the advantage of a short
term of schooling each winter.
During the War of 1812, when the Governor of New York,
made a call for militia to defend Buffalo, Thomas, then in his
seventeenth year, responded bravely to the call in place of an
older brother. Bravery and courage, which were
predominating characteristic is of the man, thus early found
expression in the boy.
In early life Mr. Amsden came West, and in
company with F. A. Chapman and one or two of his
brothers, engaged in the hazardous business of hunting and
trapping and trading with the Indians. They finally
entered the employ of General Whitney, who at that time
was conducting Indian stores at many of the frontier posts of
the Northwest. Mr. Amsden was stationed at Green
Bay, where he was quite successful, and won the confidence of
his employer to the degree that, in 1823, General Whitney
gave to himself and Mr. Chapman letters of credit on the
great Boston house of A. & A. Lawrence, to the amount of
a general stock of goods calculated to the wants of pioneer
trade. This stock, placed in a log cabin, was the first
store in Bellevue. General Whitney, in the same
way, had started eight other clerks in business, but his
kindness on the whole cost him considerable money, for, as he
told Chapman & Amsden afterwards, they were the
only two who paid for their stock and made a success in trade.
So popular did the store of Chapman & Amsden
become that the place received the name Amsden's Corners,
the last named member of the firm being best known to the
customers. For several years from 1823 they continued
general merchandising. Their goods were at first adapted
to trading with the Indians, who were then the principal
inhabitants. As the Indians decreased, and the white
multiplied, they continued the business, increasing it as trade
demanded. Beginning in a log hut, they finally carried it
on in a more pretentious frame building, the first of the kind
in this region, a part of it being occupied by Mr. Amsden
as a family residence. This building was eventually torn
away to make room for the stone block now occupied by the First
National Bank.
During this time they built the Exchange Hotel, which
they continued to own for twenty years. This was the best
hotel building for along distance around, and had considerable
influence upon the growth of the village by attracting emigrants
and business men to the place.
The frame building which displaced the first log store,
was painted red, and was known as the "Red Store." It was
the largest mercantile establishment between Norwalk and "Lower
Sandusky.
In 1833 Mr. Amsden sold his interest in the
store to Dr. L. G. Harkness and purchased of Samuel
Miller a farm which was only partially improved. This
farm included nearly all of that part of the present town of
Bellevue in Sandusky county. While he was engaged at
farming he was elected and served as justice of the peace.
While a merchant he was postmaster. Mr. Amsden
afterwards again entered active business in partnership with
Mr. Chapman, under the firm name of T. G. Amsden &
Co., dealers in general merchandise and farm products, until
1855, tinder the successive firm names of T. G. Amsden &
Co., Amsden, Bramwell & Co., Amsden, Dimmick &
Co., and Amsden & Co. He was in mercantile and
general business in Bellevue. In 1848 he became interested
in Bellevue. In 1848 he became interested in a store and
distillery in Monroeville. This proved an unfortunate
enterprise. It was not only in itself a financial failure,
but carried the Bellevue house, in which his son, Isaac E.,
was interested, with it. Mr. Amsden's course was in
the line of hte strictest business integrity. He refused
to adopt any method which prudence might suggest for saving a
part of his hard-earned estate. He turned over to his
creditors all his property, emerged from the general crash in
very straitened circumstances. He retained his home in
Bellevue, where he lived for a few years in comparative
retirement. Then selling out he purchased a small farm
just below Fremont, where he died Dec. 7, 1876.
The maiden name of Mr. Amsden's first wife was
Lydia Chapman, a daughter of James Chapman,
who served in the Revolutionary army during the whole seven
years of the war. This marriage occurred in 1823.
They had family of seven children, five of whom survived infancy
- Sarah, Mary, Isaac E., Thomas and William.
Sarah was married to Hon. J. P.
Shoemaker, of Amsden, Michigan, a place so named because
Mr. Amsden once owned the land upon which it is
located. Mary is married to Abishai Woodward, son
of the late Gurdon Woodward, of Bellevue.
Isaac E. married Cornelia Birdseye, daughter of
N. P. Birdseye, and is in business in Fremont.
Thomas
died some years since in Bellevue. William, at
the opening of the Rebellion, enlisted in the army, and was soon
made captain in the Third Ohio Cavalry; was prostrated by camp
fever in the spring of 1862, and was first brought to the
hospital at Cincinnati and then to his home in Freemont, where
he died June. 19.
Mrs. Amsden died in 1841.
Mr. Amsden subsequently married Harriet
Williams, of Monroeville. The family by this marriage
consisted of five children - Emily, Edward, Lizzie, Maggie,
and Harriet.
Emily is married to Charles Cullen, of
Delta, Fulton county, Ohio. Edward resides at
Canton, Ohio. Lizzie resides in Fremont.
Maggie died at the age of ten years. Harriet
resides in Fremont.
Mrs. Amsden occupies the residence to which the
family removed from Bellevue.
Mr. Amsden was a man of great physical energy
and endurance, as well as of fine intellectual qualities, and in
his long partnership with Mr. Chapman took the principal
charge of the outdoor business, while Mr. Chapman managed
the office work. Mr. Amsden was highly respected
for his unswerving integrity, and genial, affable manners.
He was so widely known for his sound and reliable judgment that,
for many years, his advice was uniformly taken before any new
enterprise of importance was started. He was, during his
prosperous business life, free in his charities. Nothing
seemed to gratify him more than to relieve want or suffering,
He was a supporter of the Episcopal church. He was for
nearly thirty years a prominent and faithful member of the
independent Order of Odd Fellows in Bellevue, and afterward in
Fremont. At the time of his dead.
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
686 |
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WILLIAM AUNESLEY
was a graduate of Oberlin College; studied law many years ago
with Buckland & Everett and was admitted to the Bar in Sandusky
county, and after a short term of practice here he re-moved to
Port Clinton, Ottawa county, and after acquiring considerable
reputation and a remunerative practice he died in the prime of
manhood.
Source:
1812 History of Sandusky, Ohio with Portraits and Biographies -
Publ. Cleveland, Ohio: H. Z. William & Bro. - 1882 - Page
391 |
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