OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS - Seneca Co., Ohio

Source:
History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 :
embracing many personal sketches of pioneers, anecdotes,
and faithful descriptions of events pertaining to the organization of the county and its progress
Published: Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co.,
1880

JOHN T. REID. Is also one of the pioneers of Bloom, who have imprinted their individualities upon the township. He was born in Frederick county, Maryland, on the first day of January, 1807. His father died when John was but six years old, and he was taken care of by his uncle, Paul Talbot, who moved to Fairfield county, Ohio, where he was married. There they settled in the woods an young John worked among the farmers and was finally set in to work on the carding machine on Indian creek, in Fairfield county, owned by one David Swasey. From there he came to Bloom in 1828, in the fall, and worked for his uncle, John Valentine, until the following Christmas. The Mohawks, Senecas and Wyandots were then "swarming through the woods." He became well acquainted with all the old settlers here, already named. He returned to Fairfield, and all his earnings in the following spring put together amounted only to the sum of $80, lacking $20, to buy eighty acres at government prices. A friend loaned him the $20 and he started on foot for Delaware, in the fall of 1829, and entered the eighty acres that John Heilman now owns, near Honey creek. He returned to Fairfield and worked eighteen months longer on a farm until he had earned some more money. His uncle, John Valentine, then wrote to him that Mr. Bever had eighty acres, which he would sell, adjoining the other lot. Mr. Reid started on Christmas day and came to Bloom on foot, where he arrived and bought the Bever land on New Year's day, 1831.
     Before he left Fairfield county he had taken a school to teach, and there were three weeks to teach before the term closed. He returned, finished his school, came back to Bloom in February, with an axe and a bundle of clothing, which he carried on the axe-handle. He built a cabin in his forest and commenced clearing it. His uncle, William Norris, came from Fairfield county, and lived in the cabin with him awhile, and until his uncle, Norris, bought the land on which Fostoria now stands. On the 25th of April, 1833, Mr. Reid was married to Eliza Boyd Watson. They had four children, of whom three are still living.
     Mr. Reid is a tall, slender man, over six feet high, strong and muscular and has always enjoyed good health. He and Mrs. Reid are both members of the Presbyterian church and highly esteemed. Poor as Mr. Reid was when he commenced, his career is a conclusive proof of what industry, honesty and economy will accomplish. He now counts his wealth by many thousands, and lives at his ease.
     Mention has already been made of the picnics the younger generation prepare annually about the first of September, in Schoch's woods, to show their gratitude and esteem for their pioneer parents. I desire to refer to the subject again, here, only to say that at one of these, after Father Thompson, the pioneer minister of the gospel, closed his remarks on collecting the sheep that were lost in the woods, Mr. J. C. Hampton was called upon for a speech, in which, among other many interesting things, he described Judge Cornell, and spoke of him as a very excellent character and citizen. He related an affair that took place before some justice of the peace when a fellow got very angry at the justice and threatened to whip him and would do so if he was not a magistrate. The justice told the fellow to go out into the road and he should be relieved of his consciencious scruples. The fellow backed out.
     Mr. Hampton also said:
     When I came from Ross county in 1822, my uncle, Thomas Boyd, lived in a small cabin. Ten boys of us went there to work for him. We made out to live. Our bed was a very primitive affair. A half dozen of us slept together. During the three months I staid there we had not a bit of bread. The little flour we had they stirred into boiling milk. They constituted the principal meal. We had a fish basket in Honey creek, close by that furnished us all the fresh fish we wanted.
     Sorry that no more of the speech could be preserved.
     Dr. Gibson also spoke, relating to his boyhood days and scenes of early life on Honey creek. His mother held the chair while her husband was sitting upon it, shaking with the ague. His father got nearly crazy every time the fever came on. One time his father was at Sandusky for provisions. It always took a week to get back. The roads were bad and the horses poor. Judge Leath happened to be at Sandusky the same time with a load of water melons to sell. He and the Doctor's father started for home together. On the way the latter became crazy with the fever, and had it not been for the Judge he would never have found his way back. The Doctor also referred to Black Jonathan, who lived with the Mohawks, on the Vanmeter place. Jonathan Pointer was half negro and half Indian. He was the interpretor for the preachers and gave the Indians the sermons by piece-meal as best he could, but whenever the subject or a point was a little difficult to transfer or comprehend, he would add: "I don't know, myself, whether that is so, or not."
     Dr. Gibson when yet a boy was very attentive upon the sick in the neighborhood, and thus naturally became a doctor. He applied himself to the books, and with hard study and his experience, became a distinguished physician. He was, indeed, a gentleman and a valued friend. He was on e of the class of thinkers who take nothing for granted became then cannot help it. We ought to have much charity for such people.
     The venerable Noah Seitz must not be forgotten. He came here from Fairfield county and settled on the northwest quarter of section five on the 5th of April 1822, and it was generally admitted that he was the first settler of Bloom. He sold out soon after the Edward Southerland and moved to Eden. Mrs. Southerland is still living in the third ward of Tiffin, and is known as the widow of Francis Bernard.
     Mrs. West, J. C. Martin and Abraham Kagy are among the few pioneers here that are still making "foot-prints in the sands of time."
     Who will not remember the tall slender form of Abraham Kagy, Esq., and his beautiful, pleasant home on Silver creek, where, for more than a half century, you were met with a hand of welcome and an open, honest, friendly countenance? These honored land marks of time should ever bee cherished by those who will occupy the places so rapidly becoming vacant.
Source: History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 - Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co., 1880 - Page 500

JEREMIAH REX is a son of William Rex and Susan Sloss. He was born in Stark county, Ohio, on the 9th day of October, 1844. His father located with his family in Seneca county soon thereafter.
Jeremiah was married to Miss Laura J. A. Barrack on the 25th of October, 1865. This union was blessed with seven children, of whom five are living. Mr. Rex served in nearly all the offices of Seneca township for a number of years, and was elected clerk of the court of common please, in October, 1875, and re-elected in 1878. Every trust reposed in his hands was filled with promptness and fidelity.
Source: History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 - Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co., 1880 - Page 628

JOHN H. RIDGELY was born August 16th, 1845, in Allegheny county, Maryland. He is a graduate of Heidelberg college, and was admitted to practice law in December, 1869.
Source: History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 - Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co., 1880 - Page 384

Clinton Twp. & Tiffin City -
WILLIAM J. RIGBY (Rigby & Bever) was born at Fairfield county, Ohio, May 22, 1815 was admitted to the bar in 1860; located in Fostoria in 1867 and is at present the mayor of the city.
Source: History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 - Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co., 1880 - Page

Adams Twp. -
DANIEL RULE.     The sketch of this veteran pioneer is given in his own words, as nearly as possible:
     My grandfather was a soldier in the revolutionary war. He returned from the army and died from an abcess in his side, leaving my father. Albert A., his only child. They lived in the southern part of Pennsylvania, where my father was raised, and where he married Elizabeth Tivens. My parents moved to near Liverpool, in Perry county, Pennsylvania, onto a farm. Here I was born, on the banks of the Susquehanna river. They lived here about nineteen years, and when I was about twelve years old, we moved to Columbiana county, Ohio, and settled on a farm near New Lisbon, in 1816. My father had two children by his first wife, and four by his second. My two sisters, Barbara an Catharine, were married; the former to Luke Stage, and the other, who was married twice, died, and left two daughters and one son, who live in Illinois. Two years after we moved to Columbiana county, we moved to Bloomfield, in Trumbull county, near Warren. My father had bought a farm here and we settled on that. Here, on the 7th day of June, 1821, I was married to Jane, the daughter of farmer Grosscost, in this township of Bloomfield. I have also a brother, Samuel Rule, making four of us children, two boys and two girls. Samuel lives in Illinois now.
     In 1824, in the spring, and after my brother Samuel was married, he and his family, with father and mother, moved to Scipio township, in this county, and about six years thereafter they sold out and bought on section thirteen, in Clinton township, where brother Samuel opened a nice farm. Father and mother lived with him until they died, but in a separate house. Father died in 1846, and mother two years thereafter.
     When brother Samuel, father and mother left Trumbull county. I was married and could not go with them that spring, but I followed them to this county in the next fall. Here I bought an eighty acres piece in Scipio, at the land office in Bucyrus. It is the land now owned by Philip Miller. I built a cabin here and cleared about forty-five acres. My family were sickly nearly all the time we lived here, and I sold the place to buy land in Adams. My first purchase in Adams was one hundred and seventy-three acres. When I raised my cabin here I had to bring nearly all my help with me from Scipio, there being but very few settlers on the reserve. About one year after I moved here I bought ninety-seven acres from Joseph Culbertson, and soon after eighty acres more from Dr. Stevenson.
     Afterwards I bought ninety-three acres more from Mr. R. R. Titus, administrator of Earl Church, deceased. I let my two sons, Isaac and Byron, have one-half section of this land.
     I still remain on the old homestead. My wife died on the second day of December, 1879, aged seventy-seven years, nine months and eighteen days. Since she is gone I feel lost, and as if I were of no account to the world. We had ten children, viz.:
     Lucy, who is the wife of Jeremiah Egbert; Elizabeth, the widow of Isaac Stillwell; Samuel, who died in 1850, when twenty-four years old: Albert A., who died a few days after Samuel, both of small-pox; Byron, who married Matilda York, of Clyde, Ohio; Matilda, who died when six years old; Mary wife of David W. Dudrow; Isaac P., who was wounded at the battle of Chickamauga, and died next day; he was lieutenant of Co. I, 101st regiment O. V. I., and leading his company when he received the wound; and Daniel C., who married Eleanor, daughter of Earl Church, whose widow is still living. Our youngest child was still-born. Five of my children are still living. My two sons, Byron and Daniel, are living near me, and doing well, and so are also the daughters I have left.
     I knew Small Cloud Spicer well. He was a half breed, tall, slender, well proportioned and good looking. He had sandy hair, but dressed like the other Indians. His wife was a Crow, and a clean, pleasant woman. When I came onto the reserve here the white settlers were but few, James Crocket lived on the Watson farm; Mr. McEven lived on the McMeens place; Squire Rider raised a cabin on the place that Jacob Holtz bought afterwards; Slike Clark lived near the river.
     I was born October 28, 1801.
Source: History of Seneca County : from the close of the Revolutionary War to July, 1880 - Springfield, Ohio: Transcript Print. Co., 1880 - 483

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