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Source:
History of
Hocking Valley, Ohio -
Published Chicago: by Inter-State Publishing
Co.
1883 BIOGRAPHIES
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JOHN R. CLARK.
Two of the most esteemed residents of Elk
Township in Vinton County are John R. Clark
and his sister, Mattie, who are
proprietors of and occupy the old Robert
Clark homestead, which was first
owned by their grandfather. This is
a farm which has been under the direction and
has returned its crops through one season to the
other for the benefit of one family for a great
many years. The Clarks have been
among the real home builders and home makers in
Vinton County and their activities deserve some
record in the history of the Hanging Rock Iron
Region.
Robert Clark, the grandfather, was
probably born in Virginia. For a number of
years he lived in the Hope Station community in
what is now Vinton County, Ohio. While he
was living there his son, Abram, father
of John R. Clark and sister, was born
Aug. 7, 1842. When the latter was still
young the family came into Elk Township of
Vinton County and established a home on the farm
now occupied by John R. Clark and sister.
Robert Clark married Miss
Nancy Fee of Virginia. She
died on the old homestead July 3, 1879, having
been born Mar. 15, 1811. Such are some of
the brief records contained in the old family
Bible, which originally belonged to grandmother
Nancy Clark. This old book
is still well preserved and is kept as a
precious family heirloom by her grandchildren.
Robert Clark after the death of
his first wife married Eva Webb,
who is still living, making her home with her
niece, Mrs. John Falkner, of Swan
Township of Vinton County. She is now
seventy-eight years of age and in quite good
health for her years. Several years before
his death Robert Clark moved to
Zaleski in Vinton County, and died there Aug.
17, 1897. He was born Aug. 11, 1817.
After his marriage Abram Clark and wife
located on a farm belonging to Mr.
Dillon. A few months after their
marriage Abram Clark enlisted in
Company C of the 148th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
He got as far as Harper's Ferry, where suffering
from a milgnant attack of the measles he
was confined in the hospital throughout the
entire period of his enlistment, being given an
honorable discharge without having seen any
active field service. He never entirely
recovered from the disease with which he was
afflicted during his brief term in the army
service. However, he was a man of great
industry and energy and built up a good home for
his children. He died at the old homestead
in Elk Township Mar. 1, 1885. He was a
strong democrat in politics but held to no
church creed. He was a man well respected,
and was loved most by those who knew him best.
His widow died at the old home farm Sept. 8,
1907. She was reared in Presbyterian.
Abram Clark and wife were the parents of three
children. Pearl Martin, the other
son, was born Sept. 13, 1865, and is now
conducting a feed store at Chillicothe, Ohio.
He married Effie Holdren, and they
have a son, Lloyd, now twelve years of
age and in school. Martha J.,
better known as Mattie, was born, reared
and educated in Elk Township, and has spent
practically all her life on the old homestead,
where she is housekeeper for her brother,
John R. They own jointly the fine farm
of two hundred forty acres, one-half of which
originally belonged to their grandfather,
Robert Clark. This is a farm
that in the course of many years has undergone
constant improvement and is one of the most
productive places in Elk Township. The
staple crops are corn, wheat and oats, and Mr.
Clark keeps some high grade live stock,
horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. The home
in which Mr. and Miss Clark reside is a
substantial six room house which was built by
their grandfather, Robert Clark.
There are other farm buildings, conveniently
arranged and equipped, and the entire estate is
one of great value and furnishes a beautiful and
comfortable home for these two noble people who
have lived so long and so honorably in Vinton
County. Mr. Clark is a
democrat in politics.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1316 |
| |
JACOB CLEMENTS.
On both the paternal and maternal sides is
Mr. Clements a representative of sterling
pioneer families of Vinton County, Ohio, and he
is now one of the most venerable and honored of
the native sons still residing within the
borders of this county, where he has lived from
the time of his birth and where he has kept pace
with and assisted in the march of civic and
industrial development and progress. In
the spring of 1915 he celebrated his eightieth
birthday anniversary, and this fact in itself
bears evidence of his being a scion of a pioneer
family of this favored section of the Buckeye
State.
On the old homestead farm of his father, in what is now
Elk Township, Vinton County, Jacob Clements was
born on the 12th of April,1835, and he is a son
of Thomas and Margaret (Waltz) Clements,
the former a native of England and the latter of
what is now Vinton County, Ohio, each having
been born in the early part of the nineteenth
century. Thomas Clements
acquired his early education in his native land,
where his parents passed their entire lives, and
he was little more than a boy when he ran away
from home, thus asserting his spirit of
independence and his desire for adventure, and
in later years he never regretted the action
which he took at that time, save for the lack of
filial consideration which he had thoughtlessly
manifested. The intrepid youth embarked on
a sailing vessel of the type common to the
period and after a long and weary voyage across
the Atlantic he finally landed in the port of
New York City, whence, for no definite reason
now known, he forthwith made his way to Ohio, in
which state he became a youthful pioneer in the
southern part of the state, by establishing his
residence in that part of Vinton County which
was then in Athens County. He became a
resident of the present Elk Township within the
second decade of the nineteenth century, and
here he formed the acquaintance of the young
woman who was destined to become the sharer of
his joys and sorrow and to walk by his side, a
devoted wife and helpmeet, during many long
years. Here he finally wedded Miss
Margaret Waltz, who, as previously
noted was a native of Vinton County, where her
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Waltz,
settled upon their immigration from their old
home State of Pennsylvania, they having been
among the very early pioneers of Vinton County,
where the father entered claim to a tract of
heavily timbered Government land and set himself
vigorously to the reclaiming of a farm from the
sylvan wilderness, which at the time was tilled
with all manner of wild game, besides being
still the travois of numerous Indians. Jacob
Waltz and his noble wife became well
known and greatly valued members of the pioneer
community, where they represented the best
clement of loyal and upright citizenship,
endured with equanimity the trials, hardships
and arduous labors that fell to them in
connection with establishing the arts of
civilization in a new country, and made their
humble log house an abode of peace and comfort
and a place of generous and unassuming
hospitality, - one to which the old-time
expression that the "latchstring was always
out," applied in a literal sense. Mrs.
Waltz died while in the prime of life and
her husband thereafter married Isabinda Drake.
They finally removed from their farm to
McArthur, the county seat, and in later years
they went to California, where they passed the
closing period of their lives in gracious
prosperity and amid pleasing surroundings, each
having attained venerable age. Mr. Waltz
was a man of parts, - strong, vigorous and loyal
in his personality, and the earnest and
effective service which he gave in connection
with the development and upbuilding of Vinton
County entitles his name to enduring honor and
to a high place on the roster of the sterling
pioneers of this section of the Buckeye State.
After his marriage Thomas Clements settled on a
tract of wild land in Elk Township, the same
having previously been obtained by him directly
from the Government. He and his devoted
young wife began their married life in a
primitive log house of the type common to
pioneer era, and in this modest dwelling were
born all of their children, - five sons and five
daughters. Three sons and three daughters
attained to maturity, married and reared
children, and of the number only two are now
living, - Jacob, who is the subject of
this review, and Richard, who maintains
his home in McArthur. Richard has
been twice married and his only surviving child
is a daughter who was born of the second
marriage. Richard Clements
celebrated his eighty-third birthday in 1915, is
still vigorous of mind and in physical powers
and is about three years the senior of his
brother Jacob, who was third in order of
birth of the ten children. The father was
a staunch and intelligent advocate of the
principles of the democratic party and the
mother was a life-long and devoted member of the
Christian Church. Both continued their
residence on their old homestead farm until
their death and both commanded the high regard
of all who knew them. The father died when
about forty-eight years of age and the mother
passed away when about seventy-three years of
age.
Jacob Clements found the period of his
childhood and early youth compassed by the
benignant and invigorating conditions and
influences of the home farm and while
contributing his quota to its work he did not
neglect the advantages afforded him in the
pioneer schools of the locality and period.
He remained at the parental home until he had
attained to the age of nineteen years, when he
initiated his independent career by entering the
employ of one of his paternal uncles, in the
capacity of a farm worker. He remained
with his uncle four years and thereafter was
employed for a similar period and in a similar
way by Pinkney Brown, another of
the representative pioneer farmers of the
county. He then went to Illinois, where he
remained about one year, after which he resumed
his association with agricultural activities in
his native county, his marriage having occurred
a few years after his return to Vinton County.
In May, 1875, forty years ago, Mr. Clements
removed with his family to McArthur, the county
seat, where he has since maintained his
residence, his home being a commodious and
substantial brick house that is eligibly and
pleasantly situated on North Market Street.
For a number of years after establishing his
residence at McArthur Mr. Clements
conducted a prosperous business in handling all
of the freight and express transportation
between this place and the Village of Dundas,
which latter was then the nearest railroad point
to McArthur, to which latter point the Hocking
Valley Railroad had not yet completed the line
which now affords to the county seat excellent
transportation facilities of a direct order.
With the money which he accumulated through his
activities in this connection Mr.
Clements was enabled to purchase a farm of
160 acres, lying adjacent to McArthur, and of
this specially valuable property he still
retains possession of 144 acres, seventy-two
acres of which lie within the corporate limits
of the thriving little city of McArthur.
He still gives an active general supervision to
his farm, which is well improved and under
effective cultivation, besides being utilized
also in the raising of excellent grades of live
stock. The farm formerly belonged to the
mother of his wife and the marriage of Mr.
and Mrs. Clements was solemnized on this old
homestead place, in a little log house, this
having been the domicile in which Mrs.
Clements was born and the date of her
nativity having been Jan. 24, 1842, and she
having been the youngest of the ten children of
John and Sarah (Atha) Arnold, who gave to
her the personal name of Hannah Elizabeth.
Her parents were born and reared in Virginia and
after their marriage they came to Vinton County,
Ohio, and became early settlers on the partially
improved farm, near McArthur, that continued the
abiding place of Mr. Arnold until his
death, at the age of forty-seven years, in 1843,
his birth having occurred in 1796. His
widow survived him by many years and continued
her residence on the old home farm until the
same was purchased by her son-in-law, Mr.
Clements of this review, in whose home she
passed the closing period of her life and was
cared for with deep filial solicitude by both
Mr. and Mrs. Clements. This loved
pioneer woman attained to the venerable age of
eighty-four years, and was a devoted member of
the United Brethren Church. He was a
democrat in politics.
Mr. and Mrs. Clements became the parents of six
children, concerning whom the following brief
data are available: Sarah L. died at the
age of twenty years, in the very flower of young
and gracious womanhood; Jennie is the
wife of Gilbert Warner, who is
associated with a mercantile firm at Charleston,
W. Va., and they have one son, Clement;
Anna was the wife of John
Douglas, and she died in the City of
Lafayette, Indiana, Dec. 24, 1915, and her only
child, Farrell, is living with her aunt
in Charleston; Pearl remains at the
paternal home and is actively identified with
the work and management of his father's farm;
Lydia died when about two years of age; and
Miss Bertha remains with, her
parents and has virtual charge of the domestic
economics of the attractive home. Mr.
and Mrs. Clements and their children are
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and
though he has never had aught of ambition for
the honors or emoluments of public office he has
ever given an unswerving support to the cause of
the republican party and has stood exponent of
loyal, liberal and progressive citizens, with
secure place in the confidence and good will of
his fellowmen.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1042 |
| |
HON. HENRY W. COULTRAP.
In the judiciary of the Hanging Rock Region of
Ohio there is no more justly honored name than
that of Hon. Henry W. Coultrap, judge of
the county court of Vinton County. Legist,
jurist, energetic and influential citizen,
temperance leader leader and factor in every
movement making for advancement in morality,
education and good citizenship, he has endeared
himself to his fellowmen and fully and honorably
won their confidence. No work relating to
the representative men of this part of Ohio
would be complete without a review of the
circumstances of his busy, useful and successful
life.
Judge Coultrap is of revolutionary stock and of
English descent, his great-great grandfather
having come to America long before the winning
of American independence from England. His
son, William Coultrap, was born at
Ligonier, Pennsylvania, from whence he went to
Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia),
subsequently moving to Harrison County, Ohio,
and settling on a new farm in the vicinity of
Deersville. There the remaining years of
his life were passed in agricultural pursuits,
his death occurring aljout the year 1824, when
he was seventy-five years of age. Before
leaving Pennsylvania he had been married to
Mary Holtz, who was born in the
Keystone State, of German parents, and who died
at Deersville, Ohio, when in advanced years.
The great-grandparents were faithful members of
the Methodist Church.
Henry Coultrap was born in Pennsylvania,
accompanied the family to Virginia, and later to
Ohio, and in the latter state was united in
marriage with Miss Elizabeth Cramblit.
For many years Henry Coultrap was engaged
in following the trade of carpenter at
Zanesville, Muskingum County, and there both he
and his wife died when well advanced in years.
William Coultrap, the father of Judge
Coultrap, and son of Henry
Coultrap, was born in Muskingum County,
Ohio, in August, 1821, there grew to manhood and
was educated in the public schools, and was
married Feb. 23, 1844, to Miss Rebecca
Wilson, who was born May 29, 1817, in
that county, daughter of James Wilson, a
pioneer farmer and stockraiser of Muskingum
County. Under the preceptorship of his
father, he early learned the trade of carpenter
and became a skilled mechanic, and shortly after
his marriage went to Morgan County, Ohio, where,
Apr. 22. 1848, his eldest son and second child,
Henry W., was born. Later he
returned to Muskingum County, residing there and
following his trade until 1851, when he came to
Vinton County, and settled on a farm in Jackson
Township. The quiet pursuits of the farmer
occupied his attention and energies until the
Civil war came on to disturb the even routine of
men's lives, and he became a participant in that
struggle, donning the uniform of blue and
joining the One Hundred and Forty-eighth
Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which he
saw a service of ninety days. On receiving
his honorable discharge he returned to his farm,
where the rest of his active life was passed,
and where his wife died in 1894, at the age of
seventy-seven years. William Coultrap
died at the home of his son, Judge Coultrap,
in February, 1910, at the advanced age of eighty
nine years. In the family there were the
following children: Harriet, who
married Mathias W. Smith, both now being
deceased; Henery W.; Prof. Fletcher S.,
a member of the faculty and head of the
preparatory department at Ohio State University,
Athens, who is married and has a family;
Mariah, who is the wife of Fred Amerine
of Lancaster, Ohio, and the mother of a son and
daughter; and Professor McKendre, who has
the chair of mathematics at Northwestern
College, Naperville, Illinois, is married but
has no children.
Henry W. Coultrap grew up on the home farm and
received his preliminary educational training in
the country schools. After some further
preparation, he entered Ohio State University,
at Athens, from which he was graduated in 1871,
and later began his legal studies under Hon.
H. C. Jones, now deceased, who was long a
member of the McArthur bar. Admitted to
practice in 1875, Judge Coultrap began
his professional labors at McArthur, and soon
was recognized as one of the forceful, learned
and thorough attorneys of this locality.
His first elevation to the bench came in 1885,
when his fellow-citizens, in recognition of his
ability and integrity, elected him judge of the
judicial district embracing the counties of
Athens, Gallia, Meigs, Monroe, Vinton and
Washington. In 1899 he was again elected
to this office, for a term of five years, this
time without opposition. At the expiration
of his term he returned to his practice, but in
1914 was again called to the bench, this time as
judge of the County Court of Vinton County.
His tenure of office is for six years, this
having become a law Jan. 1, 1914. A man of
the highest character, of unusual intellectual
endowments with a thorough understanding of the
law, with distinctive patience, energy and
urbanity, he has brought to the county bench the
very highest qualifications, and his record has
been in harmony with his character as a lawyer
and a man, distinguished alike by unswerving
integrity, and a masterful grasp of legal
problems.
Aside from - or connected with - his judicial labors,
Judge Coultrap has ever taken commendable
interest in whatever tends to promote the
welfare of the community in which he lives.
A warm friend of education, he has been a member
of the local school board, and was appointed a
member of the state board of trustees of Ohio
State University by Governor Bushnell, at
the suggestion of United States Senator
Foraker. He has served also in the
capacity of city solicitor and in other public
offices, and in each has labored faithfully and
conscientiously in the best interests of the
people. The judge has always been a
stalwart and unswerving republican.
Judge Coultrap was married in 1880, at New
Plymouth, Ohio, to Miss Millie M. Hughes,
who was born near New Plymouth, and died at
McArthur. She was a daughter of the Rev.
David and Susan P. (Lee) Hughes, the latter
a cousin of ex-Lieut.-Gov. John C. Lee,
of Toledo, Ohio, and the former a Presbyterian
preacher, of Scotch stock, who for many years
ministered to the spiritual needs of the people
of Vinton County. Mrs. Coultrap was
reared as a Presbyterian, but later adopted the
faith of the Methodist Church, in which she
died. She was the mother of four children:
Harry, Bernice, Manley and
Anna. Harry Coultrap,
a graduate of the University of Colorado, at
Boulder, was for three years head of the
department of history at Elgin, Illinois, was
for one year superintendent of the public
schools of McArthur, and for the past four years
has been superintendent of public schools at
Geneva, Illinois, at an annual salary of $2,200.
He married Miss Anna Will,
daughter of Aaron and Minnie Will, and
they have two sons: James and Paul.
Bernice Coultrap, a graduate of
the Ohio State University, at Athens, taught for
several years in the public schools of
Zanesville, prior to her marriage to Benjamin
C. Gerwick, a graduate in civil engineering
of Ohio State University, who is now
superintendent of construction at Sacramento,
California. They have one daughter:
Betty. Manley Coultrap, a
graduate of Ohio State University, taught in the
high school at Aurora, Illinois, for two years,
and is now a teacher at Douglas, Cochise County,
Arizona. He is single. Anna,
a graduate of the normal department of the Ohio
State University, is now a teacher in the
primary department of the Youngstown (Ohio) High
School.
Judge Coultrap was again married, in Gallia
County, Ohio, to Miss Frances Gibbons, a
graduate of Wesleyan College, Delaware, Ohio,
and a teacher before her marriage. She is
a daughter of the late Rev. William H.
Gibbons, who was a minister of the Methodist
Episcopal Conference for many years, but who
retired some years before his death. Two
children have been born to this union:
William G., who is now attending the
graded schools; and Elizabeth.
Judge and Mrs. Coultrap are leading members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, the judge being
a member of the board of trustees and a liberal
contributor to religious and charitable
movements. Fraternally, he belongs
to McArthur Lodge No. 207, Ancient Free Accepted
Masons, of which he is past master; McArthur
Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. and Subordinate
Lodge No. 364, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1257 |
| |
OSCAR S. COX,
M. D.
Not only in his profession
but also as a citizen and a man among men does
Dr. Oscar Silas Cox stand exemplar of
high ideals, and thus there is all of reason for
his having achieved success in his chosen and
humane vocation and also that he should have
gained impregnable vantage-ground in popular
confidence and esteem. He is engaged in
the active general practice of his profession at
McArthur, the county seat of Vinton County, and
is consistently to be designated as one of the
representative physicians and surgeons of the
Hanging Rock Region, to which this publication
is devoted.
In celebrated old Starling Medical College, now the
medical department of the Ohio State University,
in the City of Columbus, Doctor Cox was
graduated as a member of the class of 1892 and
with the well earned degree of Doctor of
Medicine. His novitiate in the practical
work of his profession was served at
Chillicothe, the judicial center of Ross County,
Ohio, where he remained two years. He then
removed to McArthur, Vinton County, where he has
continued in successful practice during the
intervening period of somewhat more than a score
of years and where his success has been on a
parity with his recognized ability, the broad
scope and importance of his practice likewise
attesting his personal popularity. The
doctor gives special attention to the treatment
of epilepsy, has become an authority on this
distressing malady and its treatment and has
been able to relieve therefrom many a poor
sufferer who had abandoned all hope for
improvement. Aside from the regular work
of his profession he has served as a member of
the Board of United States Pensions Examiners in
Vinton County and was for two years the examiner
for the Ohio Industrial Commission, besides
having been for a lime directly connected with
the official headquarters of the commission, in
Columbus. As medical examiner the doctor
is local representative for a number of leading
life-insurance companies, and the profession of
his choice has been dignified by his character
and his achievement.
Doctor Cox takes a due measure of satisfaction
in claiming Vinton County as the place of liis
nativity, and he is a scion of a family whose
name has been long and worthily linked with
civic and industrial affairs in this section of
the Buckeye State. He was born on his
father's farm, in Richland Township, this
county, on the 20th of December, 1865, and here
he passed the period of his boyhood and early
youth under the benignant influences of the
farm, the while he availed himself fully of the
advantages of the local schools. In the
furtherance of his education he was later a
student in the Northwestern Ohio Normal School,
at Ada, Hardin County, where he pursued a course
that made him eligible for effective service as
a representative of the pedagogic profession.
For several years he was numbered among the
successful teachers in the rural and village
schools of this part of the state, and in the
meanwhile he was working forward to the mark of
his ambition by giving careful attention to the
reading of medicine, under excellent private
preceptorship. He finally completed
his course in Starling Medical College, as has
already been noted in a preceding paragraph.
Doctor Cox came of fine old Revolutionary stock
and the ancestral history in America is one in
which he may well take just pride. He is a
lineal descendant of Thomas Cox,
who was born in the State of Virginia on the 4th
of July, 1776, the date that marked the signing
of that immortal document, the Declaration of
Independence, and his father served as a drummer
in the Continental Line in the War of the
Revolution, his having been the privilege to
have thus shown his patriotism as a member of
the forces commanded by General Washington.
This loyal son of the new republic continued his
residence in the historic Old Dominion
commonwealth of Virginia until the time of his
death.
James G. Cox, son of Thomas Cox, was born
and reared in Virginia, where his association in
the meanwhile was with the great basic industry
of agriculture. In Virginia was solemnized his
marriage, the family name of his wife having
been Bruce, and from the Old Dominion
they came to Ohio to number themselves among the
pioneer settlers in what is now Vinton County.
In Richland Township Mr. Cox
obtained a tract of Government land and set to
himself the herculean task of reclaiming a farm
from the forest wilds, the warrant to his land
having been signed by President James K. Polk,
a fact that shows that the Cox family
was thus founded in Vinton County at a very
early date. Mr. Cox
developed a productive farm and did well his
part in furtherance of the civic and industrial
progress and upbuilding of this section of the
state, where he bore his share of the
vicissitudes that ever fall to the lot of the
pioneer and where his original home was a log
cabin of the primitive type common to the
locality and period. This house he later
replaced with one of better order, and the
annals of the county record him as one of the
strong, resourceful, upright and influential men
of this now opulent section of the Buckeye
State. He attained to the patriarchal age
of ninety-three years, his wife having passed to
the life eternal at the venerable age of
eighty-five years. They were sterling
pioneers who aided in laying broad and deep the
foundations on which has been reared the fine
superstructure of latter-day progress and
prosperity, and their names merit enduring place
on the roll of the honored pioneers of Vinton
County. They were early members of the Christian
Church in this county, and in its faith they
carefully reared their children, several sons
and daughters having blessed their union and the
youngest of the number having been James G.,
father of him whose name initiates this review.
James G. Cox was born in Ross County, Ohio, in
the year 1832, and his death occurred at his
fine old homestead farm, in Richland Township,
Vinton County, in the year 1889, virtually his
entire life having been passed on this rural
estate, on which was erected the first Christian
Church in Richland township, he having been one
of the foremost in effecting the organization of
the church and one of the most liberal and
earnest in its support. He served as
an elder of the congregation from the time the
church was organized until the close of his
life, and he was known as one of the loyal and
public-spirited citizens of the county - a
successful exponent of the agricultural and
live-stock industries and a man whose entire
life was guided and governed by the highest
principles and by a deep and abiding Christian
faith. His political allegiance was given
to the democratic party, and he served with
characteristic loyalty and circumspection in
various offices of local public trust.
As a young man James G. Cox wedded Miss
Nancy Graves, who was born in
Vinton County, in 1841, and who survived him by
more than a decade, her death having occurred on
the 30th of January, 1902, when her gentle
spirit was released from the mortal tenement and
all who had known her came to the fullest
realization of the gracious benediction which
her life had been, her circle of devoted friends
having been limited only by that of her
acquaintances. She was a daughter of
Thomas and Tacit (Darby) Graves, the former
of whom was born in North Carolina and the
latter in Virginia, and both having been
representatives of fine old French Huguenot
families that were founded in the Carolinas in
the colonial era of our national history. James
G. and Nancy (Graves) Cox became the parents
of six children, concerning whom brief record is
here consistently incorporated: Thomas S.
is the owner of a large landed estate in Clinton
Township, Vinton County, and has achieved
special success not only as an agriculturist and
stock-raiser but also as a grower of small
fruits. He and his wife had four children,
but one child died in infancy and his wife died
in February, 1916. L. Seneca, who
now resides in the Village of McArthur, is
likewise one of the substantial farmers of
Vinton County, and he and his wife have one son
and one daughter. Sanford is a deaf
mute and resides in the home of his brother
Oscar S., who is the immediate subject of
this sketch. Benson Simon
died in infancy. Hon. M. S. Cox,
the next in order of birth, is now a resident of
the City of Los Angeles, California, where he
holds an important executive position with the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company.
Prior to leaving his native state he has served
as a member of the lower house of the Ohio
Legislature, in which he represented his
district. Martha M. died on
the 10th of December, 1903, at the age of
twenty-four years, well known for her gracious
personality and her exceptional vocal talent in
the realm of musical interpretation.
It is to be recorded that Dr. Oscar S. Cox,
notwithstanding his unqualified personal
popularity, still permits his name to be
enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors in
his native county. He is actively
identified with the Vinton County Medical
Society and the Ohio State Medical Society, is
affiliated with the blue lodge and chapter
organizations of York Rite Masonry in his home
village, as well as with the adjunct chapter of
the Order of the Eastern Star, and he is
affiliated with the local lodge of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and with the
Daughters of Rebekah. In the McArthur Camp
of the Modern Woodmen of America he has filled
each of the official chairs, and he is an
earnest and zealous member of the Christian
Church in his home town, as well as a popular
and efficient teacher in its Sunday school.
He is loyal and liberal in his support of all
things that tend to further the moral,
educational and material advancement of the
community, and his status as a citizen and as a
physician is such that is most gratifying to be
able to offer even this brief review of his
personal and family history.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1237 |
| |
WILLIAM CRAIG.
One of the oldest residents of Clinton Township
in Vinton County is William Craig, now
past the age of fourscore, his period of
activity and observation covering all the years
since the early '50s, when Vinton County was
still partially under the dominion of the
wilderness. Through fifteen successive
presidential campaigns he has been a regular
voter in Clinton Township, and was able to east
his first ballot during the year when the
republicans first nominated a presidential
candidate. Out of his life and character
has flown a stream of beneficent influence,
kindly deeds and a constant intention to do
justice among his fellow men.
His is one of the oldest families identified with the
history of Vinton County, the Craigs
having settled here more than a century ago.
His grandfather, William Craig, a
native of Pennsylvania, married in that state,
and all his six children were born there,
including three sons, William, Thomas
and George, and three daughters, Sarah,
Phoebe and Jane. They were
all natives of Washington County, the rugged and
picturesque district which has been the scene of
so much history in Southwestern Pennsylvania. In
1814 William Craig brought his
family into Southern Ohio and located in Vinton
County, where he purchased a tract of wild
Government land in Vinton Township, 3½
miles from where McArthur now stands, and about
four miles north of Hamden. William
Craig was born about the close of the
Revolutionary war, and both he and his wife
lived to he about eighty years of age. In
the meantime the wild tract of land in Clinton
Township had been converted into cultivated
fields and was a home of comfort and plenty. He
was a Methodist and in politics was a democrat.
In that old community the six children grew up,
all of them married, and most of them lived to
be old people and left descendants.
Thomas Craig, father of the venerable
William Craig first mentioned, was
born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in
1803, and was only eleven years of age when be
accompanied the family to Vinton County.
He was reared to the vigorous pastimes and
duties of a frontier community, and after
reaching manhood he secured a portion of the old
homestead and there spent all his years from the
age of eleven until his death in September,
1892, when in his eighty-ninth year. He
made his success as a general farmer, and was a
highly esteemed and much loved pioneer. He
was a democrat, and both he and his wife were
Methodists. He married, in Vinton County,
Mary Brown, who was born about
1810 and died at the old Clinton Township
homestead when past eighty. She was the mother
of five sons and seven daughters, and four of
the sons and an equal number of the daughters
are still living. Two of the family died
young.
William Craig, one of the oldest of the
children, was born on the old homestead in
Clinton Township, Dec. 6, 1832, and at the time
of this writing has already celebrated his
eighty-third birthday. He has never lost
his residence in Clinton Township, and began
voting here at the age of twenty-one. Like
his ancestors, he identified himself early with
agricultural enterprise, and by his thrift and
energy has enjoyed a marked degree of success.
Since the year 1856 his home has been in section
8 of Clinton Township, and in that locality he
still owns 333 acres of the better grade of
land, most of it well improved and well stocked
for the raising of horses, cattle and sheep.
He enjoys the comforts of an attractive 6-room
home, beautifully located on the McArthur and
Hamden Pike. This is a historic house in
some ways, since it was constructed while
General Morgan was making his famous
raid through Vinton County in 1863, and at the
time Mr. Craig was a member of the
state militia located at Portsmouth.
In 1856, the year he bought his farm, Mr.
Craig was manned in this township to Miss
Mary Newton. She was born in
Vinton County in 1830, and died at her home in
April, 1899. Her parents were David and
Julia (Rankins) Newton, who came from
Canada, and were early settlers in Vinton
County, and died on a farm in Clinton Township,
her father at the age of sixty-five, and her
mother when in the prime of life. Mrs.
Craig was one of four children, and two
of her brothers, William and Hiram,
are still living. Mrs. Craig
was for uiany years an active member of the
Christian Church, and Mr. Craig
still attends and is a member in good standing
in the same church. In polities he is a
democrat, having been loyal to the political
tenets of his ancestors, and in the course of
his long and active lifetime has filled various
township offices. For a number of years he
acted in an official capacity in his home
church. Most of his children have identified
themselves with churches, some with the
Presbyterian and others with the Christian
denomination.
A brief record of William Craig's children is as
follows: Julia, born in 1857, has never
married, and lives with her sister at the old
home. The son Henry T., born in
1861, had a public school education and for many
years has successfully operated the old
homestead in Clinton Township, being a competent
farmer in general crops and in the raising of
stock for the past eighteen years; he married
Nancy A. Roland of Clinton Township, and
their four children are: Leo D., who is a
farmer in Clinton Township, and by his marriage
to Lelah Cox in Washington
Township of Vinton County has a son, Harold;
Edna B., who was educated in the grade
schools and is still living at home; Nancy
Edith, who for two years has been engaged
in teaching, is still living at home; and
William T., now a student in the high school
at Hamden, in his freshman year.
Sanford D. Craig, the second son of Mr.
Craig, is now living in the State of Utah
on a farm, and married Mrs. Sarah (McPherson)
Neptune. Susan Olive,
the second daughter, is the wife of Frank E.
Jennings, a farmer, near Circleville, Ohio,
and their children are : Sanford, Howard,
Maude, wife of Harry Mace, Harry, Bertha,
Leon, Audrey, Earl and Blanch, all
the four oldest being married. Newton,
the third son, is now living in Texas.
Hiram is in the grain elevator business in
Illinois and by his marriage to Ora
Monahan of Hamden, Ohio, has two children,
named Kenneth and Cree.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1234 |
| |
DANIEL P. CURRY.
Fully eighty-five years have passed since the
Curry family made their first venture into
the wilderness of what is now Vinton county,
Ohio. Danial P. Curry as himself
lived a life in keeping with the traditions and
honorable activities of his ancestors.
While he has reached the psalmist's age of three
score and ten, he is still considered among the
progressive and active farmers of Jackson
Township, and now lives in the house and on the
farm where he was born Aug. 31, 1846.
His ancestors were Virginia people. His
great-grandfather was one of five brothers who
emigrated from the North of Ireland and settled
in America during the colonial period, the
brothers taking up homes in different sections
of colonies. The great-grandfather
established his home in what is now Greenbrier
County, West Virginia, six miles from Louisburg
at or near Fort Springs. There he procured
possession of some wild land, developed it, and
a part of this property is still owned by a
descendant, Samuel Curry, a cousin
of Daniel P. Curry. There is an old
family graveyard on the old homestead in that
part of the present State of West Virginia, and
many of the earlier members of the family sleep
the last sleep there. Grandfather Oliver Curry
spent all his life in Virginia, and died before
the Civil war. His widow lived to be
nearly a hundred years of age, and both are now
buried in the old family plot already mentioned.
They were born while the Revolutionary war was
in progress, and the great-grandfather Curry
participated in that war as a soldier. As
a family the Currys have been identified
with the Methodist Church, and in politics the
men have been republicans. Oliver Curry
and wife had a large family of children.
One of these was Andrew Curry, father of
Daniel P. He was born Oct. 7, 1807,
and he and his brothers and sisters grew up in
their native county of Western Virginia, and
most of them married and had families of their
own. The names of these cliildren who grew
up were Andrew, Thomas, Oliver, Jr., Samuel,
Mary, Nancy, Rachel and Virginia.
Three of them came to Vinton County, Ohio, and
spent their last days there.
The pioneers of the family in Vinton County were
Andrew and Thomas Curry. They were
still young and unmarried when in 1829 they
penetrated the wilderness and secured land in
Jackson Township. This land their father
Oliver had secured from the Government
some time previously while Andrew
Jackson was President of the United States.
In this dense forest as it was then these young
men set to work with hearty good will, and with
axes felled the giants of the forest and cleared
off a space for the cultivation of their limited
crops. All around them was a great natural
game preserve, and their table was supplied with
venison, the meat of wild turkeys and other
forest animals. They lived in a typical
log cabin, and each of the brothers eventually
developed a good farm. They both married
in Vinton County. Thomas married
Christina Hawk, and he spent the rest
of his days on his farm, where he died when
about forty-five years of age, survived by his
widow.
Andrew Curry married Amy Horton, who was
of a pioneer family of what is now Vinton
County. She was born about 1808 and died
about 1847. She was the mother of eight
children, namely: Nathan; Henry;
Homer; John M., who is married and
living in Missouri; Thomas, Adaline,
who is now Mrs. Bothwell of
McArthur, and is eighty-two years of age;
Eliza; Sarah.
After the death of his first wife Andrew Curry
was married in Jackson Township to Amy
McDougal, a cousin of his first wife.
She was born in Vinton County in March, 1817,
and was reared and educated there and died at
the old homestead, where her son Daniel
now lives, in December, 1909. She was then
ninety-two years of age, and she was a
remarkable woman in many ways, particularly in
her physical vigor, and an illness of only about
twenty minutes preceded her final dissolution.
She and her husband were both devout Methodists,
and her daily walk and actions were in keeping
with her high religious faith. Her father
was Richard McDougal, a pioneer in
Southern Ohio, and both he and his wife died in
the early '40s. They were among the
pioneer Methodists, and their home was the
headquarters for the Rev. Daniel Poe, the
noted missionary among the Wyandotte Indians.
Mrs. Andrew Curry's grandfather was
George McDougal, who was born in
Ulster, Ireland, and came to America in 1775.
From 1776 to 1781 he served with Washington's
army in various campaigns aud lived for a number
of years after independence was won, and died at
Lucasville, Ohio. His son Richard and two
of the latter 's brothers served in the War of
1812, and one of the brothers died in an English
prison.
By his second marriage Andrew Curry became the
father of five children: Mary E. married
Leroy Lacy of Lancaster, Ohio, and she
died in 1913 leaving children; the next is
Daniel P.; Samuel, spent all his life
in Jackson Township, and married Mary E.
Galino of Ross County, and left three
daughters; Julia died in Missouri when in
middle life, unmarried; Harriet L. died
in girlhood.
It was on the old homestead farm in Jackson Township
that Daniel P. Curry spent the years of
his early youth and manhood. He secured a
substantial education and was still only a boy
when he gave his services to the Union during
the Civil war. For some years after the
war Mr. Curry taught school. In
1877 he went west to Missouri, and became a
traveling representative for a carriage company
of Columbus, Ohio, making his headquarters at
Kansas City. He lived for twenty years in
that section of the country, and sold goods over
several states. Then being in ill health
he came to Ohio to join his aged mother, and has
since occupied his time with the management of
the farm and his other interests in Jackson
Township. He is a first class farmer, and
gives much of his attention to the raising of
stock, particularly cattle and sheep. He
owns seventy-five acres of his own and has a
half interest in the hundred-acre homestead
where he was born. Mr. Curry has
never married.
He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
and for many years after 1890 was active in the
subordinate lodge at Hamilton, Missouri, filling
the various chairs in the lodge and representing
it in the Grand Lodge for two years in 1897-98
at St. Louis. He is an ardent republican,
and was elected by his party to the office of
infirmary director.
Mr. Curry served through two enlistments
in the Civil war. His brother Nathan
was a member of the Ninetieth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry and died of illness in 1863, and was
buried at Louisville, Kentucky. Another
brother, John M., was a member of the
Eighteenth Ohio Volunteers and later of the
114th Regiment, and died Jan. 11, 1916, at Raven
wood. ^Missouri. Another brother, Thomas, was in
the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry for three years, fought
in many battles, was never wounded or captured,
but died about a year after the war ended.
Mr. Curry is now an active member
of Sergeant Reed Post, Grand Army of the
Republic at McArthur.
Source: A Standard History of The Hanging Rock
Iron Region of Ohio, Vol. II - Illustrated -
Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
- Page 1220 |
|
