USA > Ohio > Butler County > A history and biographical cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio, with illustrations and sketches of its representative men and pioneers. Vol. 2 > Part 52
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of the hardy energy, integrity, and thrift that character- ized the people of olden times.
Among those who have been identified with Oxford Township is the Sadler family. Elijah and Cordelia Sadler were natives of Massachusetts, and were married at Williamsburg in 1828. He was a carpenter, and not being satisfied with his routine work in the employ of Isaac Gere, as foreman of a box factory, he decided to come West, and in the Winter of 1834, putting his worldly goods into a sleigh, came with his family to Ox- ford. After a few years residence in the village, he pur- chased and removed to what is known as the Sadler farm, where he resided at the time of his death, in 1850. His wife and nine children survived him. Mrs. Sadler was a woman of more than ordinary force of character, and she kept her family together, and with the help of her children carried on farming. She was of a family of Kings, and he was related to the Dwights, of colo- nial fame in Massachusetts. She was a woman whose excel- lence of character and life is vindicated in her children, every one of whom grew to adult age. Her two daugh- ters, Sarah R. and Cordelia A., are still living. The former is the wife of G. W. Adams, a merchant of Oxford, and the latter is the wife of C. M. Doug- lass, of Fowler, Indiana. Of her seven sons five are liv- ing, and all have made a worthy record in life. The oldest, George W., is a resident of Peoria, Illinois, where he with three of his brothers have arrangements for feeding stock in large numbers, of which George has immediate supervision. William K., deceased, was a physician and entered the army as regimental surgeon, and at the time of his death, December, 1864, was in charge of the medical department of Baton Rouge Post. Elijah D. is still a resident of Oxford, having entire charge of the Sadler estate. He has been treasurer ot Oxford Township for the past six years. Jerome F. is a resident and stockbroker of New York City, and inter- ested in the extensive stock-feeding and dealings of the brothers. Edward W., deceased in 1872, being about thirty years of age, was the most extensive resident stock-dealer known to Oxford. Lewis L. is a resident of Cincinnati, and has been for some time president of the city council. He is also one of the firm of Sadier Broth- ers, and looks after their extensive interests in Cincin- nati. The youngest son, Silas P., resides in Pittsburg. where he does a brokerage business, and attends to the interests of the "Brothers," of which firm he is also a member. Mrs. Sadler's decease occurred in Oxford, Fcb- ruary 1, 1881. A memorial pamphlet, containing a short sketch of her life and an account of the funeral services, was published by the children and distributed to all the friends.
About 1810 there came from Martha's Vineyard. and settled in the vicinity of Mixerville, Indiana, Mr. John Smith, who reared a large family, of whom John T. and William H. were residents of Oxford, the latter having
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practiced law here a number of years previous to his death, which occurred in 1876. John T. was a farmer, and lived on the road to College Corner. He was suc- cessful in his private business, and active and influential in matters of public concern ; was a leading member of the Universalist Church, and was one of the trustees to whom the first church property was deeded in trust for the congregation. He always took an active interest in edu- cation, filled the office of director in his district almost continuously, and five of his children graduated at one or the other of the schools of Oxford. His wife was Miss Anna Slack, a resident of the same neighborhood. Her father was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and a worthy and esteemed citizen. His son, the Rev. Joshua Slack, a Baptist, was a pioneer in higher school education in Cincinnati. The issue of this union was five children, as follows : John T., Jr., deceased, who had a large ranch in Arizona, and was a member of the territorial Legislature. Anna S. married Mr. Winder, and is now residing in Grandview, Iowa. Mary married William J. Rounald, a graduate of Miami University, and also resides in Grandview. Arabella married O. P. Smith, a farmer near Wapella, Louisa County, Iowa. Palmer W. is now a successful practitioner of law, hav- ing been admitted to the bar in 1870. He married in 1871 Miss Virginia, daughter of Samuel V. Hill, who was a wholesale tobacco merchant of Cincinnati, who removed with his family to Oxford, where his declining years were comfortably and pleasantly spont. His deeease occurred in 1876, his first wife having preceded him several years. Mr. and Mrs. P. W. Smith have a family of two children, Hall and Virginia, living, and one, Pal- mer W., who died in infancy.
John Shera, of this town, was born in County Ros- common, Ireland, December 16, 1815. His father's name was James Shera and his mother was Anu Munns. The family, consisting of the two parents and eight chil- dren, emigrated to America in 1821, and took up their home in the West, in Franklin County, Indians. While helping the father and mother in the work of the farm the children enjoyed the slight advantages of the pioneer school of the day. The mother dying in 1830, and the father in January, 1832, the children remained on the farm, and attended school Winters. When about eight- cen years old Mr. Shera went to live with a brother who had bought a farm near by, and was with him some four years. October 18, 1838, he was married to Miss Margaret Shera, and the Spring of the year following the young couple, in all the hopeful enthusiasm of carly man and womanhood, took up their home on a farm in Oxford Township, which John had purchased a year or two previons. This farm they continued to cultivate for thirty-two years, having seven children born to them dur- ing this time. In 1871 the family broke from the old! farin home and moved into the village of Oxford, where they have ever since resided. Two children have been
taken away by death. One daugliter is married and lives on a farmi near the old homestead. The three sons and the other sister are residing in town, two of the former being the firm of Shera Brothers. in. the grocery trade, corner of Main and High Streets. Just before the death of the older brother Mr. Shera made a profession of relig- ion, uniting with the Methodist Episcopal Church. To this faith and Church the parents have adhered, and have nurtured their family as they have grown to man and womanhood.
Moritz Sehlenck, of College Corner, Oxford Town- ship, Ohio, is a native of the town of Balwick, Bavaria, who came to the United States in 1849, in October. For three or four years he made his home in some of the Atlantic seaboard cities. In 1850 he, with another friend, crossed over the mountains to the Ohio Valley, stopping at Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and so on to St. Louis, Mis- souri. He also went north as far as Galena, but re- turned up the Ohio, by the way of St. Louis and Cincinnati, and for about fifteen months resided in Ports- mouth. From here he removed to Brookville, Indiana, in the Fall of 1852, and for a year and a half was in this State, returning to Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1854. Ja the Winter of 1854-5 he was in the towns of Brook- field, Richmond, and Quincy, Indiana, working a portion of this time at his trade as house and sign painter. Returning again to Brookfield, he engaged in the busi- ness of brewing until December, 1863. In August, 1856, he was married. to Mrs. Charlotte Weidner, then of Brookfield. In 1864 Mr. Schilenek, with his family, was engaged in keeping a public house in Cincinnati, from which piace he removed to College Corner, Ohio, purchasing and taking possession of the hotel property which occupies the extreme north-west corner of the township of Oxford, the house upon which was built in 1828 by Jason Howe. Mr. Schlenek has twice revisited his native country since making America his home.
William H. Stewart was born in Belfast, Ireland, on the 10th of June, 1847, and came to this country in 1850 with his parents, William and Mary Stewart. They settled on the old Hueston farm, in Hanover Township, and their sou went to school at Seven-Mile, and after- wards went to Miami University, where he graduated in the classical course in 1870. He then taught school three years in Indiana, and for the past eight years has been superintendent of the public schools of Oxford. He holds a life certificate from the State board of education. He was married on the 25th of December, 1873, at Con- nersville, to Miss Belle Coulter, of Oxford. Her parents were Thomas and Lucinda Coulter, and she was boru on the 23d of November, 1850. They have three children. Robert Howard was born July 9, 1875; William Thomas, March 17, 1878; and Martha, January 6. 1882.
Professor Isaiah Trufant, of Oxford, Ohio, was born in Harpeswell, Maine, the 18th of December, 1831. His father, William C. Trufant, was a descendant of an En-
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glish family of that name, the earliest American history of whom locates them at Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1635 or 1636. The elder Trufant died in 1879. The mother, Lucy Rich Trufant, who had also an English an- cestry, was born in 1813, and is still living as a bale and well-preserved woman at Harpeswell, Maine. In boy- hood Mr. Trufant enjoyed the privileges of the common schools of the town, after which he entered the Maine State Seminary at Lewiston. After leaving this school he was engaged in teaching occasionally until he was twenty-five years old, when he entered Bowdoin College. Here he remained the next four years, pursuing the full prescribed curriculum of the college, and graduating with the full honors of his class. It had been the expectation and intention of Mr. Trufant to have entered the profes- sion of law, but circumstances drew him into engage- ments as a teacher soon after leaving college, and the Fall of 1863 found him in care of Somerset Academy, in Athens, Maine. In the following Spring he was pros- trated with a severe attack of typhoid fever, and was obliged to relinquish teaching for a time. January 17, 1865, he was united by marriage to Miss Sarah R. Gross, whose home was in Brunswick, Maine. The following Summer he accepted the charge of the high school in Castine, Maine, for one ycar, leaving this position in the Fall of 1866 to accept the position of principal in Nich- ols Academy in Dudley, Massachusetts. In this school Professor Trufant was very successful, but the health of Mrs. Trufant becoming delicate, and her physicians ad- vising a change of location and climate, he removed with his family to Hackettstown, New Jersey, and took charge of the schools of the place, himself taking the position of teacher of the college preparatory class. Such was the success of Professor Trufant in this relation and through his instrumentality, that the students seut forth from under his hand were enabled to take their positions in the freshman classes of Lafayette College, to which insti- tution the city schools graduated a class of six young men at one time. The professor remained at Hacketts- town for ten years, coming to Oxford in the Summer of 1877.
At this time the buildings of Miami University were unused, the college having been suspended in 1873 for want of the requisite funds. Professor Trufaut associa- ted with himself his brother-in-law, Professor B. F. Marsh, an experienced and zealous educator, who had for years been connected with some of the finest schools of the East, the last being Pelham Institute at Poughkeepsie, New York, on the Hudson, aud in the Fall of 1877 the two undertook the experiment of opening and con- ducting a boys' collegiate preparatory school in the uni- versity builling-, engaging such other assistants in their work as the demands of the school seemed to warrant. from time to time. At the commencement of the under. taking, the two earnest projectors of the enterprise, while having the sympathy of the Oxford people, found the
effort to start and establish their school a work demand- ing great patience and perseverance. The opening was made with a class of sixteen or eighteen boys, which number has steadily increased in the five academic years during which the work has been progressing, until the attendance upon the last closing term was seventy-five or eighty pupils, and the class graduated was thirteen.
Professor and Mrs. Trufant have had six children born to them, of whom two daughters and a son are now living, With his family he occupies the south end of the university building, known as Washington Hall, and his colleague, Professor Marsh, with his family, resides in Franklin Hall, which building has been pleasantly fitted up and furnished as a boarding department for the school, the study and reeitation rooms being in the main building of the university. The school takes the name of the Miami Classical and Preparatory School, and the curriculum and high standard of graduation have sent their pupils into junior classes in neighboring colleges.
Josiah Wilson, a native of Lewistown, Pennsylvania, was born in 1776, and came to Ohio in 1802, and settled in Butler County, four miles below Rossville, where, with others, he entered land of the government for a home. Three years before coming West he was married to Miss Mary Moore. To them in succeeding years were born two sons and four daughters, two of whom only are living at the time of this writing. One is Mrs. Mary Croseort, residing at College Corner, aged seventy-one years. The other, Mr. George Wilson, was born in 1814, at Rossville, and removed to Union Township, Indiana, as one of the pioneers, March 14. 1831, at which time there were bat a half lozen settlers at the hamlet of College Corner. August 25, 1835, the latter was married to Miss Nancy Ridenour, who was born in Preble County in 1818. Five children were born to them while resident upon the farm. Of these two sons and two daughters are living. One of the former, Thomas M., is at present a resident and property owner of College Corner, whose wife was Elizabeth A. Barnum, of Union County, Indiana. born March 12, 1841. They were married February 6, 1861. They have one child, a daughter. The great-grandfather of Thomas M. Wilson was a native of Ireland, who came across the ocean when but twenty-one years old, and for several years made a practice of returning to his native country aud bringing to the United States some of the peasantry and poorer class of that country, whom he was accustomed to bind out in service to the Americans for an advance upon the price of their passage money, and in this way made his first start toward a future competency. as he settled in Pennsylvania. George Wilson was the first oue to organize a Suuday-school in College Corper
Nathan Woodruff, son of Nation and Sarah Og bins) Woodruff, was born in Delaware. His father was twice married. To his first union there were born that children, Sannet, Sarah, and Mary. Their mother's
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name was Mofferd. In 1800 he married Sarah Stibbins,. and had by her five children, Nathan, Nancy, John K., Margaret, and Katy Ann. The first three were born in Delaware, and the other two in Ohio. The father moved from New Jersey to Delaware, and from there to Ohio, in the Fall of 1817, and located in Warren County, near Waynesville. In the Spring of 1829 he removed to But- ler County, and located in Fairfield Township. By occu- pation he was a farmer. He died in 1849, and his wife the same year. The present Nathan Woodruff was born April 22, 1808, and learned the trade of shoemaker, at which he worked until 1848. In that year he devoted his attention to farming. He was married September 12, 1839, to Lydia Parker, and to them two children
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have been born, Thomas J. and John. Mrs. Woodruff died in October, 1842, and her child at the same time. He married for his second wife, on the 5th of April, 1846, Mary, daughter of William Fields. To this union there were born two children, Nathan W. and Anna Martha, both dead. Mrs. Woodruff died in May, 1852 .. Thomas J. Woodruff was born July 5, 1840, and grad- uated at the Miami University in 1864. He served in the Eighty-sixth Regiment in the three months' service in 1862, and in the One Hundred and Sixty-seventh in the hundred days' service in 1864. He was married March 11, 1873, to Susan, daughter of Daniel and Phoebe (Westcott) Dorrett. She was born near Cincinnati, May 18, 1845.
ST. CLAIR.
THIS township at the time of its organization in 1803 embraced all of the north-western part of the county. It included the present townships of Oxford, Milford, Wayne, Reily, and Hanover, and was bounded, when it was organized, on the north by Preble County, on the east by Lemon Township, on the south by the Miami River and Ross Township, and on the west by the State of Indiana. Its name comes from General St. Clair. Wayne and Milford Townships were struck off of its ter- ritory in 1805, the latter at that time including also what is now the township of Oxford. Reily Township was set off in 1807, and embraced all what is now Hanover. These divisions reduced the size of St. Clair consider- ably, but possessing, as it did, the town of Rossville, its history is extended and interesting, and a large portion of it will be found treated under the head of Hamilton. In 1810, its population was eleven hundred and eighty; in 1820, thirteen hundred and seven; in 1830, eighteen hundred and thirty-four. There are in the township seventeen thousand, three hundred and thirty acres.
St. Clair, as it now exists, is bounded on the north by the township of Wayne, on the east by the Miami River and the lower end of Madison Township, on the south by the river, and on the west by Hanover and Ross Townships. The township is irregular on the south side, resulting from the fact that the Miami meanders through the very fine bottoms along its course, a large portion of which are in St. Clair.
TOPOGRAPHY.
All the country lying east of Seven-Mile Creek is level, and approaches as near perfection as any land in the county. The soil is rather sandy, producing the finest crops of corn, barley, wheat, and other grains;
and garden vegetables also grow in great abundance, when cared for properly. A range of low hills extend from Wayne Township down into St. Clair, half a mile east of the village of Seven-Mile. They are not so ele- vated but what they can be tilled profitably.
West of Seven-Mile Creek the township is hilly, and in some places so much so as to render the cultivation of the soil extremely laborious. This range of hills begins to assume proportions about two miles south of the north line of the township, and continues almost unbroken down the west side of the Miami to its mouth. They vary in height, but are of the same general nature. This range of hills in some places approaches very near the river; then again it leaves a wide and fertile bottom between the stream and their base.
Fine dwelling-houses, with all their necessary out- buildings, dot the township. On the pike leading to Seven-Mile village, and on the Hamilton Road to Tren- ton, this is especially true.
The original forest here was very dense and fine. The country between the river and the hills was covered by a splendid growth of oak, sugar tree, walnut, button- wood or sycamore, hackberry, blue and white ash, and buckeye. Pea-vines covered the whole face of the country from the Miami to the foot of the hills, and extended as far north as Somerville. They, however, only lasted for a few years after the settlements became established. Constant pasturage by the cattle soon destroyed them. They were very nutritions, and during the Fall stock. lived without the least care from their owners.
The original forests furnished but little income to the settlers. 1 tlat-boat which would now be worth fifty dollars for wood alone, would sell in New Orleans for three and five dollars. Nothing but the finest timber
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HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY.
could be used to good advantage, and in cutting no pains were taken to preserve the noblest of the trees, An unsparing hand cut them down. Walnut trees as straight as a die, that would reach up seventy-five feet without a limb, and from three to five feet in diameter at the butt, were rolled into log-heaps, and consumed by fire, because the settlers needed the land on which they stood.
Aside from the pea-vines, spice-bushes, and some sas- safras sprouts, there was no great growth of saplings or briers. After the first clearings were made, very little trouble was experienced on account of sprouts, bushes, and young briers springing up to harass the husband- man.
The hills of which we have spoken, in the early his- tory of the township, were sprinkled with log shanties, rather below the average, turnip patches, and blackberry bushes. The sink holes and hollow trees furnished the opossum a favorite place of hiding, and gave this body of land a name which is now almost forgotten, though always remembered by the old people with a smile, "'Possum Hill."
Four-Mile is the principal stream of the township. It takes its head in Preble County, and has many tribu- tarics. From the north-west corner of the township, where it enters, it flows with many windings until it emp- ties into the Miami. Its first tributary on the west, above Hamilton, is St. Clair's Run. Scott's old mill stands just above its mouth. Near the old Fear-not grist-mill a creck of considerable size, flowing mainly from Hanover Township, joins with Four-Mile.
.Seven-Mile (quite, if not altogether, as large as Four- Mile) unites with the above stream near the middle and on the north side of Section 8. Its current is some- what rapid, and during a greater portion of the year, supplies au abundance of water for milling purposes. Aloug its bed are thousands of perches of gravel, which furnish material for making fine roads.
Cotton Run heads altogether in the township of Wayne, flows almost directly south, and empties into Four-Mile about one mile and a half below the mouth of Seven-Mile.
Five-Mile Run flows between Cotton Run and Seven- Mile, and is fed principally by a spring near the center of Section 4. This spring was known to the army on its way north to chastise the Indians, and is still used by the family who reside on the farm.
In the north-eastern part of the township two streams flow southward until they reach the ceuters of Sections 1 and 2 respectively ; here they sink into the sand and are lost to view.
Two-Mile Creek empties into the Mini opposite what might be called the mouth of Old River. Its prongs exteud out into Hanover for a considerable distance. South of Rossville there are a few little streams, but of no consequence.
ROADS AND MILLS.
It was quite natural, after the county seat had become a reality, for roads to diverge from it to all parts of the county. The old road to Eaton ran by the way of the Fear-not Mills, much in the same way that it does now. The old trace road from Seven-Mile takes the course of General Wayne when on his march to the Northwest. The State road, as it was commonly called, took the direction of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and for a number of years the mails were received over this route from North Bend, on the Ohio, in Hamilton County.
Among the early roads was one known as Aagspur- ger's, which branched off from the Seven-Mile road, where it crossed Four-Mile, and took almost a true easterly course to the Miami, near the mouth of Gregory's Creek in Liberty Township. There was also another highway (which shot off from the road to Seven-Mile) to Jacksou- burg in Wayne Towuship. A similar improvement led to Trenton.
That part of St. Clair Township lying south of Hani- ilton was settled principally by Germans from North Car- olina, Feunsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee, between the years 1802 and 1810. The island below the city was at an early day separated by a slough or bayou from the main land, and was owned by men whose deeds called for property adjacent on the west. There was about seventy-five acres between the slough and the river.
Watson's mill, one mile below the suspension bridge, was built by the Traber brothers, who were millwrights from the East. The first house was a frame, and had three sets of buhrs; the gearing was made of wood. The mill was two stories bigh, with a garret, and was when erected one of the best in the country. It continued until the hydraulic was built, and in 1852 or 1853 the frame and machinery were removed, and used in the con- struction of a manufacturing establishment in the Second Ward of Hamilton, on Crawford's Run. The Traber brothers were the second proprietors; and Matthias, Resor & Co., the third. In order to get the mill where it was built, the settlers allowed Watson to run the water through the bayou. Matthias & Co. were the fourth owners, selling to William Reily, and he to a German clergyman named Richter, the latter of whom erected the establishment in the city of Hamilton, mentioned elsewhere. There was a saw-mill attached to the grind- ing department. The grist-mill was run by three large tub-wheels. Both of these establishments went down at the same time. The common belief was that the pres- ence of the damn so near Hamilton affected the health of the city, and hence the mills were condemned by the health authorities. In high water the Miami takes the course of the old mill-race. Opposite Wat-on's mil! was one then owued by the Traber brothers, both of them being run by the same damn.
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