USA > Ohio > Adams County > A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth > Part 36
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Ross, Brown, Adams, and Highland. W. W. Ellsberry, of Brown, was elected to the forty-ninth congress, and served one term, 1885 to 1887.
In 1886 the Republicans controlled the legislature, and they made the twelfth apportionment. Under this, Adams, Scioto, Lawrence, Gallia, Jackson, and Vinton composed the eleventh district, and Judge Albert C. Thompson was elected to the fiftieth congress, in 1887 to 1889. He was re-elected to the fifty-first congress from the same dis- trict, 1887 to 1889. A sketch of him will be found elsewhere. These political changes are hard on the historian, but have to be borne.
In 1890 the Legislature, controlled by the Democrats, made the thirteenth apportionment. Adams, Brown, Highland, Clermont, and Pike were made the eleventh district, and John M. Pattison, as a Demo- crat, of Clermont, represented it in the fifty-second congress, 1891 to 1893. In 1892 the Republicans made the regular decennial apportion- ment, the fourteenth in number. There were twenty-one districts, Adams, Scioto, Pike, Jackson, Gallia and Lawrence composed the tenth district, and in this Gen. William H. Enochs was elected to the fifty- third congress. He died July 13, 1893, after four months and nine days of his term, and Hon. Hezekiah S. Bundy was elected his successor, and served out his term.
To the fifty-fourth congress and to the fifty-fifth, Lucien J. Fenton, of Adams, was elected, and served from 1895 to 1899. A sketch of him appears herein. To the fifty-sixth congress Stephen Morgan, of Jack- son, was elected, and is serving his first term.
A table of Adams County in congress is as follows :
Congress.
Years.
Name.
County.
Politics.
7-12.
1803-1813 ...
Jeremiah Morrow.
Hamilton
Democrat.
14-15
1813-1815 .. ...
John Alexander.
Greene ..
Democrat.
15-19.
1817-1827.
John W. Campbell.
Adams
Democrat.
20-22.
1827-1833
William Russell
Adams
Democrat.
23-25
1833-1839 ..
Thomas L. Hamer.
Brown.
Democrat.
26-27.
1839-1843.
William Doane ..
Clermont
Democrat.
28-29.
1843-1847.
Jos. T. McDowell
Highland.
Democrat.
30-31
1847-1851 ..
Jonathan D. Morris
Clermont
Democrat.
32
1851-1853
Nelson Barrere ..
Highland
Whig.
33.
1853-1855 ...
Andrew Ellison
Brown ..
Democrat.
34
1855-1857 ...
Jonas R. Emrie ..
Highland.
Republican.
35
1857-1859
Jos. R. Cockerill
Adams
Democrat.
36
1859-1861.
William Howard.
Clermont.
Democrat.
37
1861-1863 ..
Chilton A. White.
Brown.
Democrat.
38 ..
1863-1865
Wells A. Hutchins
Scioto.
Democrat.
39
1865-1867
Hezekiah S. Bundy
Jackson.
Republican.
40-42.
1867-1873 ..
John T. Wilson.
Adams
Republican. Democrat.
45-46
1877-1881 ..
Henry L. Dickey.
Highland
Democrat.
47.
1881-1883 ... 1883-1885.
John P. Leedom
Adams ...
Democrat.
49
1885-1887 ...
W. W. Ellsberry
Brown
Democrat.
50-51
1887-1891 ..
Albert C. Thompson.
Scioto
Republican. Democrat.
52
1891-1893 ..
John M. Pattison ...
Clermont.
53.
1893-1895 ...
Wm. H. Enochs.
Lawrence
Republican.
H. S. Bundy.
Jackson.
Republican.
54-55
Lucien J. Fenton
Adams
Republican.
56.
1895-1899 1897.
Stephen J. Morgan.
Jackson
Republican.
...
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43-44.
1873-1877
Lawrence T. Neal.
Ross.
48
John W. McCormick
Gallia :.
Republican.
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
There have been fourteen apportionments made, when regularly there should have been but nine. The first apportionment, other than at a decennial period was in 1878 by the Democrats. The next was in 1880 by the Republicans. The third was in 1874 by the Democrats, and the fourth in 1886 by the Republicans. The fifth was in 1890 by the Democrats. Exclusive of the present term, Adams County has been represented in congress ninety-six years, thirty of which by its own citizens. Of the ninety-six years, the Democrats have had sev- enty-two years, and the Whigs and Republicans twenty-four years.
Jeremiah Morrow
was the first congressman from Ohio. He was born in Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1771. His father was a farmer, and he was brought up on the farm. He attended a private school at Gettysburg, and was especially bright in mathematics and surveying, which were his favorite studies. In 1795 he emigrated to the Northwest Territory, and settled at Columbia, near Cincinnati. At Columbia he taught school, did surveying, and worked on the farm. Having saved some money, he went to Warren County, bought a large farm and erected a log house. In the spring of 1799 he married Miss Mary Packhill, of Columbia.
In 1801 he was elected to the territorial legislature. He was a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1802. In March, 1803, he was elected to the Ohio senate, and in June, 1803, he was elected to congress, and re-elected ten times. While in congress he was chair- man of the committee on public lands. In 1813 he was elected to the United States senate, and was made chairman of the committee on pub- lic lands. In 1814 he was appointed Indian commissioner. At the close of his term he retired to his farm.
In early life he became a member of the United Presbyterian Church, and devoted himself to its welfare all his life.
In 1820 he was a candidate for governor, and received 9,476 votes, to 34,836 for Ethan A. Brown, who was elected. In 1822 he was elected governor by 26,059 votes, to 22,889 for Allen Trimble and II,- 150 for William W. Irwin, and re-elected in 1824 by the following vote : 39,526 for him, and 37,108 for Allen Trimble. During his service as governor, the canal system of Ohio was inaugurated, and Lafayette's visit to the state took place. On the fourth of July, 1839, he laid the corner stone of the capital at Columbus. In 1840 he was re-elected to congress to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Thomas Corwin, and was re-elected. He was a deep thinker, a delightful social com- panion, had a wonderful retentive memory, boundless kindness of heart and endowed with much vivacity and cheerfulness of spirit. He died March 22, 1853.
John Alexander
represented Adams County in the thirteenth and fourteenth congresses, 1813 to 1814. He represented the second district, composed of Adams, Clinton, Greene, Fayette, Highland, and Clermont counties. Brown County was not then established. He was elected as a Democrat. He appears to have been in the senate, twenty-second legislative session,
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JUDGE JOHN W. CAMPBELL UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT.
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December 2, 1822, to January 28, 1823, and in the twenty-second legis- lative session, December 1, 1823, to February 26, 1824, representing Greene and Clinton counties.
He was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, about 1777, where the family was called "Elchinor." After receiving a common school education he removed to Ohio, where he was known at the "Buffalo of the West." He located in Greene County. He is said to have entered the war of 1812 as a private. He was a lawyer. He had a son, Washington, born in South Carolina in 1800 who came with his parents to Greene County in 1802. He was also a lawyer. He had a son, William J., born June 10, 1827, who was admitted to the bar in 1860. He died in 1897.
John W. Campbell
was the third United States district judge for the district of Ohio. Like his two predecessors, he was a Virginian. He was born February 23, 1782, near Miller's Iron Works in Augusta County, Va. He only breathed the Virginia atmosphere until his ninth year, for at that time his father removed to Kentucky. He had no facilities for an education except those of the common schools of that day, and they were about no schools at all. He was not strong enough to perform farm labor, as his father's circumstances required, and he went to Cincinnati, then an in- significant village, where he began to learn the carpenter's trade. He remained in Cincinnati for a few months and then returned home. His parents soon afterward removed to that part of Adams County now in Brown, where John studied Latin under Rev. Dunlavy. He afterward studied under Rev. Robert Finley. His father was too poor to pay for his maintenance and books, and he worked clearing ground in the morn- ing and evening to maintain himself in school. He studied the lan- guages under Mr. John Finley, and afterward pursued them himself. He was then seized with a desire to study law, and went to Morgantown, Virginia, and studied under his uncle, Thomas Wilson. He earned his expenses while studying by teaching school. In 1808, he was admitted to the bar in Ohio and fixed his residence at West Union. He delivered an oration on the fourth of July, 1808, at West Union at a celebration on that day. He was a Jacksonian Democrat all his life. In July, 1809, he was elected a justice of the peace of Tiffin Township, Adams County, and served until June 5. 1815, when he resigned. The same year, 1809, he was appointed prosecuting attorney of Adams County by the common pleas court, and was allowed from $25 to $30 a term for his services, there being three terms in a year, and he served until January 23, 1817. He was elected to represent Adams County in the Legislature in October, 1810, with Abraham Shepherd as his colleague. He represented the county in the Legislature again in 1815 and 1816 and had Josiah Lock- hart as an associate. He was elected to the fifteenth congress in 1816, and served continuously until March 4, 1827. He was succeeded by William Russell. In 1828 he was a candidate for governor of the state on the Democratic ticket and was defeated by the vote of 53,970 for Allen Trimble and 51,951 for himself, majority in favor of Trimble, 2,019. In March, 1829, President Jackson appointed him United States district judge for the district of Ohio, and he served until his death, September 24, 1833. In January, 1833, he received in the legislature,
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
49 votes for United States senator to 54 votes for Thomas Morris, at the time Morris was elected. He was a candidate for congress in 1812, but was defeated, but was elected four years later. He terminated his con- gressional career at his own choice, was not choked off or killed off by politicians as is the fashion in our days. In 1827, on his retirement from congress, he removed from West Union to Brown County, Ohio, and settled on a farm in what is now Jefferson Township on Eagle Creek. His farm consisted of 250 acres. He lived there but two years after his appointment as United States judge, when he removed to Columbus. During the time of his residence in West Union, he resided in the house in which Mr. James Hood died and where Mr. Cooper's family now re- side. He resided there from 1808 to 1827. He had a habit of rising at four o'clock in the morning to study and he kept this up after his re- moval to Columbus, although in his day there was but little for the United States district judge to do but to maintain his dignity. In 1833, his adopted daughter died after ten days' painful illness, during which time the judge was a watcher night and day. After her death, Judge Campbell and his wife, broken down with anxiety, concluded to visit Delaware Springs for relaxation and rest. On the way Judge Camp- bell was taken with a chill, followed by a high fever. However, the next day he proceeded to Delaware, but was taken worse and breathed his last on the twenty-fourth of September, 1833. On the arrival of the news of his death at Columbus, a great sensation was caused, as he was highly respected. Several hundred people of Columbus met his funeral procession at Worthington and accompained his remains to their last resting place.
In 1811, he was married to Miss Eleanor Doak, daughter of Robert Doak, of Augusta County, Virginia. There was no issue of this mar- riage. Judge Campbell was a man of great natural dignity and force of character.
The source of our information is a book entitled "Biographical Sketches with other Literary Remains of the late John W. Campbell, Judge of the United States Court for the District of Ohio," compiled by his widow. It was printed at Columbus, Ohio, in 1838, and pub- lished by Scott & Gallagher. The biography was evidently written by a lady because it is conspicuous in failing to tell, what, after a lapse of faitey-eight years, we would most like to know and by filling it up with comments for which posterity is not thankful . and does not appre- ciate. What we would like to know as to Judge Campbell are the facts of his life and then our own judgment as to the place he should occupy in history.
He has been dead sixty-six years. All who knew him personally are dead. We have to resort to his writings and to written accounts left of him to make an estimate of his character. He was highly respected by all who knew him. He was public spirited and patriotic. He was a friend whom his friends valued most highly. As a public speaker, his manners and style were pleasing. He investigated every subject pre- sented to him with great care. He was of the strictest integrity. He was a successful lawyer, never lost his self-poise or equanimity and his judgment was never controlled by his emotions. His opinions were carefully formed, but when formed, did not need to be revised. The
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HON. WM. RUSSELL, M. C.
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POLITICS AND POLITICAL PARTIES
public welfare with him was paramount. He was very sympathetic in cases of suffering or distress brought to his notice. He took a great interest in education. He favored the colonization of the Negroes, and was president of the Ohio Colonization Society at the time of his death. He was strictly moral in all his life and conduct and this, from high principles, well considered and adopted, which served as guides to his life. He was intensely religious. He was the strongest kind of a Jacksonian Democrat, but yet was never offensive to his political op- ponents and treated them with the greatest consideration. His was a familiar figure on the streets of West Union from 1808 to 1826, during all of which time he resided there, but there is no tradition of him what- ever in the village. He was fond of composing verse, was no insignifi- cant poet, and had fine literary tastes. Altogether he was a valuable citizen of whose career present and future generations in Adams County may be proud.
William Russell
was born in Ireland in 1782. He was left an orphan at an early age. He came to the United States alone in 1796 at the age of fourteen. He remained a short time in Philadelphia and while there began to learn a trade, that of hatter. He went from Philadelphia to Maysville, Ken- tucky, took up hat making and followed it. While there, he married Sarah Tribbey. They had one child but she and it died shortly after it was born. He moved to Adams County, Ohio, in 1802. He repre- sented Adams County in the first Legislature of the new state which sat at Chillicothe, Ohio, March I, to April 16, 1803. Thomas Kirker and Joseph Lucas were his colleagues. He was the first clerk of the courts of Scioto County. having been appointed December, 1803. It seems that the office did not suit his tastes and he resigned in June, 1804. In the eighth legislative session, December 4, 1809, to February 22, 1810, he was a member from Adams County at the munificent salary of two dollars per day. He had Dr. Alexander Campbell afterward United States senator as a colleague. On the fifteenth day of February, 1810, he was appointed an associate judge for Scioto County, Ohio. This office did not suit his tastes and he resigned it in 1812.
At the tenth legislative session, December 10, 1811, to February 21, 1812, he was a member of the house from Adams County, with John Ellison as a colleague. This legislature sat at Zanesville, Ohio. The house impeached John Thompson, a president judge of the common pleas, but on trial in the senate, he was acquitted. At this session, Columbus was made the capital of the state, and the legislature provided for the military equipment of the Ohio militia. It also incorporated a number of libraries in the state. At the eleventh legislative session, December 7. 1812, to February 9, 1813, William Russell was a mem- ber from Adams County with John Ellison as a colleague. This legisla- ture provided for the care and maintenance of women who had been abandoned by their husbands, (an epidemic in those days,) and made the property of the absconder liable for the wife's maintenance. Strong measures were adopted to require every able bodied man to respond to the call to arms, but the legislature, by special resolution, excused Jacob Wooding, of Scioto County, Ohio, from military duty, because
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
his father was blind, lame, absolutely helpless and had two blind children. No one else was excused From 1813 to 1819, he dropped out of the legislature, but not out of public employment.
At the eighteenth legislative session from December 5 1819, to Feb- ruary 26, 1820, he was a member of the senate from Adams County. The House amused itself by impeaching two judges on the ground of de- ciding an election contest contrary to the evidence, but the senate unami- mously acquitted them. The senate spent a great deal of time in dis- cussing the Missouri Compromise and the question of slavery.
At the nineteenth legislative session, December 4, 1820, to Feb- ruary 23, 1821, William Russell again represented Adams County in the senate. The question of a canal system occupied much attention :; also that of attacking branches of the United States Bank. This legislature placed the United States Bank without Ohio's laws and forbade the officers of the courts to recognize it in any way. Justices and judges were forbidden to entertain any case for it ; sheriffs to arrest any one at its instance, or notaries to protest notes for it, or take any acknowledg- ment for it. Justices and judges were to be fined $500 if they entertained a suit for it, and sheriffs $200 for putting any one in jail at its instance. From this time, 1821 to 1829, William Russell was out of public employ- ment. In the fall of 1826, he was elected to congress as a Democrat, and re-elected for two succeeding terms. During all of this time he was a resident of Adams County and a merchant at West Union. After his third term in congress expired, March 4, 1833 he removed to near Rushtown, Ohio, in Scioto County and engaged in forging bar iron. In this enterprise. he was unsuccessful and is said to have lost $30,000. He was elected to the twenty-seventh congress in 1841 as a Whig and served one term. At the end of his first term, March 4, 1843, he re- turned to his farm on Scioto Brush Creek, where he continued to re- side until his death, September 28, 1845, at the age of 63. When at Portsmouth in 1803, he was a Presbyterian but returning to West Union, he became a Methodist. In 1809 to 1820, he was one of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Union, Ohio, and aided in the erection of the first church there, and all his life after, he was a faith- ful, devoted and devout Methodist. He was a student and self- educated. He was a fluent and pleasant speaker and had extensive conversational powers. He was liked and respected by all who knew him. He had a remarkable popularity, largely owing to his even temper. As a merchant, he was strict and honorable in all his dealings, and main- tained the highest credit. His public career began at the age of twenty- one, when elected to the first legislature of Ohio. He was legislator, clerk of court, state senator and congressman and filled each and every office with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. In private life, he was a successful merchant, an honored member of the Methodist Church and an upright citizen. In this case, the office sought the man. How many men have crowded into the space of forty years so many activities? Comparing him with the men of his time, we find he held office in two counties, and all he lacked was that he was not made a militia general. Every legislator of prominence, under the constitution of 1802, was either made an associate judge or a major general of militia. William Russell obtained the judgeship but
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missed the generalship. However, his career in congress gave him more distinction than the military title could have done.
In 1808, he married Nancy Wood and had seven children, six sons and a daughter. One of the sons lived near Rushtown during his life. Another, William B., married Rebecca Lucas and became the father of six chidren, three sons and three daughters. A grandson, James Russell, resides near Lucasville, Ohio, and another, George Russell, in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Thomas L. Hamer
Thomas Lyon Hamer, who died on the plains of Mexico on Decem- ber 2, 1846, to-day is the most alive man in Brown County.
The worship of ancestors may be laughed down, or cried down, yet it exists. Hero worship is decried too, but all the same it goes on. Thomas L. Hamer lived in this world forty-six years. He has been dead forty-eight years and yet no man in Brown County wields such an in- fluence as he did at the time of his death and which has extended to the present time. If you visit Georgetown you will see his lawyer's sign in the lobby of the court house, a precious souvenir. His picture hangs over the judge's seat in the court room.
In the village cemetery, his tomb is reverently pointed out, and in the village itself, his old home is shown, just as he had left it in the spring of 1846 to go into the Mexican War. The day when his sacred 1 emains, brought all the way from Mexico, were laid to their everlasting rest was the greatest day ever known in the history of Brown County. No such funeral honors were ever given any man in Ohio, and none will ever again be given. It seemed as though the whole population of Brown County had turned out to honor the great man. The particulars are graven on the memory of every man present at that funeral in char- acters never to be obliterated. Thomas L. Hamer was a man of middle height, of slender physique, with a head covered with a shock of bushy red hair, always neat and cleanly dressed, and with smoothly shaven face, and with a personal magnetism which could be felt but not described. No man could inspire greater personal devotion to himself, and no man of his time ever did. He was everybody's friend, and his friendship was not seeming but real. He was a most entertaining conversationalist -brilliant, engaging, interesting-a delightful companion, and as a public speaker, he carried his audience the way he wanted it to go. Time and again he had cavassed his own county and district and all the people knew him. They seemed to know him, all at once, on first ac- quaintance, and they could not forget him. He moved to Georgetown, Ohio, in August, 1821, just after the town had been laid out, and while it was yet in the virgin forest. His manners were pleasing, his conversation charmed the hearer, and he won the respect and esteem of every one. The law business was in its infancy then, and he accepted the office of justice of the peace of Pleasant Township, and also edited a newspaper in Georgetown. His written articles were as happy as his speeches. His oratory was artless and natural. He carried his hearers with him and had great success with juries. In 1825, he was elected to the legislature. In 1828, he was an elector on the Jackson
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ticket, and was re-elected to the legislature in 1829. In December, 1829, he was elected speaker of the house in the legislature. Mr. Hamer, as a speaker, appointed a majority of his political opponents on seven com- mittees out of eight. In the election of judges by the legislature, when the Democrats held a caucus in 1830, Mr. Hamer opposed the motion to be bound by this caucus and in the subsequent election he voted against two of the nominees of the Democratic caucus on the ground that the selection of the judiciary should have no connection with politics. Mr. Hamer, in defending his votes against two of his own party, on this oc- casion, made a noble speech, which anticipated all the doctrines of the civil service reformers, and should go down to the ages. He defined his oath as representative to vote according to the dictates of his judgment, and that if his judgment told him that a candidate was not qualified, and he voted for the man notwithstanding, because of his political affiliations, that was not honest; it was not a faithful discharge of the duties he owed to his constituents, and was a violation of his oath. He said, "I think so, and if any other man thinks otherwise, let him act accordingly. I never have and never will obey the dictates of party principles, or party caucuses, when by so doing, I must violate my oath as representative, betray my constituents or injure my country." If nothing made Hamer great, his sentiments before ex- pressed, and his acting up to them were sufficient. It seems that Mr. Hamer's independence of action did not hurt him with his party, for, in .1832 he was elected to congress from his district, and, moreover, he was elected as an independent candidate against Thomas Morris, the regular Democratic candidate, Owen T. Fishback, the Whig candidate, and Wil- liam Russell the anti-Jackson Democratic candidate. The vote was, Hamer, 2,069; Morris, 2,028, and Russell, 403. In Clermont County, where Morris and Fishback lived, Hamer had only 209 votes and Rus- sell 19, while Morris had 1,319 and Fishback 1,186. Hamer swept Adams and Brown counties, simply by his eloquence. Thomas Morris had been Hamer's preceptor in the study of law. Two months after this Thomas Morris was elected United States senator from Ohio, and the two took their seats at the same time, and each served six years. Both were Democats, but differed widely as to their views on slavery. Gen- eral Hamer was re-elected to congress from his district in 1834 and 1836. In the house Thomas Corwin and William Allen were among his colleagues. In the house he voted that petitions for the abolition of slavery should be laid on the table, and no further action taken on them. He declined a re-election to congress in 1838, but did not drop out of politics. His red hair and Corwin's swarthy complexion were common objects of remark in political circles of that time. There was a magic about Hamer which could be felt, but which could not be described. Every man who came within the sound of Hamer's voice could feel the spell of it, and ever afterward remember it, but could not describe the phenomenon of it. When Hamer spoke every one listened, and they gave him their exclusive and undivided attention, no matter how long he spoke. Old and young alike listened to every word, en- tranced by his voice and manner.
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