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 37
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Not only was he a speaker, but he was a writer as well, furnishing many articles for the press of his party, and at the same time he carried
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on an extensive correspondence with the most distinguished men of the nation. He remained out of public life until March 4, 1839, simply because he chose to, and not because it was the wish of his constitu- ents and party friends. On October 3, 1845, President Polk tendered him the office of commissioner of Indian affairs, but he declined it. In the summer of 1846 he was renominated to congress by the district composed of Clermont, Brown, and Highland counties. When the president called for 50,000 volunteers for the Mexican army, Hamer rode over his district, addressed meetings, and, by his wonderful elo- quence, aroused the war spirit. He himself volunteered as a private soldier in the company of his son-in-law, Captain Johnson. When the first Ohio regiment was organized at Camp Washington, he was elected major. On June 29, 1846, President Polk appointed him a brigadier general of volunteers, principally at the instigation of Con- gressman J. T. McDowell, whom Hamer succeeded. The appointment did not reach General Hamer until June 24, 1846, and his commission did not reach him until August 1, 1846, at Camp Belknap, Texas. Gen. Taylor, in preparing for the attack on Monterey, arranged to allow none but southern volunteers and regular troops to participate. In a council of war, when this was proposed, Gen. Hamer protested and in- sisted that his brigade should have a part in the storming of Monterey, where, it is said, it performed prodigies of valor and won immortal re- nown. On the second Tuesday of October, 1846, Gen. Hamer was re- elected to congress in his district without opposition. After Monterey, he commanded a division; but there was one thing that he could not endure. His constitution could not stand the trying climate of Mexico. Every northern soldier had to go through the process of acclimatiza- tion and have a spell of fever. Gen. Hamer was unwell from the time he landed in Mexico, but he was only dangerously ill a week previous to his death. He died on the night of December 21, 1846, near Monte- rey. He was interred with all the honors of war in a cemetery near the place of his death. At that time the Ohio Legislature met in December, and on December 31, 1846,' Andrew Ellison, a lawyer of Georgetown, and a member of the house from Brown County, intro- duced resolutions as to the death of Gen. Hamer. This was on Wednes- day. The resolutions provided that the speakers of the houses should procure a suitable person to pronounce a eulogy on the life, character, and public services of the deceased before the legislature ; that the body of Gen. Hamer should be brought back and interred in Ohio soil at the expense of the state, and both houses agreed to the resolutions and ad- journed to the next Saturday out of respect to the memory of the de- ceased. On January 6, 1847, the house resolved that Gen. John J. Higgins, of Brown (a brother-in-law of Gen. Hamer), James H. Thompson, of Highland, and James C. Kennedy, of Clermont, be ap- pointed commissioners to carry the house resolutions into effect, and they were to draw on the treasury for their expenses.' The senate con- curred in the resolution at once. When Hamer's body reached Georgetown, he was accorded the grandest funeral ever given to any citizen, except our martyred president. Hon. David T. Disney pro- nounced the oration at the funeral. Hon. James H. Thomp- son, of Hillsboro, Ohio, one of the commissioners, was present at the
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funeral. He has been asked to describe it, but does not think he has the eloquence or the pathos to do the subject justice. With the weight of his years, he cannot command the inspiration he thinks the subject demands. In several visits to Georgetown, I sought to obtain the original documents, books and writings, which would have shed a won- derful light on Hamer's career and life, but every avenue seemed closed to me, and reluctant as I am to give up the subject, I am compelled to let oblivion claim and hold many facts which it would have been well for posterity to have preserved.
There is a parallel between the lives of General Hamer and Gen. Franklin Pierce, president of the United States, that is more than re- markable. Hamer was born in 1800, Pierce in 1804. Hamer was a farmer's son and so was Pierce. The latter, however, secured a good college education, which the former lacked. At the time, Hamer had been two years in the Ohio legislature, Pierce was admitted to the bar. In 1829, Pierce entered the legislature of New Hampshire as a Jackson Democrat, and he served in the legislature four years, two of which he was speaker of the house. In 1825, 1828, and 1829, Hamer was in the Ohio legislature, the last two years of which he was speaker. Hamer was in the lower house of congress from 1833 to 1839. Pierce en- tered the lower house in 1833 and served four years. He spoke and voted against receiving petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and so did Hamer. In 1833, Pierce entered the United States senate from his state and retired from that in 1842. At this point, there is contrast, and not comparison between the two. In the National Legislature, the two stood alike on the slavery question. When the Mexican war broke out in 1846, the same military spirit was shown by Pierce as by Hamer. Pierce enlisted as a private, so did Hamer, and, like the latter, went about everywhere making war speeches. Pierce, like Hamer, was soon after elected to office, being appointed colonel of the Ninth Regiment of Infantry of his state. Like Hamer, Pierce was made a brigadier general, dated March 3, 1847. He did not reach Mexico until June 28, 1847, and in the war displayed the same personal bravery, the same spirit of self-sacrifice and the same devotion to the men of his command as did General Hamer. Both Hamer and Pierce were men of pleasant appearance, of excellent address ; both were fond of neat and elegant apparel; both had a charm in social intercourse, and both were eloquent advocates. Each had a clear, musical voice, graceful and impressive gesticulation, and each could kindle the blood of his hearers, or melt them to tears by pathos. Each had a natural oratory that had an inimitable charm of its own, and each had a wonderful natural kindness of heart. Pierce's oratory had more of the polish of education while Hamer's had the fire of nature. Each had an intuitive knowledge of human nature, but Hamer was a diligent student, while Pierce was not. Each had a wonderful and remarkable popularity in his own district and state. Each could attract, hold, move and sway audiences by the power of oratory. Hamer's power of oratory had to be felt to be appreciated. It could not be described in words, and the same was true of Pierce, though there was more of nature and less of art in Hamer's oratory. Had Hamer lived and continued the promise of his life, as no doubt he
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would, in 1852, he would have been the nominee of his party for presi- dent, instead of General Pierce. Every one who knew Hamer has ex- pressed that thought, and what every one felt would no doubt have been carried out. In 1852, the conditions were such that the Demo- crats were bound to nominate a northern man and one of a military reputation. General Pierce barely filled the military requirements, but had Hamer lived, he would before then have been governor of the state or United States senator and would have filled the requirements of his party better than General Pierce, and would have been the nominee of his party for president.
Thus death robbed Brown County, Ohio, of the opportunity of furnishing a president, but by a singular coincidence, General Grant, whom Hamer had appointed from Brown County, Ohio, as a cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838, became president of the United States in 1869. Thus, while Hamer did not live to become president of the United States, as surely he would have been, yet he shaped the career of a boy of his own village, so that this boy afterward became the president of the United States. Even in the appointment of the boy Grant, as a cadet, Hamer showed himself cf noble mind.
Jesse R. Grant, young Grant's father, was not friendly to Hamer, so much so that he could not and would not ask Hamer to make the appointment, but got Gen. James Loudon, father of Col. D. W. C. Loudon, of Georgetown, to obtain the appointment for him, which General Loudon did. Hamer did not know young Grant's real name but took it to be Ulysses Simpson, and sent it in that way, when really it was Hiram Ulysses. When Grant found that he was appointed as Ulysses Simpson Grant, he adopted that name and used it ever after.
William Doane
was born in Maine. He received a public school education. He re- moved to Ohio and filled several local offices. He was elected to the twenty-sixth Congress as a Democrat, and re-elected to the twen- ty-seventh Congress. He served from December 2, 1839, to March 3, 1843. He represented the sixth district, composed of Highland, Brown, Clermont and Adams counties. He was a resident of Clermont County. and a physician.
General Joseph T. McDowell
was born in Burke County, North Carolina, November 13, 1800. He removed to Ohio in 1824 and located on a farm about seven miles north of Hillsboro. In 1829, he located in Hillsboro, and engaged in the mercantile business until 1835, when he was admitted to the bar by a special act of the legislature, and began the practice of his pro- fession. In 1836, he formed a partnership with Col. William O. Col- lins, and followed the profession until 1843.
He was a member of the thirty-first general assembly from Highland County. In the thirty-second general assembly, December 2, 1833, to March 3, 1834, he was a member of the state senate representing Highland and Fayette counties. He represented the same constituency in the thirty-third general assembly in the senate
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from December 1, 1834, to March 9, 1835. He represented the seventh district of Ohio in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth congresses. This district was composed of Adams, Brown, Clermont and Highland counties. He resumed his law practice after his return from congess, and also engaged in farming. He died January 17, 1877.
He was an earnest and eloquent man, true to his instincts, faithful in the discharge of duty, and was honored and respected by the com- munity as a Christian gentleman, and died in the faith of which he was in later life a defender.
Jonathan D. Morris
began the practice of law in Clermont County, Ohio, in 1828. In 1831, he was appointed clerk of the courts, which position he held un- +11 1846, and in 1847 he was elected to congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of General Thomas L. Hamer, and was re-elected in 1849.
He was a faithful, conscientious and popular official and for a quar- ter of a century exerted a controlling influence in his county's history, being a leader of political opinion and a man in whom the public re- posed great confidence.
Nelson Barrere
was born near Newmarket, Highland County, Ohio, April 1, 1808, and was the seventh of twelve children. His father was George W. Bar- rere, a very prominent citizen of Highland County. He was a deputy surveyor, justice of the peace, member of the Ohio senate nine years, and an associate judge of Highland County for fourteen years. He was in the Indian War, 1791-1795. Was in St. Clair's defeat and Wayne's victory. He was also in the War of 1812 at Hull's surrender, and was in every public enterprise in Highland County until his death in 1839. His son, Nelson, lived on the farm until eighteen years of age and at- tended school in the winters. He spent a year in the Hillsboro High School and in 1827 entered the freshman class at Augusta College. He graduated from there in 1830, finishing a four years' course in three and a half years.
In 1831, he began the study of law in Hillsboro with Judge John W. Price and was admitted to the bar on December 23, 1833. He opened an office in Hillsboro and remained there nine months. He located in West Union in 1834, forming a partnership with Samuel Brush. This partnership continued for a year. He remained in West Union eleven years altogether and had a large and lucrative practice. He had the confidence of the people. He represented Adams County in the lower house of the legislature at the thirty-sixth legislative ses- sion from December 4, 1837, to March 4, 1838. In 1846, he removed his residence to Highland County and continued there until his death. In the thirty-seventh congress, he represented the sixth district, com- posed of Adams, Clermont, Brown and Highland counties from March 4, 1851, to March 4, 1853. In 1853, he was the Whig candidate for governor, but was defeated, receiving 85,847 votes, while his competi- tor, William Medill, received 147,663. When the Whig party dis- solved, he went over to the Democratic party, in which he remained during the remainder of his life, but during the Civil War, he sup- ported the Republican administration. In 1870, he was a candidate
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GEN. JOSEPH R. COCKERILL
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for congress on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated. He was the Democratic candidate from Highland County for member of the con- stitutional convention in 1875 and was defeated by one vote. He never married. He continued in the active practice of the law until his death, which occurred August 20, 1883.
In Adams County, during his residence there, he was very pop- ular. He was always conspicuous for his public spirit. As a lawyer he was energetic and industrious. He was a safe and reliable counsellor and an eloquent and successful advocate. He was always agreeable and courteous in his manners. In West Union, he formed many warm friendships, and he, Joseph Allen Wilson, Davis Darlinton and others had a club at Darlinton's store, to which they resorted of evenings and spent many pleasant hours. Joseph West Lafferty and John Fisher, of Cedar Mills, were two of his most particular friends in Adams County.
Joseph Randolph Cockerill
was born in Loudon County, Virginia, January 2, 1818. His father's name was Daniel Cockerill, of whom there is a separate sketch in this book, and his mother was Esther Craven. His father's family emi- grated to Adams County, Ohio, in 1837, and located near Youngsville, in Scott Township. After coming to Ohio, he taught school for a while and afterwards in 1840 was elected county surveyor. In the same year he was married to Ruth Eylar, daughter of Judge Joseph Eylar, of Winchester, Ohio.
From 1840 to 1846, he was a school teacher and surveyor. In 1846, when Gen. Joseph Darlinton's term expired as clerk of the court of common pleas, Joseph R. Cockerill was appointed his successor, and as such served until the new constitution was adopted. He was elected to the fiftieth general assembly of Ohio, the first held under the new constitution. In this legislature, he was chairman of the committee on corporations, and as such drew that part of our revised statutes on corporations, which remains on the statute books today, substantially as he drew it, a monument to his knowledge as a lawyer.
On returning from the legislature, he studied law, and was ad- mitted to the bar. In 1856, he was elected a member of the thirty-fifth congress from the sixth district of Ohio, composed of Adams, High- land, Brown and Clermont.
The writer remembers him as a lawyer prior to the Civil War. As a boy, for the first time, he went into the court house to listen to a trial. There was a party on trial for stealing watches. David Thomas was prosecuting and Cockerill defending. After hearing Thomas' opening argument, the writer concluded the defendant was guilty. Then after hearing Cockerill's argument, he was fully convinced that the defendant was innocent and ought to be acquitted.
In 1860, Mr. Cockerill was elected a delegate to the Charleston convention and attended. E. P. Evans offered to pay his expenses if he would take several copies of the New York Tribune and let it be known he was carrying them, but the offer was not entertained. In the split which ensued, Mr. Cockerill adhered to the Douglas wing of the party. When the war came on, Mr. Cockerill was fired with
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patriotism. He had no sympathy with the south, and thought the rebellion should be suppressed in the most vigorous manner.
On October 2, 1861, he was commissioned by Gov. Todd to organ- ize the 70th Ohio Infantry Regiment, as its colonel. The camp of rendezvous was fixed at West Union, Ohio, and was called' Camp Hamer.
The regiment was raised in the counties of Adams and
Brown. £ While it was organizing at West Union, Reuben Smith, from Oliver Township, came to West Union, got enthused and expressed treasonable sentiments. Col. Cockerill at once had him arrested and sent under a guard of the soldiers to the probate court where he was compelled to take the oath of allegiance. Once during the war, prob- ably in 1862, Col. Cockerill was at home for a few days. During the time, there was a Democratic county convention in the court house and the war policy of the government was under discussion. Squire Jacob Rose, of Green Township, was speaking. He favored peace, and in his remarks, held out his right hand and said, "We must approach our southern brethren with the olive branch in the right hand." Then he extended his left hand and said, "We must also approach them with the olive branch in the left hand." Col. Cockerill was sitting in the audience in his full colonel's uniform and when Squire Rose extended his left hand, the colonel sprang to his feet and extended both his arms, shook his fists at Rose, and said in most emphatic tones, "No, we must approach them with a sword in each hand." Col. Cockerill displayed great bravery in the battle of Shiloh, and was a model officer. Most of the time he commanded a brigade. His merits as officer entitled him to have been made a brigadier general. Gen. Sherman said of him at Shiloh that "he behaved with great gallantry and kept his men better together than any colonel in my division and was with me from first to last." His promotion was several times recommended by Generals Grant and Sherman. They were prompted to do this from observation of his conduct on the field of battle, but for some reasons not now known to us, but not creditable to the authorities at Washington, his promotion was not made, though so richly deserved. Congress how- ever, afterwards, gave him the brevet of brigadier general in recogni- tion of the merit which should have given him the office.
When Col. Cockerill saw that justice would not be done him, he resigned and came home. He was always popular with his own soldiers and with all soldiers who knew him and had the admiration and re- spect of all his fellow officers. He never broke his political ties with the Democratic party and in 1864, after returning home, continued to act with that party, though he was never at any time a Peace Demo- crat. He had many Republican friends who were of opinion that when the war broke out, he should have gone over to the Republi- can party. Had he done so, no doubt he would have been speedily promoted and might have had any office in the gift of the Republi- can party of his state. His Republican friends believed he would have been governor of the state had he joined that party in 1862 or earlier. His own party sent him to the legislature from 1868 to 1872, and he had a most excellent record as a busy, useful and working member.
In 1871, he was a candidate for state auditor on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated.
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He was a man of independent, broad and liberal views. In public affairs, he was always actuated by the principles of right and justice, looking to the general welfare and not to any local advantage. Charity, benevolence, and liberality were prominent traits in his character. He was public spirited in all things.
His public and private life were each without reproach. As a social companion, he was always agreeable and entertaining. He knew every one in his county, knew all their faults and foibles and all their good qualities. He had a fund of entertaining ancedotes which was inexhaustible. As a conversationalist, he had no superior. A fact once acquired by him was always ready for use and he knew more of the history of Adams County than any man of his time. He should have written the history and it is unfortunate for the county he did not. By his death much valuable information about citizens and events in the county has been lost. He was a born soldier. As a courtier and diplomat, he would have been successful. As soldier, lawyer, states- man, citizen, he was successful and merited the approbation of his co- temporaries and will merit that of posterity. His family consisted of three sons and two daughters. His eldest son was an officer in the 24th O. V. I. and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He died at the early age of twenty-eight, after the close of the war. His second son, John, was also a soldier of the Civil War and became a journalist of world wide fame. His second daughter, Sallie, married Lieut. W. R. Stewart of the 70th O. V. I., and both she and her husband are dead. Their only son, a young man, was lost at sea, washed overboard off Cape Horn. The eldest daughter, Esther, married John Campbell, M. D., who was a captain in the 70th O. V. I. and is now in the em- ployment of the Equitable Insurance Company at No. 328 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She too, has drank the cup of sor- row, in the loss of her only son, Joseph Randolph, an ensign in the navy, who died in the service of his country, during the Spanish War, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere. Surely the family of Joseph R. Cockerill have shown their love of country.
He departed this life on the twenty-third of August, 1875, at the early age of fifty-seven, but his life was in deeds, not in years.
William Howard
was born in Jefferson County, Virginia, December 31, 1817. His father removed to Wheeling, West Virginia. He lived on a farm until the age of fifteen. He learned the saddlery trade in West Virginia. In 1835, he removed to Augusta, Kentucky, where he entered Augusta College, and graduated in 1839. He was very proficient in mathe- matics and studied surveying. He supported himself while in Augusta College by working five hours each day at his trade. He studied law under Hon. Martin Marshall, and was admitted in 1840, and located at Batavia. He was prosecuting attorney of Clermont County from 1845 to 1849. In 1849 he was state senator from Brown and Clermont coun- ties. In 1858he waselected to congress forthe district for Adams, Brown Clermont and Highland counties. He took strong grounds for the pre- servation of the Union while in congress. He was elected as a Democrat. He served asalieutenant in the Mexican War, Co. C, 2d Ohio Regiment.
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He went into the War of 1861 as major of the 59th O. V. I., and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He resigned in 1863 owing to ill health. He was a zealous Methodist. He was married January 29, 1852, to Amaratha C. Botsford. He had a son, William Howard, who died in his twenty-third year, and a son, John Joliffe Howard. His wife died July 13, 1875, and he married November 27, 1877, Mrs. Har- riet A. Broadwell. He died Sunday, June 1, 1890.
Hon. Wells A. Hutchins
represented Adams County as a part of the eleventh congressional dis- trict in congress from March 4, 1863, until March 4, 1865. He was born October 7, 1818, in Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio. His father Asa Hutchins, and his mother, Hannah Bushnell, were from Hartford, Connecticut, so that Mr. Hutchins was a true blue Connecticut West- ern Reserve Yankee. His father was colonel in the War of 1812, but he died at the early age of forty-five, leaving his widow with eight children, of whom our subject was one, at the age of twelve years. The year following his father's death, he worked on a farm for $25 for his entire services for a year, and from that time on, was dependent upon himself for a livelihood. He had a quick, active mind and made the best use of the opportunities of education about him. At the age of eighteen he had qualified himself for a school teacher, and at that time went to Corydon, Indiana, where he taught a select school for eighteen months. During this period he saved from his salary $900, took it home, and with that he began the study of law. He read law with the Honorables John Hutchins and John Crowell at Warren and was ad- mitted in 1841. He immediately went to Portsmouth, where he was an entire stranger, and set himself up to practice law. , He was instinct- ively a lawyer. He loved the profession and naturally succeeded in it. For a while after he came to Portsmouth, he edited a newspaper, or spent part of his time at that.
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