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 75
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David Sinton.
The name is Anglo-Saxon, and in the early history of the family the Sintons were found settled near the border of Scotland. The ancestors of this subject went to the north of Ireland with one of Cromwell's colonies. His father and mother were Quakers. His mother's name was McDonald. John Sinton, father of David Sinton, was married in Ireland. He resided in County Armagh, and was a linen manufacturer at the city of Armagh.
David Sinton was born January 26, 1808, and in 1811, his father and mother came to the United States in a sailing vessel, which occupied nine weeks in the voyage.
John Sinton located at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and went to mer- chandising with his brother-in-law, McDonald. In one year the partner- ship was dissolved, and Sinton removed to West Union, Ohio, where he sold goods from 1812 until 1825, at which time he closed out his business at auction.
David Sinton had two sisters and one brother; the brother, William, died at West Union, and is buried in the village cemetery there. He had
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DAVID SINTON
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studied medicine with Dr. William B. Willson, and had qualified himself for a physician, when death cut him off in his early manhood. He had just begun the practice of medicine at the time of his death. One of David Sinton's sisters never left Ireland, but married there. His other sister, who came with the remainder of the family to this country, married John Sparks, the banker, and died at Union Landing of the cholera, in 1833. Mr. and Mrs. Sparks had three children : Mary Jane, who married a McCauslen and resides near Steubenville, Ohio, and George Sparks, who resides at Clinton, Indiana. The third child died an infant at West Union, Ohio.
John Sparks was born near West Union, Ohio, in 1800, and reared there. He lived awhile in Hillsboro, when a young man, and then began merchandising in West Union, Ohio, on the corner now occupied by Miller & Bunn's drug store, and was in business there from 1820 until 1830. He went to Union Landing in 1830, and remained until 1833. He then re- turned to West Union, Ohio, and went into the banking business, where he remained until his death in April. 1847. Bates & Surtees founded the bank at West Union, Ohio. They were both from Cincinnati. The bank was an unsound concern, and when it collapsed Thomas Huston lost $13,000 by its failure.
David Sinton had the cholera at Union Landing in 1833. at the time his sister died of it, and he came very near dying of it himself.
He left West Union in his fourteenth year, and went to Sinking Springs, in Highland County, Ohio, where he went into the employment of James McCague, who kept a tavern and a country store there, and re- mained at that place two years. McCague had a branch store at Dunbar- ton, Ohio. three miles south of Peebles. David Sinton was in his six- teenth year when he kept store at Dunbarton, for three or four months. McCague was a drinking man, and his wife and Sinton attended to all the business. Sinton says that the sales in the branch store at Dunbarton were principally whiskey. On Saturday, the furnace hands from the Brush Creek Forge, Steam Furnace and Marble Furnace, gathered at Dunbarton, and got gloriously drunk. Whiskey was then about six and one-fourth cents a quart, and drunks were consequently gotten up very cheap.
David Sinton went to Cincinnati in 1824 and waited there four months before he could get any employment. In that time he improved his mind by reading Hume's History of England, and other works. Mr. Sinton thought he could have gotten employment, had he made himself "a hail fellow well met," with the young men of his own age with whom he became acquainted, and had he participated in their dissipations, but this he refused to do. He says those young men have been dead and forgotten for years. While trying to get work, he answered all advertisements, but with no success. He applied for the position of bookkeeper at Adams' Commis- sion House on Main Street, but found, on looking at their books, he could not keep them. He then went to work as a porter or laborer. He put up twenty tons of bar iron from Pittsburg, and piaced barrels of sugar in the loft. He had a difficulty with a fellow-laborer in the same house, and says : "I went to Mr. Adams, and asked him to discharge the other man. He refused to do so, and I discharged myself."
He was disgusted with Cincinnati, and concluded to go home. He went to Manchester on a steamboat, and from there he walked to West
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Union. There he received letters, asking him to return to Sinking Springs. He went there and remained with his former employer, Mc- Cague, at eight dollars per month, for two years. Then he concluded he wanted to be a capitalist. He went into partnership with a Methodist preacher, and bought a still-house for one hundred and fifty dollars. He ran the still until he paid his debts, and then being ashamed of the busi- ness, he sold out. He guarded a prisoner for nine days in 1826 and got twenty dollars for it, and then concluded to go to Cincinnati.
There he opened out a commission house for John Sparks, his brother- in-law, and Daniel Boyle, of West Union, but the venture was not success- ful, and the house was closed in six months. He then went to Washing- ton C. H., in the employ of Dr. Boyd, to take charge of a store. He re- mained there six months at twenty-five dollars per month. Then he re- ceived an offer to go to Hanging Rock at four hundred dollars per year. He left Washington C. H., and went to West Union to consult his brother- in-law, John Sparks. He offered Sparks to go to Union Furnace for two hundred dollars per year, and his board. The offer was accepted, and he went to Union Furnace Landing, where he kept store, and sold pig iron. He was there three years. The firm was James Rogers & Co. Rogers soon sold out, and the firm became John Sparks & Co., and Sinton became manager of the furnace at four hundred dollars per year, when other fur- naces were paying one thousand dollars per year for the same service. Union Furnace had cost seven thousand dollars, but was much in debt. Sinton made the furnace put out five hundred tons of iron per year, and made it pay dividends. The output was mostly hollow-ware. Sinton wanted to push the business. He leased the furnace at a rental of five thousand dollars per year for five years. The stack fell down, and the bars gave out. While rebuilding the stack, he bought great quantities of wood, and had it stored about the furnace. Before the stack was rebuilded, the wood caught fire, and was all consumed. Sinton was then twenty- eight years of age, and financially broken up. He had been up three days and nights fighting fire, and was utterly discouraged. He thought he would go to Mexico, but lay down and slept eighteen consecutive hours. Twice before he had lost all he had, and he concluded he would try it again. The men who had brought in the wood, and worked at the furnace, wanted their money. Sinton professed his ability to pay, and the men were paid as they came up, in as small bills and change as could be used so as to consume as much time as possible in settling and making payment. He had one thousand dollars in small bills and change, and managed it so that he only paid out one hundred dollars on the first day of the run. The run continued until the third day, when one of the men put a stop to it by tell- ing the others they were all fools, and then they brought their money back.
After the furnace started up, Sinton sold iron at thirty-five dollars per ton, which he made at a cost of ten dollars per ton. At that time the furnace made six tons per day. David Sinton built Ohio Furnace during his lease on Union Furnace. It made ten tons per day, and Sinton ran it a year before his lease terminated on Union Furnace. Union Furnace was then put up and sold in partition, and David Sinton and Thomas W. Means bought it. They then owned and ran both Ohio and Union Furnace.
David Sinton went to Cincinnati in 1849, where he has resided ever since. He was married at Union Landing 10 Jane Ellison, daughter of
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John Ellison, of Adams County, Ohio, and sister to the wife of his partner, Thomas W. Means. There were two children of this marriage, Edward, who died, unmarried, at the age of twenty-one, and the wife of the Hon, Charles P. Taft, of the Times-Star, of Cincinnati. Mrs. Jane Sinton died in 1853, at Manchester, Ohio, and is buried there. David Sinton never remarried.
Mr. Sinton's father died at West Union, Ohio, Sunday, June 28, 1835, at the age of seventy-one, of that dread scourge, the Asiatic cholera. There were seven other deaths that day at the same place, and of the same dis- ease, and it was the first day of the outbreak of the pestilence at West Union. David Sinton was then at Union Landing, and was notified by messenger, but, as was the custom at that time in cholera cases, John Sin- ton was buried the same day he died, and when Mr. Sinton reached West . Union, his father had been buried two days. Mr. Sinton's mother sur- vived until 1866, when she died at the ripe age of eighty-five.
When the War of 1861 broke out, pig-iron was eighteen dollars per ton, and David Sinton had seven thousand tons on hand. Many thought he was ruined, but he held on to that iron until it went up to seventy-five dollars per ton, when he sold it. When iron rose in price, he continued making it, and selling it for cash. In 1863, he began putting his money in Cincinnati real estate. That real estate, bought with the proceeds of iron sold at seventy-five dollars per ton, advanced until it made its owner one hundred and twenty-five dollars per ton for all the iron he sold at seventy-five dollars per ton.
During the war, his two furnaces made thirty tons of iron per day for every day they ran.
Mr. Sinton attributes his great fortune to judicious investments of the money he made in the manufacture and sale of pig-iron, at the begin- ning of, and during the late Civil War.
In Cincinnati, he has taken an active interest in many of the leading enterprises, and he has erected many substantial and elegant buildings there. He has made a number of munificent public gifts. He presented $100,000 to the Union Bethel and $33,000 to the Young Men's Christian Association. ,He is entirely a self-made man. He is noted for his strong cominon sense and self-reliance. In business matters, his litigations, his conclusions and his manner of execution are his own. He may be said to be self-educated. His readings on all topics have been extensive. In literature, science and history he is well informed, retaining all of any value he ever read, and being able to converse on all subjects with great interest to his listeners.
Mr. Sinton was a Whig and has been a Republican in his political views, but never took any active interest in political matters. During the war, he was a strong Union man and did all he could with his influence and means to sustain the Government. His practical religion is justice, charity and good will to all men. In private relations, he is characterized by his kindness and benevolence.
Since the above was written Mr. Sinton made the princely gift of $100,000 unconditionally to the University of Cincinnati. He died August 31, 1900.
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Col. Samuel King Stivers,
eldest son of John Stivers, the pioneer, and Martha Neel, was born near the junction of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela Rivers, Westmore- land County, Pennsylvania February 18, 1787. In 1799, he came with his parents first to Bourbon County, Kentucky, and afterwards to Adams County, Ohio, settling on Brier Ridge. Here he helped his father to "clear out" a farm, earning some money himself by teaching school. At the beginning of the War of 1812, he volunteered as a Private in Captain Josiah Lockhart's Company of Colonel James Trimble's Regiment under General Duncan McArthur, and was surrendered to the British by General Hull, at Detroit, August 16, 1812. After his parole, he came home ; but learning that his brother, James, had volunteered in a Kentucky regiment, he at once hastened to Maysville and re-enlisted in Captain Simmons' Com- pany of Colonel William E. Boswell's Regiment. He served under Gen- eral Greene Clay in Harrison's Campaign, and commanded a "Spy Com- pany" in Colonel Boswell's Regiment of Kentucky Militia at the battle of the "Rapids of the Maumee," May 5, 1813. He took part in the action under Colonel Dudley, and was made a prisoner of war after the lat- ter's defeat and death. Knowing his certain fate should he be recognized by his former captors, he assumed the name of "Samuel Bradford" and was under that name discharged. He was one of the number that es- caped the tomahawks of the Indians through the timely arrival of Tecum- seh, while confined in the blockhouse at Malden. After his release by the British, he returned to Adams County, and soon afterwards married Miss Mary Creed, a daughter of Mathew Creed, who had come from Monroe County, Virginia, to Rocky Fork, Highland County, Ohio, in 1804. About the time of his marriage he was elected a Justice of the Peace in Sprigg Township, which position he held until his removal from the county in 1818. He lived for a time on a farm near the residence of his father-in- law, and then removed to Russellville, Brown County, where he followed surveying and school teaching until 1829, when he settled on a farm of three hundred and fifty acres one mile north of the present village of Fin- castle. Here he resided until his death, August 7, 1864. His widow sur- vived until November, 1867, having been born in 1790. Samuel K. Stivers was widely known as a surveyor and civil engineer. He held the rank of Colonel, in the old State Militia, and had a large circle of warm political friends, among whom was Hon. Thomas L. Hamer, the peer of Tom Cor- win in the field of political oratory. He was a Democrat of the old school, a Breckenridge Democrat in 1860, and lived and died a member of the "New Light" or Christian Church.
Among his warm personal friends were Gen. Nathaniel Beasley, Judge George Barrere, Colonel James Trimble and Dr. Lilly, and he named the four sons of his family, Beasley, Barrere, Trimble and Lilly. And his wife named the three daughters for her best friends, Amanda Carlisle, her cousin ; Elizabeth Brockway, and Mary Creed, herself. He and his wife are buried in the old Earl Cemetery near Fincastle, Ohio.
Thomas Scott
was born on the thirty-first day of September, 1772, at Old Town or Skip- ton, at the junction of the north and south branches of the Potomac River. He came of that sturdy Scotch-Irish stock which has furnished very many
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remarkable and valuable men to the bar, army, navy and legislature of Amer- ica. His grandparents emigrated to the United States very soon after the battle of the Boyne and settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, from whence the father of Judge Scott removed to and settled in Virginia.
In May, 1796, Mr. Scott married Catherine, daughter of Robert and Catherine Dorsey Wood. He very early connected himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church throughout his long life. He was licensed a preacher when only seventeen years of age by Bishop Asbury, and was ordained at eighteen. At this period of life, Mr. Scott fully intended to devote himself to the ministry, and he prudently learned the tailoring trade so as to be sure of the necessaries of life while in charge of the then very poor and scattered flocks of the Methodist Church.
In 1793, he was placed in charge of the Ohio Circuit, and in 1794, was sent as delegate to a conference held in Lexington, Kentucky. By this time he had resolved to study law, and he began reading under the aus- pics of James Brown, of Lexington. But he was so poor that he was com- pelled to labor at tailoring much the preater portion of the time. In this strait, his wife (who, beside possessing in an eminent degree, all the noble attributes of womanhood, was an unusually well educated and intellectual lady) sat beside his work and read to him "Blackstone," "Coke upon Little- ton," and the other law books usually put into the hands of law students in those days. Whether licensed to practice or not, and it does not appear that he was, he certainly appeared as a lawyer in the courts of Flemings- burg, Kentucky, and even prosecuted for the State in 1799 and 1800. Early in 1801, he came to Chillicothe, Ohio, and there was licensed to prac- tice law in June, 1801. In the following winter, he was Clerk of the Ter- ritorial Legislature. In November (from the first to the twenty-ninth), he was the Secretary of the Constitutional Convention. In January, 1803, he was commissioned Prothonotary of Common Pleas, which he held until the reorganization of the Courts, and in April of that year, he was Clerk of the Common Pleas, pro tempore, and candidate for the permanent clerk- ship, but was defeated for the position by John McDougal. He was then commissioned the first Justice of the Peace of the county and continued in that position for three or four years, although, meanwhile, he practiced in Common Pleas, and was also Prosecuting Attorney in 1803 and 1804.
In the Fall of 1805, he was chosen Clerk of the Ohio Senate, and con- tinued such, by successive annual elections until 1809, when he was elected to the Supreme Bench of the State, upon which he remained with good credit, until 1815. He was then Register of Public Lands from 1829 to 1845. When, after the "era of good feeling" which existed during Mon- roe's administration, men began to divide up again on political questions, Judge Scott took his place with the Republican party. But President Adams, having made him the promise to appoint him District Judge of the United States for Ohio and this having been prevented by the interference of Clay, who obtained the place for another, Judge Scott immediately be- came a zealous and active Jackson Democrat. He continued his affiliation with the Democracy until 1840, when he went over again to his old partisan friends, then called Whigs, and supported General Harrison's candidacy. He remained a Whig during the remainder of his life, but strongly sym- pathized with the anti-slavery movement which gave birth to the present Republican party. We must not forget to mention that in all the vicis-
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situdes of his long and busy life, he continued to fill the pulpit of the Methodist Church whenever called to supply it as a "local preacher."
He died February 13, 1856, at the age of eighty-three, and at that time had been longer in the active practice of law than any other person in Ohio, and probably, longer a preacher of the Gospel than any minister in the United States. His excellent wife survived him about two years. As a lawyer, Judge Scott was painstaking, laborious and precise to a remarkable degree. Some of his briefs are marvels of patient research and also of prolixity. He had a wide reputation for learning, in the laws of realty especially, and was employed abroad in some very important cases, and for his services, received a few large fees.
It will be noticed that in the foregoing sketch of his life, that, true to the instincts of the Virginian, Judge Scott loved official distinction. No position was too high for his solicitation, and none too humble for his acceptance. As a husband and a father, never was mortal man more gentle, affectionate and provident.
Peter Schultz
was one of the first citizens of West Union. He was first in a double sense. He was on the ground when the town was organized, and he was first in enterprise and public spirit while he remained a citizen of the town. He was born in New Jersey in 1779. In 1800, he removed with his parents to Pennsylvania. In 1804, he was married to Elizabeth Jones, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and immediately emigrated to Adams County. He attended the sale of lots in West Union, May 17, 1804, and bought lots 4, 5, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and paid $244.00 for them. On lots 21 and 22. in 1805, he built a tannery and operated it until about 1826. He was one of the foremost business men of West Union. He was not only content to buy hides, tan them and sell leather, but he started up a saddle and harness factory. He made his leather into saddles, harness and shoes, and kept a number of men employed in manufacturing these articles.
Rev. James B. Finley preached the first sermon ever delivered in West Union by a Methodist minister, at the home of Peter Schultz. John W. Campbell was present and took notes in shorthand.
In 1807, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church under the min- istry of the Rev. John Collins, and from that time until the day of his death was a most zealous, earnest Christian. 'He organized the first Methodist Society in West Union, and for the want of a church, it met at his house. He took a very active part in promoting the interest of the village, the county and of the Methodist Church. He accumulated con- siderable property while in West Union, and reared a large family. His children were Charlotte, John, Lucy, Joseph, David, William, Abbott, Ellen, Robert, Asbury and John Wilson Campbell. Four of them were married in Adams County. Charlotte married William Compton ; John married Rhoda Burdage and Lucy married Charles Mick. Joseph mar- ried Elizabeth Mick. Ellen died in childhood. Having so large a family, he determined to move to Indiana, where he could purchase more land and better than he could obtain in Adams County. He gained quite a good-sized fortune, but lost a good part of it by security debts. But with his wonderful energy and by industry and economy, he accumulated
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another fortune. In Indiana, as in Ohio, he made a church of his home, and was as zealous a worker in the church in Indiana as he had been in Ohio. He died October 24, 1848. After his death, his widow refused $25,000 for the farm in which she resided, and there was much other prop- erty beside.
Peter Schultz was a man of energy and industry. He was the soul of integrity and honor. He was generous to every good cause and was loved by all who knew him. He never took any part in politics, but de- voted his whole time to business and to good works in the church and community.
Rev. David Steele, D. D.
Among the early settlers of Adams County, Ohio, Rev. David Steele, D. D., occupies a prominent place. He was born near Londonderry, Ire- land, on the second day of November, 1803, and was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He was the youngest of six brothers, whose father, David Steele, was the fourth generation from Captain John Steele of Lismahago, near Glasgow, Scotland, and who fought on the side of the Covenanters in the battle of Drumclog, June 22, 1679. Descended from such stock, as might be expected, he was trained up according to the strict order observant in Covenanting families. He received his academical education on the old wall of Londonderry, famous in history because of its siege in 1688 and 1689. When about twenty years of age, he emigrated to the United States, arriving in Philadelphia, June 7, 1824. After spending a short time with an uncle in Pennsylvania, he taught school in the first academy erected in Edinsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the meantime pursuing his classical and other studies. Entering the Western University of Pennsylvania as a Senior, he graduated from that institution in 1826. After studying theology with the late Dr. John Black, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he was licensed to preach the Gospel, April, 1830. The following year, on May 4th, he was married to Miss Eliza Johnston, of Chillicothe, Ohio, and one month afterward, he was ordained and installed Pastor of the Reformed Congregation of Brush Creek by the Ohio Pres- bytery at a salary of four hundred dollars a year. When he settled on Brush Creek, the place was a wilderness, and he and his young wife found everything primitive and uncongenial to educated and refined living.
Thousands of miles he traveled on horseback yearly, having often to ford rivers when he had to get on his knees on the saddle to keep from being saturated with water as there were few bridges in those days. For twenty-nine years, he labored in this congregation upon a salary that was hardly sufficient to procure the necessaries of life. Although a little below medium in stature, he was possessed of an excellent constitution and this enabled him to bear up under difficulties which would have been too great for others. As a scholar, he was far above most of his compeers, particularly in the ancient classics, as he could read the most difficult Latin and Greek authors at sight. He was thoroughly versed in theology and his "Notes on the Apocalypse" show that he was a master in the exposition of the Bible truth. He was instrumental in training quite a number of young men for the Gospel Ministry. His home was the re- sort of all educated people, who came to the neighborhood, and hospitality was a marked feature of his house. It is but proper to state that his wife 40a
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