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 76

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101

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 76

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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co-operated heartily with him in all his plans for the elevation and culture of all who dwelt in the vicinity of Brush Creek. His influence for sound morality, godly living and consistent Christianity was felt far and wide and left its impress upon the whole community. Brush Creek owes much in culture and refinement to the early settlement of him and his wife. As an orator, Rev. Steele was concise, clear and frequently eloquent and im- passioned, and his discrimination in the use of words showed his mastery of the English language. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from his Alma Mater a few years before his death.

After leaving Ohio, he spent several years in Illinois near Sparta. The remainder of his life was spent in Philadelphia, and he died in the fifty-fourth year of his ministry at the age of eighty-four. His remains lie in the cemetery of Petersburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

John Sparks, the Banher,

was born in 1790 in Pennsylvania. He came to Adams County with his parents when a child and they located just east of where West Union was afterwards located. When a young man, he lived in Hillsboro. He began the business of merchandising in West Union on the corner now occupied by the present post office building, northeast corner of Main and Market Streets, in about 1820, and continued in that business until 1830, when he went to Union Landing, where he remained until the death of his wife in 1833. He returned to West Union in that year and went into the banking business and continued his residence in West Union until the thirty-first of July, 1847, when he died, and was buried in Lovejoy Cemetery. He was twice married. His first wife was Johanna Kelvey. She died Sep- tember 26, 1823, aged twenty-three. She left a daughter who survived to the age of thirteen years. He was married to Sarah Sinton, sister of David Sinton, of Cincinnati, October 2, 1828, by the Rev. Dyer Burgess. who signed his name to the marriage record, "V. D. M."

While in the dry-goods business at West Union, he was in partnership at one time with Thomas W. Means, under the name of Sparks & Means. They were also the owners of Union Furnace. George Collings, the father of Judge Henry Collings, and John Sparks once owned and con- ducted a queensware store at Maysville, Kentucky. Mr. Sparks afterward sold his interest to a Mr. Pemberton.

Mr. Sparks had been a banker in West Union but a short time when he became a merchant. He was a man of great personal popularity in the county, and although often solicited, he would never consent to run for public office at a time when almost everybody did run for office. He loaned money and helped a great many men. John Fisher remarked of him that he was the best friend he ever had. John Loughry, of Rock- ville, said the same thing. Most of his life was spent in merchandising pursuits in Adams County. There were three children of this second mar- riage-one died in infancy, another is Mrs. Mary J. McCauslen, widow of Hon. Thomas McCauslen, of Steubenville, who has a separate sketch herein, and the third is George B. Sparks, a farmer, of Clinton, Indiana.

The esteem in which he was held by the citizens of Adams County was expressed at the time of his funeral. He is said to have had the largest funeral ever held in the county. Everybody turned out to show respect to his memory.

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Rev. Robert Stewart

was born January 6, 1797, in Ohio County, West Virginia, but when he was six years old the family removed to Belmont County, Ohio. He was educated in the Grammar School of Steele & McMillan in Xenia, Ohio, then in the Classical School at New Athens, which afterward became Franklin College. He also studied in the academy at New Washington, which grew into Madison College. He studied theology in the Western Theological Seminary two years under Dr. Herr and one year with Rev. Mingo Dick, Professor pro tem. He was licensed to preach May 26, 1830, by the Second Ohio Presbytery ( United Presbyterian Church), and was or- dained in December, 1832. At the time of his ordination( by the first Ohio Presbytery) he was installed pastor of the Cherry Fork and West Fork Churches in Adams County, Ohio. In 1838, he resigned the West Fork Branch of his charge and gave all his time to Cherry Fork. He died November 24. 1851.

Rev. Marion Morrison, of Mission Creek, Nebraska, says of him : "It was my privilege to have been a member of his congregation for several years, in my youth. While he was a very instructive preacher, he excelled in his work as a pastor among his people. As a companion, he could not be excelled. He was always cheerful and lively, but was never in the company of old or young for any length of time without im- parting some word of instruction that would help in the journey heaven- ward. He was always ready for a joke, but carefully avoided offending in such pleasantries. He looked upon the pastoral relation with the same sacredness as the marriage relation." Cherry Fork was his first and his only pastoral charge. There he married Martha, the eldest daughter and child of John Patton. There his children were born and there he took his departure to the church triumphant. It is said of him that it never occur- red to him to change his pastoral relations from Cherry Fork.

Aaron F. Steen.

Aaron Faris Steen was a grandson of Robert Steen, who was born near Coleraine, Ireland, about 1735, removed to the British Colony of Pennsylvania, in America, about 1758; was married to Elizabeth Boyd about 1760, secured a farm and established his home near Chestnut Level, in Lancaster County, Pa., not far from the Susquehanna River, where he brought up in comfortable circumstances a family of five children, three sons and two daughters, whose names were Samuel, Robert, Mary, Eliza- beth, and Alexander Steen. The grandfather, Robert Steen, was a patri- otic citizen opposed to British oppression or Toryism, and espoused the cause of American Independence, at the time of the Revolutionary War. He was a thorough Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, an earnest Christian, a successful farmer, especially fond of music and good society, and lived to an old age.

Alexander Steen, the father of Aaron F. Steen, was the youngest child of Robert and Elizabeth Boyd Steen, and was born near Chestnut Level. Pa., February 14. 1773, and brought up on his father's farm. He early removed to Berkley County, Va., and was married at Martinsburg, Va., February 2, 1803, to Agnes Nancy Faris, she having been born at that place March 2, 1777, and died at the home of her son, Aaron F. Steen, in Adams County, Ohio, November 17, 1852, when she was seventy-six

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years of age. In 1805, Alexander Steen removed with his family and located near Flemingsburg, Ky., where he resided nearly fifteen years, and where all his children except the eldest were born. In 1820, he re- moved to Adams County, Ohio, and located upon a farm two miles north- east of Winchester, now on the turnpike road to Buck Run. He after- wards purchased a large farm one mile north of the Mt. Leigh Presby- terian Church where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a man of strong character, a zealous Presbyterian, and an enterprising farmer, a successful music teacher, and maintained a wide influence. He died at his home near Mt. Leigh, April 30, 1837, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. He was the father of nine children, all of whom except the eldest were married and brought up families in Adams County, Ohio.

Aaron Faris Steen, the subject of this sketch, was the third child and eldest son of Alexander and Agnes Nancy Faris Steen. He was born on his father's farm two miles north of Flemingsburg, Ky., August 23, 1807; and died at his home near Xenia, Ohio, Tuesday morning, February 15. 1881, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He spent a happy childhood in the "Old Kentucky home," and was brought to Adams County, Ohio, by his parents when a mere lad of thirteen years. Here he grew up to man- hood upon his father's farm, attending school in winter. When a young man, he taught school. He devoted most of his time and attention to music and became an efficient and very popular teacher, having classes in various parts of the county. For many years he was the leader of music in the Mt. Leigh Presbyterian Church. His social nature and genial dis- position made him a general favorite in the society of both old and young.

Aaron F. Steen was married at the residence of Michael Freeman on Scioto Brush Creek, ten miles east of West Union, March 25, 1830, to Miss Mary Freeman, the youngest daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Freeman, she having been born in the same house in which she was married, October 7, 1810, and died at the home of her son in Knoxville, Tenn., July 27, 1895, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. Soon after his marriage, Aaron F. and Mary Steen located on a farm on Brush Creek two miles east of Winchester, and united with the Mt. Leigh Phesbyterian Church of which they were for many years active and useful members. In the Fall of 1834, Michael Freeman, now growing old, requested Mr. and Mrs. Steen to come and take charge of his farm and property on Scioto Brush Creek, which they accordingly did, residing there about fourteen years. But on the thirty-first of August, 1848, they removed again with their family to a farm near Mt. Leigh, three miles east of Win- chester, near where he had been brought up. Here the whole family were regular attendants of the Mt. Leigh Church. Aaron F. Steen was or- dained an elder, December 1, 1849, which office he continued to hold so long as he remained in that locality, and frequently represented that church in the meetings of the Presbytery of Chillicothe. In the autumn of 1865, he sold his farm near Mt. Leigh and purchased a tract of land ad- joining Xenia, Ohio, to which he removed and spent the remaining sixteen years of his life. Here, himself and wife united with the First Presby- terian Church of which Rev. Wm. T. Findley. D. D., was at that time pastor. He cultivated his little farm, and with his eldest son kept a pro- vision store in Xenia. In 1874, a delightful family reunion was held at his home near Xenia, at which all his living descendants were present.

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Old associates were revived and many incidents connected with every life recalled. Before they separated religious services were held in which all joined heartily, every member and descendant of the family over ten years of age being consistent members of the Presbyterian Church. The fiftieth anniversary, or golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Steen, also duly celebrated at their home March 25, 1880, was largely attended, and all present, concurred in the opinion that it was one of the most delightful occasions of the kind ever witnessed. Only a few months later Mr. Steen died.

Aaron F. Steen was a man of sterling character and energy, highly respected and beloved by those who knew him. He was the father of nine children as follows: Wilson Freeman, Eli Watson, Samuel Martin, John Freeman, Moses Duncan Alexander, Josiah James, Sarah Catharine, Isaac Brit and William Wirt Steen, only three of whom are now living, Prof. E. Watson Steen, Knoxville, Tenn., Rev. Moses D. A. Steen, D. D., Woodridge, Colo., and Mrs. Kate Steen Coil, Marietta, Ohio.

James Baldwin Thomas

was born on a farm two miles east of Winchester, May 16, 1811. He was the seventh child of Abraham and Margaret (Barker) Thomas. His great-grandfather, Reese Thomas, was born in Wales, June 5, 1690. This ancestor was the father of a large family which he brought to America and settled in Virginia during the first part of the eighteenth century. Sub- sequently, some of the stock moved to Maryland and some to Kentucky, where numerous individuals of the same lineage now reside.

The subject of this sketch obtained such education as he could at the schools of Winchester. They were subscription schools, and were not in session more than three or four months in a year. He had to walk over two miles through woods to attend school, frequently running the gauntlet of wolves.

In 1832, he went to the State of Arkansas with the intention of making that his future home. He spent but one year there. During that time he became so thoroughly disgusted with southern institutions as to create within him an intense antagonism to the system of human slavery and the practice of duelling, which remained dominant principles with him through life. In 1833, he bought a farm near where he was born, and he and his brother, Silas, erected a cabin in the woods-a bachelor's hall-and commenced clearing away the timber preparatory to cultivation. Here he worked and lived until December 29, 1836, when he married Mis's Esther A., daughter of John and Esther Archer Moore, pioneer settlers of Wheat Ridge, in Oliver Township. This marriage was solemnized by Rev. Dyer Burgess. There were eight children: Francis Marion, married to Annette Holmes, and practicing medicine at Samantha, O .; Margaret, re- siding at Winchester; Sarah Jane, died in 1861 ; Wilson Chester, died in 1860; Silas Newton, died in the U. S. Military service in 1864; Albert Luther, resides with his two sisters at the old homestead; John Wesley married to Roberta Butler, and is a physician at Lyle, Kansas, and Lily Belle, residing at Winchester, Ohio.

Mr. Thomas was a man of decided convictions. He voted for Jack- son in 1832, but after that he voted uniformly the Whig ticket until the' election of 1852, when he supported John P. Hale. He united with the

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Republican party at its organization, supporting Chase for Governor in 1855 and Fremont for President in 1856, and continued a member of that party until his death. For some fifteen years preceding the Civil War, he was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and scores of fugitive slaves have shared his hospitality and received his assistance on their way to freedom. While he was under surveillance from the slave hunters, not a single fugitive whom he took in charge was ever reclaimed and sent back to slavery. During the Civil War he was a strong Union man. He offered two sons to the service of his country and no one rejoiced more than he when peace, liberty and union were established. He was honest in all his dealings. He was a good conversationalist and could tell a story in good form. He always had a host of warm friends. He never united with any church but believed in the doctrines of the Baptist Church. He was a strong temperance man, practicing total abstinence, and in his early years as a farmer it was sometimes hard for him to get help in the harvest flelds, because he would not treat to some kind of liquor, as was customary during the time referred to. He died March 17, 1892, in his eighty-first year. He is interred with his wife in the cemetery at Mt. Leigh.

Dr. W. M. Voris.

In considering the pioneers of Adams County, Ohio, there is none whose memory deserves more to be praised. It has been sixty-four years past since his life here terminated, and his death amounted to almost a tragedy ; yet, in his time, he was of the most highly esteemed, and most deserving of it. Like most of the pioneers of Adams County, he had an ancestry which could be traced back over two hundred years. The family was Dutch.

Stephen Coerte Van Voris emigrated from Holland in April, 1660. and settled at Flat Lands, Long Island, where, on the twenty-ninth of November, 1660, he purchased corn land, plain land and salt meadow. with house and lot, for three thousand guilders. He was a prominent and use- ful man, a member of the Dutch Church, and a magistrate. He died at Flat Lands, February 16, 1684. Of his numerous descendants, Rolyff Van Vorhees, born in 1742, and married to Elizabeth Nevins, was the first to drop the Van and write the name Voris. Roloff's son, Ralph, born August 5, 1775, married in Pennsylvania, near Conewago, Margaret Mc- Creary, of Scotch parentage. This Ralph Voris removed to Paris, Ken- tucky, but not liking it there, moved to Red Oak, in Brown County, Ohio, where he was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church from 1807 until his death in 1840.

This Ralph Voris was the father of Dr. William McCreary Voris, the subject of our sketch, who was born in Kentucky, August 5, 1801. When he grew up he studied medicine and graduated as a physician at the Med- ical College, at Lexington, Kentucky.

He located at West Union, Ohio, to practice his profession, about 1824, and joined the Presbyterian Church there. On April 24, 1827, he married the only daughter of Col. John Means, Elizabeth Williamson Means, and they went to housekeeping in West Union, Ohio, on the south- east corner of Main and Market Streets, in what is known as the James Hood property, and there they resided until January, 1832, when they re-

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JAMES BALDWIN THOMAS

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moved to the old Brush Creek Forge. There the Doctor was engaged in making iron and hollow ware, till the fourth of June, 1835.

In 1830, he was made an elder in the Presbyterian Church at West Union, Ohio, in which capacity he continued to serve until his death.

In May, 1835, Alex. Mitchell, aged thirty, the father of Mrs. Samuel Burwell, was living on Ohio Brush Creek between the Forge and the mouth of the creek. He was operating a saw mill and a grist mill. He and Dr. Voris, then aged thirty-four, arranged it between them to load a flat-boat, half with iron and hollow ware, and half with. lumber, and float it down to Cincinnati, and sell the cargo. They did so and floated the boat from the Forge to Mitchell's mill, where the lumber was put in, and thence they floated it to the Ohio River. Dr. Voris and Alex. Mitchell went in the boat as far as Maysville, Kentucky, where they landed for repairs to the boat. There Alexander Mitchell was taken down with the dread Asiatic cholera, and died and was buried.

Dr. Voris left the boat and went on to Cincinnati by a steamboat, and had scarcely arrived there, when he, too, was stricken with the Asiatic cholera, and died within a few hours.

In those days, such was the fear of the dread scourge, that when a person died of it, there was none of the usual funeral ceremonies, but the body was buried within a few hours after death, and at the most con- venient spot to where death had overtaken the victim. Such was the case with Alexander Mitchell, but not with Dr. Voris. When the news of the latter's death was brought to his wife, she was so overwhelmed with grief, that she sat as one dumb for six weeks.

The attachment between her and her husband was of the most devoted character. Aside from the estimate of Dr. Voris by his family and friends, he was most highly esteemed by the community in which he resided. Like St. Luke, he was, in his social circle, the "Beloved physician," and his death produced a shock which is remembered to this day by those who were living at that time.

The pleasant home at the Forge was broken up, and, with her two little girls, his wife returned to the home of her father, Col. John Means, where A. V. Hutson now lives, on the Maysville Turnpike, just west of Bentonville, where she resided during her widowhood. Mrs. Voris was a woman of lovely Christian character, and was one of the saints upon earth. She belonged to families, both on her father's and mother's side, which could boast of a long line of honorable ancestry, distinguished for their adherence to high principles. Her father left South Carolina with twenty-four slaves in order to give them their freedom in Ohio, and her uncle, the Rev. William Williamson, her mother's brother, brought twenty- seven slaves from South Carolina to Ohio, in 1803, in order to give them their freedom. She was of the material of which the martyrs are made, and had she been condemned to have gone to the stake for conscience' sake, she would have gone with a smile on her face, and perfect peace in her heart.

In 1842, she married the Rev. Dyer Burgess, and he and she removed to Washington County, and for twenty years they lived together at War- ren, six miles from Marietta. Rev. Burgess died September 2, 1872, at the age of eighty-eight. After his death she spent the remaining seventeen years of her life in Marietta, Ohio, with her daughter, Mrs. Wm. P. Cutler.

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She fell asleep February 28, 1889, in the ninetieth year of her age, having survived the husband of her youth fifty-four years. In a memorial of her, it was said she united with the Presbyterian Church in youth, and as the years passed, her character and life developed into the rarest beauty and symmetry. She gave liberally to all good subjects, from the promptings of a heart overflowing with sympathy and love. She was always active in doing good. She was charitable in her judgments, and her amiability and cheerfulness and childish faith scattered sunbeams wherever she was. Her life was a blessing to all who knew her. Doctor Voris left three children. The eldest was Anne Eliza, born February 26, 1828, married to the Rev. James S. Poage and deceased in 1848, leaving a daughter of tender years, who was reared by her grandmother, Mrs. Burgess. The second daughter, Elizabeth Williamson, was born July 25, 1832. She married the Hon. Wm. P. Cutler, of Marietta, one of the most prominent citizens of the State. He was a member of three Legislatures in this State and Speaker of the House in one. He was a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress and was mainly instrumental in the construction of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. To his daughter, Miss, Sarah J. Cutler, we are mainly indebted for the facts of this sketch.

The third daughter of Dr. Voris, Margaret Jane Williamson, was posthumous, born August 1, 1835. She married Mr. Henry Humiston. and lives in Chicago. She has two sons. One of the Sparks boys of West Union was with Dr. Voris when he died. His body was brought to Manchester, Ohio and there interred.

Ralph M. Voorhees.

This young man came to West Union, June 17, 1823, and began the publication of the Village Register. He continued to publish it until his sudden and unexpected death on March 6, 1828, at the age of twenty-eight. He was sick but nine days of a congestive bilious fever. He is buried in the Kirker Cemetery. He had married Mary Kirker (the daughter of Gov- ernor Kirker) in 1825, and had two children. One of these, Thomas Voorhees, was a steamboat captain on the upper Mississippi River for al- most twenty years. His widow married Hayden Thompson, of Ripley, and was living in 1880.

Mr. Vorhees conducted his paper according to his best lights but it had no local news. In that day, local news was not thought worthy of publication. There were plenty of legal ads, sheriff's sales, auditor's notices, tax collector's notices, many estray notices-nearly all horses, a number of runaway apprentices, occasionally the notice of a reward for a runaway slave with fifty to a hundred dollars reward. The merchants used the paper to advertise their goods and dun their customers. These files, which have come to us, were preserved by the late John P. Hood. who worked in the office, when a boy. The proceedings of Congress and of the State Legislature were given very fully; also the Governor's and President's messages. Foreign news in plenty was given, but local news was absolutely tabooed. The very facts we would like to know now are suppressed. The people then knew all the local news. It passed from mouth to mouth, and it was thought idle folly to repeat it in a newspaper. The paper aimed to be neutral in politics, but the editor was a Democrat- Republican. It was largely filled with literary extracts from magazines

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and books which we would not at all look at now, but to tell us what people of the time thought, their political and religious views, what inter- ested them most, or at all, there is not a word. The local news of that day is lost except from tradition.

It is difficult to write of a subject after the mists of seventy-one years have obscured him. There is some light on the life and character of Ralph M. Vorhees to be gathered from the old and yellow files of the Village Register. What it is, is clear and distinct, and the picture it reveals is as clear as yesterday. The parts that are left out are, however, forever lost. His widow is long dead. His son is either dead or cannot be traced, and we must rest content with those few fragments which have been handed down to us.

Ralph Voorhees was a man much loved by those who knew him. He was a young man who had but few enemies and they found much in him to admire. He was true and loyal to his friends and treated those who did not like his course with great consideration. He undertook to conduct an independent local paper, an impossibility, and the only enemies he ever made was in this attempt. He offended some because he favored his father-in-law, Governor Kirker, for office, but had he not favored the Governor, he would not have been human. Had he lived, he would, no doubt, have succeeded with his paper and made a respectable citizen, but alas, that fate which none can control, took him from his young wife and infants, from the society and companionship of his friends and cut short a career of great promise.

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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 76

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan Publication date: 1900 Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers Number of Pages: 1101

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101