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 81
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Samuel Ellis settled at Higginsport, eighteen miles below. James opened up a farm near the present site of Georgetown. Jeremiah Ellis bought lands near Bentonville. Hezekiah Ellis founded a home on the waters of Eagle Creek, and Jesse Ellis entered a tract on what is now known as Brooks Bar : three miles east of Aberdeen. More than a century has
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passed, yet such have been the staying qualities of the name that many of the original entries remain in the possession of the family. As a connec- tion, they have ever been blessed with the good things of life and inherit many of the sterling qualities which distinguished their Quaker ancestors.
Nathan Ellis was born November 10, 1749, and Mary Walker, his wife, August 31, 1752. They were married in 1770. Nathan Ellis assisted Jonathan Zane and John McIntire in marking out the Zane Trace in 1797 and 1798. He became quite a large landowner, holding at one time eight thousand acres. Aberdeen was first known as "Ellis Ferry." Nathan Ellis became the first Justice of the Peace. an office he held until his death in 1819. In a very readable and interesting volume, "A Tour in the Western Country," published in 1808 by Fortescue Cumming, we find the following: "On Saturday, I returned to Ellis Ferry, opposite Maysville, on the banks of the Ohio. I found 'Squire Ellis seated on a bench under the shade of two locust trees, with a bottle, pen, ink, and several papers, holding a Justice Court which he does every Saturday. Seven or eight men were sitting on the bench with him, awaiting his award in their several cases. After he had finished, which was soon, after I had taken a seat under the same shade, one of the men invited the 'Squire to drink with him, which he consented to do. Some whiskey was procured from Landlord Powers in which all parties made a libation to peace and justice. There was something in the scene so primitive and so simple that I could not help enjoying it with much satisfaction. I took up my quarters for the night with Landlord Powers, who is an Irshman from the Ballinbay in the County of Monaghan. He pays 'Squire Ellis eight hundred dollars per annum for his tavern, fine farm and ferry."
Nathan Ellis and his wife were a couple of untiring energy and great force of character, fit representatives of the heroic men and women who settled in the Ohio Valley and laid the corner stone of the empire in the wilderness. Ten children were born to them: Margaret (Mrs. Scicily) ; Mary (Mrs. Campbell), 1773; John, 1777; Jeremiah, 1779; Jesse, 1782; Samuel, 1784; Nancy (Mrs. Grimes), 1786; Nathan, 1789; Hetty, 1792; she became the wife of Capt. John Campbell, a distinguished officer under General McArthur, in the War of 1812. Jesse was in his company and took part in many engagements. Elender, born 1795, married James Hig- gins and emigrated many years ago to Johnson County, Missouri, where she died November 10, 1882. "
Jeremiah Ellis married Anna Underwood, daughter of a well-known and prominent Virginia gentleman in 1803. His son, Washington, was born in 1804, and in 1832 married Miss Aris Parker, of Mason County, Kentucky. Jesse Ellis married Sabina, a daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks, of Mason County, Ky., a warm friend and contemporary of Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, and one of the founders of Maysville (1787) ; Major John Ellis married Keziah, a daughter of William Brooks, who. with his brother, Thomas, was captured at the battle of Blue Licks and held a prisoner by the Indians for five years. Major Ellis served in an Ohio regiment in the War of 1812, and had quite a noted career as a soldier. Jesse Ellis died in 1877 in his ninety-fifth year. His wife passed away five years later in her ninetieth year. Nathan Ellis died in 1819 and is buried on the hill overlooking Aberdeen. His mother, Mary Veatch, who died in 1799, rests in the Aberdeen cemetery. John died in 1829. Jeremiah died
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in 1857; Washington, in 1873 ; his wife in 1891. They all rest in the Ellis family cemetery at Ellis Landing in Sprigg Township, four miles east of Aberdeen. Jeremiah Ellis and Anna Underwood became the parents of ten children, five sons and five daughters, the best known of whom are the Hon. Jesse Ellis, of Aberdeen, Ohio, who has represented Adams County in the Legislature a number of times, and Samuel Ellis, deceased, formerly a sheriff of Lewis County, Kentucky.
Jesse Ellis, although now a resident of Brown County, was born in Adams County, December 19; 1833. He has always been a farmer, teacher and surveyor, and was at one time surveyor of Adams County for twelve consecutive years. He is a man of charming personality and has many devoted friends. In connection, it is but right that we should men- tion the record of the sons of the family in the war for the preservation of the Union. Many of them bore commissions but a far greater number were in the ranks. So far as the present writer is informed, the following bore commissions : Lieutenant Colonel Edward Ellis, 15th Illinois, killed at Shiloh ; Major Ephriam J. Ellis, 33d Ohio; Lieutenant Jesse Ellis, 59th Ohio, and Captain Isaac Dryden, 24th Ohio, grandson of Samuel Ellis, fell at Chickamauga; Private William J. Ellis, Company G, 70th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was the first man of that regiment killed at Shiloh. His head was carried away by a cannon ball. Drs. Samuel and Lewis Ellis were medical officers ; Dryden Ellis, Captain 6th Ohio Cavalry ; Amos Ellis, Lieutenant 70th Ohio; Anderson V. Ellis, Lieutenant 49th Ohio; William Ellis, Captain 16th Kentucky ; Joseph Ellis, Lieutenant 175th Ohio. Major Ellis was the Captain of the Manchester Company in the 33d Ohio at the time he enlisted in 1861. He commanded his regiment at the battle of Stone River and had a horse killed under him. He was a most gallant and beloved officer, and had he lived, would have been put in command of one of the new Ohio regiments then organizing for the field. Of the private soldiers of the Ellis family, it is impossible to speak in detail. Quite a number of them lost their lives on the field of battle : some of them died in rebel prisons; others perished from wounds and diseases, and many of them lived to get back home to the green hills of the old Buckeye State and to rejoice that peace had come to our land, and that we were a reunited nation sovereign, great and free.
Anderson Nelson Ellis, A. M., M. D., son of Washington and Aris Ellis, was born at Ellis Landing, Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio December 19, 1840. In his twelfth year, he entered the public schools of Ripley where he remained six years, and during which times, those schools maintained a very high standard of excellence under such well known efficient instructors as Captain F. W. Hurth, Rev. W. H. Andrews, Prof. Ulysses Thompson and Gen. Jacob Ammen. He then entered the Fresh- man class at the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, where he remained until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, when he went to the front as a volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of the late Major General William Nelson, and remained with him until his death. Sub- sequently, he was attached to the staff of his old teacher, Gen. Ammen, then commanding the fourth division of the Army of the Ohio under Gen. Don Carlos Buell. On the eighteenth of March, 1862, he was appointed Second Lieutenant of the 49th Ohio Regiment, Colonel William H. Gibson, which commission he resigned September 28, 1863, on account of failing
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health. Returning home, he at once entered Miami University and grad- uated the following year. In 1885, his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
In the Spring of 1865, he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. A. G. Goodrich, of Oxford, Ohio, and afterward attended medical lectures at Ann Arbor, Michigan; Pittsfield, Mass .; New York City and Cincinnati. At the Berkshire Medical College, he was assistant to the chair of Chemistry and graduated with the valedictory. Subsequently the board of trustees of that institution elected him Demonstrator of Anatomy. In March, 1868, the Ohio Medical College gave him an addendum degree. After some little private practice in Ohio and Kansas, Dr. Ellis entered the Ohio Regular Army as a medical officer, and spent five years on the plains and mountains of the Southwest. To one who had as yet known nothing be- yond the haunts of civilization, the nomadic life of an army officer presented many attractions. While in New Mexico and Arizona, the Doctor became much interested in the history of the Pueblo Indians-that last remnant of the Aztec population of the days of the Spanish conquest, who present the pathetic spectacle of a civilization perishing without a historian to re- count its rise, ruin and fall, its art, poetry, sorrow and suffering-a repetition of the silent death of the Mound Builders. He spent much of his time while off duty in exploring those ancient ruins that lie all over that interesting land. After leaving the service, he delivered many lectures and published a number of magazine articles on "The Land of the Aztec." From the very day of his graduation in medicine, Dr. Ellis had cast longing eyes at the admirable teaching and superior clinical advantages of the great European hospitals. In 1878, he resolved to realize this day dream of his life. He then went abroad and spent eighteen months in Heidelberg, Vienna and London, and afterward made a journey through Italy and France. While absent from the United States, he published marry letters in the press, of his observations and travels in those countries, the most notable of which was "Pen and Ink Pictures of Venice. Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Leghorn and Genoa." Shortly after his return home to Cincinnati, he received the appointment of Assistant Physician at Long- view Asylum, a position which he soon found irksome, but which led to an intimate acquaintance with nervous diseases and his appearance in many of the Courts of the State as a medical expert in insanity cases. In Sep- tember, 1882, he was called to the chair of Laryngology in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, which position he took and held until the close of the session 1890, and found himself to be an efficient and popular teacher. On December 10, 1893, Gov. Charles Foster appointed him Captain and Assistant Surgeon of the First Regiment, Ohio National Guards, Col. Charles B. Hunt, commanding, and on the thirty-first day of July, 1888, Gov. J. B. Foraker promoted him to the surgeoncy with the rank of Major, the vacancy being made by the promotion of the lamented Dr. E. A. Jones, to the position of Surgeon General of the State of Ohio.
In the Spring of 1894, Dr. Ellis determined, on account of failing health, to leave Cincinnati and go to his ancestral acres at Ellis Landing and devote his entire time and energy to the calling of the farmer. He had scarcely settled himself in the old homestead before patients came to his door in great numbers. Not wishing to return to Cincinnati, he has
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removed to Maysville, Kentucky, where he is actively engaged in the practice of his profession.
On the thirtieth of December, 1891, Dr. Ellis was married to Miss Laura Murphy, daughter of James Murphy, a prominent farmer and stock- raiser of Butler County, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Oxford Female College of the class of 1873, and was for many years the Lady President of the Alumnae Association of that institution. One child, a boy now in his fifth year, has blessed their union, who bears the name of William Nelson, in honor of one of the heroes of the war.
The Grimes Family
came from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of Brush Creek, in Adams County, between 1795 and 1797. So far as we can learn now, the family was composed of the mother, Elizabeth Grimes, and her children, as follows: Sons, Noble, Thomas, and Richard; and daughters, Hannah, Barbara, Mary, and Effa. Noble Grimes appears to have been the most prominent among the sons, and was probably the oldest of the children. The family is said to have come from Ireland prior to the Rev- olutionary War. Noble Grimes procured a patent to one thousand acres of land on the Ohio River, just west of the mouth of Brush Creek. The patent to his survey was dated October 28, 1799. Noble Grimes never married. He was appointed by Gov. St. Clair one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County in December, 1799, and served until 1801. He was evidently a Federalist of pronounced type. In 1800, he laid out the town of Washington at the mouth of Brush Creek. It was composed of eighty-four lots, eight of which were reserved for public buildings. He expected it to be the county seat and become a great city. A log courthouse and jail were erected there and were used from March, 1798, until West Union was selected as the county seat. Among the persons residing in the town of Washington were Gen. David Bradford, Major John Belli, William Faulkner and Henry Aldred. All three of the last named were Revolutionary soldiers. After the selection of West Union as the county seat, Washington began to go down, and not a vestige remains. The Grimes family purchased all the lots.
Noble Grimes was one of the assessors of Iron Ridge Township in Adams County. He died in 1805, and was buried on the river hill on the Grimes farm. By his last will and testament he provided for his mother, Elizabeth, and his sister Hannah, who never married, and gave all his other estate, real and personal, to his brother Thomas. He seems to have been a successful man for his time. Richard Grimes, his brother, never married. Thomas Grimes, a brother of Noble Grimes, married Miss Mary Brown, February 10, 1801, and had three sons, Noble, Greer Brown, and Richard C. He died shortly prior to September 28, 1807.
Barbara Grimes, the sister of the first Noble Grimes, married Gen. David Bradford about 1790. They had two sons, Samuel and David. Samuel lost his life in the War of 1812, and David was at one time famous about West Union. Mary Grimes, sister of the first Noble Grimes, married Moses Smith, of Kentucky, as her second husband. Her daughter Sarah married Governor Thomas Kirker, and her daughter Mary married John Briggs. She had a daughter Betsey who maried Samuel Davis, and a
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daughter Rebecca who married Robert Edmiston. They had two sons, Jarret and Charles.
Effa Grimes, a sister of the first Noble, married John Crawford, a brother of Col. William Crawford, November 30, 1797. This is the same William Crawford who was burned by the Indians at Tymochtee. John Crawford had four sons and two daughters.
Noble Grimes, the son of Thomas Grimes, was born July 7, 1805, and died May 31, 1868. He married Harriet Briggs, a daughter of John Briggs, above mentioned. She was born September 6, 1806, and died February 8, 1874, without issue. Richard Grimes married Charity Grimes of another family, but a distant kinswoman, and died without issue. Greer Brown Grimes, the son of Thomas, was born October 23, 1803. He was married in 1827 to Miss Sophia Smith, of Cape Girardeau, Mo. Her father, John Smith, was from Maryland, and was a farmer and surveyor. Mrs. Sophia Grimes was born April 7, 1805. Greer B. Grimes died on the eighteenth of February, 1888, and his wife, April 18, 1893. Greer B. Grimes owned four hundred acres of fine land at the mouth of Brush Creek. He was a successful farmer, and made and saved a great deal of money. He was in the banking business at West Union with his son Smith and the late Edward P. Evans from 1865 to 1878, but gave it no personal attention. He lived a quiet and retired life on his farm devoted to his family. 'He and his wife had the following children who lived to maturity : Ann, who married Hensley : Harriet, who married John McKay; Smith Grimes ; Louis A. Grimes ; Sophia, who married Frank C. Williams ; Adelaide, who died unmarried; Byron Grimes ; Blanche, who married John Perry, and Grace Grimes.
Dr. Louis A. Grimes was born November 6, 1839, the sixth child of his parents, the two preceding him having died in infancy. He attended school at the Ohio University, at Athens, Ohio, in 1855 and 1856, and in 1857 and 1858 he attended the Indiana University at Bloomington, Ind. He studied medicine under Dr. David Noble at Sugar Tree Ridge, in Highland County. He attended lectures and graduated at the Starling Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, in 1863, and at the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia in 1864. He began the practice of medicine at Rome, in Adams County, in 1864 and 1865. In 1866, he located at Con- cord, Kentucky, where he has since resided. He was married October 10, - 1866, to Miss Amanda T. Stout, daughter of James A. Stout, of Kentucky. There were two children of this marriage : a son, Claude B., lately engaged in gold mining, and a daughter, Mary. The mother of these children died September 14, 1879.
Dr. Grimes married a second time, June 27, 1883, Miss Mary Ma- gruder, of Baltimore, Maryland, a daughter of Dr. Archibald Magruder. There is one son of this mariage, Archibald Greer Magruder, aged fifteen years. Dr. Grimes was a pension examining surgeon in Lewis County from 1884 to 1894. He has been a surgeon on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad for three years. He is a member of the Episcopal Church. In politics he has always been Democratic.
He was a friend of the late Governor Goebel, of Kentucky, who re- ferred to him in all matters relating to Lewis County. He is a member of the Board of Election Commissioners for his county, and of the County Board of Health.
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After the death of his father, he bought out the other Grimes heirs, and is the owner of 282 acres of fine land at the mouth of Brush Creek, in Monroe Township. He has established a reputation as an able physician and surgeon, and as such commands the confidence of the community.
A brother physician says of Dr. Grimes : "He is a man of ability and research, and occupies the first rank in his profession. He has been a general practitioner of medicine in the full sense of the term, and has suc- cessfully taken care of all kinds of cases both medical and surgical. He is a gentleman of cultivated tastes, and his home is a social and intellectual center. He is an Odd Fellow, Knight Templar, Mason, and a member of the Elks. He is a member of the American Medical Association, State Medical Society, and International Railway Surgeons' Society."
The Puntenney Family.
George Hollingsworth Puntenney, was a son of Joseph Puntenney, whose father was a French Protestant, and was compelled to leave his na- tive home in France on account of his religion. George H. Puntenney brought his family to the West Indies to an island called Eustatia, intending to make that his home, but being dissatisfied with this place, he embarked for Ghent in Holland, and from there went to Oxford, England, where his son, Joseph Puntenney, married Mary Hollingsworth. After remaining some years in England, the whole family emigrated to America, and settled at Little Gunpowder Falls, in Maryland. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, George Puntenney was fourteen years old. His father died in the second year of the war, and his property was sold by the ad- ministrator for $22,000.00, which was paid in Continental money, which soon became worthless. The family then moved to Braddock's old battle- field in Pennsylvania, and George H. Puntenney became an Indian scout and a trader with the Delaware Indians, and subsequently he was engaged with a surveying party in the Green River country, Kentucky. In going down the Ohio River he passed the present site of Cincinnati twice be- fore the virgin timber on that site had been touched by the white man.
He subsequently married Margaret Hamilton and settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky. In March, 1800, he removed to Greene Township, Adams County, Ohio, and settled at Stout's Run, where he lived until his death in 1853. On this farm, his son, James Puntenney, was born Sep- tember 1, 1800, and resided there all his life, until his death on May 7, 1890. James Puntenney was the second white child born in Greene Town- ship, and he was a man who was loved, honored, and respected by all who knew him.
James Puntenney was a Whig and Republican, but at all times he was anti-slavery in sentiment and might be called a downright Abolitionist. He never failed to aid the fugitive slaves who called on him on the way to freedom.
He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church in the latter part of his life, and prior to that, was a member of and a ruling elder in the Reformed Presbyterian Church for a number of years.
He was married April 10, 1823, to Miss Martha Wait, a woman of remarkable character. There were seven children of this marriage, but only four survived. Their children were John, Elizabeth, Mary Jane and James Hollingsworth Puntenney. John, the eldest child, carried on a tan-
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nery for a number of years on Stout's Run. He went to Colorado in 1886 and died there in 1899, in his seventy-seventh year. Mary J. was married October 4, 1864, to Hon. Andrew C. Smith. She and her husband own and reside on the James Puntenney estate on Stout's Run. Elizabeth married Henry Ousler, November 7, 1850, and died at her home on Stout's Run, May 15, 1891, in her seventy-first year. James H. Puntenney, the youngest of the family, was born October 10, 1848. In his childhood, he showed great fondness for music, and as a youth, he became a violoncellist in a string band. As he grew older, he became a skilled pianist, and culti- vated his voice to a great extent. He was bright, quick, and disposed to study, and learn all within reach of him. Until fourteen years of age, he attended the district schools, and at the age of fifteen, he attended the North Liberty Academy, then under the supervision of the Rev. D. Mac- Dill, D. D. He spent two years at this academy, and in the Fall of 1886, entered Miami University and graduated in June, 1871. It was his father's idea that he should study for the ministry, but the son preferred a busi- ness career.
In the Fall of 1871, he located in Cincinnati. He obtained a position in the music store of D. H. Baldwin & Co., and in the course of time, he became the book-keeper of the firm and held that position for ten years. In the year of 1882, the firm of D. S. Johnson & Co. was organized and Mr. Puntenney became a member until the business was closed. At that time, he located in Columbus, where he has been engaged in the piano business ever since. Mr. Puntenney is now the senior member of the well-known house of Puntenney & Eutsler, of Columbus. They have built up a large and prosperous business, in their line, in the center of the State.
On April 25, 1876, Mr. Puntenney was married to Miss Eliza Love. To them were born two children : Harry, who died at the age of four years, and Mary Martha, who resides with her father in Columbus. His first wife lived but four years. He was married to Miss Belle Love on December 21, 1882, and to them two children have been born: Belle, aged sixteen, and James Hollingsworth, aged twelve years.
In politics, Mr. Puntenney is a Republican. He and his family are members of the United Presbyterian Church. He is an elder in the Neil Avenue U. P. Church. He is a genial, courteous gentleman of the strictest integrity, and highly esteemed for his sterling qualities as a business man. He is firm in his attachments and conscientious in all his dealings. He has always identified himself with any and every movement for the up- lifting and betterment of mankind. He is known as a liberal-minded, large- hearted citizen, whose soul is concerned in the welfare of humanity. He is not devoted solely to his own affairs, but is known as thoroughly un- selfish, with the disposition of a true philanthropist.
The Treber Family.
The ancestors of the Trebers were Hollanders who emigrated to this country early in the eighteenth century and settled in Maryland.
John Treber, one of their descendants, moved from Maryland to Lancaster County, Pa., where he married a Miss Campbell. In 1784, he moved to Alleghany County, Pa., and located on the Monongahela River, at or near the mouth of Peters Creek, where he remained working at his trade, that of a gunsmith. In 1794, he, with his family, descended the
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Ohio River in a flat-boat in company with Christopher Rowine and others, and after some adventures with the Indians along the shores, arrived at Limestone (now Maysville), Ky. At that time the landing at Maysville was so overcrowded with flat-boats that it often became necessary to set many of them adrift. Soon after the arrival of the Treber family at Limestone, Mrs. Treber died and was buried in the cemetery at that place.
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