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 87
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Dr. Coleman soon became the leading physician in his community and so remained during his life. He was the only physician who re- mained in West Union during the entire epidemic of cholera in 1851. His practice was a hand one, requiring so much riding on horseback in all kinds of weather, but he never hesitated at any hardship in the line of his profession.
In his political views, Dr. Coleman was always anti-slavery and was a Whig and Republican. He never sought or held public office nor would his professional business permit it. He became a member of the Presby- terian Church in West Union in 1853 and was faithfully devoted to it all his life. He was made a ruling elder and served in that capacity the re- mainder of his life. Physically and mentally, he was a large man. He made a fine appearance anywhere and had a most dignified presence and character. His heart was large and his sympathies active and easily touched. He was courageous, conscientious and self-denying. He was of a social nature, very fond of the society of his friends and greatly ap- preciated by them. He was hospitable and generous, benevolent to the poor and deserving. He was a pillar in his church, among his professional brethren, in his party, and in the community. Dr. Coleman was naturally a leader wherever he was placed. He has three sons, Dr. William K., his eldest son, who has succeeded him in West Union and is filling his place in the medical profession, church and state; Dr. Claude Coleman, a phy- sician in Nebraska, his second son; his third son, Clement, died in young manhood.
Dr. Coleman died suddenly on Sunday afternoon, December 11, 1887, of an apoplectic stroke, in his sixty-sixth year. His wife survived him.
Dr. David Coleman believed in the high principles of religion and morality which he professed and lived. He earned and deserved the con- fidence of the community and held it. He was respected and esteemed in every relation of life. He aimed to conscientiously perform every simple duty which presented itself to him and he did so. This made a good man
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and a great man of him, and were all men like him, there would be no crime in the world and we would have a model republic.
His memory is fragrant to all who knew him and he should never be forgotten in that community where his life's work was done.
Joseph Randolph Campbell.
Joseph Randolph Campbell, son of Dr. John and Esther C. Campbell, was born in Delhi, Ohio, March 12, 1872. His education was commenced in the Home City and Delhi public schools and continued at Washington, D. C., until September 29, 1888, when he entered the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., as a Naval Cadet, under appointment by the Secretary of the Navy to fill a vacancy from Wyoming Territory. He graduated from the academy, June, 1892, with honor, and was assigned to the New- ark, then about to sail for European waters as the representative of the U. S. Navy in the Spanish and Italian Columbian celebrations. About a year later he was transferred to the San Francisco, and was in the harbor of Rio Janiero during the exciting times of the Brazilian revolt of '93 and '94. In June, 1894, he returned to the Naval Academy for final examina- tion, preceding his commission as Ensign. He came through this ordeal with distinction, standing at the head of the line division of his class, and was duly commissioned as an Ensign to date from July 1, 1894. He was assigned to duty on the New York, then the finest cruiser in the new Navy and about to sail as our Nation's representative in the grand marine pageant of the opening of the Kiel Canal. While at Kiel, he commanded the boat of the New York which gained one of the races given by the German Emperor's Yacht Club, and received as the prize two silver cups from Kaiser William. After serving on the New York the usual term, he was transferred to the Alliance, a training ship for Naval apprentices, for two cruises across the Atlantic and through the West Indies. Then followed duty at the War College and Torpedo Station at Newport. R. I., until he was transferred to the Katahdin at the commencement of the re- cent war with Spain. In April, 1898, while at Hampton Roads, he was attacked by a sickness which later developed into an exceedingly severe typhoid fever. His reluctance to be off his post under the war excitement, until absolutely prostrated, added greatly to the intensity of the disease, and possibly the overtaxation of his constitution by the efforts of continued duty, gave the disease its fatal direction. However, after his impaired health had lasted nearly a month under great strain, his ship having reached Boston, he was taken to the Naval Hospital on May 4, and died May 30, 1898, at noon, while a company of marines were decorating the graves of departed heroes in the cemetery in the hospital grounds adjacent.
He came of a military and patriotic family. His great-grandfather, General Daniel Cockerill, was a Lieutenant from Virginia in the War of 1812 and a Major General in the Ohio Militia. His grandfather, Joseph Randolph Cockerill, was Colonel of the 70th Ohio Infantry in the Civil War, and brevetted Brigadier General for bravery on the battlefield. His uncle, Armstead Cockerill. Lieutenant Colonel of the 24th Ohio Infantry in the Civil War, rose to that rank from private by sheer merit.
His classmates in the Naval Academy give unanimous testimony that he was endowed with high and noble qualities of which he made the best
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ENSIGN JOSEPH RANDOLPH CAMPBELL
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use. As an officer, he was admired by his juniors and esteemed by his superiors for his sterling worth. At his final examinations he entered the Naval service as the Senior Ensign of his class. Under circumstances of great provocation, his self-control was admirable, and yet his modesty was his most distinguishing characteristic. By his death, his classmates lost a valued member and the Navy lost one of its brightest and most promising officers.
Ensign Campbell was elected a Companion of the first class by in- heritance from his grandfather, Brevet Brigadier General J. R. Cockerill, in the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, on October 7, 1896, the number of his insignia being 11,572. He was pure, high-minded and hon- orable. During his brief career in the Navy, he had manifested talent and ability of a very high order. The nobility of his character, his amiable qualities, his efficiency and devotion to duty, had made for him friends of all the officers with whom he served. The many letters of condolence from them to his father and mother express their estimate of him and their sense of their personal loss. A few are as follows: Captain Wilde, of the Katahdin, says: "I have seen many young men enter the Navy, but never a better one than your son." Lieutenant Potter writes: "I learned to like him sincerely, and recognized his unusual ability and high standard of professional and personal conduct In his taking away, we are all be- reaved, and my best wish for myself would be that when I shall go, my character and my record shall be as stainless as his."
A classmate at Annapolis says: "As time progressed, I learned to like him more and more. He was one of the best men I ever knew or ever care to know.
He was taken for burial to his father's and mother's old home at West Union, Ohio, where the people showed the greatest respect for his memory by their attendance on his obsequies. He rests near his grand- father and uncle (Cockerill), who so distinguished themselves for military valor in the War of 1861.
"Sleep on, brave Son, where grandsire sleeps, A nation still thy memory keeps, And all her sons on land or sea. Shall sacred in her memory be."
John A. Cockerill,
also known as Joseph Daniel Albert Cockerill, was born December 4, 1845, at Locust Grove, Ohio, and died April 10. 1896, at Cairo, Egypt.
His grandfather, Daniel Cockerill, was a Lieutenant of Artillery in the War of 1812, and was engaged at Craney Island. His brother, Arm- stead Thompson Mason Cockerill, was First Lieutenant, Captain, Lieu- tenant Colonel, and Colonel of the 24th O. V. I. His uncle, Daniel T. Cockerill, was Captain of Battalion F. First Ohio Light Artillery, and was promoted to Captain of Battalion D, March 16, 1864. He was must- ered out March 16, 1864.
His father, Joseph Randolph Cockerill, was Colonel, 70th O. V. I., October 2, 1861, and resigned April 23, 1864. He was brevetted Brig- adier General for gallantry on the field.
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John received such education as the common schools afforded but his tastes ran to geography and history. 'He enlisted in the 24tn O. V. I. as a member of the band at the age of sixteen, on July 18, 1861, and was mustered out September 10, 1862, by order of the War Department, for discharge of Regimental bands. He fought in the battle of Shiloh with a musket. He was Colonel on the Staff of Governor William Allen in 1872. He learned to set type in the office of the Scion, at West Union. He was Journal Clerk in the Legislature from 1868 to 1871, and after that was an editor in Dayton and Hamilton. He accepted a reportorial posi- tion under J. B. Mccullough on the Cincinnati Enquirer, and later became its managing editor. He was special correspondent from the scenes of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877. He was editor of the Washington Post, Baltimore Gazette, and St. Louis Post Dispatch. Then he assumed the place of managing editor of the New York World and built that paper up. He next became editor of the New York Morning Advertiser and the Commercial Advertiser, and afterwards accepted the position of special war correspondent for the New York Herald to report the Chinese- Japanese War in 1895, and was engaged in the service of the Herald at the time of his death. He was stricken with apoplexy April 10, 1896, at Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, and died in two hours, without regain- ing consciousness. His body was brought home and buried in St. Louis, Missouri.
He was a man of unusually kind disposition. No appeal by a friend was ever made to him in vain. His goodness of heart and generosity of nature are attested by innumerable acts of kindness, which keep him in loving remembrance by all who knew him in friendly intimacy.
His sterling qualities as a man, as an editor, and as a friend, secured his election as President 'of the New York Press Club four times succes- sively.
He was a writer of great force and vigor, keen, witty, and an adept in the use of argument or satire. No opening in the mail of an adversary escaped the polished shaft of his wit.
His keen perception of character in others was so accurate that he was always sustained by an editorial staff of unusual ability.
His letters from Japan are among the finest examples of English com- position. The character of the people, their civilization, the genius of their institutions and government, are so accurately set forth as to be al- most a revelation to the people of the Western world. While there he undertook a hazardous mission to Corea, on behalf of the Japanese Gov- ernment. On his return from which, in recognition of that service, and of the high esteem he had gained among that people, as a faithful historian and journalist, the Emperor conferred on him "The Order of the Sacred Treasure." Only two other men, other than Japanese noblemen, had ever received this mark of distinction. The name of the first one is unknown to the writer. Sir Edwin Arnold was the second, and John A. Cockerill the third.
He had been a Democrat until the administration of President Har- rison, when he became a Republican and continued devoted to that party during his life.
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Armstead Thompson Mason Cockerill,
son of Joseph Randolph and Ruth Eylar Cockerill, was born in Locust Grove, Adams County, Ohio, in 1841. He was educated in the West Union schools. At the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, he was twenty years old and had just commenced the study of law in his father's office. He, however, took up the cause of the Union with great enthus- iasm and began at once to enlist men for Captain Moses J. Patterson's Company D, 24th O. V. I., for three months' service in which he was com- missioned First Lieutenant, June 13, 1861. His company and regiment re-enlisted for three years, and on November 16, 1861, he was made Cap- tain. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, December 31, 1862; to Colonel, October 23, 1863. He was mustered out June 24, 1864. The regiment was part of the Army of the Cumberland and took part in the battles of Cheat Mountain, Greenbrier, West Virginia; Shiloh, Corinth, Perryville, Woodbury, Tennessee; Tullahoma Campaign, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, Tennessee; Ringgold, Buzzard Roost, Georgia. He was a soldier of great gallantry, as his promotion would indicate, and as Lieutenant Colonel, he commanded the regiment.
After the war, he lived in Hamilton, Ohio, but his health was im- paired by long and arduous service, and he returned to West Union, Ohio, where he died in 1870, and is buried beside his father. He left a son named for himself and who is now residing in Hamilton, Ohio.
Elliot H. Collins
is of English ancestry. His grandfather, John Collins, was born in Mary- land in 1754. His wife was Sallie Henthorn He had three sons and four daughters. In 1800, he brought his family to Washington County, Ohio. His son, Henry, was born in 1779, and married Frances Ewart, who was born in County Armagh, Ireland. Our subject was their eldest son, born in Grandview Township in Washington County, April 23, 1812. He married Elizabeth Rinard, March 19, 1835. They reared a family of one son and three daughters, Lycurgus Benton Allen, Cleopatra Minerva, Elizabeth Rebecca and Roxana Samantha. His wife died October 6, 1854, and on March 28, 1858, he married Nancy Mckay. She was born in West Virginia, January 15. 1824. Of Mrs. Collins' children, Cleopatra Minerva married William Wikoff, and resides in McLean County, Illinois; Elizabeth Rebecca died August 24, 1868, at the age of twenty-seven years; Roxana Samantha married Joseph Nagel, and resides in Morris County, Kansas. His son lives in Wellington, Kansas, and is a farmer.
Mr. Collins came to Adams County in 1850, and located first in Monroe Township and afterwards in the Irish Bottoms, where he now resides. He was a man of great public spirit, and was always in the front of any movement for the public good. He has been a Justice of the Peace for forty-nine years, his first commission being signed by Governor Vance, March 31, 1838. In that time, he never committed a person to jail, never had an appeal taken from any decision of his, never had a case from his docket taken up on error, never had a bond he took forfeited. He has married over seven hundred couples and always presented the bride with the wedding fee the groom gave him, He has often gone twenty miles to perform a marriage ceremony and has had parties come twenty-five
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miles to him to be married. He has married more than fifty couples at night at his own home. He had an arrangement with the County Judge of Lewis County, Ky., to obtain licenses and has married more than fifty couples from Kentucky. He has often performed three marriages in one day, and it was a common thing for two couples to come together to get married. Of the years he was Justice of the Peace, twelve years were in Washington County, six in Monroe Township. in Adams County, and the remaining eighteen in Green Township, Adams County. He has been a Democrat all his life, never missed a political convention when he could get to it, never missed an election and never scratched a ticket. He is a member of the Christian Union Church on Beasley's Fork. He is one of the best farmers in the Irish Bottoms, where he lives in ease and comfort. He is a good friend, a kind neighbor, and a citizen proud of his country. He and his wife are enjoying the days of their old age. For his years, he has the most powerful lungs and a remarkable constitution. He bears up under the infirmities of age, though they were but temporary, and when he is called, he will answer "ready," and go, ready to give an account of the deeds done in the body. No man enjoys the company of his friends better than he, and no one is ever happier to have them visit him. Since the preparation of this sketch his wife died in December, 1899.
William C. Coryell.
William C. Coryell was born in West Union, February 18, 1859, the son of Judge James I .. Coryell. He attended the West Union schools un- til he completed their course and attended the Ohio University at Athens for one year, 1875 and 1876. He also attended the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- versity at Delaware, 1876-1878, till he was compelled to leave on account of sickness. He studied surveying with his father from 1878 to 1883, read law with F. D. Bayless of the West Union bar, and was admitted to practice October 5, 1886. He served as Deputy Clerk and Deputy Sheriff and also as Clerk in the Probate, Auditor's and Treasurer's office of Adams County at different times and has more familiarity with the administration of all the county offices than any person now living in the county. From 1878 to 1886, he was principally engaged in the county offices, and in that time did a great deal of surveying, and prepared himself for admission to the bar. He has also served as a councilman for the village and followed his father as a member of the School Board.
Mr. Coryell is a modest man, as it behooves all bachelors to be, but he is a well read man, both in law and in the current topics of the time. As a lawyer, his tastes lead him to prefer the duties of a counsellor, and his counsel is always safe. He enjoys the confidence, esteem and respect of all who know him, and in the management of large and important es- tates and trusts he has shown himself most efficient and trustworthy. No lawyer enjoys a greater measure of the confidence of the people of Adams County than he, and he has demonstrated that such confidence is well de- served. While he does not possess his father's taste as to historical mat- ters, much to the regret of the writer, he is a much abler business man than his father was, and bids by the time he is sixty to stand with the people of Adams County as George D. Cole, of Waverly, did with the people of Pike County at the time of his death, and for information on that subject, consult the sketch of Mr. Cole in this book.
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OHIO 'NOINH J.SILA 'HONNOS HE'S AO HANNOISTH
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James Harvey Connor,
of West Union, Onio, was born December 27, 1842, on the old Connor farm in Sprigg Township. He is of Irish lineage, his father, James Connor, being a son of Peter O'Connor, who emigrated from the South of Ireland to America in 1786, and shortly thereafter came West to the "dark and bloody ground," stopping in the vicinity of Kenton's Station near the old town of Washington. Peter O'Connor had been reared in the Catholic Church, and upon his leaving for America the Parish Priest gave him a certificate of character, of which the following is a copy of the original now in the possession of our subject, J. H. Connor :
"I do hereby certify that Peter O'Connor, the bearer hereof, is a parishioner of mine in the parish of Clone these some years-is a young man descended of hon- est parents, and has behaved virtuously, soberly and regularly, and from every- thing I could learn his character has been irreproachable. Given under my hand this third day of April, 1786. "DAVID CULLUM, P.P."
In May, Peter O'Connor sailed from Dublin for America, as the fol- lowing receipt for his passage aboard the Tristam shows :
" Received from Peter Connor four guineas in full for steerage passage in the Tristam to America. Dublin, May 13, 1786. "GEORGE CRAWFORD."
"This is to certify that Peter Connor comes as passenger on board of the Tris- tam, and this is his final discharge from the ship. Dated this first day of August, 1786. " GEO. CRAWFORD, Com'r."
"We hereby certify that Peter Connor came passenger in the ship Tristam, Capt. Crawford, from Dublin; he paid his passage and is a free man and at liberty to go about his lawful business. "CLARKE & MANN, Assng. " Aug. 2, 1786."
Peter O'Connor, or Connor as he was now called, arrived in Baltimore in August, 1786, and after getting from the proper authorities a permit to travel across the State, went to New York City and thence to Phil- adelphia. Afterwards he went on a prospecting trip over the mountains to the frontier of Kentucky, and in 1796 bought of Andrew Ellison, "two hundred acres of land lying between Big Three Mile Creek and the Ohio River, it being a part of a tract of five hundred acres entered in the name of said Andrew Ellison and adjoining a tract now belonging to William Brady on the North." This title bond gives the place of residence of Andrew Ellison as Hamilton County, Territory Northwest of the River Ohio (this was a year previous to the organization of Adams County), and the place of residence of Peter Connor, as Washington, Mason County, Kentucky.
The date of his marriage to Elizabeth Roebuck is not known, but it is presumed to be about the time of the purchase of this tract of land in 1796. It is also supposed that it was previous to his marriage that he paid a visit to his old home in Ireland, as disclosed by the following :
" March 11, received from Peter Connor the sum of four guineas, passage money on board the Hamburg from Philadelphia to Cork. "STEPHEN MOORE."
The father of the subject of this sketch was James Connor, son of Peter Connor, and was born November 2, 1802. He was christened in
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the Catholic faith, although his mother was a Protestant. James Connor married Margaret Boyle, a daughter of Thomas Boyle, for many years an elder in the Presbyterian Church at Manchester. James Connor died May 4, 1896.
Our subject, James H. Connor, attended the common schools and the academy at North Liberty under Prof. Chase. He resided on the farm till 1874, when he moved to Manchester and entered the dry goods store of W. L. Vance as a clerk. The following year he was elected on the Democratic ticket Treasurer of Adams County, and re-elected in 1877. In 1881, he became a member of the dry goods establishment of Connor, Boyles and Pollard, in West Union, which firm was changed to Connor and Boyles in 1889. In 1895, on the retirement of Mr. Boyles, the firm name was changed to J. H. Connor. The first six years in business, the firm of Connor, Boyles & Pollard handled annually over $50,000 worth of goods. With close competition, the house now does a business of over $30,000 annually. .
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In 1891, Mr. Connor was nominated by the Democrats in the Adams- Pike District for Representative in the Ohio Legislature, and although the district is largely Republican, was defeated by only thirty-nine votes. July 21, 1893, President Cleveland commissioned him postmaster of West Union, which position he held to the entire satisfaction of the community for four years and six months.
Mr. Connor is a member of West Union Lodge, F. & A. M., No. 43; of DeKalb Lodge, I. O. O. F., Manchester ; Crystal Lodge, K. of P., West Union, and a charter member of Royal Arcanum, Adams Council, No. 830. He is also a member of the M. E. Church, West Union.
He married Jennie Frame, daughter of James and Nancy Frame, July 22, 1868. To this union has been born William Allen, May 1, 1871 ; Katie B., November 5, 1875, now married to Harley Dunlap; and Charles E., born June 7, 1877, died August, 1878.
In 1864, July 27, Mr. Connor enlisted in the 182d O. V. I., and was honorably discharged July 7, 1865, under Col. Lewis Butler. And it is a fact worthy of notice that not until every other man of his company had applied for and received a pension did our subject do so.
In all matters pertaining to the public good, Harvey Connor, as he is familiarly known, is always found in the foremost ranks. He has done well, accumulated a competency, not from parsimony, but from liberal and honest dealing with his fellow men.
John Edgar Collins
was born April 9, 1871, two miles south of Peebles. His father's name is John R. Collins, and his mother's maiden name was Mary Wright. He has a brother, the Rev. H. O. Collins, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is also a member. His only sister is Mrs. Robert Jackman. His training was such as the country school affords until he became a teacher at the age of eighteen. Teaching during the Winter and spending his Summers in study at the National Normal University, he was graduated from the Scientific Department of that institution in 1892 in a class of seventy-seven. The next year he was elected to the superintend- ency of the Peebles schools, which position he resigned in 1896 to accept
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