A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record, Part 177

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans
Number of Pages: 1612

USA > Ohio > Scioto County > A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record > Part 177

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Simon Kenton; Christopher Columbus; Emily, widow of Doctor A. L. Norton; Joseph Jr .; James Pierre a graduate of West Point in 1861, who served as aid- de-camp to General Sykes in the first battle of the Rebellion at Bull's Run and afterwards with General Rosecrans in the Army of the Cumberland till the close of the war; and Marie. Our subject saw Daniel Boone at Millersport and remembered Simon Kenton. at Urbana, in 1834. He was a great fisherman and hunter. He was accustomed for years to make an annual deer hunt in Virginia. He used tobacco from 1840 and was a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church. He was a Mason for seventy years and a charter member of Morning Dawn Lodge of Gallipolis, Ohio. He died March 10, 1895. He was honored and esteemed by all who knew him.

Major Joseph L. Finley

There is an old brown head-stone in the center of the little village cem- etery at West Union, which recites-"Joseph L. Finley was born February 20, 1753, and died May 23, 1839." Most of the people of West Union and of those who have visited the cemetery or passed by have observed the stone, but do not know the story of him who reposes beneath, but we propose now to tell it so that hereafter, so long as this History is preserved, the headstone will sug- gest its own history. Major Joseph L. Finley was born on the date already given, near Greensburg, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. He was a grad- uate of Princeton College in the class of 1775. He entered the Revolutionary War on the first day of April. 1776, as a Second Lieutenant in Captain Moore- head's Company, of Miles' Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, organized under a reso- lution of Congress on July 15, 1776. He was made a Captain on the 20th day of October, 1777, and his regiment was designated as the 13th Pennsylvania. He was transferred to the 8th Pennsylvania, July 1, 1778, and was made a Major July 20, 1780.

He served until November, 1783, more than two years after the surrender of Cornwallis, and he was seven years and seven months in service in defense of his country. He was in the battle of Long Island on the twenty-seventh of August, 1776, and that of White Plains the September following. He was at the battle of Brandywine in September, 1777; at Germantown, in October of the same year, and he was in the battle of Monmouth on that memorable hot Sun- day, June 28, 1778. After that, he was sent with General Broadhead to the western part of Pennsylvania in his expedition against the Indians. He sub- sequently saw much hard fighting. He lost his left eye in the service and was otherwise much disabled. He emigrated to Adams county in 1815 and settled on Gift Ridge.

His wife was a daughter of Rev. Samuel Blair a noted Presbyterian min- ister in the early part of the history of that church in this country. She was a woman of much beauty of person and nobility of character, and their daughters were likewise well educated and handsome. She was an aunt of Francis P. Blair, the famous editor of the Globe of Washington, D. C. She was a sprightly woman, full of energy, and while small was considered very handsome. She had the blackest of black eyes; she wrote poetry for the news- papers, and wrote several touching tributes to the memory of deceased friends. Major Finley and his wife were both members of the Presbyterian church of West Union. He was a man of small stature, and in his old age his hair was silvery white. When he and his wife attended church at West Union, during the sermon he always sat on the pulpit steps, as he was somewhat deaf.

He had three daughters and two sons. His daughter, Hannah Finley, was the second wife of Colonel John Lodwick, and the mother of a numerous fami- ly. Among her sons were Captain John N., Joseph, Pressley and Lyle Lod- wick, and among her daugters were Mrs. Nancy McCabe, Mrs. Eli Kinney and Mrs. J. Scott Peebles. She died in 1827, twelve years before her father. An- other daughter, Mary Finley, married John Patterson, once United States Mar- shal of Ohio, and the father of Mrs. Benjamin F. Coates of Portsmouth, Ohio. She was the mother of seven children. She was married in 1818 and died in 1831. The Hon. Joseph P. Smith, late Secretary of the American Bureau of Republics, was her grandson and Mrs. Chandler J. Moulton of Lucasville her granddaughter.

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Major Finley was pensioned under the law of 1818 and stricken from the rolls by the alarm act of 1820, because he had some little property. This ac- tion was disgraceful to the Country. He was restored about 1823, on the appli- cation of numerous friends. The testimonials in favor of his restoration would make the angels weep. All the commissions he held for his Revolutionary offices are on file among his papers in the Pension office. He was one of the truest of patriots and the best of men, a model for all who should come after him.

Job Foster

was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia May 3, 1756. At the age of 19 he was married to Nancy Craycraft. There were six children of this marriage: John, William, Samuel, Mary, Margaret and Nancy.

On the 6th day of October, 1780, he enlisted for 18 months under Captain Simeon Carpenter in the 9th Va. Reg. commanded by Col. Richard Campbell. The regiment assembled and passed the winter at Winchester, Virginia. In March 1781, it proceeded to Fredericksburg; then to Petersburg, Chesterfield Court-house and then to Guilford county, North Carolina to join the army com- manded by Gen. Green, two days after the battle of Guilford N. C. March 15, 1781, and was in pursuit of the enemy under Lord Cornwallis as far as Deepwa- ter. At Camden, South Carolina, he was in the battle of Fort Hales April 15, 1781, His regiment was ordered to the high hills of the Santee in South Car- olina where it remained three months. Then it was sent to Fort Thompson for a short time; then to Fort Ninety-six in South Carolina where it was engaged in a number of skirmishes. The regiment was discharged at Saulsbury, North Carolina, January 1, 1782.

Our subject removed to Kentucky a few years after it became a state and settled in Greenup county near old Enterprise furnace. Here his daughter Margaret married Benjamin Barklow. She died in 1827, leaving three sons, Wil- liam Foster,Stout and Benjamin.

Benjamin Barklow removed to Portsmouth, Ohio, and engaged in the grocery business, located on West Second street where the Second street school building now stands. He died in 1863. At that time he was conducting a gro- cery on the corner opposite the Second street school building.

Job Foster removed to Jackson county and bought a small farm on which he lived for many years with his son. He applied for a pension in 1819 and gave his age as 64 years. He died about 1856. His widow, Sarah Jane Jeffords, resides in Portsmouth. He was the ancestor of Mrs. Agnes Roe of the same city.

Robert Hamilton

was born November 28, 1795, at Connellsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania. He was trained to the strictest belief and observances of the Westminster Confession, and it remained with him as the best part of himself all his life. He came to Adams county in 1817, in a flatboat. He landed at the mouth of Ohio Brush creek and walked up the creek to Brush creek furnace, where he engaged as clerk under Archibald Paul, who was then running the furnace. At that time the furnace only run on Sundays. On week days the forge ran to make hollow ware, pots, kettles, stoves, andirons and all kinds of castings. Then a ton of iron was 2,268 pounds and twenty-eight pounds allowed for sandage. The furnace at that time was run by water alone. When the water was low, they had to tramp a wheel to blow off, and the best they could do was to make two or three tons of iron a day.

On the twentieth of July, 1825, Mr. Hamilton was married to Nancy El- lison, daughter of John Ellison. She was a sister of the late William Ellison of Manchester. The marriage ceremony was performed by the Rev. William Williamson, who signed his name to the certificate, V. D. M., (Verbi Dei Min- ister), which was the fashion at that time, which translated is "Of the Word of God, Minister." Robert Hamilton was a resident of Adams county until 1828. In that time he laid the foundation of a successful business career. He was diligent in business and of the highest integrity. At that time it was thought a furnace must run on Sundays or the entire charge would be ruined but Mr. Hamilton induced Mr. Paul to try the experiment of a change. It was found

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the iron produced was just as good. Mr. Hamilton was the first furnaceman in the country who stopped his furnace on Sunday. The old Brush creek furnace was owned by the Ellisons and the Meanses.

In 1828, Robert Hamilton and Andrew Ellison, son of the Andrew Ellison who was captured by the Indians in 1793, under the name of Ellison & Hamil- ton, built Pine Grove furnace in Lawrence county. Robert Hamilton fired it on January 1, 1829. Four tons a day was its capacity at starting. After he loca- ted at Pine Grove Furnace, he became one of the founders of the church at Hanging Rock, and was a ruling elder in it from its organization until his death. His first wife died June 23, 1838, and on February 20, 1839, he was mar- ried to Miss Rachel R. Peebles, a daughter of John Peebles and a sister of John G. Peebles of Portsmouth. Our subject's judgment was excellent and he was wonderfully successful in business. He amassed a large fortune of which his widow was largely the almoner. He was respected and esteemed by all who knew him as a man who lived right up to his standard, both in business and in religion. He died September 11, 1856, in his sixty-first year, of a dysentery. His death was a great loss to the business community and to the church. It was almost a calamity, as his influence and methods were of incalculable ben- efit to those about him. His ashes repose in the beautiful Greenlawn Ceme- tery, at Portsmouth, Ohio.

His widow, Mrs. Rachel Hamilton, survived until August 27, 1883, when she died, aged eighty-seven years and one month. She was noted for her pious life and good deeds. Her gifts to charities were many, large and continuous, during her whole life, but her gifts by will were also many, large and praise- worthy. She stated in her will, she feared she had not given enough to char- itable purposes and therefore she gave her executor, her brother, John G. Pee- bles, $10,000 for charitable objects to be bestowed in his discretion. Her memory is revered in the entire circle of her acquaintance. The Peebles-Ham- ilton Reading Rooms at Portsmouth, Ohio, are a monument to her memory.

Captain James Harper

was born November 7, 1819 at Chillicothe, Ohio. His father was James Harper, a Philadelphia Quaker, and his mother was Julia Ann (Wilcox) Harper. She was the daughter of Robert Wilcox, a surgeon in the Revolutionary War and a native of Delaware. James Harper, Senior, came to Gallipolis, in 1825, to take charge of the Gallipolis Free Press, which he published there until 1831. Our subject worked for the Cincinnati Gazette, as a printer, four years. He then went to Louisville, Kentucky, and was there for twelve years on the Louisville Journal with George D. Prentice. On November 27, 1847, at Galli- polis, he was married to Miss Susan N. Drouillard, daughter of Joseph Drouil- lard, of Gallipolis. Mr. and Mrs. Harper made their home in Louisville, Ken- tucky, until 1849. In that year, he returned to Gallipolis and bought a half in- terest in the Gallipolis Journal, and thereafter resided in the town of Galli- polis until his death.

In June, 1850, he became sole owner of the Journal and continued it until December 23, 1863, when he sold out to R. L. Stewart. In November, 1871, he bought one-half interest and held it until 1873, when he sold out to William H. Nash, but after this sale to Mr. Nash, Mr. Harper remained connected with the Journal until 1889, when he retired from all business. During the war, when he was in control of the Journal, the paper was a straight out loyal Union paper. Mr. Harper was a member of the Military Committee of Gallia county, during the entire war and was its chairman. He devoted his entire time to the public good in that period and to the furtherance of the Union cause. He or- ganized a military company and became Captain and served about three months.

Mr. Harper was a whig while the Whig party lasted and then became a republican and never wavered in his allegiance to the party. He was honest and honorable to a fault and an agreeable companion. He had the most pleas- ing manners. He was a gentleman who stood on his dignity at all times, at the same time he knew how to make himself agreeable to all around him. He was a charter member of the Odd Fellow Lodge of Gallipolis and was buried by that Lodge. He died September 16, 1891. His widow survives.

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Captain Samuel Booth Hempstead

was born June 18, 1823, in Portsmouth, Ohio, the son of Dr. Giles S. B. Hemp- stead and Elizabeth Peebles, his wife. He grew up in the city of Portsmouth, and attended its school. He also attended school at Marietta, Ohio, and Wash- ington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. He became a steamboat clerk and master and followed that occupation for several years. He was one of the jolliest masters on the Ohio river, and was well acquainted with every one along the river from the mouth of the Kanawha to Cincinnati.

He was married March 12, 1846, to Mary Ann Hamilton, daughter of Rob- ert Hamilton and Nancy Ellison, his wife. The following are his children: Anna Moore, born February 6, 1847; married Isaac Newton Hempstead, March 12, 1867; Margaret Jane, born October 9, 1851 married William P. Walker, No- vember 22, 1877, died April 4, 1899; Elizabeth W., born November 30, 1853 died March 20, 1854. Mary Allen, born March 16, 1855; married Henry Ritter, De- cember 29, 1877, died May 31, 1897. Giles Hamilton, born June 19, 1856; died September 8, 1856. Rosalie Hamilton, born August 3, 1859; married September 11, 1885, to J. P. Gillen. Harriet Hamilton, born October 13, 1861; married May 13, 1885, to A. Tupper Nye.

In the year 1870, Captain Hempstead retired from the river and engaged in the foundry business at Hanging Rock until the time of his death. He was not a member of any church. He was a republican in his politics. He was liked by all who knew him. He was a most pleasing conversationalist and companion and was the life and soul of any circle in which he was associated He died at Hanging Rock, December 12, 1873. His wife who was born Septem- ber 6, 1826, died July 6, 1901.

Charles Henking

was born in the city and Canton of St. Gall, Switzerland, in 1808. His father was Charles Henking, a dry goods merchant in St. Gall and Verona, Italy. His mother's maiden name was Henrietta Hettenbach, daughter of Johann Hetten- bach, an old merchant of St. Gall. Our subject received a complete academical education in Switzerland, and learned English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. He spent his early life in Switzerland and in Italy. He was eighteen years of age when he came to the United States. He started for Mexico to es- tablish an agency for the sale of cotton goods for his uncle Henry Henking. When he got to New York, he found that his first cargo was lost at sea enroute for Mexico. This discouraged him, he gave up the enterprise and sold his sec- ond cargo of manufactured cotton goods which had been made in Switzerland. In New York, he became an agent for a European Syndicate which owned a large body of Virginia land. He went to Union, Monroe county, Virginia, and was there several years. He remained there until the lands were sold. He spent two years in Virginia. He then spent some years after in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, as a book-keeper in different mercantile houses.

He went to New Orleans and while there became acquainted with C. A. M. Damarin. As a result of such acquaintance he went to Portsmouth, and into the house of C. A. M. Damarin as book-keeper. While so employed he became a partner and the firm was Damarin & Henking. On June 4, 1845, he attended the wedding of Abe Buskirk, to Miss Josephine Oakes at the old Devacht home in Gallipolis. He was Buskirk's groomsman and Miss Emily Creuzet was bridesmaid. They met for the first time at the wedding. It was a case of "love at first sight," and they were married the following 3rd of September, 1845. They went to housekeeping in Portsmouth on Second street in the brick resi- dence lately owned by Dr. Lottridge, No. 80 West Second street. Up to this time Mr. Henking had been a gentleman of pleasure. He liked to make money, but spent it for the pleasures it empowered him to enjoy. After his marriage, he settled down securely to business, and was making money in Portsmouth, but his wife was dissatisfied and wanted to live at her former home.

In 1849, he moved to Gallipolis and formed a partnership in the banking business with Col. Peter Kinney, under the firm name of Charles Henking & Co. That continued for about two years, and in 1850, he went to Louisville and was in the banking business there about one year. In 1851, he returned to Gallipolis, engaged in the banking business there and continued it until 1862,

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when he closed out, and the First National Bank of Gallipolis was formed. In 1852, he formed the firm of Henking, Cadot & Co., wholesale and retail grocery. The firm was Charles Henking, Alfred Henking, a cousin, and John Julius Cadot. They carried on the business until 1857, when Mr. Cadot sold out to his partners who continued under the firm name of C. & A. Henking. In 1867, they sold out to Henking, Allemong & Co., Charles Henking retiring. Our subject then took a tour to Europe and was gone for two years. From his return until his death on March 8, 1875, he was a resident of Gallipolis, but spent a great deal of his time in Europe, Italy and Switzerland, and made numerous journeys there.

His wife died in 1861, and he never re-married. They had the following children: Charles, died in infancy; Florence Adile, born January 31, 1848; Charles William, born August 30, 1851; Henrietta Louise, born November 12, 1855; Joseph Louis, born August 25, 1858; Emily, born June 4, 1861. died in in- fancy; Florence, married Dr. W. C. H. Needham, October 4, 1870, he died Jan- uary 12, 1882, and she resides in Gallipolis. His son, Charles W., is the cashier of the Ohio Valley Bank in Gallipolis, and one of the most energetic and en- terprising of its citizens.

Mr. Henking was a whig and afterwards a republican. He was a social and affable gentleman of the old school. He was very energetic, had much executive ability and was always successful in business. As a young man he was of a lively disposition and fond of society. His principal business training was received from the late C. A. M. Damarin. He was a good liver, liberal in his views and expenditures. He was of great public spirit, always in favor of public improvements and encouraged them to the extent of his ability. He was one of those peculiar dispositions that whenever he made an acquaintance he made a friend.

William Ingalls.

William Ingalls was born in Glascow, Scotland. He was honorably connected; his mother's brother was titled Lord Lowe. He was a cabinet maker and when a young man he came to Edinburg and set up in business, in which he was suc- cessful. Here he became acquainted with Grizzel Davidson, whom he married and by whom he had twelve children. Five of them died before they left Scot- land. Those who lived and came to maturity were: Marion, born in Edin- burg, John, born in Philadelphia, William and Grace, born in Bellview, Wood county, Virginia, and James, in Gallipolis, Ohio. They were Presbyterians and raised their family in that faith. They left Scotland about 1784, or 1785. They with a few other families settled in Bellville, Wood county, Virginia. Marion. the eldest child was nine years old when they left Scotland. In March 1792, she married Thomas Gilruth. The marriage was celebrated in Marietta. by old Esquire Tupper, father of General Tupper, who sustained a siege at Fort Meigs during the war of 1812. They had five children, two of whom died in in- fancy. James, was born January 29, 1793, Mary, born January, 1797, and Wil- liam, May 24, 1799, in the French Grant, Scioto county, Ohio.

Colonel Henry L. Kline

was born in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of October, 1813. His ancestors came from Strasburg, Germany, in 1673, and settled at Baltimore, Maryland. When he was ten years of age, his father's family consisted of his mother, five sons and two daughters. They settled in Ross county, Ohio, not far from Frankfort. They made their journey in wagons. In the following year, his father, who was a miller by trade, took charge of the mill near Chil- licothe, and afterward bought the Swearingen place in Buckskin township, Ross county.

Henry L. was at one time Lieutenant Colonel of one of the Ohio Militia companies, hence his title.

In 1833, April 2, he was married to Mary E. McCreary, near Chillicothe, Ohio, granddaughter of Gen. James H. Menary. He died October 9, 1879.

He was a strong Presbyterian and an exemplary Christian. He was a whig when that party was in existence and afterwards a republican. His only son, Peter J. Kline, is a physician of Portsmouth, Ohio. He had one daughter, Rosa M. Kline, who lives at the old homestead.

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Francis Le Clercq

was born in the city of La Rochelle on the west coast of France, January 8, 1773. He received a fine education, and was an excellent penman. While at Gallipolis, Ohio, before he was married, he taught school. He made one or more trips to New Orleans. While he was teaching he had as pupils, two girls whom he afterwards married. In 1806, he married Eulalie Columbe Marrel in her 20th year. She died January 12, 1809, at the age of 23 years and 9 days. Nine months later, he married Marie Louise Cadot. After the death of his first wife, he was employed by M. Gervais to survey and lay out Burrsburg, near Haverhill. While surveying there he courted Mlle. Cadot. By his first wife, he had two children, by his second wife, one. For more than 25 years, he was Clerk of the Courts of Gallia county, and was postmaster at Gallipolis, nearly the same length of time. He carried on the business of merchandising and accumulated much money. In politics, he was a whig. In religion, he was nothing; but he was a Freemason. He died November 17, 1837, in his 64th year. He was buried beside his first wife, in the old cemetery at Gallipolis. When she died a willow switch was planted on her grave. In 1855, it was a tree four feet in circumference. He drew lot 91 in the French Grant, but never resided on it.

Adele Suzanna Magnet

was born in Havre, France, March 26, 1787: was five years old when she arrived in Gallipolis, with her mother, after a tedious sea voyage of six months, made memorable to her by the fact that she lost her doll which she had dropped in the ocean. Her father had preceded them by coming with the first colonists. Mrs. Magnet was the eldest of a family of ten daughters, and survived all, be- ing the last survivor of the early colonists. She was married in 1806, to An- toine Rene Magnet, and was the mother of five children, two sons and three daughters, the only one living being Mrs. Louisa Halliday, now in her eighty- third year. Mrs. Magnet was a remarkably well preserved woman, retaining all of her faculties with the exception of hearing, up to the time of her death, March 8, 1887, when within eighteen days of her one hundredth birthday. Possessed of excellent health, and up to her latest years occupying herself chiefly with patch-work, she displayed that perseverance, industry and cheer- fulness so characteristic of the French nature and was always an important and tenderly cherished member of the family circle in which she lived, surrounded by several generations of her descendants, which now number eleven grand- children, sixty-seven great-grandchildren, and forty-seven great-great-grand- children. It is a notable fact that when she died Mrs. Magnet still had her full set of 32 teeth in perfect state of preservation, being proof of her strong consti- tution and excellent health. She was a woman most highly respected, of integ- rity and worth, qualities that have been inherited by her many descendants.

Claudius Romain Menager

was born in 1757. He came from Normandy to this country with the French emigrants, landing at Gallipolis, October 19, 1790. He was married on the 18th of November, 1790, to Mary Bobine, a French lady, who came over with distant relatives in the same boat with him. This was probably the first marriage at Gallipolis. His wife has a picture herein. Mr. Menager was fully six feet high, well developed, with power and capacity for enduring toil and labor far above his associates. He started the business of merchandising at Gallipolis, with a stock which he had brought with him, but having a very meager supply he began looking around for some source from which to replenish it. He soon learned that Benjamin Ives Gilman, of Marietta, was wholesaling merchandise. He made the trip to Marietta, and purchased a stock on six months' credit, con- tracting to pay for the same in salt at three dollars per bushel, that being then the lowest wholesale price of that article.

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A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record, Part 177

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913 Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans Number of Pages: 1612

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans
Number of Pages: 1612