USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 107
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To Joshua and Amanda (Birks) Clark have been born two children, both of whom died in infancy. Mr. and Mrs. Clark are members of Grace Methodist Episcopal church at Urbana and take a proper interest in church work, as well as in the general good works of their home town, helpful in many ways in promoting movements designed to advance the common wel- fare.
R. G. JOHNSON.
Although yet a young man. R. G. Johnson, who is teaching school at Cable, Champaign county, has won a large measure of success in one of the most exacting of professions and gives promise of accomplishing still greater good as an educator in the future.
Mr. Johnson was born in Union township, this county, December 14. 1889, a son of John W. and Sepha (Wooley) Johnson. The father grew to manhood on the farm in this county, and received his early education in the public schools of Union township. He began farming when a young man in Union township. continuing there in general agricultural pursuits until he-was fifty years of age, when he moved to Wayne township, later locating in Cable, where he spent the rest of his life, dying in that village. His widow is still living, making her home at Urbana. To these parents two children were born, the subject of this sketch and Roy.
R. G. Johnson grew to manhood in Union township and received his
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early education in the public schools of that township, and in the high school at Mechanicsburg, which latter he attended for a short time; then studied at Miami University, finishing his work there in 1910. During the year 1915 he attended Wittenberg College at Springfield, Ohio, and is now planning to take a special course in that institution.
Mr. Johnson has been teaching since 1911. He taught his first term at the White school house in Union township, spending one year there; then taught two years at Middletown and two years at Mingo. At this writing, 1917, he is engaged in teaching at Cable, where lie has been en- gaged for another year also. He has been very successful from the first as an instructor and now ranks among the popular teachers of Champaign county. He is a diligent student himself and keeps well abreast of the times in all that pertains to educational work. He has introduced many new and approved methods in the schools of which he has been in charge, and has been popular with both pupils and patrons.
On May 29, 1916, Mr. Johnson was married to Alice Black, a daugh- ter of Edward and Jennie Black. Politically, Mr. Johnson is a Republican. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is past noble grand of the local lodge of that order. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
WILLIAM HANNA.
The biographies of enterprising men, especially good men, are instruc- tive as guides and incentive to others. The examples they furnish of patient purpose and steadfast integrity, strongly illustrate what is in the power of each to accomplish, when they have courage and right principles to control their course of action. Such a man was the late William Hanna, one of the most progressive agriculturists and highly esteemed citizens of Cham- paign county, during the generation that has just passed.
Mr. Hanna was a scion of one of the sterling old pioneer families of the above named county, and he was born on the Hanna homestead west of Urbana, in Concord township, September 26, 1847. He was a son of Andrew and Rachael (Barber) Hanna, who were among the early settlers in Concord township. Andrew Hanna came here from Virginia when young. His wife's parents were also from Virginia, but she was a native of this township, where she grew to womanhood.
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William Hanna married Margaret Barger, who was born on the old Barger farm a half mile west of Eris in Concord township, on the place where Charles Barger now lives. After their marriage William and Mar- garet Hanna settled on a farm on the line between Mad River and Concord townships, and there Mr. Hanna carried on general farming and stock raising in a successful manner until 1906, when he removed to the farm in Concord township on which his son, Walter W. Hanna, now lives. There he con- tinued agricultural pursuits until 1910, when he went to Colorado, where he spent three or four years; then returned to Concord township and died here in June, 1916. His wife had preceded him to the grave in 1899.
To William Hanna and wife six children were born, three of whom are living at this writing, namely: Cleo V., the wife of John H. Abbott, a farmer of Concord township; Walter W., who was born on the line be- tween Mad River and Concord township, December 21, 1882, resides on what is known as the old F. N. Barger farm in Concord township, and Benjamin E., who makes his home in Colorado.
In his earlier years William Hanna was a Republican, but in later life was not a biased partisan, being more of an independent voter. He took an active interest in public affairs all his life. He was one of the first members of Lodge No. 46, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Urbana. He and J. C. Thackery were the originators of the plan for dredg- ing Mad river, and their efforts finally resulted in the accomplishment of this task, which proved to be a great advantage to the people of this section of the state. He took an abiding interest in whatever made for the develop- ment of his locality in any legitimate way. His wife belonged to the Concord Methodist Episcopal church.
JOHN TAYLOR'S FAMILY.
In the Baptist church at King's creek there is a beautiful memorial win- dow sacred to the memory of John Taylor, an honored pioneer of Champaign county, who donated the land on which that church stands and whose efforts in behalf of a proper social order, in the days of the beginning of the settle- ment in that neighborhood had very much to do with the orderly establishment of the community on its present sound basis. John Taylor was one of the first settlers in that part of the county and one of the most influential factors in bringing about proper conditions there in the early days. A Virginian by
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birth, he had been carefully reared and both he and his wife brought out here to the then wilderness fine ideas concerning the needs of a new community and it is undoubted that their influence in those early days had very much to do with the firm establishment of the King's Creek settlement.
John Taylor was born on March II, 1769, a son of William and Mary (Buckels) Taylor, substantial residents of what then was Berks county, Vir- ginia, now Jefferson county, West Virginia. He grew to manhood in that community and there married Catherine Orsborn, who was born on June 4. 1773. After his marriage he remained in that community until in the spring of 1804. when he came out into the then new state of Ohio, this state having just been admitted to statehood the year before, and established his home in Champaign county, where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives, honored and useful pioneers, ever devoted to the common good. With them came seven children that had been born to them in Virginia and after taking up their home in this county three other children were born to them. All of these children grew to maturity and all married and had children save one, hence the Taylor family presently became one of the most numerous in this section, gradually growing with the succeeding generations, until now the progeny of this pioneer pair in this part of Ohio form one of the most numer- ously represented families hereabout.
It was in April, 1804, that John Taylor came over from Virginia into the new state of Ohio and settled on a farm in the immediate vicinity of King's Creek, in Salem township, this county. From Isaac Zanes, the white chief of the Wyandots, he bought there a section of land containing six hundred and forty-three and eight hundredths acres and on that practically unimproved tract established his home and spent the rest of his life. He later bought from the government the west quarter of section 8, township 5, range 12, his deed to the same being signed by James Monroe, President of the United States. July 13, 1819. He also bought other lands hereabout and in time became the owner of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight acres of land, giving to each of his children a quarter of a section of land before he died. A prac- tical miller, John Taylor had brought out here with him upon coming from Virginia, the machinery for a grist-mill and at King's Creek he set up the first grinding-mill in that section, his mill early becoming the central point for the settlers for miles about. He also- erected a tannery and saw-mill and as the head of these three industries performed an admirable service in the new community. He and his wife were ardent Baptists and upon the organiza- tion of a congregation of that communion at King's Creek he donated to the
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congregation the tract of land on which the church stands to this day and also a tract for cemetery purposes. In that cemetery his body was laid away after his death on August 21, 1825, and in the handsome church edifice which now marks the site of the first primitive church building he helped to erect, there is a beautiful memorial window testifying to John Tay- lor's distinctive service in behalf of the church. His wife had preceded hin to the grave several years and she was buried in the old cemetery at Urbana. When the family desired to have her remains removed to the cemetery at King's Creek, after John Taylor had donated a tract for such purpose, her grave could not be satisfactorily identified and her body still lies in its original resting place, though the monument erected at John Taylor's grave just north- west of the church at King's Creek bears her name as well as his.
As noted above John and Catherine (Orsborn) Taylor were the parents of ten children, these children, in order of birth, being named Willian, David, Mary, Samuel, Levi, Margaret, Thomas, Ruhama, Blanche and Elizabeth, or "Betsy." William Taylor married Elizabeth Morgan and had nine children. David Taylor married Ann Hendricks and had two children. Mary Taylor married Archibald Magrew and had ten children. Samuel Taylor was mar- ried three times and was the father of seven children. His first wife, Sarah Phillips, was the mother of five children, four of whom grew to maturity. His marriage to Rachel Gray was without issue. His third wife, Susan Reynolds, was the mother of two children. Levi Taylor, who was born in Virginia on March 24, 1800, and who was therefore but four years of age when his parents settled in this county, grew up here and on June 16, 1825, married Mrs. Sarah Lowery, born Chamberlain. Of the ten children born to that union but four lived to maturity, John, Sarah Ann, Elias and Job, all of whom married. Sarah Chamberlain was thrice married, her first union having been contracted in Cayuga county, New York, with Robert Worden, who died two years later. leaving one child, a son, Alvin Worden, who was born in that same county. After the death of her husband the Widow Worden moved with her parents to Indiana and at Lawrenceburg, that state, she married John Lowery, after- ward coming to this state and locating at Urbana, where, after the death of Mr. Lowery, she married Levi Taylor. Margaret Taylor married Timothy Powell and had eight children. Thomas Taylor married Lucy Chamberlain and had nine children. Ruhama Taylor, who did not marry, made her home during the later years of her life with her younger sister, Blanche, who mar- ried John Miller and had six children. The last-born child of John Taylor. ยท Elizabeth, or "Betsy" Taylor, married Charles Mathes and had two children.
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