USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 36
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Mr. Kimball has been thrice married. On October 8, 1875, he was united in marriage to May Smith, of Woodstock, daughter of Courtland Smith, for years postmaster of that village, a shoemaker by vocation, whose last days were spent at Mitford, and to that union two children were born, Fannie Fern, who married Dr. John Hathaway, of Mechanicsburg, and has one child, a son, John, and Mabel Fawn, wife of Dr. W. H. Sharp, of Wood- stock, a biographical sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this volume. The mother of these children died on May 4, 1888, and on May 10, 1889, Mr. Kimball married Mary Hathaway, of Union county, who died in 1906, after which he married Huldah Putnam, of Washington county, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Kimball have a very pleasant home at Woodstock and take an inter- ested part in the general social activities of their home town, helpful in pro- moting all proper causes there and throughout the county at large. Mrs. Kimball is a member of the Universalist church and is a teacher in the Sun- day school of the same. Mr. Kimball is a Knight Templar and a Royal Arch Mason and takes much interest in Masonic affairs. He was made a Mason in the local lodge at Mechanicsburg many years ago and is connected with the local chapter of the Royal Arch Masons at Urbana and with the com- mandery of Knights Templar in that city.
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THE MAST FAMILY.
There are few families in Champaign county who have had a weightier influence upon the affairs of this county or who are more widely represented than the Mast family, the numerous progeny of the pioneer, John Mast, who settled here in 1830, now forming one of the most extensive connec- tions !in this part of the state. In his old home over in that sterling old Mennonite community in Berks county, Pennsylvania, John Mast had been a farmer and school teacher. There he married and six or seven years later, in 1830, moved with his family over into Ohio and settled in Cham- paign county, buying here a quarter of a section of good farm land at ten dollars an acre. He had little money to invest in his land and in the necessary live stock and farming implements, and soon found himself in a financial struggle, as the markets for his farm products gave no large returns. The means of transportation in those days also were so unsatis- factory as to prove a further discouraging feature of pioneer living, and he had to haul his wheat over the mud roads to Dayton, where he received but thirty-three cents a bushel for the same. But as the country became more thickly settled, the land began to increase in value and the farmer was given better prices for his products, the gradually improving roads also affording better facilities for transportation. John Mast was not only a good farmer, but an excellent business man, and he soon began to clear off his debts and it was not long until he came to be recognized as one of the leading farmers in Champaign county, as well as one of the foremost factors in the work of developing the community in which he had settled. He took an active part in the affairs of both church and state and established a. family which has ever been noted for fidelity to the true principles of com- munity life hereabout. In 1865 John Mast retired from his farm of three hundred and twenty acres, which he divided among his children.
The Mast family in America is descended from Bishop Jacob Mast. a leader in the Mennonite church, a Swiss by birth, who was born in 1738 and who was early orphaned. While he was still in his boyhood he came to this country from Switzerland with his four sisters and a younger brother, John, the children being in the care of their benevolent uncle, Johannes Mast. and settled in Berks county, Pennsylvania, where the family is still influen- tially represented. It was on November 3, 1750, that the party landed from the ship, "Brotherhood," at the port of Philadelphia, young Jacob Mast being then twelve years of age. They joined the Amish Mennonites in
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Berks county and there the lad grew to manhood, firmly grounded in the simple faith of his father and of his daily associates. There he married Magdalene Holly and there he established his home, the warrant giving him title to his tract of one hundred and seventy acres of land in Carnar- von township, that county, bearing date of November 19, 1764. There he erected a comfortable log house, "close to a lusty spring which flows directly from a stratum of limeless sandstone," and there he spent the remainder of his life, diligent in all good works and a faithful servant in the Lord to the people whom he had been elected in 1788 to serve as bishop, ever "sound, hopeful and trustful in religious convictions, which had fitted him admirably for his vocation." Bishop Mast died in 1808 and "his neigh- bors carried his body out of his old home and buried it in a quiet spot on the broad acres he had tended and loved." His grave is marked with a carved sandstone bearing inscription near the northwest corner of the wall of what is known as Pine Grove cemetery. His widow survived him until October 26, 1820, she then being eighty years of age, and is buried at his side.
Bishop Jacob Mast and his wife, Magdalene Holly, were the parents of twelve children, of whom it is related that they "had strong constitu- tions and in general had good health and led temperate, moral, honest Chris- tian lives and imparted these same good qualities to their children and grand- children, for which give God the glory. During their childhood days they were commanded before retiring at night to all repeat our Lord's Prayer in concert." These children were as follow: John Mast, who married Mary Kurtz; Magdelena, who married Christian Zook; Barbara, who married John Hochstetler and after his death, John Zuck. Jacob Mast, who married Barbara Kenage and was the father of John Mast, the Champaign county pioneer; David Mast, who married Mary Kurtz; Mary, who married John Coffman; Nancy, who married Adam Kurtz; Fannie, who married John Zuck; Elizabeth, who married Christian Holly; Christian Mast, who mar- ried Susan Kurtz; Esther, who married Christian Zuck and after his death. Peter Holly, and Daniel Mast, who married Charity Zook and after her death, Catherine Kurtz and after the death of the latter, Mary Morgan.
Jacob Mast, second son and fourth child of the Bishop whose name he bore, was born in 1768 and died in 1852 with infirmities incident to old age, at his home, known as the Petershime farm, north of the old Conestoga Tavern, in Carnarvon township, Berks county, Pennsylvania. His early training was along agricultural lines and he devoted himself all his life to the cultivation of farms in the Conestoga valley, "his sterling integrity, good
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sense and unostentatious sincerity of purpose winning for himself a high place in the esteem of the people," and he was frequently called upon to fill positions of honor and trust. On April 22, 1792, Jacob Mast was united in marriage to Barbara Kenage, daughter of John and Dorothy (Nafzger) Kenage, the latter of whom was a daughter of Matthias Nafzger, a native of Switzerland, and to that union eight children were born, of whom John Mast, the Champaign county pioneer, was the first-born, the others being as follow : Joseph, who married Frances Plank and after her death married Phoebe Ann Plank; Elizabeth, who married John Zuck; Mary, who died unmarried, at the age of twenty-seven years; Jacob K., who married Fanny Gehman; Isaac, who married Ann Gehman, and Leah, who married the Rev. George Hunter.
John Mast, grandson of the Bishop and eldest son of Jacob Mast, was born in Carnarvon township, Berks county, Pennsylvania, October 29, 1793, and became a farmer and school teacher in that county. There on December 4, 1823, he married Elizabeth Trego, who was born in Chester county, that same state, January 26, 1804, daughter of Eli and Mary Trego, and con- tinued to make his home in Berks county until 1830, when, as noted above, he came to Ohio and became a permanent resident of Champaign county, his death occurring at his home in Salem township on March 7, 1881. For forty-three years he was a member of the board of education, was a class leader in the Methodist Episcopal church for fifty-four years and for forty- eight years a steward and a member of the board of trustees of the same. His wife had preceded him to the grave something more than a year, her death having occurred on January 25, 1880. They were the parents of eight children, namely: Phineas Price, Miriam B., Isaac Wesley, Anna Keemer, Elizabeth F., Joseph Kenage, John Emory and Ephraim Milton.
P. P. Mast, former mayor of Springfield, this state, and for years one of the most prominent manufacturers and business men in that city, died at his home there on November 20, 1898. He was the owner of much valuable land in Springfield, besides more than three thousand acres of land in Trego county, Kansas, an equal acreage in the peach belt of Georgia and the great Bandarita ranch in Mariposa county, California. He married Anna Maria Kirkpatrick, of Galesburg, Illinois, who died in April, 1895. without issue. Miriam B. Mast died on March 20, 1885, unmarried.
Isaac Wesley Mast, an honored veteran of the Civil War, died at his home in Salem township, on March 14, 1882. He was twice married, by his first wife, Laura A. Smith, having had one child, a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, who married George H. Frey, of Springfield, and has three sons,
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Harrison, John and Philip. By his second wife, Anne Keating Smith, he had three children, Anna Maggie, deceased; Elizabeth, who married Francis Butler Loomis, of Marietta, this state, former United States minister to Venezuela, and later to Portugal, now living at Springfield, and had three children, of whom but one, Francis Butler, now survives, and Florence, who married Charles Kilgore Rogers, of Springfield and died in that city in 1901, leaving one child, a son, Richard Harrison, who died in the year fol- lowing.
Anna Keemer Mast married Alexander J. Stewart, a veteran of the Civil War, and both she and her husband spent their last days at Erie, Pennsylvania. They were the parents of five children, none of whom are now living.
Elizabeth F. Mast, now living at Los Angeles, California, is the widow of John R. Lemen, whom she married in this county and who died in South Bend, Indiana, in 1892, leaving two children, Eva Florence, who married Ezra E. Clark, a teacher of art at DePauw University, and has one child. a son, Donald, and Edward Grant, now a manufacturer and traveling sales- inan at Chicago, who married Daisy B. Morse.
Joseph Kenage Mast, who is still living in this county, was a farmer in Salem township until his retirement from the farm in 1910, since which time he has been making his home among his children, he now being in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He has been twice married, his first wife, Catherine Eichholtz, of Urbana, dying in August, 1883, after which he married Josephine Anderson, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. My that first marriage seven children were born, namely: John Wesley, who was killed when nine years of age by a fall from a horse; Charles Henry, a farmer of this county, who married Mary L. Swisher and has three children, Paul Harvey, Avise Tabitha and Adrah Mary Louise; Joseph Frank, a farmer of Salem township and a biographical sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume, who married Malinda Instine, of Urbana, and has two sons, Burleigh Frank and Harry Wright : Emma, who married John Milton Strasser, of Urbana, now living at LaGrange, Illinois and has five children, Roland John, Marie Jeanette, Ethelyn Beatrice, Florence Louise and Josephi Mast; Elizabeth, who married Clark A. McInturff, of Urbana, now living in New York City, and has one child, a son, Joseph Mast; Cicero Phineas, a soldier during the Spanish-American War, now a grocer at Dayton, who married Caroline Schroeder, of that city, and Ivy, wife of the Rev. J. Ernest Balmer, a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal church, stationed at Wil- liamstown, Michigan.
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John Emory Mast, a biographical sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume, is still living in this county, one of the best-known and most substantial farmers of Salem township. He married Minerva J. Stone- braker, of King's Creek, and has eleven children.
Ephraim Milton Mast, an honored veteran of the Civil War, a member of Company M, First Ohio Light Artillery, died at the home of his son, John C. Mast, in Urbana, on April 7, 1910, at the age of sixty-eight years. He left this county in the fall of 1869 and had afterward lived in Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, and was a well-to-farmer. He married in 1866 Sallie J. Brown, of Urbana, and was the father of four sons, namely : Edgar Leroy, who married Sarah Angeline Runkle, of St. Paris, this county, and has one child, a daughter, Cora Emma; John Clinton, who married Sarah Augusta Klickow, of Urbana; Charles Clinton, now living in Florida, who married Nellie Blanche Neer, of Westville, this county, and Alfred Phineas, who married Arvesta Foltz, of this county, and has two sons, Roland and Homer.
SAMUEL B. WHITMORE.
Samuel B. Whitmore, a farmer living on route nine, Urbana, and route five, St. Paris, Ohio, two miles west of Westville, Ohio, was born on the farm that was entered by his great-grandfather, John Whitmore. He was born in Virginia and came to Ohio in an early day and entered three hun- dred and twenty acres of land all heavily timbered. He cleared off a little space on which he built a cabin and then began the work of cutting off the timber and getting enough ground in shape for cultivation and raise a crop. This meant an immense amount of labor but it was an experience common to all pioneer settlers. In time he had considerable ground under cultiva- tion and had a comfortable house in which to live. He built a barn on the farm and this barn is still standing. He had three sons and one daugh- ter, Jacob, David, John and Mary. Jacob married Catherine Zimmerman, and their children were, Barbara, Sarah, Elizabeth and Simon. Simon married Elizabeth Wiant and they had five children: Sylvia, wife of Ross Wiant; Minnie, wife of D. S. Seibert: Samuel B., Dottie, wife of William Gumpert ; Harry D., a farmer in this township.
Simon Whitmore settled down on the farm on which he was born. He received his education in the common schools and worked on the farm. He became the owner of one hundred and ninety-seven acres of land which
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he cultivated and improved. He was an active member of the Baptist church at Myrtle Tree.
Samuel B. Whitmore was reared on the old home farm and received his education in the common schools of the neighborhood. On December 28, 1898, he was married to Ora E. Neff, who was born in Mad River town- ship and educated in the schools of the vicinity of her home. The children born to this union were: S. Joe, born October 13, 1899, graduate of the common schools; Mary C., born in 1910; Lulu died at the age of four years, and one child died in infancy.
Mr. Whitmore is a charter member of Magrew Lodge No. 433, Knights of Pythias. In politics he affliates with the Democratic party.
GOV. JOSEPH VANCE.
Ever since the period of the incumbency of Gov. Joseph Vance in the chair of the chief executive of the great state of Ohio in the latter thirties the people of Champaign county have been justly proud of the fact that this county has furnished to the state a governor, and it is but proper and fitting that in a collection of biographies relating to the persons who have done well their part in the work of developing this county, mention here should be made of this distinguished figure in the civic life of the state and prominent factor in the pioneer life of Champaign county.
The Hon. Joseph Vance, a captain of militia during the time of the War of 1812, for years a legislator from this district, governor of the state dur- ing the gubernatorial period of 1837-39, member of Congress from this dis- trict for eight terms and a member of the state constitutional convention of 1851, was a native of Pennsylvania and a later resident of Kentucky, but had been a resident of Ohio since territorial days, having come here in 1801, and of Champaign county since the year in which the county was organized as a civic unit, he thus having been one of the real pioneers of this county. He was born in the old Indian town of "Catfish", now the city of Washing- ton, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1786, a son of Joseph C. and Sarah ( Wilson ) Vance, natives of Virginia, the former of whom was a soldier of the patriot army during the war for independence, and who later moved to Kentucky, coming thence up into the then territory of Ohio and, after a sometime resi- dence in the region now comprised in Greene county, came up into this sec-
JOSEPH VANCE Thirteenth Governor of Ohio.
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tion and became one of the organizers of Champaign county, spending here the rest of his life, one of the most influential pioneers of this county.
Joseph C. Vance was the youngest of a large family of children born to his parents in Virginia and in the Old Dominion grew to maturity. His father, a native of Ireland, of Scottish ancestry, had come to the colonies with a considerable number of Presbyterians, emigrating from Ireland with a view to setting up homes in the new land across the water, and by the time of the breaking out of the Revolutionary War had his home well established in Virginia. Joseph C. Vance was old enough to render service in that struggle for independence and served throughout the war as a member of Saul Vail's company with the famous rifle regiment of General Morgan. - In 1781, the year the war closed, he married Sarah Wilson, who was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, and straightway he and his bride started to what then was practically an unknown West, with a view to setting up their home amid pioneer conditions, the great western county of Virginia, Kentucky, being their objective point. When they reached a point in the immediate vicinity of the old Indian village of "Catfish", now the city of Washington, Pennsylvania, they made a temporary home and there remained for several years, during which time, in the spring of 1786, in that little village, was born their son, Joseph, who later was to become governor of the state of Ohio. Two years later. in 1788, Joseph C. Vance loaded his little family and his few belongings on a raft and floated down the river to a point now known as Vanceburg, where he built a house and established his home in the wilderness, becoming the founder of the Vanceburg settlement. A few years later he concluded to penetrate farther into the wilderness and again started down the river, his family and goods on a flat-boat, and stopped on the Ken- tucky side, a few miles above Mays Lick, where he established his home and where he developed a good farm. There, among the Indians and amid con- ditions typical of a frontier settlement, the future governor of Ohio grew to manhood, becoming a sturdy and vigorous man, inured to all the hardships and privations common to the pioneers of that place and period. With a capacity for work and a willingness to perform the hardest kind of manual labor, he developed his body by toil in the fields and his mind by close applica- tion to the few books that he could command as he sat about the fireside dur- ing the long winter evenings. In 1801 Joseph C. Vance again decided to move on, his true pioneering instinct leading him again to face the wilder- ness, and he came with his family across the river and up into the then terri- tory of Ohio, settling in the region now comprised within the confines of Greene county. Four years later he "pulled up stakes" there and came up
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into this section, thus being here when Champaign county was organized in that same year. The Vance family settled at Urbana, which had just a short time before been laid out. and when it came time to establish a county seat the father of the future governor was one of the men instrumental in having the local seat of government located at that place. Joseph C. Vance was a man of much force of character, possessing a vigorous personality, and his pioneer neighbors turned to him instinctively as a director of affairs, he thus becoming the first director of the county. He also was elected first clerk of the county and first recorder, and continued active in local civic affairs until his death, on August 5, 1809.
Joseph Vance was eighteen or nineteen years of age when he came to this county with his father and he was one of the first young men in the new county to apply for a license to marry, the faded old record of marriage licenses in the court house showing that on December 17, 1807. he was united in marriage to Mary Lemon, the record disclosing that the ceremony was performed by the Rev. John Thomas. Before the War of 1812 began young Vance had been elected captain of a company of local militia and his com- pany was called out on several occasions prior to the actual opening of hostilities in order to quell incipient Indian uprising. Some time prior to 1812 he and his company erected a blockhouse up in Logan county, near the Quincy, which was long known as Vance's blockhouse. In the fall of 1812 Joseph Vance, who meanwhile had been growing greatly in favor among his pioneer neighbors, was elected to represent this district in the state Legis- lature and served as a member of the lower house during the eleventh and twelfth sessions ( 1812-13). In the fall of 1815 he again was elected to the Legislature and served through the fourteenth and fifteenth sessions, his last service in the lower house being rendered during the eighteenth session, 1819. In the succeeding election, 1820, he was elected to represent this dis- trict in the Congress and by successive re-elections served in that body from March 4, 1821, to March 4, 1833. six terms, during which period of service he became one of the best-known members of the Ohio delegation in the national House of Representatives and a man of much influence in that legis- lative body. In the fall of 1836 he was elected governor of Ohio and thus served as chief executive of the state during the years 1837-39. In the fall of the year following his retirement from the governor's office, Governor Vance was elected to represent this district in the state Senate and served in that body during the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth sessions ( 1840-41). He then was re-elected a member of Congress from this district and returned to Washington, serving two terms ( 18443-47), at the end of which time he retired
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to private life, with the avowed intention never again to allow his name to be proposed for public office. However, when the constitutional convention of 1851 was called. Governor Vance was found as one of the leading members of that historic body and it was while in the active performance of his duties as a member of that convention that he was suddenly stricken with paralysis and was compelled to relinquish his duties. He never recovered from the stroke and died on his farm, two and one-half miles north of Urbana, less than a year later, August 24. 1852, he then being in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
CLINTON A. NEESE.
Clinton A. Neese, engineer of the Thackery Creamery Company, was born in Mad River township, July 26, 1875. He is a son of Reuben B. and Laura (Weaver) Neese. Reuben B. Neese was born in Mad River township, a son of Elias and Sarah (Foltz) Neese.
The Neese family were natives of Virginia and came to Ohio at an early day. They were among the early settlers of Champaign county. Laura Weaver Neese, mother of our subject, was born in Mad River township, the daughter of W. E. and Elizabeth (Leonard) Weaver. The Leonards were also of old Virginia stock. The father and mother of our subject were both reared in Mad River township. After marriage they settled near Terre Haute and he was engaged in work at the carpenter trade for about forty years. They are now living in the village of Thackery. They had six children, all of whom are still living. They are: Clarence, Thackery, Ohio; Clinton A .; Elliott S., Seattle, Washington; Warden O., Hobart, Washington; Thaddeus K., Seattle, Washington; Mabel, wife of William Hecker, Mad River township.
Clinton A. Neese was reared to manhood in Mad River township. At the age of sixteen years he went to Arkansas, where he was employed for two years working on the farm for John W. Weaver. Then he went to Birmingham, Alabama, where he remained for one year; then to Dallas, Texas, for four months. He then went to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where he was employed for sometime as hoisting engineer, and in the machine shops at that place. In 1900 he returned to Champaign county, Ohio, where he was employed by McMorran Brothers working in grain elevators for fifteen years. Then he was with the Furnas Ice Cream Company, at St. Paris, Ohio, for one year. In 1916 he came to this place and was made engineer
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