USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 2 > Part 13
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 2 > Part 13
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77
Mr. Tweed completed his education at the agricultural col- lege of the Ohio State University. While in college he en- joyed the highest honor within the gift of his class of more than one hundred, this fact, according to his own statement, being one of the most pleasant experiences of his entire life. It was said of him by the dean of the institution that "I regard him as a man of very unusual ability," and that while in col- lege "he was a leader and so regarded by both students and faculty," also that "he is already well known throughout the State by his writings for the agricultural press." Since four- teen years of age he has been a contributor to the agricultural literature of the country, and at the present time he is regu- larly employed by two of the leading farm journals. His con- tributions are generally brief and always to the point and are eagerly sought by publishers. Diverging from his chosen sub- ject he occasionally writes upon other themes, one of these articles, published in an Eastern magazine, carrying off the leading honor in a hotly contested prize offering.
Although yet a young man, the subject several years ago completed a successful business experience as a seedsman. His carefully prepared and unique catalogues, punctual ser-
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vice, square methods and good commodities made for him a trade consisting of thousands of customers. It was soon found, however, that this business and the farm were too much for one man to attend without overwork, and being a child of the soil the same soon found him engaged in his original vocation. He has said that had he decided to make the mere accumulation of money his life work he would have chosen the seed business instead of the farm. Retaining some attach- ment to the seed business the growth of seed corn was con- tinued as a specialty and with characteristic success thousands of bushels of the same have been sold, the only limit in sales being that of production.
Mr. Tweed is an original thinker, thoroughly conversant with current agricultural matters, and methods, it being said of him by a competent authority that a visit to his farm and home will reveal more original up-to-date information than can be found in a day's journey. It has also been said of him that an hour's talk on farm subjects may be worth many dol- lars to the hearer, and for this, as well as other reasons, he has been- repeatedly invited to do lecture work. Recognizing his judgment and tact, he has several times been called to the State and National capitals when important agricultural mat- ters were under consideration. Recently, when the subjects of Canadian reciprocity was before Congress he was called to Washington, where he and many other unsuccessfully op- posed the measure.
Mr. Tweed's home life is pleasant in the extreme. A home lover from the beginning he erected a comfortable house in the midst of his lands, and brought thereto Miss Ida Louella Cahall, the marriage ceremony taking place November 12, 1899. Miss Cahall had an extended college experience, and was for quite a while connected with the educational functions of the county. She was reared in Pleasant township and is a daughter of A. P. and Emma (Daugherty) Cahall, they being members of old Brown county families. Mr. and Mrs. Tweed have two daughters, Amber Lois and Ida Esther, aged six and three years, respectively. Mrs. Tweed is a member of the New Light church, and Mr. Tweed has been from time to time associated with the same. For ten years he was superin- tendent of his local Sunday school, during which time the school more than doubled in enrollment and was considered the model organization of that kind in the whole community. In religious belief Mr. Tweed is liberal. He regards the con-
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science as the only safe guard and has little concern as to the estimate or opinion of his fellowmen. Creeds and denomina- tions appeal but little to him, and he differs somewhat from many others in that he believes some of the more common sins, which are held aloft, are no worse than others, which pass practically unobserved. Mr. Tweed and family have spent considerable time in the State of Florida, enjoying the benefits of the delightful winter climate, and at present he is arranging to erect a home there, to which to repair every winter. The subject is one of the pioneer automobilists of his section, and is never happier than when out with his family en- joying the varied scenes, which only the motor car can make possible.
Being of a cheerful disposition, with a keen appreciation of the humorous, the subject is a very companionable personage to all who are associated with him, and especially to the chil- dren, who never tire of his quaint, but always perfectly clean humor. He detests the man with the vulgar tale, as well as the one who talks much and says little. Although a busy man he always hears attentively the appeal of those who ap- proach him. He was heard to humorously remark that he had heard more appeals from insurance men than any man in the community, and yet never invested a dollar in the same. His success comes first from knowing how, and then in doing things as they come to him thus often accomplishing more in a single day than many others accomplish in a week.
HON. JOHN F. GAMES.
Hon. John F. Games, Representative of Brown county to the Ohio Legislature in 1857 and 1858, was a man widely and favorably known in this section of the State as a man of pub- lic affairs, a teacher and a farmer of Huntington township, Brown county, Ohio, where his birth occurred March 11, 1810, whose death took place October 1, 1888. He was a son of John Wood and Sarah (Fryer) Games, both natives of Jef- ferson county Virginia, who came overland with a team and wagon to Brown county in 1807, accompanied by Mr. Gilbert, a brother-in-law.
John Wood Games was a gallant soldier in the War of 1812 and was in the famous lake expedition. The death of
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Mrs. Games occurred in 1840, having been the mother of six children, all of whom are deceased. Mr. Games formed a second union with Sarah Haynes, by whom he had two chil- dren. One died in infancy and the other, Josephine, became the wife of Mr. Wilson, of Huntington township. Mr. J. W. Games was a consistent member of the Methodist church and died in the faith in 1856, at the age of seventy years.
John F. Games received a good practical education in the subscription schools of Brown county and later taught irreg- ularly for some ten years with great success.
' In the year of 1831 Mr. Games was united in marriage to Mary A., daughter of Absalom Gardner, of Highland county, Ohio, by whom he had three children : Evaline, deceased ; Wil- liam B., of Ripley; and Absalom, deceased. Mrs. Games passed from this life in 1836, aged twenty-five years.
For his second wife, Mr. Games chose Amanda, daughter of D. W. Early, and to them were born eleven children, six of whom are yet living: Sarah E., wife of William G. Housh, of Moscow, Clermont county, Ohio; David Watson, who mar- ried first, Sarah J. Case, deceased, and second, Cora Atherton, and they reside in Huntington township; Hon. John W., who married Cerelda Porter, was formerly Representative from Miami county to the Kansas Legislature and served as treas- urer of Douglas county, Kansas, for five years, being suc- ceeded by his son. Another son, John I. Games, is postoffice inspector for Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana and resides at Lex- ington, Ky .; Euphemia A. married Samuel Porter and she died in Kansas, Mr. Porter being president of a bank at Wa- verly, Coffey county, Kansas; Martha F., Johnson Martin, now deceased, and she resides in Cincinnati, where her son, John Q. Martin, is engaged in the practice of law; Maria Power, wife of Dr. William H. Evans, a sketch of whom will be found on another page; Andrew E., who married Mary Cooper, is now postmaster at Aberdeen, Ohio. Those de- ceased are : Cordelia C., Mary Ellen, Charles F. and Gideon Gilbert. The mother of these children was born March 30, 1817, and passed to her eternal reward August 2, 1893.
Hon. John F. Games was a very successful and prosperous farmer and owned a finely improved farm of three hundred acres in Huntington township. He was scrupulously just in all his dealings and was ever ready to assist in all worthy enterprises. He served in the various township offices and as justice of the peace for a number of years.
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Hon. Games embraced the belief of the Methodist church and was a consistent and prominent member of the Ebenezer Methodist Church.
JOSEPH WOODMANSEE.
Joseph Woodmansee is one of the native sons of Clermont county who has won success there and always lived near his birthplace. He was born about a mile from Rural, Clermont county, in 1847, and was the youngest son of Joseph and Sarah (Bonsor) Woodmansee, and his grandparents were very early settlers in Clermont county. Joseph Woodmansee, Sr., was born in Indiana, where his father lived in his earlier years, but accompanied his parents to Clermont county in boyhood and became a farmer. By his first wife, a Miss Smith, he had four children, all now deceased, and by his sec- ond marriage he had five children, of whom the only one sur- viving is the subject of this sketch. The second wife was born in Pennsylvania, in 1808, and died in 1860. The father died in May before the birth of his son, Joseph. A half- brother, James Woodmansee, served in the Civil war from Iowa. An early ancestor of the family, Robert Woodmansee, came from France in early times, locating at Boston, where he taught the first school that was open to the public.
Mr. Woodmansee was educated at Parker's School, near New Richmond, and has always been a great reader. He was left motherless at the age of eleven or twelve years, so has made his own way in the world to a large extent. In 1868 he was united in marriage with Miss Martha Iler, born at Neville, Ohio, in 1846, daughter of Jacob and Mary Iler. Mr. Iler was born in New Jersey and came to Clermont county at an early date. He there conducted an old fashioned tannery for many years. The parents were Methodists. Mrs. Woodmansee died June 13, 1907.
For ten years after marriage Mr. Woodmansee carried on farming near Rural, then he built an elevator and became a coal merchant at Rural, remaining in this business for twenty- nine years. He became known for his fair dealing in business. He then retired from this business, which he rented to his son- in-law, Arthur Shinkle, and the latter carries on the enterprise in the same manner as it former proprietor. Mr. Shinkle is a man of enterprise, and has kept up the trade Mr. Woodmansee
.
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had worked up. Mr. Woodmansee lived retired for two years, but did not feel satisfied to be so inactive, after his many years of hard work, and has now engaged in selling monuments throughout the country, as a representative of the Manchester Granite & Marble Works. He is well known and has been suc- cessful in this line of work. He is well considered as an up- right and progressive citizen, and is much interested in the affairs of his community. He is a Democrat in politics.
Mr. and Mrs. Woodmansee had six daughters, all born near Rural, namely : Maude, married Lula Broadwell, of Felicity, a sketch of whom appears in this volume ; Callie, taught school one year, married Arthur Shinkle, and they live at Rural ; An- nice, at home ; Margaret, taught four years ; Grace, has taught school for five years; Hazel, married William Houghton, and has two children-Wayne and Helen. Mr. and Mrs. Shinkle have two children-Octavia and Alice. Mr. Woodmansee lives in one of the finest homes in Rural. William Hendrickson, a brother-in-law of Mr. Woodmansee, served in the Civil war. Mr. Woodmansee is highly respected as an intelligent and in- dustrious man in business circles and wherever known.
BYRON WILLIAMS.
A portrait and sketch of John Williams, of Williamsburg, Ohio, is to be found in Rockey and Bancroft's History of Cler- mont county, but as that work has been largely taken away from the county, some review of that worthy pioneer is proper.
The traditions of his ancestry cross the ocean to Cromwel- lian times in Wales; whence, after the Restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne, in 1668, and the ensuing perse- cutions of the "Old Ironsides," four brothers of the Williams name, with a faith "In a State without a King and a Church without a Bishop," sought physical and religious freedom in America. For, they were classed as "Nonconformists" and "Malcontents," whose bodies were restrained to compensate for the independence of their souls. One of these brothers went to North Carolina. With a faith then persecuted in Mas- sachusetts Colony, the other three accepted the scant tolera- tion of a forest obscurity back from Long Island Sound.
One of that three, Matthew Williams, a Welsh Baptist
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preacher, or "Gospeler," as the Cavaliers scornfully called them, among few or many children, had Thomas, who was the father of Timothy, each of whom was also elected by their "Associations" to preach the Gospel. Matthew lived to be one hundred and three, Thomas, one hundred and two, and Tim- othy nearly one hundred years old. When very old and when the favor seemed to imply a cruel death to all, Thomas was permitted by the Indians to go from a captured block house with the women and children whom he guided to safety. The family register brought to Ohio begins with Timothy and Hester Williams, whose children were Jonas, Ruth, Peter, Robert, Mary, Isaac, Lydia, Benjamin and Thomas. Jonas was born December 26, 1751, and, in boyhood, was captured by the Indians, who bound his ankles so tightly with thongs that his feet froze while the captors slept. Yet, he managed to es- cape, and, wrapping his feet with his clothing, got back to his friends ; but, when healed, in appearance and effect, he was club-footed for life, while otherwise strong and very active. Because of lameness he became a currier in New York City, and then a miller, and, to fill in the waiting hours while grind- ing, a shoe maker. He too was chosen to preach the saving ordinance of immersion, the futility of infant baptism, the vir- tue of close communion, and to practice the austere simplicity that had made Cromwell's "Ironsides" the founders of modern civil and religious liberty. Although his descendant writing these lines is a careless Gallio concerning much ancestral doc- trine, he is not forgetful of the fadeless glory of such political service for humanity.
Jonas Williams married Eleanor Ward, who was born at or near New York, November 11, 1748, and was the youngest of the five children of Timothy Ward, whose other children were Phoebe, Zebina, Sarah and Susannah. Rebelling through life against his crippled feet Jonas and Eleanor went from the Jersey side of New York to be a part of the Wyoming Enter- prise, to which he was probably persuaded by his Connecticut relatives. He built and operated one of the several mills in the valley and there, on May 23, 1776, their first child, Zebina, was born. The second child, Robert, was born June 19, 1778. Two weeks later, while at dinner, a horseman rode by crying, "The Indians are coming." Unable to reach the fort and be a sol- dier, Jonas ordered his brother, Isaac, then seventeen, to yoke the oxen and haul their boat below the dam, while he got the mother and babes with a bed and a sack of flour and bacon
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aboard to row away and hide under the willow covered banks. A neighboring woman on a visit there rode hastily away for her own home, but was quickly shot and scalped. After the band had hamstrung the animals, burned the buildings and hurried on, Isaac ventured forth and found that the woman had been stunned by a bullet which glanced from her metal comb, so that through his timely help she was restored to a mutilated life. Young Isaac went into the Revolutionary army, was captured and died in a British prison in New York. After their ruin at Wyoming, the family went to Orange county, New York, where Jonas, Jr., and Isaac, Jr., were born. Having gained a little, Jonas again went to the frontier in that direction in Cayuga county, New York, and built and ran a mill by Lake Cayuga, where is now the town of Genoa.
On January 28, 1798, Zebina Williams, who became an ex- pert wheel and mill builder, married Mary Cooley, who was born September 29, 1781, and joined his father at Genoa, where his oldest child was born, August 24, 1800. and named John Cooley Williams. Mary Cooley was a daughter of John Coo- ley, who lived in Lower Salem, West Chester county, New York, which is now a part of New York City. He was one of the notable Cooley family, of Connecticut, which furnished more than a score of the name for the Revolutionary army. John Cooley, of Lower Salem, was commissioned as adjutant of the Third New York, often called "The Manor Regiment," under Col. Pierre Van Cortlandt, and, besides much other duty, Adjutant Cooley served as such in the decisive charge at Saratoga, that brought about Burgoyne's surrender. The other children of Zebina and Mary Williams, born in Cayuga county. were Ambrose, Ezra, Warren and Phoebe. In 1810 Zebina Williams, in partnership with John Perin, came down the Alle- ghany and Ohio, to Columbia. After some residence at Red Bank, where his son, Charles, was born, November 17, 1812, he came two years later for a partnership in milling with Samuel Perin, but living where, in 1819, he built the second brick house in Stonelick township, which is yet a substantial home one mile west of Stonelick creek, on the pike to Mil- ford.
About 1815 Jonas Williams came to Clermont with the rest of his family, but soon went to Indiana. where he was the first settler on and gave his name to the principal branch of White Water river; and there and about Connersville, his name and line are worthily continued. As soon as possible. Robert
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Williams was among the first in Iowa as a pioneer of Louisa county ; and the descendants of other branches have gone be- yond the Pacific coast. Through more than two centuries, this family has been on the front edge of pioneer enterprise with the reputation of honorable, useful, capable and practical people, who have a goodly record of success as farmers, law- yers, judges, writers, teachers and business men.
The younger children of Zebina and Mary Williams and born in the home on the East Fork were Ann, Vesta, Ira and George. About 1827 Zebina Williams sought relief from the early plague of malaria by moving to the northern hills of Stonelick, yet he died of an acute fever, August 31, 1845, while his father lived to December 7, 1845, and Mary Cooley lived till April 28, 1852.
John Cooley Williams had such early reputation that he was sent before he was twenty "down the Mississippi" as supercargo of a boat load of valuable produce. Such a trip occupied the boating season of a year, and he made nine such trips, mostly for Samuel Perin, the commercial master of Clermont. During those trips, John Williams handled the produce and money that largely constituted the commercial life of northern and central Clermont from 1820 to 1830. In that business, his duty was not only clerical, but he was often required to act as a principal in large transactions, where an error was a failure. Amid the good opinion afterwards ac- corded, little was valued more than the high respect of the keen old master for his young supercargo. Because of im- paired health that boded a decline, he left the "river trade with a reputation for fine judgment and fair dealing that was never tarnished." Yet, his physique was fine and he excelled in wrestling and other pioneer sports and especially so in one. Standing exactly six feet tall clear of all, and weighing less than a score short of two hundred pounds, he gave the unique performance of all such entertainment, by standing erect be- tween two men holding a taut cord so that he could move his head freely without touching the cord. Then taking one step back, with a single springy effort, he could and did jump over the cord and, rising erect, stand a moment and then jump back over the cord without any other apparent effort. The feat has rarely been equalled in the story of athletics. He passed the grades of militia preferment to the rank of colonel, but he eschewed titles and rarely used his middle name.
On November 14, 1830, he married Rachel Copeland Glancy,
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who was born January 6, 1813, and was the eldest of the ten children of John and Elizabeth Shields Glancy. Elizabeth Shields was born in Maryland, November 12, 1794, and was the youngest of the ten children of Thomas and Elizabeth Clark Shields, who came to Columbia in the spring of 1795, and to northern Clermont two years later. John Glancy, born November 30, 1786, was the second child of Jesse and Rachel Copeland Glancy, who came to Williamsburg, December 23, 24, 1804, from York county, Pennsylvania. Jesse Glancy was the son, some say grandson, of a Scotch-Irish immigrant, who came with cash in a little trunk still preserved, that enabled him to leave a considerable estate. The lining of that trunk is printed with the date 1726. Jesse Glancy was born in 1756, and died September 1, 1831. His gravestone declares that he was a patriot soldier, and tradition affirms that he was in the battles of Brandywine, Monmouth and Yorktown. Rachel Copeland Glancy, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, died January 3, 1829, in her seventieth year. Tradition traces her line through a Quaker branch of the family of William Cope- land, who married Mary, the second daughter of John and Ruth Alden Bass, and Ruth Alden was the third daughter of ' hn and Priscilla Mullins Alden, of the Mayflower fame. After a life marked with strong mentality, John Glancy died December 29, 1874, in possession of much of the large tract midway between Owensville and Goshen, that his father had taken seventy years before.
John and Rachel Williams were builders of homes each with larger provision for convenience. After the rollicking, ad- venturous, and often perilous life of those pioneer times in the river trade, he gladly enjoyed the quiet of buying, improving. and selling real estate during the expansive period of the re- gion. That business was followed through forty years with- out a losing deal. He was a popular teacher until occupied with larger affairs. In 1846 they left the lower Stonelick to improve a purchase on the Wooster Pike just east of Goshen that resulted in four sets of farm homes of more than usual comfort. From there they came in October. 1859. to near Williamsburg, where in 1862-3 they completed the "Williams Homestead." which was most happily enjoyed till his death. March 21. 1876. Memory delights to recall the generous char- ity of his happy, successful life that. despite the trial of river associations, was never marred by a profane word, a personal brawl or a drunken hour. He was a notable Free Mason, and
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she was made a sister of the Eastern Star when that order was first started, and then for a generation forbidden. Although noted as one not long to stay, Rachel Williams lived on with her son in the homestead with a sprightly step and fine mem- ory until July 19, 1904, when, because of a fall, not thought serious at first, she was taken to her room, where the bright, alert, efficient and beauty loving spirit slowly declined until her life of ninety-six years, six months and sixteen days closed, July 22, 1909. Three of their five children died early. Their daughter, sketched and pictured in Rockey and Bancroft's History of Clermont as Mrs. Louisa W. Bishop, of Batavia, was born September 25, 1832, and died in her Batavia home, February 21, 1908, with a spirit that was calmly ready.
Byron Williams, the third and only grown son of John and Rachel Williams, was born April 22, 1843, at their home then on the north bank, about three-fourths of a mile from the mouth of Stonelick creek. In March, 1846, the family moved to the early home in Goshen, and in the fall of 1847 the brick house was finished and occupied, about one mile from Goshen, in the fork of the Blanchester road from the Wooster Pike. That house was the home of the family for twelve years, dur- ing which a common school was attended one mile farther east on the Wooster Pike, where there was no lack of ambition in the instruction offered if not taken. In the fall of 1853 algebra was commenced. Olmstead's Natural Philosophy was added, and then Burritt's Geography of the Heavens was undertaken in 1854. Meanwhile, Greene's Analysis and Structure of the English Language was a continuous exercise. Owing to the promotion of one of the class to the position of teacher, the same text books were continued another year. During the next year the course was reviewed for the benefit of another teacher. During the intervals in the scholastic recreations of those four years, the spelling and definitions of the first fourth of Worcester's Academic Dictionary were literally learned and conned by rote to be cast into the teacher's teeth. In 1857, Cutter's Anatomy, Mitchell's Ancient Geography, Classical Dictionary and Lincoln's Botany, all unabridged. were taken.
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