USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 2 > Part 37
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 2 > Part 37
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
Politically, Mr. Knight is a Republican. He has served as city alderman several years, and was for seven years a mem- ber of the board of education. He is a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and his wife is a member of the Rebekahs. They are both members of the Methodist Epis- copal church.
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HIRAM U. MOORE.
Hiram U. Moore, of Batavia, is a descendant of the fifth generation from Andrew Moore, who on August 3, 1723, landed at New Castle, Del., the first of his family to migrate to America. Andrew was born in June, 1688, in County An- trim, Ireland, the son of James and grandson of John Moore, who emigrated from near Glasgow, Scotland, to Ireland, in 1612.
The father of H. U. Moore, James Canby Moore, was born April 19, 1793, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and was the son of Dr. James and Ann (Starr) Moore. Dr. James was the son of Andrew, the original immigrant to America, and Mar- garet (Miller) Moore.
On January 3, 1820, James Canby Moore was married at St. Clairsville, Ohio, to Lucinda, daughter of John and Nancy (Nuswanger) Hines, of that place. He had removed with his parents to Belmont county, Ohio, of which county he was surveyor twenty-two years. In 1840 he moved to Clermont county, Ohio, of which county he was surveyor nine years. He owned one of the finest farms in Clermont, and for twenty- four years he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was an active member of the Brotherhood of Free Masons. After a life of service as an able officer, de- voted husband, and kind father, a man highly respected and honored by those who knew him, he died, October 4, 1866.
Lucinda Hines was born September 28, 1800, in Wells- burg, Va., and died at the advanced age of ninety-four years. She was a woman of rare traits of character and for over thir- ty years was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Her parents were farmers, residents of Belmont county, Ohio.
James C. and wife were the parents of twelve children, of which H. U. is the only one living. The names of their chil- dren follow :
Jane Ann died at seventeen, from an accident.
John, a physician, who practiced at Moscow, and died from cholera in 1848, at the age of forty years.
James E., for years a merchant at Moscow, but later a farmer in Franklin township, who died at the age of eighty- four.
Dr. A. C., who practiced many years in Clermont county, later going to Wyoming. Hamilton county, where he died at the age of eighty-four years.
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Lida 6. Moore
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Lysander R., a farmer of Clermont county, died at seventy- four years of age.
The next three children died from scarlet fever while still quite young.
Benjamin H., who was a blacksmith in Hamilton county, Ohio, died at the age of sixty from typhoid fever.
Lucinda C., married Louis Nash, a farmer, who resided near Amelia. She died at the age of seventy-two years.
Hiram Ulysses, our subject, aged seventy-four years, a resi- dent of Batavia.
Dr. Eugene L., who practiced at Amelia, Ohio, and died at the age of sixty-five. His daughter, the late Mrs. Nellie Bur- relle, was a brilliant literary woman, being on the staff of the "New York World," later president of the Clipping Bureau of New York, author of the famous Dewey Album. She died in December, 1911.
Jane Ann Josephine, married Lafayette Nash, and died at sixty-five years of age.
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Mr. H. U. Moore was born March 22, 1838, at St. Clairsville, Ohio. When four years of age he, with his parents, removed to Monroe township, Clermont county, Ohio. When eighteen years of age he started to learn the carriage maker's trade. After three years he located at Cincinnati, and spent five years more as a journeyman. In 1866 he moved to Batavia and went into partnership with W. B. C. Stirling in carriage manu- facturing and the undertaking business. Later they added agricultural implements to their large stock, employing from fifteen to twenty men. The partnership existed for thirty- eight years.
October 5, 1870, our subject was married to Eliza C., daugh- ter of William H. and Nancy ( Pompelly) Banister. She was born February 21, 1849. Her parents were early pioneers of Clermont county, coming from Maine. Her father was a fine musician and teacher of music. Mrs. Moore died August 7, 1911.
Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Moore :
Dr. H. Stirling Moore, a dentist with offices in Batavia, Ohio, was married to Miss Stella Moorman, of Washington Court House, Ohio, and has one son, William S., aged eleven years.
Nancy L., wife of William E. Smith, district passenger agent of the Northern Pacific railroad, who is located at Indianapo- lis. They have an infant daughter, Lida Moore.
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Carrie Dorsey, wife of Fayette C. Dorsey, residing at Louis- ville, Ky., where Mr. Dorsey is with the Southern National Bank. Of their three children two sons are still living-Hiram Stirling, aged six years, and Fayette C., aged two.
Mr. and Mrs. Moore were both members of the Presbyterian church. Politically, he is a Democrat. For the past twenty- five years he has been a member of the Masonic order, and has filled the various offices of that organization.
On the 23d day of February, 1907, Mr. W. B. C. Stirling died, since which time, and up to the date of his death, on February II, 1913, Mr. H. U. Moore carried on the undertaking business in Batavia, and his establishment was known as one of the very best in Southern Ohio. Mr. Moore has ministered in times of trouble to practically every home in a radius of several miles around Batavia, and was universally beloved by the people. He has been succeeded in his business by his son, H. Stirling Moore, an experienced undertaker.
THOMAS KAIN ELLIS.
An account of the ancestry of Samuel Ellis is to be found in this work in the sketch of Mrs. Ochiltree. In the first migra- tion of that Ellis family to Ohio, George, an elder brother, is said to have come to Williamsburg in 1806; and that was the reason for the coming of the younger orphaned children at later dates. Samuel, who was born December 12, 1803, came from Virginia about 1825 and learned coopering with his brother, George, who then had a shop a little over a mile from the foot of Main street on the Boston road. Samuel Ellis lo- cated his shop on the south side of Main, between Front and Second streets, and eventually employed a number of helpers. The product of that shop was readily sold to the lower mills and in Cincinnati for the down river trade. He married Cath- erine Ann Kain, who was born March 1, 1808, and was the old- est daughter of Major Daniel and Elenor Foster Kain, as told in our sketch of the Kain Family.
The children of Samuel and Catherine Ellis were: George M., who was born October 15, 1830, married Mary Murphy and died October 26, 1866, leaving a son and daughter, now living in California. Eliza V., who was born June 29, 1833. married William Procter and moved to Paoli, Ind., where she
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died leaving nine children. William Henry, who was born November 28, 1835, clerked several years in Cincinnati, and then served in the Union army as the drum major for an In- diana regiment, in which he lost his health, was discharged on account of sickness, and shortly after, on September 2, 1864, died in his father's house. Thomas K. was born November 3, 1839, and named for his uncle, Thomas Kain, the lame teacher. Margaret E. was born September 3, 1844, and died May 12, 1847. Charles R., the youngest, was born August 25, 1847, married Carrie Guy, and is now living on his farm near Spen- cer, Owen county, Indiana, with a family of seven children.
Samuel and Catherine Ellis were members of the Presby- terian church in Williamsburg during all their married life, and for several years before. The service of that church was one of constant pleasure. He was long one of the elders and took large special interest in the Sunday school, of which he was the honored superintendent more than thirty years. A life more harmoniously devoted to their ideals of duty than is remembered of these worthy people is rarely found. Each lived for the other, and the good they could do. After their other children were gone, Thomas K., on April 15, 1874, mar- ried Katie Wright, and they gave such care as made the fail- ing days of the aging couple a fitting close for their useful lives. Catherine Ann died November 24, 1874. Then Samuel said, "My mission is done, I wish to go soon," which happened January 2, 1875.
After school days Thomas K. Ellis learned the trade of har- ness making. While so employed, the tidings from Fort Sumter changed him to a volunteer in the "Clermont Guards," and as such, he was mustered under the First Call for the Union army, in Company E of the Twenty-second Ohio, which helped to hold the Baltimore & Ohio railroad through Vir- ginia. Then, in the large preparation for the great war, work at his trade was almost as important as duty in the field ; yet, in the urgent call of 1864, he volunteered May 2d in Company G of the One Hundred and Fifty-third Ohio, and was posted until discharged, September 9th, at Big Capon, Va. After that he volunteered a third time and was mustered in Company E of the One Hundred and Eighty-seventh Ohio for one year, from February 23, 1865, for a service mainly performed in Georgia. On March 28, 1865, he was appointed second ser- geant, and then first sergeant, August 16, 1865. He was rec- ommended for promotion to second lieutenant; but before
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action was taken, the regiment was discharged, January 20, 1866. Thus, for nearly five years, either in the field or in the shop, his energy was devoted to military service or to indis- pensable work for the Union. Since the war his trade has been followed through nice living to the pleasant possession of one of the prettiest homes in Williamsburg.
His wife, Katie Wright, is a daughter of John Harvey Wright, born October 29, 1823, and Mary Ann McNutt, born September 5, 1825, who were married February 1, 1846. They had four daughters. Laura was born January 22, 1847, mar- ried Orion E. Everhart, June 8, 1864, and is living with four sons and one daughter, all married, in Lafayette, Ind. Angie, born December 8, 1849, married William P. Terhune, and is living in Cincinnati, with two sons, both married. Katie, the third of the family, was born December 9, 1852. Attie, the youngest, was born December 25, 1856, and married Seba Noyes (deceased), and is living with one daughter in Chicago.
The ancestry of Mary Ann Wright is told in the sketch of M. F. McNutt, and the ancestry of John Harvey Wright is detailed in our sketch of the Park Family, and still further in that of the John Jenkins Family. After living a year or more, about 1836, with his uncle, Richard Wright, near Lexington, Ky., he returned and became a carpenter, but went about 1851 to keep a store in Marathon, whence he returned in 1856 to live happy in the snug home at the north side of the foot of Main street, as an honorably industrious man, as a Mason and as a consistent Methodist, all unconscious of the sad fate coming, which is the most pitiful story of all that Williams- burg suffered for the Union. But the patriotic impulse of the time could not be ignored by the capable, conscientious and rarely unselfish man.
On August 14, 1862, John Harvey Wright enlisted in Com- pany B of the Eighty-ninth Ohio. Other defenders of the flag left parents or sisters or sweethearts for a new life of adven- ture and for the strange, fierce excitement of glorious war. But he, out of a strong conviction of duty, sacrificed the en- dearments of a comfortable home made sacred by his wife's dutiful regard and kept delightful by the mirth of four girls of tender age ". ho all needed his constant care. Under ordinary conditions even with the hope of great gain such a departure would have been condemned as unkind and unwise; but, in the glamour of loyal honor, the separation was applauded as the sublimity of patriotic love.
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Thirteen months of unfaltering marching and guarding brought him into line with his regiment by the banks of the Chickamauga, where the grand central armies of the North and South met in the narrowest margin between defeat and victory of all the long war. On the second day of the battle, Sunday, September 20, 1863, the Eighty-ninth Ohio held the brow of Snodgrass Hill against countless batteries and charges of ever forming lines of Gray. Writers familiar with other scenes of fiercely tragic strife for a decisive point have said that few have equalled and none have excelled the Confederate as- saults to gain that crest defended by men gathered largely from Clermont county. Those who saw his conduct told that Harvey Wright was calm and efficient and at his place all through that awful day, until sunset brought the defeat of the regiment which purchased immeasurable advantage for the army elsewhere. For all that afternoon.and all the night after, the main Union army was wheeling around and concentrating behind that hill into the fortifications about Chattanooga. They did not know it' then, and they only gave obedience to the orders that made them a sacrifice; but it is history now that if the Eighty-ninth Ohio had given way an hour earlier, the battle would have been an utter rout for the North. In- stead they did all that was required, and at sunset, when too late for the weary South to advance to a further attack, the position was surrounded and then Wright and his valiant com- rades passed into a captivity that shrouded his home with a numb, crushing anxiety.
Four months later, on January 25, 1864. as was told by a comrade, Henry Iler, who survived the horror, John Harvey Wright died in a rebel prison at Richmond, Va., amid the deep despair of starvation. But it was two months more before his dreadful fate was known where old associates grew sick with a realization of the possibilities of the awful strife. There is melancholy pleasure in remembering that he was a hero in the critical hour, and that he did not perish in vain. But the heroic endeavor that honors his name did not end with his life. With every nerve trembling with the unutterable woe, the mother gathered her orphaned daughters and planned for their food, raiment and education, in ways and with results that commanded unstinted sympathy and respect.
After seven years of widowhood, she married Emanuel Mc- Kever, and then enjoyed the abundance of the McKever farms until his death, in 1895, when she went to the home of Mrs.
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T. K. Ellis, where her once clouded life closed in honor and affection, on October 3, 1905. Her ancestral faith in the Meth- odist church was transmitted to all her posterity.
Thomas K. and Katie Ellis have had six children. Guy Wright was born September 26, 1876, and, while growing into a handsome young manhood with bright hopes for an amiable and useful life he sickened and rather suddenly died, August 17, 1892. Jessie L. was born September 11, 1878, and died August 19, 1879. Charles Harvey was born August 15, 1880. Roy S. was born October 13, 1882, and died July 7, 1883. Laura A. was born April 26, 1886. Louie Wright was born July 23, 1889, and died July 1, 1891. Charles Harvey Ellis, the only living son of the family, has been clerking in Cincinnati since 1901, with pleasing success.
Laura A. Ellis, the only living daughter, was married June 14, 1906, to Spencer Smith Walker, who was born November 12, 1882, and is the tenth of the eleven children of Oliver E. and Elizabeth Smith Walker. O. E. Walker is mentioned in the sketch of the Kain Family, and Elizabeth Smith is a daugh- ter of Joseph and Lovina Sherman Smith. Joseph, born July 17, 1809, at Trenton, N. J., was a son of Joseph Smith, Sr., who came to Clermont in 1814. Spencer S. and Laura A. Ellis Walker have one son, born September 4, 1908, and named Ellis Wright Walker.
Thomas K. Ellis is an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias and a Mason. Katie Wright Ellis belongs to the Rebekahs, to the Women's Relief Corps and to the Order of the Eastern Star, and has served several terms as the presiding officer of each of those societies in Williamsburg.
ALBERT MCADAMS.
In popular usage for a hundred and twenty years in Ohio, the name of McAdams has been associated with the strong and lasting characteristics of the family and held to be an ex- ample of Irish origin. But to one who has studied the story nothing is more certain than that this usage has taken a spe- cial incident for a general condition. Because of political changes, some localities have large influence in determining the origin of families. In no place where English is spoken is this significance more positive than in the north of Ireland.
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Because of their sympathy with the French in the long strug- gle for English supremacy, military necessity decreed the ex- tirpation of the Irish from their strategic. advantage in north Ireland. The desolated land was thus opened for a migra- tion from Scotland devoted to the Presbyterian Faith which insured no amalgamation with the people banished southward. When those strangers in Ireland began to seek homes in America, they were called Scotch-Irish, which then explained their relations to other emigrants. After while the sharp lines of that distinction wore away, and not a few deemed them- selves Irish, when, except for short residence in the transition, they were pure Scotch. Few people of equal number have had more influence in shaping America; and along the line of migration few places have been more significant of their struggle than the extreme northeastern county of Ireland, named Antrim, where John McAdams was born, May 9, 1737, and the near-by scenes of the famous siege of Londonderry, where his wife, Ann, was born, in 1750.
Ephraim, the eldest of the ten children of John and Ann McAdams, was born May 25, 1767. The other children, with date of birth, were: John, March 28, 1769; James, May 7, 1771 ; Katharine, September 7, 1773; Hamilton, September 20, 1777; William, September 17, 1779; Armstrong, February 23, 1786; Suter, September 11, 1790; Thomas, November 20, 1793. How many of these were born in Ireland is not known, but the family came to Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, where Ephraim, on December 17, 1793, married Charity M. Birt, and in 1794 moved to Columbia, Ohio. He was a tailor by trade. On December 15, 1796, he bought the first lots sold in Wil- liamsburg, as told on Page 206 of our History; but he did not bring his family here until 1800. The children of Ephraim and Charity, with date of birth, were: Nancy, October 30, 1794; Samuel, July 6, 1797; Hannah, February 7, 1799; Ephraim, October 13, 1800; Hamilton, February 19, 1802; Julia A., December 2, 1803; John A. and James, November 14, 1805; Catharine, April 11, 1808; Delilah, February 15, 1810. After that, Charity died.
Ephraim then married Catharine Hartman, who was born Septembr 27, 1785. Catharine was one of the eight children of Christopher and Mary Hutchinson Hartman. Christopher Hartman was born in 1750, in Swintzburg, Hesse Cassel, Ger- many, whence he was brought in 1753 by his father, Christo- pher Hartman, Sr., with three older brothers, to Philadelphia.
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Christopher, Jr., served in Smallwood's regiment in the Revo- lution. His wife, Mary, to whom he was married in 1776, was born March 24, 1755, in Mercer county, New Jersey. In Sep- tember, 1795, they moved to Lexington, Ky., and in Novem- ber, 1801, to Williamsburg. In 1802 he settled on five hundred acres in what is Jackson township, where he died, March 16, 1833, and Mary, his wife, August 6, 1839. Christopher Hart- man was granted a pension on May 14, 1833. for service in the Revolution in the New Jersey militia. The' children of Ephraim and Catharine Hartman McAdams, with date of birth, were: Mary Ann. June 8, 1812; Thomas, June 6, 1813; William, January 5, 1815; Andrew J., October 14. 1816; Isaac Newton, March 14, 1818; Joseph Warren, August 27. 1819. After that Catharine died, and Ephraim married Martha Boyd, with whom he had Manorah, born July 21, 1821 ; Harvey, Jan- uary 24, 1826, and Riley, March 19. 1828. Of these, eighteen lived to have familis, of which some became numerous and some are extinct.
The pioneer Ephraim McAdams has frequent mention in the early annals of Clermont. On May 26. 1801, he was fore- man of the second grand jury of Old Clermont. in the time of the Territory. On December 28, 1803, he was one of the first grand jury convened by the State. In June. 1804, he was a member of the next grand jury, of which Col. Robert Higgins was foreman ; and, for the May term in 1806, he served on the grand jury of which Gen. William Lytle was foreman. In reading those old grand jury lists one finds that much care was used in selecting the worthiest for what they deemed an important duty. In 1808 he and his wife, Charity. were in the little band that organized the Presbyterian church in Wil- liamsburg that met for twenty-two years in the stone court house under Rev. R. B. Dobbins. He took the first three de- grees of Masonry in Clermont Social Lodge on February 9 to March 22, 1816; whereupon he was soon asked by the Pres- byterian church, of which he was an elder. which would he serve, the church or the lodge? It could not be both. On No- vember 1, 1816. the lodge ordered the purchase of material for a coat for Rev. Dobbins, which was accepted, and prob- ably fashioned by McAdams, the tailor, who remained a firm Presbyterian and a zealous Mason to his death, May 11, 1842. Nine of his name followed him into the same lodge.
Meanwhile, William, a son of Benjamin and Eleanor Smith, was born, January 3. 1772, and married Lucretia, a daughter of William and Elizabeth Johnson, who was born December
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5, 1773. William and Lucretia Johnson Smith had thirteen children, named and born as follows: Eleanor, November 28, 1795 ; Ephraim, September 2, 1797; Elizabeth, March 28, 1799; Delilah, February 2, 1801 ; Benjamin Thomas, November 12, 1802; Deidaemia, April 2, 1804; Hannah, May 11, 1806; Wil- liam Taylor, August 17, 1808. The family moved, in 1809. from Monmouth county, New Jersey, and settled on the Xenia road, about three miles north of Williamsburg, in what is now Jackson township, where the children born were Ma- hala, March 4, 1810; Johnson, October 4, 1811 ; Sarah, Decem- ber 5, 1813; Nancy Clark, September 20, 1817, and Alonzo, August 20, 1819.
In 1812. John and Anna Lambkins White came from New York and settled near William Smith with a family, of whom several were born in Ohio, to the number of eleven, named, Ansol, Lyman, Anna, Harriet, John, Sarah, Melinda, Amanda, Lucinda, Bartlett C. and Clarissa. Of these Ephraim Smith and Amanda White were married. She, Amanda, was born May 9, 1803, and lived until April 12, 1881, but Ephraim died May 13, 1854. Their home is the last farm to the north in Williamsburg township on the Xenia road, and their children, as born and named, were: Lavan- chia, December 23, 1822; Evaline, August 20, 1824; Amariah, January 10, 1826; Bolivar, January 27, 1828; Sarah Ann, De- cember 20, 1830; Bartlett, November 2, 1832; John Harvey, August 5, 1834; Erastus C., November 5, 1836; Mary Ellen, Novembr 23, 1841 ; and Melvina, September 20, 1845. All the people so far mentioned in this sketch are dead except Erastus C., who, though severely wounded at the battle of Corinth, October 4, 1862, while a soldier in Company K, of the Twenty- seventh Ohio, is a wealthy farmer in Jewel county, Kansas ; and Melvina, who is in Williamsburg as the widow of Francis Hutchinson, a veteran of Company B, of the Fifth Ohio cav- alry. The posterity of these families is literally scattered from ocean to ocean.
Isaac Newton McAdams, of the Hartman line, was married May 5, 1843, to Lavanchia Smith. Their children were: Har- vey, born January 4, 1847; Albert, born April 4, 1849; Amanda, September 7. 1853, and died September 30, 1853; Riley, De- cember 14, 1854, and Ephraim, March 6, 1858.
I. N. McAdams was one among the first from Clermont to cross the "Plains" to California in search of gold. The trip occupied six months with the ox trains, which so cooled his
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"gold fever" that he soon returned and worked at his trade as a cooper. On September 30, 1861, he enlisted in Company F, of the Fifty-ninth Ohio, from which he was discharged on August 18, 1862, on a surgeon's certificate of disability. After that he went again to the Western gold fields, taking his son, Harvey, who has remained there. About 1867 he returned to Williamsburg, where his wife died December 30, 1880, and where he died September 28, 1891, having been an enthusiastic Mason over forty years.
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