USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 44
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David C. Spahr was born on the farm'mentioned above as the birth- place of his son, November 20, 1847, last-born of the twelve children born to William and Sarah (Smith) Spahr, further and fitting mention of whom, together with a comprehensive history of the Spahr family in Greene county, is made elsewhere in this volume, William Spahr having been a son of Philip and Mary (Shook) Spahr, who came here with their family in 1814 from Virginia and became pioneers of the New Jasper neighborhood. They were the parents of ten children, as noted elsewhere. Both William Spahr and Sarah Smith were born in Hardin county, Virginia, and were children when they came with their respective parents to this county, the Spahrs and the Smiths having made the trip over from Virginia together. Sarah Smith was born in September, 1807, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Kimble) Smith, who settled on a farm alongside that of the Spahrs when the two families came to locate in what is now New Jasper township, the Smith farm of three hundred acres adjoining that of the Spahrs on the east. Jacob Smith was a cooper and gave his chief attention to his cooperage business, leaving his sons to develop the farm. He and his wife were the parents of ten children, of whom Sarah, who on December 12, 1829, married William Spahr, was the eldest, the others being Susan, who married David Paullin, of Silvercreek township; Daniel, who remained a farmer in New Jasper township; Phoebe, who married Evan Harris, of Caesarscreek township; Elizabeth. who married James Spahr; William, who became a Methodist minister and lived in Caesarscreek township; James, who made his home in Silvercreek township and who also became a Methodist minister; Nelson, who married Lydia Beeson and lived in New Jasper township: Catherine, who married Peter Tressler, and Amanda, who married Stephen Beal, of Cedarville. William Spahr and his wife had twelve children and further details regarding this family are set out at considerable length elsewhere. As the youngest son, David C. Spahr, remained on the home place with his father and when not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age was given practical charge of the same, his father's advancing years and crippled con- dition entailing upon the young man the responsibility of carrying on the operations of the place, making his home there after his marriage in 1871.
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His mother died on March 25, 1888, and his father died on October 1, 1891. The farm then was sold and the proceeds divided and David C. Spahr bought a farm of two hundred and forty-two acres in Caesarscreek township and sixty acres in New Jasper township and on this place he made his home until 1917, when he retired and has since been making his home with his sister, Mrs. Phoebe A. Boots, widow of John M. Boots, on her farm, a half mile southwest of New Jasper village. John M. Boots was born on May 20. 1848, and died on February 23, 1913. He married Phoebe A. Spahr, on October 11, 1866. It was on November 31, 1871, that David C. Spahr was united in marriage to Sarah Elizabeth Mallow, who died in 1888, and, as noted above, to that union was born one son, the subject of this sketch.
Oliver Mallow Spahr received his early schooling in the New Jasper district school and supplemented the same by a course in the business col- lege at Springfield. When his grandfather's farm, the place on which he was born, was divided he bought the place, but continued to make his home after his marriage in the fall of 1892 on his father's place in Caesarscreek township, renting his own land. In 1905 he sold the latter tract, one hun- dred and fifty-two acres, and bought the farm of one hundred and fifteen acres on which he now lives on the New Jasper pike, just east of the vil- lage of that name. Mr. Spahr gives considerable attention to the raising of live stock, his Shorthorn herd having a registered leader. In 1916 he built on his farm a modern house, with a hot-water heating plant, electric-light- ing system and the like. During the past two years or more Mr. Spahr has given up to his son the active operation of the place, but still maintains a general supervisory direction over affairs, at the same time managing his father's farms. He is a Republican, as is his father, and for the past eight years has been serving as clerk of New Jasper township.
On September 15, 1892, Mr. Spahır was united in marriage to Lyda Luetta Fawcett, who also was born in New Jasper township, daughter of Hiram H. and Elizabeth (Smith) Fawcett, both of whom are still living on a farm in that township and further and fitting mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume, and to that union two children have been born, Leo David, who died in 1894 at the age of eleven months, and Hiram Russell, born on December 28, 1895. On December 5. 1917, Hiram Russell Spahr was united in marriage to Rosa Pearl Turner, who was born at Sahina, in the neighboring county of Clinton, daughter of A. J. and Sarah Frances (Dow) Turner, and since his marriage has continued to make his home on the farm, the operation of which he is now carrying on. The Spahrs are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at New Jasper and Mr. Spahr is a member of the board of trustees of the congregation.
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ASAPH HAINES.
Asaph Haines was born on the farm on which he is still living in Caesarscreek township and which he owns and has lived there all his life. He was born on August 3, 1841, son of Zimri and Elizabeth (Compton) Haines, the former a native of the state of New Jersey and the latter of South Carolina, who had come to Ohio with their respective parents in the days of their youth and who married in the neighborhood of New Burlington, later locating on the farm in Caesarscreek township on which their son Asaph now lives. This is the old Faulkner place and the brick house which is still standing there was erected in 1821, the bricks for the same being burned on the place and the timber which entered into its con- struction being cut and milled on the place. After taking possession of that place Zimri Haines made extensive improvements on the same. He had been trained in youth as a cabinet-maker and even after he settled on the farm maintained there a work shop and was called on to make the coffins necessary for use in the community and also to make much of the furniture for his pioneer neighbors. He lived to be seventy-five years of age and his widow survived him for some years, she being eighty-six years of age at the time of her death. They were Quakers and their children were reared in the simple faith of the Society of Friends. There were twelve of these chil- dren, of whom but three are now living, the subject of this sketch having a brother, Clayton Haines, a farmer of Caesarscreek township and a biographi- cal sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this volume, and a sister, Phoebe, who married Joseph Davis and is now living in Kansas; the others of these children having been the following: Samuel, who was a farmer in Caesars- creek township; Elwood, who went to Iowa and there engaged in farming ; Eli and Edward, who made their homes on farms in the neighboring county of Clinton; Zimri, who died in the days of his youth; Sarah, who was the wife of Milton Fawcett; Rebecca Ann, who married Masco Bales; Mary Maria, who married Samuel Brown and spent her last days in Indiana, and Eliza- beth, who was the wife of George Carter.
Reared on the home farm, Asaph Haines has always remained there, having long ago bought the interests held by the other heirs in the place. He received his schooling in the neighborhood schools and after his mar- riage in the summer of 1876 established his home on the home place and has continued to make that his place of residence, having since then made numerous improvements on the place, a farm of one hundred and eighty-six acres. In addition to his general farming he has given considerable atten- tion to the raising of live stock. He is a Republican, as was his father, and has served his district as director of schools. He and his family are mem- bers of New Hope Friends church.
ASAPH HAINES AND FAMILY.
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On June 11, 1876, Asaph Haines was united in marriage to Sarah C. Keiter, who was born on the old Keiter homestead farm in this county, a member of one of the old families in this part of the state, as is set out elsewhere in this volume, and to this union six children have been born, namely: Elizabeth, wife of Joseph B. Conklin, a farmer living south of Xenia; Lenna Marie, deceased, who was educated at Wilmington; Laura, wife of O. P. Middleton, a farmer of Caesarscreek township, this county; Ada, wife of William Hoffman, of the neighboring county of Clinton; Ralph K., who married Mary Walton and is farming the home place, and Alvin Z., who died at the age of eight years.
JOHN FREMONT HARSHMAN.
John Fremont Harshman, former member of the board of county com- missioners for Greene county, formerly and for years trustee of Beavercreek township and now a retired farmer, making his home at Xenia, where he has resided since 1907, was born on a farm two miles north of the village of Zimmerman in Beavercreek township on September 22, 1856, son of John C. and Ann Maria (Miller) Harshman, the latter of whom also was born in this county, on a farm two miles south of the village of Fairfield, in Bath township, April 20, 1819, daughter of Daniel Miller and wife, pioneers of that part of the county.
John C. Harshman was born in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, Mary- land, January 12, 1807, and was but a child when he came to this county with his parents, Philip and Frances Harshman, the family settling in the Zimmerman neighborhood, as is set out elsewhere in this volume. On that farm near Zimmerman John C. Harshman grew to manhood, receiving his schooling in the primitive schools of that day. He early set out to acquire a land holding of his own and before he married was the owner of a tract of two hundred acres two miles north of Zimmerman and had cleared fifty acres. In the fall of 1841 he married and after his marriage established his home in that clearing, proceeded further to develop his place and there spent the remainder of his life, coming to be the owner of four hundred and forty acres of land. John C. Harshman died on June 26, 1880, his widow's death occurring on October 5, 1894. Both are buried in the Hawker grave- yard. He was reared in the Baptist faith and she was a member of the Reformed church. They were the parents of nine children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the eighth in order of birth, the others being the following : Samuel Henry, born on October 10. 1842, who served as a sol- dier of the Union during the Civil War, having gone to the front as a mem- ber of the One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer In-
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fantry, and who died on May 16, 1866: Sarah Elizabeth, October 10, 1844, who is still living in Beavercreek township, the wife of Andrew J. Tobias; Mary Catherine, March 13, 1846, who married Jacob Shoup and died on February 28, 1868; Ann Maria, December 28, 1847, who is still living in Beavercreek township, wife of W. W. Ferguson; Ephraim F., November II, 1849, a retired farmer, now living at Springfield, Ohio; Martha Ellen, December 25, 1851, who is still living in Beavercreek township, widow of Edward O. Gerlaugh, a memorial sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this volume; Reuben M., January 29, 1853. a stationary engineer, who for years has made his home at Dayton; John F., the immediate subject of this biographical sketch, and Abraham Lincoln, January 4, 1861, who is now living at Dayton.
Reared on the home farm north of Zimmerman, John Fremont Harsh- man there grew to manhood, receiving his schooling in the old "Big Woods" district school and was married when he was twenty-two years of age. For two years after his marriage he continued working on the farm under the arrangement he previously had made with his father and then, after his father's death in 1880, he and his sister, Mrs. Ferguson, and his brother Lincoln bought the home place of two hundred and fifty acres and for seven years operated it under a partnership arrangement. Mr. Harshman then sold his interests in the farm to his brother and sister and bought a farm of one hundred and fifteen acres on the Beaver Valley road in Beaver- creek township and in 1890 moved to that place. erecting on the place a good house and barn, and there resided until his retirement from the farm in 1905 and removal to the village of Trebeins. In the meantime he had been elected to represent his district on the board of county commissioners and after his second election to that office moved, in 1907, to Xenia and bought a house at 423 North King street, where he still makes his home. In addition to his property interests in this county Mr. Harshman is the owner of six hundred and forty acres of arable land in southern Alabama. Mr. Harshman is a Republican, and for nine years served as trustee of Beaver- creek township and for two years as treasurer of the township. In 1904 he was elected to represent his district on the board of county commission- ers and was re-elected for four successive terms, though not a candidate for renomination in his last campaign, and thus served for three two-year terms and for one three-year term, the law relating to tenure having been changed during the period of his service on the board.
On July 22, 1879, John F. Harshman was united in marriage to Letha Ann Lefong, who also was born in Beavercreek township, June 10, 1861, daughter of Orlando B. and Rebecca (Black) Lefong, who then resided on a farm one mile north of Zimmerman and the latter of whom is still living
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there, being now in the eighty-third year of her age. Mrs. Rebecca Lefong was born on a pioneer farm in Bath township, this county, November 2. 1835, daughter of Robert and Mary (Koogler) Black, early residents of that part of the county. Robert Black was born in Pennsylvania of Irish parents and his wife also was born in the East, of German parents, she having been born shortly after the arrival of her parents in this country. The Blacks and the Kooglers were early settlers in this county and it was here, about the year 1823, that Robert Black and Mary Koogler were married. After their mar- riage they located on a farm in the Byron neighborhood, but in 1840 moved to a farm in Beavercreek township. Orlando B. Lefong was born in Spott- sylvania county, Virginia, October 21, 1817, and was ten years of age when he came to this county in 1827 with his parents, George Burnett and Cas- sandra (Lovell) Lefong, the family settling in Beavercreek· township, nov- ing in 1842 from the farm on which they first located upon their arrival here to the farm on which Mrs. Rebecca Lefong is now living, a mile north of Zimmerman. George Burnett Lefong was a native of France, but was reared in the city of Richmond, Virginia, his parents having located there upon their arrival in this country, he at that time having been but an infant. His father became a merchant and millowner at Richmond. George B. Le- fong served as a soldier during the War of 1812 and after his marriage con- tinued to make his home in Virginia until he came with his family to this county, where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. Orlando B. Lefong grew to manhood here and some time after his marriage to Re- becca Black bought the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate and on the home farm north of Zimmerman spent his last days, his death occur- ring there on April 5, 1892. He was a Democrat and was a member of the Reformed church. He and his wife were the parents of seven children, of whom Mrs. Harshman was the first-born, the others being Sarah E., wife of Isaac Kable, of Shoup's Station; George W., who died at the age of two years; Rebecca, who married John Shoup and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased; Oscar, now a resident of the neighboring county of Mont- gomery, and Mary L. and Robert, who died in infancy.
To John F. and Letha A. (Lefong) Harshman three children have been born, John Burnett, Anna Viola, who died at the age of twelve years and eight months, and Sarah Myrtle, the latter of whom is at home with her parents. She completed her schooling at Hamilton College, Washington, D. C., having entered that institution after two years at Miami University at Oxford. Ohio. John Burnett Harshman, now clerk to the city commis- sion at Dayton and a lawyer in that city, was graduated from the Beaver- creek high school and then entered Ohio State University, from which he was graduated. He later took three years of study in the law school of the
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university and was admitted to the bar, engaging in the practice of his pro- fession at Xenia. He married Mary Louise Longbreak, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has two children, Mary Ann and John Burnett, Jr. The Harshmans are members of the Reformed church and Mr. Harshman is a member of the local lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons. He formerly was connected with the Knights of Pythias lodge at Alpha, for some time during the period of his residence in that neighborhood a member of the Alpha Building Association, one of the trustees of the same, and for some time was a member of the board of directors of the Greene County Agri- cultural Society. During his residence on the farm Mr. Harshman was for some time a member of the board of trustees of the Beaver Reformed church.
JOHN SEXTON.
Among the pioneer families of Greene county there were few better known or more influential than those of the Sextons and the Comptons. The old Sexton farm in the vicinity of the mill at Oldtown is still occupied by the only surviving daughter of John Sexton, who for years operated the mill there and also carried on farming, his daughter, Miss Sarah Sexton, now well along toward eighty years of age, still maintaining her home there. She superintends the operations of the place, even as she and her sister, the late Miss Hannah Sexton, together superintended the place for forty years after they were left alone there and so continued until the death of the latter in January, 1917, since which time Miss Sarah has kept the place alone with her colored servants. She was born in Xenia township and has lived there all her life. Reared a Quaker, she has retained the sweet famil- iar "thee" and "thou" form of address and her gentle conversation is full of the gracious courtliness of another day.
John Sexton was born on a farm nine miles from the town of Win- chester, in Frederick county, Virginia, May 25, 1795, a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Burnett) Sexton, Virginians and of Quaker stock. The Burnetts are of Welsh origin, the first of the name in this country having been a member of William Penn's colony that settled in Pennsylvania, and the family later became established in Virginia, whence, in succeeding generations, it found outlet in various directions and now has a wide connection through- out the United States. Joseph Sexton was a man of substance and influence in Frederick county and for sixteen years served his district as a member of the Virginia General Assembly. In his later years, some time after his son John had settled in Greene county, he came here and located on a farm in Xenia township, on the present site of the Aetna powder-mill, and there spent his last days. Joseph Sexton was twice married, his first wife. the
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DR. SAMUEL SEXTON.
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mother of John Sexton, having died when the latter was five years of age, after which he married Dorcas Lindsay. To the first union there were born three children, John Sexton having had two sisters, and to the latter union several children were born. John Sexton grew up in Virginia, reared by his paternal grandparents, Meshach and Hannah Sexton, and there became a millwright, remaining there until he was twenty-four years of age, when, in 1819, he came to Ohio and became engaged in the milling business in Clinton county. After his marriage in the fall of 1821 he came up into Greene county and rented a mill which then stood along the creek where Clifton later sprang up, in Miami township, and a year later moved to New Burlington, down on the lower edge of the county, where he rented a mill that had some time before been established there and there he erected a log house in which to make his home. Later he moved to a mill that then was being operated along the Stillwater, in the vicinity of Dayton, but after operating that mill for two or three years returned to Greene county and took charge of the Oldtown mill, at the same time buy- ing a home nearby the mill. Several years later he bought a farm of ninety- five acres in the vicinity of the mill, on the hill along the Xenia-Springfield pike, two and a half miles north of Xenia, where his daughter, Miss Sarah Sexton, still lives, and there he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives, he continuing to operate the mill until his death, at the age of forty- six years, June 18, 1841. His widow later married James Moorman and continued making her home on the old home place, her death occurring there on March 20, 1877, and James Moorman also spent his last days there, his death occurring on January 5, 1883.
On October 21, 1821, in Greene county, John Sexton was united in mar- riage to Mary Compton, who was born in Union county. South Carolina, December 21, 1798, and who was but six years of age when her parents, Amos and Rebecca Compton, came to Ohio with their family in the spring of 1805 and settled on a farm in the New Burlington neighborhood in Spring Valley township, this county. Amos Compton's father, Samuel Compton, had come out here the fall preceding his son's emigration and had bought a considerable tract of land, he and his children and their respective famillies coming in the following spring. Samuel Compton did not long live to see the outcome of his settlement plan, for he died in the very spring in which his family became settled here, in 1805. There was then no cemetery nearer than Waynesville and, besides, the river was so high at that time that there could be no thought of the funeral party getting across, so the body of Samuel Compton, the pioneer, was laid away in the orchard whose planting he had so short a time before superintended, and there that lonely grave is still cared for after a lapse of more than a hundred years. The Comptons were
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Quakers and became a substantial element in the population of the New Burlington neighborhood, and it was there that Mary Compton grew to womanhood and was living at the time of her marriage to John Sexton, the young miller. Mr. and Mrs. Sexton always retained their interest in the services of the Friends church and their children were reared in that simple faith. Eight children were born to them, two of whom died in infancy and three, Elizabeth, Rebecca and Ann, in youth, very near together, of scarlet fever, the survivors being Samuel, Sarah and Hannah, the two latter of whom remained unmarried and after their mother's death con- tinned in charge of the old home place on the hill nearby the old mill which their father had operated so successfully. Miss Hannah Sexton died on January 14, 1917, and since then, as noted above, Miss Sarah Sexton has been alone with her faithful servitors on the old place. Her brother. Dr. Samuel Sexton, who had achieved an international reputation as a specialist in the treatment of diseases of the ear, died in 1896. Doctor Sexton was for a time located in the practice of his profession at Cincinnati, but later moved to New York City, where he became an authority on his specialty, his practice extending even to Europe, where he was able to introduce advanced methods in the treatment of diseases of the ear, at the time of his death he having been regarded as the greatest practitioner in his line in the country.
WILLIAM BURNETT.
William Burnett, who formerly and for years was connected with the operations of the Hagar Strawboard Company at Cedarville, but who since 1899 has been living on a farm on the Hoop road in New Jasper township, proprietor of a farm of sixty-one acres there, is a native of England, but has been a resident of this country and of Greene county since 1881. He was born in the town of Barrow, in Lincolnshire, October 26, 1847, son of John and Charlotte (Halling) Burnett, both of whom also were born in that country and who spent all their lives there. John Burnett and his wife were the parents of seven children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the first-born, the others being as follow: Hepsey, who married and made her home at New Holland, in England; Hannah, who married and spent her last days in her native land; Mrs. Barbara Starkey, a widow, who is still living in England; \da, deceased : Olive, unmarried and still living in England, and Halling, who became a soldier and died during service in the Soudan in the '70s. These children were early left orphaned, both parents dying before their eldest son was fifteen years of age, and the children were reared in the homes of kinsfolk.
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