USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 80
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John S. Turner was reared at Bellbrook and upon leaving school became engaged as a clerk in a local store. In the summer of 1874 he married and established his home in Bellbrook, continuing his employment as a clerk until in 1881, when he opened a grocery store there and has ever since been thus engaged. Since 1902 he has had associated with him in business his son, Harry M. Turner. In addition to his commercial activities Mr. Turner served for years as township and village clerk and as treasurer of the school district. Politically, he is a Democrat.
On June 9, 1873, in Sugarcreek township, John S. Turner was united in marriage to Martha J. Cunningham, who also was born at Bellbrook. January 24, 1853, daughter of James and Sarah (Stratton) Cunningham, the latter of whom was born in Dover, New Jersey, August 19, 1826, and was but a child when she came to Ohio with her parents, the family locating two miles south of Bellbrook in this county. James Cunningham was born at Bellbrook, September 15, 1818. He grew up to the cooper's trade and for some time carried on a cooperage business at Bellbrook, but when that business became commercially unprofitable on account of the scarcity of material in the neighborhood he moved to a farm and thereafter followed farming. He died on January 24, 1884. On April 18, 1844, James Cunning-
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ham had married Sarah Stratton, who died on the home farm a half mile east of the village on December 9, 1867. To that union were born ten children, of whom Mrs. Turner was the fifth in order of birth, the others being the following: F. P., born on April 6, 1845, who became a lawyer ; Mary Ange- line, November 25, 1846, who became a resident of Dayton; Robert A., July 28, 1848, who died in infancy; Charles E., September 27, 1850, who became a musician in the regular army; Elizabeth, May 18, 1858, who died at the age of fourteen years; James C., December 19, 1859, who estab- lished his home in Sugarcreek township: William, September 17, 1860, who also established his home in Sugarcreek township; Nellie M., June 3, 1863, who married Victor Taylor, and Minnie L., November 22, 1865, who married William Stephenson.
To John S. and Martha J. (Cunningham) Turner have been born four children, three sons and one daughter, namely: James, who was graduated from Wittenberg College, later became employed in one of the manufac- turing industries in Springfield, this state, there married Maude Butt, of that city, established his home there and has four children, John A., Robert, Frances and Nancy Jane; John, a farmer of Sugarcreek township, resid- ing a mile and a half west of Bellbrook, who married Helen Pease, of Bellbrook, 'and has six children, Marjorie, Gladys, Roger, James, Richard, and Paul; Harry M., who since 1902 has been associated with his father. in business at Bellbrook and who married Ethel Barnett, of Spring Valley, and has three children, Harry, Wade and John: and Grace, who married Dr. W. S. Ritenour, of Xenia, and has one child, a son, Scott Turner.
ED. S. FOUST.
Ed S. Foust, proprietor of "Miami Valley Farms" in Xenia township, this county, is the breeder and owner of "Orion Cherry King, Jr.," 58113, which at the National Swine Show at Omaha in October, 1916, was crowned the world's champion Duroc boar and which is still conceded to be the greatest Duroc living. Long previous to that date, at the Louisiana Pur- chase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904. Mr. Foust's Duroc boar. "Tip-Top Notcher," had also been proclaimed the grand champion and at the Pan- ama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915 his "Tax-Payer XIII" also had carried off grand-championship honors, while at state fairs throughout the country Mr. Foust has for years been one of the leading exhibitors and winners of first prizes and championships, his "Miami Val- ley" herd of Duroc Jersey swine thus having for years been famous throughout the country. As a breeder of pure-bred Cheviot sheep Mr. Foust also has gained a wide reputation, not only in this country, but in
ED S. FOUST
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Canada, South America and Europe and the shipments of stock animals from "Miami Valley Farms" form a no inconsiderable portion of the an- nual shipments out of Xenia. Mr. Foust also has given considerable atten- tion to the raising of pure-bred Barred Plymouth Rock chickens, in which latter department of the activities of "Miami Valley Farms" he has been ably assisted by his wife, who is an ardent poultry fancier.
It was in 1890 that Mr. Foust began systematically the breeding of Duroc Jerseys, starting his now famous herd with three pigs he had bought in Illinois, and he was the first farmer in Greene county to introduce this strain of swine here. He found conditions particularly favorable to the development of the enterprise and it was not long before his Durocs began to attract general attention hereabout. As his herd increased and as the demand for his products grew he gradually extended his operations, giving particular attention to the breeding of stock animals, until he came to be one of the most successful swine breeders in the country. In 1902 he formed a partnership with R. C. Watt and the business was carried on under the firm name of Watt & Foust from that time until the fall of 1915, when the partnership was dissolved and since that time Mr. Foust has been carry- ing on his operations alone. Though he carries on a general farming busi- ness at "Miami Valley Farms," the old William Bickett homestead, where he has lived all his life, he makes his chief business the breeding of fine swine. His world's champion Duroc boar, "Orion Cherry King, Jr.," car- ries a weight of one thousand and thirty pounds. Mr. Foust has at "Miami Valley Farms" a fine supply of water and the convenient waterworks system he has created there is operated through a series of more than three thousand feet of pipes. In 1903 Mr. Foust erected a modern eleven- room house on his place.
Ed. S. Foust was born on the farm on which he is now living, and where he has lived all his life, January 7, 1868, son of Solomon and Mary Jane (Bickett) Foust, the former of whom was born in Pennsylvania and the latter in this county, she also having been born on the place where her son now lives and known as "Miami Valley Farms." Solomon Foust had come to Greene county from Pennsylvania in the days of his young man- hood and became a farmer and stockman, making his home in Xenia. He was twice married and by his first wife, who was a Stewart, was the father of one child, Harriet, who married George Graham and died in 1904, leav- ing two children, George and Reese. Following the death of his first wife, Solomon Foust married Mary Jane Bickett, daughter of William R. and Isabella (Alexander) Bickett and a member of one of the old families of Xenia township, and by that union was the father of one child, a son. the subject of this sketch. Solomon Foust was a Republican and a member
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of the United Presbyterian church. He died in 1868, at the age of fifty- seven years, and his widow survived him for many years, after his death making her home on the old Bickett place, where she was born and where her son now lives, her death occurring there in 1904, she then being sev- enty-nine years of age. She was the third in order of birth of the six chil- dren born to her parents, the others having been Adam R., Matthew A., Elizabeth Isabella. Lydia Ann and Harvey A. William R. Bickett, father of these children, was born in the Coaquilla Valley, in Pennsylvania, about the year 1796, a son of Adam and Elizabeth (Reed) Bickett, natives of Ireland, who were married there and all of whose children save the two younger were born there, these latter, of whom William R. was the last- born, having been born after they came to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania, where Adam Bickett died. Not long after the death of Adam Bickett, his widow and her children came to Ohio, driving through with a six-horse team, in ISI8, and passed their first winter here with the house- hold of Robert Hamill, Mrs. Bickett's brother-in-law, who had come to Ohio during the previous year as a school teacher. In the spring of 1819 the Bicketts bought a tract of one hundred and fifty acres in the neighbor- hood of Xenia and there established their home. After his marriage in 1827 to Isabella Alexander, William R. Bickett established his home on that same place and there spent the remainder of his life, his death occur- ring in 1865. His widow survived him for many years, her death oc- curring in April, 1885, she then being eighty-three years of age. They were members of the Second United Presbyterian church at Xenia and their family have continued active factors in that congregation.
Reared on the old Bickett farm, his father having died when he was but an infant in arms, Ed. S. Foust received his schooling in the common schools and early became a practical farmer and stockman. To his original holdings at "Miami Valley Farms" he has added until now he is the owner of three hundred acres. Mr. Foust is vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the Commercial Bank of Xenia, is connected with the Huston-Bickett Hardware Company at that place and is otherwise inter- ested in the general business affairs of the city. He is a Republican and he and his wife are members of the Second United Presbyterian church at Xenia. Mrs. Foust was a teacher in the schools of Greene county for some years before her marriage to Mr. Foust on December 28, 1905. She was born, Aletha Ray, in Xenia township, a daughter of Joseph and Emily (Whiteman) Ray, the latter of whom also was born in Xenia township, a member of one of Greene county's best-known families. Joseph Ray. was a native of England, who came to this country in 1851 and after a some- time residence in Boston and at other points in the East came to Ohio and
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located in Greene county, taking up farming in Xenia township. where he spent the rest of his life, having established his home on a farm there after his marriage to Emily Whiteman. He died in 1901 and his widow still sur- vives him, continuing to reside on the home farm in Xenia township. They were the parents of eight children, of whom Mrs. Foust was the fifth in order of birth, the others being John, Carrie, Levi, Anna, Elizabeth, Robert and Emily.
THOMAS GHEEN.
Thomas Gheen, proprietor of a farm situated about three miles east of the village of Fairfield, in Bath township, was born in that township on April 9, 1865, son of Nathan R. and Harriet (Dipple) Gheen, the latter of whom was born in Germany about 1838, and who spent their last days in this county.
Nathan R. Gheen was born on a farm in the northern suburbs of Dayton, in the neighboring county of Montgomery, in 1828, son of Nathan and Sarah (Bowers) Gheen, Pennsylvanians, who had come to Ohio and settled on a tract of land which the elder Nathan Gheen had bought just north of the then village of Dayton. There these pioneers reared a large family and later moved to a place not far north of Osborn. They spent their last days near Fairfield. Nathan R. Gheen grew up in the Dayton neighborhood and remained there until after his marriage when, in 1862, he came over into Greene county and established his home on a farm in the vicinity of Fairfield, in Bath township, where he became engaged in farming and where he died in 1885. His wife had preceded him to the grave fifteen years, her death having occurred in 1870. Of the four children born to them but two lived to maturity, the subject of this sketch having had a sister, Mina May, born on October 19, 1863, who married Lewis Maxton, of Dayton, and died in that city in June, 1915.
Thomas Gheen was reared on the home farm in the vicinity of Fairfield and received his schooling in the schools of that village. He married in 1887 and continued farming the home place until 1896, when he left the farm and moved into Fairfield, where he remained until 1910, in which year he bought the farm on which he is now living, about three miles east of Fairfield, and has since made his home there. Mr. Gheen has a farm of one hundred acres. He is a Republican, present member of the township central committee of that party, and during his residence in Fairfield served for four years as a men- ber of the village council and for eight years as a member of the school board.
On February 3, 1887, Thomas Gheen was united in marriage to Ida
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Camzie Dell Parsons, who also was born in this county, daughter of David and Anna ( Routzong) Parsons, both of whom also were born in this county, and the latter of whom is still living, now a resident of Osborn. David Parsons was a farmer in this county and died in 1882. He and his wife were the parents of three children, Mrs. Gheen, the second in order of birth, having a sister, Minnie May, who married Elmer Kline and is now living at Osborn, and a brother, William Henry Parsons, who married Mary A. Gheen and is living at Fairfield. To Mr. and Mrs. Gheen four children have been born, namely : William Nathan Gheen, born on February 15, 1888, now liv- ing at Dayton, where he is connected with the Dayton Computing Scale Works, and who married Daisy Turner and has two children, Earl William and Anna May; Grace Anna, born on July 26, 1889, who is at home with her parents ; a son who died in infancy, and Hazel Isabel, born in 1893, who also died in infancy.
WILLIAM HENRY BULL.
William Henry Bull. now living retired from the active labors of the farm on his place in the Oldtown neighborhood in Xenia township, has resided on that place ever since his marriage in 1877. Both he and his wife were born in that same township and have lived there all their lives, members, respectively, of two of the oldest families in Greene county, the Bulls and the Stevensons having settled here upon coming up from Ken- tucky in the days when this region was a "howling wilderness," as is set out elsewhere in this volume. Both families have a wide connection hereabout.
William Henry Bull was born on October 5, 1845, son of James Rich- ard and Amelia (Moudy) Bull, the former of whom was born on the same farm, the old Bull homestead in Xenia township, and the latter in the state of Maryland, who spent their last days on that farm. James Richard Bull was a son of Richard and Rachel (Hunter) Bull, the former of whom was born in Kentucky and was but a child when his parents, William Bull and wife, Virginians, who had settled in Kentucky after their marriage, came up into the then Territory of Ohio in 1797 and located in this valley, settling on a tract of one thousand acres which William Bull had bought on what later came to be known as the Clarks Run road. That was five or six years before the organization of Greene county and an equal period before there was any thought of such a place as Xenia and the land was just about as destitute of white settlement as any time during the Indian occupancy. Will- iam Bull spent the rest of his life on that place and was laid away in the Stevenson graveyard, he being about seventy years of age at the time of his death. Richard Bull grew up on that pioneer farm and married Rachel
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Hunter, who was born in what later came to be organized as the neigh- boring county of Clark. He added to his land holdings until he became the owner of more than two hundred acres in Xenia township, and there he and his wife spent their last days, he having been seventy-two years of age at the time of his death. He and his wife were the parents of seven children, James Richard, George, Bentley, William, Julia, Sarah and Maria.
James Richard Bull grew up on the old Bull homestead and received his schooling in a little log school house on Charles run, which was conducted as a subscription school and which had been built on the Bull farm, land having been donated to the community for that purpose. After his marriage he settled down on the home place and there spent the rest of his life, his death occurring at the age of seventy-two years. His widow survived him for some years, she being eighty years of age at the time of her death, her last days being spent in the home of her youngest son Richard, who is still living on the old home place. She was born, Amelia Moudy, in Mary- land and was nine years of age when her parents, Peter and Nancy ( McClain) Moudy, also natives of that state, came to Ohio with their family and settled in Beavercreek township, this county. A year after coming here Peter Moudy moved to Cedarville and in 1837 erected a grist-mill, which long was known as the Moudy mill, though he died not long after getting it in operation. His widow survived him for four years, her death occurring in 1860. They were the parents of four daughters, Mrs. Bull having had three sisters, Lucretia, Matilda and Sophia. James R. Bull and his wife were members of the Oldtown Methodist church and their children were reared in the Methodist faith. There were five of these children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the first-born, the others being Lewis M., of Xenia. who for twenty years was engaged in the grocery business in that city, but later became a traveling man; James Ambrose, who became a school teacher and who died at the age of twenty-six years; Anna Sophia, who died at the age of six months, and Richard E., who is still living on the old home place in Xenia township, which has been in the possession of the family for more than a century and a quarter.
William H. Bull grew up on the home farm, received his schooling in the neighborhood schools and remained at home until his marriage in the spring of 1877, shortly afterward purchasing his present farm of one hundred and thirteen acres on the Clifton pike, a part of the old Stevenson estate, in the vicinity of his old home in the Oldtown neighborhood in Xenia township, and has ever since resided there. Mr. Bull is a Republican, but has not been an aspirant for public office. He and his wife are members of the Methodist church at Xenia.
On March 28, 1877, William H. Bull was united in marriage to Anna
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L. Stevenson, who was born in that same township, daughter of Samuel N. and Saralı O. (Keenan) Stevenson, and to this union three children were born, the first of whom died unnamed in 1889 and the last-born of whom, WV. Leroy, died at the age of seventeen months, thus leaving but one sur- vivor, a daughter, Anna Mae, who completed her schooling in the Xenia high school, married Walter Watkins, of Xenia township, and has three children, Dena L., Martha V. and Dorris M. As noted in the opening para- graph of this review, Mrs. Bull is a member of one of the oldest families in Greene county, the Stevensons having been located here since 1797. in which year Samuel Stevenson came up here into this beautiful valley from Kentucky with his family and established his home in the then wilderness. His son, James Stevenson, who was born on April 21, 1772, married Ann Galloway, who was born on December 4. 1786, and who was a sister of Squire George Galloway, who came with his family from Kentucky about the same time and located along the Little Miami, about five miles north of where Xenia later came to be located. Not long after settling there Squire Gallo- way erected a house to take the place of his first humble log cabin, just north of the river bridge on the Yellow Springs pike, which house is still standing, being carefully preserved by the Miami Power Company, which now owns the site, and upon it there is a tablet bearing the inscription: "Erected in 1801." James Stevenson became the owner of a tract of six hundred acres of land, including the present site of Wilberforce University. He died on March 31, 1864, and his widow survived him for more than ten years, her death occurring on March 26, 1875. They were the parents of the following children : James Gay, William Dunlap, Rebecca Ann, Samuel N., Mary Elizabeth, Catherine, Martha M. and James Gay.
Samuel N. Stevenson was born on April 4, 1816, and all his life was spent on the old Stevenson homestead, two hundred acres of which he came to own. On March 4, 1846, he married Sarah Olive Keenan, who was born at Perry, in Somerset county, this state. July 30, 1821, and to this union were born eight children, of whom Mrs. Bull was the fourth in order of birth, the others being Mary Elizabeth, who married Philander Mayne and is living at Mt. Carmel, Illinois; Rachel S., who married N. B. Smaltz and died at her home in Warrensboro, Missouri, February 3, 1905 : Ellen L., who married Wallace Freeman, of Mt. Carmel, Illinois, and died in 1914: James William, who lives at Yellow Springs, this county; Aletha J., wife of Robert Bird, of Cedarville: Sarah Louise, who died at the age of twelve years on December 1, 1877, and Susanna, who died in infancy. All of the living children of Samuel N. Stevenson and wife were home upon the occa- sion of the celebration of the golden wedding anniversary of their parents on March 4, 1896. Samuel N. Stevenson died five years later, March 23.
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1901, and his widow survived him for nearly five years, her death occurring on January 24, 1906. They were members of the Oldtown Methodist church and for more than a half century Mr. Stevenson was class leader in his 'home church.
GEORGE F. BRICKEL.
George F. Brickel, proprietor of the Ross township farm on which he lives, on rural mail route No. 4 out of Jamestown, was born in this county and has been a resident of the farm on which he is now living since his marriage in 1880. He was born on a farm in Silvercreek township on May 21, 1855, son of Jacob and Mary (Phillips) Brickel, whose last days were spent in the village of Jamestown, to which place they had retired upon leav- ing the farm, the latter dying there in 1884 and the former in 1887.
Jacob Brickel was born in Pennsylvania on February 25, 1815, and there remained until he was nineteen years of age, when he came over into Ohio and located in Wood county, where three years later he married Mary Phillips and where he remained until 1845, when he moved with his family to Greene county and settled on a farm in Ross township. Eight years later he moved to Silvercreek township and in 1857 moved from that township to New Jasper township, where he continued farming until his retirement and removal in 1882 to Jamestown, where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. Of the ten children born to them all grew to maturity save Harvey, who died in infancy, and their first-born, a son, who also died in infancy, the others, besides the subject of this sketch being Daniel, Margaret, Amanda, Louisa, John, Catherine, Emma and Frank.
George F. Brickel was reared on the farm and has followed farming all his life. He received his schooling in the district schools and after leaving school continued making his home on the home place until his mar- riage in 1880, when he established his home on the place on which he is still living in Ross township and has thus been the occupant of that farm for nearly forty years. Mr. Brickel is now the owner of four farms, comprising four hundred and seventeen acres of land. He has served as a member of the school board, as president of the Oak Grove School Association, as a member of the local election boards and in other capacities. Politically, he is inclined to independence of party ties and his years of labor in behalf of temperance and the abolition of the liquor traffic incline him to the cause of Prohibition.
Mr. Bickel has been twice married. On November 26, 1880, he was united in marriage to Mary A. Smith, who also was born in this county, and to that union were born three children, namely: Mary Dorcas, who married
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Harry Townsley, of the Cedarville neighborhood, and has two children, Mary and Alfred; Florance Grover, who is assisting in the management of the home farm and who married Ora Dill and has two children, Marion and Charles: and Herman, who married Bernice Briggs and is operating one of his father's farms adjoining the home place. The mother of these children died on January 19, 1893, and on December 9, 1897, Mr. Brickel married Margaret J. Ferguson, of Sabina, in the neighboring county of Clinton, a daughter of Kaleb Ferguson, and to this union one child has been born, a son, Paul F., born on September 20, 1900, who died on April 6, 1908. Mr. and Mrs. Brickel are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Jamestown and Mr. Brickel has been a member of the official board of the same for years.
CHARLES S. DEAN.
Elsewhere in this volume there is set out at considerable length some- thing of the history of the Dean family in this county, one of the oldest and most numerously represented families in this part of Ohio, and it is hardly necessary in this connection to repeat those details, further than to say that the Deans had their beginning here in the year 1812 with the com- ing up from Kentucky of the pioneer Daniel Dean, a native of Ireland, son of Roger and Mary Dean, who had come to this country in the days of his young manhood and after some years of "looking about" in the East had settled in the Mt. Sterling neighborhood in Kentucky, had there married Janet Steele and there lived until, with growing repugnance to the system of human slavery that had fastened itself upon Kentucky, he disposed of his interests there and came with his family up into this section of Ohio and established his home on a tract of land he had bought in what later came to be organized as New Jasper township, spending the rest of his life there, the place on which he settled now being owned by his great-grandson, Charles S. Dean, the subject of this biographical sketch, and occupied by the latter's son, Herbert S. Dean, whose children are of the sixth generation of Deans who have lived on that place.
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