History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 92

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1440

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To Benjamin M. and Margaret (Ratcliff) Walker were born seven chil- dren, of whom Doctor Walker was the fifth in order of birth, the others being the following: Stephen, horn on December 4, 1841, who enlisted his services in behalf of the Union during the Civil War, was commissioned first lieutenant of Company D, Eighty-ninth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was serving as captain of that company when he met a soldier's fate at the battle of Chickamauga. on Sunday evening, September 20. 1863, a minie ball going through his heart; John W .. February 28, 1844, who served as a soldier in that same company and regiment and is now a resident of Battle

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Creek, Michigan ; Simon R., October 1I, 1846, who became a civil engineer and is now the official surveyor of Vinton county, making his home at McArthur; Benjamin Rufus, May 23, 1852, a farmer living in the neighborhood of Worth- ington. in Franklin county ; Emma Alice, March 3, 1858, who married Henry Stephens and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased, and Margaret, who married Fremont Milner and is living at Leesburg. The body of Lieu- tenant Stephen Walker, whose death at the battle of Chickamauga is noted above, was buried on the field. In the following February his father went to the battlefield to recover the body. As this was beyond the Federal lines he was given an escort of soldiers. Several bodies were uncovered before he found the one sought, among these being the body of Lieutenant Jackson and the latter and that of Lieutenant Walker were given burial in the National cemetery at Chattanooga. Lieutenant Walker fell just north of Snodgrass Hill, not far from the spot where the monument erected to the Eighty-ninth Ohio now marks that regiment's particupation in the battle of Chickamauga.

Reared on the home farm in Vinton county, Leonidas Cromwell Walker received his early schooling in the neighborhood school and supplemented the same by a course in the Normal School at Lebanon, after which he taught school for five terms, in the meantime spending his summer vacation periods in the study of medicine in the office of Dr. George Ireland at Wilmington, being thus prepared for entrance at Hahnemann Medical College at Chicago, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medi- cine in 1882. Upon receiving his diploma Doctor Walker returned home and opened an office in the vicinity of Eagle Mills, where he was engaged in prac- tice for eighteen months, at the end of which time he moved to Halltown, in Ross county, and was there engaged in practice until January I, 1885, when he came to Greene county and opened an office at Jamestown, where he has since been engaged in practice, with his present office and dwelling on East Main street. In 1896 Doctor Walker took a post-graduate course in the Metropolitan Post-Graduate School of Medicine at New York. He is a member of the Greene County Medical Society, of the Ohio State Medical Society, of the Miami Valley Homeopathic Society and of the Ohio State Homeopathic Society. The doctor is a Republican and has served as a member of the local school board. He is a member of Jamestown Lodge No. 352, Free and Accepted Masons, and has been four times worshipful master of the same.

On June 2, 1881, Dr. Leonidas C. Walker was united in marriage to Ellen Marsh, who was born near Lower Salem, in Washington county, this state, March 25, 1857, daughter of James and Sarah Marsh, both now deceased, who were the parents of five children, of whom Mrs. Walker is the youngest, the others being William, Maria, John and Susan. James Marsh was born on October 8, 1821, and his wife was born on July 1, 1826. They

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were married on May 16, 1841. Doctor and Mrs. Walker have two children, Bessie, born in Eagle township, Vinton county, November 20, 1882, who married Charles E. Fisher, a business man of Xenia, and Charles T., born in Harrison township, Ross county, November 17, 1884, who is now engaged in the automobile business at Jamestown. Mrs. Fisher is a member of Cathe- rine Greene chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution at Xenia. Charles T. Walker married Eskelene Reynolds, daughter of Professor Reynolds, superintendent of the Greene county schools, and has one child, a son, Ned Lewis, born on March 9, 1917.

JOHN A. TIBBS.

John A. Tibbs, assessor of Miami township and the proprietor of a farm adjoining the western line of the village of Yellow Pine, is a Virginian by birth, but has been a resident of Ohio since he was eight years of age. He was born on August 1, 1856, at Morgantown, county seat of Monongalia county, which then was a part of the Old Dominion, but which since the Civil War has been a part of the state of West Virginia, and his parents, Samuel and Sarah (Bennett) Tibbs, also were natives of that same section.

Samuel Tibbs was born in 1812 and grew to manhood at Morgantown, where he married and where he continued to make his home until 1864, when he moved over into Ohio and settled on a farm in Scioto county, where he remained until 1884, in which year he moved to Champaign county. In this latter county lie remained until 1900, when he moved down into Clark county, where his last days were spent, his death occurring there in 1902. He and his wife were the parents of twelve children, namely: Sylvanus, Mary and Adaline, who died in youth ; Martha Jane, Cordelia and Hester Ann, also now deceased ; Louise, who married G. L. Dodge, of Champaign county, and has eleven children; Charles, deceased; John A., the subject of this biographical sketch; Samuel and David, deceased, and George Edward, who is farming in the vicinity of Topeka, Kansas.

As noted above, John A. Tibbs was but eight years of age when his parents came to Ohio and he completed his schooling in Scioto county, mov- ing thence with his father to Champaign county in 1884 and thence. in 1900, to Clark county, continually engaged in farming with his father. After the death of his father in 1902, Mr. Tibbs came down into Greene county and bought his present farm just west of the corporation line of Yellow Springs and has since resided there. In addition to his general farming, Mr. Tibbs has given considerable attention to the raising of live stock, his specialty being Duroc-Jersey hogs. He is a Republican and both in Champaign county and in Clark county rendered service as a member of the school board of the

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districts in which he resided in those respective counties, and not long after coming to Greene county was elected assessor of Miami township, which office he is still holding, now serving his fourth term.

John A. Tibbs was united in marriage to Louise Cunningham, of Scioto county, this state, daughter of John D. and Melissa (Woodring) Cunning- ham, who were the parents of thirteen children and the former of whom lived to be ninety-eight years of age, and to this union have been born five children, four sons and one daughter, namely: Claude, deceased; Harry, unmarried, who is still living at home with his parents and who is engaged as a mail carrier at Yellow Springs; Orin T., who married Gertrude Adamson, of Yellow Springs, and has three children, John Charles, June Elizabeth and Robert Orin; Edna, who died when six years of age, and James Raymond, now living near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who married Dorothy Ellis, of Yellow Springs, and has two children, Marjorie Law and James R., Jr.

EDWIN W. WING.

Edwin W. Wing, former clerk of the village of Clifton and formerly engaged in the mercantile business there, now living retired at his home in that place, is a native of the great Empire state, but has been a resident of Ohio since he was six years of age and of Greene county most of the time for the past twenty years or more. He was born at Hinsdale, New York, June 27, 1859, son of William H. and Jane A. (Bullard) Wing, natives of that same state, who came to Ohio in 1865 and established their home on a farm in the Mechanicsburg neighborhood in Champaign county, where they spent the remainder of their lives.

William H. Wing was born in Rensselaer county, New York, in 1818, son of William and Miriam Wing, also natives of that state, who spent all their lives in their native state. The Wings are of old Colonial stock, the founder of the family in this country having been a Quaker who came here from Holland, the family originally having gone from England to Holland. In Rensselaer county, New York, William H. Wing grew to manhood and married Jane A. Bullard, who was born at Hinsdale, also of an old Colonial family, the Bullards being of "Mayflower" descent. After his marriage Will- iam H. Wing became engaged in the mercantile business at Hinsdale, and was thus engaged there when, in the early '6os, he came to Ohio on a little vacation trip and was so favorably impressed with the appearance of things in this section of the state that he decided to locate here. Returning to New York he disposed of his interests there and with his family came back to Ohio and bought about a hundred acres of land in the neighborhood of Mechanicsburg, in Champaign county, and there established his home, that

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place having been the nucleus of the present celebrated "Woodland Farm," widely known in consequence of the astonishing results achieved there in the way of alfalfa culture and which has been referred to as "one of the mile- stones of American agriculture." The story of the work done by William H. Wing and his sons in the way of alfalfa culture is well known throughout this section of Ohio and need not be repeated here. The story of the estab- lishment of the Wing Seed Company, growing out of the demand made upon the Wings for alfalfa seed, also is well known and is regarded as one of the most interesting features of the agricultural development of this part of the state. Since the death of the late Joseph Wing ("the Alfalfa King"), first president of the company, who died in 1915, Charles Wing, another of the sons of William H. Wing, has acted as president of the same. William H. Wing and his wife were the parents of five children, of whom the subject of this biographical sketch was the first-born, the others being Joseph, Jennie May, Willis O. and Charles B. William H. Wing died in 1890 and his widow survived hini for twenty-five years, her death occurring in September, 1915.

Edwin W. Wing was six years of age when he came with his parents from New York to Ohio and he grew up on the home farm in the immediate vicinity of Mechanicsburg, receiving his schooling in the schools of that village, and from the days of his boyhood was an assistant in the labors of the home farm and in the development of the interests that have made the name Wing known far and wide among agriculturists. In 1890 Mr. Wing married a Greene county girl and after his marriage continued his agricultural opera- tions in Champaign county until 1896, when he moved to Clifton and there became engaged in the mercantile business, buying the George H. Smith store, which he continued to operate for eight years, at the end of which time he sold the same and for a time thereafter was engaged in developing his realty interests at Clifton, erecting the building in which the postoffice now is located and also the building in which the local Knights of Pythias have their hall. He and his family then went to Georgia, expecting to establish their home in the South if conditions seemed favorable, but after a residence of a couple of years in that state returned to Clifton, where they have since resided. Since his return from the South Mr. Wing has been living practically retired. For some time he rendered public service as clerk of the village.

On April 2, 1890, at Clifton, Edwin W. Wing was united in marriage to Sarah Iliff, who was born in this county, daughter of David B. and Flora (Grindle) Iliff, both also Greene county folk, and the latter of whom is still living here. David B. Iliff was for years engaged in operating a paper mill in the vicinity of Clifton and after his retirement from business made his home in that village, where his death occurred on October 16, 1915. He and his wife were the parents of six children, Mrs. Wing having two brothers,

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John and George Iliff, and three sisters, Mrs. Anna Bowen, Mrs. Jessie Baker, of Kansas, and Mrs. Edith Randall, also of Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Wing have three daughters: Alice May, wife of Irvin Linson, a farmer, living in the vicinity of the village of Enon, in the neighboring county of Clark; Ethel, wife of Nelson Stretcher, of Covington, Kentucky, and Florence, who was born during the time of the family's residence in Georgia and who is now in school at Clifton. The Wings are members of the Baptist church.

PROF. CHESTER A. DEVOE.

Prof. Chester A. Devoe, superintendent of county school district No. 3, comprising the schools of Jamestown, Silver Creek township, Caesarscreek township and the centralized school in Jefferson township, was born on a farm in Caesarscreek township on January 15, 1883, son of John and Mary M. (Williams) Devoe, who are still living in that township, where they have made their home since their marriage on March 8, 1882. John Devoe was born in that same township, February 7, 1855, and his wife was born in High- land county, this state, March 11, 1861. They have three children, Professor Devoe having a sister, Loura, who married James Jones and is living in the immediate vicinity of Mt. Tabor church in this county, and a brother, Marion A., who is unmarried and who is still living on the old home farm.

Reared on the home farm in Caesarscreek township, Chester A. Devoe received his early schooling in the schools of that neighborhood and supple- mented the same by attendance at the State Normal School at Lebanon, com- pleting there the course for teachers in 1901. In the fall of that year he began teaching and for seven years thereafter was engaged during the winters as a teacher in the district schools of New Jasper township and Caesarscreek township. He then was appointed principal of the Caesarscreek township high school and superintendent of the schools of that township and was thus employed for eight years, or until his election in 1916 to the position he now occupies, that of superintendent of school district No. 3, comprising the schools of Jamestown, Caesarscreek township, Silvercreek township and the centralized schools of Jefferson township. Professor Devoe holds a life certificate from the state as a teacher in both the grade and high schools and is a member of the county examining board for teachers. For two years he was chairman of the county "dry" association and has ever been an ardent exponent of the principles of the temperance movement in this state.

On March 29, 1906, Prof. Chester A. Devoe was united in marriage to Sarah E. Jones, daughter of Jacob and Lydia (Thomas) Jones, of New Jasper, and to this union have been born five children, Nellie, -Edna, Mary, Paul and Martha. Professor and Mrs. Devoe are members of the Methodist

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Episcopal church at Jamestown and the Professor is the superintendent of the Sunday school. In 1916 he was president of the Greene County Sunday School Association, an organization to which he has for years given earnest attention. The Professor is a member of the Masonic lodge at Xenia and of the Knights of Pythias lodge at Paintersville.

HUGH A. ALEXANDER.

The late Hugh A. Alexander, who died at his home in Miami township in the summer of 1906, was born on the farm on which he died and there spent all his life. The Alexanders have been represnted in this county ever since the year 1811, when Hugh Alexander, grandfather of the subject of this memorial sketch, came up here from Kentucky and bought a thousand acres of land in Miami township. Jacob Alexander, one of the sons of this pioneer, married Margaret Alexander and established his home on a portion of that tract, erecting on the same a log cabin in which he and his wife began housekeeping. Jacob Alexander became the owner of a farm of two hundred and seventy-five acres and on that place spent his last days, his death occur- ring there in 1838. His widow survived him for nearly thirty years, her death occurring in 1866. she then being past seventy years of age. They were the parents of ten children.

Hugh A. Alexander, last survivor of the ten children born to Jacob and Margaret (Alexander) Alexander, was born on the home farm in Miami township on March 20, 1827. He was but eleven years of age when his father died and he grew up on the home place and after his marriage in 1860 established his home there, continuing to reside there the rest of his life, his death occurring there on July 8, 1906. For some years before his death he had been living practically retired from the active labors of the farm, having turned the management of the same over to two of his sons. In 1917 the farm was sold to William Conley. By political affiliation Mr. Alexander was a Republican.

In 1860, at Dayton, this state, Hugh A. Alexander was united in mar- riage to Catherine Stahl, who was born in Germany, but who was but a child when she came to this country with her parents, the family locating at Dayton. To that union were born eleven children, namely: John, who for years has been engaged in the insurance business at Topeka, Kansas, and who married Minnie Roach and has five children, Archibald. Carl, Wilma, Donald and Helen: Cynthia, wife of Jacob Johnson, of Yellow Springs, this county; Margaret, who is now living at Cedarville, to which place she moved with her mother after the death of her father : Jacob, now a farmer at Knowles, Okla- homa, who married Mary Merrill and has two children, Emmet and Wiley;

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Hugh, who married Flora Raney and became engaged in association with his brother William in the mercantile business at Yellow Springs, where he died on September 18, 1917, leaving three children, Eleanor, Ruth and Dorothy ; Minnie, who married Riley McMillan, a farmer of Cedarville town- ship, and has four children, Ethel, Harvey, Wilbur and Esther; Anna, who is engaged in her brother's store at Yellow Springs; Abbie, who married . S. A. Rahn, who formerly was engaged in the mercantile business at Yellow Springs, and became the mother of three children, Ralph (deceased), Harold and Helen : William, who married Nellie Newell and is engaged in the mer- cantile business at Yellow Springs: Arthur, now living at Kansas City, who married Lunetta McMillan, and has one child, a daughter, Grace; and Walter, who died at the age of eleven years. Following the death of her husband in 1906 Mrs. Alexander and her daughters, Margaret and Anna, moved to Cedarville, where Mrs. Alexander died on December 14, 1917, and where Miss Margaret Alexander is still living. Mrs. Alexander was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, as are her daughters.

WILLIAM A. DEAN.

Though no longer a resident of Greene county and now living retired at Columbus, Indiana, William A. Dean has never lost his interest in Greene county affairs and it is but fitting that in the history of his old home county there should be set out some of the details of his former connection with the affairs of this county, together with proper reference to the several pio- neer families of Greene county with which he is connected and with which his wife is connected, for both are members of families that have been closely associated with the affairs of this county since pioneer days and which still have a wide connection hereabout.

William A. Dean was born on a farm in the neighboring county of Clin- ton on March 11, 1857, son of William Campbell and Susan (Janney) Dean, both members of pioneer families in this part of the state, both the Deans and the Janneys having settled here in early days, the Deans coming up fron Kentucky and the Janneys, over from Virginia. Susan Janney was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1820, and was twelve years of age when her parents, Stephen and Letitia (Taylor) Janney, native Virginians, Quakers, who were married in that state, drove through with their family to Ohio in 1832 and settled on a farm in the vicinity of Springboro in the neighboring county of Warren, where they established their home and spent the remainder of their days.

The Deans are one of the old families of Greene county and, as noted above, are still numerously represented hereabout, the family having had its

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beginnings here with the coming of Daniel Dean and his family up from Ken- tucky in 1812. Daniel Dean, the pioneer, was a native of Ireland, son of Roger and Mary Dean, and was but eighteen years of age when he camne to this country in 1784, landing at the port of Philadelphia. In 1788 he went to Kentucky, where in 1791 he married Janet Steele. After his marriage he continued to make his home on his Kentucky farm until 1812, when he decided to move up into Ohio. He had previously bought a tract of eighteen hundred acres of land along Caesarscreek, in this county, and in 1812 estab- lished his home there, as is set out, together with a comprehensive history of the Dean family elsewhere in this volume. There were five sons and six daughters in this pioneer family, all of whom lived to rear families of their own. The five sons were Robert, William, Daniel, Joseph and James. Thirty- six members of this family served as soldiers of the Union during the Civil War and all returned home save one, who died at the front.

Robert Dean, first-born of the children of Daniel and Janet ( Steele) Dean, was born in Kentucky in 1793 and was nineteen years of age when he came with his parents to Greene county in 1812. He straightway enlisted his services in behalf of America's second war of independence, then in progress, and served as a member of Capt. Robert Mcclellan's company on a tour of duty to Ft. Wayne, in the Territory of Indiana. On the tract of about two hundred and fifty acres of land which he inherited from his father in what later came to be organized as New Jasper township he established his home and spent his last days, his death occurring there on May 8, 1856, and he was buried in the Dean burying ground. Robert Dean was twice married, his first wife having been a Campbell and his second, an Orr, and was the father of a considerable family, one of his sons, William Campbell Dean, a child by the first marriage, having been the father of the immediate subject of this biographical sketch.

William Campbell Dean was born on the old Dean place in New Jasper township on July 4, 1822, and there grew to manhood. During the days of his young manhood he went South and was for eighteen months engaged as a guard in the Tennessee state penitentiary at Nashville. Upon his return to Greene county he married Susan Janney, mentioned in a preceding paragraph, and after his marriage became engaged with his brother Daniel in the grocery business at Xenia, the brothers conducting at the northwest corner of Detroit and Main streets (where the Steele building now stands) the first store exclu- sively devoted to the sale of groceries ever started in Xenia. After four years of this form of mercantile business William C. Dean sold his interest in the store to his brother and moved to Clinton county, where he was engaged in farming for three years, at the end of which time he returned to this county. and bought the interests of the other heirs in the old Dean farm in New

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Jasper township, then a tract of one hundred and eighty-four acres, estab- lished his home there, on the place where he was born, and there spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring in September, 1888, he then being in the sixty-seventh year of his age. William C. Dean was a Republican and had served as township trustee. Originally members of the Associate Reformed church, he and his wife later became members of the Friends church and their children were reared in the latter faith. There were five of these children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the third in order of birth, the others being Letitia, unmarried, who is living on the old home place in New Jasper township; Anna. now living at Indianapolis and who has been twice married. her first husband having been William Hazelrig and hier second, William Bal- dock; Charles S., of Xenia, further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume, and Susan, who married Edgar Ballard and is still living on the old Dean place in New Jasper township.

William A. Dean was but an infant when his parents returned to this county from their brief residence in Clinton county, where he was born, and he was reared on the old home place in New Jasper township. He received his schooling in the neighborhood schools and at Antioch College. Upon his father's death in 1888 he inherited a tract of one hundred and nine acres of land on the New Burlington pike in Spring Valley township and after his marriage two years later began housekeeping there, but in 1903 he sold that place and moved to Portage county, this state, where he bought a farm of two hundred and forty acres, on which he made his home for twelve years, at the end of which time he disposed of his farming interests and has since been living retired. In the spring of 1917 he and his wife moved to Columbus, Indiana, where they have since been living. Mr. Dean is a Republican and for some time during his residence in Portage county served as township trus- tee. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. They have one child, a son, Edwin Janney Dean, who married Frances Elliott. of Warren, Ohio, and lives at Newton Falls, this state. They have one son, William A.

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History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 92

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1440

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1440