History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 96

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

USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 96

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school at Oakland, California, going thence to Leland Stanford, Jr., Uni- versity, where she taught English literature and rhetoric for seven years, at the end of which time she was retired as assistant professor. Miss Hardy also has written quite a bit of poetry and her published works have attracted appreciative attention in literary circles. Laurinda Elizabeth Hardy, who died in 1892, was for twenty-five years engaged in educational work. Miss Pauline Adelaide Hardy, who continues to make her home at Yellow Springs, also began her educational labors early, her first work as a teacher having been performed in the schools of her native county, Preble. After being graduated from Antioch College she taught in the West for two years. She later be- came a teacher in Antioch College. At Yellow Springs she has since con- tinued to make her home, engaged in teaching. Caroline Hardy married Robert A. Braden and is now living at Dayton, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Braden were connected with the Christian Publishing House for many years. Mr. Braden owned and edited the Ohio Poultry Journal.

WILLIAM A. TURNBULL.

William A. Turnbull, postmaster at Cedarville, was born in Cedarville township and has been a resident of this county all his life. He was born on a farm two miles southeast of Cedarville on March 9, 1873, son of Alex- ander and Sarah J. (Barber) Turnbull, both of whom were born in that same township, members of pioneer families, and whose lives were spent here, the latter dying on May 30, 1897. She was born in 1831.

Alexander Turnbull was born on a farm adjoining that on which his son William was born, January 24, 1836, and was a son of John and Margaret (Kyle) Turnbull, earnest pioneers of that community, further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume. John Turnbull was twice married, luis second wife having been Margaret J. Allen, and was the father of nine- teen children. He was an active member of the old Seceder church and was the owner of six hundred or seven hundred acres of land, and helped his children get a substantial start in life. Alexander Turnbull, a veteran of the Civil War, died at his home in Cedarville township on April 8. 1915.

William A. Turnbull was reared on the home farm in Cedarville town- ship and completed his schooling in the Cedarville high school. From the days of his boyhood he was well trained in the ways of practical farming and after his marriage in 1889 established his home on the home place, which he began to operate, at the same time operating a small farm of his own adjoining, and there continued engaged in farming until his retirement from the farm and removal in 1914 to Cedarville, where he since has inade his home, he and his wife being very pleasantly situated there in a comfort-

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able house of the bungalow type on Cedar street, erected in the winter of 1914-15. Mr. Turnbull is a Democrat and as a precinct committeeman in his home precinct and as a member for years of the Greene county Demo- cratic central committee has rendered yeoman service in behalf of his party. In 1914 he was appointed postmaster of Cedarville and is still occupying that position.

On December 1, 1889, William A. Turnbull was united in marriage to Ida Wolford, who was born at Xenia, daughter of John Henry and America Wolford. Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull are members of the United Presbyterian church at Cedarville.

JOSEPH DRISKILL.

Joseph Driskill, a veteran of the Civil War and a retired farmer, now living at the pleasant village of Bowersville, is a native "Buckeye" and has lived in this state all his life. He was born on a farm in Union township, Highland county, January 7, 1845, son of Eleven O. and Lucinda ( Hamilton) Driskill, the latter of whom was a great-great-grandfather of Alexander Hamilton and a daughter of John and Mary Hamilton, of Rockbridge county, Virginia. John Hamilton died in Virginia in 1819 and his widow came to Ohio with her children and settled in Highland county, where she lived to the great age of one hundred and one years. She was the mother of six children, those besides Lucinda having been Elias, who spent his last days farming in Highland county; Moses, who moved to the Rising Sun neigh- borhood in Indiana; Isaac, who moved to Peoria county, Illinois; Jamies, who died at the age of nineteen years from the effects of a rattlesnake bite, and Ella, who married Lewis Chaney and in 1853 went to Des Moines, Iowa.

Eleven Driskill was born in Caroline county, Maryland, October 13, 1815, a son of John and Elizabeth (Owens) Driskill, the latter of whom also was born in Maryland. John Driskill was born in County Cork, Ire- land, and upon coming to the United States in the days of his young manhood located in Maryland, where he presently married, but later made his way out to Ohio and settled in Highland county, where he established his home on a woods tract, on which he made a clearing and erected a log cabin. That old log cabin is still standing. John Driskill died there in 1827 and his widow survived him until 1850. They were members of the Campbellite church and were the parents of nine children, of whom Eleven was the second in order of birth, the others being the following: Nancy, who married John Hutchinson and moved to Ray county, Tennessee; Elizabeth, who married Thomas Dixon, of the Russell Station neighborhood in Highland county;

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Maria, who married Moses Hamilton and moved to the Rising Sun neigh- borhood in Indiana ; Nellie, who married Joshua Dormand and moved to Van Buren county, Iowa; Nettie, who married James Armstrong, who also went to Van Buren county, Ohio, and thence, in 1849, to California ; Jane, who also went to Iowa; and Ephraim, who married Ann Rook and moved to Knox county, Illinois.

Eleven Driskill was but twelve years of age when his father died and he early was thrown on his own resources, beginning work on the farm of his uncle, Ben Shockley, at a wage of forty dollars a year, which he never received. After his marriage to Lucinda Hamilton he established a home of his own in Highland county and his wife died in Clinton county in 1858. He . later married Harriet Dormand, of Boone county, Kentucky, and in 1860 located on a farm in the vicinity of the village of Utica, in Clark county, Indi- ana, where he remained for ten years, or until 1870, when he returned to his old home in Highland county, this state, and there spent the rest of his life, his death occurring on October 11. 1889. He was a Democrat and a member of the Christian church. To Eleven and Lucinda (Hamilton) Driskill were born eight children, namely: Ephraim,, a retired farmer, now living at Rees- ville and whose wife, Hester Ann Chapman, died in 1904: Martha Jane, who married Riley Michaels, of Highland county, and who, as well as her hus- band, is now deceased; Joseph, the immediate subject of this biographical sketch; Mary Elizabeth, who married John W. Thomas, of Lynchburg, this state; Ann Eliza, who died in 1850, at the age of six years; Sarah Lydia, who died at the age of four years, and Henrietta Clarissa, wife of Alonzo Smith, of Lynchburg, and Nancy Ellen, who died in infancy.

Joseph Driskill was thirteen years of age when his mother died and when his father moved to Indiana he was taken into the home of Isaiah Brewer, a farmer of the New Vienna neighborhood, in Clinton county, his schooling thus being completed in the Hoskin school and in the Hart school in their neighborhood. On September 2, 1861, he then being not sixteen years of age, he enlisted in Company G. Fifty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, Capt. I. T. Moore, Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, which com- mand he joined at Lima, and to which he remained attached until he received his final discharge in September, 1865. During this service Mr. Driskill suffered more than the usual viscissitudes of a soldier's life, was twice cap- tured by the enemy, for nine months held in the horrid prison pen at Ander- sonville, twice escaped death when many of his companions were lost in river disasters, and during his Andersonville experience contracted a trouble with his eyes that developed upon his return from the army and from the effects of which ever since the spring of 1876 he has been totally blind. Upon leaving Lima with his company late in the fall of 1861 Mr. Driskill was

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headed for Ft. Donelson, but that point meantime having been taken by the enemy his company was diverted to Paducah, where they helped in the erection of a fort and were then sent up the river to Corinth, but the high stage of water compelled a landing at Shiloh, where on April 6 and 7 they participated in the great battle at that point and where Mr. Driskill received a wound which kept him in the hospital until the following August. He rejoined his company at Memphis, Tennessee, in December, 1862, and there- after participated in the campaigns in which his regiment was engaged until taken prisoner on July 22, 1864. He saw service in the siege of Vicks- burg from May until the fall of that city on July 4, 1863. He then went on to Jackson, aided in taking that city, then on into Georgia to take part in the Atlanta campaign, where he was captured, July 22, 1864, with eighteen hundred others and was sent to Andersonville prison, where he was hekl until the close of the war in April, 1865. He took boat at Augusta, Georgia, went to Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head Island, took ship there for New York City, landing June 10, 1865. The boat they started on struck a snag and sank. Mr. Driskill managed to reach. shore and later at Robinson's Ferry boarded the "Jeff Davis" with forty other ex-prisoners of war. Besides these returning soldiers the boat carried a heavy cargo of cotton and three hundred negroes. Before they had been out long the vessel caught fire and in effort to escape the flames seventy-five were drowned. Mr. Driskill and four of his companions managed to float ashore on a bale of cotton and on June 10, 1865, he finally reached New York City. In good time he reported to his command and in September, 1865, was granted his final discharge.

Mr. Driskill formerly was a member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic at New Vienna and is now a member of the local branch of the Union Veteran Legion at Newark. He was the youngest 1861 recruit in the Legion in the state, and was also the baby of his regi- ment.

Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Driskill returned to the Isaiah Brewer farm in the vicinity of New Vienna and there remained until his marriage in the summer of 1871, when he began farming on his own account in that neighborhood. In 1888 he bought the Doctor Morely farm a half mile south of Centerville, and there remained until September 2, 1896, when he moved to the village of Sabina. Two years later he sold his farm and bought thirty-five acres three miles southeast of Bowersville, where he made his home for seven years. On July 8, 1908, he moved to Bowersville, where he has since made his home. In 1913 he had his present comfortable house erected there, at a cost of four thousand dollars. He and his wife are members of the Disciples church.

In June, 1871, in Clinton county, Mr. Driskill was united in marriage to Josephine Shepard, who was born at Snow Hill, in that county, February

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12, 1852, daughter of William and Sidney Shepard, the former of whom, a blacksmith and farmer, died at Bowersville on May 1, 1905. William Shepard's widow survived him, her death occurring at Dayton in March, 1909. They were the parents of fifteen children. To Joseph and Josephine (Shepard) Driskill were born five children, namely: Cora A., who married Thomas Pavey, of Sabina, now deceased, and had eleven children; Taylor, Alma, Faye, Joseph, Margaret, Catherine, Helen, Delbert, Thelma, Fannie and Evelyn Pauline : William T., born on August 8, 1873, now connected with the fire department at Newark, who married Rosanna Worley and has one child; Lewis L., June 19, 1875, who died in 1912, leaving a widow, Edna Matthews Driskill, and two children, Edith and John W., now living at New Vienna; Margaret, who has been twice married, her first husband hav- ing been Alva Higler and her second, Albert MacNiel, of Charollet, North Carolina, and has one child, a daughter, Frances; and the Rev. J. Denver Driskill, March II, 1888, a minister of the Disciples church, who married Mattie Taylor and has three children, Joseph, Ruth Olive and Anna Lee. Mrs. Josephine Driskill died on November 5, 1911, and on January 18, 1914, Mr. Driskill married Estella J. Myrick, who was born in Clermont county. this state, daughter of George F. and Elizabeth (Butler) Myrick, the lat- ter of whom died in Clermont county and the former of whom is now living at Macomb. Illinois. George F. Myrick and wife had two children. Mrs. Driskill having a brother, Chester A. Myrick, unmarried, a ranchman at Lodi, California.

CHARLES EWING COOLEY.

Charles Ewing Cooley, one of Greene county's well-known and substan- tial farmers, living in Cedarville township, on rural mail route No. 2 out of Cedarville, was born on a farm in the vicinity of Goes Station, in this county, and has been a resident of the county all his life. His father, William Cooley, was a native of New York state, of old Colonial stock, his mother having been an Alden, a direct descendant of John Alden, the Puritan, whose roman- tic marriage to his wife Priscilla forms the basis of one of the most delight- ful poems in the English language.

William Cooley came to Ohio from New York during the days of his young manhood and in time became one of the leading farmers in the Goes neighborhood in Xenia township. For years he was a constant contributor to the old Xenia Torchlight and was one of the best-known nien of his generation in this county. He was a member of the Second United Presby- terian church at Xenia, for years an elder in the same, but became affiliated with the Third United Presbyterian church in that city upon the organization of the latter, and for many years he was the superintendent of the Sabbath

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school at Goes. William Cooley died on the home farm on August 30, 1884. He was twice married, first to Jeanette Dean, a daughter of Robert and Eliza- beth (Campbell) Dean, pioneers of this county, to whom further reference is made in this volume. Upon the death of his first wife, William Cooley mar- ried Julia Parry, a school teacher at Cedarville and a daughter of Col. Walter Parry, who had earned his title as commander of the Greene county militia during the old days of the "muster." One of the daughters of Colonel Parry married the Rev. Ebenezer Curry and went with her husband to Alexandria, Egypt, where both died in the missionary service. Colonel Parry was a substan- tial landowner in the Jamestown neighborhood, but when his children began to require better educational advantages he moved to Cedarville, where Julia Parry completed her schooling and where she was engaged in teaching at the time of her marriage to William Cooley. To that union were born several children.

Charles E. Cooley, son of William and Julia ( Parry) Cooley, was reared on the old home farm in the neighborhood of Goes in Xenia town- ship and the schooling he received in the neighborhood school was supple- mented by the training he received at home. He was married in the spring of 1884 and after the retirement of his father-in-law, John Kyle, he and his wife moved to the latter's old home place one mile south of Cedarville, where they have since made their home, Mrs. Cooley having inherited the place after her father's death.

On April 9, 1884, Charles E. Cooley was united in marriage to Mary Jeanette Kyle, who also was born in this county, a daughter of John and Martha Jane (Orr) Kyle, both members of pioneer families in Greene county. John Kyle was born on December 5, 1825, son of Judge Samuel and Rachel (Jackson) Kyle, the latter of whom was a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (McCorkle) Jackson, pioneers, further reference to whom is made elsewhere in this volume, as is also reference to the Kyles, who were among the fore- most settlers of the Cedarville neighborhood. Judge Samuel Kyle was for thirty years a member of the bench of associate judges in Greene county and also for years served as county surveyor. He was a ruling elder in the Asso- ciate Reformed church at Cedarville. Judge Kyle was twice married and by his first wife, Ruth Mitchell, was the father of six children. After the death of the mother of these children he married, February 17, 1815, Rachel Jackson, and to that union were born fifteen children, of whom John Kyle was the seventh in order of birth. None of the sons of Judge Kyle were under six feet in height and the tallest was six feet and seven inches in height. Judge Kyle was a Pennsylvanian, born in the vicinity of the city of Harris- burg, and was but a boy when his parents moved from that state to Kentucky and settled in the Cynthiana neighborhood, whence he came up into the valley of the little Miami and bought twelve hundred acres of government land, the

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tract on which the village of Cedarville later sprang up. John Kyle and Martha Jane Orr were married on April 9, 1850, and immediately there- after located on the farm one mile south of Cedarville, where the Cooleys now live, and there they continued to reside until their retirement from the farm and removal to Xenia, where their last days were spent. They were mem- bers of the First United Presbyterian church at Xenia. They were the parents of four children, of whom Mrs. Cooley was .the third in order of birth, the others being Samuel J., who died in infancy; Martha R., wife of Joseph Tate, and John Riley Kyle, who is, living at Mansfield, Ohio.

To Charles E. and Mary Jeanette (Kyle) Cooley have been born four children : Edna, born on August 8, 1886; Martha, April 19, 1888; and Wilbur, April 2, 1890, who is married and is assisting his father in the management of the home place; Harold Parry, born October 18, 1894, died on March I, 19II. The Cooleys are members of the United Presbyterian church.

EDWARD O. BULL.

The founder of the Bull family in Greene county was William Bull, a Revolutionary soldier, who came over here from Virginia in 1803, purchased a tract of land on Massies creek and there established his home, becoming there one of the most influential members of the old Scotch Seceder settle- ment. This pioneer was the father of six sons, Asaph, John, James, Thomas, Richard and William, and two daughters, Ann and Mary, the descendants of whom in the present generation form a numerous connection hereabout.

Edward O. Bull, one of the most progressive young farmers of Cedar- ville township and the proprietor of a fine farm of one hundred acres on rural mail route No. 3 out of Cedarville, is a member of the pioneer family above referred to. He was born in the village of Cedarville on July 15, 1889, son of Rankin and Elizabeth (Orr) Bull, the latter of whom was a mem- ber of one of Greene county's pioneer families. Rankin Bull was early trained to the trade of carpenter and after a while became a building con- tractor on his own account, carrying on his operations in that line at Cedar- ville until his removal to a farm in his home township, where he spent his last days. He was a Republican and a member of the United Presbyterian church. Rankin Bull was twice married. His first wife, Elizabeth Orr, died on May 2, 1905, and on July 7, 1908, he married Malinda Turnbull. By the first marriage he was the father of four children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the first-born, the others being Raymond Samuel Bull, born on June 15, 1890, who is farming in Cedarville township; Arthur R. Bull, born in July, 1895, who also is farming in Cedarville township, and Edna M., born on May 9, 1902, who died on July 10, 1904.

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Reared on the home farm, Edward O. Bull received his early schooling in the Cedarville public schools and supplemented the same by a year at college, after which, in 1908, he resumed his place on the home farm and there remained until after his marriage in the fall of 1913, when he bought the farm on which he is now living, the old Mobley place of one hundred acres in Cedarville township, where he has since made his home. Mr. Bull has made extensive improvements on the same, remodeled the farm house, put up a silo, enlarged his farm plant by the erection of additional buildings and in other ways has made of his place one of the best-improved farms in that section. He is also giving considerable attention to the raising of live stock, making a specialty of Duroc-Jersey hogs and Shorthorn cattle.

On October 20, 1913, Edward O. Bull was united in marriage to Carrie S. Townsley, who also was born in Cedarville township, daughter of Frank and Effie (Fields) Townsley, further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume, and to this union one son has been born, Ralph Edwin, born on January 31, 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Bull are members of the United Presby- terian church at Cedarville and Mr. Bull is a Republican.

ALBERT ANKENEY.

The Ankeneys have been represented in this section of Ohio ever since the year 1827, when Samuel Ankeney, then nineteen years of age, and the eldest of the ten children of David Ankeney, left his home in Washington county, Maryland, and came into Ohio with a view to selecting a spot for the settlement here of the family, David Ankeney having decided to move over here into the country out of which such excellent reports were coming back East. In 1830 David Ankeney followed with the rest of the family and settled on a tract of land in Madison county, not far east of South Charleston, and there he and his sons put out some corn, but not liking that. point on account of the level ground. presently moved with his family, in the fall of that same year, down into Greene county and bought a tract of two hundred and ten acres in the Alpha neighborhood in Beavercreek town- ship and there decided to locate. He did not live long, however, to enjoy his new home or to develop the same in accordance with his expectations, for on the evening of November 2 of that same year he died suddenly, in the forty-second year of his age, and his widow was left with the ten chil- dren to carry out the plans which the family had made for the establishment of a permanent home in this county. She was born, Elizabeth Miller, in Maryland, in the Hagerstown neighborhood in Washington county, and survived her husband for more than twenty years, her death occurring on December 23, 1852, she then being sixty-two years of age.

The progenitor of this branch of the Ankeney family in America was

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Dewalt Ankeney, who in 1746, he then having just reached the age of con- scription in one of the kingdoms of what is now Germany, was brought to this country by his maternal uncle, Casper Dewalt, in order to keep the lad out of the army into which all his older brothers had been drafted, Uncle Casper Dewalt and his nephew embarking at Rotterdam, Holland, and com- ing over on the vessel "Neptune" and landing at the port of Philadelphia. Dewalt Ankeney, then about eighteen years of age, was trained to the trade of shoemaking and later, during the Revolutionary. War, made shoes for Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge. He became a farmer and the owner of a tract of land in the vicinity of Clear Springs, in Washington county, Maryland, where his last days were spent. Dewalt Ankeney was twice married, his first wife having been Mary Jane Dormer, by whom he had two children, Peter and Christian. His second wife was Elizabeth Frederick and by that union he was the father of ten children, five sons, John, Henry, David, Jacob and George, and five daughters. It is well to note, in passing, that the Dewalts, the family of Dewalt Ankeney's mother, were French and had fled from France into Germany during the time of the Huguenot persecution. Dewalt Ankeney became a considerable landowner, his large farm being given the name of "Wellphased," and his last will and testament disposing of his estate is now in the possession of his great-great- grandson, Albert Ankeney, of this county, the subject of this biographical review.

Henry Ankeney, second son of Dewalt and Elizabeth (Frederick) Ankeney, grew up on the home farm in the Clear Spring neighborhood in Maryland and after his marriage established his home on a farm in that same neighborhood and became a farmer on his own account. Among his sons was David Ankeney, the Ohio pioneer, whose plans for developing a farm in Greene county were suddenly checked by his death in 1830, as set out above, and whose body for nearly ninety years has been at rest in the Xenia cemetery, but whose name is perpetuated in this section and whose memory is cherished by the large connection of the Ankeneys and related families based upon his establishment of his home here in pioneer days.

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History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 96

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