USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 65
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William Edwards
Milliam & MSil
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
or until his death in 1827, being then sixty years of age. At the same place died his mother and four of his chil- dren. He had been married at the old home near Mid- dleton, Monmouth county, New Jersey, to Miss Hannah Martin, about 1801, before the removal to the Miami valley. They had twelve children-William, Mary (Mrs. Timothy Day), John, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Samuel, Ed- ward, Joseph, Redford, Job, Lydia Ann (Mrs. Nicholas Edwards), George Washington, and one that died in in- fancy unnamed. Of this large family, William, Rebecca (Mrs. Martin Hahn, widow, residing near Galesburgh, Illinois), Elizabeth (Mrs. Timothy Day, of Iowa), Sam- uel, Edward and Redford J. are still living.
William Edwards, the oldest son, was born in New Jersey May 10, 1802. He was brought with the family to the west, and received some education in the sub -. scription schools of that time, but says he pretty regularly forgot, at the end of every term, all he had learned during its session, and began anew with the next school. His childhood and youth were spent at the paternal homes in Clermont county and in Anderson township, until his marriage, December 11, 1823, to Miss Nancy Day, daughter of Timothy and Sarah (Crane) Day, who had come to this region about the year 1800. One of her brothers, Timothy Day, jr., married her husband's sister Mary, and upon her death married Elizabeth, another. sister, as above noted. After his marriage, Mr. Edwards removed from the paternal roof to a double log. cabin standing near the homestead, but upon another farm, for which his father had traded. This he occupied until it became much out of repair, when he put up a frame dwelling upon its site, which was in its turn superseded by the present spacious and comfortable brick mansion, erected in the year of the Harrison campaign, of which Mr. Edwards has an interesting relic in the shape of a : Whig banner, with the portrait of the hero of Tippeca- noe and appropriate inscriptions. The farm upon which the residence stands had long before become the prop- erty of Mr. Edwards, to which he has since made large
additions by purchase. Here he has since continually resided, engaging himself almost exclusively in the labors of the farm. Sometimes he has purchased for sale, in addition to his own crops, the products of his neighbors, in some instances to large amounts. He has wasted none of his energies in public office, except as he has served the township in some of its minor posts. He has often been solicited to become a candidate for the legis- lature, but has invariably declined. He is faithful in his voting, however, having voted successively for fifteen candidates for the Presidency, and always upon the Democratic ticket, to which he has given a life-long alle- giance. He has never allied himself with any religious or secret societies, and is independent in all his thinking and his actions. Although close upon the border of four-score years, he has remarkable vigor of mind and body, and preserves his faculties almost unimpaired. His venerable wife also still survives in apparently good health, but their long union has proved childless. They have raised, however, several nephews and nieces and other children. A number of their relatives reside near
them, their dwellings and other houses making a hand- some cluster of buildings at the station, on the Cincin- nati & Eastern Narrow Guage railway, which is called from him "Edwards."
WILLIAM R. McGILL.
Joseph McGill, grandfather of the subject of this no- tice, came from Scotland to America in 1790, and settled at a point on Seneca lake, in the State of New York, where his third son, James McGill, was born February 16, 1805, one of a family of six sons and one daughter. The whole family removed to the west in the spring of 1811, and made their home in Cincinnati. It was the year of the earthquake and the first steamboat down the Ohio valley- a notable period in the history of this re- gion. They remained in the city four years, until 1815, when they changed their residence to Newtown. In June of that year the mother died, and the bereaved father, sorrowing deeply for the loved and lost, followed her in about two months, leaving a family of seven orphans. They were left in destitute circumstances, and the chil- dren were separated, James, then in his eleventh year, going to live with Mr. Jacob Denham, a cooper, at Per- rin's Mills, or Perrintown, Clermont county. He learned the trade with Mr. Denham, and remained in his employ until he was eighteen years old, when he went to live with Mr. Moses Crist, who was also a cooper, at Montgomery, in this county. He worked for him two years, and re- moved to Sharonville, in Sycamore township, where he went into partnership in a small store, with a Scotchman named Galbreath. This was in the spring of 1825. James was now twenty years old and had saved two hun- dred dollars, which constituted his sole investment in the store: : Every winter, for seven consecutive years, he also loaded a flat-boat at Cincinnati with pork, flour, lard, the whiskey which was then an indispensable part of the car- go, and other articles, which he started for New Orleans, and sold at a good profit there and along the coast. Among his best customers was General Wade Hampton, father of the present governor of South Carolina, who (the elder Hampton) then had a plantation on the Mis- sissippi. Mr. McGill walked the long distance from New Orleans to his home several times, but afterwards returned by steamer. He encountered many serious dangers dur- ing these trips, both by land and on the river; but es- caped all unharmed. He kept his business at Sharon- ville, which continued to enlarge and prosper, and, with his ventures in trading down the rivers, enabled him rap- idly to accumulate means. In the fall of 1831 he sold his interest in the Sharonville store to his partner, and loaded a boat for his eighth venture, and was ready to start, but accidentally met in Cincinnati John H. Gerard, then a merchant at Newtown, with whom he effected a trade of the boat and its cargo for the stock of Mr. Ger- ard. In December he took charge of the Newtown bus- iness, and the next February, the season of the great flood in the Ohio, which reached even to the streets of the village, he removed his family thither. In 1834 he
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
sold his store back to Mr. Gerard, and bought the farm occupied by him the rest of his days, in the immediate vicinity of Newtown, on the east of the village, along the Batavia pike. In 1836 he was elected justice of the peace, and served four years. He also took an active in- terest in the building of the Batavia turnpike, and was a director and treasurer of the company for some years. He rather shunned than sought public life. He was sometimes pressed to become a candidate for the State legislature, but would not consent to run. He was a cor- dial friend of popular education, and served for many years upon the local school board, aiding to build the first public school-house in the village. In every respect he was public-spirited, assisting with his means in the erection of the churches there, as also of the bridge across the Little Miami at Plainville, and in other enter- prises calculated to benefit the community. He died August 17, 1860. He was married November 20, 1828, to Miss Asenath Ryan, of Sharonville, by whom he had eight children-Viola (died in early life), William Ryan (named from his maternal grandfather), Joseph, Mary, John, Priscilla, Maria, Emily (Mrs. Lewis D. Drake, re- siding at the old homestead near her brother's store in Newtown). None are now living except William, Mary, and Emily.
William Ryan McGill was born at Sharonville, April 8, 1831, the first son of James and Asenath C. (Ryan) McGill. His primary education was received at New- town, but he subsequently graduated from a three-years' course at College Hill, in the Farmers' college, his prep- aration enabling him to enter to advanced standing as a sophomore. He went at once into business in Newtown, in a small way at first, as a merchant, buying the old stock of John W. Crossley. Mr. Crossley at once bought a new and handsome stock and opened another store just across the way, which for a time greatly injured the business of Mr. McGill. By the third year, however, the trade of the latter had greatly improved and finally the store of Mr. Crossley became so unprofitable that he sold out and went to California, where he died. Mr. McGill has since remained steadily in the mercantile business, enlarging it year after year, until it has been long considered the leading establishment in Newtown, and commands customers far and wide in Hamilton and Clermont counties. Beginning in September, 1851, in a single small room now occupied by his stock of gro- ceries, he has now six rooms filled with the general stock of a country store, including drugs, school-books, and the like, besides the usual stocks of dry-goods and gro- cery stores. He has found time, however, to serve the public as township treasurer, for seven consecutive years, and was the leading spirit in the inception and prosecu- tion of the important enterprise of building the Cincin- nati and Eastern railroad. This was undertaken in 1876, purely as a local enterprise along its proposed route, and Mr. McGill devoted himself largely for months to the awakening of an interest in the project and the solicita- tion of subscriptions to its stock and the right of way, and then to the prosecution of the work, as well as mak- ing himself a liberal subscription and loaning large
amounts to the company. He was one of the original directors of the corporation and its vice-president, under the presidency of Mr. Samuel Woodward, and he and H. Wilber-both of Morrow, Warren county-were the projec- tors of this work. Upon Mr. Woodward's retirement, to accept the position of general superintendent of the Cincinnati Southern, in 1879, Mr. McGill was promoted to the presidency of the Eastern, which he now holds. He found his road in the hands of a receiver, with a floating debt larger than could be managed ; but within twenty months he secured the payment of all obligations of this character and also of a larger sum in overdue interest on bonds, and so rescuing it from the hands of the receiver, he taking the road again fully in charge on the first of March, 1881. With this good work he is solely credited by those who know the internal history of the corporation owning the road. He travelled far and near to find the creditors of the company and effect set- tlements with them; and through infinite trouble and difficulty succeeded in obtaining personal interviews with all creditors and making satisfactory settlements. As a result the bonds of the road are now at par, and its op- erations are on a working basis, hopeful and prosperous beyond all expectations. It is believed it will speedily become, under Mr. McGill's presidency, one of the most profitable railway properties in Ohio, and of very great value to Cincinnati, to which the early completion of the Cincinnati Northern, with which it intersects, will soon give it direct entrance.
Notwithstanding his engrossment in public and private cares, Mr. McGill has taken a very lively interest in the religious and secular training of the rising generation. For twenty-one consecutive years-since April, 1860-he has been superintendent of the Sunday school connected with the Universalist church in Newtown; and for the past fifteen years has been a member of the school board of the village, aiding in the material enlargement of the school-house and in making Newtown an independent district by act of the legislature. In all enterprises for local benefit he is among the first and foremost, and seems to have no higher ambition than to leave his part of the world the better for his having lived in it. He has been a life-long Democrat, but is not an active poli- tician, much less an office-seeker.
Mr. McGill was married December 3, 1861 (the bride's eighteenth birthday), in Norwood, Columbia township, to Miss Delia L. Drake, only daughter of Thomas T. and Lydia A. (Mill) Drake, who are now re- siding with their daughter and her husband in Newtown. Mr. and Mrs. McGill have two children living-Alice, born September 1, 1864, and Louie D., born July 10, 1877. The former is a student at the Ohio Wesleyan college in Cincinnati. Their eldest born, a son, died unnamed in infancy.
ABRAM EBERSOLE.
Jacob Ebersole came from Germany to America some time in the eighteenth century, and settled in Washington county, Maryland, not far from Hagerstown. After his
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
immigration he married a Miss Smith, two of whose brothers-Nicholas and Michael Smith-were among the Kentucky pioneers of Boone and Kenton's days. One settled in Bourbon county, and the other in an ad- oining region. Some descendants of this family, cousins of Abram Ebersole, afterwards lived at Stone Side, up the Little Miami valley. Jacob and Mary Ebersole had four daughters and two sons, among whom was Christian Ebersole, the oldest son and the oldest of the family. He stayed at home until his marriage, about 1798, when he was united to Miss Annie Shouff, of the same neighborhood. He then determined to try his fortunes further towards the setting sun, among his and his wife's relatives in Kentucky, and emigrated, in 1799, to Bourbon county. His father and mother followed soon after to the same part of the county, and died there. His parents spent their last days in Maryland with the rest of the family, none of whom migrated to the west except Christian. After improving a place and farming for three years in the wilds of Kentucky, he decided to remove to the north of Ohio; and on the second day of March, 1802, he halted his emigrant wagon at the site which has so long been the home of himself and his des- cendants. This is upon the survey No. 395, or the "Tompkins survey," a large tract which now includes the village of California and many pieces of farming land. Here, immediately adjoining the present plat of the village, to the west of it, and with an extensive front- age upon the Ohio and Little Miami rivers, he purchased from General Lytle a fertile tract of four hundred and fifty-six-hundredths acres, which is still held undivided by the family. It was unimproved, except for a cabin at the ferry at the mouth of the Little Miami and another not far off. He at once built a cabin also on the eligible and beautiful site where the family mansion now stands, which was then in dense woods, and began clearing and cultivating his farm ; also keeping the ferry before men- tioned across the Little Miami, which he and his son Abram maintained by skiffs, canoes and flat-boats until about 1850, when the New Richmond turnpike was built, and its bridge superseded the necessity for a ferry. He died at his home here June, 1836, and his wife Novem- ber 3, 1827. Their children numbered nine, as follows: Christian S., now living at Madison, in this county, in his eighty-second year; Catharine (Mrs. Robert Fee, of Moscow, Clermont county), deceased in 1878; Abram, the principal subject of this sketch; Jacob, a farmer near New Richmond, Clermont county; Mary, born Septem- ber 16, 1803, and still residing at the old home with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Abram Ebersole; Martha Ann, Maria and Elizabeth, who died unmarried, while still young ladies; and John, who died at the age of nineteen, in 1832.
Abram Ebersole was born at the old home, September 18, 1808, the same year in which the house was built. It is now somewhat enlarged and improved, one of the old- est brick dwellings in the county, and is still thoroughly habitable, comfortable, and sightly. He was educated in the country schools of his neighborhood, in a high school kept by a Frenchman named Decorney, at Alex-
ander, Kentucky, ten miles from the Ebersole place, and at Miami university, where he attended for two years, but was prevented by ill health from graduating. At the age of about nineteen he left the schools and returned home, where he shared the labors of the farm with his father and brothers. On the thirteenth of May, 1856, he was married to Miss Celina M. Johnson, second daughter of John and Sarah (Cox) Johnson, who resided near Salem, in Anderson township. Her father was of an old pioneer family, which came to the Miami valley about 1808, headed by her grandfather, Walter Johnson, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1781. Her maternal grandparents, Thomas and Margaret (Mercer) Cox, were born in Maryland, but removed upon their marriage to Virginia, where her mother, Sarah Cox, was born, and thence they emigrated to Anderson township in 1807.
Mr. Ebersole's father had now been dead for many years, and Abram had come into possession of the home farm by inheritance. He continued to reside there, and by industry and energy maintained it well, reaping the average share of prosperity which fell to the farmers of this part of the Miami and Ohio valleys. He took a lively interest in the construction of the New Richmond turnpike, of which he was, at various times, president and treasurer, and in all other local affairs that promised, in a material or moral way, to benefit the community. He was an active advocate of the temperance reform, and made his daily life and example correspond in every respect to his principles of total abstinence. As noted below, the only secret organization he ever joined has for its object the promotion of temperance. He took a practical interest in the Union Sabbath-school at Cali- fornia, which he regularly attended, although not a mem- ber of any church. He was at first a Whig and then a Republican, at times devoting considerable time and at- tention to the promotion of party interests in the town- ship and county; but asked nothing himself, although he was several times made trustee of the township, and for many years was a member of the local school board. He connected himself with none of the secret societies, except with one of the reformatory orders, known as the Sons of Temperance. He was content with the quiet, independent life of a farmer, not engaging in trade or speculation, nor using his education as a writer or public speaker. He was a kind and genial man in his family, and in all his relations in life; sustained to the end a high reputation for morality and integrity among his fel- low-men; and left the legacy of a good example to his posterity and to the community. He died at his home in Anderson township, near California, March 9, 1868, the result of an accident, he falling, four days before his death, from the loft of his barn to the floor, fracturing his skull so that he was not afterwards conscious to the moment of his death. He was in his sixtieth year. His remains were buried in the cemetery at Mount Washing- ton, where a monument commemorates his memory. His widow continues to reside at the old homestead. His children are as follows:
Martha Frances, born July 9, 1857; Augusta, born February 23, 1859, died at the age of two years;
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
Stanley, born September 24, 1860; Milton, born August 8, 1866. All are at home with their mother. With them also resides their aunt, Miss Mary Ebersole, at a vener- able age, who has erected a noble monument for herself in the fine large school-house adjoining the farm, to the erection of which she contributed a very liberal sum, and thereby secured the building at that time and place.
THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY.
The ancestral home of this well-known, old Anderson family was near Fredericksburgh, Maryland, whence they moved to Buckingham county, Virginia. The head of the family was now Nathaniel .Shepherd Armstrong, who had nine children-William, John, Elizabeth, Thomas, Leonard, James, Nathaniel, Priscilla, and Alie. With most of them, the others coming soon after, he removed to the Miami country in 1800, settling at once upon the west side of the Little Miami, upon section thirty-three, in the present Columbia township, a little above the foot of the Indian Hill road, where the original grist-mill stands, and is still in useful service, having passed out of the family only within a few years. Mr. Armstrong had been a miller in the old States, and he soon began the erection of this mill, in the building and management of which he was assisted by his sons, two of whom, John and William, afterwards removed to Plainville, where they bought another grist-mill of a man named Peasley, who had built it shortly before. With the possible ex- ception of Turpin's mill, Mr. Armstrong's was the first mill in the Little Miami valley. In a few years the elder Armstrong purchased a tract of three to four hun- dred acres on Indian Hill, and removed thither to im- prove it for a farm, while James and Nathaniel, two of his sons, remained to conduct the old or "upper mill." Part of the Indian Hill property is still held by a grand- son, Thomas M. Armstrong, the principal subject of this sketch. On this farm the pioneer Armstrong breathed his last, after a very long and active career, about 1845, in his ninety-second year.
Thomas was the fourth child and third son of Nathan- iel S. Armstrong, born in Virginia or Maryland about the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, November 23, 1775 .- He was apprenticed to a millwright in Virginia, with whom he learned the trade, and shortly after the removal of the family to Ohio, the period of his apprenticeship being ended, he also went out and assisted his father in building and running the mill before mentioned. In 1805 he and his brother Leonard removed to the oppo- site side of the Little Miami, and built a third mill there, which came to be known as the "Armstrong middle mills," in distinction from the "upper mill" and the "lower mill." This is still standing and in use, but not by the family since 1863, when Thomas M. Armstrong, its owner, sold it. It is just below the Newtown bridge, and about half a mile from the upper mill. It was run exclusively as a flouring-mill for five or six years, when the water-power was also utilized in running machinery for a carding- and fulling-mill. In those primitive days
the raw wool was first brought to the mill by the grower and carded, then taken home and spun into thread or yarn, then taken to a weaver and made into cloth, and finally returned to the mill where it was fulled and dressed, losing about one-third in length by the last pro- cesses. About 1830-5, in the lifetime of Thomas Arm- strong, additional machinery was put in, which enabled the manufacturers to take the wool through all the pro- cesses necessary to turn out the cloth complete for man- ufacture into clothing. In 1835 Thomas bought out his brother and conducted the business alone until about 1850, when he retired from its management with a com- fortable property. He made a division of his estate at the time he retired, by virtue of which the mill fell to his sons who conducted it. Edwin Armstrong, the third son and the oldest surviving, being the manager of the concern. He was a graduate of the Indiana State uni- versity, and also of the Cincinnati Law school; was an active politician of the Democratic faith, which was the belief of his father and brothers; was twice a member of the State senate and twice of the house of representa- tives, and of the convention that formed the State con- stitution of 1852; and was otherwise a prominent citizen. John Armstrong, his brother, studied medicine, but had practiced only a short time when he sickened and died. The father died July 21, 1864, in his eighty-ninth year, in the house now occupied by his son, Thomas Milton Armstrong.
About the year 1806 Mr. Armstrong was married to Miss Sarah Broadwell, of an old Anderson family, born November 17, 1781, who survived until March 28, 1860, when she departed this life in her seventy-ninth year, in the same dwelling where her venerable husband died more than five years afterwards. They had seven chil- dren, to wit: Perine, Eliza, Sidney, John Broadwell, Edwin Lindley, Thomas Milton and Eliob. Only two, the youngest sons, are still living-the latter in Cincin- nati and the former upon the paternal estate near the "middle mills," on the turnpike between Newtown village and Newtown station, on the Little Miami railroad.
Thomas M. Armstrong was born in a pioneer log- cabin near his father's mills, May 4, 1817. His early education was received in the "subscription " and after- wards in the free schools of his neighborhood. He picked up a good deal of information about the business in the mills, but never became a practical miller. He remained, as did all surviving sons, with his father, as- sisting in the labors of the mills and the farm also owned by the father, until about 1850, when the division of property occurred, and the home farm fell to Thomas, who still resides upon it. He had been a farmer for a number of years when, upon the death of his brother Edwin, principal manager of the mills, he bought the in- terests of the heirs in that concern and conducted it suc- cessfully for about ten years, or until 1863, the year before that in which his father died, at the same time continuing his farm operations, to which he has since de- voted his attention. In 1876 he remodelled and greatly enlarged the old homestead, which his father had erected as a frame dwelling in 1820, to which a brick addition,
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