History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 115

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > Ohio > Knox County > History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present > Part 115

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Mr. and Mrs. Bottenfield came to Ohio in October, 1839, and located in Milford township, where they remained until their death. John Bottenfield died August 7, 1866; his wife died December, 1871. They had ten children, all of whom are liv- ing, and all were born in Pennsylvania: Sarah, widow of Peter Wolff ; Joseph, farmer, in Crawford county, Illinois; Barbara, widow of Job Sutton; Meaker, farmer, in Mason county; Es- ther, wife of William Bishop; Phebe, wife of James McClellan; in Warren county, Iowa; Jane, wife of William Williams, in Warren county, Iowa; Elizabeth, wife of David Martin, in Mor- ris county, Kansas; Nehemiah, farmer in Crawford county, Illi- nois; and William L., who has always resided in Milford town- ship. He was raised on the farm and has followed farming as his occupation. He is one of Milford's best citizens, and is a strong advocate of any cause which he espouses and which he believes to beright. He is a man of generous impulses and is always ready to further any enterprize which lias for its object the elevation of the community. In politics he is a Democrat of the Jacksonian type, and is one of the leaders of his party in the county. On the eleventh of September, 1872, he was united in marriage to Clamana L. Stevens, who was born in Milford township, September 27, 1846. They have one child, Lee Mal- colm, born October 24, 1873.

Mrs. Emeline Stevens, nee Ferrell, mother of Mrs. Bottenfield, was born in Milford township,. March 15, 1818. Her parents came from Litchfield county, Connecticut, about 1816, and set- tled in what is now Milford township, where they both died. She was joined in marriage to John Stevens in 1843. They had a family of six children, all living. Mr. Stevens died April, 1862.

BOUTON, HENRY, Wayne township (deceased), born in Tompkins county, New York, in 1801, came to Ohio at the age of sixteen years, and was married to Phebe Rood, who was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1804. Their children are Jane, Amanda, James M., and Eliza.

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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.

Mr. Bouton located in Knox county in 1816, bought timber- land, cleared, and improved it, and has at present one of the most beautiful farms of this township. He died April 18, 1877, and was buried at Fredericktown. Mrs. Bouton died August 18, 1878. They were known by many of the earliest settlers of this county.

BOWERS, WILLIAM, farmer, Morris township, post office Mount Vernon, was born in New Jersey in 1814, went to New York with his parents in 1827, and married Sarah Cosgrove, who was born in New Jersey in 1811. They have two children: Charles, born in 1840, and Louisa, born in 1845.

Mr. Bowers went to Ashland county in 1853, and remained there till 1861, then came to Knox county. He first resided in Mt. Vernon, after which he located on a farm in Morris town- ship, in 1872. Mr. Bowers is a farmer by occupation. Charles Bowers enlisted in company A, Ninety-sixth regiment Ohio volunteer infantry, and died at Memphis, Tennessee, July 6, 1863.

BOWLAND, R. M., boot and shoe dealer, Banning block, corner of Main and Vine streets, Mt. Vernon, Ohio, was born September 27, 1832, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, where he resided until fifteen years old. He then came to Ohio and located at Martinsburgh and made his first business en- gagement as salesman, in which he continued until 1852. He then came to Mt. Vernon and engaged with the firm of Miller & Browning, dry goods merchants, for a short time, after which he entered the employ of J. E. Woodbridge, whom he served four years, he then engaged with the firm of Beam & Mead, where he served six years, the firm then dissolved, and he re- mained with D. W. Mead, one of the firm, until 1869, when he bought out Mr. Grant, of the firm of Grant & Atwood, and did business under the firm name of Atwood & Bowland until 1876, since which Mr. Bowland has been sole proprietor. He carrys a stock of about four thousand dollars, consisting of boots and shoes, and has one of the largest and most complete stocks in this line in the city, doing a business of from twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars per year.

BOYD, JOHN, Mt. Vernon, was born January 20, 1808, is a native of Allegheny City, where he received his education, and when seventeen years old engaged with James Taylor, of Pittsburgh, to learn the baking business, at which he served four years; he then engaged in business for himself, in which he con- tinued about one and a half years, when he went to Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked at the business for some time; he next went to St. Louis and remained in business there until 1836, when he returned to Pittsburgh and remained there until December of that year; he then came to this State, locating in Mt. Vernon, where he engaged in the grocery and baking busi- ness, in which he continued until 1866, when he engaged in the business at Smith's Ferry, Pennsylvania, where he remained fonr years (during which his family remained in Mt. Vernon), after which he returned in 1870, since which he has been engaged in various ways. He was collector in 1872-3, and from 1873 to 1875 was first clerk in the pension office at Washington, District Columbia. He was elected township trustee in 1875 in which office he still continues. He was married April 22, 1830, to Miss Margaret O'Hanlan, daughter of Michael O'Hanlan, of Pitts- burgh, by whom he had a family of eight children, viz .: John C., William, Robert A., Maggie A., George W., and W. H. (twins), Mary, and Sadie; four are living, viz., William, Mag- gie A., George W., and Sadie. Mr. Boyd enlisted in 1864 and

served in the One Hundred and Forty-second Ohio National guard, and his sons, John C., and William, were in the Eighty- second Onio volunteer infantry, and George was in the Twen- tieth Ohio volunteer infantry.

BOYD, SAMUEL, of Fredericktown, deceased, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1811; came to Knox county, Ohio, in 1864, and was married to Matilda Hastings, who was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1820. They had the following children, viz .: Sarah J., now Mrs. John W. Leedy; and William, who married Anna B. Mane; they re- side on the home place. Mr. Samuel Boyd died in 1874. He was a farmer by occupation. Mrs. Boyd still resides on the home place.

BOYD, THOMAS, farmer and wool-grower, Brown township, post office, Jelloway, son of Jaines and Nancy Boyd, born in Leesville, Carroll county, Ohio, January 13, 1828. At the age of six months his parents died, and he lived with Archibald Elliott until he was thirteen years old. Thomas then worked among the farmers until he arrived at the age of sixteen, when he entered into a contract with David Copper to work for five years for the sum of one hundred dollars and a freedom suit. After that he followed farming and dealing in stock. On the twentieth of March, 1850, at the age of twenty-two years, he married Miss Mahala, a daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth, Nor- rick, born in Harrison county, January 13, 1828; after his marriage he moved to Brown township, Knox county, where he purchased forty acres of land, and there located and reared his family. In 1851 he bought fifty-three acres of woodland adjoining him; and in about three years bought thirty-three acres more. In addition to that, he in 1862 bought seventy-five acres, and in 1871 fifty acres more, making in all two hundred and forty-eight acres. In 1871 Mr. Boyd erected a very fine dwelling, which, with other buildings to correspond, make a very desirable and comfortable home. For- merly Mr. Boyd followed buying and shipping stock in connec- tion with farming, but is at present giving his attention to raising fine sheep. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd are the parents of eleven children, viz .: James W., Hezekiah F., Elizabeth J., Emelia U., Daniel W., Jemima A., Thomas M. (died August 27, 1867), Olive B., Ettie P .; one died in infancy, leaving nine living. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd are consistent members of the Wesleyan Methodist church of Shadley Valley.

BOYD, WILLIAM, farmer, was born in Clay township, where he has always resided. He was married to Henrietta Mc Williams; they have two children, viz .: Charles and Lorena.

BOYLE, MICHAEL, is a native of Londonderry, Ireland, where he was born Christmas eve of 1797. and resided until his nineteenth year, when he came to this country and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he worked at his trade (learned the trade of house plasterer in Ireland) for about four years, after which he worked in Pennsylvania, Buffalo, New York, and several other places for a aumber of years. He then engaged in the real estate business in Buffalo, in which he was at first very successful, but finally met with reverses, when he con- cluded to move to St. Louis, Missouri, but when he got as far as Newark, Ohio, he concluded to settle in Ohio. He settled in Mt. Vernon in 1837, where he has ever since remained, working at his trade until his age warned him it was about time to retire. He was married December 11, 1836, to Miss M. Boyle of Buffalo, New York, by whom he has had a family of seven children, of whom only three are living: John, Michael, and Edward.

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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.

BOYLE, EDWARD, dealer in tobacco, cigars, etc., was born in Mt. Vernon, June 14, 1859, and was educated in the public schools. When seventeen years of age he commenced selling papers as a newsboy, which he followed until he was twenty years old, when by economy and industry he had enough money to buy out J. M. Roberts' cigar store. He now carries a large stock of cigars, tobacco, confectionery, daily papers, etc.

BRADDOCK, JAMES A., Fredericktown, butcher, was born in Knox county, December 22, 1848, was married in 1870, to Nora A. Phillips, who was born in Knox county, No- vember 21, 1851. They reside in Fredericktown. His father, Joshua Braddock, (deceased) was born in Knox county, Ohio, in 1818,. He was married in 1839, to Margaret Durbin, who was born in Knox county, in 1819. They had the following family: Emeline, born March 10, 1840; Jefferson, October 30, 1841; Levi, July 10, 1844; Elizabeth, October 30, 1846; John D. and James D. December 2, 1848; Rebecca, February 9, 1851.

Joshua Braddock came to his death by being kicked by a horse, December 5, 1874, in Morris township. His occupation was farming and dealing in stock. He was one of the leading men of this county.

BRADDOCK, LEVI S., Morris township, farmer, post office Mt. Vernon, was born in this county in 1844, and mar- ried in 1866 to Elizabeth J. Brumbaugh, who was born in this county in 1848. They have one daughter, viz, Stella M. Brad- dock.

The father of Mrs. Braddock, Daniel Brumbaugh, deceased, was a native of Bedford county, Pennsylvania, who came to Knox county at a very early day, with a small pack. He was a shoemaker of very small means, but by industry and economy he succeeded in accumulating wealth. He made his first pur- chase in Monroe township of fifty-five acres of land, for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, and finally became the owner of three hundred and thirty acres, and at the time of his death was worth over thirty thousand dollars.

* BRADDOCK, JOHN D., Pleasant township, son of Joshua and Margaret Braddock, was born in Knox county, Ohio, De- cember 2, 1848. On the tenth day of October, 1875, he mar- ried Miss Minerva McIntire, born in Holmes county, Ohio, in 185r, daughter of John and Mary McIntire. They settled in Morris township, this county, remained until the spring of 1878, when he purchased and moved on the farm in Pleasant town- ship, where they are now living, located on the Martinsburgh road, five miles from Mt. Vernon. His business is farming and stock raising.

BRADFIELD, JAMES W., Union township, farmer, son of John and Amy Bradfield, was born in Loudoun county, Vir- ginia, December 6, 1819. His father died in 1820, leaving him without paternal care. In 1836 he, in company with his mother, his uncle, James P. Bradfield, and wife, his sister and her hus- band, Ferdinand Bolon, emigrated to Knox county, and located · on a farm now owned by Mr. J. W. Bradfield, adjacent to Danville, where his brother-in-law, Mr. Bolon, died August 28, 1837. His uncle, James P. Bradfield, died on the same farm, in the winter of 1845. During the winter of 1837, the subject of this sketch, and his mother and sister, moved on a farm in Brown township, this county, where his sister married Robert D. Barr, of the same township, and he and his mother made their home with Mr. and Mrs. Barr several years. Mr. J. W.

Bradfield married Miss Sarah A. Sapp, July 6, 1845. She was born in Union township, Knox county, November 6, 1824, and is the daughter of Levi and Mary Sapp. They settled in Brown township, and remained until 1850. He purchased and moved on a farm in Howard township, near the Catholic church, where they lived ten years, and in 1860 he purchased and moved on the farm where they are now living, in Union township, near Danville. They have five sons and four daughters. He was a millwright by trade, and made that his principal vocation until he was about forty years of age, when he turned his attention to farming, and is at present farming and stock-raising, making fine sheep a specialty. He filled the office of county commis- sioner from 1861, to 1867. He held the office of justice of the peace from 1860 to 1866, and was internal revenue assessor from 1862 to r869. He is a man that is well known in the county, and highly esteemed by all his acquaintances. After the death of his sister, Mrs. Barr, which occurred April 7, 1848, his inother made her home with him until she died, February 8, 1867, aged seventy-eight years.

BRADFIELD, CHARLES ROBERT, Liberty township, phy- sician, Mt. Liberty post office. He was born in Union township, May, 1846. His youth was spent on the farm and attending dis- trict school. He attended school at Hayesville and Danville. While on the farm he read anatomy during his leisure time. When about seventeen years of age he went to read medicine with Dr. L. W. Sapp, a Homeopathic physician of Cleveland, but changed his purpose and read with Drs. Sapp and Balmer of Danville, physicians of the regular school. He read with them three years and attended lectures in Cleveland, and fin- ished his course at Detroit, Michigan, in 1870.

His first practice was with his preceptors at Danville, where he remained until 1872, when he came to Mt. Liberty. He soon secured a large practice and has been successful in retaining it. He is social in his manners and liberal in his views.

He was married to Miss Sarah Dunlap, daughter of Salathiel Dunlap, of Butler township, January, 1868. They have three children-Stella, born December 14, 1869, died July, 1871; Lız- zie A., born May 3, 1871; Dale, born January 10, 1870.

BRADRICK, JOHN, Berlin township, farmer and carpenter, post office, Fredericktown, born in Belmont county in 1818, and was married in Richland county to Elizabeth Jane Beans, who was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1822. They had five children, viz: Mortimer, born in 1849; Wilson, in 1851; Harrison, in 1854; Paul A. (deceased), in 1856; and Jonathan, jr. (deceased), in 1858. Mrs. Elizabeth J. Bradrick died in 1874.

His second marriage was to Mariam Gibson (Tavenner), who was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1836. Mr. Bradrick came to Richland county in 1833, and remained there till 1849, when he located in Berlin township, this county.

When a young man he learned the carpenter trade ; he built a barn on the farm of James Trayer in 1836, and in 1876 he built a barn on the same location for Isaac Leedy, and has worked at his trade in different localities.

Elizabeth was married to Daniel Fallen, now living in Perry township, Richland county. Catharine died in 1879. George died in 1852. Margaret was married to A. C. Huntsman, now of Richland county. Lorain is engaged in the study of medi- cine with Dr. Hall, of Fredericktown, and attending lectures at Chicago. Leroy is residing with his parents.

BRANYAN, J. HARVEY, Mt. Vernon, general blacksmith- ing, corner Front and Gay streets. Mr. Branyan is a native of

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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

Richland county, Ohio ; born July 3, 1831. When about seven years old his father moved to Knox county and located about one mile west of Mt. Vernon. There he resided three years when he returned to Richland county and located three-fourths of a mile east of Shelby. After residing there three years he again moved, making a home in Crawford county. Mr. Bran- yan, senior, died July 5, 1845.

After the death of his father young Branyan returned to Richland county and resided there for some three years, and then went to Gambier and engaged in learning the blacksmith trade with Mr. F. Penhorwood, and served three years. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he opened a shop for him- self, and conducted it for two years. The four following years were spent in travelling and working as a journeyman in differ- ent places in Ohio and Indiana. After thus travelling he came to Mt. Vernon and for two years worked as a journeyman, after which he opened a shop for himself. He does a business of about two thousand dollars per year, and makes horseshoeing a specialty, having a thorough knowledge of the theory of shoeing track and draft horses, and all other departments of shoeing. He does also all kinds of job work and repairing on short notice. All work first class and warranted. Mr. Branyan has represented his ward in the city council.

BREECE, EDSON J., Fredericktown, painter ; was born in Fredericktown in 1829, and married in 1852 to Ruth Snow, who was born in Lake county in 1828. They have three chil- dren, viz: Elva I., born in 1853; Etta M., in 1855, and Ells- worth W., in 1866. Mr. Breece enlisted in company H, O. N. G,, during the late war and served out the time of his enlist- ment, receiving an honorable discharge. He is engaged in house and carriage painting, and is a skilful mechanic.

BREECE, ADAM, Pleasant township, farmer ; son of Adam and Eliza Breece ; was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, May 29, 1832. He was brought to Coshocton county, Ohio, by his parents in 1836, where he was brought up on a farm, and has followed farming as his principal vocation. In 1855 he came to Knox county and located in Harrison township, where he mar- ried Miss Elizabeth Biggs in 1859, born in 1836 and daughter of Levi Biggs. They settled in the same township, and remained until 1869, when he purchased and moved on the farm in Pleas- ant township, where he is now living. They have a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters.

BRENT, REV. JULIUS, deceased, former pastor of St. Vin- cent De Paul's Catholic church, Mt. Vernon, and of St. Luke's, near Danville, Ohio, was born in the city of London, on the twentieth of February, 1827. He was the youngest of six chil- dren of Samuel and Anne Virtue Brent. His father and grand- father were ship-builders, who at one time had a large interest in the London and Greenwich docks, and had during the "thir- ty years war " amassed a considerable fortune in building men- of-war vessels for the British Government. After the close of the war by the treaty of Ghent the business of ship building de- clined, and little was done in that line except in remodelling war vessels into merchantmen. This the Brents refused to engage in as being out of the province of the business proper. Reverse of fortune caused Mr. Brent to turn his eyes to America in the hope of retrieving his losses, and in 1829 he settled with his family in Brooklyn, Long Island, New York. In 1835 the family immigrated to Knox county, locating in Brown town- ship, on the farm that the elder sons Edmund (Judge Brent of this city) and Edgar (the father of Samuel J. Brent, the present

clerk of the court), had commenced clearing of the primi- tive forest the year before. Change of circumstances and of habit told severely upon Mr. Brent, and after a lingering ill- ness he died in the autumn following his arrival. The eastern portion of Knox county was largely settled by immigrants from Maryland, who brought with them the faith that their fathers had learned from the pious missionary fathers of Lord Balti- more's Catholic colony. The sincere and earnest lives of these good people attracted the attention of the "English folks," and when the good priests came to administer to the religious needs of the " settlement " they sought themn out, obtained Catholic books, made themselves acquainted with the doctrines of the church, and when Father John Lamy, now archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was sent by the bishop of Cincinnati to take charge of St. Luke's mission, near Danville, the entire family, one member after the other, were received into the fold of the Catholic church.

Young Julius at once resolved to devote himself to the minis- try, and his good mother, at no little sacrifice and effort, ad- vised by Father Lamy, placed him at the age of thirteen, under the care of the learned and saintly Father Amick, then prefect and professor of St. Xavier's college at Cincinnati. From his mother and sisters he had obtained the rudiments of an educa- tion so that he at once entered upon the college course. His conduct here was in every respect unexceptionable. An assiduous student, an agreeable comrade; he won the love and respect of both professors and fellow-students, and at the end of each year few carried off more, if as many, of the college prizes. The venerable archbishop of Cincinnati, learning of his desire to enter the ministry of the priesthood, and pleased with the good account of his abilities and deportment that he had received from the Jesuit fathers at St. Xavier's, sent him to the seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, to study theology. He made the arduous curriculum in four years, and at the age of twenty-four was . ordained priest, June, 185r. On his return home he visited the family relatives in England, arriving at Cincinnati, and report- ing to the archbishop for duty in September of the same year. While at the archbishop's house, he learned the sad news of his brother Edgar's death from Asiatic cholera, the week previous. The archbishop gave him the choice of the mission at Chilli- cothe or of returning to the scenes of his early boyhood in Knox county. He chose the latter, and when in later years better places in point of numbers and prominence were offered him, his invariable answer was that he preferred his first love. For over twenty-three years he was pastor of St. Vincent de Paul's at Mt. Vernon, and of St. Luke's near Danville, attend- ing each place, week and week about, besides giving a monthly mission at St. Michael's chapel, among the German Catholics of Jefferson township, Knox county, and the south part of Ash- land county. No weather, indisposition, pleasure or engage- ment, except the order of his ecclesiatical superior, prevented him from making these weekly trips. In all these years, but two who had sent for him in their dying moments were reached by him too late to receive at his hands the last rites of the church. At Danville his saintly mother assisted by his sister Emma, pre- sided over his household up to the time of her death in April, 1854. Emma continued his housekeeper till her death in April, 1873. At Mt. Vernon his sister Frances, "Aunt Fanny" as she is so well and lovingly known, not only among the relatives of the family and entire congregation, but to many outside, has continuously kept house for him. To the orphan children of his brother Edgar and of his sister Isabella (Mrs. Tardeville),

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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.

he took the place of a father and his house or houses became, much of their time, their home. The old homestead in Brown township has been sold, and the proceeds invested in property in Covington, Kentucky, while Father Brent was in France. This was sold at an advance after he returned and became located in Knox county, and the proceeds again invested in real estate, near the church property at Danville. In improving and farming this land, Father Brent spent much of the leisure time not occupied in his clerical duties. At the same time it was earnest work with him and hard; it was not in his nature to do anything slightingly. " If anything is worth doing at all it is worth doing well" was a motto that he practiced as well as endeavored to impress upon the young men with whom he often labored.

In 1874 the ordinary of the Columbus diocese determined to separate the Mt. Vernon and Danville charges and give each a pastor. Since then Father Brent has given this congregation his undivided attention. In 1863 he had a very severe attack of rheumatism, which he bore with the greatest resignation, but from the effects of which he never recovered. This fact, and the death of his sister Emma, doubtless had much to do with his selecting Mt. Vernon rather than the country congregation at Danville, for country life and its labors and pleasures were naturally dear to him. The land near St. Luke's was sold at a handsome advance and the proceeds invested in a farm near Mt. Vernon, as a provision for himself and sister in old age and the decrepitude, that he feared was overtaking him prematurely. For the last year or two before his death he was an intense sufferer, but never complained, and seldom spoke of his trouble; so much was this the case that his most intimate friends did not anticipate the danger he was in. By the advice of his physician he had resolved upon taking a trip for the benefit of his health, but the resolution was too late. Father Brent died at his late residence in Mt. Vernon, July 22, 1880.

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History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 115

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co. Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096