USA > Ohio > Preble County > History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches > Part 20
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Of local positions it may be mentioned that Mr. Allen is president of the Greenville Gas company, and vice-president of the Greenville bank, a private enter- prise conducted under the firm name of Hufnagle, Allen & Co.
Judge Allen began the world in poverty, was reared in a rough log cabin, and enjoyed none of the golden opportunities for social and educational improvement which are so lavishly bestowed on the youth of the pre- sent day. His career as a lawyer has been a success, while his record as a statesman was creditable to himself and satisfactory to his constituents.
Although he has risen from poverty to affluence by his own unaided exertions, Judge Allen is one of the most charitable of men, and his integrity has never been questioned. While his positive character wins him friends true as steel, it also makes bitter enemies; but even his worst enemies concede to him great ability and unswerving honesty of purpose.
IRVIN E. FREEMAN, ESQ., was born in Franklin county, Ohio, on the fifteenth of April, A. D. 1821. His parents were natives of western New York, and came from thence to Ohio, settling temporarily in Franklin county, in the year 1820. When the subject of this sketch was about three years old, his parents removed to Preble county, and took up their residence in the vicinity of Lewisburg. Young Freeman had no advantages for an education, be- yond what were afforded by the common schools of the country.
During his minority he learned the carriage and wag- gon business, and also wrought some time at the mill- wrighting. After attaining majority he lived for some two
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years in Dearborn county, Indiana, and about the same length of time in Champaign county, Ohio. With these two exceptions, his residence has been continuous in Pre- ble county since 1824.
Mr. Freeman read law under the preceptorship of Gen- eral Felix Marsh and was admitted to the bar, by the Su- preme court for Preble county, on the seventeenth day of June, 1850, and at once entered upon the practice, in this and the adjoining counties. After his admission to the bar, he continued his residence at Lewisburg until the year 1858, when he removed to Eaton, where he has remained to the present time. He has been three times elected to the office of prosecuting attorny, and is now, 1880, serving on his third term.
Lawyer Freeman has been twice married-first to Miss Elizabeth Paine, on the sixteenth day of July, A. D. 1842; and to Miss Catharine Staggs on the twenty-first day of January A. D. 1864-his first wife having died about one year previously. He was admitted to membership in the Masonic order, at Wilmington, Dearborn county, In- diana, in the year 1844. After his return to Ohio he was admitted to membership in Libanus Lodge, N 88, at Lewisburg, and was W. M. for nine years.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN LARSH was born in Dixon town- ship in the year 1825. He was the youngest son and child of Colonel Paul Larsh. When he was about four years old his father's family removed to Wayne county, Indi- ana, where he passed most of the years of his minority. Being of studious habits and fond of knowledge, he suc- ceeded in gaining a very fair education in the common branches of learning. During his minority he learned the business or trade of wood turning, but did not fol- low it in after life.
In the year 1846 young Larsh returned to Preble county, where he remained the balance of his life. He was engaged in teaching, and in reading law, alternately, some five years, and was admitted to the bar May 6, 1851. He studied the profession in the office of Judge Haines. He never engaged in the practice of the law as a regular business, or profession. On the first of January, 1852, he went into the clerk's office, as deputy under Lewis B. Ogden, where he was employed, under Ogden, C. W. Larsh, Shauk, and W. D. Quinn, most of the time during the remainder of his lite. His knowl- edge of the law, and his close attention to the duties of the office, gained him the reputation, with the judges holding our courts, of being the best practical court clerk in the judicial district.
On the twenty-fifth day of January, 1849, Mr. Larsh was married to Miss Matilda G. Mitchell, daughter of Vincit Mitchell, esq. Two children were born of this marriage-Homer LeRoi Larsh and Mary Elizabeth Larsh, now residents of Topeka, Kansas. He served several terms as justice of the peace, and was for some twenty years clerk of the township. He died on the seventh day of May, in the yaar 1877, of paralysis of the heart.
B. F. Larsh, ESQ., was about five feet nine inches high, rather heavy built, weighing a little over two hundred pounds, black hair and eyes, and bilious temperament.
He was of studious habits, and much given to scientific investigations.
JUDGE GEORGE W. GANS was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, March 18, 1823. He was raised on a farm, and obtained his education altogether in the com- mon or district schools of his neighborhood, never having had the advantages of academic or high schools. At about the age of eighteen years he took a position in a dry goods store, in the village of Geneva, in his native county. He continued in this employment for some time, alternating it with teaching school; and in the meantime read law for about one year, reciting to James A. Morris, esq., an eminent attorney of Uniontown, Fayette county, Pennsylvania.
On the fifth day of June, 1847, he was married to Miss Helen M. Morris, also a native of Fayette county ; and in the succeding fall the young couple came to Preble county, locating at Eaton. Here Mr. Gans engaged in the business of teaching, sometimes in town, and some- times in neighboring districts, which business he followed for several years, very acceptably to employes and pupils. During his vacations from the school-room, he again took up the study of the law, in the office of Messrs. Chadwick & Drayer, which he continued for a period of two years, and was admitted to the bar on twenty-sixth day of May, 1851.
Whilst engaged in the profession of teaching, M. Gans took an active interest in everything pertaining to the business of education. He was conspiciously instru- mental in the organization and perfection of the teachers institute, and other measures for the increased efficiency of our common school system. Having had to struggle through difficulties in order to gain an education himself, he was desirous that the road should be smoothed for the rising generations. After his admission to the bar he quit teaching, but did not abate any of his interest in the progress of school work ; and it may by truly said, that his labors in that direction had much to do in ad- vancing the standard of qualification for the teachers' profession, and in the increased public interest in com- mon school education.
Judge Gans served as mayor of the village, and on the board of education, and in other public trusts, and was an active Republican politician. At the October election, 1857, he was elected to the office of probate judge of the county and was re-elected to the same office in 1860, thus serving six years in that important office. On the breaking out of the Rebellion he took an active part in the enlistment and organization of troops for the army, and his efforts in that behalf only terminated with the suppression of the revolt.
Judge Gans died on the thirtieth day of June, A. D. 1865, of disease of the lungs contracted about one year previously. He was the father of nine children-three sons and six daughters-six of whom, one son and five daughters, with the mother, survive him. He was of medium size, black hair and eyes, bilious temperament, compactly built, active and athletic. He was fond of society, of genial disposition, well informed on all subjects of a general interest, and entertaining in conversation.
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JACOB H. Foos, ESQ., was born on the twentieth day of December, A. D. 1825, in Monroe township, in this county. His father was a native of Berks county, Penn- sylvania, born in the year 1781, and emigrated to the west in the year 1804. About the year 1809, he settled in Warren county, about two miles and a half from Waynesville. He was a miller by trade, and operated a grist-mill on the little Miami river for about ten years. In the year 1819 he removed to a tract of wild land, which he had previously purchased, in the northern part of Preble county, the country then being an almost un- broken wilderness, Mr. Foos' family being among the very first settlers in Monroe township. There he opened and cultivated a farm, on which he resided until the time of his death in 1842.
Mr. Foos' mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Roberts, and was married to his father in the Redstone country. She survived her husband some five years, dying in the fall of 1847. The subject of this sketch lived and worked on his father's farm until the attainment of his seventeenth year, attending the district schools, taught in the old log school-house of those early days, during the winter seasons. After the death of his father,. being desirous of obtaining a better education than the facilities at hand afforded, he apprenticed himself to the cabinet-making and painting business, in which capacity he worked for two and a half years, after which he worked under wages until by industry and economy he had accumulated sufficient means to attend an academy for two years at Waynesville, Warren county, conducted by Professor David S. Burson, a most admirable scholar and teacher, under whose tuition he obtained a very fair English education.
After leaving school Mr. Foos engaged in the business of teaching, in the spring of 1849, at Euphemia, in this county. At the same time he commenced the study of the law, under the tuition of the late Judge Haines, of Eaton. On the twenty-sixth of May, 1851, he was ad- mitted to the bar by the supreme court for Preble coun- ty. Having by this time exhausted all his means, he employed his time during the summer of that year in writing for the clerk of the courts.
At the November term of the court of common pleas, 1851, being the first term of court held in the present court house, Lawyer Foos commenced regularly the practice of his profession, being thus just as old in the practice as the court house has existed years. And as an evidence of his success as a practitioner, and his dili- gence and assiduity, it may be stated that he has never missed being present and attending to business at any term of court held in the house to the present time; and it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that he has assisted in the trial of more doubtful and difficult cases, both civil and criminal, than any other attorney at this bar.
Lawyer Foos was married on the sixteenth day of April, A. D. 1857, to Miss Julia A. Morgan, daughter of Thomas Morgan, a pioneer citizen of Eaton. Four children were born to this marriage, two sons and two daughters, one of the latter dying in infancy. The sur-
viving daughter, Minnie V. Foos, is a graduate of the Cincinnati Wesleyan female college.
In politics Mr. Foos has always been a Democrat. In the year 1860 he was the candidate for Presidential elec- tor from this Congressional district on the Douglass ticket. During the war for the suppression of the Re- bellion, he took an active part in the organization of troops for the army, and gave efficient aid in furnishing our township's quota of recruits. From the spring of 1869 to that of 1876 he served as mayor of Eaton, and during that period most of the public improvements of any note in the village were constructed, and a general impetus for the improvement and beautifying of the town was brought about. He has uniformly been the advocate of public improvements, and it is to his credit that he has never taken a fee in any controversy or litiga- tion in relation to public improvements, where if his side were successful a needed public work would be dafeated. In former years Mr. Foos was somewhat active in politi- cal canvasses, but was never an office seeker. With the above exception of his mayoralty, he has never either held or desired official position. Of late years he has taken but little note or interest in political affairs, but has devoted himself assiduously to his profession and business interests. He has built for himself one among the most sightly and desirable residences in the village, as well as the law office he has occupied for several years past. He also built and owns the banking house occupied by Heistand & Company's bank, and is one of the partners in said bank. In addition to his extensive law library, he has in his home a very extensive library of substantial and standard historical, scientific, bio- graphical and literary works. He has always been a dil- igent reader, and is consequently well informed on all subjects of solid interest.
Perhaps no present member of the Eaton bar has been the preceptor of as many students of the law as has Mr. Foos. The following list, some of whom have become distinguished professionally and politically, have read law under his tuition, viz: Jesse Ware, Allan May, Lewis Kisling, Vincent Harbaugh, Benton Saylor, B. Frank Van Ausdal, John W. Sater, James C. Elliott, George W. Wilson, Ralph C. Smyer, Warren Fisher, Elam Fisher, Andrew J. Surface, Abel Risinger, Milton Crisler, Charles Ashinger.
In point of ability and standing in his profession, Mr. Foos may be truly said to take rank with the ablest at the Preble county bar. He is especially prominent as an advocate before a jury.
EUGENE B. BOLENS, ESQ., son of James Bolens, for many years a prominent merchant of Lewisburgh, was admitted to the bar by the supreme court for Preble county on the seventeenth day of May, 1852. Mr. Bo- lens never engaged in the practice of his profession here, but in a short time after his admission to the bar he emigrated to the State of Iowa, where he engaged in the publication of a county newspaper.
ROBERT MILLER, ESQ., was born in Preble county on the sixteenth day of July, 1827. His father, Thomas Miller, was born in Ireland in 1791, and came to the United
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States in the year 1818. For six years after his arrival he traveled extensively through this country. He mar- ried Miss Martha Mills, of Clinton county, Ohio, whose family came from Ireland in the year 1810. In January, A. D. 1825, Mr. Miller and wife settled in Jefferson township, this county, where they ever afterward lived, and died. Mrs. Miller died August 16, 1851, and Mr. Miller October 15, 1868, at the age of sixty-eight years. He performed a large amount of hard pioneer labor, and was a very useful and much respected citizen.
The subject of our present sketch passed his youth and early manhood on the home farm, attending the common district schools during the winter seasons, and such times as he could be spared from the duties of farm labor. He never enjoyed the advantages of an academic course, but by utilizing his spare moments he prepared himself to assume the charge of a common school, and at the age of nineteen years began to employ his winters in teaching, and so continued for some ten years. In the fall of 1849 he commenced the study of law, under the preceptorship of the late General Felix Marsh, of Eaton, and on the seventeenth day of May, 1852, was admitted to the bar.
In the autumn of 1855 he was elected prosecuting at- torney of Preble county, and was twice re-elected, thus serving six years in that responsible office. At the Oc- tober election, 1863, he was elected a representative in the general assembly of Ohio. He was a member of the county military committee during the war, and during the summer of 1864 served as adjutant of the One Hun- dred and Fifty-sixth regiment of Ohio national guards. He was elected mayor of Eaton in 1863 and in 1867. From the year 1866 to the first of January, 1876, he was in partnership in the law practice with Colonel L. A. Harris, the present probate judge of Preble county. In the Saylor-Kemp contest for a seat in the State senate, in 1871-2, Mr. Miller, as counsel for Mr. Saylor, presented to the senate a very exhaustive and able argument on the right of the disabled soldiers of the National asylum to vote, and which contributed much toward securing for Mr. Saylor his seat in the senate.
As a politician Mr. Miller has always been an active worker in the Republican ranks in the county, and equal- ly zealous as an advocate of the cause of temperance. For many years he has been a member of the Eaton board of education, and as such has had much to do, by vote and influence in the board, in increasing the effi- ciency of our common school system. In May, 1875, he was lay representative from the Dayton presbytery to the general assembly of the Presbyterian church, which met in Cleveland, Ohio.
On the tenth day of March, A. D. 1857, Mr. Miller was married to Miss Margaret Ann McQuiston, daughter of David McQuiston, of Israel township. Three sons have been born to this union, the eldest of whom, Clar- ence A. Miller, is a student in Wooster university.
Lawyer Miller is decidedly a self-made man, and has secured the confidence and esteem of the entire commu- nity.
SQUIRE LITTELL PIERCE, ESQ., was admitted to the bar
May 20, 1853. He was a native of Gratis township, this county. Immediately upon his admission to the bar he went to the northern part of Indiana and engaged in the practice of his profession.
GEORGE W. SLOAN, ESQ., was admitted to the bar May 20, 1853. Previous to his admission to the bar he had been engaged several years teaching school, and had been elected and served three years as county recorder. Within a year or two after his admission to the bar he re- moved to Olney, Richland county, Illinois, where he en- gaged in the practice of his profession. He was mar- ried on the seventeenth day of March, 1839, to Miss Rachel Banfil, daughter of John Banfil, a pioneer of Preble county.
JOHN W. WOERNER, ESQ., was admitted to the bar May 20, 1853, and immediately thereafter went to the State of Illinois.
JOHN VAN AUSDAL CAMPBELL, ESQ., son of Captain William Campbell, was born in Preble county, December 27, 1815. His father was a native of Virginia, but reared and educated in Kentucky. In the year 1806, two years before Preble county was organized, and while its terri- tory was yet a part of Montgomery county, he came to this State and settled in what is now Lanier township, Preble county. In the . year 1809 he was married to Miss Catharine Van Ausdal. Captain Campbell com- manded a company of infantry in the War of 1812.
In early life the subject of this sketch received what education was afforded by the schools taught in the round- log school-houses of that early day, and later acquired such additional training as qualified him to take charge of a school himself, which he did at the early age of six-
teen years, near New Lexington, on Twin creek. His brother-in-law, Major F. A. Cunningham, being county clerk, he was, whilst yet a minor, employed as deputy in his office. Whilst there he improved his spare time by studying law in the office of Messrs. McNutt & Hawkins. In the year 1841, under the administration of President Tyler, he was appointed postmaster at Eaton, which po- sition he continued to hold between nine and ten years.
On the twenty-fifth day of July, 1842, Mr. Campbell was married to Miss Ann Eliza Martin, daughter of Judge Robert Martin, of Eaton. To this union were born three sons and eight daughters, all of whom, except four of the latter, have deceased. At the October elec- tion in the year 1852 he was elected to the office of pro- bate judge, the first elected under the constitution of 1851. He was subsequently re-elected to the same office, thus serving six years, making for himself an ex- cellent record as a safe and capable business man. On the twenty-second day of May, 1856, he was admitted to the bar.
In the year 1858 Judge Campbell formed a partner- ship for the practice of law with William J. Gilmore, esq., but the latter being soon afterward elected to fill a vacan- cy in the office of common pleas judge, the partnership was dissolved, and in the following November (1858), Judge Campbell formed a partnership with Jacob H. Foos, esq., which continued for three years. At the ex- piration of this time, his partnership with Judge Gilmore
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was renewed, which continued until February, 1867, when it was again dissolved by reason of Judge Gilmore's election to the common pleas bench. He then entered into partnership with James A. Gilmore, esq., which con- tinued until the last named partner was elected to the common pleas bench. In the year 1873 he was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney, and served in said office three years.
Judge Campbell has for many years been a member of the Eaton board of education, and connected with all the moral and educational interests of the community. He has been a zealous supporter of all temperance or- ganizations, and his influence and example have been always exerted upon the side of religion and morality. Since 1841 he has been the secretary and treasurer of the Preble county branch of the American Bible society.
Judge Campbell is regarded as the father of Odd Fellowship in this county, by his brethren. In the year 1842 he became a member of the order himself, and in 1844, assisted by four others, organized the first lodge in Eaton, of which he was the presiding officer. Subse- quently twelve other lodges of the order have been organized in the county, as the issue of that one; and for a number of years the order was represented in the grand lodge of the United States, by Judge Campbell.
JUDGE JEHU W. KING is a native of Warren county, Ohio, and was born at Ridgeville, in that county, on the eleventh day of October, 1829. When Jehu was but two years old his father removed to Pyrmont, in Mont- gomery county, which was the home of our subject, for some twenty-five years. After receiving a sufficient preparatory education in the common schools of his dis- trict, and after having exercised the office of teacher himself while yet a minor, he entered Wesleyan univer- sity at Delaware, as a student, in the year 1850, about the time he attained majority.
After graduating from college, he again took up the profession of teacher, which he pursued for some eight or ten years, in Montgomery and Preble counties. Judge King has been twice married-first, to Miss Sarah J. Baker, daughter of John Baker, of Mont- gomery county, on the first day of May, A. D. 1854; second, to Mrs. Sarah J. Taylor, of Winchester, Preble county, on the tenth day of April, A. D., 1860, his first wife having died in March, 1858.
Judge King commenced the study of the law, princi- pally under the preceptorship of General Felix Marsh, and after about three years preparation he was admitted to the bar in the year 1858, by the district court for Butler county. In the year 1857 he had removed to Camden, in this county, where after his admission he commenced the practice, alternating the practice with teaching school for some years. Some little while after his removal to Camden, he was appointed a member of the board of school examiners for Preble county.
In the year 1865 Mr. King was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney, and re-elected to the same of- fice in 1867-thus holding the office two successive terms. In the month of March, 1866, he removed to the village of Eaton. In the year 1869 he was elected
to the office of probate judge, and re-elected in 1872, serving six years in that responsible office. After the expiration of his term of office he resumed the practice of his profession, and continued to reside in Eaton un- til the year 1878, when he removed to a farm near Sugar valley, in Dixon township, where he now lives.
As an attorney he stood well at the bar, but his prac- tice has been too often interrupted by official duties to have made a brilliant record. In official duties, his record is "without spot or blemish." Politically he has always been a Republican, and an earnest and able ad- vocate of the principles of that party, both in conversa- tion and in public speeches and lectures; and his coun- sels have always had due weight with his political party. His influence has always been on the side of religion, morality, and temperance; and his ability as a lecturer is second to that of but few.
JOSEPH T. GANS, ESQ., was admitted to the bar, by the supreme court for Preble county, May 7, 1858. He had been engaged in teaching for some years in this county, and soon after admission to the bar removed to Richmond, Indiana, where he still resides. .
ROBERT WILSON QUINN, ESQ., son of General John Quinn, was born on the twenty-eighth day of September, A. D. 1835, at his father's farm in Twin township. His early education was acquired in the country district schools, in which were taught in those days only the common branches of reading, writing, arithmetic, geog- raphy, and English grammar, with occasionally a teacher who was capable of giving instruction in the elements of algebra. He entered as a pupil in Farmer's college in the fall of 1853, and remained there (with the exception of six months in which he was engaged in teaching) until about the first of July, 1856.
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