History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 21

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559

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Soon after leaving school, Mr. Quinn commenced the study of law with William J. Gilmore, esq., of Eaton, who afterwards was one of the justices of the supreme court of the State. After studying nearly two years un- der his tuition, the subject of our sketch entered the law school of the Cincinnati college, and graduated in April, 1858, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati. Among his class-mates, and who graduated at the same time, were Hon. Edmund F. Noyes, United States minister to France, Hon. Samuel McKee, of Kentucky, Judges Avery and Moore, of the common pleas bench of Ham- ilton county. After graduating he studied nearly one year in the law office of Messrs. Bates & Scarborough, in Cincinnati, and practiced there for a short time.

A short time before the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, Mr. Quinn returned to his father's farm, and did not resume the practice of his profession until after the close of the war. He was married on the twenty-fifth day of January, 1861, to Miss Josephine M. Palmer, of Cincinnati, and has two children now living, both sons. During the war of the Rebellion he served four months in the One Hundred and Fifty sixth regi- ment, Ohio volunteer infantry (one of the "hundred days" regiments), and was engaged in one skirmish with the enemy, known as the battle of Fulks' Mill, near the city of Cumberland, Maryland.

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

In the month of April, 1867, 'Lawyer Quinn removed to Eaton, and resumed the practice of his profession, which he has continued to the present time. The only public office that he has ever held, was the office of mayor of Eaton, which he held for a short period in 1869, by appointment to fill an unexpired term. In February, 1875, he was admitted to practice in the cir- cuit court of the United States, at Cincinnati. His tastes have led him to devote his attention, almost exclu- sively, to civil practice, and the settlement of estates, partnerships, and trusts; and he has been engaged, either as attorney or referee, in some of the heaviest and most complex cases of these kinds in the county. He has also been a diligent student of general literature, and especially of history; and he has one of the best selected historical libraries in the county, together with the stand- ard poets, and such books of reference as the American Encyclopedia.

JAMES T. MURPHY, ESQ., was admitted to the bar, May 4, 1860. He was born in Ireland, and immigrated to this country when a very young man. He had a quite fair education, and was engaged in the business of teach- ing for several years, in Monroe township, in this county. After his admission he opened an office in Eldorado, where he remained some time, and then removed to Darke county.

LEWIS C. SWERER, ESQ., was born on the fifth day of July, 1831, in Jefferson township, near the village of Gettysburgh. He was raised on a farm, and obtained his education in the district schools of his vicinity. At the age of eighteen years he commenced teaching school, which business he followed for several successive years. He read law in the office of General Felix Marsh, in Eaton, and was admitted to the bar, January 13, 1860. He commenced the practice of his profession the same year, in partnership with his preceptor, but the partner- ship terminated in a few months, when he returned to . his father's farm, where he remained until September, 1861. From the twenty-first day of September, 1861, until April, 1863, he served as lieutenant of company E, Fifth Ohio volunteer cavalry.

On the first day of April, 1860, Mr. Swerer was mar- ried to Miss Terissa O. Jaqua. After his discharge from service in the army, he resided on the farm until some time in the year 1866, when he removed to Huntington, Indiana, and engaged in the practice of the law-subse- quently removing to Winchester, Indiana; from which latter place he removed to Mexico, Missouri, in the year 1869. He continued his residence and the practice of his profession in the last named place until the year 1876, when he returned to Ohio, and now resides in New Paris, this county.

ISAAC E. CRAIG, ESQ., located at Camden, in this county, is the third child, and oldest son, of Isaac and Hope (Jennings) Craig, and was born on the eleventh day of February, A. D. 1840, in New Boston, Wayne county, Indiana, where his parents resided for a few years. The father and mother of the subject of our sketch had spent the greater part of their time in Warren county, Ohio, and their partiality for the State led them

to return to it in 1847, when they settled at Camden. Young Craig obtained the rudiments of his education at the village schools; supplemented by an attendance at Greenmount academy, at Richmond, Indiana. He entered Miami university as a student in 1858, and graduated in the scientific department of that institution with the class of 1859. He had already decided upon following a professional life, and commenced the study of the law in the office of Judge James Clark, of Ham- ilton. The more advanced study of the profession was pursued at the Ohio Law college, at Cleveland, from which Mr. Craig graduated in 1862. In that year he was admitted to practice in the common pleas and district courts of Cuyahoga county and in the United States courts, and remained five years in the city of Cleveland in the practice of his chosen profession.

In the year 1867 Mr. Craig returned to Camden, where he has since constantly resided, with the exception of a brief interim when he re-located at Cincinnati with the intention to make that his permanent abode. Very soon after his removal to the city (in 1874), however, he was recalled to Camden by the death of his father ; and be- ing compelled to give so much of his attention to the business which devolved upon him in settling up the estate, he abandoned the purpose of making the city his home, and re-opened his office in Camden, with the in- tention of remaining permanently. He was married in 1861, to Miss Mary Coffin, of Richmond, Indiana.

VICTOR WALDO LAKE, ESQ., was admitted a member of the bar. on the twenty-second day of July, 1863. He never engaged in the practice of the law, but is now, and for several years past has been, in the drug and medicine trade in Eaton.

B. FRANK VAN AUSDAL, ESQ., was admitted a member the bar on the twenty-second day of July, 1863, but never engaged in the practice here. On the second day of August, 1865, he was married to Miss Nancy Potten- ger, daughter of the late Thomas Pottenger, of Somers township, and after a residence of a few years at Camden he emigrated to Kansas, where he has since been engaged in the improvement of a farm.

COLONEL ANDREW LINTNER HARRIS was born in But- ler county, Ohio, on the seventeenth day of November, 1835. His grandfather, Joseph Harris, came from Ire- land about 1797; spent a few years in Pennsylvania; then came to Cincinnati, where, on the fourth of March, 1802, he married Jane Kirkpatrick, and finally settled in Butler county soon after the close of the War of 1812.

Benjamin Harris, son of Joseph, and father of Andrew L., was born in Cincinnati on the third day of February, 1803, and married Nancy Lintner, of Butler county, on the third day of April, 1829. A farmer by occupation he was well educated, and was a prominent and very use- ful member of community.

Colonel Harris had the usual farmer's boyhood; re- ceived the rudiments of an education in the district schools of his vicinity, which, by the time that he arrived at school age, had improved very much from their more primitive condition, and completed his education at Miami university. Whilst he was yet almost an infant,

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

his father had left Bulter county, and purchased the farm in Dixon township that was first settled and improved by Henry Bristow, being the southwest quarter of section number two, of that township.

After completing his studies at the university, Mr. Harris read law in the office of Messrs. Thompson & Harris in Eaton, but the war of the Rebellion caused the postponement of his admission to the bar until the twenty-eighth day of April, 1865. In April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the Twentieth Ohio volunteer in- fantry for three months service, but went out as second lieutenant of company C, and was mustered out as cap- tain of his company in August. following. In October he recruited company C, of the Seventy-fifth Ohio volun- teer infantry, for three years service, and was commis- sioned its captain November 9, 1861.

The first engagement participated in by Captain Harris was the battle of McDowell, West Virginia, on the eighth day of May, 1862, where the Union troops bravely held their ground against six times their number of the enemy, and which General Milroy reported as being the "bloodiest battle of the war for the number engaged." Here Captain Harris was seriously wounded by a gun- shot in the right arm, by which he was permanently dis- abled. Then followed the battles of Cedar Mountain, Virginia, on the eighth of August, and the second battle of Bull run on the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth of the same month. Here for a time the fight- ing was bloody in the extreme, and company C was in the hottest of the fray. As an evidence of the severity of the fire, it was found that over ninety shots took effect on the colors of the Seventy-fifth during the battle.

On the twelfth of January, 1863, Captain Harris was promoted to the rank of Major, and in the terrible en- gagement of Chancellorsville, beginning on May 2, 1863, the Seventy-fifth was distinguished for the bravery of its officers and men. In consequence of the peculi- arity of its position, it was compelled frequently to change front under a severe fire, but acquitted itself in a most gallant manner. Colonel Reilly was killed and Major Harris was promoted to the command of his regi- ment, his rank dating May 3. At the battle of Gettys- burgh Colonel Harris had command of the Second brig- ade of the First division of the Eleventh corps, and distin- guished himself by a daring and successful charge upon the enemy occupying a ledge of rocks. His command was subjected to a galling fire during the three days of the engagement, and was the first to enter Gettysburgh after the battle. The Seventy-fifth lost heavily, and Colonel Harris was severely wounded.

On the eighteenth of the following August the Ohio brigade, to which the Seventy-fifth belonged, was placed in the trenches on Morris island, and there remained until after the fall of Forts Wagner and Gregg, on the seventh of September. The heat was intense, and the troops suffered severely. Previous to the proposed at- tack the brigade was moved back to Folly island, in or- der that if the attempt on Fort Wagner proved unsuc- cessful, the troops would not all be sacrificed. On the night of the sixth, Colonel Harris, with nine hundred se-

lect men, was detailed to make the assault on the sea front, with instructions to assault the works at daylight in the morning; but the enemy observing the operations abandoned the fort.

In February, 1864, the Seventy-fifth was sent to Jack- sonville, Florida, and there mounted; and until its term of service expired performed very efficient cavalry duty; in which may be instanced a very daring raid made by Colonel Harris, in the following May, to the head-waters of the St. John and Kissinnee rivers, on which expedi- tion, besides destroying a large amount of cotton and other Confederate stores, he captured and brought in some five thousand head of fine beef cattle, and that, too without the loss of a man.

On the fourteenth of August Colonel Harris was im- prudently sent by General Hatch on an expedition to the rear of the enemy, into the interior of Florida, with a little band of only two hundred mounted men. He obeyed orders, took a few prisoners, but was met by a much superior force, compelling his command to ride day and night to keep out of the enemy's hands. On the morning of the seventeenth he halted at Gainesville to rest, supposing himself temporarily secure, but was soon attacked by a force of about fonrteen hundred men. As retreat was impossible, he fought desperately for two hours and a half, when, his ammunition giving out, no alternative was left but to surrender or cut his way through seven times his number of the enemy. Desperate as was the attempt, he succeeded, taking with him about one-half of his little band, and by swift marches reached Jacksonville.

Colonel Harris was mustered out of service as colonel of the Seventy-fifth on the fifteenth of January, 1865. While distinguished for great prudence and caution, and for the care he took of the men of his command, he never faltered when duty called to action. On the thir- teenth of March following, as a compliment for his gal- lant and meritorious services during the war, he was bre- vetted brigadier general.

In the fall of 1865, he was elected to a seat in the senate of Ohio from the counties of Preble and Mont- gomery, and served therein two years, in which position he made a very creditable record. On the seventeenth day of October, 1865, he was married to Miss Caroline Conger, daughter of Eli Conger, esq., and to this union one son has been born. In the spring of 1866, the colonel formed a partnership for the practice of law with Robert Miller, esq., which continued until January I, 1876. At the October election of 1875 he was elected to the office of probate judge of Preble county, and re-elected to the same office in 1878.

Colonel Harris possesses all the elements that consti- tute a cultured and polished gentleman, but his most prominent characteristic is a conscientious, unswerving adherence to principle. He has always been a staunch Republican in politics, and an intelligent and efficient worker for the advancement of what he believes to be the true principles for the perpetuity of a :republican form of government.

ABSALOM STIVER, ESQ., was born on the fourteenth day

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

of November, A. D. 1818, in Montgomery county. Like so many others of the leading men of the community, he received all his education in the common district schools, and by diligent use of all his spare time from other avo- cations in self-study and reading. In the year 1849 he came to this county and located in the village of Win- chester, where he prosecuted the cabinet making busi- · ness, which trade he had previously learned. He was married on the fourth day of July, 1857, to Miss Rachel Saylor, daughter of Martin Saylor (one of the pioneer settlers of Gratis township), and sister of Dr. Christian Saylor.

In the year 1851 Mr. Stiver was elected justice of the peace, and with the exception of an interval of six years, has held the office ever since, and is now an incumbent thereof. In the year 1854 he was elected to the office of county commissioner, and served therein but one term of three years, declining a re-election. In the year 1861 he was elected a representative in the general assembly of Ohio, in which office he served but a single term, again declining a re-election. He was admitted to the bar as an attorney and counsellor at law on the twenty- sixth day of April, A. D. 1866, in the district court for Preble county, and admitted to practice in the United States courts in 1874.

Lawyer Stiver is esteemed as an attorney of fair capaci- ty, having a competent knowledge of the law and of the forms of business, and a man of sound, exemplary morals.

CHARLES M. EMERICK, ESQ., was admitted to the bar by the district court for Preble county, May 9, 1867. He never practiced at the bar in this county.

THOMAS J. LARSH, ESQ., was born in Dixon township, Preble county, on the twentieth day of September, A. D. 1809. He was the second son of the late Colonel Paul Larsh, a pioneer settler of this county, a sketch of whose life will be found in another place in this volume. In early life the subject of this notice was subject to all the privations and hardships of frontier pioneer life. The farm on which he was reared was on the verge of a wil- derness of some miles in extent, and he was some ten to twelve years of age before there was any improvement, by way of farm or house, within a distance of half a dozen miles to the west. Nightly, and almost every night the year around, the howling of the wolves could be heard in the family dwelling, the most dismal sound that was ever heard. Sometimes there appeared, from the sound, to be dozens of them in the pack, and that they were within a few rods of the door.

Up to the age of between nine and ten years our sub- ject had attended two or three short terms of school, taught in the typical log cabin school-house of that day. On the first day of January, 1819, his father having been elected sheriff in October, 1818, the family removed to Eaton, where facilities for schooling were of a somewhat better class. Here he had the benefit, with other mem- bers of the family, of the improved advantages in the way of schools. The family remained in Eaton three years to a day, and during that time young Larsh had been in the school-room perhaps two full years. At the time he left school (for he was never afterwards in a

school-room until he went in as a teacher) he was a very fair reader, understood the grammar of the English lan- guage passably well, and was a fair Latin scholar-could read and construe Virgil and Cicero with reasonable fa- cility.

From the first day of January, 1822, to the month of August, 1824, young Larsh was employed upon his father's farm, assisting in all the labors of that avocation as occa- sion required. At the time indicated (August, 1824) he went into the printing office of the Eaton Weekly Register, as an apprentice to Hon. Samuel Tizzard to learn the "trade, art, and mystery" (as his articles of indenture ex- pressed it), of the printing business. In this situation he continued four years. In October of 1828 he went to Montgomery county, Indiana, in company with an uncle who was moving his family to that county, and after re- maining there some five or six weeks he went on foot down the Wabash river to Vincennes, and from thence across the country to Louisville, Kentucky, where he re- mained during the winter, at work in a printing establish- ment-most of the time at press work on stereotype plates.

In the month of March, 1829, after returning home from Louisville, he went to Piqua, Miami county, where he was employed in the office of the Piqua Register, until August of that year, and then commenced teaching school in the vicinity of that town, and continued at that business one year. In June, 1831, he bought the Richmond Palladium printing office from Nelson Boone (who had started the paper six months before), and commenced the publication of that paper on the first day of July of that year. He continued the publi- cation about two years, and then sold out to Hon. David P. Holloway.

After disposing of the printing business Mr. Larsh en- gaged in the farming and lumbering business at a farm and water-power about five miles below Richmond, on Whitewater. There he remained about six years, and then sold out and came back to Preble county, and bought a steam saw-mill in Jackson township, which he operated about six years.

Meantime Mr. Larsh was married, on the eleventh day of May, 1831, to Miss Margaret Manning, daughter of John Manning, the original proprietor of the city of Piqua. There were born to this union five children, two daugh- ters and three sons-two of the latter dying in infancy.

At the October election, 1847, Mr. Larsh was elected to the office of county surveyor, and soon after his elec- tion removed to the village of Eaton, where he has unin- terruptedly resided up to the present time. It may be as well to say here, that by subsequent re-elections, from time to time, and with longer or shorter intervals, he has held the office of county surveyor between fifteen and eighteen years. In the month of April, 1850, he was elected to represent Preble and Montgomery counties in the Constitutional convention that framed the present constitution of the State. That convention met in Co- lumbus on the sixth day of May, 1850, and after a ses- sion of about two months, on account of the breaking out of the cholera in that city, it adjourned to meet in

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Shot. J. Larsh

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

Cincinnati on the first day of the following December. It met accordingly, and having completed its labors ad- journed early in the succeeding March.

After the adjournment of the convention, Mr. Larsh was employed for about two years as editor of the Eaton Weekly Register, then published by William B. Tizzard, esq., the son of the original proprietor of the paper. In the year 1857 and again in 1858, he visited the State of Iowa, to prosecute the business of selecting wild lands and locating military bounty land warrants thereon. In pursuit of this occupation he traversed a considerable portion of the newer or western portion of that State on foot, and selected and located some fifteen to twenty thousand acres of land.

In the year 1860 Mr. Larsh was elected to the office of auditor of Preble county, and by two subsequent re- elections held the office six years. During his incum- bency the business of the office was largely augmented and complicated by township, and county and State levies for the purpose of furnishing support for the fam- ilies of soldiers in the field, and for bounties for volun- teers. The business of the office, however, was con- ducted with such care and skill, that no complaint was ever heard as to the efficiency of its administration. Afterwards, during the incumbency of Mr. Barnhiser in the office, Mr. Larsh served two years as his deputy.

On the tenth day of May, A. D. 1867, our subject was admitted to the bar, as an attorney and counsellor at law, by the district court for Preble county. He has never engaged in the practice of his profession as a reg- ular business, but occasionally takes charge of a case of minor moment, or assists in the settlement of probate business.

On the first Monday of January, 1876, he went into the State treasury as chief clerk, under appointment of Major J. M. Millikin, State treasurer, where he re- mained two years conducting the business of that office to the entire satisfaction of his principal, and of every one having business with the office.

After returning from his sojourn at the State capital, he again went into the auditor's office as deputy, under Samuel Oldfather.

On the twenty-fourth day of June, 1836, Mr. Larsh was admitted to membership in the Masonic order in Webb Lodge No. 42, at Richmond, Indiana. In the year 1844, being then a resident of Jackson township, this county, he transferred his membership to Bolivar Lodge No. 82, Eaton, Ohio. Subsequently he received the royal arch degrees, and has been admitted to mem- bership in Reed Commandery, Dayton, of Knight's Templar. In the year 1851, as worthy master of Bolivar Lodge, he attended the grand lodge of Ohio at Cincinnati, and was a regular attendant on the ses- sions of that body for more than twenty years, and was twice elected to the office of junior grand warden. He also for many years represented his chapter in the grand royal arch chapter of the State, and was twice elected to the office of grand high priest of the grand Chapter.

Of Mr. Larsh's family, only one daughter and three

grand children are now alive. His eldest daughter, born in Richmond, Indiana, May 1, 1832, the wife of S. T. Finney, died in Illinois in the year 1857, leaving one daughter, who is now the wife of Walter S. Van Tuyl, of West Alexandria. His only son that survived infancy-Bluejacket Larsh-enlisted in the Seventy- fifth Ohio volunteer infantry (Colenel Harris' regiment) in 1854, and was captured by the rebels in Florida, taken to the infamous Andersonville prison, and there he was so reduced by starvation and exposure that when finally sent forward for exchange to Florence, South Carolina, he only lived two days after arriving at that place. Mrs. Margaret Larsh, our subject's wife, died on the twenty-ninth day of August, A. D. 1869. Since his bereavement Mr. Larsh has made his home for the most part with his only surviving daughter, Ollitippa Unger, wife of John H. Unger, who has two children, a son and a daughter.

WILLIAM WALLACE PARDUE, ESQ., was admitted to the bar by the district court for Preble county, on the twenty- fifth day of May, 1868. He was not a citizen of this county, nor ever practiced here.

WILLIAM E. CHAMBERS, ESQ., was admitted to the bar, by the district court for Preble county, May 14, 1869. He was the son of James L. Chambers, esq., formerly of Butler county, and who came to this place about 1862, and was connected for some years with the ma- chine-shop and flooring-mill. Soon after his admission to the bar, young Chambers removed to Ottumwa, Iowa.

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History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 21

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 559

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559