USA > Ohio > Union County > History of Union County, Ohio; its people, industries and institutions > Part 84
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Mr. Coleman was married December 24, 1893, to Maggie A. Weaver, the daughter of Calvin L. and Maggie A. (Schalip) Weaver, and to this union four children have been born, Leo L., Carl L., Dana and Martina M.
Mr. Coleman and his family are consistent members of the Lutheran church, in whose welfare they are deeply interested and to whose support
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they are generous contributors. Politically, he has always been identified with the Republican party and has served as assessor of Paris township. Mr. Coleman is a man who has always made his influence felt for good in his community, and his life has been closely interwoven with the history of the township where he has spent his entire life. He has so lived as to gain the respect and admiration of his fellow citizens, and by his genial and unassuming manner, he has won and retains the confidence and good will of all with whom he has come in contact.
THE HISTORY OF THE ROBINSON FAMILY.
Edwin H. Robinson.
The ancestors of the Robinson family were French Huguenots who escaped to London, Great Britain, after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, August 23, 1572, and after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (a procla- mation by Henry IV, King of Navarre and France, in 1598, giving to the Protestants religious freedom) by Louis XIV. King of France, in 1685, at which time five hundred thousand Protestants took refuge in foreign countries. A great many of them found friendly refuge in England.
Among their first efforts was the establishment and endowment of a college known as the Huguenot, or French school. Many of these refugees were men of wealth, literary men, artists, ministers, lawyers, and men of many other vocations who were amply able, they thought, to endow a college to give their descendants an education and teach them trades or fit them for business, boarding and clothing them till they were fourteen years old. This school was so carried on till the middle of the nineteenth century, when such institutions, of which there were many in London and vicinity, endowed by public spirited individuals and societies, were all wiped out of existence, the funds thus obtained going into the general school fund. So passed out of existence the old Huguenot school at which many of England's prominent men of the last century received their first education. Among others were Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston who went to the school by permission to begin their education, and were school mates of John Robinson hereinafter mentioned.
William Daniel Robinson, a descendant of an artist by the name of Robson, who was one of the Huguenot refugees and who was appointed
7.
MRS. DORA C. ROBINSON.
MRS. LAURA ROBINSON.
GUIDO ROBINSON.
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carver and gilder to the crown by Charles II (which position was held by several of Robson's descendants), was born in London, on February 6, 1799. He was married in London, in All Hallows church, to Mary Taylor of Ox- fordshire, England. She was of an old English family who were freehold- ers, owning four hundred acres close to the village of Faringdon in Oxford- shire.
To William D. and Mary ( Taylor ) Robinson were born William Daniel, December 1, 1799: John, March 21, 1802; Samuel, January 16, 1805; Eliza- beth, September 15, 1806; Anna. December 3, 1807; Edward, March 29, 1810 (died in 1813) ; Frances Johanna, November 15, 1813. All these children were born in Saint Ann Court, Great Russell street, London, Great Britain.
William Daniel, Jr., was reared and educated by his grandmother on the farm in Oxfordshire. His grandfather, who was a captain in the British navy, was killed during the Revolutionary War with the American colonies. William D., Jr., was married to Rebecca Lewis and to this union several children were born, only three living to maturity. William D., John and Gilbert. He emigrated to America, landing in New York in September, . 1832; in June, 1834, he came to Concord township, Delaware county, Ohio, where he lived a happy and contended life, dying in his seventy-sixth year.
John Robinson, the son of William D. and Rebecca ( Lewis) Robinson. was reared by his parents, his father dying at the age of forty-four years, and his mother dying broken hearted at the loss of her husband a few months later. thus leaving the children orphans. They struggled through childhood. Johanna died young: the other girls married. one marrying John Landon, the other Edward Foot, both men of business in the city of London.
John and Samuel became experts in the art of wood carving and also in carving molds for making composition ornaments for picture frames, finish- ing the frames and gilding them. They established a factory for carrying on that business, of which they had a large amount to do, shipping quantities of picture and mirror frames to the eastern cities of the United States of America. They also did a large amount of the ornamental work in Windsor palace, when that royal mansion was remodeled during the years 1826 and 1831. Early in 1832 the factory was set on fire by a discharged employee and was totally destroyed. The insurance expired a few hours before the fire was discovered. The whole business was a total loss. They had some little savings with which they thought to start again, John to go to New York and start in a small shop and build up as business should warrant. Samuel
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was to remain in London to do the same, but he did not succeed, and, taking to drink, he died, leaving a wife and three children.
John Robinson (then in his thirty-second year) was married, August 13, 1833, at Box Hill, county of Surrey. England, to Elizabeth Hayes, who was born April 7. 1812, near to the city of Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. She was brought up and educated by her half sister (her father having been married twice), who had married a wealthy shipbuilder of Bristol by the name of Richard Teast. They lived in Soho Square, London. After their marriage Jolin Robinson and his wife sailed from London October 28, 1833, for New York, and after a voyage of some weeks arrived in that city Decem- ber 11, 1833.
In March, 1834, after looking over the prospect of building up his old business in the New World, and things not appearing favorable, the idea struck him that he would buy a farm. So after looking over a number of farms on Long Island and not being suited, he determined to go farther west and see if he could find something more pleasing to his artistic eye. He packed a knapsack and started out on foot to take a look at the country and ยท find a farm. He walked across New Jersey and Pennsylvania into Mary- land, where, resting one Sunday in a place called Hagerstown, he that day, the first time in his life, saw colored people sold at auction as slaves. From there he walked through western Pennsylvania into Ohio, where after many weary tramps he found, on the west side of the Scioto river, about seventeen miles north of Columbus (then a village-Franklinton was then capital of Ohio), a tract of wild forest land possessed of enough sylvan picturesqueness to suit him. Never thinking of the hardships and labor he would have to go through before he could make a farm of it, he purchased four hundred acres of William S. Sullivant, paying twelve hundred dollars for it. Then he walked back to Brooklyn, Long Island, where he had left his wife and brother, William, and his wife and their two children.
When he returned to Brooklyn in May, he found a three-pound son had been born to him. So insignificant a piece of humanity was it, that it never cried till seven weeks old. This baby was born on the 11th day of April, 1834, and after much care and anxious attention they succeeded in rearing it to maturity. The mother and father devoted every moment they could spare from the incessant labor of making a home in the wilderness to the education of their infant son, and they proved to be very successful in their efforts, for that son (who is the writer of this family history) has every reason to feel grateful to them for the liberal education they gave him.
During the year 1835, the father, after a year of incessant labor in
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clearing away the forest and preparing land to grow soine grain to give them something to live upon (of meat there was plenty running wild in the woods), lay stricken by malaria fever for months. When he did get up, the strong man was a mere wreck of his former self, totally unfitted for the labor which lay before him. He succeeded, by hiring some of the neighbors, in clearing about thirty acres, when he had to give up that kind of work. He was forced to do something else to earn a living, as during this time the small sum of money he had brought with him had been expended in building him a house. It was a large two-story structure, furnished with furniture and pictures he brought from London by water all the way to Columbus-by sea to New York : New York to Buffalo by canal ; Buffalo to Cleveland on Lake Erie by vessel : Cleveland to Columbus by canal; Columbus to Dublin and thence to the new house by an ox-team.
He was badly in debt. Get out he must or lose what little he had, so he tried carving butter molds and other things, but they did not bring in any money. In 1839 he found by trying with his family that he could take portraits of his neighbors, sketching with pencil, then coloring them with water colors. They became very popular and for miles people came to have their pictures made at one dollar apiece. After a time all those people who felt able to afford such luxuries were supplied and he had to look farther afield.
In the fall of 1841 he prepared a lot of stretchers -- small wooden frames with muslin stretched over them and with white paper glued on that to paint on. Then he started in a one-horse wagon on a trip through the Southern states. He worked through Kentucky, Tennessee, and part of Alabama, coming home in April, 1842. So successful was the venture he determined to repeat it the following autumn and this time went as far south as Tusca- loosa, Alabama. At the latter place, in the latter part of February, 1843. he learned that a daughter had been born to him on the eleventh of the month, whom he named Mary Charlotte Tuscaloosa. There also he learned that portrait painting was about to come to an end for the Frenchman, Daguerre, had perfected his process of producing a picture on a prepared plate in a camera, thereby knocking the portrait painter out of business. But he re- turned in April, 1843, with enough money to pay off his debts and have some left.
About this time William S. Sullivan and others of a scientific bent de- termined to make a study of the cryptogamia (non-flowering plants) of the United States, make drawings and describe their habitats and manner of growth. John Robinson, owing to his education and artistic ability, was
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chosen a fitting member of the association. While thus engaged much time was used in observing the growth of very delicate mosses which found a convenient location in a deep ravine made by the run, which came from the west through the home farm and made its junction with the river. By the frequent visits he and I (E. H. Robinson, Sr.) made to this secluded spot we aroused the curiosity of some of the neighbors. They could not under- stand why we would go to so uninteresting a place (to them), so we were watched, and various were the stories told of treasure the old Britisher had buried somewhere near there. Several excavations were made by them with- out any satisfactory results, and all the explanations would not satisfy them.
February 13, 18.45, Edward Robinson was born to John and Elizabeth (Hayes) Robinson. On the twenty-first of the following month the home with all it contained was completely destroyed by fire and, unfortunately, there was no insurance on the house. The savings of years all gone and six half-clad youngsters ( for that day was warm, so coats and shoes were in the house) went to the home of my uncle William. In a few days a log cabin was built. The morning after the fire my father, going to Columbus to get some things to furnish his cabin and clothe his family with, met Will- iam, Joseph and Michael Sullivan. When he told them of the disaster, Will- iam handed him a check for five hundred dollars. When father asked him, "When shall I pay this?" he answered, "When I ask for it." Thus it was father was enabled to pay the men ( they were all poor ) for helping him build our home-and arouse fresh wonder as to where the old Britisher got his money. The house was rebuilt on the old foundation that summer and we lived in it the next winter. My mother for years after moving into the new house, suffered from inflammatory rheumatism, sometimes being as helpless as an infant. After the house was burned and the cellar was filled up with the debris which was never cleared out, she never had the rheumatism again and became a healthy woman.
Many and terrible were the hardships and privations this couple of untrained pioneers ( John Robinson and wife) had to struggle through in providing food and clothing for so many. The people, who were few and far between, were perfect strangers in every way, in education, habits, and mode of thinking and living. Father had never seen a tree cut down. He had never seen an American axe, much less did he know how to use one, but he was an apt scholar and soon picked up knowledge of woodcraft. The most difficult task was to get an understanding of the people. Several of
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the neighbors had been soldiers in the war with England of 1812 and looked upon an Englishman with aversion and suspicion almost amounting to hatred. Wild animals were numerous and sheep and other small domestic animals had to be housed every night. Even children were not safe far from the house during the day, for wild hogs and wolves were always prowling through the woods.
By letting twenty-acre pieces of land by leases to different men who were to build each a cabin, clear and fence the land, and by so doing to have use of it for seven years, about sixty acres of the original farm were cleared. Father still was engaged with the mosses till 1848, when Sullivan determined to build a house in Columbus to live in (he had always lived in the country. ) He wished to have it finely finished with a liberal use of wood carving. His example was followed by others building fine houses and, consequently, father had all the carving to do. People in many other cities also had work done. Many opportunities came to him to do ornamental work for public buildings. Ohio's state capitol has many pieces of carving in stone. copies after models made by him.
During the years 1847, '48, '49, '50 and '51 father made a very full collection of the fungi of Ohio, making water color pictures of them and also described their growth and habits. The work was sent to Germany to be published, was completed and started for America in 1855, but the vessel with all on board went to the bottom. There never was a reprint made.
In March, 1852, he ( John Robinson), sold the farm to Luther and Franklin White who, with their brother-in-law, Alvah Smith and family of Springfield, Massachusetts, moved to the farm in April, 1852. The Whites sold the farm in January. 1853. to John Courtwright and went back to Massachusetts. Their business was making daguerreotype portraits. The Smith family moved into the city of Delaware in April, 1853. Our family occupied part of the' farin during the summer of 1852 while father looked for another home. After a long search he found a farm on Little Mill creek belonging to Jonathan Burroughs, which he purchased and the family moved on to it March 21, 1853. This is the home of Guido Robinson now and has been in the family ever since purchased in 1853. He improved the place by building an addition to the house and several outbuildings, thereby making a commodious and comfortable home. Here he spent his declining years in favorite pursuits, reading, carving and painting, doing some carving for public buildings, some for private houses, and doing far more for him-
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self and children. He also painted many pictures (in oil colors) of scenery viewed by him in his life.
May 10, 1879, his wife, my mother-one of the best women who ever graced this earth-died. With her went out his better half, his life was but a weary vigil until the end which came November 27, 1893.
The children of John and Elizabeth Robinson were Edwin Hayes, born in Brooklyn, Long Island, April 11, 1834; Alfred John, July 24, 1836, in Delaware county, Ohio; Rubens William, April 8, 1839, same county ; Arthur Samuel, November 9, 1841 ; Mary Charlotte Tuscaloosa, February 11, 1843; Edward. February 13, 1845 : Guido, March 17, 1848. All grew to maturity.
Guido Robinson has a fine farm of one hundred and thirty-five acres, known as the "Locust Grove Stock Farm," in Dover township at the junc- tion of the Dry Run and Springdale roads about eight miles northeast of Marysville. He began farming for himself at the age of twenty-two by renting his father's farm of two hundred acres in this township. He rented for a few years and then bought his present farm on which he has since re- sided.
Mr. Robinson was married in 1873 to Laura J. Andrews, the daughter of William and Effie (Welch) Andrews. To this union were born five chil- dren, Girrard E., Beale A., Ellis A. and Grace. Hayes, a twin of Grace died at the age of six months. Girrard first married Edna Green and later Lucille Jefferson. To his second union were born two daughters, Dorothy F. and Mary P. Beale married Florence Plank and has two children, Alice E. and Beale .A., Jr. Ellis married Laura Brown. Grace, deceased, was the wife of William Mackan and left her husband with two daughters, Elsie B. and Laura L. The mother of these five children died in 1884.
Mr. Robinson was married a second time November 12, 1885, to Dora C. Brucker, the daughter of Michael and Elizabeth (Freimetzer) Brucker. Her parents were natives of Bavaria. Germany, and on coming to America first located near Columbus, Ohio, later settling in Richwood in this county, where they spent the remainder of their days. To this second marriage of Mr. Robinson was born one daughter, Inez F. She married Walter F. Cody and had children. Esther J. and Guido W., twins. The son died in infancy.
Fraternally, Mr. Robinson is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has been identified with this fraternity for the past forty- five years. Politically, he is a Socialist and has always taken an intelligent interest in the welfare of his party.
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WILLIAM STALEY.
The history of the man whose name heads this sketch has been closely identified with the history of Union county for the remarkable period of four score years. Coming to this county when a mere infant in arms, he spent his early youth and grew to manhood here. Beginning his active career in the pioneer period, in all the subsequent years he has been closely allied with the hardy and industrious pioneer settlers whose arduous labors have changed forest into cultivated field and made "the wilderness to blos- som as the rose." In the arduous work of this primitive period the subject contributed his full share. His life has been one of untiring activity and his labors have been crowned with a degree of success commensurate with his efforts.
William Staley, the subject of this brief review, was born near Nenia, Greene county, Ohio, October 17, 1833. He is.a son of Samuel and Cather- ine (Hall ) Staley, who came from Pennsylvania and settled in Greene county in the early period. In the early thirties the Staley family removed to Union county and this has been the home of the family since that time. The children of this family were: Mary, deceased; Peter, deceased; So- phia, deceased; Fannie, deceased; William, subject of this sketch; Isaac: Sarah, who is now Mrs. Keightley. The subject was a baby when he came to this county with his parents and has no personal recollection of the jour- ney from Greene county nor the condition of things in this county at that time. He remembers that as soon as he was old enough there was no occa- sion for him to be idle because of lack of work. As a boy he helped to clear the land of timber, worked in making rails, building fences, plowing corn among the stumps and the various other kinds of labor required in the de- velopment of a farm in the woods and also blacksmithing, which trade he learned at Marysville, when a young man. In the winter season, when farm work was not so urgent, he attended the schools in the neighborhood and obtained such education as was afforded by these primitive institutions of learning. He learned the blacksmith trade and followed that occupation for some time after he was grown. He was married November 21, 1855. to Roxie Jane Emrine, daughter of John and Nancy ( Millen) Emrine, and to this union the following children were born: Julia, now Mrs. Salem Tur- ner : Simion ; Josephine, deceased; Walter M .; Harriett C. Hurbert ; George W. ; Annette : Enix T., and Jennie W. Vliet.
William Staley is the owner of a fine farm of one hundred acres lo- cated on the Jewell and Blue pike, about three miles from Marysville, but is
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not engaged in active work on the farm now. Having served his day and generation in active work, he is now living in honorable retirement at the home of his son-in-law, Harrison Enix, content in the consciousness of a life's work well done and in the assurance of the high esteem he so richly deserves of the community which has been so long honored by his citizenship.
Mr. Staley is an honored member of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been a consistent follower of his Master for many years. A life consecrated to such devotion and such service is a blessing and a benediction to any community. During his life he has been chosen to several public of- fices, among them was a membership of the school board and township as- sessor. His political affiliations have always been with the Republican party, having voted for that party's candidates for President from the time of its organization, in 1856, when John C. Fremont was the candidate. Mr. Sta- ley is a member of the Masonic order and has the distinction of being the oldest member of that order in Union county.
COLONEL WILLIAM L. CURRY.
[The publishers of this work feel that Col. William L. Curry has been among the best equipped historians they have employed in all of the years they have been in this business. The fact that his grandfather came to the county in 1811 at the very beginning of its history and took a very prominent part in its organization, serves to identify the family with the growth and development of the county during its whole career. As the author of the complete military history of Union county as well as Jerome township, Colonel Curry is without question the best man who could have been chosen for editor-in-chief of this history of his county. The Archaeological and Historical Society of Ohio has given signal recognition of Colonel Curry's ability as a historian by selecting him to write the history of Ohio in the Civil War. the work on which he is now engaged. It seems, therefore, con- sidering the long connection of the Curry family with Union county, its active participation in its growth for more than a century together with the personal record of Colonel Curry himself along official, military and literary lines, that he is in all respects the best man in the county who could have been selected editor-in-chief .- The Publishers. ]
The Curry family are of Irish Presbyterian ancestry and came to America about the middle of the eighteenth century. Col. James Curry, the grandfather of Col. W. L. Curry, was born in Belfast, Ireland, January 29. 1752. He was the oldest child of James Curry, a prosperous Irish farmer
COL. WILLIAM L. CURRY
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of County Antrim. His mother's maiden name was Warwick and her family were prominent in England during the Cromwell period.
When a lad of ten years Col. James Curry came to America with his parents, the family coming on the sailing vessel, "Good Return," the long voyage consuming about fifteen weeks. There was much sickness on the ship and four of the Curry children died and were buried at sea. When the family landed at Philadelphia, there were but three of the seven children left. They immediately proceeded to Virginia and there James Curry, father of Col. James, settled down as a planter. When only fourteen years of age, Col. James Curry began to teach school during the winter season and so continued until he was grown. He then joined a volunter regiment called ont by Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, to suppress the Indians, who were causing trouble along the Ohio river frontier, and was severely wounded in the battle of Point Pleasant, Virginia, October 10, 1774. When the Revolutionary War came on Col. James Curry was commissioned a lieu- tenant in the Eighth Regiment of Virginia Continental Line, and served with this rank from 1777 until 1779, at which time he was commissioned captain of the Fourth Virginia Regiment. During most of the remainder of the war he served on the staff of his commanding officer, Nathaniel Gist. The maternal great-grandfather of Col. W. L. Curry, Capt. Robert Burns, also served in the Revolutionary War.
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