USA > Ohio > Delaware County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 8
USA > Ohio > Morrow County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 8
USA > Ohio > Union County > Memorial record of the counties of Delaware, Union and Morrow, Ohio > Part 8
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68
Emigrations of the Bartletts from En- gland to America have occurred at various times, and the following brief record touches upon this emigration: Robert Bartlett came in 1623 and settled at Plymouth, Massa- chusetts; another Robert Bartlett reached America in 1632 and settled in Hartford, Connecticut; John Bartlett, 1634, located at Newbury, Massachusetts; Thomas Bart- lett, 1634, located at Waterloo, same State; Richard Bartlett, 1635, located at Newbury, Massachusetts; George Bartlett, 1641, Guil- ford, Connecticut; Henry Bartlett, 1680, Marlborough, Massachusetts; George Bart- lett, 1733, Boston, Massachusetts; Roger Bartlett, 1749, Boston; F. R. Bartlett, 1803, New York; John Sherren Bartlett, 1815, Boston; Louis Bartlett, 1880, Cleveland, Ohio. Besides these there were some oth-' ers, who settled in the vicinity of Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, prior to 1640, the dates of their arrival in the New World being not clearly ascertained. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was Josiah Bartlett, who was born in 1720, and who died May 19, 1795. In the pave- ments of an old stone church on the ances- tral estates, in Sussex, England, the Bart-
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
letts may find their genealogical record for many generations.
The mother of our subject, whose maid- en name was Sarah Nickols, was born January 7, 1819, in Loudoun county, Virginia, the daughter of Nathan and Sarah (Thomas) Nickols, who were Friends, the former having been born November 30, 1780, and the latter, who was the daughter of Owen and Martha (Davis) Thomas, hav- ing been born June 13, 1782. They came to Morrow county (then Marion county). Ohio, and settled just to the south of Mt. Gilead. He entered a tract of 960 acres of land here in 1824. He returned to Virginia, where he died March 21, 1827. Before his death he gave his slaves deeds of man- umission and they were afterward brought with the family to Belmont county, Ohio, where they settled. The widow and her family came to what is now Morrow county in 1827 and settled on a quarter section of land, a part of which tract is now includ- ed in the county fair ground, the old home- stead being located on the hill where the residence of Philip Wieland now stands. Sarah Nickols died June 23, 1839. Her children were fourteen in number, namely : John, born October 4, 1802, died in Mis- souri; Mahala, born July 25, 1804, died in childhood; Ruth, born November 3, 1805, married Alban Coe and died in this county; George, born May 24, 1807, died in Morrow county, in September, 1885; Albert, born June 28, 1808, died in Missouri, having been a soldier in the Mexican war, as was also his brother John; Harriet, born March 30, 1810, married Robert F. Hickman and died in Perry county, Ohio; Massey, born De- cember 13, 1811, died in Morrow county; Margaret, born August 4, 1813, became the wife of Abraham Coe and died in this
county; Martha, born April 26, 1815, mar- ried Preston Friend and died in Iowa; Ann, born July 13, 1817, married Jacob Painter and died in Morrow county; Sarah, was the mother of our subject; Mordecai, born May 22, 1820, died in Virginia; Mary E., born May II, 1822, married Joel R. Bartlett and died in McDonough county, Illinois; Nathan, Jr., born May 11, 1826, died in the same county. All of these children were natives of Loudoun county, Virginia, and twelve of the number grew to maturity.
The marriage of our subject's parents was solemnized in Marion (now Morrow) county, November 9, 1837, and they settled at Mt. Gilead where the father was engaged at his trade as a blacksmith and maker of edged tools. In 1847 he moved out to a farm in Congress (now Gilead) township, in the vicinity of the present county infirmary; in 1868 he removed to North Bloomfield township, where he remained for ten years, after which he returned to Mt. Gilead and took up his abode in the old Hahn home- stead, where he lived until his death, Au- gust 31, 1885. His wife had passed away many years previous, -March 27, 1856. They were the parents of eight children, namely: Robert F., subject of this review; Wesley Clark, born September 24, 1842, died December 7, of the same year; John Oscar, born January 24, 1844, was a soldier in the late war, participating in the battles of Shiloh and Stone River, and being killed in the battle of Chickamauga, September 19, 1863: he was a member of Company D, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and was Corporal of his company: after the battle in which he met his death the Union forces re- treated, leaving their dead unburied for days, and his body reposes among the un- known dead in the national cemetery at
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DELAWARE, UNION AND MORROW COUNTIES, OHIO.
Chattanooga, Tennessee; Julia E., born December 8, 1845, is the wife of John B. Gatchell, of Marysville, Kansas, a veteran of the late war: they have two children, Fred Burns and Frank Paul; Althea, born June 7, 1848, married George W. Mont- gomery, who is now deceased, having left one son, George H .: Mrs. Montgomery sub- sequently married John Bortner and now resides near Mt. Gilead, this county, having one son by her second marriage, namely, Clarence; Sarah M., born October 1, 1850, is the wife of William A. Braden, of Wash- ington township, this county, and they have six children: Ida, Charles, Homer, Ray and Ralph (twins), and Arthur; Albert W., born February 22, 1854, married Anna, daughter of the late Thomas Graham, of North Bloomfield township, and is a resi- dent of. Marysville, Kansas: they have two children, Bessie and Thomas; Nathan Her- bert, born January 22, 1856, married Cora Bartlett, daughter of Dwight Bartlett, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and they have three chil- dren, Helen Genevieve, Oscar, and Ernest: he is a graduate of Lebanon College, this State, is a man of scholarly attainments, and is principal of the public schools of Mt. Healthy, Hamilton county. The parents were zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the father had held official positions in the same, being an earn- est worker in the cause of religion. Politi- cally he supported the Democratic party until 1852, when he transferred his allegi- ance to the Republican party, to which he ever after gave an unqualified affiliation. He served as Justice of the Peace in North Bloomfield township for a period of six years. He eventually consummated a sec- ond marriage, being united to Eliza Annette Adams, January 4, 1857. She was a native
of Livingston county, New York, and her death occurred in July, 1873. They were the parents of five children, namely: Charles Wilbur, born October 14, 1857, died February 16, 1865; Fred Willis, born May 15, 1859, married Ella, daughter of Sheridan Cox, of Canaan township, and they reside in Oketo, Kansas, having one daughter, Blanche; Elmer Ellsworth, born October 28, 1861, died October 8, 1865; Annette May, born June 20, 1863, gradu- ated at the Mt. Gilead high school in 1882, and the Normal College at Lebanon, Ohio, in 1883, and in 1887 she graduated at the State Normal School, at Oswego, New York, and since April, 1887, she has been the principal of the Normal Mission School for young women of the Presbyterian Church in the city of Mexico: in her gradu- ation at Oswego she bore away the highest honors of her class: at the present time, September, 1894, she is taking advantage of a year's vacation granted her, by pursuing a course of special study in Wellesley College, Massachusetts; Alice P., born August 31, 1867, is a teacher in Marshall county, Kansas.
Abner Matthews Bartlett married for his third wife Emily Helt, widow of J. C. Helt, this union being solemnized October 14, 1874. By her marriage to Mr. Helt she was the mother of four children, namely: Marilla, wife of Lemuel Wright, resides near Fred- ericktown, Ohio; Winfield Helt, a clergy- man of the Presbyterian Church; Legrand Helt, recently deceased, and Nellie, the wife of Henry R. King, resides at Miles City, Montana.
Robert Franklin Bartlett, the immediate subject of this review, was born at Mt. Gilead, Morrow county, Ohio, April 8, 1840, receiving his preliminary education in
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
the district schools and thereafter attending the public schools of Mt. Gilead, for two years and then the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity, at Delaware, for two years.
At the close of the college year of 1862 he enlisted, August 2d, as a private in Com- pany D, Ninety-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Upon the organization of his company he was made Second Sergeant, and January 26, 1863, he was promoted to Orderly Sergeant. He participated in the battles mentioned below : Chickasaw Bayou; Arkansas Post, at which place he was wounded in the head by a shell; the campaign and siege of Vicksburg, having been present at the first attack, December 28, 1862, at Chickasaw Bayou, and for the six intervening months (except seven weeks in March and April when he was sick with typhoid fever at Milliken's Bend) he was continuously with his regiment and on duty, until the surrender of Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) with its munitions of war and over 30,000 prisoners. The regiment was pre- sent thirty-five days of the siege and was under fire almost constantly, night and day. At Grand Coteau, Louisiana, he received a gun-shot wound in the left fore-arm and elbow and was taken prisoner. With other wounded, both Union and Confederate, he was left at a mansion about three miles inside the Confederate lines and located about fifteen miles from La Fayette. The lady of the house, a Mrs. Rogers, accorded the wounded of both sides a most kindly solicitude and careful attention, doing all in her power for their comfort and relief. Within the evening of November 4, 1863, the wounded prisoners of both armies were exchanged and our subject was returned to the Union lines and was then removed to St. James' hospital, New Orleans, where his
arm was amputated, near the shoulder joint, this operation being performed December 3, 1863. He was discharged from the service January 25. 1864.
After his discharge Mr. Bartlett returned home and gave his attention to reading law and teaching school. He was Deputy Clerk of Courts until the fall of 1866, when he was elected as Clerk of the Morrow county courts, being re-elected to this office in 1869 and again in 1872, by a majority of 737, serving in this capacity until February 14, 1876. He then resumed the study of law with Thomas H. Dalrymple, Esq., of Mt. Gilead, Ohio, and, June 24, 1878, was ad- mitted to practice, at Mt. Gilead, where he appeared before the district court for exam- ination. He took up his residence in Cardington in October of the same year, and has since continued in the practice of his profession at this point.
April 8, 1867, Mr. Bartlett was united in marriage to Miss Martha M. Miller, who was born, in Mount Gilead, December 2, 1839, a daughter of Nehemiah Miller, con- cerning whom individual mention is made elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Bartlett was educated in the public schools and in the select school conducted by Mrs. Spald- ing in Mount Gilead. Our subject and his wife have no children, but have a foster child, Mary F., who was born in Cincinnati September 9, 1889. Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett are members of the Presbyterian Church and our subject is an Elder in the same. Fra- ternally, he is a member of both lodge and encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having passed all its chairs. He is also identified with the Knights of Pythias and is Past Chancellor of his lodge. He also retains a membership in James St. John Post, No. 82, G. A. R., and from the
7
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DELAWARE, UNION AND MORROW COUNTIES, OHIO.
same has been a delegate to several State encampments, and in 1889 to the national encampment at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is a member of Encampment No. 89, Union Veteran Legion, of Mount Gilead.
Politically Mr. Bartlett is an uncompro- mising Republican and he has been a most active party worker, having been chairman of the Republican Central Committee of Morrow county in 1893, and having been a delegate to various conventions of his party. He has been for many years the incumbent as permanent secretary of the reunion asso- ciation of his regiment, a preferment to which he was called by his old comrades in arms.
Mr. Bartlett is a man whose life has been ever in accord with the principles of right, justice and honor, and it is needless to say that he holds a place in the confi- dence and respect of the people.
ON. SAMUEL LEWIS, a promi- nent farmer and stock-raiser living near Radnor, is the present Repre- sentative from Delaware county in the State Legislature of Ohio. He was born in South Wales, and when a child of three years was brought by his parents, John and Sarah (Hughes) Lewis, to the United States, the family locating first in Licking county, Ohio, where they made their home for fifteen years.
When Samuel was a young man of seventeen he apprenticed himself to a man in Columbus, Ohio, to learn the trade of plastering, and after serving for a period of four years, during which time he thoroughly mastered the business, he formed a partner- ship with a Mr. Williams, with whom he carried on operations for three years. Their
connection was then dissolved and Mr. Lewis was then alone in the plastering business for nine years. When that period had passed he abandoned his trade and re- moved to Radnor township, Delaware county, purchasing a farm near the banks of the Scioto river, directly west of the vil- lage of Radnor, then called Delhi.
On Christmas day of 1856, was cele- brated the marriage of Mr. Lewis and Miss Mary J. Gallant, daughter of Elisha and Eleanor (Moore) Gallant. Her father was killed by being kicked in the head by a colt. For one week he lay unconscious and then passed away, on the twenty-sixth of Novem- ber, 1871. To Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have been born five children: S. Ella, who was born November 28, 1857, and was married November 5, 1878, to E. E. Jones; E. Jud- son, born December 25, 1859; E. Minnie, born April 5, 1863; M. Adel, born January 19, 1869; and Lizzie, born February 17, 1873. The family circle yet remains un- broken by the hand of death.
Mr. Lewis is now the owner of 360 acres of rich and arable land which is under a high state of cultivation and well im- proved with all the accessories of _a model farm. Its neat and thrifty appearance in- dicates his careful supervision and tells to the passer-by the story of his enterprise and progressive spirit.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and their family are members of the Baptist Church. In his youth our subject received but limited educational privileges but in later years has read and studied quite extensively and is now one of the best informed men in his township and county. He has held the office of Justice of the Peace for more than twelve years, discharging his duties with commendable promptness and fidelity. He
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
is a warm advocate of the Republican party . John Hill, the family being one of much and its principles and in the fall of 1893 prominence and long residence in that State, its men being loyal and honorable both in times of peace and war. The brother of Aaron was Captain Abel Smith Hill, who was a commissioned officer in the war of 1812, and participated in the most decisive actions of that conflict. The latter died October 9, 1840, aged forty-seven years and nine months. was elected on that ticket to the House of Representatives, receiving a majority of 888 votes, the largest ever given to a candidate for that position for twenty-five years. Soon after taking his seat in the Assembly, he was made chairman of the committee on the Girls' Industrial Home and became a member of the committee on public lands and public buildings and the deaf and dumb asylum. He introduced into the House a bill changing the commissioners' pay from a . fee to a salary, thus saving to his county considerable expense. Mr. Lewis labors for the best interests of the people, and during his career as a member of the Legislature has shown that the confidence the people placed in him has not been misplaced. His public and private life are alike above re- proach and we take great pleasure in pre- senting his biographical record to our read- ers, knowing that it will be received with interest by many.
PATERMAN HILL, whose magnif- icent farmstead, in Union town- ship, Union county, Ohio, lies just contiguous to the thriving village of Milford Center, stands as the rep- resentative of one of the prominent pioneer families of the Buckeye State and as one of the must successful and substantial farm- ers of the county, being most clearly entitled to specific mention in this connection. He was born in Union township and his entire life has been passed therein, but, unlike the prophet, he is not without honor in his own country.
Aaron Hill, father of our subject, was a native of Windham, Connecticut, a son of
To those of the present end-of-the-cen- tury period the tales touching the old pio- neer days read like a romance. Time has placed its softening hand on the records which told of privations, hardships and vicis- situdes, leaving a picture strongly limned, but with an obscurity of detail like that of the mellowed tones and misty atmosphere of the canvas of one of the old masters. Those who can give reminiscent glances in- to the remote past, which marked the form- ative epoch of our commonwealth, are fast passing, with bowed forms and silvered heads, through the gate of eternity, and with avidity should their utterances be trea- sured, for in their words lies the deeper his- tory of the pioneer days, -the individual history which is the veritable nucleus of all.
In 1830, more than an half century ago, Aaron Hill left his home in Connecticut and started on that long and tedious journey to what was then the practical Western front- ier, arriving in Ohio without money and yet determined to win success, even against great ยท odds, and to make for himself a home. He located in this county and here remained for three years, when he returned to the old home in the East and made ready to bring his wife with him on his return. The equip- ment for the journey was a slight variation from that most in favor with the emigrants who were traversing the weary stretch of
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country. He manufactured with his own hands a one-horse wagon and this unpreten- tious vehicle served as the means for trans- porting himself, his wife, and their worldly possessions to the sylvan wilds of their new home, where, in a primitive domicile, they installed their household gods and prepared for the battle of life on the frontier. The wife of Aaron Hill was Lucinda, daughter of Andrew Robinson, and, like her husband, she was a native of Windham, Connecticut. She was a lineal descendant of Rev. John Robinson, from whom a genealogical trac- ing has been prepared as follows, by Rev. William Allen, of Northampton, Massachu- setts:
Rev. John Robinson, born 1575, was graduated at Cambridge University, Eng- land, in 1600; was pastor with Pilgrim Fathers; died March 4, 1625. He is one to whom history refers as the "pastor of that colony, originally from England, known by the name of Puritans." He is spoken of as an able and pious man, whom his congre- gation loved and who with them disposed of their property and prepared for their re- moval to Holland, which at that time granted a free toleration of worship to different de- nominations. This was in 1607. After a number of years had passed here, becoming dissatisfied, the pilgrims went to Delftshaven, in the south of Holland, where they were to embark for the New World. To this port they were kindly attended by many of their brethren and friends from Amsterdam and other places, and, on August 5, 1620, the pilgrims went on board the Mayflower and Speedwell, sailing from Southampton on that memorable voyage for the New World.
As already stated, Rev. John Robinson died in 1625, and in 1629 his wife came over to the colony of Plymouth, accom-
panied by her children, by name as follows : John, Isaac and Fear. Isaac settled near Plymouth and had a son, Peter, who was one of the original members of the church in Scotland Parish, Windham, Connecticut, 1735. He had nine children, namely : Peter, Israel, Thomas, Simeon, Isaac, Ben- jamin, Joseph, Elizabeth and Martha. Peter had twelve children, as follows : Sam- uel, Experience, Peter, Elizabeth, Jacob, Nathan, Abner, Ruth, Eliab, Rachel, Bathsheba, and Joshua. The children of Experience, son of Peter, were by name as follows: James, Tryphena, Elias, Elethia, Lydia, and Andrew. Peter, the father. died at Windham, Connecticut, in 1849, aged eighty-five years.
Elisha, son of Andrew, had nine chil- dren, as follows: Hovey, Mary Ann, W. D., Olive, Simeon H., Augustus, Samuel M., Frederick and Elisha. The father died in October, 1875, aged eighty-five years. Andrew was twice married; by his first wife, Olive Hovey, he had nine children, as fol- lows: Albigence, Ebenezer, Elisha, Per- melia, Triphena, Lucinda, Dorcas, Urban, and Darius. By his second wife he had four children :. Newton, Lydia, and the twins, Augustus and Harriet, who were drowned when young, having gone onto the ice, which gave away beneath them.
Dorcas married Archibald L. Bates and became the mother of three children, name- ly : Andrew, who died at the Ohio Wes- leyan University, Delaware, April 1, 1853, aged twenty-four years, ten months and twelve days; Amelia, who died at the Dela- ware, Ohio, Seminary, July 30, 1852, aged nineteen years, ten months and ten days; and Asa G., who died near Irwin Station, Union county, April 8, 1894, aged fifty-eight years and six days.
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MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHIICAL RECORD OF
Lucinda, daughter of Andrew, has been already mentioncd, and she was the mother of tlic subject of this sketch. She was born in Windham, Connecticut, July 22, 1798, and remained in the East until June 3, 1833, when she married Aaron Hill and came with him to this part of Ohio to en- counter the experiences of the new-country life. Faithfully she upheld him in the dis- charge of his duties and was ever a true helpmeet in times of prosperity and adver- sity alike, leading an humble Christian life, exemplary in her sweetness of spirit and kindly influence. She died near Irwin Sta- tion, August 31, 1883, in the eighty-sixth year of her age.
The farm upon which Aaron Hill and his wife located was yet a portion of the unbrok- en forest, but, nothing daunted, they set valiantly to work to improve the same and to reclaim from nature's hand the benefices she had in store: Coming here a poor man, Mr. Hill was enabled, by industry, frugality and good management, to develop a fine farm and to attain a high degree of inciden- tal success. He was a man of broad intel- ligence and in a sense was one far abreast of his time, for while the avarage farmer of the locality and period was content to follow the drudge-like work so essential, and to give no thought to the ultimate conditions which would maintain, Mr. Hill's ken far transcended this narrow and sordid limita- tion, and his aim was not only to keep pace with improvement and progress, but to an- ticipate them. Thus it is not strange that he was found ever in the lead, nor that, as the years went by and children were gathered about the old hearthstone, he deter- mined that these, his cherished offspring, should be fortified by wider educational op- portunities than those afforded by the dis-
trict schools. To them came by inheritance the sterling principles of honesty and integrity and a wholesome respect for the dignity of labor, but, beyond this, the parents, with self-abnegation, removed to Yellow Springs and there remained for a considerable length of time, in order that the children might take advantage of the educational oppor- tunities afforded by Antioch College, one of the earliest institutions of the sort in this section of the State. The parents lived in Union township until they were summoned into eternal rest, the father's demise occur- ring November 24, 1862, and that of the mother on the 31st of August, 1883, as al- ready noted. Mrs. Hill was an earnest Christian woman and a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her life was one of signal purity and beauty and her death the consistent merging into immortality. The father was distinctively prominent in the community and was progressive in his meth- ods and honorable in all his dealing with his fellow men. In connection with the general work of the farm he engaged quite exten- sively in the manufacture of cheese, and the "Hill cheese" had an enviable reputation about the State fully fifty years ago.
Aaron and Lucinda Hill reared three children, namely: Waterman, subject of this review; George, now a resident of Colorado; and Aaron Augustus, who resides at Irwin Station, this county.
Waterman Hill was born on the old homestead farm in this county, November 5, 1834, and there passed his boyhood days, attending the district schools and finally completing his educational discipline at Antioch College, which institution he was one of the first students to enter after its doors were thrown open. He has been intimately associated with the noble art of
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