USA > Ohio > Highland County > The County of Highland : a history of Highland County, Ohio, from the earliest days, with special chapters on the bench and bar, medical profession educational development, industry and agriculture and biographical sketches > Part 41
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
374
THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
Penn township now known as Flora Vale and owned by his son. At the time of the purchase this land was covered by an unbroken for- est, which disappeared in the course of years before the woodsman's ax and pioneer fortitude and eventually emerged as one of the hand- somest estates in the county. In 1825 Daniel Lewis married Pris- cilla, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Hussey, and the eight children resulting from this union were as follows: Charles D., born in 1829; Christopher, fully sketched below; Sarah A., born in 1835 ; Albert, in 1836; Alvah, in 1839; Mary B., in 1841; George, in 1843; and Rachel, in 1845. The father of this family died November 28, 1847, his widow surviving him many years and pass- ing away in May, 1885. Charles D. Lewis, their oldest son, was a young man of great promise and had entered upon a career that promised most fruitful results but which, unhappily, was cut short in the prime of life by a railroad accident July 4, 1857. At the time of his death he was professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Eclectic college of medicine at Cincinnati and had exhibited remark- able versatility of talent, as well as much force of character, during his brief but brilliant life. Christopher Lewis, second in age of the eight children of his parents, was born on the homestead farm in Highland county, Ohio, September 16, 1831, and has devoted his entire life to the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Under his skillful management and endless industry the place has been steadily improved and is now almost ideal both in its external and internal appointments. In the fall of 1825 his father built a comfortable hewed-log house, which gave place in fourteen years to the present neat dwelling-house where Mr. Lewis and his family have so long resided. In 1870 several additions and tasteful improvements were made by the proprietor and it would now be difficult to find a pret- tier place than Flora Vale, with its lovely lawns, choice shade trees and shrubbery, highly cultivated fields and other concomitants of rural repose. In fact, the contrast between "pioneer days," as exem- plified by Mr. Lewis' father, and twentieth-century civilization, as witnessed by Mr. Lewis himself, can nowhere be seen in more force than at this luxurious country home in Highland county. Septem- ber 22, 1859, Mr. Lewis was married in Philadelphia to Louisa K., daughter of Joseph and Esther C. Hallowell of Chester county, Pa. Shortly after this event, he began purchasing the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate, which was kept up from time to time until 1865, when he obtained and has retained full possession of this desirable property. The farm, consisting of a hundred acres, is situated in Penn township on what is now known as the Carey- town pike, about three miles and a half southeast of New Vienna. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have three children of whom Eugene C., the old- est, was born June 20, 1860. Walter H., the second son, was born November 17, 1862, and married April 19, 1888, to Maude K.
375
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Smith, his children being Walter H., Ralph M., Gertrude M., Louise K., William Waddell and Priscilla. Marion, the only daughter, was born May 25, 1866, and married December 24, 1890, to Horace K. Anson, their children being Virgil L. and Louisa L. Mr. Lewis served several years as master of Union grange, No. 77, Patrons of Husbandry, at New Vienna and was for a long time school director in his district. He and his wife have long been devoted members of the religious Society of Friends and prominent in connection with church affairs. They possess the same reposeful traits of character, the same industrious habits, the same love of lib- erty, good morals and right-doing that have characterized these peo- ple for centuries and made them such staunch supports of law and order and free government everywhere.
The Linn Family :- About the year 1790 Robert Linn, who lived in the north of Ireland, became weary of the unequal struggle for existence in that tax-ridden and badly governed land and yielded his shattered frame and saddened heart to the Grim Destroyer which in time conquers every human being. A widow and six children, most of them helpless, were left to bemoan the irreparable loss which had deprived them of their only support and protector. There was no recourse left but that of expatriation, the last hope of many a heart- broken Irishman as he turned his sorrowful gaze upon his country and resolved to leave it forever. When the widow Linn left the shores of Erin in 1796, bound for free and hospitable America, her oldest child Samuel was just twenty-one years of age. After the wearisome and protracted voyage was completed, the little band made their way to Lancaster county, Pa., where a temporary location was secured to be followed by removal to Virginia in 1803. Unlike most Irish immigrants of that day, the Linns were of Scotch ancestry and adherents of the Protestant faith. Samuel, being the eldest, stood somewhat in the relation of a father to the other children and was a great help as well as comfort to his widowed mother. November 8, 1803, he was married to Catharine Slaymaker, member of one of the distinguished military families of Virginia. Her father, Capt. John Slaymaker, was with Braddock at the time of his memorable defeat by the Indians and subsequently commanded a company in the war for American independence. Robert Alexander Linn, one of the children of this marriage, was born October 8, 1810, and removed with his father to Highland county in 1832. The latter died here in September, 1860, at the ripe age of eighty-five years. August 13, 1857, Robert A. Linn was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Noah and Elizabeth (Robinson) Evans, and member of a family notable in the history of Liberty township. Richard Evans, Mrs. Linn's grand- father, a native of Pennsylvania, first moved to Kentucky with his father, Hugh Evans, and from there to Highland county in 1799,
376
THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
where he bought land on Clear creek and subsequently became one of the earliest of the county's associate judges. By his wife, Mary (Pierce) Evans, he had fifteen children, of whom twelve lived to mature age. Noah Evans, the third son, was born in Kentucky in 1795 and in 1819 was married to Elizabeth Robison, of Chillicothe. They had ten children, including Mrs. Elizabeth ( Evans) Linn, who was born in 1832 in the old brick house which was built by her grand- father in 1809 on his Clear Creek farm in Liberty township. This was the first brick dwelling-house erected in Highland county and the venerable structure is still standing as one of the interesting land-
marks of the olden time. In the family it is known familiarly as the "Ark," probably because its last proprietor in the Evans line was named Noah. In 1868, Robert A. Linn purchased 193 acres from the Evans estate and ten years later erected the elegant brick house now occupied by his widow and children, east of Clear creek on the Chillicothe pike. The children of Robert A. and Elizabeth ( Evans) Linn are Samuel D., Katharine, Margaret E., Lucy and Minnie E., who reside on the farm with their mother. William D. Linn, the second son, was born on the paternal homestead in Highland county, Ohio, June 30, 1860, and educated in the district schools. In 1879, he removed to Iowa, where he spent six years employed as a clerk in various mercantile establishments, after which he returned to High- land county and in 1886 took up his residence on part of the Linn estate. In 1879 he was married to Luella Bumgarner, who died in 1885, leaving two children: David, born February 5, 1880, and Frederick, born April 16, 1882. March 19, 1889, Mr. Linn was married to Reedie, daughter of Jacob and Rebecca (Fettro) Pen- nington, by whom he has four children: Ruth, born January 28, 1892; Ray, born June 21, 1895; Jane, born January 19, 1899; and Esther born March 20, 1902.
Alvin M. Louderback, justice of the peace in Clay township, and widely known as a prosperous farmer and stockraiser, is the grandson of Peter Louderback, a native of Pennsylvania, who was brought to Ohio by his parents, who settled as pioneers in the vicinity of the town of Sardinia. Justice Louderback, is therefore, in the fourth genera- tion of the family in Ohio. Peter Louderback, when he grew to man- hood, married Betsey Carbory, a daughter of another pioneer family of Brown county, and made his home in Brown county, farming through the warmer months and devoting the winters to his trade as a shoemaker. Fifteen children were born to him and his wife: Jackson, Causby, Mary, Millie, Marion, James, Hamer, Mason, Ema- riah, Arminda and Clarinda (twins), and Peter. Several of these are yet living in Ohio, including Hamer, the father of A. M. Louder- back. Hamer Louderback was born in 1835, at the home near Sar- dinia, and when a youth found employment for several years on the
377
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
river boats between Higginsport and Cincinnati. Later he married Mary Welsh, a native of Clermont county, and they made their home first at the town of Rural, in that county. Subsequently their home was on Straight creek and various other places in Brown county, until they moved to White Oak township, Highland county, where they resided for seventeen years. There the wife and mother died, and afterward Hamer Louderback returned to Brown county, and wedded Rachel Martin. He is now living at Georgetown, where he has been honored for four years with the office of city marshal. By his first marriage twelve children were born: A. M., subject of this sketch; Anna, whose home is in Georgetown; John, in Kansas ; Arthur, in Montana; Ollie, in Washington; Martha, in Brown county ; Emmariah, in Illinois ; Clara, in Brown county ; George, in Greene county ; Flora and Florence (twins), in Brown county, and Pearl, in the same county. A. M. Louderback was born at Rural, Clermont county, October 13, 1854. When sixteen years of age, having previously attended the district schools, he began working for himself as a farm employee in Clay and White Oak townships, and a year later went to Indiana, but soon returned to his native county. For nine years he worked with William Wills, of Clay township. Subsequently he was married to Mary Gomia, daughter of Louis and Mary Gomia, old settlers of Highland county. Mrs. Louderback, a most estimable lady, was born in the house where she and her husband have made their home since marriage. Four children have been born to them: Demont Q., Theresa, Bessie and Harley, all of whom are yet at home. Mr. Louderback is quite successful as a farmer and breeder of Shorthorn and Jersey cattle, and Poland China and Berk- shire hogs, and contributes efficiently to the advancement of the agri- cultural and livestock interests of his county. He is an honored member of the United Brethren church and the order of Odd Fellows, in politics is a Democrat, and he is now serving his first term as jus- tice of the peace of his township.
Milton Glenn Lucas, one of the prosperous farmers of Marshall township on the fertile banks of Rocky Fork, comes from an old fam- ily whose history in Highland county goes back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. James and Catharine (Levingood) Lucas, of Delaware, who were the first of the name to arrive in the Scioto valley, had ten children and among them a son named William. The latter married Nancy, daughter of John Owens, and became the par- ents of four children, including John L., who died in Brush Creek township in 1901, aged about seventy-five years; Samuel, who died at the age of twenty-five; and William W., a resident of Missouri. Elijah Lucas, the oldest of the above mentioned children, was born in Paint township November 20, 1820, and at present resides three miles northeast of the village of Marshall. October 21, 1847, he .
378
THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
married Amanda, daughter of William W. and Eliza ( Roth) Glenn, members of an old family of the county. The eight children of Elijah and Amanda (Glenn) Lucas were James William and Birches M., farmers of Paint township; Lucinda, who married James Sams and died at the age of thirty-six years; the subject of this sketch ; Ellen, widow of Dr. L. T. Glenn; Mary, wife of James Sams; Nettie Jane, who died at the age of nineteen ; and Robert, who is at home. Milton Glenn Lucas, fourth of the family, was born in Brush Creek township, Highland county, Ohio, December 6, 1858, and attended the normal department of the Union graded schools at Hillsboro under Prof. Louis Mckibben. June 26, 1895, he was married to Olive Williams, and they have two children: Milton Gilbert, born July 19, 1896, and Ruth Williams, born March 27, 1899. Mr. Lucas is farming his father's place of 200 acres on the banks of Rocky Fork in Marshall township and owns the 73 acres where his father now resides. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and of Paint lodge, No. 453, Knights of Pythias at Rainsboro. Mrs. Lucas' ancestry runs back to the earliest period of the county's history. Her great-grandfather, George Gall, was a soldier of the Revolution who located in Highland county in 1801, and his daughter Susannah married Thomas Williams. Among the children of the latter was Daniel Williams, who married Mary Hatcher and by her had three sons and three daughters: Mary Metta, wife of John Horst, an attorney of Hillsboro; Priscilla, wife of J. H. Hiestand, a farmer of Liberty township; Joseph Wesley, a farmer of Fairfield township; Joshua, who died of typhoid fever; Olive, who became Mrs. Milton G. Lucas ; and Elmer, a physician at Marshall, Texas.
Robert M. Lyle, member of the Highland county infirmary board and otherwise influential in public affairs, comes of a long line of farmers who for several generations have been identified with the . agricultural development of Liberty township. William Lyle, founder of the American branch of this well known family, was a native of Ireland who married Nancy Gilmore and subsequently emi- grated to Rockbridge county, Virginia. Among his children was a son named Samuel, born in 1773, after the parental emigration to Virginia, and married in early manhood to Eleanor Finley. The six children of this union were Sallie, Finley, William, Nancy, Jane, and Samuel, Jr., all of whom were brought by their parents about the year 1815 to Highland county, where the father bought over four hundred acres of land in Concord township. In 1818, a few years after his arrival, the head of the house divided the Concord farm between his two eldest sons, Finley and William, and purchased two hundred acres in Liberty township one mile east of the infirmary, where he lived until his death in 1842, seven years after his wife
379
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
had passed away. His son, Samuel Lyle, Jr., was born in Rock- bridge county, Va., in 1815, and was an infant in arms when his parents came that year to their new home in the West. He grew up on the farm in Liberty township and in 1841 was married to Mary Alice, daughter of John and Ailsie (Boyd) Black, another family of Virginians. The children of Samuel and Mary (Black) Lyle were Margaret Ann, now widow of J. B. Gamble, who died at Noblesville, Ind .; Sarah E., wife of George Fox, who farms oppo- site the infirmary ; Robert M., further sketched below; Mary E., wife of R. R. West, formerly of Paint township; Alice J., wife of Hugh A. Evans, of Paint township; Charles A., teaming in Hills- boro; and Hettie E., unmarried. Robert M. Lyle, third of the chil- dren, was born in Highland county, Ohio, April 6, 1846, on the farm in Liberty township purchased by his grandfather, inherited by his father and his own home at the present time. July 17, 1864, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Seventy-fifth regiment Ohio National Guard, with which he served until the close of the war. After the termination of hostilities he returned to the home farm where, with the exception of two years in Iowa in the drug trade, he has spent all the subsequent years of his life. At present he is one of the board of directors in charge of the Highland county infirmary and superintendent of the Marshall pike in Liberty township. He is a member of the Paint lodge, No. 453, Knights of Pythias. In April, 1880, he was married to Lummie, daughter of Edward and Sophia (McCoppin) Head, and the children of this union are: Frank G., born August 10, 1882; Carrie E. and Mary A., twins, born July 19, 1891; and Stella M., born October 11, 1894.
Reuben W. Lyle, prominent for many years in the printing and publishing business of Hillsboro, comes of old and honorable pioneer stock identified with Highland from an early period of the county's history. His great-grandparents were Samuel and Eleanor (Fin- ley) Lyle, whose lives are mentioned in the foregoing sketch. Their eldest son, Finley Lyle, was born in Virginia in 1800, married Cath- arine, daughter of John Ellis of Concord township, in 1830, and died in March, 1869, on the estate previously settled by his father. James G. Lyle, one of his sons, was born in Concord township May 22, 1841, and March 19, 1863, married Keziah, daughter of Solo- mon and Mary Fling, and by her had the following named children : Catherine A., who died in infancy; the subject of this sketch; Mary E., who died at the age of twenty-two years; S. Ellis, a job- printer in Hillsboro; Charles F., a carriage painter ; Albert J., a tinner at Circleville; Harry H., a blacksmith in Leesburg; Ida Belle, wife of Walter Rector, lumber inspector at Hillsboro; and Sarah J., a bookkeeper. In 1874 James G. Lyle located at Hillsboro, where he served eight years on the police force, ten years as city marshal.
380
THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
and since 1900 as private watchman for a number of the city mer- chants. Reuben W. Lyle, the second of his children, was born in Highland county, Ohio, May 19, 1865, and passed through the gram- mar grade of the Hillsboro public schools. When sixteen years old he began to learn the printer's trade and six years later was made foreman of the job-printing department of the Gazette. In 1893 he formed a partnership with his brother S. E., and opened a job print- ing establishment under the firm name of Lyle Brothers. March 1, 1895, this concern was incorporated as the Lyle Printing Company, which has since continued business on North High street and is the leading establishment of the kind in the city. Mr. Lyle is a past grand of Lafayette lodge, No. 25, Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows and was its representative at the grand lodge session of 1900, on which occasion he was appointed grand marshal. He is a past chief patriarch of Tawawa encampment, No. 58, Odd Fellows, and past master of Buckeye lodge, No. 17, Ancient Order United Work- men. June 22, 1887, he was married to Frances, daughter of W. I. and Maggie (Malcom) Davis of Sanders, Ky., and he has one son, George E., born January 13, 1889, and a student in the Hillsboro schools.
D. N. McBride, M. D., a well known physician, of Rainsborough, has been in the active practice of his profession of that place for thirty-two years. His grandparents were William and Letetia McBride, who migrated from Pennsylvania to Ohio as early as 1800 and after tarrying a while in Ross county, near Bainbridge, moved on to Pike county, where they made a permanent settlement and spent the remainder of their lives. The father died at about the age of sixty and his wife when eighty-eight years old. This pioneer couple had a family of eight children, all long since dead, and the second in age was John McBride, born in Pike county, Ohio, March 2, 1809. He married Charlotte, daughter of David and Hannah Spohn, of Adams county, and a short time thereafter took up his permanent abode on a farm which he had purchased in Jackson township, Highland county. He spent a quiet life in the cultivation of his land, held the office of justice of the peace for many years and died in 1895, in his eighty-seventh year, the death of his wife hav- ing occurred in 1873. Of their six children four, William C., Han- nah, Letetia and Mary C., are dead. Eliza J., the eldest, married John W. Yowell, now deceased, and who lived near Lynchburg, Ohio, where Mrs. Yowell still resides. D. N. McBride, second of the children in age, was born near Belfast, Highland county, Ohio, September 1, 1840, and remained at home until 1864, when he spent one year in Illinois in the drug business. In 1865 he began the study of medicine with Doctors Grier and Noble at Sugartree Ridge and remained with them three years, meantime attending lectures
381
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
at Columbus and Cincinnati. He was graduated by the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery with the class of 1868 and selected as his first location the town of Tranquility in Adams county. He remained at that place three years and then removed to Rainsboro, which has ever since been his scene of operations. Dr. McBride is a member of the county, state and national medical associations and during Cleveland's second administration held the position of pen- sion examiner for Highland county. He is a member of Petersburg lodge, No. 211, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Paint lodge, No. 453, Knights of Pythias, at Rainsboro. He married Sarah A. Dryden, a native of Brown but reared in Adams county, by whom he has had five children: Otto, who died at eight years of age; Edith, the wife of Dr. J. A. Mercer of Rainsboro; John D., who is practicing medicine at Hillsboro; Newton C., recently admitted to the bar as an attorney-at-law; and James R., residing at home. The Doctor and his family are affiliated with the Baptist church.
Edward L. McClain, promoter and proprietor of the manufactur- ing plant at Greenfield, which bears his name and is the largest of its kind in the world, has an illustrious genealogy as well as a very interesting personal history. Two brothers came from Scotland to New Jersey before the Revolution and one of them lost his life while serving in the patriot army at the battle of Brandywine. He left a son named Peter McClain, who in turn became the father of a boy who was christened by the patriarchal name of John. The latter was destined to lead a long and useful life and to become the founder of the Ohio branch of his family. John McClain was born in Gloucester county, New Jersey, November 23, 1800, and when six years old was brought by his parents to the region then known as part of the boundless West. Their destination was Indian creek in Clermont county, Ohio, and this they reached May 20, 1806. Ten years afterward, when about seventeen years old, John joined the. Methodist Episcopal church, three years later was licensed to exhort, and in March, 1834, the quarterly conference of White Oak circuit gave him a local license to preach. In 1842 he received deacon's orders at the hands of Bishop Morris and in October, 1846, he was ordained elder by Bishop Ames. For many years thereafter it was the custom of this good man to work six days on the farm and spend Sabbath preaching, and only when bronchial trouble had impaired his voice did he consent to give up his labors. The declining years of his life were spent at the home of his son in Greenfield, where he received every attention that filial affection could suggest until his death July 14, 1875. His son, William P. McClain, who was a native of Clermont county, Ohio, located at Greenfield in 1854, where for many years he was prominent as a business man. His children living are Edward L .; Arthur E. and Nellie M. (now the
382
THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
wife of William M. McCafferty). The family record of the maternal ancestors of these children is also full of interest. Late in the nineteenth century there came to Ohio from Ireland as witty and jovial a sample of Hibernian as ever left the "ould sod," whose name was Oliver Ross. Ready for any kind of adventure, from treeing a bear to fighting Indians, the vivacious Oliver set out in the spring of 1797 with Henry Massie, brother of the famous Gen. Nathaniel Massie, on a surveying expedition to the headwaters of Brush creek in what is now Highland county. With the party also were Robert Huston, a son-in-law of Mr. Ross, and the latter's pretty little daughter Rebecca, then a girl about fifteen years of age. On the evening of April 17, 1797, these explorers camped at a spring near what is now the town of New Market, where Miss Ross was made keeper of the camp and cook for the party. This girl, the first woman of her race to set foot in that part of Highland county, was presented by Henry Massie with one of the lots in his newly platted town of New Market. Next year Oliver Ross purchased one hundred acres of land near the village site, on which he subse- quently built a cabin and established his family. About the year 1802 there arrived at New Market from Pennsylvania George Park- inson, a professional hat-maker, and he in time became the husband of Rebecca Ross. They had several children and one of the daugh- ters became the mother of Albert J. Beveridge, the present eloquent and famous junior senator from Indiana. Another daughter married William P. McClain, and was the mother of Edward L. McClain, who thus is the grandson of Rebecca and great-grandson of Oliver Ross, who held the first state office in the territory which afterward became Highland county. Edward L. McClain was born and bred in Greenfield, Ohio, and when a young man used to worry his mind over the problem whether there could not be invented some device to prevent collars from chafing and hurting the necks of horses. This sympathetic and kindly quest, which caused him to do much thinking, by degrees evolved an invention which proved a fortune to Mr. McClain, a boon of incalculable value to the equine race and incidentally a prize to all horse owners. In short, he invented the pad for horses' collars and in order to test its availabil- ity, rented a small room, employed a couple of men as assistants and began the manufacture on a small scale. The pads proved popular from the start, business increased by leaps and bounds and the small room with three laborers of 1881 had extended in 1902 to mammoth proportions, with over five hundred hands and an annual output of 6,000,000 pads. They are sold practically everywhere that a horse is found, which amounts to saying that the distributing of this humane and ingenious contrivance extends throughout the civilized world. Mr. McClain is also president of the Sun Manufacturing company, and aside from his regular business is associated with
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.