USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 15
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organization of the regiment Mr. Cunningham was chosen captain of company B, and so served until January, 1863, when he was promoted to a majority. He shared with his regiment the arduous and exacting service entailed upon it; participated in the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and second Manassas, and also the siege of Jackson, and all the actions attending the Rosecrans campaign of 1861. At Vicksburg his regiment led a famous charge, which has been chronicled as an important incident of the war. In three hours the regiment fired forty-five thousand rounds of cart- ridges. The command was preceded by a storming party of one hundred men. About one-third of the entire regiment fell in this action. In October, 1863, the authorities ordered his honorable discharge, and continued ill-health prevented him from further participating in the stirring events of the war. Major Cunningham returned to the practice of his pro- fession, and in 1865 was elected Prosecuting Attorney of his county, and re-elected two years later. In 1871 he was elected to the lower house of the Legislature, and served one term in that body. He practices in the courts of his section and the Supreme Court-of Ohio, and is rated among the best lawyers of his part of the State. He has been retained as attorney or counsel in all the more important litigations occurring in Harrison County during the past ten years. He is especially esteemed by his colleagues for the thorough preparation of his cases, and for his accurate attention to the minor details of practice, as well as to the construction and application of the principles of law. His services possess a special value in cases involving technical or abstruse propositions. He has been a member of the directory of the Harrison National Bank continuously since 1865, and in January, 1881, he was elected president of the institution. Mr. Cunningham led the pursuing party which captured, in Jefferson County, the gang of bank robbers which had despoiled the Harrison National Bank of over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, on the night of May Ist, 1866. He was married in 1859, to Laura Phillips, and has several children.
WILKINS, BERIAH, in 1882 elected a representative to the United States Congress, from the Sixteenth District, is a native of Union County, Ohio, and was born July 10th, 1846. His parents, A. F. and Harriet J. (Stuart) Wilkins, were of New York parentage, and settled early in Union County, from which place the subject of this sketch removed to Uhrichs- ville, Ohio, in 1868. His early educational advantages were limited to remittent attendance at the public schools of Marys- ville. He was early inducted into business pursuits, and being apt and methodical, and withal observant of business methods, he was enabled to reap results which, for practical purposes, no amount of technical learning could bring. He belongs pre-eminently to the ranks of self-made men, and when a boy obtained his first start in life by selling copies of the Ohio State Journal. It is said to his credit that in this humble pursuit he was characterized by the same diligence and method which marked him in later and more expanded spheres. Afterward he was employed in a clerical capacity in various mercantile establishments in Marysville, and at length entered Delaware County Bank, with a view to learn- ing the banking Business and ultimately establishing a bank. This he did in the fall of 1868, at Uhrichsville. The institu- tion, which is known as the Farmers'and Merchants' National Bank, is still in operation. Mr. Wilkins officiated as its cashier and manager for twelve years, when he severed his relation
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with the institution. His sole business connection at this writing is with the railroad contracting firm of J. C. Wilkins & Co. In politics Mr. Wilkins is a Democrat, and commands great prestige and influence in the councils of his party, and at present (1883) is a member of the Democratic State Cen- tral Committee. He was elected to the Sixty-fourth General Assembly to represent the Eighteenth Senatorial District, and while in that body served efficiently on the Committees on Finance and Public Works. Mr. Wilkins was one of the large number of competitors for the congressional nomina- tion before the Democratic Convention, which assembled at Newark, in August, 1882. The convention accorded him the nomination, but not, however, till after a four days' contest and a reassembling of the Convention at Coshocton. His nomination was accepted by his friends as flattering evidence of his popularity when brought into contact with the able and popular men in his district. At the ensuing election he was elected by a large majority over his Republican competitor. He represents the largest congressional constituency in the State, his district containing an excess of population over the quota as allowed by the basis of representation. He is one of the youngest members of the House, taking his seat in the Forty-eighth Congress at the unusually early age of thirty- six years. His great qualifications, natural and acquired, will obtain for him in Congress the same deference and respect at the hands of his colleagues that has been accorded him in former business and official relations. In October, 1870, he was married to Miss Emily J. Robinson.
HUSTON, SAMUEL J., SR., was born in Winchester, Virginia, September 29th, 1800. His grandfather, Joseph Huston, was one of three brothers who came from Ireland to America previous to the Revolution. His father, William Huston, served in that war, and in 1801 became a pioneer to Scioto county, Ohio. Samuel J. Huston passed his minority in pioneer style and in various mechanical pursuits, and at the age of twenty-four became a boat-builder, which business he followed for the most part until 1847. He constructed or assisted in the construction of a number of the early boats that plied on the Ohio River, among which were the Ohio, the Lark, the 'Irene, the Wave, the Transit, the Sylph, the Marmion, the Eureka, and the Eighth of January, and was for a time part owner of the last two boats. In 1854 he was elected to the Legislature, being, it is said, the first democrat ever sent from Scioto county. In 1862 he retired from busi- ness, and has since resided on his farm, near Portsmouth. May 27th, 1823, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Adam Leonard, who came from Pennsylvania to Portsmouth in 1815. Mrs. Huston was a woman of superior business tact and of great force of character, and of the most tender regard for the poor and suffering. At one time, her husband meeting with reverses, and age creeping upon him, she assumed all the management of the financial affairs, and, with an energy seldom displayed by women, and, with a business sagacity second to none of the opposite sex, she retrieved the failing for- tunes of the family, and succeeded in amassing considerable property, while her family were well provided for and her children well educated. She was a great reader, and thor- oughly informed upon all the leading questions of the day. Warriors, legislators, and congressmen have been among her honored guests. During the war with Mexico she led a movement for furnishing one hundred suits of clothes to a Portsmouth company, and was remarkably active in her
efforts to ameliorate the condition of the sick and disabled soldiers; while in our recent strife her property, known as "City Hall," was donated for hospital purposes for the gov- ernment soldiers. She died January 14th, 1873, having been the mother of fourteen children, eight living. William, Frank- lin, James, Barker, G. Hempstead, and Thomas J. Huston are deceased. William became a lawyer, served as probate judge, and was quartermaster in the 56th Ohio. The first hundred dollars which he saved when a young man he presented to his mother, who, instead of using it, placed it in the bank. Some years afterwards, when financial misfortune overtook the family, he remarked to his mother, "I wish I had a hun- dred dollars;" whereupon she surprised him by saying, "I have it for you; it is the hundred you presented me some time ago." James L. O. Huston went out at the age of six-
teen as drum-major of the 56th Ohio. At eighteen he was made first lieutenant ; was appointed, while in the service, cadet at West Point; was there one year, and returned home sick, dying April 20th, 1865. Thomas J. Huston was instantly killed by falling from a trestle bridge, on the Scioto Valley Railroad, on which he was working. He formerly served on the police force of Portsmouth. The only surviv- ing son is S. J. Huston, Jr., an attorney in Portsmouth. The daughters are: Elizabeth, wife of Rev. S. H. Worcester, Ot- tumwa, Iowa ; Margaret, wife of Thomas Shelby, of Lexing- ton, Missouri ; Maria, widow of Colonel Sampson E. Varner, of Portsmouth; Cecelia, wife of G. H. Collins, of Omaha, Ne- braska; Sarah, wife of Dr. George Washington, of Richmond, Missouri ; Helen, wife of Dr. M. C. Jacobs, of Richmond, Missouri; and Miss lrene Huston, of Portsmouth. Mrs. Collins is the author of some very fine poetic effusions which compare favorably with the productions of our standard poets. Mr. Huston was formerly a captain in the Ohio Militia. He cast his first vote for General Jackson, and has always been a democrat. He is one of the oldest residents of Scioto County, and is in a remarkable state of preservation for his age. He has led a laborious and industrious life, belongs to a class that is almost extinct, and is greatly respected as a citizen.
WAGGONER, JOSEPH, M. D., was born near Rich- mond, Jefferson County, Ohio, December 30th, 1821. His father, of German-lrish parentage, a resident of North-east- ern Maryland, and his mother, Sarah Jackson, of Scotch- English lineage, residing in North-western Delaware, united their fortunes in marriage for the purpose of emigrating to Ohio, then the golden State of the far West. Loading their household goods into a wagon, they began the tedious jour- ney over the mountains to the wilderness of Ohio, landing in what is now Jefferson County, in 1805. They located on a quarter section of land near Richmond, where, building a log cabin, they commenced that struggle and labor, which only the pioneers of that early day knew how to endure. There they spent their useful and honored lives raising a family of twelve children to man and womanhood. The subject of this sketch, the tenth child, grew up on this farm, working during the summer, and attending the district school in the winter. This varied life continued until his eighteenth year, when his winters were spent in teaching and summers in attending select school. On attaining his majority, in 1842, he entered the Steubenville Academy, to prepare for entering college, but his health failing, a further classical course was, by his friends, deemed inadvisable, and after resting and re-
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cruiting his health for nearly a year, he commenced the study of medicine at Steubenville in the spring of 1843, and contin- ued there until the fall of 1846. During the fall and winter of 1846-47 he attended medical lectures at the Cleveland Med- ical College, and subsequently had the degree of doctor of medicine conferred upon him by it. In the spring of 1847 he located at Deerfield, Portage County, and began the prac- tice of his chosen profession, where for sixteen years he was engaged in its active duties and onerous responsibilities. In the spring of 1863 he removed to Ravenna (the county-seat), where he at once entered into an enlarged and steadily increasing practice. During the year 1864 he visited Wash- ington, D. C., tendering his services to the government, which were accepted, and he entered the army as assistant surgeon. He was placed on duty at Lincoln hospital, but his stay there was short. His wife's health became precarious, and he was induced to resign his position and return home; since then he has been continually and assiduously engaged in the practice of medicine, his life-work, allowing nothing to inter- fere with its duties. The doctor is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, of the American Medical Association, of the Ohio State Medical Society, the North-eastern Ohio Medical Society, and the Portage County Medical Society. His literature is society papers and an occasional political essay. Dr. Wag- goner is very liberal in his views, and willing to fraternize when humanity calls with medical gentlemen of the so-called different schools. In theology he is also very tolerant of the views of the different sects, gladly welcoming the day when those differences will disappear. He is not a member of any Church, but supports them liberally, believing in the doctrines of Christianity and its ennobling influence on mankind. Polit- ically, in early life, he was a whig, and a great admirer of Henry Clay. When the whig party became disorganized, and the republican party sprang into existence, he joined it at its beginning, and has ever since been battling for its political ascendency. Doctor Waggoner is a straightforward honest man. He is courteous and gentlemanly in manner, genial in disposition, and liberal in spirit and action. He has won the esteem of all those with whom he has been brought into contact professionally or socially. As a general practitioner and family physician he has few equals, always endeavoring to keep his patients well as much as to cure them. In 1862 he married Mary M. Regal of Portage County, who is en- dowed with those domestic qualities which make a home truly a happy one.
POSTON, WILLIAM W., Nelsonville, an extensive operator in coal, and one of the largest landed proprietors in the Hocking valley, was born at Nelsonville, Ohio, January 5, 1840. His parents, L. D. and Lucinda M., were native Virginians, who removed from that State and located in Athens County in 1835. The first year of their residence in Athens County was spent at Athens, when they removed to Nelsonville, at that time an obscure and unimportant village, now the center of an extensive and valuable coal region. Our subject's father engaged in the mercantile business at Nelsonville, and acquired a great deal of wealth, which he invested in lands, and ultimately became one of the largest land-holders in Ohio, owning upwards of three thousand acres. The value of these lands was afterward greatly en- hanced by reason of the discovery of numerous very valuable deposits of coal. In 1855, at the age of fifteen years, the subject of this sketch matriculated at the Ohio University.
The education then acquired was supplemented under the auspices of his father by inducting him into business at the age of seventeen, he filling a clerical position in his father's store at Nelsonville. He was thus early trained to business habits, so that nine years later he joined interests with his father in the mining business, an industry which had already made some substantial progress and given promise of the great future development which has since been realized. This business relation was maintained until 1865, other parties having been admitted to partnership, and the business con- ducted under the firm style of Postons & Pendleton, when our subject and Mr. Pendleton disposed of their interest to W. T. McClintock and Amos Smith, of Chillicothe. Mr. Poston then formed other business relations, and has since been very active in the development of his coal lands, which are among the best in Ohio. He has leased sev- eral hundred acres of his lands to the Columbus Coal and Coke Company, which corporation has realized largely from their investment, shipping large quantities of their coals to the North and West. Mr. Poston acted with the Republican party until 1874, when he found it consistent with, his views on party issues to identify himself with the Democratic party, which party relation is still maintained. He is an active and energetic worker for his party and is rated among the most influential members of the organization in South-eastern Ohio. In 1876 the good will of the people was given expression by nominating him for Congress from the 15th District. His district being hopelessly Republican he was defeated by a small majority. He polled an excep- tionally large vote, receiving the greatest number of votes ever cast for a Democratic candidate in the 15th District prior to 1876, with one exception. He is prominent and active in all measures for public improvement. He was married in 1870 to Miss Maggie Nelson, daughter of William Nelson, Esq., of Athens, and has two children.
STEWART, GIDEON T., was born at Johnstown in (now) Fulton County, New York, August 7, 1824. His mother was daughter of the Rev. Nicholas Hill, Sen., a distinguished Methodist divine and Revolutionary patriot, and sister of Nicholas Hill, Jr., a celebrated lawyer, head of the great Albany law firm of Hill, Cagger & Porter. His paternal grand-parents, who were of Scotch ancestry, came from Stew- arttown, in Down County, Ireland, to the then village of Sche- nectady, New York, and established there the first academy in that part of the State, afterward merged in Union College. His grandmother was especially eminent as a teacher, and some of the most distinguished men in the early history of the State received their education from her. In his fourteenth year he removed with his parents to Oberlin, Ohio, where he passed through the preparatory studies into the second year of college, when he began the study of law, first at Norwalk and 'afterward at Columbus in the office of Hon. N. H. Swayne, since Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He commenced the practice of law at Norwalk, in August, 1846. The next year he became, and was for several years, editor of the Whig organ there, the Norwalk Reflector. He was elected county auditor by the Whigs, which office he held three terms. He then resumed his law practice, but in 1861 went to Iowa and purchased the Dubuque Daily Times (then the only daily Union paper in the north half of the State). which he published through the war. He was also one of the proprietors and publishers of the Toledo Blade and after-
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ward of the Toledo Commercial. In 1876 he returned to Norwalk and resumed his law practice, in which he contin- ues there. As a temperance reformer he has been identified with the cause in all its different forms and movements from his youth up. At nineteen years of age, when a law student at Columbus, he took part in the canvass for a prohibitory law. In the Spring of 1847 he helped to organize Norwalk Division of the Sons of Temperance, now in its thirty-sixth year, of which he remains a charter member. He was three times elected their Grand Worthy Chief Templar by the Good Templars of Ohio. In 1853 he bore a prominent part in the Maine Law campaign of that year, and he then endeav- ored to organize a permanent prohibition party. In 1857 he was chairman of a State convention held at Columbus for the purpose of forming such a party, but the movement was arrested by the civil war in Kansas and the South. In 1869 he resumed the effort, and in September of that year was one of the delegates from Ohio at the Chicago conven- tion which formed the National Prohibition Reform party. Since then he has been the candidate of that party three times for Governor, four times for Supreme Judge, once for Congress, and once for Vice-president ; and he is now chair- man of its National Executive Committee. He was the author of the Home Protection Bill, which was printed on the back of petitions for it, presented to the last Legislature, signed by over 200,000 petitioners. Many of his public addresses have been extensively circulated, and several of them are published by the National Temperance Society. He has been active in other reforms, and now is president of the Ohio State Woman's Suffrage Association.
KEIFER, JOSEPH WARREN, lawyer, soldier and legislator, of Springfield, Ohio, was born on Mad river, Clark county, Ohio, January 30th, 1836. His father, Joseph Keifer, who was born at Sharpsburg, Maryland, February 28th, 1784 (died, Clark county, Ohio, April 13th, 1850), was a civil engi- neer and farmer. His mother (Mary Smith) was born on Duck creek, now in Hamilton county, Ohio, January 31st, 1799, and died at Yellow Springs, Ohio, March 23d, 1879. He was educated at the public schools and at Antioch Col- lege; labored on a farm, and taught a term of school in 1853. He read law on a farm until the autumn of 1856, when he entered the law office of Anthony & Goode, Spring- field, Ohio, and was admitted to practice January 12th, 1858. He successfully practiced law in Springfield until he enlisted in the army, April 19th, 1861. April 27th, 1861 he was commis- sioned major 3d Ohio volunteer infantry, for three months, and June 12th, 1861, for three years. Major Keifer partici- pated in the battle of Rich Mountain, July 11th, 1861, the first of the war, and was the same year in engagements at Cheat Mountain and Elk Water, Virginia. In November, with his regiment, he joined Buell's army in Kentucky, and there spent the winter following. February 12th, 1862, he became lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, and was at the capture of Bowling Green, Nashville and Huntsville, and in the engagement at Bridgeport, Alabama, April 29th. He led the first expedition (May Ist) into Georgia, destroyed the saltpetre works at Nick-a-Jack Cave, and made some cap- tures. With Buell's army he returned to Louisville, Ken- tucky, where he accepted, September 30th, 1862, the colonelcy of the 10th Ohio infantry, then in camp in Ohio; and, in October, having joined General Milroy's division in West Virginia, there commanded a brigade and the post at Moore- I where the better light enabled them to see his uniform, when
field. January, 1863, he reached Winchester, Virginia, and was twice wounded in battle at that place, in June, 1863. He joined the army of the Potomac, 3d army corps, July 9th, 1863, and was in the pursuit of Lee's army, and engaged at Wapping Heights, July 23d, 1863. In August, 1863, he went with Western troops to enforce the draft and suppress riots in New York city and Brooklyn, and returned in September. He bore a prominent part in the battle of Mine Run, Novem- ber 27th, 1863, and in other minor affairs that year. March 24th, 1864, he was transferred to the 6th army corps. At the battle of the Wilderness, May 5th, 1864, he was wounded by a musket ball, in his left fore-arm, which disabled him until August 26th of that year, when he again, at Harper's Ferry, resumed command of his brigade (2d brigade, 3d division, 6th army corps), and with his arm still in a sling, fought in the battles of Opequan, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, in the Shenandoah valley. At Opequan he was wounded by a shell, but not disabled, and his horse was shot under him. At Fisher's Hill he, without orders, with his command successfully assaulted the fortified left flank of the enemy, and captured many prisoners and guns. At Ce- dar creek, October 19th, 1864, he commanded the 3d division, 6th army corps, and distinguished himself for energy and gallantry, for which he was brevetted a brigadier - general. With his corps, in December, he rejoined the army of the Potomac in front of Petersburg, and, being posted on the left of the fortified line, was there actively engaged. March 25th, 1865, he led a successful assault upon the enemy's outer line of works, and was complimented in general orders; and April 2d he charged, with his division, in the final assault which carried the main works and resulted in the capture of Petersburg and Richmond. April 5th, at Jetersville, his command aided in cutting off the retreat of Lee's army, and forced it the next day to give battle at Sailor's creek, in which battle, after much preliminary fight- ing, a singularly successful charge was made by a portion of the 6th corps. The enemy were strongly posted on heights near a swollen stream, through which, with water to their arm-pits, the men charged in battle-line, and fought their way up the heights until, by a counter-charge, the enemy broke the centre. Notwithstanding this, the wings (General Keifer commanding on the left,) were forced forward, and closed around the enemy's flanks, when above six thousand surrendered, including Generals Ewell, Kershaw, Custis Lee, Picket, and other officers. Immediately succeeding this des- perate conflict, General Keifer was the principal actor in an affair which nearly cost him his life. While assisting the reformation of troops, information reached him that a body of the enemy was concealed in a woods on his right. This he did not fully credit, but rode into the woods to reconnoitre in person, where, after proceeding a short distance, to his surprise he came suddenly upon confederate troops lying on the ground, evidently ignorant of the surrender that had just taken place. The approaching night, together with the density of the woods and smoke of battle, saved him from instant identification. To hastily attempt to withdraw would have led to his recognition and probable death. The idea of surrender did not occur to him. He resorted to a ruse. In a loud tone he gave the comand, "Forward!" and waved his sword towards the recent scene of battle. This com- mand was promptly obeyed; the faster he moved the faster the enemy followed, until all reached the edge of the woods,
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