|
 
|
|
History of Pickaway County
CIRCLEVILLE
|
|
*
ORIGIN OF NAME & DESCRIPTION OF ANCIENT MOUNDS
* CHURCHES
* BIOGRAPHIES
BIOGRAPHIES
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE MARFIELD
FAMILY.
John Marfield was a resident of the
mining town of Bardenburg, on the lower Rhine, Germany, and was
probably in some way connected with mining interests. He was
married to Elizabeth Spies, and at the latter end of the last
century emigrated to America with his family, consisting of his wife
and two daughters - Penelope and Hannah. He
located, soon after reaching this country, in Baltimore, Maryland,
and successfully engaged in merchandising. In Baltimore were
born five more children - William, Catharine, Samuel, John,
Henry, and Elizabeth. All were reared in the school
of domestic discipline and economy and simplicity of character.
The wife was a kind, warm-hearted, gentle, christian woman.
The father ruled with the rod - the mother with love. Before
the children grew to maturity their father died, but they enjoyed
the love and affection of their mother until, ripe with a good old
age, she passed away, in 1851. the boys, as they grew to
manhood.
The regiment was largely recruited in Pickaway county,
and contained the flower of the youth of the community. It was
organized in August, 1862, and soon after being mustered in, was
ordered to the front to join the army which was being massed to
operate against Vicksburg, Mississippi. On Dec. 28th,
General W. T. Sherman, in command, embarked his forces on the
Yazoo river above and in the rear of the rebel army protecting that
strongly entrenched citadel, and on the twenty-ninth charged their
lines. It was a day of slaughter and defeat.
Lieutenant Marfield fell, and was buried by his comrades near
the battlefield. The army retreated; but six months after,
when General Grant captured Vicksburg, the same faithful
comrades sought out and recovered the remains of their friend and
officer, and they now rest in the beautiful Forest cemetery.
The name of Lieutenant James T. Marfield is held in dear
remembrance, for he was, in every true sense a man.
Samuel, Jr., the youngest son, whose portrait
heads this sketch, after the completion of his collegiate course
spent some time in foreign travel, visiting France, Switzerland,
Germany, and the British Isles. From 1866 to 1875 he was
engaged in commercial pursuits as a wholesale grocer and produce
merchant. Dec. 18, 1867, he was married to Florence L.,
daughter of Dr. A. W. Thompson, of Circleville. To them
have been born five children: Dwight S., born Dec. 11, 1868;
William T., born Aug. 30, 1870; George R., born Aug.
2, 1872; James T., born Mar. 24, 1874; Elizabeth Spies,
born Feb. 28, 1875. James T. died in infancy, Sep. 13,
1874.
Dec. 1, 1875, Samuel Marfield, jr., assumed
editorial direction and general management of the Circleville
Herald and Union, shortly afterward changed to The
Union-Herald, and April 1st, following, was appointed, by
President Grant, postmaster of Circleville, both of which
positions he occupies at this time. |
|
|
|
|
|
` |
|
|
|
|
|
ELIZABETH C. DARST,
Editress of the Circleville Herald, and a sketch
of whose ancestry appears elsewhere, was born and educated in
Circleville, being valedictorians of the high school, class of 1865.
From that time until she assumed the editorial and financial charge
of the Herald, Miss Darst was a constant contributor
to the press of Circleville, and her poems, over the signature of
"Kenneth," have been copied from their columns, and from the
Standard of the Cross, The Modern Argo, and other papers
into the leading literary journals of New York, Philadelphia, and
cities of Canada. The Record of the Year, a
magazine devoted to gathering the brightest articles from the
newspapers to give them a permanent form, has included many of
Miss Darst's productions in its pages.
As a journalist Miss Darst has endeavored to do
her work thoroughly, to make a newspaper which should be interesting
and reliable, and to ask no favors or concessions simply because it
was the work of a lady. She was the special correspondent of,
and not an infrequent writer of longer letters to, the Cincinnati
Enquirer for a couple of years, and is at present employed by
the Cincinnati Herald, and other papers of the capital
of Columbus Herald, and other papers of the capital city.
Editorial paragraphs from the Circleville Herald have been
copied frequently by the press of the larger cities, and the
financial plank of the Herald's platform - "there is no
honest way to get a dollar but to earn one, and the dollar so earned
should be good a dollar that it buys a dollar's worth the world
over" - went the rounds of the New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati
dailies.
Pages might be filled with the always cordial, but
sometimes amusing, allusions of the editors of the State to the
novel claimant for fraternal honors, but the sum of them may be
given in the appreciative words of the Springfield Republic: I "
If any one questions a woman's ability to run a newspaper, the
answer is, Miss Lillie Darst."
|
|
|
|
GEORGE HITLER,
son of George and Susannah (Gay) Hitler, was born
in Somerset county, Pennsylvania, September 27, 1798. His
father was a native of Maryland, but removed with his parents to
Franklin county, Pennsylvania, when young; and in 1793, having then
a family of wife and two children, settled in Somerset county, in
the same State, where the subject of our sketch was born, as already
stated. In April, 1799, Mr. Hitler sr., emigrated
to Ohio. His family made the journey down the Ohio river, to
the mouth of the Scioto, on a flat-boat, Mr. Hitler himself
brining through a number of horses for himself and others.
From the mouth of the Scioto the journey was with team and wagon,
the wagon being said to have been the second that ever came up the
Scioto valley.
At this time there were but two log homes in
Chillicothe, and the country was almost a complete wilderness.
Mr. Hitler, Sr., settled on the lower
plains, in Pickaway township, but subsequently located on Scippo
creek, on land then owned by Benjamin Duncan. In 1804
he bought and settled in Wshington township, section thirty-three,
where he died, April 2, 1818, and his wife, September 16, 1848.
In 1819 George Hitler, in connection with his
brother Jacob purchased a quarter section of land in the
south part of Washington township, which land is now owned by his
son, Thomas L. Hitler. Upon this farm they raised wheat, which
they manufactured into flour and shipped on flat-boats to New
Orleans. This they found far more remunerative than to sell
the grain at home, which brought at one time only twenty-five cents
per bushel. The first trip was made by Jacob, in 1819,
and each of the brothers subsequently made five separate trips,
covering a period of ten years. George Hitler, on one
occasion, was fifty days in going from Boggsville to New Orleans.
He returned on a steamer, and was about three months in making the
round trip.
Mr. Hitler was married June 14, 1829, to
Hannah Ludwig, daughter of Thomas and Catharine
Ludwig. He settled on his first purchase, and resided
there until 1838, when he located where he now lives.
Mr. Hitler's occupation has been that of a
farmer, and his career has been a very successful one, owning at
this time about one thousand acres of land. While practicing a
wise economy in the expenditure of his means, he has always been
liberal in his support of every object which he considered worthy of
it.
Mr. Hitler has reached the good old age of
eighty-one, and few, if any, of the inhabitants of Pickaway county
can date, as he can, their first residence here back to 1799.
Save a little rheumatism, his health is almost as good as it ever
was. He is a man of energy, of character, and of strict
integrity.
His wife died July 3, 1863. They had seven
children, as follows: Eliza, born July 4, 1830 - died
Aug. 21, 1831; Mary, born Oct. 30, 1831 - married Daniel
Hosler, and is now deceased; Catharine, born Dec. 16,
1835 - became the wife of Amos Hoffman and died Nov. 25,
1858; Eleanor, born Nov. 22, 1833 - died Jan. 21, 1837;
Susannah, born Mar. 29, 1840, is the wife of Alexander Ross,
and resides in Indiana; Thomas L., born Apr. 4, 1842 -
married, Dec. 14, 1876, Martha A. Lindsey, and in Washington
township; George W. married, Feb. 21, 1878, Ida Lutz, and
occupies the home farm. |
|
|
|
JAMES McCOY.
William McCoy, father of the subject of this sketch, and the
portals of whom appears elsewhere, was born in what is now the State
of Delaware, Dec. 23, 1752. His wife, Drusilla Browning,
was a native of Pennsylvania, and they were married in Huntingdon
county, of that State, June 12, 1794. William McCoy
followed the old time popular occupation of wagoning for twenty
years, and it was while thus engaged that he met Drusilla
Browning. After their marriage they emigrated to Kentucky,
and in 1797 removed to the Northwest territory, and located on
Kinnickinnick, which is now in Greene township, Ross county.
At that time there was not a family between his location and
Cleveland, and only two white families between him and Chillicothe,
which was six miles south, He built upon Kinnickinnick the
first mill in the Scioto valley. He moved from his first
location, in 1803, to the farm in Greene township, Ross county, now
occupied by D. Crouse.
During the war of 1812 he was
lieutenant in the Irish Gray company, and though he awaited the call
of duty, his company was not called into active service.
He was a man of moral and pious character, had been for
a number of years a church member in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and
was the leading spirit in the organization of the Mt. Union
Presbyterian church, of which he was for a long time subsequently
one of the ruling elders.
William McCoy's first wife died, September 2,
1805. She was the mother of seven children: William,
born Nov. 26, 1795 - deceased Oct. 2, 1820; Alexander, born
Jun. 16, 1797 - deceased 1877; James, born Feb. 2, 1799;
Martha, born May 9, 1800 - deceased Oct. 2, 1814; Nancy,
born Jan. 26, 1802 - now deceased; John, born Apr. 30, 1803,
and Joshua, born Apr. 2, 1805, now in Iowa.
Mr. McCoy married, in 1818, as his second wife,
Rebecca Wilson, and had by her three children:
Joseph, born Nov. 10, 1819; Martha, born Nov. 15, 1822;
Harriet Ann, born Dec. 24, 1823.
William McCoy, the pioneer, parent of these ten
children, died August 27, 1823.
It is our purpose to give of his son, James, a
further account than the mere mention made of other descendants, for
the reason that his long life has been prominently identified with
the history of Pickaway county. As we have said, he was born
February 2, 1799. He grew to manhood upon his father's farm,
and lived there until after his marriage. In his early life,
he engaged in boating, and took several loads of flour and other
provisions down the Scioto to the Ohio, and thence down the
Mississippi to New Orleans. He thus obtained, at the same
time, his first knowledge of business and of the great world outside
of the quiet farm home. His first trip was made in 1819.
He took one hundred and seventy-eight barrels of flour and a
considerable quantity of other goods; arrived safely at New Orleans,
and sold them at a fair price, but to men who were dishonest, and
from whom he was never able to secure the whole of the pay. He
started home June 8th, and arrived July 11th, having walked all the
way from the mouth of the Mississippi, and passed through the trials
of sickness, the danger of attack from Indians in the Indian Nation
(now Mississippi), and the no less imminent danger of being robbed
by lawless characters not of the red race.
In 1821 he built a boat for his father, and in company
with a man named John Grant, took the second trip to New
Orleans. They returned upon the steamboat; made what was
called a quick trip, and were fourteen days and ten hours coming up
the river from their starting point to Louisville. In 1823
Mr. McCoy made his third commercial venture, this time going
down the river upon a boat of his own, and carrying wheat and flour,
on which he made a reasonable profit.
Just after his return from this trip his father died,
and the care of the family was, to a large extent, thrown upon him.
He devoted most of his time, after that, to farming, and was a hard
worker and good manager.
In 1825, on the eighth of November, he married
Elizabeth, daughter of John and Nancy Entrekin,
who was the sharer of his joys and sorrows, his failures and
successes, until 1872. She died, August 23d of that year.
James and Elizabeth McCoy were the parents of four
children, two of whom are still living. Martha Jane,
born Aug. 22, 1826, died Sep. 4, 1829; John E., born July 30,
1830, married Phillip Anna Ferguson, and is now living in
Lawrence, Kansas; Milton, born Dec. 9, 1838, married
Catharine Crouse, and is living at Kinnickinnick, Ross county;
Burton, born Nov. 24, 1842, was a musician of great natural
genius. He enlisted in the army, served as leader of the
Second regiment band, and died in the service, from disease, July 8,
1864.
After his marriage, James McCoy continued his
occupation of farming. He moved in 1826, on to the south half
of section six, in Salt Creek township, and took up his home on a
farm owned by his father-in-law. There he remained, without
intermission, until 1837, when he prepared to go west. This
project was defeated by money difficulties, brought about by the
suspension of the banks. He resumed work on the Salt Creek
farm, and continued to reside there until 1839, when he removed to
Circleville, and started, in company with Dr. Olds, in the
business of pork-packing. He remained in that business for two
years, and then went into the mercantile business with Messrs.
Olds and Baker, under the firm name of Olds, Baker &
McCoy. Seven years of his life were spent, with varying
degrees of success, in this enterprise, and at the expiration of
that period he retired, and purchased a farm on the Pickaway plains.
He followed farming, stock raising and dealing, acted as agent for
land-owners, and engaged in several other employments, from which he
realized, in the aggregate, a considerable sum of money.
Although Mr. McCoy has been an active, industrious man of
business, and a good farmer, he has not, in his old age, a large
accumulation of property or moneys, and this is rather creditable
than not, for the cause is to be found in the many generous acts of
the last half of his life. He has the reputation of having
done, quietly, a great number of substantial kindnesses, and has
been, in every sense, a generous and liberal man to those persons
and causes which have been in need and were worthy. His life
has been without reproach, admirable in its earnestness and
simplicity. He is a member of the old school Presbyterian
church, and the house upon east Main street, where he has, these
many years, taken part in worship, stands upon a lot which he
donated for the purpose of its erection. In politics, Mr.
McCoy is a Republican, of Whig antecedents. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MATTHEW
McCREA, one of the old time
residents of Circleville, and one of the most active of its early
business men, was born in the year 1792, in the county of Down,
Ireland. He was of Scotch ancestry, and the son of Adam
and Martha McCrea, who were also the parents of nine other
children, six sons and three daughters. Matthew came to
America with his brother Joseph, stopping first at Hagerstown,
Maryland, where he remained two years. In 1817 he removed to
the village of Jefferson, Pickaway Co., Ohio, where his brother had
previously gone, and was at that time clerking for Henry Neville.
Thomas Bell, of Circleville, hearing of Matthew's arrival,
sent for him and gave him a place in his store, in which he was
doing a large and prosperous business in general merchandise.
It was in Circleville that he met his future wife, Agnes,
daughter of Hugh and Ruth Foresman. She was of
Scotch origin, and her mother was of the Slocum family,
famous in connection with the Wyoming massacre and wholesale
abduction. She was born June 6, 1797, and married Matthew
McCrea, September 16, 1819, four years after his arrival in this
country, and two years after his coming to Circleville.
Matthew McCrea established himself in business upon his
own account in the fall of 1820, at the village of Jefferson.
He traveled all the way to Philadelphia on horseback to buy goods,
which were loaded on the heavy, old-fashioned wagons, on Market
street, and transported in that manner to their place of
destination. Not being satisfied with his location in
Jefferson, Mr. McCrea purchased property in, and removed his
building to, Circleville, in 1821, locating himself on the east side
of the old circle, where he continued to prosecute a very successful
business until 1828. Being the owner of a considerable
quantity of land, he then sold out his goods an devoted himself to
farming for the remainder of his life, excepting a period of one
year, in 1834 and 8135, when he was in partnership with S. S.
Denny, in the dry goods business.
Mr. McCrea was probably the first successful adventurer
in transporting pork, lard and flour from Circleville, by the
Scioto, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. His first
trip, in 1819, was made for his brother-in-law, Thomas Bell.
He continued this profitable, although somewhat risky enterprise,
until his retirement from the mercantile business, making annual
trips, and carrying pork, lard, flour, and other provisions to the
great southern mart. It was his custom after disposing of his
stock in New Orleans, to sail for Philadelphia, where he purchased
goods, before returning home, to sell during the ensuing year in his
Circleville store.
Mr. McCrea was a man of broad and generous nature, and
of much dignity and perfect probity of character. His
hospitality seemed to have no bound. His house was always
open, and his friends, or for that matter, strangers, always
welcome. Ministers, and especially those of his own
denomination, were guests whom he took an especial pleasure in
providing for; and if the number of those who accepted his kindness,
and the frequency of their visits afford any means by which to
judge, we may be sure that they fully appreciated his entertainment.
He was a man in whom the people generally reposed the highest degree
of confidence, and when he died, one attestation of this fact was
shown in his having a considerable sum of money which he had been
given to hold in trust. As one of the founders of the first
Circleville academy, he exhibited his interest in education, and
gave the cause the practical assistance of his influence and
pecuniary support. He was for many years one of the trustees
of this institution, and throughout its existence took great
interest in its welfare and usefulness as he did of other
institutions in their time. Always upon the side of good
morals and improvement, he became at an early day a strong and
consistent advocate of temperance. He was one of the very
first to take the unpopular step of dispensing with liquor in the
harvest field. A man of strong and fine religious feeling, a
quality, perhaps, in his Scotch blood - he was an active member of
the Presbyterian church, and for twenty years or more a ruling
elder.
Politically, Mr. McCrea was strong Whig of the Henry
Clay School. He was, in 1845, elected by the legislature as
associate judge of Pickaway county - a position which he held until
his death.
His life closed Sep. 4, 1874. His widow is still
living.
The children of Matthew and Agnes McCrea
were eight in number. Three died in infancy. The others
were Adam, born Aug. 19, 1821; Joseph, born December
14, 1827; Evelline Amanda, born Mar. 24, 1829; William,
born March 22, 1831; and George, born Dec. 9, 1834. Of
these Joseph and Eveline Amanda, are deceased;
William is living in Illinois, George in St. Louis, and
Adam in Circleville. |
|
|
|
ADAM
McCREA. |
|
|
|
SAMUEL H.
RUGGLES, of Circleville, Ohio, was born at Brownville,
Jefferson county, New York, June 8, 1821. His father, Samuel,
and his mother, Anna H. Ruggles, were natives of Boston,
Massachusetts. In early and middle life, his father was
largely engaged in foreign commerce, but in the war of 1812 he
suffered severe losses by the capture of his vessels by the public
enemy; and, soon after the close of that war, he removed to the
northern part of the State of New York, in 1834, leaving his widow
with a family of five children to support and educate, with very
limited means. Mrs. Ruggles was, however, a woman of
much force of character, and displayed her good judgment by
maintaining her son, our subject, at the Lowville academy until he
had obtained a good English education. Then, and after her
husband's death, she resolved to have that son seek, in this then
comparatively new State, his fortune. In 1835, with his uncle,
General H. Lawrence, she therefore sent him to Circleville,
Ohio, where he was engaged as a junior clerk in the mercantile house
of Rogers & Martin, with no promise of compensation beyond
his living. Having, as the time went by, the natural longing
of a lad who never before had been away from it, to return to his
mother's home, he asked her consent to his doing so; but this she
resolutely refused, and it is to this refusal ("the greatest trial
of her life," as she subsequently characterized it on her
death-bed), that our subject attributes the beginning of his success
in life; for, at the end of two years; faithful service in his
business, his employers placed one hundred dollars to his credit,
promised him promotion, as he deserved it, and one hundred and fifty
dollars for the third year, with his board, lodging, etc. Then
it was that his ambition to excel was stirred, and he resolved to
accumulate, by saving at least two-thirds of his salary, and by
investment, carefully directed, have his little surplus fund afford
him some revenue. The result exceeded his expectations.
The firm noticed his attention to business, and earnest effort to
accumulate by the saving of his salary, and the means he took to
increase it; and, after serving them eight years in all, they took
him into partnership, with one-fourth interest in their wholesale
grocery, grain, and pork-packing establishment, and in 1845,
following the engagement of the firm in the commission business in
New Orleans, with an increased interest in it, he was placed at the
head of the house in Circleville, and in a few years afterwards,
purchased the entire interest of his partners there. After
1852, retiring from the grocery and grain branches of his business,
he devoted his attention almost exclusively to pork-packing until
1863, when, in the interest of his children, he began investing in
farms and farm land lying in the vicinity, but remaining engaged in
the pork trade, and so continuing during the subsequent fifteen
years. While not refusing minor civil and local office, Mr.
Ruggles has invariably declined that which would interfere with his
regular business. Having shunned all speculative operations,
indorsing the ventures of others, investments in fancy stocks, and
joint stock companies, as, to use his own expression in speaking of
these things, he would have those losses which usually result from
such engagements.
When Fort Sumter became the initial target for the guns
of rebellion against constituted authority, he was among the first
to assist in the fitting out of a company; and before the Federal
armies had gained a single victory, he assisted in the organization
of the First and Second National banks of Circleville, in 1863, and
was at once re-elected annually to such office.
In 1859 Mr. Ruggles married Miss Catharine, a daughter
of the late Ralph Osborn, of Columbus, Ohio, a pioneer of
distinction, and four children, Samuel Turney, Lizzie J., Nelson J.,
and Fannie M. Ruggles, have been the issue of this union.
Though not a member of any church organization, Mr.
Ruggles habitually contributes to religious and charitable
objects, and also earestly interests himself in every public
enterprise that promises to benefit the community in which he
resides. |
|
|
|
AARON R. VAN
CLEAF was born at Arneystown, Burlington county, New
Jersey, March 20, 1838. When he was about three years old his
parents removed to Monmouth county, New Jersey, where they now
reside. His ancestors were of the pioneer settles of New
Jersey, on the paternal side, of the early Holland emigration, and
among the first settlers of Monmouth county. On the maternal
side he is connected with the Reeves family, one of the oldest and
most respected families in Burlington and other counties of south
Jersey. Several of the Van Cleafs served in Jersey regiments
during the war for American independence, and are specially
mentioned among the patriots of that day. His paternal
great-grandfather owned an extensive body of land in Monmouth
county, New Jersey, which was divided among his large family of
children.
Aaron Van Cleaf was educated in the common schools near
Freehold, New Jersey, until he was fourteen years of age, when he
entered the Monmouth Democrat office, at Freehold, as an
apprentice to the printing business, remaining there, as apprentice
and journeyman, until April, 1859, when he emigrated to Georgetown,
Brown county, Ohio, and for a few months was connected with the
Democratic Standard, which paper was soon after merged in
what is now the Brown county News. In November, 1859,
he became editor and publisher of the Democratic Citizen, At
Lebanon, Ohio, which was published in the face of many difficulties.
On the twelfth of August, 1862, the office was destroyed by a mob of
political opponents, but he re-established the paper and continued
its publication until May, 1863. In November, of the same
year, he purchased the Circleville Democrat and Watchman,
and has sine conducted that paper.
In 1871 he was nominated for representative in the
general assembly by the Democratic party of Pickaway county, and was
elected by four hundred and seventy-seven majority over James
Langhry, Republican, who was then extensively known and popular.
He declined a re-election. In 1877 he was again nominated for
representative by acclamation, being the first Democratic candidate
for that place in Pickaway county, nominated without opposition, for
many years. He was elected by nine hundred and forty-six
majority over Frederick Thorn, Republican, and in the house was
chairman of the committee on reform schools, and a member of the
finance and printing committees. On the third of June, 1879,
he was nominated by acclamation, in the Democratic senatorial
convention, to represent the counties of Franklin and Pickaway in
the State senate, and at the October election following, the elected
by one thousand six hundred and thirty-four majority.
He has taken an active part in the politics of Pickaway
county for fifteen years past, and has been chairman of the
Democratic central committee of the county for thirteen years. |
|
