Cincinnati Ohio

Biography of James H. Riggs

JAMES H. RIGGS. – One of the capable and esteemed gentlemen of Union county is named at the head of this article and is deserving of representation in the history of his county, since he has labored here with assiduity and energy for the development of the county and its resources and has manifested meanwhile both ability, sagacity, and integrity in his endeavors, being one of the leading agriculturists of the county. Mr. Riggs was born in Roachdale, Lancashire, England, on December 18, 1837, being the son of Levi and Elizabeth (Standring) Riggs, natives also of England. The father was … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Burt A. Miller

Miller, Burt A.; surety bonds; born, Canton, 0., March 17, 1871; son of William K. and Sarah Burwell Miller; educated at Cornell university and Cincinnati Law School; married, Canton, O., Dec. 27, 1899, Jane Rabe; organized the surety business in Cuba and Porto Rico after the Spanish-American war, drawing law permitting surety companies to operate in Cuba, and fixing the deposit required and tax to be paid; resident vice pres. and mgr. for Northern Ohio of the Southwestern Surety Ins. Co.; served in the 8th inf., O. N. G. (second lieut.); vice pres. Surety Association of Cleveland; member Canton Lodge, … Read more

Heidel, Edward Richard “Eddie” – Obituary

Edward Richard “Eddie” Heidel, 69, of Haines, died April 8, 2006, at the Boise Veterans Extended Care Unit. At his request, his body was cremated. There will be a celebration of his life Saturday, April 22, at the Haines School. Everyone is welcome to bring a potluck dish and share memories of Eddie. He was born on Sept. 29, 1936, at Cincinnati to Earl and Eunice Schwartz Heidel. After graduation from Hamersville High School in Ohio in 1956, he joined the U.S. Army. After a brief marriage and the birth of a son, he left Ohio for the West Coast. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Tirzah B. McMillen

Mrs. TIRZAH B. McMILLEN. – Especial interest surrounds the life of those mothers who made possible the social conditions of our state. They will be held in everlasting remembrance. Tirzah, the daughter of Edward and Hannah H. Barton, was born in Clermont county, Ohio, in 1832, and at a very early age accompanied her parents to Cincinnati, later to Indiana, and in 1851 across the plains to Oregon. In October of the same year she was married in Portland to James H. McMillen, and soon removed to their new home on Tualatin Plains, ten miles west of Portland. It was … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Dr. L. B. Powell

Dr. L. B. Powell, drugs, was born near Frankfort, Ky., September 3, 1847. Remove to Illinois. In March, 1862, enlisted in Company D, Sixty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry; transferred to Company G, One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Illinois Volunteer Infantry; was discharged in August, 1865, when he returned to Port Byron, Ill., and in 1869 went to Texas. In 1871 the Doctor was crossing the Staked Plains, at the head of the Concho River, when he, with his party of nine, was attacked by the Indians. Three of the men were killed and one committed suicide, and all of his party, including … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James Mathews

Mathews, James; lawyer; born, Bellwood, Pa., Sept. 4, 1868; educated at Mifflintown; graduated, Princeton University, 1890, degree A. B., Cincinnati Law School, 1893, degree LL. B.; admitted to the bar, and began practice in the United States attorney’s office, in Pittsburgh, Pa., 1893; come to Cleveland in 1894, as attorney for Cleveland, Akron & Columbus R. R.; formed partnership with Senator H. W. Wolcott, continuing until Wolcott was made gen. mgr. Kansas City & Leavenworth Ry.; then with Berkley Pearce, firm name Mathers & Pearce; member Century, Euclid and Hermit Clubs; politically Independent.

Biography of F. E. Thurman

F. E. Thurman, engaged in the general insurance, surety bond and loan business at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, under the firm style of F. E. Thurman Company, was born at West Union, Ohio, March 9, 1872, a son of J. M. and Mary Elizabeth (McCormick) Thurman, both natives of that state. J. M. Thurman, during the greater part of his active life, was engaged in the banking business at West Union, Ohio, and for a long period served as treasurer of Adams county, that state. The father passed away October 4, 1915, in West Union, while the mother died when her son, … Read more

Biography of Major Joseph H. McGee

Joseph H. McGee was born in Clermont county, Ohio, July 6, 1821. His grandfather, Peter McGee, in company with seven brothers, emigrated from Ireland to the United States prior to the Revolutionary War, and settled in New Jersey. Peter McGee was a major under Washington and participated in the celebrated battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, at which place he now lies buried. Charles McGee, the father of our subject, was born near Monmouth, where he lived until 1815, when he removed to Ohio and settled in, Clermont county. The family lived in the Buckeye State until 1837, Joseph then being … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Henry Taylor

Taylor, Henry; florist; born, England, March 16, 1852; son of Charles and Susan New Taylor; educated, West Fendred British National School; married, Wellsville, O., Feb. 8, 1877, Susan Coyle; issue, five children; at the age of 16, began working at plumbing; followed that until 1908; worked for some of the best firms in Cleveland, Cincinnati, O., and Lafayette, Ind., as a journeyman plumber; held responsible positions with good firms in all the abovenamed cities; 1908, started in the florist business.

Slave Narrative of Charles H. Anderson

Interviewer: Ruth Thompson Person Interviewed: Charles H. Anderson Location: Cincinnati, Ohio Place of Birth: Richmond, Virginia Date of Birth: December 23, 1845 Place of Residence: 3122 Fredonia St., Cincinnati, Ohio Occupation: Handy man “Life experience excels all reading. Every place you go, you learn something from every class of people. Books are just for a memory, to keep history and the like, but I don’t have to go huntin’ in libraries, I got one in my own head, for you can’t forget what you learn from experience.” The old man speaking is a living example of his theory, and, judging … Read more

Biographical Sketch of O. W. Gogin

O. W. Gogin, Justice of the Peace, Mattoon; was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1820; his father came from New Jersey and settled in Cincinnati in 1800; the family was six months making the journey, coming by teams to Pittsburgh, Penn., and thence floating down the Ohio in a keelboat to the point of destination; here the family remained some twenty-odd years; in the spring of 1841, his father came West, and settled in Crawford Co., Ill., where he began the labor of opening up a farm in the woods; O. W. was the youngest of the family, and remained … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Henry A. Peabody

Henry A. Peabody manager of the Santa Ana Blade, was born in Detroit, Michigan, Starch 19, 1837; in 1847 he was a newsboy in Cincinnati, Ohio; in March, 1857, as a journeyman printer. He started from Columbia, Missouri, for California, crossing the plains, and arriving at Colusa, California, September 1, 1857, barefooted and without a coat to his back. There he hired himself out to drive an ox team, three yoke, to Petaluma, California, earning his first money in the State. About September 20 he took work in the Democrat office at Santa Rosa, California, and from that time followed … Read more

Biography of Herman H. Sudendorf

Herman H. Sudendorf was born in Hanover, Germany, October 10, 1832, and came to the United States in 1848, locating at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he learned and followed the carpenter trade. In 1859 he removed with his family to Kansas and continued to work at his trade for ten more years. In 1868 he embarked in the lumber business at Salina with Mr. C. Eberhardt, they having opened one of the first lumber yards in the town. The partnership was dissolved in 1891, Mr. Sudendorf afterward continuing the enterprise alone, and the business is yet carried on in his name. … Read more

Boyd County, Kentucky

BOYD CO. (Carl F. Hall) The Commonwealth of Kentucky, having for a northern boundary the Ohio River-the dividing line between the northern free states and the southern slave states has always been regarded as a southern state. As in the other states of the old south, slavery was an institution until the Thirteenth Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States gave the negro freedom in 1865. Kentucky did not, as other southern states, secede from the Union, but attempted to be neutral during the Civil War. The people, however, were divided in their allegience, furnishing recruits for both the … Read more

Biography of William H. Manser, M. D.

William H. Manser, M. D.,had that splendid satisfaction which comes to the man who found himself in a congenial vocation early in life and had steadily broadened and improved his service and capacity for doing good. Dr. Manser is now the oldest physician in point of continnous service at Burden, where he had practiced thirty-three years. Though of New England ancestry, the Mansers having located in Massachusetts in Colonial times, Dr. Manser is a native of old Virginia, born at Beckley in what was then simply Western Virginia and as a result of the Civil war became the State of West Virginia. … Read more

Biography of William Frank Flack, M. D.

William Frank Flack, M. D. While the medical profession for centuries had enlisted some of the most profound minds of all times, modern discoveries and developments have opened up new fields for the brilliant physician and surgeon, and many of this profession have turned their attention to particular branches, specializing along certain lines. This development had been necessary, for the problems presented in the calling today are so serious and difficult of solution that the average physician had not the expert knowledge to handle all satisfactorily. For some years past William Frank Flack, the pioneer physician of Elk County, had … Read more

Biography of Henry Brandley

Henry Brandley was born in Switzerland October 12, 1839, and died at his beautiful home at Matfield Green in Chase County June 1, 1910. When he was about twelve years of age his parents came to America, being fifty-two days in crossing the ocean. In 1852 the family settled in Cincinnati, where he finished his education and worked at the painter’s trade. In 1856 the Brandleys moved to Randolph. County, Indiana, and there the young man had further experience as a farm hand, in a shingle mill, as rail maker and digger of ditches. In the spring of 1859 he … Read more

Biography of William A. Cormany

William A. Cormany. During a period covering more than a half century William A. Cormany has been a resident of Fort Scott, and in this time has been closely identified with the agencies that have made for progress along material, educational and moral lines. Coming here a veteran of the Civil war, in 1866, he entered newspaper life as owner of the Fort Scott Monitor, and since then his activities have branched out in various avenues of business. He is one of the few remaining of the early settlers of the city, and looks upon its present prosperity with the … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Hon. John M. Morris

Hon. John M. Morris was born near Cincinnati in 1825. His father, Isaac Morris, was born in New Jersey. He was a farmer by occupation, and had a family of eight children, of which the subject of this sketch was the youngest. When he was a boy, instead of going to college, he helped to clear away the forests and make a farm in Ohio. In March 1855, he went to Kansas and settled on a farm in Riley County. He lived there for twenty years. While in the “Sunflower” State he had the honor of representing Riley County in … Read more

Biography of Thomas M. Sechler

Moline is a city of manufacturers, one of the most prominent of whom is the subject of this sketch, Thomas M. Sechler. He was born October 25, 1841, in Milton, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, at which place his father, D. M. Sechler, at that time conducted a carriage factory. His father, Daniel Montgomery Sechler, was born at Danville, Pennsylvania, March 4, 1818, and his mother, Pamela (Mackey) Sechler, was born in Rutland Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, December 19, 1819. She is still living at her home in Cincinnati, Ohio. T. M. Sechler’s paternal great-great-great grandfather came from Holland in 1685, together … Read more