DARKE COUNTY OHIO - BIOS: SCRIBNER / DEVOR / BOYD (published 1900) ******************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this elec- tronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. ******************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jane Torres Jetorres@indiana.edu June 3, 1999 ******************************************************** A Biographical History of Darke County Ohio, published in Chicago by the Lewis Publishing Company, 1900. Azor and Abraham Scribner; Rachael (Devor) Scribner p. 229-230 Also Samuel Boyd within same biography (p. 229) AZOR AND ABRAHAM SCRIBNER SCRIBNER, RACHEL (DEVOR) SAMUEL BOYD Among the first settlers of Greenville was Azor Scribner. Late in 1806 or early in 1807, he came to Greenville with a small stock of Indian goods, including tobacco and whisky, and began business in a cabin built by a Frenchman who had deserted the same two years before because of the thieving depredations of the Indians. He did not bring his family, consisting of a wife and two daughters, from Middletown until 1808, but what time of the year is not known. It is conceded that the first white man who, with a wife and children, emigrated to the county and settled in Greenville township was Samuel Boyd, who came in 1807 and built himself a cabin about two and one-half miles north by east of the site of Fort Greenville on the bank of a branch that yet goes by the name of Boyd's creek. Boyd was a native of Maryland, had lived in Kentucky, and was probably married there before he emigrated to Ohio and had, as far as we are able to learn, stopped one or two years near the Miami in Butler county, before emigrating to the wilderness, that, two years afterward, created the county of Darke. Boyd lost his wife about 1816, and she was the first person buried in the old graveyard below the railroad bridge; the early settlers having previously used as a cemetery the lot on which the Catholic church is erected, but during the occupancy of the fort by General Wayne's's army his hospital was located on the lot now occupied by Judge George A. Jobes, while his graveyard was located upon the lot now occupied by the dwelling house of R.S. Frizell. Boyd died in 1829 or 1830; one of his daughters, the wife of John Carnahan, had died in 1821 or 1822; and another, the wife of Robert Martin, lived until about thirteen years ago, recognized as the oldest inhabitant of the county at that time. Soon after Boyd came, Azor Scribner removed his family and, abandoning the cabin on the west side of the creek, occupied one of the buildings of the fort that had escaped the fire which in a measure destroyed the fort inside of the pickets. Azor died in 1822 and his widow, in the early part of 1825, married a Yankee adventurer, who in less than a year deserted her, and the last ever heard of him was that he was in jail in Canada, on a charge of treason, having been involved in what was there known as McKenzie's rebellion. Abraham Scribner, brother of Azor, came to Greenville in the summer or early fall of 1811. He had previously been master of one or more vessels engaged in the navigation of the Hudson river, from New York to Troy, or in the coasting trade from Passammaquoddy bay to the capes of the Chesapeake, and, sometimes, as far south as Cape Hatteras. When he came to Darke county he was about thirty years old. From exposure while commander of a vessel a year or two before he nearly lost the sense of hearing, and this infirmity in connection with some other peculiarities made him a man singular and exceptional in character and deportment. Part of his time he spent in Greenville, in the family of Mrs. Armstrong, until his death in January, 1812, and part of the time in Mongtomery county in the family of John Devor, one of the proprietors of Greenville, whose daughter Rachel he married in 1814. What he did to make a living for himself for a year or more after he came to this county none now living knows. He appeared to be always busy, and yet no one could tell whether he was doing anything. Being at Dayton in the spring of 1813, he enlisted in Colonel Dick Johnson's mounted regiment, and with it went to upper Canada where, in the fall of that year, he participated in the battle of the Fallen Timber, where Proctor was defeated and Tecumseh was killed. After being discharged from the service he married Miss Rachel Devor, and having entered the prairie quarter-section of land above the mouth of Mud creek, now owned by the estate of J.W. Sater, deceased, he erected a log house upon it; also brought his wife from Mongtomery county, and began housekeeping. In about two years Scribner sold his quarter-section, on which he had paid only his entrance money, eighty dollars, to John Compton, of Dayton, for sixteen hundred dollars and took his pay in a stock of goods at retail price, and opened out a store. In the summer of 1821 Scribner lost his first wife, and, after an interval of a few weeks, married a second wife, Jane Ireland, of the vicinity of New Paris, who also died in the summer of 1822. After the death of his second wife, he sold out his stock of goods, and having placed his children among friends, went to the Maumee, where he purchased land in Henry county, and squandered his money in half clearing some land, and having several thousand rails made, concerning which, five years afterward, Jacob DeLong wrote to him that "they were lying in the woods and getting no better very fast." In a few months he returned to Greenville and resumed the mercantile business, in which he continued the residue of his life. In January, 1825, he married his third wife. He died in March, 1847, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Scribner was a peculiar character. During ten or twelve years of his life he was the power of the county. He was the autocrat and ruler of the Democratic party, and discharged all the functions of caucuses, primary elections and nominating conventions. Those he allowed to run for office ran and were elected, and those he forbade had to keep shady and hold their peace. But at last he switched off from Jackson Democracy, although he would be "right in line" now among Democrats, for the was an uncompromising adherent to the resolutions of 1798. He last wife died several years ago, as did Mrs. S.J. Arnold, who was the last of the children of his first wife, and was the wife of Henry Arnold, deceased, for many years a successful dry-goods merchant in Greenville. "Being at Dayton in the spring of 1813, he enlisted in Colonel Dick Johnson's mounted regiment, and with it went to upper Canada where, in the fall of that year, he participated in the battle of the Fallen Timber, where Proctor was defeated and Tecumseh was killed." I'm not sure if this sort of thing matters to anyone, but I'm pretty sure that Tecumseh died at the Battle of the Thames (not Fallen Timbers) which in no way diminishes my gratitude for this bio. Thanks! Rebecca Deepchandani, a descendant of Azor Scribner (Rdeepcha@haywire.csuhayward.edu)