NOBLE COUNTY OHIO - BIO: Wyndham Sparling (1887)

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From the The Ohio Biographies Project
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~usbios/Ohio/mnpg.html
a part of The U.S. Biographies Project
http://members.tripod.com/~debmurray/usbios/usbiog.html

Transcribed by Deb Murray.

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Wyndham Sparling, with his wife and one child, left Ireland for America
June 1, 1849. Reaching this country he came to Ohio, and purchased of
Lemuel Moore eighty acres of partially improved land, situated near
Freedom, for $11 per acre. Soon after he engaged in teaching school, which,
like farming, was new work to him. In the fall he went to work to put in a
crop of wheat. Buying a horse and borrowing a shovel plow from a preacher
who lived near, he set to work on a six-acre field. The horse did not
understand the language of his driver, and Mr. Sparling had a serious time
among the stumps. The first of his wheat was up before the last was sown.
Yet he secured a bountiful crop. In the work of cradling wheat and chopping
down trees he found great difficulty, but finally learned the process. Once
when making fence-rails he selected gum trees, and worked upon them for a
day before he discovered that that was not the kind of timber to use for
rails.

Wyndham Sparling was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1805. In 1849 he landed
in Philadelphia and immediately came to this township. He purchased eighty
acres of land, to which he has added eighty-eight acres. He was married in
his native land in 1826, and had by this union two sons, one of whom is
living in Washington County, Ohio. His first wife died in 1851, and in the
following year he married Mrs. Alexander, of Belmont County, who died in
1868. In 1871 Mr. Sparling married Mrs. Ford (nee Campbell). Mr. Sparling
is a Royal Arch Mason. He is proud of being an American citizen, and though
cherishing an affection for his native land, has no desire to return to it.
His son, Dr. John Belton Sparling, practiced for a time in this county.
Wyndham Sparling has been a school director for twenty-four years. He also
served many years as a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal church, and as
superintendent of the Sabbath school, filling those positions with credit
to himself and profit to church and school.

History of Noble County, Ohio Published by 
L.H. Watkins & Co. of Chicago 1887
Marion