OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 388 Today's Topics: #1 RE: OHIO RECORDS AND PIONEER FAMIL ["Karen S. Smith" Subject: RE: OHIO RECORDS AND PIONEER FAMILIES All questions and comments concerning this matter should be directed to: The Ohio Genealogical Society President: Fred Mayer - fredmayer@email.msn.com or 1st V.P.: Dianne Gilmore Young - dgyoung@juno.com Karen S. Smith, 3rd Vice President The Ohio Genealogical Society http://www.ogs.org ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 21:44:37, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: ROBERT WILKERSON - HAMILTON COUNTY A PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF DELAWARE AND RANDOLPH COUNTIES, IND. A.W. Bowen & co. 1894 - Page 1489-1490 ROBERT WILKERSON, was born in Hamilton county, Ohio, May 31, 1833. He is the son of Samuel and Louisa (Jump) Wilkerson. Both parents were natives of Maryland, where they were married. They moved to Darke county, Ohio, in 1839. The father was a carpenter, but spent the latter portion of his life on the farm. He died in 1849, while the mother lived till 1878. There were ten children, of whom two sons and two daughters are now living. When the parents came west, Robert was but six years old. There was plenty of work here and but few school advantages. There was usually but three months' school, and duty at home often compelled Robert to miss a portion of even this short time. When he was seventeen years of age the home was made sad by the death of his father. There it was that the boy became the man and he bravely and manfully took charge of the support of his mother and sisters. He remained on the homestead till 1866, when it was sold, and he came to Wayne township, Randolph county, Ind. Here he purchased eighty acres, to which he soon added twenty acres more. This is a part of section 11, and is where he now lives. At that time there were but three fields cleared and the buildings were of no great value. Mr. Wilkerson went to work with a will, and now has a farm that any one would feel proud of. Eighty acres are now cleared and the wooded land contains the choicest of timber, including sugar trees, walnut and poplar. The farm is well drained with tile ditches running toward both the east and west. Mr. Wilkerson's son, Samuel, has for the past twelve years assisted in managing the farm. They have devoted much care and attention to stock raising and have a fine grade of Clydesdale and Hambletonian horses, shorthorn and Jersey cattle, and an improved quality of swine. Mr. Wilkerson was reared a democrat, but claims to have had the scales removed from the eyes and is now an ardent member of the new and live people's party. He is a member of the Farmers' alliance, served for two years as president of the society, and now occupies the position of lecturer. In 1856 Robert Wilkerson and Miss Mary W. Thomas were married. To this union were born three children: Martha, who died in infancy; George F., a carpenter in Wayne township; and Samuel, a farmer on the old homestead. George F. married Mary E., daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Bennett of Union City. This union was blessed by four children: Bertha, Osa, Verna and Fland. Samuel is married to Emma, daughter of Jefferson Mason of Wayne township. Their home is also brightened by four children -two sons, Alfred Newton and Robert, Jr., and two daughters -Abigail and Mary Hazel. Robert Wilkerson is an industrious and worthy citizen, respected and esteemed by all who know him. He is strictly devoted to principle and strives for the elevation of the working and producing classes. ------------------------------ X-Message: #3 Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 21:44:33, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: CAPT. WILLIAM D. STONE A PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF DELAWARE AND RANDOLPH COUNTIES, IND. A.W. Bowen & Co., 1894 - page 1422,1427,1428 with sketches CAPT. WILLIAM D. STONE was born in Cincinnati, Hamilton county, Ohio, June 16, 1826. His first schooling was in an old frame building on the elbow of the canal. From this building the school was taken to the new brick building on Eighth street. His father, Ezra Stone, was a master mechanic, and in the fall of the year he would move with his family to New Orleans to work at his trade. In this manner young Stone was taken to New Orleans seven times. During one of these trips the family remained two winters and the intervening summer, during which summer his mother died. She was a most intense lover of freedom and humanity, a life long member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and unswervingly and religiously opposed to human slavery. On one occasion, when hateful brutes were viciously beating one of Mrs. Stone's colored female friends, she called her little boy William into the house, closed all the doors and window shutters, kneeled beside a chair, placed her arm around her boy, and, amid the agonizing screams of the suffering girl, she swore him to eternal enmity against human slavery, and the boy still holds the oath binding here and hereafter. To save the resting place of his mother's remains from being in a foreign country, was one great reason which prompted Capt. Stone in taking the active part he did in suppressing the rebellion. In 1839, his father brought him to Winchester, Randolph county, Ind., and this county has been his recognized home nearly all the time since. He lived with his father on a farm adjoining Winchester on the north until his father died in 1848. William's opportunity for schooling was poor, although he attended school in the old Methodist Episcopal meeting house, taught by James Ferris. Afterward he attended the county seminary and made rapid progress in his studies. At home of nights he would get into one corner of an old fireplace, which reached clear across one end of the family log hut on the farm. Here, amid ashes and smoke, he would get his lessons and thus be able to keep up with his classes in the seminary. In accomplishing this he burned an electric light which was generated by bringing hickory bark in contact with live hickory coals. In May, 1847, he volunteered in company A, Fourth Indiana volunteers, Mexican war. While crossing the gulf of Mexico on the steamer Ann Chase, a flue collapsed and several men were injured, and some were killed. Young Stone had his left knee injured severely, but soon was able for duty. Sixty-five men went on shore on poles, dugouts and skiffs, Stone among them, and then had to wade swamps, edge through cane-brakes, two days and nights, with nothing to eat or drink, the water being brackish and unfit to drink. He was in the war till it closed and was in the battles of Huamantla, Puebla, Tlascala and Antlixco. He was honorably discharged and reached home on the 20th of July, 1848. August 23d, his father died, and on the 3d day of December, 1848, he was married to Miss Jane D. Poore, daughter of Edwin L. and Nancy A. Poore. Miss Poore was born in Goochland county, Va., January 16, 1831, and comes of old Virginia prominent names. Her grandfather was quite prominent, and her grandmother was a Lee. Capt. Stone captured one of his wife's uncles during the Rebellion. Mrs. Stone is a quiet, unassuming, generous and every-day-alike religious. She loves the church, and from all appearances she is duly appreciated and loved by its members. She joined the Christian church October 3, 1854, and the captain came forward the next day. Both are highly respected by the community, both in and out of church circles. Soon after their marriage, they moved to Winchester, and in 1852 they moved to Wayne township, near the then new town of Union City. The captain considers this the most important move of his life. The good people of Union City and Wayne township threw around the newcomers every evidence of friendship by sustaining him in his schools and assisting him in many ways to climb the rugged hill of life. In 1854, he moved to Salem, south of Union, and owned a little home there as late as 1871. Here the Christian church gave the meeting house to Mr. Stone, to be by him used as a schoolroom, and generously furnished a large number of pupils, and thus made the school a grand success. Its influence was very widely extended, and many were inducted to come from far and near to lend influence to the movement. In the meantime Mr. Stone's efforts were in demand as a preacher. The Randolph County History, published some years since, speaking of Mr. Stone's teaching and preaching says: "He is an active, wide-awake, somewhat eccentric, but a very energetic and successful educator and preacher. He was almost idolized by his pupils, and is greatly esteemed by the churches to which he ministers. He is enthusiastic, acting on the Bible maxim, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do with all thy might." For twenty years he taught in the same neighborhood, and for over thirty years he preached more or less regularly for the same church. In 1859, he moved to Fort Recovery, Ohio, and engaged in teaching. In 1861, when the rebellion raised its hydra head, Mr. Stone raised the first company in Mercer county, taking many of his pupils with him, and was elected unanimously its captain. The company was attached to the Seventeenth O.V.I., as Company I. This company saw some severe service in West Virginia, yet every man was brought back, although one poor fellow died shortly after arriving home. In 1862, Capt. Stone was appealed to by the entire community to again take out another company, and thus save the necessity for a draft, inasmuch as serious trouble was brewing in that vicinity. The people met in mass meeting and requested the governor of ohio to commission the captain to raise another company. The young men rallied promptly, and the company was on the road to Columbus in less than thirty-six hours. In 1863, Capt. Stone was detached from his regiment, and put in charge of a large detail of troops to go to Massachusetts, and take charge of conscripts, and forward them to the eastern army. This duty was too inactive for the captain,and by his request, he was relieved from it, and returned to his regiment, the One Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio. He was in Sherman's start for the sea, up to the battle of Resaca, Ga., in which engagement he was severely wounded in the left hip by a shell, May 14, 1864, while leading his men in the charge upon the rebel works. He was reported by the papers as killed upon the field, but when he saw the report, he promptly declared it to be a lie. July 20, 1864, he received from the war department the following statement: "Honorably discharged on account of wounds received in the battle of Resaca, Ga., May 14, 1864." Capt. Stone has in his possession three commissions as captain. First, captain of Randolph County guards, 1851; second, captain, company I, Seventeenth O.V.I.; third, captain company C, One Hundred and Eighteenth O.V.I. In Mexico, he was sergeant, by promotion. Many prefixes have been placed before his name, such as Rev., Eld., Prof., Capt., Maj., etc,. but he desires to be known as simply "Cap." In 1889, he moved to Parker, in Randolph county, in order to get the benefit of natural gas. He bought seven acres of ground in a beautiful location, and erected a handsome seven-roomed house, with all necessary out buildings and conveniences. He then built and furnished at his own individual expense a neat church edifice. The house was dedicated, but is now used as a printing office temporarily (1893). Mr. Stone laid out an addition in Parker in 1893, which sold off rapidly, and built up speedily, leading all other additions. He has also erected in Fountain Park cemetery, adjoining Winchester, a beautiful monument in memory of his old Mexican comrade, Allen O. Neff, who was also in the Union army of 1861. In 1893, Mr. Stone made a magnificent gift to the schools of Union City, Ind., consisting of about 500 volumes of his library; many of the books are rare and very fine volumes, and the people and officers of the city have shown their appreciation of the donation by having set apart and elaborately furnished a most splendid room for the books, and tendered the captain and his generous companion a grand reception. In August, 1893, business matters seemed to require it, and Mr. Stone moved to Union City, but he thinks that it is not certain that he will remain a great while, as the parker gas has a warm place in his dreams. He is a man of but moderate means, but feels that men should live and do as they go along. He is a soldier, the son of a soldier, the grandson of a soldier. His grandfather was wounded in the Revolution; his father was wounded in the war of 1812; he was himself injured in the Mexican war, and badly wounded in the Union army. Politically, Mr. Stone is an uncompromising republican. In 1890, he was elected representative of Randolph county to the state legislature by a larger plurality than was given any one on the ticket for any state office. During the session of 1891, he took an active part in all the proceedings, besides officiating as chaplain a large portion of the time. He was appointed by the speaker to deliver the memorial address upon the death of Gen. Sherman. He has now retired from all active physical and mental drudgery in order to secure much needed rest. He is indeed worth of the desired repose. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #388 *******************************************