OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 25 *********************************************************************** 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. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 01 : Issue 25 -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: James M. Dalzell - Noble county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:15 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 353 James M. Dalzell Atorney-at-Law Mr. Dalzell practices law and cultivates a family. A troop of little girls with one little boy are often at his heels on the street. Patriotism begins at home and the hearthstone is its cradle. On my arrival at Caldwell that sentiment I found at fever heat. It was just on the eve of Decoration Day and the streets were full of children assembling to prepare for its celebration, and among them was those of the Private. Mr. Dalzell is of Scotch-Irish parentage, tall and wiry in person, with profuse yellowish locks, which once in the wartime, when in Washington, caused him to retreat from a band of music, who were after him for a blast, mistaking him for General Custer. pg 355 & 356 James M. Dalzell was born in Allegheny City, Pa., September 3, 1838. When he was nine years of age his father removed to Ohio. Under great difficulties he succeeded in obtaining an education, and was a junior at Washington College, Pa., at the outbreak of the war. He served two years as a private in the One Hundred and Sixteenth O.V.I. After the close of thewar he studied law, filled a clerkship at Washington, and in 1868 settled permanently in Caldwell. During his life Mr. Dalzell has been a prolific and able writer for the press; his championship of the cause of the private soldier of the revellion has been spritited, fearless and influential. Over the signature of Private Dalzell his writings have appeared in almost every newspaper int he land. In 1875, and again in 1877, he was elected to the Ohio Legislature, but withdrew from political life in 1882. He is a very able stump speaker, an ardent Republican, and associate and friend of such men as Sumner Garfield, Hayes, Sherman, and thier contmporaries. Mr. Dalzell was the originator and author of the popular Soldiers' Union, now held annually in all parts of the country. Mr. Dalzell takes great pride in his work in behalf of John Gray, the last soldier of the Revolution. In 1888 Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, prublished a volume entitle "Private Dalzell." It contains "My Autobiography." "My War Sketches," etc., and "John Gray." It is an interesting and valuable publication. We quote a restrospect of his political life. "In an evil hour, in the summer of 1885, I foolishely accepted a nomination to the Legislature, was elected, and there ended my prosperity. After the election, in October, my name was in all the papers, congratulations poured in on me from every quarter, and I was invited to take the stump in Pennsylvania, which I did, at a great waste of time and money. I thought nothing of it then. It was only when, years after, I looked into an empty flour barrel and hungry children's faces and felt in my empty pockets, that I fully apprehended my folly. Four years I now spent in the maelstrom of politics, whirled and tossed about at the caprice of fortune, without any power to controt it. I look bak on it with pain...It is a grand game, and none but grand men need try to play it. Let men of moderate abilities, like myself keep out of it if they would escape the chagrin and mortification of faulure, accentuated with the pangs of poverty." -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: William H. Enochs - Noble county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:17 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 356 William H. Enochs was born near Middleburg, March 29, 1842, and is the only native of Noble county who attained the rank of General in the late war. He enlisted as a private in april, 1861; saw much hard service and distinguished himself for bravery and gallantry. At twenty-two he commanded a brigade, and at twenty-three he was commissioned Brigadier-General. Ex-President Hayes says of him: "His courage, promptness and energy was extraordinary. His diligence was great and his ability and skill in managing and taking care of his regiment were rarely equalled." Gen. Enochs is now a prominent lawyer of Ironton, Ohio. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: bios: Freeman C. Thompson - Noble county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:18 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 356 Freeman C. Thompson was born in Washington County, Pa., February 25, 1846. His family removed to Noble county, Ohio, in 1854. At sixteen years of age he enlisted in the 116th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and in the assault on Fort Gregg, April 2, 1865, he performed the gallant action for which he received a medal of honor by vote of Congress. The County History says: "In this engagement (which General Grant in his Memoirs says 'was the most desperate that was seen in the East'), through a perfect tornado of grape and canister, he and his comrade reached the last ditch. How to scale the parapet was a question requiring only a moment for solution. Using each other as ladders they commenced the ascent. Almost at the top one was shot and fell back into the ditch. Thompson was struck twice with a musket and fell into the ditch with several ribs broken, but in shor time was again on the top of the parapet fighting with muskets loaded and handed him by his comrades below. Soon the adventage was taken possession of, the whole army swept in the fort was ours." In 1865 Mr. Thompson was elected sheriff of Noble county and re-elected at the expiration of his term. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio:James Madison Tuttle - Noble county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:19 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 356 James Madison Tuttle was born near Summerfield, Noble county, September 24, 1823. His father removed to Indiana when James was ten years old. James enlisted in the Union army at the outbreak of the war and at the battle of Fort Donelson he gallantly led his regiment into the enemy's works, it being the first to enter. The tender of this post of honor was first made to several other regiments and declined and Gen. Smith then said to him: "Colonel, will you take those works?" "Suppoprt me promply," was the response, "and in twenty minutes I will go in." The Second Iowa "went in" with Col. Tuttle at its head and planted the first Union flag inside Donelson. Col. Tuttle was slightly wounded in this assault, but was able to stay with his command. In June, 1862, he was commissioned Brigadier-General for gallant service in the field. After the war Gen. Tuttle settled in Des Moines, Iowa, and has been engaged in mining and manufacturing interests. He has been commander of the G.A.R. for the department of Iowa and twice a member of the Iowa Legislature. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: John Gray - Noble co. Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:22 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 356 & 357 John Gray, the Last Soldier of the American Revolution John Gray, the last surviving soldier of the American Revolution, was born at Mount Vernon, Virginia, January 6, 1764, and died at Hiramsburg, Ohio, March 29, 1868, aged 104 years. His father fell at White Plains, and he, then only about sixteen years of age, promptly volunteered, took up the musket that had fallen from his father's hands and carried it until the war was over. He was in a skirmish at Williamsburg and was one of the one hundred and fifty men on that dangerous but successful expedition of Mayor Ramsey. He was also at York town at the final surrender, which event ovvurred in his eighteenth year. He was mustered out at Richmond, Virginia, at the close of the war and returned to field labor near Mount Vernon, his first day's work after his muster out being performed for General Washington at Mount Vernon. Mr. Gray married twice in Virginia and once in Ohio. He survived his three wives and all his children, except one daughter, who has since died over eighty years of age, and with whom he resided in Noble county, Ohio, at the time of his death. In 1795 Mr. Gray left Mount Vernon and crossing the mountains settle at Grave creek. Here he remained utnil Ohio was admitted to the Union, when he removed to what is now Noble county. Mr. Gray was not illiterate; he learned to read and write before entering the Revolutionary army. In disposition he was quiet, kindly and generous; a good Christian, having joined the Methodist church at twenty-five years of age, and was for seventy-eight years a regular attendant. His means of support was earned by farm labor. When in his old age, poor and infirm, Congress granted him a pension of $500 per annum. The bill providing this was introduced in the House in 1866, by Hon. John A. Bingham. This tardy act of justice to the old hero was the result of efforts in his behalf by Hon. J.M. Dalzell, whose kindly interest and generous efforts to make comfortabel and peacefull the last years of Mr. Gray are highly honorable to him. Mr. Dalzell has published a full and complete account of John Gray's carrerr and it is to this work that we are chiefly indebted for the sketch here given. On the occasion of Mr. Dalzell's last interview with John Gray, he asked if he were not growing fatter than when he last saw him. "Oh, no," laughingly replied Mr. Gray, "we old men don't fatten much on hhog and hominy and the poor tobacco we get now-a-days." Mr. Gray had used tobacco about a hundred years and knew something of its virtues as a solace, for later in the interview, speaking of deprivations in the past, he said: "I sometimes have had nothing else but a dog," and musing a moment he added, "a plug of tobacco, of course; for without a dog or tobacco I should feel lost." This simple, inoffensive, kind-hearted old hero died of old age, in his one-story, hewed-log house, near Hiramsburg, where he had resided the last forty years or more of his life. His funeral services were held in a grove near his home, with an audience of more than a thousand people present and presided over by several clergymen, the principal speaker being Capt. Hoagland, of the 9th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, a minister of the Protestant Methodist Church. He lies buried some two hundred and fifty yards north of the house in which he lived and died, in a family graveyard containing about thirty of his relatives and family connections. Near his remains lie those ot two of his relatives, Samuel Halley and Gillespie David; the first fought under General Harrison at Fort Miegs during the war of 1812, the other died in the war of the Rebellion. Thus the heroes of three wars and of the same family lie side by side. John Gray's grave is marked by a plain stone some three feet high, on which is inscribed: John Gray, died March 29, 1868, aged 104 years, 2 months, 23 days The last of Washington's companions. The hoary head is a crown of glory. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: Dr. Edward Tiffin - Ross county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:26 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 499 & 500 Edward Tiffin, the first governor of Ohio, was born in Carlisle, England, June 19, 1766. He received a good English education and began the study of medicine, which he continued on his emigration-at 18 years of age-to Berkeley county, Va. in 1789 he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. In the same year he married Mary, sister of Thomas Worthington, of Charleston, W.Va.(afterward governor of Ohio). in 1790 Dr. Tiffin united with the Methodist church, was ordained deacon by Bishop Asbury, and all throughout his subsequent career continued to preach with much fervor and power. In 1796 he manumitted his slaves, and accompanied by his brother-in-law and robert Lucas (all three subsequently became governors of Ohio), removed to Chillicothe. Dr. Tiffin was of genial temperament, of high professional and general culture, and above all, of high moral purpose and character. It is small wonder that such a man became immensely popular. Gen. Washington, in a letter to Gov. St. Clair, speakes of "Dr. Tiffin's fairness of character in private and public life, together with knowledge of law, resulting from close application for a considerable time." In 1799 he was chosen to the Territorial Legislature and unanimously elected Speaker, which position he held until Ohio became a State. In 1802 he was chosen president of the first Constitutional Convention, and his superior ability and acquirements so impressed his fellow-delegates that at its conclution the convention made him its candidate for fovernor, to which office he was elected in January, 1803, without opposition. Two years later he was re-elected, again without oppostition, and the office was tendered him a third time, but declined. The new State of Ohio was fortunate in having as its first chief executive a man of such extraordinary and versatile talents and acquirements. The formative condition of affairs gave opportunity for the display of Gov. Tiffin's genius, and his able administration was of inestimable value in developing and advancing the interests of the young Commonwealth. The most notable incident of his administrations was the suppression of the Burr-Blenner-assett expedition. In his message of january 22, 1807, President Jefferson highly compliments Gov. Tifin for his prompt and efficient action in this affair. At the close of his second term Gov. Tiffin was elected to the United States Senate, and performed valuable services for Oio byy securing appropriations for the improvement of the Ohhio river, the mail service, and the survey of public lands. In 1809 the death of his much-beloved wife was a serious blow to Senator Tiffin; he resigned his seat in the Senate, and determined to retire from public life; but in the following year he was elected to the State legislature, and was made Speaker of the House, serving for several terms. He married a second wife, Miss Mary Porter, of Delaware. Like his first wife, she was a worman of much beauty of person and character. Upon Madison's election to the Presidency he appointed Senator Tiffin to organize the land office. When Washington was burned by the British, in 1814, Dr. Tiffin was so prompt and expeditious in removing the records of his office to a place of safety, that his was the only department whose books and papers were unharmed. Wishing to return to Ohio, he, with the consent of the President and Senate, exchanged offices with Josiah Meigs, Surveyor-General of the West. he held this latter office until within a few months of his death, when he was removed by President jackson. Dr. Tiffin died August 9, 1829; his widow survived him until 1837; three of thier daughters were living in 1889. Their only son, who had studied his father's profession, was killed in a railroad accident, while returning home from Paris, where he had been attending medical lectures. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: Thomas Worthington - ross county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:29 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 502 Thomas Worthington, one of the earliest and most distinguished pioneers of Ohio, was born in Jefferson county, Va., about the year 1769 and settled in Ross county in 1798. he brought from Virginia a large number of slaves, whom he emancipated, and some of their descendants yet remain in Chillicothe. A man of ardent temperament, of energy of mind and correct habits or life, he soon became distunguished both in business and in political stations. He was a member of the counvention of 1803, to form of State constitution, in which he was borth able and active. Soon after that he became a senator in Congress from the new State, and was a participant in the most improtant measures of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. At the close of his career in Congress, he was elected governor of the State, in which capacity he was the friend and aid of all the liberal and wise measures of policy which were the foundation of the great prosperity of Ohio. After his retirement from the gubernatorial chair he was appointed a member of the first board of canal commissioners, in which cpacity he served tillhis death. A large landholder, engaged in various and extensive business, and for thirty years in public stations, no man in Ohio did more to form its character and promote its properity. he died in 1827. -------------------------------- From: Tina Hursh Subject: Bio: Col. John McDonald - Ross county Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:54:30 -0600 "Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 2" by Henry Howe, 1908 pg 502 The pioneer author of the Scioto valley, Col. John McDonald, should be gratefully remembered. He was of Scotch (Highland) stock; was born in Northumberland county, Pa., january 28, 1775. In the spring of 1792 he joined Gen. Massie's settlement at Manchester. He was a boatman, hunter, surveyor, Indian fighter, and under Massie, took a prominent part in all the expeditions leading to the settlement ot the Scioto valley. He was a colonel in the war of 1812, and held various civil offices. He died on his farm at poplar Ridge, Ross county, September 11, 1853. he was a modest, valuable man. His little book, now out of print, "McDonald's Sketches," details the woful experiences of the early explorers of the valley with lifelike truthfulness and simplicity. The sketches of Worthington, massie, and McArthur, herein given, are abridged mainly from his "sketches." -------------------------------- -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V01 Issue #25 ******************************************