(Source 1: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900 - Page 876)

HON. EMMONS B. STIVERS, a son of Lilley Stivers, and his wife, Barbara Reynolds, was born in Fincastle, Brown County, Ohio, May 6, 1857.  When in his fourth year his parents removed to a farm near Ash Ridge, Jackson Township, Brown County, where he was reared and where he received the rudiments of an English education in the District schools.  In 1876, he began teaching school as a profession and followed it with remarkable success for fifteen years, having in the mean time taken a course in the Normal University, Lebanon, Ohio, then under the control of President Alfred Holbrook.
     In 1882-3, he had charge of the academy at North Liberty, Adams County, and in the Autumn of the latter year was elected Superintendent of Schools at West Union, receiving the highest salary ever paid in that position.  On Dec. 27, 1883, he was married to Miss Ida McCormick, a daughter of William McCormick, near Tranquility, Adams County.  Where a resident of West Union, Mr. Stivers edited and published The Index, afterwards merged into The Democratic Index, a newspaper of wide circulation.  He also, in 1885, published his “Outlines of United States History.” And a hand-book for teachers, titled “Recreations in School Studies,” which has reached its tenth edition.
     Having undertaken the study of the law in the office of Hon. F. D. Bayless, while residing in West Union, in the Autumn of 1887, Mr. Stivers removed to Cincinnati to complete his course, and in 1888 he was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court at Columbus, Ohio.
     In 1890, his health failing, he removed to his farm near his boyhood home in Brown County, where he now resides, looking after his farming interests, his publications, and his legal practice.
     In 1895, Mr. Stivers was elected by the Democratic party to represent Brown County in the Ohio Legislature, and he was re-elected to that position in 1897.  In 1899, he was elected to the Ohio Senate from the 2d-4^th District, composed of the counties of Brown, Clermont, Butler and Warren, which position he is now holding.  From 1897 to 1899, he represented the Sixth Congressional District as a member of the Democratic State Central Committee.  While a member of the Legislature, Mr. Stivers was placed on the most important committees such as the Judiciary, Railroads and Telegraphs, Insurance, Fees and Salaries, and Municipal Affairs.
     He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and of the K. of P.  His domestic relations are most happy, and he has four bright and interesting children.  His son, Ulric Stivers, was a Page in the 73^rd  Session of the Ohio Senate, at the age of nine years, being the youngest lad ever chosen to that position.  He was chosen by the unanimous vote of the Senate regardless of politics, after the customary minority party Page had been appointed by the President of the Senate.
(Source 1: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900 - Page 854) (Portrait Available)

JOHN STIVERS, a son of William Stivers and Elizabeth King, was born near the city of New York in the year 1765.  He had six brothers, Edward, William, Reuben, Peter, James and Richard, and three sisters, one of whom, Sarah, married Richard Bergin of Bourbon County, Ky., who afterwards settled near Columbus, Ohio.  In 1775, in order to escape the Tory allies of George III, in and about New York, William Stivers moved to Spottsylvania County, Virginia.  There he was comparatively safe from Tory persecutions, and during the Revolution he sent six sons to battle for the cause of Liberty, his seventh son, Richard, being too young to bear arms.  John Stivers, the sixth son, volunteered in May, 1780, in Captain Robert Daniel’s Company of Colonel Spencer’s Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, when but little past fifteen years of age, for a period of service of five months.  At the expiration of the term of his first enlistment, he again volunteered for a term of three months under Captain Robert Harris, of Colonel ___ Regiment.  At the expiration of his second term of enlistment the war was practically over.  Virginia was cleared of marauding bands of Tories and Cornwallis and his British and Hessian forces were shut up in Yorktown to stay until they marched out to the tune of “The World’s Upside Down,” and he surrendered his sword to Washington.
     In the year 1786, John Stivers married Miss Martha Neel, a daughter of John Neel, a Scotch emigrant, and settled in the forks of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela Rivers, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.  There his family of eight children were born:  Samuel K., Robert, James, John, Matilda, who married Isaac Teachenor; Lydia, who married William Shaw; Washington and Nancy, who married Enoch Moore.  In 1799, he moved to Bourbon County, Kentucky, and soon thereafter came to Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio, and settled on Brier Ridge within sight of the old Methodist Church in what is now Liberty Township, where he continued to reside until his death in 1839.  Before coming to Ohio he and his oldest brother, Reuben, who settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky, laid military warrants Nos. 6640, 6642 and 6643 covering 630 acres of land lying on Treber’s Run, and on the East Fork of Eagle Creek in Adams County.  The youngest brother, Richard, afterwards came to Kentucky and settled near Louisville, where he became one of the most prominent planters of that region.  John Stivers as an active, vigorous man, both in body and mind, and took a deep interest in his day in affairs of county and state.  HE was a radical Jeffersonian Democrat in his political opinions, and he was a faithful member of the Baptist Church for nearly fifty years.  In personal appearance he was a little below the medium in height, but very compactly built, and weighed in full and vigorous manhood about 165 pounds.  He had dark hair, steel-blue eyes and regular features, and was of a buoyant disposition and pleasing turn of mind; yet he was not slow to resent wrong or a personal affront.  It is related of him that soon after his first enlistment in the Revolution, that while resting with his company at a spring, a bumptious militia officer rode up and addressing him as “Bud,” requested a drink of water.  This so enraged the youthful soldier that he seized the officer and dragged him from his saddle and gave him a deserved pummeling for his impertinence.  He and his faithful wife are buried in the old cemetery at Decatur, in Brown County, Ohio. 
(Source 1: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers – 1900 – Page 617)

LYMAN P. STIVERS, was born in Bentonville, Adams County, on July 25, 1839.  His father was William Stivers, and his mother’s maiden name was Mary Downey.  She was born at East Liberty, Pennsylvania.  Her father was a soldier in the War of 1812, and killed at Sandusky, Ohio.  She was brought on the Ohio River, in a party with the Rev. John Meek, the celebrated Methodist minister.  The party landed at Manchester, Ohio, and Aaron Pence reared her.  She made her home with him until she was married.  She died in 1878 and her husband in 1884.  Our subject received a common school education.
     He was married Sept. 10, 1861, to Mary I. Fitch, daughter of the Hon. E. M. Fitch, of Brown County, who was a member of the Legislature from that county for four years.  Mrs. Fitch was a daughter of Col. Mills Stephenson, of Brown County, Ohio.  He was killed in the War of 1812 at Fort Stephenson, which was named for him.  Our subject is the father of five children, four daughters and one son.  His daughter, Ida B. Stivers, born Sept. 17, 1862, is the widow of Frank Gaffin.  Cora B. Stivers, his third daughter, born Nov. 13, 1866, is the wife of E. W. Erdbrink, formerly of Baltimore, Md., now a resident of Manchester, Ohio.  Our subject’s son, Joseph Randolph Stivers, born July 23, 1874, who received his Christian names in honor of the late Col. Joseph Cockerill, graduated in the Manchester schools, and is now a traveling salesman.
     His daughter, Sallie B. Stivers, was born Oct. 6, 1878.  She is married to Samuel A. Walker, formerly of Point Pleasant, W. Va., but now foreman of the Ohio Valley Furniture Company at Manchester.  Our subject was reared at Bentonville, Ohio.  When quite young he engaged in the mercantile business at that place, where he remained till he was elected Sheriff in 1871.  He served as Sheriff one term after which he moved back to Bentonville, where he kept hotel till 1880.  He then removed to Manchester, Ohio, and engaged as agent for buggies and farm implements.  He has been the salesman for the S. P. Tucker Buggy Co., of Manchester, Ohio, for several years and is at present employed by the Piano Manufacturing Company of Pullman, Illinois. 
(Source 1: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers – 1900 – Page 869)

COL. SAMUEL KING STIVERS, eldest son of John Stivers, the pioneer, and Martha Neel, was born near the junction of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela Rivers, Westmoreland, County, Pennsylvania Feb. 18, 1787.  In 1799, he came with his parents first to Bourbon Co., Ky., and afterwards to Adams Co., Ohio, settling on Brier Ridge.  Here he helped his father to “clear out” a farm, earning some money himself by teaching school.  At the beginning of the War of 1812, he volunteered as a Private in Capt. Josiah Lockhart’s Company of Col. James Trimble’s Regiment under Gen. Duncan McArthur, and was surrendered to the British by Gen. Hull, at Detroit, Aug. 16, 1812.  After his parole, he came home; but learning that his brother, James, had volunteered in a Kentucky regiment, he at once hastened to Maysville and re-enlisted in Captain Simmons’ Company of Col. William E. Roswell’s Regiment.  He served under Gen. Greene Clay in Harrison’s Campaign, and commanded a “Spy Company” in Col. Boswell’s Regiment of Kentucky Militia at the battle of the “Rapids of the Maumee,” May 5, 1813.  He took part in the action under Col. Dudley, and was made a prisoner of the war after the latter’s defeat and death.  Knowing his certain fate should he be recognized by his former captors, he assumed the name of “Samuel Bradford” and was under that name discharged.  He was one of the number that escaped the tomahawks of the Indians through the timely arrival of Tecumseh, while confined in the Blockhouse at Malden.  After his release by the British, he returned to Adams County, and soon afterwards married Miss Mary Creed, a daughter of Mathew Creed, who had come from Monroe Co., Va., to Rocky Fork, Highland Co., Oh., in 1804.  About the time of his marriage he was elected a Justice of the Peace in Sprigg Township, which position he held until his removal from the county in 1818.  He lived for a time on a farm near the residence of his father-in-law, and the removed to Russellville, Brown Co., where he followed surveying and school teaching until 1829, when he settled on a farm of three hundred and fifty acres one mile north of the present village of Fincastle.  Here he resided until his death, Aug. 7, 1864.  His widow survived until Nov., 1867, having been born in 1790.  Samuel K. Stivers was widely known as a surveyor and civil engineer.  He held the rank of Colonel, in the old State Militia, and had a large circle of warm political friends, among whom was Hon. Thomas L. Hamer, the peer of Tom Corwin in the field of political oratory.  He was a Democarat of the old school a Breckenridge Democrat in 1860, and lived and died a member of the “New Light” or Christian Church.
     Among his warm personal friends were Gen. Nathaniel Beasley, Judge George Barrere, Col. James Trimble and Dr. Lilly, and he named the four sons of his family, Beasley, Barrere, Trimble and Lilly.  And his wife named the three daughters for her best friends, Amanda Carlisle, her cousin; Elizabeth Brockway, and Mary Creed, herself.  He and his wife are buried in the old Earl Cemetery near Fincastle, Ohio.
(Source 1: History of Adams County, Ohio - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers – West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers – 1900 – Page 622)