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OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS
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Ashland County, Ohio
BIOGRAPHIES |
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(Source: History of Ashland County, Ohio with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches,
by George William Hill, M.D. - Published by Williams Bros. 1880.)
UNLESS OTHERWISE Stated
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WILLIAM
H. VAN GILDER was born in Ashland county, Ohio, in 1842. He
first learned the tinsmith trade, and followed that four years;
then learned the carpenter's trade and worked at that eight years.
He was then engaged in farming a few years, and is now engaged in
the hotel business—at present is proprietor of the Commercial
house, at Perrysville, the only hotel in the place. In the fall of
1861 he entered the quartermaster's department of the army of the
Cumberland, and served there eighteen months. In the fall of 1863
he enlisted in the Fourth Ohio battery light artillery, under
Captain Conkle, in battery D; was in the Atlanta
campaign, Hood's raid into Tennessee, and took part in the
capture of Wilmington and Fort Fisher, under General
Thomas, and was discharged by special order of the war
department in July, 1865. In 1865 he married Catharine
Scott, and is the father of two children, viz: Lawrence
and Byron
Source: History of Ashland Co., Ohio – Publ. by William Bros. – 1880 - Page
280 |
JOHN VAN NEST was born Dec. 1,
1814, in York county, Pennsylvania. He attended common schools, learned the
trade of a saddler in 1831-32, came to Wooster,
Wayne county, in 1838, and worked until
1839. He married
Miss Sarah Wiley, OF Smithville,
Wayne county, May 2, 1839, moved to Rowsburgh the same month, and has carried on
business ever since. He has served as a
justice of the peace six terms. He was
elected commissioner in 1864, and served two terms. He has been a member of the Lutheran
church since 1849. His ancestors were
from Holland, and located in New Jersey. His father,
John Van Nest, located in
York county, Pennsylvania,
and came to Wayne
county in 1838, and died in Millbrook, in 1862, aged eighty-seven.
John Van Nest is the father of ten
children – two dead, eight living.
Source: History of Ashland Co., Ohio – Publ. by William Bros. – 1880 - Page
214 |
PETER
VAN NORDSTRAND, SR. was born in New Jersey, and, after
the close of the Revolutionary war, emigrated to Westmoreland
county, Pennsylvania. His ancestors were from Holland.
In 1816 he came to Clearcreek township, Richland (now Ashland)
county, and located on section thirty-five, where he deceased,
1817,aged about fifty years. He had been a neighbor to the
Baileys and Brytes in Westmoreland county, and was
induced to settle in the wilds of Clearcreek because of their
emigration to that region. A brother-in-law, Archibald
Gardner, located in Mifflin, on the present site of Windsor,
in the spring of 1811, and forted at Ream's in 1812.
Mr. Van Nordstrand's sons were: John,
who subsequently removed to, and deceased, in Iowa; Isaac,
who also located in Iowa, and Peter, who continues to
reside, in Clearcreek township. The daughters
were Elizabeth, wife of Abraham Bebout;
Anna, wife of William Andrews; Rachel, wife of
David Urie; Effie, wife of Alexander McCready; Eleanor,
wife of James McCool; Margaret, wife of Michael Shoup;
Mary, wife of David Bryte, and Sarah, wife of
John Mykrants.
Peter married Nancy Shaw, and is now about
seventy-two years of age. He states that when his father
landed in Clearcreek, there were but eight or ten families in
the township. The first school-house in his part of the
township was a little cabin of round logs, erected on the farm
of the late Abraham Huffman, in 1817. The children
of the following householders attended, Mr. Robert Nelson
being the first teacher: Abraham Huffman, John Brown,
Andrew Stevison, Robert Ralston, Widow Trickle, David McKinny,
Rev. William Matthews, Levi and Thomas Brink, Widow Mary
Van Nordstrand, and the children of Robert Nelson.
The country was in its primitive condition, game was plenty, and
the Indians from Sandusky hunted annually in the forests of
Clearcreek for a number of years after the arrival of the first
settlers. They were harmless, and rarely visited the
cabins of the pioneers, except when they were driven to do so
from pinching hunger.
Peter Van Nordstrand, Jr., occupied the old
homestead until about 1872, when his wife deceased. He is
now residing with a son-in-law. He has been an exemplary
member of the Christian Church for over thirty years. His
wife was also a devoted member of teh same church. It is
rarely that men, in a single community, witness the changes that
have taken place within this county in the last sixty years.
From an almost unbroken forest, the hills and valleys of this
county have been reduced to cultivation, and every township
teams with abundance. Schools, villages, and towns have
sprung into being, as if by magic. From a few hundred the
inhabitants of the county have multiplied until our population
reaches over twenty-three thousand. The Indian that roamed
over the hills and along the fertile valleys of this county has
long since removed to the far west, and his race will, ere long,
become extinct.
Source: History of Ashland Co., Ohio – Publ. by William Bros. – 1880 - Page
225 |
PETER VANOSTRAND, SEN., in
the autumn of 1815, made a land office entry of the southeast
quarter of section 35, Clearcreek Township. In the spring
of 1816, a part of the family removed to the land, erected a
cabin, partially cleared a small tract and planted in corn and
potatoes.
On the 14th July, 1817, Peter Vanostrand, Sen.,
died - leaving a wife and eleven children, (one of them,
however, a daughter, having remained in Pennsylvania.)
Among the sons was Peter Vanostrand, Jr., the present
owner and occupant of the land above described, and who, at the
time of his father's death, was ten years of age.
About 1820, the first school-house in the southern
portion of the township was erected on the southern line of the
land of Abram Huffman The house was of hewn logs,
18 by 20 feet, cabin roof, puncheon floor, puncheon tables and
puncheon seats. The only light was admitted by throwing
out a log on two sides of the building, and using paper,
saturated with grease, as a substitute for window glass.
The facilities for heating the house were limited to fires made
in a fireplace such as were in general use in the cabins of
those days, and afforded in cold weather insufficient heat to
admit of practice in writing, as the ink would almost freeze in
the pen in the process of transferring it from the inkstand to
the paper. The first teacher was Robert Nelson, of
Milton Township, who continued in that capacity two or three
years. Among the first scholars were the children of
Abraham Huffman, Isaac Van Meter, Peter Vanostrand, Sen., Robert
Ralston, Andrew Stevenson, Mrs. Treckle, and David
McKinney.
Mr. Vanostrand's only neighbors in his part of the
township, when he first removed to it, were Abram Huffman
and Isaac Van Meter.
As evidence of the privations
endured by many in the early settlement, Mr. Vanostrand
mentions the case of a worthy family who came to the country
destitute of either provisions or money, who subsisted a greater
portion of one season upon pumpkins alone - commencing their use
as food while the vegetable was yet unripened. The family
would perhaps have suffered death by starvation, had it not been
for the friendly aid afforded them by neighbors, after learning
their situation.
Every house in Clearcreek, as was the case in other
townships in the early settlement, manufactured the wearing
apparel for its own household. The males were dressed in
buckskin and domestic linen; and the women and children were
also dressed in fabrics the product of their own fields and
households.
There were no woolen goods, as sheep would be devoured
by the wolves; and after the wolves had so far disappeared as to
invite the introduction of sheep, the climate and wild food were
discovered to be unfavorable to their life and health.
Source: History of Ashland Co., Ohio - Publ. 1863. - Page 165 |
DANIEL
VANTILBURG, Sr., was born in New Jersey, in 1781, and with
his father's family settled in Jefferson county, Ohio, about 1809
or 1810, where he served as a soldier under General R. Beall,
in the war of 1812, in the Sandusky campaign. He located
one hundred and sixty acres of land, one and one-half miles south
of Ashland, on the Hayesville road, which he cleared up and
improved, and where he died, August 4, 1866, at the ripe old age
of eighty-five years. He married, in 1813, in Jefferson
county, Ohio, Miss Margaret Clinton, by whom he had six
children, three boys and three girls. The boys were:
Henry, who died in 1843; John, who died in 1846; and
Daniel, who died in 1877. Mrs. Vantilburg died in
1864, aged about seventy-one years.
Daniel Vantilburg, jr., died in May , 1877, aged
fifty-six years. His family consisted of Margaret, John,
William, and George. Margaret married
Dr. Charles Campbell, and died in 1879. Mrs.
Vantilburg's name before marriage was Clarissa Myers.
She was born January 22, 1828, and was married to Daniel
Vantilburg, jr. , January 3, 1846.
Source: History of Ashland Co.,
Ohio – Publ. by William Bros. –
1880 - Page 246 |
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