|
OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS
|
WELCOME TO
Fairfield County, Ohio
|
|
|
BIOGRAPHIES
GEORGE S. COURTRIGHT
George S. Courtright has devoted his life to labors
wherein wealth and influence availeth little or naught, the
measure of success depending upon mentality, the
ability—both natural and acquired—and the broad culture of
the individual possessing all the requisite qualities of an
able physician. Dr. Courtright has advanced to
a position prominent in the medical fraternity of Ohio, and
is now successfully practicing in Lithopolis. The Doctor was
born April 27, 1840, in Pickaway county, Ohio, a son of
Jesse D. and Sally (Stout) Courtright, the former a
native of Fairfield county, Ohio, and the latter of
Pennsylvania. He was educated in the common schools and in
South Salem Academy, Ross county, Ohio, and after completing
his literary course took up the study of medicine, intending
to make its practice his life work. He pursued his studies
in Cincinnati and was graduated in the Medical College of
Ohio in 1862.
For some years thereafter he was a well known educator
in the line of his profession. He was resident surgeon of
St. John's. Hospital in 1861, and of the Cincinnati Hospital
in 1862, continuing in that capacity until he went into the
army in the month of November, 1862, entering the service as
contract surgeon, remaining in that capacity until August,
1863. At that time he became assistant surgeon of the:
United States Volunteers, appointed by President
Lincoln. He was sent to Burnside's army in the
Department of the Ohio and in October he received orders
from the war department to report to Santa Fe, New Mexico,
to the general then- commanding that division. He made a
trip from Kansas City to Fort Leavenworth and thence by
stage, a distance of one thousand miles, to Santa Fe. The
troops in that locality captured nine thousand Indians and
held California and Utah. He was appointed major by brevet
for gallant and meritorious service during the war. In
December, 1865, the Doctor returned from Fort Craig, New
Mexico, to Cincinnati, and in 1866 he became demonstrator of
anatomy in the Miami Medical College, where he remained for
two years. In 1868 he came to Lithopolis, where he has since
resided.
In May of that year he was united in marriage to
Miss Margaret Cornelia Stevens, of
Lebanon, Warren county, and they now have one son, Jesse
Stevens, who is a resident of Pickaway county. The
Doctor is a member of the Grand Army post and of the Loyal
Legion. He is also a member of the soldiers' relief
commission of Bloom township. He is a Knight Templar Mason
and has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish
Rite. He is also identified with the Presbyterian church, is
its treasurer, and for thirty-five years has been one of its
faithful members. He was also president of the board of
pension examiners for nearly four years. He has served as
the president of the school board of Lithopolis and takes a
deep interest in everything that pertains to the public
welfare. In politics he has always supported the Democratic
party. In the line of his profession he is connected with
the Hocking Valley Medical Association and is a life member
of the State Medical Society of Ohio. He also belongs to the
American Medical Association. He is an extremely busy and
successful practitioner, constantly overburdened by demands
for his services, both professionally and socially. He is a
man of the highest and purest character, an industrious and
ambitious student and was a gifted teacher. Genial in
disposition, unobtrusive and unassuming, he is patient under
adverse criticism, and in his expressions concerning
brother practitioners is friendly and indulgent.
The genealogy of the Courtright family is traced
by Riker, the historian-genealogist, to the fourteenth
century.
The name was originally van Kortryk, and
as family names were the exception and not the rule among
our early forefathers, some difficulty has been experienced
by genealogists in tracing the family history of many of the
old families. During the time< of John Calvin
the van Kortryks, like many other of the old
and wealthier families, became Protestants (or followers of
Calvin). They builded churches and the Protestants
became very strong numerically as well as financially, but
the church of Rome was very powerful, and by superior forces
drove the members of the new religious sect from their
native country. The van Kortryks inhabited the
country along the borders of Spain and France, but the
religious persecution drove them to Flanders and thence to
Leerdom—central of the district stood the city of Leerdom,
giving name to a county in which it was situated,—a level
grazing country, otherwise called the Prince's Land, because
inherited by a son of William of Orange from his
mother, Anne of Egmont. In the language of the
historian, "To Leerdom had retired from the religious
troubles in Flanders the family of Sebastien or
Bastiaen van Kortryk—about all we know of
this Kortryk progenitor with his royal Spanish name.
During the humane rule of Philip the Fourth
the condition of the Protestants became much improved, but
later witnessed cruel persecutions. On the river Lys was
builded a city named after the family. Riker says: "Kortryk
was a Flemish town yet farther down the Lys, which within
the previous century had witnessed cruel persecutions, and
during the existing war (how great its calamities!) had
changed hands four times in five years. But one of its
families had escaped these last troubles by leaving some
years before; we refer to the ancestors of the Kortrright
or Courtright family, in its day one of the most
wealthy in landed possessions in Harlem."
Sebastien cr Bastiaen von, or van, Kortryk
was the head of the Courtright family as far
as can be traced by genealogists. He lived in the fourteenth
century from all that can be learned of him. He was the
father of two boys., Jan. and Michiel. They
were born at Leerdom. While they both married, we know
nothing of the progeny of the former, but Michiel, or
'Chiel, Kortryk seemed to prosper. In
twentieth century parlance he became "rich," and lived with
his family for some time in a pretty village called "Schoonre-woerd,"
two miles northerly from Leerdom, his birthplace.
In and about Leerdom and Schoonrewoerd these people and
descendants lived for about one hundred years. Selling out
their estates, which the historian says were "large," they
went to the city of Amsterdam, where they and their
descendants lived for about another century.
On April 16, 1663, two of the van or von
Kortryks, by name Jan and Michiel—lineal
descendants of the original Michiel or 'Chiel—with
their families embarked on a vessel called the "Brindled
Cow' Jan Bergen, master, for New Amsterdam
(New York). They arrived in New York and located in what is
now the upper portion of the city and in the division of the
county. The township (in which they lived was named after
the family—Kortright, for the name had then been
Anglicized to that extent.
The great-great-grandfather of the subject of this
sketch, Lawrence Kortright, was the eldest son of his
father, Cornelius Kortright. He was a merchant and
became wealthy and prominent. In the old French war he was
part owner of several privateers fitted out at New York
against the enemy. He was one of the founders of the Chamber
of Commerce. He had large interests in Tyro county lands.
Before his death he conveyed his lands to his only son,
John, the great-grandfather of the subject of this
sketch. He died in 1794. By his wife, who was Hannah
Aspinwall, besides his son John, who was a
captain and afterwards colonel during the Revolutionary war,
but better known as "Captain John," he had four
daughters—Sarah, who married Colonel John
Heylinger, of Santa Cruz; Hester, who married
Nicholas Gouverneur, Esquire; Elizabeth, who
married Hon. James Monroe, who afterwards became
twice governor of Virginia and twice president of the United
States, and author of the famous "Monroe Doctrine;" and
Mary, who married Thomas Knox, Esquire.
Captain John married Catharine,,
daughter of Edmund Seaman, Esquire. He died in
1810, leaving a widow, who afterward married Henry B.
Livingston, Esquire. His son John, the
grandfather of the subject of this sketch, emigrated from
Pennsylvania about the beginning of the last century and
located in Bloom township in 1802, where he lived
continuously until his death, in 1863. His youngest son,
Jesse D., married Sally Stout, to whom were born
nine children, four daughters and five sons: Mary
Jane, who married Thomas Cole, now
deceased; Sarah, who married E. Westenhaver,
now deceased; Elizabeth, now the widow of the late
E. F. Berry; John, a prominent farmer of Walnut
township, Pickaway county; Judge Samuel W., of
Circleville; Dr. Alva P., now deceased; and Edson
B., who died just as he had attained his manhood; and
the youngest girl, who died in infancy; also George S.,
the subject of above sketch.
Before the Revolution the prefix van or von
was dropped, but the name was never completely Anglicized
until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when by
common consent the first syllable was changed to "Court"
instead of "Kort." The name became changed about that
time in other respects, one of the family writing his name "Cartwright"
Peter Cartwright, the world famous Methodist
preacher, was a cousin of grandfather Courtright.
Another member of the family removed to Maryland and his
name was changed or corrupted to "Outright," and we have in
southern Ohio a large family or families by that name,
descendants of the Marylander.
But the family as a family dropped the prefix "van"
or "von," later Anglicized the second and later the
first, so that the name has been for more than a century
Courtright.
It would require a volume to give in detail the
complete history of this family, the foregoing being but a
brief synopsis. |
|
. |
CLICK HERE
to Return to
FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO |
CLICK HERE to
Return to
OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS |
This Webpage has been created by Sharon Wick exclusively for Ohio Genealogy Express
©2008
Submitters retain all copyrights |
|
|