JOHN PEASE TERRY,
President and Superintendent of the Portsmouth Iron and Steel
Company, was born in Coldbrook, N. H., Feb. 16, 1807, a son of
Charles and Huldah (Pease) Terry. About 1810 his parents
moved seven miles south of Sodus Point, Wayne Co., N. Y. His
father was a minuteman and was killed at the bu8rning of the Point
by the British in 1814. He remained with his mother a short
time and then went to live with Wells Whitman, of Ontario
County, remaining with him till eighteen years of age. He was
reared a farmer, with no educational advantages, but by personal
application and private study he acquired a fair education. In
1825 he borrowed $1 from his mother and started for the West.
He stopped in Buffalo a month, and then proceeded to Cleveland,
Ohio, then a place of 2,500 inhabitants. From there he went to
Akron, and the next spring to Newbury. In February, 1828, he
was employed by Francis Cleaveland, in the engineer corps of
the Ohio and Erie Canal, and by diligent study he was promoted at
different times till finally he was assistant engineer, serving
under Mr. Cleaveland till 1832. In the summer of 1832
he was contractor on the Cincinnati & Harrison Turnpike, in Hamilton
County. He then became a stockholder in the Clinton Furnace
Company, and was manager till 1834. About that time he was
financially ruined by the failure of Jacob Clingman,
for whom he hand endorsed notes, and was obliged to again work for a
salary. He then went to Indiana and was engaged in engineering
on the Wabash & Erie Canal a part of 1834-'5, after which he took
heavy contracts on the canals, completing some of them in 1837.
In 1837, having again acquired considerable capital, he came to
Portsmouth, and the following year, with Richard Lloyd,
became established in the wholesale boot and shoe business,
remaining with him till 1840. From 1843 till 1845 he, with
William Waller, W. Davis, and Samuel Cole shipped produce
to New Orleans. Having to take a farm in Washington Township
on a mortgage he carried it on till 1847, when with Wm. Waller
and Samuel Cole he bought the Quarry flouring mills and
tannery. In 1853 he retired from the firm, and with others
built the Madison Furnace, in Jackson County. In 1864 he sold
out and speculated in iron till 1866, when he bought the Buckeye
Furnace. In 1870 he retired from business. In 1873 he
went to Missouri and built the Hamilton Furnace, but it not proving
a paying investment he, in 1874, returned to Portsmouth. He
has been a Director and Stockholder in the First National Bank since
its organization, and in 1878 was chosen President, but only served
a year. In 1879 he became a stockholder in the Portsmouth Iron
and Steel Company, and since June, 1881, he has been President and
Superintendent. Mr. Terry has served on the City
Council and School Board several terms each. Nov. 14, 1832, he
married Susan, daughter of Dr. Thomas Waller.
They have had five children - Mary Indiana, Charles, Louis,
George and Alice B. A daughter, Ella, died
in 1835, aged one year. A son, Thomas, was a cadet at
West Point at the breaking out of the Rebellion, but resigned and
enlisted in the Union army. He was Second Lieutenant in the
Ohio Heavy Artillery, and was detailed on the staff of General S.
S. Fry. He died at Point Burnsides, Ky., Mar. 4, 1864,
aged twenty-one years. Louis and George were
both in the late war, the former in Company A, Thirty-third Ohio
Infantry, and the later in what was known as President Lincoln's
Guards, stationed at Washington, D.C.
~ Page 298 - History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago:
Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 |
GEORGE TITTLE was
born in New Paris, Preble County, Ohio, Apr. 2, 1822, a son of
John Tittle. His father was a native of Pennsylvania, a
hatter by trade, who came to Ohio when a young lad, residing in
Preble County till his death, in 1856, aged sixty years.
George Tittle learned the tanner's and currier's trade when a
young man, in Eaton, Preble County. He worked at it two years
in Wayne County, Ind., two years in Butler County, Ohio, thirteen
years in Saline, Montgomery Co., Ohio, eight years in Dayton,
Montgomery County, and in 1868 removed to Vanceburg, Ky. His
tannery in Kentucky was burned to the ground and rebuilt twice; loss
from $15,000 to $20,000. In 1877 he built the Portsmouth
Tannery, on Scioto street, between Front and Second streets.
It is the only tannery in Portsmouth, and at first was a small
affair, but has been enlarged twice. He employs from six to
eight hands, and tans from sixty to seventy-five hides a week,
making a specialty of saddle skirtings. He uses chestnut oak
bark exclusively, having it ground by steam; the liquor is also
changed by steam pumps. Mr. Tittle was married in
Preble County, May 25, 1843, to Sarah Ann Town, a native of
Philadelphia. She died in Kentucky, Apr. 5, 1876. He
afterward married Mrs. Martha J. (Kenyon) Cherington.
They have one daughter - Sallie.
~ Page 299 - History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago:
Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 |
HENRY ABNER TOWNE,
lawyer, Judge an Mayor, Portsmouth, Ohio, was born in
Litchfield, Herkimer Co., N. Y., Jan. 5, 1826. He is the only child
of Abner Towne and Sarah Eliza Vinton. His father
graduated from Union College, Schenectady, N. Y.; studied divinity
at Andover, Mass., and was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian
church in Litchfield, N. Y., on July 18, 1825, where he died
June 19, 1826, in the very prime of his usefulness, greatly
lamented. Our subject was then only five months old. His
mother was a sister of the Hon. Samuel P. Vinton, once a
Member of Congress from the Gallipolis, Ohio district. Shortly
after the death of her husband she returned to her parents in
Amherst, Mass., but some two or three years subsequent came to Ohio,
and made her home with her brother in Gallipolis for a year or more,
while there being engaged in teaching school. She afterward
became the wife of Dr. Robert Safford, of Putnam, Ohio (now
included in the city of Zanesville), and in 1831 removed to that
place. When about ten years of age young Towne went to
live with an aunt in Milan, Huron Co., Ohio, and there began a
course of study preparatory for college. Returning to Putnam
after a year or two, he completed his college preparation. In
the fall of 1841 he entered Marietta College, and graduated
therefrom in 1845. For a year subsequent he was engaged in
teaching school in Coshocton, Ohio, and while thus employed resumed
the study of law under the Hon. David Spangler, which he had
previously begun under General C. P. Goddard, of Zanesville.
In 1849 he was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, and immediately
located in Marietta, where he began the practice of his profession
in partnership with Hon. W. A. Whittlesey, after a Member of
Congress from Southern Ohio. In December, 1855, he removed to
Portsmouth, where for several years he continued in practice by
himself, but subsequently took into partnership Hon. James W.
Bannon, of Portsmouth. In 1868 he was elected Judge of the
Common Pleas for the second sub-division of the second judicial
district of Ohio, but served only something over a year, and then
resigned and resumed his legal practice in Portsmouth, with H. W.
Farnham In the spring of 1879 he was chosen Mayor of
Portsmouth, and served acceptably a term of two years. During
the summer of 1880 he served under the Government as Supervisor of
the census for the Fourth Census District of the State. In
January, 1882, his health being impaired, and for the purpose of
having a change of labor and climate, he accepted the position of
Clerk of the House of Representatives' Committee in the District of
Columbia, and served during the Forty-seventh Congress. In
politics he was formerly an Old line Whig, but upon the organization
of the Republican party became one of its first advocates, and has
voted solely with that party since. He has always taken a
lively interest in all educational matters, and for four years was a
member of the Portsmouth Board of Education, serving as its
secretary, a and also having charge of its finances. He is
connected as stockholder and director with the Scioto Star
Fire-Brick Works, of East Portsmouth, and also stock-holder in the
Globe Iron Company, of Jackson, Jackson Co., Ohio. On Dec. 18,
1856, Judge Town, married Harriet Nye, of Marietta,
Ohio, whose father, Judge Arius Nye, once represented his
district in the Ohio Legislature, also served as Common Pleas Judge,
and was very prominent and useful man of his day. She is also
a great-granddaughter, on her mother's side, of General Benjamin
Tupper, of Revolutionary fame. The issue of this marriage
was one son - Robert S. Towne. He is a graduate of the
Ohio State University at Columbus, and is by profession a mining
engineer. He is now located at Buena Vista, Col. , and is
prosecuting his chosen profession with fine success. In
religious views Judge Towne is an Episcopalian, and is a
Vestryman in All-Saints' Episcopal Church, Portsmouth, Ohio.
He is a man of fine natural abilities and good judgment, and is well
qualified for the honorable positions held by him, all of which have
been tendered him without his solicitation. His ministrations,
both as Judge and as Mayor, have been rendered with fidelity and
impartiality. He possesses a fine physique, courteous manners
and excellent social qualities, and is very greatly respected in the
community.
~ Page 300 - History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago:
Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 |
W. D. TREMPER, D. D. S.,
was born in New Richmond, Ohio, Jan. 9, 1851, a son of
Johnson Tremper, a pioneer of New Richmond. He began the
study of his profession under Dr. R. A. Mollyneaux, and
graduated at the Ohio Dental College, Cincinnati, in 1870. He
then located in Ypsilanti, Mich., and practiced eight years, and in
1878 removed to Portsmouth, and located on the corner of Second and
Washington streets. Dr. Tremper fully understands his
profession, and is prepared to practice any part of surgical
dentistry in the most careful manner. He was married Dec. 7,
1880, to Mary Hayman, a native of Newport, Ky.
Page 301 - History of Lower Scioto Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago:
Inter-state Publishing Co. 1884 |
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