Massie Twp. -
JOSEPH SEARS, merchant, Harveysburg;
born in Highland Co., Ohio, Feb. 12, 1817; is a son of
John and Penelope (Johnson) Sears, natives of Virginia.
He was raised and grew to manhood in his native State, and
learned the hatter trade, which business he followed through
life. It is believed that he was married in Virginia
and soon after emigrated to Ohio, and located in Highland
County, and there resided till his death in 1816, aged 41
years. He was the father of three sons and one
daughter - Mary, now widow Moses Bond, living
in Grant Co., Ind.; Pleasant, living in Fayette Co.,
Ohio; Christopher, in Indiana; and John.
Mrs. Sears married for her second husband John Bocock,
by whom she had one child (deceased). Subsequently
Mr. Bocock and wife moved to Grant Co., Ind., where
she died in 1868, in her 79th year. The subject of
this sketch, the youngest child of his father, was unborn at
the time of the death of his father; he was then cared for
by his mother till 7 years of age; then was placed with
Samuel Welch, with whom he remained till after his
majority, brought up to farm labor; was married Aug. 17,
1837, to Elizabeth, daughter of Jacob and Amelia
Hisey (see sketch of Christian Hisey); by this
union they had five children - Mary Jane, born July
8, 1838; Joseph Marshall, May 2, 1840 (deceased);
Jacob, June 16, 1841; John W., June 16, 1843; and
Amelia E. July 25, 1847 (deceased). Mrs.
Sears died Oct. 3, 1864, aged 53 years. On May 20,
1866, he married Mrs. Mary Ridge, daughter of
Jedadiah and Grace Adams, natives
of Pennsylvania, but emigrated to Ohio, and settled
at Waynesville in 1817; subsequently they moved to Preble
Co., Ohio, where she died in April, 1826, after which he
returned to Warren County, where he died Aug. 24, 1867, aged
78 years. Mrs. Sears was born in Pennsylvania
Aug. 1, 1815, and was brought to Ohio by her parents when 2
years of age, and here grew to womanhood, and married
Jacob Ridge, a native of Pennsylvania, by whom she
had five children, one only now surviving - John C.,
residing in Waynesville, in the employ of Van Antwerp, Bragg
& Co., of Cincinnati, as traveling salesman for school
books. Mr. Sears started out in life as a
farmer, which occupation he followed till 1864, when he
entered as a clerk in the mercantile trade for John Terry,
in the village of Hen Peck. In 1866, he bought a stock
of goods, and entered upon business for himself, in which he
has continued to the present time. Mr. Sears
began life a poor man, but by his labor and industry has
accumulated a good competency, and is one of the substantial
citizens of his community.
Source: History of Wayne Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: W. H.
Beers & Co., 1882 - Page 1015 |
Turtle Creek Twp.
-
AARON STEPHENS, deceased, was born in
the State of New Jersey in 1810; he was the son of
Ebenezer and Maria (Phoenix) Stephens; he came to Warren
Co., Ohio, with his parents in 1820; his mother died when he
was quite young; his father died in Knox Co., Ill., in 1849.
Our subject was married Jan. 1, 1835, to Miss Sarah
Hutchinson, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Roosa)
Hutchinson*, natives of Kentucky, and of French-Irish
descent. Mrs. Stephens was born in Clermont
Co., Ohio, June 22, 1816; by her married she had two
children, viz.: Harriet, the wife of Henry
Satterwhite, of Martinsville, Ind., and Dr. Joseph L.,
the discoverer of the opium cure. Our subject
commenced life with but little means, and at his death had
accumulated considerable property; he was a member of the
Masonic fraternity and a stanch Republican; he was prominent
in the politics of Warren County, and for about twenty years
was a member of the Board of Infirmary Directors of Warren
County. An industrious and energetic citizen, he
exerted much influence in the community in which he lived.
He died May 12, 1874, and was buried in the Lebanon
Cemetery. His portrait appears in this work.
Source: History of Wayne Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: W. H.
Beers & Co., 1882 - Page 781
* See biography of
Thomas J.
Hutchinson for a little more information. |
Turtle Creek Twp. -
J. L. STEPHENS, M. D., special opium
cure, Lebanon, was born at Deerfield, Warren Co., Ohio, Aug.
20, 1838; he is the son of Aaron
Stephens, deceased, whose biography appears
elsewhere in this work. Our subject received his
medical education at the Medical College of Ohio, at
Cincinnati, from which he graduated in 1859, and for a year
and a half thereafter he practiced his profession in Dayton,
Ohio. In 1861, after the breaking-out of the
rebellion, he was appointed Brigade Surgeon in the Army of
the Cumberland by Abraham Lincoln, and in that
capacity continued three years. In 1863, he married
Miss Medora Carter, of Nashville, Tenn., who died
eighteen months after marriage, leaving one child, Medora,
who is now living with her father. For ten years after
leaving the army, Dr. Stephens practiced medicine in
the South, principally in Louisiana, and during four years
of his residence there he occupied a seat in the State
Legislature. On the 27th of October, 1879, he was
again married to Miss Hattie Poor, a native of
Pennsylvania. While in the practice of his profession
in New Orleans, Dr. Stephens discovered a mode of
treatment for the opium habit, which was found to be more
efficacious than any hitherto practiced. Having
experimented with the cure in several cities, among which
were New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., and Cincinnati,
and brought it to a state of perfection, he, in 1879,
established a sanitarium one mile south of Lebanon for the
cure of the opium and morphine habit. Since that time,
more than one thousand persons have been patients of the
establishment, and several thousand persons in different
parts of the country have received the benefit of his
treatment. Among the patients have been persons
distinguished as lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and men who
have held high official positions. His place is
visited by people from all parts of the continent.
With one or two exceptions, he has had patients from every
State in the Union. Before this discovery, there was
no cure known for the opium habit but that called "tapering
off," and in this the suffering is so intense, and so
terribly severe, that patients who have gone through it say
they would prefer death tenfold rather than to experience a
repetition of the treatment. Under Dr. Stephens'
treatment, the patient can go wherever he desires, and while
the elimination of the drug from the system is being
accomplished, he feels nearly as comfortable, although
probably not quite so strong, as when he was a victim to the
drug.
Source: History of Wayne Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: W. H.
Beers & Co., 1882 - Page 781 |
Turtle Creek Twp. -
E. B. STEVENS, physician, Lebanon, was
born Aug. 5, 1823, at Monroe, Butler Co., Ohio. His
parents were Joshua Stevens, who emigrated to Ohio
from Winthrop, Me., and Eliza (Blackleach) Stevens, a
native of New York, who came to Ohio with her widowed mother
about 1820. Our subject attended the common school of
Monroe and a private high school which was under the
auspices of the Associate Reformed Church until 1839, when
he entered Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, from which he
graduated in 1843. He then taught school one year in
the Associate Reformed School, in which he had lately been a
pupil, and at the same time read medicine with his father.
In 1845 - 46 he attended lectures at the Ohio Medical
College of Cincinnati, where he in the latter year
graduated, and, returning to Monroe, practiced his
profession until 1849, when he came to Lebanon. After
remaining in Lebanon five years, he moved to Cincinnati, and
while there (in 1865) he assisted in reorganizing the Miami
Medical College, in which he became Professor of Materia
Medica. In 1873, he was elected to the same chair in
the University of Syracuse, N. Y., where a medical
department had just been organized. In the spring of
1877, he returned to Lebanon, and has since been engaged
here, in the practice of his profession, having entered into
a large and lucrative practice immediately on his arrival.
He was married, July 11, 1848, to Miss Mary L. Stewart,
of Carthage, Jefferson Co., N.Y., by whom he has had five
children, viz.: Mary E., who is living with her
parents; Carrie E., now the wife of C. C.
Robinson, of Cincinnati; Edward S., a practicing
physician of Clarksville, Ohio; Charles B., now
engaged in business in Cincinnati, and Jennie C., who
died at the age of nine years. Dr. Stevens has
been largely connected with the publication of several of
the leading medical journals of the country. He became
the editor of Laucet and Observer, a journal devoted
to the interests of the profession, in 1856, having Drs.
Mendenhall and Murphy, of Cincinnati, associated
with him a part of the time. He practices what is
known among the profession as the "regular" system of
medicine, but gives his especial attention to obstetrics.
He is a man of great ability and gentlemanly manners, and
stands at the top of his profession. In 1878, he
established the Obstetric Gazette, a monthly
journal devoted to obstetrics and diseases of women - the
only monthly of the sort in America. He has always
been an active member of the State and other medical
societies, and a frequent contributor to the medical
literature of the day as found in the journals and society
transactions. For many years he was Secretary, of the
Ohio State Medical Society, and in 1867, was elected its
President. He presided over the annual meeting at
Delaware in 1868.
Source: History of Wayne Co., Ohio - Publ. Chicago: W. H.
Beers & Co., 1882 - Page 782 |
| |
|
