Rich as is this county in its productions it has been equally rich in its production of useful, strong men. JOHN REILY was born in Pennsylvania in 1763; in 1791 went to Cincinnati, and in 1803 settled in Hamilton.

On our first tour he was one of the five surviving members of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio. His friend Judge Burnet, in his Notes, gave an eloquent tribute to his character and services. He was clerk of the Supreme Court of Butler county from 1803 to 1842. He died at the age of eighty-seven years. He was a man of clock-work regularity of habits and system; could in a few moments find a paper he had not seen in twenty years. In every respect he was a first

class man.

The governor of Ohio during the Mexican war, 1846-1848, was WILLIAM BEBB. He was born of Welsh stock in 1802 on the Dry Fork of Whitewater, in Morgan township. He had been elected by the Whigs. We met him here, a well-formed man, rather tall, with a dark complexion, and at the time noted for his easy eloquence. He was especially strong as a jury lawyer; it was said his appeals to a jury were very touching; he could weep at any time. His old home is yet standing in the southern part of the county.. He removed to the Rock river, Illinois, early in the fifties. where he had a large farm. He later went to Europe and led a colony of Welsh colonists from Wales to the wilderness of Scott co., Tenn. The colony was broken up by the Civil War. Bebb lived to be a pension examiner under Lincoln and help in the election of Grant; he died at his home in Rockford, Ill., in 1873.

Middletown, in this county, early in this century was the birthplace of a sculptor of great promise who, dying young, was written about as "the gifted and lamented CLEV

ENGER.

JOHN B.WELLER, born in Hamilton county in 1812, had a high career. When but twentytwo years of age was elected to Congress and so on for three successive terms; led the Second Ohio, as lieutenant-colonel, in the Mexican war, and returning thence led the Democratic party in the bitter gubernatorial fight of 1848, and was defeated by Seabury Ford, of Geauga county, the Whig candidate. In 1849 was commissioned to run the boundary line between California and Mexico. From 1852 to 1857 he was United States Senator from California and then was elected governor. In 1860 he was appointed by Buchanan Minister to Mexico. He died in New Orleans in 1875, where he was practising law. "Nature," it was said, had gifted him with

an easy, declamatory eloquence," but his bent was politics rather than law.

JOHN WOODS was born in Pennsylvania in 1794, of north It ish stock; came when a mere child with his parents to Warren county; served in Congress from 1825 to 1829; then edited and published the Hamilton Intelligencer; from 1845 to 1851 was auditor of the State, in which office he brought order out of confusion and "left indelible marks on the policy and history of Ohio." Later was interested in railroad development, and from his habits of industry and restless energy proved a great power. He died in 1855, aged sixty-one years. It seems that from early boyhood he determined to get an education and become a lawyer. The country all around was a wilderness and he contracted to clear a piece of land for a certain compensation. In this clearing he erected a hut, where he studied nights when others slept, and this after having chopped and hauled heavy timber all day Then regularly every week he went over to Lebanon to recite and receive instructions from Hon. John McLean, later Chief-Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In this Woods was, however, but a fair sample of Ohio youth of that day, to whom obstacles served as lures to tempt them to fight their way. The history of Ohio is profusely dotted all over with them. On their brows is stamped "invincibility;" over them flies a banner bearing just two words, "will and work."

JOHN M. MILLIKIN was one of the numerous and intellectual Millikin family of Hamilton, who died about 1882 in advanced life. He was a large portly gentleman of "tremendous push and go; was by education a lawyer; had a most excellent large stock farm near Hamilton; was at one time State treasurer and long president of the State Board of Agriculture; wrote a great deal for the material interest of the State and especially upon its farm animals and agriculture. One of his sons was a professor in Ohio State University, and another was Colonel Minor Millikin, killed at Stone river. Whitelaw Reid characterized John M. Millikin-Major Millikin, as he was usually called-as of the foremost among that body of retired professional men who adorn the vocation of Ohio farmers,' etc.

one

THOMAS MILLIKIN, of Hamilton, born in 1819. stands pre-eminent among the lawyers of Ohio; is especially strong in will cases; so wide his fame that another word here is useless.

LEWIS D. CAMPBELL, born in 1811, died in 1882, was early known to the entire coun

try.

He began life as an apprentice by picking up type on the Cincinnati Gazette; was sent by the Whig party to Congress in 1849; became chairman of the ways and means committee. In the civil war was for a time a colonel of an Ohio regiment; minister to Mexico 1866 to 1868, and from 1871 to 1873 again in Congress.

GENERAL FERDINAND VAN DERVEER is a resident of Hamilton. He was born in this county in 1823, a lawyer by profession, and made a fine record in the war for the Union. He was one of the most earnest of war Democrats, and his was the first Union regiment to enter Kentucky. In the great campaign between Brough and Vallandigham the latter did not receive a single vote in his regiment.

JOHN W. IRWIN, of Hamilton, is the most aged and experienced engineer of Ohio. He was born in Delaware in 1808 and early came to Ohio and engaged in public works, first upon turnpikes, then upon canals and railroads. In 1842 he was appointed resident engineer of the Ohio & Erie Canal, and had full charge of the system between Cincinnati and Toledo. He spent nearly forty years in that capacity, locating all the works, passed over every foot of the ground many times, enduring many hardships. The Hamilton and Rossville and many other hydraulics were constructed by him, and in 1838, by draining the Big Pond" in Fairfield township, he brought into cultivation some of the richest farming land known anywhere. No man can be more respected than he most deservedly is by his fellow-citizens.

The manufacturing development of Hamilton has been advanced by MR. WILLIAM BECKETT, a man of large public spirit and a general public operator. If any project is thought of for the good of the community the first inquiry is: Where is Beckett? He came into Ohio at an early date, 1821came into it in the best possible shape, being born into it-the precise spot Hanover township, Butler county. With an enterprise on foot to enthuse him he is probably the most easy persuasive talker in Ohio, and no one can well be more liked by fellow-citizens.

J. P. MACLEAN, the archæologist, is also a resident of Hamilton. With the exception of Ross, Butler county has more antiquities than any other in the State; the most known of these in Butler county is Fortified Hill in Ross township. Mr. MacLean has been an indefatigable explorer. His published works are "Archæology of Butler County," "A Manual of the Antiquity of Man,' and 'Mastodon, Mammoth and Man.'

66

There died in December, 1887, in his seventy-fourth year, in this county, a literary character of unusual eccentricity, especially so in his selection of topics for his muse. His name was JAMES WOODMANSEE, who called himself the Bard of Sugar Valley." The county history thus notices him: He was a son of Daniel Woodmansee of New Jersey, who settled in Butler county in 1809. The poet was born in 1814, and early developed a fondness for verse. He received a good education and was brought up to agricultural pursuits, but this life did not have any attractions for him. James Woodmansee has written two epic poems, "The Closing Scene, a Poem in Twelve Books," and "Religion, a Poem in Twelve Books. The subject of the first named is the great war between Gog and Magog, ending with the Wreck of Matter and the Crash of Worlds.' The second shows religion from the time the "Spirit travelled over the water's face" to the millennium. Besides these he has written Wrinkles from the Brow of Experience, Poetry of the Lessons," and "The Prodigal Son," a drama in five acts. "The Closing Scene" and "Wrinkles," published some years ago, received much praise both in America and Europe. Thomas N. Talfourds, a great critic and judge of Westminster, said: "The Closing Scene" rivals the "Divine Commedia of Dante, and Samuel Rogers, author, called it the "Paradise Lost of America." Mr. Woodmansee had travelled considerably in Europe and all over America.

DANIEL W.VOORHEES, U. S. Senator from Indiana, was born in Butler county in 1827. His speech in the defence of Cook, one of the comrades of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, gave him a wide reputation for eloquence, being published alike in our country and Europe.

JOSEPH EWING MCDONALD, an eminent Indiana lawyer and statesman, is also a native of this county. He is of Scotch extraction and was born in Fairfield township August 29, 1819. When he was seven years of age his widow mother removed to the wilderness of Montgomery county, Indiana. He was educated at Wabash College, supporting himself by intervals of work at the saddler's trade, which he had learned. In 1856 and 1858 he was elected attorney-general of Indiana. In 1864 was defeated for governor by Oliver P. Morton. He was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1875. His reputation as a lawyer is very high, and as a man he has largely the respect of the public irrespective of political creeds.

the oldest son of the oldest son for severalthe story is for seven generations. He has one sister, Mrs. John M. Scott, who lives at the old home, and one brother, Col. Benton

moved to a house meantime erected on a pleasant foot-hill, 100 yards southwest of the spring and the elm. There had appeared south and west of this house in the summer of 1829 a remarkable group of sycamores, They are shown in the cut of the house and are a lofty and beautiful grove. As they are of the same age as Mr. Halstead they have always been associated with him, and he values them very highly.

In his boyhood Murat Halstead worked on the farm in the summer and attended school in the winter. At nineteen years of age he became a student at Farmer's College, College Hill, seven miles north of the Ohio at Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1851, and at once made his home in Cincinnati, and wrote stories for the city papers and letters for country papers. While he was the literary editor of the Columbian and Great

Halstead, who resides at Riverside, Ohio. His mother died Aug. 29, 1864, and his father Oct. 29, 1884.

His mother taught him the alphabet, using the Hamilton, Butler county, Telegraph, as a primer, and he was able to read fluently when first sent to school at five years of age. The house where he was born was of hewn timber, standing nigh a spring that had been a famous place for Indian hunting encampments, a great number of stones in the

BOYHOOD HOME AND SYCAMORE GROVE.

neighborhood being burnt with many fires and the ground strewn with arrowheads. The spot is marked by a tree, a solitary elm.

When Murat was two years old the family

THE SOLITARY ELM.

West he had an offer to go upon the Commercial, which he accepted March 8, 1853. He became a member of the firm of M. D. Potter & Co. May 15, 1854.

March 2, 1857, he married Miss Mary Banks, a native of Cincinnati. Twelve children have been born to them, of whom seven sons and three daughters are living.

Upon the death of M. D. Potter in 1866, the firm of M. Halstead & Co. was organized, and January, 1883, the famous consolidation of the Cincinnati Commercial and the Cincinnati Gazette took place and Mr. Halstead was elected president of the CommercialGazette company. He is now more active and constant in daily labor than thirty-five years ago, and has repeatedly written three thousand words of editorial matter a day for a hundred consecutive days, the aggregate frequently exceeding five thousand words in one day's paper, written in one day. He did this in 1856 and in each presidential contest since, and as much in the third campaign of Hayes for Governor, and in each of Foraker's campaigns. It is probable, as this productiveness has continued with few intermissions (the whole not exceeding a year) for more than thirty-five years, and was preceded by voluminous writing in early youth of a romantic and miscellaneous character, that Mr. Halstead has furnished more copy for printers