John Montgomery

JOHN MONTGOMERY.

This gentleman, who is at present a retired farmer living at Blnfifton, Ohio, is a worthy member of an interesting family, whose history carries us back to the most exciting times of the pioneer period. John Montgomery, the young Irishman whose emigration led to the founding of this family in no CENTENNIAL

America, came over in the eighteenth century, at a time sufficiently early to enable him to take part in the Revolutionary war as a soldier under Washington. He made his way to southwestern Pennsylvania, where his descendants' lived during the time when there was almost constant conflict between the white and red men in the frontier regions bordering the Ohio river. William Montgomery, son of the Irish emigrant and Revolutionary patriot, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, but found his way at an early age to the nearby county of Columbiana, just across the river in Ohio. There he married Sarah, daughter of William Fouts, also from Pennsylvania, engaged in farming and followed that occupation until his death, at the age of eighty-seven years, his wife living to celebrate her eighty-third birthday. This pioneer couple had twelve children, five sons and seven daughters, all of whom grew to maturity. John Montgomery, the venerable farmer whose biography is the main "object of this writing, was the fourth child and eldest son in the family above mentioned. He was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, February i, 1824, and remained on the farm in his native hills until a year or two after reaching his majority. In 1847 he came to Hancock county and took up his residence in a log cabin situated on unimproved land in Orange township. Mr. Montgomery was young and robust, was not afraid of work and thus the task before him did not seem so appalling as it does to a modern "tenderfoot." He set resolutely to the business before him, which was to convert a lot of heavily-wooded and partly submerged land into a farm fit for cultivation. This, of course, involved an immense amount of labor and no end of worry, as they say in the country, but by patience and tmflagging industry Mr. Montgomery eventually accomplished his object The result is now before any one who visits that section in the shape of a well cleared, well fenced and well ordered farm of the modern Ohio type, with its neat residence, commodious outbuildings and all other essentials of up-to-date agriculture. After continuing in the business over sixty years Mr. Montgomery decided that he had done his share and was entitled to a rest. In 1 89 1 he turned the farm over to his sons and located at BlufFton, where he lived retired from all active business and free from worrying pursuits of every kind. No one of his means did more than Mr. Montgomery to build up and civilized Orange township, and his long life there was meile useful in many ways, not only to himself and family, but to the public.

February 18, 1847, Mr. Montgomery was married in his native county to Eleanor McClain, who had come there from Greene county, Pennsylvania, where she was born November 12, 1827. She was the daughter of a Pennsylvania farmer named David McClain, who married Rebecca West and later removed to Ohio, where they reared a family of ten children, consisting of three sons and seven daughters. Mrs. Montgomery, the third child and second daughter, when nine years old was brought from Pennsylvania by her parents to Wyandot county. Ohio, and spent all of her subsequent life in different parts of the state. By her marriage to Mr. Montgomery she became the mother of seven children, but of these only three are now living: Rebecca, wife of William Kinnd, is a resident of Bluffton; Jesse S. and F. Marion are farmers in Orange township; Eliza, William and Alice, the first, second and seventh born, respectively, are deceased. Mr. Montgomery, as previously stated, retired from business some years ago and left the farm in charge of his sons. During his active career he held various township offices, including those of trustee, treasurer and assessor, and for a long j.cried was one of the principal men in reclamation of the land comprising Orange township and in building up that portion of Hancock county.

As printed in A Centennial biographical history of Hancock County, Ohio : embellished with portraits of many well known people of Hancock County, who have been or are prominent in its history and development (1903). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.