HUSTON, JAMES

PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM.

page 638

JAMES HUSTON. The subject of this notice occupies a prominent position among the wealthy men of Miami Township, Greene County, who have acquired their possessions solely through their own energy and industry. He began at the foot of the ladder in life and has climbed up unaided, so that he is praccally independent, sitting under his own vine and fig tree, and has reason to look upon the result of his labors with unalloyed satisfaction. We find him the owner of one of the finest farms of Miami Township, this being located on section 31, and comprises one hundred and fifteen acres of well-tilled land. The fine new residence was completed in the winter of 1889, and with its surroundings forms one of the most attractive pictures in the landscape of this region.

A native of Knox County, this State, Mr. Huston was born February 27, 1824, to Robert and Anna (Lyon) Huston. Robert Huston was born in 1793, in Pennsylvania, and his wife, a native of this State, was born in 1798. The paternal grand-father, Robert Huston, emigrated to Ohio during the War of 1812, and settled on a tract of land in Knox County, near Martinsburg. There with his estimable wife he spent the remainder of his days, dying in 1839, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. He had served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War.

Robert Huston learned carpentering in early manhood, and also followed farming. He was married about 1820, and purchased a farm in Knox County, upon which he sojourned until 1837. Then selling out he removed to Greene County, settling in what is now New Jasper Township, April 16, of that year. After a residence of twenty years he departed this life in 1857. He became well-to-do, and the owner of three hundred acres of good land. The mother survived the husband for a period of twenty-eight years, dying in 1885. They were the parents of eleven children, seven of whom are living.

The subject of this notice obtatined his early education in a log schoolhouse, under the subscription plan, and after methods of instruction far inferior to those of the present day. He started out for himself at the age of twenty years, working for a time on a farm, and then learned millwrighting, which he followed five or six years. At the expiration of this time, having lived frugally and saved what he could of his earnings, lie invested his little capital in a stock of merchandise, and established himself at Jasper, Greene County. As a millwright he had been in the employ of William Patterson, a schoolmate, with whom hie afterward associated himself in partnership. Mr. Patterson, during the Civil War, enlisted in an Illinois regiment and died in the army.

After a residence at Jasper of four years, engaged in mercantile business, Mr. Huston purchased a farm in New Jasper Township, where he lived several years, and later removed to a farm in Xenia Township. In 1876 he changed his residence to Miami Township, locating upon the land, which he now owns and occupies. He put up a fine residence in 1886, which was destroyed by fire in August 1889. This was soon replaced by the present dwelling, which was completed in December, of the same year.

Mr. Huston was married May 1,1849, to Miss Mary E., daughter of Mathias W. and Matilda (Moorman) Baker. The parents of Mrs. Huston were natives of Virginia, and Quakers in religion. The Baker family flourished in Kentucky. Mr. Baker came to Ohio, and is now residing in Byron, Greene County. They are the parents of four children three of whom are living; Salathiel Eli, Watson Baker, Mary E., and William G.M. Watson, during the Civil War, enlisted in the Union service, was promoted to a Lieutenant, and contracted a disease while in the army, from which he died at Xenia, in 1866. William C. M., a man of fine abilities, was at one time Auditor of Greene County, and later Secretary of the Home Insurance Company, at Columbus. He invented a short method of book-keeping, and is now engaged as a stock broker in Kansas City, Mo.

Mrs. Huston was born, July 9, 1829, near Jamestown, Greene County, this State, and lived on a farm with her parents until her marriage. Of this union there have been born four children: Lucretia E. remains under the home roof, and is a very estimable young lady, a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and takes an active part in Sunday-school work. She is well educated and has taught school several terms. Robert F. B. died when twelve years old; Mary B., the wife of M. A. Hagler, lives in New Jasper Township, and is the mother of one child; James W. is unmarried and remains with his parents.

Mr. Huston takes an active interest in politics and votes the straight Democratic ticket. He was a Union man during the Civil War.

5 Dec 1999

INDEX