Thomas B. Jobe
In the memorial annals of the Yellow Springs neighborhood there are few names held in better remembrance than that of the late Thomas B. Jobe, a veteran of the Civil War, who died at his home in Yellow Springs early in 1916 and whose widow is still living there. Mr. Jobe has served as mayor of Yellow Springs, as postmaster of the village, as member of the village council, and at the time of his death was a member of the local school board. He also took an earnest part in local church and lodge work and in all that he did labored with an eye single to the common good, so that at his passing there was sincere regret expressed throughout the community of which he had been a member since the days of his boyhood.
Thomas B. Jobe was born in Belmont county, this state, June 13, 1845, and was nine years of age when his parents, Allen and Rebecca (Aseneth) Jobe, natives of that same county, moved from there to Yellow Springs. Allen Jobe's parents were among the pioneers of Belmont county, having moved there from Maryland. Reared in Belmont county, Allen Jobe there learned the trade of carriage-maker and for some years after his marriage there continued thus engaged in his home county. He then, about 1854, moved with his family to this county and located at Yellow Springs, where he resumed his work as a wagon-maker and thus continued until his death. He and his wife were the parents of six children, Rebecca, Thomas, Emmet, Addison, Rachel and a daughter who died in infancy.
As noted above, Thomas B. Jobe was nine years of age when his parents moved to Yellow Springs. Upon completing the course in the common schools he entered Antioch College and was a student there when the Civil War broke out. In 1862, when but sixteen years of age, he enlisted for service in behalf of the Union cause and went to the front with a company that was raised at Springfield, his command being attached to the Army of the Potomac, with which he served until the close of the war. During the latter part of this period of service he was captured by the enemy and was for three months held in Libby Prison, being a prisoner of war there when the doors were thrown open following the fall of Richmond. Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Jobe returned to Yellow Springs and there became engaged at the trade which he had learned in his father's shop, general blacksmithing and carriage-making, and about the time of his marriage in 1871 became engaged in business there for himself, doing a general business in the manufacture and sale of buggies, and was thus quite successfully engaged there the rest of his active life. Mr. Jobe was a Republican and under the Harrison administration he served as postmaster of Yellow Springs. He also had served as a member of the council and as mayor of the town and at the time of his death, which occurred on February 4, 1916, was a member of the city school board. Mr. Jobe was a member of the Friends church, a member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Mason, an Odd Fellow and an honorary member of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics.
On September 21, 1871, Thomas B. Jobe was united in marriage to Mary E. Coulter, who was born at Xenia, daughter of Asa and Lydia (Ellis) Coulter, the former a native of Maryland, who were married in Xenia and who were the parents of two daughters, Mrs. Jobe having a sister, Martha. To Mr. and Mrs. Jobe one child was born, a son, Walter A. Jobe, born in 1874, who was a college student at the time of his death on December 3, 1893, he then being nineteen years of age. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Jobe has continued to make her home at Yellow Springs', where she is very comfortably situated. She is a member of the Friends church and has ever taken an interested part in church work, as well as in the general good works of her home town.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918