George N. Perrill
George N. Perrill, a member of the board of county commissioners for Greene county, president of the Bowersville Bank of Bowersville, this county, the owner of a grain elevator at that place as well as an extensive land acreage in this county and other interests of a substantial character, is a native son of Ohio and has lived in this state all his life, a resident of Greene county since the days of his young manhood when he married and settled down on a farm in Jefferson township. He was born on a farm in the vicinity of what is now Milledgeville, in the neighboring county of Fayette, August 11, 1856, son of John and Margaret J. (Sparks) Perrill, the former of whom was born in the neighborhood of Cynthiana, in Pike county, this state, and the latter in Kentucky, she having come into this state with her parents from the Blue Grass state when a girl, the family settling in Fayette county. John Perrill moved from Pike county to Fayette county after he attained his majority and in the latter county spent the rest of his life, successfully engaged there in farming until his death which occurred in the year 1898. He was a Republican and he and his wife were members of the Methodist Episcopal church. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the eldest and nine of whom lived to maturity.
Reared on the home farm in Fayette county, George N. Perrill completed his schooling in the high school at Washington Court House, the county seat of his home county, and remained at home until his marriage in the spring of 1878, when he came over into Greene county and bought a farm of one hundred acres in Jefferson township, on which he made his home for twelve years, at the end of which time he bought a farm of one hundred acres south of the village of Bowersville, where he lived for two years, or until he became engaged in the grain business in Bowersville. Mr. Perrill leased the first grain elevator erected in that place and engaged in business there as the senior member of the firm of Perrill & Lewis, a connection which continued for seven years, at the end of which time his son became associated with him and the business was continued under the firm name of Perrill & Son until the organization of the Miami Grain Company, of which Mr. Perrill was elected president, as is set out in the history of Bowersville, presented elsewhere in this work. When the Bowersville Bank was organized Mr. Perrill was one of the prime movers in the enterprise and was elected first president of the concern, a position he ever since has occupied. Besides owning a farm south of Bowersville he also has other real estate and is a stockholder in the Commercial Bank of Washington Court House. Mr. Perrill has ever taken a good citizen's interest in local civic affairs and for three years served as trustee of his home township. In 1916 he was elected member of the board of county commissioners from his district and on September 1, 1917, entered upon the duties of that office, since which time he has made his home on the farm of his son-in-law one mile northeast of Xenia, on the Columbus pike, moving there from his home in Bowersville, in order that he might give more time to the duties of his office. Mr. Perrill for years has senred as a member of the board of directors of the County Agricultural Society.
On March 14, 1878, George N. Perrill was united in marriage to Elizabeth Vanniman, daughter of Stephen and Rebecca Jane (Early) Vanniman, of Bowersville, both members of old and substantial families in that part of the county, and to this union two children were born. Edith, who completed her schooling at Cedarville College, and Arthur, who completed his schooling at Ohio Northern University at Ada and is now engaged in the wholesale grain business at Xenia, secretary of the Xenia Grain Company. He married Tullis Reynolds and has four children, George, Evelyn, John and Martha. Edith Perrill married Luther Chitty, of Bowersville, who is now farming on the Columbus pike just out of the city of Xenia, and four sons, Donald, Hugh, George and Robert. Mrs. Perrill died on July 24, 1910. She was a member of the Methodist Protestant church at Bowersville, as is Mr. Perrill, and the latter has been for years a member of the board of trustees of the church as well as a member of the Methodist Protestant camp-meeting board.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918