James Hood
Perhaps no one has been more intimately associated with the history and the people of Adams County than James Hood. He was born at Connellsville, Pennsylvania. December 27, 1802, and moved with his parents to Adams County, Ohio, in the spring of 1806. Ever since that time, with the exception of about fifteen months in Clermont County, Ohio, two years in Indiana and one year in Kansas, Mr. Hood resided in West Union. He learned the tanner's trade with Mr. Peter Schultz, and worked a number of years at that business in the yards now occupied by Jacob Plummer's flour mills. He then went to Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, where he worked nearly two years, at the end of which time he turned over the business to Jesse Grant, father of ex-President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1826, Mr. Hood opened up a general store in West Union, in which business he continued until his retirement from active business life in 1868.
In 1831, James Hood was elected County Treasurer, defeating David Bradford, who had acted as Treasurer for more than thirty years. It was the boast of Mr. Hood that he was the first man to defeat David Bradford for Treasurer. He served for ten years and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Andrew Smalley. Mr. Hood was elected Treasurer as an Andrew Jackson Democrat, but fell out with the President because he vetoed the bill to make a national road of the Maysville and Zanesville turnpike. Had the bill become a law, it might have made a different town of West Union. He collected the taxes and kept the Treasurer's office in his store. His campaign expenses were, on an average, one dollar a year for printer's fees.
In 1857, Mr. Hood built the flour mills now owned by Mr. Pflaummer. He also built the house on Main Street, opposite the courthouse, for a family residence, which is now occupied by William Wamsley, and the large building just west of it, for his store rooms, now owned by G. N. Crawford. By careful attention to business, Mr. Hood accumulated a large sum of money, and was known as one of the wealthy men of the county.
James Hood was twice married. His first wife was Mary Ellison, daughter of Robert and Rebecca Ellison, to whom he was married December 2, 1828. She died May 9, 1838. The result of this union was John and Rebecca Ann, twins, Isabella Burgess, James and Hannah.
On January 9, 1840, Mr. Hood married Isabella Ellison, sister of his first wife, to whom were born the following children: Mary, Sarah, Caroline, Minerva and Samuel. She died January 8, 1862, and Mr. Hood never remarried.
When a young man, working at the tanner's trade, Mr. Hood, while wrestling with a young man, dislocated his ankle, which made him a cripple all the rest of his life. Politically, he was a Whig, an Abolitionist and a Republican. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, of which he was the main pillar. His purse was always open when money was needed for the support of the church. He was a close Bible student and a writer of great strength. His writings were mostly of a religious nature and were printed in the West Union Scion and read with great appreciation by its readers. Mr. Hood was a modest man and all his writings were anonymous under the cognomen, "Ahiezer." If he had had the opportunity, he would have made his mark as a poet, as he possessed the faculty of rhyming to an uncommon degree and often used it against his enemies to their no small discomfiture.
Mr. Hood had a common school education and was quite efficient in mathematics. For several years he served as one of the County School Examiners of Adams County. He was the first man to introduce the sale of patent medicines in Adams County, from which fact he derived the title of Doctor. Mr. Hood departed this life January 9, 1890, and was laid to rest in the large vault he had erected for this purpose in his private cemetery in West Union, Ohio. It may truly be said of him that he lived in another age and with other people, for in his biography he says: "I can look back to the time when West Union, Adams County, and even the State of Ohio, was a dense forest. I can recollect the stately oaks, tall poplars, lofty walnuts and sugar trees and the thick undergrowth of paw paws that covered the ground over which West Union is now built. At that time, we could hear the wolves howling around our cabins at night and see droves of deer passing through our town by day."
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900