Colonel John Lodwick
Colonel John Lodwick was born in Winchester, Va., March 24, 1767. There he was reared and there he married Elizabeth Cooley, a widow with one child in June, 1790. She was born in 1760. His eldest child, Sarah, married first to Robert Hood and for a second marriage to Alexander Woodrow, was born July 13, 1791, in Winchester, Virginia. With this child, his wife and stepchild, he emigrated to Kentucky in 1792, and in 1794 took up his residence in the Stockade at Manchester, Ohio. He was one of the first grand jurors of Adams County, serving at a Court of Quarter Sessions held at Manchester, September, 1797. He purchased the Col. John Means farm, where A. V. Hutson now resides, directly after the treaty of Greenville, and moved there. His son, William, was born in Manchester, January 14, 1794. Ludlow was born March 11, 1796, and his son James, long a resident of Portsmouth, was born on the Means farm, March 15, 1798, and here on July 6, 1800, his wife, Elizabeth, died and was buried on the farm.
In June, 1802, he married Hannah Finley, daughter of Major Joseph L. Finley, and by her became the father of the following children, all born in Adams County: Kennedy, Lyle. Joseph, Michael, Preston, John N., Jane E., married to Jacob McCabe, and the only one now living; Martha Scott, afterwards married to Eli Kinney; Nancy Finley, afterwards married to J. Scott Peebles. In 1803, he was elected Sheriff of the County, and served until 1807. On May 17, 1804, he auctioned off the lots in the new town of West Union, and forty-nine years afterwards, on a visit to West Union, could point out each lot and the name of the person to whom he sold it. In 1810, he was again elected sheriff and served one term. In 1812, though fifty-five years' of age, he went into the war at the head of a regiment and performed distinguished services. He was an excellent disciplinarian and one of the bravest of men. Gen. Harrison, under whom he served, gave great meed of praise to his soldierly qualities. In 1819, he was a fourth time elected Sheriff of the County and served one term. While he held the office, at the opening of the term, he formed a procession and marched the judges from the hotel to the court room with martial music. On these occasions he wore a cocked hat and carried a sword. No one sustained the dignity of the office as fully as he did. He was very fond of musters, and on these occasions he was much admired for his soldierly bearing.
In 1815, he moved to West Union, and built the house afterwards known as the Benjamin Woods tavern, and where Lewis Johnston now resides. In 1819, he sold his farm in Sprigg Township to Col. John Means and purchased the McDade farm west of West Union in Liberty Township. He was County Commissioner from December 1, 1823, for three years. He removed to the McDade farm after his retirement from the Sheriff's office. On July 28, 1827, his second wife, Hannah Finley, died, aged forty-four years.
In October, 1828, he married his third wife, Eliza B. Elliot, a widow, who died October 2, 1857, in Hamilton County, Ohio, and is buried at Spring Grove, Cincinnati. In 1832, Col. John Lodwick sold all his possessions in Adams County and purchased a farm in Storrs Township, Hamilton County, where he spent the remainder of his days. This farm fronted the Ohio River, and he sold off part after part for suburban residences until finally he sold the last part of it and moved on to Pike Street in Cincinnati, where he died.
Many of the prominent families of Cincinnati have suburban homes on the land he bought in 1832. While residing in Storrs Township, he connected himself with the Presbyterian Church, and was a faithful member for the remainder of his days. In 1840, he had the remains of his two wives, Elizabeth and Hannah, taken up and re-buried in the West Union Cemetery. He placed over them a slab tomb, giving the usual data as to birth and death, followed by this:
"Their languishing heads are at rest,
Their thinking and aching are o'er,
Their quiet, immovable breasts
Are heaved by affection no more."
From that time, during the remainder of his life, as long as able to travel, every summer, he would visit West Union for the purpose of looking after this tomb. His daughter, Sarah, resided in West Union and he would visit her. He always brought her many household gifts and would sometimes remain several weeks. On one of these visits the writer met and conversed with him. He had the most remarkable physical powers. He survived until the age of ninety-four and was then carried off by a cancer of the face. Had it not been for this, he would easily have lived beyond a century. Think of one dying prematurely at ninety-four, but such was the case of Col. Lodwick. Not one in 100,000 had such vitality as he had. He was always full of animal spirits, of humor and fun. No one enjoyed a humorous story more than he did, and but few had such a repertoire of them.
He was always an entertaining and agreeable companion, as well for the young as for the old, and he retained all his faculties and his great flow of spirits to the last. At ninety-four, he was as cheerful, humorous and urbane as at any part of his life.
In politics, he was always a Democrat and never wavered from that faith. He trained all his sons in that party and they adhered to it during their lives. In religion, he was a Presbyterian and greatly devoted to the church.
No descendants of his are now living in Adams County. A number of them reside in Cincinnati and a few still remain in Portsmouth. It seems remarkable to reflect that one who at twenty-four years of age had resided in the Stockade at Manchester should survive till the day of President Lincoln's first inauguration, March 4, 1861.
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