John Stivers
John Stivers, a son of William Stivers and Elizabeth King, was born near the city of New York in the year 1765. He had six brothers, Edward, William, Reuben, Peter, James and Richard, and three sisters, one of whom, Sarah, married Richard Bergin of Bourbon County, Ky., who afterwards settled near Columbus. Ohio. In 1775. in order to escape the Tory allies of George III, in and about New York. William Stivers moved to Spottsylvania County, Virginia. There he was comparatively safe from Tory persecutions, and during the Revolution he sent six sons to battle for the cause of Liberty, his seventh son, Richard, being too young to bear arms. John Stivers, the sixth son. volunteered in May, 1780, in Captain Robert Daniel's Company of Colonel Spencer's Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, when but little past fifteen years of age, for a period of service of five months. At the expiration of the term of his first enlistment, he again volunteered for a term of three months under Captain Robert Harris, of Colonel —— Regiment. At the expiration of his second term of enlistment the war was practically over. Virginia was cleared of marauding bands of Tories and Cornwallis and his British and Hessian forces were shut up in Yorktown to stay until they marched out to the tune of "The World's Upside Down," and he surrendered his sword to Washington.
In the year 1786, John Stivers married Miss Martha Keel, a daughter of John Neel, a Scotch emigrant, and settled in the forks of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela Rivers, in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania. There his family of eight children were born: Samuel K., Robert, James, John, Matilda, who married Isaac Teachenor; Lydia, who married William Shaw; Washington, and Nancy, who married Enoch Moore. In 1799, he moved to Bourbon County, Kentucky, and soon there after came to Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio, and settled on Brier Ridge within sight of the old Methodist Church in what is now Liberty Township, where he continued to reside until his death in 1839. Before coming to Ohio he and his oldest brother, Reuben, who settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky, laid military warrants Nos. 6640, 6642 and 6643 covering 630 acres of land lying on Treber's Run, and on the East Fork of Eagle Creek in Adams County. The youngest brother, Richard, afterwards came to Kentucky and settled near Louisville, where he became one of the most prominent planters of that region. John Stivers was an active, vigorous man, both in body and mind, and took a deep interest in his day in affairs of county and state. He was a radical Jeffersonian Democrat in his political opinions, and he was a faithful member of the Baptist Church for nearly fifty years. In personal appearance he was a little below the medium in height, but very compactly built, and weighed in full and vigorous manhood about 165 pounds. He had dark hair, steel-blue eyes and regular features, and was of a buoyant disposition and pleasing turn of mind; yet he was not slow to resent wrong or a personal affront. It is related of him that soon after his first enlistment in the Revolution, that while resting with his company at a spring, a bumptious militia officer rode up and addressing him as "Bud," requested a drink of water. This so enraged the youthful soldier that he seized the officer and dragged him from his saddle and gave him a deserved pummelling for his impertinence. He and his faithful wife are buried in the old cemetery at Decatur, in Brown County, Ohio.
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