William Reed
William Reed was born November 5, 1802, on the Reed farm, in Lemon Township. He was married to Miss Margaret Sigerson, March 28, 1820. She was a daughter of Captain Robert Sigerson. He commenced housekeeping with the usual outfit, a spinning-wheel, a few split-bottomed chairs, a large chest, and wooden mould-board plow, but still they were happy. He subsuquently purchased the farm of his uncle Robert Reed, in full view of where he was born, and paid about forty dollars per acre for it. He raised a family of seven sons and three daughters: Mary, David Wallace, Robert S., Martha E., William, Nancy M., Thomas E., Jane E., and Alexander C. Mary died of typhoid fever when eighteen years of age. Robert S. was in Sherman's army, and was taken prisoner and starved in the Andersonville prison, from the effects of which he died July 27, 1865. Three years ago William Reed and wife celebrated their golden wedding. This was March 29, 1879. The children living were all present, except Robert S., and family of Collinsville, Illinois, and Mrs. Bradshaw of Mattoon, Illinois.
Mr. Reed is one of the oldest men living who were born in th county, and the venerable couple have undergone many hardships not dreamed of by the present generation and there are few women today who can show finer specimens of linen, blankets, and coverlets, spun and woven by her own hands, than Mrs. William Reed can do. Mr. and Mrs. Reed have been consistent members of the Associate Reformed Church near Monroe. Mr. Reed formerly had a distillery, but being satisfied of the evil of intemperance, abandoned the business, and became an organizer of the temperance movement. He also quit the use of tobacco, and has lived to see his six sons grown to manhood free from the vices, and to fill places of honor and respectabilty.
Mrs. Reed's grandfather was John Wallace, who was born in 1782. He left his birthplace in Virginia in 1788 and went to Kentucky, where he remained until 1800, when he came to Ohio, and settled two and half miles south-east of Monroe, on a farm subsequently belonging to John Robinson. Polly Wallace married Captain Robert Sigerson in 1801 and raised five children. The Wallace family is a large one and now considerably scattered. They were prominent settlers in Butler County in the early days.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.