Adam S. Shoemaker
Adam S. Shoemaker, of Ashley, Delaware County, Ohio, is a minister of the Primitive Baptist Church and has three charges—at Ashley, Pleasant Run in Fairfield County, and Rocky Fork, in Marion County. He is a veteran oi the Civil War. and for many years was honored with the office of mayor of the village in which he resides.
Elder Shoemaker was born north of Ashley, in that part of Morrow County which was then Delaware County, March 9, 1832, and is a son of Daniel and Harriet (Smith) Shoemaker. Daniel was a young man when in 1820, he came with his father, Adam Shoemaker, from Somerset County, Pennsylvania. They stopped at Zanesville a short time, then came to Delaware County, locating a half mile north of Ashley. Daniel later left that place and bought a farm half a mile east of Ashley, in Oxford Township, on which he lived until his death in 1842. He married Harriet Smith, a daughter of Elijah Smith, who came with his family from New York State at about the same time that the Shoemakers did. He located one-half mile east of Ashley. The following children were born to this union: Adam S.; Adelia, now deceased, who was the wife of T. M. Seeds; Milton B., who was for many years a prominent citizen of Ashley, where he erected the first flour mill and was identified with important business interests, and who died in 1906; and Adeline, who died of typhoid fever in 1867. Mr. Shoemaker and his wife were members of the Primitive Baptist Church. She died in 1890 at an advanced age.
Adam S. Shoemaker was reared on the old home place and attended the schools of this vicinity. Ashley was at that time an uncleared timber tract. He remained on the home place and farmed until 1859, when he sold his interest in the farm and bought a place one mile south of Ashley, where he remained ten years. He sold out there, then lived in Lincoln Township, Morrow County, for seven years, after which he moved to Clark County, Iowa, where he farmed for five years. He returned to Ashley in 1881 and has lived here continuously since. He operated a saw mill a few years, and during the past nine years has been writing fire, tornado and lightning insurance.
In January, 1865, Mr. Shoemaker enlisted in Company G, Eighty-eighth Regiment, O. V. I., and served until the war closed, being mustered out July 3, 1865. He was located at Camp Chase, where they guarded 30,000 prisoners, and he will never forget the rejoicing of those men when news reached them of the end of the war and their early return home. Elder Shoemaker began preaching in the Primitive Baptist Church in 1863 and has had care of churches most of the time since. His ministerial work has carried him extensively over the states of Ohio, Indiana and Iowa.
July 21, 1853, Mr. Shoemaker married Mary Ann Smith, who was born in Morrow County, Ohio, and who was a daughter of Nehemiah and Experience (Carpenter) Smith. She died in 1894, having been the mother of eight children, namely: Daniel N., now residing in Missouri, who married Lizzie Dixon and has two children—Lloyd and Grace; Wellington M., who married Lucy Sherwood and has three children—Lewis, Blanche and Laura; Millard A., now of Topeka, Kansas, who married Ann Bishop, and has six children—May, Walter, Edna, Hazel, Wilma and Zelda; Lester E., who married Mary Sherwood and lives in Ashley; Adeline, wife of Elmore Coomer and mother of a daughter—Flossie Marie; Harriett, who died in 1890; Emma, wife of Orrie G. Benedict, who has a son, Murray, and two daughters—Buelah Dawn and Thelma Gertrude; and Milton Henry, who is a druggist in Dayton. Elder Shoemaker formed a second marriage April 3, 1898, with Mrs. Mary J. Ogden, nee Thomas, who died suddenly in November, 1907. Mr. Shoemaker is a Republican in politics and cast his first presidential vote for John C. Fremont. He served on the School Board 13 years and as mayor of the village 11 years.
From 20th Century History of Delaware County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Edited and compiled by James R. Lytle, Delaware, Ohio, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908