Elias Priddy
The Bible says that the allotted age of man is three score and ten years, and yet there are many who live beyond this age. Fayette county, Ohio, has many old citizens, among the best known of whom is Elias Priddy, of Concord township, who was born in that township ninety-one years ago. He has lived under every President from James Monroe down to the present time, and has seen more changes in civilization than have taken place during all the preceding ages of history. Although he was not married until he was nearly thirty years of age, yet he and his wife have been married more than sixty-two years, being one of the oldest married couples in this county today. During his long life Mr. Priddy has always been interested in everything which pertained to the development of his county, and the clean and wholesome life he has lived and the kindly disposition which he has always maintained toward his neighbors have endeared him to a large circle of friends and acquantances throughout the county.
Elias Priddy, the son of George and Jane (McDonald) Priddy, was born in Concord township, in 1823. His parents were natives of Virginia and settled in Ross county, Ohio, in the early twenties, shortly afterward locating in Fayette county. Three children were born to George Priddy and wife, Mrs. Matilda Flannigan, Mrs. Maria Mark and Elias.
The boyhood days of Elias Priddy were filled with hard work and yet he had pleasures which the boys of today will never know. He recalls many interesting incidents surrounding his boyhood days—the days of the cornhusking bees, the country dances, the log rollings and the house raisings. His education was confined to the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic, since the schools of the twenties and thirties were very limited in their instruction. His entire life has been spent on the farm in this township, and he now owns a neat and attractive little farm of thirty acres near the village of Staunton in Concord township. Although he was 
more than forty years of age when the Civil War broke out, yet he enlisted in the One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Regiment oi Ohio Volunteer Infantry and served for more than a year with distinction. He was then drafted on his return home and paid nine hundred dollars for a substitute to take his place. Immediately after the close of the war he returned to his farm and has since followed agricultural pursuits.
Mr. Priddy was married January 11, 1852, to Rachel Williams, and to this union has been born one son, George. Politically, Mr. Priddy has long been identified with the Republican party and before its organization voted the Whig ticket, casting his first vote in the fall of 1844. He is a loyal member of the Grand Army of the Republic and has always been deeply interested in the welfare of the old soldiers. He and his wife have been lifelong members of the Methodist Episcopal church and interested in all the good work of that denomination. This grand old couple are greatly beloved in the township where they live and the people delight to honor them in every way. They are people of kindly disposition, genial impulses and always ready to assist anyone in times of trouble or distress. It is not often given to people to live more than ninety years, and for this reason Fayette county takes particular pleasure in honoring this venerable couple.
From History of Fayette County Ohio - Her People, Industries and Institutions by Frank M. Allen (1914, R. F. Bowen & Company, Inc.)