George A. Birch
George A. Birch, proprietor of the old Robert Mitchell farm on the Fairfield pike, rural mail route No. 3 out of Xenia, in Xenia township, this county is a native of the Suntlower state, but has been a resident of Ohio since the days of his boyhood. He was born on a farm in the vicinity of Hutchinson, in Reno county, Kansas, May 3, 1880, son of George Haviland and Eliza (Kinkaid) Birch, the former a native of the state of New York and the latter, of Missouri, and the former of whom, a veteran of the Civil War, is still living, now making his home in Xenia, where he has resided since 1905, proprietor of the old Eavey homestead place on Columbus street on the eastern edge of the city.
The Birches are one of the oldest families in America, the genealogy being of record in an unbroken line back to Thomas Birch, who died at Dorchester, Connecticut, on October 3, 1657, and whose children named in his will, dated June 4, 1654, were named as Joseph, Jeremiah, Jonathan and Mary. Jeremiah Birch, second son of Thomas, went to Stonington, Connecticut, before 1670 and there had a grant of land east of the present village of Clarks Falls. His children were Thomas, Jeremiah. Joseph and Jonathan, the latter of whom, Jonathan, born at Stonington, Connecticut, August 22, 1706, married Mary Rathbone and had eight children, Jonathan, Jane, John, Zurviah, Jeremiah, Mary, David and Joshua. John Birch was born at Stonington on June 4, 1711, and ow June 23, 1737. married Mary Bessey. to which union were born two sons, John and Joshua. This second John, born on December 13, 1738, moved with his father to Dutchess county. New York, settling at Pawlingtown, where both were enrolled in the Dutchess county militia for service during the Revolutionary War. The junior John Birch married Patty Ralph and their son, George Haviland Birch, born at Pawlingtown in 1778, married Phebe Fairlie Mitchell, who was born in camp at Newburg during the Revolutionary War, her father at the time being post quartermaster. This George Haviland Birch, grandfather of the present holder of the name at Xenia and great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. died in Rensselaer county. New York, July 30, 1852. He and his wife were the parents of thirteen children, namely: Maria, Erastus Mitchell, Sally Ann, Emaline, Elmira, Mrs. Harriet Link, Frederick, Phebe, George. James, Alford, Mrs. Caroline Traver and Henrietta. The second of these children, Erastus Mitchell Birch, was born at Pawlingtown, in Dutchess county, New York, January 19, 1801. and died at Yellow Springs, in this county, July 7, 1885.
Erastus Mitchell Birch grew up at Pawlingtown and on January 13, 1830, married Sallie A. Milligan, who was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1812 and died in 1865 at Yellow Springs, this county. Twenty years before this last date, in 1845, he drove west on a prospecting trip, going as far as the then Territory of Wisconsin and liked conditions there so well that he returned to New York for his family and with them drove through to the site he had selected, and settled on a farm twelve miles south of Kenosha, then called Southport, he having bought a quarter of a section of land divided there by the Illinois-Wisconsin line, an "eighty" on either side of the line. Later he disposed of that tract and moved some miles farther south in Illinois and after a while disposed of this second tract and moved to a farm sixteen miles from Laporte, in Indiana, where he became engaged in the operation of a water-power mill. While thus engaged he became associated with the local swamp-land commissioner and bought up much swamp land in that and adjacent counties. In 1857 he came with his family to Ohio and located at Yellow Springs, in this county, where he spent the rest of his life. As noted above, his wife died in 1865. He married again and lived until the summer of 1885. He was a member of the Christian church, and by political persuasion was a Republican, having originally been a Whig and a free-soiler. By his first wife, Sallie A. Milligan, Erastus M. Birch was the father of six children, namely: William, whose last days were spent in Reno county, Kansas; George Haviland, now living at Xenia, father of the subject of this sketch; John, who died at Dayton, this state, in 1915; Hugh, a lawyer and real-estate dealer at Chicago; Sarah Ann, who married Dr. Walter D. Stillman and who, as well as her husband, is now dead, and Phebe Jane, who married James Hyde, owner of a four-hundred-acre farm in the vicinity of Yellow Springs, in Miami township, this county, and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased.
George Haviland Birch was born in Cattaraugus county, New York, January 2, 1838, and was about eight years of age when his parents moved to Wisconsin. He later lived with them in Indiana and was nineteen years of age when they came to Greene county and located at Yellow Springs. He completed his schooling at Antioch College and was living at Yellow Springs when the Civil War broke out. On April 17, 1861, two days after President Lincoln's first call for volunteers to put down armed rebellion against the Union, he enlisted as a member of Company F, Second Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and with that command went to the front and thus participated in the first battle of Bull Run. Upon the completion of that term of enlistment he re-enlisted and served until long after the close of the war, not being mustered out until in December, 1865. During this long period of service Mr. Birch participated in many of the most important engagements of the Western campaign and was severely wounded at the battle of Chickamauga. Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Birch returned to Yellow Springs and not long afterward went to Indiana and was for some time engaged in farming there with his brother William, who had a farm in Jasper county, that state. As a boy, George H. Birch had been given a tract of seven hundred and twenty-eight acres of swamp land in Starke county, Indiana, a gift from his father, but it later developed that the title was defective and he lost it. In 1875 George H. Haviland accompanied his brother William and the latter's family to Kansas, each of the brothers taking a homestead in Little River township, Reno county, that state. Two years later, in 1877, in the adjacent county of McPherson, he married Eliza Jane Kinkaid, who was born in Missouri, daughter of William C. Kinkaid and wife, who settled in McPherson county, Kansas, in 1874. He continued farming his homestead tract until 1888, when he disposed of his interests in Kansas and returned to Greene county and for four years thereafter was engaged as manager of the four-hundred-acre farm of his sister, Mrs. Hyde, in Miami township. He then bought the Sellers farm in Xenia township and there made his home until 1905, when he sold that place and bought the forty-acre tract comprising the old Eavey place on the east edge of the city of Xenia, where he since has made his home. Mr. Birch cast his first vote for President for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and he has ever since been a Republican. He is a member of the Presbyterian church and is affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic. He has been twice married. His first wife, Eliza Jane Kinkaid, died on June 25, 1885, in Kansas, leaving two children, a son and a daughter, George A., the subject of this sketch, and Ina May, who is living at home in Xenia. Mr Birch later married Rosa Belle Longshore, of Reno county, Kansas, and to this latter union two children were born, Edna, wife of B. U. Bell, of Xenia township, this county, and Richard, at home.
George A. Birch was but seven years of age when his father returned to Greene county from Kansas and he was reared on the farm. He completed his schooling at Antioch College and some time after his marriage bought a farm of seventy-five acres in Union township, in the neighboring county of Clinton, where he made his home for three years, or until 1906, when he sold that place and returned to Greene county and bought the Robert Mitchell place of one hundred and eighty acres on the Fairfield pike, in Xenia township, where he since has resided. Since taking possession of that place Mr. Birch has sold sixty acres. He has remodeled the brick dwelling house on the place and has made other improvements. Mr. Birch is a Republican and in 1916 was the nominee of his party for county commissioner from his district, but was defeated in the ensuing election. He is a member of the Xenia Business Men's Association.
On September 11, 1900, George A. Birch was united in marriage to Florence Anderson, who was born at Trebeins, this county, daughter of P. H. and Mary Anderson, who are now hving at Springfield, this state, and to this union have been born four children, namely: Helen, born on April 27, 1902, who is now a student in the high school at Xenia; Mary, March 21, 1904; Ruth, June 10, 1906, and Frances, May 21, 1909. Mr. and Mrs. Birch are members of the First Presbyterian church at Xenia and Mr. Birch is one of the ruling elders of the same.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918