William Thomas Lackey
The late William Thomas Lackey, who died at his farm home in Spring Valley township on November 30, 1916, and whose widow is still living there, was a native of the Old Dominion, but had been a resident of Ohio since he was twenty-one years of age. He was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, March 2, 1850, son of Isaac and Eliza Ann Lackey, both of whom also were born in that county and who were the parents of thirteen children, three of whom came to Ohio, those besides the subject of this memorial sketch having been Giles Lackey, who made his home at Xenia, and Horatio T. Lackey, of Belmont.
Reared on the home farm in Virginia, William T. Lackey received his schooling in the schools of that neighborhood and remained at home until he reached his majority, when he came to Ohio and located at New Burlington, on the lower edge of this county. Not long after his arrival here he married and located on the old McKnight farm in Spring Valley township, the place where his widow is now living and where she was born, a farm of one hundred and forty-five acres, and there he spent the rest of his life. Mr. Lackey was a Democrat and by religious persuasion was a Presbyterian, a member of the church at Xenia, as is his widow, who since his death has continued to make her home on the home farm, living in the house that was built there by her grandfather McKnight in 1837.
Mrs. Lackey was born, Elizabeth Janet Lyon, in Spring Valley township, on the farm on which she is now living, a daughter of James and Mary (McKnight) Lyon, the latter of whom was born on that same place, a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Fulton) McKnight, who had come to this county from Rockbridge county, Virginia, in 1807, and had settled on that place, which then was a wilderness of deep timber. There Robert McKnight put up a hewed-log house and established his home, that house, now more than one hundred and ten years old, still standing, used now as a stable. In 1837 that house was supplanted by the substantial dwelling house which has ever since served as a farm house on the place. Robert McKnight got possession of a thousand acres of land surrounding his location there. He served as a soldier during the War of 1812, rendering service in one of the blockhouses. He and his wife were members of the old Associate Reformed congregation. He died on that place in 1856, at the age of seventy-six years. His wife had died in 1854. They were the parents of three children, those besides Mrs. Lyon having been Margaret, who remained a spinster and lived to the age of eighty-nine years, and James, who married Ann McKay and made his home on a portion of the old home farm.
After his marriage to Mary McKnight, James Lyon, who was born in Rockingham county, Virginia, established his home on the old McKnight place and took charge of the same, continuing to farm there the rest of his life. Reared a Whig, he became a Republican upon the formation of that party. James Lyon and his wife were the parents of three children, Mrs. Lackey having had a sister, Martha C, who married Henry Hopping and died in 1914 at the age of seventy-two years, and a brother.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918