David McConnell
David McConnell, a veteran of the Civil War, former mayor of Osborn and former postmaster of that village, former general manager of the whip factory there and for some years past engaged in the real-estate and insurance business at that place, where he has made his home for more than twenty years, is a native son of Greene county and has lived here practically all his life. He was born on a farm in Sugarcreek township on April 15, 1842, son of James M. and Nancy (Marshall) McConnell, the former of whom was bom in the Old Dominion and the latter in this county, whose last days were spent on that farm, the old Marshall place, which has been in the possession of the family for more than one hundred years, both the McConnells and the Marshalls having been among the early settlers here.
James M. McConnell was born in the neighborhood of the old salt licks in Kanawha county, Virginia, February 14, 1817, a son of David and Nancy (Munn) McConnell, both of whom were born in that same county, the former in 1787 and the latter, May 30, 1789, who were married in that county on January 5, 1815. Grandmother McConnell was a strict Presbyterian and family tradition has it that so rigid vvas her observance of the Sabbath day that she would cook no food on that day, all preparations in that line being made on the day preceding. David McConnell was killed by a fall from the "natural bridge" in Virginia while still a comparatively young man, his widow being thus left with three young children. She later moved with these children to Cincinnati and it was in that city that her son, James M. McConnell, spent his youth and received his schooling, remaining there until he came up here as a young man and became a resident of Greene county, locating in the McClellan neighborhood in Sugarcreek township, where he met and presently married Nancy Marshall, eldest daughter of John Marshall, one of the earliest settlers in this county.
John Marshall was a Kentuckian, born in the neighborhood of Lexington, in 1784, and was nineteen years of age when he accompanied his father up into Ohio in 1803 and at the land office at Dayton secured a patent to a tract of six hundred acres of land in the then wilderness along the banks of the Little Miami river in the eastern part of what later came to be organized as Sugarcreek township in this county, where he established his home, his marriage taking place not long afterward, and where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring there in 1866, he then being eighty-two years of age, and he was buried on his farm overlooking the river. During the War of 1812 he served in the company of Capt. Ammi Maltbie and among the campaigns in which he took part was that about Watertown, New York. His first house on his farm along the river was a log cabin, but he later erected there a brick house which is still standing. With the help of his two sons he cleared most of his timber land and early divided the land among his six children. Of these children Mrs. Nancy McConnell, mother of the subject of this sketch, was the third daughter, the others having been Sarah, who married John Brock; Hester, who married Captain Kyler, of Dayton; Betsy, who married William Morgan, who was the owner of six hundred acres just below the Marshall place along the river; James, who remained on the farm, and Jesse, who also remained on the farm which came to him from his father. John Marshall was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and his children were reared in that faith. He was twice married, his second wife having been a Munn, a kinswoman of David McConnell's widow.
After the marriage of James M. McConnell and Nancy Marshall the two established their home on that portion of the Marshall farm that had been apportioned to the latter by her father, a tract of about one hundred acres, which is now owned by John McConnell, of Xenia, a brother of tlie subject of this sketch. To that tract James M. McConnell later added by the purchase of a tract of one hundred and forty acres adjoining. He was one of the first men in Greene county successfully to engage in tobacco culture and for years his tobacco shed, a structure one hundred by forty-four feet in dimensions, would be filled every fall. James M. Marshall was the only Democrat in his home school district. Late in life he became an adherent of the Quaker faith and died in that faith. His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. She died on March 8, 1872, and he survived her for more than seventeen years, his death occurring on August 12, 1889. They were the parents of three children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the first born, the others being Sarah Frances, who married Tliomas Ginn and died at Jamestown, this county, in 1916, and John, a retired farmer of this county, now living at Xenia, and a biographical sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this volume.
David McConnell was reared on tlie old home place in Sugarcreek township, the place on which his grandfather Marshall had shot many a deer during pioneer days, and in the district school of that neighborhood received his early schooling. He was nineteen years of age when the Civil War broke out and in November, 1861, he enlisted for service in behalf of the Union cause and went to the front as a member of Company E, Seventy-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, under Colonel Moody, and with that command served for thirteen months, or until a severe attack of measles in camp left him in so badly reduced a condition physically that, on a physician's certificate of disability, he received his honorable discharge. Upon his return from the army Mr. McConnell took a course in a business college at Dayton and not long afterward became associated with the work then being done by the L. H. Evarts Company in the publication of county histories and for seven years was thus engaged, his work in that connection taking him all over the Eastern states. It was during the '70s that Mr. McConnell was engaged in the history business, rendering in that capacity a service which he has ever regarded as having been of incalculable value to the many counties thus served, and he has retained many pleasant recollections of that period of his activities. In 1883 Mr. McConnell and his brother John became engaged in the farm-implement and seed business at Xenia. doing business under the firm name of McConnell Brothers, but after two years Mr. McConnell withdrew from the firm and became a traveling salesman for the Hooven & Allison Company, cordage manufacturers at Xenia, his territory covering Ohio and Indiana, and he was thus engaged for about three years, at the end of which time he transferred his services to the McCormick Machine Company and was for about three years engaged as traveling salesman for that concern. In 1891, Mr. McConnell assisted in the organization of the Tippecanoe Whip Company at Tippecanoe, this state, and became one of the chief stockholders in the same. For three years he represented that company as a traveling salesman and then, in 1894, sold his interest in the concern and cast about over the state for a likely place in which to set up another whip factory. The village of Osborn, in this county, offered inducements to have the plant located there and Mr. McConnell there organized a company and erected a plant for the manufacture of whips and was elected general manager of the concern, which in the first year of its operations paid the stockholders a sixteen per cent, dividend on their stock. In 1896, Mr. McConnell was appointed postmaster of Osborn and resigned his position as manager of the whip company. For eight years and six months Mr. McConnell was retained in office as postmaster of Osborn and upon the completion of that term of public service took up in his home village, for he had by that time come to regard Osborn as his permanent home, the general real-estate, bonds and life-insurance business, in which he ever since has been engaged. As an instance of Mr. McConnell's success as a real-estate salesman, it may properly be related that during a "drive" made by a big Texas land company some years ago he received the prize offered the salesman for the one closing the largest acreage of sales in that project. Mr. McConnell some years ago was unsolicitedly made mayor of Osborn, the appointment coming unsought from the village council. He is a member of the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias.
On June 9, 1879, David McConnell was united in marriage to Kate Dawson, who was born at Jamestown, this county, daughter of Dr. James P. Dawson, who during the greater part of his active career as a practicing physician in this county was engaged in practice at Bellbrook and to this union two sons have been born, James Marshall and Fred B., both of whom are living. James M. McConnell is engaged in the raising of pure-bred chickens on his farm ten miles from Richmond, Virginia. He married Edna Hoke and has four children, Reba, Virginia, Mary Ellen and Theodore. Fred B. McConnell was graduated from the Osborn high school and later from the law school of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and is now practicing law at Dayton. He married Cora Whaley. Mr. McConnell has a pleasant home at Osborn and looks with misgiving upon the project that may require the abandonment of his home village as a flood-prevention measure. His wife died on May 7, 1916. She is survived by one brother, Samuel Dawson, of Franklin, this state.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918