Rev. James S. E. McMichael
The late Rev. J. B. McMichael, D. D., was a native son of Ohio, born at Poland, in Mahoning county, July 22, 1833, son of Squire McMichael and wife, who about the year 1840 moved from that place to Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where they spent the remainder of their lives in the vicinity of the town of Greenville. Squire McMichael and his wife were members of the Associate Reformed church and their children were reared in accordance with the rigid tenets of that faith. J. B. McMichael's attention was turned to thoughts of the gospel ministry during his college days and his studies, thereafter, were directed with that end in view. After his graduation from Westminster College at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, in 1859. he entered the Theological Seminary at Xenia and was graduated from that institution in 1862 and in the fall of that same year was married to Mary Hanna, whom he had met first at the commencement at Westminster in 1859. She had been teaching in the old Female Seminary that was then being conducted in the building now occupied as a dormitory for the Theological Seminary. Following his ordination Doctor McMichael accepted a call to the pastorate of the Sugar Creek United Presbyterian church in the township of that name in this county and at once entered upon the duties of that pastorate, continuing hus engaged for sixteen years or until his election in 1878 to the presidency of Monmouth College at Monmouth, Illinois. In the meantime, since 1873, he had been serving as a professor in the Xenia Theological Seminary. Doctor McMichael continued to serve as president of Monmouth until 1897, in which year he resigned and later accepted a call to his old congregation on Sugar Creek in Greene county. For five years after his return Doctor McMichael continued his pastoral engagements with his old congregation on Sugar Creek and then he was called to his reward, his death occurring on December 31, 1902. Two years later his widow moved back to Xenia, the home of her young womanhood, and there she spent the remainder of her Hfe, her death occurring on August 31, 1913.
Mary (Hanna) McMichael was born at Cadiz, Ohio, February 2, 1836, daughter of the Rev. Thomas and Jemima (Patterson) Hanna, both of whom were born in that same vicinity and the latter of whom died when her daughter Mary was but a child. The Rev. Thomas Hanna, who for years was pastor of the Associate Reformed church at Cadiz, married, secondly, Sarah Foster, that great woman of whom President John Ouincy Adams said after visiting her school that she was the only woman whom he feared intellectually. Sarah Foster Hanna was one of the real pioneers in what now is commonly regarded as the "feminist" movement, which has grown to proportions that would have been startling in thought no doubt even to her in the days when she started her female seminary at Washington, Pennsylvania, the first institution of the kind inaugurated west of the Alleghanies. She later established similar institutions at Wheeling, West Virginia, and at Xenia. To Doctor McMichael and wife were born six children, namely: the Rev. Thomas Hanna McMichael, D. D., who was graduated from Monmouth College and who since 1903 has been president of that institution; Dr. John Charles McMichael, also a graduate of Monmouth, who is now practicing medicine at Cleveland, Ohio; Rev. William Jackson McMichael, D. D., who also was graduated from Monmouth, succeeded his father as pastor of the Sugar Creek United Presbyterian church in 1902 and is now pastor of the United Presbyterian church at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where he has been stationed since 1907; George Harold, who died at the age of fourteen months and was buried in the cemetery at Bellbrook; Mary Grace, who died at Monmouth in 1892, she then being seventeen years of age, and the Rev. James S. E. McMichael, the immediate subject of this biographical review.
James S. E. McMichael, last-born of the six children to the Rev. J. B. and Mary (Hanna) McMichael, was born at Monmouth, Illinois, September 29. 1880, and his boyhood was spent in that city. He completed his preparatory course in Monmouth College, of which his father at that time was president, and upon the return of his father to his old home in this county he entered Westminster College at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and was graduated from that institution, his father's alma mater, in 1902. He had early consecrated his talents to the church and upon his return from college entered the Xenia Theological Seminary, of which his father had formerly been a professor and on the site of which his mother also had been a teacher in the old Female Seminary, and was graduated from that institution in 1905. Following his ordination the Rev. James S. E. McMichael accepted a call to the pastorate of the United Presbyterian church at Piqua, Ohio, and was there thus engaged for two years and nine months, at the end of which time he resigned in order to accept a call to the pastorate of Graham's United Presbyterian church at Pine Bush, New York, entering upon that pastorate in April, 1908. For two years and seven months Mr. McMichael continued his ministerial labors at Pine Bush and then, on November 1, 1910, accepted a call from the congregation of the United Presbyterian church at Cedarville, was in due time installed as pastor of that flourishing old church and has since been thus engaged.
On May 16, 1907, the Rev. James S. E. McMichael was united in marriage to Katherine Prugh, who was born in the neighboring county of Montgomery, daughter of J. Mason and Anna (Kemp) Prugh, the latter of whom died in 1914. J. Mason Prugh, a substantial farmer, is one of the ruling elders in the Sugar Creek United Presbyterian church. Mrs. McMichael completed her schooling at Monmouth College, having entered that institution after completing her studies in the Steele high school at Dayton, and is a competent helpmate to her husband in the latter's ministerial labors. Mr. and Mrs. McMichael have two children, sons both, Jackson Prugh, born on June 27, 1908, and James Lester, February 6, 1910.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918