Perry M. Stewart
Perry M. Stewart, president of the Miami Deposit Bank of Yellow Springs, this county, and former treasurer of Clark county, is a native son of the Buckeye state and has lived here all his life. He was born on a farm in the vicinity of the village of Selma, in Greene township, in the neighboring county of Clark, July 6, 1866, son of the Hon. Perry and Rhoda (Wheeler) Stewart, both of whom also were born in that county, the former on June 6, 1818, and the latter, December 30, 1824, and whose last days were spent at Springfield, county seat of their home county.
The Hon. Perry Stewart, a veteran of the Civil War, a former member of the board of county commissioners of his home county and a one-time representative in the state Legislature from that district, spent all his life in his home county. He was born on a pioneer farm in Greene township and there grew to manhood, becoming in time a substantial farmer on his own account. On October 15, 1844, he was united in marriage to Rhoda Wheeler, who also was born in that county, and after his marriage established his home on the old home farm, where he was living when the Civil War broke out. He helped to raise a company and went to the front in 1862 as captain of Company A, Ninety-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and with that company served until the close of the war in 1865. Upon the completion of his military service Captain Stewart returned home and resumed his farming operations, in which he became quite successful. He was an active Republican and took an interested part in local public affairs, for six years representing his district as a member of the board of county commissioners. He later was elected to represent his legislative district in the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly and so satisfactory was his service in that connection that he was re-elected and thus served for two terms in that important office. Upon his retirement from the active duties of the farm Captain Stewart moved to Springfield, where both he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives, her death occurring there in July, 1904, and his, in 1907. They were the parents of ten children, namely: Henrietta E., wife of James Hatfield, of Greene township, Clark county; Julia A., now living in California, widow of Robert N. Elder; David W., who married Amanda McClintock and is living in Clark county; John T., who married Anna M. Keifer and is now living in Houston, Texas; Mary E., who married Samuel H. Kerr and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased; Charles F., a member of the present board of county commissioners of Clark county, who married Clara Garlough and is living at Springfield; Jane, who married George Nicholson and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased; Jessie, who died at the age of four years; Perry M., the subject of this biographical sketch, and E. Wheeler, who married Nettie Shobe and is living on a farm in the neighborhood of the old home in Greene township.
Perry M. Stewart was reared on the home farm in Clark county and upon completing the course in the local common school entered Antioch College and there studied for two years. For a few years thereafter he continued his place on the farm, taking the active management of the same for his father and then gave up farming and became engaged in the mercantile business in the neighboring village of Selma, employed there in a grocery and general merchandise store, and was thus engaged there for two years, at the end of which time he accepted a position as deputy in the office of the county auditor at Springfield, where he remained for two years, 1893-95, later accepting a position as deputy county treasurer and thus continued in the court house for another four years. In 1900 Mr. Stewart was elected county treasurer, his term of office beginning in 1901, and this gave him another four-years tenure in the court house at Springfield. Upon the completion of that term of service, in 1905, he moved to Yellow Springs, helped to organize there the Miami Deposit Bank and has ever since been engaged in the banking business at that place. The Miami Deposit Bank was organized with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars and has done well, as will be noted in a review of that sound financial institution presented in the historical section of this work. Mr. Stewart is a thirty-second-degree (Scottish Rite) Mason, affiliated with the consistory at Dayton, and is also a member of the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias. Politically, he is a Republican.
On October 16, 1901, Perry M. Stewart was united in marriage to Irene B. Black, daughter of Charles R. and Mary A. Black, of Linden, Ross county, Ohio, and to this union have been born three children, Mildred, born in 1903; Russell B., 1905, and Mary E., 1908. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart are members of the Presbyterian church.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918