Warren B. Steel
For more than a hundred years the Steels have been represented in Greene county and particularly in the Beavercreek neighborhood, where the family became established in an early day in the settlement of that part of the county, the first of the family to settle in this county having bought a tract of timber land there upon coming over here from Maryland, paying three dollars an acre for the same, and there established his home, he and his wife, the latter of whom before her marriage was Ann Palmer, spending the rest of their lives in that neighborhood. This pioneer Steele cleared a portion of his land and in his declining days sold the place to his son Ebenezer, father of the subject of this sketch, and moved to Alpha, where his last days were spent. Ebenezer Steel was the fifth in order of birth of the ten children born to his parents, the others having been John, Jacob, Harvey, William, Mary, Sarah, Ann. Elizabeth and Martha. As most of these children reared families of their own it is apparent that the descendants of this pioneer couple must form a numerous connection in the present generation.
Ebenezer Steel was born on the pioneer farm above referred to on April 6, 1821, and there grew to manhood. He married Catherine Shuey, who was born in April, 1818, and after his marriage bought his father's farm of one hundred and fifty-nine and one-half acres and there made his home until 1875, when he disposed of his interests in this county and moved to northwestern Missouri, buying a farm in the vicinity of Lathrop, in Clinton county, that state, where he died in May, 1886. His widow survived him for more than fifteen years, her death occurring in January, 1902. Ebenezer Steel was a Republican and he and his wife were members of the Reformed church. They were the parents of seven children, namely: John, who enlisted his services in behalf of the Union during the Civil War, went to the front as a member of Company E, Ninety-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at the battle of Buzzard Roost, Georgia; Henry Erman, who married Sarah J. Ross and moved to Missouri, where he died leaving one child, a son, Edgar Ross Steel; Joseph Granville, who married Salomie Palmer and became a farmer in Noble county, Indiana, where he died on February 11, 1916, leaving two children, Ada, who married Forest Moore, and Stacy; Melvin David, who died unmarried in Missouri, at the age of twenty-five years; Ebenezer Cattie, a farmer in Clinton county, Missouri, who married Elizabeth Trice and has six children, Harry, Frank, John, Maude, Eva and Mary; and Oliver Perry Morton, who married Carrie Trice and later became established at Grand Junction, Colorado, where he was engaged in the real-estate business and where he also served as deputy county clerk and who died in 1915, leaving two sons. Dr. Guy Steel, now a dentist at Indepencence, Missouri, and Hugh, who is now serving in the national army.
Warren B. Steel, fourth child and third son of Ebenezer and Catherine (Shuey) Steel, was born on the old Steel place in Beavercreek township on February 17, 1847, and there grew to manhood, receiving his schooling in the neighborhood schools and remaining there until after his marriage in 1870, when he began farming on his own account, as a renter, and was thus engaged in this county and in the neighboring county of Clark for some years, at the end of which time he moved to Noble county, Indiana, but after two years of residence there returned to this county and bought a seventy-acre farm in the vicinity of the Ludlow school house. On this latter place he made his home for thirteen years, at the end of which time he disposed of the farm and moved to Xenia, where he became engaged as an inspector in a handle factory and later was employed as an inspector of sidewalks and sewers, in the municipal service, continuing thus engaged for four years, at the end of which time, in 1905, he bought the farm on which he is now living in Beavercreek township, four and a half miles west of Xenia. rural mail route No. 10 out of Xenia, and has since made his home there, though of late years he has been living practically retired from the active labors of the farm, renting his fields. Mr. Steel has one hundred and three acres and since taking possession of the same has created there an entirely new farm plant, building new buildings and making other improvements. In addition to his general farming he has given considerable attention to the raising of Holstein cattle, Poland China hogs and Cottswold sheep. Mr. Steel is a Republican and, fraternally, is affiliated witli the Masonic order. He was made a Mason forty-six years ago in the lodge at Yellow Springs, but is now connected with the lodge of that order at Xenia.
On October 16, 1870, Warren B. Steel was united in marriage to Sarah Elizabeth Harner, who also was born in Beavercreek township, a member of one of the old families of Greene county, as will be noted by reference to a comprehensive sketch of the Harner family in this county presented elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Steel is a daughter of Daniel and Anna (Snider) Harner, both of whom also were born in Beavercreek township, the former a son of George and Sarah (Koogler) Harner, pioneers of that township and the latter of whom lived to be one hundred and five years of age. Anna (Snider) Harner was a daughter of Jonathan and Sarah (Miller) Snider, who had come to this county from Maryland and had settled on a farm in the vicinity of Trebeins, where Jonathan Snider also operated a mill. Mrs. Steel was one of the four children born to her parents, two sons and two daughters, and was reared in the faith of the Refonned church. Mr. and Mrs. Steel have two sons, Daniel Frederick and Joseph I., neither of whom, however, are now residents of this county. Daniel Frederick Steel was born on November 3, 1875, completed his schooling in Antioch College, and is now engaged in the insurance busmess at Visalia, California. He married Grace Robertson and has two children. Helen and Harry D. Mr. and Mrs. Steel's second son, Joseph I. Steel, was born on October 7, 1885, completed his schooling in the high school, went to Joplin. Missouri, and is now engaged as a linotype operator.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918