Jared Cloud
Jared Cloud, of Colerain township, was born on St. Patrick's day, the seventeenth of March, 1808; is of Welsh and English descent on his father's side and of French descent on that of his mother. Mason Jones Cloud, his grandfather, came from Virginia about the year 1778, and settled in Boone county, Kentucky. Unfortunately for the fate of Mason, he was required to return to Virginia for a sum of money there due him, and after only a three days' stay in his new home, in company with two others, set out on his perilous trip, and, with his companions, was massacred on Licking river by the hostile Indians.
Mason was the father of eleven children, three sons and eight daughters. Of these sons Baylis was the oldest, was the father of Jared, and was about nineteen years of age, when the family came to Kentucky. He was born in 1774 in Virginia; was married in 1803 to Miss Elizabeth Tebbs, daughter of an old pioneer of Boone county, Kentucky. In 1811 Baylis removed to Dearborn county, Indiana, when Jared was but three years of age.
Indiana was then a mere wilderness; bridle-paths led here and there instead of our present highways. The Indians were sometimes troublesome, while the flocks had to be constantly guarded against the ravages of the wolf and the bear.
The principal product of mercantile value then to the family was tobacco. This article could be raised and packed to Cincinnati - then a mere town - and a profit sufficiently large could be realized to keep the family in the luxuries of that day. Clothing was manufactured in toto; flax and wool were spun and woven, and the more tasty articles of dress were manufactured from these. The deer furnished the family with moccasins and hunting shirts, and sometimes other wearing apparel. When Jared was sixteen years of age he commenced life for himself, and for twenty-two years after worked for Anthony Harkness, an engine-builder, on Front street, between Pike and Lawrence, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first two or three years, while learning the business, Jared received nothing, but afterwards a salary was paid, and finally, during the last seven years of his stay, he was made foreman of the shop, which at that time was the largest of the kind in the west. They manufactured locomotives [the first one used in the west], steamboat engines, and others for sugar-mills, saw-mills, etc.
Mr. Cloud was married in the year 1840, and in 1843 moved his present home to the Bank Lick farm, since which time he has been engaged in agricultural pursuits wholly. His farm consists of two hundred and sixty acres, and lies partly in Hamilton and partly in Butler counties. His wife is now dead, and also one son, who was fatally kicked by a horse, dying in a few days thereafter. He had been in the hundred day service, and had just returned home when the accident occurred in his father's barnyard. Mr. Cloud is of a long-lived family, has never been sick, and at this late day retains the sprightliness of his youth to a remarkable degree.
From History of Hamilton county, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881