William Davis Mundell
William Davis Mundell, of the firm of Short & Mundell, wholesale and retail grocers and produce dealers, 102 East Pearl street, was born near Mt. Washington, Anderson township, September 17, 1825. Jonathan Mundell, his grandfather, was one of the original settlers of the county; he came from Virginia to Ohio before the day log school-houses were erected, it being necessary then for the young philomatheans to assemble in squads at some convenient place and by mutual consent teach one another. Mr. Mundell was a gunsmith, a man of some genius, and one who could render service to his fellows in the early pioneer days. He settled with his family, consisting of himself, wife and five children, near Mt. Washington about the year 1795. Some pear trees planted by him soon after his arrival are still standing. He died about the year 1830. James Mundell, his son, and father of William Davis Mundell, was about two years of age when his father moved on this farm; he was reared a farmer, possessed no educational advantages, his time being taken up in tilling the land and warding off the hostile Indians, who were sometimes troublesome. In 1812 he served in the war, and received an honorable discharge from the service when it ended. In 1815 he was married to Miss Mary McMahon daughter of Francis and Mary McMahon, pioneer settlers of Columbia township. The old log house, her birthplace, which was then occupied by her parents, is still standing - weatherboarded now - as a relic and tenement of the early days of Columbia. Mrs. Mundell was the mother of eleven children, eight boys and three girls, ten of whom lived to man and womanhood - Mary, Catharine, Andrew, Hugh, William Davis, Jackson W., John R., Martha A., Isaac N., and Oscar C. With so large a family, the duties incumbent upon her were truly irksome, but she was blessed with more than ordinary will and courage, and having that large hope so characteristic of the pioneer parents, did not become, with all her hardships, disheartened with her lot. The religion of Christ was her support in every trying hour, and her children, once a charge and a responsibility, lived to be her comfort, and to cheer her declining years and dying hour.
Adjacent to the town on the mound near her father's cabin was the old Baptist church - probably the first church in southwestern Ohio - to which place of worship, when a little child, she was often wont to wend her way with her parents to attend religious service. In those days it was the custom and necessity to go armed, and her father always took with him his faithful rifle and stood sentinel at the door or house corners, with others, to guard against the approach of hostile Indians, while the minister, old men, women and children would hold worship in the house. How many of us, in
this our day, would go to church if attended with the dangers that our pioneer fathers had to encounter?
Mrs. Mundell was born in Columbia township, Hamilton county, Ohio, April 25, 1797; was married in 1815; joined the Methodist Episcopal church at Salem, Ohio, in 1840; and died at the residence of her son, Hugh Mundell, Clermont county, Ohio, January 27, 1874, aged seventy-seven years. James Mundell died about the year 1853. William Davis Mundell was reared on the farm near Mt. Washington. He attended school in a log house in the Salem neighborhood a few weeks or months each winter, and frequently religious worship at the same place on Sundays - the same house being used for both purposes. In the year 1843 he apprenticed himself to a Mr. Joseph Hime to learn the blacksmith trade, and was to receive about thirty dollars a year for three years for his services. The full time was served, with the exception of the last three months, which he bought off from his employer that the might attend school, feeling the need of a better education. The instruction received during these three months proved to be of incalculable benefit to him in after years. He afterwards opened up a shop in Mt. Washington, being the first blacksmith of that place. In 1850 Mr. Mundell and his brother Hugh organized a company, of six persons in all, from Mt. Washington, to cross the plains for California. The wagon for the trip was made by Mr. Mundell and Davis Whippy (one of the company), and was so constructed that it could be used as a boat when crossing rivers. They left Cincinnati for St. Joseph, Missouri, March 25, 1850, by steamer, and at that place lay in wait three weeks organizing a force of forty wagons of six horses each. At Fort Kearney the company disbanded, seven teams proceeding along the northern Pacific route via of Fort Laramie to the Humboldt river, from which place the original six from Mt. Washington, after throwing away their wagon, and finally Mr. Mundell and his brother alone, proceeded, crossing the desert on pack-horses, a distance of forty miles, going over in the night time and reaching Carson river in the morning -Sunday - where they rested and also laid in a supply of provisions, paying for six pounds of flour the snug sum of nine dollars. At Sacramento City they sold their stock and fooled it up into the mountainous region on a mining expedition, but got sick and soon returned to Sutler's Fort, where, on account of a severe illness of some two months' duration, the doctor advised a trip on the sea as necessary to a speedy return to health. They accordingly, set themselves adrift in a sail vessel on the Pacific ocean, where it was becalmed for three weeks, and being disgusted with such slow progression the brothers, upon putting in at Acapulco, went aboard a steamer, reaching Panama in December, 1850, after being on the water twenty-seven days. They crossed the isthmus to Shager's river on mules, paying forty dollars for their transit. At this point they took canoes to the mouth of the river, where, in company with about sixty others, they set sail in the schooner Thorne for New Orleans. The Mundell brothers had already experienced sore disappointments in their trip west, but the trying ordeal was yet to come. The little vessel when fairly out at sea encountered one of those tremendous and tempestuous storms, and for three days and nights was driven like a feather in a gale, and turned up finally on a coral island in the Caribbean (sic) sea. The captain had lost his reckoning and the vessel had been driven far out of its course and among the many dangerous coral reefs with which these waters are filled. At first, upon the stranding of the vessel, the captain supposed the bark would go to pieces in half an hour and ordered the mate to scuttle the fresh water baths, but he disobeyed orders, and this probably saved the lives of the crew as the ship was resting with one side on the reef in about four feet of water, the depth of water on the other side could not be ascertained. Lots were now east for occupancy in the long-boat, there being but the one and that only large enough to hold six or eight persons, and these were to be taken to a little barren egg-shaped island full fifteen miles off before it could be returned for another load. The Mundell brothers were by lots cast destined to wait till the last ones. Everything shadowed forth a precarious condition, and in an act of desperation they tore off loose boards from the side of the vessel with which they constructed a scow, hastily built but large enough to accommodate about fifteen, and in this frail structure they reached the island. The crew were all saved; provisions and water at the rate of one-quarter rations were divided among them. The captain upon taking his reckoning found that they were about one hundred. miles from Old Town (?) (Balize), Honduras, and that it would take at least eight days to go for rescue and return. But the time from the stranding of the vessel (2 o'clock in the morning) until their rescue was about fifteen days, but deliverance carried them to Balize, from which place they sailed in a few days for New Orleans. Their stay on the barren island was attended with other dangers than those of abandonment and desolation. They were on one-fourth rations and water, and in a feverish and, to them, overheated, torrid clime, but fortune favored them with one or two showers, and the tents being up the rain-drops were collected and carefully saved. The island furnished the iguana, a species of lizard, and the couch which were of great use to them for food. At New Orleans Mr. Mundell and his brother took a steamer for Cincinnati, but, to make the circuit of accidents complete we are in truth bound to say that the vessel was snagged in the river. But despite ill fortune they reached home about March 1, 1851, and Mr. Mundell again resumed work at his trade. In 1852 he married Miss Pattie C. Corbley, and has since lived in Mt. Washington. During the war he served as a recruiting officer for some time, and during the Kirby Smith raid was made captain by the unanimous voice of the company, but was immediately afterwards put in charge of the regiment as colonel.
From History of Hamilton county, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881