James Parsons
The Parsons family is of Irish descent. William Parsons was born in Ireland in 1766 and there married Ann Degman, who was born in 1770. About 1794 he moved with his family to America and located in New York City, and afterward in New Brunswick, N.J., where his wife died in 1808, his death occurring December 19, 1824. He had a family of five children: Andrew, James, Catharine, Ann and Mary, one born in Ireland and four in America.
James Parsons was born in 1796, and was twelve years of age when his mother died. He was then bound out to learn the trade of a silver plater, serving an apprenticeship of three years, and then worked at his trade in Philadelphia. On the 4th of July, 1813, he left that city and walked from there to Pittsburgh, and was in the latter place at the time of Perry's victory. In 1817 he went to Nashville, Tenn., but later reutrned again to Pittsburgh, and there met Leonard Everly, who was also a silver plater. He married Ann Everly, a sister of Leonard, and who was born in 1799, in Washington County, Penn. In 1823, with his wife and one child, Mr. Parsons came to Wayne County, Ohio (he walking and his wife riding on horseback), and there for four years he worked at the blacksmith's trade. In 1827 he moved to Ripley Township, and in 1829 bought 160 acres of land, only thirty of which had been cleared, where he made for himself and family a good home, living here until his death, which occurred February 11, 1878, when he was aged eighty-two years. He was a public-spirited energetic man, and was successful in his business operations. In 1842 he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and ever after was a faithful member of the same; politically he was a Republican. His family consisted of ten children, nine of whom lived to maturity: Eliza, Andrew, William, James, John, Joseph, Sarah, Mary and Finley L. In 1853, in the month of August, Mr. Parsons' family were stricken with a most malignant type of typhoid fever, and within seventeen days five of them died, three sons and two daughters, the eldest aged twenty-six, and the youngest seventeen. Mrs. Parsons was afflicted with paralysis for twelve years, being helpless part of the time. One daughter, Eliza, is now the widow of Joshua Gillam, and since 1885 has been a resident of Shreve, Wayne Co., Ohio.
JAMES GILLAM, with family, consisting of his wife, one son (Joshua) and three daughters (Jane, Elizabeth and Melcena), moved from Allegheny County, Penn., to Ripley Township, Holmes Co., Ohio, in 1836, where he lived until his death, which occurred September 20, 1853, when he was aged fifty-six years; his wife died April 9, same year. Joshua Gillam and Eliza Parsons were married May 1, 1845, and he died September 15, 1853, at the age of thirty-one years, leaving one daughter who now lives with her mother in Shreve, Ohio. The daughters of James Gillam are still living, but are not now residents of the county.
From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Wayne and Holmes, Ohio, J. H. Beers & Co., Chicago, 1889