Peter Adams
Peter Adams, one of Brush Creek Township's substantial farmers and stock raisers, belongs to an old Jefferson County family, his grandparents having come to this section of Ohio wlien his father was a child of seven years. Mr. Adams was born in an old log house that stood on a farm adjoining the one he now owns in Brush Creek Township, November 24, 1837, and is a son of John and Hannah (Peckham) Adams.
John Adams was born at Brownsville, Pa., and was a son of Thomas and Bathsheba (Hartley) Adams. The first of the family to come to Jefferson County was Martin Adams, who became a man of large estate and he was a brother of Thomas Adams. He came with a party of surveyors and was so pleased with the appearance of the land that he patented a number of tracts, including what later became the Cope, the Robert Russell and the Joseph Beard farms and he also selected 160 acres for his brother, Thomas Adams. To this tract, Thomas Adams later added a second 160 acres. Martin Adams never married, his death taking place on what is now the Cope farm. Thomas married Bathsheba Hartley, wlio belonged to a wealthy Philadelphia family. Of his children, John Adams survived until April, 1882. He inherited the large estate and added to its volume during his lifetime. He combined farming with other activities, one of these being the raising of fine live stock. He married Hannah Peckham, a daughter of Charles and Rhoda Peckham. They were of Rhode Island and came into Jefferson County in their cart drawn by oxen and lived to see years of comfort surrounding them in the country they had entered as pioneers, living to nearly one hundred years of age. They settled first on the site of Irondale and moved from there to Somerset Ridge and from there to the farm on which their grandson, Peter Adams, resides. He owns a large amount of land, 292 acres of surface and 372 acres of coal property. The coal is being developed. The whole of the surface land is richly underveined with coal, there being four veins of three and six feet, and two others of less extent.
Peter Adams attended school at Monroeville in his boyhood and has been engaged in agricultural pursuits ever since, together with looking after his valuable coal interests. In 1874 he built his comfortable residence aud in 1884 erected his substantial barn.
On October 8, 1869, Mr. Adams was married to Miss Marjorie McBane, a daughter of Angus McBane, of Brush Creek Township, but a native of Scotland, from which country he came to Jefferson County in 1818. Mr. and Mrs. Adams had four daughters and two sons born to them, namely: John W., an attorney at law located at Wheeling, W. Va., who married and has two children—Elizabeth and Eleanor; Jeanetta M., who resides at home; Orpha, who married Charles Hart, of Salineville, O., and they have three children—Marjorie, Helen and one unnamed; Angus Hays, who manages the home farm; Elizabeth, who has adopted the noble profession of a trained nurse, resides at Wheeling; and Blanche, who married Roy Ramsey, of Mechanicstown, Carroll County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Adams are members of the United Presbyterian Church.
20th Century History of Steubenville and Jefferson County, Ohio, by Joseph B. Doyle. Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, 1910