Ephraim W. Cooper
Ephraim W. Cooper, a retired farmer now residing in his comfortable home on Daniel Street, Toronto, O., retains the ownership of a farm of 200 acres lying near Port Homer, in Saline Township, Jefferson County, having disposed of other tracts which he formerly possessed. Mr. Cooper was born in Knox Township, Jefferson County, Ohio, on a farm his father owned that was on the dividing line of Knox and Saline Townships, on June 24, 1834. His parents were AIexander and Elizabeth (Van Tilburgh) Cooper.
AIexander Cooper was a grandson of the founder of the Cooper family in Washington County, coming here from England in very early times. Alexander Cooper engaged in fanning until within a few years of his death, when he sold his farm and retired.
Ephraim W. Cooper grew to manhood on the home farm, and with the exception of five years, during which he was engaged in merchandising, he was actively engaged in farming, fruitgrowing and stockraising throughout his active years. When he was young and vigorous it was his custom, to buy cattle and drive them over the mountains to eastern points. During his many years of residence in Saline Township Mr. Cooper was one of the foremost men of his community. In April, 1865, he was elected a justice of the peace, and with the exception of four years he continued in that responsible office witliout interruption until he moved to Toronto, in March, 1906, where he had purchased his fine residence on Daniel Street.
Mr. Cooper was married first to Miss Martha Ellen Cole, who died one year Iater and was survived by a daughter, Sabra Jane, who died when aged nineteen years. Mr. Cooper married secondly Miss Harriet S. Stewart, of Hancock County, West Virginia. Her father was James Stewart and a great uncle named Stewart was a colonel in the Revolutionary War. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper have had seven children: Armor S., residing at New Cumberland, W. Va., who is clerk of the courts of Hancock County; Edwin W., who resides at Toronto; Lorena B., who is the wife of Dr. William Carroll, of Youngstown, O.; Chase D., whose brilliant career as physician and surgeon was cut short by death in his thirty-eighth year; Ralph Hayes, who is traveling agent for the Hartford Insurance Company, with headquarters at Wheeling, W. Va.; and two who died in infancy.
Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are members of the Toronto Metliodist Episcopal Church, in which he has been a class leader since 1865. He has alwavs performed every duty of good citizenship but has never been in any sense a politician. His long life has been one of quiet and peaceful living and until the death of the beloved son, in the very flower of his manhood and in the midst of usefulness, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper had been preserved from many of the sorrows that so often sadden the evening of life.
20th Century History of Steubenville and Jefferson County, Ohio, by Joseph B. Doyle. Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, 1910