Austin Heath
Austin Heath, Farmer; P. O. Plattsville.
About the year 1760 or 1765 four brothers came from England to the American colonies. Upon their arrival they separated. One located in Richmond, Va.; one in Boston, Mass.; one in Trenton, N. J.; the fourth we cannot learn where he located. One of these brothers afterward became one of the original major-generals of the Revolutionary army; one became a brigadier-general, and one a captain. John Heath, one of these brothers, was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He located in New Jersey. He left at his death a family of three children, two sons and one daughter. John Heath, Jr., one of these two sons, was born in Hunterdon County, N. J., in 1788, and married Mary Burruck. They reared a family of seven children. Austin, the subject of this sketch, was the third son of this family. He was born in the same county and township as that of his father. He was born June 4, 1814. He remained in New Jersey until the fall of 1839, when he came to Ohio and located near Urbana, Champaign County, where. in the year 1845, he married Miss Eliza Lyon, who was born in Champaign County in 1826. In the fall of 1855 they moved to Shelby County and located where they now reside, in Green Township. They have raised a family of ten children, nine of whom are still living. Mr. Heath from the year 1834 to 1854 made school teaching a profession exclusively. From 1855 to 1872 he taught during the winter season and worked on his farm during the summer. He has during life devoted much time and thought to the study and investigation of the science of Geology—-having travelled through out nearly every State and Territory in the Union east of the Rocky Mountains, as well as the Canadas; having been all along the sea-coast from Maine to the reefs of Florida. He has within his possession a very large and fine collection of specimens of corals and shells from the sea shore; minerals from every State east of the Rocky Mountains, among which may be found an aerolitic stone which he dug up in the State of Iowa within one hour after it fell. He has a large collection of fossils, representing all the formations from the lower Silurian up to the latest; also a fine collection of archaeological specimens known as Indian relics. Among his collection are several hundred specimens gathered in Shelby County, consisting of the bones of the Orthoceros, found near Sidney; some exceedingly fine specimens of the Pentemeris, gathered near Pontiac; also Trilobites from the same place, and numerous specimens of crinordal and coral rock, all collections from this county.
History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883