Isaiah W. Staley
About the year 1750 Conrad Staley, a German by birth, emigrated to America, and located in the colony of Pennsylvania near Lancaster. It was here, in the year 1762, that John Staley, the father of the subject of our sketch, was born. About 1780 he went to North Carolina, and a few years afterward married Mary Smith, and had a family of fourteen children, eleven of whom lived to grow up to manhood and womanhood. Isaiah W. was the twelfth child, and was born March 8, 1808. He lived with his father till he was eighteen years of age. His father was a blacksmith by trade. Isaiah learned the trade with his father. At the age of eighteen his father gave him his time. He then started out to travel and see the country. He spent five years travelling from place to place. He would stop and work at his trade a short time in a place, then start again and travel until his means were nearly exhausted, then stop and work awhile. In this manner he did until he had travelled over North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, without any object in view except to see the country. As early as 1827 he visited his relatives in Shelby County. He finally in 1832 brought up in Little York, Montgomery County, where he formed the acquaintance of Susan Hutchins, to whom he was married the same year. At the time of his marriage he had but $40; with this he started shop, and worked a short time until ague and sore eyes compelled him to quit work. By the time he was able to work again he found himself $85 in debt, and not a dollar to pay with. He went to work again as soon as able and paid his indebtedness, and worked on until he had saved $100. With this money he took his wife and two children to Allen County, Ohio, near Fort Amanda, and entered eighty acres of land. This was in February, 1836. They soon got tired of their home in the woods, and the following June he traded his land for eighty acres in Perry Township, Shelby County (the same is now owned by Daniel Vandemark), agreeing to pay $200 difference. He moved on to this land in 1837. At the time he settled on it there was not a stick out. He remained here until he had cleared sixty-two acres, when he sold it to Daniel Vandemark for $4000 cash. A short time previous to the sale of this land he had bought one hundred and thirty-five acres in Logan County, and moved on to it. This also was all in timber, which be cleared, and built upon it a saw-mill on the Miami River opposite Nicewonger’s mill. Mr. Staley within the next fourteen years bought some six hundred and sixty-two acres, and during the same time bought the Nicewonger flouring mill. In 1876 he sold his six hundred and sixty-two acres and mill for $14,000, and moved on to another tract of one hundred and six acres, for which he paid $5000, and afterward sold the same. Mr. Staley has owned in Logan and Shelby counties fifteen hundred acres of land. He now owns in Perry Township seven hundred and seventy acres,all well improved. Mr. Staley has cleared with his own hands over three hundred acres—perhaps more than any other man in the county. When he located in the woods first, he took a lease on some land that had been deadened. On this he raised his first grain. From that day to this he has never bought a bushel of grain. Mr. Staley has made what he has got by industry and economy, never having had a dollar given him. Neither would he ever receive a gift or present from any person. His father, when he died in North Carolina, left a large estate, but Isaiah would never accept a dollar of it. He said his proud spirit would never let him receive help. He says he started without anything, and determined when he started to make a success of life by his own industry, and has adhered to that resolution to the present. Mr. and Mrs. Staley have had a family of eleven children, viz., Roswell P., Amanda E., Catharine E., Preston C., Martha, Mary J., Columbus, Millinda, Napoleon B., Harriett, and John. The first five named only are living, the others are buried in the cemetery at Pemberton.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883