The deceased was born in Smithfield, New Hampshire, grew to manhood in the State of Vermont, removed in its early settlement to Western New York, where he with his family inhabited a cabin covered with elm bark for many years, and cradled his older children in a sugar trough. After clearing up a considerable farm by great industry, and suffering many privations attendant upon the settlement of a new country, he removed with his family to Ohio in 1817.
The deceased was ever known as a man of unwavering integrity, an ardent advocate for strict justice in his intercourse among men, vehement in repelling and denouncing injustice and wrong in human transactions, impulsive and sanguine in temperament, with some strong prejudices and antipathies, which sometimes cast a shade upon him with those who did not understand his true character; (and who among us has not some faults?). His heart was always open to the warmest sympathies and benevolence to the poor and distressed could instantly change the most inveterate animosity to kindness and pity if the object which aroused it was miserable. The writer could say much more in eulogy, but is from delicacy admonished to withhold with the full assurance that all who well knew the deceased would accord the full truth of what is here sketched.