My Genealogy Hound

HENRY KIMBALL, farmer, P. O. New Hope, was born in Scott Township, Brown Co., Ohio, January 7, 1818, and is consequently sixty-four years of age. He comes of good old Puritan and Virginia stock, his father having been a native of Massachusetts Bay, whose ancestors came over in the Mayflower in quest of religious liberty, and his mother of the proud old Dominion, whose progenitors helped to colonize on the banks of the James River. His father, Maj. Benjamin Kimball, who was born in Hopkinton, N. H., August 31, 1778, was the son of Abraham Kimball, born April 18, 1742, and Phoebe Kimball, born May 8, 1740, and tenth in a family of eleven children, namely, John, born December 7, 1761; Aaron, born April 18, 1763; Smith, born January 9, 1765; Job, born January 19, 1767; Abigail, born May 4, 1768; Phoeba, born January 20, 1770; Abraham, born March 16, 1772; Isaac, born March 9, 1774; Jacob, born February 26, 1776; Benjamin, born August 31, 1778, and Sallie, born August 20, 1780. Maj. Kimball was twice married, the first time to Polly Kimball, March 22, 1797, who bore him five sons and four daughters — Phoeba, born February 24, 1800; Jasper M., born April 27,1802; Sallie, born May 13, 1804; Benjamin, Jr., born July 23, 1806; Timothy, born July 27, 1808; Hazen, born April 13, 1810; Mary, born November 25, 1811; Eleanor, born February 28, 1814, and Hazen, who was born January 12, 1798, and died May 21, 1799; and the second time to Mrs. Martha Zumatt, relict of Col. Henry Zumatt, who gave him one child — the subject of our sketch. September 16, 1801, Maj. Kimball with his family in a primitive jolt wagon drawn by oxen, left Hopkinton to make his way overland to Wheeling, Va., where he contemplated making his home, and reached his destination November 16, 1801, after being en route sixty days. Some years later, he removed to Clermont County, Ohio. His wife died at Neville, Clermont Co., Ohio, August 13, 1815. March 6, 1816, he was united in marriage to Mrs. Martha Zumatt. Martha Zumatt was born near Rockbridge, Va., October 19, 1776, and was the daughter of Robert Wardlow and Jannette (Downing) Wardlow. Her parents emigrated in an early day to the untamed wilds of Kentucky, where she met and married Col. Zumatt. Zumatt moved to Ohio, and settled on the east bank of White Oak in the year 1801, purchasing and living till his death, which occurred in 1814, on the site which is now the home of Mr. Kimball. Martha Wardlow had six brothers — Samuel, William, James, John, Joseph and Hugh, and one sister, Janette. Mr. Kimball has made the ancestral roof-tree his home for a period of more than sixty years. October 29, 1840, he was married to Melinda Jacobs, daughter of James Jacobs and Isabella (Feely) Jacobs. Melinda belonged to a family of nine children — Sarah, Elizabeth, William, Alfred, Melinda, James, Jr., Levi, Mary C. and Andrew J. By this union Mr. Kimball has been blessed with a family of seven children, five of whom are living — A. J. Kimball, born November 16, 1841; W. F. Kimball, born July 20, 1843; T. H. Kimball, born January 15, 1847; Martha I. Kimball, born May 15, 1851, and Mary J. Kimball, born September 21, 1853; and two deceased, F. M. Kimball, born April 15, 1845, and died September 27, 1848, and Samuel McCall Kimball, born June 1, 1849, and died December 21, 1850. Mr. Kimball has been a farmer all his life, owning a splendid farm, one of the most fertile and productive in Southern Ohio. There are 247 acres, 150 of which was bought in 1801, by Col. Zumatt, for $375, and could not hnow be bought for less than $40,000. There are seventy-five acres of first bottom, a rich and exhaustless treasure of productiveness. There is a large apple orchard of 415 trees on ten acres of land, having a western hill-side exposure, capable of producing a thousand bushels annually. A few years since he turned his attention to tobacco culture. For seven years he has had under cultivation an average of eight acres a year, with an average yield of 1,000 pounds per acre, and has received for the entire product $8,700, which is $155.25 for each acre’s yield, and this too, in the face of the fact of a partial failure one year, in consequence of scarcity of plants, whereby the crop brought only $700. Samples of the crop raised by Mr. Kimball in 1875, and sold to Robert Young, of Higginsport, were awarded the premium for excellence at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. In 1878, he received $760.50 for the tobacco that grew on three and a half acres, an average of $217.29 per acre. The crop of 1880 was sold to Sheriff Hoebling at 21 cents per pound, and brought $1,900. The farm is equally productive of wheat and corn, the largest average yields of both being annually harvested. At sixty-four, Mr. Kimball is a hearty, good-looking gentleman, his abundant hair and beard silvered by the touch of time, to be sure, but his step as elastic as in youth. He promises to live many years to bless an affectionate country-side, with his benevolent acts and kindly, sunny disposition. His good wife lives to cheer his home and brighten his fireside with her smile, while two unmarried children — a son and daughter — linger at home to share and lighten their cares and responsibilities. Among the old family records in the hands of Mr. Kimball, yellow with age, are found the military commissions of Maj. Kimball; one to which the great seal of the State was affixed at Chillicothe, May 22, 1805, and signed by Gov. Edward Tiffin, clothed Maj. Kimball with the honor and authority of a Captain of a rifle company. Another, defaced and much mutilated, is dated in the year 1806. The third and last, as a family heirloom, has enough interest to entitle it to preservation:
IN THE NAME AND BY THE AUTHORITY OP THE STATE OF OHIO.
Samuel Huntington, Governor and Commander in Chief of the said State,
To Benjamin Kimball, Esq., Greeting:
It being certified to me that you are duly elected Major of the First Battalion, Second Regiment, First Brigade and Fourth Division of Militia in this State. Now know you, that by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution and Laws of said State; and reposing special trust and confidence in your courage, activity, fidelity and good conduct, I do by these presents, commission you as Major of said Battalion, hereby authorizing and requiring you to discharge all and singular, the duties and services appertaining to your said office agreeably to law, and such instructions as you shall from time to time receive from your superior officers. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the great seal of the State of Ohio to be affixed, at Chillicothe, the sixth day of September, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Ten, and in the thirty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America. Samuel Huntington.
By his Excellency’s command, John McLean, Secretary of State.
[seal.]