My Genealogy Hound

SAMUEL FITCH (deceased). The subject of this sketch was born in Berkeley, now Jefferson County, Va., April 15, 1777, and died in Brown County, Ohio, March 23, 1851. His father was a native of the Emerald Isle, and emigrated to the United States with two other brothers who were soon after, by some unaccountable cause, lost, and nothing of them was ever known afterward. Mr. Fitch was active in the noble achievements for our national independence, and only closed his service to his country at the termination of that memorable war. His military duties were rendered under the direct command of Gen. Washington. He contracted a disease from which he died in subsequent years, leaving a widow and three children — James, Samuel, the subject of the foregoing, and Jane. James and Jane both died in the place of their nativity, aged seventy years. Samuel was reared by a Mr. R. Bennett, who migrated with a colony to the West, stopping for a year on the farm which was the battlefield of Braddock’s defeat. In 1795, they descended the placid waters of the Ohio in a flat-boat and landed at the mouth of Limestone Creek, Ky. Young Fitch remained with Bennett till of age, in the meantime acquainting himself with the blacksmith trade, which he followed in Maysville, Ky., for thirteen years. Sometime during this period, he bought a horse and returned to the “Old Dominion” for his mother, who returned with him on horseback, being at that time in her sixty-third year, to his new Western home. Mr. Fitch married, in Maysville, to Miss Isabelle Martin, a daughter of Edmund Martin, and a sister to Capt. Elijah Martin, of the “war of ‘12 fame.” She was converted to Methodism under the able preaching of Rev. Valentine Cook, and subsequently, under the ministry of Samuel Parker, Mr. Fitch was converted. They removed to Brown County, then Adams, and purchased a farm of Belshazzar Dragoo. He moved his household goods by flat-boat, going down the Ohio, thence up Eagle Creek, arriving at their farm March 1, 1812. His new cabin home was opened to religious worship, and was, up to 1832, the rendezvous for the Christian Pilgrims. In 1832, the society erected a small brick church on Mr. Fitch’s farm, which was dedicated as Fitch’s Chapel. The dedicatory services were presided over by the Rev. Henry B. Bascom, who was licensed to preach from the log cabin of Mr. Fitch. The following, in regard to this eminent pulpit orator, appears in Simpson’s Cyclopedia: Henry B. Bascom, D. D., one of the Bishops of the M. E. Church South, was born in Hancock, N. Y., May 27, 1796, and died m Louisville, Ky., September 8, 1850. He united with the M. E. Church in Western Pennsylvania in 1811, and was licensed to preach and received on trial in the Ohio Conference in 1813. He soon became famous as a pulpit orator. He was elected Chaplain to Congress in 1823; in 1827, was elected President of Madison College, Penn., which position he filled until 1829, when he became the agent of the American Colonization Society. He was chosen, in 1832, as Professor of Moral Sciences in Augusta College, Ky., and 1842 he became the President of Transylvania University. He was delegate to every general conference from 1828 to 1844, and 1845 he adhered to the church South. He was editor of the Southern Quarterly Review from 1846 to 1850, when he was elected Bishop at the General Conference of the M. E. Church South at St. Louis. At one period, he was perhaps the most popular pulpit orator in the United States. The remains of the parents of this worthy divine repose in the old Fitch Burying Ground, on the farm purchased by Mr. Fitch, and where the orator spent his early life and manhood, and from whence he embarked on his world’s mission. The first house built in Brown County is now standing on the old homestead of the Fitch family. March 24, 1824, E. M. Fitch, the only surviving son, was born in the brick house erected by his father in 1821. He is the fourth son and youngest of a family of seven children — Samuel, Mary A., Jane, Martin C., E. M., James Q. and Hannah C., wife of James Howard. Our subject was married, December 8, 1842, to Jane, the youngest daughter of Col. Mills and Mary (Stephenson) Mills. Mr. Fitch has always resided on the old homestead, south east of Ripley. He has been an active member of the community in which he resides, taking a live interest in all public and private enterprises that are calculated to benefit and enrich the community or commonwealth, and especially in the moral growth and improvement of his neighborhood. He has not only been engaged extensively in the industrial pursuits of his fame and avocation, but has displayed much interest, by his munificent assistance, in the gradual development of Brown County. Mr. Fitch has been a prominent factor in the Democratic party of Brown County since the death of Webster and Clay. In 1865, he was elected a member of the Ohio Legislature and re-elected in 1867, serving two terms. His terms of service in the Legislature were active in the interest of his many constituents, and his duties were performed with honor and credit to himself. In 1876 and 1880, he was a candidate for Congress, but was unsuccessful. Mrs. Fitch was born November 4, 1821, and to her and her husband were given the following children: Mary I., born September 4, 1843, married L. P. Stivers September 10, 1861; Hannah J., born January 3, 1845, died April 25, 1849; Samuel C., born July 27, 1846, married July 22, 1868, to ____; Lemuel O., born April 28, 1848; Sarah E., born February 24, 1850, married Frances M. Stephenson December 16, 1876; Laura A., born February 13, 1852, died April 4, 1853; Charles W., born March 18, 1854; Elijah, born March 18, 1856; Henrietta, born March 2, 1859, married J. H. Stephenson April 29, 1880; Angelica, born May 28, 1860, died January 4, 1861, and James P. L., born September 4, 1863, married August 15, 1879.