Marion Francis Crissman
Marion Francis Crissman was born in Wayne Township, Adams County, Ohio, June 12, 1842. His father was Adam Crissman and his mother, Nancy Riley. They came from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, in 1841, with five children. Mr. Crissman enjoys the distinction of being the sixth of a family of seven brothers, no sisters having been born to his parents. He enjoys the further distinction of having two of his six brothers ministers in the Presbyterian Church, both of them Doctors of Divinity. He enjoys the further distinction of being the great-grandson of General Thomas Mifflin, born in 1744, first Aide-de-camp to General Washington, member of the Continental Congress, Quartermaster Genera! of the Revolutionary Army, Brigadier and Major General, member of the Convention which framed our Federal Constitution, Governor of Pennsylvania and one of the orators of the Revolution, and the best drill master in the Revolutionary Army.
Our subject attended school in the vicinity of his residence and at North Liberty Academy. He varied that, with labor on his father's farm until his majority. On the fourteenth of July, 1863, he enlisted in Company G, 129th O. V. I., and was in the Cumberland Gap and Longstreet campaign in Middle Tennessee that Fall and Winter. He was discharged with that regiment in March, 1864, and re-entered the service August 31, 1864, in Company H, 173d O. V. I. In that he served until the war was over in East Tennessee. He participated in the celebrated campaign against General Hood and was in the final culmination at Nashville.
In 1866, he went into the business of a general store at North Liberty with William Caskey, under the name of Crissman & Caskey, and conducted that for about five years, at which time his partner retired. He conducted the business alone for about two years and then sold out to William Finney in 1872.
On March 1, 1867, he was married to Miss Isabella Caskey, who died in 1873. On January, 1875, he located in Manchester in the grain and seed business and has continued it ever since. In 1881, he and Nathaniel Greene Foster bought the Bentonville flour mill and they operated it together until 1891, when he purchased the interest of his partner and has since conducted it alone.
In 1883, the firm of Crissman & Foster built the first telephone line constructed in Adams County, connecting West Union and Bentonville at Manchester with the Western Union Telegraph Company's lines, and have continued the same in successful operation until 1891, when Mr. Foster retired from the firm and the line has been continued since by Mr. Crissman.
In politics, Mr. Crissman is a Republican, but has never sought any prominence in his party. In his religious faith, he is a Presbyterian, and is a ruling elder in that church at Manchester. On the sixteenth of July, 1874, he married Miss Anna C. Dunbar, daughter of David Dunbar, of Manchester, Ohio. They have two children, Carl, who has qualified himself for a business career, and Augusta Belle, a young girl in school. Mr. Crissman has the highest character for business integrity and ability and has the confidence of the entire community, of which he is a part. He is a member of the Village Council and of the School Board. He has prospered in his business and is regarded as one of the best business men in the county. He has the most attractive home in Manchester, and is surrounded with all those outward conditions which make this life agreeable and pleasant.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900