George Anderson McSurely
George Anderson McSurely was born October 21, 1842, near Unity, in Oliver Township, Adams County, Ohio. There is a separate sketch of his father, Hugh McSurely, among the pioneers in this work. Our subject was reared on his father's farm and attended the Public schools of his vicinity until 1859. He attended Miami University in 1859 and 1860, and was ready for the Freshman class when he gave up school and went to farming.
When the war broke out, he wanted to enter the service, but his father would not hear to it, and he enlisted himself on November 1, 1861, at the age of fifty-five, in Company E, 70th O. V. I. What might have been expected happened, and Hugh McSurely could not stand the hardships of the service. He was discharged December 18, 1862, for physical disability. He went home, and the following Summer, his son, our subject, enlisted in the same company and regiment for three years from June 8, 1863. He served until July 28, 1865. He was never in the hospital until after the close of the war. He never missed an hour from duty in the Atlanta campaign.
After returning from the war, he taught school eight years. On April 20, 1809. he married Miss Martha Clark, daughter of Samuel Clark, a neighbor. From 1865 until 1873, he taught school and farmed; and from 1873 untu 1886, he was a farmer in Adams County. He then removed to Oxford, Ohio. For two years after his removal, he had no particular occupation. In 1888, he opened a grocery in Oxford, and has carried on that business ever since.
He is regarded as one of the foremost business men of that place. He has been a member of the United Presbyterian Church since boyhood. Directly after coming to Oxford, he was made an elder in the United Presbyterian Church there, and has served in that office most acceptably ever since. For the past nine years he has been Clerk of the Session of that church. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
He has had two daughters: Lora, who died at the age of nineteen, and Mary, who is a graduate of the Oxford High School and of the Oxford College. She also took a post-graduate course at Miami University, and taught in the Oxford College in 1899 and 1900.
Mr. McSurely is a Republican, and has always been one. In the contest for the postoffice at Oxford under President McKinley, in 1897 he was supported by the several institutions of learning and by the old soldiers, as well as by a large portion of the citizens. He is a man of quiet manners, kind, gentle, and very faithful to his friends. In all relations as a business man, a citizen, and an officer in his church, he is trustworthy and conscientious. As a soldier, he was faithful, reliable, and efficient. He is a man of clear head and warm heart, and he is true to his convictions of duty.
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