Nathan C. Wilcox
As long as history endures the American nation will acknowledge its indebtedness to the heroes of sixty-one, who fought for the preservation of the Union and the honor of that starry banner which has never been trailed in the dust. Among those whose military records as valiant soldiers during the War of the Rebellion reflect lasting honor upon them and their descendants is Nathan C. Wilcox, retired merchant of Jeffersonville, Ohio. All of his active life has been spent in mercantile pursuits and upon his retirement from active business cares, about ten years ago, he was regarded as one of the most substantial business men of his city.
Nathan C. Wilcox, the son of Dr. Joseph and Mary J. (McClanahan) Wilcox, was born March 13, 1845, in Noble county, Ohio. His father was a native of Maryland and his mother of Ireland, being born in the northern part of the island near Londonderry. Doctor Wilcox and his wife were early settlers in Noble county, Ohio, and later moved into Vinton county, this stale, where they lived the remainder of their lives. Doctor Wilcox was a prominent physician of Vinton county for many years, and retired about fifteen years before his death, which occurred at Allensville, Vinton county. Doctor Wilcox and wife were the parents of eight children, Jane, Robert S., Mrs. Mary L. Cooper, Mrs. Isabel Miller, Mrs. Anna Wilson. Nathan C, John W. and Mrs. Alice Paine.
Nathan C. Wilcox received his education in the common schools of Allensville, Vinton county, this state. His father had a general store in the town and from his boyhood Nathan clerked in his father's store. During the summer of 1864 he worked for three months as a teamster for the government. In August of that year he enlisted for the one-hundred-day service in Company C, One Hundred Seventy-eighth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served until the end of the war and then returned to Vinton county and engaged in the mercantile business with his father. After his father's death he continued to manage the store in Allensville until he went to Marysville, Ohio, where he managed a store for four years, and in 1883 located in Jeffersonville, this county, where he engaged in business until 1904, when he retired from active life and is now living quietly in Jeffersonville surrounded by all the comforts and conveniences of modern hfe.
Mr. Wilcox was married in 1859 to Margaret E. Culy, the daughter of Dr. David and Elizabeth (Dean) Culy, of English descent and early settlers in Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox reared a family of four children to lives of usefulness and honor, Charles R., Grace, George H. and Leo. Charles R. married Grace Mock, and has three children, Roy, Earl and Doris, and is living in Traverse City, Michigan; Grace is the wife of David S. Craig, of Washington C. H.. and they have three children, Christina, Marvin and Margaret; George H. married Viola Schath; Leo married Amy Hindman, and they have a family of four children, Maurine, Margine, Hubert and Robert.
Mr. Wilcox has been a life-long Republican, but his mercantile interests have demanded so much of his time and attention that he never took an active part in political affairs. At present he is a member of the school board of Jeffersonville and deeply interested in the welfare of the school system of his town. Fraternally, he is a member of the time-honored order of Free and Accepted Masons and has attained to the degree of Knight Templar. He is a member of the Grand Army post of Jeffersomille and takes an active interest in the annual meetings of the old veterans of the county. He is one of those men who has not only been successful in his own private affairs, but has, when called upon by his fellow citizens, been a prominent factor in contributing to the general welfare of the community in which he has resided for so many years.
From History of Fayette County Ohio - Her People, Industries and Institutions by Frank M. Allen (1914, R. F. Bowen & Company, Inc.)