Gilbert L. Dillingham
In the memorial annals of the village of Jamestown and of the Jamestown neighborhood in Greene county there are few names held in better remembrance than that of the late Gilbert L. Dillingham, who became engaged in the jewelry business in that little village in the early '40s of the past century and thus continued in business there all the rest of his life.
Gilbert L. Dillingham was born in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, May 4, 1821, and his parents also were born in that city, both of Scotch-Irish descent. He completed his schooling in the high school in Boston and early became an expert jeweler and watchsmith. When he was through with school and had completed his apprenticeship at the jeweler's bench he decided to come to Ohio and to here engage in business on his own account: and with that end in view, he then being but nineteen or twenty years of age, he located at Jamestown and there opened a jewelry store, continuing in business there the rest of his life, his death occurring there on May 5. 1864. he then being forty-three years of age.
Mr. Dillingham was twice married. In 1846, five or six years after he took up his residence in Jamestown, he was united in marriage to Melvina Dwinell. of Middletown, this state, and to that union were born six children, Angeline. Prudence. Atta, Levi, Jackson and Horace, all of whom are now deceased save Mrs. Atta Johnson, a widow, still living at Jamestown, and Levi, who is married and is living at Bloomington. Illinois. The mother of these children died about 1859 and is buried at Middletown. About 1861, at Jamestown. Mr. Dillingham married Susan Taylor, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who died in 1877, and to this union were born three children, namely: Vica, who in 1899 married James Cooper, a farmer of Greene county; Josephine, who died when about five years of age, and Frances, who on December 25, 1889, was united in marriage to Oscar E. Bales, who for the past twenty-seven years has been engaged as a locomotive engineer on the Pennsylvania railroad, running out of Xenia. Mr. Bales is a native son of Greene county, born on a farm in New Jasper township, February 2, 1864, son of John S. Bales, a retired farmer of this county, now living in Xenia, and further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Bales was for some years and until recently engaged in the hotel business at Xenia, proprietress of the Francess Inn on Detroit street.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918