John McConnell
John McConnell, former internal revenue storekeeper for this district, formerly and for some years engaged in business at Xenia and a land landowner of Greene county now living retired at Xenia, was born on a farm in Sugarcreek township, November 28, 1845, and has lived in this county all his life. Mr. McConnell is affiliated with two of the oldest families in Greene county, his parents, who were married here, having been members of pioneer families, and the farm he owns in Sugarcreek township is a part of the tract his grandfather Marshall settled on there in 1803, the same thus having been in the family continuously since this county became a civic unit considerably more than a hundred years ago.
In a biographical sketch relating to David McConnell, of Osborn, elder brother of the subject of this sketch, there is set out at considerable length something of the history of James M. McConnell, father of these brothers, and of John Marshall, their maternal grandfather, and it therefore hardly will be necessary to go into the details of Mr. McConnell's genealogy here, further than to say that John Marshall, who was a soldier of the War of 1812 and who later served as one of the associate judges of this county, was a Kentuckian, born in the vicinity of Lexington, in 1784, and was nineteen years of age when he came up into this valley in 1803 and secured a patent to six hundred acres of land along the banks of the Little Miami, in Sugarcreek township, this county, on which after his marriage he established his home and spent the rest of his life. He died in 1866, he then being past eighty-two years of age, and his body was buried on his farm, overlooking the beautiful valley of the Little Miami. He and his wife were the parents of six children, namely: Nancy, who married James M. McConnell and was the mother of the subject of this sketch; Sarah, who married John Brock; Hester, who married Captain Kyler, of Dayton; Betsy, who married William Morgan; James, who remained on the farm, and Jesse, who also remained on the farm and was the grandfather of Judge J. C. Marshall, present judge of probate for Greene county.
James M. McConnell, father of John McConnell, was a Virginian, born in the vicinity of the salt springs in Kanawha county, in the Old Dominion, February 14, 1817, a son of David and Nancy (Munn) McConnell, who were born in that same county, the former in 1787 and the latter, in 1789, who were married in that county on January 5, 1815, and who became the parents of three children. David McConnell met his death while still a comparatively young man by falling from the "natural bridge" in Virginia and his widow, with her three young children, later moved to Cincinnati, where James M. McConnell spent his youth and received his schooling, later coming up jnto Greene county and locating in the McClellan settlement in Sugarcreek township, where he met and presently married Nancy Marshall, daughter of John Marshall, the pioneer, mentioned above. She had received from her father a tract of about one hundred acres, a part of his original patent there, and after his marriage James McConnell established his home on that tract. He later bought an adjoining tract of one hundred and forty acres. James M. McConnell was one of the first men in the county successfully to raise tobacco and for years was one of the most extensive tobacco growers hereabout. He was a Democrat and for a long time the only partisan of that political faith in his school district. Late in life he became an adherent of the Quaker church and died in that faith. His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. She died on March 8, 1874. and he survived until August 12, 1889. They were the parents of three children, the subject of this sketch and his brother having had a sister, Sarah Frances, who married Thomas Ginn, of Jamestown, and died in 1916.
John McConnell was reared on the farm on which he was born in Sugarcreek township and received his schooling in the schools of that neighborhood. From boyhood he was a valued assistant to his father in the labors of the farm and after his marriage when twenty-five years of age continued to make his home there until 1883, when he moved to Xenia and there became engaged, in association with his elder brother David, in the agricultural-implement and seed business, the brothers doing business under the firm name of McConnell Brothers. During the first Cleveland administration Mr. McConnell was appointed internal revenue storekeeper for this district and upon completing that term of service became a traveling salesman and was thus engaged for several years, having in 1891 helped to organize the Tippecanoe Whip Company, at Tippecanoe, this state, one of the leading stockholders in the same, and represented that company "on the road." Some years later he disposed of his interest in that company and then, in association with the Hon. John Little, became engaged in the general wholesale tobacco business at Xenia, buying from the growers and shipping to the central tobacco markets. For several years Mr. McConnell was thus engaged in business in Xenia. In the meantime he had retained ownership of his farm and since retiring from business he has devoted his time to the general management and oversight of the same. Mr. McConnell is a Democrat and during the memorable campaign of 1892 was chairman of the Greene county Democratic central committee. He was one time made the nominee of his party for auditor of the county and had the satisfaction of cutting down the normal Republican majority of twenty-four hundred to seven hundred. Mr. McConnell and his daughter, Mrs. Dean, and family are members of the First United Presbyterian church at Xenia.
On June 30, 1870, John McConnell was united in marriage to Cordelia Flemming, who was born in the village of New Burlington, on the Greene-Clinton county line. Her father was a carriage painter, who later moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he died; his widow later marrving William Tate. Mrs. McConnell died on March 24, 1912, she then being sixty-three years of age. Mr. McConnell still occupies his old home on West Market street, Xenia, together with his daughter, Mrs. Dean. Mr. McConnell has two daughters, Imogene, wife of the Rev. Robert W. Burnside, pastor of the Fifth United Presbyterian church at Philadelphia, and Olive K., wife of Walter Levi Dean, former county auditor of Greene county and now a bond salesman living in Xenia. Mr. McConnell had a son, James, who died at the age of nineteen years. To Mr. and Mrs. Dean two children have been born, Flemniing M., who is now attending Muskingum College, and Imogene, at home. Mrs. Dean is one of the leaders in local social-service movements and during the recent state-wide prohibition campaign was indefatigable in her labors in that behalf, working literally night and day for the cause. She is superintendent of the department of Christian citizenship of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918