Martin G. Shults
Martin G. Shults, son of Sanford Smith Shults, Sr., deceased, was born on the Shults farm in northeast Madison township, Richland county, in 1844. His early life was spent on the farm and in the immediate neighborhood, where he was known as an active, industrious boy of generous nature, open countenance and quick perception. Early in life he qualified himself for the responsible profession of teaching, in which he achieved more than ordinary success, having taught sixteen terms, mostly in the districts of his native township. He was four times elected township assessor on the Republican ticket over a party majority of sixty to eighty in favor of his competitor. As an evidence of his fidelity as an officer and his popularity with his countrymen, it may be said he was the only Republican ever elected to that office. In early life he was exposed by his associations to more than the ordinary allurements and temptations to wrong, and while he did not always come out of the conflict unscathed, yet in the end he was victorious. About eight years he removed to a farm in Williams county, Ohio, where he died on the 8th. of June, 1890. He met the king of terrors in the full enjoyment of rationality and reason, and calmly and cheerfully submitted to his fate. With his last breath he bade good by to wife and daughter and in the next moment was in the spirit world. "Beyond the flight of time, Beyond the vale of death, There surely is some blessed clime Where life is not a breath." The funeral services were held at the old Shults home, where Rev. D.W. Smith delivered an instructive discourse on the ministry of sorrow, to an unusually large audience of friends and neighbors.
From The Mansfield Herald, July 3, 1890