NATHAN S. VINCENT,
long a resident of Blendon township, at the Alum creek bridge, on the turnpike between Westerville and Columbus, was born in Brown township, Delaware county, Ohio, October 7, 1830. He was the son of Charles and Louisa Vincent, who were emigrants from France to this country. His mental training, in a formal way, was received solely in the district schools of Delaware and Franklin counties. In 1846 or 1847 he came, with his parents, to the lower part of Blendon township, about two miles from the home now occupied by his widow. He remained with them during his voting manhood, laboring on the farm until his nineteenth year, when he learned the carpenter's trade, which he chiefly pursued thenceforth, and a year or two after the war of the Rebellion broke out, he was appointed general superintendent of building at Camp Chase, near Columbus, and served in this capacity nearly two years—so long as needed by the maintenance of the war. He then retired to a farm he had purchased three miles north of Westerville, and engaged in farming. After remaining three years, he sold the place and went to reside on the farm on Alum creek, where he died on the thirteenth of June, 1879. For the last five years before his death, he was honored with successive appointments as general superientendent of the State fairs at Columbus. He was held in high esteem for his business ability and his many excellent qualities of character, and numbered a host of friends. In 1853—November 24—he was married to Miss Lauretta C. Phelps, of the same neighborhood, who is the subject of the following notice.


MRS. LAURETTA C. (PHELPS) VINCENT,
wife of the late Nathan S. Vincent, of Blendon township, was born at the old homestead, occupied for many years by her father and mother, Edward and Elizabeth (Jameson) Phelps, in that township. The date of her birth was September 18, 1835. Her parents removed to this part of Ohio from Hartford, Connecticut, in 1806, and were among the very first settlers in the region. She took the usual round of pioneer education in the country schools, and spent a year (1851-2) in Central
College, then in charge of Professor Levi Wilson. After that she remained in the quiet life of home until united in the bonds of matrimony with Mr. Vincent, as before noted, to whom she remained a loving and faithful wife, through all his labors and cares, until death separated them. She now owns and occupies the homestead last purchased by him, two and a half miles south of Westerville. All the children of her marriage—seven sons and one daughter—are still surviving, and,all reside with their mother, the oldest being twenty-four, and the youngest six years old. Their names, in the order of birth, are: Charles E., born December 9, 1855; Chauncey P.; born November 19, 1857; Corwin T., born December 24, 1859; Carrie F., bcrn October 14, 1862; Joseph C., born March 26, 1866; William F., born February 14, 1868; Freddie, born March 6, 1871; and Walter B., born July 14, 1873.


GEORGE WASHINGTON SHROCK,
in early settler, one mile south of Westerville, now deceased, was born in Romney, Virginia, December 12, 18o4. His father, William Shrock, was a native of Winchester, in the same State, but was of Irish descent. While still young, he removed from Winchester to Romney, where he resided sixty years, and pursued the trade of a hatter, removing finally to Ohio, with his son, George, and dying at his house in Blendon township, December 21, 1848. The mother's maiden name was Jane Means. Her family was of Dutch origin, but she was born in New Creek, Virginia. George was brought up mainly in the family of his elder brother, Perez, with whom he learned the weaving trade, which he followed at intervals, afterwards. For some time after his majority he was also a flatboatman on the south branch of the Potomac, and engaged casually in various other labors. September 27, 1832, he was joined in marriage with Miss Rachel V. Inskip, also a native of New Creek, born there December 4, 1811. Upon the subsequent removal of the family to Ohio, she rode on horseback with the emigrating party all the way from her birth-place to the new home. From their union sprang a large family, five sons and five daughters, of whom seven are now living, namely, in the order of seniority: James, a bachelor, still residing upon the old place, near Westerville; Sarah J., now Mrs. Edward Nobles, of Washington county, Missouri; William, a farmer, in Sharon township, two miles from Westerville; Melissa, now Mrs. Benjamin F. Moody, also near Westerville; Vause, residing three miles south of the same place; Clara Arabell, at the old home; and Alfred Taylor, owner of the homestead, at which he now resides. Another son, George W. Shrock, jr., was a soldier in the Ninety-fifth Ohio volunteer infantry, during the war of the Rebellion, was wounded at the battle in front of Spanish fort, Mobile bay (the last fight of the Rebellion), April 8, 1865, and died of his wound seventeen days afterwards, in the United States general hospital, at New Orleans.

The place near Westerville, now occupied by three of his descendants, is the one first settled by Mr. Shrock, and mostly cleared up by him, upon his removal to Blendon township, about 1840. Here he resided until his death, on Christmas day, 1877, his venerable wife surviving until September 2, 1879. He was long a member and officer of the Presbyterian church, in Westerville, lived in peace with all the world, and died much lamented by the community among whom he had so long lived and labored.


SAMUEL RIGAL,
son of Philip and Catharine (Keller) Rigal, was born near Reading, Pennsylvania, April 14, 18o7. His ancestors were among the foreign soldiers who settled in Pennsylvania, at the close of the Revolution. When Samuel was but nine years old, his father came to Ohio, and settled in Lithopolis, Fairfield county, as a farmer, also practicing, as opportunity afforded, his trade of weaver. The son had little chance of schooling, and pursued the labors of the farm at home, with little intermission, till he was twenty-one, when he became his own master, but continued farming. In 1828 he removed to Plain township, Franklin county, and entered sixty acres for a farm, receiving, also, one hundred and sixty acres with his young wife, formerly Miss Sarah Hay, of Fairfield county, Ohio, daughter of one of the oldest settlers in that region, to whom he was married on New Year's day, of the same year. Losing her by death, he was married, October 12, 1866, to Mis. Amanda Miller. Upon re-marriage, he sold his farm and moved to Westerville, where he engaged in the hardware business fora year, when he retired, and has since lived a quiet life, comparatively freed from business cares, enjoying the fruits of his long and hard labors. He has had two sons—Daniel and Joseph—both of whom are dead, and three daughters—Diana, now Mrs. Daniel Ullery, wife of a farmer in Delaware county; Catharine, now Mrs. Samuel McClung, a widow, residing in Columbus, her husband having been killed by an accident in Missouri, some years ago; and Fanny, now Mrs. Jonathan Trist, wife of a farmer in Blendon township. He has never been in politics, but has held several township offices, and is, with his wife, a member of the Evangelical Association, or "Allbright" church, in Westerville.

Mrs. Amanda (Wilson) Rigal, wife of Mr. Samuel Rigal, is the daughter of John and Rebecca Wilson, who were among the earliest settlers near Newark, Licking county, Ohio, to which place they removed in 1805, from Hardy county, Virginia. In their new home they shared fully in the hardship, of pioneer life—among the Indians, bears, and wolves, the latter of which still abounded in that region. There Amanda was born, May 18, 1818. She received her education solely in the primitive log school-houses of that day. In her twentieth year she was married to Anthony Miller, a young carpenter, and long a schoolfellow and playmate of hers, by whom she had eight children—three daughters and five sons--of whom four are living: Perry W., who lives on the old homestead, at New Albany; John N., a farmer in Blendon township; George W., a farmer in Livingston county, Missouri; and Mrs. Margaret E. Shrock, wife of a farmer four miles south of Westerville. Mrs. Rigal, with her first husband, removed, in 1853, from LLking county to New Albany, Plain township, Franklin county, where he died, of palsy and typhoid fever, March 6, 1862. She remained a widow something more than four years, when she was married, as already noted, to Mr. Samuel Rigal, and has since made her home with him in Westerville, where she is the mistress of a spacious and comfortable mansion, with handsome grounds about it.


JOSEPH CLAPHAM, SR.,
one of the old residents of this township, now deceased, was born in Walton, Yorkshire, England, on Christmas Day, 1793. He married Miss Sarah Hudson, of the same place. They emigrated to this country in the spring of 1818, sailing from Hull, and landing safely at Philadelphia, after a voyage of eight weeks. They removed at once to Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in teaming. At the expiration of five years, they came to Ohio, settling in Blendon township, in October, 1823, upon the farm then owned by Mr. John Snow, of Worthington, now known as "the Shrock place," Seven years afterwards he bought a hundred-acre farm on Big Walnut creek, one mile north of the present location of Central college, where they resided until their death, his occurring September 4, 1875, when he had almost completed his eighty-first year, and his wife's January 22, 1873, she then being aged seventy-five years and twenty-three days. They were highly respected for their useful and upright lives. Both were members of the Presbyterian church, and he, although not active in politics, had the convictions, first, of an anti-slavery Whig, and then of the Republican party. During several terms he served the people as township trustee. Five, out of a family of nine children, survive him—joseph, a Delaware county farmer; George, a farmer near the old homestead; Thomas, a farmer in Mercer county, Missouri; and Mrs. Sarah J. Goldsmith, widow, and Miss Mary Ann Cladham, who reside at the old home. The other children died as follows: Martha, at home, October 21, 1832; Charles, at home, 1842; Mrs. Elizabeth Strong, in Bucyrus, Ohio, August 12, 1855; and John, upon his farm in the neighborhood, January 12, 1879.


HORACE SPRING,
residing about a mile east of Westerville, is one of the most venerable , citizens of the township. He was born in Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, August 8, 1800, of mixed Dutch and Irish blood. His parents were Artemas and Sarah (Adams) Spring, his father being a farmer and stone mason. He is the oldest of fifteen children, of whom twelve lived to adult age. Both his grandfathers did honorable service in the war of the Revolution. When Horace was but eight months old his people removed to Hartford, Washington County, New York—then altogether a new country and began the clearing of a farm, but sold out in about three years, and afterwards resided in various parts of the same township and county.

Young Spring, when but eighteen years- old, determined to see the great world for himself, and to push his fortune in it. He started from home with one shirt and a pair of socks in his bundle, and thirty-seven and a half cents in his pocket. He, revisited his birthplace, and afterwards went to Warehouse point and other places in Connecticut, where he worked until 1830, farming and teaming, and for some years holding a profitable interest in a line of stages running from Hartford to New Hampshire. In that year he removed to Blendon township, settling two miles south of Westerville, near the Alum creek bridge. Much of the means hardly earned in New England had been lost by various mischances, and he came to Franklin county with but seventeen dollars and fifty cents in money, and a hoe, an axe, and a hand-saw, by way of implements. With indomitable will, however, great vigor, and ceaseless industry, he set to work again and measurably recovered his means in a very few years; so that when, in April, 1836, he bought his present place for five hundred dollars, he was able to pay most of it cash down. Here his lot has since been cast, full of hard, but success-full labor, and devoid of exciting incidents and events. He has never been an office-seeker, but has several times had the post of township trustee conferred upon him. Originally a Jackson Democrat, he has since been, successively, an anti-slavery Whig and a Republican. He has lived a life without reproach, and is very highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens. March 15, 1824, he was married, in East Windsor, Connecticut, to Miss Minerva Fisk, of Warehousepoint, who died in 1873. Their children have numbered six—five sons and one daughter—all of whom survive save one, and are settled within forty miles of the old home. The daughter, Miss Elizabeth Spring, remains with her father, to cheer his declining days.