Willis O. STRAUSBURG, a well known and substantial farmer and landowner of Jackson township, was born in that township and has lived there all his life. He was born on May 23, 1872, and is a son of Samuel and Louisa (AYRES) STRAUSBURG, well known residents of that community and of whom further mention is made elsewhere in this work. The late Samuel STRAUSBURG was born in Clark county, Ohio, but was reared at Marion, Ind.[Grant Co.], to which city his parents had moved when he was but a boy. He married in Darke county, Ohio, and continued to make that place his home until in 1870, when he came over into Jay county, where he had previously bought an eighty-acre farm in Jackson township and established his home there, having also added a tract of forty acres. His father also came to this county not long after he had settled here and also became the owner of a 160-acre farm. Samuel STRAUSBURG spent the remainder of his life in this county, his death occurring on August 5, 1921. He and his wife were the parents of five children, three of whom are living, those besides the subject of this sketch being Viretta and Ellery. Two daughters, Florence O. and Margaret S., are deceased. Willis O. STRAUSBURG grew to manhood on the home farm in Jackson township and received his schooling in the old Glenwood school. He remained on the home farm, a valued assistant in the labors of developing the same, until he was twenty-six years of age, when he became engaged working at the carpenter's trade. For four years he followed that vocation and then, having bought a tract of fifty acres, a part of the farm on which he is now living in Jackson township, he became actively engaged in farming. Since taking possession of that place Mr. STRAUSBURG not only has done much in the way of improving the same, but has added an adjoining tract of thirty acres to his place and has created an. excellent farm plant, he and his family having a pleasant home on rural mail route No. 2 out of Portland. Mr. STRAUSBURG is a Democrat and has ever taken, a good citizen's interest in local political affairs. His wife is a member of the Glenwood Meeting of Friends. On March 22, 1903, Willis O. STRAUSBURG was united in marriage to Minnie J. BISHOP who also was born in this county, and to this union six children have been born, Ora Belle, Ernestine and Effie May, who are living, and Irene, Harriet and a son who died in infancy. Mrs. STRAUSBURG is a member of one of the pioneer families of Jay county. She was born in Bearcreek township and is a daughter of William P. and Harriet (POLING) BISHOP, the former of whom was born in that same township, a son of Peter and Elizabeth BISHOP, pioneers of that section of the county. The POLING's were pioneers of Darke county, Ohio. The late William P. BISHOP, a former member of the board of county commissioners for Jay county, who died at his home in Bearcreek township on June 19, 1920, spent all his life in that township. He helped to clear several farms of the heavy timber and convert them into fertile fields and also for years worked at the carpenter trade, many of the older buildings in that neighborhood thus standing" as monuments to the character of his workmanship. He was active in public affairs, served as constable for several terms in his home township, later as justice of the peace in and for that township, and also served for one term as a member of the board of county commissioners from his district. He and his wife were the parents of six children, those besides Mrs. STRAUSBURG being Cassius, John, Charles (deceased), Edward and Ella (deceased).