DAVID FISHER - A Man of Ye Olden Times 

His Death Recalls Numerous Events in the Early Political History of Our Country 

A Brief Sketch of His Long and Remarkable Career, During Which He was Elected to Both the State Legislature and to Congress — He Dies at the Ripe Old age of Ninety-Three, and Is Interred in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery at Cincinnati. 

Hon. David Fisher died at the residence of his son-in-law E.G. Brown, near Mt. Holly, Friday, May 7,1886, in the ninety-third year of his age. 

The death of such a man as David Fisher is not to be passed by lightly either by those who knew him in the pious and peaceful afterglow of his useful and beneficent life or by those who remembered him in the fullness of his fame. His life was remarkable not only for its longevity but for the obstacles he surmounted, the honor he achieved, the kindness he radiated in the sympathy he bestowed upon all who came within his range.  

David Fisher descended from a sturdy and stalwart stock of German ancestors who had the courage and sagacity to brave danger and endure privation for the sake of a home, happiness and the hopes of Heaven in new world where liberty and love were the instrument's of government by which patriotism was inculcated and protection guaranteed. The dignity of manhood, not universally comprehended nor generally appreciated, decided the destiny of the Fisher family, and not only gave to America their citizenship, service and support, but peopled it with the best blood of Europe —with a class of men who believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.  

David Fisher's immediate grandfather emigrated from the Palatinate of Germany in 1742 and settled on the banks of the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. In 1757 he died of smallpox; leaving four sons, the three eldest of whom, removed to the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, where many of their progeny live today, ranking among the first families of that State for their intelligence, individuality and integrity. Adam, the fourth and youngest son and the father of David; was born in the year 1750, learned the blacksmith trade and was working at it near Hagerstown, Maryland, when the Revolution broke out. With the same spirit of patriotism which impelled his ancestors and descendants, he exchanged the hammer for the gun and served as a-soldier, fighting for the freedom of his country. At the end of his term of enlistment he returned to Maryland, where he married an estimable woman in the person of Susannah Jones, the daughter of a worthy Welsh farmer. Immediately after his marriage he removed to Western Pennsylvania, where David, the subject of this sketch, was born December 1, 1794, in what is now known as Somerset county, on the banks of Stony Creek, five miles from the county seat. When David was five years old the father joined the tide of emigration which was taking its course westward, and by the modes of travel then in use reached the Ohio river, down which he drifted and pushed until the mouth of the Scioto was reached, when a landing was made, the encampment formed, and a child born unto him. As soon as the health of the family permitted travel again, the boat was freighted and floated down the stream as far as Limestone, the aboriginal name for Maysville, where a settlement was made four miles back from the river, and in which he lived until 1799, when he removed across the Ohio, locating on Indian creek, in Washington township, this county. 

Adam Fisher, like his contemporaries and companions, had all the elements in him for a pioneer, courage, caution, industry and strength, united with a fortitude, which no difficulty could daunt or misfortune depress.  He had eleven children — nine sons and two daughters, all of whom grew to be useful men and exemplary women. Two of his sons became distinguished ministers of the gospel; one of the Methodist church and the other of the Christian denomination. Six of them lived to the age of four score and none of them died below the age of seventy years. He gave to them hereditary strength, lessons of industry and pious examples in the manner of his life and the method of his labor, and with this inheritance they found the sanction of heaven, the favor of their fellows and success in life.  

The youth of David, if not spent in hardship, was occupied with toil, constant und arduous such as the family of a pioneer is called upon to perform.  His opportunities for education were meager. Schools were few and the terms short. Books wore scarce in the back wood and the means to purchase or procure them were neither abundant nor convenient, but such books as did circulate and were studied were pious and patriotic. The bible decked every mantel shelf and the miscellaneous reading books contained graphic sketches of Revolutionary episodes and personal heroism in defence of liberty. With such literature as this David became fondly familiar, and the impressions it made upon his youthful mind were indelibly retained until his dying day. The Bible was always the rule and guide of his faith, and the fathers of the Republic were standard of statesmen and pattern of patriots. His mind was strong, original and perceptive, and he grasped knowledge and gained wisdom through its calm and collected cogitations. Had there been neither  a revealed Christianity nor a written book he would have grasped from nature religion and intelligence. His mind would never rest until the realms of inquiry were traversed and the mysterious and speculative resolved and reduced to certainties. At the age of twenty-six he wrote a book refuting and confounding the arguments of an apostatized preacher, who essayed to prove in a previous publication that Christ was not of divine origin. This book of David Fisher's was printed and published in New Richmond in 1823 by the Herrons, attained a large circulation and brought its author much celebrity. It is probably now out of print. 

The war of 1812, found the youthful David as full of fiery ardor for his country’s honor and protection as his father was in the Revolutionary times, and he enlisted and served finder General Harrison and Mart Anthony Wayne at Forts Winchester, Defiance and Meigs, returning home in the spring of 1814. In the same year and shortly thereafter, he married Nancy Byrns, daughter of Lawrence Byrns, a descendant of Cromwell’s colonists from the north of Ireland. The marriage took place not far from where Pt. Pleasant now is, and proved to be a judicious and happy, one; his wife being an excellent helpmate in every sense of the phrase — a woman like Wordsworth's ideal. 

A being breathing thoughtful breath,

A traveler between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort and command;

And yet a spirit still and bright,

With something of an angel light.  

With such a wife his cares were divided and his joys were doubled and the zest which her influence gave him combined with his own resolution and ambition crowned their endeavors with solace and success. 

The twenty-five years following his marriage were occupied in clearing land, farming, both in Kentucky and this county, keel-boating on the Ohio, draying in Cincinnati — working at whatever his hands could find to do and doing it with all his might. And this was a principle of his life, whether making rails on the slopes of the Ohio or stump speeches for Harrison and Corwin in the Western Reserve, his efforts were earnest and indefatigable. 

Being an ardent Whig and subsequently a stalwart Republican, he was nominated by his party in 1842 for the legislature and served one term, representing the counties of Clermont, Brown and Clinton, having for his colleagues John D. White and Thomas Ross, of Brown, and Moses Rees, of Clinton. The record he made in the Legislature for attention to his duties, his ability and decided position on the tariff issue, brought his name prominently before his party as a suitable candidate for Governor and a the convention in 1844 he came within three votes of the nomination, which in the then existing condition of the parties was equivalent to an election. Through the machinations of John Woods, of Butler county, the will of the convention was subverted and Mordecai Bartley was declared the nominee and was elected over David Todd, the candidate of Democracy, by a good, round majority. 

The varied experience and expansion of thought made life on a hillside farm on Indian creek too lethargic and lugubrious for Mr. Fisher's volatile mind and vivacious temperament. He sold out, removed to Wilmington, the county seat of Clinton county and bought the Republican newspaper of that town from Robert Lindsey and assumed proprietorship and control in 1846. His son and grandsons subsequently published the paper and it is yet owned and conducted by some members of the Fisher family. It was while editor of this organ of the Whigs that he was nominated for Congress over Lewis D. Dampbell [sic] of Butler county, a prominent politician and an eminent lawyer, and the uncle of our present Representative, James E. Campbell. The district was composed of Clinton, Warren and Butler counties. The campaign was spirited and hard fought, and Mr. Fisher was elected by several hundred votes over his competitor. Judge Vance Butler. In December, 1847, he took his seat in Congress, having among his contemporaries Abraham Lincoln, who was his roommate: also John Quincy Adams, Joshua R. Giddings, Robert C. Schenck and James J. Faran, late of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Lincoln and Fisher became last friends, as there was much in common between them. Both had been rail splitters, in their youth and each hewed himself into position by, personal efforts and commanding talents. Their tastes, too, were of a kindred quality. While other members were junketing or attending some place of amusement these two would entertain each other or a party of congenial spirits with backwoods experience and droll stories. The friendship lasted as long as Lincoln lived, and his memory occupied a place in David Fisher's mind next to that of his wife, who died in 1855. 

After leaving Congress, he removed to Cincinnati and at once became identified with politics and public men there. He served on party committees with Salmon P. Chase and other politicians of the old leaven, and. was elected a Justice of the Peace, which office he filled for twelve successive years, declining to serve longer on account of his failing sight, which seemed to be a hereditary malady, but in his case was accelerated and intensified by cataracts. He was unable to read for twenty years before his death. While a resident of Cincinnati, and after being several years a widower, he was again married to Mrs. Weathy G. Sion, a widowed lady of excellent family and elegant manner and appearance. His sight being gone and consequent upon it his occupation, the buzz and bustle of the city rather annoyed than interested him and in 1870 he removed back to the country, purchasing a small farm on the Ohio pike east of Cleveland's where he lived in retirement and contentment for ten years, where his wife died and left him dependent upon his daughters for the care and attention which a person with his affliction constantly required. Most of his after life was spent with his daughter, Mrs. K. G. Brown, at whose house he died, where tenderness and affection were lavished upon him by her and her family and the happy frame of mind in which he was found bespoke the comforts which he enjoyed. 

He had eight children - William B., deceased; Eliza, wife of A. W, Tibbetts; Susan, wife of E. G. Brown; Salina, wife of Capt. Isaac D. Marsh, of Iowa; David, mail agent on the C. G. & P. railroad; Ellen, widow of John Baldwin; Jerome Augustine, many years clerk of the police court in Cincinnati, and who died in Colorado where he went for his health, and Harriett C., wife of E. W. Thrasher. 

After brief services at the house on Saturday by Rev. Smith, of Amelia, on account of Mrs. Brown's sickness preventing her from accompanying the remains to the place of burial, the body was taken on the train to Cincinnati and buried from the Wesleyan church in the Wesleyan cemetery near that city. 

Serene, serene

He pressed the crumbling verge of this terrestial [sic] scene,

Breathed soft in childlike trust,

The parting groan;

Gave back to dust its dust

To heaven its own.