ll living), born April 22, 1821, who married
Amelia Henkle, and has three sons and three daughters living;
Elizabeth Mary, born February 20, 1823, unmarried, still living;
Lucretia, born January 20, 1828, died August 5, 1892, surviving
her husband, Eli M. Henkle, and her only son, John E. Henkle;
Joseph Warren Keifer, born January 20, 1836, who married, March
22, 1860, Eliza Stout, of Springfield, Ohio. [They have three sons
living, Joseph Warren, born May 13, 1861; William White, born May
24, 1866, and Horace Charles, born November 14, 1867. Their only
other child, a daughter, Margaret Eliza, was born June 2, 1873,
and died August 16, 1890.] Minerva, born July 15, 1839 (died July
22, 1899), married to Charles B. Palmer, and they have two sons
and a daughter; and Cordelia Ellen, born July 17, 1842, not married.

From the ancestry described and from the widely diversified strains
of blood--German, English, Welsh, Dutch, and others not traced or
traceable--meeting, to make, in _composite_, a full-blooded American
--came the author of this sketch. He also sprang from a farmer,
shoemaker, civil engineer, clergyman, physician, etc., ancestry,
no lawyer or soldier of mark appearing in the long line, so far as
known.

Born with a vigorous constitution, of strong ( 6) and remarkably
healthy parents, I, early as strength permitted, became useful, in
the varied ways a boy can be, on a farm where the soil is not only
tilled, but trees first have to be felled, rails split, hauled,
and fences built. Timber had to be cut and hauled to saw-mills,
to make lumber for buildings, etc. In the 40's clearing was still
done by deadening, felling, and by burning, the greater part of
the timber not being necessary or suitable for sawed lumber or
rails. In all this work, as I grew in years and strength, I
participated. At or before the age of seven years, and long
thereafter, I performed hard farm work, hauling, ploughing, sowing,
planting, cultivating corn and vegetables, harvesting, etc., and
was never idle. I mowed grass with a scythe, and reaped grains
with a sickle (the rough marks of the teeth of the latter are seen
still on the fingers of my left hand as I write this.) Later, the
cradle to cut small grain was introduced, though at first it was
not popular, because it reduced the usual number of harvest hands
required to "sickle the crop." Raking and binding wheat, rye, and
oats were part of the hard work of the harvest field