RATHBUN, Amos

AMOS RATHBUN
Death of Amos Rathbun
“V.I.P.” gives the Morenci Observer of September 3, 1887, the following notice of the death and history of an old Fulton County citizen:
“And still another of the aged pioneers of Royalton Township has been called over to the majority –– Amos Rathbun, who departed this life August 18, 1887, and was buried at Weston on the 20th. He leaves an aged wife and eight children, four sons and four daughters, to mourn the loss of one who gave them the example of an honest, industrious and honorable life. In life he had the pleasure of seeing his sons and daughters all grow up to respected men and women. Few men, if any, have performed more hard labor than Amos Rathbun. Having been born at Salem, Connecticut January 20th 1812, and growing to manhood among the thrifty New Englanders, he was prepared when he came to the almost unbroken wilderness of Ohio in 1837, to endure the hardships incident to a pioneer life. Only a few of the old settlers are left to tell the story of that life in the cabins built of logs, where the deer bounded past the door and the sweet sleep came after a hard day’s work which was broken only by the howling wolf. But they who still remain will testify that Amos Rathbun did his part of laying low the stately trees and converting the forest into broad and beautiful fields. The first schoolhouse in the neighborhood was built by him, of logs. On the corner of his farm, one mile south of Lyons, the plank for the benches being split and hewed smooth with an ax. His farm, upon which he lived at the time of his death, was purchased without his having seen it, but he was so well pleased with the location and soil that he frequently declared that he could not have been better suited had he “looked before he leaped.” In politics he was a Republican, having joined that party at its birth and ever afterwards adhering to its principles. During his last illness, which lasted something over a year, he was not disposed to murmur, but bore his sufferings which at times were intense, with great patience, only a few tears now and then trickling down the withered and wrinkled cheek and a half suppressed sigh as he clasped a kind and loving hand, told of what it cost him to part with those so near and dear to him and take that long journey from which no traveler ever returns. And thus “one by one” the old pioneers pass away, and only a few years more and these beautiful farms will be all that is left to remind us of those who, more than all others have helped to build up and aggrandize this nation of ours.
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