The Adair family has been a continuing influence in Jay County for seventy years, this influence ever having been exerted in behalf of community betterment. The family had its origin here with the coming from Ohio in 1852 of James G. and Sarah (Hutson) Adair and their little daughter Nan, who settled in a little log cabin in the lower part of Bearcreek Township, three miles north of Portland and a quarter of a mile west of the Pleasant Ridge Church. Afterward this cabin was "sided" and given new windows and door frames and long served the family as a home. In the historical section of this work there is presented a picture of the old James G. Adair homestead place. This old home was typical of many such homes hereabout in the days of the pioneers and the picture preserves for the present generation a comprehensive viewpoint from which to make comparisons concerning living conditions then and now.
James G. Adair was a Pennsylvanian by birth, but was reared in Jackson County, Ohio, where he married and where he made his home until he came to Jay County. He had received excellent advantages in the way of schooling and also had been ordained as a "local" minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, so that when he settled on his "eighty" here in Bearcreek Township in 1852, he instinctively sought an outlet for his talents and in addition to looking after the affairs of his farm spent his winters teaching school and on Sundays filling the pulpits of such of the neighboring churches as were open to his ministrations. It has been written of him that James G. Adair never missed teaching a term of school during his residence in Jay County, and taught every winter until his death in 1873. He was thorough and efficient in his school room work, taking a great interest in the welfare of the boys and girls under his instruction. He believed the safety of democratic institutions rested in the minds and hearts of the young people, and he felt it was his duty to prepare them as best he could for the exalted duties of American manhood and womanhood. He put into his duties as a teacher the same fervent spirit that he pronounced from the pulpit, believing that the church and the school were indissolubly bound together in the up building of Christian character and exalted citizenship.
He was a Democrat, advocating the principles of his party with moderation, yet exercising and believing in the sovereign right of every man, who loves his country, to let conscience dictate the casting of his ballot. Along this same line, it was written further of this pioneer that it was part of his ministerial duties to preach the funeral of many of his old pioneer friends and to console as best he might the grief of the neighboring relatives. He united in the bonds of wedlock many of the young men and women of the community, who plighted their troth that another home might be established in the rapidly growing county. He was the counselor of those who were in trouble and the adviser of many who sought his judgment in matters of business.
James Adair was a modest, honest, cheerful, industrious citizen and the inspiration of his Guthrie and started up in the same line, but two years of life in Guthrie proved sufficient and he then returned to Portland and has been engaged in the drug business in that city since 1894.
Biographical and Historical Record of Jay County, Lewis Publishing Company, 1887