Randolph  County,  Indiana

Simon  Ramsey


            The most elaborate history is perforce a merciless abridgement, the historian being obliged to select his facts and materials from manifold details and to marshal them in concise and logical order. This applies to specific as well as generic history, and in the former category is included the interesting and important department of biography. In every life of honor and usefulness there is no dearth of interesting situations and incidents, and yet in summing up the career of men like Simon Ramsey, a venerable and highly respected citizen living just south of the city of Winchester the writer must touch only on the more salient facts, giving the keynote of the character and eliminating all that is superfluous to the continuity of the narrative. The gentleman whose name appears above has led an active and useful life, devoid of the spectacular or exciting, and the more prominent features have been so identified with the useful and practical that it is to them almost entirely that the writer refers in the following paragraphs.
            Mr. Ramsey was born February 22, 1834 in Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio. He is a son of Benjamin and Jennette (Moore) Ramsey. The father was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania and the mother was born in Scotland. When the Moore family first emigrated to America they settled in New York, later crossing the Alleghany mountains to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, then took flat boats in which they descended the Ohio river, first settling in woods of what is now Lawrenceburg. The Ramseys came west in the early years of the nineteenth century and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. The parents of our subject were married in 1827 and later established their home in Warren county, Ohio. The grandparents, Arthur and Agnes (Fleming) Moore located in the vicinity of the above named city and Mr. Moore engaged in the foundry business in Cincinnati, also the machine business. After their marriage the parents of our subject moved to Lebanon, Warren county, where the father engaged at the shoemaker's trade, later he moved to Cincinnati, and in 1851 the family moved to Spartanburg, Randolph county, where the father continued working at his trade and also engaged some in farming, purchasing some land. Benjamin Ramsey was born April 1, 1805, and his death occurred in 1866 in Fletcher, Miami county, Ohio where he had lived for several years. He had married a second time. Jennette Moore, mother of our subject, was born in Scotland in 1799, and her death occurred in October, 1858.
            Five children were born to Benjamin Ramsey and wife, two of whom died in infancy; Agnes, who married John W. Love, is deceased; Hester, who was the wife of John T. Chenoweth, is also deceased; Simon, of this review, is the only one of his immediate family now living. He has a half sister, Clara Belle, now Mrs. Fentors, who lives in Miami county, Ohio.
            Simon Ramsey was reared in Lebanon and Cincinnati, Ohio until he was seventeen years of age when he accompanied his parents to Randolph county, Indiana. He attended the public schools in Cincinnati, and he also went to the Spartanburg, Indiana, schools for a time. About 1853 the family moved to Winchester where the father worked at his trade; as a young man our subject worked at various things. On February 6, 1860 he married Eliza Ellen Lister, a daughter of James and Sarah (Ellis) Lister. To our subject and wife two sons were born, namely: Charles Amos, who is married and living in Muncie; Nathan W. is married and lives with his parents on the home farm.
            For a number of years both before and after his marriage Simon Ramsey was a deputy in the various county offices. In September, 1873 he was elected treasurer of Randolph county and served one term of two years. After leaving this office he lived in Winchester for some years and in 1878 he moved with his family to his farm one and one-half miles south of this city and here he has resided continuously to the present time. He has a valuable and well-kept farm on which he has carried on general farming and stock raising and on which stands a comfortable home. The active work of the farm is now done by the son, the elder Ramsey taking life easy in his old age, enjoying the fruits of his former years of labor.
            Politically he has always been a Republican and active and influential in local party affairs. His first presidential vote was cast for John C. Fremont in 1856. He has done much to encourage better methods of farming in this locality and was for some time president of the Randolph County Agricultural Society. He is a member of the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having joined both lodges in the year 1856, and has been in continuous good standing in each, thus for a period of over half a century. His wife and family are members of the Methodist church.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson

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