Devaul, John

John Devaul
Hardesty History of Monroe County, Ohio
Personal History Department
Page 19

John DEVAUL, a resident of Greene township, is engaged in farming, and is one of the old pioneers of Monroe county, having settled here in 1823. He was born near Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania, November 28, 1811. His parents were Conrad DEVAUL and Mary MC MANHAN, both now deceased. They came to this county in 1823.

Mr. DEVAUL'S wife is Elizabeth CONLEY, who was born in Greene township, Monroe county, May 22, 1825. They were married in Greene township, June 11, 1856. Mrs. DEVAUL'S parents, Isaac CONLEY and Elizabeth HICKMAN, came to Monroe county in 1823. The former died in 1853 and the later in 1865. Mr. DEVAUL'S elder brother, Conrad DEVAUL, served five years in the war of 1812.

Mr. John DEVAUL, the subject of this sketch, started out in life a poor boy, and by industry and economy has accumulated a liberal quantity of this world's goods. He is the possessor of 360 acres of valuable land, and never had a mortgage against any of it, and in all his business transactions never failed to come up to his contracts. He is a man of strictly temperate habits, never having taken a drink of spirituous liquors, or smoked or chewed tobacco. He is living at the mature old age of three score and ten.

He remained a widower seven years before he married a second time.

Mr. DEVAUL'S father came from Greene county, Pennsylvania, and settled in this township when it was a wilderness, there not being over twenty-five families in the township. He helped build the first school-house in the township. There were no roads here then, only bridle-paths through the woods. Mr. DEVAUL'S father entered eighty acres of land about half a mile west of the present site of Newcastle.

Mrs. DEVAUL'S parents, came from Greene county, Pennsylvania, and settled in this township when it was an unbroken forest. They entered land in the eastern part of the township, and went heartily into the work, built them a house and raised up their family of five sons and five daughters, who have since married off and sought homes elsewhere. Mrs. DEVAUL was born in this township, married on the same farm on which she was born, and has been a resident of the township for fifty-seven years, never having lived outside of it.

Mr. DEVAUL'S first wife was Elizabeth HENTHORNE, daughter of James and Elizabeth Rachel HENTHORNE. There were born of this marriage:

• Rebecca (Fisher), now a resident of Washington township, Monroe county;
• Conrad, a farmer in Green township;
• James, a resident of Green township, and a school-teacher by occupation;
• Perry, deceased at the age of three years;
• Simon J., a resident of Newcastle, and a physician by profession.

Mrs. DEVAUL died June 3, 1850.

Mr. John DEVAUL'S address is Laings postoffice, Monroe county, Ohio.

*******