Woods, Jesse

Posted By: William Courtney
Date: 2 February 2006

Source – Greenville Journal – September 17, 1896 – pg. 4

Obituary

Woods – Jesse Woods, son of James and Rebecca Woods, was born in Tyler county, Virginia, March 25, 1819, and departed this life at his home in German township, Darke county, Ohio, September 3, 1896, aged seventy-seven years, five months and nine days.

He came with his parents to Ohio in the year 1821 on Christmas day. They landed at the cabin of John Wagner, now the home of Jonathan Wagner, where they remained six weeks. During this time, his father and other pioneers erected a cabin in the wilderness upon an Indian mound, where marks of the tomahawk were to be seen upon the trees. Here in the shadows of a primeval forest, amidst the vicissitudes and privations incident to early pioneer life, he lived and loved his parents in childhood, worked in the strength of his young manhood, continuing thus, surrounded by sacred memories, with those he loved, he lived for seventy-four years, and until his death. He was a man of courage and integrity, persevering, fearless, having a decided character, and yet, all these physical elements were enriched and ripened by a love of the beautiful in nature and art, and the loftiest idea of God and religion. He was grand in simplicity. Ostentation, vanity, or show he detested. He was dutiful and loving husband, a kind father, a good and honored citizen and an honest man.

He was the very soul of poetry; inheriting this trait of character from his father, and in his very last days, when he was so weak, he could but whisper, he would recite poems learned at his father’s knee. He was united in marriage to Anna Stephens, daughter of David and Lydia Stephens, on January 19, 1843. There was born to them thirteen children; ten daughters and three sons; of whom four daughters and two sons have passed on before him to the Better Land. He said to his sorrowing wife and companion, “Don’t weep, I go to our children, and you are left with the others here.” He leaves a devoted wife, one son and six daughters, one sister, Hetta Nickolas, now past eighty-four years, who resides in Fort Wayne, Ind., and who is the only surviving member of his father’s family. He also leaves nineteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, besides a host of friends to cherish his memory, imitate his virtues and mourn his loss. Let us, “So live, that when they summons comes to join the immortal caravan, which moves to that mysterious realm, where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death. Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and likes down to pleasant dreams.” The funeral was held from the Universalist church at Palestine, conducted by Rev. Ludwick, of Greenville, on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 6, 1896.

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