Miami County, Ohio Genealogical Researchers -- Sponsored by the Computerized Heritage Association


    WILLIAM R. SAUNDERS

    William R. Saunders, the son of Jonathan and Susannah Crampton Saunders, was born in Troy, August 21, 1841. His father was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, 1812, and emigrated to Ohio in 1834. His mother was born near Frederick, Maryland, in 1818 and came with her parents to Montgomery county, Ohio, in 1820. The father was a carpenter by trade, and was associated in business with William Johnson and T. K. Orr, in Troy, Ohio, until the year 1852, when he moved from Troy to section 4, Staunton township, where he engaged in farming for the Knoop brothers. William R. Saunders, the subject of this sketch, has lived on section 4, Staunton township, from 1852 to the present date, a period of forty-eight years. He received such education as could be obtained in the common schools of this county, and was for many years associated with the Knoop brothers in their agricultural interests. On May 29, 1867, he was united in marriage to Mary B. Knoop, the eldest daughter of William Knoop, and a granddaughter of John Knoop, who came from Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and settled in Miami county in 1797, and who was one of the founders of "Dutch Station," a stockade or rude fort built for protection against the Indians, which is more fully described in this volume under the head of "John Knoop and Brothers." The life of William R. Saunders has been that of a quiet citizen and farmer, for he does not seek office or political preferment, yet he is an active working Republican, and has served as secretary and chairman of the county central committee. He is now, and has been for many years, a member of the Staunton township school board, and was a member of the Miami county board of agriculture for eight years. He is a stockholder and director in the Troy Bending Company. He was one of the organizers of the Troy National Bank and one of its directors. He and his wife are living upon and own the old homestead of John Knoop, and of his sons the "Bachelor Knoops," which place contains two hundred and forty acres of splendid land, with good improvements, and a fine country residence. His great uncle, Theodore Saunders, was a pioneer who came to the county in 1803, and was a member of the first grand jury of the county, which held its session in the house of Peter Felix, an old French Indian trader living in "Dutch Station," afterwards called Staunton. For twenty years he has lived the life of a retired farmer, but has not been an idle man. He is an extensive reader of good books and a good thinker, and for this reason a pleasant companion. Having been associated from early boyhood with the "Bachelor Knoops," perhaps there is no man in Miami county so well posted on their history and the motives that inspired those quiet, careful men in all their actions for the public welfare or their private interests. He has a great reverence for the family, and is of the opinion that John Knoop, the old pioneer of 1797, was a man of remarkably strong intellect and most excellent judgment, a man, who if today was living in the prime of his manhood would make an impress upon the public of this county more profound even than he did among the brave and hardy settlers of the Miami valley a century ago. In this opinion the writer, after a careful study of his qualities as a man and his evident influence at that early day, assents to in every respect. E.S.W.

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