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Below is a family biography included in The History of Darke County, Ohio published by W. H. Beers & Co. in 1880.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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HENRY M. BICKEL, farmer and stock-raiser, Sec. 8; P. O. Hill Grove; was born Jan. 2, 1831, in Montgomery County, Ohio, and came with his parents to Darke County in April following; his father, Andrew Bickel, was born in Centre County, Penn., Sept. 2, 1805, and married Nancy Moyer, who was born in Virginia Aug. 27, 1810; both, hale and hearty, are now living on the farm they bought in 1830, at that time in an unbroken wilderness, in Washington Township, though they experienced all the hardships and privations so well known to all the early settlers of this portion of Ohio, but now, instead of the wilderness, amid the most fertile and productive agricultural land of the State, Henry M., the subject of this sketch, has owned the farm (234 acres) where he lives twenty-three years; this also has he redeemed from wilderness and swamps to bountiful productiveness, being among, if not the very first man to “blind tile,” which is the making of the fine farms in Darke County; now he is surrounded by abundance and comfort; at 21 years, he was not worth a dollar, and possesses today the first silver dollar that he earned, by cutting eight cords of hardwood. June 12, 1856, he married Mary Crumrine; she was born in Darke County July 8, 1839; they have had six children, viz., John C., Lucy C. (deceased), Mary A., Dora (deceased), Harrison C. and Henry I.

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This family biography is one of 659 biographies included in The History of Darke County, Ohio published in 1880 by W. H. Beers & Co.  For the complete description, click here: Darke County, Ohio History and Genealogy

View additional Darke County, Ohio family biographies here: Darke County, Ohio Biographies

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