My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM NEALEIGH, farmer and minister of the Gospel; P.O. Arcauum; was born in Preble Co., Ohio, Sept. 28, 1811; his parents were Henry and Elizabeth Nealeigh. He married Rachael Shields, of Preble Co., Nov. 17, 1831, and settled in Darke Co. in January 1837, on Sec. 3, Twin Township. Of his experience, Mr. Nealeigh writes as follows: “We were married in 1831, and commenced life with $30; in January, 1837, we emigrated to Darke County and settled on the land where we have since lived; in five years, we had earned and paid for our 163 acres of land, $555. The forest looked wild; there were wolves and deer in abundance, and the mosquitoes were so numerous that, when I went out of an evening to shoot squirrels, they would alight so thick on my gun barrel that I could not see the sights, unless I fired very quickly, but now, the wilderness has become a fruitful field, thank God! The first spring, we made a flour barrel full of sugar, and twenty gallons of molasses; in 1840, we were both converted to God, and in 1843, a Christian Church, called the Panther Creek Christian Church, and a meeting-house was built one mile south of Arcanum; we were two of the charter members, and the only two now living; I there commenced preaching. The church was two miles from our home, and we often traveled that distance six times in one day and night, carrying a child in our arms; I traveled and preached wherever I could, and worked on my farm the balance of my time; I have preached forty years, and during my ministry have delivered 3,029 sermons, 1,586 exhortations, attended 304 funerals, solemnized 213 marriages, prayed with the sick 470 times, received into the church 422 members, baptized 212, made 153 speeches of various kinds, and traveled 40,324 miles, for which I have received about $50 per year. I was once young, and now I am old, and I never saw the righteous forsaken or their seed begging bread, thank God! Mr. Nealeigh, has, in addition to the labors he has enumerated, raised a family of ten children.