My Genealogy Hound

PETER SHANKS, retired farmer; P. O. Fletcher. Peter Shanks was born in what is now the incorporated city of Cincinnati. Aug. 15, 1795, and is a son of Joseph Shanks, who was born in Delaware, and of German descent. He married Mary Clawson, of Holland birth and Welch parentage; she emigrated to America in her youthful days, and the marriage was celebrated in Pennsylvania about the time of the war of independence; they afterward came West as far as Hamilton Co., Ohio; there they remained a few years; they then located in Montgomery Co., Ohio, where Mary died, and was interred in the Sugar Creek Baptist Cemetery of Washington Township, and Joseph afterward went to Indiana, and died in Delaware Co., near Muncie, at the age of 95 years, 11 months and 9 days; the children by the above marriage were ten in number, of whom Peter is the only one now living. He was raised to farm labor, in Montgomery Co.; here he, when but a boy of 17, entered the service of 1812, under Capt. Richard Sunderland and Maj. Price, and secondly he was under Capt. Lemon, of Clark Co., Ohio; they were at Detroit, Mich., when peace was declared; Mr. Shanks is now one of three patriots of that war living in Brown Township. About 1817, he entered 160 acres of land in Sec. 29, Brown Township, where he at once commenced to open out a farm from the unbroken forest, and erected a hewed-log house; the roof was of shingles (which in that day were a rarity); in this he spent many days; at present he has his farm well improved, but has diminished it to 80 acres, from the fact that he, during life, has nobly assisted his children. May 10, 1821, he married Leah C. Schenks, and the following August located on the above-described farm. Their children were eight in number, two died in infancy, and four are now living; Mrs. Shanks died May 13, 1839, in the faith of the Baptist Church, of which she was a member for twelve years. Nineteen years later, Mr. Shanks married for his second wife Martha J. (McCarr) Neff; she died April 27, 1861, leaving two children, of whom one died in infancy, and the other is now living. Mr. S. has been a devoted member of the Lost Creek Baptist Church, since 1827, in which faith he firmly stands in 1880. Since the election of Gen. Jackson for President, he has been a decided Democrat, at which time he cast his first vote.