My Genealogy Hound

AUGUSTUS W. McNIGHT, farmer and stock-raiser, Sec. 19; P. O. Dawn. Was born in Bracken Co., Ky., March 20, 1817. His father, Alexander McNight, married Sarah Lemon, of Pennsylvania; he served as a private during the war of 1812; they moved to Cincinnati in 1830; he was a blacksmith and worked at his trade there about a year; the family, being too poor to hire a conveyance, walked all the way to Connersville, Ind., where they stayed until 1833, then moved to Butler Co., Ohio, but moved to Darke County and settled in 1835, where he died in 1843; she died in 1846, in Van Buren Township; they had managed by the time they came here to save enough money to buy 80 acres in the wilderness, but that was all, and for years they had a hard struggle to gain a livelihood; the first winter they lived in a little log cabin, the floor was the earth; the woods were full of wild animals and game. The subject of this sketch killed a noble buck with his ax, one of a drove of twenty-seven; at the age of 13, he got employment at five bushels of corn per month; he worked out for wages until he was 22, for his parents; after that for himself; at the age of 26, he learned to make half-bushel measures, and made money enough to buy two lots in Sampson; he sold them and bought 3 acres, improved, near the town; he sold this in 1851, for $150; he then traded for 80 acres in Jay Co., Ind.; that he traded for 25 acres in Neave Township, this county; that he sold, and bought 42 acres in Richland Township; this, he sold for $1,300; he then bought 84 acres in Wayne Township; sold this and bought 80 acres improved in the same township; this he sold for $2,600 in 1863; then he bought 70 acres in Neave Township, and paid $1,700; sold this the next year for $2,500; he then bought 102 acres improved, with a brick house, near Versailles; sold that in 1873 for $6,200; then he bought 40 acres improved in Adams Township; sold that in 1877, and bought where he now resides and owns 126 acres of as fine farming land as lies in the county, and worth at least $8,000, all this from hard digging; and he has raised and educated a large family, but he himself never learned to read or write his own name even, and he don’t owe any man a dollar. He married Sarah Shevidecker, of Preble Co., Ohio, Sept. 16, 1841, where she was born in 1823; she died in Darke County in 1846; by this union were three children, viz.: Alfred, born July 4, 1842, and died Feb. 21, 1862; Sarah, born May 20, 1843—she married Leonard Shoutz; she died in Illinois, and Catherine A., born Feb. 8, 1845. His second marriage was with Susanna Nysonger, of Greene Co., Penn., Feb. 2, 1848; she was born Sept. 29, 1826; by this union were twelve children, three of whom died young— James A., born Nov. 12, 1848, deceased; Margaret E., born Oct. 7, 1850; Anna E., Dec. 4, 1852; Mary J., Sept, 24, 1855; Lydia, March 16, 1858; Lucinda, Oct. 12, 1860; Isabelle, May 20, 1863; Evarilla M., Oct. 7, 1866, and John C., Oct. 11, 1871.