Notizen zu dieser Person
EMERSON OPDYCKE. Born 7 Jan. 1830; died 25 Apr. 1884; married, 3 Mch. 1857, Lucy WellsStevens. The farm where he was born lay in Hubbard Township, Trumbull Co., Ohio,but while he was still a child the family removed to the north westerncorner of the State, as has been related in the sketch of his fatherAlbert, which contains also some account of the frontier adventures andhardships amid which the boy's early years were passed. Exercise andcoarse wholesome food were plentiful, and opportunities for schooling, ifrare, were eagerly enjoyed. He acquired a constitution of uncommonstrength, and an education sufficient to awaken and constantly tostimulate his intellectual curiosity. Although there was little leisurein his life, he remained a student throughout its whole course. In hislater years he became much interested in the natural sciences, buthistory and biography attracted him most, and an early knowledge of theexploits of the first Napoleon warmed his imagination, and fostered inhim a taste for strategy. He took keen delight in contests of strengthand skill, played chess well, and was continuously beaten at draughts byonly one man, the old uncle who taught him the game. Although just and kind, his father had to use some little strictness ingoverning so large a family, and even as a boy Emerson learned thoroughlythe first duty of a soldier,--obedience. At the invitation of his onlysister Elizabeth, who had married and was living in Warren, Ohio, he leftthe farm at the age of 17, and went to live with her in his nativecounty. Here he learned the trade of saddle and harness-making in hisbrother-in-law's shop, and also served as a dry-goods clerk. Although heoften wished to try his fortunes in a wider field, so long as his motherlived he never violated her wish to keep him near home; on her death,however, he made two sea voyages to California, crossing the Isthmus onceat Panama and once by the Nicaragua route. He spent two years in a SanFrancisco book store, and also visited the mining fields, where, at thecost of many blisters, he dug just enough gold to form the wedding ringof the wife to whom he was already betrothed. She was the youngestdaughter of Benjamin Stevens,--one of the early settlers of Warren, and adirect descendant in the fifth generation from Nicholas Stevens, who camefrom England and settled at Taunton, Mass., about 1640. --------William Lackey Stephens;http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/t/e/William-Lackey--Stephens/index.html
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