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Person Sheet


Name Rebecca FENTON803
Birth Date 19 Aug 1791803
Birth Place Broadalbin, Fulton Co., NY433
Death Date aft 1888803
Spouses:
1 William CARY
Birth Date 29 Jan 1783433
Birth Place Lyme, NH
Death Date 28 Mar 1862433
Death Place College Hill, Hamilton Co., OH
Burial Place Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, OH
Father Dr. Samuel CARY (1734-1784)
Mother Deliverance GRANT (1743-)
Marriage Date 8 Jan 1809
Children: Freeman Grant (1810-1888)
William Woodward (1812-1848)
Samuel Fenton (1814-1900)
Notes for Rebecca FENTON
A FAMILY GATHERING
Celebration of the Ninetieth Birthday of Mrs. Rebecca Cary.


Mrs. Rebecca Cary, one of the oldest pioneers in Southern Ohio, celebrated her ninetieth birthday at College Hill yesterday, by a grand family reunion. The event was in many respects a most remarkable one. Five generations of the venerable lady's descendants were present, and nearly eighty members of the various brances of the family did themselves the honor to participate in the festivities of the day. The reunion was held on the old Cary homestead, in the northern part of the Hill. The ancient residence was built fifty years ago, and at the time of its erection was the finest house in Hamilton County. About noon the happy gathering sat down to a most sumptuous birthday repast, which was heartily enjoyed by all present. After dinner the relatives gathered under the spreading trees and listened to some interesting reminiscences of early days by General S. F. Cary and his brother Freeman G. Cary, Esquire. They referred to their venerable mother in the most endearing terms, and gave some facts of peculiar interest to her numerous descendants. Two original poems, composed by the grandson and niece of Mrs. Cary were read, and every thing passed off very pleasantly. The old lady in whose honor the celebration was given was full of life and very happy. She is a wonderful woman for one so aged. During her entire life she has never been sick a single day or consulted a physician. Mrs. Cary was born in Stillwater, New York in 1791, and came to Cincinnati in 1806, when this country was a wilderness. The venerable mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great grandmother bids fair to live several years yet and gather her fond descendants around the old hearthstone on many birthday anniversaries.
Notes for William CARY (Spouse)
William Cary, whose obituary was announced Saturday, was born in Lyme, New Hampshire, January 28, 1783. He was the youngest son of Dr. Samuel Cary, the fourth generation from the Plymouth pilgrims, a graduate of Yale College, and a pioneer to Lyme, New Hampshire. William was left fatherless in his infancy, and emigrated to the West with his mother and two elder brothers, arriving in the village of Cincinnati in the spring of 1802. A few years later, he purchased a small farm of 32 acres at the head of Main Street, adjoining that of William Woodward. In 1814, having sold his place here, he removed to Section 30, Mill Creek Township, then an unbroken forest, now the seat of Farmer's College, the Ohio Female College, and the beautiful suburban village of College Hill; and on the same spot where he then built the first residence, he breathed his last.

With very meager opportunities in early life for obtaining an education, he was possessed of a vigorous, comprehensive mind, and availed himself of every means within his reach to qualify himself for the responsible duties of an influential citizen. He was well informed on all common subjects, and took a deep and active interest in all public improvements. For many years in the early history of the township, he served as Justice of the Peace, and in the winter of 1824-25 was a representative from Hamilton County, in the State Legislature. He was a strong advocate and supporter of the "Carrol bill" which was passed during that session, and with the late Nathan Guildford originated the first free school of Law of Ohio. Preferring the quiet of domestic and rural life and being of modest and retiring manners, with the single exception above alluded to, he declined public position, always taking an active part in every movement looking to the development of the city and county.

Not desiring any office, he yet always took an active interest in the political movements of the day. He was always a Whig in politics and it is a fact worthy of remark that he has voted regularly for fifty-seven successive years in Millcreek township. Plain and unostentatious, liberal and hospitable, his house was always the home of the friend and the stranger. The wayfarer was nver denied a shelter, nor the hungry a place at his table. For many years he has been a member and a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church and was often a representative to the General Assembly. The Church at College Hill and the community have lost a kind, venerated father, and the Church at large of its firmest and most symmetrical pillars. Schools and colleges, like institutions purely benevolent, he was ever ready to sustain and support. He gave to his three sons a liberal education. In addition to being the largest contributor to the building of Farmer's College "he gave of his limited property $10,000 toward its endowment." He was married in 1802 to Rebecca Fenton, who survives him. He leaves two children who are well known throughout the country. Freeman G. Cary, founder of Farmer's College and General S. F. Cary, the great temperance reformer. In the domestic circle he was the object of special veneration and affection--children, grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, will never forget his wise and tender counsels, his blameless life, and his happy and joyous death. The messenger found him ready and anxious to depart. He watched his waning pulse and ebbing current of life, with pleasure, looking forward to a better, purer, higher life. He entered the dark valley fearing no evil, beholding with the eye of faith the brightness of the sun of righteousness beyond the tomb. Thus has passed away another of the early settlers of the West--an associate and friend of Woodward, Wade, Ludlow, Harrison, Burnett and others, who have preceded him to their eternal rest. He came a young man to the Northwest territory; Cincinnati, with the exception of a few log huts, a wilderness. He departs an old man, having seen this village become a great city, and the wild, uncultivated wilderness the house of millions of freeman.

Present at the birth of the nation, he lived to see her become the third in wealth, population and influence in the sisterhood of States. Devoted to the Constitution and the Union, he only desired to linger a little longer, that he might see the end of this wicked rebellion and requested to the very last to be informed of any successes of the Federal Army. He expressed unshaken confidence in the success of the struggle--a confidence based upon the belief that the God of his Pilgrim Fathers, would interpose his Almighty arm for the nation's deliverance. (Obituary from the Cincinnati, OH newspaper, April 1862.)
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