Saunders, James P.

Farmer

Birth: March 31, 1862, Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky
Death: February 12, 1928, Trumbull County
Burial: Vienna Township Cemetery, Vienna, Trumbull County, Ohio
Find a Grave memorial

Published Biography

From Harriet Taylor Upton, A Twentieth Century History of Trumbull County, Ohio, A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1909), Volume 2, pp. 416-417:

JAMES P. SAUNDERS, who is numbered among the industrious and highly successful farmers who cultivates the fertile soil of Vienna township, is a native of Newport, Kentucky, born March 31, 1862, a son of William D. and Julia Ann (Barber) Saunders. His father was born in Bullitt county, Kentucky, in 1838, and the mother in Newport, of that state, in 1840. The grandfather was a native of Kentucky and died there when William D. was a small boy. His wife was a native of England and remained in Kentucky until her death, which occurred about 1875. The father remained in that vicinity and operated a rolling mill, then located at Niles, Ohio, where he was employed in a rolling mill several years, then removed to Warren. Later he was employed as a railroad man, but since 1888 has practically been retired. He served a year in the Fifty-third Kentucky Infantry in the Civil war.

The maternal grandparents came from England and settled in Kentucky, where they continued to reside until their death. The grandfather was killed in time of the Civil war. He was doing guard duty when killed. His wife died about 1874.

James P. Saunders was one of seven children in his parents’ family, two of whom survive. His sister, Nellie B., widow of John F. Latimer, resides with her brother. James P. is the oldest in the family. He attended district school in Kentucky and for a time at Niles, Ohio. At the age of sixteen years, Mr. Saunders was working as a farm hand and so continued until his marriage, after which he was employed in the rolling mills at Miles for a period of about fourteen years. He then purchased a farm of one hundred and ten acres, upon which he now lives and to which he removed in 1900. Here he has carried on, in a successful manner, general farming as well as stock raising.

He is identified with the best interests of the farmers within his community and appreciates his broad acres, having accumulated every foot of the soil he owns by hard labor performed in the best years of his manhood. At one time he belonged to the order known as the American Mechanics and expects to unite with the Masonic fraternity, of which fraternity his oldest son is a worthy member. In his political views Mr. Saunders affiliates with the Republican party. While never seeking office, he has served as supervisor of his township.

He was married September 17, 1881, to Hattie R. Partridge, who was born in Trumbull county in 1860, a daughter of Samuel and Harriet (Stoddard) Partridge. Her father was born in Trumbull county, and the mother was a native of Niles, Ohio. The father died Easter morning, 1904, and the mother the same years. The father was a shoemaker, and later was a farmer till his death. Mrs. Saunders passed from the scenes of earth in 1887, the mother of the following children: Chauncey Elton, born December 18, 1882, unmarried and resides with his father; James Lee, born June 11, 1885, married Minnie M. Newton, a native of Michigan, born near Detroit, (her parents later becoming residents of Trumbull county, Ohio, and now living at Bethelem, Pennsylvania); Hattie Ethel, born November 16, 1887, now wife of Arthur Wilson, born in Champion, is a farmer and is the father of one child—Emerson, born March 18, 1908.