March 16th, 1826, Nehemiah Bicknell married Julia Larkin,
in Rutland, Ohio, and they moved immediately to make their
home on his farm in Lebanon township on the banks of the
Ohio river. They endured many hardships incident to pioneer
life, none of which they deprecated more than the ignorance
and low state of morals in the neighborhood. Mr. Bicknell
opened his own house for preaching in about 1828 or 1829, to
the Methodist itinerant. Later he secured the building of
a schoolhouse on his land adjoining the Pioneer burying
ground, where the preaching appointment was removed, and
continued for many years. Afterward he gave a lot for a
site for a church, deeded to trustees of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, and a public graveyard. Mr. Bicknell was a
public spirited man, who felt the lack of early education a
constant impediment to progress. He was elected magistrate
three terms, township trustee, postmaster eleven years, Sun-
day-school superintendent for many years, class leader when
the appointment was known as the Oldtown class. He was an
uncompromising temperance man all of his long life, and
erected a large barn, the second building in Meigs county
raised without the compliment of whisky. He was a road
viewer and helped in laying out roads in nearly every part of
the county, and dissented from the policy of narrow minded
men who would lay out a public road on inaccessible hillsides,
or around the corner of a selfish man's farm. He claimed for
the traveling public suitable ground, and making good roads
everywhere. At eight-three years of age his step was firm,
his eyes bright, and cheeks rosy. His birthday, celebrated in
June, 1879, he, with his eldest daughter, left home August 1st
to revisit his boyhood home in Chenango County, New York,
and attend to the placing of gravestones anew at his father's
grave. In some strange manner he seemed to have gone
out of the car to the platform, when he fell off and was
killed. This was on the Erie railroad, near Beaver Flats, and
the fatality occurred about 3 a.m., August 6th, 1879. His
