residing about a mile east of Westerville, is one of the most venerable, citizens of the township. He was born in Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, August 8, 1800, of mixed Dutch and Irish blood. His parents were Artemas and Sarah (Adams) Spring, his father being a farmer and stone mason. He is the oldest of fifteen children, of whom twelve lived to adult age. Both his grandfathers did honorable service in the war of the Revolution. When Horace was but eight months old his people removed to Hartford, Washington County, New York—-then altogether a new country and began the clearing of a farm, but sold out in about three years, and afterwards resided in various parts of the same township and county.

Young Spring, when but eighteen years-old, determined to see the great world for himself, and to push his fortune in it. He started from home with one shirt and a pair of socks in his bundle, and thirty-seven and a half cents in his pocket. He revisited his birthplace, and afterwards went to Warehouse point and other places in Connecticut, where he worked until 1830, farming and teaming, and for some years holding a profitable interest in a line of stages running from Hartford to New Hampshire. In that year he removed to Blendon township, settling two miles south of Westerville, near the Alum creek bridge. Much of the means hardly earned in New England had been lost by various mischances, and he came to Franklin county with but seventeen dollars and fifty cents in money, and a hoe, an axe, and a hand-saw, by way of implements. With indomitable will, however, great vigor, and ceaseless industry, he set to work again and measurably recovered his means in a very few years; so that when, in April, 1836, he bought his present place for five hundred dollars, he was able to pay most of it cash down. Here his lot has since been cast, full of hard, but success-full labor, and devoid of exciting incidents and events. He has never been an office-seeker, but has several times had the post of township trustee conferred upon him. Originally a Jackson Democrat, he has since been, successively, an anti-slavery Whig and a Republican. He has lived a life without reproach, and is very highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens. March 15, 1824, he was married, in East Windsor, Connecticut, to Miss Minerva Fisk, of Warehouse point, who died in 1873. Their children have numbered six—-five sons and one daughter—all of whom survive save one, and are settled within forty miles of the old home. The daughter, Miss Elizabeth Spring, remains with her father, to cheer his declining days.