History of Hamilton County Ohio
Biography of The Armstrong Family
with
Portrait of T. M. Armstrong
following page 254
transcribed by Alise Streutker


T. M. Armstrong

THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY.

The ancestral home of this well-known, old Anderson family was near Fredericksburgh, Maryland, whence they moved to Buckingham county, Virginia. The head of the family was now Nathaniel Shepherd ARMSTRONG, who had nine children - William, John, Elizabeth, Thomas, Leonard, James, Nathaniel, Priscilla, and Alie. With most of them, the others coming soon after, he removed to the Miami country in 1800, settling at once upon the west side of the Little Miami, upon section thirty-three, in the present Columbia township, a little above the foot of the Indian Hill road, where the original grist-mill stands, and is still in useful service, having passed out of the family only within a few years. Mr. ARMSTRONG had been a miller in the old States, and he soon began the erection of this mill, in the building and management of which he was assisted by his sons, two of whom, John and William, afterwards removed to Plainville, where they bought another grist-mill of a man named PEASLEY, who had built it shortly before. With the possible exception of TURPIN's mill, Mr. ARMSTRONG's was the first mill in the Little Miami valley. In a few years the elder ARMSTRONG purchased a tract of three to four hundred acres on Indian Hill, and removed thither to improve it for a farm, while James and Nathaniel, two of his sons, remained to conduct the old or "upper mill". Part of the Indian Hill property is still held by a grandson, Thomas M. ARMSTRONG, the principal subject of this sketch. On this farm the pioneer ARMSTRONG breathed his last, after a very long and active career, about 1845, in his ninety-second year.

Thomas was the fourth child and third son of Nathaniel S. ARMSTRONG, born in Virginia or Maryland about the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, November 23, 1775. He was apprenticed to a millwright in Virginia, with whom he learned the trade, and shortly after the removal of the family to Ohio, the period of his apprenticeship being ended, he also went out and assisted his father in building and running the mill before mentioned. In 1805 he and his brother Leonard removed to the opposite side of the Little Miami, and built a third mill there, which came to be known as the "Armstrong middle mills", in distinction from the "upper mill" and the "lower mill". This is still standing and in use, but not by the family since 1863, when Thomas M. ARMSTRONG, its owner, sold it. It is just below the Newtown bridge, and about half a mile from the upper mill. It was run exclusively as a flouring-mill for five or six years, when the waterpower was also utilized in running machinery for a carding- and fulling-mill. In those primitive days the raw wool was first brought to the mill by the grower and carded, then taken home and spun into thread or yarn, then taken to a weaver and made into cloth, and finally returned to the mill where it was fulled and dressed, losing about one-third in length by the last processes. About 1830-5, in the lifetime of Thomas ARMSTRONG, additional machinery was put in, which enabled the manufacturers to take the wool through all the processes necessary to turn out the cloth complete for manufacture into clothing. In 1835 Thomas bought out his brother and conducted the business alone until about 1850, when he retired from its management with a comfortable property. He made a division of his estate at the time he retired, by virtue of which the mill fell to his sons who conducted it. Edwin ARMSTRONG, the third son and the oldest surviving, being the manager of the concern. He was a graduate of the Indiana State university, and also of the Cincinnati Law school; was an active politician of the Democratic faith, which was the belief of his father and brothers; was twice a member of the State senate and twice of the house of representatives, and of the convention that formed the State constitution of 1852; and was otherwise a prominent citizen. John ARMSTRONG, his brother, studied medicine, but had practiced only a short time when he sickened and died. The father died July 21, 1864, in his eighty-ninth year, in the house now occupied by his son, Thomas Milton ARMSTRONG.

About the year 1806 Mr. ARMSTRONG was married to Miss Sarah BROADWELL, of an old Anderson family, born November 17, 1781, who survived until March 28, 1860, when she departed this life in her seventy-ninth year, in the same dwelling where her venerable husband died more than five years afterwards. They had seven children, to wit: Perine, Eliza, Sidney, John Broadwell, Edwin Lindley, Thomas Milton and Eliob. Only two, the youngest sons, are still living - the latter in Cincinnati and the former upon the paternal estate near the "middle mills", on the turnpike between Newtown village and Newtown station, on the Little Miami railroad.

Thomas M. ARMSTRONG was born in a pioneer log-cabin near his father's mills, May 4, 1817. His early education was received in the "subscription" and afterwards in the free schools of his neighborhood. He picked up a good deal of information about the business in the mills, but never became a practical miller. He remained, as did all surviving sons, with his father, assisting in the labors of the mills and the farm also owned by the father, until about 1850, when the division of property occurred, and the home farm fell to Thomas, who still resides upon it. He had been a farmer for a number of years when, upon the death of his brother Edwin, principal manager of the mills, he bought the interests of the heirs in that concern and conducted it successfully for about ten years, or until 1863, the year before that in which his father died, at the same time continuing his farm operations, to which he has since devoted his attention. In 1876 he remodelled and greatly enlarged the old homestead, which his father had erected as a frame dwelling in 1820, to which a brick addition, larger than the original building, was early made, and finally the additions and reconstruction made by the son, which have converted it into the spacious and handsome mansion it now is. Mr. ARMSTRONG is a man of independent political views, voting for the most part with the Democracy; but is by no means a professional politician or office-seeker, and has filled no public office except that of school director, which he held sixteen or seventeen years, when he declined the reelection that was again offered him. He never belonged to a society of any kind except the Patrons of Husbandry, the Newtown grange of which is still maintained. His grandparents were members of the Methodist church, but all their sons accepted the Universalist creed. Mr. T. M. ARMSTRONG, of the third generation, has never been united with any church. Through all his active life, now verging towards three-score and ten, he has enjoyed excellent health of mind and body, and still attends to his domestic and agricultural affairs with the old-time mental and physical vigor. Mr. Armstrong was married January 24, 1850, to Julia A. DEBOLT, daughter of Henry DEBOLT, a farmer living near Newtown. By this marriage he had two children - Thomas H. and Dora. He lost his wife by death in December, 1857, and was again married in September, 1861, to Miss Sarah J. Thompson, also of Newtown, by whom he has two children - Eugene M. and Ivy. All the children are living except Thomas, who died after he had grown to manhood.