BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO

"History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Vol. II, 1890.

Presented by Linda Fluharty from hard copies provided
by Mary Staley & Phyllis Slater.


Pages 603-604.


CHRISTIAN L. POORMAN was born at Mechanicsburg, Penn., October 28, 1825.
His grandparents came from Switzerland. His grandfather served in the
Revolutionary war. His father, Christian Poorman, was a soldier in the
war of 1812, and was wounded at the battle of Lundy's Lane. He removed
with his parents in 1834, to Columbiana county, Ohio, and afterward to
Pittsburgh, Penn. He learned the carpenter's trade with his father, and
worked at cabinet-making from 1845 to 1848, in Allegheny City. He came
to Belmont county in 1850. He was educated at the public schools, and at
night schools while working at the trade. He was elected justice of the
peace in 1854, and auditor of Belmont county in 1858, and was re-elected
in 1860. He recruited a company for the Forty-third Ohio volunteer infantry
in 1861, and served as its captain until July, 1862, when he was detailed
by Governor Todd to recruit for the Ninety-eighth Ohio volunteer infantry,
and was appointed lieutenant colonel when organized, and after the death
of Col. George Webster, killed at Perrysville, in command of the brigade,
was made colonel of the regiment which he had commanded in the battle of
Perrysville, where every other field officer in the brigade and thirty-
eight soldiers of the regiment were killed, and 100 soldiers of the
regiment were wounded. Served with the regiment until it was reduced to
less than 200 men for duty. After returning to St. Clairsville he edited
the Belmont Chronicle, which he had purchased in 1860, and having studied
law, graduated at the Cincinnati law school, and was admitted to the
practice of law in the supreme court of the state, and practiced with
marked success for two years, but preferred newspaper work to the practice
of the law. In 1870 he removed to Bellaire, and organized the Bellaire
Implement & Machine works, which, for want of sufficient capital, and
because of the great depression in business after the panic of 1873,
failed a few years later. In 1878 he commenced the publication of the
Bellaire Tribune, as a weekly paper. He started the Evening Tribune in
1880, as a daily, and enlarged both since, making the former a semi-weekly,
both of which are running successfully. He was elected to the house of
representatives of the general assembly of the state in 1885, and was
re-elected in 1887, serving the first time as chairman of the committee
on privileges and elections, which investigated the Cincinnati election
frauds, and in the second term as a leading member of the financial
committee.