Personal Sketch

Dr. John Treon, Miami [Township]

The father of the Doctor was a physician, as was also his paternal grandfather. At an early age, Dr. John began to manifest a peculiar aptitude and fondness for the same profession, and his father, who spared no pains in educating and preparing him for the practical duties of physician and surgeon, took him into his confidence and practice before he had reached his majority. At the age of twenty-one, in company with Peter Treon, his step-uncle, who was also a physician, he cut loose from all home associations, and started West, with little else than youth, courage, and an indomitable energy, which, in the course of a long and useful life, has never deserted him.

In the year 1811, on the beautiful bottoms of the Miami River, where now stands the enterprising town of Miamisburg, could be seen the smoke of three cabins, the homes of Philip Gephart, Daniel Hephart, and Jacob Kercher, then known as Holt's Station. The government had laid out at this point and offered for sale several ten-acre lots. To this place came our young doctors, and decided to stay. They bought one of the ten-acre lots, erected a house, farmed, hunted, and practiced medicine until the year 1819, when Jacob Kercher and the doctors concluded to start a village, which they did by layout out the town of Miamisburg.

Meantime, with the increase of population, the practice of the young doctors increased and became lucrative. They continued in business as partners for twenty-two years, when they dissolved by mutual consent.

At the age of twenty-eight, Dr. John took another partner in the person of Miss Eve Weimar, the daughter of a worthy farmer; this partnership only ceased after a period of fifty-four years and a half, when it was dissolved by the death of Mrs. Treon, after an illness of several days, caused by heart-disease. She was universally loved and respected for her sterling qualities of mind and disposition. Esteemed, trused, and loved by her husband, her death (as no children had been born to them) left him alone and desolate in a large mansion.

Having been happy and blessed in his marriage relations for so long a period, it was no wonder the Doctor should seek to fill the vacancy in his household by a second marriage, which he did by choosing Mrs. Elizabeth Black, a very fine-looking and worthy widow lady, of Miamisburg, with whom he had been long acquainted. This marriage took place on the 11th of December, 1873, and is every way a happy one, cemented by mutual interest and esteem.

The Doctor, only about two years since, after sixty years of active practice, gave up his professional visits to younger men. And now, at the advanced age of eighty-four years, this hale, hearty, genial old gentleman seems, to the rising generation, a relic of by-gone years, a history of the early days of the Miami, around whose person cluster stories, anecdotes, and reminiscences of the far-off War of 1812, Hull's surrender, battles with the Indians, flatboating on the Ohio, in the days when railroads, telegraphs, reapers, and sewing-machines were unknown. He can now look back over a useful, active life, and enjoy th fruits of economy, good management, and temperate habits. The Doctor, besides his extended practice, has been actively engaged in farming, real estate, and trading in stock and produce, and has been uniformly successful in most of his business operations. He now owns a beautiful residence and a large amount of property in and around Miamisburg, several fine farms in the rich and fertile valley of the Miami, besides stock in the Hydraulic Wate Works, grist-mill, and cutlery works. An active promoter of public improvements, and foremost in all neterprises for the building up of churches, societies, and schools. In politics, the Doctor was an oldline Whig until the disruption of that party, when he joined the Republicans. In religious sentiment the Doctor is a Lutheran, having belonged to that Church all his life.

He has been long identified with the Order of Free and Accepted Masons, and whether as Master, Companion, or Sir Knight, has always been esteemed by the Order that truest type of a Mason, an upright man. The Doctor thoroughly enjoys company, whom he courteously entertains among the shrubbery at his splendid home. It is to be hoped that he may live many years yet to enjoy the blessings of a well-spent life, and a bright example to the rising generation.