Transcription contributed by Arne H Trelvik 7 October 2005

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983

JOSEPH MULFORD, farmer; P. O. Mason. Joseph Mulford, Sr., was born in Cape May Co., N. J., in 1776, and was the son of Ezekiel Mulford, an emigrant from England and a soldier in the Revolutionary war; he was married to Rhoda Smith, in the year 1802, and emigrated to Warren Co., Ohio, in 1806, by means of a two-horse wagon, and settled in Turtle Creek Township, near Bedle's Station, first, on lands then owned by Rev. James Kemper, but he afterward bought a farm of Daniel Hole, in Section 28, at Bedle's Station. The old block-house, as it was then called, was yet standing, and stood on the east side of a small stream called Station Creek, about ninety rods north of the old hewed log M. E. Church, that is still standing on the gravel knoll near the east side of Muddy Creek Bridge. Mr. Mulford was a soldier in the war of 1812, and furnished his own horse for the service. He and his wife were parents of twelve children, six sons and six daughters, five of whom yet survive, viz., William D., Eliza, Joseph, Ezekiel and Maria. Mr. Mulford died of cholera at Bedle's Station in 1833, aged 57 years. His wife. Rhoda Smith, died near Monroe, Butler Co., in 1843, aged 56 years. They both were exemplary members of the first organized class of the M. E. Church, at Bedle's Station. The time was when some of the ablest ministers of that church, in the then Ohio Conference, preached in the old log church at Bedle's Station, viz., Revs. Biglow, John Collins, John P. Durbin, Augustus Eddy, Arthur W. Elliott, William Stilt and others. Quite a number of the old settlers lie buried in the knoll on which the church yet stands, but scarcely a slab or monument of any kind is there to point out the graves of the noble dead. Joseph Mulford, Jr., was born near Bedle's Station in 1814, and spent his boyhood on the farm in a manner common with farmers' boys. In 1834, he was married to Elizabeth Brown, to whom were born eight children, viz., William, Joseph S., John R., Jerusha J., Rhoda M. and Mary E. (twins), Margaret and Sarah, all of whom are yet living, except the oldest son, William, who, in 1861, enlisted in Company A, 69th O. V. I.; was taken prisoner by Wheeler's C. S. A. Cavalry and paroled at McMinnville, Tenn. He died at Chattanooga, Tenn., of