Francis Marion Woodward
 

History of Kentucky and Kentuckians, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes, Lewis
Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912. Common version,
Vol. III, pp. 1264-65-66.   (Campbell County)


Francis M. Woodward--A venerable and highly honored citizen of Campbell county is Francis Marion Woodward, who has been a resident of the county for nearly two score of years and who is now serving in the office of justice of the peace.  He maintains his home in the attractive little suburban town of Bellevue and his circle of friends in the community is
coincident with that of his acquaintances.

     Francis Marion Woodward was born in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 2d of October, 1832, and is a son of Amos and Cynthia (Gay) Woodward, both of whom were born in the vicinity of the city of Buffalo, New York, and both of whom were young at the time of the immigration of the respective families to Ohio, in the year 1819. 

Both families settled in Cincinnati and the names became closely identified with its pioneer annals. There was solemnized the marriage of Amos Woodward and Cynthia Gay, and they became the parents of four sons and three daughters, of whom one son and two daughters died in childhood.  Three of the children are living at the present time.  On son, Harvey, was a valiant soldier in the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil war, in which he served four years, though he was held captive in southern prisons during twenty-two months of this period--principally at Salisbury, North Carolina, and in historic old
Libby prison, at Richmond, Virginia.  He now resides in the state of California. 

William Woodward who now lives at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, was like his brother a loyal soldier of the Union, having served for one year in the Fifty-third Kentucky Mounted Infantry. When a young man Amos Woodward, father of the subject of this sketch, became a steamboat engineer, and he continued to be identified with navigation affairs on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers during the residue of his life, serving the major portion of the time on packet boats plying between Cincinnati and New Orleans.  He died near Dyersburg, Tennessee, in 1878, at the age of seventy-six years.  His devoted wife was summoned to eternal rest in 1869, at the age of fifty-nine years.

     Francis Marion Woodward, the second in order of birth in the family of six children, was reared to maturity in Cincinnati, where his early educational privileges were those afforded in the common schools of the period.  His advantages in this respect were somewhat meager, but he has profited by the lessons learned under the guidance of that headmaster,
experience, and is a man of broad and accurate information.  He is the eldest of three brothers now living, and concerning the other two mention has been made in a preceding paragraph. 

In his youth Mr. Woodward served a thorough apprenticeship at the brick-layer's trade, in which he became a skilled artisan, and he continued to be actively identified with the work of his trade for the long period of fifty-eight years, within which he was concerned in the erection of many large public and business buildings in Ohio and Kentucky. 

On the 6th of May, 1909, while working on a building, he fell a distance of thirty-four feet, and after he had struck the ground a brick gable fell upon him, inflicting injuries of such serious nature that he has since been incapacitated for the active work to which he devoted so many years of his earnest and industrious life.  He was nearly seventy-seven years of age at the time of this accident, and only his strong constitution, fortified by right living in past years, enabled him to recuperate from his injuries. 

Since that time he has lived virtually retired in Bellevue, where he finds due demand upon his time and attention in administering the affairs of his office of justice of the peace, a position of which he has been an incumbent for the past decade and in which his services have been marked by much discrimination and judicial acumen.  For thirty-five years he has resided in either Dayton or Bellevue and he is well known in Campbell county, where he commands secure vantage ground in popular confidence and esteem. 

He was a charter member of Brick-layers' Union, No. I, in the city of Cincinnati, and later was made an honorary member of Union No. 2, at Newport, Kentucky.  Of the organization first mentioned he is the only charter member now living, and further distinction is given in this connection by reason of the fact that this union was the first of kind organized west of the Alleghany (sic) mountains. 

In politics Mr. Woodward has ever accorded a staunch support to the cause of the Republican party, with which he united at the time of its organization, and he cast his first presidential vote in support of its first standard-bearer, General John C. Fremont.

     Mr. Woodward has been twice married.  On the 6th of August, 1856, he wedded Miss Elodia Cordingly, who was born and reared in Cincinnati, Ohio, and who was a daughter of John L. Cordingly, a steamboat engineer and machinist who was a well known and highly esteemed citizen of Cincinnati in the early days.  Mr. and Mrs. Woodward became the parents of four children, one of whom died in infancy; Charles F., single, is a resident of Dayton, Kentucky; Carrie L. is unmarried also resides in Dayton; and Minnie Grace is the wife of Robert E. L. Clary, who is general freight agent for the southern division of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, with headquarters in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. 

Mrs. Woodward passed to the eternal life on the 2d of February, 1875, at Dayton, Kentucky, and on the 17th of September, 1884, in the city of Cincinnati was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Woodward to Mrs. Elizabeth (Garner) Jasper, who was the widow of William Jasper. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Woodward was born in England as was three years of age at the time of her parents' immigration to the United States.  The family resided for a number of years at Lexington, Kentucky, and there she married William Jasper, who died in 1880.  Of this union were born four children of whom one is deceased.  Those living are: Lillie, the wife of William McClure, a resident of Bellevue; Bessie Jasper a resident of Bellevue; and George Jasper who resides at Springfield, Massachusetts.


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