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We take the following from the Book of Biographies, of 1862:
The Twelfth District (Belmont and Harrison) is represented in the Senate by ISAAC WELSH, who has represented Belmont
county in the other branch of the General Assembly for the past four years.
Mr. Welsh's parents were Pennsylvanians, but he was born and reared in Belmont county. His parents are both living
in Belmont county, and his father, Crawford Welsh, was one of the early settlers. He has been closely identified
with the interests of that county for a long term of years, and has several times represented it in the State Legislature.
He is still hale and hearty, and vitally interested in the stirring incidents of the times. His parents have been
for some years members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but he is an active and efficient member of the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church.
As his father was a farmer, he pursued that calling till he was twenty-five, when he went to merchandizing, at
which he was engaged about fifteen years, most of the time in Beallsville, Monroe county, where he connected with
his business the purchase, preparation and shipping of tobacco. Though not unsuccessful in trade, he still preferred
the farm and the life ofhis early days; and, selling out, he purchased the farm where he now lives, and moved to
it in 1854. On the dissolution of the Whig party, he contracted an acquaintance with "Sam," and, in 1856,
voted for Fillmore. Still he was opposed to the extension of Slavery, after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
In 1857 he was elected to the House of Representatives by the united vote of the Americans and Republicans, and
in 1859 re-elected in the same manner. Last year he refused to support the Bell ticket and was strong for Lincoln;
calls himself a conservative Republican. In the Legislature he has been a strong advocate for the sale of the Public
Works, or some disposition of them to make them selfsustaining; and, in the previous session, opposed the repeal
of the ten per cent. law, which position he defended in an able speech. In legislation, his leading trait is the
practical common-sense view he takes of all subjects, and the manifest integrity of purpose.
Lieutenant-Governor Kirk manifested good judgment when he placed Mr. Welsh at the head of the Retrenchment Committee
of the present session. As a public speaker, Mr. Welsh is more practical than ornate, and his opinions and suggestions
are never smothered in useless verbiage. Plain, practical, intelligent and energetic, he is also "honest,
capable and faithful," and these qualities render him a most efficient Senator; and the people of Belmont
county have shown their appreciation of his worth by keeping him here for a term of six years. His next promotion,
we predict, will be a more extensive field of operations in a legislative capacity.
Since the above was written, Mr. Welsh has been on the Electoral Ticket in the last Presidential campaign, from
the Sixteenth District. He was chosen to carry the Ohio vote to Washington. He wrote an essay on the Agricultural
and Mineral resources of Belmont county, for which he received a prize from the State Agricultural Society. He
was elected Treasurer of Ohio in 1871.
From:
Biographical Sketches of the
State Officers and of the members
of the Sixtieth General Assembly
of the State of Ohio.
By: W. Sarwin Crabb.
Ohio State Journal Book and Job Rooms.
Columbus, Ohio 1872
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