With two of her three sons deceased, Mary Blessing Lucas may have been relieved when her only living child, John Bassett Lucas got married at age 22 to Alice Quinn, a local school teacher.

Alice was also descended from pioneers of Greene County, and her father was a representative in the Ohio State General Assembly when he passed away. In his earlier days, he had served as a justice of the peace and a sheriff in Greene County.

On August 18, 1864, twenty-two year old John Bassett Lucas married Alice Quinn in the Second United Presbyterian Church in Xenia. Alice had been a member of the congregation since childhood and encouraged John to become one as well.

After the marriage, Mary and Thornton remained in the main house while John had a house built for himself and Alice on the property. He gradually took more responsibility of overseeing the large operations of his family’s farm. 

Their son, Thornton Lucas, named for his grandfather was born on November 8, 1865.

John Blessing Passes Away

Mary Lucas’s brother John Blessing passed away without a will on December 1, 1864 and his estate was divided in half between Mary—or rather her husband, Thornton, as head of household—and her sister, Elizabeth, who was still unmarried.

This immediately added 81.5 acres adjacent to the Lucas’s land, but also put 81.5 acres of Elizabeth Blessing’s land on an island so that to access it, she would need to go through parcels owned by her sister and brother-in-law. 

This wasn’t an issue as long at the older Lucas’s were alive because they were familiar with the arrangements of the inherited acreage.

Thornton passed away on December 4, 1874, and Mary followed on October 31, 1877,  leaving all of their land and holdings passed to their surviving son, John Basset Lucas and his wife, Alice.

Unfortunately, contemporary accounts show they weren’t good stewards of the successful estate left to them and they soon started squandering their money. Alice, in particular, seemed to treat the Lucas wealth as a piggy bank for her family.

After John’s parents died, he and Alice moved into the main house, with Alice’s sister Sarah Quinn joining them soon after.

Next, John’s brother-in-law Elias Quinn, talked him into investing money into the lumber business Elias had started several years before in Xenia. In newspaper accounts at the time, John is noted as being generous and helpful, so it wasn’t a surprise for me to find that he agreed. His brother-in-law renamed the company Quinn & Lucas.

While John spent freely, he also gave his time to altruistic pursuits. In addition to being a fifteen-year member of the county infirmary board, he was a 30-year member of the Greene County Agricultural Society, and helmed it as president for twenty-five of those.

He had gone to school at a private school and grew up sheltered on the large farm, surrounded only by his parents, brother, aunt and uncle. He had inherited land, money, livestock, and crops, but he was known as someone who treated others well. 

For example, he was one of the largest contributors to the Lucas Band, a musical organization composed of prominent young Xenians which 25 years ago Was a leading factor in the life of the community. 

And, for years, there was no snowstorm in which John Lucas didn’t bring out his horse and snow plow early in the morning to clear the paths in town for workers starting their day without having to wade through deep snow drifts.

Perhaps this inherent people-pleasing personality made him more susceptible to Alice’s entreaties to use his family’s wealth for her causes.

The most egregious example is how they treated John’s aunt, Elizabeth Blessing.

Elizabeth Blessing

Elizabeth Blessing, the youngest of Lewis and Elizabeth Blessing’s five children, never married, nor had any children. Upon her father, Lewis’s death in 1825, she was given land, along with her siblings. 

However, she was given 190 acres, forty more than to either John or Mary. As Lewis stated in his will, “the parcel of land as bequeathed to…Elizabeth, lies south of the One Hundred and Fifty Acres bequeathed to my daughter Mary, and the whole length of my survey from the river to my back line. I further give…[to] Elizabeth one gray mare, one saddle and bridle, one bed and furniture, and one set of horse gears.”

Within a few years of her sister Mary’s marriage to Thornton Lucas in 1838, the Lucas’s started referring to the Blessing family farm as Lucas Hill, although Elizabeth, her mother, and brother John were still alive and residing in dwellings on the property as stipulated by Lewis’s will.

Until her sister wed, Elizabeth hadn’t paid much attention to the farmhand who had come with them from Virginia in 1824. Perhaps Thornton felt like his contribution was integral to the success of the Blessing family or maybe marrying into a wealthy family made him feel insecure and he wanted to put his own name on things.

Whatever his true reasons for renaming her family’s farm, Elizabeth didn’t trust her brother-in-law.

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As Greene County grew with an influx of newcomers, land value also increased. In 1850, the value of Elizabeth’s real estate was $750. The real estate value wasn’t recorded in the 1860 census, but by 1870, her real estate is valued at $14,000. She also has moved into the family home with her sister Mary and brother in law, Thornton.

In 1874, she still owned the land adjoining a plot in Thornton Lucas’s name that once was part of the Blessing farm. On the other side of Thornton’s acreage is the land she and Mary had inherited when their brother John Blessing away in 1864. 

~~~

In 1877, after his mother, Mary Blessing Lucas passed away, John and Alice’s spending began in earnest. Besides allowing Sarah Quinn to move in, investing in Elias Quinn’s lumber business, and contributing to his own charitable causes, Alice convinced John to use some of their land as collateral for an investment in The United Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Xenia, Ohio

However, unbeknownst to John’s aunt, Elizabeth Blessing, the land they put up was owned her. When she found out, she wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

Click to read Part 4 of this story (Coming Soon!)

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Sources

~ Info on John Basset Lucas and Alice Quinn Lucas and their families from obituaries and Alice’s will as well as History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions by Michael Broadstone Volume 2, Part 2.

~ Newspaper articles found on Newspaper.com and Newspaperarchive.com helped round out the personalities of the Lucas and Quinn families and local events.

~ Details on Elizabeth’s land from her father’s will, and Xenia, OH newspaper articles from 1897.