Yountsville Ind Apr 28-/86 (1886)
Hon Wm H. English
Dear Sir
Your letter of Apr 23 is at hand and in reply will say that we will be glad to furnish you such information as you wish, in regard to Abijah O'Neall our much beloved father who was the Representative from Montgomery County during the session of 1839-40. We copy the following from the history of Montgomery Co and you can use such part of it as or all as your judgment dictates.
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The first reliable history of the O'Neale family begins with O'Neale of the Red Hand, an Irish nobleman who is said to have been born with the impress of a large human hand upon his breast. One of whose descendants built Castle Shane, County Antrim, Ireland, where for many years the family held a high position in the rulers of the country. Early in the seventeenth century a descendant of this family, a midshipman in the British navy escaped from his vessel while it was lying in the Delaware bay and swam ashore and became the progenitor of the O'Neale family in America.
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From fear of detection he changed the spelling of his name from O'Neale to O'Neall, he settled in Virginia, where he reared two sons, William and Hugh, the latter being the Father of Judge John B. O'Neall, prominent in South Carolina history. William also had two sons, Hugh and Abijah, the latter of whom was married to Ann Kelly of Kings County, South Carolina, and was the father of several sons one of whom was Abijah O'Neall of Yountsville, long and favorably known by the early settlers of Montgomery Co and remembered by many of her sons today
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for his sterling honesty, hospitality and unwavering patriotism. He was born in Newberry District South Carolina, Dec 9, 1798 and came with his fathers family to Ohio in 1800. June 12, 1828 he married Eleanor Hall and for six years led a quiet farmers life near Waynesville, Ohio in 1834 he removed to Montgomery Co Ind settling at Yountsville, where he purchased the Crooks Mill property and carried on millinery and also kept a country store. He was justice of the peace for several years and also representing this Co in the State legislature in the
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years 1839-1840 and 1842 he was also a surveyor and well known in that capacity in this and adjoining counties. He died in 1874 at the advanced age of sevety-six years leaving a wife and eight children by whom memory of their father is held most sacred. He now lies in a beautiful lot in Oakhill Cemetery at Crawfordsville. Mr. O'Neall was a man of refined manner, scholarly, and a great lover of books, as a reader he had but few equals and was perhaps one of the best
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informed men politically this county has ever had. Religiously he was a believer in universal salvation. Politically he was a whig, abolitionist, and Republican, had a station on his farm in the underground Rail way and did every thing he could that early day to abolish slavery in the United States. His charity knew no bounds and no beggar, however unworthy was turned from his door unassisted. He was strictly moral and ever ready to raise his voice in defense of right.
Respectfully yours
W I (?) O'Neall (son)