Once, a storekeeper

Amos Edwards is another name who shows up as being important after he left Fairfield. A biography in a Fayette County history skims over Amos but leaves enough crumbs to make sense of the guy who eventually became prominent in Fayette County for his work in government and railroad construction. 

And summer fruit.

According to the history, Edwards was born in Pennsylvania in 1808 and came to Fayette County in 1817, about the same time that Connersville was making plans to become a prosperous town. At the time, Connersville Township was still part of Franklin County and would remain so until 1820 when it broke off and became Fayette County

Union County came the next year.

Amos Edwards was a witness to all this.

The biography suggests he “grew to manhood” in Connersville but that he had spent time “in mercantile business” in Fairfield without identifying the years, the business or his associates, or how long he stayed, where he lived, how he voted, girlfriends, jail record … nothing.

So we can assume he made some impact on Fairfield at some point. There is some rationale to this, if he did live near enough to Fairfield to have gone there to work, he most likely lived closer to what became Everton or the Bentley area. Since Fayette County didn’t exist in 1817, the history claiming his family had moved there was taking liberty with geography.

A 1909 obituary on one of his sons says Amos had once owned a farm east of Connersville that was owned by "Sparks." An 1875 map shows "Sparks" and "Edwards" as landowners. That's not Everton. 

The history says Edwards eventually bought land in “this vicinity” and was a farmer. That was a somewhat common occupation in the 1800s.

Edwards was elected county clerk in 1845 and served 12 years. Ah, popular with the voters.

He was also associated with the Junction Railroad construction “and was ever in the lead in public enterprises of every sort.” No specifics on this railroad or when it was built.

Edwards met an inglorious death just before New Year’s Day, 1865, when he tripped over a wash tub outside a friend’s home and hit his head.

Not much more about Amos pops up, other than he evidently had a somewhat robust garden at his home.

An 1861 Connersville newspaper brief says, “The grounds on which is situated the residence of Amos R. Edwards, present an inviting aspect just now. Beside the large bed of vines which produce such mammoth strawberries, there are gooseberry bushes weighed to the ground with luxuriant fruit, blackberries that will yield the summer through, cherries almost ripe, young peach trees filled with promises of the velvety skin beauties, and pear trees loaded with the firstlings, which the ornamental shrubbery enriches the beauty of the scene.”

Nobody ever had that in Fairfield.