Hebener, Lewis W.

HEBENER, MCNEAL, FREEMAN, HARRIS, LUNG

Posted By: Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer
Date: 7/18/2019 at 07:00:24

LEWIS W. HEBENER
ca. 1818 ~ October 16, 1889

Biographical and Historical Record of Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa
(Lewis Publishing Company (1887) Chicago. pp. 584-85:

"L. W. HEBENER, of the firm of Hebener & Harris, proprietors of the Leon Marble and Granite Works, was born in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, about two miles from Bethlehem. When a child his father removed to Northampton County, the next county north of Lehigh County, where he lived until he was sixteen years of age, when in 1833, by consent of his parents, he immigrated into Ohio, where he commenced learning the marble business, but soon after removed to Wheeling, West Virginia, where, in the year 1839, he was married to a young lady by the name of Nancy Agnes McNeal. From there he removed to Wellsbury, West Virginia, where he carried on the marble business for some time, and then removed to Mansfield, Ohio, where he again carried on his business.

In the year 1849 he was called to Lexington, Kentucky, by Mahlon Pruden, the sculptor, to work for him, and do his figure work, where he finished his trade. Mr. Hebener worked the long wreath of fifteen feet on the stone that the State of Kentucky presented to the Washington monument. It was worked out of magnesian limestone, the stone being seven feet long, four feet wide and eighteen inches thick. The motto on the stone is, "Kentucky will be the last to give up the Union." When the Rebellion broke out he went out against John Morgan in his first raid into Kentucky, helped to drive him out of the State, but not long after General Kirby Smith came into Lexington with 26,000 of his men, and John Morgan with him, when he had to flee, but was taken prisoner at Falmouth, Kentucky, by the Union troops, but soon after was released.

From there he went into Ohio, and soon after sent for his family, and in a place called Port Washington he went into business again. He soon after removed to Newark, Ohio, where he lost his wife. Having no home then, he took his two minor children and went to Petersburg, Virginia, where he was married the second time [November 1866], to Julia F. Freeman. From Petersburg he removed to Leon, Iowa, and is doing a prosperous business in the marble and granite line, with J. A. Harris, his partner. To his first marriage were born seven children, of whom four survive. By the last marriage he has four children, who are all living. His two eldest children, a son and daughter, were both married during the war; the son to Ida Alice Harris, of Buckingham County, Virginia, and the daughter to H. B. Lung, of New Albany, Indiana."

NOTE: Lewis died October 16, 1889. Julia was born January 29, 1844 and died November 24, 1891. They were interred at Leon Cemetery, Leon, Iowa.

Lewis's first wife, Nancy Agnes (McNeal) HEBENER, was born in 1821 and died ca. 1866, Newark, Ohio.

(Submitted to the Decatur County GenWeb site by Christy Jay, email: Jaygenie@aol.com)