MELVIN M. BOOTHMAN, merchant, was born in Jefferson Township, Williams Co., Ohio, October 16, 1846, and is one of nine living children, of a family of ten, born to Lemuel M. and Melisendra (Hart) Boothman, who was natives of Trumbull County, Ohio, and of English descent. Lemuel Boothman was reared and educated in his native county. At the age of eighteen months he was left an orphan, and was reared by a Mr. Mitchell. The spring of 1843, he came to Williams county; purchased eighty acres of land in Jefferson Township, it, at that time, being all woods; cleared a place, sufficiently large in which to erect a log cabin, and shortly afterward married, moved upon his place and began clearing and improving it. He lived on this farm until 1873, when he sold out and moved to Bryan, where he has since resided. M. M. Boothman was reared in Williams County, assisting his parents on the farm at clearing and farming. He received a fair common-school education, and January 4, 1864, enlisted four three years, or during the war, as private in Company H, Thirty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered into service at Toledo, a few days after his enlistment. He participated in his first battle the 7th of August, 1864, at the right of Atlanta, known as Utoy Creek, when his company lost eleven men killed and wounded. After that occurred the battle of Jonesboro, September 1, 1853, in which the company went in with thirty-three men and came out with a loss of nineteen. It was here that Mr. Boothman was one of five who lost left limbs. He was shot directly through the left knee, by a musket ball, which resulted in the amputation of that limb the next morning. The wounded went into hospital on the field, and after a few days were removed to Atlanta; remained there until October 29, and thence were removed to Atlanta; remained there until October 29, and thence where removed to Chattanooga, Tenn., Nashville, Jeffersonville, Ind., Camp Dennison, Ohio, and from there received a thirty-day furlough. He received his final discharge June 7, 1865. He began then going to school, afterward engaged in teaching, and in this way acquired a good practical education. He attended the law school at Ann arbor in October, 1869, graduating in September, 1871. He then came home, and the 20th of June of that year married Miss Angeline Bushong. That same fall, he was elected County Treasurer by the Republican party, and re-elected in 1873, serving two terms. He then began the practice of his profession, in partnership with B. E. Sheldon; subsequently (1881), with Thomas Emery. Mr. Boothman has made the practice of law a success, and he and Mr. Emery are doing a good legal business. He is a Republican in politics, and he and wife are members of the Presbyterian Church, and the parents of four children - Howard E., Grace, Dale M. and one as yet unnamed. Source: County of Williams, Ohio, Historical & Biographical - Illustrated - Publ. Weston A. Goodspeed, Historical Editor - Charles Blanchard, Biographical Editor - Chicago: F. A. Battey & Co., Publishers - 1882 - Page 545