From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, pages 671-672.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


REV. CORNELIUS D. BATTELLE

Rev. Cornelius D. Battelle, of Moundsville, a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal church, now retired from active service, was born 
in Belpre, Washington county, Ohio, July 13, 1807.  He is the son of 
Ebenezer and Mary Batelle, the former of whom was a son of Ebenezer, 
a soldier of the revolution.  Ebenezer and Mary, when Cornelius D. 
was an infant, came to Newport, Ohio, taking land under the Ohio 
company purchase, and they remained there until their decease, the 
father dying in 1876, at the age of ninety-seven years, and the 
mother in 1872, at the age of ninety-four.  The subject of this 
mention, the eldest of their children, entered Marietta academy at 
fourteen years of age, and afterward worked on the farm until twenty-
six, when he joined the Pittsburgh conference, and began a career as 
a preacher, which continued for fifty-six years.  In 1833 he was put 
in charge of the Woodfield circuit, embracing parts of Washington, 
Monroe and Belmont counties, and he traveled 300 miles every four 
weeks and preached thirty times.  In the first year he received 500 
and more into the church.  Subsequently he was transferred to other 
conferences, being stationed in succession at Covington, Ky.; 
Bloomington, Ind.;  Indianapolis, and so on.  Five years he has 
served as a circuit preacher, five years as presiding elder, thirty-
five as regular pastor, three years as superintendent of the western 
division of the Western Seaman's Friends society.  He has taken into 
the church more than 3,000 members in all.  The camp-ground at 
Moundsville he helped clear, and there preached the first sermon.  At 
the outbreak of the civil war, in which his brother, Gordon D. D., 
who was a captain of the first West Virginia regiment, lost his life, 
he was presiding elder of the Wheeling district, and exerted a strong 
influence for the Union.  The Rev. Mr. Battelle was married July 13, 
1829, to Elizabeth Greenwood, by whom he had six children:  Alpheus 
M.; Willliam G., deceased; Amelia G., wife of Alexander Jones; 
Elizabeth A., wife of Winfield F. Holden; Mary and Melville, both 
deceased.  The mother of these died June 16, 1856, and subsequently 
Mr. Battle was married to Martha Guthrie, who died August 15, 1888, 
aged ninety-seven years. 


(Linda Fluharty)