Autobiography of Orion Paul Fisher
banker, and financier, his "ups and downs" during forty years of business life
This book is dedicated to the young men and women workers in the mercantile and industrial fields of business, as a means of inspiring them to greater efficiency and encouraging them in their work. 50 per cent of the net proceeds from the sale of this book will be set aside in a trust fund to be used exclusively for the help of worthy young people who have some initiative and are striving for the efficiency which will enable them to enter the business for which they are best fitted and to furnish capital to those who have the experience and ability to start and manage a business in a line with which they are familiar. The other 50 per cent will also be set aside in a trust fund for other philanthropic work.
My great-grandfather Paul Fisher with his brother emigrated from Saxony, Ger- many. They fought in the Revolutionary War after which they settled among the Dutch settlers in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.
My great-grandfather reared a family of eleven children, one of whom was my grandfather, Paul, later he emigrated and settled near Calcutta, Ohio, in 1810, where my grandfather married a Miss Margaret Souder of Welsh ex- traction. Of this union were born six children, three boys and three girls, my father George being the youngest son.
My grandfather died at the age of eighty- six, being very active and sturdy and having great physical endurance all his life, his occupation being that of a farmer and stock raiser. As was the custom in those days, on coming of age my father received a parental gift of $1000. At this time April 14th, 1857, he and his brother Paul left the home of their boyhood to seek their for- tunes in the sunny south, engaging in the stock-raising business together with an elder brother who had preceded them some years before. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 my father was pressed into the rebel ranks under protest, being at that time a citizen of the south.
He soon obtained a furlough to return to his home and dispose of his property, after which, instead of again joining his regiment, he deserted to return to his northern home. He was captured while crossing the Ozark Mountains on horseback and again pressed into the rebel ranks, in another regiment. Watching his opportunity, he again deserted, this time on foot, keeping close to the brush, he slowly made his way to General Schofield's headquarters in the Union lines, then stationed at Cassville, Missouri, arriving there October 12th, 1861.
At this time being physically incapacitated because of the many hardships endured on his five hundred mile journey by foot, he was excused from military duty and immediately returned to his father home in Ohio. Recovering his health, he resumed his former occupation as a teacher of a country school near Calcutta, Ohio. A few years later his friends requested him to write a history of his experiences while in Texas. This he did in spare moments while teaching school, bringing out a book entitled "
The Yankee Conscript or Eighteen Months in Dixie,'' many thousands of copies of which were sold throughout the United States. When living in Texas and while on his way north my father had no thought of writing a book, therefore made no memorandums of dates of occurrences contained therein, but from beginning to end correct dates are given showing a wonderful memory, w^hich was inherited by his son, the writer of the following auto- biography.
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