1834–1907

Introduction

portrait

Born: May 22, 1834, Un­ion Town­ship, Ohio.

Died: Au­gust 31, 1907.

Buried: Beth­el Ce­me­te­ry, Phone­ton, Ohio.

Biography

Noah was the son of Sam­uel Al­baugh and An­na Rod­key, and hus­band of Lu­cin­da Bee­son.

He taught school 1851–54, ex­cept one sum­mer when he ed­it­ed the Day­ton Dai­ly Ci­ty Item news­pa­per. By 1858, he was in the nur­se­ry bu­si­ness, even­tu­al­ly found­ing the Al­baugh Nur­se­ry & Or­chard Com­pa­ny, with lo­ca­tions in Ohio; Car­mi, Il­li­nois; Bur­ling­ton, Kan­sas; and Spar­ta, Wis­con­sin.

In the Am­er­ican ci­vil war, Al­baugh served in Com­pa­ny B, 147th Ohio Vol­un­teer In­fan­try. His un­it par­ti­ci­pat­ed in re­pel­ling the at­tack on Wash­ing­ton, DC, by Con­fed­er­ate forc­es un­der Lieu­ten­ant Ge­ne­ral Ju­bal Ear­ly.

After leav­ing the ar­my, Al­baugh was on the lo­cal Board of Edu­ca­tion for 17 years, was a school ex­am­in­er for a 10 years, a jus­tice of the peace for nine, twice pre­si­dent of the Am­er­ican As­so­cia­tion of Flor­ists & Nur­sery­men, and pre­si­dent of the Nur­se­ry­men’s Mu­tu­al Pro­tec­tive As­so­cia­tion.

In 1885, Al­baugh was elect­ed to the Ohio le­gis­la­ture, and while there was al­so pre­si­dent of the Troy Na­tion­al Bank. In 1892, he was one of Ohio’s pre­si­den­tial elec­tors on the Re­pub­li­can tick­et.

On the spi­rit­ual side, Al­baugh was an el­der at the Beth­el Re­formed church for 30 years, and su­per­in­tend­ent of the church’s Sun­day school for 14 years.

Works

Poem

The Harvester

When the earth brings forth her bounties,
By Creation’s hand unseen,
And around us gently swaying,
Waves of golden grain are seen;
Then the harvester comes singing,
Singing to his daily toil,
Hard the labor—yet ’tis pleasure,
Reaping tribute from the soil.

Great the harvest, few the reapers,
Will you lend a helping hand?
More assistance here is needed,
Come and join the reaping band.
If your work meets our approval,
Though you labor long and hard.
You shall surely not repent it,
You shall reap a rich reward.

Thus in life’s broad field the Reaper
Comes with sickle, keen and bright,
Reaps the bearded grain and flowers,
Garnering them in realms of light.
May the Master of the harvest,
Reaping for His throne on high,
Find us worthy to be garnered
In that home beyond the sky.

Reaping heav’nly grain,
Reaping by and by,
For the garners in the sky.

Noah Hugh Albaugh
Wayside Blossoms, 1885

Sources

Lyrics