While many American families defended slavery in the early nineteenth century, Benjamin Hanby’s family did not. Benjamin Hanby was born in July 1833 in Rushville, Ohio, to Bishop William Hanby and Ann Miller Hanby. His father grew up in poverty in Pennsylvania and at age nine was bound over to a Quaker family to learn farming, then at 16 to a cruel master to learn saddle making. In 1828, William escaped with help from a Virginia congressman’s family who sheltered him and a ferry boatman who took him across the Ohio River. In Perry County, just west of Somerset, he formed a harness-making partnership with Samuel Miller, his future father-in-law, while improving his literacy. In 1831, Hanby became a circuit preacher in the United Brethren Church and later, during the 1845 General Conference, its 15th bishop. He participated in the Underground Railroad in Rushville, Circleville, and Westerville, was a temperance crusader, and served as one of the founding trustees of Otterbein University. William Hanby died in Westerville in May 1880 and was buried in Otterbein Cemetery. As a child, Benjamin Hanby sang in the church choir and delivered the Religious Telescope, which his father edited. At age 16, Benjamin moved to Westerville to attend Otterbein University. While a student, he taught Infant School, a combination of preschool, kindergarten, and primary school through the fifth grade, and he delighted in using music and singing in his lessons because he believed school days should be joyous. He was known for a great sense of humor.
