Archives West Finding Aid

John S. Casement (1829-1909) was born in New York and came to Ohio in 1850 to work as a railroad construction foreman. He met Frances Jennings (1840-1928) while working near Painesville, Ohio, and they were married in 1857. In 1861 John Casement joined the Union Army as major of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was promoted to colonel of the 103rd Ohio Volunteers after the Battle of Winchester (1862). He was engaged in the Atlanta Campaign during 1864 and was given the brevet rank of brigadier general in 1865. After service in the Civil War, Casement, along with his brother Daniel, obtained a contract to perform tracklaying and grading for the Union Pacific's transcontinental line. The work lasted from 1866 to 1869. John Casement was later involved in a number of other business ventures.

Frances Jennings Casement was born into an Ohio abolitionist family. After her marriage she maintained the family's home in Painsville, Ohio, and raised the couple's three sons. While on a visit in Wyoming in 1870, she met Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and became interested in women's suffrage. She organized the Equal Rights Organization of Painesville in 1883 and was honored as a pioneer in the women's suffrage movement in 1920 by the National American Woman Suffrage Association.