JOHN RAY POLLARD
John Ray Pollard, a descendant of early Harrison County settlers, died at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, on April 6, 2023, at the age of 94. He was born September 21, 1928, in Washington, Pennsylvania to Aura Mae Stiers Pollard. With his mother’s early divorce, he never knew his father. He grew up with the love and guidance of his mother and grandparents, John and Margaret Sewell Stiers, moving with them from Washington, PA, to Harrisburg, PA and then Wilmington, DE. where he graduated from high school in 1945. On graduation at age 16 he moved to Washington D.C. and started his career as a clerk with the FBI. Qualifying as an agent required a law or accounting degree, so he started down that path as a part time student at George Washington University. With diligent work and attending night school he advanced to administrative and investigative positions. He became the director of tours for visitors to the Bureau. After twenty years, he left the Bureau for employment in the investigative branch of the Veterans Administration for the remainder of his working career
Although John never lived in Ohio, his connections with Harrison County and New Athens are deep. His linkages are to the families of Brown, Hughes, Sewell, McCleary and Stiers. He is great-grandson to Franklin College professor Thomas Marion Sewell and as a small child was the last to know him personally. In his youth, John spent summers on the Stiers farm near Shepherdstown (Short Creek Township) with his two great uncles, Will and Menzie Stiers. That farm had been established as a sheep raising endeavor in 1808 by Henry Stiers from Pennsylvania and remained that until the deaths of Will and Menzie, later succumbing to the steam shovels stripping the land for coal.
Never marrying, John did maintain relationships with a few women who shared his love of air travel. Some were widows of co-workers. Paraphrasing one describes that part of his life; “He is great fun to travel with but live with him? Never ! ”
His passions were the warmth of Florida in winter, marksmanship with many trophies for competitive pistol shooting and flight, whether flying as a private pilot or in world-wide air travel. He was inquisitive, well read, a personable conversationalist who enjoyed learning and sharing stories with others.
John’s cremains have been buried at Longview Cemetery in New Athens. The origins of that cemetery deserve commentary because of its ties to the family. John’s great grandfather, Thomas Marion Sewell, surveyed and laid out the cemetery. He was compensated with a section of plots. The first grave was for his wife, Elisa Jane Hughes Sewell in 1919 and then Thomas in 1932. Subsequent burials have included two of Thomas’s three daughters and spouses, Wilbur and Aura Sewell White, John and Margaret Sewell Stiers, three granddaughters, Marion Manola Stiers, Aura Stiers Pollard Booth, and Josephine Stiers Phillips and her husband Fred William Phillips. John, a great-grandson, is the last expected to be buried there. Two other great-grandchildren and families reside on the west coast: Theodore J. Phillips and Margaret Jo Phillips LeMaster. Thomas Sewell was a Civil War veteran with the Union Army. As a volunteer whose term was not up when the war ended, he was sent west in the Signal Corps to fight the Indians in the Powder River Expedition; an unsuccessful attempt to punish Indians and open new routes to the west. He had been a student in Franklin College in New Athens. He returned and then had a forty year career as a beloved professor of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, taking a year’s leave of absence in the 1890’s to be superintendent for construction of the Harrison County Courthouse in Cadiz.
More information about this family is available in the Franklin Museum, at the site of Franklin College in New Athens. John donated many historical items relating to Professor Sewell and the early days of Franklin College. He had a special interest in the museum.