A RESPECTED AND HONORED CITIZEN,
MR. CYRENIUS BISOHP
Passed Away At The Family Residence Tuesday
Mr. Cyrenius Bishop died at his late residence, No. 44 West Mechanic Street, Tuesday morning, August 6th, at 7 o'clock, aged 79 years and two months.
His parents were Abraham and Sarah (DeBord) Bishop. The subject of this sketch was born in Smythe County, Virginia, July 11th, 1825. He came with his parents to Shelby county at the age of ten years. His father entered a tract of land in Brandywine township and followed the life of a farmer.
Cyrenius, the youngest son, worked on the farm during the summer and in the winter he would go back to the older settlements, where he would work morning and evening for his board and attended school during the day. In this manner did our deceased fellow townsman secure the rudiments of an education, which afterwards served him so well in the active duties of his busy life, practicing economy as he was compelled to do in the days of his youth, served him well later in life and made him always know the full value of a dollar. The virtues of industry and economy were cardinal features of his character.
Cyrenius Bishop was married to Mary Henry in Moral township December 17, 1846. She died August 29, 1864, and on November 14, 1865, he was married to Sarah Lacy at her home in Fairland.
Mr. Bishop followed the honorable calling of a farmer and resided in Moral township for many years and by hard work and rigid economy he bought and paid for a farm in that township, where he continued to reside until 1867 when he moved to Shelbyville, having been elected county Recorder of Shelby County, which office he filled with fidelity and most agreeably to his constituents, retiring in 1871. Mr. Bishop also filled the office of Justice of the Peace of Moral township for many years before removing to Shelbyville.
In 1871, he formed a partnership with Dr. S. P. McCrea in the drug business. They were engaged in the drug business in the room where Robert Buxton, the druggist, is now located, and when the fire which occurred on the sixth day of April, 1875, burned the Phoenix block, they moved over to the corner where Goulding clothing store now is, afterwards moving back to where Mr. Buxton is now located.
In 1887, Mr. Bishop sold out his interest in the drug business to Dr. S.P. McCrea and formed a partnership with his son-in-law, Joseph Pearson and under the firm name of Bishop & Pearson they continued in the stove and tinware business until 1896, when Mr. Bishop retired and since that time he had been in the employ of A. J. Thurston of south Harrison Street.
Mr. Bishop leaves surviving besides his widow, four sons, Willard of Sandusky, Ohio; Robert of El Paso, Texas; Henderson of Indianapolis; Orville M. of this city and two daughters, Mrs. J. C. [Susannah] Pearson and Mrs. Harold K. [Emma] Morris of this city, and one son by the second wife, William of Cincinnati.
Also one sister, Mrs. S. F. Mann, who now lives at Lamar, Missouri, she being the only surviving member of his seven brothers and sisters.
The funeral services will be held at the First Baptist Church at 2 p.m. Thursday, Rev. H.H. Hulten officiating. Interment in Forest Hill Cemetery. The pall bearers will be the deacons of the church, James O. Parrish, Lester Clark, J. C. Pearson, B. H. Reece, George Meeks and I. W. Cooper.
Mr. Bishop was a member of the Baptist church for more than fifty-two years. Identifying himself with the church at Fairland in 1852. He was elected a deacon of the church at Fairland and served till he came to Shelbyville in 1867 where he was two years later elected a deacon of the First Baptist Church, which position he had continued to hold until now.
Mr. Bishop was strictly honest, a man of splendid habits, a Christian, always stood for the right and opposed the wrong as he saw it. He was a man of sterling character and numbered his friends by the number of his acquaintances. In the language of Shakespeare "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, this is a man" (findagrave.com)