W..A. DONNELL, Geeensburg.
W. A. Donnell, the youngest child of Luther A. Donnell, was born in Fugit Township, April 4, 1835. His early life was passed in the usual alternation between attending the public schools of his neighborhood and the various duties of a farmer's son at home. Quite early in life he became interested in the study and practice of vocal and instrumental music, in which art he has attained a fair position as a singer and teacher.
On the 12th of November, 1857, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary E. Dobyns, a daughter of Capt. William E. Dobyns, of Clarksburg, and commenced life for himself by operating a farm adjoining his father's estate. Mr. Donnell is the father of three children
- Ada L., now Mrs. John H. Batterton, of Greensburg ;
- Edwin D., educated at the public school and at the Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College, now engaged with his father in the Decatur News office ;
- Clifton L., now in school at Greensburg.
In 1865, he moved to Greensburg, and, in partnership with John S. Scobey, Esq., erected the well-known Hoosier Hall building where this firm opened an establishment for the purchase and sale of agricultural implements and farmers supplies. In the spring of 1868, he disposed of his interest in this store, and established the foundry and, machine shop now owned by Robert Watson in the city of Greensburg. Mr. Donnell sold the foundry property and purchased the Decatur News, in 1878, which journal has been edited and conducted by him until the present time. As a waiter, he has an easy yet a vigorous style, with an inclination toward fearless independence, quite characteristic of the old Donnell stock. He is a "live" member of the Christian Church at Greensburg, and has been the prime mover in various movements for the perfection and elevation of the style of church music for which this city is quite celebrated. At one period of his life, he, in company with his three children, traversed the amusement circuits of the country as professional vocalists ; they were known as the Donnell Family. William A. Donnell, like his illustrious ancestor, possesses positive traits of character that prompt him to follow his convictions in matters religious or political without reference to loss, social or pecuniary. When, therefore, he resolved to seek a union with the body of Christ, after a careful study, in the light of the Scriptures themselves, of the doctrines of the various existing religious organizations, he became convinced that the teachings of the body of disciples known as Christians were in harmony with the utterances of the Divine oracles. The expounders of this faith taught that those who profess to be Christians should wear the name and be known and called by no other — a practice as old among the disciples of Christ as the New Testament itself. They claimed that, if baptized into the name of Christ, one should wear only the name Christian, for which there exists an inspired precedent and divine warrant But, unless baptized into the name of Paul, or Apollas, or Cephas, or Calvin, or Luther, one could not of right wear the name of either. They also believed that sectarian divisions, party names, creeds and usages, hinder the development of a pure Christianity, and prevent the conversion of the world to Christ; that the Bible is the only authoritative revelation of religious truth, and, therefore, an all-sufficient rule of faith and practice ; that immersion is the only baptism to which none should come who are not already conscious of a changed heart; that regeneration must include faith and repentance, and that obedience to Christ is the only test of fellowship, they believed and taught to be true. These simple, fundamental, yet comprehensive and somewhat distinctive features of the Christian Church so accorded with the teachings and practices of the Apostolic Church as to commend themselves, and the people whose exponents they were to the favorable judgment of the subject of this sketch, and, like thousands of other independent thinkers of the age, he became a willing subject of Christ, and united with that church whose only creed and test of fellowship is faith in and obedience to Christ as the one Divine and all-sufficient Savior.
