The Daily Advocate
Newark, Ohio
December 27, 1882

Mr. John Colville was one of our early settlers and a long time resident of this county. He was a son of Major Colville, born in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, September 5, 1797, and settled in Licking county in 1824. The subject of this sketch was the youngest of four sons, and his father and three brothers rendered service in the War of 1812, he being too young to "go a soldiering". His father was a major, and his brother Samuel was a captain, while his brothers Robert and James were in the ranks, and all served during the war. John Colville in 1828, united in marriage with Eliza Turner, who died in 1841, he surviving her 41 years. He removed to Iowa many years ago, and died at the residence of his nephew, D.H. Colville, near Oscaloosa, Mahaska county, in said state, December 6, 1882, in the 86th year of his age. The Colville family was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, long-lived, vigorous, patriotic. So Patriotic was John that upon the call of his country during the late rebellion, though 65 years old, he (in company with Nicholas Ramy and Wayne McCaddon, both former venerable citizens of Licking county) enlisted in the celebrated gray-beard regiment of Iowa, and served to the close of the war. His Devotion to his country and military services probably led to impaired vision while on duty, which gradually grew more dim with advancing years, so that he endured total blindness during the last four years of his life, but a beneficent government smoothed his pathway to the tomb by granting him a liberal pension.