Thompson Carnahan was born in White Eyes township, April 24, 1841, and died in Adams township (on a little farm which for some years had been to him a retreat after his work as a teacher was done), July 13, 1876. Obtaining the elements of a good education in the district school, he himself commenced to teach in 1860. In the summer of that year he attended the Normal School at Hopedale, in Harrison county, and having taught during the ensuing winter, took another term at Hopedale in 1862. In the fall of 1862, he went into the army, enlisting in the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. He continued in service two years, and having been wounded at Big Shanty, Georgia, returned home and resumed his work as a teacher. In 1866, after attending one term, he graduated at the Poughkeepsie (New York) College. Having taught several of the most prominent of the country schools, and the one at Bakersville, he became the teacher of the grammar school in Coshocton in 1871. The next year he took charge of the Roscoe schools, and continued there until smitten by the disease (paralysis) that laid him low in death. Always somewhat out of health, his conscientious faithfulness led him to unduly tax himself with his professional work, and about a month before his year was up, and some two months before his death, he reluctantly ceased to teach. But the bow had been drawn too far, and the string was already virtually broken. Returning after the school year was closed (his wife having finished his work therein) to his farm near Bakersville, he for a time seemed to improve, but soon sank down in a peaceful death.
Conscientious and carefully trained in the principles of the holy Christian religion from his childhood, he made a profession of his faith in the Presbyterian church, at Bakersville, in 1870, and subsequently was an elder in the Presbyterian church of Roscoe.
With no special advantages of worldly sort and despite poor health he attained a scholarship that had merit above what his modesty disposed him to widely manifest, and showed what industry and conscientiousness may achieve even in comparatively early years. He married, in 1869, Miss Eliza J. Stonehocker, who, having herself been much engaged in teaching, proved a worthy help-meet in his school work, as otherwise.
 

Source:  Historical Collections of Coshocton County Ohio 1764-1876
Author: William E Hunt, pub. 1876