USA > Ohio > Wood County > Commemorative historical and biographical record of Wood County, Ohio : its past and present : early settlement and development biographies and portraits of early settlers and representative citizens, etc. V. 2 > Part 7
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house. Of late years, however, she has dele- gated the care of the estate largely to her son.
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JOHN W. BROWNSBERGER, the well-known furniture dealer and undertaker of Weston, was born in Perrysburg, Ohio, March 24, 1843. His parents were both natives of Lancaster and Cum- berland counties. Penn., the father, John Brownsberger, born March 27, 1800, in Lan- caster county, and the mother, Barbara (Failor) born August 30, 1804, in Cumberland county. They were married November 18, 1824, and in 1833 they came to Wood county, locating on a farm four miles east of Perrysburg. John Browns- berger was a weaver, having been bound out in childhood, after the death of his father, as an ap- prentice to that trade. He made much of the linen and woolen cloth, used by his family, from flax and wool grown on his own farm, for some years, and also filled occasional orders from out- side parties. For twenty years he kept the toll- gate on the Maumee and Western Reserve pike. After the death of his wife on March 18, 1878, he moved to East Toledo, where he died June 2, 1885. He was a Democrat before the war, then becoming a Republican, and he and his wife were both members of the Evangelical Church. They had nine children, eight of whom grew to matur- ity: Joseph, born August 20, 1825, was killed by accident at Toledo October 3, 1879; William, born September 6, 1827. was a shoe dealer at Maumee and Toledo, and died at the latter place December 23, 1892; Ann E., born Febru- ary 24, 1829, married Benj. F. Myers, (since deceased) and now resides in Toledo; Mary, born February 28, 1833, married Henry Girkins, of West Toledo; Andrew J., born January 28, 1835, was a soldier in Company A, 100th O. V. I., and was fatally wounded at Limestone Station, Tenn., September S, 1863. (His brother, John, our subject, carried him off the field, and he died in the hospital September 26, following, at Knox- ville, Tenn. ): Caroline, born January 28, 1839, married John Farley, of Toledo; John W., our subject; Sidney, born September 20, 1845, lives near Sheboygan, Michigan.
John W., whose name opens this sketch, ob- tained his education in the district school near his home, in the high school at Perrysburg, and the high school at Manmee, where he completed the business course. He clerked in a grocery store at Maumee until August, 1862, when he en- listed in Company A, 100th O. V. I. His regi- ment was assigned to the army of the Ohio, served in Kentucky and Tennessee, until after the Atlanta campaign then participated in the
battle of Nashville, Tenn., after which they went to Wilmington, N. C., and fought to Goldsboro. N. C., where they joined Gen. Sherman's forces. then returning from the sea. Mr. Brownsberger was taken prisoner on the same day that his brother was wounded, and spent the next six months and a half at Libby prison, Belle Isle, and Castle Thunder. He was company clerk throughout his service, and at Franklin, Tenn .. was promoted for gallant conduct to the rank of corporal. June 20, 1865, he was mustered out at Greensboro, N. C., and after the disbanding of his regiment at Cleveland a few weeks later he returned home. During the following winter he took a business course at Toledo, and in March. 1866, opened a store in Weston, dealing in gro- ceries, boots and shoes and other commodities. An attack of small-pox interfered with his plans, and he disposed of the business and for some time clerked in the largest store in Toledo. He then went to work for Earl W. Merry in the re- corder's office, where he made out a set of geo- graphical abstract books for all the land of the county. He afterward worked in the county clerk's office, and during the latter part of C. W. Evers' term as sheriff, he served as deputy so ac- ceptably that in October, 1868. he was himself elected sheriff. After serving two terms of two years each, he returned to Weston, and built a planing mill which he sold a year later. For ten months he was record keeper for the county pro- bate court at Bowling Green, and for six years following was deputy county clerk. From 1882 to 1895 he was engaged in various enterprises, in the undertaking business at Toledo, and with the Clover Leaf railroad as conductor, and later as express agent and baggage master. In May. 1892, he opened his present establishment in Weston, where, if energy and integrity count for anything in business life, he should make a suc- cess.
He was married February 24, 1869, to Miss Lucy J. Bonney, who was born in Penn Yan. N. Y., February 19, 1850. Their only son. John L., was born June 2, 1870, and died October :0. 1873. They have two daughters, of whom the elder, Bessie May, born August 1, 1872, was ed- ucated at Bowling Green and in the high school at Toledo, where she graduated in 1891; she taught for one and a half years with unusual snc- cess, but left the profession to become the wife of C. K. Merrill, of Toledo. Mabel Bonney, the younger daughter, born February 1, 1879, is at- tending school at Toledo.
Mrs. Brownsberger is of English descent. Her parents, Lester and Caroline ( Merritt, For-
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nov. were natives of New York State, the father tern in 1813 in Yates county, the mother in :426 in Hammondsport, N. Y. They were married in New York in 1842, and had a family ! six children: William A .; Sarah L. (Mrs. (ohn E. Clark, of Weston); Lucy J. (Mrs. Brownsberger); Jethro, who was killed on the railroad when twenty-six years old; Merritt H., residing in Weston; and James F., who died in infancy. In 1863 the Bonneys came to Ohio, where the father engaged in agricultural pursuits. He died in Weston in 1883: the mother is still jning. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church, to which he also belonged. In politics he was a Democrat.
Mr. Brownsberger is a man of high spirit. His friendship is steadfast and his enmity impet- nous. During his service as sheriff of Wood county he was known as a man who was abso- Intely fearless in the discharge of the duties of the office, and his ability and trustworthiness in that capacity are still spoken of by his fellow cit- izens. In the first year of his term, on July 3, 1869, a murder was committed at Bowling Green, and the mob attempted to lynch the murderer, the notorious Dave Phillips; Mr. Brownsberger was at Perrysburg, which was the county seat, but he reached Bowling Green on horseback within an hour, and rescued the man, although the rope was already around his neck. On var- ious other occasions he displayed rare courage and coolness, and his official record is indeed one of which he may be proud. Mr. Brownsberger is an influential worker in the Republican party. Socially he is a member of the G. A. R., the (. V. U., and the F. & A. M. In religious connection he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church, and take great interest in Church work.
SAMUEL E. VAIL, editor of the Sentinel, of Bowling Green, was born May 3, 1863, at Findlay, Ohio, the youngest born of the three children of Samuel B. and Eliza Vail. The other two are Frank B. (unmarried, born Octo- ber 3. 1861, at present a compositor on the Chicago Record; and Cora M., born February 28, 1862, married to C. C. Potter, of Bowling Green, by whom she has one son -- Rolland -- und two daughters-Myrtle and June.
Samuel B. Vail, father of our subject, during the Civil war, enlisted February 2, 1864, as a nemiber of Company A, 49th O. V. I., and was ordered to Chattanooga, Tenn. On May 27. same year, during the preliminary movement of Sherman's inarch to the sea, Mr. Vail was killed
at the battle of Pickett's Mills, and was buried by the Confederates, who were left in charge of the field. He was twenty-eight years old at the time. After the close of the war the widowed mother, with her three children, removed to Bowling Green.
On the paternal side, Samuel E. Vail is of Scotch origin: on the maternal side his ancestors were of Pennsylvania-Dutch stock. Edwin Vail, paternal grandfather of our subject, came in an early day from Connecticut`to Ohio, locating first in Cleveland, but soon thereafter removing to Hudson, Ohio, where he married Hannah Post, also a native of Connecticut (she was one of a family of thirteen children). To Edwin Vail and his wife were born five sons-Cyrus, Alfred. George W .. Samuel B. and Charles-and two daughters-Harriet and Mary. Some time dur- ing the "forties " the family moved to Findlay. Cyrus died in 1895, at Arlington, Ohio, where he had lived many years; Samuel B. was killed in battle as above related; Harriet (Brower) died, in 1896, at Hudson, whither she had removed from Bowling Green fifteen years previously: Mary (Mungen) died at Findlay in 1894. Of the sons now living. Alfred still resides in Bowling Green ; George W., is a physician at Port Angeles, Wash .. and Charles has his home in Findlay. Ohio. The father of this family died at Findlay in 1868; the mother passing away at Hudson in 1883.
Enos P. Lease, the maternal grandfather of our subject. was born in Pennsylvania; Catherine Oswald. the grandmother, was born in Girard, Trumbull Co., Ohio. The father of Enos P. was a soldier in the war of 1812. During the "forties " the family removed to Hancock conn- ty, locating in the vicinity of Arlington, soon after which the father died: the mother survived until 1874. The children who grew to adult age were: sons-Henry, Nelson, Ferris, George and Enos Lease: daughters-Clara (Reel), Eliza (Vail), Rebecca Fabun), Lucy (Holmes), and Mary (Long). Nelson died in 1890, at Warren; George in IS86: Enos in 1878; Clara in 1861. Rebecca, Lucy and Mary still reside at Arling- ton, while Eliza, who is now sixty-one years old, makes her home in Bowling Green.
To return now to the life history of the subject proper of these lines, Samuel E. Vail. In I8;o he was admitted to the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' home, where he remained until 1876, at which time he entered the Bowling Green schools, attending same two years, in 1878 commencing the printing trade in the office of the Wood County Sentinel. Five years later,
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at the age of twenty, he went to Lawrenceburg, Ind., where, associated with others, he conducted a daily newspaper; soon afterward he located at Toledo, and until 1886 "worked at the case" on various daily newspapers of that city. In the fall of that year he accepted a proposition from Brewer & Co., and became manager of the Sentinel, of Bowling Green; four years later bought an interest in the firm (Brewer & Ru- dulph), the new firm becoming Brewer, Rudulph & Vail. Upon Mr. Rudulph's retirement in 1893 the firm became Brewer, Vail & Hoffa, and by a change in the present year (1896) is now known as Brewer, Vail & Co. Mr. Vail's connection with the Sentinel has been for an almost uninter- rupted period of eighteen years.
On September 8, 1884, Mr. Vail was married to Miss Elsie D. Long, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob F. Long, who in 1867 had removed from Sandusky county to Center township, Wood county, and to Bowling Green in 1871; they were the parents of three children: Frank M., at present engaged in the dry-goods business at Bowling Green; Elsie D. (Mrs. Vail); and Nettie, wife of R. P. Hankey, of Bowling Green. To Mr. and Mrs. Vail was born December 19, 1885, one son named Merl De Witt. Seven years ago Mr. Vail built himself a pleasant home on the corner of West Wooster and Maple streets, Bowling Green, where he still resides.
BENJAMIN F. KERR is descended from a fam- ily who were pioneers in the country east of the Alleghanies, and married into one of the families who were forerunners of civilization in the beau- tiful Valley of the Maumee. Inheriting and im- bibing, by such connection, that desire for an independence which made him self-reliant, in- dustrious and economical, and which led to the success in life he has attained, a rank among the foremost business men and men of means in Wood county, and among the leading merchants of Grand Rapids.
The ancestors of Mr. Kerr were of Scotch origin. His great-great-grandfather, James Kerr, accompanied by his wife, came from Scotland to this country with their family in 1765, settling in the State of New Jersey, and near the city of Philadelphia, Penn. A son of these pioneers, Joseph Kerr, was married in New Jersey, and soon afterward, in 1782, in company with several other families, moved to Western Pennsylvania, settling in Beaver county. Here he and his neighbors, among whom were Adam and Andrew Poe, whose names have gone down in history, had many thrilling adventures, and many narrow
escapes, while fighting the Indians, who were troublesome and treacherous in those times. At this place, in 1785, a son, David, was born to Joseph and his wife, grew to maturity, and in 1824 with his family moved to Richland county, Ohio.
Jesse, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Beaver county, Penn., March 4, 1817, and at the age of six years came to Ohio with his parents. He grew up in the country, assisting his father to clear up a farm, received a good common-school education, and when a young man taught school during the winters. On September 14, 1837, he was married to Miss Eliza Evans, and in 1848 they moved to Lucas county, Ohio, where Jesse Kerr bought land and cleared up a farm. In politics he was a Whig. later a Republican. His death occurred July 2, 1862.
Eliza (Evans) Kerr was a descendant of Thomas Evans, who came to this country with his family from Wales in 1796, making his home for a time in Philadelphia. Subsequently he re- moved to Cumberland county, Penn., where his death occurred. David, a son of Thomas Evans, was married in the State of Pennsylvania, and with his wife and children moved to Ohio in 1824, settling in Richland county. Eliza, the mother of our subject, was a native of Cumber- land county, Penn., born May 24, 1818; her death occurred in 1892.
To the marriage of Jesse and Eliza (Evans Kerr were born ten children, four of whom died in infancy, the others being: John W., a resi- dent of Lucas county; Benjamin F. ; Nancy Ann, the wife of Jeremiah Walter; Thomas B., a resi- dent of Zanesville, Ohio; William E., a mer- chant of Grand Rapids; and Charles F., who is in the United States postal service in Texas.
Benjamin F. Kerr was born in Richland county, this State, February 7, 1843, and was five years old when the family settled in Lucas county. He received a good common-school education at Maumee, and, on the breaking cut of the Civil war, was among the first to offer his services to his country, enlisting in August, 1861. when eighteen years of age, in Company I, 14th O. V. I., commanded by Col. James B. Stead- man. During the winter of 1861-62 this regi- ment was in service through Kentucky, and. owing to the exposure and hardships to which the men were subjected, the command sustained a great loss of men, and Mr. Kerr was discharged on surgeon's certificate of disability, August 22. 1862. In February, 1864, he returned to the army, accepting a clerkship with Capt. S. H.
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Lunt, a disbursing quartermaster, then at Knox- ville, Tenn. Mr. Kerr remained with the army in this capacity until November, 1865, serving in the Atlanta campaign. After hostilities had ceased he assisted in removing the dead from the battlefields of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge to the National Cemetery at Chattanooga, this work being in charge of the Quartermaster's department. He had saved some money, and on leaving the service, in November. 1865, he purchased an interest in a general store at Chat- tanooga. Here he remained in business until in April, 1866, when he disposed of his interests and returned home.
On October 24, 1867, Mr. Kerr was married to Miss Ann S. Pratt, the youngest daughter of Jonas and Susan (Reed-Griffith) Pratt. Jonas Pratt was a son of William and Bertha (Brown) Pratt, natives of Massachusetts, who came to Ohio in June, ISIS, and settled near Perrysburg, in what subsequently became Wood county.
William Pratt was born and raised in Boston, Mass., and was the son of Amos Pratt, a native of Wales, and a ship-builder by trade. William Pratt learned the ship carpenter's trade, and worked with his father in Boston. At the begin- ning of the war of 1812 he had a ship-yard in Canada, and employed a number of men. To avoid being impressed into the British army and compelled to fight against his native land, he fled from Canada to the United States, leaving a ves- sel on the stocks and all his property (which was afterward confiscated by the British Govern- ment). On arriving at his former home in the United States, he recruited a company of cavalry and entered the service of the United States as a captain of cavalry, and remained in the service until the close of the war.
Mr. Pratt then built a small sailing vessel on Rundecroix creek, near Rochester, N. Y. When completed, he loaded into this vessel his house- hold goods, a supply of provisions, his family and a crew, sailed down the creek into the Genesee river, then into Lake Ontario, up the Niagara as far as they could go and then took the vessel out of the Niagara river and transported it around the Falls with oxen. Launching the boat in the river again, above Niagara Falls, they came through Lake Erie to Orleans (now Perrysburg), Wood Co., Ohio, arriving there in June, 1818. This boat was afterward used in the trade be- tween Orleans and Buffalo for a good many years.
Jonas Pratt owned a farm near Perrysburg, and for a time he served as sheriff of the county. In : 836 he sold his farm and moved on a quarter section of land he had bought in Henry county,
two miles up the river from Grand Rapids, on which Mrs. Kerr was born June 13, 1846 .. Here Jonas Pratt died in 1852. Susan (Reed-Griffith) Pratt was born near Utica, N. Y. (later moving to Rochester, N. Y.), and was a daughter of Amos and Mary (Smith) Reed, natives of Con- necticut, the former of whom, who was a well- educated man, and a graduate of Yale college, died in Rochester, N. Y., in 1810, leaving a widow and several small children to fight life's battles alone. The widow and children (except the eldest son, Amos, Jr. ) came to the Maumee river in 1815. Susan Reed was first married to William Griffith, of the firm of Gibbs & Griffith, who carried on a general store on the Perrysburg side of the river. Mr. Griffith died in 1828, and in 1831 the widow was married to Jonas Pratt. A short time after the death of Mr. Pratt his widow and the children moved to Gilead (now Grand Rapids), where the widow resided the rest of her life, dying at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Kerr, September 19, 1893, aged ninety years, eight months and one day.
In September, 1866, our subject succeeded Messrs. Laskey & Bro. in a general merchandise and grain business at Gilead. Their predecessors were Laskey & Co., who in 1851 were the suc- cessors to Frank Hinsdale, who in 1838 suc- ceeded Nicholas Gee, who established the busi- ness in what is now Grand Rapids in opening the first store in the village in 1833. Mr, Kerr is therefore in direct line of succession from the first business opened up at that point. He will soon have rounded up a thirty-years' career of business here-almost a third of a century-a period covering nearly that of all his predecessors combined, quite a span of years of devotion to active business; but the reward has come, for although he has not made any rapid stride on the road to wealth, he has by close application to business, careful management, and by industrious and economical habits, accumulated quite an estate. He has built one of the finest residences in this section of the country, a building modern and complete that would be a credit to any city. Crowning a beautiful hill, it commands a grand view overlooking the river and charming Maumee Valley. He possesses several fine farms in the vicinity. Verily he is the architect of his own fortune.
To Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Kerr have been born seven children, two of whom died in infancy, the others being: Carrie, who married J. K. Williams, of Delphos, and has a son, Clifton F .. born January 9. 1896; Clifton C., a student at Oberlin; and Jessie May, Frank E. and Glen B ..
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all three yet at home. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kerr are identified with the Presbyterian Church, and every progressive and helpful movement in the community finds in them generous support. Mr. Kerr is a member of the G. A. R., was one of the charter members of Bond Post No. 24, of Grand Rapids, and in all respects is a thoroughly repre- sentative American.
COLONEL A. B. PROBERT, of Bloomdale, one of Wood county's most prominent citizens, has been for many years a leader in military circles in the State.
He is of English descent, and his grandfather Probert was a gentleman of wealth and culture, but reverses came, and our subject's father, James Probert, who was born in England November 16, 1802, was obliged to make his own way from the early age of eight years. He was married in his native land in 1829 to Miss Sarah Davies, and in 1831 came to America with his wife's brother, David Davies, and his own family, which then included two children. They had but little money when they landed in New York, and the wife and little ones were left there while the two men made their way by river, canal and lake to Cleveland, Ohio, having twenty-five cents left on their arrivai. They found work and soon sent for Mrs. Probert and the children. In Jan- uary, 1835, they moved to Pittsfield, Lorain county, then a pioneer section, a roadless wilderness, where a home was made on wild land after great labor with unsatisfactory tools. The mother on one occasion walked, carrying the son George, from their home in the wilder- ness to Cleveland, a distance of thirty-eight miles, to obtain urgent necessities for the family: Land advanced in price and a competence was gained and retained. His farm of 200 acres was in one square tract, a beautiful property. In 1852-53 he visited England, and was loud in the praises of his adopted country. "the land of the free." The questions as to the thousands of slaves here, always cut him deeply, and he re- ยท plied with a sense of shame. He was a Demo- crat at that time but the attitude of his party on . this question caused him to vote for Fremont, and he was from that time a Republican. When taunting remarks were made by his former asso- ciates, his answer was, "I have not left the old party ; they have left me. I stand yet on the one time Democratic platformn." Although a regular voter and earnest student of public affairs he was not an aspirant for office. He was a man of fine mental ability and was well-informed although he had had practically no schooling. His later
years were passed in Oberlin, where he died May 5, 1876, at the age of seventy-four years. While he was of light build he was active and wiry, and bid fair to live twenty years longer, but an acute attack of pneumonia brought his life to a sudden close. His wife survived until December 17, 1892, when she died at the age of ninety-one years and six months, and the re- mains of both are at rest in Pittsfield cemetery. (Our subject's grandfather on the mother's side. and grandmother on the father's side, each lived to be upward of a hundred years.) Of their seven children our subject is the youngest. Eliza married Calvin C. Freeman, of Russia township, Lorain county; John was a farmer and later a merchant in Oberlin, where he died about 1891; George now owns and conducts the old home farm; James died at home in 1865; David G. resides in Oberlin; and Sarah V. married John Watkins, of Pittsfield.
A. B. Probert was born at the old homestead, October 15, 1844, and was reared as a farmer boy, attending the neighboring district schools. In 1861 he did his first independent work, hiring out to a farmer in the vicinity. The following year he entered the preparatory school at Ober- lin, but the urgent calls for recruits for the army appealed to his patriotism, and his studies were given up. October 6, 1863, he enlisted in Com- pany F, 12th Regiment O. Cav., but on account of a disturbance on Johnson's Island, near San- dusky, where 3,500 rebels were imprisoned, his regiment was divided and he with others cheer- fully accepted the assignment to infantry duties there. While there he had an attack of measles, from the effects of which he has never fully re- covered. They remained until February, 1864, and then rejoined the cavalry troops, leaving Camp Dennison in May, 1864, and taking up the work of fighting bushwhackers on the border be- tween Kentucky and Ohio. Gen. Sherman, hav- ing seen this regiment, telegraphed Secretary Stanton asking that it be assigned to him, which was impossible under the circumstances, and the refusal caused deep regret on the part of the regi- ment. Their first actual battle was at Mt. Ster- ling, although they were continuously engaged in liglit skirmishes. Three months after Mr. Pro- bert's enlistment he was promoted over eight cor- porals to the rank of sergeant, having displayed rare military ability and skill in the saddle, al- though but a boy in years. He was not wounded, thoughi he was always on duty up to the time of his discharge on June 8, 1865, save a time when on leave of absence on account of illness. He resumed farm work on his return home, and in
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