Enos P. Brainerd
Enos P. Brainerd is a resident of Ravenna, the county seat of Portage County, Ohio, and the eldest of four sons of Joseph and Nancy (Post) Brainerd, born in Leyden, Lewis Co., N. Y. , November 25, 1814. His education was acquired in the common schools of Lewis County and the Martinsburg Academy. At the age of sixteen his father died, and it was the wish of his widowed mother that her eldest son be educated in some profession, but preferring a trade he served an apprenticeship at harness-making and carriage trimming. In the spring of 1834 he came to Ohio and settled at Cuyahoga Falls, then in Portage County, where he followed his trade for about five years. August 4, 1836, he married Miss Margaret Wells, eldest daughter of John F. Wells, of Ravenna, this county. In 1839 he removed to Randolph, and in 1843 be was elected Justice of the Peace, and at the October election in 1845 he was elected County Treasurer. In the spring of 1846 he removed to Ravenna, where he has since resided. In 1849 he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Samuel Mason, under the firm name of Mason & Brainerd, engaged in hardware, stove and tinning business, which partnership continued until Mr. Mason's death in August, 1852. In 1853 Mr. Brainerd was appointed Cashier of the Franklin Bank of Portage County, was acting Treasurer in 1854, and in 1855 he was elected Treasurer of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company, and re-elected from year to year until 1864, when he resigned, but subsequently served in the same position one year more. On the 12th of July, 1859, he was appointed acting Secretary of this railway company, in which position he served three years. In December, 1864, he was appointed Director of the company in place of William Reynolds, Esq., resigned, and at the next annual meeting in July he was elected member of the Railway Board of Directors, which position, and that of Inspector of Accounts, he held several years. His official connection with the railway company in the positions named covered a period of nearly fourteen years. Mr. Brainerd was also Director, Treasurer and Financial Officer of the Silver Creek Mining & Railway Company in Wayne and Medina Counties seven years, from 1856 to 1863. For many years he was Director of the Portage County Branch of the State Bank of Ohio, and after the death of Mr. Seymour in November, 1863, he was elected its President. After the organization of the First National Bank of Ravenna, he was for several years one of its Directors. He was also Treasurer of the Farmers Insurance Company of Portage County during all the years of its business transactions. For seven years be was Treasurer, and three years President, of the Portage County Agricultural Society, and much of its success and prosperity is due to his efficient action and untiring efforts in its behalf. Mr. Brainerd has for the past six years been Director and Historian of the Portage and Summit Counties Pioneer Association. In 1870 he entered into partnership with his son, Charles W. Brainerd, under the firm name of E. P. Brainerd & Son, and engaged in a general drug business, which continued until the spring of 1882. Our subject is of the fifth generation from Daniel Brainerd, the common progenitor of all of the name in the United States, who came from England when quite young, and settled in Haddam, Conn., in 1862. He became a wealthy, prominent, and influential man; was twice married, first to Miss Hannah Spencer, of Lynn, Mass., by whom he was the father of seven sons and one daughter. No children by his second wife. Mr. Brainerd has in his possession a manuscript 200 years old, it being the original record of a town meeting in Haddam, Conn., at which the first Brainerd was elected to a township office. The subject of this sketch being a direct descendant of Revolutionary stock, he inherited the spirit of '76 and great devotion to the stars and stripes. In politics he began an old-line Whig, voted the Free Soil ticket, and has been identified with the Republican party since its organization, and was for many years Chairman of the County Central Committee. He has ever been a warm friend of education. For rnany years before the union school system was adopted he held the position of Director of Common Schools, and later for some years he was President of the Board of Education of Ravenna. He is the father of two children: His son, Charles W., is a druggist in Mantua; his daughter, Mary Adelaide, married F. W. Hurlburt, of Utica, N. Y.—she died October 11, 1878, aged twenty-eight years, leaving a daughter, Florence Adelaide, born June 25, 1875. His wife died March 21, 1880, aged sixty-three years. October 11, 1881, Mr. Brainerd married Augusta L., the only surviving daughter of Ezra and Lydia (Platts) Jones, of Saybrook, Conn., and a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminaiy, Mass., in the class of 1859. From the early period at which the subject of this sketch became identified with the interests of Portage County, he has occupied a conspicuous position in business affairs, in educational interests, public improvements and all that pertains to the progress and advancement of his town and county. The record of his life will live in the memory of those whose rugged ways he smoothed and softened, after he has passed away.
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885